Proposed Tier 2 Screening Criteria and Tier 3 Field Procedures for Evaluation of Vapor Intrusion (ESTCP Cost and Performance Report)

Abstract

It is estimated that more than 7000 Department of Defense (DoD) sites have contaminated groundwater, most of which will require investigation of the vapor intrusion (VI) pathway. VI pathway screening is relatively new. As a result, screening criteria tend to be extremely conservative, prioritizing the majority of sites for further investigation. The overall objective of this project was to develop and validate simple procedures to screen for VI and provide criteria for decision making, including no further need for site evaluation for the VI pathway. The procedures rely on easily-obtainable site-specific information that can be applied to criteria that are protective but less conservative than the generic (i.e., Tier 1) screening concentrations provided in many U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and state VI guidance documents. For this project, two methods were developed and evaluated: 1) Tier 2-level, site-specific evaluation and screening based on physical properties such as soil type and 2) building-specific Tier 3 field investigation of the VI pathway based on building characteristics. Performance objectives included collecting data from multiple sites in a consistent and comparable manner to allow evaluation of factors influencing volatile organic compound (VOC) migration and attenuation. The performance objectives were met by collecting and analyzing data at seven sites for the Tier 2 evaluation and six sites for the Tier 3 evaluation. The Tier 2 and 3 procedures were based on the results obtained from Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) Project ER-200423, Detailed Field Investigation of Vapor Intrusion Processes (GSI, 2008a). The overall objective of this project was to develop simple procedures utilizing easily obtained site-specific information to support a realistic pathway assessment involving significantly less effort than is currently required.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA571814

Entities

Organizations

  • Environmental Security Technology Certification Program

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Alkenes
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Sets
  • Department Of Defense
  • Ecology
  • Electronic Mail
  • Environmental Protection
  • Environmental Security
  • Groundwater
  • Measurement
  • Moisture Content
  • New York
  • Organic Compounds
  • Pressure Gradients
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Visual Inspection
  • Volatile Organic Compounds

Readers

  • Groundwater Contamination Remediation.
  • Regression Analysis.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.