GRA offered the Second Symposium in its "Series on Groundwater Contaminants"

GRA offered the Second Symposium in its "Series on Groundwater Contaminants" on the Characterization and Remediation of Recalcitrant and Emerging Contaminants. Over 250 groundwater and environmental professionals, regulators and members from private industry attended the Symposium on June 14 and 15, 2001 in San Jose, CA. The Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) co-produced the two-day Symposium.

Tim Parker, GRA President, opened the Symposium with an overview of the program and recent activities of the Association. SCVWD Board Chairman Tony Estremera followed with a short retrospective on groundwater management in the Santa Clara Valley. The opening technical session, lead by Keith Roberson of the Regional Water Quality Control Board and Scott Seyfried of LFR Levine Fricke, contrasted successes and failures in innovative in-situ cleanup technologies for chlorinated solvent release sites, including injection of potassium permanganate, polylactate esters and molasses. Active discussion among practitioners, regulators and attendees followed, which helped to clear the air on the acceptability and value of these new technologies.

Day One - June 14, 2001

The luncheon keynote speaker was Jim Goodrich, Chair of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers, and former executive director of the San Gabriel Valley Water Quality Authority. His speech was a colorful and provocative treatment of "groundwater, technology and politics".

The afternoon session, headed by Anthony Brown of Komex, focused on the solvent stabilizer 1,4-dioxane. Session talks included the physicochemical properties, distribution, fate and transport, and treatment and toxicology of solvent stabilizers. The afternoon concluded with a roundtable discussion led by Vicki Kretsinger Grabert of Luhdorff and Scalmanini and Jim Crowley of SCVWD, on "Strategies for Managing Emerging Contaminants in the Absence of Clear Regulatory Guidance". Audience participation in this roundtable discussion generated much debate.

Rula Deeb of Malcolm Pirnie and George Cook from the SCVWD Leaking Underground Storage Tank Program, chaired Day Two's morning session on advances in MtBE remediation. The session featured six leading experts in the United States who presented innovative technical work on bioremediation and other opportunities for more effective MtBE treatment and removal as well as presentations on establishing MtBE clean-up levels.

Anthony Brown and Jim Crowley chaired a lively panel session on MtBE legal issues, featuring three attorneys in private practice representing water purveyors against oil companies and one attorney from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who is working on the Santa Monica cases. The audience once again debated the issues with great enthusiasm and candor.

Day Two - June 15, 2001

The luncheon keynote speaker was David Beckman, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) who spoke on the recent NRDC report, "California's Contaminated Groundwater -- Is the State Minding the Store?" The final session, chaired by David Abbott of Todd Engineers and Dave Andersen of San Jose State University was devoted to hydrostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy and detailed site characterization. The session featured the latest developments from the U.S. Geological Survey and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories on geostatistical models of aquifer heterogeneity, and process-based systems analysis of aquifer interconnectedness.

The entire program offered balance between technical presentations by local and national experts with policy discussions and spontaneous floor debates among attendees, and it provided the opportunity for open discussion among parties who might otherwise be in opposing positions and not inclined to share their views on issues relating to groundwater quality protection. The relative importance of toxic contaminants versus nitrate was discussed, and the limitations of current regulatory implementation of toxicology and risk assessment were brought to the floor. Based on highly positive feedback from the attendees, the Symposium was a tremendous success.

Symposium materials, which are available for a minimal cost through GRA's Web site, contain high quality technical presentations and articles provided by the speakers. Included is a 50-page article on solvent stabilizers by Tom Mohr, Associate Engineering Geologist, in the Solvents Program of SCVWD's Water Supply Division, which discusses how these chemical additives to chlorinated solvents are in many instances more problematic than the solvents themselves but have been overlooked at most solvent clean-up sites.

The goals of the "Contaminants In Groundwater Series", specifically to provide reliable technical information on new and emerging contaminants, and also to have a discourse on the regulatory, social, political and legal aspects of these, often times, unregulated contaminants were successful achieved by this Symposium.

Tom Mohr, a past President of GRA's Sacramento Branch, chaired the Symposium.

GRA extends its sincere appreciation to Tom Mohr and to the Symposium Co-Sponsors:

Applied Process Technology, E.S. Babcock & Sons, Geomatrix Consultants, Hatch & Parent, Pulsar UV Technologies, Komex, Malcolm Pirnie, MICROSEEPS, Onion Enterprises and Weston Benshoof.

Lunch Co-Sponsors: ATC Associates and SECOR International, Inc.; Reception Sponsor: Hatch & Parent; Refreshment Co-Sponsors: Environmental Process Systems, Inc., IT Group and LFR Levine Fricke; and Student Sponsors: Crawford Consulting, Inc., Groundworks Environmental and Skyline Ridge, Inc.