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Transportation Research Board Conference Proceedings 19
ISSN 1073-1652
ISBN 0-309-07073-2
Subscriber Categories
IA planning and administration
IB energy and environment
IX marine transportation
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approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of
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The views expressed in the presentations and papers contained in this report are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the steering committee, the Transportation
Research Board, the National Research Council, or the sponsors of the conference.
The conference was sponsored by the Transportation Research Board, the Marine Board, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Maritime
Administration.
Steering Committee for the National Symposium on Strategies and Technologies for
Cleaning Up Contaminated Sediments in the Nation's Harbors and Waterways
Spyros P. Pavlou, URS Greiner Inc (Co-Chairman)
Louis J. Thibodeaux, Louisiana State University (Co-Chairman)
W Frank Bohlen, University of Connecticut
Lillian C. Borrone, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Billy L. Edge, Texas A&M University
Peter Shelley, Conservation Law Foundation, Inc.
James G. Wenzel, Marine Development Associates, Inc.
Transportation Research Board Staff
Robert E. Spicher, Director, Technical Activities
Joedy Cambridge, Marine Transportation Specialist
Laura Ost, Editor
Nancy A. Ackerman, Director, Reports and Editorial Services
Javy Awan, Managing Editor
Cover design lay Tamara Lee
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Dedication
The Symposium Steering Committee dedicates this
Proceedings to the late Joseph L. Zelibor, Jr.,
who served as the Marine Board staff officer on
the NRC study report that was the basis for the sympo-
sium. In the words of one committee member, "Joe was
one of the most dedicated and energetic individuals I
had the privilege to work with.... He was always a
quick learner regardless of the project he faced, whether
it was dredging, marine mammals, or risk assess-
ment...."
Although Joe had moved over to the Space Studies
Board by the time the symposium activity got under
way, another committee member stated that "Joe was
[the one] who kept it alive ... the flame that would not
go out... until it finally happened."
His sudden and untimely death is a tragic loss to his
family and to the many friends and colleagues he had
within the NRC and the community it serves.
Joseph L. Zelibor, Jr.
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Preface and Acknowledgments
At the request of the Marine Board and with the approval
of the National Research Council, the Transportation
Research Board (TRB) hosted the National Symposium
on Contaminated Sediments: Coupling Risk Reduction
with Sustainable Management and Reuse on May 27-29,
1998, in Washington, D.C. The goal of the symposium
was to promote discussion of the issues raised and recom-
mendations presented in the NRC report Contaminated
Marine Sediments in Ports and Waterways: Cleanup
Strategies and Technologies, released in March 1997.*
Although there are no simple solutions to the prob-
lems created by contaminated marine sediments, the
problems can be managed effectively using a systematic,
risk-based approach that incorporates incremental
improvements in decision making, remediation tech-
nologies, and project implementation. Sponsors of the
symposium were interested in educating and promoting
dialogue among the diverse stakeholders involved in sed-
iment management and in finding potential solutions.
This was accomplished through a combination of expert
panels, case study presentations, and roundtable discus-
sions. The formal program was augmented by breakout
discussion groups, which encouraged dialogue among
the various stakeholders on specific issues of most inter-
est to them. The key points from these discussions were
then presented at plenary sessions.
* The executive summary of the NRC report is provided in
Appendix D.
Another important component of the symposium
was a number of staffed poster displays and demon-
strations, highlighting a broad range of strategies and
technologies that have been successfully implemented
or that are in development. The focus was on specific
research and case studies relating to the development
and application of technologies and methodologies for
management of contaminated sediments; specifically,
decision-making processes, remediation technologies,
and project implementation. Appendix A presents a
synopsis of the displays.
The material in these proceedings has been con-
densed and edited to assist the readers, who do not have
the benefit of the visual aids used both in the presenta-
tions and in the poster displays and demonstrations.
Names of all speakers and participants appear either in
the text or in the appendices. While there were more
speakers, moderators, respondents, and exhibitors than
can be recognized, the contributions of the following
individuals are gratefully acknowledged:
• Steering Committee co-chairs Spyros P. Pavlou and
Louis J. Thibodeaux; Committee members W Frank
Bohlen, Lillian Borrone, Billy Edge, and James Wenzel
for their work in developing the program, soliciting
speakers and panelists, and chairing sessions;
• Sponsor liaisons Joe Wilson from the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Craig Vogt from the Environmental
Protection Agency, and Michael Carter from the Maritime
Administration for their assistance in coordinating federal
agency participation;
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• Thomas Wakeman III from the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey for his support in developing the pro-
gram and helping review and organize the poster displays
and demonstrations;
^ • David Caulfield, Wayne Young, Issa Oweis, Rachel
Friedman-Thomas, John Connolly, and Edward Neuhauser
for developing and presenting case studies;
• Industry and agency representatives who served as pan-
elists for plenary sessions and facilitators and rapporteurs for
the breakout sessions;
• The organizations that offered poster displays and
demonstrations of projects and technologies; and
• The late Joseph L. Zelibor, Jr., who was involved in
the original NRG study effort, suggested the symposium
activity, and provided advice and support throughout the
process.
Special thanks are given to the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Maritime Administration, the Hazardous Substance
Research Center South & Southwest, Aluminum
Company of America (ALCOA), the Chemical
Manufacturers Association, E.I. duPont de Nemours and
Company, General Electric, Kennecott Utah Copper,
Niagara-Mohawk Power Corporation, the Olin Chemical
Charitable Trust, and URS Greiner/Woodward-Clyde,
Inc., for their financial support.
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Contents
INTRODUCTION
Chairmen's Summary •
Spyros P. Pavlou, URS Greiner, Incorporated
Louis J. Thibodeaux, Louisiana State University
Strategies and Technologies for Cleaning Up Contaminated Sediments in the
Nation's Waterways: The National Research Council Study 7
Welcoming Remarks and Charge to the Symposium H
Science and Engineering Informing the Political Process:
William A. Wulf, National Academy of Engineering H
Success Through Consensus Building: Louis J. Thibodeaux, Louisiana State University 12
Technical Forum for Productive Ideas: Spyros P. Pavlou, URS Greiner, Incorporated 13
Overview of the Study Report •• 14
Adopting a Systematic Risk-Based Approach: Joseph L. Zelibor, Jr., National Research Council 14
Making Site-Specific Assessments: W. Frank Bohlen, University of Connecticut 16
Addressing Technologies and Controls: Donald E Hayes, University of Utah 19
Stakeholder Response to the Study Report 2 j
Port Perspective: Thomas H. Wakeman III, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 21
Industry Perspective: John Haggard, General Electric Company 22
Environmental Perspective: James Tripp, Environmental Defense Fund 25
Regulatory Perspective: Tony MacDonald, Coastal States Organization 26
Legal Perspective: Konrad Liegel, Preston, Gates & Ellis 28
TECHNOLOGIES AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Case Studies
Acoustic Techniques for Mapping the Distribution of Contaminated Sediments 33
David D. Caulfield, Caulfield Engineering
Disposal Technologies Used in the Chesapeake Bay 36
Wayne Young, Maryland Environmental Service
Geotechnics of Utilizing Dredged Sediments as Structural Fill 40
Issa Oweis, Converse Consultants
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Roundtable Discussion
Testing New Technologies 43
Tommy Myers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station
Dennis Timberlake, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Breakout Discussions
Enhancements and Impediments to Applying New Technologies 49
Engineering Cost of Cleanup (Group A): K.E. (Ted) McConnell, University of Maryland ".'".49
Evaluation of Technology Options with Dredging (Group B): Donald E Hayes,
University of Utah ™
Evaluation of Technology Options Without Dredging (Group C): Patrick Keaney,
Blasland, Blouck &Lee 51
Responsibility for and Financing of Research and Development, Testing, and Demonstration
(Group D): Larry Miller, Port of Houston Authority 51
Regulatory Impediments to Applying New Technology (Group E): Weldon Bosworth,
Dames & Moore ^9
DECISION MAKING
Case Studies
Multistakeholder Decision Approach for Contaminated Sediment Management 57
Rachel Friedman-Thomas, Washington State Department of Ecology
Evaluation of Remedial Alternatives for Contaminated Sediments:
A Coherent Decision-Making Approach 60
John Connolly, Quantitative Environmental Analysis, LLC
Establishing Environmentally Acceptable End Points for the Management of
Sediments and Soils ^
Edward R. Neuhauser, Niagara-Mohawk Power Corporation
Roundtable Discussion
Improving Decision Making 6g
Developing Decision-Making Criteria: Jerry Cura, Menzie-Cura Associates "".'".'".'".'.'".'.'66
Monitoring the Effectiveness of Remediation Projects:
Elizabeth Southerland, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 57
Valuing the Outcomes: K.E. (Ted) McConnell, University of Maryland ."!."!."!!.'.".'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'".'.".".'.".'."68
Decision Making: Summary of Dialogue with Audience 59
PERSPECTIVES ON PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Panelist Presentations
Beneficial Uses of Processed Sediment 77
Anne Montague, Montague Associates
Mining Industry Issues 80
William J. Adams, Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation
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83
Environmental Dredging
Ancil Taylor, C.F. Bean Dredging, Incorporated
Developing Techniques for Source Control
Michael Connor, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
88
Long-Term Monitoring • ;
Russell Bellmer, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries
Project Implementation: Summary of Dialogue with Audience 91
Breakout Discussions
Q^i
Enhancements to Decision Making and Implementation ' J3
Responsibility for Source Control and Interim Technologies (Group A):
John George, Aluminum Company of America 93
Site Characterization Needs and Technologies (Group B): Dan Reible, Hazardous
Substance Research Center "
Promotion of Beneficial Uses (Group C): Anne Montague, Montague Associates itt
Long-Term Monitoring (Group D): Jim Keating, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 97
Public Outreach and Participation (Group E): Larry Miller, Port of Houston Authority 97
Improving Decision Making (Group F): Roberta Weisbrod, New York City
Economic Development Corporation... ""
SUMMATION AND NEXT STEPS
Industry Response Panel • •— "
Coastal Ocean Ports Perspective: Lillian Borrone, Port Authority of New York and
,T T 103
New Jersey
Chemical Manufacturers Perspective: Richard Schwer, E. I. duPont Nemours
and Company ••—;•; "•
Forest Products Industry Perspective: C.L. (Skip) Missimer, P.H. Glatfelter Company 106
Mining Perspective: Paul Ziemkiewicz, National Mine Land Reclamation Center 107
Inland Waterways and Lakes Perspective: Stephen Garbaciak, Jr., Hart Crowser,
Incorporated •
Industry Response: Summary of Dialogue with Audience iuy
Appendix A: Conference Poster Displays and Exhibits 115
Appendix B: Committee Member Biographical Information
Appendix C: List of Conference Participants
Appendix D: Contaminated Sediments in Ports and Waterways:
Cleanup Strategies and Technologies—Executive Summary 137
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Introduction
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Chairmen's Summary
Spyros P. Pavlou, URS Greiner, Incorporated
Louis J. Thibodeaux, Louisiana State University
HISTORY
In 1993, in response to requests by a number of
federal agencies—including the U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, Maritime Administration, U.S. Navy,
U.S. Geological Survey, and National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration—the Marine Board of
the National Research Council (NRC) assembled a
committee to evaluate the state of practice in the
management and remediation of contaminated
marine sediments in the United States and provide
recommendations for future action.
The committee's evaluation, conclusions, and rec-
ommendations were documented in a report,
Contaminated Sediments in Ports and Waterways:
Cleanup Strategies and Technologies, published in
March 1997. A summary of the conclusions and rec-
ommendations also was published in the May-June
1998 issue of TR News, which focused on ports and
waterways. The article is included as a sidebar to this
section of the Proceedings.
During the committee's deliberations, it became
clear that the success of contaminated sediment
remediation projects depends heavily on consensus
building in decision making among diverse stake-
holders (e.g., port managers; transportation officials;
industrial managers; federal, state and local regula-
tors; resource managers; environmental advocates;
and the general public). It also became clear that
there were limited venues in which these stakeholders
could address issues collectively in a nonadversarial
setting.
The committee, therefore, recommended to the
supporting agencies that its findings, conclusions,
and recommendations be discussed in an open forum,
a national symposium, to obtain stakeholder feed-
back and perspectives on what is needed for future
planning and decision making.
At the request of the Marine Board, the
Transportation Research Board (TRB) assumed the
responsibility for organizing and hosting the sympo-
sium. A technical steering committee was convened
to guide development of the technical program and
identify stakeholder groups and potential speakers.
The National Symposium on Contaminated Sediments
was held on May 27-29, 1998, at the National
Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Joedy
Cambridge was the TRB program officer managing the
activity.
The goal of the symposium was to engage stake-
holders in a productive exchange of ideas and foster
a partnership for cooperative problem solving.
Stakeholder responses and perspectives were pre-
sented by representatives of ports, the chemical and
mining industries, environmental groups, regulatory
and resource agencies, and the legal community.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
SYMPOSIUM HIGHLIGHTS
As noted in the NRG report, the committee focused its
efforts on the following tasks:
• Review, evaluation, and ranking of sediment reme-
diation technologies in terms of implementability,
effectiveness, practicality, and costs;
• Aspects of project implementation, including
source control, cost sharing, and beneficial uses of
contaminated sediments; and
• Use of a risk-based approach for improving decision
making, including the availability of decision-analysis
tools.
This summary highlights stakeholder responses to,
and comments on, the committee's recommendations
and the remainder of the NRC report, together with
participants' perspectives on the symposium themes—
risk reduction, sustainable management, and reuse.
Risk reduction, in the context of the NRC report, per-
tains to more than the attainment of post-remediation
chemical residuals in the sediments that protect human
health and the environment. Risk reduction is viewed as
part of the overall decision-making process for contami-
nated sediment management, particularly the evaluation
of the trade-offs between risks, costs, and benefits asso-
ciated with the selection of a preferred management
alternative among a number of available options.
Sustainable management implies continuity and
adaptability through an evolving knowledge base. As
symposium participant Thomas Wakeman said,
"Managers adapt; regulators do not."
Reuse is tantamount to beneficial use. Can contami-
nated sediments be promoted as bad materials that can
be made good?
Technologies
In Situ Technologies
The report concluded that high-volume, low-cost tech-
nologies should be a first choice in sediment remedia-
,tion. In situ technologies (e.g., natural recovery,
capping, and containment) are effective methods for
contaminated sediment management. Natural recovery
is a viable and optimal solution when contaminant con-
centrations are low. If natural recovery is insufficient,
then capping may be appropriate. The Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Cleanup, and Liability Act
(commonly known as Superfund) should be amended
to allow capping as a permanent remedy. In situ chem-
ical treatment has conceptual advantages, but further
research and development (R8cD) is required. The
same is true for bioremediation: R&D is needed to
resolve microbial, geochemical, and hydrological
issues.
Symposium participants expressed support for the
committee's recommendations, but also recognized
that a very limited database is available on in situ tech-
nologies for use in determining long-term efficacy (i.e.,
only five or six sites were discussed). Participants also
offered the following additional comments on in situ
technologies:
Available data should be placed in a central reposi-
tory that is easily accessible for use in decision making
and promoting acceptability of the technologies. There
must be an understanding of the effectiveness of in situ
technologies in reducing risk (in both the short and long
term). There is a need for long-term monitoring to eval-
uate the contribution of source control to loading
reduction, enhance understanding of natural attenua-
tion (i.e., degradation processes within caps), and help
control contaminant release due to failure of capping or
containment.
Acceptability criteria must be developed that can be
applied on a site-by-site basis and can define long-term
risk reduction. Good science is lacking. Guidelines for
standardizing cost data need to be developed, and cost
data need to be released to stakeholders and the public
(i.e., to explain what is being done to achieve a desired
level of risk reduction). The strongest resistance to the
use of in situ options relates to the disincentive for long-
term monitoring by principal responsible parties (PRPs).
The problem is the potentially open-ended cost com-
mitment, and associated uncertainty in costs, under the
current regulatory framework (i.e., the project cannot
come to closure).
There is a need to develop effective risk communica-
tion tools to improve public perceptions. Citizen and
community forums were effective in achieving under-
standing and implementing in situ options at some sites.
The public needs to be educated on the science of in situ
technologies to avoid poor decision making based on
ignorance.
Dredging and Disposal
According to the report, precision dredging at near-in
situ densities should be made widely available to limit
the capture of clean sediments and water and to reduce
the volume of material. Methods for preserving the
capacity of existing confined disposal facilities are
needed. Contained aquatic disposal on or near contam-
inated areas appears to have a high potential for accept-
ability, which must be explored fully. There is a need for
R&D on cap design to enhance biohabitat improve-
ment. There also is a need for long-term monitoring
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CHAIRMEN'S SUMMARY
methods to evaluate contaminant degradation under
caps and control potential contaminant releases.
Symposium participants generally concurred with the
NRC recommendations. Participants expressed support
for the implementation of performance-based contract-
ing and longer-term contracts in the dredging industry,
so that companies would have more security and there-
fore could take on the risk of developing innovative
approaches. Concern was expressed that companies
should not bear all the costs of innovation, particularly
given the difference between dredging for navigational
purposes versus cleanup.
Ex Situ Treatment
The report concluded that ex situ treatment is justified
only for relatively small volumes of highly contaminated
sediments. Unit costs of advanced treatment may
decline slightly as they move through the demonstration
phase, but they are unlikely to become competitive with
less expensive containment technologies. Cost data on
full-scale remediation technologies must be improved,
and R&cD should focus on ex situ technologies for the
cost-effective treatment of large sediment volumes.
There is a need for bench- and pilot-scale investigations
to demonstrate the effectiveness of ex situ technologies,
including bioremediation.
Symposium participants indicated that the treatment
cost estimates in the 1997 NRC report [up to
$l,000/yd3 ($l,310/m3)] are outdated. The current
state-of-practice estimates are $50 to $70/yd3 ($65 to
$92/m3). Long-term contracts would result in more
economies of scale.
Project Implementation
The report concluded that the burden for source control
should be transferred to states and polluters, for the fol-
lowing two reasons. First, states benefit from dredging
and customarily are engaged in wetlands management.
Under Section 303 of the Clean Water Act, the EPA and
the states set total maximum daily loads for waterway
segments and develop allocations for pollution. A simi-
lar approach can be applied to sediment pollution con-
trol. Second, ports already bear an inequitable share of
the responsibility for remediation and disposal. There is
a need to develop cost-sharing formulas for dredging
and disposal. By adopting a consistent cost-sharing
approach founded on cost-benefit considerations, the
cost-effectiveness of dredging and disposal can be
improved.
This issue turned out to be a point of contention
between the port and chemical industry representatives
at the symposium. The former asserted that ports pro-
vide services in a way that ensures a return on their
investment. Therefore, ports must know the risks, the
costs of reducing the risk, and the benefits of managing
contaminated sediments—because someone has to pay.
Those who benefit should pay and those who created
the problem also should pay. The chemical industry rep-
resentatives disagreed with the view that polluters
should pay and ports should be given more leverage.
They advocated a fair allocation of risk and costs, par-
ticularly given that disposal actions taken 20 or 30 years
ago were considered legal at the time. Both sides, how-
ever, acknowledged that partnering among stakeholders
is essential for effective problem solving.
During the course of discussions, symposium partici-
pants offered the following additional comments:
Before considering source control, sources first must be
identified. Sources include point discharges (e.'g., indus-
trial and municipal outfalls) and nonpoint discharges
(e.g., groundwater, atmospheric deposition, inflow of
natural background constituents) into surface water sys-
tems. Sources must be prioritized in terms of mass load-
ing; waste allocation formulas must be developed; and
cost trade-offs between source control and contami-
nated sediment management must be evaluated. Source
control is linked to the acceptable risk criteria that must
be met to protect human health and the environment.
An effort must be made to avoid focusing on a single
discharger or specific industry, and the public must be
involved in the process. This approach will foster coop-
erative problem solving rather than finger pointing and
rhetoric. Ongoing sources must be tracked down and
interdicted.
According to the report, the precision of site assess-
ments can be improved through the use of remote
sensing (e.g., acoustic coring). R&D should be initi-
ated to advance the state of the science in site assess-
ment technologies (e.g., advanced survey methods,
chemical sensors for surveying and monitoring). Data
gathering must focus on specific needs. A manager
needs to understand the site dynamics and factors
influencing the transport, bioavailability, and spatial
and temporal variability of the contaminants of con-
cern to achieve minimum-cost projects that meet
cleanup objectives and allow for the establishment of
optimal remediation schemes. All sampling is dictated
by that requirement. Administrative interim controls
(e.g., health advisories, signs), coupled with natural
recovery, may be appropriate in certain situations.
The report also suggested that beneficial uses of
contaminated sediments may resolve complex disposal
dilemmas and can offset clean-up costs. Therefore,
beneficial uses of contaminated sediments (e.g., islands
for seabird nesting, landfills for urban developments,
beach nourishment, wetlands, shoreline stabilization,
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
topsoil for landfill covers, construction fill) should be
explored further, and regulatory agencies should con-
tinue funding R8cD for innovative beneficial-use alter-
natives. In addition, the agencies should revise policies
to allow for placement strategies that incorporate ben-
eficial uses and should develop incentives to encourage
the implementation of these alternatives.
This topic provoked considerable discussion during
the symposium. Major questions raised included the
following:
• How should beneficial uses be promoted? Funding
is needed for demonstration and marketing, collection
and organization of data, and classification standards
and protocols to foster public confidence.
• What are the barriers to deriving the benefits? The
barriers include public skepticism, lack of organized
information on all aspects of commercialization, and
lack of legislative authority and designation of sediments
as nonwaste materials.
Actions to be taken include the following:
• Congressional designation of sediments as nonwaste;
• EPA designation of sediments as recovered material
that meets specific standards and can be considered in
the federal procurement process;
• EPA evaluation of the benefits of using sediments
on brownfield;
• Development of standards for sediment products as
well as for manufacturing processed sediments; and
• Funds to support demonstration projects.
Priority uses identified included mine reclamation,
raw material manufacturing, wetlands construction,
brownfields redevelopment, beach nourishment, and
soils for farmlands.
Decision Making
The report concluded that stakeholder involvement
early hi the decision process is important in heading off
disagreements and building consensus. Symposium par-
ticipants agreed and offered the following additional
comments: Partnering is the common thread to success-
ful decision making. Public outreach, communication,
and perception are also important in gaining public
acceptance of contaminated sediment remediation pro-
jects. Information must be disseminated in an under-
standable format and communicated at the level of the
audience; it also must be believable and trustworthy.
Face-to-face meetings must be held to help build rela-
tionships. Clear communication is imperative: For many
people, "risk" means danger, "disposal" denotes
garbage, and "ignorance" equals fear.
According to the report, a systematic risk-based
approach offers the best chance for cost-effective man-
agement. Uniform procedures should be developed to
address human health and environmental risks associ-
ated with disposal, containment, or beneficial reuse of
contaminated sediments. Risk analysis can be applied
more widely in selecting and evaluating management
alternatives and remediation technologies. Projects
should be evaluated based on performance and success in
achieving desired risk reduction. The relationship
between contaminant bioavailability and risk should be
quantified.
This approach was supported by many of the sympo-
sium participants, but with caveats. There must be
recognition of the limitations of assumptions, uncer-
tainty in estimating risk, and different perceptions
regarding acceptable risk. A risk-based approach is more
difficult to communicate to the public than is compli-
ance with prescribed administrative standards or crite-
ria. Sediment quality assessment protocols do not
project potential ecosystem impacts. Prognostic model-
ing quantifying the relationship between bioavailability
and risk was identified as a method for determining
whether a given remedial action is effective for achiev-
ing a desired level of risk reduction, particularly as it
pertains to sediment removal.
The report concluded that trade-offs among risks,
costs, and benefits can be analyzed to improve deci-
sions and the selection of preferred alternatives.
Information on the state of the science of decision tools
(e.g., risk analysis, cost-benefit analysis, risk-cost opti-
mization, cost-risk-benefit [CRB] trade-off procedures)
should be communicated to stakeholders at the outset
of a project. Stakeholders should be considered an inte-
gral part of the cooperative problem-solving process
and should support pilot projects to demonstrate the
use and effectiveness of decision-making tools.
Although this logic was accepted by many sympo-
sium participants, the need to demonstrate CRB
methodology in a real situation also was recognized.
There is a need to account explicitly for direct and indi-
rect costs for different management options and to
quantify benefits so that a trade-off evaluation becomes
a useful tool in selecting a preferred alternative.
However, a detailed cost-benefit analysis may not be
attainable within the schedule for completing a project,
because the benefits may be difficult to quantify or
translate into monetary terms.
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Strategies and Technologies for Cleaning Up
Contaminated Sediments in the Nation's Waterways
The National Research Council Study
By Spyros P. Pavlou and Louis J. Thibocleaux _ -'
Contaminated marine sediments pose a -threat to
ecosystems, marine resources, and human
health. Sediment contamination' also interferes
with shipping activities and growth of trade resulting
from delays in dredging and the inability to dredge the
nation's harbors due to controversies over risks and
costs of sediment management. Given that approxi-~
, mately ,95 percent of total- U.S. trade passes through
dredged port's, potential economic impacts due to sedi-
ment contamination may be severe. • * •' -
The management of,contaminated sediments is
complex atid difficult. The factors that contribute to the
complexity are many, exacerbate the- problem, and
result in non-cost-effective management actions with .
controversial outcomes-and marginal benefits. These -
factors include , -
v j
• High public expectations for protecting human
health and the environment; - ,
• Multiple stakeholder interests .and priorities; ' .
• Conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions of federal,
state, and local regulatory authorities;
• Relatively low levels of contamination;-
• Large quantities of affected sediments;
• Uncertainty in quantifying and managing risk; and
• Limitations of handling and treatment technologies.
An overview of a study performed by the National
Research Council's (NRC) Committee on Contam- '
inated Marine Sediments is provided here. The; 15-
member committee included national experts from
academia, industry,'aftd the professional services sector.
The committee' was established in the spring of 1993
and completed its work in the- summer: of 1996. The
committee's deliberations were published in a report"
released by theTSFRC in March 1997., This report was'a
basis for discussions and presentations at"TRB"s
National Symposium on > Contaminated Sediments:
Coupling Risk Reduction with Sustainable Management
and Reuse held in Washington, D.C., in May 1998."
Scope of the NRC Initiative ,
The .committee's charge was to s ' '
(1) Assess best management practices' and emer-
ging technologies for reducing adverse environmental
impacts;' ' ' •
, (2) Appraise interim control measures for use at
contaminated sediment sites; ,- , ,
- ' (3) Address'ways to use and communicate informa-
tion about risks, costs^ and benefits to guide decision
.making; and ~, „ , -
(4) Assess current knowledge and'identify research
needs for enhancing contaminated sediment remediation
technology. ' , • '
Technical information' was reviewed and assessed.
Committee members interacted closely with researchers,
> regulators, stakeholders, engineers and operators. Six
case studies of contaminated sediment remediation were
evaluated and one sediment remediation project-site was
Visited. In addition,,the committee conducted workshops
, on interim controls and long-term technologies, summa-
rized site assessment methods, and evaluated the appli-
cation of decision tools, to the contaminated sediment
^management process* The results obtained from these
tasks then were assembled and organized under three
major categories: remediation -technologies, ^project
implementation, and decision making.
Remediation Technologies
Remediation technologies were grouped into, four cate-
gories: interim control, 'in situ management, sediment
removal and transportation, and ex situ management:
The technologies were compared qualitatively in 'terms
of .state of maturity, frequency of usage, scale of appli-
cation,- cost per cubic yard, and use limitations. They
were then scored and ranked according to four criteria:
>• 7
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
effectiveness, feasibility, practicality, and cost. The com-
mittee also addressed the need for remediation technol-
ogy research, development, testing, and demonstration.
The following conclusions and recommendations were
then formulated:
• Capping, containment and natural recovery are
effective management methods for most contaminated
sediments. Where remediation is necessary, high-volume
low-cost technologies are the first choice, assuming they
are feasible and succeed in attaining the required risk
reduction for protecting human health and the environ-
ment. Because treatment is expensive, reducing volume
is important.
• Treatment is usually justified only for relatively
small volumes of highly contaminated sediments.
Advanced treatment is too costly in the majority of
cases, which typically involve low-level contamination.
• Cost data for full-scale remediation systems must
be improved to allow for fair overall comparisons and
development of benchmarks for R&D and systems
design. Regulatory agencies should develop guidelines
for calculating costs of remediation systems, including
technologies and management methods. The agencies
should maintain a database on the costs of systems that
have actually been used.
• Natural recovery is viable and can be considered
as an optimum remediation solution when contaminant
concentrations are low. If natural recovery is not feasi-
ble, capping may be appropriate to reduce bioavailabil-
ity. Monitoring is required to test the efficacy of
capping. The use of capping might be advanced if it
were viewed as a permanent remedy under Superfund.
• In situ chemical treatment has conceptual advan-
tages but considerable R&D will be needed before suc-
cessful application can be demonstrated. Similarly, using
bioremediarion to treat in-place sediments requires fur-
ther R&D to resolve microbial, geochemical, and
hydrological issues. Given the high costs of ex situ
treatment relative to dredging, dredging technologies
must be improved to enable sediment removal at near
in situ densities and precise removal of contaminated
sediments to limit the capture of clean sediments and
water. In this manner, the volume of dredged material
requiring containment or treatment can be reduced.
• Research is needed to improve control of contam-
inant releases, long-term monitoring methods, and tech-
niques for preserving the capacity of confined disposal
facilities (CDFs).
• The potential for constructing contained aquatic
disposal (CAD) facilities on or near contaminated sites
must be explored fully. Regulatory agencies should sup-
port research to improve design tools for preventing
containment failure, improve monitoring methods for
assessing long-term performance, control contaminant
loss, and determine risk-reduction effectiveness through
contaminant isolation.
* Regulatory agencies should support research for
promoting the reuse of CDFs and CADs and for
improving tools for the design and evaluation of their
long-term stability and effectiveness.
• R&D on ex situ treatment technologies is war-
ranted in the search for cost-effective treatment of large
sediment volumes. Bench- and pilot-scale.testing of ex
situ treatment, technologies-r-and eventually full-scale
demonstrations in marine systems—are needed to
improve cost estimates, resolve technical problems, and
improve treatment effectiveness.
, * Additional R&D and demonstration projects are
needed to improve technologies and reduce risks associ-
ated with developing and implementing innovative
approaches. The advancement of cost-effective and'
innovative technologies could be facilitated by peer
review of R&D proposals and side-by-side demonstra-
tions of riew and current technologies. Regulatory agen-
cies should develop a program to support such R&D
and demonstration projects.
Project Implementation
Although improvements in remediation technologies
would contribute to cost-effective contaminated sedi-
ment management, a variety of practical issues must be
addressed to remove constraints in project implementa-
tion. These include responsibility for source control, site
characterization needs and technologies, interim con-
trols, and promotion of beneficial'uses. The commit-
tee's conclusions and recommendations regarding these
issues included the following:
• Since ports currently bear an unfair share of the
responsibility for remediation and placement, of contami-
nated, sediments, project implementation should transfer
the burden for source control to states and polluters.
Federal and state regulators, together with the ports,
should investigate the use of appropriate legal and
enforcement tools to require the upstream contributors to
the contamination to share equitably in the cleanup costs.
• New and improved techniques are needed to
reduce the costs and enhance the precision of site assess--
raents. The use of remote sensing technologies—including
rapid and accurate sensors—might accomplish this goal.
Regulatory agencies should support R&D to advance the
state of science in site-assessment technologies. Objectives
should include the identification and development of
advanced survey approaches and new and improved
chemical sensors for surveying and monitoring.
* Where sediment contamination poses an immi-
nent danger, administrative and 'engineering or struc-
-------
-- CHAIRMEN'S-.SUKlMAItY"
tural controls, can be used.to reduce risks to humans and
to* ecological receptdrs from exposure 'to contaminated -
sediments over the short term, until a jnore .permanent
remedy can be implemented. -
- • Beneficial ttses of dredged contaminated material
can, provide socially acceptable disposal alternatives'.
These uses could - include, for example, creation o£
islands for seabird nesting, landfills for" urban develop-'
ment, beach nourishment, wetlands, shoreline stabiliza-
tion, topsoil for landfill covers,1 and other potential'
marketable uses. Regulatory policies developed to allow
for placement strategies that incorporate the -beneficial
use of contaminated sediments should be, enhanced. ,
Regulatory agencies involved in'co'ntaminated sediment
disposal should develop incentives for—and encourage
implementation of—beneficial-use alternatives. Funding-1
should be continued for R&D of- innovative beneficial
uses of contaminated sediments and the development of
technical guidance and procedures for environmentally ,
acceptable beneficial reuse. , - .-*-."
Decision Making .., . , ,
Factors influencing decision making" include regulatory -'
realities, stakeholder, interests, site-specific characteris-
tics and data uncertainty, and availability of-[remedia-
tion technologies. The committee examined all of these -
factors and developed-the following conclusions and
recommendations: ' / ,
' • Stakeholder involvement early in the decision'
process is important'-to head off disagreements and build
consensus among-all involved. When decisions are com-
plex and divisive, obtaining consensus among stake-
holders can be facilitated by using formal, analytical
•tools, such as decision analysis-
• The trade-off evaluation of risks, costs, and ben-
efits, and the characterization of their uncertainties in
selecting a preferred management alternative offers the
best chance for effective management and communica,-
tion of the decision-making process to stakeholders.
Risk analysis is an effective method,for selecting and
evaluating management alternatives "and remediation
technologies. More extensive use of appropriate-meth-
-ods for cost-benefit analysis has the potential to
improve decision-making. - • ' " . -•
• Regulatory agencies should sponsor research to
quantify the relationship between contaminant availability
and corresponding human health and ecological risks. The
main goal is to evaluate sediment' remediation projects
using "performance-based "standards,', i.e., risk reduction
from in-place sediments, disturbed sediments, and sedi-
ments under a variety of containment, disposal, and treat-
ment scenarios. This is critical to the successful trade-off
evaluations of risks, costs, and benefits to'make technically
defensible decisions in-selecting a management alternative.'
• •_ The'use of systems, engineering can strengthen
project cost-effectiveness and acceptability. In choosing
a remediation technology, systems engineering can help -
ensure.that the solution meets all removal, containment,
transport, and placement requirements while satisfying
environmental, social, and legal demands.
-- , • Federal, state, and jbcal agencies should work
together with appropriate private sectdr stakeholders to ,
- interpret 'statutes, policies, -and regulations construe-
"lively, so that negotiations can move forward and sound
solutions are not .blocked or obstructed. - , > ,
" - • Regulatory agencies 'should continue to develop
"uniform'or parallel procedures-to address human-health
and- environmental, risks associated with freshwater,
.marine, and land-based disposal, containment, or bene- -*
•ficial reuse of contaminated -sediments. % .
-• Regulatory agencies should develop and dissemi-
nate" information to stakeholders regarding the" avail-
ability -and applicability of decision analysis tools;
appropriate risk analysis'techniques for use throughout
the management process, including the selection and
evaluation of remedial alternatives; and the demonstra-
"tion and appropriate use of decision analysis in an actual
_ contaminated sediment remediation case/
' .« Existing cost-benefit analysis guidelines and prac-
tices developed by regulatory agencies should be modi-
fied to ensure comprehensiveness and' uniformity, in
method application.
Summary ' " <
There are no simple solutions to the problerns created,
by contaminated marine sediments. However, the NRC
study summarized here indicates that careful problem
formulation and good information provide the founda-
tion for good decisions in managing contaminated sedi-
ments. Incremental, improvements can be made in
remediation technologies, project implementation, and
decision-making and can result in cost-effective, socially
.acceptable, and environmentally sound solutions.
Spyros P. Pavlou is technical director for-environmental
risk economics at' URS- Greiner, Seattle, Washington. •"
Louis J. "Tbibodeauy, is Jesse Coaies Professor of
Chemical. Engineering at Louisiana 'State University.
Both were members of the NRC- Marine, Board
Committee" on Contaminated Marine Sediments and
served as 'co-chairs of the TKB AiTSS' Steering '
Committee for the-National Symposium'on Contami-
nated Sediments. This article originally.appeared in the .
May-June 1998 issud of TR News. , ~
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Welcoming Remarks and Charge to the Symposium
William A. Wulf, National Academy of Engineering
Louis J. Thibodeaux, Louisiana State University
Spyros P. Pavlou, URS Greiner, Incorporated
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
INFORMING THE POLITICAL PROCESS
William A. Wulf
As president of the National Academy of
Engineering, it is my pleasure to open this first
session of the National Symposium on
Contaminated Sediments. I would like to begin by say-
ing a few words about the set of organizations we refer
to as the National Academies. There are actually four
organizations, and unless you have some rudimentary
understanding of that, it can be somewhat confusing.
I will start with a bit of history. The Europeans have
had a set of academies of science for about four cen-
turies. These academies are primarily honorific soci-
eties—in England, it is called the Royal Society. One gets
elected to the academy of sciences by the members,
based on a lifetime of contribution to scientific discovery.
In the United States, a little past the middle of the
nineteenth century, a group of Americans decided this
nation also should have such an organization. They
decided to create a private, not-for-profit corporation
called the National Academy of Sciences, incorporated
in Washington, D.C. At the time, Washington, D.C.,
did not have a city government. Because the city was
governed at the time by the federal government, more
specifically by the U.S. Congress, all corporate charters
were granted by the Congress. Accordingly, this group
of Americans went to the Congress and asked that a
corporation be formed.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the
Senate. It turned out there were two competing groups,
and both wanted to form the National Academy of
Sciences. One of them obviously would lose. A senator
who was in favor of, and represented, the losing group
inserted some nonstandard language into the boilerplate
for the corporate charter. It was intended as a "gotcha."
That nonstandard language said the National Academy
of Sciences would provide advice to the federal govern-
ment on issues of science and technology whenever
requested to do so, and it would do so without com-
pensation. That latter phrase has been interpreted to
mean not-for-profit.
That little "gotcha" phrase has developed into one
of the most productive relations between an academy
and a government in the world today. It turns out to be
the envy of the European academies. We have a rela-
tionship between this set of academies and our federal
government that exists in very few other places.
This all happened in 1863, in the middle of the Civil
War. The charter was signed by Abraham Lincoln and
has stood us in very good stead. Between 1863 and
now, what started out as a single organization, the
National Academy of Sciences, has become four orga-
nizations. Three of them you can think of as honorific
societies, more or less in the model of our European
colleagues. They are the National Academy of Sciences,
• National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of
Medicine. The fourth, the National Research Council
(NRC), of which the Transportation Research Board
(TRB) and Marine Board are members, is the operating
arm of the National Academies.
11
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12
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Hence, we have a dual role. Part of the complex is
honorific societies, whereas the other part provides advice
to the federal government. I want to emphasize that we
are not part of the government. We are, in fact, fiercely
independent. We see our role as providing highly inde-
pendent, highly authoritative advice—and we do a lot of
it. We produce about 200 reports a year, roughly one
every working day. Each one of them tends to be a book
about the size and type of the report that you will discuss
during this symposium. At any given time, about 6,000
volunteers are working very hard on tough and complex
issues such as the one you will focus on during the sym-
posium. Contaminated sediments is an excellent example.
Generally speaking, the issues addressed by the
National Academies are difficult problems with impor-
tant societal consequences, and they often require that
science and engineering expertise and opinion become
part of the political process.
You all know a great deal more about the topic you will
be talking about than I do. I was given a set of reading
material to get myself up to speed on this topic and was
asked to take on the job of describing the "GS problem."
I have to tell you, my background is as a computer scien-
tist, so I felt I knew the "CS problem" very well. Then I
started to read this material, and it did not match at all.
The fun part of my job is that I get to learn about all
kinds of new things. Sometimes the things I learn are
exciting and enlightening; sometimes they are scary.
What I learned in preparing these remarks falls more
into the latter category.
As I said earlier, you know this topic much better
than I do, but the notion that 10 percent of the surfaces
underlying our waterways are seriously contaminated,
sufficiently contaminated to pose risks, is pretty scary.
The fact that some 3 million to 12 million yd3 (2.3 mil-
lion to 9.2 million m3) of what is dredged up every year
in clearing our waterways is sufficiently contaminated to
require special handling is pretty scary. The societal con-
sequences are pretty scary in terms of damage to the
ecosystem, propagation of these contaminants up the
food chain, and implications for the loss of recreational
waterways.
These are things to which I have given little atten-
tion. If I had, I probably would have realized that cont-
aminants hang around for a long time under the surface
of the water. I thought that, after Rachel Carson and
Silent Spring, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane was no
longer a problem. Well, I learned that it still is a prob-
lem in sediments. I learned that few parts of the coun-
try are unaffected. It was no surprise to learn that the
problem is further complicated by a tangled web of leg-
islation, multiple federal agencies with responsibility,
and overlapping state and local jurisdictions.
This is a perfect example of the types of issues that
the National Academies take on—a really important
societal problem that requires that science and engi-
neering inform the political process and that policies be
put in place. You have been asked here today to help us
make some sense out of this difficult situation.
On behalf of the presidents of the two other hon-
orary societies, Bruce Alberts, president of the
National Academy of Sciences, and Ken Shine, presi-
dent of the Institute of Medicine, let me once again
welcome you here.
SUCCESS THROUGH
CONSENSUS BUILDING
Louis J. Thibodeaux
I am a professor of chemical engineering at
Louisiana State University and had the privilege
of not only serving as the co-chair of the TUB
Symposium Steering Committee but also serving on
the NRC study committee that prepared the report
we will be discussing. I will begin by giving you a
brief history of how the NRC got involved in the
issue of contaminated sediments.
It began in 1988, when a Committee on
Contaminated Sediments was formed under the
Marine Board, which is a unit of the NRC Commission
on Engineering and Technical Systems. I recall very
well the first meeting in Tampa, Florida, where I had
been invited as a workshop participant. This commit-
tee produced a report in 1989 entitled Contaminated
Marine Sediments: Assessment and Remediation.* (I
will summarize briefly some of the findings contained
in that report and offer comments on where we stand
today.
• Adequate data do not currently exist for comprehen-
sive pinpointing and prioritization. As evidenced by an
* Contaminated Marine Sediments: Assessment and Reme-
diation. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1989.
Available via the Internet at http://www.nap.edu/reading
room, or call the National Academy Press (1-800-624-6242).
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WELCOMING REMARKS AND CHARGE TO THE SYMPOSIUM
13
inventory recently released by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), this problem is being addressed.
• In terms of risk to human health, transfer of conta-
minants from marine sediments to humans is poorly
documented and underassessed. As a researcher in this
area, I know that over the last 10 years this problem has
been at least partially resolved.
• Despite the widespread extent of contaminated sedi-
ment problems, remedial actions directed at excavating,
treating, or otherwise manipulating contaminated sedi-
ments have been extremely rare. In the last 10 years, a
number of technologies have been applied, including
dredging, capping, and some other in situ technologies.
• Little or no weight is given to sediment-mediated
contamination of edible fish and shellfish in the hazard
ranking system. At that time, the hazard ranking system
was strongly biased to groundwater problems, but since
that time it has been amended to provide a better ranking
for contaminated sediments.
After that report was published in 1989, contaminated
sediment problems continued to come to the fore. At the
urging of the EPA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and U.S.
Navy, a second report was commissioned aimed at trying to
assess what technologies existed to clean up contaminated
sediment.
A second Committee on Contaminated Marine
Sediments was formed in 1993 to produce the report
before us today. The Executive Summary of the second
report, Contaminated Sediments in Ports and Waterways:
Cleanup Strategies and Technologies, * has been provided to
all symposium participants. This 1997 report concluded
that technologies alone will not solve the problem; there
must be a strategy. Although technologies are available, it is
also necessary to factor cost-benefit, human health, and
risk considerations into the decision process.
This symposium acknowledges that the success of conta-
minated sediment remediation projects depends heavily on
consensus building. Although there are many stakeholders—
including port managers; transportation officials; industry,
federal, state, and local environmental regulators; environ-
mental groups; and competing users for all these marine
resources—there are few venues in which these stakeholders
can address the issues collectively in a nonadversarial setting.
We hope this symposium provides such a venue.
* Contaminated Sediments in Ports and Waterways: Cleanup
Strategies and Technologies. National Academy Press,
Washington, B.C. 1997. Available via the Internet at
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom, or call the National Academy
Press (1-800-624-6242).
TECHNICAL FORUM FOR
PRODUCTIVE IDEAS
Spyros P. Pavlou
-m y|-y co-chair summarized how we got here. I will
|\/I offer a brief look into the future, which I believe
JL v _4.can begin with this symposium.
The Symposium Steering Committee tried to develop
concepts and issues that we would like to see propagated and
discussed. The first is the issue of risk reduction; the second
is sustainable management, or adaptive or continuous man-
agement; the third is reuse. Throughout the next two days,
you will see these three terms being discussed, embellished,
defined, and perhaps even rejected. However, the committee
felt this would be an appropriate starting point. The sympo-
sium has been configured as a technical forum for the
exchange of productive ideas, with members of the audience
as contributors and partners in cooperative problem solving.
There are many issues to be addressed and solved. The
two reports that Lou Thibodeaux discussed offered rec-
ommendations; however, they do not offer solutions to
the problems. Through this symposium, we hope to take
advantage of your collective experience and expertise to
provide direction for the best way to deal with these
problems now and in the future. We want to hear stake-
holder response to the study report. We want to hear war
stories, test cases, stories of successes and failures, and
what should be done to promote better management of
contaminated sediments. We want to hear your perspec-
tives, your ideas, and your constructive criticisms. Above
all, we want you to play an active role in contributing to
this process.
-------
Overview of the Study Report
Joseph L. Zelibor, Jr., National Research Council
"W Frank Bohlen, University of Connecticut
Donald F. Hayes, University of Utah
ADOPTING A SYSTEMATIC
RISK-BASED APPROACH
Joseph L. Zelibor, Jr.
I would like to begin with a statement: Ports and
waterways are of strategic importance to the eco-
nomic well-being of the United States. According to
the Maritime Administration, ports handled approxi-
mately 3 billion metric tons of cargo in 1992; supported
the employment of 15 million Americans, which is
about 17 percent of our total population; and added
nearly $800 billion to the gross domestic product and
another $525 billion to personal income. Ports con-
tributed another $210 billion in taxes at all levels of
government.
Contaminated sediments slow decision making and
the implementation of dredging, which is needed to
keep ports and waterways safe and efficient. Every year
about 283 million yd3 (216 million m3) of material are
dredged, of which about 5 to 10 percent are estimated
to be contaminated. Beyond that, the management of
contaminated sediments goes beyond port operations
and can benefit other important things, such as recre-
ational areas, fishery habitats, and the overall quality of
life along our waterways and coastal areas.
Some time ago, I was at a congressional briefing on
coastal engineering and heard some estimates batted
around that the revenues generated in coastal areas from
foreign and domestic tourism and other activities exceed
the revenues generated from agriculture and energy.
Clearly, the effective management of contaminated sedi-
ments is of strategic importance to the economic
well-being of ports, waterways, and coastal areas.
I will provide you with an introduction to the 1997
National Research Council (NRC) report and try to
focus on the findings relevant to the topics to be dis-
cussed in this symposium. I hope that you have had a
chance to read the report, which assessed the best man-
agement practices and emerging technologies. Among
the elements of the committee's task was the appraisal
of interim control measures and methods of evaluating
risks, costs, and benefits that can be used to help guide
decision making. Overall, the report was intended to
assess existing knowledge and identify the research
needed to improve and develop technologies. Although
the task was broad, it did not allow the committee to
address all of the issues relating to contaminated
sediments.
The committee met seven times over a three-year
period, often with various liaisons from agencies such
as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE) and
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The commit-
tee reviewed relevant reports and was briefed by fed-
eral, regional, state, and local officials; port
authorities; and public interest groups. Committee
members visited the USAGE'S Waterways Experiment
Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the Port of
Tacoma, Washington. They held two workshops on
dredging and remediation technologies. They also
compiled case histories of six projects. A major part of
the study process was a review and assessment of
interim and long-term controls and technologies on
14
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I the basis of maturity, applicability, limitations, costs,
I and research needs.
I Although many people wish there were a "silver bul-
• let," there is no single technology, now or on the hori-
I zon, for treating large volumes of contaminated
I sediments effectively and economically. Given this lack
of a simple solution, the committee determined that a
systematic, risk-based approach incorporating improve-
ments in current practice is essential for the cost-effective
management of contaminated sediments.
The committee focused on evaluating management
practices and technologies but also found it essential to
address a number of tangentially related issues, such as
regulations, source control, and site assessment, because
problems in these areas can impede best management
practices and technologies.
As Dr. Wulf noted, the regulatory framework for
contaminated sediments management is extremely com-
plex. At least seven federal agencies and six comprehen-
sive Acts of Congress influence remediation or dredging
opportunities for managing contaminated sediments in
settings ranging from the open ocean to inland reaches
of estuaries and wetlands. The overlapping jurisdictions
of federal, state, and local agencies further complicate
the situation. For example, states are authorized to
establish water quality standards within their jurisdic-
tions and can block sediment dredging and disposal that
violate these standards.
The committee compiled six case histories of conta-
minated sediments projects. These projects were
selected as representative of particular conditions, reg-
ulatory constraints, and classes of contaminants. The
delay between the discovery of a problem and imple-
mentation of a solution can range from 3 to 15 years or
even more. The problem is often due to the adversarial
nature of relationships among stakeholders and the
convoluted regulatory path.
As many of you know, contaminated sediments can
best be managed if the problem is viewed as a system,
composed of interrelated issues and tasks. The overall
goal is to manage the system in a way that optimizes the
results. In particular, a systems approach is advisable
with respect to the selection and optimization of interim
and long-term controls and technologies. The committee
grouped its conclusions and recommendations into three
topic areas: decision making, remediation technologies,
and project implementation.
It is important that decision makers be aware of,
and understand, applicable laws and regulations. To
this I say, "Good luck." I certainly do not know about,
or understand, all of them. Outreach to stakeholders
is critical. The early involvement of stakeholders is
important for heading off disagreements and building
OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY REPORT
15
consensus. Systems engineering can enhance the cost-
effectiveness of contaminated sediments management.
Three tools can be applied to inform and improve
decision making. Risk analysis and cost-benefit analy-
sis are familiar concepts but are not widely applied to
contaminated sediments management. Decision analy-
sis is a newer concept for resolving problems with
multiple variables. It is hoped that all of these issues
will be discussed and debated during the course of the
symposium.
"With regard to remediation technologies, the com-
mittee found that high-volume, low-cost technologies
are the first choice, if feasible, when remediation is
necessary. Because treatment is expensive, reducing
volume is also very important. Treatment is usually
applied to just a small volume of highly contaminated
sediments. In most cases, advanced treatment is too
costly for low-level contamination. There are also
problems with the cost data associated with available
technology. The problems include a lack of standard-
ized documentation and the lack of a common basis
for defining all relevant benefits and costs. In addition,
research and development (R&D) and demonstration
projects are needed to improve existing remediation
technologies and reduce risks associated with the
development and use of innovative approaches for
treating marine sediments.
With respect to project implementation, the commit-
tee found that upstream generators of contaminants
often cannot be identified and held accountable, leaving
ports with the burden of managing the problem. They
found that states, which benefit economically from
dredging and customarily engage in watershed manage-
ment, might assume more responsibility for source con-
trol. They also found that new and improved techniques
are needed to reduce the cost and improve the precision
of site assessments. Although few data are available on
the effectiveness of interim controls, the committee
found a number of measures that appear to be practical
and likely to reduce risk.
Also of significance is the fact that dredged material
has been used for many beneficial purposes. Some con-
taminated sediments have been transformed success-
fully into wetlands, and research is under way on the
safe use of contaminated sediments for landfill covers,
manufactured topsoils, and other applications.
However, the funding for this research is limited, and
technical guidelines have yet to be developed.
Finally, as we search for the elusive silver bullet, there
are many opportunities for incremental improvements
in decision making, remediation technologies, and pro-
ject implementation. We hope that this symposium can
help move us ahead to the next steps.
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16
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
MAKING SITE-SPECIFIC
ASSESSMENTS
W Frank Bohlen
I am a physical oceanographer working on the prob-
lems of coastal sediment transport. I will addres
the issue of site assessment, which is covered in
Chapter 4 of the NRC report. I realize that talking
about site assessment problems and criteria is a bit like
carrying coals to Newcastle, because the majority of this
audience may know as much, or more, about it than I
do. However, it is important for you to get at least one
person's perspective on the committee's bias with
regard to site assessment, particularly given that this
topic is a bit outside the charge to the committee, which
initially was technologically oriented and looking for
the technical "fix."
Very early in the committee's deliberations, we real-
ized that we needed to spread our wings a bit and look
at the larger picture, beginning with the fundamental
issue of the site itself. Some of you may be well-advised
over the course of this symposium to question what we
mean by "contaminated." For the moment, we assume
it means that, based on some criteria, someone said,
"That stuff is contaminated." We believe that effective
management of a site containing contaminated sedi-
ment begins with a reasoned, detailed, and systematic
assessment of site characteristics.
An assay seeks to define the extent and character of
the contamination, including probable sources, sinks,
potential mobility, and ultimate bioavailability, which,
after all, is what we are particularly interested in. Beyond
their obvious technical and scientific utility, such data
serve as a basis for determining the governing regulatory
framework, identifying who the stakeholders are and
their particular interests, and defining the optimal man-
agement protocols and remediation procedures. It is the
foundation upon which all else should be built.
It is our experience, and I think it was more or less
unanimous among the committee members, that qual-
ity site assessments are seldom done. It was also the
impression of the committee that quality ,site assess-
ments can be done; it is not beyond the state of the art.
Central to the evaluation, however, is a fundamental
understanding of the factors governing contaminant
transport and availability. You have to know something
about the system with which you are working.
Given the affinity of the majority of the contaminants
of concern for fine-grained sediments, the transport
often involves displacement of cohesive materials. The
displacements are governed by a variety of interactions
among local and regional, meteorological, hydrody-
namic, biological, geological, geochemical, and perhaps
even geopolitical factors. The interactions typically
result in a transport system characterized by a high
degree of spatial and temporal variability. Therein lies
the rub. A high degree of spatial and temporal variabil-
ity establishes some very particular constraints on the
adequacy of sampling and survey protocols. How do
you specify what is there, given the state of the art? Don
Hayes, the next speaker, will talk about this issue in
terms of the technologies available to dredge, or clean
up in place, the contaminants of concern.
Taking a look at the various transport systems, for
example, it should not be surprising that the factors
governing transport on the California continental shelf
and affecting the displacement of contaminants off Los
Angeles differ substantially from the factors affecting
transport at an Upper Hudson River site. The latter is a
moderate-energy riverine environment impounded by a
variety of dams and locks above Troy, heading down
into the tidal river below Albany to Poughkeepsie and,
beyond that, the estuary down to New York City,
including the Port of New York and New Jersey.
The effects and characteristics of the system are com-
pounded by significant variations in the sedimentary
characteristic of the area. For example, a high-organic
deposit of fine-grained materials, mixed sawdust, sands,
and silts, interlaced with lathe debris from the historical
lathing operation in the Upper Hudson, makes for an
interesting deposit in terms of friability, transportability,
and contaminant availability. Such a deposit could be
found in a shoreside dump.
Contrast that system with a coastal environment,
such as an inlet on Long Island Sound contaminated by
a variety of constituents, mostly metals and
sewage-related materials, with sediments characterized
predominately by sands and dynamics affected by the
inlet. Contrast that with a system such as the estuary of
the Acushnet River, Upper New Bedford Harbor, an
area of relatively low energy in terms of winds and
waves but affected by significant tides and stream
flows and the recipient of an historical discharge of
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Another example would be tidal flats, where the
degree of aeration and exposure, or potential for
volatilization, is very different from that of the California
continental shelf or Upper Hudson. Contrast this with
some of the Gulf Coast petrochemical areas receiving yet
another variety of contaminants discharged into yet
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OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY REPORT
17
another set of different environments, with energy-grade
lines running nearly horizontal [i.e., the channel slope
changes by only 1 ft in 40 mi (0.3 m in 64.4 km) in an
area with relatively low tidal energy, in fairly confined
embayments such as a bayou, but receiving bursts, or very
flashy discharges, of rainfall runoff.
Therefore, to assess what is going on from a temporal
standpoint, you might put out a variety of instruments
and leave them for some period of time. There are rela-
tively few long time-series observations available to us in
many of the environments of concern. If you put out a
bottom-monitor array of instruments, you might be
interested in looking at suspended material concentra-
tions. In observing the velocity record, you might be
interested in the current speed, time variations, charac-
teristic M2 tide (i.e., semi-diurnal lunar component of
the astronomical tide), characteristic spring/neap cycle
(i.e., monthly variations in tidal range), and a number of
aperiodic events. The systems we work with tend to be
affected by an ambient velocity field perturbed aperiod-
ically by the passage of moderate-to-high-energy storm
events.
We hear a lot about storm events, and in some areas
they are sufficient to cause mass failure of the deposit
and orders-of-magnitude changes in material transport.
However, that effect has to be scaled against the slow,
persistent cycling of significant concentrations of mate-
rial over each tidal cycle. In some areas (e.g., Long
Island Sound), that slow, persistent cycling is as signifi- .
cant in terms of mass flux as are many of the storm
events. The particular time scale of interest depends on
the chemical time scales of concern, processing times, or
biological uptake and processing times.
A plot may show the inherent nonlinearity of many
of the relevant processes. The characteristics of the
response of sediments vary significantly as a function of
antecedent conditions, such as, in one case, the wind
stress field. If you get the right wind, then you get a par-
ticularly energetic wave field. Alternatively, if you have
a number of wind stress events, you might expect the
first event after a quiescent period to be more effective
in terms of stirring up materials than one that comes
later. The third one may not be as effective in terms of
the resuspension of materials. In other words, a variety
of nonlinearities, as well as a variety of time scales, are
inherent in the process.
Beyond the time scale, we might be interested in the
spatial scales. A change in structure over relatively small
spatial scales has profound implications in terms of the
mobility of the material. It varies as a function of sedi-
ment type and, to some extent, the history of working
of the sediment, the textural characteristics, which can
vary significantly in space.
The committee kept coming back to the need for
site-specific assessments, not only because of the varia-
tions from a spatial standpoint due to hydrodynamics,
meteorology, and the rest, but also because of the char-
acteristics and structure of the sediment column. The
spatial variability, of course, can be complicated by per-
turbations. We also could have interfacial photographs
that would give clear evidence of burrowing infauna
and reworking of the sediments, and that burrowing
and reworking would have a characteristic seasonal
variability. Therefore, we may have some spatial and
seasonal variations as well as variations due to local
sediment characteristics.
Mapping of these characteristics on a larger scale is
facilitated by the use of acoustic techniques. Not all of
us have the patience, time, and money to go out and
bounce an interfacial camera all over Long Island Sound
or up and down the East Coast, but you can significantly
cut the survey time if you use acoustic techniques, which
we will hear more about in a later session. A low-fre-
quency seismic profile over a dump site gives you some
feeling for the effects of deposited material on the sedi-
ments and sediment structure. It also may show several
acoustically opaque regions where you begin to lose the
strata because of the presence of gas in the deposits.
Another consideration is the production of methane and
what it means in terms of the structure, fabric, texture,
and transport of the materials as well as the irrigation
and migration of contaminants in the sediment column.
These effects can vary significantly in space and time.
Although we are dealing with moderately high con-
tent and often fine-grained sediments, which might
appear to be easily eroded, the materials are, for the
most part, relatively stable. The materials have a certain
amount of consistency, coherence, and stability. One
should not assume that, because we are dealing with
fine-grained deposits, these materials are easy to move
around. The mobility also can be affected significantly by
burrowing infauna, which may be macro- or megafauna.
With this background as a bias, recognizing the inher-
ent spatial and temporal variability in the system, the
committee argued for the application of a systematic
approach to site assessment. We argued that the best
method is a tiered approach, and we provided you, in
Chapter 4, with a "strawman" outline. By no means is it
intended as the "do all and end all"; rather, it is
intended to point to a couple of things that the com-
mittee felt were important, beginning with a review of
historical data. The review of historical data on a site is
often overlooked. None of us has the time to visit the
library anymore; we hardly have time to use the World
Wide Web. As result, we often go out and reinvent the
wheel. Sometimes we get away with it, but often this
approach slows down the project and increases costs.
An example provided in the NRC report is
Marathon Battery. The fact that they were dealing with
an archeological site was overlooked when they were
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18
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
working out their disposal options. As a result, they
had to go back to the drawing board to work out a way
to deal with an old gun emplacement. Another example
is the reference to the Boston Harbor study and the dis-
cussion of the utility and value of historical data as a
preface to newly acquired data. Many historical data
not only will satisfy present-day quality assurance and
quality control (QA/QC) criteria, but also will with-
stand wild-point editing and consistency checks and
serve as a perfectly adequate basis for surveys intended
to satisfy today's QA/QC criteria.
When you search for such data, a variety of files (e.g.,
federal, state, local, historic district) are often a fount of
information. I never fail to be amazed at the amount of
water quality data available for New York Harbor. If
you can spend the time searching for data (which may
not be put together quite the way you expect), the data
can provide a good starting point. Hence, it is important
to look at the historical data.
The next item to be addressed is whether contami-
nants are present. If not, then there is no problem. If
they are present, then there is a need to decide if a full
site assessment is worth the time and effort. It becomes
necessary to gather data, do a literature review, and con-
duct an evaluation of site dynamics to see what is
needed and note obvious data deficiencies. The primary
emphasis is on the degree to which the contaminants
may be available and may have significant effects on the
ecosystem and public health.
If there are obvious data deficiencies (e.g., no
bathymetry for the area, no good sediment map), then
it becomes necessary to conduct initial field surveys to
fill in the gaps. For example, you go to Lake Onondaga
and look for accurate, high-resolution bathymetry, and
even though the area has been studied extensively
because of a variety of historical contaminants, you are
hard-pressed to find the data. The surficial sediment
maps are gross characterizations of what is out there. It
is hard to believe this after probably 20 or 30 years of
study, but it very well could be the case.
When you are through with the initial field surveys,
you will have fundamental information. The initial field
surveys tell you there is a problem; for example, there
may be PCBs, dioxins, and metals of concern in the nav-
igation channel that need to be dredged. It may be neces-
sary, or useful, to push the current state of the art. This is
where the need arises to conduct detailed field surveys. It
was the committee's impression that techniques are avail-
able to provide us with the highest-resolution distribution
of contaminants. We may not have the money to do it,
but the techniques are available.
You may question some of the speakers at this sym-
posium about capabilities to push the state of the art to
provide high-resolution "surgical dredging," or dredg-
ing that will allow you take off a layer of material that
may be just 1 or 2 cm in vertical extent. With the global
positioning system (GPS) and differential GPS, we
probably can get down to centimeter scales in the hor-
izontal. You may hear arguments that we also can pro-
vide vertical dredging tolerances of centimeters. Coring
techniques are possible, but as I hope I have made clear,
the spatial variability does not favor the use of a just
few cores to characterize a large area. You probably
have to combine some amount of coring with higher-
resolution acoustic techniques; however, it can be done
and the argument may be that—even given the costs—
it is warranted and should be done.
In summary, remembering that the systems we deal
with are affected by significant spatial and temporal
variability, an understanding of site history, existing con-
ditions, and dynamics is needed for the design and
implementation of a successful management plan. The
process of site assessment is complex because of the
variability, but it is possible—although it may be expen-
sive—to obtain the information necessary to make
informed decisions. There always will be some uncer-
tainty, and you must determine what level of uncertainty
is acceptable. If one waits until all uncertainty has been
eliminated, then no decision ever will be made.
We believe that data gathering must focus on specific
needs. (As a scientist, this causes me great pain.) Data
gathering is not an end in itself; it must be process ori-
ented. If someone is going to gather data, then some-
one else must ask why, because everything is rooted in
a fundamental understanding. The manager must have
a fundamental understanding of the dynamics affecting
the transport and availability of the contaminants of
concern, and all the sampling is dictated by that
requirement.
Good site assessment results in minimum-cost pro-
jects that meet clean-up objectives and allow the imple-
mentation of optimal remediation schemes. It is the
foundation for all of the work we do. The committee
felt it was a very important part of the process.
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OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY REPORT
19
ADDRESSING TECHNOLOGIES
AND CONTROLS
Donald R Hayes
I am a faculty member in civil and environmental
engineering at the University of Utah. It is my job to
provide a brief overview of Chapter 5 of the report,
which addressed interim and long-term technologies
and controls. As we begin talking about technologies, I
want to reemphasize a statement made earlier: There is
no "silver bullet."
A nice thing about working on a report like this is
that we did not have to deal with day-to-day issues.
Frank Bohlen referred to this as the geopolitical con-
text. To some extent, the committee members were able
to look at things as if we were "emperors for a day." The
committee organized the technologies and controls into
categories, which are not perfect but are illustrative of
where each one fits: interim controls; in situ manage-
ment options; sediment removal and transport tech-
nologies; and ex situ management. To some degree,
these categories represent increasing complexity, and
one can anticipate increasing or decreasing risk in terms
of the end product.
Many options are available for managing contami-
nated sediments. Although actions such as deep ocean
dumping of contaminated sediments are illegal, I will
mention a multitude of other practical and possible tech-
nologies. As Dr. Bohlen pointed out, it is important to
remember that spatial variations within any single site
can be very dramatic. Therefore, the same answer may
not be the right answer for the entire site. When you
combine that variation with the number of options avail-
able, the result, in almost all cases, is a very complex
solution.
In my view, this suggests that a systems approach is
the only way to investigate the alternatives fairly.
Unfortunately, we do not always have quite enough
information to do that in the way we would like, but the
tools are still useful. I want to emphasize, as we go
through the various categories, that the applicability
(i.e., the number of applications) of a technology goes
down as the complexity increases, primarily because the
costs increase so dramatically.
As a committee, one of the first things we discussed
and concluded was that the nation cannot afford to treat
all sediments to a clean state, particularly because we may
not even know what "clean" is. Nor would this make
sense, because we seldom know what the end use is going
to be. That issue is beyond the focus of my remarks; how-
ever, it is certainly something to be concerned about—
trying to better define the real objective.
I will focus first on interim controls. Joe Zelibor men-
tioned the time frame from the beginning of a project to
the point when something really happens. If you have
been associated with these types of projects, then you
know it is a long time, and nothing happens in a hurry.
In this context, "fast track" is measured in years, and
decades are the norm. This gives rise to the rational use
of interim controls. If there is truly an ecological and bio-
logical impact occurring, then it is often necessary to
intercede and do something to reduce the risk associated
with the site while we are deciding what to do in the long
term; hence, the introduction of interim controls.
A number of examples can be cited from around the
country. An example of an administrative control is the
posting of a "no swimming" sign to keep people out of
an area. An example of a technological interim control
is the use of sediment traps to reduce additional conta-
mination or the addition of uncontaminated sediments
to an area. Yet another example is removal of hot spots.
If one spot is dramatically increasing the risk posed by
the entire contaminated area, then it may be necessary
to move faster and do something with a small portion of
the site, leaving the larger decision until later. Other
possibilities, such as temporary caps, have not been
thoroughly examined.
There may be other in situ methods that also could
reduce the risk. This is the first category of long-term
remediation technology that I will discuss. As USAGE
officials and others in this audience know, there are con-
taminated sediments in channels, and channels are
dredged on a regular basis. The most highly contami-
nated sites tend to be those that are not dredged and
may not necessarily impede navigation. In these cases, in
situ options are possible but—at least in my view—have
not been looked at very carefully or scientifically.
The committee discussed at length the option of nat-
ural recovery and the distinction between it and "no
action." Unfortunately, these options are too easily con-
fused. Some argue that natural recovery is a decision,
and along with that decision goes long-term monitoring
to make sure the decision was correct. It is an action
that says (a) the contaminants are there because they are
at the lowest-energy area in the environment, (b) they
are stable, (c) there is no evidence of ecological damage
from their presence, and (d) they should be monitored
to ensure they do not go anywhere and are not distrib-
uted by storms or other events. In some instances, this
may be the best option.
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20
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
If natural recovery is not an option or not the best
option, then in-place capping may be a possibility, using
some type of cover or cap or possibly in situ treatment.
There are a few examples of in situ treatment, which
involves adding various components to the sediments
that will cause the contaminants to be more tightly
bound and less bioavailable. There are concerns associ-
ated with this approach, including limited experience
and uncertainty with respect to the risk.
There are a variety of dredging alternatives.
Dredging is a proven technology that has been used
extensively. My work has focused on contaminant
release and resuspension and environmental impacts
during the dredging operation. In many cases, the
effects are far less than what may be expected. In gen-
eral, the cost to pick up and move sediments is low com-
pared to treatment cost; however, once you pick them
up, you have to do something with them, Previous
speakers touched on the issue of source control. One of
the strange things about sediments is that, once you pick
them up, you own them, whether you were the original
source of the contamination or not.
There are concerns about contaminant losses and
overall volume increases due to the addition of the
water. There are issues of accuracy and precision.
Reiterating what Dr. Bohlen said previously, there should
be some correspondence between the precision of the
site characterization and the precision at which we
require the dredge to remove sediment. There is concern
about overdredging, or taking sediments that are not
contaminated but, once removed, essentially become
defined as contaminated. There have been advances in
this area, particularly in Europe. Some new dredges have
been developed, such as bottom-crawling dredges, which
reduce overcutting of the bottom because of their poten-
tial for high accuracy and precision. In general, this is a
fairly well-developed science.
Once sediments are moved, something must be done
with them. Certainly the most prevalent technology is
ex situ containment. Contained aquatic disposal (CAD)
is a fairly new technology based on the concept that, if
we have to move sediment, then keep it in the environ-
ment the contaminants like, because they are probably
more stable there. Although CAD has been applied in a
few cases, it is still categorized as an emerging technol-
ogy. It is not widely accepted by the public as being stan-
dard practice; certainly there is a need to increase the
experience base and the data available on it.
On the other hand, confined disposal facilities
(CDFs) have been used for years and can be categorized
as proven technology. Although some people would
argue about the capability of a CDF to contain the con-
taminants, we know how to implement it. Not all sites
are necessarily designed for that purpose, but if that is
the choice, then it can be done. The real problem is that
CDFs are difficult to site—nobody wants one in the
backyard. On the positive side, CDFs are generally
affordable, or fairly inexpensive.
A wide array of ex situ treatment technologies is
being tested, and the state of proof is debatable. Very
few of these technologies have been proven in a
full-scale environment. Consequently, little is known
about what the real costs will be. "We have done lab tests,
bench tests, and pilot tests, and those data have been
extrapolated; however, it is not known what the costs
will be on a larger scale.
There are physical methods, chemical methods, and
biological methods. Bioremediation is an up-and-coming
area of interest that holds a lot of promise, but at present
the science is immature in terms of whether it provides a
true long-term solution. Physical methods are more
common and have been used in the mining industry for
a long time, but the costs are higher than most probably
would expect. More experience is needed to prove
whether some of these technologies; will really work.
They will be expensive because, at a minimum, thermo-
dynamic energy is required to remove the contaminants
from the sediment, and that costs money. It is doubtful
that a silver bullet can be found; more full-scale experi-
ence is needed, and concerns about disposing of the
residuals must be addressed.
I will close my remarks by focusing on the issue of
cost, which is perhaps the biggest problem we face.
Administrative interim controls, such as signs, are inex-
pensive relative to other options. There is less experi-
ence with technological interim controls; however,
some could be quite expensive, especially hot-spot
dredging. Moving on to long-term controls, cost esti-
mates for in situ management are largely guesses
because there is limited experience on which to base
them. Removal and transport costs probably fall in the
$10/yd3 ($13/m3) range.
Ex situ containment is expensive, ranging from $20
to $50/yd3 ($26 to $65/m3) However, it appears less
expensive when compared to the cost of ex situ treat-
ment options, which start at around $300/yd3
($392/m3) and can range as high as $l,000/yd3
($1307/m3). This is a dramatic difference; in the long
term, it suggests that, for large quantities of sediment,
there is little choice but to focus on removal and trans-
port and ex situ containment, with treatment applied to
the small quantities that are highly contaminated.
In closing, I want to emphasize that decision analysis
is an important tool because of the spatial variations and
the wide range of costs. Because of the costs, it is impor-
tant not to arbitrarily apply one solution to a very large
volume of sediment. Care must be taken to apply the
right solutions for the right portion of the area.
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Stakeholder Response to the Study Report
Thomas H. Wakeman III, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
John Haggard, General Electric Company
James Tripp, Environmental Defense Fund
Tony MacDonald, Coastal States Organization
Konrad Liegel, Preston, Gates & Ellis
NOTE: The National Research Council (NRG) study report stressed the importance of partnerships among stakeholders. It was
evident to the committee that, if progress is going to be made in dealing effectively with contaminated sediments, then it will be
with the participation and cooperation of all parties involved in and affected by the issues. The decisions must be made together.
Accordingly, a distinguished panel of representative stakeholders was invited to offer different perspectives on the NRC report.
Each panelist presented opening remarks to stimulate interaction with the audience.
PORT PERSPECTIVE
Thomas H. Wakeman III
The opening speakers mentioned two NRC
reports. I want to mention an earlier report pro-
duced by the NRC in 1985, Dredging Coastal
Ports: An Assessment of the Issues.* This report essen-
tially stated that there is a need for dredging, that port
channels will get deeper, and that there are contami-
nated sediments. The second NRC report, released in
1989, confirmed the presence of contaminated sedi-
ments and the need to do something about them. The
third report was issued in 1997, again stating that there
are contaminated sediments in our ports, harbors, and
other waterways, and we need to do something about
them. I am afraid that, in five years or so, there will be
yet another report that says we have contaminated sed-
iments in our ports and harbors and we should do
something about them.
I want to begin by reiterating a comment made ear-
* Dredging Coastal Ports: An Assessment of the Issues.
National Academy Press, Washington, B.C. 1989. Available
via the Internet at http://www.nap.edu/readingroom, or call
the National Academy Press (1-800-624-6242).
lier by Spyros Pavlou, who said we need to have clearly
defined and mutually agreed-on objectives that are
aimed at reduction of risk, reuse of material, and sus-
tainable management. The problem is that we do not
agree on the objectives.
For the port community, the objective is to maintain
our business, which is providing a service in a way that
ensures a return on our investment. Ports are generally
not the generators of the contaminants that they often
find themselves forced to deal with, but they do need
some type of regulatory certainty. They need adequate
technical ways to deal with these problems, and they
need help with the enormous expense of removing these
contaminant burdens from channels and waterways.
The most recent NRC report looked at the three
areas covered before. Among other things, I noted that
there are nine conclusions and four recommendations
regarding decision making, which means the committee
clearly considered this issue. There are 12 conclusions
and five recommendations related to technologies,
which means there was something to report on. There
were five conclusions and five recommendations with
respect to project implementation, which suggests very
little has been done, and that does not help the port
industry at all. From the perspective of the port indus-
try, talk is delay—too often the solution is another
meeting to talk about the problems instead of action to
do something about them.
2 1
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
The study concluded that three key things needed to
be done. The first is to forge partnerships and agree on
where you are going. Here in Washington, the greatest
bureaucracy in the world, you want to ask the federal
agencies to partner? Recently, there was a maritime lis-
tening session hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard, Maritime
Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE),
and a variety of other folks, but not the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). Does the EPA not believe, or do
others not recognize, that the EPA is part of the maritime
industry? Federal agencies, particularly the EPA, need to
learn how to partner within their own organization as
well as with other agencies.
I want us to consider laws, regulations, and practices.
Practices are what I want to see, because I like to see
action. I am tired of having the environment compart-
mentalized. That was fine when we were writing laws in
the late 1960s and early 1970s that said, essentially, "We
will deal with air, we will deal with water, we will deal
with contaminated sediments." We must recognize that
it is a closed system. If you take something out of here
and put it over there, then it is still here with us. If it
comes off the China coast, then it will be here sooner or
later. It is a closed system. We need to work together to
look at the risks to the system, to ourselves, and to other
critters that share the planet.
We need to have flexible, practical ways of dealing
with these problems in my industry, because that will
give us the opportunity to gauge the business risk of
getting involved. As someone said earlier, "You touch
it, you own it." Nowhere is this more true than in the
port industry. I have about two floors of lawyers telling
me, "Don't touch it." That is of no help if I have ship
coming in drawing 47 ft (14 m). Nor is it cheap.
What does the port industry need? We need to agree
on the objectives of this work. More reports will not
cut it, at least not for me. We need to identify what the
risks are to the best of our abilities, decide what it will
cost to meet those risks, and then decide on what the
benefits are, because someone is going to pay. I would
prefer to see the people who benefit from the activity
pay for it, but those who created the problem also
should pay a share. The idea that the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey is the source of all goodness
and cream is over. Partnering, to me, is not coming in
with your hand out saying, "Give me money." The fed-
eral and state governments are also players, along with
the ports.
I want to see action. Demonstration projects are nec-
essary because this is a trial-and-error type of reality.
The certainties of how contaminants partition in bio-
logical organisms and ultimately end up in humans is
really a stochastic process. There is no deterministic
equation of which I am aware that tells me exactly how
much mercury I will get. There is also a need to think
about the recycling component. Sediment comes from
the mountains down into the bays, and if we do not
move it, then we become a meadow instead of a harbor.
Let us think about how to recycle it, the way any other
industry now looks at recycling technologies.
In my view, developing partnerships is also a trial-
and-error process. We do not have adequate models for
how to develop partnerships. Mathematical equations
are lousy at predicting what you will do, because we are
value-driven creatures. Maybe a stochastic model will
work, but it is still not deterministic.
There is a need to consider new laws and regula-
tions that are based on risk. This is a tough challenge,
particularly when you tell someone there is a one-in-
a-million chance they will get cancer. Of course, the
family that had the one-in-80-million chance of get-
ting $100 million is very happy right now. I also want
us to stop compartmentalizing the world and begin
writing and applying legislation in a fashion that gets
the maximum return on investment instead of the best
press.
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
John Haggard
I have been involved in a number of "meat and
potatoes" sediment problems and may have a dif-
ferent perspective than other presenters do. I
want to thank the NRC for convening this sympo-
sium on what is a very important topic from many
different perspectives. The 1997 NRC report pro-
vides a thorough, concise, and thoughtful review of
what we as a country are doing to deal with contam-
inants in sediments within our waterways. It also lays
a foundation, based on risk management principles,
for evaluating objectively both the potential risks that
may be posed by contaminated sediments and the
methods of controlling those risks.
In reviewing the charge to the panelists, Frank
Bohlen asked that we offer our unique perspectives as
stakeholders and try to comment on the report's con-
clusions and recommendations. He also encouraged us
to "get the juices flowing" by not avoiding controversy.
I will try my best to do just that.
My perspective is that of an industrial company trying
to manage sites where there are contaminated sediments
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STAKEHOLDER RESPONSE TO THE STUDY REPORT
23
that have been attributed to us and are derived primarily
from past operations. The fact that these problems are a
result of past practices as opposed to post-1970 practices
is an important distinction that other stakeholders need
to understand. We cannot turn back time.
My comments will focus on issues related to the man-
agement of contaminated sediments from the perspec-
tive of environmental restoration, which differs from
that of port management and navigation. In my view,
the unifying principle embodied in the NRG report is
that risk analysis should guide the management deci-
sion, and I firmly agree with this. This is sound policy
that allows the maximum use of existing science and
allows site-specific information to guide decisions. This
should be the basis of how we manage sites.
It now appears that not only the NRC, but also the
EPA, in its recently issued contaminated sediment strat-
egy, advocates this approach for managing contami-
nated sediments. There is an important concept that
seems unique to sediment sites: The remedy that we
impose on these sites can have a significant impact on
the very things we are trying to protect. As a result, we
must have a full accounting of both the benefits that
might accrue from our action as well as of the impacts
of our action. From my perspective, this is extremely
encouraging and forms a basis of what should be a
sound national policy.
I would like to be more specific about what I believe
it means to use risk assessment in a remedial decision-
making process for contaminated sediment sites. For
many sites containing contaminants and sediments, the
management decisions and sometimes confusing phrase-
ology can be collapsed into a small number of simple
questions—"simple" only in that they embody the
risk-based concepts in a small number of fairly direct
questions. If we can answer these questions for a given
site, then risk managers can make reasoned decisions
about what to do. The problem, as pointed out earlier,
is the great difficulty of answering these questions at
times. It is hard work, but in the end it is worth the
effort.
The first question is: What are we trying to do? What
are we concerned about? What is the end point we are
trying to protect? This should be a risk-based end point.
It should be one that has a fairly direct relationship to
the protection of human health and a population of eco-
logical receptors. The second question relates to the rec-
ognized fact that natural recovery is occurring at many
of these sites. The question is: If we let the natural
recovery processes continue, then how long will it take
to reach the risk-based end points that we are trying to
achieve?
The third and fundamental question is: Is there
anything we can do to materially accelerate the
achievement of those standards? This is critically
important to the process. When we look at questions
two and three, we are making time into a decision
point. No matter what we do, we will not reduce the
risk to acceptable levels at any of these sites by tomor-
row. Interim actions may be taken, but there will be
an element of time. Accordingly, if we take an action
and reduce the length of time required to achieve
these standards by a year at a tremendous cost, will it
be worth it? What if it reduces the time by 100 years?
That may be worth it. We never will see a real issue
that is so black and white, but time becomes a critical
management decision point.
The next two questions deal with rare events, such as
floods. In situations where, even with natural recovery,
there is concern about a traumatic event setting back the
clock, such events have to be considered. More impor-
tantly, you have to consider whether you can do any-
thing about it. It is appropriate to worry about the
problem, but you also have to figure out what to do
about it. When we look at sites where this issue has
come up, we often find there is no evaluation. It is like
having a 1,000-pound gorilla in a closet and hoping it
does not escape. We need to start using what we know
about sediments—both cohesive and noncohesive sedi-
ments—in terms of how they move and how that affects
the impact of an extreme event. We have the technology
to do that and should use it.
Lastly, we need to look at the impacts of these pro-
jects. How do we balance them? How do we account
for them? We will see movement of material from one
compartment to another as a result of actions, and we
will see direct impacts on aquatic systems; all of these
impacts must be accounted for.
There is a growing consensus, as evidenced by the
EPA sediment strategy and the NRC report, that risk
analysis should guide remedial decision making. The
state of practice is basically out of step with this. As a
result, there is an inability to address the key risk ques-
tions and determine whether a remedy was appropriate,
and, more importantly, whether the expenditure of
resources is having any real benefit at all.
Over the last five years, we have undertaken a sys-
tematic review of projects around the United States in
which contaminated sediments were evaluated for
removal. We found a number of interesting things. One,
there has been relatively little technical and regulatory
experience with the evaluation of contaminated sedi-
ment sites, particularly with risk-based concepts.
However, there have been about 20 reasonably sized
projects from which we can draw conclusions.
Fundamentally, we are finding that, when remedial
actions have been selected, it is almost impossible to
figure out why they were selected. What is the rela-
tionship between what we are doing and the risk we are
trying to control? Ultimately, was there any hope at the
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24
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
start that the chosen remedy actually would control the
problem? Trying to reconstruct this process becomes
very frustrating.
In some cases, projects appear to be based on the mis-
guided belief that the removal of a mass of contaminants
will translate directly into the control of risk. This is a
critical assumption, the validity of which is not
addressed by the proponents of mass removal. It often
is couched in, or dressed up as, the term "hot spot."
When I hear, "We are going to deal with hot spots," I
instantly translate that to: "This is a mass-removal pro-
ject." The concept of hot spots needs to be dissected
into risk, and that seldom happens.
As discussed earlier, the questions we must address to
determine the proper course of action are relatively sim-
ple. The process of doing it, however, is hard work. This
work seldom is done, and this is wrong. We also found
that valuable project information seldom is generated or
made available. Project documentation is extremely
poor, making the independent evaluation of projects
nearly impossible. More importantly, we are losing the
opportunity to learn from experiences at other sites.
What types of remedial approaches are working? Are
we successfully controlling risks? What impacts accrue
because of these remedies? What are the real costs?
How long did it take, versus how long we thought it
would take, to do these projects? The sharing of best
practices is simply not occurring.
Given the potential social, public health, economic,
and ecological concerns that arise during the remedia-
tion of these sites, it is strongly recommended that an
independent policy and technical evaluation be under-
taken of sediment sites for which remedial decisions
have been made, to ensure that the use of risk methods
is consistent with the NRG and EPA approach. Where
remediation has occurred, it should be evaluated to
determine what was learned about the capabilities and
limitations associated with various techniques. If we
cannot learn from our success, then we will have to
learn from our failures, and we are missing a golden
opportunity here.
Although I strongly agree with most of the conclu-
sions and recommendations of the NRG report, there is
one with which I strongly disagree. The report recom-
mends, in the interests of economics and fairness, that
the polluter pay and that ports be given more leverage
over the polluter. Although this concept initially may
appear to be appealing, I suggest that it is not necessar-
ily fair; moreover, as a result of the disagreements that
would occur, it would not result in a timely resolution
of the problems facing our ports. This brings me back to
the fact that most of the problems we have as an indus-
try are based on historical actions that were legal at the
time, performed and often done with government
acceptance and knowledge.
In many ports, there are multiple contaminants and
multiple sources of contaminants. The allocation of
responsibility in these situations would be extremely com-
plex and result in endless controversy, particularly, as is
often the case, when a few high-profile industrial sources
are attacked and the more-difficult-to-find, yet often more
pervasive, sources are let go. Contaminants from sewage
outflows are one good example. The fairness issue is at the
center of this controversy.
The standards that ports are required to meet to man-
age or dispose of their dredged material are extremely
stringent. The relationship between these risks and rea-
sonable science is elusive. If the problems of ports are to
be managed efficiently and in a cost-effective manner, as
they need to be, then trying to bring actions against
industries for long-abandoned practices will not be an
effective solution. It will not be fair from the perspective
of the industrial stakeholders, because we will be asked
to foot the bill for an action over which we have little
control. This will generate controversy, and it will not
result in a timely solution to the problems.
In summary, I think the NRG report provides a sound
policy framework for maximum use of the developed
science and efficient allocation of resources. However,
the state of practice is markedly out of step with the
ideal. Too much emphasis is placed on mass removal
versus risk control and on simplistic analysis. To
advance the field, a review should be conducted by an
organization independent of those performing projects,
and changes should be implemented to ensure that the
expenditure of our resources has a real benefit.
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STAKEHOLDER RESPONSE TO THE STUDY REPORT
25
ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVE
James Tripp
I think this is a terrific report. As a lawyer, I found
Appendix B of the NRC Report particularly worth
while, in that it provides a very good, fairly detailed
discussion of all the laws and regulations that apply to
this complex array of problems.
I want to emphasize a few key points, the first being
source control. The report discusses the importance of
source control, not just the technology of decontamina-
tion. Source control, in this day and age, is absolutely
vital. There may be historical quantities of contaminants
in sediments that predate the implementation or adop-
tion of a number of today's environmental laws, but
that is no excuse for allowing conservative contaminants
such as organic chemicals and metals to be discharged
continuously in an area where they will find their way
into our sediments.
In the New York area, there is a committee on sedi-
ment contaminant reduction. I chair the Dredged
Material Management Integration Work Group, which
has been highly supportive of the effort to get both New
York and New Jersey—states that have a profound inter-
est in the economics of the port—to commit more
resources and pay more attention to the ongoing
sources of contaminants.
In general, the environmental laws that govern
sources of contaminants, the Clean Water Act (CWA)
and Clean Air Act, for example, have not been used
effectively to require monitoring and removal of low
concentrations of conservative contaminants, which,
over time, can build up in sediments. The focus tends to
be more on the dispersion of concentrations, an
approach that is not terribly useful when it comes to
sediments. The economic importance of ports should be
a motivating factor to get regulatory agencies more
focused on regulating some of these contaminants.
My second point: Are there, in fact, viable technolo-
gies? Over the past three years or more, under the Water
Resources Development Act and with support from the
EPA, USAGE, and Department of Energy, we in the New
York area have carried out a big effort costing many mil-
lions of dollars to test—at bench scale and then at pilot
scale—a number of decontamination technologies.
Some of these are, or should be, very effective. The
question is what will happen at the operational scale,
and what will it cost?
Earlier, it was suggested that some of these tech-
nologies could cost hundreds of dollars, up to thou-
sands of dollars, per cubic yard. I am a lawyer and not
in charge of this program, but I do not believe the cost
of doing state-of-the-art decontamination should be
that expensive. I hope that these costs, if we could get
some of these technologies off the ground, would be
more in the range of $50 to $100/yd3 ($65 to
$130/m3). The more basic question is how to get the
technologies to an operational scale to see whether or
not they can be effective.
The next issue relates to what John Haggard dis-
cussed. In many harbors (and this is certainly true of
New York), upstream sources contribute to contami-
nation in the port. There are polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs) in the upper Hudson River. There
are dioxins and a variety of other organic contami-
nants and metals in the lower Passaic River. There are
polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the Arthur Kill.
Because we just heard about PCBs, let me approach
the question from a somewhat different point of view.
I agree that there is a need for risk assessment, but
whose risk? What about the distributive effects of
risk? General Electric Company (GE) may say, "Why
should we bear the risk?" Who, in fact, is bearing the
risk today?
We heard from Tom Wakeman of the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey about the cost of removal
and containment of PCB-laden sediments. For your
information, the PCBs in the sediments in the lower
estuary may be one-fiftieth of the level in some hot
spots in the upper Hudson River, but those sediments
flunk the ocean-dumping protocols. They have to be
properly contained somewhere at a cost of perhaps $40
to $50/yd3 ($52 to $65/m3). Who pays? Who is respon-
sible? Who bears that risk in terms of cost? In terms of
the environment, should the ocean bear that risk? In
terms of public health, if these contaminants are dis-
posed of in upland areas, then what communities will
be affected?
If you look at a harbor and can identify historical
sources of contaminants in higher concentrations
upstream—which, the law of gravity tells you, in due
time will find their way down to an estuary and affect
navigation, dredging, and fisheries—then one can ask
this broad question: Would it be more cost-effective or
cheaper in the long run (if we look ahead 10 to 50
years) to engage in focused, perhaps expensive, near-
term efforts to reduce contaminant levels in these
upstream hot spots? Would it be cheaper and more
effective to do that rather than wait over a period of
years or decades for those contaminants to wend their
way down to the estuary, where the port authority, state,
shippers, or public taxpayers will have to pay high costs
to remove and contain those materials?
This is a legitimate question. How can we determine
realistically whether it would be more cost-effective, or
whether there are better remedial alternatives for deal-
ing with upstream sources of PCBs in the Hudson
River, dioxin in the lower Passaic River, or metals and
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26
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
PAHs and those types of things? One approach is to let
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup,
and Liability Act (Superfund) wend its way through the
regulatory maze.
But another approach, now that we have some good
pilot studies on decontamination technologies, would
be to put out a request for proposals and ask the rele-
vant firms, some of which may be represented here at
the symposium, what they would suggest we do with
these sites up the Hudson River where there are signifi-
cant concentrations of PCBs in the sediments. Do you
have a technology or process for removing or destroy-
ing those PCBs? Can you do this without transporting
that sediment long distances and imposing on a com-
munity by putting that contaminated sediment in its
landfill? Is there a technology, what will it cost, what
would you propose, and what would this do in terms of
reducing the downstream transport of PCBs over a
period of years?
Rather than setting up another independent panel of
experts, we should go to private-sector companies that
have developed these technologies and know about the
costs and benefits (because they are for-profit firms),
and we should ask these questions and see what the
answers are. If the answers are unsatisfactory, then
maybe we cannot do anything; however, if we cannot
do anything, then the question still remains as to who
should bear the cost.
The incremental cost of disposing of contaminated
dredged material in New York Harbor—the cost may be
similar in other harbors—is on the order of $35 to
$50/yd3 ($46 to $65/m3). Multiplying 3 million to 4
million yd3/year (2 million to 3 million m3/year) by
$40/yd3 ($52/m3) or more is $120 million to $150 mil-
lion—a huge cost. The question posed earlier by Tom
Wakeman was who bears that cost? Should upstream
industrial polluters—who allowed, and profited from,
the discharge of contaminants—have to share in that
cost? That seems a reasonable question. Otherwise who
does pay? The shippers, port authority, environmental
community, various land-based communities, and
countless others.
I think one can reasonably say that a firm like GE
should pay for one-fifth to one-sixth of that total cost. I
cannot explain where that figure comes from, but it is a
modest and discernible amount between $20 million
and $25 million/year. It is a contribution to a cost that
is being borne today. This is not an abstract cost, but
rather a real-world cost that the states, federal govern-
ment, and cities of New York, Newark, Elizabeth, and
others are struggling to find a way to pay.
As I indicated earlier, the report also discusses the
regulatory framework. The discussion of federal and
state laws that apply to water is more extensive and,
in a way, more satisfactory than is the discussion of
federal and state laws and regulations that apply to
land. It is true that dredged material comes from
water, but the disposal sites for contaminated dredged
material can be in bays (covered by the CWA; the
Ocean Dumping Act; or the Marine Protection,
Research and Sanctuaries Act) or upland sites, where
the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act (RCRA)
comes into play. But RCRA is not a very satisfactory
statute in terms of dealing with on-land disposal of
contaminated dredged material.
New York and New Jersey are among the states that
have had to struggle with what types of standards
should apply. What has happened, to some degree, is
that the upland disposal sites have tended to be located
in proximity to low-income communities, which brings
us back to the question about risk. Who bears the risk
when contaminants get handed around? In terms of the
regulatory framework, we need to figure out a way of
developing standards that can apply in some compara-
ble sense to upland disposal as well as to in-water dis-
posal. When there has been talk about disposing of
contaminated material in upland sites, we suddenly start
hearing about PCB (or some other type of organic
chemical) volatilization, which simply was not an issue
with in-water disposal.
REGULATORY PERSPECTIVE
Tony MacDonald
I enjoy this opportunity to get the discussion going,
because that suggests I do not necessarily need to be
fair or even accurate. Accordingly, I am prepared to
throw out some thoughts and ideas. If you find my com-
ments a little schizophrenic, it is because I read this
report from two different perspectives. When it was
being written, I was special counsel and director of envi-
ronmental affairs at the American Association of Port
Authorities. I am currently the director of the Coastal
States Organization, representing governors of coastal
states, including the Great Lakes states and U.S. island
territories, on natural resource management issues and
policy matters here in Washington, D.C. As you might
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STAKEHOLDER RESPONSE TO THE STUDY REPORT
27
imagine, that makes for a mixed perspective. Some of
the things I say may annoy my former employers and
colleagues.
I would like to start out by saying this is a great panel.
Joe Zelibor, Frank Bohlen, and Don Hayes did a great
job of outlining the key issues to be addressed over the
next two days, and my fellow panelists have offered their
perspectives on these issues. Tom Wakeman wants
action, and he wants it now—not surprising coming
from someone who has spent most of his life looking at
San Francisco Bay and New York Harbor. John Haggard
wants more and better information and a better under-
standing of the problems; a cynic might interpret that as
wanting inaction.
Jim Tripp, who represents the environmental com-
munity and has been involved in these issues for a long
time, wants a little bit of everything. He definitely wants
the stakeholders to be involved, as he represents a very
broad public. He definitely wants source control; he
definitely thinks that technology may be less expensive
than it seems to be. He thinks these costs are high, so he
is sympathetic with the ports, but he certainly thinks
someone (such as John, perhaps) might want to step up
and bear some of those costs.
I am here representing the states. In a generic sense,
my reaction is to say, "I am not quite sure what I want.
You guys work it out." Therein is the nub of the prob-
lem, and perhaps that is why you will get federal reac-
tions and will continue to get these reports. I will
respond to the report in part from a state perspective
and in part based on my own personal views.
I think Tom's call for action is great; in general, there
is a lot of support for that. The report supports some of
his objectives. Although it covers some very broad issues,
it is actually a narrow report. It does support and give a
scientific imprimatur to some issues that the port com-
munity has been espousing for a long time, most notably
a greater recognition that source control is important;
that in situ management does make sense in many cases
and is scientifically and environmentally defensible; and
that technology, although we want to look at it, is not a
magic wand that will make things go away.' One needs to
look at this report in the context of when it was devel-
oped and the types of problems it was trying to solve.
You also need to look at the introduction to the report.
It was enlightening to listen to Frank Bohlen's dis-
cussion of site assessment issues. This was not a report
about assessment issues, and it specifically says that it
will not address spatial and temporal variations, the def-
inition of clean versus contaminated, and the compari-
son of bioavailability-based to concentration-based
decision making. These issues are all beyond the scope
of this report, but they are exactly the types of things
that most of the folks here are paid to do on a day-to-
day basis. They will continue to be the grist for dis-
agreement among the stakeholder groups. Therefore,
we need to address those issues to a degree, but we also
need to recognize a couple of other things.
The recommendations in this report are the types of
things around which it is easy for people to rally, even
though they may interpret them differently. It is not
unlike our support for sustainable economic develop-
ment or sustainable environmental protection, because
we all disagree on what those terms mean. We often pre-
tend that we agree on risk-based assessments, but it is a
very complicated business. Are we talking about com-
parative risks or scientific risks? Are we talking about
what I am most interested in within the context of deci-
sion making—perhaps helping Tom with a decision or
John with a decision (or perhaps indecision)?
There is more to risk communication. What do we
know that will help the most important stakeholder
(i.e., the public) better understand why we take a par-
ticular course of action? How do we engage people,
such as governors and other state officials, to get more
involved? Once we have a better assessment of that, we
still may not agree on outcomes, but we are more likely
to agree that this is the universe within which we will
make decisions. Until we reach that point, I doubt there
will be significant progress in this area. I also would like
to point out that the people in the audience today have
much more knowledge about these issues than even the
panelists, and certainly more knowledge about these
issues than either the public or the decisionmakers.
In my view, what Dr. Bohlen called the "geopolitical
world" is, in many cases, the world in which the deci-
sions get made. In that context, there is a misunder-
standing or lack of understanding about the extent to
which science, as some of you apply it in your work set-
ting, is comfortable with uncertainty. From a geopoliti-
cal viewpoint, science is used to provide certainty for
decision making. This is a fundamental philosophical
difference that is not addressed by decision makers.
They look to you, particularly those of you who are sci-
entists, to provide the "hard science" so that they can
make decisions. Meanwhile, you say, "Well, I am not
sure, but this is the best we can do with a particular level
of statistical confidence." Most people do not care
about the details of quality assurance and quality con-
trol, although they want you to have it. My point is that,
from the perspective of a state entity, I think we need to
address these geopolitical issues up front and recognize
both the limits of science and the long-term possibilities.
We need to move toward action.
In my view, what is not addressed in this report—and
must be recognized as we discuss the recommendations—
is the assortment of institutional issues that underlie the
decisions. There are real institutional problems, such as
the ongoing issue of the respective roles of the USAGE
and EPA with regard to the management of dredged
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
material. There are fundamental issues of institutional
commitments, ethics, and other things that I think will be
more of a problem in the long run. We can discuss the sci-
entific and public policy legitimacy of cost-benefit analy-
sis as it relates to decision making, but we also must
recognize that this type of analysis is very different from
the USAGE'S internal cost-benefit considerations affecting
whether and how it moves forward with projects. We
must consider how the USAGE identifies a viable disposal
alternative using its internal cost-benefit analysis
approach, which is a mind-numbing "exercise.
There is a failure to recognize what problem we are
trying to manage. What is it that we are trying to man-
age? Institutionally, the USAGE perceives itself more as
managing a program, which is dredging harbors and
channels. The USAGE does not necessarily view this as a
problem specifically of managing the sediments; the pro-
grammatic approach is much broader. You find within
USAGE regulations a great deal of forced consistency
among the various programs, including inland naviga-
tion and flood control, which also creates institutional
constraints to solving this problem.
Similarly, the EPA traditionally has focused on man-
aging problems through a regulatory perspective,
although increasingly the EPA is divided against itself. It
is adopting the rhetoric of watershed management plan-
ning, the rhetoric of working with the states on perfor-
mance partnership agreements to establish
cross-programmatic priorities to adopt, at least in a
generic sense, some of the recommendations that Tom
Wakeman mentioned about environmental controls. Yet
the EPA mission is fundamentally regulatory, and most
agreements with the EPA have a clause at the end that
says, "This is not to give up any of our traditional regu-
latory authority, but thank you very much for working
with us on these issues." These things will continue to
plague us as we try to address these issues.
I will conclude by making a couple of general obser-
vations. First, with regard to the states, I am paid to say
that the states do not perceive themselves as "just
another stakeholder." We have a very significant role to
play, not only in regulating but also in trying to manage
these problems and respond to the public concerns
about these problems. This point is not recognized in the
report, which contains inaccurate descriptions of the
states' role with regard to water quality certification and
particularly state consistency determinations , under
coastal zone management programs. From the outset,
the report takes a federal and academic perspective. I
think the decisions on management of sediment, conta-
minated or otherwise, will be made—and are being
made—most effectively at the local level by local deci-
sion makers, including state and county governments.
For example, the Great Lakes region is way out in front
in addressing some of these issues on a regional and
state-specific basis. That is where the action will be, and
I urge you, when looking at these recommendations, to
think in terms of how you can facilitate decisions at that
level.
Second, I often see diagrams of the myriad environ-
mental and state controls and regulations and so forth,
accompanied by statements about what a problem that is.
Presented like that, this issue becomes like the "simple"
questions John Haggard presented earlier. They are sim-
ple as he presents them, because he knows what answers
he wants. When you present those issues in a certain way,
they are not complex. But we get what we want; we get
what we ask for. At the moment, that is still what the pub-
lic wants. They want to be able to respond to specific
problems, and those regulations are probably the best
way to do that.
Despite all the discussion about wanting to respond
to things in more broad-based ways, I think our deci-
sions will continue to be driven by media specifics,
storm surges, and so forth. We must recognize that real-
ity and deal with it in the short term while also coming
up with a long-term scientific and regulatory approach
to address those issues. In the long term, that is the real
issue for the environment. The real public health issue is
the insidious, creeping nature of these problems.
LEGAL PERSPECTIVE
Konrad Liegel
I am a practitioner in Seattle, Washington, EPA
Region 10, a region of the United States that has
had, for more than a decade, a comprehensive, joint
federal/state program for managing contaminated sedi-
ments. We in the Northwest like to think we are on the
cutting edge of sediment management, whereas others
around the country may feel that we are far more on the
lunatic fringe.
From the previous members of the panel, we know
that contaminated sediments profoundly affect ports,
municipalities, industries, and transportation entities
that have to work with sediments as part of dredging,
source control, natural resource damage, and environ-
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STAKEHOLDER RESPONSE TO THE STUDY REPORT
mental cleanup activities. As an environmental attorney,
the challenge for me is to advise you in how to shepherd
a project through regulatory approvals so that it remains
cost-effective, environmentally sound, timely (the
biggest challenge of all), and fair with respect to your
actual contribution to the contamination.
Like the other panel members, I am in general agree-
ment with the conclusions and recommendations of the
report, in particular the importance of the USAGE and
EPA continuing to work together to develop consistent
methodologies to assess, evaluate, and manage sedi-
ments. There should be no difference between a dredg-
ing action and an environmental cleanup with respect to
the particular sediments in question. I also want to
emphasize, as Frank Bohlen did, the importance of
involving relevant stakeholders at the beginning and
throughout the process.
I want to digress for a moment to mention a project
that a client started about 10 years ago. The client was
a pulp and paper company, which had just purchased a
plant in a Superfund region near Tacoma, Washington.
The company had put in source control measures and
was thinking about cleanup. The record of decision
(ROD) for the Superfund site was about a year away.
The company determined that the best approach for
the contaminated material was to leave it in place,
move some additional contaminated material to that
place (it was a depositional environment), and then cap
it, bringing it up to the intertidal elevations to produce
a habitat. The agencies were uncertain, given the con-
cerns about in situ capping and the fact that an ROD
was on its way. Because the company had approached
the environmental community early on and discussed
the project, the environmental folks weighed in at the
last moment, saying that, in this case, they believed the
proposed remedy would produce habitat benefits and
that action at this time was more important than inac-
tion. The cleanup went forward. After 10 years of
extensive monitoring, they have proven to be right.
The contaminants have stayed in place, and the habitat
is flourishing.
I want to call particular attention to the portion of
the report focusing on beneficial reuse of sediments. In
this case, the pulp and paper company built up habitat
in that area while managing the sediment. I believe that
the report, with its emphasis on risk management, fails
to give sufficient recognition to the role of habitat.
Sediments are habitat, as we well know, and in our
region of the country—maybe because of habitat con-
siderations, maybe because we are about to have a list-
ing of Chinook salmon—habitat considerations are
invariably complicated and delay remediation efforts.
In considering how to deal with contaminated sedi-
ments, there needs to be an increased focus on the role
of sediments as habitat.
One important conclusion that I derive from this
issue is also deserving of more emphasis in the report.
Specifically, decision making and project implementa-
tion would be improved if the goals of land use and
resource management planning were combined more
often to develop project plans that are both environ-
mentally sound and economically attractive. What fol-
lows from this perspective that I feel should be added to
a strategy for addressing contaminated sediments? First,
there should be an emphasis on source control, because
sediments, as we know, are a sink for contaminants.
When it comes to sediments, an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure, a reality that is given insufficient
emphasis. Second, it is important to allow for natural
attenuation. Sediments keep building up in certain
regions, and that means, through the processes of nat-
ural recovery and natural attenuation, the risk posed by
contaminated sediments will diminish with time if they
are left in place. Third, there should be a focus on ben-
eficial reuse. When dredging, we should use this mater-
ial for something rather than simply disposing of it.
Fourth, we should look for ways to integrate cleanup
with habitat restoration and industrial development, so
that a project will get the most bang for the buck.
Because I am supposed to provide the legal per-
spective, I will conclude with a few observations on
needed regulatory reform. There is not so much a need
to legislate wholesale changes to existing laws as there
is a need—and this was recognized in the report—to
promote policies that interpret regulatory requirements
based on the intent of the underlying laws. What do I
mean by this? First, when it comes to Superfund, it is
important to view in-place capping as a permanent
control under certain circumstances. My earlier exam-
ple of the pulp and paper company shows that, in cer-
tain instances, in-place capping can be a long-term,
permanent solution that also has important habitat
benefits.
Second, with respect to Section 404 of the CWA,
although there is an emphasis on selecting the practica-
ble alternative that has the least in-water effect, there is
also an element of the 404(b)(l) analysis that is not
looked at much. While you focus on the least damaging
alternative with respect to the aquatic environment,
you also should consider the environmental conse-
quences of other practicable alternatives, so that, in the
end, you look not only at the risk but also at the costs
and benefits associated with all of those alternatives.
Third, as I mentioned before, we should use the laws
to encourage projects that integrate sediment remedia-
tion, habitat restoration, and industrial redevelopment.
Fourth, building on a point that Frank Bohlen made ear-
lier, it is important to encourage the development of
regional approaches to the management of contami-
nated sediments, because the needs and the dynamics in
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30
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
different regions are different. Through that process, we
can allow for the development of consistent federal and
state approaches to contaminated sediments rather than
settling for conflicts among federal, state, and local
approaches.
Finally, I will weigh in on the debate of who is
responsible and who should bear the risk. I think we
need to work toward no longer making ports a target of
opportunity when it comes to sediment remediation.
When it comes to dredging, this means confining the
analysis of impacts to the dredging prism targeted by the
ports; facilitating, in the case of Superfund or even in
CWA Section 404, the ability to institute cost-recovery
actions so that the costs are allocated fairly between the
ports and the upstream dischargers; and looking at
things in a watershed context and in a source-control
context, so that—perhaps through the process of total
maximum daily loads or the like, as indicated in the
report—there is a means of progressively limiting the
contribution of contaminants from upstream sources.
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Technologies and Research and Development
Case Studies
Roundtable Discussion
Breakout Discussions
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CASE STUDY
Acoustic Techniques for Mapping the
Distribution of Contaminated Sediments
David D. Caulfield, Caulfield Engineering
I want to begin by stating that the committee did an
excellent job on the National Research Council
(NRC) report. Earlier, everyone was talking about
site-specific issues, which I also will address. I want to
emphasize that I started my professional life as an engi-
neer. Fortunately, someone twisted my arm and put me
in the U.S. Navy as a civilian for 10 or 15 years, an asso-
ciation that I have continued. The Navy is the key rea-
son why I am here today. I also want to point out that,
in discussions and presentations such as those at this
symposium, you always hear about the need for action.
I will begin with the technical aspects of the case
study. First, a comparison. Say that someone has built a
building on a particular site. The building has a sewer
plant and bathrooms in it. There is a whole pile of codes
and standards that people use when they build build-
ings. Unfortunately, in our site surveying and in the way
we currently handle sediments issues, there are no
codes. But there is a very simple solution. There is the
American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the
association for standards in the United States. There is a
guideline for writing codes.
I will talk about one example of the need for site sur-
veying standards. I am sure that similar types of stan-
dards could be converted for coring and chemical
analysis. This might resolve many of the questions we are
talking about today, such as who is to blame, where we
should put the material, and so on, because then we
would be talking about facts with which everyone agrees.
The history of this case study dates back to the late
1950s, when the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution staff started doing research for the Navy on
building the first subbottom profilers, which were
designed for mapping bottom-bound sonar systems. At
the Naval Research and Development Center in San
Diego, Edwin L. Hamilton—who in 1960 had a budget
of $250 million, which makes what we are doing today
look quite small—had the task to map the bottom of the
oceans for their acoustic response and then relate this to
the physical properties of the bottom—namely the grain
size, density, and bulk modulus. He found some general
engineering trends and devised a way to categorize the
oceans. It worked very well—so well that it has been
used now for about 30 years.
I was fortunate to be a student working under Dr.
Hamilton, and in the early 1980s, when we began work-
ing with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE), we
used his data to establish a library of historical data on
acoustics, which includes a summary of the Navy tables
and the 44 surveys by the USAGE from 1987 to the pre-
sent. It provides a general characterization of the mate-
rial type. The bulk density is the specific grain-size
density, which usually is adjusted by the local geology.
The material also has a wet density. Clays, where all the
pollution is, are usually low density. The sands, which
are usually clean, are high density. Porosity is the
amount of void space. Another characteristic is mean
grain size.
33
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34
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
We also use the term "bottom loss." If you put in a
sound wave that has 1 unit in amplitude, and it reflects
back at, say 0.5 units, then the bottom loss is 20 x
Iog10 0.5 = -6.02 decibels (dB). You can characterize
the bottom reflection coefficient, normally called bot-
tom loss, although some people still use the older engi-
neering term "water content." The point is that these
data are based on probably $300 million to $400 mil-
lion in acquisition costs and span a time period of 40
years. These data are very repeatable ;and are for
uncontaminated sediments.
Another term used to characterize sediments is
acoustic impedance, which is like the resistivity in a
resistor. It is basically the density multiplied by the
sound velocity. A plot of impedance versus density for
the U.S. continental shelf in the Atlantic Ocean turns
out to be a rather nice curve, computed by Dr. Hamilton
in 1972. All the data we have collected for uncontami-
nated sediments since then for the USAGE have fit on
the same curve. The other important measurement in
acoustics is absorption, namely, an attenuation that is a
function of frequency and material type. This is very
important for classification.
You probably all know what a survey boat looks like:
pingers in the front; a boomer, which is a low-frequency
source towed behind, with a hydrophone array; an
acquisition system; and, of course, the global position-
ing system (GPS). We were successful in the Trenton
Channel (near Detroit, Michigan) portion of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) work in pro-
ducing a final map that was accurate to within 1 m in
three dimensions. An important, added feature of the
quality control work, which relates to developing the
standards, is that the coring rig was dropped right in
between the two transducers. Hence, we were able to
get the acoustic data exactly when we got the core data.
Then, when the core data were sent for analysis of the
physical properties (e.g., grain size, density), they also
were subjected to an exhaustive chemical analysis. We
analyzed everything, from the organics to the heavy
metals to the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Acoustics has been around since the early Navy days.
There was a chief who, when I asked why I had to learn
about acoustics, took his right fist and described very
carefully why I had to learn it. Basically, sounds propa-
gate from a sound source, and every time there is a
change in acoustic impedance or material type you get a
reflection. The major feature added with the EPA and
USAGE work, which is not a standard in the industry, is
the fact that you add a calibration hydrophone. The
work became a success because people have seen the
changes. Frank Bohlen described various major spatial
changes. How do you know this is true from a legal
point of view so that you can defend yourself in court
or at a permit hearing? By calibrating your acoustic sys-
tem, just like you calibrate the cranes that built this
building, you can work back to the baseline. The change
is no longer a "guesstimate" or, more importantly, an
interpretation; it is now a statement of engineering fact.
When you use sound source data, you use something
called the sonar equation. If you calibrate with a cali-
bration phone, then you know all the terms in the equa-
tion except the bottom loss, which is what you are
trying to measure—the bottom reflection coefficient.
You do your survey and compute all the numbers. The
first step in the EPA work was the development of qual-
ity control procedures, which are very important. The
overall objective is that you cover the survey distance.
The key step is when you give actual measurements,
along with the percentage of accuracy in how you mea-
sure every one of the acoustic parameters. When you
finish the survey, you have it down perfectly, and there
is no argument. The customer knows it; the permit peo-
ple know it; the EPA people know it. Everyone knows
exactly what goes into the answers.
A calibration record contains several things. First,
there is the transmit signal coming to the calibration;
second, there is the signal reflecting off the bottom. This
is a simple geometric problem. As you lower the cali-
bration phone, the bottom moves up and the signal to
the calibration moves down, and you can identify the
signals. Computer software automates the whole
process; it is not difficult to operate the system. A ping
can be taken right where the core was, and by using cur-
sors, you can select various reflections. The software
automatically does all the math and computes the bot-
tom loss. With the bottom loss, there is a standard devi-
ation. If you have high levels of organics or PCBs that
have been there a long time, then there is a gas content,
and the standard deviation is one of the indications for
the gas content.
You also can compute the acoustic impedance as a
function of depth and relate that to the material types.
As I mentioned, absorption is important. This can be
done using a Fourier transform (to convert time ampli-
tude data to the frequency domain), which basically
allows you to take a seismic section. The frequencies
start at 400 Hz and go up to 5,000 Hz. The dynamic
range is very wide, from 6 dB to 80 dB. The important
point is that, in normal sediments, there is a fall-off at
the high frequencies, depending on the material type
(e.g., sands, clays). With contaminated sediments, this
fall-off is orders of magnitudes greater, by as much as a
factor of 10.
With gaseous sediments, there is a phase reversal
when the signal reflects off the layer that contains gas.
This is illustrated by using correlation techniques. If it
shows a solid line, then there is no phase reversal; if
there is a dashed line at the layer, then there is a phase
reversal. The software picks out the major layers and
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ACOUSTIC TECHNIQUES FOR MAPPING DISTRIBUTION
35
plots the bottom loss. Other speakers have talked about
spatial variations. For example, within a distance of
about 10 m, there may be bottom loss variations on the
order of almost 10 dB, which is like going from silty
sands all the way to fine mud—a significant variation.
Cores normally are taken after the acoustic survey.
For example, using the Hamilton approach to predict
density, you may see 95 percent of the points fall within
the 95 percent confidence interval. In other words, if
the sediment is uncontaminated and you follow proce-
dures correctly, then you can be 95 percent certain
about the density.
A new finding of the EPA work at the Trenton
Channel over the last three years was that we took the
core data when we took the pinger data; based on the
core data, the software said the bottom loss should
have been X—like -10 dB—but actually it was -5 dB.
We plotted the difference between what the bottom
loss should have been and what we measured, and at
the same time we plotted the core data. There are no
measurements yet of the worst core case, so we com-
bined the whole thing and looked at the total chemi-
cal, metal, and organic levels. The core that had the
most was assigned a grade of 10, and we graded them
down to zero for those with no contaminants. It was
interesting to find that the deviation in bottom loss
was directly proportional to the gross amount of pol-
lution. I caution you that this is a site-specific curve.
In other words, this type of curve must be developed
for each location, because it depends on the historical
contaminant deposition.
When we finished in the Trenton Channel, we were
able to map the deposits. All the clays in the area were
contaminated, as illustrated by the close agreement
between the actual core data and the predictions. Before
we arrived on site, they had taken 8 or 9 cores. We then
took another 10 or 15 cores. The polluted stuff
included polyvinyl chloride, and white suits had to be
worn when handling it. The assumption was that a very
large amount of polluted material would have to be
removed. When we did the entire survey in detail, one
area turned out to be rock, or hard sand. Thus, instead
of dredging the entire area, we could make a risk assess-
ment at some points. There were very polluted areas
and spots with hardly any pollution at all. Only 25 per-
cent of what they expected to remove actually had to be
removed.
The thickness of each layer also can be mapped.
Some layers are 2.5 m, whereas others are only around
0.5 m thick. It is obvious, as you heard this morning
about the transport of materials, that some areas proba-
bly do not have to be dredged. Using either a sealed
bucket dredge or one of the new bottom-trawling
dredges, they may have to dredge only a small area. The
state of Michigan is going in this summer to complete
the job.
That was a quick summary of the technology available
today to set up standards for surveying. Now I would
like to recommend several things. If you know anyone
who controls the funding, the USAGE program that led
to this success has been canceled. There are no funds for
the staff in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to continue to make
databases of all the surveys. Furthermore, the USACE's
direct involvement in local surveying has stopped. That
sets us back to where we were in 1985, when people
were taking survey data that were good but were with-
out any standard and were not calibrated. That is like
having an independent contractor make different soft-
ware for each of our nuclear submarines and destroyers
and then trying to fight a war—you could not do it. The
contractors may be good, but standards are needed. With
the work being done at the EPA, we are just months
away from being able to write a standard. If someone
says to go ahead, then we can write a standard. That way,
when we talk about the risks and measurements, we will
have data on which everyone has agreed.
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CASE STUDY
Disposal Technologies Used in the Chesapeake Bay
Wayne Young, Maryland Environmental Service
I will talk principally about two projects in the state
of Maryland, the Hart-Miller Island facility and the
CSX/Cox Creek facility. The Port of Baltimore is
way up the Chesapeake Bay and definitely needs to
dredge. It has to dredge 5 million yd3/year (3.8 million
m3/year), of which 4 million yd3 (3 million m3) are in
Maryland. Of that, 500,000 yd3 (382500 m3) are from
the harbor area and, although considered under
Maryland law to be contaminated, may or may not actu-
ally be contaminated. The outer parts of the harbor tend
to be very lightly contaminated, whereas some of the
inner areas tend to be more contaminated with zinc,
chromium, and arsenic.
To show you where this fits into the overall context, I
will talk briefly about the governor's strategic plan for
dredged material management. This is an outgrowth of
more than 25 years of searching for suitable placement
sites for both contaminated and uncontaminated
dredged material dating back to 1970, before Hart-
Miller Island opened. There have been a number of
activities since Hart-Miller Island, including the
1986-1990 master plan, which looked at more than 300
sites and fell on hard times because of a political process.
Several options—one in particular, a deep trough or hole
in the Chesapeake Bay—became an environmental
"cause ce"lebre," and then-Governor Schaefer formed a
task force. The master plan never was produced in its full
final form. The task force shifted the emphasis to bene-
ficial uses of dredged material, which formed the basis
for the Maryland Port Administration (MPA) Dredging
Needs and Placement Options Program and continues to
form the basis for the governor's strategic plan and the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (USACE's) Dredged
Material Management Plan.
The range of alternatives covers everything from tra-
ditional open-water placement to upland sites, benefi-
cial-use options, innovative concepts, artificial islands,
and ocean disposal. The extensive involvement of the
community, interagency efforts at the federal and state
levels, municipalities, Baltimore County, and other
counties on the Eastern Shore resulted a balanced, mul-
tiphase plan that includes two sites for contaminated
dredged material, Hart-Miller Island and CSX/Cox
Creek. It also includes the restoration of Poplar Island;
open-water placement at Pooles Island (continuing the
practice there) on a small scale for the next three or four
years; large-scale open-water placement; and, ulti-
mately, an Upper Bay island for clean dredged material.
Some of these are very-high-cost options, making open-
water placement necessary as a low-cost option to bal-
ance the cost of some of the more expensive
alternatives.
The beneficial use of dredged material has been
attempted with only one success in the upper portion of
the Chesapeake Bay. The reasons for the limited success
are the following. First, we have covered a tremendous
range of options, including habitat development and so
forth, all for clean material. Only one, Poplar Island,
3 6
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DISPOSAL TECHNOLOGIES USED IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY
37
currently is moving forward. Aberdeen Proving Ground
has a lot of contamination, both in the water and on
land. Under the sponsorship of the MPA, we had 16 dif-
ferent island sites, restoration sites, shoreline sites, and
so forth, all of which are no longer being considered.
Although we potentially could get these projects cov-
ered by the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Cleanup, and Liability Act (Superfund) under protocols
for the installation of restoration programs, there is
another type of contamination here, unexploded ord-
nance (UXO), and there are no protocols for UXO.
Thus, if the port or USAGE were to go in and build a
project and then it was decided that the UXO had to be
removed, we would have to go back in and dig out the
habitat project, and they would have to pay for it. That
killed the project.
Another project that has not worked and is still on
the drawing boards is in Baltimore Harbor, in the area
of Sparrows Point. It involved taking some degraded
bottom area and putting clean material on top of the
contaminated sediment to form a habitat. The citizens
in the .area do not approve of this project, in part
because a lot of this harbor area was filled in before by
Bethlehem Steel, and the citizens opposed it. There is
also a rule established by the Maryland State
Legislature that prohibits any containment facility
within 5 mi (8 km) of Hart-Miller Island. This rule,
which was put in after Hart-Miller was built, offers
another example of the political process and how it can
affect planning. Because this project would require a
containment facility, it is also on hold.
At Poplar Island, portions of the island have been lost
because of erosion. For the past seven years, planning
has been under way to bring it back as an island con-
tainment site, hence providing a beneficial use for clean
material. That project was fast-tracked. It took about
seven years to go from concept to full-scale construc-
tion. There was a dedication ceremony at the USAGE,
presided over by the government, a week ago. The pro-
ject is under construction. It will hold 38 million yd3 (29
million m3) of clean dredged material.
A number of lessons were learned from the beneficial-
use efforts. First, we have broad support for beneficial-
use concepts. However, beneficial use tends to be loosely
defined. When we tie the beneficial use to a specific loca-
tion, we usually have opposition. The only place we did
not have opposition of some form was Poplar Island. It
was a popular fishing area, and some clamming areas
were affected. With the assistance of the Maryland
Department of Natural Resources (DNR), a new area
was found and opened up for clamming. Now there is
total support for the Poplar Island project.
One of the big problems, of course, is funding. These
projects are very expensive, much more so than open-
water placement. This project will cost on the order of
$75 million or more just for construction, and then it
has to be maintained. Therefore, we have had great dif-
ficulty bringing these beneficial-use projects on line.
Why am I talking about that at a symposium on conta-
minated sediments? If we are having a problem with
clean stuff, then you can imagine the problems you will
have with contaminated material.
Hart-Miller Island has been in operation since 1984.
It is a multiple-use site. It is probably a beneficial-use
site, although most people do not consider it as such. It
was a beneficial-use site before that term became popu-
lar, because there is an active park there. Hart-Miller
Island is the disposal site for contaminated dredged
material. Everything west of a certain line in the harbor
is, by state law, defined as or considered contaminated
regardless of its content, and it must be contained.
Hart-Miller Island is located outside of Baltimore
Harbor, at the mouth of the Back River. It consists of
more than 1,000 acres. The north cell is the active con-
tainment cell. The south cell, once used actively, has not
been used since 1990 and is under development for pas-
sive recreation and habitat. It has a park. When the
facility was constructed it reconnected Hart and Miller
islands, which at one point were the same island. A
beach also was constructed. It has an observation tower
and draws up to 70,000 visitors in a good year.
Regarding Hart-Miller Island's economic contribu-
tions, obviously it is a disposal site for dredged material
and has allowed the port to maintain operations unin-
terrupted. It is cost-effective placement. It has been
built. The dikes have been raised, so we did not have to
build a new facility. Raising the dikes was less expensive
than building a new facility. There is also local acquisi-
tion of goods and services, so the local economy has
benefited. In addition, the location of the approximately
l-by-2 mi (1.6-by-3.2 km) island provides a shelter
against winter ice and storms, so it has benefited local
property owners.
The recreational assets include the constructed
beach, observation tower, and park facilities. There are
22 primitive campsites, which are used extensively dur-
ing the summer. There are test plots out there now test-
ing vegetation. This is a USAGE project; the local
sponsor is the Maryland DNR, with support from the
MPA and technical support from the Maryland
Environmental Service.
The environmental benefit of Hart-Miller Island is
that it provides an environmentally sound containment
area for Inner Harbor dredged sediments. The opera-
tion is monitored extensively, both on the facility and
by the Maryland Department of the Environment
(MDE) externally, to check on what is happening in the
benthic region and so forth. There have been no ben-
thic problems. There has been some increase in zinc
levels in the area of the spillways. We occasionally have
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38
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
test results indicating some toxicity, but when the mate-
rials have been retested, the toxicity has gone away.
The area alongside the dike is used extensively by crab-
bers when the crabs are migrating. In fact? one water-
man told me he liked it better with the island there
because now he knows where the crabs are going and
he catches more of them.
We have avoided water quality impacts in the form of
total suspended solids (TSS). "We have strict monitoring
criteria. The facility is operated under a state discharge
permit, and we operate to those parameters for TSS and
pH. For metals, we have extensive testing, which I will
not go into in great detail.
The islands of Hart and Miller have been preserved.
Before, they were eroding; now, the beach has been
reconstructed. There is now more shallow-water habitat
than there would have been otherwise. There is exten-
sive use by migratory waterfowl. More than 267 species
of birds have been observed at Hart-Miller Island, and
when the dredged material comes in, perhaps because of
the organisms and other things in the dredged material,
tremendous numbers of birds use it, coinciding with
their winter migration. In the development of the south
cell, one of the concerns was that, when the north cell no
longer is used as a dredged material containment facility,
the shorebird habitat that is now provided on an interim
basis will be lost. That has figured into the planning for
the south cell to help rebuild shorebird habitat.
Then there are environmental study opportunities. The
Hart-Miller Island project was started in 1969. The pro-
ject was authorized, and the site was selected. Then there
was a lawsuit, which was won by the port. The facility was
constructed from 1981 through 1984, and the first inflow
was in 1984. The port got a 50-ft (15.25-m) channel
deepening project through, and all the money came in
two years. This put tremendous demand on the facility,
resulting in what then was to be a temporary raising of
the dikes from 18 to 28 ft (5.5 to 8.5 m).
This gets to one of the lessons learned. We believe
that, because Hart-Miller Island was there, it took the
pressure off of finding a solution for the dredged mater-
ial management problem. The facility was filled up to the
28-ft (8.5-m) dike. Now the dikes on the north cell have
been raised to 44 ft (13 m), with extensive public
involvement and a lot of controversy. Because of the
demand for placement capacity, the facility is operated
on a one-year dredged material management cycle to get
optimal, or nearly optimal, consolidation of the material.
The port has funded a very aggressive crust manage-
ment program. When the material comes in, the water
is decanted and discharged in accordance with criteria
overseen by the MDE. As soon as the material starts
forming a bit of crust, we put exterior trenches in. We
also run a pontoon excavator out into the cell to put
depressions in. They are only 6 or 8 in. (15 or 20 cm),
but they provide pathways for the water to get to the
exterior trenches that run down to the spillways. When
the crust can support it, trenching equipment is sent
out; then we get a full crust and we are back to inflow.
The trenching pattern is over the entire facility. It takes
a fair amount of time to put that in place, but it helps
keep the water off and the facilities rapidly drying.
When the material from the 50-ft (15-m) deepening
project came in, crust management was not possible
because the port had to get that material in or else lose
the money. Once the crust management started, we
gained the capacity back and inflow started again. Dave
Bibo was instrumental in getting a two-year hiatus,
which gains additional capacity for the facility. With
aggressive management, we might get as much as 50
percent consolidation. During a drought year we got 60
percent consolidation.
The follow-up to Hart-Miller Island will be the
CSX/Cox Creek facility, an existing dredged material
containment facility that has not been used for some
time, although it has been maintained for that purpose.
An old refinery discharged water there. We are in the
process of rerouting the stormwater discharge through a
wetland. We have gone through all of the permitting for
that. We have to get an additional permit for some non-
tidal wetland impacts, and we are coordinating with the
MDE on that.
This facility will be dewatered, and the cross dike will
be removed. A tow berm will be placed about 60 ft (18
m) outside because the bottom conditions are not par-
ticularly good; there are clay areas. For stability reasons,
to get an adequate engineering factor of safety, the tow
berm needs to be placed here. We are working with the
regulators now on the water quality certification
requirements for this facility. The regulatory field is
changing. This is an impaired water body, so there is a
lot of discussion as to what the appropriate criteria are,
and this will be going on for some time.
This facility is a wetland. However, these wetlands
are incidental to dredged material placement. The
facility originally was constructed by the USAGE. Then
it was acquired by private companies, CSX
Corporation and the refinery company, and it was used
privately for material from the CSX and Cox Creek
access points to their facilities. The facility was con-
verted and the USAGE determined that it was non-
jurisdictional, which allows its reactivation. It will be
used for maintenance-dredging material.
Once the traditional technologies allow the material
to settle out and we decant the water, manage the crust,
and fill the facility, then we will need another facility. It
is getting more difficult to find these places, so the port
is looking at recycling to see if contaminated material
can be turned into an environmentally sound, unregu-
lated product. Because it needs to dredge 500,000 yd3
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DISPOSAL TECHNOLOGIES USED IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY
39
(382,500 m3) of contaminated material every year, the
port is using this number as a target. One problem, how-
ever, is finding a technology that is cost-effective and
will produce an environmentally sound, unregulated
product, whether landfill caps, topsoil with amend-
ments, or whatever. It is a major effort to get rid of
500,000 yd3.
A confined disposal facility (CDF) can provide
interim habitat. However, you have to use it in a way
that prevents you from losing it. If an endangered
species moves in, then one potentially could lose the
use of those facilities. If it turns into wetlands and you
go back to reuse it, then you potentially could lose it.
Perhaps this problem should be resolved from a regu-
latory perspective, so that those who build these facil-
ities and operate them effectively do not lose their
availability while providing habitat that is widely used
by various species, perhaps displaced from elsewhere.
The regulatory field is changing. The total maximum
daily load issue may have profound effects on all facili-
ties that are impaired water bodies. "We are not sure how
that issue will relate to this facility, and we are working
with the MDE on that. We believe the Clean Water Act,
Section 401, is the appropriate regulatory authority.
Hart-Miller Island is operating under a discharge permit
because this approach was more effective back when the
facility was started, and there was an agreement with
the citizens that it would be controlled very tightly.
I mentioned that the availability of a CDF can relieve
the pressure to find a long-term solution, and to some
extent, that has happened. When you have something as
large as Hart-Miller Island, it may appear that it will go
on operating forever. But it will fill up. Thus, even when
you are able to get a large facility built, you cannot stop
looking for other alternatives—and looking hard—with
extensive public involvement. Finding new locations in
harbor areas is very difficult because these areas have
been developed. Perhaps we could put sediment in
brownfields. Strong public involvement is needed at all
stages because this is a sociopolitical issue as well as an
environmental, engineering, and cost issue.
With Hart-Miller Island, we have to deal with the rule
that says we cannot have a containment facility within 5
mi (8 km). Yet to get a long-term solution, most of the
island sites that are being considered are either all or
partly within 5 mi of Hart-Miller Island. Strong public
involvement and legislative involvement will be required
if any of those sites go forward. This is a NIMBY ("not in
my back yard") meets NIMBY situation. The bay com-
munity says, "Put that material upland." The upland folks
say, "Don't put it here." Where do we put it? We have
to put it somewhere. We have controversy over the sites
no matter where we put it. Poplar Island was an excep-
tion; it got broad-based support because of a number of
factors, but sites like that are few and far between.
Down in Houston they had good luck with one ben-
eficial-use project, so there are opportunities. But these
are for clean material. We need innovative alternatives
and technologies for contaminated sediments. The port
is looking into this. The cost seems to be high, although
one company says that for $10/yd3 ($13/m3) it can
make an environmentally safe, unregulated product.
-The port is interested in putting out requests for
expressions of interest. The documentation is finished,
but the request is on hold because the site they plan to
use for recycling is the CSX/Cox Creek facility, and the
upland site would be the staging area. There is an ini-
tiative to put a racetrack there, in Anne Arundel County.
Until that is resolved, the request for expression of
interest is on hold.
Even if we ultimately find a technology that is cost-
effective and can make a product that is environmen-
tally safe and unregulated, the technology is useless
unless we can get rid of 500,000 yd3 (382 500 m3)of
material a year. We still have to find a market for it.
After we have used up the space available in the facil-
ity, then we are back to square one. We have to find
someplace to put it. Getting into the product stream
and marketing can be very difficult because we are
going up against existing topsoil and gravel markets
and so forth.
With all these technologies, information sharing is
critical. This is a very expensive area. The ports and
others need to work together so that information about
successes and failures is shared. That way, resources are
conserved, and people do not invest in someone else's
mistake but rather in someone else's success, adapting
it for their local area. Finally, funding for high-cost
dredged material management options is very difficult
to obtain, particularly when you have traditional
options available, but at the same time you need the
traditional options to balance those high costs.
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CASE STUDY
Geotechnics of Utilizing
Dredged Sediments as Structural Fill
Issa Oweis, Converse Consultants
My remarks deal with the structural aspects of
the use of dredged sediments as opposed to
the environmental aspects. The case is a site in
Elizabeth, New Jersey. It is probably one of the largest,
if not the largest, site in New Jersey now using dredged
sediments to prepare a site for a large shopping mall,
which will have about 1.5 million ft2 (139,500 m2) in
retail space. The project has been heavily supported
locally and at the state level. The environmental per-
mitting was not the most significant part of the site
development. The owner prepared a risk assessment.
That particular aspect of the use of dredged sediment in
New Jersey is not regulated by the solid waste group,
although it is being reviewed by the group. That is very
important.
This is a 160-acre (64.8-ha) site that used to be a
garbage disposal site. It is about 30 years old and is com-
monly referred to as the Kapkowski site. It was pur-
chased about seven years ago by a Danish company,
which prepared the site, and it is being developed now
by an Ohio company. The original plan was to stabilize
the garbage using a combination of deep dynamic com-
paction as well as preloading. These are not new tech-
nologies; they are well proven. The question was how
to grade the site to make it suitable for construction.
That is how the use of dredged sediment came to be
considered.
Originally, the plan was to dike the whole site and
pump the dredged material into the diked area—basi-
cally the traditional method used successfully by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE) at many sites
and just discussed by Wayne Young. But it would take a
long time, maybe seven or eight years, for the material
to consolidate and be suitable for construction. Some
thought was given to accelerating the drainage by
putting in drainage nets, so that each layer of the
dredged material pumped would consolidate the one
beneath it. However, there was a concern that the efflu-
ent from the consolidation process would have to be
treated, increasing the cost of the project.
The last option was to stabilize the dredged sedi-
ments, again using a very old technology but with a
new twist that involved mixing the dredged sediment
with lime, cement, and fly ash. The old TRB literature
mentions that organic soils are not suitable for stabi-
lization. What that really means is, they are not suitable
for stabilization at a reasonable cost. We are talking
about fine-grained material, which has a relatively large
percentage of organics, about 7 percent, maybe as
much as 19 percent.
Regarding grain size, the data for a lot of samples
from New York Harbor, New York Bay, Newark Bay,
and Arthur Kill show there is not a wide range in the
gradation of the material. Anywhere from 50 to 95 per-
cent passes through the number 200 sieve, which is silt
size, or very-fine-grained material, and quite a bit passes
through the 2-micron size, or the so-called clay size, at
which the material begins to exhibit clay-like properties.
40
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GEOTECHNICS OF UTILIZING DREDGED SEDIMENTS
41
For all practical purposes, all the material, whether from
New York or Newark Bay, could be considered the same
material; in any event, New York sediments come to
Newark Bay. It is all the same.
From an engineering classification viewpoint, the
samples are mostly elastic silt. For those of you not in
the soil mechanics business, the liquid limit is the mois-
ture content at which the material starts to flow. The
higher the liquid limit, the weaker the material; the
lower the limit, generally speaking, the stronger the
material. The plasticity index is the difference between
the liquid limit and the plastic limit. The plastic limit is
the moisture content at which the material starts to
break, which means it becomes very stiff and brittle.
The lower the plastic limit, the stronger the material.
I mentioned the term "moisture content." I must cau-
tion that many groups have different definitions of
moisture content, depending on the discipline involved.
The way I am using it here, moisture content is the
weight of water divided by the dry weight, which is the
traditional geotechnical (or soil mechanics) definition.
However, to the environmentalist, the moisture content
is the weight of water divided by the total weight, which
is wet weight. Thus, from an environmental standpoint,
the moisture content of pure water is 100 percent,
whereas from a soil mechanics structural viewpoint, the
moisture content is infinity. There is also a third defini-
tion, the volumetric moisture content, which is the vol-
ume of water divided by the total volume. This
definition is used by hydrogeologists.
That leads me to one comment about the NRC
report. Right at the beginning, you should try to define
which moisture content you are talking about. A wrong
assumption about the meaning can be disastrous in con-
tract documents, depending on which moisture content
you are talking about.
Without stabilization, the material is very weak. The
USAGE data from 1994 for Newark Bay shows that the
material has a very high void ratio and is very com-
pressible, although less so than peat or, in general, phos-
phatic clay. In any event, when it is dredged and put on
a barge, it has a mayonnaise-like consistency, which is
very weak. The problem with it is not only environ-
mental but also structural. You cannot handle it; you
cannot drive on it; you cannot walk on it. The mobility
is a major concern in trying to dispose of it for structural
use to support a building.
Obviously, there is a correlation between the organic
content and the specific gravity. For very fibrous peat,
the specific gravity is about 1.4. The material from
Newark Bay, New York Bay, Arthur Kill, and New York
Harbor typically has about 7 percent organic content by
the American Society for Testing and Materials defini-
tion. To determine the organic content, you burn the
material at very high temperature and measure the
weight before and after. You occasionally find very high
organic content, on the order of 15 percent. This is
important, because we found that organic material
hydrates more slowly than does inorganic material
when mixed with cement and lime. The organic content
basically inhibits hydration. This affects how long you
have to wait before you start handling the material. This
is not something new. It was reported in the literature in
the early 1950s that, if you have high organic content,
even in trace amounts, the strength will be very low
because there will be less hydration.
In stabilizing the material with cement and lime, the
key is to have enough lime to form a gel. These days,
lime is very expensive. The material used as a stabilizer
for the Elizabeth project is cement and fly ash. Cement
is much cheaper than lime. At some point early in the
project they used lime kiln dust, which has some lime,
but not much. The key to the stabilization of the mate-
rial is to maintain a high pH. That is not a new finding.
That was found in the early 1950s in work at Louisiana
State University and other institutions. If you maintain a
pH of 12.4 or close to 12, then you get high strength
after hydration.
If the material has a high organic content, then it
has a tendency to absorb calcium ions. That does not
leave much calcium for the hydration. There is a cor-
relation between the strength and the absorption of
calcium ions. If you have very low absorption, which
means less organic content, then you have higher
strength. That is very important in the stabilization of
the dredged material. Obviously the material has to be
strong enough to support the pavement of the parking
areas for the shopping mall as well as access roads.
A variety of mixtures can be used. One has 20 per-
cent lime kiln dust; another has 20 percent cement kiln
dust; others have 7 to 8 percent cement; and still
another has about 8 percent cement and 12 percent fly
ash. You get different behavior based on what mix you
use. The important thing is to be as close to the optimal
density as possible, and not too far off the optimal mois-
ture content. If you are too far off, then you have lower
strength. If the material is too wet, then you cannot
compact it and you have low strength; if it is too dry,
then, when the material gets inundated, it just collapses
if it is compacted. You have to strike a balance.
Looking at compaction for these mixes under differ-
ent levels of energy (the standard energy is about
12,400 ft-lbf/ft or 600 kN-m/m), none of the densities is
good enough. In the range of a dry density of 60 lb/ft3
(973 kg/m3), the material simply collapses when you sat-
urate it. Even if you use only 95 percent of the standard
energy, the standard density is not good enough to
maintain a stable material for structural support. We
also found that, as the material waits before you try to
compact it, it takes more and more energy to compact
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42
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
it. The permeability of the material is quite low. In a
way, this is good, because it will be more difficult for the
water to go through. On the other hand, if it is fine
grained, then it could crack very easily.
Consolidation curves show that the material is not
very compressive but is well compacted. Up to a certain
point, it exhibits the properties of overconsolidated soil.
If you are below 3 or 4 tons/ft2 (27 to 39 tonne/m2) of
bearing, then you have relative compressibility for the
stabilized material of different mixes. Once you go
beyond that, it will act as ordinary material.
It is very simple to normalize all these data into a
meaningful form that can be used by the designer. We
use a parameter called normalized density, or the density
to which you compact the material divided by the opti-
mal density and multiplied by the normalized moisture
content (which is the optimal moisture divided by the
moisture content to which you compact it). The higher
the number, the greater the strength of the material. A
preliminary design chart can be made to assess what type
of strength you could expect based on a certain density
and moisture content.
The same data can be plotted in the California bear-
ing ratio (CBR), which is the standard test comparing the
penetration resistance of the material to the penetration
resistance of strong material such as crushed stone. The
minimum CBR they can use for structural purposes is 10
percent; anything below that is no good. You can get
some idea of the CBR if you have the moisture content.
In many compacted fill applications for conventional
material, engineers use a nuclear density gauge to figure
out the wet density in situ and the moisture content. We
found out that the nuclear density gauge underestimates
the moisture content of the material and therefore over-
estimates the dry density. Thus, a big lesson learned
from this project is: Do not use a nuclear density gauge
to measure the moisture content. Compared to a dry
density value obtained using the most reliable sand den-
sity cone, a nuclear gauge overestimates by up to 20 per-
cent, which, for structural purposes, could be a very
serious difference indeed.
After it is mixed and placed for compaction, the
material looks like ordinary structural fill. Again, I must
caution that, based on most highway specifications, it
does not fit the grain size requirement. Furthermore,
with regard to the negative aspects of this material, it
has a very low tolerance for frost-and-thaw cycles; we
have to cover it with 2 to 3 ft (.6 to .9 m) of sand or
non-frost-susceptible material. It is also somewhat
expensive. In addition, it is quite corrosive. But that is
not a big limitation because, with the concrete technol-
ogy we have now, we can mitigate against high sulfates
and chlorides and bury it in concrete.
The dredged material in a compacted state is per-
forming very well. We have lots of data to show that it
has a field CBR of over 10 percent, and that the uncon-
fined compressive strength could be well above 20 or 30
lb/in.2 (138 to 207 kPa).
-------
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Testing New Technologies
Tommy Myers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Engineer Waterways
Experiment Station
Dennis Timberlake, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
NOTE: The National Research Council (NRC) report made a number of recommendations for new technologies and research,
many of them directed at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE). Since the report
was published, staff members from these two agencies have met several times and begun working together on specific projects.
Representatives of both agencies were asked to discuss their reactions to the 12 relevant conclusions and 5 recommendations, what
actions are being taken in response, and whether there are any differences of opinion. The relevant NRC conclusions and recom-
mendations are excerpted below, followed by the agency responses.
Engineering Costs of Cleanup
Many contaminated sediments can be managed
effectively using natural recovery, capping, or con-
tainment. Where remediation is necessary, high-vol-
ume, low-cost technologies are the first choice, if
they are feasible. Because treatment is expensive,
reducing volume is very important. At the current
state of practice, treatment is justified only for rela-
tively small volumes of highly contaminated sedi-
ments, unless there are compelling public health or
natural resource considerations. Advanced treat-
ment processes are too costly in the majority of
cases of (typically low-level) contamination. The
unit cost of advanced treatments will probably
decline slightly as these technologies move through
the demonstration phase, but it is unlikely to
become competitive with the cost of less-expensive
technologies, such as containment.
Problems with available cost data include the lack
of standardized documentation and the lack of a
common basis for defining all the relevant benefits
and costs. The data are inconsistent with respect to
the types of costs included and the units of measure
(e.g., cubic yards, tons, hectares), and geographical
variations in costs are not taken into account. The
problem stems in part from the lack of a formal
structure for reporting cost data. Even if good cost
data were available, measures of effectiveness must
be improved before reliable comparative analyses of
technologies can be made.
(NRC Report, pp. 162-163)
Tommy Myers: Regarding the costs, we are in agree-
ment that we need more cost information, particularly
for treatment alternatives. That is the real issue. We
have data on the traditional and conventional methods
of dealing with dredged material that the USAGE uses
in its maintenance program.
We would like to add to the conclusions. We feel one
weak point is an insufficient emphasis on total cost data.
That is, the total cost of dredging, transportation, treat-
ment or disposal, and, with regard to treatment, the
management of the waste streams that are generated. I
think Issa Oweis's presentation highlights the need for
this. For example, the effluent or leachate that would be
produced during consolidation, and the treatment costs
for that, led to a decision not to use hydraulic dredging
and filling and conventional dewatering.
We in the USAGE, and I in particular, are somewhat
skeptical about some of the claims of $10, $5, or what-
ever per yd3 ($13 or $6.50/m3) to treat materials and,
as Wayne Young noted, get the materials to a point
43
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44
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
where they are not regulated anymore. We are very
much concerned about that. On the other hand, we do
not want to be obstructionist, and we encourage those
working in the treatment areas to continue to achieve
economy of scale, innovation, and reduced cost.
Dennis Timberlake: I agree with that. In most cases,
dealing with hot spots and looking at high-technology
options, we certainly could improve the technologies,
but I think you are looking at small increments in cost
performance.
One exciting thing about this field, the NRC report,
and the discussions we have had is that sometimes you
are challenged on basic assumptions. There is some
demonstration work going on around New York
Harbor now, with cost estimates that include treatment
coming out very low, at less than $100/yd3 ($130/m3).
I do not know all of the details. Part of me says that you
cannot do it that cheaply. I am used to the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup,
and Liability Act (Superfund) context, where it costs
several hundred dollars per cubic yard. But I think we
need to remain open. It will be interesting, as those
projects move to larger-scale demonstration in the
field, to see the real economics of those processes.
When I was reading through the conclusions, some-
thing kept nagging at me. We are talking about cost—
low cost is obviously better—but we really are talking
about the cost of implementing a specific solution. As
Tommy Myers said, we should look at the whole range
of costs. But there is more than just the cost of imple-
menting a solution. Hopefully we also are talking
about risk reduction and risk management. Thus, even
if we had comparable cost numbers on a bunch of
technologies, could we really compare two of them?
How much do we really know about what we achieved
by implementing a technology?
I know my research laboratory, and I think we do a
poor job of documenting the amount of risk that actu-
ally was reduced by using a certain technology. We in
sediment management are not as smart as we maybe
like to think we are. You can talk about how cheap it
is to implement a certain technology, but there is a
cost associated with not taking care of certain pollu-
tants that are in place. This gets to the whole cost-
benefit issue. We talk about the cost of implementing
a solution, but there is much more to the equation
than just that.
Remediation Technology Options
For many projects, natural recovery is a viable
option. It may be the optimum solution where surfi-
cial concentrations of contaminants are low, where
surface contamination is being covered over rapidly
by cleaner sediments, or where contaminated sedi-
ment is modified by natural chemical or biological
processes and the release of contaminants to the
environment decreases over time. A better under-
standing of natural processes is needed, and models
need to be verified through long-term monitoring.
When natural recovery is not feasible, capping
may be an appropriate way to reduce bioavailability
by minimizing contaminant contact with the benthic
community. The efficacy of capping needs to be
monitored, not only to ensure that risks are reduced,
but also to gather data that can be used to advance
the state of practice. The appropriate use of capping
might be advanced if it were viewed as a permanent
solution in the Superfund context.
Although there are conceptual advantages to in
situ chemical treatment, considerable research and
development (R&D) will be needed before successful
application can be demonstrated.
Using bioremediation to treat in-place marine sed-
iments, although theoretically possible, requires fur-
ther R&D because it raises a number of significant
microbial, geochemical, and hydrological issues that
have yet to be resolved.
(NRC Report, p. 163)
Myers: I generally agree with the capping and treat-
ment conclusions. I have some disagreement with the
natural recovery conclusion. The report leads you to
believe that natural recovery will be applicable at many
sites that we are considering for remediation. Of
course, natural recovery does not fit into the USAGE
program or into work related to maintenance dredging,
when we have to move the material. I also wonder
about the term "many." My gut feeling is that, at a few,
very special sites, we will find natural recovery to be a
good alternative that really works.
We in the USAGE support capping. I believe it truly
is the most cost-effective remediation alternative when
it is applicable. It would not necessarily be applicable in
shallow-water areas. There are many places—outside of
environmental questions, navigation, or appearance of
sites—where it may not be applicable; maybe the water
is too deep. But capping is cost-effective in terms of the
definition that economists use, looking at the marginal
cost and marginal benefit. When you analyze it that way,
capping is very environmentally protective and very
inexpensive. It is not popular because we do not directly
decontaminate or detoxify the sediment; we isolate it. It
is a containment technology. We like it very much. We
wish we could use it more in our program.
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TESTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
45
Regarding treatment, of course, we agree with those
conclusions. We believe there is a lot of R&D needed. It
relates back to the cost.
Timberlake: I echo what Tommy Myers said about natural
recovery; I had the same reaction. My gut feeling is that
there are probably a few places where it might be appro-
priate, but not many. It comes down to the wording. It is
a viable option. When you make a decision about which
risk management method to use, what real costs are you
considering? If you are looking at just the cost of imple-
mentation, then maybe natural recovery is a great way to
go. If you are looking at more "touchy-feely" types of
costs down the road, then maybe it is not the best choice.
We need to get a better handle on that type of thing.
With regard to capping, I run into the attitude that it
is not a permanent solution. People have a lot of ques-
tions about the long-term capability of a cap to control
the contamination. We have a lot of models and a lot of
information to make the decision that capping is a good
choice in a lot of cases, but in my opinion, there defi-
nitely is a need for long-term monitoring information,
so that we can answer factually any questions about the
long-term performance of caps.
Regarding in situ treatment, as the report acknowl-
edges, there are lots of problems with how you deliver
reagents and microbes to the sediment without causing
resuspension, and how you control the process. I agree
with all that. Our lab has a number of research projects
aimed at developing in situ approaches. It is a long shot,
but we see a huge payoff if we can develop technologies
that can be implemented in place. As a first step, we are
looking at a lot of our processes to be implemented within
confined disposal facilities (CDFs). Technically, that would
be an ex situ process, but it is quasi in situ because you are
working on a large volume of sediments. It allows you to
control some of the conditions for treatment.
Sediment Removal Technology
Because of the high cost of ex situ treatment relative
to dredging, dredges need to be made widely avail-
able that can remove sediments at near in situ densi-
ties and that have the capability for the precise
removal of contaminated sediments, so that the cap-
ture of clean sediments and water can be limited,
thus reducing the volume of dredged material requir-
ing containment or treatment.
(NRG Report, p. 165)
Myers: I generally agree with that conclusion but would
add some precautionary comments. Precision dredging
is an oxymoron right now. We are not able to do that in
maintenance dredging—depending on how you define
precision. If we are mapping characteristic concentra-
tions in three dimensions and trying to achieve resolu-
tion on the order of 15 cm, then we can probably come
close, but it typically would be more like 30 cm.
When you get resolution down to 15 cm or less, I
have a question about our coastal sites. These are open,
dynamic systems. Why do we think the contaminants
will be there later—seven years later in Wayne Young's
case—right where we measured them? That confuses
me in particular. We know that sediment is moved
around; that is why our channels fill up and we have to
dredge to maintain them. Perhaps some of the buried
stuff would still be there.
My precaution regarding the development of preci-
sion dredging technology is that we need to do this on
the fast track, not over seven years. We need to do
something similar to what David Caulfield was alluding
to in the Trenton Channel, where, after the mapping is
done, they get to dredging. In that case, it makes sense
to me. Many times, a fast track is defined in terms of
seven years; I am glad to hear that David Caulfield is
getting something going a lot quicker. Maybe there is no
reason why we cannot get things going faster and make
use of the technologies.
In terms of USAGE programs, we wonder if it is a
smart R&D investment of our limited resources to do
this. Of course, for our maintenance program, where we
are doing geometry and not cleanup, precision dredging
makes sense in some cases, and it may be worthwhile.
Timberlake: I was surprised that the conclusion did not
say something about assessing effects, such as resuspen-
sion, related to dredging operations. That flag comes up
a lot. It would be nice to have more studies that define
the conditions under which you might make a problem
worse, or say whether it is not an issue in some cases. I
suggest that be added.
Ex Situ Technologies
Research is needed to improve the control of conta-
minant releases, to improve long-term monitoring
methods, and to improve techniques for preserving
the capacity of existing CDFs.
Construction of contained aquatic disposal
(CAD) on or near contaminated sites is likely to be
• acceptable, but the applications have not been
explored fully. Research is needed to improve design
tools and long-term monitoring methods and to
control contaminant losses and determine their
effects and associated risks.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Research and development of ex situ treatment
technologies is warranted in the search for reason-
able possibilities for the cost-effective treatment of
large volumes of sediment. Bench and pilot testing of
ex situ treatment technologies, and eventually full-
scale demonstrations in marine systems, are needed
to improve cost estimates, resolve technical prob-
lems, and improve treatment effectiveness.
(NRC Report, pp. 165-166)
Myers: We agree that work is needed on CDFs. For the
USAGE and its maintenance program, and for port
authorities with their navigation channels, this is still a
good technology. It is a confinement technology, but a
good one. We traditionally designed CDFs to confine
solids, not necessarily contaminants, so there is room
for improvement—and there has been an improvement.
We caution you to advise others that we may have mis-
placed concern about the effectiveness of these facilities.
When we hydraulically fill these facilities, the effluent is
monitored to the conveyance point where it has to be
discharged to meet state water quality standards. Water
quality certification is required.
We have tools, tests, models, and procedures on the
World Wide Web—everything needed to design a CDF
to meet a water quality standard for the effluent dur-
ing hydraulic filling. We even developed leaching tests
to assess leachate quality inside a CDF in a pre-project
mode (for design purposes), to determine if you want
to use a line or not. We are developing tools for using
those data to predict concentrations at a target recep-
tor downstream of the CDF in the subsurface. We are
moving in all these directions, so naturally we agree
that research is needed. We also have laboratory work
under way on the volatilization of hydrophobic organ-
ics from CDFs. We in the USAGE do not have much in
the way of long-term monitoring programs for CDFs;
our work is focused more on pre-project assessment
and design.
Contained aquatic disposal is, in a sense, another
form of capping. We like CAD; we think it is very cost
effective. Regarding the need for research on tools, we
are working diligently to improve design tools for CAD
so that we will have a cap that is thick enough to iso-
late the contaminants and prevent migration, behaves
properly geotechnically, and withstands storm events—
whatever storm events are specified by state or federal
agencies, or if we can determine what the requirements
would be. We are working steadfastly on the design
tools, and a lot of progress is being made. Long-term
monitoring to prove the adequacy of the design tools
certainly is needed. We do not have a research program
set up to provide long-term monitoring. We are proba-
bly talking about more than just a bureaucrat's career,
or even a researcher's career, in terms of long-term
monitoring for these options.
Dennis Timberlake alluded to some of the treatment
work already going on. We are very much interested
now in doing the R&D to investigate the use of CDFs
to treat materials that someone wants cleaned, to get
those materials to the unregulated state that Wayne
Young referred to and give new life to our CDFs.
Perhaps we can remove materials from the CDFs and
recover that storage capacity. We certainly agree with
the report that a lot of R&D is needed in this arena.
Timberlake: For CDFs and CAD, we need long-term
performance monitoring, just so we know what we are
dealing with. Otherwise, we can argue forever about
what is appropriate and what is not. I think we need to
make some progress on issues such as whether or not
there are releases from CDFs or what the level might be.
Regarding ex situ treatment, most of the advanced
technologies that we use were developed for Superfund-
type treatment. I do not see major advances coming that
would reduce the cost of implementation. I think the
real breakthroughs will be in how the technologies are
implemented. For instance, in New York Harbor, an
economy of scale possibly will drive down the cost and
make it reasonable. Coming up with partnerships and
different things could be helpful. It is more than just a
technical problem; it is how you use the technology.
Remediation Technology Research, Development,
Testing, and Demonstration
Additional R&D and demonstration projects are
needed to improve existing remediation technologies
and reduce the risks associated with the development
and use of innovative approaches to testing marine
sediments. The development and wide use of cost-
effective, innovative solutions would be advanced by
(1) the peer review of proposals for R&D on new
technologies for handling, containing, and remediat-
ing sediments, and (2) the establishment of mecha-
nisms for side-by-side demonstrations of new and
current technologies.
(NRC Report, pp. 167)
Myers: I could not quite understand the peer review
comment in terms of a need. The R&D programs on
sediment remediation do involve peer review, I believe,
and it is sometimes quite extensive. I think we all agree
that it is probably needed and appropriate for these
types of programs.
Regarding the side-by-side demos, I think that is
great. I am concerned that it might be beyond our
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TESTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
47
resources, at least the public resources that are available
now. A more prudent approach is to do bench-scale test-
ing side by side, select two or three technologies for
pilot-scale testing, and then demonstrate maybe one.
Side-by-side field demos, depending on what you mean
by a demo, will cost a lot of money. Traditional engi-
neering practice has been to do bench-scale and pilot-
scale demonstration before you go to full scale. I think
that is very prudent and cost-effective.
I say that because Dennis Timberlake and I work for
the public, and we constantly are reminded that we are
supposed to make the best use of resources. We would
like to do demos side by side all across this country, all the
time and everywhere, and have billion-dollar research
programs. That would be great but as a practical matter,
I do not know if we will be able to do these things.
Timberlake: Picking up on that thought, I think side-by-
side demonstrations would be wonderful. I think the
best avenue to get that type of work done is through
programs directed at specific regions. For instance, the
Great Lakes had the Assessment and Remediation of
Contaminated Sediments (ARCS) program. They had
the resources to look at a number of technologies at a
select number of sites. Now New York Harbor is in the
same position, getting money to look at technologies for
a specific problem.
The budgets made available for efforts like that dwarf
my budget for R&D. It would be nice, as Tommy Myers
said, to do this all across the country, but for now we
need to try to take advantage of certain areas that are in
the spotlight. For a time it was the ARCS program.
Certainly the Great Lakes are still an issue, but now you
hear a lot about New York Harbor. I think we should
use those vehicles to get this type of information.
Recommendations for Improving Long-Term
Controls and Technologies
The EPA and USAGE should develop a program to
support R&D and demonstrate innovative technolo-
gies specifically focused on the placement, treatment,
and dredging of contaminated marine sediments.
Innovative technologies should be demonstrated side
by side with the current state-of-the-art technologies
to ensure direct comparison. The results of this pro-
gram should be published in peer-reviewed publica-
tions so the effectiveness, feasibility, practicality, and
cost of various technologies can be evaluated indepen-
dently. The program should span the full range of
R&D, from the concept stage to field implementation.
The USAGE and EPA should develop guidelines
for calculating the costs of remediation systems,
including technologies and management methods,
and should maintain data on the costs of systems that
have actually been used. The objective should be to
collect and maintain data for making fair compar-
isons of remediation technologies and management
methods based on relative costs as well as their effec-
tiveness in reducing risks to human health and
ecosystems.
The EPA and USAGE should support R&D to
reduce contaminant losses from CDFs and CAD, to
promote the reuse of existing CDFs, and to improve
tools for the design of CDFs and CAD systems and for
the evaluation of long-term stability and effectiveness.
The EPA and USAGE should sponsor research to
develop quantitative relationships between the avail-
ability of contaminants and the corresponding risks
to humans and ecosystems. The overall goal should
be to enable project evaluation using performance-
based standards, specifically the risk reduction from
in-place sediments; disturbed sediments; capped sed-
iments; CDFs and CAD; and sediments released fol-
lowing physical, chemical, thermal, and biological
treatments.
The EPA and USAGE should support the develop-
ment of monitoring tools to assess the long-term per-
formance of technologies that involve leaving
contaminants in or near aquatic environments.
Monitoring programs should be demonstrated with
the goal of ensuring that risks have been reduced
through contaminant isolation.
(NRG Report, pp. 167-168)
Myers: The recommendations on cost are a good idea.
I think we have been somewhat behind the eight ball on
that. There are cost data out there, but they are not
updated and compiled and readily available. I suspect a
lot of the cost is somewhat regional. It is nevertheless a
good suggestion.
Regarding CDFs and CAD and risk, we are certainly
taking that to heart. We have a program that some of
you know about, the Dredging Operations
Environmental Research Program, which comes out of
headquarters. Joe Wilson is primarily responsible for
getting that money and setting up that program; he is
the technical monitor. This information is on the Web.
This program is supposed to do research on design to
balance operational and environmental initiatives and
meet the complex economic, engineering, and environ-
mental challenges of dredging and disposal in support of
the navigation mission. That covers the availability of
contaminants and risks, CDFs, operation, designs, CAD,
costs, and monitoring tools.
Timberlake: Regarding the first recommendation, on
developing a joint research program, we have moved
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48
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
toward identifying areas of common interest. I see that
growing in the future.
Concerning cost guidelines, we have some efforts in
my lab doing just that—coming up with guidelines on
how to document or estimate costs for sediment reme-
diation projects. The real problem is when you have the
guidelines, how do you get people to use them? We have
experience with remediation projects in the field, but
we have done a poor job of learning from those projects
from a risk-reduction or cost point of view. Just because
you have guidelines does not mean they will be used.
Maybe a larger problem is how to get people to follow
certain guidelines or protocols.
The last two recommendations, dealing with the
availability of contaminants and monitoring tools, fall
within the mission of my lab but also involve other labs
within EPA. We sometimes have a hard time working
together. It comes down to sharing resources and that
type of thing; we need to do a much better job of this.
Regarding the availability of contaminants and risk, for
example, we do a very poor job of documenting the risk
reduction achieved with a particular management
option.
We do this in series. People have been working for
years documenting that contaminated sediment is a
problem. Then they hand it off to engineers and others.
Now we are working on risk management, but we stop
at that point. We need to tie risk assessment into what
we are doing in research on risk management to get a
handle on how good a job we are doing.
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BREAKOUT DISCUSSIONS
Enhancements and Impediments to
Applying New Technologies
K. E. (Ted) McConnell, University of Maryland
Donald R Hayes, University of Utah
Patrick Keaney, Blasland, Blouck & Lee
Larry Miller, Port of Houston Authority
Weldon Bosworth, Dames & Moore
ENGINEERING COST OF CLEANUP (GROUP A)
K. E. (Ted) McConnell
My group agreed that we should discuss a
broader topic, which is the benefits and costs
of contaminated sediments. We had a good
discussion about both the costs and the benefits. I will
focus primarily on our two conclusions, one concerning
the engineering costs, the other concerning the nature
of the benefits.
The group agreed that costs must include more than
just engineering costs to be meaningful (e.g., resource
damage costs, land values). Sediment management is an
unusual arena in which costs typically are figured on a
per-cubic-yard basis rather than by determining all of
the parameters of the specific situation. In the case of
contaminated sediments, costs are always site specific. A
number of steps are involved in the process for a pro-
ject, and a range of costs is involved in each step,
depending on the variables. A generic cost-model needs
to incorporate the various segments in the chain and
standardize costs for each segment. Costs also need to
be linked to risks and benefits.
What are the major sources of variations in costs? For
dredged sediments in place, these factors include pro-
duction rate and distance to the disposal site. A cost fac-
tor for all projects is sediment characteristics, which
determine the applicable state and federal regulations.
The necessity of addressing public concerns and public
perceptions of risk also adds to the costs. In most cases,
costs are regionalized, differing based on the geography
of ports (e.g., shallow water, currents, periods when
environmental concerns preclude or permit dredging).
With respect to engineering costs, an effort should
be made to learn more about these costs in a systematic
way by data gathering. The idea is that engineering
costs vary in systematic ways. If we have a sense of how
they vary, then the range of costs may look a lot nar-
rower than it did on the chart in the NRC report. Our
conclusion is as follows:
• Engineering costs for the multitude of types of
cleanup of contaminated sediments are highly dependent
on regional and project-specific goals and objectives.
• Costs must be incrementalized for volume for
methods such as natural recovery, capping, and dredg-
ing (inclusive of disposal volume or beneficial sediment
conditioning, production, disposal siting or end use, and
location considerations).
• Therefore, uniformity of project elements is necessary
to compute the total costs of different projects.
We also concluded that the benefits need to be identi-
fied in order to justify the higher costs of contaminated
sediment management for all objectives. We categorized
49
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50
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
the chief benefits as follows: Environmental benefits
include additional restored wetlands and increasing func-
tion of ecosystems. Recreational benefits include
increased recreational fishing and increased use of public
lands. There are also specific commercial benefits, such as
• Increased navigational commerce;
• Increased commercial fishing; and
• Increased opportunity for development, both
commercial and recreational.
Public health benefits include a reduction in health
care treatments for exposed individuals and the preven-
tion of impairments due to reductions in the release of
contaminants in sediments.
In general, there was a feeling that cost-benefit
analysis is useful, but in some cases, you may have to
forgo a complete analysis and either measure benefits
when you can or measure the objective attributes. This
leaves you in a world of multi-objective output. To per-
form a cost-benefit analysis, costs for specific
approaches must be determined, and the elements that
are factored in must be uniform or standardized. Costs
need to be coupled with various scenarios (e.g., cap,
dredge, dispose) and linked to goals and objectives
(e.g., improved transportation, restoration of habitat).
EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS
WITH DREDGING (GROUP B)
Donald R Hayes
The group talked mainly about two topics: sedi-
ment removal and transportation, and ex situ
treatment technologies. We spent a lot of time
discussing dredging. The consensus was that there are a
few dredging technologies. There is still quite a bit of
concern about sediment resuspension and contaminant
release and our ability to predict and estimate them. It
was also agreed—although there were a couple of dis-
senters—that performance-based contracting for dredg-
ing is the way to stimulate advances in the U.S. dredging
industry. Along with that, longer-term, larger-scale con-
tracts will give the dredging companies more security so
they can take more risks.
I doubt anyone was surprised at the consensus on
performance-based contracts. That is not the direction
we were going in the past, but it is the trend now. I had
some concerns about it, but I have been convinced that
is the way to go. Some concern was expressed about
how it could affect the costs for specific companies that
have contaminated sites, and whether or not they
should bear the full cost of that innovation, considering
that navigational dredging and environmental dredging
are two different approaches.
The Hazardous Substance Research Center South and
Southwest put up a poster that includes a definition of
environmental dredging. I do not recall exactly what it
said, but sometime back I wrote a definition that basi-
cally stated a different purpose. In navigational dredging,
the purpose is to get the material out as cheaply as pos-
sible; in environmental dredging, the purpose is to clean
up first. There was some concern about the potential for
performance-based contracts to have different effects,
depending on the type of dredging. On the other hand,
there was a belief that, in the long term, these perfor-
mance specs would cause the dredging industry to
respond; although it probably would limit the number of
proposers, the result would probably be a better product.
The second thing we talked about was ex situ treat-
ment. I spurred a little interest this morning when I
stated that treatment costs were high, up to $l,000/yd3
($l,310/m3). I have to change a couple of things. My job
was to reflect what the report says, so I should have said
the costs are in the range of $50-$l,000/yd3 ($65 to
$l,310/m3). Furthermore, based on our group discus-
sion, there seems to be not only hope but also evidence
of the potential for decontamination technologies to
cost less than $100/yd3 ($130/m3). Some suggestions are
in the $50 range; some are in the $70 range ($65 to
$92/m3). These costs do include economies of scale, but
the people proposing them suggest that they have a lot
of experience and that these numbers are not just "pie
in the sky" but actually can happen.
There is more than a little difference between the
two sets of numbers. The NRC committee's intention
was to include all of the pieces—the extra handling,
disposal of residues, and so on—but that still does not
account for the large difference. I am elated to hear the
new numbers, and I hope they turn out to be true,
because that would be the best thing for us. The NRC
material was a bit dated. The report has been out for a
year; it was done a year before that; and our data were
some years old at that point. I am glad to hear that
things are happening in that regard.
A point was made that, if we really want to bring
these costs down, we should look again at long-term
contracts and specific locations that could bring in some
economies of scale. An example is New York Harbor, or
some other location where you know how much sedi-
ment will be treated and someone can count on that for
a long period of time. Then it is worth the capital invest-
ment, and maybe these costs really will come down to a
level that will surprise and please us all.
There is one other topic I should mention. It was clear
from the discussion that regulatory impediments exist in
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APPLYING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
5 1
the mere definition of sediments, and that we should not
impede ourselves unnecessarily by defining sediments as
something bad. They can be cleaned, and some can be
used for many beneficial purposes, as they are. There
may not be a place for them in the marine environment;
that may be a problem. But those same sediments in an
upland environment may pose essentially no risk.
Tagging it as unusable probably does not help any of us,
and it closes some doors that might offer the best solu-
tions for society as a whole. We felt there is a need to
encourage beneficial use to the fullest extent possible.
EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS
WITHOUT DREDGING (GROUP C)
Patrick Keaney
In situ options include interim controls, both adminis-
trative and technological, and long-term controls and
technologies, including natural recovery, in-place
capping, and treatment. It quickly became apparent to
everyone as we kept talking about the same five or six
sites that the experience base for all in situ controls and
technologies is very limited.
The group discussed a number of topics related to
these technologies and identified the following issues
that need to be addressed to improve the knowledge
base and acceptance of in situ controls. It was recog-
nized that there are informational gaps and barriers to
implementation related to the effectiveness, applicabil-
ity, and cost of in situ options. These data, when we
develop and coordinate them, will help us make better
risk-based remediation decisions and inform relevant
stakeholders at the local level to facilitate consensus
building on in situ options.
We broke this problem down into two major areas:
information and data needs, and barriers to the implemen-
tation of in situ options. The information and data needs
were divided further into two broad categories. First, con-
sidering the limited existing database, we need better coor-
dination of the data that exist for the sites already out
there. There was a call for someone to coordinate these
data and put them into a central repository that could be
accessed. Second, as in situ options are implemented in the
future, what types of data do we need to move forward and
what types of data should we be collecting to increase the
acceptability of these remedial options?
With regard to the second category, data need to be
collected to (a) gauge the effectiveness of in situ options
in reducing risk, both short and long term; reveal long-
term trends in source reduction, natural attenuation,
and potential release; and improve the understanding of
engineering failure analysis of in situ options; (b) assess
the applicability of in situ options, develop guidelines
for acceptability (i.e., what hoops must we get through
to declare this an acceptable option at a site), and
improve the definition of long-term risk reduction; and
(c) delineate costs, develop guidelines for standardiza-
tion of cost data, and increase awareness of the impor-
tance of releasing cost data to stakeholders and the
public.
The second overall problem area—and probably the
more lively area of discussion—concerned barriers to
the implementation of in situ options. One barrier is the
long-term monitoring component, which is essentially a
disincentive to principal responsible parties (PRPs)
under the current regulatory framework. Associated
with that barrier are the costs, and the uncertainty about
the costs, related to long-term monitoring.
Another barrier, which probably got the most discus-
sion in our breakout session, was the public perception
of, and risk communication related to, in situ options.
We listed as needs the development of risk communica-
tion tools, review of case studies on how public partici-
pation and community involvement has been
implemented successfully at sites, integration of citizens
into the process and community forums at these sites,
"risk translation" for the layperson, and general public
education on the science of the in situ options. An
example of that science would be degradation processes
that may occur over time within a cap.
The third significant barrier to the use of in situ options
was the lack of science. The perceived lack of science
breeds uncertainty, which ultimately becomes a barrier to
implementation in the eyes of the public, regulators, and
industry. Three more barriers were identified that I doubt
we will be able to affect. These were navigational impacts,
environmental impacts, and contaminant-specific impacts.
All three influence the decision-making process related to
implementation of in situ options.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR AND FINANCING OF
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, TESTING,
AND DEMONSTRATION (GROUP D)
Larry Miller
Our group was tasked with identifying responsibil-
ity for research and development (R&D) testing,
and demonstration programs, and also identifying
financing sources for R8cD of new technology. We came
up with three recommendations. The first was to increase
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
research support at the federal level. I am preaching to the
choir here to a certain extent. The second was to encour-
age industrial R&D, partnering, and teamwork. The third
was to encourage R&D focusing on beneficial uses.
With respect to increasing research support at the federal
level, I mean research support through dollars, not just a
statement like, "We support your efforts, good luck to you."
Money is needed through mechanisms such as the identifi-
cation of contaminated sediments as a priority in competitive
grants programs, including the Environmental Protection
Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE) initia-
tives and other multi-agency initiatives. Along with that,
money is needed for fundamental process research, remedial
technology development, and market research.
Regarding the encouragement of industrial R&D, we
talked about partnerships and teaming. This is very impor-
tant. Budgets are shrinking. You may have had the money in
the past, but you no longer have it. Thus, it makes sense, and
not just from an economic standpoint, to partner and team
up to get the best bang for the buck. It is much better to do
that than to have a program die or end up in a file cabinet.
We also talked about remedial technology development
forums and limiting liability for demonstration programs. By
doing that, you encourage R&D at the industry level. If a
company's risk is reduced, then its exposure is reduced, and
it will be encouraged to enter into R&D projects.
I can identify with the third recommendation, encour-
aging R&D focusing on beneficial uses. We heard about
the reuse or management of contaminated sediments. In
Houston, we are using dredged material for beneficial uses
such as recreating marshlands and building boater destina-
tions and bird habitats. I am not saying that all material can
be used in those situations. We have determined that there
is a greater need for beneficial uses for dredged material in
Houston than we have dredged material available. The
same may be said in the long run by this group.
In sum, there are many reasons to move forward with
R&D. Money is needed. Start at the highest level, the fed-
eral government, and work down to partnering and team-
work and encouraging R&D on beneficial uses at the
industry level.
REGULATORY IMPEDIMENTS TO APPLYING
NEW TECHNOLOGY (GROUP E)
Weldon Bosworth
Our group had a very wide-ranging discus-
sion. Much of it dealt with regulatory
impediments—although not the environ-
mental regulatory impediments you might expect,
but rather those associated with the procurement
processes.
The underlying theme was that there is a big disin-
centive for the emergence and use of some of the more
innovative solutions. The problem is the short-term
nature of the procurement process. That is, contracting
agencies such as USAGE apparently are unable to com-
mit for long-term, minimum-volume amounts and so
forth, that would give a businessman financial incentive
to develop innovative solutions. Certainly there is risk
associated with starting and running a business, but risk
tolerance can go only so far. A lot of people (maybe our
group was stacked that way) felt we needed more of a
long-term outlook.
As a corollary, it was suggested that perhaps a private
means of developing a supply that could be contracted
out by some public agency could serve to encourage
innovative solutions. For example, a multiparty collec-
tion of dredged materials or sediment might be treated
and perhaps administered somewhat differently than it
would be in the federal procurement process.
Along the same lines, there was a discussion about the
need to develop flexible performance standards for the
treated dredged material. That is, if the material failed
ocean-dumping criteria after treatment, then there would
be a range of possible uses, from construction to other
things. If there were flexibility to develop different crite-
ria for using sediments, rather than a need for a new deci-
sion on an ad hoc basis every time something is treated,
then at least the people who ran the decontamination
process would have a more certain goal.
A good deal of talk revolved around risk taking. We
probably have a lot of good ideas in this room about
how we might try to implement innovative remedies.
But the decision makers who ultimately determine
whether or not they can apply a technology have a dis-
incentive to take risks. Just because of the nature of the
system, they probably have more of an incentive to stick
with the tried-and-true alternative, which is to take the
sediment out and move it somewhere and treat it.
How do you encourage risk taking? I do not know.
There was a suggestion that, if you give the PRPs some
discretion—some prerogative in meeting mutually
agreed-on remedial action outcomes, cleanup goals, or
performance criteria—then they might be willing to
take the risk of implementing other types of solutions in
situations where that normally would not happen if the
regulators made the decision. Given that the PRPs are
ultimately responsible anyway, because there is always a
review of remedies, this would not be much different
from the current situation. But they would be allowed at
some point to say, "We want to do it this way; we are
willing to take the risk."
More specifically, one of the regulatory impediments
has to do with capping and the need, as one of the nine
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APPLYING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
53
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup, and
Liability Act (Superfund) criteria, to consider the reduc-
tion in toxicity, mobility, or volume. At the enforcement
agencies at least, regulators do not believe that capping
will achieve these ends. Therefore, at least in Superfund
cases, there is probably a low probability that capping
will be the solution. If we do not have a situation in
which we can implement this technology and then mon-
itor it to document performance, where do we go? We
are left with someone maybe writing a research pro-
posal, having the incentive to do it, and spending a lot
of time and money without even having an adequate
example of a real-life implementation of that type of
remedy.
We spent a lot of time talking about interagency
cooperation and consolidated review of permits. There
was an indication that perhaps more of this should be
motivated by the states, because that is where the pro-
jects take place, and that we need more early involve-
ment by all stakeholders. That type of thing is logical to
anyone who has done permitting. We certainly would
encourage it. This is not really a regulatory impediment.
The bottom line was that most people felt the regu-
lations were there, and there was flexibility within
them, but the administration of the regulations per-
haps was dampening the flexibility for innovative solu-
tions. Lastly, people felt the need to have some
involvement by multiple stakeholders in developing
protocols that can be shared with others seeking to
implement remedies, so that there is more certainty in
the path they are following as well as the feedback that
comes from sharing successes and failures.
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Decision Making
Case Studies
Roundtable Discussion
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CASE STUDY
Multistakeholder Decision Approach for
Contaminated Sediment Management
Rachel Friedman-Thomas, Washington State Department of Ecology
•-'•"•*»•/
I will discuss sediment management activities in Puget
Sound, and in particular, multistakeholder decision-
making approaches. I will begin by providing a con-
text for why the sediment cleanup pilot project was
undertaken in Bellingham Bay.
In Washington State, a program has been in place for
about 10 years; Konrad Liegel alluded to it. The Puget
Sound Dredge Disposal Analysis (PSDDA) program
manages the dredging and disposal of clean dredged
material. It is a joint federal-state program run by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10,
Seattle District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
(USAGE), Washington State Department of Ecology, and
Washington State Department of Natural Resources.
The program manages the unconfined, open-water dis-
posal of clean dredged material. It works in a consensus-
driven manner, through which we have established
testing methods and monitoring. We have identified and
used eight different disposal sites in Puget Sound. It is a
highly accountable program; the public has been
involved from the outset, both during the development
process and on an annual basis, working with us as we
renew and update methodologies and provide status
information.
In the early 1990s, a number of issues made it clear
that we needed a similar model for managing contami-
nated sediments. Our modus operandi up until that
point was site-by-site cleanup decision making, very lia-
bility-oriented decision making, which was stalling a lot
of our efforts. Money was moving out of the environ-
mental improvement arena into legal support, if you
will. In effect, because we were not making progress
with cleanup, we were not moving in the best direction
for the public. In case you are not aware of it, there was
a series of lawsuits and counter-suits between some of
the agencies that were involved cooperatively in the
PSDDA program. That highly adversarial interaction
was not working for us. Because of that, the four agen-
cies involved in the PSDDA program decided that we
needed to do something differently in the management
of contaminated sediments.
In 1996, we entered into a partnership with a num-
ber of folks to develop and implement a bay-wide
approach to aquatic land management. Tony
MacDonald made an interesting point about the power
and efficacy of local decision making. That was a real
impetus for our interest in developing this pilot model.
We recognized the effect that local government can have
on decision making, and we wanted to marry the inter-
ests of a local government with the federal and state
interests to develop policy concurrently as well as con-
duct actions. A driving issue was the fact that the regu-
lated and environmental communities have been
dissatisfied for a number of years with how the federal
and state governments coordinate.
As you heard earlier, myriad federal regulatory
authorities intermix, cross over, and confuse. When that
is coupled with state and local requirements, we step all
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58
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
over each other. The stakeholders were saying, "Get
your acts together." They also were interested in speed-
ing up what was perceived as a very protracted permit-
ting process. They wanted us to evaluate conflicting
aquatic land uses. They wanted us to minimize residual
risk through our cleanup decision making and minimize
transaction costs by coupling economic development
with environmental improvement.
Taking all of those driving issues into account, we
landed in Bellingham Bay, which is a fairly small, urban
embayment in the northern part of Puget Sound. It rep-
resented an array of sediment contamination issues and
habitat loss. There is a very large mercury-contaminated
sediment site here. There is an unpermitted landfill
growing out in the bay. There is more mercury associ-
ated with some discharges. There are ferry operations
issues. Although it may not sound like New York/New
Jersey Harbor or some of the other areas, it offered
enough diversity that we could try to integrate naviga-
tional issues, public access issues, habitat, cleanup, and
source control.
The Bellingham Bay Work Group is composed of 16
members, including representatives of the port, the city
of Bellingham, and the county government. We also
have a private entity—the principal party responsible
for that major spot of mercury contamination. We have
two tribes involved in the project. We have all of the
customary federal and state players as well.
Through a consensus-driven decision process, the
first thing we did in this pilot project was to develop a
vision and some process objectives. We talked about a
new approach, a number of elements that we would like
to integrate in the bay. These objectives were a good
start toward laying out the big picture. This was a valu-
able activity because it spawned our buy-in, if you will,
on the selection of the five elements about which we
wanted to make decisions. Another activity was the
development of a process flow.
After we developed our vision and objectives and
identified our elements, one of the first steps was to
compile all of the existing data that we could find about
all of these elements, as a baseline. Then we were all on
a level playing field in terms of information. One of the
things I keep hearing in this session, whether the subject
is data or cost information, is that without enough
information, there is not a leg to stand on for decision
making.
We came a long way, and then we realized that we
lacked an approach for tackling tough decision making,
prioritization, or eventually selecting projects. We
decided to use a multiple-stakeholder decision approach,
which helped facilitate decision making across multiple
elements and among multiple parties. We have used this
technique in Washington State in the past to do every-
thing from estabh'shing criteria for our state Superfund
law to siting disposal facilities. Through this process, we
found that you can arrive at an implementable, effective,
and acceptable decision. From the standpoint of decision
theory, this technique allows you to use all the parties'
core values, whether regulatory, proprietary, tribal, or
private. It eliminates the need to move to the margins as
a result of trade-offs.
After about one year of working together as a group
and overcoming a lot of trust barriers, we conducted a
two-day exercise at which all parties articulated all of
their goals for a project, ranging from protecting human
health to maintaining economic vitality in the region. We
ended up with perhaps 45 goals, which we then pack-
aged. That packaging required a number of iterations.
We eventually packaged seven goals, none of which ini-
tially carried any more weight than the others. But we
decided that working with seven goals would be too
unwieldy, so we ranked them. We did it using a simple
relative numeric model, in which, in effect, everyone's
voice had equal rank.
Our overarching goal was to be inclusive of manda-
tory regulatory requirements as well as the goals that
the work group identified as most important. The bal-
ancing goals, if you will, are the practical considera-
tions that affect how easily an action or alternative can
be implemented and that were identified as not most
important, but still important, by a large number of the
work group members. We could apply these seven goals
to any type of decision, from prioritizing sediment
clean-up sites (there were eight) to prioritizing habitat
restoration projects.
The seven broad goals were categorized as primary
goals (i.e., the initial screening steps) and secondary
goals, which were used in conjunction with the primary
goals to evaluate a screened set of actions and identify
the priorities for any given element. The primary goals
are to protect human health and safety, protect and
improve ecological health, and protect and restore
ecosystems. The secondary goals are to implement
actions that are consistent with or enhance cultural and
social uses in the bay and surrounding vicinity; maxi-
mize material reuse in sediment cleanup, minimize the
use of renewable resources, and take advantage of exist-
ing infrastructure where possible; implement actions
that are more expedient and more cost-effective
through approaches that achieve multiple objectives;
and enhance water-dependent uses of commercial
shoreline property.
How did we apply these goals in our disposal-site
selection process? We were committed to maintaining
the three broad categories of upland, nearshore, and
aquatic sites. We developed a number of exclusionary
criteria based on distance, suitable land types, and so
forth. We could not consider an eelgrass bed, for
example. We ended up with a list of 68 potential dis-
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MULTISTAKEHOLDER DECISION APPROACH
59
posal areas in a multicounty area. We took that list and
conducted a multistep exercise.
First, we went back to our seven goals and developed
evaluation criteria, which then could be translated into
scoring guidelines. We subjected those 68 sites to our
scoring guidelines to come up with a midsized list of 36
upland, 15 nearshore, and 17 potential contained
aquatic disposal (CAD) sites. We evaluated them against
the primary goals and came up with 21 sites. Then, as a
final step, we evaluated those 21 sites again, based on
the primary goals, and came up with a final list of 8
potential disposal options.
One alternative is to dredge the waterway. We also are
considering no action. We are looking at habitat oppor-
tunities, including CAD or caps in these areas. Our
thinking is tied closely with risk-reduction issues. We
have source control concerns, so we are weighing the
value of capping versus CAD versus a confined disposal
facility, insofar as the source (i.e., the seep of mercury)
will be confined. We hope that some of the material that
needs to be dredged can be used beneficially, but we are
not there yet. I am encouraged, and I want to keep hear-
ing more about beneficial reuse. When we get down to
the bottom line, we hear a lot about the difference in
cost associated with the beneficial reuse of contaminated
material. We have to sort that out.
Despite the process we have undertaken and the
progress made so far, we still have a lot of hurdles to
overcome. Depending on the alternatives we select,
costs could range anywhere from $24 million to $144
million. We are just beginning to address the issues of
whether to use standard regulatory mechanisms or non-
regulatory mechanisms to conduct this work, and the
pros and cons therein. We are trying to couple as many
contaminated cleanups as we can with habitat restora-
tion actions to minimize the transaction costs. We are
working with the USAGE on the possibility of advance
identification for this whole project to help streamline
our permitting process. Of course, all the time we are
keeping in touch with the public to make sure that we
are doing the right thing from their perspective.
We are now on the threshold of going out for a
scoping for an environmental impact statement (EIS)
under the state Environmental Policy Act. This EIS,
which I have not really addressed here, will be both a
programmatic evaluation of a bay-wide strategy as
well as an evaluation of seven project alternatives. In
conclusion, although this project is far from com-
plete, we believe that our process of early, compre-
hensive, and broad-reaching goal setting by all of the
affected parties will not leave us eating crow—or
mud—in the end.
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CASE STUDY
Evaluation of Remedial Alternatives for
Contaminated Sediments
A Coherent Decision-Making Approach
John Connolly, Quantitative Environmental Analysis, LLC
As I talk about methods for evaluating contami-
nated sediments, a bias will come through. I
want to acknowledge that this work is not mine
alone but the combination of efforts by Dawn Foster,
Warren Lyman, and me. The three of us have been
involved in the trenches, evaluating sites and trying to
come up with appropriate remedial alternatives to
address contaminated sediments.
The goal that almost everyone has when looking at
contaminated sediments is to try to find some perma-
nent remedy, one that protects human health and the
environment. There is a typical approach applied at
most sites. Go into a site, look at data, and decide
whether an unacceptable risk exists. That is a bit com-
plicated and somewhat controversial because of how we
define risk. I will not get into that here, but think about
it, because an important issue in determining what we
do at a site is how we define the risk. If there is an unac-
ceptable risk, then in most cases, we immediately move
to evaluating the feasibility of various remedial
options—you have to do something now. We set out
remedial action objectives, evaluate options relative to
those objectives, choose an option, and then attempt to
clean up the site.
At most sites, the preferred option is to remove the
contaminated sediment. There is a presumption that
removing sediment accelerates recovery. There is a pre-
sumption that, by taking the sediment out, we have
eliminated a risk that some catastrophic event will occur
that will reset the clock, as John Haggard said earlier,
and bring to the surface sediments that may have been
buried. I would like to challenge this approach by say-
ing that it is not axiomatic that taking out sediments
accelerates recovery, at least not in all cases. I will give
two examples; I am sure there are others.
In 1994 and 1995, about half of the polychlorinated
biphenyl (PCB) mass in New Bedford Harbor, in
Massachusetts, was removed. There is a program in
which caged mussels are sampled. They were sampled
before, during, and after the dredging operation,
through 1997. The caged mussels have shown no reduc-
tion in contaminant levels as a result of taking out half of
the PCB mass. There were other reasons to go after the
PCB mass in New Bedford besides accelerating recovery,
because of the levels there. The other example is the
Grasse River in New York, where 27 percent of the PCB
base mass was removed by dredging in 1995. A resident
fish sampling program has been going on since the early
1990s. That program has shown no effect associated
with the removal of 27 percent of the PCB mass.
Why does mass removal not necessarily accelerate
recovery? I will suggest a few reasons. It may be that
the sediments taken out were not the dominant conta-
minant source for the ecosystem to begin with. That
could happen if ongoing sources are part of the prob-
lem. We talked earlier about ongoing sources and how
to address them. It also may be true that the source
issue is a surface-area phenomenon as opposed to a
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EVALUATION OF REMEDIAL ALTERNATIVES
"hot spot" phenomenon, and if we went in and
removed the hot spots, then we may not have
addressed the problem.
It is also possible that we have not substantially
reduced surface sediment concentrations by taking the
sediment out. That happens in places where dense, non-
aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) is present. When you
remove sediment, DNAPL tends to move toward the
bottom, because it is heavier than sediment. The
removal efficiency for the oil would be less than the
removal efficiency for the sediment. If the concentra-
tions are much higher at depth than at the surface, then
there is a good chance, or at least a chance, that the
residual concentration left behind will be close to—or
maybe even higher—than what was there at the start.
Similarly, if the contamination extends down to hard-
pan, which means that the dredge cannot get an over-
bite with clean sediment, there is the potential of leaving
contaminated sediment behind.
I will quickly discuss a few examples of these types
of issues. First, an example of an ongoing source prob-
lem is Lavaca Bay in Texas, a mercury-contaminated
site. Like a number of other sites with which I am
familiar or have been involved, the initial focus was on
the sediments. The sediments were the problem; the
focus was on what we could do about the sediments. It
was only after quantitative evaluations of what was
going on in Lavaca Bay that it became clear that maybe
contaminated sediments were not the real problem.
We made a vertical profile of mercury concentrations
in the sediment core. Then, based on the history of mer-
cury releases in the late 1960s, we developed a model
predicting what the concentration profile would look
like assuming that the only releases in the system were
the original ones. That profile does not look anything
like the measurements you get close to the surface of
that sediment core. The reason is that the concentra-
tions of mercury in the surface sediments of that core
are due largely to ongoing sources as opposed to histor-
ical releases. At sites where there is not necessarily a
point source that you can focus on right away, the issue
is complicated and the source is sometimes not obvious.
With regard to the issue of hot spots versus surface
area, it becomes important to look at problems in the
right units. If we look at organic contaminants, for
example, then the right units are normalized organic
matter because that is what the organisms are seeing.
The benthic organisms are eating so many grams of
organic matter per day, so their dose of PCBs is related
to the organic matter PCB content. In water, PCBs are
controlled by what is on the particles of organic matter,
so the fluxes from sediments depend upon what is on
the organic matter.
If you look at PCB concentrations in the Hudson
River, both in areas designated as hot spots (because they
have dry weight concentrations significantly greater than
other areas of the river) and in other areas, and you nor-
malize the data to get micrograms of PCBs per gram of
organic carbon, there is no difference. The hot spots and
non-hot spots are comparable. In 1984, the numbers
were essentially the same; in 1991, the number is slightly
higher—statistically, it was not higher—in the non-hot-
spot areas. In this case, we are looking at a surface-area
problem. The hot spots in Thompson Island pool in the
Hudson River represent 10 percent of the surface area.
If you dredged out the hot spots, then you would have
removed just 10 percent of the surface area. You would
have left behind 90 percent of the surface area, which
had the same concentration on an organic carbon basis
as did the hot spots.
With regard to our ability to get stuff out, we have to
be careful when there are high concentrations at depth.
One example is a sediment core profile we did of PCBs
in a river. The PCB concentrations were very low near
the surface, although actually not that low from the
standpoint of what most people would consider a risk-
based evaluation. The surface concentrations were
about 20 parts per million (ppm) in this core. About 107
m into the core, there was a peak PCB concentration of
almost 1,300 ppm. The bottom of the core was hard
material. We did not know if it was truly hardpan or
not, but it certainly would be hard to dredge. Down at
the bottom of this core, the concentration was almost
300 ppm. If we dredged here because of the high con-
centrations at the bottom, to the extent that this was
hardpan, it would be difficult to reduce the concentra-
tion relative to what is already at the surface. Dredging
might or might not have the intended effect.
When we evaluate sites, we need to consider all of
these issues. It is not enough to say there is an unac-
ceptable risk and therefore the presumptive remedy is
dredging. Dredging may work. It works in some places,
but it does not work everywhere. In cases where we are
looking at significant risks and significant costs, we
need to do what I call a prognostic risk assessment. We
need to evaluate all of the alternatives in terms of how
they reduce risk. We need to compare natural recovery
to various other options, and we need to be frank with
ourselves. Let us not presume that dredging will be
effective; let us look at the things that might affect
dredging to determine whether or not it would be
effective, and then put it on the same plot as the other
alternatives and look at risk reduction.
I will run through a proposed procedure for doing that
type of a risk assessment. The first thing that we clearly
need to do at all sites is to look at the distribution of con-
tamination spatially and vertically, in three dimensions.
We need to have the data appropriately normalized. To
look at concentrations on a dry weight basis and conclude
that it is high here and low there and, therefore, we have
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62
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
to address that, is missing the issue. If we are looking at
organic contaminants, then we should carbon-normalize
all the data to decide where the problem areas are. If we
are looking at divalent metals, then maybe we want to
normalize by acid volatile sulfides. We have to know what
the contaminant levels are in the buried sediments, at
what depth there are clean sediments, and whether we
can get an overbite with a dredge.
In all cases, we have to determine the significance of
ongoing sources. At many of these sites, the ongoing
source is not obvious; there is no pipe sitting there with
a permit that tells us it is putting out 20 pounds of con-
taminants per day or per year and that this is part of the
problem. At many sites, the ongoing sources are non-
point, groundwater sources that we may not even know
about. To determine whether these sources exist, you
can do some things with the data, to the extent you have
data. The spatial and temporal trends in the data may
reveal something about ongoing sources. We also can
conduct mass balances. In the absence of knowing
whether there is an ongoing source, can we balance all
the sources and sinks, or is there a piece missing? Are we
missing some particular source that we can use to bal-
ance all the sinks? When the sinks are a lot bigger than
the sources, are we missing a source?
We need to establish the rate of natural recovery. If
ongoing sources are not important, then we can establish
this rate based on temporal trends. If we have data over
time, and if contamination levels are going down, then we
can use those data to establish the natural recovery rate.
However, if there are ongoing sources, then the trend we
see in time is not reflecting natural recovery; rather, it is
reflecting the influence of the ongoing sources. Then we
need to do more research. We need to look at things like
burial rate—how fast are sediments accumulating, if they
are accumulating? We need to look at degradation rates—
does this compound degrade, and at what rate?
Because this is a prospective risk assessment, we will
try to look at risk reductions in the future. We will use
a model. I think we need to constrain ourselves to quan-
titative models, which by definition have to conform to
physical laws. (Sometimes we create models in our
heads that violate laws such as conservation of mass,
and we never know it.) The nice thing about quantita-
tive models is that they are testable—all the assumptions
are defined explicitly; you can see them. (The models in
our heads, however, make lots of assumptions but they
are not necessarily explicitly defined.)
The other nice thing about quantitative models is
that they take advantage of all the science. They use our
full scientific understanding. We know a lot about PCBs,
for example, and how they behave in the environment.
All of that knowledge can be incorporated into a quan-
titative model. We can use the totality of the field data.
We can integrate, for example, water column data, sed-
iment data, and biota data in the context of a quantita-
tive model and evaluate the consistency of all that data.
It then becomes an objective tool—it does not know
anything about politics—for projecting future concen-
trations; by using that objective tool, we have a basis on
which to make remedial decisions.
This type of approach is not new; it is applied in
many places, including rivers, bays, and large lakes.
There are a lot of PCBs, but also other contaminants,
such as Kepone in the James River and metals in the
Patuxent River. The models allow us to test the efficacy
of practical alternatives. We can get an estimate of risk
reduction because we can predict the concentrations in
water sediment in the future and use that as a basis for
estimating risk in the future.
A model also allows us to look at the permanence of
the remedy. Remember, we are looking for a permanent
remedy, and there is always this nasty voice in the back
of your head that says, "Well, if I leave the contaminant
out there, then there is a risk that this will not be a per-
manent remedy." The model is an objective tool for
evaluating that risk. The models have been used suc-
cessfully to evaluate the impact of catastrophic events,
such as floods and hurricanes, for example.
I will conclude by saying that, whatever we do, we
should answer the following questions, and we should
do so through a prognostic risk-assessment approach.
First, we need to look at the appropriate remedial
actions. How do we define the goal for the site? We
have to ask ourselves, critically and quantitatively,
whether removal will accelerate recovery. We have to
address all the issues about ongoing sources, contamina-
tion at depth, and whether hot spots really are hot
spots. Are other remedial options more effective in
accelerating recovery? What is the risk associated with
leaving contaminated sediments in place?
Lastly, we need to look at the collateral impacts of
the remedial options. All options have collateral
impacts—impacts on the ecosystem, on the community
in which remedial option is occurring, and on human
health. We need to keep all of these questions in our
minds as we evaluate contaminated sediments. With my
bias, I think that prognostic risk assessment, looking out
into the future, is the approach that allows us to have all
of these discussions.
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CASE STUDY
Establishing Environmentally Acceptable
End Points for the Management of
Sediments and Soils
Edward R. Neuhauser, Niagara-Mohawk Power Corporation
I want to introduce you to an aspect of decision mak-
ing that is somewhat narrower than some of the
things talked about earlier. You might say, why is this
guy from an Upstate New York utility attending a dredg-
ing symposium? Well, remember the Erie Canal? We still
have problems with that. I will introduce you to a
national program in which I am involved and talk about
how we propose to deal with sediments placed in
upland situations from the dredging of the Erie Canal.
I am part of the National Environmentally Acceptable
End Points Program. It is headed by the Gas Research
Institute (GRI) because a lot of utilities once had manu-
factured-gas plants, which, from about the 1840s to the
1950s, supplied gas from the coking of coal. This left a
whole series of sites contaminated with polyaromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs). The coal, • in many cases, was
transported by water; consequently, contaminated sites
ended up right next to waterways.
We started work on these sites almost 13 years ago,
taking sediments from the sites and treating them bio-
logically. (My training is in biology. My coworkers are
all engineers, so I am woefully outnumbered.) We took
the sediments out, aerated them, and put them in a tank
with water and bubbles to expose them to a lot of oxy-
gen. We consistently saw that, in most cases, we got a
rapid reduction in contaminant levels and then a
plateau. We call this the hockey-stick effect. We saw this
in a number of places with a number of agricultural
chemicals and other contaminants as well. This was a
phenomenon that we neither understood nor knew how
to handle at the time.
Are there concentrations of materials—in our case,
PAHs—that would be safe? The concentrations are not
zero, but are they safe enough to enable reuse of these
sites in a beneficial way? The national program is trying
to determine if that can take place. The chemicals in soils
are not all instantaneously available. If you reduce their
bioavailability, then you reduce the exposure and risk. A
number of famous scientists are working in this area. We
all began to see this common phenomenon, and we
decided we needed to understand what was going on.
When we do risk assessments, we make very conser-
vative assumptions (and rightfully so) because we simply
do not know what is happening out there. Actual data
are relatively scarce. There are very few field data for
some of the parameters that I will describe. When I talk
to the state and federal regulators about this, they say,
"This is great, Ed. Show me the data." Some people
want to see money; other people want to see data.
We are going after a couple of key issues. We are not
disputing that, in the sediment particle itself, there is
some release to both plants and humans. That is always
happening. But there is also a release to the groundwa-
ter that takes place over time, and during that release,
an attenuation takes place. We want to understand those
two key issues.
We have property along the Erie Canal near Utica,
New York. There is a peninsula, Harbor Point, which in
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
the 1920s was the largest energy center in the
Northeast. There was a huge manufactured-gas plant
there, and a lot of the contaminants are around that
area. There is PAH contamination in the soils and sedi-
ments around the site. How do we, as a company, man-
age those sites today to reduce risk? We know we need
some basic information. We need to understand the
release and attenuation rates of these chemicals. We
need to know how much and how fast, because we do
not have a good handle on that.
To start this program, we came up with a series of
hypotheses. As I mentioned already, the availability of
these contaminants in soil is decreasing over time. We
think that release occurs very slowly. We know there is
a natural degradation that occurs over time. In the
national program, we are adding a different twist by
working with sediments. I also happen to work for my
company on the development of biomass resources. We
have a question: Can we use the plants that we are
developing under the Department of Energy (DOE)
biomass program to enhance that natural degradation?
In New York State, we decided to concentrate on sed-
iments because we wanted to understand the release and
sequestration rates. We were going to take these sedi-
ments and put them in upland situations, which is really
the only option for us because they want to use the
canal system for recreation. We do not have the option
of putting the material in some other part of the canal.
We want to look at this attenuation concept in the pres-
ence and absence of the plants. We believe that the addi-
tion of biological materials from the growth of the
plants can enhance the degradation rates of these chem-
icals. We are looking at a series of ecological receptors
to try to get a whole-ecosystem picture of this idea.
We divided the project into three basic areas. We
have a laboratory phase in which we look for a mea-
surement tool, something we can use to get a quick eval-
uation of how dangerous a sediment is. Second, we have
greenhouse growth chambers, in which we are growing
these plants, and also a larger growth chamber to get
information that we cannot get readily or inexpensively
from the field. Third, we want to go to the field,
because we know that, unless you show the regulatory
community exactly what you are going to do, they never
believe you.
What do we need from the lab? We need something
like a toxic characteristics leaching procedure test for sed-
iments to give us an indication of the amounts of available
chemicals. We need something that is relatively inexpen-
sive and can be done in a laboratory fairly rapidly. We are
looking at two things for this particular site.
First, a series of earthworm tests were developed by
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early
1980s. This is an effective test; it gives you an indication
biologically of what that organism is seeing. It is an inte-
grator. The worm takes in the material and processes it
through its gut, and then you measure the concentra-
tions in the tissue. There is also a solid-phase extraction
test, which we are working on now. It currently uses a
matrix with a carbon-18 (C-18), waxy-like compound
on it. We put a series of these disks in a slurry and shake
them over time. The test gives us an indication of what
is biologically available.
Over time, we saw that about 60 percent of one par-
ticular contaminant type latched onto the disks, mean-
ing it was bioavailable. Those data corresponded to
what we found with the earthworm test. When we took
that same sediment, treated it biologically (aerobically
in this case), and then subjected it to both the earth-
worm test and C-18 disk test, about 90 percent of it was
not biologically available. There is evidence here that
the total concentration does not always give you a clear
indication of the biologically available amount of the
chemicals.
We started working on greenhouse tests. We needed
to screen some of the willow clones to make sure that
they can grow in these sediments. They seem to do quite
well. The tests in the greenhouse helped us to define
parameters to use in our large-scale pot studies. These
are 30- to 50-gal (114-to 189-L) pots. We are mimicking
the acid deposition work of the 1970s and 1980s, when
they were trying to understand the effect of ozone and
acid deposition on individual plants. It was very difficult
to measure those parameters in the field.
Our greenhouse tests are going on at the Boyce
Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell
University. We are looking at different varieties of wil-
lows and other crops and controls. In the initial tests,
after a four-month period, there was a statistically sig-
nificant decrease in PAHs in the soils with the plants in
them relative to the soils without plants. We saw the
greatest decrease in the five- and six-ring PAHs, which
is good, because they are of the greatest concern to us.
Why would you want to use these larger growth-
chamber pots? Because it is difficult to go out and mea-
sure things in the field. We want to put out these pots,
run them for three to five years, and then look at
changes in the total PAH concentrations and available
PAHs in the soils due to the presence of the plants. We
think the plants have a real role in enhancing PAH
degradation. These data will be very helpful in the
full-scale field project, which we know we have to do.
When you analyze sediments, you learn that they are
very heterogeneous; it is difficult to figure out exactly
what is happening if there is a small change over time.
It became clear to us that we needed to take a whole
series of sediments and mix them up a great deal.
What do we hope the field demonstration will do? It
will stabilize the site. The mass of plant roots will sta-
bilize it very well; we hope that it will lower the
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ESTABLISHING ENVIRONMENTALLY ACCEPTABLE END POINTS
65
groundwater at these sites. At most of these sites, the
groundwater and surface water, for parts of the year,
are equal. "When I took my environmental affairs staff
out to look at these plants, their first impression was,
"This is a great living fence. People cannot get in there;
that is what we want. We do not care about your PAHs,
Ed, just keep the people out." "We also are hoping to
look at biodiversity. "We have studies under way on
micro-arthropod diversity in which we can show, with
the presence of the plants, the very rapid recovery of
these ecosystems after the sediments are placed there.
I want to give you an idea of what these willows can
do. As part of our bioenergy project with DOE, the wil-
lows are planted as 10-in (25-cm) pieces of wood. We
have commercial planters that do this now. There are
about 40,000 acres (16 200 ha) of these plants in
Europe now, and we are adopting the system here in the
United States. We cut them in the winter to promote
rapid growth in the next year. The plants take over the
site. They completely cover everything; there is no weed
problem at all. After three years, you have an incredible
mass of biomass that nobody can get through, and it is
extremely stable.
Our goal in the biomass project is 5 to 7 dry
tons/acre/year (11 to 15.5 tonne/ha/year). This is the
highest rate of biomass production that we can get
from any of a number of different crops. We hope to
adapt this technology to sediments and get a stable
upland sediment situation with enhanced degradation
of the PAHs.
When you put together a project like this, you have
to go to a number of different organizations to raise
seed money. I worked with GRI on that. We have some
money from DOE and we are talking to the Department
of Defense's Strategic Environmental Research and
Development Program, which is interested in certain
aspects; the Electric Power Research Institute; EPA; and
some New York State agencies. When I put together
these projects, I try to identify pieces that appeal to all
those people, so they can say, for example, "Yes, I'll
fund 10 percent of this for you, and then I can buy into
the results of the overall project."
What do we expect out of this? What are we really
targeting? A key thing is to go right to state and federal
regulators. As I said earlier, they want to see data, but
they are willing to work with us. Staff members of our
company regularly brief them on these areas. You have to
make them stakeholders right from the beginning; that
has worked effectively for us. We hope to have tests for
the groundwater and ecological receptors so that we can
look at a sediment and say, yes, this is really dangerous,
or no, this does not look so bad. For the company's sake,
we hope to reduce human exposure. This is a very big
issue for us; we do not want people to get hurt going to
these sites. There is also the idea of making these sites
into wildlife refuges. In many cases, because the sites are
in the flood plain, they will become wildlife refuges.
We want to make sure we end up with a better use of
these materials than our current options offer us. In the
end, we hope to equalize the playing field a bit. We want
to get a lot of real data out there so that people can
compare options, because we do not think these things
are as potentially dangerous as the current models make
them out to be.
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ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Improving Decision Making
Jerry Cura, Menzie-Cura Associates
Elizabeth Southerland, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
K.E. (Ted) McConnell, University of Maryland
DEVELOPING DECISION-MAKING CRITERIA
Jerry Cura
We are trying to develop decision-making criteria.
There are four basic characteristics that deci-
sion-making criteria should have. Generally,
such criteria should be risk based, which immediately
puts us into a paradigm with certain steps to take as we
proceed in developing such criteria. What those criteria
are, of course, is a discussion in itself. I also think it is
important that decision-making criteria be site specific. It
was evident from Rachel Friedman-Thomas's talk that the
only way to incorporate multistakeholder concerns is to
have a specific problem. I do not think there will be uni-
versal decision-making criteria for all sites. Rather, there
has to be stakeholder involvement, and that means the
criteria almost always will be site specific.
The criteria obviously have to incorporate human
exposure concerns and ecological concerns. The work
that Ed Neuhauser was addressing certainly demon-
strates that the basic question of bioavailability of pol-
yaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) gets to both of those
issues. Any set of decision-making criteria should encom-
pass both of those concerns. Another important thing—
all three case studies, particularly John Connolly's,
pointed this out—is that, whatever decision-making cri-
teria you use, they have to be carried through the entire
risk analysis process, from problem formulation to the
end. In the example John gave of New Bedford Harbor,
if the criteria had been developed in some other way,
then you perhaps would not be saying at the end, "Well,
we removed half of this stuff but we are not seeing any
effect in caged mussels," or, "Is the caged mussel the
right criterion?" You would avoid that type of back-end
problem.
In this morning's talks, we heard references to
"seven-year fast tracking" and that sort of thing, where
there seemed to be no end to the process. I think if we
expend the resources and time up front to reach consen-
sus on decision-making criteria, then we can avoid the
delays associated with reacting to sporadic environmental
concerns that come up along the way. Rachel Friedman-
Thomas's group came to the conclusion that we are beat-
ing each other up by reacting to what we are saying. It is
probably better to sit down and develop some a priori cri-
teria. However long that might take, it is time better spent.
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IMPROVING DECISION MAKING
67
MONITORING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
REMEDIATION PROJECTS
Elizabeth Southerland
What I got out of the case studies presented here
is that we definitely need to get some guidance
on how to monitor the effectiveness of reme-
diation projects based on the initial objectives. I am sure
this is serendipitous, but John Connolly showed a situa-
tion in which the objective apparently was to lower the
concentrations of poh/chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in
fish. I think what he showed were data taken less than
three years after the remediation projects.
I have about five case studies here. "When we did sim-
ilar projects in which we looked at a change in fish tis-
sue concentration, we had to go four years before we
saw the improvement we sought. Furthermore, we had
to measure only those fish that were three years old to
really see an improvement. That is an important issue.
After you have done a remediation project, it will take
some time for the system to come back into equilibrium,
particularly if that project is dredging, where you have
disturbed and moved the sediment. While equilibrium is
being reestablished, all the old fish that were exposed to
the concentrations before the dredging are still there.
You would not want to pick any of them up, because
they already have been exposed to the pre-remediation
situation.
For example, we were looking PAHs in the Black
River in Ohio. The concern there was lip and liver
tumors in bullheads and other fish in that system. At the
four-year limit—and not until the four-year limit—
when they finally measured fish that were only three
years old, they found that all the tumors had disap-
peared. Thus, the dredging and removal of the PAH-
contaminated sediments from the Black River was a
successful project. However, if they had stopped moni-
toring after just two or three years, then they would
have missed that effect.
A similar situation occurred in Waukegan Harbor,
Illinois. In that case, there was a human health concern,
similar to the cases that John Connolly cited in which
the remedial objective was to reduce PCB concentra-
tions in fish that are eaten by humans. They monitored
every year. It was not until the fourth year that they
found, in fish that were three years old and had been
exposed only to the cleaned-up situation, that PCB con-
centrations were down to 5 ppm from an average of 20
ppm before the remediation. Maybe one of our prob-
lems is that we have not told people how to monitor for
effectiveness. Nor have we told them how to think
through their objectives.
In the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Cleanup, and Liability Act (Superfund) program, we are
looking at the impact of remediation on the number of
allowable meals you could offer the public in some type
of fish consumption advisory process. This is very con-
troversial. We often want no restrictions imposed on
fish consumption whatsoever—thinking that the reme-
dial alternatives will be so effective that, whenever the
four- or five-year period is over, and the system comes
back into equilibrium, we could eat unlimited fish. But
we are finding some of the problems that John Connolly
pointed out: the contamination runs so deep, or the
fractures in the bedrock are so deep that they trap
highly contaminated (2,000 ppm or 5,000 ppm) sedi-
ments, so that even if we could afford to go down to
bedrock, there still would be fish contamination.
How do we show a benefit to the public in situations
like this? One approach that we are considering now is
to move from a ban on all fish consumption in an area
to suggest instead that consumption be restricted to 2
meals a month, 10 meals a year, or whatever. At least
there would be a fishery open that would benefit the
public, as opposed to insisting on zero contamination in
the fish and a complete cleanup, which might be both
technically and financially infeasible.
The second issue is our concern about the timing of
remediation cleanups. The standard approach with the
Superfund program is to do the on-land cleanup first,
even when they know there are contaminated sedi-
ments right below the site. The process of land-based
cleanup is so time-consuming that sometimes 10 years
or more can go by and it still is not cleaned up. In the
meantime, those contaminated sediments are moving
downstream and causing the non-hot-spot contamina-
tion that John Connolly was pointing out in many of
our systems.
We have many situations in which it would have
been a lot cheaper and easier if, when designating site,
they had worked right away on the contaminated sedi-
ments. Maybe they could put up silt screens on the
land-based site and get the contaminated sediment out.
When they wait so long for the whole cleanup on land
before they attack the contaminated sediments, the
problem often migrates far downstream, where there is
a much lower level of contamination but still enough to
cause fish consumption advisories and to be expensive
to manage.
I will give two examples. In a Green Bay, Wisconsin,
mass balance analysis focusing on low-level contamina-
tion that started from a hot spot in a tributary to the Fox
River and migrated downstream, it was found that, once
every two years, there was a storm big enough to resus-
pend that contaminated sediment, causing the contami-
nation in fish tissues to elevate to levels of concern for
several years. The contamination was migrating down-
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68
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
stream and causing frequent problems. The process
required a storm, but once every two years is quite fre-
quent, and it was keeping fish tissue contamination at lev-
els of real concern. It is a shame that the hot spot was not
cleaned up first instead of waiting for so many studies.
They spent $15 million on monitoring in Green Bay.
Another situation was the Housatonic River in
Connecticut, where there was sediment contamination
in the floodplain, and backyards were highly contami-
nated with PCBs because of the overflow from the river.
They cleaned up everyone's backyard, assuming that
was the big concern; they did not want kids digging
holes and eating the dirt. They put a lot of money into
cleaning up those backyards. Sure enough, once every
two years there is an event big enough to cause the river
to overflow its banks, and now all of those backyards
are contaminated with PCBs again.
We need a discussion of that, but I think we have not
told people how to monitor effectively for remediation
success. We have not done the monitoring at all in many
cases. Secondly, we have to revisit how we time the pri-
orities in a Superfund project or some other remediation
cleanup. Contaminated sediment cleanups might be a
higher priority than some of the land-based work usually
done first. Also, Ed Neuhauser mentioned a toxic charac-
teristics leaching procedure test for PAHs for evaluating
dredged material once it is put in an upland site. I would
like to have a discussion about that. The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) is working on a total PAH sedi-
ment criterion for in situ sediments. We are looking at the
combined effect of PAHs that are still in the river. It
would not help with the land-based disposal, but it would
help with waste-site allocations.
That gets me to my final point. The NRC report
makes the point, which seems like a consensus opinion,
that upstream controls are very important in preventing
contaminated sediments from burdening ports with all
of these problems and high disposal costs. But the
report did not point out that the main thing to imple-
ment an upstream control is some type of chemical cri-
terion that will set the total maximum daily load
calculations to allocate lower waste loads to those
upstream dischargers. A chemical criterion also is
needed to trace the responsible party for investigation.
Unfortunately, there has been a delay in getting out
chemical criteria for sediments. Some of the controversy
has been due to concern over using the criteria for
dredged material, for which it is not effective. Chemical
criteria are not needed for dredged-material evaluations
because there is no need to know what chemical is caus-
ing the toxicity. All we need to know is that the material
is toxic or highly bioaccumulative, and the restrictions
on disposal come into play. It is only the point or non-
point source dischargers upstream and the remediation
people who need the chemical criteria to identify the
responsible parties and to do the mass balance calcula-
tions that are so necessary if we want to end the ongoing
input of contaminants. That is an area for discussion.
VALUING THE OUTCOMES
K. E. (Ted) McConnell
I want to make some broad comments and then relate
them to the presentations. The comments are broad
not because I want them to be, but because, as an
economist, there is no research I'can talk about other
than principles.
I have been involved in the topic of contaminated
marine sediments since the formation of the NRC com-
mittee about five years ago. Since that time I have heard
a great deal about the scientific and engineering issues
discussed at this roundtable and earlier today. I have
seen that there is a substantial input of resources to
manage contaminated marine sediments. The resources
are spent not only on cleanup, treatment, and removal
or navigational dredging, but also on research. Even
though research funds are scarce and maybe getting
scarcer, there is a substantial group of people in this
room and elsewhere who do research on this topic. We
have a lot of resources going into this area.
In terms of what we are gaining from managing con-
taminated marine sediments, over the past five years I
have seen very little evidence. We really do not know
what we are getting. I would like to emphasize that one
of the conclusions of the report is the need to do some-
thing like risk assessment or cost-benefit analysis to
know what we are getting. For example, when we
undertake dredging or treatment of contaminated sedi-
ments for environmental reasons, presumably we are
getting some reduction in the exposure of ecological
resources or humans to the contaminants. How much
do humans care about that? Do we know?
When we dredge for navigational purposes, we
sometimes do many benefit-cost analyses to find out
what the navigational benefits are, but those are limited.
When we devote extra resources to being especially
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IMPROVING DECISION MAKING
careful of sediments that are dredged for navigational
reasons and also are contaminated, presumably we get
some sort of improved ecological health or reduced
human exposure. What are we really getting?
This is not a parochial plea for economic research. I
think it will be very hard to maintain an enterprise like
this, with such a large quantity of resources going into it,
without some evidence of a public gain. This holds true
for specific projects, but it also holds in general for the
whole effort to manage contaminated marine sediments.
This broad statement reflects on two of the earlier
presentations. Rachel Friedman-Thomas talked about the
negotiations among stakeholders. Negotiations among
stakeholders are very valuable, but they do not always
result in decisions. There are situations in which one
group can gain only if another loses. Improved decision
making in such cases would require monetary or other
type's of compensation. I like the idea of bringing stake-
holders together, but it will not solve all the problems.
There are a number of situations in which stakeholders
have interests that cannot be reconciled voluntarily.
When they can, it is great, and we are all better off.
Regarding the .presentation by John Connolly, I
would like to second his motion for the use of quantita-
tive models in predicting what will happen. This is
essential; you absolutely must have this sort of predic-
tion. As he so aptly said, the models do not know poli-
tics. Predictions with models like these need more
components, dealing not only with the ecological
effects, but also the human end of things. How humans
value the outcomes is essentially what we will have to
model at some time or another.
This sort of modeling is essential, but to justify the
call for more research, new resources, and better tech-
niques, it will be necessary to show that there are bene-
fits, and in some cases it will be necessary to quantify
those benefits in dollars. I am not arguing that this is
always the case. But sometimes it is necessary simply to
count up what the public gets—and the more you can
measure it in dollars, the better.
My last point is connected to policy making and the
negotiations among stakeholders. There is a substantial
disparity between scientifically measured risks and the
risks perceived by humans. If we were to do this scien-
tifically, then we would look at the measurable effects
on the ecological system or human health. But fre-
quently the general public places a much higher value
on this risk than the objective scientific research does.
This is true not only for contaminated sediments but
also in any other situation in which humans are exposed
to risks. There is always this disparity. There is a role
here for risk communication—to try to communicate to
the stakeholders the distinctions among these risks.
Coming back to Rachel Friedman-Thomas's discussion
of stakeholders, I think risk communication can be done
effectively in that context.
DECISION MAKING
Summary of Dialogue with Audience
Analyzing Cost
Audience Member: The NRC report speaks broadly
about using risk-based analysis to make the management
of contaminated material more cost-effective. I have not
found anything in the report that will support a numer-
ical analysis of cost with respect to navigation projects.
I do not think the committee looked at how we now
analyze the cost of managing contaminated sediments
for navigation projects nor did it determine whether
those costs would go up or down if a risk-based analy-
sis were used. If I missed it, then please tell me where it
is. I do not think you can substantiate the conclusion
without that analysis.
Ted McConnell: I have to appeal to Spyros Pavlou. The
idea of risk analysis is to try to make things systematic,
so that, across projects, you can tell what you are getting
in one project versus what you are getting in another.
Perhaps within a single project it may not help, but I
think that, if used systematically, it would. I plead igno-
rance on the question of whether we have proven it in
the text.
Spyros Pavlou: Appendix D to the report gets into the
use of decision analysis as a way of evaluating alterna-
tives. It was an effort to demonstrate the potential for
using a tool like decision analysis to help the decision
process. We did not have a specific example or demon-
strated case to provide substantial evidence that, indeed,
this approach has worked. With respect to cleanup
issues—and not necessarily navigational dredging—we
wanted to have a tool to evaluate the trade-offs among
risk, costs, and benefits, to come up with a decision that
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
might help take (or not take) remedial action. We pro-
posed an approach. Actually, what we are seeking is a
project in which this approach can be tested.
Evaluating Alternatives
Audience Member: I am not sure that the cost-effec-
tiveness issue is to make a decision about whether it is
better to dredge based on some nominal criteria or on
risk-based criteria. I think the cost-effectiveness issue is
to evaluate alternative remedies based on some type of
metric, such as a reduction in risk, so that one can
determine systematically the marginal benefits of each
strategy. I agree that there are few projects in which
you can demonstrate this. There was an example of
New Bedford; if the model that was developed had
been successful in meeting its objectives, I think you
would have been able to demonstrate it. I think that is
a good, idealistic goal.
Pavlou: If you look at risk reduction, there is a accept-
able level that might not be zero. You do not necessarily
have to go to zero risk. We wanted to evaluate method-
ologies that might say, for a given level of risk reduction,
how much you have to pay, and whether that level of
risk reduction is acceptable and meets society's needs. It
is not necessarily just a matter of looking at a number of
alternatives and ranking them; it is also a matter of say-
ing what the acceptable risk is. That is an issue that John
Connolly brought up. Acceptable risk varies; it is in the
eyes of the beholder. If you evaluate the trade-offs
among risk, costs, and benefits, then you might come up
with a risk reduction that is not the lexicological base
criterion that you want to see, because society's values
might be different. That is what we tried to say.
Jerry Cura: The gentleman's point is probably well
taken. The text did not, in any robust way, demonstrate
its recommendation. Perhaps the text expresses the
hope or sense that this is the paradigm to use. That hope
may be based on the experience of other programs that
have gone to risk-based decision making and found it to
be, if not cost-effective, at least a way of getting things
moving. The program I am thinking of involves the
Massachusetts waste law. The state had a backlog of
sites early on; it was unable to get those sites through
the process easily. State officials rewrote their regula-
tions, and they now have a very strongly risk-based, out-
come-based program. As a result, sites are moving
quickly through the system, and people are able to buy
and develop sites at a much faster rate than before. If
time is money, then the risk-based approach has been
very cost effective relative to the previous,
chemical-based approach. At least in one state, there is
evidence that the approach works well. Hopefully, the
application of that paradigm to a contaminated sedi-
ment or dredged material situation will be equally as
effective.
Assessing Risk Assessment
Tom Johnson: Regarding the risk-based approach, Tom
Wakeman said he hopes we go in that direction. I think
we all see that as a laudable goal, but in my area we are
scared, because in California we have an example of a
risk-based approach to contaminated sediments—the
Palos Verdes shelf dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane
(DDT) situation. We saw EPA's attempt to formulate a
remedial action plan totally shut down by its reliance
on a risk-assessment process for which there were no
data. They had so few data on the ecological processes
and human exposure pathways and mechanisms in that
area that the risk assessment was essentially a compila-
tion of assumptions. As soon as this was made public,
the other side shot it down, and the whole EPA process
has gone back to the drawing board. We have not had
a technical advisory committee meeting for the better
part of a year now.
From the port's perspective, the thought of basing
navigational dredging of contaminated sediments on
such an uncertain process is scary. I suggest that we pro-
ceed more carefully in jumping on the risk-assessment
bandwagon and be careful not to use risk assessment
unless it is robust and unless there is nothing better
already in place in a local area. In Southern California,
we are forming a regional task force to come up with
disposal alternatives and strategies for contaminated
sediments. They will not incorporate risk assessment,
and yet I think we will be able to move ahead. I worry
about a risk assessment that is a scientific process based
on a lot of assumptions. When we go before the public,
the public will go ballistic.
Regarding the criteria used by EPA, I cannot give you
the details and model, but there were a great many
assumptions (for lack of data) in following fish from the
area of the contaminated sediment to people's tables.
The risk factors that EPA came up with to support the
contention that the sediment needed remediation were
viewed as highly suspect because nobody could say,
"Yes, these types of fish that feed out there did pick up
DDT from the sediments; they are consumed by a num-
ber of people; and this how much of those fish these
people eat."
Pavlou: We should be very careful not to confuse a con-
servative assumption being used in a parameter for the
risk model with the nontechnical and technical defensi-
bility of the process of risk assessment. Just because
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IMPROVING DECISION MAKING
71
your assumptions are wrong and you have a wrong
result, that does not mean the process is no good. You
say that maybe the reason EPA, or whatever agency was
responsible for the risk-based approach, was shot down
is because it used conservative assumptions that were
not technically defensible. That is one way to look at it,
versus the rejection of a model and risk-based approach.
I want to be sure we make the distinction so that we do
not conclude that risk assessment is no good.
Mike Connor: I think Jerry Cura would agree that any
of us who have done risk assessment know that the dif-
ference between the alternatives is dwarfed by the uncer-
tainty in the risk assessment. The panel has to think
carefully about its recommendations for a risk-based
approach and an adaptive-management-based approach.
One gentleman is saying that a risk-based approach is so
analytically burdensome that the time it would take to
satisfy all parties would distract you from what may be a
more adaptive approach, which is to quickly identify the
biggest problem, go after that, see if that is enough, and
keep iterating a solution.
You have a lot of practical people out here who are
saying, "Let's just do something to get off the dime in
this situation." There are dilemmas involved, because,
particularly for private cleanups, the parties want some
sort of certainty about how much they will put in and
get back. Ted McConnell said we may be spending
much more in evaluating contaminated sediment man-
agement than we get in terms of benefits. That could
well be true. It would not be the first time; one could
make that argument about fisheries management, too, I
suppose.
We keep talking about how nice it is that these mod-
els are free of politics. The amount of money involved
in these remediation projects is so high that, by defini-
tion, the process has to have politics. That is why, in an
approach like Rachel Friedman-Thomas's in which you
are trying to negotiate among the parties, you try to
make it political so that you can glom onto other
sources of benefits and monies to get the project off the
ground.
These counterbalancing questions of politics, money,
and analytical and scientific approaches are woven into
the report. The report tries to balance them, but it
comes out with something that, in the end, may not be
able to balance all those issues. Thus, you have these
counterbalancing good ideas that may not ever balance.
I was curious about the philosophy of some of the pan-
elists on risk-based versus adaptive-management versus
politically-based solutions.
Pavlou: I think the reaction we are getting is a good one,
because the purpose of the report was to start with
something. Before the report, nobody had a specific rec-
ommendation or process that someone could shoot at.
The point is, as we evolve, and as we consider this to be
a stepping stone for future considerations of how to
manage contaminated sediments, maybe the report has
done its duty and we now have to think beyond it.
McConnell: I appreciate those comments. About having
politics involved, you are right. This is useful, because
politics just means the representation of people who
have money at stake. I think the value of having a model
without politics is the same as having assumptions in
risk assessment that are robust. A model will not give
you an answer, but it will help in the decision process.
The more objective the model is, the better.
Risk Assessment and Adaptive Management
Rachel Friedman-Thomas: I was interested in Ted
McConnelPs comment about how negotiation will not
always help you reconcile some of those irreconcilable
differences in a political setting. I will tell a short story
about our project. When we began, all four local parties
had a very strong directive for a presumptive remedy.
They were convinced that we should take the landfill
that had been migrating out into the aquatic environ-
ment and turn it into a nearshore confined-disposal
facility, which would provide new upland economic
benefits for the port. As we moved through the process,
we turned around 180 degrees in our thinking. We were
driven by negotiations, whether centered on the risk or
habitat considerations, coupled with the port district
going back and looking very critically at its master plan
and saying, "In the long run, we do not think this is
where we want to go from a development standpoint."
It was very much an adaptive management approach. I
think different approaches work in different contexts.
Cura: Obviously there would be some trepidation,
even fear, among various sectors concerning the possi-
bility that risk assessment will be overwhelming or will
slow things down. We want to view risk assessment not
as the decision-making process but as part of it, and
see that it does allow adaptive management tech-
niques. I think we see that now. For instance, the pro-
gram that Elizabeth Southerland described referred to
the steps in the technical framework; they allow you to
make a decision based on increasing layers or an
increasing quantity of information. Risk assessment
can be integrated with that without supplanting it. In
terms of other regulatory frameworks, I will use
Massachusetts as an example again. Another example
is the American Society for Testing and Materials
RBCA (risk-based corrective action) project, which
uses risk-based decision analysis.
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72
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
There are tiers or stages, depending on whether it is
the Massachusetts or RBCA process, which allow you to
make a decision early on based on some simple deci-
sion-making tools. If you like that decision, if it seems
cost-effective, and you want to get the project done
right away, then you can do it the simple way, but you
do not have to. You can be adaptive. You can say, "Let's
take a closer look at this. Based on what this first-tier or
screening-level analysis has said, I need these five more
pieces of data before I can make a decision." Then you
go out and collect them.
The process does not have to be "all or nothing,"
where we have to jump into a whole set of conservative
assumptions. I think it does allow you to think the thing
through and make a decision along the way. I would hate
any group to be left with the impression that risk assess-
ment means that you will spend $2 million to get rid of
100 yd3 of contaminated material. That is not the case
and should not be. Risk assessment should not dominate
the decision-making process; it should be integrated with
the other elements, such as risk communication, public
participation, and the final decision-making process
itself.
Other Elements in Decision Making
Jim Wenzel: There is one aspect of this discussion that
troubles me. We placed great emphasis in the report on
the subject of systems engineering and its application
from the beginning in carrying out the management
plan. Yet we focused here almost entirely on the subject
of risk analysis. Risk analysis is a very important element,
but if you look at Figure 5.1 in the report, it is only one
element in the decision-making process, and it comes
into play in several different places at the beginning in
trying to set up some design requirements. We showed in
the trade-off studies that performance is important, cost
is important, environmental effects are important, and
risk analysis also is important. We are focusing on only
one element of the process of the application of systems
engineering to solve the remediation problem.
Site-Specific Analysis
Connor: I would like to say "amen" to that and then
offer a couple of comments. We are talking about two
distinct types of contaminated sediment management,
navigational dredging and environmental remediation.
From my perspective, environmental remediation does
not carry with it a presumptive remedy. It does not carry
with it the presumption that you will be removing sedi-
ment, whereas navigational dredging does. The risk
assessment that you undertake for navigational dredging
focuses on how you deal with the removed sediment in
the most cost-effective and environmentally protective
way. In environmental remediation, you need to look at
risk assessment as an important tool and one of several
tools that you might use to evaluate whether there is an
alternative other than dredging that would be equally
cost-effective. A concern I have with the "just do it"
mentality is that it may drive a remedial action objective
founded more on mass removal than on risk reduction
or risk management.
Given that there are no presumptive remedies with
regard to environmental remediation and dredging,
each site is unique. I am not necessarily responding to
all of Elizabeth Southerland's comments earlier, but it is
important to understand the uniqueness of each site.
There may be locations where hot-spot removal is of lit-
tle real benefit in reducing risk in the long term. There
may be other locations where hot-spot removal is
important to avoid a catastrophic release. A site-specific
analysis needs to be undertaken.
Lowering Expectations
Audience Member: Do you mean to tell me that you
have this nasty pollution and you will not let me dredge
it? And now these fish are just half-nasty and I could eat
one every other day, and I am supposed to be glad about
this? Why not cap this site, because it is a site that can
be capped, and in four years we will have a seafood
feast?
Elizabeth Southerland: Sure, if it is an area that can be
capped. The problem is when these things have dispersed
down a river or into a lake system. The surface layer is
contaminated, and when you get a storm (as frequently as
once every two years), the fish get recontaminated. The
issue is, how can we afford to take the top layer off an
entire river basin? Should we look instead at just trying to
get the contamination down to a point where some of the
fishery is open, and there is restricted consumption?
Everyone's hope is that we would be able to stabilize
it, cap it, treat it in situ, or treat it ex situ—whatever is
necessary to get unlimited fish consumption. That was
the goal of the Clean Water Act, to get fishable, swim-
mable waters. I am responding to situations that I keep
hearing about, in which this goal just cannot be
achieved; there are thousands of parts per million of
PCBs or some other contaminant, and it is even in the
bedrock fractures. Even if we remove the whole thing
down to bedrock, we still would have sediments in the
fractures that would recontaminate the fish. We should
look at the remedial alternatives and do the best we can,
but, in some situations, it seems we must lower our
expectations.
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IMPROVING DECISION MAKING
73
Getting a "Buy-In"
Dennis Wolterding: This small exchange inspires me to
state the obvious. There is a difference between selling
risk assessment—I do not care how you sell it or
whether you refer to a system, a site, or a particular
result—when risk is perceived as involuntary, versus risk
assessment where risk is voluntarily assumed. I can guess
how you could sell your fish advisory that says pepple
can eat only two fish per month. Give coupons to the
entire drainage basin community, so people can go out
and have two or three fish meals, depending on what
the average person eats, and bill it to you. There would
be not only risk but also a voluntary incentive to assume
risk. We have not made enough of that tool.
When you have a modeling process, a very responsible
regulatory agency, and principal responsible parties, you
still may come out with a risk that is unacceptable simply
because you have not gotten the type of buy-in you need.
If a buy-in was absolutely essential from the beginning
(and this buy-in may not be scientific), then you may do
it very responsibly. I apologize for stating the obvious.
No Prescriptive Intent
Audience Member: We do not know the practical effect
of applying risk assessment to get a navigation project
through. Would it make it harder or easier? It certainly
would make it more informed. To apply it, one needs
to have more information, more analysis, more under-
standing of what the practical effect would be on the
dredging programs, because it is so difficult to carry
out that one would not want to change without having
better information.
Donald Hayes: We were trying to combine navigational
dredging and environmental dredging. Those are two
different things and difficult to combine. This session
was about decision analysis, and as a modeler myself—
and I think most people would agree—I think the
intent of decision analysis is not to be prescriptive. We
need to remember that. No one is, or should be, sug-
gesting or implying that we will develop something that
will say, "You have to do X." They are tools to help us,
not handcuffs.
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Perspectives on Project Implementation
Panelist Presentations
Breakout Discussions
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PANELIST PRESENTATION
Beneficial Uses of Processed Sediment
Anne Montague, Montague Associates
I will discuss the beneficial uses of processed sedi-
ment, getting from barriers to benefits, with a mar-
keting perspective. I was disheartened to hear yes-
terday in our breakout session that people say cleanup is
more expensive than litigation. That is not going to be
true.
I like to do what I call "back-asking," a concept I ,got
from Scandinavians. When they start an initiative,
rather than forecast where they will be in 10 years, they
say, "Where do we want to be in the future?" Then they
back-ask from there. I think our long-term goal is for
processed dredged material to be a commodity. In other
words, most types of sediment will be commonly used,
and the uses will be varied.
The mid-term goal is significant demand for most
processed sediments. A new industry to produce and use
processed sediment will be established. We can quibble
about whether or not it should be called a new industry,
because it will be many industries. The initial thrust has
to come from research and development (R8cD) focus-
ing on sediments. The near-term goal is for site buyers
to choose and use processed sediment products because
they perform better, cost less, and can be more attrac-
tive than conventional materials. We are getting there
more quickly than people recognize.
What has happened to allow this confidence? First,
there is growing acceptance of fixation and encapsula-
tion, as well as passive processes such as wetlands cre-
ation or construction and manufactured soil, which
reduce the cost of remediation of contaminated sedi-
ment. Second, there are growing indications that decon-
tamination technologies will be less expensive and less
in demand. I am sure you see that those trends tie
together. Third, most people do not realize this yet, but
there is strong evidence that it is cost-effective to
process clean sediments as opposed to conventional
materials. What I am saying is that we need to look at
all sediments, and we need to use them as well as we
can. By focusing on the needs of the site and the user,
sediment uses will be market driven.
My own research began in 1996 when Dick Lee at
the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station
asked me to do research on beneficial uses. This would
be comprehensive research. At that point, the general
focus in the nation was on (a) decontamination and (b)
other technologies (i.e., those that bind up toxins so
they are not available to the environment). My focus
was to get to uses, so I held in-depth discussions with at
least 300 people on any issue I could find related to the
use of sediment. I talked to scientists about "how clean
is clean?" I talked to materials specialists for depart-
ments of transportation, people who drive standards,
and so on. I still go back to the uses I offered as possi-
bilities very early in my research. I believe that many are
still to emerge; some already are emerging.
Standards definition was the most exciting part of
this research early on, because I realized that we can
establish standards, even if they are process standards or
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
performance standards. I began to look in-depth at this
and tried to list the standards that have to be met, like
those of the American Society for Testing and Materials
and the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials, and others for products to be
used in given ways. One issue at that time was end-prod-
uct validity. If a vendor says its process makes an aggre-
gate, what does the vendor really know? How do we
establish the validity of that end product? How clean is
clean? We still hear that constantly. To me, it is one of
the most exciting questions.
Other issues included volume—not only the volume
coming in, but also the volume of product that can be
used—transport, public perception, and user criteria.
Blends were a big thing. I discovered that low-tech
processes, hi which sediment is blended with materials
from ash to manure, often work. Another issue was
sediment characteristics, which we heard a lot about
yesterday. Last year, the general focus was on watching
New York policy emerge. I was nervous, as were a lot
of people, about the idea of using sediments on sites
such as brownfields or landfills, where there would be
no adverse impact. Would the public accept it? Was it
really safe?
Stabilization and solidification have been around a
long time as a set of processes, but ECDC and its part-
ner ITECH certainly were on the cutting edge in some
notable applications. Other low-tech processes include
manufactured soils and cement-substitute products,
such as bricks and blocks for erosion control.
Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island
emphasized decontamination in choosing technologies
to be considered seriously for cleaning up New
York/New Jersey Harbor. These included plasma arc
technology, a proposed process called "cement lock,"
and soil washing. Again, I make a distinction between
decontamination and making contaminated sediments
environmentally safe without completely decontaminat-
ing them. As one might suspect, the dividing line is not
always clear. The issues are safety, cost, and what can
best be done with the end product.
Through that time I was doing more interviews,
focusing on New York/New Jersey Harbor and what was
happening in planning regulations for specific uses, such
as landfills. That is complicated but fascinating. I also
was introducing new technologies and processes; I have
been excited about that and continue to be. Thus far, I
have been objective in my research and have had no
contracts with vendors. This has been exciting because I
can introduce something, say what seem to be its advan-
tages, and then back off and see whether or not it devel-
ops. There is still a lot of R&D and development to be
done, but I think the potential is huge.
Public attitude is still an issue. It is very different when
you start talking about specific sites. Of course, there is
case-by-case site evaluation. The emerging uses include
mine land reclamation, which involves taking the mater-
ial into the mines of Pennsylvania to a site that will be a
living laboratory at Bark Camp. Other uses include reme-
diation of sites designated under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Cleanup, and Liability Act
(Superfund); landfill covers; brownfield remediation or
redevelopment; road fill; and constructed wetlands.
We are trying to commercialize low-tech, low-cost
processes. We now are manufacturing soils from clean
Toledo (Ohio) Harbor sediment. The demonstration
was at the University of Toledo. We also are trying to
provide products. We put a block on the table in a New
York Dredged Material Management Plan meeting in
January, and that block has great promise. Still, it needs
a lot of testing, and there is no money to do it. We are
trying to succeed with both clean and contaminated
sediments.
There has been growing pressure to get decontami-
nation below $35 per cubic yard. Some people think
this is impossible. New Jersey is confident that it can be
done, as am I. The emphasis there is on emptying con-
fined disposal facilities (CDFs) and avoiding ocean dis-
posal. This is not to say we should avoid building CDFs.
We need to do that in a limited way. But we also need to
learn to empty them. That is a complicated issue, but
the potential for using sediment will be very great and
very quick. I think it will be applied first to material that
is already dredged.
We need to find money to test and demonstrate
remediation processes and demonstrate clean sediment
products on site. My focus was on brownfields; I did a
good assessment of brownfields in New England. At one
point, I said: "This will be the day when I find a brown-
field that is on a clean water source that can really ben-
efit." I found a 240-acre brownfield site that is a slag
dump on the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania, and
we are moving forward. We have been there twice now.
My commitment was to prove that we could engineer
sediment to perform better than conventional material,
save money, serve as a model, and display an array of
products with clean sediment.
What do we need to do? We need to work with clean
sediments when possible, focusing on engineering a
product for performance without fear of contamination.
We also need to work with contaminated sediments
simultaneously, focusing on engineering products that
are environmentally protective. In other words, we
should make the applications that are best for the envi-
ronment early on. The most pressing need is for visible
sites to demonstrate structural and aesthetic superiority.
I stress the aesthetic; we can make beautiful things.
The barriers to progress include mindsets, which
are very bad. There is a dire need for professional and
public education, demonstrating, testing, and market
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BENEFICIAL USES OF PROCESSED SEDIMENT
79
analysis. I have a vested interest and hope that I am
able to move on both national and site-by-site levels to
make sure we drive this with markets, which include
everything from the technologies used to make the
products, to the products, to cost-benefit analyses, and
so on. Another barrier is that people are unable to see
the specific products and big picture. They want to
kick the tires.
Common concepts of marketing deter progress. Take
the concept of push versus pull. You never push if you
can get the buyer to pull, and we have been pushing.
The supplier must get rid of the product, and this is a
bad image. It has slowed us down. Obviously, pull is
when the market says "I want that product and know
how." In addition, people who commercialize technol-
ogy know that the "techies" emphasize how it works.
They really talk about the features of the technology
because it is the market that essentially creates or fills
the need.
When should the government get out of the way?
The private sector has to see a market before it will
invest. The market, on the other hand, must see savings
and demos and testing before it will demand the prod-
uct. If you tell transportation officials that they must use
this fill, they give you the PQRST test. They want to
know if the price (P) and quality (Q) are better or the
same as before. They also want no risk (R). The S is for
standards and many other things, including support
from colleagues, and T means they do not want to pay
for testing. In essence, the market has to see the savings
and those other things I mentioned, and it needs to
know that demos and testing have been done.
How do we get to savings and demos and testings?
We still need money to prove that we will save money.
Of course, the money people—the government and
investors—must see the big picture. The big picture is
that sediment is a valuable resource. I cannot say that I
believed this when I first started the research. I wanted
to believe it but did not. It was almost like wanting to
know that your President is going to do a good job and
not get into trouble; I wanted it to happen, but I did not
believe it would happen.
The low-tech processes are lowering the barriers to
benefits. I am not diminishing decontamination tech-
nologies in any way, but it is because of the low-tech
processes that we are able to move forward with a tan-
gible product. The low-tech processes are proving to be
sufficiently low cost that we can use clean sediment,
and, by using clean sediment, we can lead with what the
people want without worrying about contamination.
I want to leave you with two quick quotes. Like
Martin Luther King, I have a dream. I have a dream that
we can make a facility that will be sizable and have
many interesting structures made of sediment that
nobody ever thought of making before. It will be an
environmentally sound place where people can go
safely. There will be statues; I actually know a person
who can design a statue for me, and a vendor who says
he can make statues of this material. This facility will be
what I laughingly call the "sediment wonder of the
world." I really mean this; this is no joke. I have been a
long time coming to this. If anyone would like to sign a
noncompete agreement, then I would be glad to show
you my artist's rendering.
My second quote is from Wayne Young, who said,
"Hey, folks, how in the world are we going to do some-
thing with the bad stuff unless we know what we can do
with the good stuff?"
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PANELIST PRESENTATION
Mining Industry Issues
William J. Adams, Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation
I was asked to discuss some of the sediments issues
that are important to the mining industry. I have to
qualify that term a bit. The mining industry that I can
speak to and represent is the hard-rock mining industry,
not the coal industry. The principal mine where we are
mining copper is located out in Utah. The operation sits
on the north edge of the Oquirrh Mountains, next to the
Great Salt Lake. Our sediment issues are associated pri-
marily with a tailings impoundment, which encompasses
a significant number of acres along the south end of the
lake, where there are large numbers of migratory birds.
In reviewing the NRG report, I was most impressed
with the forthrightness and the down-to-earth, "let's get
out and find a way to do it" approach. I have been
involved in sediments issues since about 1980, when we
first started to publish on methods of assessing levels of
contaminants in sediments that are either safe or harm-
ful. It has become clear that, in spite of our best tech-
niques for assessing levels of contaminants in sediments,
uncertainties will remain, even under the best of condi-
tions, in methods for assessing potential human health
effects and ecological effects. There is just no way
around that right now. I think the issues for scientists
dealing with contaminated sediments are
1. How to reduce the risk; and
2. How to reduce the uncertainty associated with our
estimates of risk.
The process for Kennecott begins at the open-pit
mine in Bingham Canyon. It opened in 1902, and out of
that we produce an extensive amount of tailings, which
go to our tailings impoundment. The principal issue for
our company is what to do with the remaining rock,
which is contaminated with metals. It has 300 parts per
million (ppm) of copper in it, for example.
We deal with various issues in making risk assess-
ments, or in assessing the science and applying it to
determine what is safe and what is not, and what risk is
acceptable and what is not. Some fundamental issues
concern the background levels of metals. This is more or
less important depending on where you are, but it is cer-
tainly important for us in the West, where huge areas
have been, and continue to be, mined. We look first at
what the background is before we assess the elevated
risk associated with mining.
Critical to the whole process of risk assessment is
establishing the effects-threshold levels. A lot of effort is
going into this issue for metals, questioning whether or
not we have it right. The reason is that so much of the
work has been done in the laboratory, where we used
organisms to determine the threshold levels. The organ-
isms were cultured in pristine conditions and then
exposed to elevated metals. The latest research shows
that this approach causes an increased sensitivity in
these organisms that does not occur when they are back
in their native environment.
8 0
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MINING INDUSTRY ISSUES
Metal speciation is very important, and, with some
of the new techniques available now, we are beginning
to get a handle analytically on the various forms of met-
als that exist. Measurements of bulk metal do not cor-
relate well with toxic effects. The bioavailability of
metals in sediments has been a key issue, and measure-
ments such as acid volatile sulfides and binding to sed-
iment oxides, iron oxides, and manganese oxides are
critical in making the assessment.
We should not forget the biology. Some of the focus
areas in science now deal with issues such as homeostatic
mechanisms of control. Some recent publications address
this issue of how organisms deal with metals. Particularly
for copper, zinc, selenium, and other essential metals, a
great deal of research is going on in elucidating both the
toxicity curve and the essentiality curve, and in how we
use that in an overall risk assessment or in such things as
establishing water quality criteria or standards.
Another thing that you cannot get from laboratory
studies is, for example, the importance of spatial distri-
bution. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this
when going from laboratory bioassays to the field and
making determinations about the potential for impact.
Feeding habits are certainly important, because organ-
isms do not feed in exactly the same spot all the time.
There is also the issue of evaluating the desired level of
protection. This issue needs to be debated, because the
idea that we can protect 100 percent of the sites 100
percent of the time for all species is not founded on
ecological principles. It is a societal desire.
Back to the mining industry and some of our key
issues. For our company at least, it is freshwater and not
marine issues; it is metals and not organics. Our biggest
issue is our tailings impoundment. From a worldwide
perspective, suspended solids may be the biggest issue
for hard-rock mining. If you follow any of the mining
issues over in New Guinea, where three major hard-
rock mines do business in copper, gold, and other met-
als, the suspended solids in the effluent are the key issue.
Another issue for us is the sediments below our dis-
charge point to the Great Salt Lake. This is one issue
that we track quite carefully, the loss of ore. (We call it
sediment once it is in the river system.) We monitor the
area near the shipping terminals to make sure that the
people handling our ore are doing it appropriately. We
monitor all of our shipping facilities. In some cases, we
have had to do some cleanup. A critical factor that
comes out in these assessments is the bioavailability of
the material that is in the ore state, as opposed to dis-
solved metal, which partitions to the sediments. You
clearly see differences in bioavailability.
The last issue, and probably the one on which I will
spend the most time, is sediments and wetlands. This is
a major issue for us, particularly with respect to sele-
nium. This element, when transported up through the
food chain, results in deformities in birds and fish. We
spent a lot of time in the last three years looking across
our wetlands. We have perhaps 4,000 or 5,000 acres of
wetlands along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake,
and a principal concern to us is the protection of the
migratory birds, like American avocets. Several thou-
sand types of birds pass through or across this particu-
lar region—1 million birds migrate annually through
the Great Salt Lake basin.
We are looking at two questions. First, how do we
manage our wetlands in terms of the bird usage, water
usage, and the sediments out there with metals in them?
Second, how do we protect that habitat without
destroying it? We are just completing an environmental
risk assessment on this project.
We have made an enormous effort to revegetate our
tailings impoundment, where the sediments, as I men-
tioned, have about 300 ppm of copper in them. The ore
has 6,000 ppm and we mine it down to the 300-ppm
level. We have been very successful in establishing vege-
tative growth on our tailings impoundment. As a
demonstration project last year, a number of different
areas were dedicated to such things as vegetable gardens
and grapevines. We have yet to find anything that will
not grow on it. In some cases, amendments are required.
The idea of using of sediments on mine lands was men-
tioned earlier; I think that is a great application. There
are certain areas, not necessarily our tailings but on
waste rock piles, where we clearly have to amend the
soils before we can grow things, and sediments would
be a great solution for that. We need some topsoil on
that, rock. On our tailings impoundment we use
biosolids from the city's waste treatment plant.
I spend most of my time on risk assessment. The prob-
lem-formulation stage is where we have had the most
success—involving the community, identifying the
resource to be protected, and reaching common-sense
agreements that allow us to go forward. Once you start
down the path of risk assessment, and I am a strong
believer in it, you cannot assess everything. You have to
decide what you will protect. At this point, if you can
achieve some agreement among all the parties, you have
some hope of identifying what the risks are, defining
those risk levels, and deciding what would be acceptable.
I am a strong proponent of the risk-based approach. I
say that because it provides a way to look quantitatively
at the data and find common-sense solutions to the prob-
lems. It identifies how much risk is left with the first
option, the second option, or the third option. It is vir-
tually impossible, in dealing with sediments, to reduce
the risk to zero. The risk-assessment process allows us to
make statements that people can understand about the
probability of the associated risk.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
For example, in our risk assessment for our wet-
lands, we concluded that there was an 8 percent prob-
ability of teratogenic effects on birds in the most highly
contaminated area. The decision remaining, then, is
whether an 8 percent probability of effects is acceptable
or unacceptable. Do we allow the wetland to remain as
is, or do we clean it up? It ties the solution to the risk
reduction in a cost-benefit approach, and I like that.
As a society—this is my plea—we need to avoid
shortsightedness. Natural recovery almost always
takes place in sediments given enough time. In some
cases, we may be talking about decades, but in the
overall evolution of the Earth, a couple of decades is
a pretty short time. Of course, there is a need for
long-term monitoring. We are involved in that for our
own wetlands.
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PANELIST PRESENTATION
Environmental Dredging
Ancil Taylor, C.E Bean Dredging, Incorporated
What I want to demonstrate here is the willing-
ness of industry to respond to requirements in
the market, to the demands that you have. As
far down the food chain as a dredging contractor is, we
relish the opportunity to get up in a forum like this.
We face a number of challenges in dredging and han-
dling of dredged sediments. One is positioning, or con-
trolling exactly the location of the dredge in the
waterway or channel. Another challenge is removal of
the material as efficiently as possible, without resuspen-
sion or removal of additional material that would have
to be treated. Still another challenge is transport, which
involves safely transporting the material to the disposal
site or treatment facilities, usually on land, with as little
exposure as possible to people and the rest of the area.
Our company has had a number of firsts in the dredg-
ing industry. There has been quite a revolution in our
industry. In the early 1980s, the U.S. Congress decided
to allow private industry to compete in the development
of our nation's waterways, especially the entrance and
navigation channels. Since the early 1980s, close to
$500 million has been invested in equipment to satisfy
the waterways development needs.
I will discuss a project that came on line in the early
1990s. Private industry was allowed to innovate and
develop a solution to the problem of Bayou Bonfouca,
from 1892 to 1970 the site of a South Louisiana cre-
osote plant. In 1970, the plant caught fire, and much of
the product spilled into the bayou; 169,000 yd3 of
material were contaminated over a 55-acre area. In
1982, the site became available for Superfund cleanup;
it was the largest Superfund project ever attempted at
that time, and it still may hold that record.
A dredge was built specifically for that project. It is
140 by 45 ft and uses spuds, laser positioning for con-
trol, computerized excavation, and real-time telemetry.
We actually could see, in real time, exactly what was
going on with the dredge from our corporate headquar-
ters. This allowed us to help troubleshoot and monitor
the operation.
Positioning challenges, winds, currents, waves, tides,
and everything else you can think of on the waterway
are parameters that you have to design around. Vessel
movements, or generally traffic in a navigation water-
way, demand greater precision. In this project, we
needed to remove contaminants from varying depths; it
was not like a navigation channel, where we would
dredge to a certain elevation and our job is accom-
plished. We needed to identify, through site characteri-
zation, the extent of the contamination and its
elevation, and then remove only the contamination and
not everything else around it.
We did that by developing a three-dimensional (3D)
model of the sea floor. We used the laser positioning sys-
tems now available, getting tremendous accuracy, down
to centimeters. We basically took a computer-aided
design drawing and dressed it up a little bit. The draw-
ing depicted both the existing elevation and the eleva-
83
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84
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
don to which the sediment had to be removed. That was
put into a 3D model in the computer, and the dredge
operator was able to see the bottom while moving down
the waterway.
The operation involved monitoring seven locations
on the dredge bucket and comparing the x and y coor-
dinates for those seven locations to seven x and y loca-
tions on the channel. The z dimensions were compared,
and the operator could see exactly where he was in rela-
tion to where he needed to be on the channel. The spud
system jacked up the barge slightly to stabilize it and
eliminate many of the problems such as wind, current,
and tide.
The equipment monitored itself, which was very
helpful because our engineers could remain at head-
quarters and troubleshoot the equipment. As a result,
we were extremely pleased with the accuracy of the
equipment. Through measurements done prior to
beginning the project, we had to demonstrate the accu-
racy of the equipment to the owner. We actually got
down to .05 ft (15 cm) repeatability. I would not guar-
antee that type of accuracy; it was purely coincidental
that, through the measurements, the repeatability of
the system was down to .05 ft.
The other types of equipment considered for this
project included the cutterhead dredge. It was not satis-
factory, given the turbulence, trash, and debris. The
client did not want water added to the system; the treat-
ment of the water would be very expensive. Trash and
debris would get caught up in the suction pipe and cause
additional problems. We also considered the matchbox
type of operation. Again, the sediments were not suited
to this equipment. It is really best suited to very soft sed-
iments that can maintain a laminar flow entering the
suction head and then cause it to go into turbulent flow
as it gets into the suction pipe. Although that unit would
have removed the material at 80 to 100 percent solids
by volume, it was not appropriate.
The backhoe dredge that we chose removed the sedi-
ments almost intact in an in situ situation, with a mini-
mal resuspension ratio. It also tolerated the very large
obstacles, such as the pickup truck and Mercedes-Benz
we pulled out of the waterway. Very little additional
water was introduced at this stage of the excavation. We
worked from a very stable platform. We had to make
some strange cuts up against sheet piling in various
places along the bayou, where we had to be very creative
in excavating the material at depths up to 42 ft (13 m).
The machine basically was well suited for just about
everything that we encountered on the project.
Conventional barge transport also was considered.
People did not want the barges on the waterway. It is a
somewhat messy operation, which requires manual
handling, and there was some risk of accidents and
spills from the barges. It involved greater exposure to
the surrounding environment. On the other hand, con-
ventional hydraulic transportation would not be very
efficient in handling that volume of water for our
client, the International Technology Corporation and
OHM Corporation (IT-OHM). This project was very
successful for IT-OHM. This is another jewel in their
history.
The process that we decided to use was a combination
of the barge and pumping system. We used and patented
a slurry processing unit (SPU). We removed and trans-
ported densities as high as 75 percent solids by volume,
compared to the 15 to 20 percent solids that we proba-
bly would have achieved with a hydraulic system. The
material was dropped into a hopper, where the larger
materials were separated out and transported by barge to
shore. Everything else went into the SPU, which moni-
tored the density through specific-gravity loops.
The SPU added in only the amount of water needed
to reach the density specified by the client. Then the
slurry went into the filter presses in the incinerator,
which eliminated as much as 60 to 80 percent of the
water that normally would be added through a hydraulic
transportation operation. The SPU was monitored by a
computer and was fully automated, in that it would
monitor the flow rate and density through the pipeline
and then transport this material to the shoreline very
effectively.
The trash and debris were transported by barge. We
reduced the number of barges needed on the waterway
and dealt with some traffic issues. The people all were
outfitted in protective clothing. The pipeline itself was
double cased; there was a pipeline within the pipeline.
Thus, if the integrity of the inner pipeline was lost, we
still contained the material in the outer pipeline. The
area was surrounded by silt curtains and booms, and the
project was limited to an eight-hour day, five days a
week, because of the neighborhood in which we were
working.
We completed the project in March 1995, having
removed 162,000 yd3 (124000 m3). The average
amount of overdredging (calculated by dividing the
overdredged quantity by the total area dredged)'equaled
just 0.17 ft3 (.005 m3). I think EPA and our client were
extremely excited about the performance.
Here are some recommendations, from our perspec-
tive, for things to consider. Develop performance speci-
fications and allow innovation to meet the requirements
of those specs. Require a scientific demonstration of the
technology. Ask the contractor to demonstrate mathe-
matically exactly what is going to happen. Perform a
thorough site characterization. Avoid the misapplication
of equipment due to an inadequate site assessment.
There have been a number of times when, because of
inadequate site characterization, a contractor has
brought in the wrong equipment.
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ENVIRONMENTAL DREDGING
I strongly recommend retaining an engineering
firm that has experience with this type of work. This
type of firm has resource awareness, knows the indus-
try standards, and knows the contractors that can
work effectively in that business. Although the knowl-
edge base may be insufficient as far as this forum is
concerned, and we want to add to it, the knowledge
base already is vast and the work is complicated; I
strongly recommend retaining someone already work-
ing in the field. Select contractors based on their sci-
ence and their solutions for meeting performance
specs. Be sensitive to the proprietary nature of the
solutions. To maximize exposure to the solution and
the science, be sure that the contractor can feel com-
fortable that this expertise will not be passed on to
someone else.
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PANELIST PRESENTATION
Developing Techniques for Source Control
Michael Connor, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
I am speaking on behalf of the Association of
Metropolitan Sewage Agencies (AMSA), which rep-
resents the major public treatment works and
sewage dischargers throughout the country as well as
most of the dischargers along the coast with which the
National Research Council (NRC) report would be con-
cerned. I will share some examples nationally and focus
more specifically on Boston, where I work for the
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA),
which supplies water and wastewater service to the
metro area.
I will review what the NRC report says about source
control and talk about point source trends, changes and
associated effects, and chances for future reductions.
The report makes many statements that are difficult to
dispute. It talks about the strategies and potential for
further source reduction, mentioning two strategies that
the EPA is now attempting: watershed management and
total maximum daily load (TMDL) assessment, and the
EPA contaminated sediment strategy.
Regarding point-source trends, AMSA has surveyed
its members over the years, and one survey covered
about 75 dischargers from 1987 to 1995. The loads
were normalized. For most metals (e.g., cadmium,
chromium, copper) there was a significant reduction in
the inputs of metals into the treatment plants during this
time period. The loads are controlled through various
source reduction activities and also reflect the changing
nature of the U.S. industrial base; a lot of manufactur-
ing no longer happens here. The EPA has written about
various management practices that industries can use to
reduce inputs.
The products of sewage treatment are effluent and
sludge. Most of the contaminants end up in the sludge.
A survey by AMSA of 200 plants, as well as data from
EPA covering 30 plants, shows significant reductions in
metals in sludges over time. We are getting to the point
where we have most of the reductions that we will get.
The remaining sources, for the most part, are household
sources. For instance, a lot of copper, lead, and zinc is
from the corrosion of piping in houses and the leaching
of small amounts of metals as they get to the plant. We
estimate that, for most of the contaminants coming to
the plant, more than 90 percent come from household
sources.
In Boston, we have seen the same trends. In 1984, we
had about 3,000 Ibs (1,362 kg) of metals per day com-
ing to our plants; in 1993, we were down to about 600
Ibs (272.4 kg) per day. In the last few years, we have
dropped another 50 to 100 Ibs (22.7 to 45.4 kg), but we
have reached an asymptote of reducing or eliminating
most of the sources that we can. The decline in sources
can be seen in Boston Harbor, where the water column
concentrations of zinc, cadmium, and copper have
fallen. A regression of metals concentration in the har-
bor as a function of metals loadings yields a first-order
approximation of the harbor flushing time if the conta-
minant behaves conservatively. Interestingly, this regres-
86
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DEVELOPING TECHNIQUES FOR SOURCE CONTROL
87
sion works reasonably well, yielding a harbor residence
time of about 3.5 days.
The U.S. Geological Survey compared the concen-
tration of metals in harbor sediments in 1993 to the
records for 1977 and reported 30 percent to 50 or 60
percent reductions in concentrations of copper, zinc,
chromium, lead, mercury, and silver. Similarly, we see
declines in liver tumors in fish and in early blood mea-
sures of the health of fish (e.g., centrotubular
hydropic vacuolation), which is related to declines in
levels of organic contaminants, such as polychlori-
nated biphenyls (PCBs), chlorinated pesticides, and
polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
In sum, there has been a big improvement over the
last 10 to 15 years in the inputs, the resulting concen-
trations in the water and sediments, and the health of
animals living in the harbor. This trend is seen nation-
ally too, with the mussel-watch data. The vast major-
ity of trends for contaminants in mussels around the
country are down rather than up.
The recovery of Boston Harbor actually has
occurred much more quickly than anticipated. This is
due to a lot of the nonlinear effects that Frank Bohlen
talked about. Part of the reason for the improvement is
the cessation of sludge discharge in 1991. Before that,
a very small portion of the harbor could support ben-
thic amphipods and ampelisca; by 1995, they had cov-
ered about 60 percent of the harbor, and this
proportion increases each year. There is more mixing
of oxygen into the sediments of the harbor, so that the
redox discontinuity layer has increased from about 1 to
3 cm in the last couple of years.
The situation now is that, with primary treatment, the
MWRA source issue is the relative input of the loads of
pesticides, PCBs, and mercury. Our point-source dis-
charge was a relatively large proportion of the total load.
"With secondary treatment, the input is declining quite a
bit, so that we are looking at riverine sources, most of
which are nonpoint. For mercury, atmospheric sources
are starting to dominate, so the remaining point-source
contribution to the load is quite small. As we have taken
away the point sources, getting at the nonpoint source
problem is not trivial. "We have trouble getting at this
problem to meet water quality standards, let alone some
sort of sediment quality standards. It is hard to imagine
how we will be successful with sediments in a way that
we have not been for water.
It is important to remember that most of this problem
is an historic problem. If you look at the annual loads of
pesticides, PCBs, and mercury—not just in Boston
Harbor but in the whole Massachusetts Bay system—the
loads are small compared to the inventory in the water.
In Massachusetts Bay, the residence time of water is
about six months. To a large extent, what is driving the
water-column concentrations at this point is probably re-
release from the sediment load. For instance, of the total
load of mercury of about 300 kg per year, MWRA's
sewage discharge is responsible for about 30 kg, of which
known industrial discharge is less than 3 kg.
We are going after small sources, such as dentist's
offices, where the material in fillings is captured in a lit-
tle screen as patients rinse. The dentists frequently clear
that screen; we think that can capture a significant part
of our existing mercury loads, but that is maybe a few
hundred grams a year. When you look at how much
money we will spend to get that extra few hundred
grams, and you look at the inventory in surface sedi-
ments (i.e., the top few centimeters) of 40,000-80,000
kg, it is difficult to see how you will make a big dent in
those materials.
I want to remind you that sewage treatment plants, in
particular, face a number of other high capital costs as
they look to the future. In an annual needs assessment
by EPA, it has been estimated that wastewater facilities
must take on $140 billion in remaining costs to rehabil-
itate sewers and further upgrade secondary treatment,
perhaps to more advanced treatment for nutrient
removal. There is already a fairly large set of expensive
projects on our plate, without trying to increase the
removal of sources of toxics.
That gets me to my conclusions. Point source inputs
have declined dramatically. This story is not fully under-
stood, but most of the contaminants of concern histori-
cally in contaminated sediment cleanup projects (i.e.,
metals, chlorinated pesticides, PCBs, PAHs), particularly
in navigation projects as opposed to environmental
remediation, have declined significantly. You can see the
decline reflected in the status of the sediments around
those discharge points.
It will be difficult to get further reductions because
the sediment reservoir is so large that the remaining
changes you can achieve through source control will be
small. They also will be small compared to the ongoing
sources, including nonpoint and particularly atmos-
pheric sources. At this point, it is probably true that
most of the PCBs coming into our system are from the
transport of products sold outside the country.
If we are trying for a big benefit in the future, where
are we likely to get it? It is clear from the changes in
concentrations of chlorinated pesticides and PCBs that,
at the national level, banning products is the way to
make big changes. By the time we start to deal with that
problem at individual treatment plants down the line, it
does not make any sense. Are there other products out
there that we will be worried about in the next 20 years
in sediments? Should we be thinking about them now,
and regulate them before they get into the waste
stream? By the time it gets to the treatment plants—
which exist not to treat toxic contaminants but rather
to treat wastewater of human origin—it is too late.
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PANELIST PRESENTATION
Long-Term Monitoring
Russell Bellmer, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries
I am a marine ecologist working on dredging and dis-
posal activities within the Fisheries' Office of Habitat
Conservation of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I will talk about
who we are, explain some of the things we are doing,
and offer suggestions about future goals for the dredging
community.
NOAA Fisheries is responsible for the management,
conservation, and protection of living marine resources
in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. We also play a
support and advisory role in the management of living
marine resources in coastal areas under state jurisdic-
tions, provide scientific and policy leadership in the
international arena, and implement internationally
agreed-on conservation management. We carry out our
stewardship mission through science-based conservation
and management and through promotion of a healthy
environment.
NOAA Fisheries defines its mission as stewardship of
living marine resources for the benefit of the nation
through science-based conservation and management
and promotion of the health of the environment. Our
aim is to maximize benefits to the nation from living
marine resources without compromising the long-term
health of coastal and marine ecosystems. NOAA
Fisheries manages for the sustainable use of living
marine resources, including both consumptive and non-
consumptive uses, while striving to balance competing
public needs and interest in the use and enjoyment of
our living marine resources and also preserving their
biological integrity. These management measures often
include monitoring both natural and artificial marine
habitats, including those created with dredged material.
Management authorities and legal mandates include
the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act, under which fisheries are regulated.
Fisheries are regulated by our five regional offices
along with eight fisheries management councils. They
are responsible for preparing fisheries management
plans, which identify fishing and nonfishing threats and
contain conservation enhancement measures for fish
populations in their habitats.
Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), we are
responsible for the protection of marine species listed
as threatened or endangered and for identifying candi-
date species for such listings. ESA allows us to enter
into cooperative agreements with states to implement
conservation and recovery actions for listed species.
ESA also allows for the establishment of conservation
plans to protect, restore, and enhance habitat for listed
species. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, we
are responsible for protecting certain marine mammals,
namely whales and seals. This act establishes a morato-
rium on the taking and importation of marine mam-
mals and related products, with a few exceptions for
scientific research and allowable incidental taking.
There are various other statutes that confer on us a
mandate to reduce or mitigate the degradation and loss of
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LONG-TERM MONITORING
89
living marine resource habitats. These include the Clean
Water Act; Federal Power Act; Fish and Wildlife
Coordination Act; and Marine Protection, Research, and
Sanctuary Act, among others. Under these statutes, NOAA
Fisheries plays a primarily advisory role in reviewing pro-
posed projects and other actions that may affect living
marine resource habitats and in making recommendations
for adequate conservation of those habitats.
We are using all these authorities, plus others, to look
at ways to enhance and restore fisheries habitats. The
implementation of the requirements under these acts
cannot be addressed fully without long-term monitoring
and sound partnerships among those using the marine
environment. Based on long-term monitoring, it is
known that many marine species are under stress from
overexploitation or habitat degradation, or both. Nearly
one-half of the fishing stocks for which we have scien-
tific population information are below optimal popula-
tion levels. Some populations of marine mammals,
turtles, and fish are in danger of extinction, and many
more are threatened by various human activities.
Habitat loss and degradation affect mostly inshore
and estuarine ecosystems. The primary threats come
from alteration of freshwater flows, loss of wetlands and
submerged aquatic vegetation beds, reduction in shallow
water habitat, and destructive fishing methods.
Decreases in freshwater volume and flow rate stem from
damming and diversions of major rivers affecting near-
shore ecosystems that have adapted to seasonal discharge
of fresh water. Agricultural practices such as logging con-
tribute to siltation and can destroy spawning habitats and
impede migratory paths. The loss of aquatic plant-based
habitat resulting from development adversely affects a
variety of food webs that are important to adults and
juveniles of many marine and anadromous fish.
To fulfill our stewardship mission, we have identi-
fied three broad strategic goals: build sustainable fish-
eries, recover protected species, and restore healthy
living marine resources habitats. All three goals have a
habitat element. For example, to attain the sustainable
fisheries goal, we are providing for increased recre-
ational fishery opportunities through conservation,
restoration, and enhancement of aquatic ecosystems.
We are rebuilding commercial stocks through manage-
ment regimes and regulations, which include reduced
levels of exploitation, stock' enhancement, habitat
improvement, and bycatch reduction. To recover pro-
tected species, we are characterizing and assessing habi-
tat need, and identifying and minimizing human
actions that are detrimental to these precious species.
We also recognize that the wise protection of healthy
living marine resources habitats is crucial to the success
of management and conservation efforts. To realize this
goal, we are protecting, conserving, and restoring living
marine habitat and biodiversity.
We also are implementing cooperative approaches at
the local level in habitat conservation restoration. For
example, it is the policy of the Chesapeake Bay pro-
gram to measurably advance the beneficial use of
dredged material to improve habitats in the bay. We
also are involved in the Coastal Wetlands Planning,
Protection, and Restoration Act project in Louisiana,
which is using approximately 5,000 yd3 (3,825 m3) of
dredged material for wetland restoration. When that
project is done, we will have restored more than
80,000 acres (32,400 ha) of wetlands. We are consid-
ered a permit applicant, just like any dredge operator
going through the permit processes, so we have some
sympathy regarding that issue. We also are developing
new methods of evaluating and monitoring the quality
and productivity of restored habitats as well as
improved restoration technologies to ensure that the
created habitats are effective.
This stewardship activity depends on strong, effective
partnerships. All federal agencies are experiencing bud-
getary constraints and increasing demands, and none
can meet all the mandates on its own. We must collabo-
rate with other organizations with similar mandates to
achieve our mutual aims. These include other federal
agencies, state and local governments, universities, envi-
ronmental and industry groups, Native American tribes,
and many others. We also must increase the reliability of
our monitoring and science, explore new ideas, invest in
new technology, undertake long-term monitoring, and
continue to be willing to make difficult resource man-
agement decisions.
The NOAA Fisheries Habitat Research Plan seeks to
accomplish the following activities, all of which involve
long-term monitoring:
• Understand the structure, and function of natural
resource ecosystems, their linkages, and their role in sup-
porting and sustaining an abundance and distribution of
healthy living marine resources;
• Quantify the response of habitats and living marine
resources to natural and human disturbances;
• Develop and evaluate new techniques to restore or
create productive habitats using dredged material;
• Develop indicators to simplify determinations of
habitat impacts or recovery; and
• Synthesize research and communicate findings to
managers to ensure that sound science is part of the
decision process.
We need to improve the quality and credibility of our
science by
• Extending and improving peer review of scientific
advice by panels of knowledgeable scientists from both
inside and outside government;
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
• Improving professional standards for monitoring,
research, and scientific advice by establishing national
guidelines for technical programs;
• Implementing policies to ensure the integrity and
independence of the science and assure that our monitor-
ing programs, analysis, and products are sound, credible,
and provide an objective basis for management;
• Developing new science-based resource assessment
and management techniques; improving monitoring
and analysis techniques and systems;
• Developing a new series of reports and presenta-
tions to communicate scientific results in simplified
language; and
• Requiring the various monitoring and research pro-
grams to solicit input from external scientists in topical
areas when identifying research initiatives.
"We need to continue to build strong research part-
nerships, and we need to use the research and databases
that we have. We are currently trying to improve the
coordination of habitat restoration efforts between
NOAA and its partners by assembling and maintaining a
comprehensive database of restoration activities sup-
ported by NOAA. That database will be on the World
Wide Web to share with others. Success stories in which
NOAA Fisheries have played a significant role include
the beneficial use of dredged material in projects such as
the Poplar Island habitat restoration in Maryland and
Galveston Bay wetland creation in Texas. We con-
tributed to project design and baseline monitoring and
will continue to provide ecological oversight.
Examples of long-term monitoring projects currently
under way include studies on trophic linkages in created
and natural salt marshes and long-term fisheries' utiliza-
tion of created salt-marsh and eelgrass beds. We must
place high priority not only on long-term monitoring,
but also on demonstrating that restoration and enhance-
ment can occur with present technology, and by pro-
moting cost-benefit information. We need to publish
and otherwise broadly distribute the results and lessons
learned.
We need to address dredging and disposal activities by
• Applying the "ecosystem approach" and advanced
planning to dredging programs;
• Undertaking appropriate scientific studies and
long-term monitoring;
• Developing stricter regional and national criteria for
economic analysis of dredging activities to differentiate
between real and perceived needs;
• Placing greater emphasis on prevention of
sedimentation and contamination at their sources;
• Developing mechanisms to improve coordination
in the early stages of a proposed project;
• Undertaking the additional research and monitor-
ing needed to increase knowledge of the functions of
undisturbed ecosystems and habitats, the response of
living marine resources to dredging and disposal activi-
ties, and the development of predictive models and
associated risk assessments;
• Ensuring that the analysis of disposal alternatives
considers the beneficial uses of living marine resources
and the least environmentally damaging methods; and
• Seeing that resources to meet the requirements of
regulatory process are commensurate with the expecta-
tions of the regulated industries, as well as other parties
affected by dredging operations.
Armed with this information, the U.S. Congress and
the public will be able to see the potential of beneficial
use of dredged material and long-term monitoring,
which should translate into support for public policy,
programs, further technology development, and
restoration of aquatic habitats.
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PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
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PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Summary of Dialogue with Audience
Sediment Applications
Audience Member: Could you give me an example of
an application in which a contaminated sediment per-
forms better than a sediment of the same type that is
uncontaminated ?
Anne Montague: To clarify my point, I am saying that
when we decontaminate, treat, or process contaminated
sediment, in one way or another we can find applica-
tions that essentially are doing no more harm to the
environment but are improving the environment. There
is a real possibility that we can reduce the cost of decon-
tamination enough to produce what is essentially aggre-
gate. In other words, what went in is what will come
out, only it will be clean, and then we can bind it up into
bricks, blocks, soil erosion products, and so forth.
That is not an answer to the question, but it is some-
thing that I did not get to say earlier. The safety issue is,
of course, a very serious one. Obviously, there will be
times when we want to bind up those materials in fixa-
tion processes such as in stabilization or solidification.
How to monitor that is a very serious issue. Those appli-
cations, however, will be broader when we get concrete-
substitute products. Anything that you can make of
concrete, you also can make of sediment. I believe that
we will be there within a year and a half.
Then the question to society will be are you going to
decontaminate it first? Will you use clean material, or
will you use contaminated material and bind it up and
find applications where you are doubly sure it will not
leach? It is an interesting question, whether there are
better applications for contaminated material than for
uncontaminated. The answer, in a way, is here. If the
sediments that are nearby are contaminated, and if you
can find a beneficial use and save that site money and do
the remediation, then that is better than going a long
distance to get other materials.
"Surgical" Dredging
Audience Member: There has been a great deal of con-
troversy, which I think will continue, about the ability
to dredge "surgically," cleanly, and adequately. Based
on your experience, not only with the Bayou Bonfouca
site but in all your experience and the experience of the
industry as of 1998, do you believe that dredging can
be accomplished in most contaminated sediment envi-
ronments in a clean, environmentally safe, and very
accurate way?
Ancil Taylor: With today's technology, you probably
could not do much better than accuracy to within 3 in
(7.6 cm), or thereabouts. What is the definition of
"clean"? I doubt that, in my lifetime, we ever will see
100 percent removal. You are dealing with contami-
nated sediments that are generally in a fluid layer on the
bottom. It is similar to hitting a golf ball halfway to the
hole. You never get all the way there; you just get closer
and closer. But I do not believe that, in my lifetime, with
conventional technology or the dynamics involved in
marine excavation, you will reach 100 percent clean. I
think you can remove 95 to 97 percent of what you are
trying to remove, but I never would claim to remove
100 percent.
Weighing Bioavailability
Audience Member: Michael Connor showed the reduc-
tion of chemicals going from publicly owned treatment
works (POTW) into bays, and compared that with the
sediment levels. I think you also have to consider the
bioavailability of the chemicals. You show thousands or
hundreds of kilograms in sediments versus tens of kilo-
grams coming from the outfalls. But if you look at how
much of that chemical actually is in the biota, which can
be on the order of tens of kilograms, not thousands,
then you have to consider the bioavailability.
In one area where the sediments are loaded with con-
tamination, they found that the POTW was keeping the
fish levels stable because the mercury in the sediment
was not as bioavailable. You have to weigh in the
bioavailability and look at the system through a mecha-
nistic process to determine the source. It may be, in fact,
that the tens of kilograms are what is keeping the biota
"hot." The other issue is atmospheric deposition. But I
think you have to consider the bioavailability, because
something will keep the biota levels constant, and it may
be the POTW My final point is, did you do any work
looking at storm surges? When a large storm comes
through and you get sewer overflow, that could "burp"
contaminants into the bay.
Michael Connor: The bioavailability question certainly
adds another layer to consider. The point I am trying to
make is that, for most of these issues, the water quality
standards are so low that if you manage the discharges to
meet those standards, then you will solve the sediment
problems at the same time.
I have a permit limit for polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs) of 45 picograms/liter. As long as we do not get a
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
lot of extra sediment deposition, I can figure out some
way to get to a level that I want. The same is true for
mercury. It probably would be more cost-effective for
EPA, instead of developing a whole new sediment strat-
egy, to make the existing strategy work well. A primary
reason that existing projects are not working so well is
that the states and federal government do not have the
resources to manage the individual systems in the way
they are supposed to (on paper).
Dick Schwer and I had a conversation about the total
maximum daily load (TMDL) process. To do TMDLs
for all U.S. waterways to meet water quality standards,
you need 10 to 50 years to accomplish all the work. If
that is adopted as a nationwide strategy for sediments,
it is not clear to me that you will get anywhere. This
does not mean that, in certain situations in which you
have remediation issues, you should skip looking at the
existing source terms.
Regarding how much contamination remains in the
piping system within each municipality, the material is
resuspended and pushed farther down the pipe as flows
increase. In fact, all of the loads of chlorinated pesti-
cides and PCBs in our system now are essentially due to
the resuspension of material that was deposited 15 to 20
years ago and slowly is getting down to the treatment
plant. There may be cheap technologies to deal with
that problem; I am just not sure that a cost-benefit
analysis would make them look attractive. There may be
more effective ways of spending that next dollar. At a
sewage treatment plant, we have so many needs that, in
my mind, are much higher priorities and offer much
greater environmental benefits. I want to pursue them
before I put my money into these issues.
Homeostatic Control Methods
Audience Member: In connection with homeostatic
methods of control, could you give a definition and
maybe a brief example of controlling contaminants? I
also am interested in methods of reducing the water in
dredged material, not only contaminated but also nor-
mal material. If we can get capacity back, then that
translates into dollars for any containment facility.
William Adams: I will describe homeostatic control
methods for copper, which is a good example because it
is an essential element for most life, including aquatic
organisms. It is also interesting because certain benthic
invertebrates actually use copper in their blood systems as
an oxygen-binding agent. Most organisms that need the
element have a mechanism to control it and to ensure that
they retain enough of it in their blood system and tissues.
In a risk-based process, it is important to under-
stand that you have incorporated these data into the
overall potential for risk. For example, as the concen-
tration of chemicals goes down in the water phase or
sediment phase, if you are measuring on the basis of
bioaccumulation or bioconcentration, then those fac-
tors go up. Of course, as the concentration becomes
lower, the number gets bigger, and it looks like you are
in trouble. However, what the organism is doing is
maintaining an adequate amount of metal in its system
to ensure its survival. Those are the consequences of
considering homeostatic mechanisms when you try to
estimate risk based on the presence of contaminants in
the environment.
Taylor: Very briefly, if added water in dredged material
is an issue, then the slurry processing unit (SPU) moni-
tors the density and compares it to the optimal density
that you need for transportation. There is a certain den-
sity-viscosity matrix that will be optimized for slurry
transportation with the horsepower that you have or
can install. The SPU treats the slurry down to that par-
ticular concentration. Keep in mind, I said 75 percent
solids by volume. If this material is 35 percent solids by
weight lying on the bottom, then we are not going to
concentrate it to 75 percent solids by weight. I was
referring to 75 percent solids by volume.
In the Hart-Miller Island situation, you have almost
everything in place there that you need. If added free
water becomes an issue, then you could remove the
material from the barges, put it into the SPU, and trans-
port it at a much higher concentration that you require
now. It could be done, but right now, as far as I know,
that is not an issue. Until it becomes an issue, you will
move the material from barges into the Hart-Miller
Island facility the way you do it now.
Audience Member: Could your unit process 3 million
yd3 (2.3 million m3) efficiently right now?
Taylor: The unit that we have installed is a very small
system. But it can be expanded, scaled up to 30 or 40 in
or whatever you want.
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BREAKOUT DISCUSSIONS
Enhancements to
Decision Making and Implementation
John George, Aluminum Company of America
Dan Reible, Hazardous Substance Research Center
Ann Montague, Montague Associates
Jim Keating, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Larry Miller, Port of Houston Authority
Roberta Weisbrod, New York City Economic Development Corporation
RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOURCE CONTROL AND
INTERIM TECHNOLOGIES (GROUP A)
John George
We spent most of our time dealing with the issue
of source control. We decided it was impor-
tant to define source control. For example, to
a dredger, source control might be the removal of a con-
taminated mass of sediment. We decided that source
control relates to ongoing sources discharged to the sur-
face water system, potentially with an impact on sedi-
ments. We identified both point-source discharges to
surface water through industrial or publicly owned
treatment works (POTW) sources or outfalls, and non-
point-source discharges, such as surface-water sheet
flow or groundwater discharge. We also identified
atmospheric deposition as a possible source. Another
was the inflow of natural background constituents; for
example, overbank deposits might slough into a stream
during erosion.
Given the variety of diffusive inputs categorized as
ongoing sources, we agreed it is important to look at a
rough mass balance on the front end. This may help to
prioritize the sources, so that given an understanding of
their relative responsibilities, for example, for mainte-
nance of tissue concentrations above some threshold
level, we can get the greatest cost-effectiveness in deal-
ing with ongoing sources versus remediation of massive
sediment contamination. If, by eliminating an ongoing
source we could reduce substantially the impact on a
receptor in the surface water body, then that might be
a cost-effective way of approaching a contaminated
sediment management situation.
With regard to nonpoint sources, it is often very dif-
ficult both to recognize and to manage them, especially
from a regulatory perspective. Some individuals in our
group suggested that a good way of approaching non-
point-source discharge in surface water might be
through some form of cooperative agreement that
might bring together the affected or affecting parties.
The measure of success would be the net benefit in
terms of improvement in the surface water body. For
example, if industries, POTW, and other private con-
cerns, all with some portion or allocation of nonpoint-
source discharge to surface water, engaged
cooperatively and effectively in tracking down the
sources, then the benefit would accrue from eradicating
those sources.
The technical issues need to be addressed from the
perspective of public policy. One of the difficulties that
we encounter, not just in dealing with ongoing sources
to surface water but in general with regard to sediment
management, is the number of different jurisdictional
bodies. At the national level are the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (USAGE). There also may be regional regula-
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
tory bodies, states, and local interests. It is sometimes
difficult to find an agency or group of agencies that will
take the lead responsibility. A cooperative effort bring-
ing a variety of different groups together often helps to
overcome these types of obstacles.
Having defined what we mean by ongoing sources,
and recognizing that the control of those sources may be
an important element in overall strategy for managing
contaminated sediment, what criteria are appropriate?
We spent a lot of time talking about risk as a foundation
for the definition and management of contaminated
sediment. We need a better method of defining risk-
related criteria from human health and ecological per-
spectives. We also acknowledge that we are getting
better at detecting contamination in surface water and
sediment, and that this potentially drives the levels for
discharge criteria much lower.
We discussed several examples of large-scale coopera-
tive efforts. The first is a very large project on the Rhine
River. It involves the cooperative efforts of five countries
to define a cost-effective mechanism to resolve disposal
options for contaminated sediment or sediment from
navigational dredging. Potentially 90 million yd3 (68.9
million m3) of sediment will be housed in a common dis-
posal area. Another project is on the Duamish River in
the Seattle area, where an effort is under way to integrate
environmental remediation, navigational dredging, and
permitting of discharges to control ongoing sources. The
final example is the Houston, Texas ship-channel widen-
ing and deepening project. Many different stakeholders
were brought together over a significant period of time
to come to an agreement over an approach that will be
environmentally protective and fully representative of
the individual stakeholders' interests.
We have four recommendations, somewhat in order
of priority. First, we need to focus on a system-wide
approach. It is important to undertake a rough cut of
the mass balance and to track down ongoing sources. It
is important to involve the various stakeholders early in
the process, from a risk-communication perspective. It
is also important to encourage all the stakeholders to
contribute their resources. This cannot be a project
funded by one industry or one agency, or one in which
the funding rolls down from federal coffers. All of the
stakeholders need to contribute to some extent, either
financially or through "sweat equity."
Second, early in the program, we need to think about
source control and incorporate it into the planning of
the ultimate remedial approach. We need to look at the
mass balance and prioritize potential sources, looking at
whether or not, by cutting off an ongoing source, we
may be able to obviate the need for more expensive
remediation of sediments.
Third, there needs to be a strong risk-based linkage
between the ongoing sources and the ultimate strategy.
We talked about the possibility, from a global perspec-
tive, of providing general guidelines or standards that
would be applicable in a generic sense. But we also need
to recognize site-specific needs and provide enough
flexibility so that those standards do not become overly
bureaucratic or burdensome or fail to fully recognize
local situations.
Fourth, it is important to balance the cost of address-
ing environmental risk with the related socioeconomic
impacts. In other words, if we define criteria that are
relatively stringent with regard to ongoing source dis-
charges to surface water, then we need to take into con-
sideration the impact that those criteria may have on
industry, such as the local POTW This whole thing has
to be approached from a global perspective. It cannot be
approached with tunnel vision, focusing on a single
industry or discharger.
We did not spend a lot of time talking about interim
technologies. Once the sources are identified, the tech-
nologies to deal with those sources—whether treat-
ment, interdiction of the discharge, or going to a
zero-discharge approach—become self-evident and are
probably fairly site-specific.
Local Level Solutions
Audience Member: How much time, if any, was spent
discussing the fact that a lot of these problems are being
corrected at the local level, and that the public is, to
some extent, the major contributor? It seems we are tak-
ing a top-down approach, when the issue clearly comes
down to public behavior. A simple example is automo-
biles leaking oil. A lot of these problems are caused by
the public. I think something is missing here.
John George: The system-wide concept would involve
getting all the stakeholders together. We talked about
the importance of risk communication, which must be
more of a grassroots effort than a top-down effort. The
people who are most affected by a particular issue are
the ones who probably are most likely to listen and
invest energy to work toward a solution. We also talked
about the idea, especially where the source of contami-
nation is nebulous or nonpoint, of trying to get cooper-
ative efforts under way at the local level. You may not
be able to allocate specific responsibility to an individ-
ual, but you might be able to measure the success
achieved as a result of this broad effort to track down
and interdict ongoing sources.
Audience Member: In all cases, we need to look at the
local situation and the sources in that watershed.
Although in some cases nonpoint sources and maybe
personal contributions play a large role, there also are
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ENHANCEMENTS TO DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION
95
cases with ongoing contributions of certain chemicals
from point sources. That is why we looked at a range
of controls. We talked about behavioral and educa-
tional changes that need to happen, as well as regula-
tory or legislative fixes that might address the range of
problems.
SITE CHARACTERIZATION NEEDS AND
TECHNOLOGIES (GROUP B)
Dan Reible
W
Ie framed our discussions around three
questions:
• How effective are existing site characterization
processes?
• "What are the barriers?
• "What are the solutions?
I will summarize the discussion in.each of those areas.
As far as the effectiveness of site characterization, we
often lack the precision we need for in situ measure-
ments. For example, biological measurements that
involve the removal of samples and slurry measure-
ments of kinetics may be of limited usefulness. In addi-
tion, the measurements often fail to account for the
dynamics and spatial variability of the system. But we
did not identify a great number of technological needs.
There was a lot of discussion about problems with
implementation, not necessarily with the suite of tools
available to do the job.
An exception is the assessment of ecological effects.
No one is completely comfortable with the techniques
for assessing and measuring ecological effects. We are
hoping for better tools in that area. In addition, the lack
of an end point is a real problem. We cannot specify
very well the chemical end point for remediation of
contaminated sediments. That makes it very difficult to
optimize the site characterization.
The barriers to site characterization include the dis-
parity in the goals of various stakeholders. That is a sig-
nificant barrier, particularly if we focus on a potentially
responsible party. For example, there seems to be a lack
of willingness to do a proper site characterization. One
reason is the uncertain economics. Perhaps the only
incentive for improving site characterization would be if
it reduced overall remediation costs. Whether it does or
not is certainly unclear. Quite honestly, many of us rec-
ognized that collecting more data typically means
uncovering a bigger problem. It does not necessarily
mean that we want to avoid looking under rocks, but
sometimes there is not much incentive.
Several people in the group said there was inade-
quate guidance from EPA and others on how to
approach site characterization systematically, and per-
haps standardize it. Perhaps more importantly, process
understanding is still inadequate to define end points,
minimum acceptable risks, and thresholds of liability,
and to prepare that guidance. The group also identified
a lack of acceptance of innovative technologies that
might make it easier, simpler, and cheaper to do site
characterization. In some cases, particularly cities with
small marinas, there may be inadequate resources to do
a proper site characterization.
What are the solutions? We need to improve our
research base to develop the guidance and the system-
atic, standardized procedures for site characterization.
We especially need research on ecological effects and
the interpretation of experiments to establish ecological
effects. There was a recommendation for case-study
research involving a cooperative effort by industry, gov-
ernment, and all the stakeholders, to get them to buy-in
while developing an understanding. Perhaps the model
developed by the environmentally acceptable end-points
group might be useful.
That will build a base for better guidance. We need
guidance to encourage the standardization of
approaches and to recognize site-specific issues. We are
not looking at a standardization of outcomes but rather
a standardization of approaches. Of course, we all want
a clarification of appropriate end points, and we know
how difficult that might be. For places that lack the
resources—the example cited was a small marina in a
small city faced with contaminated sediment issues—the
group suggested expanding outreach efforts to provide
financial and technical support.
PROMOTION OF BENEFICIAL USES (GROUP C)
Anne Montague
We had an interesting group: users; people from
the Marine Board, EPA, and state govern-
ments; vendors; a congressional aide; and oth-
ers. It was a vigorous group. There was some
opposition, but a general understanding that beneficial
uses are necessary. We are way ahead of where we were
three years ago.
In promoting beneficial uses, the biggest need is
money for demonstration and marketing, strategic
development, collecting and organizing information,
and developing classifications that will make the public
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
feel comfortable. I mean not only sediment classification
but also standards and other classifications.
We spent some time discussing the barriers to bene-
fits. Public acceptance, of course, was very high on the
list. One question was whether to promote sediment as
a bad material made good, or to start with clean mate-
rial as soon as possible, on the assumption that we
would have successes with structures and other clean
applications without the complications of contamina-
tion, and therefore would be subject to less regulation
and permitting. We decided to look at both contami-
nated and clean material simultaneously and move on
with each one.
To gain public acceptance, we must find ways to clas-
sify sediment to avert problems later on. We should
stress marketing; look to the states and ports to sponsor
research (a surprising directive); find a variety of sites
and be successful with them; stress quality control;
develop a strategy to offer users an array of products
and processes, with full information on costs and bene-
fits, monitoring, and community impact; and find tech-
nologies and processes that do the most in the
end—safely.
The second barrier was the lack of collected, orga-
nized, and disseminated information on all aspects of
commercialization. The decision was to let the states
lead while we continue to move forward at the federal
level, hoping to encourage the private sector to pick up
the ball as quickly as possible. The problem is that col-
lecting, organizing, and disseminating information
entirely in the public sector does not get out there. We
need to know that we have a common good and try to
figure out how to protect that common good. We are
not sure how to collect, disseminate, and fund. Eli
Weissman from Congressman Frank Pallone's office is
thinking about this issue.
The third barrier is the lack of a system. This is a new
initiative, so we do not have a system in which to work.
How far can—or should—USAGE go in terms of com-
mercialization, which is not the Corps' mandate. The
actions we came up with were to pressure the U.S.
Congress, the states, and friendly groups like TRB to do
the following nine things:
First, make sure that Congress is more specific in des-
ignating sediment as a nonwaste. Congress has said that
sediment is not a waste, but we consistently see the
states arguing with that, and some say they will continue
to do so. That makes it very complicated. If you are
going to commercialize or launch a product in a state
that says it is a waste, then it apparently has to be regu-
lated from cradle to grave, at least in some states. The
nonwaste status needs to be underlined more strongly
by Congress.
Second, we need to make sure that the EPA desig-
nates sediment as a recovered material, which will man-
date that all federal agencies consider it in procurement.
I do not know the details, but when you have a recov-
ered material that meets certain standards and certain
processes, the federal government says its procurement
people must look at those products very early on. We
believe this will mean that the federal government will
use more sediment-based products.
Third, we need to pressure Congress not to impose
inflexible legislation. When we met a couple of nights
ago regarding the Senate bill, we began to realize that
there may be a very small number—this has yet to be
verified—of Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Cleanup, and Liability Act (Superfund) sites that are
sediment sites. It is my understanding that only a small
number of the 1,100 Superfund sites in the country
involve contaminated sediment. If the number is low,
then maybe legislation should be crafted to let us look
at each site independently; in other words, that bill's
$300 million might be designated so that each site is
looked at more independently.
Fourth, we should assess ways to make the pathway
less arduous. We need to make sure that the agencies
involved are not scrapping with one another so that we
do not give up figuring out who has the responsibility.
Where do jurisdictions overlap? Where are the black
holes? We need to avoid bogging down the process with
too many agencies arguing over different things.
Fifth, we need to encourage EPA to look closely at
the benefits of using sediments on brownfields. This is
happening, but not in a very organized way.
Sixth, we should encourage the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop stan-
dards for not only the sediment products, but also the
process of manufacturing sediment products and
applying them. That is somewhat complicated, but I
know that ASTM has a procedural standard for the
development of brownfields, and that standard goes
way back to the beginning of the process (e.g., desig-
nating a site and getting the public involved). It is
essentially a set of guidelines. For products, we may
want to go very early into sediment assessment and
then move forward in a similar pattern with NIST. I
am not sure whether it would be NIST or ASTM; I
think it would be the former.
Seventh, we should identify monies for finding sites
and carrying out demonstrations, with systems manage-
ment focused on diversity and good image projects. I
have a list of 5 to 10 sites, but I do not have the
resources or organizational ability to bring vendors to
these sites. How do we go about identifying the monies
so that sites can be presented along with the various
alternatives?
Eighth, we should encourage requests for proposals
to define the criteria that vendors must meet in bring-
ing products to market. We always stress bringing the
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ENHANCEMENTS TO DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION
97
product to market, but in my view, the vendors are
looking for the particular processes that they must use
or the criteria they must meet.
Ninth, we should encourage partners who have
materials that would be blended with sediments to be
cooperative in the development of applications. We
named some high priority uses: mine reclamation, raw
materials manufacturing, wetlands, brownfields,
beach nourishment, and soils for farmland. Some of
those applications, of course, would involve clean
material.
LONG-TERM MONITORING (GROUP D)
Jim Keating
Maybe we can promote beneficial uses of sedi-
ments if we stop calling them contaminated
and instead call them "chemically chal-
lenged." Then we could establish programs to help
them out.
I have eight summary points from our discussion.
First, there is. a need for long-term monitoring. This
is probably self-evident, but as we start considering risk-
based analyses and other systems-engineering types of
approaches, we will need the data to support them.
Second, monitoring needs and requirements can be cat-
egorized by the particular situation, such as navigational
dredging, remediation, or restoration.
Third, we have to know why we are collecting data.
We need to design the monitoring plan to have measures
that match the questions to be answered. I am talking
about a rigorous data-quality objectives analysis. We
need to set criteria for success. We need to recognize
that this can be the longest part of the process, but it is
important to avoid rushing into sampling without
knowing what we will do with the data or how they will
drive decision making. It is imperative that our long-
term monitoring measure the long-term effectiveness of
our projects.
Fourth, these plans have to be put in place ahead of
time, ideally with stakeholder involvement. We talked a
bit about public participation and the importance of
public buy-in. We recognized that the risk communica-
tion and education processes are inherent-^—and can be
frustrating—but this is the real world and the process
has to be recognized and managed.
Fifth, these plans have to include assurances that
they will survive such set backs as personnel turnover.
Long-term monitoring plans often are put in place for
many years—20 years in an example mentioned in the
breakout discussion—and there can be a lo't of changes
over that length of time. That brings us to a related
point—the plans have to be adaptive. They need to
have triggers in place for stopping or for intensifying
as necessary. Someone has to watch the data as they
come in. The triggers should be specified in advance in
documents such as the record of decision.
Sixth, there needs to be a baseline against which to
compare the long-term data in order to measure effec-
tiveness, and the baseline needs to be considered objec-
tively ahead of time. We think multiple objectives can be
accommodated in long-term monitoring. We recognize
that most monitoring is done for compliance, but there
is no reason that additional objectives, such as research,
cannot be accommodated in the sampling efforts. But
this has to be accomplished through partnerships. For
example, in Southern California, a broad-based coali-
tion of regulators, dischargers, and other entities has
been able to achieve multiple objectives in its long-term
monitoring strategy.
Seventh, we recognized several institutional disin-
centives for long-term monitoring. Paradoxically
enough, some industries and principal responsible par-
ties do not want decisions reopened, and some govern-
ments are afraid of the accountability, that they will not
be able to demonstrate success. This might be changing,
but it certainly needs to be recognized.
Finally, we discussed the possibility of a centralized
database for long-term monitoring. This would be
beneficial because it would help us learn from our
successes and failures. The idea had broad-based sup-
port in our group, but we recognized that a substan-
tial investment would be required to create a
database, and that there are many barriers, including
quality assurance and quality control considerations.
On the positive side, existing partnerships could
champion such a cause. There might be regional mod-
els in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps other places,
that have collected centralized databases.
PUBLIC OUTREACH AND PARTICIPATION (GROUP E)
Larry Miller
Our group dealt with public outreach, communi-
cation, and public perception. This is the most
difficult area we have to tackle. The science and
technology are there; computers do not talk back. But
perceptions have to be changed, because they are not
always correct. We focused on two questions:
• How effective are the current programs in
communicating to the public?
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
• What tools are effective in communicating to
the public?
Communication is a two-way street. Communi-cation
is defined as the dissemination of information, but the
aspect that gets lost sometimes is being understood by an
area or group. You can talk for an hour or a day; but if
the public, or your audience, walks out without under-
standing what you tried to communicate, then you did
not do a good job. The consensus was that there was no
one solution or formula. We addressed this issue along
with teaming and partnerships. The obvious choice of a
communicator might not be a politician or a head of an
agency; it might be someone at the civic level. There is
no one particular formula, but it is important to
communicate at the level of the audience.
Civic groups might not be the lowest level you need
to reach. You may need to go out to work places; you
may need to go to homes. Given that human and finan-
cial resources are limited, you have to be creative in tar-
geting your efforts. There was a comment about certain
outreach efforts being made and apathy being the
result. Maybe the communicators did not choose the
best place to target their efforts, because I guarantee
that, if you are being affected in some manner, you will
not be apathetic. You. will attend the meetings; you will
voice your opinion. Every group has a spokesperson.
Some people are more vocal than others, and usually
they speak up more than once. It is a good idea to com-
municate with those people, get to know them, and
build a relationship.
Joan Yim was our moderator, and she echoed several
things in our group. One is that you need to have an
informed public, and you need to have buy-in, or accep-
tance, from the beginning. Reaching out in midstream
or afterwards is not soon enough. Public outreach
should take place at the start of the project or program,
not in the middle or at the end. Civic groups are Becom-
ing involved through environmental justice organiza-
tions, and we heard several comments in that regard.
The verdict is still out. We thought the intentions were
very good, but that in some cases, the result may be divi-
siveness among the state, the agency, and the public. We
have a. situation in Houston somewhat like that.
The contact or spokesperson might not be the obvi-
ous choice. That person should be someone who can be
trusted, can build on that relationship, and keep
informed about the subject matter. There has to be a
delicate balance. The person has to be believable and
able to build relationships with many different groups.
There was talk in our breakout session about blacks and
whites, but there are so many different races out there:
Hispanic, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and
Europeans. You cannot target any one. People are peo-
ple. The only difference between you and me may be
the color of our skin or our backgrounds, but people
are people and you have to approach it that way, with
a positive attitude.
Building relationships is paramount in our dealings
at work, or in our environment. Usually things do not
happen without the building of a relationship, or if
something is accomplished, then it takes a lot longer.
By meeting face to face, as we are right now, and build-
ing relationships, we can achieve our goals more easily.
We have to know where to target our efforts.
We also talked about risk management. We have
dwindling resources; we need to know where to spend
our dollars to get the best bang for the buck. When you
talk to the public, what you say and how you say it are
very important. Someone who lives in a residential area
and hears the terms "risk management" and "disposal
sites" may think that risk denotes danger and disposal
denotes garbage. I prefer to use terms such as "weigh-
ing your options" and "dredged material placement
areas." Those are much more positive ways of stating
things.
Remember, you are dealing with people who may
have lower or higher IQs than you do. Ignorance equals
fear; people who know little about a subject usually
become skeptical. It is difficult to appreciate things we
do not understand. Our intentions may be good, but
unless we communicate in a way that our audience can
understand, it is difficult to build a relationship and get
buy-in and acceptance of our project.
When representatives of corporations try to commu-
nicate with the public, they must present themselves in
a humane or human way. There is usually an immediate
perception that the spokesperson is only after the bot-
tom line, the dollar. But most of us have kids; we have
significant others; we go home in the evenings and
want to live in a safe environment. That is a common
thread that needs to be emphasized—not that you
should belabor that point, just make them aware that
you are a human being like they are.
Make sure you communicate at the level of your
audience. We had someone in our group who had a sci-
entific bent, but she was used to translating technologi-
cal and scientific terms into language that could be
understood by the target audiences. It is very important
to do that.
Knowing the Community
Audience Member: Communities often have an impact
presented to them. When they find out about the
dredging or the seeping and placement in their back
yard, they are suddenly outraged, and that is when
they start to mobilize. Previous community outreach
has no effect.
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ENHANCEMENTS TO DECISION MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION
99
Larry Miller: It is critical to know the audience.
Communities have different backgrounds. Some have a
lot of retirees. You also have communities in which both
the husbands and wives work, and they are not available
during the daytime. You also have "watchdogs" in com-
munities. Everyone reacts a little bit differently. But I
think prevention is less costly than corrective action. By
communicating what your plans are, at least you can say
you did it. Whether you believe it was heard or whether
you get feedback is another story. Feedback is good
sometimes; apathy is good sometimes.
Using the Media
Audience Member: That raises a good point about the
operations in which many of us are involved. The scale
of these operations is large, involving 5, 10, or 15 acres
of sludge. That scale makes it hard to believe that the
impact is not adverse. Therefore, when you draw the
stakeholders together, you are well advised to run a
video early on to give them a feeling of the scale of the
project. If you have had buildings constructed near you,
or watched a pipeline run through a section of wood-
land, then you know that the building process is big and
ugly. You come back a year or two later and you hardly
know they were there, but the process is large and inva-
sive. Part of the communication process is not just to
talk concept; show them what it looks like. It goes a
long way toward reducing the surprise.
Miller: A comment was made in the group that you
should go out of your way to build relationships with
the media. People read the newspaper and listen to the
radio more than we realize. But there is no one solution.
The Internet is great, but it is not viewed as user-friendly
by some people. When a voice-command setup is avail-
able on a cost-effective basis, then maybe that will
change. In the meantime, there are a lot of different
ways to communicate.
I dealt with a civic group in Houston called
Pleasantville. The media made it known that the port
was about to undertake a widening and deepening pro-
ject. The USAGE did a viewing of the site. The sites in
Houston are sandwiched between residential areas.
There is no zoning, so I get involved with the community
whether I want to or not, and that is good thing. This
group saw an article in the paper about the widening and
deepening project, which was 10 miles downstream.
They also saw people at a site that had not been used in
40 years. They put these facts together and jumped to
the wrong conclusion. They thought the port was about
to dredge to their site and not tell them about it.
I saw that as an opportunity to meet with the group,
which had been hostile in the past. I was prepared to let
them vent their concerns of 40 years ago, and they did
that several times. I let them talk. I was prepared to
diminish that anger and tell them that I could not con-
trol what had happened in 1956, but that I was here
with them today in 1997.1 said, "I am the contact per-
son; call me if you have a concern." It is amazing how,
once we got over that hurdle, our relationship
improved. But we have to be prepared to go through
that at the beginning.
Proper Perspective
Audience Member: I do not think you should try to sug-
arcoat your operation by calling it a dredged sediment
placement operation. It is sediment disposal. If it is con-
taminated, then there is a risk, and these risks need to
be communicated properly and put into perspective. I
think it is much more effective, in terms of communica-
tion, to call it what it is, rather than trying to make it
sound different.
Miller: I do not agree with that. Our thinking and atti-
tude need to change. Anne Montague mentioned bene-
ficial uses. I think we need to change our thinking to
understand what beneficial uses can do for us. I do not
think of the material as being disposed of, because I see
that, down the road, we can use it for something else. It
may not be obvious right now, but the sediment came
from somewhere. It may have been contaminated with
other constituents, but if you really try to find ways to
use it—maybe by combining it with something else—
there are beneficial uses. Sedimentation is not going
away; there always will be a need for dredging. I would
rather refer to a site as a temporary placement area, or
a warehouse, than as a disposal area.
IMPROVING DECISION MAKING (GROUP F)
Roberta Weisbrod
Our group was a problem-solving session. Our
objective was to use the themes of the sympo-
sium—risk reduction, sustainable management,
and reuse—as a framework to determine the factors that
influence decision making, and, in particular, to identify
show-stoppers. We highlighted some newly emerging
tools, and we made recommendations on how to pro-
ceed. Incidentally, there were some common themes
that transcended these three issues.
With regard to risk-based analysis and risk reduction,
we agreed that the concept is difficult to put into practice,
_
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100
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
because the methodologies, assumptions, and underlying
toxicology are uncertain. In addition, there needs to be
clarity in the definition of acceptable risk, including
whether we are referring to human health or ecology.
Because of these uncertainties, the best way to
approach risk-based analysis is to look at risk in a com-
parative way, by looking at the cost of reducing risk and
examining the trade-offs in terms of costs and benefits.
That should be done during problem formulation. The
end point should be defined in terms of the desired risk
reduction, and risk reduction versus cost should be plot-
ted on a graph. The optimal solution is one in which
there is maximum risk reduction per unit cost, as opposed
to maximum risk reduction alone, which has a much
higher unit cost. Regulators tend to prefer the latter in the
absence of considering the total benefit package.
When pursuing risk-based analysis and risk reduc-
tion, it is very difficult to communicate the risk, or a
comfort range, to the public. There is always some
uncertainty. In terms of available tools, the National
Research Council has an outstanding report on risk
communication.* One solution is the early involvement
of stakeholders. Small-scale farm applications were
achieved this way in the USACE's Baltimore District.
The Maryland Port Administration (MPA) has a parallel
applied research program for clean dredged material, to
assess what grows best on the dredged material, with
and without amendments.
We also discussed criteria; we compared the use of
criteria to the risk-based approach. We all acknowl-
edged that criteria such as the Green Book's 20 percent
amphipod mortality and the bioavailibility tests are not
indicative of real risks to the ecosystem. On the other
hand, they allow regulators and project managers to
move forward with a good deal of certainty; the risk-
based approach, however, requires a lot of site-specific
data. Indeed, in the case of sludge reuse, the criteria that
EPA has set for land application have been effective in
encouraging widespread acceptance.
In the end, the philosophical question that we posed
but did not answer was: Are our flawed but useful cri-
teria (when the public buys in) better than an accurate,
but difficult-to-achieve, risk-based approach? Although
this philosophical question may contain its own answer,
we decided not to come to a conclusion.
Regarding the second major theme of the symposium,
sustainable management, we discussed Tom Wakeman's
approach in the sense that, although project
managers adapt to changes in regulations, the regulators
themselves do not. It takes time for regulators to respond
to the issues that new regulations engender. The solution
to that problem—and also the problem of effective, cred-
ible risk communication—is demonstration projects to
show how new solutions work positively. To encourage
beneficial reuse for wetlands and other containment
areas, local demonstration projects with a definable
monitoring system are an effective first step.
In a great MPA demonstration project that included
early and frequent communication with stakeholders, in-
water disposal of dredged material was encouraged by the
oystermen at a small site near a bridge that had been used
for the disposal of various materials, including burned
debris. The dredged material covered the contaminated
area and debris that snagged fishing gear; in addition, the
state transportation department (which owned the
bridge) contributed $18 million toward oyster seeding.
The oysters not only were a resource for the oystermen
but also benefited the water body by filtration. A lot of
negotiation must have been involved, but everyone won.
Another aspect of sustainable management is that
regulations are not keeping pace with regulatorily
defined solutions. This problem would best be
approached by pushing for guidance on monitoring to
analyze new technologies and demonstration projects as
well as to understand completed projects retrospec-
tively. This information would help the public and reg-
ulators to comprehend and, when appropriate, accept
new actions. We strongly endorsed the concept of per-
formance-based standards for remedial cleanups as well
as other environmental management processes.
Finally, for beneficial reuse, we said some things that
have been said before. Standards are needed for dredged
material products such as road fill and topsoil.
Sometimes they exist; sometimes they do not. On the
federal side, there needs to be guidance and rulemaking
on how contaminated material can become a clean
product. That will allow us to decide whether to use
dredged materials for beneficial reuse projects.
Incidentally, EPA Region 5 (the Great Lakes) is develop-
ing such guidance and rulemaking in preparation for a
beneficial reuse workshop in Toledo, Ohio.
A very strong conclusion of our session, which tran-
scended all three symposium themes, was that we defi-
nitely see a need for more demonstration projects. This
will allow us to build a database, which will allow us to
provide credible risk communication to the public
based on verifiable experience, which will promote the
beneficial reuse projects that we all want.
* Improving Risk Communication. National Academy Press,
Washington, B.C., 1989. Available via the Internet at
http://nap.edu/readingroom, or call the National Academy
Press (1-800-624-6242).
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Summation and Next Steps
Industry Response Panel
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Industry Response Panel
Lillian Borrone, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Richard Schwer, E.I. duPont Nemours and Company
C.L. (Skip) Missimer, P.H. Glatfelter Company
Paul Ziemkiewicz, National Mine Land Reclamation Center
Stephen Garbaciak, Jr., Hart Crowser, Incorporated
COASTAL OCEAN PORTS PERSPECTIVE
Lillian Borrone
I was heartened not only to see the National Research
Council (NRC) report on contaminated sediments,
but also to participate in this session, because this is
a very important step forward from a port community
perspective. It gives us the opportunity to see and
understand what is happening nationally and to talk
through, with every sector of stakeholders, how we
might better work together to accomplish changes that
we perceive as necessary.
Tom Wakeman, who works with me, previously dis-
cussed how ports are forced to deal with contaminated
sediment. This is not our choice, obviously. Our busi-
ness is to provide the economic foundation and facilities
that allow commerce to flow in and out of this country.
But to do that, we have to assure that we have safe, nav-
igable waterways, and that our berths can accommodate
the vessels that come in and out of our harbors.
Although we generally are not responsible for the
contamination, clearly we have ended up being respon-
sible by default or, in some cases, by a lack of aggressive
pursuit of the potentially responsible parties or of other
funding sources. At least we stimulate the removal of
this dredged material, which has contamination in it.
In New York Harbor, widespread areas of sediment
have been contaminated by a variety of sources. Some
sources are far upstream, and many were shut down
years ago. Ports have to dredge to keep their channels
open and their berths free, but we do this in a regulatory
environment that, in our view, has been plagued by pro-
cedural uncertainty and technical complexity. Both fac-
tors have led to enormous increases in the cost of
managing dredging projects, and both have placed sig-
nificant constraints on accomplishing harbor improve-
ment programs in the time frame and manner that we
require. In many cases, these programs have been under
way for quite a few years.
The NRC report is an important step forward,
because it gives us the opportunity to reach resolution
on strategies that we have talked about for a while in a
piecemeal fashion. The first two key areas are regula-
tory reform and partnerships to achieve reuse. From our
point of view, the logical solution—as many of you have
said over the last two days—is to treat dredged material
as a resource, create the markets that would enable the
material to be seen as acceptable for use, and not only
lower our costs of disposal but also perhaps create a
viable economic product for other users. The NRC
study clearly and thoughtfully explains that this can
occur only when we address regulatory uncertainties
and develop adequate public/private partnerships that
allow vital, sustained markets to develop.
103
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104
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
My port and others around the country have been
working through federal efforts, particularly
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demonstration
activities, as well as using our own resources and some-
times the resources of state programs, to create market
opportunities and experiences that we can share. We
want to demonstrate to our local constituents—particu-
larly the everyday citizen—that this product approach is
reasonable and responsible.
Regulatory reform is a crucial aspect of creating
partnerships. We can learn a great deal from two
fairly recent regulatory reform initiatives that have
sought to create beneficial reuse opportunities for
resources that historically were viewed as waste. One
resource is sewage sludge and the other is contami-
nated industrial properties, or brownfields. Both pro-
grams have succeeded in increasing beneficial .uses by
providing clear, risk-based regulatory frameworks tai-
lored specifically to the end use. In addition, both
programs have addressed potential legal and financial
liabilities that were keeping the private sector from
embracing beneficial uses.
It is clear to us in the port community that similar
reforms are needed desperately to allow the demonstra-
tion of new technologies or applications that will help
us overcome barriers to innovation, enable us to recon-
cile differences between regulatory entities at the federal
and state levels (and also regional levels), and to offer
incentives to the private sector. These changes are
needed to allow dredged material to evolve into a ben-
eficial-use material and to create the markets that we
believe are available.
How do we do that? Regulatory reform is only half
of the equation. The other half is partnerships with the
private sector, allowing it to develop products and mar-
kets that use dredged material. The public sector—
whether the port authority or local, state, or federal
government—cannot raise the capital to establish these
markets on its own. It might control the supply,
although not fully, because clearly there are private
owners who also control some of the dredged material.
In those cases, we still might be influencing the supply
in terms of how we allow the material to be removed
and managed.
We have heard from private entities over and over
again that they are willing to step forward, but only if
they have some assurance that we can meet the
demand for dredged material if markets are found. My
point is that we—and in particular the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (USAGE)—need to find a way to
create the opportunity for a more reasonable supply
process to evolve. We cannot have the process that
exists today, which is project-by-project decision mak-
ing that takes time and moves in fits and starts and
stops.
In our harbor, we are talking about a "mud bank,"
for which we might pool the resources of USAGE, the
private sector, and public agencies, to create a flow with
reasonable predictability. The applications will go
through all of the appropriate and rigorous regulatory
processes necessary to incorporate those projects into
the bank. We take the challenge seriously, so we also
need to look further at ways to moderate contracting
procedures so that we do not inhibit the creation of new
markets.
We also strongly support something that was men-
tioned previously—tracking down the parties respon-
sible for contaminating the sediment in the first place,
so that they can share in the cost of cleanup. Finally,
we have to work together to demonstrate that
dredged material is marketable by assuring the public
that this is a safe proposition. Larry Miller and
Roberta Weisbrod talked about some of the tools we
might use.
It was appropriate in our decision-making breakout
session to focus on how to array the alternatives and
help local constituencies to understand that there are
choices, depending on the values we bring to the table.
We can choose how to proceed, whether to sequester
this material, use it to create new land or do other use-
ful things with it, or amend it and make some other
product. As raw material, sediment may have the
potential to be a very reasonably priced supply, per-
haps supplanting something like clean sand from the
ocean that we would rather preserve to maintain the
ecosystem.
What are our next steps in terms of a reuse market?
We think the research so far, supported by demonstra-
tion projects, shows that there are beneficial uses of
dredged material, even contaminated material; that
many of these uses should generate some economic
return; that the economic return is crucial to lowering
the costs of dredged material disposal at ports; and that
we can expect these markets to develop if we can tackle
the obstacles presented by the current regulatory
process to spur market-driven partnerships.
Using the information already in hand—and, if
possible, new demonstration projects to help us
develop additional credible evidence—we should be
able to help the public accept the idea of these prod-
ucts. As we undertake some of these demonstration
projects and continue to build our databases, we will
develop the ability to lay out the case that this is not
harmful, these are viable products, and this is an
approach that can work. Both the report and the
breakout sessions mentioned many things that require
all of us to join together to build strategies for public
understanding of risk-based approaches and tools for
working with the public to find a strategy to deal with
this material.
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INDUSTRY RESPONSE PANEL
105
CHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS PERSPECTIVE
Richard Schwer
I represent not only my company but also the
Chemical Manufacturers Association, a leading
voice for the chemical industry. I will summarize the
situation in the chemical industry regarding sediments. I
liked Jim Keating's reference to "chemically challenged"
sediment, because that is really what we have.
Many of our issues, as most of you know, result from
practices of 50 or 75 years ago, or maybe even before
that. The main constituents about which we are con-
cerned are metals, such as lead, zinc, copper, and mer-
cury; and a wide array of organics, such as
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Everyone has these
types of problems. But there are also fluorinated hydro-
carbons, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and so
forth that are unique to the chemical industry. The con-
tamination is often on older manufacturing sites
located in highly industrialized areas. The companies
accept responsibility for both current manufacturing
sites and sites that are no longer operating but for
which they still have environmental liability and
responsibility.
We are very supportive of the approaches taken by
the NRC report. We think it points us in the right direc-
tion, and that its systematic process for evaluating and
addressing sediment problems will lead to sound man-
agement decisions, which we all seek. I wanted to
emphasize the key points that we pulled out of the
report, mostly from Chapter 6, the conclusions and rec-
ommendations. These are key in terms of our industry's
response to the needs addressed in this report.
First, we feel that three approaches identified in the
report are basic to technically sound and effective deci-
sion making. Partnership formation is one. We put a lot
of emphasis on this too, because we believe that form-
ing partnerships in this day of limited resources is very
critical. In this way, we can pool our limited resources
and share information that is so important to making
sound decisions.
I am disappointed that I have not heard more at this
symposium about one partnership that is really excit-
ing and involves the chemical and other industries.
The Remediation Technology Development Forum
(RTDF) was formed in 1992 by EPA to facilitate pub-
lic-private partnering to develop cost-effective remedi-
ation technology. The participation formats are
flexible, ranging from formal consortia, to cooperative
research and development (R8tD) agreements, work
groups, and information-sharing groups. The key is to
focus on a technology problem that needs to be solved,
go about developing a solution, and then publish
enough information to give that solution credibility.
The group that we are interested in here is called the
Sediments RTDF. It has three basic objectives. One is to
develop and evaluate passive, in situ techniques to
address contaminants such as PAHs and metals, two
constituents that are important to the chemical industry.
It also is taking a look at confined disposal facilities.
Another objective is to investigate the mechanisms and
rates of natural biological degradation and other forms
of natural recovery. The third objective is to enhance
and develop assessment procedures to evaluate the need
for successive remedial activities. This is in line with
many of the concerns of the people at this conference. I
certainly hope that we can put effort into this, because
the RTDF could accomplish a lot.
The two other approaches identified in the NRC
report also are key to a lot of what has been said at this
symposium. One is early stakeholder involvement. There
is no substitute for it. You have to get all of the stake-
holders together to gain an understanding of the objec-
tives of the remediation project and get their buy-in. If
you do not develop this consensus, you get nowhere in
terms of accomplishing the remediation objective. The
third approach, also extremely important, is risk analy-
sis, which involves risk assessment, methods to reduce
risk to acceptable levels, and communication to improve
decision making.
We also focused on remediation technology. The
report did an excellent job of describing the pros and
cons of the various options; it suggests a reasonable
decision-making hierarchy, starting with a review of
the possibility for natural recovery to be effective in
reducing the risk to reasonable levels within an accept-
able time. This is the first place to look, as far as we are
concerned. Capping is the next option to consider for
situations in which it is appropriate and will hasten and
improve opportunities for risk reduction. We believe
that the last alternative to look at, if the first two are
not appropriate, is dredging. When this is necessary,
dredging should be done in a surgical manner to
remove only the material that absolutely must be
removed to reduce risk. Please note that we are talking
about environmental dredging, as opposed to naviga-
tional dredging.
Where do we think the R&D emphasis should be
placed? These are issues particular to the chemical
industry. We understand that we have to go ahead, make
decisions, and do the best job we can in terms of resolv-
ing real environment problems by making optimal use
of the technology. However, we need to keep pushing
the envelope to develop new and better approaches,
which hopefully will be available in the not-too-distant
future.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Dredging can continue to be an important option,
but we need to develop sound dredging approaches that
are more precise, more cost-effective, and environmen-
tally sound. Dredging often involves large volumes of
material, so we need to develop cost-effective treatment
technologies. I was encouraged to hear some of the ear-
lier presentations indicating that less costly treatment-
combination technologies are on the horizon. That is
important. Finally, site assessment is where it all starts,
because these are site-specific problems. We need to
improve site assessment techniques.
I want to leave you with recommendations on
where to focus future efforts. Although we believe that
sustainable management and beneficial use are very
important, we would keep focusing on risk analysis.
Our three recommendations all are geared in that
direction. We need to develop risk analysis techniques
that have broad acceptance across a broad array of
stakeholders and that lead to decisions. A lot of us give
lip service to risk analysis, but when it comes down to
making a decision, how often does that carry the day?
Maybe this approach lacks credibility in terms of
whether it will get us where we want to go. Some com-
ments at this symposium certainly indicate concern
about the present techniques.
We need to quantify the relationship between con-
taminant availability and the real risk to people and
the environment. I appreciated the presentation by
John Connolly about the possibility of developing a
prognostic model. I think we need these types of mod-
els to look at the cause-and-effect relationship, which
is key. Monitoring is also important. If we want to
give credibility to the long-term risks, capping tech-
nologies, and the effectiveness of natural recovery, we
must do the long-term monitoring that can show us
what happens.
FOREST PRODUCTS INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
C.L. (Skip) Missimer
Before getting to recommendations, I would like to
do a little storytelling. Contaminated sediments
are not a pervasive concern in the forest products
industry, either in the forestry or wood products seg-
ments of the industry or in the pulp and paper segments.
That is not to say, however, that individual mills and
companies have no specific sites where they have issues.
Rachel Friedman-Thomas spoke about a site contami-
nated with mercury from a pulp and paper facility, and
several speakers have referred to the sediment capping
project that took place outside the Simpson Tacoma mill
in Washington State.
However, we are interested in a few issues. Perhaps
the single largest contaminated-sediments issue in the
forest products industry involves the manufacturing
and recycling of carbonless copy paper. Between 1954
and 1971, carbonless copy paper was manufactured
using Aroclor 1242 as the primary constituent of the
ink-containing capsules on the back of the sheet. Mills
that recycled waste paper and converted trimmings
containing carbonless copy paper or off-spec carbonless
copy paper were not aware until later that these papers
contained PCBs. Therefore, PCB contamination from
recycling operations is a concern at three or more
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup,
and Liability Act (Superfund) sites and one other large
site that is not under Superfund.
Given that this recycling activity ended more than 25
years ago, the overwhelming majority of sediments con-
taining PCBs from recycling have been covered with
more than 25 years of "uncontaminated" sediments. At
these sites, therefore, we see a sediment profile showing
low-to-moderate concentrations of PCBs at depths of 1
to 3 ft (.3 to .9 m), with very low concentrations of PCBs
near the surface, usually less than 5 parts per million.
Furthermore, the tissue monitoring conducted since the
mid-1970s reveals an unabated decline in fish tissue con-
centrations of PCBs. For example, lipid-normalized tis-
sue concentrations in fish from the Fox River near Green
Bay, Wisconsin, are decreasing by 50 percent every five
to seven years for most species.
Most of the contaminated sediment sites associated
with the forest products industry are not in ports and
waterways, where navigational dredging is a primary
objective. Because these sites are located in nonnaviga-
tional waters, the primary objective should be risk
reduction. This raises several questions concerning
human health and ecological risk. For example: What
are the true human health and ecological risks cur-
rently at these sites? How are these risks changing over
time, and what is the effect of natural recovery on
reducing risks? I echo what John Connolly said about
modeling, suggesting that we can use models to answer
this question.
Other questions include the following: Are there
remedial actions (e.g., mass removal, hot-spot removal,
capping) that will accelerate significantly the current
rate of natural recovery and lower the risk, or does it
just make us feel better because we did something about
it? What are the risks associated with mass removal? Are
those risks greater or less than those associated with
other remedial activities, including natural recovery?
Another question: What are the collateral risks asso-
ciated with mass removal? These risks range from the
volatilization of PCBs out of acid-watering facilities to
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INDUSTRY RESPONSE PANEL
107
running dump trucks filled with contaminated sedi-
ments up and down neighborhood streets and highways.
In short, is "mass removal equals risk reduction" a
testable hypothesis? To my knowledge, this hypothesis
has not been tested. Therefore, I would like to make
three recommendations.
It seems appropriate that the work of the NRC com-
mittee that produced this report should be extended to
address three issues that are particularly relevant to
environmental remediation:
• First, we should develop improved site assessment
and characterization techniques, including monitoring
techniques, to assess the efficacy of remedial alternatives
after implementation.
• Second, we should improve the linkage between
site assessments and risk assessments. This effort should
include the development of models that predict reduc-
tions in risks for various remedial options, including
natural recovery, as John Connolly suggested. In other
words, we need improved decision-making tools before
we start spending millions of dollars on remedies that
may not have any effect.
• Third, we need to test the hypothesis that mass
removal equals risk reduction, and we need to do this at
multiple sites to better understand when mass removal
might or might not make sense.
MINING PERSPECTIVE
Paul Zierakiewicz
I will focus on the interests of the coal industry as a
user or recipient of some of these sediments. This
material has a lot of potential in the coal industry.
We are near many sources of sedimentation along the
East Coast, where we have two types of mining settings.
There are abandoned mine lands, which are pre-1977
mines and are, in a sense, orphans of the state. There are
also active mines. Thus, we have two very different
types of regulatory environments.
We also have underground mines and surface mines.
To give you some idea of how much volume can be
involved, a relatively small underground mine of 10 mi2
(25.9 km2) in the Pittsburgh basin, or even in the
anthracite country here, normally has 25 million yd3
(19.1 million m3) of storage capacity, or something
along those lines. Of course, you need to find out sev-
eral things: Is the roof in good shape? Has it fallen in
yet? Have the pillars collapsed? Structural things have a
lot to do with the geology of the area and how long it
has been since the mining was completed. But the
potential volumes are very high.
In a surface mine, if you put a 2-ft (.6 m) layer of sedi-
ment on an acre of ground, you probably can get some-
thing like 30 to 100 tons per acre of dredged sediments,
given the densities I have heard for this material. For
example, within 80 mi (128.8 km.) of New York City is the
anthracite region in northeastern Pennsylvania, where
extensive underground workings have existed for a long
time. You also have 10,000 acres (4050 ha) of unreclaimed
surface mines and tailings in the Luzerne and Lackawanna
county areas. We are looking at transportation costs to get
materials from New York City to that area.
In the coal industry, we always assume 10 cents to load
per ton, and 10 cents/mi (6 cents/km). This means trans-
portation costs—running legally on a 22-ton dump
trailer—would be in the range of $8/ton to move it from
New York City to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. What does
it cost to get dredged material hauled? We have made slur-
ries and mine grouts out of coal ash and other materials,
and we need to bring in the ash and the cementing agent,
normally concrete kiln dust or some type of scrap. We
normally get them hauled for something less than $5/ton.
I know nothing about dredging costs or port handling
issues.
What are the applications for this type of material
in the mining setting? One is mine grouting. A lot of
mines, when we are finished with them, wind up with
50 percent voids, because we must keep about 50 per-
cent of the coal in place to hold up the roof. When we
pull out, there are enormous underground reservoirs
of 10 to 30 mi2 (25.9 to 77.7 km2), which might be
tipped at 30 degrees or be relatively flat. They eventu-
ally start filling up with water, particularly if they are
below the natural water table. We wind up with an
anoxic environment, reducing conditions, carbon
dioxide gas, saturation in the water, and often very
strongly acid water.
There are many occasions when you start pushing
water up out of the ground again, and you can actually
get "blowouts," in which the side of the hill fails and
tens of millions of gallons of pH 2.5 water show up
overnight. Blowouts can kill people; these are very
serious events. Blowout protection, which involves
trying to control the pressures inside these mines, is a
major interest of the state abandoned mine land
(AML) agencies and the active industry.
There is the potential of replacing these acid-forming
voids or reservoirs with an inert grout. To turn sedi-
ments into grout, we would need to add a cementing
agent. We would need to make sure the material would
remain stable in the weathering environment pf low-pH
reducing conditions in an underground mine. A lot
needs to be done to realize this idea, but it has major
potential.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
The other possibility is surface applications. We are
looking at manufactured soils, what type of material
you need to add to them, how suitable they are for
growing crops versus other types of vegetation (e.g.,
forest cover), and so forth. I am sure that a lot of work
has been done on this, but it certainly has not been doc-
umented to the point that the coal industry is either
comfortable with it or aware of all of it. Most of the
costs will be related to material handling, transporta-
tion, slurrying, bringing in cementing agents, and
drilling.
What do we need to make this happen? No coal
operator or AML agency would want to turn a plain-
vanilla coal mine, no matter how bad it looks, into a
Superfund site. Therefore, they need to know ahead of
time how suitable a material is for their application and
what the potential liabilities are. For that reason, it is
necessary to have a classification system, not just
"good" and "bad" sediment but several classes of it,
indicating whether the material will pose a potential
problem. If it will, they need to know that up front.
They either have to encapsulate the material or take
some special precautions.
A neat thing about moving this material underground
is that the whole operation can be handled hydraulically.
There would be no dust; the PCBs would not be mobile.
To a large extent, mine acid is a sedentary agent. It con-
tains a lot of acid and ferric iron, so there may be some
dechlorination potential; this issue has not been
explored yet.
The recipient states will develop their own guidelines
at some point, if this gets to be an application. It would
be beneficial if EPA or some other federal agency came
out with guidance documents, pooled all the informa-
tion, tried to develop at least guidelines for a classifica-
tion system, and then let the states take it from there. In
terms of the other issues, we need regulatory coherence.
We need to define the relationship between the states
and federal agencies. The liability issues also need to be
simplified, and then we need research on suitability clas-
sification and on quality assurance and quality control
(QA/QC) issues.
We need to have a QA/QC program so that a truck
could come on site, and within a day or so, an analysis
could be performed indicating whether or not the mate-
rial meets the specifications for that particular classifi-
cation. We cannot have a six-month test if we want an
ongoing delivery system. These tests need to be col-
lapsed into a relatively simple QA/QC procedure. We
need to know mix formulations, their suitability, their
stability in a chemical environment, and their strength.
We need, for example, materials that can develop
unconfined compressive strengths of 200 to 300
lbs/in2 to ensure roof control in underground mines.
We need to know the flowability, which determines
how many drill holes you will need and what your ulti-
mate delivery costs will be. Ultimately, we need
well-documented demonstrations on site so that state
agencies and the public can be comfortable—or at least
know how these various procedures will work for
them and whether they will create an environmental
benefit or another risk.
INLAND WATERWAYS AND LAKES PERSPECTIVE
Stephen Garbaciak, Jr.
I want to talk about an item that kept popping up
during the presentations and breakout sessions, at
least the two in which I participated. That item is
uncertainty, and its role in a variety of issues related to
dealing with contaminated sediments, for both remedi-
ation projects and navigational dredging. I think we
heard some uncertainty about who this audience is; we
heard a reference to this symposium as a dredging
meeting. We heard talk about whether dredging is a
presumptive remedy when it comes to reducing risk.
The issue of uncertainty—including what it means for
the selection and implementation of effective remedial
options—is where the contaminated sediments debate
is going. That would be a recommendation for the
future.
We heard about uncertainty in assessment tech-
niques, in establishing remedial objectives, and in what
the beneficial reuse markets might be or how we can
develop them. We heard uncertainty about the regula-
tions. Do we have enough regulations? Are they being
applied correctly or incorrectly? We heard about the
uncertainty regarding dredged material among the
potential processors and developers of beneficial reuse
products. How can we overcome that uncertainty?
We heard uncertainty—and I was a little disap-
pointed at this—when Tommy Myers and Dennis
Timberlake reviewed the technology recommendations
of the NRC report and expressed skepticism about nat-
ural recovery. They put bounds on it and were careful
to say that natural recovery is limited to a select few
cases. I understand the caveats that USAGE would put
on it, because we have to remove material for naviga-
tional dredging purposes. But EPA's contaminated sedi-
ment management strategy is clear in identifying
natural recovery as the first option to be evaluated,
indicating that we should only proceed to more inva-
sive (and therefore more expensive and complex) reme-
dial options after we eliminate the possibility that
natural recovery will achieve the same risk-reduction
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INDUSTRY RESPONSE PANEL
109
goals in a reasonable time frame. That feeds back into
the uncertainty.
John Connolly's presentation expressed it well, echo-
ing some of the things that John Haggard had said. We
need to work toward developing better quantitative
models. I think that is an extreme challenge. "We have a
hard enough time developing models so that all sides in
a negotiation can agree on the relative differences
between model runs. Coming up with the more objec-
tive modeling techniques that he was talking about will
be an even greater challenge.
In conclusion, it is important for both the regulatory
side in the remedial-objective negotiation process and
the identified responsible parties to realize that uncer-
tainty can be used as either a tool or a weapon, depend-
ing on your perspective. It can be a tool to help you or a
weapon for avoiding action. It also can be used, when
there is uncertainty, as an argument for requiring unnec-
essary and illogical actions. We should do what we can in
all respects, but particularly in developing true remedial
actions and in evaluating the effectiveness of remediation
projects, to help eliminate that uncertainty in the future.
INDUSTRY RESPONSE
Summary of Dialogue with Audience
Funding Assessments
Audience Member: I spend a lot of time working with
Lillian Borrone and her staff; I agree with the panel on
the notion of developing quantitative tools. We are
spending some of our own money, some of the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey's money, and
some of EPA's and USAGE'S money, to develop the sorts
of tools that John Connolly talked about. I am glad that
you endorse this. I also got the impression that you
strongly endorse the application of those tools, which
really means a system-wide approach, as we discussed in
one of the breakout sessions. It also means spending
money on other things, such as data collection, which
has turned out to be very expensive. We have a $13 mil-
lion monitoring program just to provide verification
data to run the model for which the Port Authority is
paying.
Richard Schwer mentioned that his organization and
U.S. chemical manufacturers have some responsibility
for contaminating the sediments. If that is the case, do
you not have some responsibility, within the industry
side of things, to provide some of the money for the
assessments that you endorse?
Richard Schwer: We have worked in a cooperative fash-
ion to evaluate assessment techniques through the RTDF
approach. You have to look at each situation, because
there is enough responsibility to spread around in a lot
of cases. When it is clearly the responsibility of a partic-
ular party, that party certainly needs to do what is neces-
sary to reduce the risk to the point where the
contamination is not harming human health and the
environment.
Audience Member: If you are recommending, from the
industry's perspective, that we need these improved
tools, who should pay for them?
Schwer: I think that amount of money is overwhelming
for any one party.
Audience Member: I understand that. But many of the
companies you represent are Fortune 500 companies
that probably had their best year ever on record, and it
seems only appropriate that a very small percentage of
that money could be spent on this. It seems to me that
if people accept certain responsibilities, and if you are
sincere about improving assessment techniques, and if
your industries are responsible, then there should be
some mechanism to fund the types of things that are
necessary, because the government does not seem to
have the money these days.
Schwer: It has to be a joint effort. We are talking about
huge programs. We are talking about situations in which
there is often more than one responsible party. There is
often a group of parties who have some joint responsi-
bility for a situation, and they need to work together
and pool resources. They need to come up with a cost-
effective monitoring and assessment approach and then
do the best they can to go about solving that particular
problem. I would not want to say that one particular
party should take on the total responsibility for funding
something like this.
Skip Missimer: I know of at least one example on the
Fox River, where a group of paper companies (includ-
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CONTAMINATED 'SEDIMENTS
ing mine) is working cooperatively with the state and
funding more than $1 million worth of modeling just
to develop the predictive tools that you are talking
about. We think that, in the end, it will be very suc-
cessful and very important in helping to determine the
right remedial options for the Fox River.
Lillian Borrone: I would like to invite any of the chem-
ical, oil, or other industries who do business in our
harbor to participate with us—and participation can
take a lot of different forms, not just money, although
money helps. You certainly are welcome to join us,
because we are putting in a very large amount of
money, which the public sector really is not able to
afford. We are doing it because, if we do not, then we
will not advance our dredging programs, and we are
desperate for the right solutions. We are willing to put
some money up front and work with the states to do
that, so I welcome anyone who wants to step forward.
Schwer: I think consortia and partnerships are the ways
to go. We need to see if we can expand the resource base
and leverage as much as we can among everyone who
has an interest in recognizing that there is responsibility
that has to be accepted.
Generalizing Site-Specific Lessons
Audience Member: Over the last several years, we have
collected a lot of information about remediation tech-
nology at the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey. How much of that can be generalized? How do
we go about transferring that information, and what
are the most important types of things that can be
transferred?
Borrone: There is information that can be generalized,
depending on where various technologies are in the
development process and whether they can be used in
certain circumstances. This is information that we
could easily share and, to some degree, have shared
already. We have tried to transfer knowledge and infor-
mation through EPA, USAGE, and our two states. Both
states have participated with us as well as in their own,
parallel processes. We shared a lot of this information
with the American Association of Port Authorities
(AAPA) as well as with the committee that worked on
the NRC study. There really is not one central resource,
whether the TRB's Transportation Research
Information Services system or a federal exchange. We
have documented a lot of this material, which was put
together by Tom Wakeman's staff with our engineering
folks. Anything that is not proprietary we certainly are
willing to share.
Evaluating the Public
Audience Member: I see this as a very American exer-
cise. We argue and argue, but over the last several
years, people have been working independently of
one another much more than I expected. In
Massachusetts, we have to educate the public as to
what is possible. I honestly do not have any ideas, but
I want to try. Do you have a suggestion about how
that type of information is transferred?
Borrone: I think the federal highway program is an ideal
model, in which the funds allocated to the states come
back through the states to the TRB and AASHTO for
R8cD purposes. They use that foundation to pull infor-
mation together, disseminate it throughout the 50 states
and the territories, and feed it back to developing pro-
grams and other activities. Maybe there is a way, whether
through Clean Water Act (CWA) or Water Resources
Development Act legislation or some other mechanism,
to create a clearinghouse for information that would
encompass the entire country. In addition to disseminat-
ing information, it could provide resources for docu-
mentation if a project is done through some sort of
federal program, such as a request for approval of a per-
mit. I do not know how to achieve this, because there are
so many different jurisdictions—states, local communi-
ties, regional agencies, federal government, and private
sector. But if there were some sort of clearinghouse
resource, then maybe the Volpe National Transportation
Systems Center or NRC Marine Board could play that
role. I can envision a lot of different possibilities.
Caveats on Modeling
Audience Member: As someone whose background is in
water quality modeling, I know we need to recognize
one thing when we pursue modeling. Models are no bet-
ter than their least-precise component, so I make a plea
for tiered modeling. I am strongly in favor of the very
sophisticated "back of the envelope" approach, which at
least lets us evaluate some scenarios rather quickly and
maybe eliminate several and then go on to things that
are more pertinent. I would like to think that we could
develop perfect models. That would be wonderful. But
I am also a realist, and I know that is not possible. I am
just making a plea for a reasonable level of modeling.
Do not get too sophisticated, because the answer never
will be better than the least-precise component.
Spyros Pavlou: I was going to make the same comments.
There was a lot of discussion about models, and I wanted
to caution everyone that a model is only as good as the
data it is based on. There is no problem with using prog-
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INDUSTRY RESPONSE PANEL
111
nostic models to assist your thinking process so you can
develop a solution or understand a system. However, I
have seen models that are just "curb-fitting exercises"
constructed to devise the answer that someone wants to
see. We should stay away from that mode of operation.
We should look at models as useful tools for decision
making, but we have to be very careful how we use them.
Natural Recovery (Part I)
Audience Member: I am from the Sierra Club, so you
know what is coming. Regarding the Fox River, the
mills did contribute $1 million for monitoring and $9
million more for other projects. But that is one of the
most studied rivers in the country. Perhaps $10 million
or $20 million—I cannot remember the exact figure—
of taxpayer dollars was spent on the mass balance
study, and EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service have
spent millions more trying to assess the state of the
river. We really appreciate the mills' contribution and
I am glad to see them at the table, but it did come
under pressure from Superfund and the natural
resource damage assessment of that river.
I appreciate TRB putting on this symposium to dis-
cuss the report. There is one thing I would like to see in
the future. We have an industry response panel here; it
would be nice to see a citizens' response panel. A com-
mon theme throughout this symposium has been the
need for early stakeholder involvement. You have indus-
try, ports, and governments, but you usually have to
work to get the public involved. It seems to me that this
effort could include asking for the public's contribution
to something like this as well.
I also want to respond to another common theme at
this symposium—the notion of uncertainty and that
maybe cleanup is not appropriate at all times. That is
definitely true; we have talked a lot about the cost of
cleanup and why it may not be worthwhile. But one
thing that has not been discussed much is the cost of
doing nothing, or the benefits of cleanup. We touched a
bit on the cost to ports, but there are also costs to com-
mercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, and human
health that I think must be accounted for in decision
making. This is something we need to study more. We do
not have a good handle on it, particularly with respect to
natural recovery, which is the status quo. In certain situ-
ations, it may be appropriate. But we still have fish advi-
sories throughout the Great Lakes and, in fact, across the
nation. If we are willing to live with natural recovery in
the case of contaminated sediments in the Great Lakes,
then that is one thing, but we have not discussed it.
Missimer: Natural recovery is not the status quo
under any circumstances whatsoever. Natural recov-
ery is allowing nature to fix a problem more expedi-
tiously than we can fix the problem. We know that
this is occurring in many systems, that the systems are
recovering without any intervention (e.g., dredging
or capping), and that each situation is unique. Each
situation has to be looked at individually. But to say
that natural recovery is the status quo is absolutely
incorrect.
Imposing Taxes
Audience Member: Given that, according to the report,
about a half a trillion dollars' worth of trade is going
through ports, I wonder if the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey has had any discussions about,
say, imposing a nominal tax on ships that could be ear-
marked to cover the additional costs of dredging con-
taminated sediments? Given that you are dealing with a
problem that you did not cause, this might provide
additional funds to help deal with it.
Borrone: Let me give you some background. There is
a tax now, the harbor maintenance tax, a portion of
which the U.S. Supreme Court just found unconstitu-
tional on exports. That tax was put in place to fund
the USAGE dredging program. It is currently paid by
shippers on their products. It is a value-added tax. As
a result of the court's decision (which was a ruling on
a lawsuit by shippers who claimed that a large trust
fund balance had been built up that appeared to vio-
late the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade),
there is a debate going on among the federal govern-
ment, Congress, courts, and shippers about what
would be an appropriate and acceptable replacement
strategy to generate revenue to fund both maintenance
and construction programs.
Using the example of New York Harbor, those main-
tenance funds already go toward cleanup, because there
is a requirement that sediment be disposed of in a way
that is environmentally and regulatorily acceptable. So
we do have a tax, but it needs to be replaced by some-
thing new. The Administration and the director of the
Office of Management and Budget sent a letter this week
to members of Congress proposing a new approach.
Without specifying how they would raise the funds, they
are proposing a national sediment fund, which would be
off-budget, to raise about $800 million a year for main-
tenance and construction. The big discussion will be
about how to generate that money in the future.
To answer your specific question, we have discussed
it in my port, and other ports have talked about it. We
are reluctant to impose additional taxes on vessels that
could leave our harbors in favor of ports that have no
need for maintenance dredging.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Audience Member: You would have to make it a
national tax so as not to give some ports an advantage.
Borrone: Right, that is our philosophy. AAPA members
have come together as a community and said we want a
national program. We do not want ports to be forced
into competition with each other. We are already com-
peting, but we do not want it to be because of naviga-
tion policy at the federal level. We compete enough
already by going to our members of Congress for appro-
priations. The idea of a national fund such as the
Administration is proposing is exactly the type of thing
that needs to be discussed. Because there are so few days
left in this legislative session, I doubt that you will see it
this year. It will have to happen next year.
Acceptable Time Frames
Audience Member: Is 25 years an acceptable time frame
for remediation? I got an application several years ago
for a groundwater remediation project in which the
half-life and degradation work had been done and the
sponsoring party indicated that groundwater standards
would be achieved within 25 years if natural recovery
processes occurred. The question then becomes, is that
time frame acceptable? It was certainly acceptable to the
responsible party; it might even have been acceptable to
the regulatory commission. It would not be acceptable
to my wife if I told her that I would mow the lawn in 25
years, because she frequently wants me to mow it.
What has not been addressed at this symposium is
how we deal with these core disagreements that are
based on economics. If I am a corporation and I am the
responsible party, then I have very definite feelings about
what is acceptable in terms of time to recover based on
my cost-benefit curve. But my cost-benefit curve is not
the curve of the community. We have not addressed the
dynamics of dealing with real disagreement. As the next
step, we may want to talk about these dynamics and how
we get disagreeing parties to try to work it out.
Missimer: I agree. The time frame issue could be viewed
in different ways. It could be viewed as a societal deci-
sion based on the particular situation and whether you
are dealing with a minimal risk or a risk that is affecting
the environment in a definable way. A lot of elements go
into a determination as to whether 25 years is accept-
able, or whether even 1 year is acceptable. You cannot
come up with an answer to that question until you have
defined all the elements that you need to consider. This
gets back to early stakeholder involvement. If you con-
vene all of the stakeholders in a particular community
(depending on how you define the community for a par-
ticular contaminated sediment concern), then you at
least have a group of people who can talk about these
types of issues, weigh the different elements, and hope-
fully come up with a consensus decision that is best for
the community.
Natural Recovery (Part II)
Audience Member: Skip Missimer stated that he does
not consider natural recovery to be the status quo, but
rather nature cleaning up contamination better than
active remediation would. Are you willing to stick with a
definition that we would call it natural recovery only if
we can show evidence that it really is a faster and better
way to go? That is a more difficult standard to meet.
Missimer: I do not think that natural recovery should be
the presumptive remedy in every situation, but it needs
to be considered in many situations.
Audience Member: I agree. But if you are holding it to
the standard that it is better than active remediation, it
is difficult to prove that.
Missimer: For many of these—particularly freshwater—
sites where you have contaminated sediments and
dredging is not being done for transportation purposes,
there is a serious question about whether the remedia-
tion activity itself creates more risk than leaving the sys-
tem alone to recover. You have a series of equations on
this side that have to do with summing the risks of nat-
ural recovery, and you have a series of equations on the
other side that have to do with summing all the risks
associated with active remediation, whatever that is. I
do not think it is impossible to get a handle on those
risks. I think you can, and it needs to be looked at on a
site-specific basis.
Pavlou: In our report, we considered natural recovery
an alternative to be evaluated for risk reduction. We also
determined that, to attain acceptable risk levels, we
might consider a combination of alternatives, including
natural recovery. We might kick-start it with removal,
capping, or some containment, then let it go back to an
acceptable risk level with natural recovery over a time
frame that is mutually agreeable to the stakeholders.
Audience Member: I want a better understanding of how
the status quo on the Fox River would be characterized.
If it is not natural recovery, then what would be a good
summary of the action that is being contemplated or
taken?
Missimer: I was not referring to the Fox River when I
said it was incorrect to characterize natural recovery as
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INDUSTRY RESPONSE PANEL
113
the status quo. That was not a site-specific comment. In
the Fox River, we have had continual reductions in fish
tissue concentrations. Fish tissue concentrations in the
Fox River are dropping by 50 percent every five years in
most species.
Audience Member: I would like to comment that the
"no action" alternative is not a "no cost" alternative.
There is a cost in terms of human health. There is a cost
in terms of the impact on natural or living resources and
on the people, industries, or businesses that rely on the
use of those natural resources.
Audience Member: I feel a need to state the obvious.
During natural recovery, the water does not meet CWA
"fishable, swimmable" standards. "We are talking about
time here. For 25 years, that river has not been fishable
or swimmable; we are talking about natural recovery
doing nothing.
Audience Member: Steve Garbaciak mentioned that the
EPA sediment management strategy referred to natural
recovery as a preferred option. I have not read the
whole document, but the portions I read that relate to
natural recovery make no mention of it as a preferred
option. What it says is—and I think we agree—that it is
an option, but there are a lot of uncertainties and
research questions that need to be answered before we
can implement a strategy of natural recovery with any
confidence.
Audience Member: There is a perception that we should
stay away from natural recovery—that it is like no
action, an easy way to get out of doing something. That
is not the issue. It applies in some cases; it does not
apply in others. In other cases, dredging makes sense. In
still others, capping makes sense. What we need to do is
to find out what proper and effective remediation is.
John Connolly said there is a tendency to view dredging
as risk reduction. In some cases it is; in some cases it is
not. It is the same with no action.
We are spending a lot of money as a society on sed-
iment remediation, maintenance dredging, and other
things. Let us quantify what effect that has had on the
environment in terms of risk reduction. Right now the
data are insufficient to allow us to say one thing works
better than another. But we are doing things, and if we
could gather information to determine what does or
does not work, that would go a long way toward
resolving these questions.
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APPENDIX A
Conference Poster Displays and Exhibits
Battelle
Contaminated Sediment Evaluation,
Remediation Action Alternatives, and
Regulatory Determination
Since the 1800s, waters in the New York Bight Apex
and surrounding areas have been used for disposal of
dredged material and a variety of other waste prod-
ucts, including municipal garbage, building materials,
sewage sludge, and industrial waste. Ocean disposal of
garbage was stopped in 1934 and ocean disposal of
other waste products ended with the passage of the
Ocean Dumping Ban Act. Despite past and current
uses of the Bight Apex, the region is rich in fish, shell-
fish, and mineral resources, contains habitats used by
endangered species, and is of significant commercial,
recreational, and cultural importance.
In the mid 1990s, field studies of the Bight Apex
detected undesirable levels of bioaccumulative conta-
minants and toxicity in surface sediments in and
around much of the Mud Dump Site (MDS), the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) designated
ocean disposal site for dredged material from the Port
of New York and New Jersey. In July 1996, adminis-
trators of EPA, the U.S. Department of Transportation
(DOT), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deter-
mined that the Mud Dump Site should be closed and a
Historic Area Remediation Site (HARS) designated to
remediate the degraded sediment areas. Battelle pro-
vided multidisciplinary programmatic and technical
services to EPA for the closure of MDS and designa-
tion of HARS. Over a two-year period, Battelle con-
ducted field surveys, literature reviews, laboratory
analyses, and National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) process support for EPA. Physical conditions
were characterized through open literature sources,
agency file data, and National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and USAGE
oceanographic surveys. Chemical evaluations were
based on new field samples and laboratory analysis. To
evaluate contaminant bioavailability, whole-sediment
and infauna tissue samples were quantified for trace-
metal and organic constituents. Contaminants of con-
cern included dioxin and related congeners. Effort was
devoted to characterizing Bight Apex fish, shellfish,
and endangered species habitat because of the eco-
nomically important commercial and recreational
industries in coastal New Jersey and Southern Long
Island that depend on these natural resources. Cultural
features (e.g., shipwrecks) of historical importance
within the degraded sediment areas were evaluated in
accordance with Section 106 of the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966, and eligibility determina-
tions were made for potential listing in the National
Register of Historic Places.
Following full characterization of the Bight Apex study
area, four management alternatives were considered:
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116
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
1. No action;
2. Close MDS/no HARS designation;
3. HARS designation and sediment remediation; and
4. HARS designation and sediment restoration.
Through the NEPA process, EPA determined that
HARS remediation with uncontaminated dredged mate-
rial (alternative 3) was the appropriate action, and
issued the necessary federal rulemaking to close MDS
and designate HARS. Degraded sediment areas within
HARS are currently being remediated by placement of a
1-m layer of uncontaminated sediment, isolating toxic
conditions and bioaccumulative contaminants from the
Bight Apex ecosystem.
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Integrated Sediment Decontamination for the
New York/New Jersey Harbor
Disposal of dredged material taken from the New
York/New Jersey (NY/NJ) Harbor is problematic
because of the presence of inorganic and organic conta-
minants that under revised testing criteria render it
unsuitable for return to the ocean or for beneficial
reuse. Decontamination of the dredged material fol-
lowed by beneficial reuse is one attractive component of
the overall, comprehensive, dredged-material manage-
ment plan being developed by the USACE-New York
District.
A demonstration program to validate decontamina-
tion processes and to bring them into full-scale use in
the NY/NJ Harbor is now in progress. Tests of selected
technologies have been completed at the bench-scale
and pilot-scale (2-15 m3) levels. Procedures for demon-
stration testing on scales from 750 m3 to 75000 m3 are
being developed with the goal of producing a usable
decontamination system by the end of 1999. The over-
all project goals and present status of the project are
reviewed here.
Cable Arm Inc.
How Dredging Is Done
Cable Arm offered a continuous VHS display focusing
on polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) remediation, specif-
ically on how the reduction of treatment costs of conta-
minated sediments begins with how the dredging is
done. Two projects were highlighted:
• Sediment clean-up project at the Ford Motor Co.
Plant in Monroe, Michigan; and
• Dredging environmentally sensitive materials at the
Dow Canada St. Clair River site in Sarnia, Ontario.
California Regional Water Quality Control Board
Obstacles to Beneficial Reuse of Dredged
Sediments in the San Francisco Bay Area
This poster display described the current status of eight
proposed beneficial reuse projects in the Bay Area and
one completed project. The focus will be on the factors
that resulted in progress on some projects and obstacles
to progress on others. Reuse projects using dredged mate-
rial include wetland restorations with and without con-
fined aquatic disposal, agricultural enhancements of
reclaimed lands, capping of hazardous wastes on port
property, creation of subtidal habitat, and repair of levees
surrounding reclaimed lands.
Five state and federal agencies have participated in
the development of a Long Term Management Strategy
for Dredged Materials in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Several alternatives for reducing the impacts of dredging
on the San Francisco Bay ecosystem were evaluated in a
combined environmental impact report-environmental
impact statement (EIR/EIS), that is due to be finalized
this year. The preferred alternative selected in the
EIR/EIS includes a reduction of dredged material dis-
posal in the Bay, with an eventual distribution of 40 per-
cent ocean disposal, 20 percent "in-bay" disposal and
40 percent beneficial reuse.
Although an average of 6 million yd3 of dredged mate-
rial is produced in the Bay Area each year, design and
completion of beneficial reuse projects have been slow.
Beneficial reuse projects have been difficult to complete,
due to the cost of transporting dredged material upland,
institutional constraints (such as restrictions on cost shar-
ing), engineering constraints (preparation of dredged
material for structural fill) and lack of appropriate reuse
sites near the San Francisco Bay margin.
Clean Ocean Action
Alternatives for Managing Contaminated
Sediments in New York Harbor
Contaminated sediments pose ecological and human
health risks in many bodies of water throughout the
United States. In the Hudson-Raritan Estuary/New York
Harbor, contaminated sediments come from a multitude
of sources, including discharges of industrial waste,
sewage, and storm water; leakage from waste dumps;
runoff from city streets and air pollutants contained in
rainwater. The magnitude of the sediment contamina-
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CONFERENCE POSTER DISPLAYS AND EXHIBITS
1 17
tion problem in New York Harbor is evidenced by advi-
sories against consuming fish with toxic bioaccumulative
sediment contaminants.
Dredging to maintain shipping channels and sustain
waterborne commerce in the New York Harbor region
results in the need to dispose of millions of tons of sed-
iment each year. In the past, dredged material from the
harbor was routinely dumped at an ocean disposal site
known as the Mud Dump Site, located 6 mi (9.7 km) off
the Monmouth County, New Jersey, coastline.
However, much of this dredged material is contami-
nated with chemical pollutants, and environment
impacts resulting from decades of this practice necessi-
tated the closure of the Mud Dump Site on September
1, 1997, and designation of an approximate 9-mi2
(23.3-km2) area surrounding the dump site as the
Historic Area Remediation Site. Efforts are currently
under way to implement environmentally sound, alter-
native methods for managing dredged materials in the
New York Harbor region.
In order to make informed decisions, citizens need to
understand the problems associated with contaminated
sediments in the marine environment and have infor-
mation on current and potential future dredged mater-
ial management initiatives in the New York Harbor
region. Clean Ocean Action has produced Alternatives
for Managing Contaminated Sediments in New 'York
Harbor: A New Jersey Citizen's Guide for this purpose.
Information contained in this publication is based on
community needs identified at a series of workshops
held in August 1997. The guide is intended to provide
citizens with background on the various issues sur-
rounding the dredged material management alternatives
and with the resources to understand the issues and
respond to proposals for dredged material management
that might arise in their communities.
EA Engineering, Science and Technology, Inc.
Minimizing Turbidity and Associated Impacts
Due to Dredging and Dredged Material Disposal
Increasingly, permits for dredging and aquatic disposal
require monitoring to assure that turbidity does not
exceed a level that would cause an adverse environmen-
tal impact. Drivers for these requirements include the
following:
• Concern that turbidity itself would create conditions
adverse to aquatic organisms;
• Use of turbidity as a surrogate for sediment-borne
contaminants; and
• Real-time feedback on the zone that disposal and
construction activities affect.
Technologies and monitoring techniques that EA
has applied to specific project needs include the
following:
• ADCP for real-time description of the disposal
plume in Boston Harbor;
• Acoustic fish-deterrence techniques to minimize
the impact on fish;
• TSS sampling and transmissometer readings at the
Newark Bay confined disposal facility (CDF);
• Real-time monitoring of construction activity at the
Poplar Island Facility; and
• Use of the environmental bucket to reduce impact
and also as a monitoring device.
The display presented case studies for each of these
techniques.
ECDC East L.C.
ECDC offered a continuous video presentation focusing
on two recent applications of dredge sediments recovery
and recycling technologies. The projects are the
Seaboard site in Kearny, New Jersey, and the OENJ site
in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
ENSR
Sediment Recovery Analysis Through the
Application of 3-D Models
Sediment remediation is a costly and complex process.
Typical alternatives may involve dredging large
amounts of material, or capping in place. These solu-
tions may be more environmentally harmful than leav-
ing contaminated material in place to recover
naturally.
A methodology for sediment remediation analysis
has been developed and implemented and involves a
combination of hydrodynamic and toxics kinetic mod-
els that provide site-specific data to support natural
recovery. The models used were EFDC, a 3-D hydro-
dynamic model, and WASP/TOX15, a toxics fate and
transport model. Defining recovery regions in detail
allows greater precision in developing remediation
strategies than is provided by a simple, screening-level
model. The approach allows evaluation of the effec-
tiveness of alternate remedial approaches and can
guide development of focused, long-term monitoring
programs.
The methodology was implemented for a pulp mill
that discharged an average of 30 to 40 million gal/day
(113.5 to 151.4 L/day) of wastewater to an adjacent
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1 18
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
cove during its operations, contributing to low dis-
solved oxygen and high organic content in the sedi-
ments. Sampling results showed that more than half of
the cove had chemicals of concern above sediment
quality criteria. The contaminants of concern
included total organic carbon (TOG), ammonia, and
4-methylphenol.
The combination of the 3-D hydrodynamic model
and the toxics fate and transport model was calibrated
to reproduce observed velocity data and sediment con-
centrations based on a 41-year discharge of pulp mill
effluents. Recovery of sediments was simulated by
incorporating zero discharge (since effluent would no
longer be discharged after the 1997 source control) with
natural recovery processes such as
1. Burial by new, clean sediments;
2. Chemical biodegradation; and
3. Diffusion and tidal flushing to predict the reduc-
tion in the concentrations of chemicals of concern over
a 20-year simulation period.
Model results showed sediment recovery of TOC in
the top 10 cm of sediment within 15 years. Results for 4-
methylphenol and ammonia also showed recovery; how-
ever, there were some hot spots where other remediation
strategies could be implemented.
EPA National Risk Management
Research Laboratory
Contaminated Sediments Research Program
The EPA display highlighted the various areas of
research and projects with which the National Risk
Management Research Lab is involved, including
* Enhancement of confined disposal facility
performance;
• CDF Treatment-Use of hydrogen to detoxify highly
chlorinated organic contaminants in sediments;
• Use of iron filings (zero-valent iron) for the chemi-
cal dechlorination of organics in sediments; pilot plant
studies of biotreatment for dredged sediments (i.e., land
treatment);
• In situ treatment, such as microbiological immobiliza-
tion of lead from sediments in situ and in situ biorestora-
tion of contaminated sediments and determination of
natural recovery rates;
• Fate and transport of contaminants—engineering
models for adsorption and desorption on sediments; and
• Determination of bioremediation endpoints
by isotopic analysis of pollutants and metabolic
products.
The Environmental Research Center-
State University of New York
Volatile Losses of Volatile and Semivolatile
Compounds During Soil Remediation
Recent research by the Environmental Research Center
and the University at Albany School of Public Health indi-
cates semivolatile compounds readily volatilize during
drying and remedial processing of contaminated soils and
sediments. These findings suggest significant quantities of
organic contaminants can be released to the atmosphere
during remedial measures involving excavation, dredging,
dewatering and drying of contaminated solids.
Laboratory experiments conducted by the Environ-
mental Research Center on PCB-contaminated sediments
collected from New York Superfund sites indicate more
than 75 percent of the total PCB concentration of air-
dried sediments can be lost through volatilization at
ambient temperatures and relative humidity. Greatest
volatile loss from the contaminated sediments occurred
when water overlying the sediments evaporated.
These results have implications on the handling and
remediation of semivolatile contaminated sediments
with specific emphasis on the evaporative loss of water
that can result in the redistribution of contaminants to
the atmosphere. Volatile losses from activities involving
dredging, dewatering, and remedial technologies (low
temperature thermal desorption, aerobic biodegrada-
tion, lime solidification, and others) may result in the
atmospheric redistribution of organic contaminants.
Federal Energy Technology Center,
U.S. Department of Energy
Redox Gel Probe (RGP) Technology for the
Evaluation of Heavy Metal Stability in Sediments
The redox gel probe (RGP) was developed to evaluate
the stability of metals precipitated within the sediments
of constructed wetlands used to remove metals from
acid mine drainage.
Over the past five years, it has been repeatedly field
tested and has proved to be easy and inexpensive to use and
readily adapted to site-specific environmental concerns.
Solid redox-sensitive compounds, such as manganese diox-
ide (MnO2), are incorporated into gels held in rigid plastic
holders, leaving one longitudinal surface of the gel exposed.
These probes are pushed vertically into sediments and are
left in situ. After an incubation period of hours to weeks, the
probes are removed from the sediment, and the depths
where compound dissolution, transformation, and redistri-
bution have occurred are determined relative to the location
of the sediment-water interface.
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CONFERENCE POSTER DISPLAYS AND EXHIBITS
119
Gel probes placed along surveyed transects and grids
in wetland sediments have yielded maps of compound
stability that reflect the beneficial and detrimental influ-
ence of various environmental variables on pollutant
retention and diffusive metal flux from sediments. In
one example, gel probes containing particulate man-
ganese compounds (MnO2, MnCO3, and MnS) were
placed along a surveyed grid in the sediment of a wet-
land built to remove Mn from coal mine drainage at a
site in western Pennsylvania. The stability of these com-
pounds within the wetland was shown to be highly vari-
able both temporally and spatially, suggesting that
long-term manganese retention in sediments was
unlikely.
The method has its most likely application to fine-
grained metal-contaminated sediments where the sta-
bility of metal species in sediments is in question. Data
from recent experiments using live bacteria incorpo-
rated within the RGP gel matrix and the potential
applications of this approach also will be shown.
Foster-Wheeler/Hartman Consulting Corporation
&C Port of Tacoma
Sitcum, Blair, Milwaukee Project
The Sitcum, Blair, Milwaukee Project is a landmark
cleanup and redevelopment achievement. Hartman
Consulting Corporation worked with the Port of
Tacoma USA to balance environmental protection with
economic vitality and to push traditional engineering
and construction techniques to new limits.
Multiple objectives were achieved simultaneously by
linking the Sitcum and Blair Waterways cleanup actions
with the need to expand navigation uses in the Blair
Waterway and to create land for terminal use in the
Milwaukee Waterway. Activities included placement of
868,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediments in the
Milwaukee nearshore fill. This beneficial use of conta-
minated sediment created 23 acres of new container
cargo marshaling land. The project also unlocked over
300 acres of land for future container terminal develop-
ment and created new economic opportunity for the
entire Puget Sound region.
Hazardous Substance Research Center
(HSRC)-South and Southwest
Various Projects and Technologies
The HSRC display highlighted a broad range of projects
and technologies with which the center has been
involved.
International Technology Corporation (ITCorp)
Bayou Bonfouca Project
An ITCorp joint venture with OHM Corporation reme-
diated the Bayou Bonfouca Superfund site in Slidell,
Louisiana. The work was completed in two phases:
Phase one was completed in the fall of 1993 and
included completion of regulatory documents and plans
required for regulatory approval, prepared base line air
and soil analytical surveys, preparing the site for the
Hybrid Thermal Treatment System™ (HTTS™) incinera-
tion system, operating the groundwater treatment system,
constructing and erecting the incinerator and support
facilities, performing initial work on the on-site landfill,
completing the incinerator trial burn, and incinerating
stockpiled, contaminated material on-site.
Phase two of the project included mobilizing dredg-
ing and filter-press dewatering equipment; dredging,
dewatering, and incinerating approximately 169,000
yd3 (129,285 m3) of contaminated bayou sediments;
backfilling the bayou; completing the on site landfill;
providing continued operation of the groundwater
treatment system; demobilizing the incinerator and
support facilities; and performing site restoration.
Approximately 1 mi of Bayou Bonfouca was dredged
using a barge-mounted mechanical excavator. Dredged
material was processed through an on-board slurry unit
and then pumped to the on-site retention pond through
a concentric, double-walled flotation dredge line. Barge
position and depth of cut were controlled by a comput-
erized elemetry unit which adjusted for stream flow and
tidal effect and controlled the depth of excavation from
15 ft down to 25 ft (4.6 m down to 7.6 m). The critical
effort of stabilization of over 5,000 ft of bayou bank
was accomplished by sheet piling along the shoreline.
Piling depths ranged from 35 to 40 ft (10.7 to 12.2 m)
and were positioned to prevent incursion into the
underlying clean-water aquifers. Significant bayou-bed
soil boring and analysis preceded initiation of this highly
critical activity. Inclinometers monitored the sheet pil-
ing during dredge operations to ensure that minimal
bank movement occurred.
Lawler, Matusky & Skelly Engineers LLP/ECDC
Beneficial Reuses of Contaminated Dredged
Material in New York Harbor
This poster display presented several case studies
involving beneficial uses of contaminated dredged
material in New York Harbor and related them to the
overall framework for contaminated sediment manage-
ment (CSM) recently developed by the authors (Abood
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120
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
& Metzger, 1997). These cases are either being suc-
cessfully implemented or are in development. An
overview of the dredged material management crisis
threatening the New York/New Jersey Port also was
presented. In addition, an outline of several dredged
material placement alternatives being considered by
public and private entities was described. These alter-
natives include containment islands, nearshore contain-
ment, subaqueous pits, • upland placement,
decontamination, and beneficial uses. Methods to min-
imize sediment quantity and contaminant levels are also
being evaluated.
There is a vast array of potentially beneficial reuses for
dredged material incorporated in the GSM framework.
However, this poster display focused on utilization of
processed dredged material as
• Remediation capping material;
• Structural fill;
• Landfill cover; and
• Mining reclamation material.
The process involved
• Dewatering of low to moderately contaminated
dredged material;
• Debris removal for recycling and disposal;
• Addition of proprietary cement-based additive
formulae;
• Blending of the sediments and additive using
patented mixing units;
• Curing of the mixed product;
• Transfer to a permitted site;
• Off-loading and final placement; and
• Inspection and monitoring.
The poster display illustrated various aspects (zoning,
environmental, permitting, product specifications, man-
ufacturing, and operations) of two recent applications
of this technology: the Seaboard site in Kearny, New
Jersey, and the OENJ site in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Louisiana State University (LSU)
Dredging: A Two-Edged Sword in Remediating
Contaminated Bed Sediment
Depending on site-specific conditions and its implemen-
tation at a particular site, environmental dredging either
can be the key effective element of the remediation
process or it can make matters worse. This proposition
was paramount in the minds of the 28 experts from con-
sulting firms, industry, government, and academia who
gathered on the LSU campus, February 11, 1998, for a
workshop on dredging effectiveness as it relates to
remediation of contaminated bed-sediment. The work-
shop marked the beginning of a new research thrust for
HSRC-South and Southwest, and was convened to
gather initial information to produce a position paper,
the subject of the poster.
The poster display focused on the various aspects of
effectiveness and limitations of environmental dredging.
Specific topics covered included the state of the art of
environmental dredging, dredge types available, conta-
minant removal efficiencies, spillages, short-term
impacts, long-term impacts, mass removal goals and risk
reduction goals, post-dredging monitoring data sets,
design removal targets vs. leftover residues, innovative
dredges, predictive techniques (such as modeling and
laboratory elutriate tests), and case studies cataloging
successes and failures vis-a-vis risk management for
human health and the ecology.
Malcolm Pirnie, Inc.
Newark Bay Confined Disposal Facility
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
(PANYNJ) has constructed a subaqueous CDF at Port
Newark, New Jersey. The Newark Bay Confined
Disposal Facility (NBCDF) is a 1.5 million yd3 (1.15
million m3) "pit" excavated from the bottom of Newark
Bay, and is a much-needed disposal site for dredged
material from portions of New York Harbor. Because
the NBCDF is a first-of-its-kind solution, it serves as an
innovative and cost-effective model for shipping ports
across the United States. It is also the object of intense
public scrutiny.
At New York Harbor, the dredging and disposal
problem is as acute as anywhere; between 4 to 6 million
yd3 (3 to 4.6 million m3) are dredged each year. As
international commerce grows, the port must accom-
modate larger and larger ships or lose market share to
increased competition from rival ports such as Norfolk,
Virginia, or Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Port of New
York/New Jersey has spent hundreds of millions of dol-
lars dredging to attract bigger container ships, but extra
efforts must be made to accomplish and maintain the
45-ft (13.7-m) deep channels required for the latest ves-
sels. Increased demand for dredging is countered by
increasingly limited options for disposal: In 1996 an
agreement was made to close the Mud Dump, the main
disposal site for contaminated sediments located off of
the New Jersey coast.
At the onset of operations in November 1997, the
NBCDF had a surface area of 26 acres and a depth of
70 ft (21.3 m). It is anticipated that filling of the
NBCDF will occur over a period of approximately two
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CONFERENCE POSTER DISPLAYS AND EXHIBITS
121
years. Dredged materials eligible for disposal in the
NBCDF include those from Port Authority and private
projects located in Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, and the
Kill Van Kull. The user fee for disposal in the NBCDF is
$29/yd3, which is very low when compared with other
disposal options.
Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., has been retained by PANYNJ
to manage operation maintenance of the NBCDF. Each
project considered for the NBCDF must be fully per-
mitted and insured. Precautionary measures include a
water quality monitoring program, intermittent bathy-
metric surveys, capping and penetrometer tests, and
long-term monitoring.
Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., Environmental
Restoration Group
Using GIS to Identify and Characterize
Sediments To Be Dredged
Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., under contract with Louis Berger
and Associates, Inc., for the New York District Army
Corps of Engineers, was tasked with providing technical
assistance in plans for deepening the Arthur Kill and Kill
Van Kull/Newark Bay federal navigation channels in
New York Harbor. To develop project costs, the Corps
needed to determine which portion of proposed channel
deepening would require bedrock excavation and which
portion of the work would require ordinary silt dredg-
ing. Further, since the closing of the Mud Dump
Disposal Site off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to contami-
nated dredged spoils, disposal of the potentially contam-
inated material is a critical issue. In consideration of this,
Malcolm Pirnie used soil types and other geologic infor-
mation rather than costly and time-consuming analytical
testing to estimate quantities of industrial-era "black
mud" which likely would require treatment or upland
disposal, because it exceeds EPA disposal criteria.
Using existing information in the form of borings,
seismic data, and bathymetry, Malcolm Pirnie utilized
GIS\Key™, a comprehensive geographic information and
data management software. GIS\Key™ was used to man-
age the abundant data, develop channel cross-sections
and other graphics to assist the Corps with presentations
to regulators, and interfaced with Quicksurf to perform
3-D volume calculations to provide the basis for costing.
By using geologic and soil-type information in con-
junction with sophisticated computer software, Malcolm
Pirnie was able to provide working estimates of quantities
of potentially contaminated sediments without the need
for time-consuming and costly analytical testing. This
allowed the Corps to work with other agencies to iden-
tify potential disposal sites before confirmation sampling
and testing of the dredged spoils.
New Jersey Maritime Resources
Contaminated Sediments in New Jersey Marine
Waters: Moving from Crisis to Management
Contaminated marine sediments pose an ecological
and economic threat to New Jersey. However, the risks
associated with marine sediments in the environment
vary depending on the nature of the contamination,
the concentrations present, and the ecosystem
exposed. The available data for sediments from the
Port District have been summarized and used to evalu-
ate appropriate management of these contaminated
sediments.
Examination of the data reveals that the current lev-
els of contamination in most harbor sediments make the
material unsuitable for open-water disposal. An analysis
of the near- and mid-term dredging needs for the Port
of New Jersey indicates that over 5 million yd3 (3.8 mil-
lion m3) of contaminated sediment must be dredged
over the next 8 years. Combined with the scarcity of
open water disposal in nearshore areas, this has
prompted a search for suitable upland disposal areas.
Upland placement of contaminated sediments often
results in significantly lower risk to the overall ecosys-
tem than in-water disposal and also can be used to reme-
diate sites such as landfills, brownfields, abandoned
strip mines, and other known contaminated sites. Using
currently available amendment technology, most
dredged materials in the Port District meet acceptable
upland use criteria without decontamination. These
efforts have resulted in approximately 13 million yd3
(10 million m3) of permitted upland capacity, including
three contaminated sediment processing facilities.
Permits for an additional 2.3 mi yd3 (1.76 million m3)
are currently in process.
Long-term management strategies currently being
explored and encouraged by the Office of New Jersey
Maritime Resources were presented in the poster dis-
play. Efforts included a toxics tracking and reduction
plan, sediment decontamination of localized hot spots,
remedial dredging, mine and quarry reclamation, uti-
lization of GIS to locate additional brownfield and
landfill reclamation sites, and the use of clean dredged
materials for habitat restoration and wetlands creation.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration—Fisheries, Office of
Habitat and Conservation
The National Marine Fisheries' Office of Habitat
Conservation is the agency's focal point for coastal
and estuarine habitat conservation, protection, and
restoration. Part of its mission is to
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122
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
• Restore fish habitats and other natural resources;
• Advance the science and technology of coastal
habitat restoration; and
• Transfer restoration technology to the public, the
private sector, and other governmental agencies.
Under the Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection, and
Restoration Act, the Office and the State of Louisiana
are engaged in a partnership to restore salt marches lost
to erosion, subsidence, and hydrological alterations.
The office administers grants programs to foster com-
munity-based habitat restoration projects and to fund
research on habitat restoration. The community-based
grants seek to promote stewardship and a conservation
ethic among coastal communities; the research grants
work to advance the science and technology of coastal
habitat restoration. The office administers the imple-
mentation of the Essential Fish Habitat provisions under
the Magnuson-Stevens Act. All of these programs have
some involvement with dredge sediments.
Parsons Brinckerhoff
Lime Stabilization and Disposal of Contaminated
Dredged Harbor Sediments
The lime stabilization of contaminated dredged sediments
for Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel crossing project was
the first of its kind in the United States. Under this plan,
68 000 m3 of contaminated sediments, dredged from the
upper 1.5 meters of Boston Harbor, were mixed with
lime and contained in a lined and capped site on
Governors Island next to Logan Airport. The dredged
sediments were chemically stabilized and solidified by the
addition of 10 percent quicklime by volume to meet envi-
ronmental and engineering requirements. Leach tests
indicated the sediments were completely stabilized—
there were no detectable levels of contaminants.
The containment site was enclosed by a dike 4.6 m
high and lined with a double geomembrane sandwiching
a geonet to intercept leachate in case of rupture in the
primary geomembrane. A gravel and perforated pipe
underdrain system was installed below the double liner
to intercept high groundwater and drain it into a sump
for long-term monitoring. A leachate collection pump
also was provided to collect any leachate that might be
intercepted by the geonet. Mixing with lime in the field
was initially performed in the open, but because of
problems with windblown dust migrating to airport
runways, this practice was discontinued and a pugmill
was set up at the site. A protective foam was applied for
odor control, and the stabilized sediments were leveled,
capped, and surcharged in preparation for reclamation
by Massport, the airport's operating authority.
Port of Long Beach
Two Birds with One Stone: Habitat Replacement
and Dredged Material Disposal in One Solution
The Port of Long Beach's proposal to reuse the former
U.S. Naval Station Long Beach included dredging
approximately 4 million yd3 (3 million m3) of sedi-
ments. Some of the dredging would eliminate a 26-
acre shallow-water area presumed to be foraging
habitat for the federally-listed endangered California
least tern, and some would involve the removal of
approximately 700,000 yd3 (535 500 m3) of contami-
nated sediment designated as unsuitable for uncon-
fined aquatic disposal. Under current resource agency
policy, the loss of the wildlife habitat must be miti-
gated by the creation of at least as much shallow-water
area nearby. The sediments contaminated by 50 years
of U.S. Navy activity contained elevated concentra-
tions of heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, and
PCBs. The Port had no available vacant land or
planned fills that could accept the contaminated
sediments, which posed a serious disposal problem.
The port's solution to these problems was to design a
replacement shallow-water habitat that would be con-
structed of contaminated sediments capped with clean
material. This solution was possible because, with the
exception of a small amount of sediment designated as
hazardous waste due to a high heavy-metals concentra-
tion, all of the contaminated material was deemed suit-
able for confined aquatic disposal. The quadrilateral site
would have new, multi-lift rock dikes on three sides and
be bounded by an existing mole on the fourth. The most
seriously contaminated material would be placed in the
bottom of the structure with progressively less contam-
inated material above, finishing with a 5-ft (1.5-m) thick
cap of clean material from the existing habitat area.
Modeling demonstrated the effectiveness of the design
in preventing contaminant release from exceeding water
quality criteria at the sediment-water interface.
Port of Oakland
A Sediment Decision Framework for Beneficial
Reuse Evaluation of Dredged Material in the
Port of Oakland
The Port of Oakland's Vision 2000 Terminal
Development and 50-ft (15-m) harbor deepening project
will expand and integrate ship, rail, and truck freight han-
dling capacity to serve the San Francisco Bay area and to
meet the increasing needs of the nation. The 50-ft harbor
deepening project will deepen and widen Oakland
Harbor and.selected berths, removing approximately 14
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CONFERENCE POSTER DISPLAYS AND EXHIBITS
123
to 15 million yd3 (10.7 to 11.5 million m3) of marine sed-
iment and 4 to 5 million yd3 of intertidal bank material.
The key to gaining rapid agency approval for the Port's
deepening project was the production of an overall
screening strategy to characterize existing sediment. In
turn, this characterization would support the evaluation
of multiple reuse and disposal options, with a majority of
the dredged material geared toward beneficial reuse.
In a collaborative effort with DMMO, the Port's con-
sulting team structured a tiered testing protocol to max-
imize material suitability determinations by combining
the guidelines in the following sources:
1. Evaluation of Dredged Material Proposed for
Ocean Disposal—Testing Manual (USEPA/USACE 1991;
also known as the "Green Book");
2. Testing Guidelines for Dredged Material Disposal at
San Francisco Bay Sites (Public Notice 93-2, USAGE,
1993);
3. Interim Sediment Screening Criteria and Testing
Requirements for Wetland Creation and Upland
Beneficial Reuse (Gal EPA, CRWQCB, 1992); and
4. Environmental Health Standards for the
Management of Hazardous Waste (Title 22, California
Code of Regulations).
By synthesizing a framework from these four sets of
guidelines, the port developed a stratified sampling and
analysis plan to characterize sediments for four broad
classes of reuse and disposal options: ocean disposal,
wetland creation, upland construction, and landfill,dis-
posal. Preliminary suitability determinations have been
completed by the port and are currently under review
by the agencies. The port's preferred disposal alterna-
tive for approximately half of the marine sediments was
habitat enhancement in Middle Harbor; however,
because of the regional policy discouraging any type of
in-bay fill as well as a lack of coherent guidelines for
dealing with all the gradations of sediment contamina-
tion, the plan for a Middle Harbor habitat creation has
met some resistance on both the political and technical
fronts.
This poster reviewed the overall screening strategy
used to characterize Oakland Harbor sediments as well
as the political ramifications and environmental accep-
tance of both sediment suitability determinations and
beneficial reuse options.
T8cM Associates
Dredge Material to Beneficial Uses
The display highlighted a proposal to establish a
Public/Private Partnership to operate a permanent
dredge material (DM) handling facility. The site
would grow steadily as the material is processed with
beneficial use (bricks, masonry, structural fill, and
composted soil).
The concept was: We have been treating DM as a
waste; now let us use it for more logical benefits.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE),
New York District
The Beneficial Use of Contaminated Sediments
for Habitat and Water Quality Improvement in
New York Harbor
Because ocean disposal of most dredged material from
New York Harbor is no longer an option, the New
York District of USAGE has been encouraged to search
for innovative solutions to the contaminated dredged
material disposal problem. Some of these potentially
innovative solutions are nontraditional and distinctly
"urban" in nature, due to the severe lack of upland
and in-water areas for disposal and associated conta-
mination problems. These potential options include
the following:
• The use of contaminated sediment for filling
highly degraded dead-end basins, which may be a
potential source of contaminant uptake to estuarine
organisms.
• Filling and capping of bathymetric depressions to
improve water circulation and eliminate degraded and
often hypoxic pit environments.
• Constructing wetlands with contaminated sedi-
ments, and capping them with clean sediments, which
would act as outfall and runoff "filters" to improve local
water quality.
• Constructing wetlands with contaminated dredged
material at the base of landfills to retard the leaching of
landfill contaminants from entering the estuary.
Efforts to implement these concepts in the New York
area were described, including a discussion of inherent
technical and regulatory problems. Examples of similar
successfully implemented projects from other areas
were provided.
USAE Waterways Experiment Station (WES)
Various Projects and Technologies
The USAE WES display highlighted a broad range of
projects and technologies with which USAGE has been
involved.
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124
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
University of Nebraska
Risk-Cost Trade-Off Analysis Under Uncertainty
for Dredged Material
Disposal of contaminated dredged material can pose risks
to ecological and human populations. These risks can be
reduced by using disposal alternatives that incorporate
measures to confine the contaminated dredged material;
however, these measures can increase disposal costs sig-
nificantly. Risk-cost trade-off analysis is used to identify
the disposal alternatives that provide the greatest risk
reduction at the lowest cost.
Risk and cost assessments for dredged material man-
agement alternatives are often associated with large
uncertainties. Understanding these uncertainties can be
critical in the decision-making process to ensure that
appropriate management alternatives are selected.
Therefore, a risk-cost trade-off analysis that incorpo-
rates uncertainty analysis into the decision-making
framework must be developed.
Risks to humans and ecological species were esti-
mated in a case study for each of several disposal alter-
natives. A multicriteria decision-making method was
used to trade off the risks and costs for these disposal
alternatives. Uncertainties were encoded into the
MCDM method, using fuzzy set theory (probabilistic
methods such as Monte Carlo Analysis also can be
used). The final risk-cost trade-off value for each dis-
posal alternative was computed as a fuzzy number
allowing the management options with their associated
uncertainties to be compared and ranked.
University of Washington
Evidence for Anaerobic Degradation of
Phenanthrene in Marine Sediments
Recent work in anaerobic marine sediments is reversing
the perception that oxygen is required for microbial
degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)
in the environment. To better measure the extent and
rate of anaerobic PAH degradation in situ, heavily con-
taminated sediments were collected from Eagle Harbor,
an EPA Superfund site in Puget Sound, Washington, and
whole subcores (1.6 x 10 cm) were injected at 0.5-cm
depth intervals with tracer quantities of 14C-labeled
phenanthrene (67-70 mg/ml porewater), a dominant
contaminant at the site. Replicate core were sacrificed,
after incubation periods of 0 to 26 d at in situ tempera-
ture (13 C), and analyzed versus depth in sediment for
die evolution of 14C-labeled carbon dioxide.
Results indicated that up to 48 percent of the labeled
phenanthrene in the contaminated sediments was con-
verted to carbon dioxide over the full incubation period,
while minor-to-negligible conversion occurred in control
sediments from Blakely Harbor, a similar but uncontam-
inated site. These results bear significantly upon sedi-
ment treatment decisions, especially those that exclude
oxygen from the system (sediment capping) and rely on
native bacterial populations to ameliorate contamination
levels.
The poster display was part of the Marine Bioremediation
Program (MBP) at the University of Washington
(www.weber.u.washington.edu~uwmbp/hmmbp.html). Ten
faculty and students from four colleges are determining
the mechanisms 'and rates by which PAHs are biode-
graded. Scientific approaches include in situ simulation,
mixed culture enrichments, isolations and identification
of pure culture rates, philogenetic and molecular meth-
ods, and mathematical modeling. MBP is a multidisci-
plinary research and training initiative focusing on
bioremediation of contaminated marine sediments.
Historically, the focus has been on biodegradation of
creosote, a wood preservative composed primarily of
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as naph-
thalene and phenanthrene; however, it also includes
interests and expertise in the degradation of chlorinated
organic compounds and detection of mobilized heavy
metals. The primary field site has been Eagle Harbor,
which was contaminated with creosote from a now-
defunct wood treatment plant located on its shore, as
well as lesser amounts of chlorinated organics and heavy
metals. Creosote and its components are toxic sub-
stances that have been shown to have mutagenic prop-
erties. EPA arranged for placement of clean sediment
(capping) over the harbor's contaminated seabed in an
effort to contain the toxic compounds.
Understanding how organic contaminants are
degraded naturally in the marine environment is the pri-
mary objective of MBP. The program has been sup-
ported in the past by the U.S. Office of Naval Research
and the University of Washington Office of Research.
The program continues with additional support from
individual grants from a variety of federal, state, and
private sources.
Woodward-Clyde International
Demonstration of Scenario Analysis for
Evaluating Risk Reduction Alternatives for
Remediation of Contaminated Sediments
There is growing consensus for using risk analysis as a
primary tool in making remedial decisions for contami-
nated sediments (NRC 1997). Computer simulation is
presented as a successful interactive format for decision
analysis as proposed by NRC (1997). This is accom-
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CONFERENCE POSTER DISPLAYS AND EXHIBITS
115
plished by coupling ecological risk assessment with vari-
able scenarios of remedial actions and alternates, while
evaluating risk reduction. Two examples of computer
simulators were demonstrated. , _
The first was a simulator developed for a chemical
manufacturing facility to facilitate evaluation for reme-
dial alternatives for mercury-contaminated sediments in
a southern Alabama floodplain area. The risk analysis
simulated the impact of sediment remedial actions (i.e.,
dredging, covering, source control, and natural attenua-
tion) over time and provided estimates of "how soon or
long" while comparing alternatives. Such stimulation
allows for direct comparisons between variable degrees
of remedial action, combined or individual remedial
alternatives, with or without the impact of natural
attenuation, all in the context of remedial efficacy or
risk reduction. This provided a format for interactive
decision making—that is, decision analysis.
The second simulator estimated site- and receptor-
specific risk-based sediment concentrations. This pro-
vided a rapid and cost-effective means of risk analysis at
a higher level than comparison to sediment quality
benchmarks. In essence, it represented an abbreviated
Tier II Baseline Ecological Risk Assessment (USAGE
1996). Such simulation identified modeled site-specific
risk-based concentrations based on food-web transfers
of the contaminants of potential concern. This risk
analysis can be used to decide whether further site-char-
acterization is necessary, develop potential remedial vol-
umes and costs, and suggest a biological sampling plan.
Similar simulators have been used successfully in screen-
ing for ecological risks at sites within Homestead Air
Force Base (AFB) in Florida, helped design a focused
supplemental biological sampling at Tinker AFB in
Oklahoma, and is presently being evaluated by an indus-
trial client for modification and possible use at a site.
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APPENDIX B
Committee Member Biographical Information
W. Frank Bohlen is a professor of physical oceanogra-
phy in the department of marine sciences at the
University of Connecticut in Groton, Conn. Dr. Bohlen
is an expert on turbulence and sediment transport
processes and has authored several papers on sediment
dispersal associated with the disposal of dredged mater-
ial and the ocean dispersal of particulate wastes. He has
served on many research and planning committees,
including two National Research Council committees
addressing marine particulate wastes and dredging. Dr.
Bohlen has a BS degree from the University of Notre
Dame and a PhD degree from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution.
Lillian C. Borrone, NAE, is Director of the Port
Commerce Department of the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey. She oversees the management of
major marine terminal facilities within the Port of New
York and New Jersey and is also responsible for the Port
Authority's industrial parks and other regional develop-
ment assets, which include Port Newark/Elizabeth Port
Authority Marine Terminal complex;. Red Hook
Container Terminal in Brooklyn; Howland Hook
Marine Terminal in Staten Island; industrial parks in
Elizabeth, N.J.; and in Bathgate and Yonkers, N.Y.; and
the Teleport, a telecommunications office park in Staten
Island; Newark Legal Center; Essex County Resource
Recovery Facility in Newark; and Waterfront develop-
ment projects in Hoboken, N.J., and Queens, N.Y. In
addition, Ms. Borrone oversees work to strengthen the
role of the New York-New Jersey region as a center for
international trade and business. Key programs and pro-
jects under her direction include new capital develop-
ment and construction at the marine terminal facilities,
implementation of key policies in such diverse areas as
dredged material disposal within the port, new business
development and long-range strategic planning. She is
also responsible for the management and financial per-
formance of these agency assets. Ms. Borrone is past
chairman of the American Association of Port
Authorities, and a board member of the International
Association of Ports and Harbors, the North Atlantic
Ports Association, and the Regional Business Partnership
in Newark, N.J. She is also chairman of the U.S.
Department of Transportation Advisory Committee to
the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, past chairman of
the TRB Executive Committee, and a member of the
Marine Board Executive Committee. In 1996, Ms.
Borrone was honored with membership in the National
Academy of Engineering for her work in multimodal
transportation planning and operations. Ms. Borrone
holds a Masters of Science degree in civil engineering
and transportation management from Manhattan
College and a Bachelor's degree in political science from
The American University.
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Billy L. Edge is Professor of Ocean and Civil
Engineering at Texas A&M University. An internation-
ally recognized expert in coastal engineering and dredg-
ing technology, Dr. Edge has pursued a career
encompassing service as a senior research physical sci-
entist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 20 years
of academic experience with Clemson University and
Texas A&M University, and 15 years of civil engineer-
ing consulting practice with Dames and Moore, Cubit
Engineering, and Edge & Associates. He has served as
secretary of the Coastal Engineering Research Council
of the Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Division of
the American Society of Civil Engineers; as editor of
ASCE's Proceedings of the International Conference on
Coastal Engineering; and is current chairman of the
biennial International Coastal Zone Conference. A reg-
istered professional engineer in South Carolina, Florida,
and Virginia, Dr. Edge holds BS and MS degrees in civil
engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and a
PhD in civil engineering from the Georgia Institute of
Technology.
Spyros P. Pavlou, co-chair, has more than 20 years of
experience in the application of environmental chem-
istry and toxicology to the evaluation of contaminant
transport fate and to the assessment of ecological risks
in the aquatic and terrestrial environment. He has pro-
vided technical direction and performed numerous risk
evaluations associated with the computation of clean-up
goals at hazardous waste sites and the development of
sediment quality criteria for marine and freshwater
environments. He has performed multipathway expo-
sure analysis for organic and inorganic contaminants
using deterministic and probabilistic methods, and has
integrated quantitative risk analysis in the selection of
cost-effective remediation alternatives for hazardous
waste site closures. He has co-authored more than 40
papers combining peer-reviewed publications, confer-
ence proceedings, feature articles, and oral presenta-
tions. His has served as a member of the editorial board
of the Journal of Environmental Toxicology and
Chemistry and provided peer review in the field of haz-
ard assessment. Dr. Pavlou has served on the National
Research Council (NRC), Marine Board Committee on
Contaminated Marine Sediment Management to evalu-
ate the applicability of risk-cost-benefit trade-off analy-
sis and decision analysis in the management and
remediation of contaminated sediments. He has pro-
vided expert assistance to the EPA Office of Science and
Technology, serving on technical review panels in the
area of sediment quality criteria development and cont-
aminated sediment management. He served as technical
advisor to the Maritime Administration (MARAD),
assisting the Office of Environmental Activities to
develop a decision-making methodology for dredged
material management. Dr. Pavlou received a BSc degree
in chemistry from the University of California at Los
Angeles, an MS degree in physical chemistry from San
Diego State University, and a PhD degree in physical
chemistry from the University of Washington.
Peter Shelley is the senior attorney and project director
for the Marine Resources and Water Resources of the
Conservation Law Foundation, Inc., a public interest
conservation advocacy organization. His areas of con-
centration are water pollution and conservation, fish-
eries management, wetlands protection, pesticides,
land-use management and planning, and marine
resources. Mr. Shelley is a member of the board of
directors and policy committee for Save the Harbor/
Save the Bay, Inc., the board of directors of the Center
for Coastal Studies, the advisory committee on
Statewide Environmental Impact Report in Pesticide Use
Rights-of-Way, and the Massachusetts Coastwide
Monitoring Project Steering Committee. He is a fre-
quent lecturer, writer, and panelist on a range of envi-
ronmental issues. Mr. Shelley received a BA degree from
Hobart College and a JD degree from Suffolk University
Law School.
Louis J. Thibodeaux, co-chair, is Jesse Coates Professor
of Engineering at Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge and director emeritus of the EPA Hazardous
Substance Research Center-South and Southwest. He
has also been a professor or visiting professor at the
University of Arkansas, the Ecole Nationale Superieure
des Mines de Paris, the University of Exeter (U.K.), and
Oregon State University. He has authored numerous
papers and book chapters on the transport of contami-
nants from sediment beds and across the air-water inter-
face. He has served on the editorial boards of the
Journal of Hazardous Materials, Hazardous Waste and
Hazardous Materials, American Environmental
Laboratory, and Remediation. In addition to teaching
and research he is active as a consultant and expert wit-
ness for government and corporations. Dr. Thibodeaux
is past chairman of the Environmental Division of the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He is the
author of a textbook, Environmental Chemodynamics—
Movement of Chemicals in the Air, Water, and Soil, now
in its second edition. He served on the NRC Committee
on Remedial Action Priorities for Hazardous Waste
Sites, Committee on Contaminated Marine Sediments,
and Committee on Environmental Management
Technologies. Dr. Thibodeaux holds BS, MS, and PhD
degrees in chemical engineering from Louisiana State
University.
James G. Wenzel, NAE, is president and chair of
Marine Development Associates, Inc., a company he
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COMMITTEE MEMBER BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
129
formed in 1994. Mr. Wenzel has 40 years of experi-
ence in the fields of ocean science, engineering, and
development as an engineer, inventor, business execu-
tive, lecturer, and consultant. Formerly with Lockheed
Corporation, he was responsible for many ocean sys-
tem and technology developments, including the Deep
Quest research submarine, the U.S. Navy's deep sub-
mergence . rescue vehicles, and the design and con-
struction of deep-ocean and large-object recovery
systems. His environmental cleanup activities include
the application of innovative technologies to the reme-
diation of contaminated shelf sediments, corporate
strategic planning, and ocean technology develop-
ment. Mr. Wenzel is a member of several professional
organizations, including the Society of Naval
Architects and Marine Engineers and the Marine
Technology Society, and a director of the Year of the
Ocean Foundation. He received BS and MS degrees in
aeronautical engineering from the University of
Minnesota. Mr. Wenzel was presented with an hon-
orary doctorate from California Lutheran University
for his contributions to ocean engineering.
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APPENDIX C
List of Conference Participants
Karim Abood, Lawler Matusky & Skelly, One Blue Hill Plaza,
Pearl River, NY 10965
William Adams, Kennecott Utah Copper, 8315 W 3595 S.,
Magna, UT 84044
Peter Adriaens, University of Michigan, Dept. of Civil &
Environmental Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3125
Debra Aheron, U.S. DOT, 400 7th Street, SW, Room 7207,
Washington, DC 20590
Allan Alanko, Dow Corning, Mail No. 544, Midland, MI
48686-0995
Ed Alperin, IT Corporation, 615 Directors Drive, Knoxville,
TN
Jon Amdur, Port of Oakland, 530 Water Street, Oakland, CA
94607
Steve Anderson, Olin Corporation, P.O. Box 248, Lower River
Road, Charleston, TN 37310
Larry Baier, NJDEP, 401 East State Street, Trenton, NJ 08518
Thomas Ballentine, U.S. Section, PIANC, 7701 Telegraph
Road, Alexandria, VA 22315-3868
Frank Battaglia, Exxon Research & Engineering Co., 180 Park
Avenue, Florham Park, NJ 08816
Russell Bellmer, NOAA Fisheries, 1315 East-West Highway,
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Raymond Bergeron, Cable Arm Clamshell, 3452 West
Jefferson Avenue, Trenton, MI 48183
Teresa Bernhard, U.S. Navy Engineering Field Activity, 900
Commodore Drive, San Bruno, CA 94066
David Bibo, Maryland Port Administration, 2310 Broening
Highway, Baltimore, MD 21224
W Frank Bohlen, University of Connecticut, Dept. of Marine
Science, Avery Point, Groton, CT 06340
Lillian Borrone, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
One World Trade Center, Port Commerce Dept., New
York, NY 10048-0682
Weldon Bosworth, Dames &t Moore, 5 Industrial Way, Salem,
NH 03079
Kenya Brown, Business Publications, Inc., Hazardous Waste
News, 951 Pershing Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Kurt Buchholz, Battelle, 2101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 800,
Arlington, VA 22201
Jamie Budack, Burgess & Niple, Ltd., 5085 Reed Road,
Columbus, OH 43220
Joedy Cambridge, TRB, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20418
Lisa Capron, U.S. EPA, 77 West Jackson Blvd., DRE-9J,
Chicago, IL 60604
Paul Carangelo, Port of Corpus Christi Authority, P.O. Box
1541, Corpus Christi, TX 78418
Michael Carter, MARAD, U.S. DOT, 400 7th Street, SW,
Washington, DC 20590
Stan Cass, IT Corporation, 2790 Mosside Blvd., Monroeville,
PA 15146-2792
David Caulfield, Caulfield Engineers, 15051 Hayton Road,
Oyama, BC, V4V 2C9 CANADA
John Chapman, Ocean 8c Coastal Consultants, 35 Corporate
Drive, Trumbull, CT 06611
Thomas Chase, American Association of Port Authorities,
1010 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
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CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Scott Cienawski, U.S. EPA, 77 West Jackson Blvd., G-175,
Chicago, IL 60604
Richard Coles, CH2M Hill, 3 Hutton Centre Drive, Suite
200, Santa Ana, CA 92707 ',
Joan Colson, U.S. EPA-R&D, 26 Martin L. King Drive,
Cincinnati, OH 45268
John Connolly, Quant. Env. Analysis, Inc., 305 West Grand
Avenue, Montvale, NJ 07645
Mike Connor, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, 100
First Avenue, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, MA 02129
Kevin Connor, Exponent Environmental Group, 8201
Corporate Drive, Suite 680, Landover, MD 20785
David Constant, Louisiana State University, 3418 CEBA,
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
R Richard Corley, Maritime Administration, 400 7th Street,
SW, Washington, DC 20590
Richard Conway, Hazardous Substance Research Center, 612
Linden Road, Charleston, WV 25314
Bradley Crannell, University of New Hampshire, Kingsbury
Hall ERG, Durham, NH 03824
John Cross, Office of Sen. Carl Levin, SR-459 Russell Senate
Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510-2203
Deborah Cunningham, U.S. DOT/MARAD, 400 7th Street,
SW, Room 7209, Washington, DC 20590
Jerry Cura, Menzie-Cura Associates, 1 Courthouse Lane, #2,
Chelmsford, MA 01824
Mark Curran, Battelle, 397 Washington Street, Duxbury, MA
02332
Patrick Dargan, ALCOA, 1 Park Drive, Massena, NY 13662
C. Des Rochers, T&M Associates, 11 Tindall Road,
Middletown, NJ 07748
Jennifer DiLorenzo, New Jersey Maritime Resources, 20 West
State Street, P.O. Box 837, Trenton, NJ 08625
Cecelia Donovan, Maryland Environmental Service, 2011
Commerce Park Drive, Annapolis, MD 21401
Walter Douglas, New Jersey Maritime Resources, 20 West
State Street, P.O. Box 837, Trenton, NJ 08625-0837
Peter Dunlap, ECDC East L.C., 140 Marsh Street, Port
Newark, NJ 07114
Timothy Dunlap, ECDC East L.C., 140 Marsh Street, Port
Newark, NJ 07114
Harry Edenborn, U.S. Dept. of Energy, 626 Cochrans Mill
Road, P.O. Box 10940, Pittsburgh, PA 15236-0940
Billy Edge, Texas A&M University, Dept. of Civil Engineering,
College Station, TX 77843-3136
Daniel Edwards, NUI Environmental Group, One
Elizabethtown Plaza, Union, NJ 07083
Michael Elder, General Electric, Corporate Environmental
Programs, 1 Computer Drive South, Albany, NY 12205
Bonnie Eleder, U.S. EPA, 77 West Jackson Blvd., T-13J,
Chicago, IL 60604
Mohamed Elnabarawy, 3M, P.O. Box 3331, Bldg. 42-2E-27,
St. Paul, MN 55133-331
Richard Eskin, Maryland Dept. of Environment, 2500
Broening Highway, Baltimore, MD 21224
Adriane Esparza, East Chicago Waterway Management
District, 3301 Aldis Avenue, East Chicago, IN 46312
Jane Farris, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, MC 4305,
Washington, DC 20460
Beverly Fedorko, NJDEP, 401 East State Street, 7th Floor,
Trenton, NJ 08620
L. Jay Field, NOAA/Hazmat, 7600 Sand Point Way NE,
Seattle, WA 98115
Clifford Firstenberg, EA Engineering, 460 McLaws Circle,
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Ellen Fisher, Wisconsin DOT, P.O. Box 7914, 4802 Sheboygan
Avenue, Madison, WI 53707-7914
Caroline Fletcher, HR Wallingford, Ltd., Howbery Park,
Wallingford, Oxford, OXIO 8BA UK
Dawn Foster, Blasland, Bouck & Lee, 6723 Towpath Road,
Box 66, Syracuse, NY 13274
L. B. Fox, Boeing Company, RO. Box 3707, M/S 2T-20,
Seattle, WA 98124-2207
Joseph Freeman, The BSC Group, Inc., 425 Summer Street,
Boston, MA 02210
Rachel Friedman-Thomas, Washington State Dept. of Ecology,
P.O. Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504
Douglas Gaffney, Synthetic Industries, 70 Partridge Lane,
Cherry Hill, NJ 08003
Stephen Garbaciak, Jr., Hart Crowser, Inc., 6260 River Road,
Suite 3000, Rosemont, IL 60016-4209
Susan Garbini, Marine Board, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NwJ
Washington, DC 20418
John George, Aluminum Co. of America, Alcoa Technical
Center, 100 Technical Drive, Alcoa Center, PA 15069-0001
Joe Germano, EVS Environment Consultants, 200 West
Mercer Street, Suite 403, Seattle, WA 98119
Mike Gleason, Boeing, P.O. Box 3707, MS-7A/XA, Seattle,
WA 98124-2207
Mark Goodrich, Woodward-Clyde International, 263
Seaboard Lane, Suite 200, Franklin, TN 37067
Emily Green, Sierra Club Great Lakes Program, 214 North
Henry Street, Suite 203, Madison, WI 53703
Jack Gregg, California Regional Water Board, 2101 Webster
Street, Suite 500, Oakland, CA 94612
Alex Gurfinkel, Innovatech, 11 Camelot Court, Suite IA,
Boston, MA 02135
John Haggard, General Electric, Corporate Environmental
Programs, 1 Computer Drive South, Albany, NY 12205
Renee Haltmeier, Enviro-Tech Marketing, 89 Headquarters
Plaza, Morristown, NJ 07960
Mark Hammaker, Applied Env Management, Inc., 16 Chester
County Commons, Malvern, PA 19355
Frank Hamons, Maryland Port Administration, 401 East Pratt
Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
Ian Hartwell, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-
West Highway, F/HC, Silver Spring, MD 209 10
Donald Hayes, University of Utah, 3220 Merril Engineering
Bldg., Dept. of Civil Engineering, Salt Lake City, UT
84112
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LIST OF CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
133
John Henningson, Hart Crowser, Inc., One Exchange Place,
Suite 1000, Jersey City, NJ 07302
Robert Hirsch, Advanced Power Technologies, 1250 24th
Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037
Robert Hoke, DuPont Haskell Laboratory, P.O. Box 50,
Newark, DE 21921
Lisa Hubbard, USACE-WES, 3909 Halls Ferry Road,
Vicksburg, MS 39180
Joseph Hughes, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, MS 317,
Houston, TX 77005
Diane Hyatt, U.S. Dept. of Interior, 1849 C Street, NW, MS
2340, Washington, DC 20240
Ileana Ivanciu, Dresdner Robin, 371 Warren Street, Jersey
City, NJ 07302
Richard Jahnke, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, 10
Ocean Science Circle, Savannah, GA 31411
Jai Jeffrey, EFA-NW, 19917 7th Avenue, NE, Poulsbo, WA
98370-7570
Richard Jensen, DuPont Company, Experimental Station 304,
Wilmington, DE 19880
Paul Jiapizian, Maryland Dept. of Environment, 2500
Broening Highway, Baltimore, MD 21224
Thomas Johnson, Port of Long Beach, 925 Harbor Plaza,
Long Beach, CA 90802
Peter Johnson, Marine Board, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20418
Keith Jones, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg. 90 1 A,
Upton, NY 11973-5000
Jocelyn Jones, Baltimore Metro Council, 601 North Howard
Street, Baltimore, MD 21045
Roger Jones, Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality,
Surface Water Quality Division, P.O. Box 30273,
Lansing, MI 48909
Robert Kaley, Solutia, Inc., P.O. Box 66760, St. Louis, MO
63166-6760
Patrick Keaney, Blasland, Blouck 8c Lee, 32 William Street
New Bedford, MA 02740-6223
Jim Keating, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, Room 4305,
Washington, DC 20460
Kerry Kehoe, Coastal States Organization
Patrick Kelly, Roy F. Weston, 501 Deerhorn Court,
Millersville, MD 21108
Tarang Khangaonkar, ENSR, 9521 Willows Road, NE,
Redmond, WA 98052
Denise Klimas, NOAA Hazmat, 2100 2nd Street, SW,
Washington, DC 20593
Michael Kravitz, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, Room 4305,
Washington, DC 20460
Barbara Krieger-Brockett, University of Washington, Benson
Hall, Box 351750, Seattle, WA 98195-1750
Ralph Kummler, Hazardous Substance Research Center, 4726
Surfwood Drive, Commerce, MI 48382
Amanda Laumeyer, Grand Cal Task Force, 2400 New York
Avenue, Whiting, IN 46394
Daniel Leubecker, Maritime Administration, 400 7th Street,
SW, Washington, DC 20590
Konrad Liegel, Preston Gates 8c Ellis, 5000 Columbia Center,
701 5th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104
Sharon Lin, EPA, 401 M Street, SW, 4504F, Washington, DC
20460
Kent Loest, U.P. ECDC - East L.C., 140 Marsh Street, Port
Newark, NJ 07114
Michael Ludwig, NOAA/NMFS, 212 Rogers Avenue, Milford,
CT 06460-6499
Warren Lyman, Camp Dresser 8c McKee, Inc., 10 Cambridge
Center, Cambridge, MA 02142
Tony MacDonald, Coastal States Organization, 444 North
Capitol Street, NW, #322, Washington, DC 20001
Scott MacKnight, Land & Sea Environmental Consultants,
620-33 Alderney Drive, Dartmouth, NS 132Y 2N4
CANADA
Kelly Madalinski, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, 5102G,
Washington, DC 20460
Henry Marentette, Cable Arm Clamshell, 3452 West Jefferson
Ave., Trenton, MI 48183
K.E. McConnell, University of Maryland, Dept. of
Agricultural 8c Research Economics, Symons Hall, Room
3218, College Park, MD 20742
John McCrossin, CITGO Petroleum Corporation, Box 655,
Pennsauken, NJ08110
M.J. McHugh, NOAA Hazmat Coastal Resource, 77 West
Jackson Blvd., SR-6J, Chicago, IL 60604
Kevin McKnight, ALCOA, 1936 Alcoa Building, Pittsburgh,
PA 15219
John Merriam, IT Corporation, 2200 Cottontail Lane,
Somerset, NJ 08873
Chris Miller, Office of Sen. Carl Levin, SR-459 Russell Senate
Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510-2202
Larry Miller, Port of Houston Authority, 111 East Loop
North, Houston, TX 77062
Carroll Missimer, P.H. Glatfelter Co., 228 South Main Street,
Spring Grove, PA 17362
Glenn Moeller, CALTRANS, P.O. Box 942874, MS 27,
Sacramento, CA 94274
Anne Montague, Montague Associates, 131 Dodge Street, #1,
Beverly, MA 01915
Jean-Pierre Moreau, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation,
300 Erie Blvd. West, Syracuse, NY 13202-4201
Nicholas Mucci, Jay Cashman, Inc., 285 Dorchester Avenue,
Boston, MA 02127
Tommy Myers, USAE Waterways Experiment Station, 3909
Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180-6199
Steven Nadeau, Hunigman Miller, 2290 1st National Bldg.,
Detroit, MI 48226
Robert Nester, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 109 St. Joseph
Street, Mobile, AL 36628-0001
Edward Neuhauser, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation,
300 Erie Blvd. West, Syracuse, NY 13202
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134
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
Marc Olender, U.S. EPA, 77 West Jackson Blvd., AR-18J,
Chicago, IL 60604
Roger Olsen, Camp Dresser &c McKee, Inc., 133117th Street,
Suite 1200, Denver, CO 80202
Issa Oweis, Converse Consultants, 3 Century Drive, EO. Box
265, Parsippany, NJ 07054-0265
Carlos Pachon, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, S"W; Washington, DC
20460
Spyros Pavlou, URS Greiner, Inc., 2401 4th Avenue, Suite
1000, Seattle, WA 98121-1459
Linda Peterson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 109 St. Joseph
Street, Mobile, AL 36628-0001
Nauth Ponday, Maryland Dept. of Environment, 2500
Broening Highway, Baltimore, MD 21224
John Ponton, Hart Crowser, Inc., One Exchange Place, Suite
1000, Jersey City, NJ 07302
Cynthia Price, USAGE, Waterways Experiment Station, 3909
Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180
Mark Raybuck, Parsons Engineering Science, Inc., 180
Lawrence Bell Drive, Suite 100, Williamsville, NY 14221
Francis Reilly, The Reilly Group, 67 Meyer Lane, Stafford, VA
22664
Danny Reible, Louisiana State University, Hazardous Substance
Research Center, 3418 CEBA, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Karl Rockne, Rutgers University, 98 Brett Road, Engineering
Bldg., Room C-226, Picataway, NJ 08854
George Rogers, Ansul, Inc., 1 Stanton Street, Marinette, WI
54143
Ross Rogers, Jr., Cable Arm Clam Shell, P.O. Box 148,
Trenton, MI 15143
Lisa Rosman, NOAA/CRCB, 290 Broadway, Room 1831,
New York, NY 10007
Denise Rousseau-Ford, Louisiana State University, Hazardous
Substance Research Center, 3418 CEBA, Baton Rouge, LA
70803
Brenda Rupli, NOAA Fisheries, Office of Habitat Conservation,
1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Danny Sanchez, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, 5102G,
Washington, DC 20460
F. Michael Saunders, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Environmental Engineering, MC 0512, Atlanta, GA
30332-0512
Jackie Savitz, Coast Alliance, 215 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, DC 20003
Melvin Schweiger, General Electric, 1 Computer Drive South,
Albany, NY 12205
Richard Schwer, DuPont Company, 1007 Market Street,
Wilmington, DE 19898
R. Scrudato, The Environmental Research Center, 319 Piez
Hall, Oswego,NY13126
Eric Seagren, Mud Cat-Ellicott International, 12647 Tallow
Hill Lane, St. Louis, MO 63146
William Simmons, Chatham County Engineering Dept., P.O.
Box 8161, Savannah, GA 31412
John Smith, ALCOA, Alcoa Technical Center, 100 Technical
Park Drive, Alcoa Center, PA 15069 ;
Larry Smith, Port of Los Angeles, 425 South Palos Verdes
Street, San Pedro, CA 90731
Otto Sonefeld, AASHTO, 444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite
249, Washington, DC 20001
Elizabeth Southerland, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW,
Washington, DC 20460 :
John Stansbury, University of Nebraska, 129 Engineering Uno,
Omaha, NE 68182
M. Todd Stockberges, Black 8t Veatch, P.O. Box 8405, Kansas
City, MO 64114
Stuart Strand, University of Washington, Box 352100, Seattle,
WA98195
Terry Sugihara, NJDEP, 401 East State Street, Commissioners
Office, Trenton, NJ 08625
Dennis Suszkowski, Hudson River Foundation, 40 West 20th
Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10011
Michael Swindoll, Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc, Mettlers
Road, CN 2350, East Millstone, NJ 08675
Vahan Tanal, Parsons Brinckerhoff, One Penn Plaza, New
York, NY 10119
Ancil Taylor, Bean Dredging Corporation, P.O. Box 237, Belle
Chasse, LA 70037
David Templeton, Foster Wheeler/Hartman, 10900 NE 8th
Street, Suite 1300, Bellevue, WA 98004-4405
Louis Thibodeaux, Louisiana State University, Dept. of
Chemical Engineering, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Scott Thompson, Malcolm Pimie, Inc., 104 Corporate Park
Drive, White Plains, NY 10602
John Tiedemann, Clean Ocean Action, P.O. Box 505,
Highlands, NJ 07732
Dennis Timberlake, U.S. EPA, 26 West Martin Luther King
Drive, Room 489, Cincinnati, OH 45268
Mason Tomson, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, MS 317,
Houston, TX 77005
John Torgan, Save the Bay, 434 Smith Street, Providence, RI
02908
Ric Traver, IT Corporation, 200 Horizon Center Blvd.,
Trenton, NJ 08691
James Tripp, Environmental Defense Fund, 257 Park Avenue
South, New York, NY 11010
Lisa Troshinsky, Business Publications, Inc., Hazardous Waste
News, 951 Pershing Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Thomas Wakeman, III, Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey, One World Trade Center, Port Commerce Dept., 34
NW; New York, NY 10048-0682
Calvin Ward, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, MS 316,
Houston, TX 77005-1892
Ernest Watkins, U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, 5202 G,
Washington, DC 20460
Roberta Weisbrod, New York City Economic Development
Corporation, 110 William Street, New York City,
NY 10038
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LIST OF CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
135
Eli Weissman, Rep. Frank Pallone, 420 Cannon House Office,
Washington, DC 20009
James Wenzel, Marine Development Association, Inc., P.O.
Box 3049, Saratoga, CA 95070-1409
Ray Whittemore, Tufts University, P.O. Box 53015, Medford,
MA 02153
Mark Wiesner, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, MS 317,
Houston, TX 77005
Kevin Wikar, Maryland Environmental Service, 2011
Commerce Park Drive, Annapolis, MD 21401
Robert Will, U.S. Army COE, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY
10278
Joseph Wilson, USAGE, Directorate of Civil Work, 20
Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20314-1000
Dennis Wolterding, New York State Dept. of Environmental
Conservation, 50 Wolf Road, Room 260A, Albany, NY
12233-7010
William Wulf, National Academy of Engineering, NAS 218,
2101 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20418
M.L. Wunderlich, The Environmental Research Center, 319
Piez Hall, Oswego, NY 13126
Joan Yim, Parsons Brinckerhoff, 700 1 Lth Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20001
Wayne Young, Maryland Environmental Service, 2011
Commerce Park Drive, Annapolis, MD 21401
Tom Zelenka, Schnitzer Steel Industries, 3200 NW Yeon
Avenue, Portland, OR 97210
Joseph Zelibor, Jr., National Academy of Sciences, 2101
Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20418
Paul Ziemkiewcz, West Virginia University, Box 6064,
Morgantown, WV 26506-6001
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APPENDIX D
Contaminated Sediments in
Ports and Waterways
Cleanup Strategies and Technologies
Executive Summary
There is no simple solution to the problems created by
contaminated marine sediments,1"" which are wide-
spread in U.S. coastal waters and can pose risks to
human health, the environment, and the nation's econ-
omy. Marine sediments are contaminated by chemicals
that tend to sorb to fine-grained particles; contaminants
of concern include trace metals and hydrophobic organ-
ics, such as dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs),
and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Contamination is
sometimes concentrated in "hot spots" but is often dif-
fuse, with low to moderate levels of chemicals extend-
ing no more than a meter into the seabed but covering
wide areas. Approximately 14 to 28 million cubic yards
of contaminated sediments must be managed annually,
an estimated 5 to 10 percent of all sediments dredged in
the United States.
The many challenges to be overcome in managing
contaminated sediments include an inadequate under-
standing of the natural processes governing sediment
dispersion and the bioavailability of contaminants; a
complex and sometimes inconsistent legal and regula-
tory framework; a highly charged political atmosphere
surrounding environmental issues; and high costs and
technical difficulties involved in sediment characteriza-
tion, removal, containment, and treatment. The need
to meet these challenges is urgent. The presence of con-
taminated sediments poses a barrier to essential water-
way maintenance and construction in many ports,
which support approximately 95 percent of U.S. for-
eign trade. The management of these sediments is also
an issue in the remediation'1' of an estimated 100 marine
sites targeted for cleanup under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Cleanup, and Liability Act
(CERCLA) (P.L. 96-510), commonly known as
Superfund, as well as in the cleanup of many other
near-shore contaminated sites.
* Published by the National Academy Press, Washington,
D.C., 1997. Available via the Internet at http://www.nap.edu/
readingroom, or call the National Academy Press (1-800-624-
6242).
** For purposes of this report, contaminated marine sediment
is defined as containing chemical concentrations that pose a
known or suspected threat to the environment or human
health.
f For purposes of this report, sediment management is a broad
term encompassing remediation technologies as well as non-
technical strategies. Remediation refers generally to technologies
and controls designed to limit or reduce sediment contamination
or its effects. Controls are practices, such as health advisories,
that limit the exposure of contaminants to specific receptors.
Technologies include containment, removal, and treatment
approaches. Treatment refers to advanced technologies that
remove a large percentage of the contamination from sediment.
137
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138
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
The Committee on Contaminated Marine Sediments
was established by the National Research Council under
the auspices of the Marine Board to assess,the nation's
capability for remediating contaminated marine sedi-
ments and to chart a course for the development of
management strategies. In the committee's view, cost-
effective management of contaminated marine sedi-
ments will require a multifaceted campaign as well as a
willingness to innovate. The committee determined that
a systematic, risk-based approach incorporating
improvements to current practice is essential for the
cost-effective management of contaminated marine sed-
iments. The committee identified opportunities for
improvement in the areas of decision making, project
implementation, and interim and long-term controls
and technologies, as outlined in this summary. Although
the study focused on evaluating management practices
and technologies, the committee also found it essential
to address a number of tangentially related topics (e.g.,
regulations, source control, site assessment) because
problems in these areas can impede application of the
best management practices and technologies.
As part of the three-year study, the committee com-
piled six case histories of recent or ongoing contami-
nated sediments projects, visited one of those sites,
analyzed the relevant regulatory framework in depth,
held separate workshops on interim controls and long-
term technologies, and examined in detail how various
decision-making approaches can be applied in the cont-
aminated sediments context. The committee also exam-
ined the application of decision analysis in
contaminated sediments management.
IMPROVING DECISION MAKING
Decision-Making Tools
Contaminated sediments can best be managed if the
problem is viewed as a system composed of interrelated
issues and tasks. Systems engineering and analysis are
widely used in other fields but have not been applied
rigorously to the management of contaminated sedi-
ments. The overall goal is to manage the system in such
a way that the results are optimized. In particular, a sys-
tems approach is advisable with respect to the selection
and optimization of interim and long-term controls and
technologies. Although unlimited time and money
would make remediation of any site feasible, resource
limitations demand that trade-offs be made and that
solutions be optimized.
A fundamental aspect of the committee's recom-
mended approach is the delineation of the trade-offs
.among risks, costs, and benefits that must be made in
choosing the best course of action among multiple man-
agement alternatives. A number of decision-making
tools can be used in making these trade-offs. Available
tools include risk analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and
decision analysis.
Cost-effective contaminated sediments management
requires the application of risk analysis—the combina-
tion of risk assessment, risk management, and risk com-
munication. Contaminated sediments are considered a
problem only if they pose a risk that exceeds a toxico-
logical benchmark. In its most elemental form, risk
assessment is intended to determine whether the chem-
ical concentrations likely to be encountered by organ-
isms are higher or lower than the level identified as
causing an unacceptable effect. The "acceptable risk"
needs to be identified, quantified, and communicated to
decision makers, and the risk needs to be managed.
First, management strategies need to be identified that
can reduce risk to an acceptable level. Second, remedia-
tion technologies need to be identified that can reduce
the risk associated with contaminants to acceptable lev-
els within the constraints of applicable laws and regula-
tions. Third, promising technologies need to be
evaluated within the context of the trade-offs among
risks, costs, and benefits, a difficult task given the uncer-
tainties in risk and cost estimates. The next step is risk
communication, when the trade-offs are communicated
to the public.
At present, risk analysis is not applied comprehen-
sively in contaminated sediments management. Risks
are usually assessed only at the beginning of the deci-
sion-making process to determine the severity of the in-
place contamination; the risks associated with removing
and relocating the sediments or the risks remaining after
the implementation of solutions are not evaluated. The
expanded application of risk analysis would not only
inform decision making in specific situations but would
also provide data that could be used in the selection and
evaluation of sediment management techniques and
remediation technologies.
Cost-benefit analysis can also be useful for evaluating
proposed sediment management strategies. Although
risk assessments may provide information about the
exposure, toxicity, and other aspects of the contamina-
tion, they may result in a less-than-optimum allocation
of resources unless additional information is considered.
For example, a given concentration of contaminants at
a particular site might be toxic enough to induce mor-
tality in a test species, but this information alone does
not indicate the spending level that would be justified
for cleanup. Cost-benefit analysis combines risk and
cost information to determine the most efficient alloca-
tion of resources. The basic principle of cost-benefit
analysis is that activities should be pursued as long as the
overall benefit to society exceeds the social cost. The
difficulty lies in the measurement of the benefits and
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NRC REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
139
costs, or, more to the point, the projection of what they
will be, before a strategy is implemented.
Cost-benefit analysis is not applied widely in conta-
minated sediments management. It is generally carried
out only for major new navigational dredging projects,
and the analyses are usually narrow in scope. Cost-ben-
efit analysis could be used in many cases to help iden-
tify the optimum solution in which the benefits
outweigh the costs (i.e., to maximize benefits for a given
cost or to minimize costs for a given level of benefits).
The costs and benefits involved in contaminated sedi-
ments management are difficult to calculate and cannot
be measured precisely, but cost-benefit analysis may be
worth the effort; comprehensive cost-benefit analysis
may be warranted in very expensive, or extensive pro-
jects. Informal estimates or cost-effectiveness* analyses
may suffice in smaller projects.
As the demand for the remediation of contaminated
sediments grows, and as costs and controversies multi-
ply, decision makers need to be able to use information
about risks, costs, and benefits that may be controver-
sial and difficult to evaluate, compare, or reconcile.
One approach that could help meet this need is decision
analysis, a computational technique that makes use of
both factual and subjective information in the evalua-
tion of the relative merits of alternative courses of
action. Decision analysis involves gathering certain
types of information about a problem and selecting a set
of alternative solutions to be evaluated. The evaluation
is used to determine and assess possible outcomes for
each alternative. The outcomes are rated, and the
results are used to develop a strategy that offers the best
odds for successful risk management.
Formal decision analysis is not yet widely used in the
management of contaminated sediments. The committee
examined this technique using a test case and deter-
mined that applications of decision analysis may be par-
ticularly timely now, because recent advances in
computer hardware and software make it possible to
perform such analyses in ways that are user friendly and
interactive. Decision analysis could be especially valu-
able because it can accommodate more variables (includ-
ing uncertainty) than techniques such as cost-benefit
analysis that measure single outcomes. Decision analysis
can also serve as a consensus-building tool by enabling
stakeholders to explore various elements of the problem
and, perhaps, find common ground. However, because
decision analysis is technical in design and involves com-
plex computations, it is probably worth the effort only
in highly contentious situations in which stakeholders
are willing to devote enough time to become confident
of the usefulness of the approach.
* Cost-effectiveness is defined here as a measure of tangible
benefits for money spent.
Regulatory Framework
Few aspects of sediment handling, treatment, or con-
tainment are unregulated at the federal, state, or local
level, but the regulatory approach is inconsistent, pri-
marily because the applicable laws were originally writ-
ten to address issues other than contaminated marine
sediments. As a result, the current laws and regulations
affecting contaminated sediments can impede efforts to
implement the best management practices and achieve
efficient, risk-based, and cost-effective solutions. This is
a shortcoming of the governing statutes, not a criticism
of regulatory agencies charged with implementing
them. The timeliness of decision making is also an issue,
given that it typically takes years to implement solutions
to contaminated sediments problems. In the commit-
tee's case histories, the delay between the discovery of a
problem and the implementation of a solution ranged
from approximately 3 to 15 years.
At least six comprehensive acts of Congress, with
implementation responsibilities spread over seven fed-
eral agencies, govern sediment remediation or dredging
operations in settings that range from the open ocean to
the freshwater reaches of estuaries and wetlands. When
environmental cleanup is the driving force, the relevant
federal laws include Superfund; the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) (EL. 94-580);
and Section 115 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) (for-
merly the Federal Water Pollution Control Act [P.L. 80-
845]). When navigational dredging is the issue, the
applicable statutes are likely to be the CWA; the Rivers
and Harbors Act of 1899 (P.L. 55-525); the Marine
Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA,
commonly known as the Ocean Dumping Act) (P.L. 92-
532); and the Coastal Zone Management Act (P.L. 92-
583). In addition, states also exercise important
authority related to water quality certification and
coastal zone management. In some cases, local laws may
also apply. To complicate matters further, federal, state,
and local authorities often overlap.
The principal federal agencies involved are the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is
responsible for implementing Superfund and has major
site designation, regulation development, and veto
responsibilities under the CWA and MPRSA; the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
which assesses the potential threat of Superfund sites to
coastal marine resources and exercises significant
responsibilities for research, under the MPRSA, and
review and comment, under CWA and MPRSA; and the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USAGE), which assists in
the design and implementation of remedial actions
under Superfund, and has responsibilities for dredged
material, under the CWA, MPRSA, and Rivers and
Harbors Act. The federal navigational dredging pro-
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140
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
•V
gram is the joint responsibility of the EPA and USAGE;
the EPA regulates disposal, whereas USAGE handles the
dredging.
The committee identified several areas of the cur-
rent regulatory framework in which changes might be
beneficial. For example, the CWA, the MPRSA, and
Superfund use different approaches for evaluating
remedial alternatives, but none fully considers either
the risks posed by contaminated marine sediments or
the costs and benefits of various solutions. The
MPRSA requires biological testing of dredged material
to determine its inherent toxicity but does not fully
consider site-specific factors that may influence the
exposure of organisms in the receiving environment,
meaning that, at best, risk is considered only indirectly
and the actual impact is approximated. Although the
CWA procedures, which consider chemical and physi-
cal as well as biological characteristics in assessing
whether the discharge of dredged material will cause
unacceptable adverse impacts, are not risk-based, at
least they do not specify rigid pass-fail criteria. They
are geared to identification of the least environmen-
tally damaging, implementable alternative. The
Superfund remedial action program addresses risks
and costs to some degree—an exposure assessment
(but not a full risk analysis) is required to assess in-
place risks; remedial alternatives are identified based
on their capability of reducing exposure risks to an
acceptable level; and the final selection involves choos-
ing the most cost-effective solution. However, there
are no risk-based cleanup standards for underwater
sediments. Insufficient attention to risks, costs, and
benefits impedes efforts to reach technically sound
decisions and manage sediments cost-effectively.
Similar inattention to risk is evident in the permitting
processes for sediment disposal. It is currently necessary
to secure different types of permits for the placement of
sediments in navigation channels or ocean waters as part
of the construction of land or containment facilities
(under the Rivers and Harbors Act), the dumping of
sediments in the ocean (under the MPRSA), the dis-
charge of sediments in inland waters or wetlands
(CWA), and the containment of contaminated sediments
on land (RCRA). In addition, different regulations come
into play depending on whether sediments are removed
during navigational dredging (CWA or MPRSA) or are
excavated for environmental remediation (Superfund).
The committee can see little technical justification for
the differential regulation of contaminated sediments,
given that neither the location of the aquatic disposal
site (freshwater versus saltwater) nor the reason for
dredging (navigational dredging versus environmental
remediation) necessarily affects the risk posed by the
contamination. The regulatory regime does not ade-
quately address risk; instead it focuses rigidly on the
nature of the activities to be carried out. This problem
has been eased in some instances by the interpretation
of regulations based on the intent of the underlying
statute (s).
Systematic, integrated decision making can also be
undermined by dredging regulations governing cost
allocation and cost-benefit analysis. The federal gov-
ernment pays for most new-work dredging and all
maintenance dredging but not for sediment disposal,
except in open water. The local sponsors of federal
navigation projects bear the burden of identifying, con-
structing, operating, and maintaining dredged material
disposal sites, under the "project cooperation agree-
ment" of the Water Resources Development Act
(WRDA) of 1986 (P.L. 99-662). Because project spon-
sors must pay for disposal on land, whereas open-water
disposal is paid for by the federal government as a com-
ponent of dredging costs, the WRDA provision creates
a strong preference for open-water disposal.
Furthermore, a local sponsor bearing the full burden of
disposal costs has little incentive to seek out opportu-
nities for the beneficial uses of dredged material (dis-
cussed in the next section). The cost of making use of
dredged material adds to the project cost and may ben-
efit only third parties. This inconsistent approach to
cost sharing can lead to the economically irrational
allocation of scarce societal resources. Additional
inconsistencies are introduced in the area of cost-bene-
fit analysis. As noted earlier, costs and benefits must be
weighed for new dredging projects but not for the
maintenance dredging of existing channels or for the
disposal of dredged material.
IMPROVING PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Stakeholder Interests
Contaminated sediments are not managed in a political
or social vacuum. Most contaminated sediments sites
are located in highly populated areas near the Great
Lakes or the oceans. The nature of these sites virtually
ensures that complicated ecological situations and diffi-
cult technical problems will have to be accommodated
along with complex political circumstances involving
multiple resource users and interest groups.
Stakeholders include port managers and transportation
officials who have strong economic reasons for dredg-
ing; federal, state, and local regulators responsible for
protecting natural resources and enforcing regulations;
and environmental groups, local residents, fishermen,
and other marine resource users who are concerned
about public health and natural resources. The success-
ful management of contaminated sediments must
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NRC REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
141
respond to all dimensions of the problem: ecological,
technical, social, and political.
The committee determined that remediation and dis-
posal projects need strong proponents and that the
identification and timely implementation of effective
solutions depend heavily on how project proponents
interact with stakeholders, who often have different
perspectives on the problem and proposed solutions.
Because any participant in the decision-making process
can block or delay remedial action, project proponents
need to identify all stakeholders and build a consensus
among them. The development of a consensus can be
fostered by the use of various tools, including media-
tion, negotiated rule making, collaborative problem
solving, and effective communication of risks.
Stakeholder acceptance of contaminated sediments
management projects can be fostered by the reuse of
dredged material. Dredged material has been used for
many purposes, including the creation of thousands of
islands for sea-bird nesting, landfills for urban develop-
ment, and wetlands, as well as for beach nourishment
and shoreline stabilization. The policy focus and most
of the experience to date have concerned the use of
clean materials, but some contaminated sediments can
also be used safely for certain beneficial purposes. Reuse
can provide alternatives to increasingly scarce disposal
sites while also making management plans more attrac-
tive, or at least palatable, to stakeholders. Some conta-
minated sediment sites have been successfully
transformed into wetlands, and productive USAGE
research is under way on the safe use of contaminated
sediments for "manufacturing" topsoil and landfill cov-
ers. However, funding for this type of research is lim-
ited, and technical guidelines have yet to be developed.
Other barriers include the USAGE policy of selecting
lowest-cost disposal options with little regard to the
possibilities of be.neficial use and the uncertainties about
whether the incremental costs of beneficial use should
be borne by the project proponent or the beneficiary.
Source Control
Because accumulations of sediments interfere with
deep-draft navigation, ports have no alternative but to
dredge periodically in order to remain economically
viable. If the sediments to be dredged are contaminated,
then ports become responsible for both sediment dis-
posal and any necessary remediation, even though they
have no control over the source of the contamination.
Upstream generators of contaminants often cannot be
identified or held accountable, leaving ports to manage
a problem that is not of their making. This responsibil-
ity could be shared by states (when states do not already
operate or oversee port agencies), which benefit eco-
nomically from dredging and already engage in water-
shed management. Under the CWA (Section 303), the
EPA and the states set total maximum daily loads for
waterway segments and develop load allocations for
pollution sources in an effort to control water pollu-
tion. This approach could be readily expanded to
address sources of sediment contamination. In addition,
government regulators and ports could use all available
legal and enforcement tools for ensuring that polluters
bear a fair share of cleanup costs.
Site Characterization
Accurate site characterization is essential to the cost-
effective management of contaminated sediments. Site
assessments need to be sufficiently comprehensive and
accurate to ensure that the contamination is well
defined both chemically and geographically.
Inaccuracies and incompleteness can leave areas of
unidentified contamination that pose continuing
unmanaged risks. Another compelling argument for
accurate site assessment is the need to control remedia-
tion costs; precise site definition is necessary to facili-
tate removal of only those sediments that are
contaminated, thus controlling the volume of material
that requires expensive remediation. But the high cost
of commonly used site characterization technologies
(i.e., physical profiling and chemical testing) has limited
the precise definition of either horizontal or vertical
contaminant distributions, which may have led to the
removal and "remediation" of large quantities of
uncontaminated sediments at unnecessarily high costs.
Thus, the development and wide use of new or
improved site characterization technologies that are less
expensive than current methods would enhance the cost-
effective management of contaminated sediment sites.
One technology that may prove useful in the future is
acoustic profiling,* which helps define the thickness and
distribution of disparate sediment types. Because conta-
minants tend to be associated with fine-grained material,
acoustic profiling may provide for cost-effective remote
surveying of contaminated sediments, thereby increasing
the precision and accuracy of site assessment. Additional
research and development is needed, however. Sediment
characterization may also be enhanced through the
adaptation of chemical sensors now used in the assess-
ment of soil and groundwater sites.
* Acoustic profiling involves high-resolution mapping of the
acoustic reflectivity of sediments.
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142
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
INTERIM AND LONG-TERM CONTROLS
AND TECHNOLOGIES
The following is a brief assessment of the controls and
technologies that are applicable to contaminated sedi-
ments. The section concludes with a comparative analy-
sis reflecting the committee's overall judgments of the
feasibility, effectiveness, practicality, and cost of each
control and technology.
Interim Controls
Interim controls may prove helpful when sediment
contamination poses an imminent hazard. Identifi-
cation of an imminent hazard is usually a matter of
judgment, but in general an imminent hazard exists
when contamination levels exceed by a significant
amount the sum of a defined threshold level plus the
associated uncertainty. Administrative interim controls
(e.g., signs, health advisories) have been used a number
of times. Only two applications of structural interim
approaches (e.g., thin caps) were identified by the
committee, but additional structural approaches, such
as the use of confined disposal facilities (CDFs) for
temporary storage, appear promising. Few data are
available concerning the effectiveness of interim con-
trols because to date they have not been used often or
evaluated in detail.
Long-Term Controls and Technologies
Technologies for remediating contaminated sediments
are at various stages of development. Sediment-handling
technologies are the most advanced, although benefits
can be realized from improvements in the precision of
dredging (and, concurrently, site characterization). The
state of practice for in situ controls ranges from imma-
ture (e.g., bioremediation) to evolving (e.g., capping).
Ex situ containment is commonplace. A number of
existing ex situ treatment technologies can probably be
applied successfully to treating contaminated sediments,
but full-scale demonstrations are needed to determine
their effectiveness. But these technologies are expensive,
and it is not clear whether unit costs would drop signif-
icantly in full-scale implementation.
The cost of cleanup depends on the number of steps
involved—the more handling required, the higher the
cost—and the type of approach used. The costs of
removing and transporting contaminated sediments
(generally less than $15 to $20/yd3) tend to be higher
than costs of conventional navigational dredging (sel-
dom more than $5/yd3) but much lower than the costs
of treatment (usually more than $100/yd3). Volume
reduction (i.e., removing only sediments that require
treatment and entraining as little water as possible) will
mean greater cost savings than increased production
rates; improved site characterization coupled with pre-
cision dredging techniques hold particular promise for
reducing volume. Treatment costs may also be reduced
through pretreatment.
In situ management offers the potential advantage of
avoiding the costs and potential material losses associ-
ated with the excavation and relocation of sediments.
Among the inherent disadvantages of in situ manage-
ment is that they are seldom feasible in navigation
channels that are subject to routine maintenance dredg-
ing. In addition, monitoring needs to be an integral
part of any in situ approach to ensure effectiveness over
the long term.
Natural recovery is a viable alternative under some
circumstances and offers the advantages of low cost
and, in certain situations, the lowest risk of human and
ecosystem exposure to sediment contamination.
Natural recovery is most likely to be effective where
surficial concentrations of contaminants are low,
where surface contamination is covered over rapidly
by cleaner sediments, or where natural processes
destroy or modify the contaminants, so that contami-
nant releases to the environment decrease over time. A
disadvantage of natural recovery is that the sediment
bed is subject to resuspension by storms or anthro-
pogenic processes. For natural recovery to be pursued
with confidence, the physical, chemical, and hydrolog-
ical processes at a site need to be understood ade-
quately; however, no capability currently exists for
completely quantifying chemical movements. Extensive
site-specific studies may be required.
In situ capping promotes chemical isolation and
may protect the underlying contaminated sediments
from resuspension until naturally occurring biological
degradation of contaminants has occurred. The origi-
nal bed must be able to support the cap, suitable cap-
ping materials must be available to create the cap, and
suitable hydraulic conditions (including water depth)
must exist to permit placement of the cap and to avoid
compromising the integrity of the cap. Changes in the
local substrate, the benthic community structure, or
the bathymetry at a depositional site may subject the
cap to erosion. Improved long-term monitoring meth-
ods are needed. A regulatory barrier to the use of cap-
ping is the language of Superfund legislation (Section
121 [b]), which gives preference to "permanent" con-
trols. Capping is not considered by regulators to be a
permanent control, but available evidence suggests
that properly managed caps can be effective.
Neither in situ immobilization nor chemical treat-
ment of contaminated sediments has been demonstrated
successfully in the marine environment, although both
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NRC REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
143
concepts are attractive because they do not require sed-
iment removal. Their application would be complicated
by the need to isolate sediments from the water column
during treatment, by inaccuracies in reagent placement,
and by the need for long-term follow-up monitoring.
Other constituents (e.g., natural organic matter, oil and
grease, metal sulfide precipitates) could interfere with
chemical oxidation. Immobilization techniques may not
be applicable to fine-grained sediments with a high
water content.
Biodegradation has been observed in soils, in
groundwater, and along shorelines contaminated by a
variety of organic compounds (e.g., petroleum prod-
ucts, PCBs, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides).
However, the use of biodegradation in subaqueous and
especially marine environments presents unresolved
microbial, geochemical, and hydrological issues and has
yet to be demonstrated.
When sediments must be moved for ex situ remedi-
ation or confinement, efficient hydraulic and mechan-
ical methods are available for removal and
transportation. Most dredging technologies can be
used successfully to remove contaminated sediments;
however, they have been designed for large-volume
navigational dredging rather than for the precise
removal of hot spots. Promising technologies offering
precision control include electronically positioned
dredge heads and bottom-crawling hydraulic dredges.
The latter may also have the capability to dredge in
depths beyond the standard maximum operating
capacity. The cost effectiveness of dredging innova-
tions can best be judged by side-by-side comparisons to
technologies in current use.
Containment technologies, particularly CDFs, have
been used successfully in numerous projects. A CDF can
be effective for long-term containment if it is well
designed to contain sediment particles and contami-
nants and if a suitable site can be found. A CDF can also
be a valuable treatment or interim storage facility, allow-
ing the separation of sediments for varying levels of
treatment and, in some cases, beneficial reuse. Costs are
reasonable; in some parts of the country it may be
cheaper to reuse CDFs than to build new ones.
Disadvantages of this technology include the imperfect
methods for controlling contaminant release pathways.
There is also a need for improved long-term monitoring
methods.
Contained aquatic disposal (CAD) is applicable par-
ticularly to contaminated sites in shallow waters where
in situ capping is not possible and to the disposal and
containment of slightly contaminated material from
navigation dredging. Although the methodology has
been developed, CAD has not been widely used. Among
the advantages of CAD are that it can be performed
with conventional dredging equipment and that the
chemical environment surrounding the cap remains
unchanged. Disadvantages include the possible loss of
contaminated sediments during placement operations.
Improved tools are needed for the design of sediment
caps and armor layers and for the evaluation of their
long-term stability and effectiveness.
Scores of ex situ treatment technologies have been
bench tested and pilot tested, and some warrant larger-
scale testing in marine systems, depending on their
applicability to particular problems. Chemical separa-
tion, thermal desorption, and immobilization technolo-
gies have been used successfully but are expensive,
complicated, and only effective for treating certain
types of sediments. Similarly, because of extraordinar-
ily high unit costs, thermal and chemical destruction
techniques do not appear to be near-term, cost-effec-
tive approaches for the remediation of large volumes of
contaminated dredged sediment.
Ex situ bioremediation, which is not as far along in
development as are other ex situ treatment approaches,
presents so many technical problems that its application
to contaminated sediments would be expensive. If these
technical problems can be resolved, however, ex situ
bioremediation has the potential, over the long term,
for the cost-effective remediation of large volumes of
sediments. Ex situ bioremediation is much more
promising than in situ bioremediation because condi-
tions can be controlled more effectively in a contained
facility. The approach has been demonstrated on a pilot
scale with some success, but complex questions remain
concerning how to engineer the system.
Comparative Analysis of
Controls and Technologies
Table S-l summarizes the committee's overall assess-
ment of the feasibility, effectiveness, practicality, and
costs of controls and technologies. For each control
and technology, the four characteristics were rated sep-
arately on a scale of 0 to 4, with 4 representing the best
available (not necessarily the best theoretically possible)
features. The effectiveness rating is an estimate of con-
taminant reduction or isolation and removal efficiency;
scores represent a range of less than 90 percent to
nearly 100 percent. The feasibility rating represents the
extent of technology development, with 0 for a concept
that has not been verified experimentally and 4 for a
technology that has been commercialized. The practi-
cality ranking reflects public acceptance; 0 means no
tolerance for an activity and 4 represents widespread
acceptance. The cost ranking is inversely related to the
cost of using the control or technology (not including
expenses associated with monitoring, environmental
resource damage, or the loss of use of public facilities).
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144
CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS
The overall pattern of the ratings underscores the need
for trade-offs in the selection of technologies. No single
approach emerges with the highest scores across the
board, and each control or technology has at least one
low or moderate ranking. In general, interim controls and
in situ approaches are feasible and low in cost but less
effective than the most practical ex situ approaches,
which tend to be high in cost and complexity. Decisions
about which approach is the most appropriate must be
made on a project by project basis.
TABLE S-l Comparative Analysis of Technology Categories
Approach
INTERIM CONTROL
Administrative
Technological
LONG-TERM CONTROL
In Situ
Natural recovery
Capping
Treatment
Sediment Removal
and Transport
Ex Situ Treatment
Physical
Chemical
Thermal
Biological
Ex situ Containment
SCORING
0
1
2
3
4
Feasibility
0
1
0
2
1
2
1
1
4
0
2
< 90%
90%
99%
99.9%
99.99%
Effective
4
3
4
3
1
4
4
2
4
1
4
Concept
Bench
Pilot
Field
Commercial
Practicality
2
I
1
3
2
3
4
4
3
4
2
Not acceptable,
very uncertain
Acceptable,
certain
Cost
4
3
4
3
2
2
1
1
0
1
2
$l,000/yd3
$!00/yd3
$10/yd3
$l/yd3
< $l/yd3
NOTE: 1 yd3 = .914 m3
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The Transportation Research Board is a unit of the National Research Council, which serves the
National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. The Board's mission is to
promote innovation and progress in transportation by stimulating and conducting research, facilitating
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TH
ti NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
National Academy of Sciences
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Institute of Medicine
National Research Council
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