FEATURE
New Cleanup Technologies Battle Credibility Gap More rigorous testing could help reinvigorate the market for innovative technologies, says a new study. But not everyone agrees that it is practical. KELLYN S.
C
an innovation revive remediation? A report by a panel of experts convened by the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council (NRC) optimistically proposes that new technologies could help increase the demand for cleanups by reducing their cost and increasing their effectiveness (i). The report's blueprint for spurring innovation includes a strategy for collecting sufficient performance data to make the new technologies viable. But other remediation developers and consultants remain dubious. "It's an oxymoron to think you're going to be developing new remediation technologies. There isn't such an animal," Robert Dunlap told a group of environmental scientists and engineers assembled at Rice University in Houston, Tex., last year. Dunlap is president of Remediation Technologies, Inc. (also known as RETEC), an environmental engineering and consulting firm headquartered in Concord, Mass. In a recent interview with ES&T, he justified his views. "This field is now fairly old," he explained, drawing on his 30 years as an environmental consultant. "We've been talking about and developing remediation technologies for at least 15 years and the market is pretty mature." This market is also quite unlike most other markets he pointed out Rather than growing it is constantly shrinking While the NRC report on innovative technologies stresses first and foremost that financial incentives for site cleanup are fundamental to spurring the remediation market (2), the report's authors assert that innovation could also play a key role. The authors believe that increasing the credibility of the testing and performance data for innovative technologies will help drive their acceptance in the marketplace, according to Suresh Rao, professor in the Department of Soil and Water at the University of FloridaGainesville, and the chair of the NRC's report com2 6 6 A • JUNE 1, 1998 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
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mittee. The report by Rao's 1 6 - m e m b e r panel suggested that the industry is now sufficiently well developed to permit the creation of standardized procedures for testing new technologies and collecting information about both their performance and mechanisms of action. By amassing a database of credible performance information, researchers and developers of innovative remediation technologies could strengthen potential users' and regulators' confidence in their reliability. To some extent, these polarized views result from differing interpretations of the size and significance of the U.S. remediation market. By 1996, more than half of the half-million sites identified as being contaminated had either been cleaned up or were determined to require no further action (3). Another 165,000 contain underground storage tanks, which tend to be the smallest and least costly to remediate. Of the 52,000 remaining sites requiring remediation, more than half are under the jurisdiction of the states, while another 37% are controlled by either the Department of Energy (DOE) or the Department of Defense (DOD). The remaining 7% are under the jurisdiction of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act commonly known as the Superfund program To consultants like Dunlap, the number of sites requiring action has greatly decreased from the highs of the 1980s—and is therefore not sufficiently large to merit innovation. Researchers like Rao focus on the shortcomings of traditional technologies. "Conventional technologies . . . have been unable to restore many types of sites to the standards set by environmental regulations for protection of public health and the environment," said the NRC report, citing an earlier study (4) showing that regulatory standards had been met at only 10% of 77 sites where contaminated groundwater was treated conventionally using pump-and-treat technology. 0013-936X/98/0932-266A$15.00/0 © 1998 American Chemical Society
The Superfund program is widely viewed as an indicator for the industry as a whole. In 1995 the percentage of sites treated by methods incorporating "some innovative technology" dropped from 30 to 20%. The percentage where "containment or disposal" was used jumped from 35 to 41% (see figures on pp. 268A and 269A). A business card and a brochure This drop in the use of innovation coincides with a decided downturn on the environmental service side of the remediation equation. The business climate of the 1990s is a far cry from that of the 1970s and early 1980s, when "business was handed to [environmental companies] by the strong arm of environmen- Rice University's portable Experimental Contal regulation backed by unquestioned trolled Release Systems can be transported popular support," as a recent Depart- to any site accessible by a flatbed truck. This ment of Commerce report on the indus- "Rice bowl" is being used to conduct air try (5) puts it. "While the market bur- sparging research at Arizona State Univergeoned, competition often meant having sity in Tempe, Ariz. After being filled with soil and/or aquifer material and artificially cona business card and a brochure." As in- taminated, the unit's monitoring equipment dustry veteran Cary Perket recalls, "I went records exactly how effectively the innovafor a period of almost 10 years without tive remediation technology performs. having to competitively bid [on] a project. It W3S necessary for me only to provide a good and thorough explanation of the exducted at multiple sites across the United States in penses and what needed to be done." Perket is now a a coordinated fashion. The initial bioventing studsenior analyst for Environmental Information Ltd an ies were carried out between 1992 and 1995 by the environmental industry market research firm in Min- Air Force Research Laboratory, in conjunction with neapolis Minn Perket's firm recendy conducted the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence vey (6) showing that 26% of the firms engaged in en(AFCEE), at 123 different base sites contaminated with vironmental consulting laboratory work remediation jet fuel. The AFCEE also collected similar quantities contracting spill response soil boring and monitor well of data in two studies of natural attenuation. In each drilling had gone under,between 1994 and 1996 case, the end result was a large database detailing how The NRC report suggests that this current situa- the technologies fared in a wide variety of different climates and hydrogeologic conditions. tion may be in part due to the approaches to cleanup that flourished in remediation's earlier days, and it "One of the common things that made both the blames "the lack of standard procedures for reme- bioventing and the natural attenuation strategies sucdiation process testing" for producing a climate un- cessful is the strategy that the AFCEE took of doing friendly to innovative technologies. "Many of the early multisite demonstrations of technologies, and then attempts at soil and groundwater cleanup, espe- continuously analyzing the data as they received it cially at complex sites, served as poorly planned and and modifying and revising the protocols," said very costly national experiments," the report says. "In Catherine Vogel of the Air Base and Environmental part, because of the lack of standard performance re- Technology Division of the Air Force Research Labporting procedures, owners of contaminated sites and oratory. What often happens in studies that are conenvironmental regulators may hesitate to consider ducted on a less ambitious scale, she explained, is data from other sites in assessing whether an inno- that protocols are based on the performance of the vative remediation technology may be appropriate technology at one site. "We knew that you couldn't for their site " explains the report extrapolate what you see at one site to every other petroleum hydrocarbon site in the country," she said. The value of this kind of multisite testing is obBioventing and natural attenuation Short of guaranteeing its performance, the NRC re- vious, but some question its practicality. "Bioventport suggests that the best way to minimize the risk ing was very well done in terms of yielding the quanassociated with using an innovative technology "is titative engineering and economic products that were to provide enough data so that the user is confi- necessary to bring that technology up to a presumpdent in the ability of the technology to provide the tive remedy," agreed Calvin (Herb) Ward, director of desired result." The report holds up a number of re- Rice University's Energy and Environmental Syssearch efforts as exemplars. Studies of bioventing and tems Institute. Ward is also head of the Advanced Apthe natural attenuation of both petroleum hydro- plied Technology Demonstration Facility (AATDF), carbons and chlorinated solvents were all con- which is funded by DOD. JUNE 1, 1998/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 2 6 7 A
Treatment and disposal decisions at Superfund sites The use of both innovative and conventional remediation treatment technologies at Superfund sites has been decreasing in the 1990s. At the same time, the use of containment and disposal "nontreatment" approaches has been on the upswing. (This graph shows the treatments used for what EPA terms "source control" sites. The graph does not include "no action" sites or those where groundwater was the only medium treated.)
Ward nonetheless argued that, for the field in general, the multisite approach used to demonstrate bioventing is impractical. "Most field demonstrations to date haven't gotten to the breadth that's required to establish all the conditions under which the technology is applicable. That costs a great deal of money. Most technology developments never get into broadscale field testing—the point where you can actually write a design manual—because nobody can afford it. Nobody will give you the money to do it. What we have to do is establish within some limits that we know the technology will be successful. We can't do a failure analysis to establish where it can be effective. It's a leap of faith if you want to change the conditions very dramatically." The AATDF has devised a unique method of testing innovative remediation technologies to establish when they will be successful. The organization recently developed a portable technology called Experimental Controlled Release Systems. Also known as "Rice bowls" because of their association with the university, they are basically tanker cars outfitted with monitoring systems. After being filled with soil and or aquifer material and artificially contaminated, they provide an unambiguous means of testing, for they allow researchers to calculate mass balances. One of the two units is being used to test pilot-scale remediation technologies at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Waterways Experiment Station, in Vicksburg, Miss. The second has been at Arizona State University in Tempe Ariz. since the spring of 1997 where a team headed by Paul Johnson is conducting threedimensional pilot-scale research on air sparging Federal practicality Recognizing that multisite testing is too expensive for most organizations, the NRC report proposes that re2 6 8 A • JUNE 1, 1998/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
searchers and developers work together to build a database of information about innovative technologies. The report's authors believe that making testing information widely available would help innovative technology by providing some of the benefits of multisite testing without incurring such high costs. Rao envisions that this database would contain information presented in a standardized format, be subject to various degrees of peer review, and be available on the Internet. In some ways, this database would resemble one EPA has already built. Perhaps because of the magnitude of the environmental cleanup tasks still facing the federal government—a full 44% of the 52,000 sites (not including underground storage tanks) requiring remediation are on government land, including the sites with the most challenging contamination problems government agencies are finding it practical to collect multisite testing data by teaming up. In 1995, the Federal Remediation Technologies Roundtable, an "interagency working group" with members from EPA, DOE, and DOD, developed a set of guidelines for collecting remediation cost and pet*formance data. To date, remediators following the procedures laid out in these guidelines for documenting federal cleanups have published co pgcp histories which are presented as models in the NRC report (7) The roundtable guidelines cover measurement procedures standard cost breakdowns and ways to present performance data EPA expects to publish 14 more case studies soon that follow these guidelines "There [is] a whole variety of natural impediments and barriers to any new technology," said roundtable chair Walter Kovalick, Jr., director of technology evaluation for EPA's Solid Waste and Emergency Response division. "In remediation, we have the extra burden of it not being routine, and worries about liability if it's used incorrectiy." His division "is trying to chip away at the barriers that consulting engineers, the engineering community in general, and project managers in state and federal agencies raise." Most recently, Kovalick spearheaded the creation of a series of WASTECH monographs in the hopes of prodding the remediation community toward embracing standards of practice. The American Academy of Environmental Engineers has already produced eight volumes of Phase I monographs (8) dealing with process descriptions and limitations. The newer Phase II monographs (9) cover design and application issues; all seven volumes should be available by this summer. Not beneficial enough? But whether the kind of data gathering called for in the NRC report will ever be widely practiced remains uncertain. According to the NRC report, even the degree to which the Federal Remediation Technologies Roundtable guidelines are followed at federal facilities is unclear. And there is presently no standard process for data collection and reporting at privately owned sites such as those under the jurisdiction of the individual states. Richard Brown, the
vice president of remediation technology for Fluor Daniel GTI of Trenton, N.J.—and cochair of the NRC report—admitted that he would be unlikely to follow the kind of guidelines called for in the report. "I don't do anything that I don't get paid for, and most of my clients don't see any benefit from collecting data in that kind of framework," he said. Brown acknowledges that standardized testing is "good from a science standpoint," and he believes that collecting data in the format envisioned in the NRC report could benefit the field as a whole. As an example, he mentioned an innovative technology developed by private environmental engineering consultants known as "Fenton's chemistry for peroxide and iron." The technology entails pumping several thousand gallons of high strength—35%—peroxide into the remediation site, then adding iron to it. Its proponents "claim that they're getting oxidation," Brown said. Unfortunately, he says, the technology "hasn't worked that well, and there have actually been SOI116 accidents associated with it. None of the results I've seen have any controls. In terms of rigor of collecting data there's a lot lacking I spent 10 years in peroxide chemistry and what I suspect is it's not a process of oxidation as much as it is a thermal stripping " Heat is released as peroxide decomposes he explained spurring the concurrent release of volatile chemicals Brown believes that the database envisioned by the authors of the NRC report could reduce the chance that technologies like Fenton's chemistry make it into the field. "If we had a mechanism to say here's what you have to do for testing, or a mechanism for verifying stuff, I think that would help the end user to look at what's going on," Brown said. The database could help potential users determine whether the results were believable, as well as help them decide if the technology was really doing what the purveyor says it was doing. But Brown is a pragmatist. The kind of data collection ccillcd for in the NRC report reqiiires extx3 effort He estimates no more than 10% of his clients would be willing to pay for the extra costs associated with collecting that type of data. "If the data is for a regulatory issue or to prove compliance, clients will pay for it," Brown said. "If the perception is that this is data you're collecting to better understand the process, there's a reluctance on the client's part," he said. He noted that government sites often provided more opportunities for research-oriented testing, though they still have a budget, "so there's still some reluctance to spend more." To Brown, ultimately, the issue comes down to a tension between the way things are done in academia and in the private sector. "On the private side, there may be an equal desire to get the data, but there isn't the funding mechanism there is on the academic side. On the academic side, basically, they're funded to do that type of work. The problem is that very few academics go to a larger scale, and very few get to address the variability of sites." Federal investments in testing Potentially good news for scientists on both sides of the fence comes in the form of new federal pro-
Technologies selected for Superfund sites Conventional remediation technologies were used to remediate the majority of the Superfund sites treated between 1982 and 1995.
grams that are funding demonstrations of innovative technology. EPA's veteran Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation program was joined by a handful of new federal programs created over the last four years. They include Herb Ward's AATDF, as well as DOD's Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) and the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), a collaborative effort of EPA, DOE, and DOD. Other pristine test sites designed to fulfill a similar function to the Rice bowls have also recently been opened. Controlled contaminant releases are performed at sites operated by Canada's University of Waterloo and SERDP's National Environmental Technology Test Sites program. There are now four sites at locations across the countrv There is some question as to whether these new sites will be used as widely as originally anticipated. Perry McCarty, director of the Western Region Hazardous Substance Research Center and professor of civil engineering at Stanford University, says that these new test sites represent an "excellent idea," but notes that some key changes have occurred because they have opened. People in the regulatory community have become more open to trying new technologies, he explained. In light of this development, "the need for so many national sites may decrease," he said, especially because in his experience "funding for demonstrations has also really decreased, especially from the federal government." McCarty also noted thcit some innovative technologies need con—
ditions vou don't find at national test sites Industry-government collaboration At present, the stance that people take on the value of innovative technologies is closely linked to whether they are involved in die theoretical or applied side of remediation. But even Dunlap of RETECH concedes that there is a place for innovation in the remediation indusJUNE 1, 1998/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 2 6 9 A
try, though he sees it as limited to coping with mixed wastes, improving "engineered natural attenuation" approaches such as phytoremediation, and dealing with chlorinated compounds and dense, nonaqueous-phase liquids. What's most needed, to Dunlap's way of thinking, is a collaborative approach to remediation problem solving, for it can result in the "most potent market force you can get." Early results from new partnerships between government, industry, and academia support that argument. EPA established the Remediation Technologies Development Forum (RTDF) in 1992 to foster crossfertilization between researchers, regulators, and the industrial owners of contaminated sites. At present, 56% of the RTDF's 50-plus member organizations are from industry; 25% are from academia; and 17% are from government. The first RTDF project was a collaborative effort between EPA, DOE, Monsanto, DuPont, and General Electric to develop and demonstrate the "Lasagna" method for in situ treatment of contamination in low-permeability soils. After receiving government grants, the technology's developers took it through a successful demonstration at a DOE site in Paducah Ky. in 1995. Performance was documented following the Federal Remediation Technologies Roundtable's guidelines lvlon.sa.nto is now working to commercialize the "We had a time urgency that sometimes academic labs don't have," said Phil Broadsky, vice president for research at Monsanto. "We had actual cleanups to get done and get behind us. I think the industrial collaboration brought a lot of energy to getting it done. It's in all of industry's best interest to get these sites cleaned up as quickly and cheaply as possible." This fits well with the belief of NRC's Rao that to be most effective, remediation needs a "market demand, rather than a technology push—that is, the market generates the strong force necessary to propel technology development and commercialization." Creating the market demand would require remediators and everyone concerned about remediation to embrace some fundamental changes, however. "The current market tends to force technology
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developers and service providers to seek out reluctant, risk-averse customers and investors," according to the NRC report. "The challenge is to create a new policy strategy that marshals appropriate economic and regulatory drivers to encourage innovation in groundwater and soil cleanup and better environmental stewardship." Once this market-demandinspiring policy is in place, the report envisions that innovative remediation technology will thrive. "The primary goal of remediation technology development" in that environment, says the report, will be "to continually increase the diversity and number of new technologies included on the menu of options considered by site owners regulators and consultants " There is no substitute for working with a client in a real situation to try to test evaluate and mercicilize a. technology" he said
References (1) National Research Council. Innovations in Ground Water and Soil Cleanup: From Concept to Commercialization; National Academy Press: Washington, DC, 1997. (2) MacDonald, J. A. Environ. Sci. Technol. .997, 31 (12), 560A563A. (3) Cleaning Up the Nation's Waste Sites: Markets and Technology Trends; EPA 542-R-96-005; U.S. Enviionmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1997. (4) National Research Council. Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup; National Academy Press: Washington, DC , 1994. (5) The U.S. Enviionmental Industry; U.S. Deparrment of Commerce, Office of Technology Policy, Technology Competitiveness Program, U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1998. (6) "Fundamental Changes Reshape the E/C Marketplace," EI Digest: Remediation Journal 1998, 4, 1-10. (7) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, http://www.frtr.gov/ (accessed March 1998). (All case studies are also published in book form.) (8) Innovative Site Remediation Technology: Phase I (Process Descriptions and Limitations); American Academy of Environmental Engineers: Annapolis, Md., 1994-95. (9) Innovative Site Remediation Technology: Phase II (Design and Application); American Academy of Environmental Engineers: Annapolis, Md., 1997-98.
Kellyn S. Betts is an Associate Editor o/ES&T.
