United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Hazardous Waste Engineering
Research Laboratory
Cincinnati OH 45268
Research and Development
EPA/530-(S)SW-86-031 Feb. 1 987
&EPA Project Summary
Technical Guidance Document
Construction Quality
Assurance for Hazardous
Waste Land Disposal Facilities
Coleen M. Northiem and Robert S. Truesdale
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA's) construction quality
assurance (CQA) program for haz-
ardous waste land disposal facilities is a
two-part program established to en-
sure that a completed hazardous waste
land disposal facility has been con-
structed to meet or exceed all design
criteria, plans, and specifications. The
first part of this program will present
regulations that specify the use of con-
struction quality assurance at haz-
ardous waste land disposal facilities
and is being developed by the Office of
Solid Waste and Emergency Response.
The second part of this program, ad-
dressed by this Technical Guidance
Document (TGD), presents the ele-
ments of a site-specific CQA plan. This
TGD covers CQA for hazardous waste
landfills, surface impoundments, and
waste piles. The major components of
these facilities that are addressed in-
clude foundations, dikes, low-
permeability soil liners, flexible mem-
brane liners, leachate collection
systems, and final cover systems.
The CQA plan is a site-specific docu-
ment that should be submitted during
the permitting process to satisfy EPA's
CQA program. At a minimum, the CQA
plan should include five elements,
which are briefly summarized below:
• Responsibility and Authority—The
responsibility and authority of or-
ganizations and key personnel (by
title) involved in permitting, de-
signing, and constructing the haz-
ardous waste land disposal facility
should be described in the CQA
plan.
CQA Personnel Qualifications—
The qualifications of the CQA offi-
cer and supporting CQA inspection
personnel should be presented in
the CQA plan in terms of the train-
ing and experience necessary to
fulfill their identified responsibili-
ties.
Inspection Activities—The obser-
vations and tests that will be used
to ensure that the construction or
installation meets or exceeds all
design criteria, plans, and specifica-
tions for each hazardous waste
land disposal facility component
should be described in the CQA
plan.
Sampling Strategies—The sam-
pling activities, sample size, meth-
ods for determining sample loca-
tions, frequency of sampling,
acceptance and rejection criteria,
and methods for ensuring that cor-
rective measures are implemented
as addressed in the design criteria,
plans, and specifications should be
presented in the CQA plan.
Documentation—Reporting re-
quirements for CQA activities
should be described in detail in the
CQA plan. This should include such
items as daily summary reports, in-
spection data sheets, problem
identification and corrective meas-
ures reports, block evaluation re-
ports, acceptance reports, and final
documentation. Provisions for the
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final storage of all records also
should be presented in the CQA
plan.
The TGD describes these elements in
detail and presents guidance on those
activities pertaining to each of the ele-
ments that are necessary to ensure that
a completed facility has been con-
structed to meet or exceed all design
criteria, plans, and specifications. It is
intended for the use of organizations
involved in permitting, designing, and
constructing hazardous waste land dis-
posal facilities, including treatment,
storage, and disposal facilities.
This Project Summary was devel-
oped by EPA's Hazardous Waste Engi-
neering Research Laboratory, Cincin-
nati, OH, to announce key findings of
the research project that is fully docu-
mented in a separate report of the same
title (see Project Report and ordering
information at back).
Responsibility and Authority
Identifying and describing the re-
sponsibility and authority of organiza-
tions concerned with CQA should be the
first element of a CQA plan. The princi-
pal organizations involved in permit-
ting, designing, and constructing a haz-
ardous waste land disposal facility
include the permitting agency, facility
owner/operator, design engineer(s),
CQA personnel, and construction con-
tractor(s). Except for the permitting
agency, the principal organizations will
not necessarily be completely inde-
pendent of each other: the facility
owner/operator also may be the con-
struction contractor; the CQA personnel
may be employees of the facility owner/
operator, of the design engineer, or of
an independent firm. Regardless of the
relationships among the organizations,
it is essential that the areas of responsi-
bility and lines of authority for each or-
ganization be clearly delineated as the
first element of the CQA plan. This will
help establish the necessary lines of
communication that will facilitate an ef-
fective decision making process during
implementation of the site-specific CQA
plan. It is also essential that the organi-
zation performing CQA operates inde-
pendently of and is not responsible to
the organizations involved in construct-
ing the facility.
Personnel Qualifications
The second element of the CQA plan
should identify the required qualifica-
tions of the CQA officer and the CQA
inspection personnel and describe their
expected duties.
CQA Officer
The CQA officer is that individual as-
signed singular responsibility for all as-
pects of the CQA plan implementation.
The CQA officer is responsible to the
facility owner/operator but should func-
tion independently of the owner/opera-
tor, design engineer, and construction
contractor. The location of the CQA offi-
cer within the overall organizational
structure of the project, including the fa-
cility owner/operator, design engineer,
construction contractor, and permitting
agencies, should be clearly described
within the CQA plan.
The CQA officer should possess ade-
quate formal academic training in engi-
neering, engineering geology, or
closely associated disciplines and suffi-
cient practical, technical, and manage-
rial experience to successfully oversee
and implement construction quality as-
surance activities for hazardous waste
land disposal facilities. Many of the re-
sponsibilities of a CQA officer may also
require that he or she be a registered
Professional Engineer or the equivalent.
Because the CQA officer may have to
interrelate with all levels of personnel
involved in the project, good communi-
cation skills are essential. The CQA offi-
cer should be expected to ensure that
communication of all CQA-related mat-
ters is conveyed to and acted upon by
the affected organizations.
CQA Inspection Personnel
The CQA inspection personnel should
possess adequate formal training and
sufficient practical technical and admin-
istrative experience to execute and
record inspection activities success-
fully. This should include demonstrated
knowledge of specific field practices re-
lating to construction techniques used
for hazardous waste land disposal facili-
ties, all codes and regulations concern-
ing material and equipment installation,
observation and testing procedures,
equipment documentation procedures,
and site safety.
Consultants
Authorities in engineering geology,
geotechnical engineering, civil engi-
neering, and other technical disciplines
may be called in from external organiza-
tions in the event of unusual site condi-
tions or inspection results. The CQA
plan should present detailed documen-
tation of consultant qualifications when
expert technical judgments are ob
tained and used as a basis for decision
in some aspect of construction quality
assurance. Expert opinions should not
be used as a substitute for objective
data collection and interpretation when
suitable observations and test proce-
dures are available.
Inspection Activities
The third element of the CQA plan
should describe the inspection activities
(observations and tests) that will be per-
formed by the CQA personnel during
hazardous waste land disposal facility
construction. The scope of this discus-
sion should address only the construc-
tion and installation of all facility
components and the manufacture/fabri-
cation of various components and sub-
components when pertinent. It is
assumed that the site has been charac-
terized adequately, including evaluation
of the hydrogeologic environment. It is
also assumed that a site-specific facility
design has been prepared that meets
regulatory requirements and is accept-
able to the facility owner/operator and
that this design has been evaluated to
ensure its technical correctness and fea-
sibility.
This element should address the in-
spection activities that are necessary to
ensure that the facility has been con-
structed to meet or exceed all design
criteria, plans, and specifications. The
first part of this section of the TGD ad-
dresses general preconstruction activi-
ties applicable to all facility compo-
nents. Subsequent subsections address
each facility component separately and
are further subdivided into sections on
preconstruction, construction, and post-
construction inspection activities
unique to each component. Specific test
methods that may be used to inspect
the components of a hazardous waste
land disposal facility are listed and ref-
erenced in Appendix A.
Sampling Strategies
Sampling strategies should be ad-
dressed as the fourth element of the
CQA plan. For many materials and con-
struction processes, it is necessary to
estimate the quality of the overall mate-
rial or process from the observed or
measure quality of the representative
sample that is a small fraction of the
total material or process. Examples of
these situations include assessment of
characteristics of a soil liner (e.g., per-
meability, moisture content, density,
particle size distribution) and destruc-
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live testing of FML seams. This section
presents information that may be useful
in the selection and implementation of
an appropriate sampling strategy for
evaluating construction quality. It is in-
tended to provide an introduction to the
concepts and assumptions behind dif-
ferent sampling strategies. It is not in-
tended to be a complete or comprehen-
sive treatment of the subject.
The current state of knowledge on
sampling strategies for hazardous
waste land disposal facility CQA is not
developed enough to enable EPA to rec-
ommend a specific approach for de-
signing a sampling strategy. For in-
stance, the measurement error inherent
in test methods is an important piece of
information when devising a statistical
sampling strategy. However, the meas-
urement error associated with certain
important test methods (e.g., laboratory
and field permeability) is not known.
Until more information is available, the
selection of appropriate sampling
strategies should be conducted with the
guidance of knowledgeable engineers
and statisticians.
Documentation
The ultimate value of a CQA plan de-
pends to a large extent on recognition
of all of the construction activities that
should be inspected and the assign-
ment of responsibilities to CQA inspec-
tion personnel for the inspection of each
activity. This is accomplished most ef-
fectively by documenting CQA activities
and should be addressed as the fifth el-
ement of the CQA plan. The CQA per-
sonnel will be reminded of the items to
be inspected, and will note, through de-
scriptive remarks, data sheets, and
checklists signed by them, that the in-
spection activities have been accom-
plished.
During the construction of a hazard-
ous waste land disposal facility, the
CQA officer should be responsible for
all facility CQA documents. This in-
cludes the CQA officer's copy of the de-
sign criteria, plans, and specifications,
the CQA plan, and the original of all the
data sheets and reports. Duplicate
records may be kept at another location
to avoid loss of this information if the
originals are destroyed.
Once facility construction is com-
plete, the document originals should be
stored by the owner/operator in a man-
ner that will allow for easy access while
still protecting them from any damage.
An additional copy should also be kept
at the facility if this is in a different loca-
tion from the owner/operator's files. A
final copy should be kept by the permit-
ting agency in a publicly acknowledged
repository. All documentation should
be maintained through the operating
and postclosure monitoring periods of
the facility.
Concluding Remarks
Construction quality assurance for
hazardous waste land disposal facilities
is one tool that can be very valuable in
improving the overall performance of
landfills, surface impoundments, and
waste piles. Proper site selection, credi-
ble designs, knowledgeable contrac-
tors, and competent operation of the
completed facility, along with adequate
CQA, all contribute to a facility with a
reduced potential for failure. Through
the thorougn application of a site-
specific CQA plan, the owner/operator
can ensure that the completed facility
meets or exceeds all design criteria,
plans, and specifications.
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Coleen M. Northiem and Robert S. Truesdale are with Research Triangle Institute,
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709.
Jonathan G. Herrmann is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Technical Guidance Document: Construction
Quality Assurance for Hazardous Waste Land Disposal Facilities," (Order No.
PB 87-132 825/AS; Cost: $18.95, subject to change) will be available only
from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, OH 45268
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmt nial Research
Information
Cincinnati OH 452GC
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