Development of Best Management Practices for the Remediation of a Superfund Site

Management of stormwater at an operating industrial facility can be difficult and challenging considering the regulations for pollution prevention. However, managing stormwater at a closed industrial facility undergoing a comprehensive cleanup, restoration, and redevelopment program is an even more challenging task. For some closed industrial sites, stormwater runoff may be "impacted" by site contaminants and, as such, may require treatment prior to discharge. For those parties responsible for the site remediation, the management and segregation of "impacted" and "clean" runoff becomes a major design, construction, and operations issue. Water management at such sites typically involves three components: (i) impacted water; (ii) sediment-laden clean runoff; and (iii) post-remediation (clean) runoff. Because impacted water generated must be collected and treated prior to discharge, the need for water treatment is anticipated to continue until such time when the remedial activities are complete and water is no longer considered impacted. As such, developing a site-wide water management strategy is an essential component of remediation. This paper focuses on the design of the impacted water management system and the development of the overall site-wide water management strategy for the remediation of the Avtex Fibers Superfund Site in Front Royal, Virginia. At this site, the remediation schedule and the water management strategy are interdependent. In order to understand the interdependences at the site, the overall remediation project was modeled with respect to water management issues. The model incorporated the following time dependent items: (i) the remediation schedule; (ii) the potential for impacted water generation; (iii) the available impacted water storage capacity; and (iv) the rate of impacted water treatment. The modeling effort resulted in the development of an overall site-wide water management strategy that is closely related to the remediation schedule.