Contaminated Soil and Sediments | Land Risk Management Research

Nearly 40 percent of rivers and streams in the United States are too polluted for fishing and swimming due to chemical and microbial contaminants. EPA land researchers are working with regions and communities on soil and sediment contamination issues, using innovative sediment remediation techniques such as dredging, capping, and monitored natural recovery to make these waterways usable again. Land researchers and their partners must decide which of these options best suits a particular site, as well as develop new treatment approaches. The costs, strengths, and limitations of these approaches must be considered for a wide variety of sites. The land risk management research program is designed to provide a better understanding of the traditional risk management options for contaminated soils and sediments and to investigate alternative options.

Environmental Issue or Problem

Both soils and sediments can be polluted with a host of chemical and microbial contaminants from a number of sources. Sources include municipal wastewater (and associated biosolids), industry, and agriculture. Chemical contaminants range from heavy metals like mercury to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to relatively new emerging contaminants. Sediments and soils may contain multiple chemical contaminants combined with microbial pathogens. Emerging contaminants of concern such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) come from municipal wastewater, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and other sources, and are deposited in soils and sediments once discharged to lakes and streams or applied to land. Of course, all of these potential contaminants raise human health issues, affect ecosystems, and make water bodies less usable. All of these issues have accompanying economic costs.

Research Approach

Understanding the toxic properties of contaminants is essential to understanding the risks associated with contamination. The land research approach includes a focus on those contaminants that tend to be persistent and bioaccumulate within organisms, since they pose the most evident long-term risk. Furthermore, since the risk to humans is primarily through exposure to other organisms within which contaminants may have accumulated, ecological receptors become the primary focus for the research program. Research is directed to provide the site-specific risk assessor with tools to make risk predictions based on extrapolation from an understanding of food web and bioavailability/bioaccumulation relationships, and on the impact of remediation alternatives on ecosystems. Decision makers, risk managers, and decision scientists must forecast changes in the nature and extent of contamination under various management, temporal, and hydrological scenarios. Soil and sediment contaminants research, therefore, also seeks to characterize the fate and transport of persistent contaminants.

Partners

EPA: Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO), Office of Water (OW), EPA Environmental Response Team, National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL), National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA), National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC), EPA Regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10
State Agencies: State Departments of Health and Environmental Protection, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC)
Other Federal Agencies: U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA(, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Argonne National Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA)
Academia: University of Texas, University of Cincinnati, University of Arizona, University of Illinois-Chicago, Purdue University, North Carolina State University, Clemson University, University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Iowa State University, University of South Korea
Business/Industry: Alcoa, Olin Chemical, Battelle, Aquablok, Trojan Technologies
Other: South/Southwest Hazardous Substance Research Center, Washington DC Mayor's Initiative Team, Piedmont Research Station

Projects

Projects in this area of land research include those that deal with remediation and monitoring of soils and sediments contaminated with legacy and emerging organic and inorganic chemicals. Organic chemicals studied include PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and petroleum hydrocarbons (some from leaking underground storage tanks). Inorganic chemicals include mercury, arsenic, chromium, zinc, selenium, manganese, silver, and lead. Emerging contaminants studied include EDCs, perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), and pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs).
EPA land researchers participated in sediment dredging projects that have reduced the flow of contaminants from the Ashtabula and Ottawa rivers into Lake Erie and provided a healthier habitat for humans, fish, and other aquatic life.
EPA oversaw removal of about 500,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Ashtabula River and 245,000 cubic yards from the Ottawa River. The sediment contained multiple contaminants, including PCBs.
EPA contributed funding through the Great Lakes Legacy Act for both of these projects, which also created jobs for the local economies and helped to restore valuable resources. Sediment capping and monitored natural recovery projects have been supplying similar health, environmental, and economic benefits in place like Chattanooga Creek, Tennessee, and Lake Hartwell, South Carolina.

Selected Publications

Innovative Capping Technology to Prevent the Migration of Toxic Chemicals From Contaminated Sediments (PDF) (2 pp, 332 KB) (EPA/600/F-11/009) June 2011

Automated Long-Term Remote Monitoring of Sediment-Water Interfacial Flux (PDF) (132 pp, 1.87 MB) (EPA/600/R-10/110) October 2010

Methods and Tools for the Evaluation of Monitored Natural Recovery of Contaminated Sediments: Lake Hartwell Case Study (24 pp, 2.21 MB) (EPA/600/R-10/006) September 2010

Barth, E., G. Weinkam, and P. Clark. (2010). “Evaluation of In Situ Steam Injection Processes for Reduction of Petroleum Compounds Within an Abandoned Canal.” Remediation, 20, 3: 121–132.

Demonstration of the AquaBlok Sediment Capping Technology, Innovative Technology Evaluation Report (EPA/540/R-07/008) September 2007

Evaluation of Sediment Agitation and Mixing Into the Surrounding Water Column From Capping Activities at the Wyckoff/Eagle Harbor Superfund Site (EPA/540/R-05/013) August 2006

Contact

Roger Yeardley, Technology Transfer Specialist
513-569-7548
U.S. EPA National Risk Management Research Laboratory
Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division
26 W. Martin Luther King Dr.
Mail Code: 190
Cincinnati, OH 45268

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