Tom Bourque, P.E., TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering, Inc.

Determination of representative background concentrations are an important step toward evaluating whether metal concentrations at hazardous waste sites require remediation. A strategy for collecting and summarizing the background concentrations of metals in surface and subsurface soil was developed using the U.S. EPA Data Quality Objectives process. The basis of the strategy including the selection of background locations, identification of representative soil types, and sampling procedures will be described. The outcome of the background soil investigation including an outline of the procedures used to statistically define background data sets will be presented. Systematic planning for data collection and elicitation of how the data will be used will be emphasized. The utility of the selected approach will be reviewed relative to actual site investigation(s).

Michael V. Ruby, Yvette W. Lowney, and Johanna Salatas, Exponent; Susan Brauning, Battelle

The Department of Defense (DoD) is responsible for addressing a large number of contaminated sites in the U.S. (@ 2,700), many of which contain elevated concentrations of metals in soil. Given this situation, the following study was conducted to better understand how these metals are driving risk-based remedial decisions at DoD sites. The results from this study will be used to establish research priorities for evaluating the oral bioavailability of metals from soil to human and ecological receptors. The study addressed two land use scenarios under which human health and ecological risks were deemed of primary importance, respectively, and focused on a suite of target metals: arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, and zinc. The study involved three components: 1) database preparation and evaluation, 2) Record of Decision (ROD) search, and 3) systematic query of regional EPA personnel working at DoD sites. The database preparation and evaluation involved obtaining and compiling the available databases from various branches of DoD that contain data on site concentrations of the target metals, and associated land use scenarios. These data were then screened against soil screening levels for human and ecological receptors to establish which metals most routinely exceeded screening levels, and the magnitude of those exceedances. The ROD search involved a systematic evaluation of all RODs issued at DoD sites as of January 1999, to evaluate instances where specific metals were responsible for soil remediation decisions. Finally, the query of regional EPA personnel with direct and ongoing experience at DoD sites was conducted to determine EPA’s perspective on the issue under study. Results from each component of the study will be presented, along with the overall study conclusions as to which metals appear to be driving risk-based remedial decisions at DoD sites.

Alexander Shchetnikov, Cand.Sc. (Geography), Institute of Geography SB RAS

In the South-Minusinskaya hollow lying between the mountain-masses of the Western and Eastern Sayan and the Abakan ridge, the last (15-th in the USSR and 11-th in Russia) aluminium smelter that received the name Sayansky, was constructed in 1985 in the steppe territory of Central Khakassia. The necessity of creating the smelter was dictated not by the country’s requirement for aluminium but by the surplus of the electric power generated by the giant Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro. The construction site was selected by the "command" (volitional) method without taking into account the natural-climatic peculiarities of the territory and with violation of the codes and regulations of designing projects of this kind. The construction of the 1-st phase of the smelter with the capacity of 328 t of aluminium per year was completed by 1990. At the present time, despite the ever increasing hazard to the environment and human health, by ignoring research results geographical and ecological scientists, with support of one Japanese firms, extensive activities are being pursued toward the implementation of the design of the 2-nd phase of the smelter, with the commissioning of which the annual capacity of the enterprise will reach 636 thousand tons.

Our investigations on the spreading and hence the influence of the smelter’s pollutants on the environment were initiated 2 years after the start-up of the smelter, in 1987. Already at that time, fluorides were detected in the snow cover in excess of background concentrations, at the distance over 10 km from the electrolysis building. In 1990, the snow around the smelter was polluted by fluorine-containing salts in the area of 1100 km². By 1996, this territory came to amount to 1600 km², and it increased to 1900 km² by 2000.

The configuration of the soil pollution zone repeats the pattern of the snow cover pollution area, but to a lesser extent. By 1995, the soils containing technogenic fluorine, for example, occupied the area over 3000 ha around the smelter, of which 1000 ha were polluted to a high and very high level. As of September 2000, these areas virtually doubled. A part of the territory adjacent to the smelter need to be withdrawn from the agro-economic cycle because the amount of fluorine in soils exceeds significantly the safe level. In soils of natural composition, pollutants penetrate only rarely to depths over 10-15 cm by concentrating mainly in the uppermost layer of 5-10 cm. In arable soils, as a result of the soil mixing and a better water permeability, there occurs a distribution (dilution) of pollutants throughout the depth of the arable layer by reducing the momentary hazard of the soil but increasing the pollution intensity for the future. In addition to fluorine-containing soils, the soils around the smelter receive a whole spectrum of resinous compounds such as PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and a number of heavy metals, especially such as vanadium and nickel. As the smelter is approached, there is an abrupt increase in soil phytotoxicity, while soil bacteria that provide plants with nitrogen nutrition, acquire misshapen giant forms, and both the quantity of bacteria themselves and the number of spores drop dramatically.

In addition to the soils in the territory experiencing the influence of pollutants from the smelter, the vegetation, the zoobiota, small mammals, soil invertebrata and herpetobionts were investigated, as well as studying the health state of the population. Based on all parameters that were investigated, a general conclusion was drawn that the area of operation of the Sayansky aluminium smelter has developed a zone of an actively progressing ecological trouble and that a further increase in the capacity of the smelter will bring the territory to an environmental crisis.

Vladimir M. Shulkin, Pacific Geographical Institute

Coastal zone of Russian Far East has been divided on the several subzones according to the scale of the additional metal input and some inherent attributes (morphometric and hydrodynamic). There are some problems due to additional metal input despite of relatively low average population density of the region. First of them are connected with municipal and industrial sewage and harbor activity of the Vladivostok and Nakhodka – the main cities on the coast. Pb, Cd, Zn, and Cu concentrations in the coastal sediments are elevated 10-25 times above background in the inner bights, and 3-10 times – in the outer part of coastal zone adjacent to the city. The enrichment was expressed in the increase of easy leachable metal forms. The same contamination by the dissolved metals is pronounced in the vicinity of waste and river outputs, mainly. The possibility of the secondary water contamination due to processes in the sediments has been evaluated by the laboratory experiments as well. The bioavailability of the metals was assessed by theirs accumulation in the tissues of mussels and oysters. The second case of significant metal contamination is connected with influence of river and aerial discharge from the watershed of Rudnaya River with intensive mining activity. The dissolved metal concentrations are increased up to 10-20 times in the vicinity of river mouth, but enrichment of coastal sediments by the metals was observed within 25 km plume southward of river. Another possible sources of additional metal input in the region (rivers, port activity and waste water of towns) lead to the local contamination of adjacent coastal water and sediments. The heavy metal concentrations in sediments and water allow to assess the overall anthropogenic load on the coastal zone and to point out the localities where we need to get action or to monitor situation at least.

Jaana Sorvari, Finnish Environment Institute

In Finland, shooting ranges are among the most common activities that have caused and are still giving rise to soil contamination. Sites are usually situated in esker areas, which have a suitable land shape especially for riffle shooting. Quite often these esker areas are important ground-water catchment areas as well, which leads to a risk of drinking water contamination. In a project dealing with investigation and risk management of shooting ranges, three sites with different level of contamination and environmental properties were selected for a detailed study. The former and present activities included both riffle and shotgun shooting as well as other recreational activities (sports, picking of berries and mushrooms) in the surroundings. All the sites were situated within a distance of one kilometer from a water supply system. In site-specific risk assessments, based mostly on conservative assumptions, no significant health risks were identified at present. However, especially at the site including a small swamp area with a low soil pH value in the future, the migration of soluble lead, antimony, and arsenic can cause a significant risk to ground water quality. Depending on the site, ecological risks were estimated to be potential or highly probable. Because of the limited size of the areas (from 14 to 25 hectares), effects were assumed to be restricted mainly to soil organisms and small mammals (e.g. shrews). As a risk management measure, one of the sites was remediated due to ground water contamination, verified by analyses. In the other two areas, picking of mushrooms and berries is restricted by warning signs. In the contaminated site including a swamp area, shotgun activities were terminated and closing of one of the two ground water pumping stations is considered. Due to several reasons, remediation based solely on ecological risks was considered inappropriate.

With the documenting of high concentrations of mercury in fish and some terrestrial wildlife in the Everglades, considerable interest has focused on elucidating sources of mercury to this system. The general consensus is that the primary source pathway for mercury to the Everglades is atmospheric, and much debate has centered on whether local or larger scale (regional) sources are most important. This paper examines one particular suite of local scale sources in the Dade-Broward counties urban fringe bordering the Everglades – the release of mercury from oil-fired power plants – and uses different methods to assess the likely relative importance of this source to wet deposition rates.

Our approach consists of three basic elements: (1) an analysis of mercury concentrations in and emissions derived from Fuel Oil No. 6, the principal type of fuel oil burned at the three oil-fired power plants lying within the Dade-Broward counties study domain; (2) an analysis of mercury to vanadium ratios in both plant emissions measured during the PISCES program and in ambient fine aerosols and wet deposition measured by Dvonch et al. (1999) during the South Florida Atmospheric Mercury Monitoring Study (SoFAMMS) (the assumption here is that V can be used as a tracer for oil-fired emissions); and (3) mercury speciation studies conducted on stack emissions from two oil-fired power plants in south Florida.