W11 PM Advances in Biorestoration Strategies for Contaminated Sediments
Wednesday, 16 November 2005: 1:50 PM - 5:30 PM in 343-344

(REI-1118-350999) Mid-stream Assessment of the Active Capping Demonstration Project in the Anacostia River, DC.

Reible, D¹, Constant, W², Zhu, Y³, ¹ University of Texas, Austin, TX² Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA³ Horne Engineering, Fairfax, VA

ABSTRACT- Innovative active capping techniques offering both containment and treatment are effective, low-cost means of managing the sediments that endanger the health of our nation=s waterways. The Active Capping Demonstration Project on the Anacostia River, Washington DC seeks to advance the implementation and acceptance of these under-utilized technologies by validating their efficacy at the Anacostia River where historic industrial, municipal, and military activities have resulted in toxic levels of PAHs, PCBs, metals, and other contaminants. Objectives are to demonstrate, on a field scale, the ability to design, construct and place caps that will provide long-term treatment of sediment contaminants while simultaneously providing containment. Cap materials placed include Aquablok, a commercial product designed to reduce the permeability at the sediment-water interface, apatite, designed to sorb or bind metals and coke, placed in a laminated mat to absorb organic contaminants. The materials were placed during April 2005 and sampling one month and six months after placement have been completed. The results from these early sampling rounds will be discussed. A third round of sampling will be conducted in September 2005 and preliminary results from that round of sampling will also be discussed. Supplemental sampling between these formal periods of analysis also provides some insight into processes at the site. Finally, ongoing laboratory experimentation to evaluate specific processes observed at field scale will also be summarized.

Key words: sediment capping, active capping