Multimedia Model for Analysis of Contaminant Releases in Passaic River Watershed
Publication: Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management
Volume 8, Issue 4
Abstract
Understanding the role of local and cross-boundary sources is essential in making sound decisions in mitigating the impact of contaminant. In this paper such spatial assessments of multiple sources of contamination in the Passaic River Watershed was evaluated using a multimedia environmental model. Application of multimedia models could lead to informed management decisions for watershed contamination by providing a spatial and temporal distribution of contaminants and the relative importance of point sources, cross-boundary fluxes and environmental processes of the contaminants. An evaluation of trichloroethylene (TCE) release in the Passaic River Watershed was performed in this study through the assessment of its fate and transport using unsteady state and spatially variable multimedia modeling. This assessment was coupled with long-term analysis of releases to perform multiple scenarios of TCE releases, and to evaluate changes in current environmental concentrations within the watershed. The current multimedia model also assess the non-attainment of the watershed in regards to TCE contamination. Based on the release data that are currently available, attainment of TCE contamination would be reached for all subwatersheds except one. The influence of regional fluxes to the watershed contamination was quantitatively evaluated and shown for the Passaic River Watershed. The control of local releases of TCE was also evaluated to determine their effectiveness on reducing the watershed contamination. The local releases are shown to be important to the watershed contamination, and are found to be more significant than regional influxes of contaminants. Since there was no rigorous calibration of the proposed model due to lack of measured data, the model predictions should be used with care.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
California Environmental Protection Agency (CEPA). ( 1993). CalTOX, a Multimedia Total Exposure Model for Hazardous Waste Sites, A Report of Office of Scientific Affairs, Dept. of Toxic Substance Control, Sacramento, Calif.
2.
Cohen, Y. (1990). “Dynamic partitioning of organic chemicals in regional environments: A multimedia screening-level modeling approach.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 24(10), 1549–1558.
3.
Devillers, J., and Bintein, S. (1995). “ChemFRANCE: A regional level III fugacity model applied to France.” Chemosphere, 30, 457–476.
4.
Mackay, D. ( 1991). Multimedia environmental models: The fugacity approach, Lewis, Chelsea, Mich.
5.
Mackay, D., Joy, M., and Paterson, S. (1983). “A quantitative water, air, sediment interaction (QWASI) fugacity model for describing the fate of chemicals in lakes.” Chemosphere, 12, 981–997.
6.
Mackay, D., and Paterson, S. ( 1990). “Development of a fugacity model for assessing chemical fate in Canada.” Rep. of Health and Welfare, Ont. Canada.
7.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). ( 1992). “Development of a fugacity-based model to evaluate the fate of organic and inorganic chemicals in the state of Minnesota.” Report of Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minneapolis.
8.
National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection (Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (Ministry of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs (RIVM), VROM), WVC). ( 1994). Uniform system for the evaluation of substances (USES), version 1.0, The Hague, The Netherlands.
9.
Riederer, M. (1990). “Estimating partitioning and transport of organic chemicals in foliage/atmosphere system: Discussion of a fugacity-based model.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 24, 829–837.
10.
Trapp, S., and Matthies, M. ( 1998). Chemodynamics and environmental modeling: An introduction, Springer, Berlin.
11.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ( 1994). “Cumulative Exposure Project (CEP).” 〈http://www.epa.gov/CummulativeExposure/〉 Office of Policy.
12.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ( 1996). “Toxic release inventory 1987–1997.” Office of Pollution prevention and toxics, Rep. No., EPA 740-C-96-003, (CD-ROM). Washington, DC.
13.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ( 1999). Region III, Risk-based concentration table (RBC), 〈http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/risk/riskmenu.html〉 Philadelphia.
14.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ( 2002). “National-scale air toxic assessment.” 1996 Assessment results, 〈http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/nata/index.htm. Air and Radiation. Office of Air Quality, Planning, Standards, and Research. Park Triangle, N.C.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 ASCE.
History
Published online: Oct 1, 2004
Published in print: Oct 2004
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.