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Environmental and Engineering Geoscience

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Contaminants in the Subsurface: Source Zone Assessment and Remediation

(Committee on Source Removal of Contaminants in the Subsurface of the National Research Council)

² INTERA Inc., 137 2nd Avenue, Niwot, CO 80504

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The cleanup of sources of chlorinated solvent DNAPLs (dense non–aqueous phase liquids) and of unexploded munitions at U.S. Army bases is the focus of this study. Because the majority of the report addresses the problem of chlorinated solvent DNAPLs, it is therefore of interest to a much wider community, including readers of Environmental & Engineering Geoscience. The book is composed of six chapters and three appendices. The chapters are as follows: (1) "Introduction," (2) "Source Zones," (3) "Source Zone Characterization," (4) "Objectives for Source Remediation," (5) "Source Remediation Technology Options," and (6) "Elements of a Decision Protocol for Source Remediation." These are preceded by a 15-page executive summary that begins by stating the problem at hand: "there have been no reported cases of large DNAPL sites where remediation has restored the site to drinking water standards. Nonetheless ... certain technologies capable of significant source remediation are being increasingly used by large responsible parties, like the U.S. military." Consequently, the National Research Council (NRC) was asked by the U.S. Army's Environmental Center in 2002 to determine the "usefulness and applicability of source remediation as a cleanup strategy." This committee was established to address the issue.

It is surely evident by now that the identification of drinking-water standards as the objective for source remediation is no longer in the public interest. It was because of this assumption that Freeze (2000), in his Environmental Pendulum, dismissed surfactant flooding as a means by which to effectively remediate sources. With such a goal, which tends to view individual technologies as "magic bullets" rather than as components of a remedial solution, nothing gets done because all attempts are regarded . . . [Full Text of this Article]