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PERFORMANCE MONITORING FOR NATURAL ATTENUATION OF CONTAMINANTS IN AQUIFERS
Citation:
Wilson*, J T. PERFORMANCE MONITORING FOR NATURAL ATTENUATION OF CONTAMINANTS IN AQUIFERS. Posed by Urban & Industrial Contaminants, 1999 Pgs 283-296, Fremantle, W. Australia, 3/21-25/99.
Description:
Monitoring of hazardous waste sites serves a variety of very distinct purposes. The initial phase of monitoring is designed to determine whether there is a problem at a site (remedial investigation). If a problem exists, the next phase of monitoring is designed to select a remedy (feasibility study). When a remedy is implemented., a third phase of monitoring is necessary to determine if the remedy is performing as expected (performance monitoring). Rule of thumb applied to earlier stages of investigations do not serve well for design of performance monitoring schemes for natural attenuation. Performance monitoring should be broken into a validation phase, and a phase of long term monitoring. Validation monitoring determines whether the actual behavior of contamination at a site over time was accurately described by the transporter and fate model used to select natural attenuation as a remedy. Long term monitoring is designed to determine whether the behavior of the site has changed, and as a result, the transport and fate model is no longer appropriate. Investment in performance monitoring should be scaled to the scale of the environment processes controlling the behavior of contamination at the site, and to the intended use of the data. Case studies will be offered to illustrate appropriate design of performance monitoring for natural attenuation.