True Grit - True Costs, True Needs and Other Realities of Long-Term Monitoring

1
True Grit - True Costs, True Needs and Other
Realities of Long-Term Monitoring

• Joe Rossabi, Ph.D
• Savannah River Technical Center
• Roger Jenkins, Ph.D
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory

2
The Field is a Dirty, Messy Place
Surface waters can be contaminated
Monitoring wells may not be the cleanest places.
3
You May Not be the Only Game in Town
4
It May Not be the Moon, but You Might have to
Dress Like It Is
5
Size Matters
You cant put a 4 diameter probe in a 4
monitoring well.
6
Dont Forget the Arrhenius Law of Reaction Rates
7
It isnt always blue sky, sunshine, and 65
Thunderstorms
Lightning
Tornados
Biggest problem heat
8
The Field Environment is NOT a Zoo
Birds Canada goose
Mammals Deer, groundhogs
Reptiles Poisonous Snakes
Eastern timber rattlesnake
Copperhead
9
You are always on SOME Critters Food Chain
Yellowjacket Wasp
Arachnids Spiders, scorpions
Black Widow
Brown Recluse Note violin marking
10
Bird Poop is One of the Most Corrosive Substances
Known to Man
11
Its a Jungle Out There!!
Kangaroo Rats and Chipmunks are Cute, but will
YOUR wiring become THEIR Nest Material?
12
Overview of Environmental Technology Verification
Process
Statisticians
Project Officers
Developers
Samples are collected, homogenized, labeled, and
assembled for distribution.
Chemists
Stakeholders
Experimental Plan

• Technology developers analyze randomized samples
  under field conditions.

Product is report and verification statement.
13
Observations from Newbies

• Its hot! Its cold! Its raining!
• Boy, the humidity must be 100!
• Its a long way to the bathroom!
• These soil samples arent like the ones we
  looked at in the lab.
• Boy, weve never actually tested this in the
  FIELD before.

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Baseline - Well Sampling and Analysis

• Field Person - 4 wells/day (300-500)
• Find well, purge well, deal with waste.
• Collect samples, coolpack samples, ship.
• Laboratory (50-1000)
• Receive, full COC analysis, QA, Report
• Office Person(s) (xxx?)
• QA results, enter in database, Report

15
Economic Analysis can be Revealing
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Scenarios for Long Term Monitoring

• Culture, power available, unprotected

Doing groundwater monitoring in the neighborhood
is not as easy as it sounds
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Scenarios for Long Term Monitoring (continued .)

• Culture, power available, fenced, high density of
  wells or points

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Scenarios for Long Term Monitoring (continued .)

• Culture, power available, fenced, low density of
  wells or points

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Scenarios for Long Term Monitoring (continued .)
Remote, fenced or unfenced.
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Is it Hype, Hope, Vaporware, or the Real Deal?
VaporLab
Tricorder
vs.
Be honest with yourself and others as to how far
along the technology is in its development cycle.
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Other Site Issues

• Costs -
• Samples - how many, how often
• Capital and OM costs of new technology
• Philosophy - Is point sampling good enough?
• Humans -
• How will technicians, scientists/engineers,
  regulators, lawyers interface with technology

22
Market Issues for Technologies

• Environmental measurements generally not
  sustaining
• Process technologies and crossovers have been
  most successful, examples
• Some niche markets, e.g., cheap access
  -Geoprobe,...

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Having Said all that...

• Cheap, fast measurements
• Process-like activities
• clusters of wells, many measurements,
  remediations
• Remote sites
• Monitoring as continued characterization
• plume and process understanding
• Also
• indicator/surrogate species, micropurging, sane
  waste management practices