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Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives, National Research Council Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives Water Science and Technology Board Board on Radioactive Waste Management Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS Washington, D.C. 1994 i About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418 NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance. This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sci- ences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. Support for this project was provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Agreement No. CR 818700-01-0, the U.S. Department of Energy under Agreement Nos. DE- AL01-89DP48070 and DE-AC01-89DP8070, Chevron USA, Inc., and the Coalition on Superfund. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alternatives for ground water cleanup / Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives, Water Science and Technology Board, Board on Radioactive Waste Management, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, National Research Council. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-309-04994-6 1. Groundwater—Purification. I. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives. TD426.A48 1994 363.73'94—dc20 94-29573 CIP Cover art by Y. David Chung. Title design by Rumen Buzatov. Chung and Buzatov are graduates of the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Chung has exhibited widely throughout the coun- try, including at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Washington Project for the Arts in Wash- ington, D.C., and the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The cover illustration shows how the elements of weather, geography, and underground strata all combine to affect our ground water. Copyright 1994 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, June 1994 Second Printing, July 1995 ii About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html COMMITTEE ON GROUND WATER CLEANUP ALTERNATIVES MICHAEL C. KAVANAUGH, Chair, ENVIRON Corporation, Emeryville, California JAMES W. MERCER, Vice-Chair, GeoTrans, Inc., Sterling, Virginia LINDA M. ABRIOLA, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor CHARLES B. ANDREWS, S.S. Papadopulos & Associates, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland MARY JO BAEDECKER, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia EDWARD J. BOUWER, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland PATRICIA A. BUFFLER, University of California, Berkeley ROBERT E. CONNICK, University of California, Berkeley RICHARD A. CONWAY, Union Carbide Corporation, South Charleston, West Virginia RALPH C. D'ARGE, University of Wyoming, Laramie LINDA E. GREER, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C. JOSEPH H. HIGHLAND, ENVIRON Corporation, Princeton, New Jersey DOUGLAS M. MACKAY, Centre for Groundwater Research, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada GLENN PAULSON, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, liaison to the Board on Radioactive Waste Management LYNNE M. PRESLO, ICF-Kaiser Engineers, Oakland, California PAUL V. ROBERTS, Stanford University, Stanford, California WILLIAM J. WALSH, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, Washington, D.C. C. HERB WARD, Rice University, Houston, Texas MARCIA E. WILLIAMS, Williams & Vanino, Inc., Los Angeles, California Staff JACQUELINE A. MACDONALD, Study Director GREGORY K. NYCE, Senior Project Assistant ANGELA F. BRUBAKER, Project Assistant GREICY AMJADIVALA, Project Assistant GEORGE Z. HORNBERGER, Intern CINDY F. KLEIMAN, Technical Consultant GINO BIANCHI-MOSQUERA, Technical Consultant iii About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD DANIEL A. OKUN, Chair, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill A. DAN TARLOCK, Vice-Chair, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago- Kent College of Law, Chicago J. DAN ALLEN, Chevron USA, Inc., New Orleans, Louisiana PATRICK L. BREZONIK, University of Minnesota, St. Paul KENNETH D. FREDERICK, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C. DAVID L. FREYBERG, Stanford University, Stanford, California WILFORD R. GARDNER, University of California, Berkeley WILLIAM L. GRAF, Arizona State University, Tempe THOMAS M. HELLMAN, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, New York, New York ROBERT J. HUGGETT, College of William and Mary, Gloucester Point, Virginia CHARLES C. JOHNSON, Consultant, Bethesda, Maryland WILLIAM M. LEWIS, JR., University of Colorado, Boulder CAROLYN H. OLSEN, Brown and Caldwell, Atlanta, Georgia CHARLES R. O'MELIA, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland STAVROS S. PAPADOPULOS, S.S. Papadopulos & Associates, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland BRUCE E. RITTMANN, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois JOY B. ZEDLER, San Diego State University, San Diego, California Staff STEPHEN D. PARKER, Staff Director SARAH CONNICK, Senior Staff Officer SHEILA D. DAVID, Senior Staff Officer CHRIS ELFRING, Senior Staff Officer GARY D. KRAUSS, Staff Officer JACQUELINE A. MACDONALD, Staff Officer M. JEANNE AQUILINO, Administrative Associate ANITA A. HALL, Administrative Assistant GREGORY K. NYCE, Senior Project Assistant MARY BETH MORRIS, Senior Project Assistant ANGELA F. BRUBAKER, Project Assistant iv About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html BOARD ON RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT CHRIS G. WHIPPLE, Chair, Kaiser Engineers, Oakland, California CHARLES FAIRHURST, Vice-Chair, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis JOHN F. AHEARNE, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina COLIN J. ALLAN, Whiteshell Laboratory, Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada JEAN M. BAHR, University of Wisconsin, Madison LYNDA BROTHERS, Davis Wright Tremaine, Seattle, Washington SOL BURSTEIN, Milwaukee, Wisconsin MELVIN W. CARTER, Atlanta, Georgia CARON CHESS, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey E. WILLIAM COLGLAZIER, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. PAUL P. CRAIG, University of California, Davis B. JOHN GARRICK, PLG, Inc., Newport Beach, California ROBERT D. HATCHER, University of Tennessee, Knoxville PERRY L. McCARTY, Stanford University, Stanford, California FRED W. McLAFFERTY, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York H. ROBERT MEYER, Keystone Scientific, Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado D. KIRK NORDSTROM, U.S. Geological Survey, Boulder, Colorado GLENN PAULSON, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Staff CARL A. ANDERSON, Staff Director PETER B. MYERS, Staff Director, retired April 30, 1993 INA B. ALTERMAN, Senior Staff Officer ROBERT S. ANDREWS, Senior Staff Officer KARYANIL T. THOMAS, Senior Staff Officer DANA CAINES, Administrative Associate VERNA BOWEN, Administrative Assistant LISA CLENDENING, Administrative Assistant GAYLENE DUMOUCHEL, Administrative Assistant REBECCA BURKA, Project Assistant DENNIS DuPREE, Project Assistant ELIZABETH LANDRIGAN, Project Assistant v About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html COMMISSION ON GEOSCIENCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RESOURCES M. GORDON WOLMAN, Chair, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland PATRICK R. ATKINS, Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania PETER EAGLESON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge EDWARD A. FRIEMAN, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California W. BARCLAY KAMB, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena JACK E. OLIVER, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York FRANK L. PARKER, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee RAYMOND A. PRICE, Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada THOMAS C. SCHELLING, University of Maryland, College Park LARRY L. SMARR, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign STEVEN M. STANLEY, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL, Landers and Parsons, Tallahassee, Florida WARREN WASHINGTON, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado EDITH BROWN WEISS, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C. Staff STEPHEN RATTIEN, Executive Director STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director MORGAN GOPNIK, Assistant Executive Director JEANETTE SPOON, Administrative Officer SANDI FITZPATRICK, Administrative Associate ROBIN ALLEN, Senior Project Assistant vi About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html Preface "A little water clears us of this deed" Macbeth, Act II, ii Over the past 15 years, evidence has accumulated that the nation's ground water resource, which supplies more than 50 percent of the population's drinking water, is threatened not only by excessive overdrafts but also by contamination caused by past and present industrial, agricultural, and commercial activities. In the United States, it is estimated that more than 300,000 sites may have contaminated soil or ground water requiring some form of remediation (see Table 1-2 in Chapter 1). The potential cost of these remedial activities may be as large as $750 billion in 1993 dollars to be spent over the next 20 to 30 years (see Chapter 1). The magnitude of the problem may be equally significant in other industrialized countries. The U.S. public response to this growing perception of a threatened resource with unknown human health and ecological impacts has generally been to demand restoration of the ground water to drinking water standards (although the cleanup goal varies with the site, as discussed in Chapter 6). This goal of restoration to drinking water standards is currently the primary driver of ground water remediation activities at most sites regulated under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, also known as the Superfund act. Restoration to potable standards has also been the goal at other sites regulated under state laws and in some cases at sites regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The technological response to these statutory and regulatory demands over the past decade has almost exclusively been the application PREFACE vii About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html of so-called "pump-and-treat" technology. Simply put, this technology involves extracting water from the ground below the water table using standard water- well technology. The extracted and contaminated water is then treated with established above-ground technologies such as air stripping or adsorption on granular activated carbon. In essence, pump-and-treat technology attempts to flush out the contaminants and to return the contaminated area to a condition in which water drawn from wells will meet drinking water standards without further treatment. However, in contrast to the suggestion from Lady Macbeth quoted above, a very large amount of water is often required to flush out even modest amounts of contaminants, and the amount of water required to rid a site of contamination is often unimaginably large. In essence, the United States has been conducting a large-scale national testing program to determine if restoration of contaminated aquifers is achievable within reasonable time frames and at an affordable cost. The exact number of pump-and-treat systems currently in operation in the United States is unknown, but it may well exceed 3,000. A sufficient history of operation of this technology now exists to assess its efficacy. Unfortunately, and some would say not surprisingly, the effectiveness of this technology to restore contaminated aquifers seems quite limited. This has led to a widely held view that pump-and-treat is a failed technology and should be rejected as a technique for ground water remediation. Thus, the United States and other industrialized nations, as well as developing nations, are confronted with a major dilemma: how to protect human health and the environment from contaminated ground water without wasting resources pursuing technical strategies that appear unable to achieve agreed-upon societal goals. A further significant problem is how to convey these technical limitations to a public that has grown increasingly skeptical of technologists. In response to this dilemma, the National Research Council (NRC) established a committee of experts to analyze the major technical and public policy issues arising from technical limits to aquifer remediation. The Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives was established through two boards within the NRC: the Water Science and Technology Board and the Board on Radioactive Waste Management. Financial support for this effort was provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Coalition on Superfund, and Chevron Corporation. The boards chose 19 experts to serve on the committee, representing a broad range of scientific and technical disciplines and stakeholders in the debate over ground water remediation. The scope of the committee's charge included the following questions: PREFACE viii About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html • What are the capabilities of pump-and-treat systems? • What are the limits, if any, to contaminant removal from the subsurface? • What are the capabilities of alternative or innovative technologies for subsurface remediation, and what, if any, are the barriers to the use of these technologies? • What are the socioeconomic consequences of the possible failure of ground water remediation? • What are the possible alternative goals for ground water remediation, and what factors should be considered in setting those goals? • What policy alternatives should be pursued to reflect the technical limitations to aquifer remediation? The committee undertook a thorough evaluation of existing information related to subsurface remediation. During nine meetings held over the past two years, the committee heard reports from numerous private and public groups on all aspects of ground water and soil remediation. Prominent among these were presentations by policy analysts from the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (including its Technology Innovation Office), technical specialists from the EPA's Ada, Oklahoma, ground water research laboratory, researchers working on DOE efforts to deal with ground water and soil contamination at DOE facilities, and DOE employees working on technology development for environmental restoration. The committee also solicited views of industry trade groups, consultants, contractors, impacted parties, and environmental groups. Finally, the committee relied on the in-depth experience and expertise of the committee members, most of whom are recognized leaders in the technical, economic, risk, and policy debates surrounding this complex subject. Although the committee was able to review data from only a small number of sites (approximately 80) where pump-and-treat systems have been installed, there was strong consensus that these sites represented the range of conditions encountered at the majority of sites with contaminated ground water. One dominant characteristic that surfaced in all cases was the high degree of uncertainty associated with the task of subsurface remediation. These uncertainties begin with limitations on site characterization and the ability to identify the nature and extent of the contamination in complex, multilayered, and heterogeneous geologic environments, in which key physical, chemical, or biological characteristics can vary by orders of magnitude on the scale of centimeters. They end with uncertainties about the efficacy of any subsurface remediation technology selected for the task in the face of this highly uncertain hydrogeologic and geochemical environment. In between these end points, the PREFACE ix About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html [...]... SETTING GOALS FOR GROUND WATER CLEANUP Current Cleanup Goals Alternative Cleanup Goals Health Risks of Contaminated Ground Water Ecological Risks of Ground Water Contamination Economics of Ground Water Cleanup The Complexity of Selecting Cleanup Goals Conclusions Notes References BOXES Options for Supplying Drinking Water When Ground Water Contamination Remains in Place Point-of-Use Treatment for TCE Contamination—Elkhart,... typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html CONTENTS xv BOX Treatment Train for Gasoline Cleanup Long Island, New York 5 6 7 165 CHARACTERIZING SITES FOR GROUND WATER CLEANUP. .. typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html CONTENTS xiii Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 2 1 THE GROUND WATER CLEANUP CONTROVERSY History of Ground Water Cleanup Magnitude... version for attribution Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 to make it safe for drinking To address these concerns, the National Research Council initiated a study of ground water cleanup systems The goals of the study were to review the performance of existing pump-and-treat systems, to determine the performance capabilities of innovative cleanup. .. heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2311.html xvii Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup Copyright © National Academy of Sciences... of Cleanup with Pump-and-Treat Systems Categorizing Sites for Cleanup Cleanup Times for Pump-and-Treat Systems Improving System Performance Through Process Monitoring Research Needs for Improving the Performance of Pump-andTreat Systems Conclusions Notes References BOXES Complete Restoration of Ground Water Contaminated with Gasoline—Service Station, Unidentified Location Restoration of Ground Water. .. involve installing wells at strategic locations to pump contaminated ground water to the surface for treatment Pump-and-treat systems are the most common technology for ground water cleanup in the United States The studies indicated that pump-andtreat systems may be unable to remove enough contamination to restore the ground water to drinking water standards, or that removal may require a very long time,... restoring contaminated ground water, to consider the public health and economic consequences of contaminated ground water, and to provide advice on whether changes in national ground water policy are needed to reflect the limits of current technology This report presents the findings of the National Research Council's study The study was carried out by the Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives, appointed... throughout the life of the ground water cleanup system, and these data should be analyzed regularly to determine whether they are consistent with the current understanding of the site and, if not, whether changes in the remediation plan are necessary SETTING GOALS FOR GROUND WATER CLEANUP This report documents that the ability of technology to restore contaminated ground water to drinking water standards is... repository for site information Currently, accessing the large amount of existing site data from completed and ongoing ground water remediation projects is extremely difficult To increase the accessibility of data, the EPA could develop suggested formats for collection and analysis of site-specific information The EPA could also establish an easily used, publicly accessible data base for sites where ground water . immediately. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives, National Research Council Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup Committee. Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alternatives for ground water cleanup / Committee on Ground Water Cleanup Alternatives, Water Science and Technology Board,