Environmental Forensics Fundamentals

Petrisor, Ioana G.

doi:10.1201/b17158

Cited by 25 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…Future collected data may include forensic testing for more gasoline compounds as well as stable isotopic testing for gasoline constituents (including stable carbon and hydrogen isotopic data) in soil around suspected subsurface residual sources. Specific chemical and isotopic forensic testing was described in detail in a recent book on environmental forensics (Petrisor, 2014). This data should be evaluated within each site historical context to generate accurate conceptual site models.…”

Section: Preliminary Forensic Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comprehensive Environmental Investigation at Former Industrial/Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Sites in Long Beach, CA: A Forensic Perspective

Kim

Lu²,

Park

2015

Environmental Forensics

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Two industrial sites were investigated based on years of available hydrogeologic information and monitoring data for soil and groundwater. Collected data were forensically evaluated using age-dating and fingerprinting methods. The previous business uses of the project sites were as a gas station, laundry/dry-cleaning service, and car wash with petroleum underground storage tanks (USTs). As a result, these sites were exposed to a number of toxic contaminants at relatively high concentrations. Source control was necessary for successful remediation and the ultimate removal of the remaining compounds from these industrial sites. Although contaminated soil around the source was excavated during the remedial action and the high concentrations of contaminants were reduced, typical groundwater contaminants such as petroleum hydrocarbons as gasoline (TPH-G), benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes (BTEX), and oxygenates including methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), diisopropyl ether (DIPE), ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), tert-amyl methyl ether (TAME), and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) were persistently found at the studied sites around the source points. The plume and concentration of contaminants had changed their shapes and strength for all monitoring periods. Thus, additional source control seems to be a requirement for the complete removal of source contamination, which must be ascertained with groundwater and soil monitoring on a regular time base. For the study sites, monitored natural attenuation was relatively feasible for the long-term plan; however, it did not offer a perfect remediation solution for an ultimate goal because of residual toxic compounds that might have affected the surrounding residential areas at higher concentrations than their health limits. Therefore, as a remediation strategy, the combination of clean-up technology and natural attenuation with monitoring activities are more highly recommended than either clean-up or natural attenuation used separately.

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Section: Preliminary Forensic Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comprehensive Environmental Investigation at Former Industrial/Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Sites in Long Beach, CA: A Forensic Perspective

Kim

Lu²,

Park

2015

Environmental Forensics

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“…Various methodologies are routinely applied in environmental forensics investigations such as analysis of documentary records, aerial photography, groundwater and sediment analysis, radiocarbon dating, and an array of much more sophisticated methods for capturing the chemical and biological fingerprints of pollutants (Phillips 2014; White 2012). Typically environmental forensic science methods are used in criminal and civil litigation cases, from property damage and toxic torts to testing the boundaries of existing national regulatory frameworks (Petrisor 2014). If the object of environmental forensic science is the study of the traces of criminal activity in the soil, air, water and sediments, then those traces can lead to the crime itself.…”

Section: Environmental Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Proof of Ecocide: Towards a Forensic Practice for the Proposed International Crime Against the Environment

Ahmed

2018

AEFS

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This article discusses developments in international environmental justice alongside contemporary environmental forensics techniques. The article begins by providing an introduction to ecocide, the proposed international crime for the protection of the environment under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the concept of the legal threshold of harm. It argues that forensic awareness has a role to play in developing new legal frameworks for the protection of the environment. It describes one particular approach to the practice of environmental investigations, using the example of remote sensing. From an international justice perspective, the concern of the present article is a discussion of how innovations in remote sensing technologies have allowed non court actors, civil society groups and nongovernmental organizations access to scientific evidence. It concludes by making recommending towards establishing forensic standards for admissible evidence of ecocide crime.

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“…This technique is based on patterns of organic components of petroleum and refined products determined with various types of laboratory analyses. The typical approach is that laboratory analyses are conducted in tiers, starting with gas chromatography/flame ionization (GC/FID) (i.e., Tier 1) to collect general information and followed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) (i.e., Tier 2) for more specific information (Morrison, 2000;Stout et al, 2002;Wang and Stout, 2007;Lu, 2011b;Petrisor, 2014;Douglas et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of chemical fingerprint data to enhance remedial site investigations at petroleum impacted sites

Lü¹

2016

Environmental Forensics

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As well known by remediation practitioners, the indispensable "road map" for remedial site investigation is the conceptual site model (CSM), in which contaminant sources and migration pathways are two of the most critical CSM components. The ultimate goal of site investigation is to delineate the extent of contaminants, which is constrained by migration pathways. As contaminant sources are the starting points of the migration pathways, understanding contaminant sources is critically important in developing and refining a CSM. In the world of liability dispute and litigation, identification of sources of petroleum hydrocarbons is one of the, if not the only, objectives. A variety of environmental forensic techniques have been developed over a long history of litigation and the validity of these techniques has been established through publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals and books, as well as the vigorous scrutiny of the litigation process. Among the techniques, chemical fingerprinting is arguably the earliest developed and the most widely used technique for petroleum hydrocarbon forensics. During remedial investigations at complex petroleum impacted sites, chemical fingerprint data are equally of value for source identification, which in turn helps in development and/or enhancement of CSMs. This article presents an overview of applications of chemical fingerprinting in remedial site investigation at petroleum hydrocarbonimpacted sites. The first scenario is about avoiding unnecessary site investigations through proving nonexistence of perceived or suspected contaminant sources. The second scenario is about mapping out light nonaqueous-phase liquids (LNAPL) migration pathways using petroleum biomarkers. The third scenario is about expediting cleanup by differentiating current from historical releases using GC/FID chromatograms. The final scenario is about application of chemical fingerprinting in natural source-zone depletion evaluation. Common to all the applications is that there is no involvement of other potential responsible parties. The chemical fingerprinting techniques were used to achieve the goals of remedial investigations through effective site characterization. In all scenarios, the effective site characterization helped to avoid unnecessary remedial investigation and/or to realize considerable cost savings when remediation is implemented.

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Environmental Forensics Fundamentals

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Comprehensive Environmental Investigation at Former Industrial/Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Sites in Long Beach, CA: A Forensic Perspective

Comprehensive Environmental Investigation at Former Industrial/Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Sites in Long Beach, CA: A Forensic Perspective

Proof of Ecocide: Towards a Forensic Practice for the Proposed International Crime Against the Environment

Use of chemical fingerprint data to enhance remedial site investigations at petroleum impacted sites

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