Battelle Applies Environmental Forensics at a European NPL Site

In the last five years, environmental awareness has grown tremendously in Europe through the implementation of increasingly strict environmental regulations. Commercial organizations are now required to perform environmental characterization and remediation if their operations are thought to be negatively impacting the environment.

Environmental forensics is rapidly evolving into a powerful, advanced site characterization methodology that helps decision makers develop a better understanding of the origin and timing of a contaminant’s release into the environment. For example chemical fingerprinting—one important element in the environmental forensics “toolbox”—performed on the contaminant Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) and biomarkers (chemical fossils of the biological material from which the petroleum was originally made) has proven to be a particularly effective tool in investigations where the nature and source of crude, residual, and fuel oils are at issue.

Chemical fingerprinting is a technique well known in the field of environmental geochemistry but has not been widely used by European environmental authorities in environmental investigations because of perceived higher costs in comparison with the more traditional regulatory-driven analytical chemistry programs. Battelle offers its clients world-class chemical fingerprinting and consulting services at prices competitive with traditional investigation services. Thus, site managers can now take advantage of these powerful techniques to characterize and understand their sites.

Battelle recently provided fingerprinting interpretation of PAH contamination at a bulk fuel storage tank facility of a National Priority List Site (NPL) dismissed since 1986. This was the first application of fingerprinting for a NPL in this country. Battelle’s client had performed a basic characterization study that identified the presence of petroleum contamination in the site’s soil and groundwater. However, the consultant was not able to determine the origin of the product.

After carrying out a detailed chemical forensics investigation, Battelle identified the nature of the fugitive petroleum as a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline, determined its origin, verified the spatial extent of the plume, and identified the likely responsible parties for its release. Importantly, the finding of MTBE in an upgradient monitoring well helped the scientists to understand that the groundwater flow was introducing this substance to the site from a neighboring facility.

The diesel and gasoline mixture that comprised the site contamination was demonstrated to be spatially restricted to the site boundary. Other chemical fingerprinting investigations of sediments and biological samples taken downgradient and offsite were found to contain very high percentages of high molecular weight PAHs and biomarkers that had come from a historic spill of petroleum not associated with the mixture of petroleum contaminants currently found on site.

For additional information, contact Mr. Marco Pellei at +41228272110, pelleim@battelle.org.