Application of Statistically-Based Characterization Tools to the Former Erie Army Depot and Toussaint River Site for the ESTCP Wide Area Assessment Demonstration
Abstract
The efficient characterization and remediation of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) sites that are potentially contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO) remains a high priority for the DoD. The total land area that is potentially contaminated with UXO has recently been estimated to be as high as 10 million acres (> 4 million hectares). Characterization efforts to date have shown that for a typical site, the UXO contamination is contained within a small portion of the site, often amounting to only 10 to 20 percent of the entire area. Therefore, efficient site characterization should be focused on identifying the location and extent of these smaller potential target areas within specific sites. To achieve this goal, the DoD Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) engaged Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) to develop efficient and defensible, statistically-based approaches for characterizing UXO sites. The ESTCP program has sponsored several demonstrations of UXO site characterization technologies under a Wide Area Assessment (WAA) project. This report focuses on the application of statistically-based tools to the northern Ohio region of Lake Erie associated with the former Erie Army Depot and the Toussaint River. Typically, transects are surveyed using magnetometer or other geophysical instrumentation designed to detect magnetic anomalies indicative of metal fragments that may be related to munitions use at a site. PNNL and SNL have developed statistical algorithms that create transect designs based on desired Data Quality Objectives (DQOs) and then identify potential target areas based on geophysical surveys conducted along these transects. These algorithms have been incorporated into Visual Sample Plan (VSP), a tool used for designing sampling programs and statistically analyzing environmental data.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 26, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA606785
Entities
People
- B. A. Pulsipher
- B. L. Roberts
- J. Hathaway
- S. A. Mckenna
Organizations
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory