NEWS TECHNOLOGY First U.S. controlled-release site opens to test technologies at Dover Air Force Base Researchers have begun field tests of cometabolic bioventing at the United States' first permitted facility that allows injection of some of the most difficult groundwater contaminants into the ground and aquifer. The Dover (Delaware) Air Force Base site, called the Groundwater Remediation Field Laboratory (GRFL), was constructed by the Air Force's Armstrong Laboratory in Florida in the hope that it will attract researchers seeking field tests of remediation technologies. Controlled-release experiments have been conducted at Canada's Borden military base in Ontario for several years. There University of Waterloo researchers released contaminants into control cells in the ground and groundwater to study their transport and to demonstrate cleanup technologies (ES&T, March 1995, 116A). On May 31, GRFL researchers began injecting a fuel-solvent mixture for the Advanced Applied Technology Demonstration Facility (AATDF), an environmental technology testing program managed by Rice University and funded by the Army Corps of Engineers. They emptied 84 gallons of jet fuel containing trichloroethylene and trace levels of tetrachloroethylene and chlorobenzene into the ground, according to Mark Noll, GRFL director of field operations and research. The "spill" was contained in a section of earth and aquifer 5 x 10 x 11 meters deep, enclosed in doublewalled sheet piling. The researchers will try to remediate the area using cometabolic bioventing, a technology that biodegrades hydrocarbonbased fuels and solvents by injecting oxygen, which stimulates the microbes, Noll said. Microbes have not been proven to aerobically biodegrade chlorinated solvents in the field, but the experiment will demonstrate whether the microbes will degrade the solvents as they consume the fuel, he said.
Test cells containing a water table aquifer will be used to evaluate technologies for fuel and solvent remediation at the Groundwater Remediation Field Laboratory in Delaware.
The permit, issued May 28, incorporates several protective elements, according to Eric Trinkle of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. It requires researchers to create an inward hydraulic gradient so that, if leaks develop, water flows in from outside the cell. External monitoring, an in-cell pump-and-treat system, and the ability to excavate the site are also mandated. The site is funded by the Department of Defense's (DOD) Strategic Environmental Research
and Development Program. Although it was constructed to support DOD research, according to Gordon Wood, program deputy director, the site will be open to outside researchers. A second project in which geophysicists will study spill dynamics is currently planned for the Dover site, Noll said. Funds have been set aside for a second cell, and a third may be built if interest in the facility grows, Wood said. AATDF expects a waiting list to develop as people become more aware of the availability and capabilities of controlled-release sites. To meet this expected need, AATDF has constructed its own controlled-release unit at Rice University, according to Carroll Oubre, AATDF program manager. It consists of a tank in which subsurface conditions are simulated. The portable tank can be moved to a user's location and can simulate the local geology, he said. Already, AATDF has two users, Shell Development Corp. and an Arizona State University researcher. The DOD program also plans to construct another controlledrelease facility at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, Mich., according to Wood. Director Mike Barcelona said experiments will begin this summer. The Wurtsmith site will be designed to test in-situ bioremediation of controlled releases of aqueous, rather than free-phase, contaminants. —DANIEL SHANNON
States hope agreement will speed approval of new environmental technologies Six states have agreed to a datasharing plan that will enable new environmental technologies to be approved in each state based on demonstrations conducted in one of the states. The agreement, signed June 4, enables the states, with nominal EPA assistance, to develop a consistent method of evaluating new technologies to meet widely varying permit and certification requirements. State officials predict the plan will result in fewer required demonstrations and faster introduction of new technologies by removing complex state approval procedures. The six states—California, Illi-
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nois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—will also participate in a pilot program in which each will demonstrate two different technologies within five months and share the resulting data, said Don Owen of the California Environmental Protection Agency. The agreement is a revision of one signed by four states last year {ES&T, August 1995, 351A). Although site-specific impacts or state-specific conditions like fees and public involvement may still be required, the signatories claim the agreement will bring about more rapid use of new
technology. Under the plan, each state will submit to the other states a "data package" from the demonstrations. From this information, they will determine similarities and differences and develop consistent data-reporting schemes that meet most signatory states' data requirements, said Rhea Brekke, administrator of the Office of Technology Innovation and Market Development for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Although EPA will advise the states and promote the program among nonsignatory states, it is "not really involved in the day-today work," said Marybeth Brenner, a New Jersey official. Initially, each state can determine data requirements that are similar to another state's, Brekke said, and data from demonstrations in one state can be used to "jump start" the permit process in another. For instance, "We can get enough information on, say, Illinois' program that we can use some or most of their data for our own permits," she said. In some cases, if one state issues a permit for application of an environmental technology, it will qualify a company to permit it in another state, Brekke said. This is the long-term goal, she said, but it will not be a common practice for some time. Each state has selected two demonstration projects. New Jersey will demonstrate a soil-washing technology and "demanufacturing," a process that recycles and reuses electronic parts, Brekke said. Massachusetts will demonstrate an on-site, domestic sewage nitrogen removal system and a waste minimization and wastewater reuse technology for electroplating operations. Illinois will demonstrate a sulfur dioxide removal technology for glass manufacturing plant emissions and a sequencing batch reactor system for municipal sludge. California will demonstrate a lowNO^ industrial boiler and a toxics bioassay. New York will demonstrate a thermal desorption technology for treating PCB-contaminated soils and a reactive wall technology for groundwater bioremediation. Pennsylvania has not yet identified demonstration projects. —DANIEL SHANNON
Environmental biotechnology market in a stagnant period, analysts say The environmental biotechnology market, which has seen moderate growth in recent years, has leveled off, according to industry analysts speaking June 12-13 at Environmental Biotech '96 in Philadelphia. The symposium was sponsored by the Biotechnology Industry Organization in conjunction with its annual meeting. According to industry analyst Daniel W. Noble, vice president of Environmental Business International, a market research firm, the field is now in the trough of an S-shaped curve, but he expects the market to increase over the next 20 years. "We're still in our infancy," said Noble, who tracks trends in environmental compliance spending. "But environmental biotechnology will, eventually, dwarf medical biotechnology" as the largest biotechnology market segment, he predicted. In 1995, biotechnology comprised nearly 9% of the $180 billion U.S. environmental market, Noble reported. The environmental biotech market will grow between 7.5% and 8% annually through 2000, he believes, with expenditures for biotechnologyrelated pollution prevention equipment growing much faster than hazardous waste and remediation technology. Cost effectiveness is a major driver of the environmental industry; any new technologies that are more cost effective than older ones are expected to supplant them. "Bioremediation continues to be one of the most cost-effective treatment alternatives," stated Paul Fennelly, senior vice president at ENSR Corp., a major U.S. bioremediation firm. One cause of the current stagnation in bioremediation cited by experts at the meeting was that owners of contaminated sites are taking a wait-and-see attitude in hopes that Congress and EPA will adopt a less stringent approach to setting site cleanup levels. "The plateau in the environmental business has been a function of the uncertainty in the regulatory regime and a reaction to the absurdities of Superfund," said attorney William J. Walsh of Pepper,
Hamilton, and Scheetz. Walsh pointed to the unreasonableness of requiring cleanup to "nondetect" levels. Bioremediation can remove 90% or more of individual contaminants and is much cheaper than other methods, said Ronald Unterman, vice president for technology development of Envirogen, Inc. But it is not widely used because it cannot meet current cleanup goals. Bioremediation may have a brighter future in the international market, according to Fen-
"The future, as the remediation market declines, is the growth in the pollution control market." Ronald Unterman, Envirogen, Inc. nelly. "There's considerable interest in other countries in acquiring the technology and the know-how [for bioremediation]. We've seen significant interest in Europe." "The future, as the remediation market declines, is the growth in the pollution control market," said Unterman. "One of [Envirogen's] fastest growing areas is air pollution control systems." Gary Sayler, director of the University of Tennessee's Center for Environmental Biotechnology, noted that investors are putting money into biotechnology-based pollution control. Noble expects rapid growth in high-technology wastewater treatment, but only if more resources are put into developing more advanced techniques than are used now. "We're really in the Dark Ages," he stated. "Right now the technology is very low tech." Another area that will grow is pollution prevention technology, according to Sayler. Companies moving to sustainable technologies will increasingly use biofeedstocks in manufacturing and biodegradable materials in the manufacturing process. —MYRNA E. WATANABE
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