United States Technology Innovation Office
Environmental Protection Office of Solid Waste and EPA-542-F-96-029
Agency Emergency Response (5102G) January 1997
The Public-Private
Partnership Program for
Evaluating Innovative
Technologies
Program Description
The Public-Private Partnership Program seeks to stimulate the use of innovative remedial technologies. The partnerships,
formed between government agencies, regulatory agencies, research organizations, and the private technology user industry
[e.g., potentially responsible parties (PRP)], jointly implement and evaluate innovative technologies. The technologies
potentially can be more efficient, less expensive, and faster than conventional technologies, under realistic, full-scale
operating conditions. The partnership generates substantive cost and performance data, which the partners can then use
to support the use of the technology at other sites. The partnership project is led by Clean Sites, Inc., a non-profit public
interest and research organization, under a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
Technology Innovation Office (TIO).
The technologies are generally past the research and development stage; this is significant, since the goal is to clean and
restore the site using an innovative technology, not merely to demonstrate it. In some cases, the Partnership helps guide
the selection of an innovative technology; in others, the technology is pre-selected by the facility or by the nature of the
contamination or site characteristics. In all cases, the emphasis of the partnership is to guide the design and
implementation of innovative technologies and to generate and evaluate performance and cost data.
By generating meaningful cost and performance data under real world operating conditions, all of the partners benefit
considerably. The Private Partners gain an understanding of die costs of using the technology and increased confidence
in proposing the technology at their own sites; the Federal government gains information to support restoration at other
facilities; and the regulatory community gains confidence in the technology. Another benefit to both the private and
federal technology user communities is an understanding of what types of information about innovative technologies
are necessary to obtain regulatory acceptance and approval.
Participants . ' - '
Partnership members and roles typically include:
Host Federal Facility (DOD, DOE, DOI) - Responsible for funding and coordinating the implementation of
innovative technologies in the course of a site cleanup and maintaining regulatory compliance and schedules.
State and Federal Regulatory Agencies - Responsible for participating in technical dialogue and for assisting
in permitting and odier compliance issues related to innovative technology implementation.
Private Companies - Contribute personnel with expertise in environmental restoration and technology evaluation/
implementation. The typical effort expended is approximately one man-month per year per partnership. Current
private partners include (several companies are active in more than one partnership project):
DuPont
Monsanto
ICI Canada
Beazer East
Aerojet
ICI Engineering Technologies
General Electric
Dow Chemicals
AT&T
Xerox
Occidental Chemical
Southern California Edison
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The Public-Private Partnership Program for Evaluating Innovative Technologies '
Ongoing Projects
Clean Sites is leading six active partnerships. New partners are always welcome to join the effort. The current projects,
their locations, technologies used, contaminants, and contaminated media include:
McCleUan Air Force Base; Sacramento, California - Two Phase Extraction of chlorinated
volatile organic compounds (VOC) in groundwater in unconsolidated soils; Photolytic Destruction of
chlorinated VOCs in ofFgas from Vapor Extraction.
Pinettas DOE Plant; Largo, Florida - Membrane Pervaporation for chlorinated VOCs in ground-
water recovery well effluent; Rotary Steam Drilling for hot spots of chlorinated VOCs in soil and
groundwater; In-situ Anaerobic Bioremedialion for chlorinated and odier VOC contamination in soil
and groundwater.
Mound DOE Plant; Miamisburg, Ohio, OU-1 - Two Phase Extraction for soil and groundwater
contaminated with chlorinated VOCs, in lower permeability soils; Air Sparging/Soil Vapor Extraction
(possibly widi in situ oxidation) for chlorinated VOCs in groundwater in more permeable soils.
Massachusetts Military Reservation/Otis Air National Guard Base; Fabnouth, Massachusetts - In-
Situ Passive Treatment Wall using Abiotic, Fe/Ni-Enhanced, Reductive Dechlorination of
chlorinated VOCs in deep groundwater in unconsolidated soils; Vertical Hydrofracturing to install
the Fe/Ni treatment wall.
Lasagna Project (DOE) - The Lasagna Process was jointly developed by the partnership to use
electroosmosis to induce flow of contaminated groundwater in very low permeability formations.
Naval Air Station; North Island, California - NoVOCs System for the in situ treatment of
chlorinated VOCs in groundwater, in unconsolidated soils.
In addition, the Public-Private Partnership Program works with other Innovative Technology Programs, such as the DOE
Innovative Treatment Remediation Demonstration program, the Federal Remedial Technology Roundtable, the
Remediation Technology Demonstration Forum, and the Strategic Environmental Restoration Demonstration Program,
among many others.
Mechanisms/Milestones
Each project varies considerably, since the schedules and milestones for the use of innovative technologies for actual site
cleanups are inherent functions of the site characteristics, the nature and extent of contamination, the work already
completed by the host facility, the regulatory schedule, and the needs of the partners. In general, each partnership adheres
to these milestones:
Initial project meeting with selection/introduction
of private partners
Periodic meetings and conference calls as necessary
throughout the project
Site familiarization and study site(s) selection
Innovative technology screening and selection
Treatability/pilot scale studies
Design of full-scale system
Design of cost and performance monitoring/
data collection procedures
Implementation of technology
Cost and performance data evaluation*
Report preparation
For More Information?
Please contact Gene Peters, P.G. of
Clean Sites, at (703) 739-1271 or
Dan Powell of the EPA-TIO, at
(703) 603-7196 with any questions
or interest in participation, or for -
additional information.
Clean Sites is a non-profit organiza-
tion dedicated to accelerating the -
cleanup of hazardous waste sites
through technical analyses, services,
and independent reviews; cost;
allocation, arbitration, and dispute
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