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Volpe Center Highlights - July/August 2002

Human and Natural Environment

Director's Notes | Focus | Safety | Mobility and Economic Growth
Human and Natural Environment | Organizational Excellence | Homeland Security
Papers and Presentations

Monitoring Environmental Compliance at Superfund Sites (U.S. EPA)

Long-term Superfund actions address the largest and most complex hazardous waste cleanups. Typically involving contaminated soils and drinking water supplies, or extensive site remediation, they can cost millions of dollars and may take up to 30 or more years to complete. For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff responsible for these projects, managing the vast amounts of technical data generated for each project is daunting. Working with EPA Region 5's Superfund Division, the Volpe Center has developed a data management and analysis system that helps EPA managers monitor and validate the cleanup progress at Superfund sites. The Environmental Data Management and Analysis Network (EDMAN) has been successfully piloted in Region 5, and is now available for use by other EPA regions. EPA Region 5 covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Currently, more than 400 sites in Region 5 are being cleaned up. Remediation is performed by contractors for the party deemed responsible for the contamination and its cleanup, or, if that party is not known, the EPA. Contractors submit regular monitoring reports to EPA Remedial Program Managers, who must ensure that the remediation is effective and determine when the site is clean and usable. Given the large number of projects and its limited resources, the EPA has often been unable to process the monitoring data in a meaningful way, and has depended on the contractor's reports, which have been submitted in a hard copy, tabular format that is difficult to analyze.

The EPA recognized that its managers needed sophisticated data management and analysis tools. The Volpe Center responded with EDMAN, which automates data management, analysis, and presentation. Now contractors submit monitoring reports in a Volpe-developed electronic template as well as hard copy. EDMAN processes the data, e.g., site maps, geologic data, contamination data, site properties, and groundwater levels; validates and tracks the data; and uses it to visualize site conditions. Visualization helps to promote a clear understanding of current conditions and to predict future conditions, enabling timely corrections that keep the project on track.

What began as a straightforward software integration project soon evolved into a multidisciplinary effort as the Volpe staff realized that to meet EPA's needs completely, they needed to fully understand the relevant environmental issues as well as geographic information systems (GIS). To accomplish this, the Center assembled an integrated, multidisciplinary project team that is providing environmental engineering as well as information systems services, supported by GIS. The Volpe team has:

• Evaluated off-the-shelf data management, visualization, and modeling tools.

EDMAN converts large amounts of data into useful information. For example, it can perform a statistical analysis of a contaminant plume and present the results in 3-D. When illustrated, the impact of a groundwater plume is easier to comprehend than sheets of numbers.

• Selected, acquired, and integrated 10 software packages into one system.
• Developed the process, procedures, and formats for data submittal. Volpe's environmental expertise was needed to interface with EPA staff, understand what they wanted the system to do, make suggestions, and test the tools.
• Automated all site-specific information in GIS.
• Performed statistical analysis of groundwater sampling data for a Superfund site. The results revealed that a number of contractor-proposed Contaminant Action Levels were set too high. EPA is using Volpe's analysis to negotiate lower levels for that site.
• Trained EPA staff in the optimal use of EDMAN.

Volpe team members include Mr. William Halloran and Mr. Steve Losier of the Environmental Engineering Division, Mr. Bob Hallett of the Service and Operations Assessment Division, and Ms. Rebecca Bergquist of EG&G Technical Services, Inc. (a Volpe contractor).

Volpe Hosts the National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Odyssey Day

Mr. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, was the keynote speaker at National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Odyssey Day. (Photo courtesy of Ms. Diane Wells)

The Volpe Center served as regional host site for the National Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) Odyssey Day on April 11, 2002. The purpose of AFV Odyssey Day is to educate future generations of vehicle users about new choices in clean transportation and careers in the AFV industry. More than 500 students, fleet operators, industry representatives, and educators attended the event, where they could ride a fuel cell powered bus, drive GEM and TH!NK electric cars, and see a broad spectrum of other light-duty passenger and commercial alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure. Mr. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, was the keynote speaker. In addition, AFV industry practitioners, Environmental Protection Agency personnel, and vehicle manufacturer representatives spoke to the students about professional opportunities in the AFV sector. AFV Odyssey Day also featured a roundtable discussion where industry representatives, academia, and users discussed Boston's alternative fuel infrastructure and various AFV commercial applications and opportunities. The event was sponsored by the Wentworth Institute of Technology, the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium (funded by the Environmental Protection Agency), and the Massachusetts Clean Cities Coalition.

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