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THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL REPORT ON MONITORED NATURAL ATTENUATION
Citation:
Wilson*, J T. THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL REPORT ON MONITORED NATURAL ATTENUATION. Presented at 51st Annual Environmental Engineering Conference, Lawrence, KS, 1/31/2001.
Description:
The National Research Council recently released a report titled Natural Attenuation for Groundwater Remediation, available from the National Academy Press(http://www.nap.edu>). The report made a number of observations and recommedations, including the following. -Natural attenuation is well established as a remedial approach for only a few types of contaminants, primarily BTEX.
-Natural attenuation should never be considered a default or presumptive remedy.
-To achieve remedial objectives, natural attenuation may have to continue for many years or decades.
-At every site where natural attenuation is being considered as a formal remedy for groundwater contamination, responsible parties should use footprints of natural attenuation processes to document which mechanisms are responsible for observed decreases in contaminant concentration.
-Responsible parties should prepare a conceptual model of sites being considered for natural attenuation to show where the groundwater and contamination are moving.
-Responsible parties should analyze field data on natural attenuation at a level commensurate with the complexity of the site and the contaminant type.
-A long-term monitoring plan should be specified for every site at which natural attenuation is approved as formal remedy for contamination.
John Wilson is a Senior Research Microbiologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. He has over twenty years experience with transport and fate of contaminants in ground water. He was a major contributor to U.S. EPA's Technical Protocol for Evaluating Natural Attenuation of Chlorinated Solvents in Ground Water, and was a member of the Committee that wrote the NRC report Natural Attenuation for Groundwater Remediation.
This is an abstract of a proposed presentation and does not necessarily reflect EPA policy.