Alternatives for the Remediation of Soils Contaminated with As , Cd

Purpose Section 121(b) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response , Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) mandates the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to select remedies that " utilize permanent solutions and alternative treatment technologies or resource recovery technologies to the maximum extent practical " and to prefer remedial actions in which treatment " permanently and significantly reduces the volume, toxicity , or mobility of hazardous substances, pollutants, and contaminants as a principal element. " The EPA Engineering Bulletins are a series of documents that summarize the available information on selected treatment and site remediation technologies and related issues. They provide summaries and references of the lat-est information to help remedial project managers, on-scene coordinators, contractors, and other site cleanup managers understand the type of data and site characteristics needed to evaluate a technology for potential applicability to their hazardous waste sites. Documents that describe individual site remediation technologies focus on remedial investigation scoping needs. Addenda are issued periodically to update the original bulletins. Introduction This bulletin provides remedial project managers, on-scene coordinators, and other state or private remediation managers and their technical support personnel with information to facilitate the selection of appropriate remedial alternatives for soil contaminated with arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb). This bulletin primarily condenses information that is included in a more comprehensive Technical Resource Document (TRD) entitled " Contaminants and Remedial Options at Selected Metal-Contaminated Sites [1] ". Common compounds, transport, and fate are discussed for each of the five elements. A general description of metal-con-Electrokinetics is addressed in the technical resource document , but not here, since it had not been demonstrated at full scale in the U.S. for metals remediation. Also, an update on the status of in situ electrokinetics for remediation of metal-contaminated soil is in progress and should be available in the near future [2]. Another change from the original technical resource document is that physical separation is addressed in the bulletin under soil washing, whereas it was previously covered as a separate topic. It is assumed that users of this bulletin will, as necessary, familiarize themselves with (1) the applicable or relevant and appropriate regulations pertinent to the site of interest; (2) applicable health and safety regulations and practices relevant to the metals and compounds discussed; and (3) relevant sampling, analysis, and data interpretation methods. The majority of the information on which this bulletin is based was …