Environmental Restoration: Part 1 - History Leading to Contract Award

In Environmental Restoration: Part 1 - History Leading to Contract Award, you'll learn ...

• History of waste disposal practices in the US
• Development of the legislation that governs the disposal of low-level radioactive waste
• Development of the legislation that governs the disposal of hazardous chemicals
• Regulatory safeguards that are meant to protect human health and the environment

Overview

Credit: 3 PDH

Length: 35 pages

This course, Part 1, is the first in a series of six sequential courses, Parts 1 through 6, that present the history and steps taken to remediate the environmental hazards created by the land disposal of chemical and radioactive wastes on the campus of a research institute. The practice of shallow land burial of hazardous wastes was widely used throughout the US between the 1960s and the 1980s. However, since the late 1980s both federal and state legislations were promulgated requiring the environmental regulatory agencies throughout the US to investigate operating, decommissioned and abandoned landfills of all types having in mind the ultimate goal of mitigating the impacts these waste disposal sites have on the natural environment.

This series of courses, are written from the perspective of a Manager who leads a team charged with the implementation of an environmental Remedial Investigation (RI), Feasibility Study (FS) and Engineered Remediation (ER) of a hazardous waste disposal site. The courses draw from numerous environmental investigations managed by the author across the US. As such, the scenarios that are presented are similar to those a professional environmental engineering practitioner faces in real life.

The case that is developed here is used as an example and a vehicle to present and discuss concepts and project implementation strategies gained through years of experience. This information is not usually found or taught in traditional or standard academic courses dealing with environmental issues or investigations. In their entity this series of courses can be considered an implementation guide for conducting environmental investigations at hazardous waste disposal sites. The environmental problems in the example scenario are those encountered at a decommissioned hazardous and low-level radioactive waste disposal site owned by a research institute. The presentations are sequenced in the order in which investigations would be conducted by an environmental consulting firm contracted to perform and supervise the work that would be done in order to assess the magnitude of the problem and develop appropriate mitigation strategies for the rehabilitation of the site.

This course, Part 1: History Leading to Contract Award, starts by reviewing the history of waste disposal practices in the US and the gradual emergence of governing environmental regulations. The following topics are examined: Physical description of the waste disposal site; History of waste disposal at the site over a period of twenty years; Decommissioning and abandonment of the waste disposal site; Growing public and regulatory concern for groundwater, surface water and soil contamination from the buried waste and Changes in the regulatory climate since the decommissioning of the waste disposal site.

Following this introductory background, the course shifts to a set of initial meetings and written exchanges that took place between the owner of the disposal site and the regulatory agencies. These meetings, in which the regulatory agencies expressed their concerns and the ensuing exchange of correspondence, led the owner to prepare and issue a “Request for Proposals (RFP)” that was distributed to a number of qualified engineering consulting firms. The proposals were evaluated, a contract was awarded and contract negotiations were initiated with the successful bidder. The initial technical approach proposed by the winning environmental consulting firm is presented.