The Groundwater Resources Association of California, in cooperation with McClellan Air Force Base Environmental Management Directorate, CAL/EPA Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), and the University of Waterloo presented a short course on Rapid Site Characterization (RSC) at McClellan AFB on 20 November, 1996. Over 150 environmental professionals attended the course that started with presentations at the base theater and ended with vendors' displays at the Coast Guard hangar. The course addressed the need to shorten the time and reduce the cost of investigation and characterization of contaminated sites. Frequently this characterization process is long and costly, and takes away resources that could be used for actual cleanup efforts.

The RSC process is intended to accelerate the site characterization process through onsite collection of soil and groundwater data. Typically, soil and groundwater data is collected and sent to a lab for analysis. This is costly in terms of time and manpower. The RSC process can also result in more cost-effective monitoring and remediation system design. "The information covered in this course is directly applicable to the environmental cleanup efforts on going at McClellan and our satellite facilities," said Jerry Vincent, McClellan's Restoration Field Team Leader. "The speakers were excellent and knew their subject areas."

The keynote address was presented by John Cherry, Ph.D., Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Waterloo and former Director of the Institute for Groundwater Research, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Cherry is widely recognized as a world leader in groundwater contamination research. His talk focused on modeling the behavior of dense non-aqueous phase liquids beneath ground. Examples of these liquids include solvents similar to those found in soil and groundwater at McClellan. In addition to Dr. Cherry, seven other experts presented RSC topics, they include:

• Murray Einarson, principle hydrologist with Einarson, Fowler and Watson, who gave an overview of the RSC process and direct push methods for RSC
• Peggy Harris, Chief of the Standardized Permitting Section, DTSC, who spoke about the California Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
• Bart Simmons, Acting Director of the Hazardous Materials Laboratory, DTSC, who discussed RSC and data quality
• Kenneth Blom, NORCAL Geophysical Consultants, Inc., who spoke about using surface geophysics for environmental applications
• Peter Balas, Principal, ONSITE Environmental Laboratories, Inc., who gave an overview of onsite analytical methods
• Blayne Hartman, Transglobal Environmental Geochemistry, who discussed active soil gas sampling
• John Cusick, W.L, Gore & Associates, Inc., who discussed passive soil gas sampling in environmental investigations

Thirteen technology vendors were on hand to display their RSC tools.

Brian Lewis of DTSC and the Groundwater Resources Association was the main organizer of the course. He received many positive comments from attendees, including:

"I want to thank you for putting the Rapid Site Characterization together. It was one of the better trainings I have attended."

"I wanted to let you know some of the VERY POSITIVE feedback that I'm getting about the seminar from our people that attended yesterday. The speakers were very dynamic and informative."

"I just wanted to let you know that the Rapid Site Characterization training course was excellent! You did a really good job organizing it!"

"Everyone I spoke to said they really benefited from the course."

Technology vendors were very pleased with the quality and quantity of contacts they made.

The Environmental Management Directorate would like to make this type of seminar an annual event at McClellan. For further information about this course, please contact Mr. Philip Mook, Senior Technology Advisor, (916) 643-5443 or Brian Lewis, DTSC, (916) 323-3632.