Gowanus Canal Superfund Site. VI: Rapid Field Screening Techniques to Verify Sediment Capping Blends
This article has been corrected.
VIEW CORRECTIONPublication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 28, Issue 1
Abstract
At the Gowanus Canal Superfund site in Brooklyn, New York, layers comprising different granular activated carbon (GAC)/sand blends are being placed as part of a multilayer reactive capping system required for the approved remedy. Depending on the capping zone, the targeted GAC contents can vary from 6% to 60% by dry weight (%). The construction quality assurance (CQA) method for verifying the GAC content of each GAC/sand stockpile consists of loss on ignition (LOI) testing performed at an offsite laboratory with a turnaround time of 3 days. To mitigate construction delays and site congestion at the upland blending site, rapid field (onsite) testing methods to verify the GAC content of the GAC/sand blends were sought. Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) was successfully used on oven dried and crushed GAC/sand materials to develop three linear elemental [calcium (Ca), silicon (Si), and sulfur (S)] correlations with goodness of fit (R2) values greater than 0.95 for Ca and S. Sulfur was not detected in the sand and appeared linked to the bituminous coal source materials for manufacturing the GAC and thus became the primary element to track the GAC content. The measured GAC contents of the CQA samples by pXRF were within 2 to 3 percentage points of the values determined by LOI testing and were obtained onsite within hours. In addition, the pXRF measurements more closely matched the initially batched materials on site that were intentionally overdosed by up to 25% of the GAC blending target to avoid failure. The preliminary correlation presented here provides strong promise for the use of pXRF as the CQA method to furnish accurate GAC content results for the GAC/sand blends onsite within hours (not days) during the implementation of the Gowanus Canal capping remedy.
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Data Availability Statement
The raw pXRF data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The data and analyses on which this paper is based were completed on behalf of USEPA under USACE contract number W912DQ-18-D-3009 (Task No. W912DQ-20-F-3042) and was performed while Christos Tsiamis was the EPA Region II Remedial Project Manager overseeing the Gowanus Canal remedial design and construction. Geosyntec (on behalf of the PRP Group) provided the CQA samples and their respective LOI data. Thanks to Drs. D. Himmelheber and D. Meric of Geosyntec for providing the background information on the GAC reagent (over)dosing approach and calculations. The handheld XRF was provided by Pine Environmental. Thanks to G. Gee of Jacobs for assistance with Fig. 1. The reference to any commercial product names is solely for identification purposes, no endorsement is implied by the authors. Any opinions, findings and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jacobs, USEPA, and/or USACE.
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Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 28 • Issue 1 • January 2024
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 29, 2023
Accepted: Sep 15, 2023
Published online: Nov 10, 2023
Published in print: Jan 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Apr 10, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Canals
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Construction methods
- Construction sites
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Environmental engineering
- Field tests
- Granular materials
- Hydraulic engineering
- Hydraulic structures
- Materials engineering
- Methodology (by type)
- Research methods (by type)
- River engineering
- Sediment
- Tests (by type)
- Verification
- Waste management
- Waste sites
- Water and water resources
- Waterways
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