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Development and Application of Environmental Forensics for Contaminated Sites by Chlorinated Hydrocarbons (2)

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Recently, Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan, R.O.C (Taiwan) contributed to developing environmental forensic technologies for chlorinated contaminated sites, and then improve domestic environmentalforensic abilities. However, a successful forensics needs enough investigation information. In order to get the profile of chlorinated contaminants distribution, that is beneficial to scientific data interpretation and forensics conducting, this project had one major purpose and two minor goals. The main purpose was to develop high-resolution site characterization (HRSC) technologies for source identification of chlorinated ethenes (CEs) sites. And then, one minor goal was to apply environmental forensic technology that had been developed on site investigations. Another one was to evaluate the feasibility of chlorinated contamination release age dating by groundwater dating technology. There were three HRSC technologies established in this project. The first one was "In-well Membrane Interface Probe (In-well MIP)". The second one was "Continuous Micro-Purge Water Sampling (CMPWS)", and the last one was "Immediately Analyzing Contamination during Well-Installation (IACWI)". All of them could offer the vertical concentration profiles for setting up a detailed conceptual site model (CSM). The application results of those new technologies were compared with that of announcement methods ("Polyethylene Diffusion Bag Samplers" and "Well cluster with bailer sampling"). Results showed that those three new technologies could 1) cooperate with dynamic decision-making; 2) be applied on sites with gravel; 3) be more economical and faster; and 4) offer reliable and high-density data. Additionally, this project checked situations of 189 domestic CEs sites. For 30 sites that might need forensic investigation, we offered investigation and forensic suggestions. And then, 4 sites were picked up from them to apply environmental forensics and new HRSC technologies, and offer information about sources identification and source relationship identification to Environmental Protection Administration and Environmental Protection Bureau. According to the above results and previous investigation experiences, "Soil and Groundwater Chlorinated Organic Compounds Source Identification technologies Guide " was compiled. Finally, the feasibility of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Age-dating techniques used to estimate the contaminant release age was evaluated. Results showed that CFCs age-dating techniques were impacted by human activities easily. If we want to apply this technique to get the contamination release age, the conditions of the site must be evaluated in advance. In addition, tritium- helium dating techniques was another method which was not easily impacted by human activities. However, the duration of tritium-helium sample analysis was very long. It must be considered into the investigation schedule.
Keyword
chlorinated hydrocarbon, environmental forensics, stable isotope
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