Hazardous wastes field

The hydrogeological and QA/QC aspects of hazardous waste field investigations are fairly well advanced. Yet needed, however, is a systematic approach to the design of field sampling, to the selection of compounds for analysis, and to the methods for interpretation of analytical data. 

Electrokinetics. Electrokinetics is a tested technology that has been used for over half a century to dewater and stabilize soils, and has recently been investigated for in situ use at hazardous waste sites (23). Primarily used for metals removal, the technology utilizes an electrical field to generate a flow and concentration gradient in porous and semiporous soils. 

Much of the current activity in the field of sohd waste management, especially with respect to hazardous wastes and resources recoveiy, is a direct consequence of recent legislation. Therefore, it is important to review the principal legislation that has affected the entire field of solid-waste management. 

Because many of the techniques, especially those associated with the recovery of materials and energy and the processing of solid hazardous wastes, are in a state of flux with respect to application and design criteria, the objective here is only to introduce them to the reader. If these techniques are to be considered in the development of waste-management systems, current engineering design and performance data must be obtained from consultants, operating records, field tests, equipment manufacturers, and available literature. 

Any site-related activities such as bench-scale laboratory and R D activities should comply with the OSHA Laboratory Standard (29 CER 1910.1450). R D activities involving pilot- or full-scale field operations should comply with HAZWOPER when there is reasonable possibility for worker exposure to hazardous wastes or substances or emergency response. 

Two years of health and safety field experienee, ineluding hazardous waste operations, or equivalent, and demonstrated ability to implement a HASP... 

Only qualified individuals should be allowed to develop air monitoring strategies. In addition, only trained and qualified field personnel should operate sereening equipment and be allowed to interpret results. For many sites, the results obtained from direet reading instruments ean help determine a variety of important faetors on a hazardous waste site. These faetors inelude ... 

The audit/inspeetion form that you should use ean be developed from the safety plan. A qualified person should examine the safety plan and eome up with a eheeklist that should serve as an audit/inspeetion form. Allowanees should be made to inelude items not speeifieally noted in the safety plan but that may be observed during field walk-throughs. Certain highly pertinent seetions of what OSHA uses when performing a eomplianee inspeetion of hazardous waste sites is ineluded in Appendix D. This inspeetion/audit form eovers many of the basies and ean be used a general guide. 

Other sites provided general provisions for acceptable training programs but lacked the site-specific detail necessary to implement a successful program. Eor example, the contractor s plan at Site E contained a requirement that all project field personnel receive training in accordance with applicable OSHA standards, including a minimum of 40 hours of hazardous waste operations training. The plan did not contain,... 

A professional society for persons in the environmental health field that conducts continuing education programs, placement sendees, awards programs, and compiles statistics on such subjects as air, water and land quality, food, pesticides, hazardous waste and toxic substances. 

Few reactions are completely clean in the sense of giving only the desired product. There are some cases where the side products have commensurate value with the main products, but these cases are becoming increasingly rare, even in the traditional chemical industry, and are essentially nonexistent in fields like pharmaceuticals. Sometimes, C is a hazardous waste and has a large, negative value. 

Methyl parathion can enter your body if you eat food or drink water containing it if you swim, bathe, or shower in contaminated water if you touch recently sprayed plants or soil if you touch contaminated soil near hazardous waste sites or if you breathe air that contains methyl parathion, such as near factories or recently sprayed farm fields (or in recent accounts of the illegal use of methyl parathion, if you breathe air or touch contaminated surfaces inside homes where methyl parathion has been used to kill insects). By any means of exposure, methyl parathion goes into your body quickly and gets into your blood. From your bloodstream, methyl parathion goes to your liver, brain, and other organs. Your liver changes some of methyl parathion to a more harmful chemical called methyl paraoxon. Both methyl parathion and methyl paraoxon can bind to enzymes of your nerves within minutes or hours. Your liver breaks down methyl parathion and methyl paraoxon into less harmful substances. These less harmful substances leave your body in urine within hours or days. For more information, see Chapter 3. 

Motwani JN, Popp SA, Johnson GM, et al. 1986. Field screening techniques developed under the superfund program. The 7 national conference on management of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. December 1-3, 1986, Washington, DC, 105-109. 

A number of site-specific factors must first be evaluated. Including (1) the chemical characteristics and amount of hazardous waste, (2) the potential for release to the environment, (3) the sensitivity of the particular environment to the hazardous waste, (4) the proximity of the hazardous waste to humans, and (5) Its potential effect on human health. Then the environmental engineer must decide If a field Investigation of the site Is necessary, whether a feasibility study for remedial action Is required, what remedial action Is required to mitigate. If not eliminate, the contamination, and finally, what monitoring plan will enable the efficacy of the remedial action to be evaluated. 

This paper focuses on issues which are relevant to all hazardous waste site investigations, remedial actions, and ongoing surveillance of cleaned sites. Some questions and concerns of field engineers and scientists are ... 

The design of this fish study centered on sample collection, preservation, preparation, analysis, and QA/QC. There was no discussion of the effect of compositing on the sample population. No description was given of statistical techniques to be applied to the data for reporting results and for comparison with action levels and future data. Unfortunately, the omission of a statistical framework during planning of the field study is the rule rather than the exception in hazardous waste investigations. 

Table 20.4 presents the partition and transformation processes known to occur in the near-surface environment along with the special factors that should be considered when evaluating data in the context of the deep-well environment. Geochemical processes affecting hazardous wastes in deep-well environments have been studied much less than those occurring in near-surface environments (such as soils and shallow aquifers). Consequently, laboratory data and field studies for a particular substance may be available for near-surface conditions, but not for deep-well conditions. 

This section discusses soil liners and their use in hazardous waste landfills. The section focuses primarily on hydraulic conductivity testing, both in the laboratory and in the field. It also covers materials used to construct soil liners, mechanisms of contaminant transport through soil liners, and the effects of chemicals and waste leachates on compacted soil liners. 

Special efforts were made to invite experts to contribute chapters in their own areas of expertise. Since the field of industrial hazardous waste treatment is very broad, no one can claim to be an expert in all industries collective contributions are better than a single author s presentation for a handbook of this nature. 

CPE V, held in September 1985 at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, covered topics dealing with treatment technologies and phenomena related to hazardous waste and the utilization of fossil fuels. It provided an opportunity for interdisciplinary discussions and encouraged the exchange of ideas among international specialists from diverse fields and backgrounds. 

Eiceman GA,McConnon JT, Zaman M, et al. 1986. Hydrocarbons and aromatic hydrocarbons in groundwater surrounding an earthen waste disposal pit for produced water in the Duncan oil field of New Mexico. Groundwater Hazardous Waste Bureau, Environmental Improvement Division, Environment and Health Dept, State of New Mexico, Santa Fe. 

As stated in Chapter 1, a laboratory analysis is almost always meant to give a result that is indicative of a concentration in a large system. For example, a farmer wants an analysis result to represent fertilizer needs in an entire 40-acre field. A pharmaceutical manufacturer wants an analysis result to represent the concentration of an active ingredient in each tablet in 80 cases of its product, each case containing three dozen bottles of 100 tablets each. A governmental environmental control agency wants a single laboratory analysis to represent the concentration of a toxic chemical in every cubic inch of soil within 5 miles of a hazardous waste dump site. 

Hazaga, D., Fields, S., and Clemens, G. R, 1984, Thermal Treatment of Solvent Contaminated Soils In Proceedings of the USEPA Fifth National Conference on Management of Uncontrolled Hazardous Waste Sites, Washington, D.C., pp. 404-406. 

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