The Occurrence of Appendix IX Organic Constituents in Disposal Site Ground Water

Abstract

Monitoring data from 479 disposal site investigations were used to provide an initial estimate of the occurrence and distribution of 208 Appendix IX organic constituents in ground water. The most prevalent class of contaminants were the volatile organic compounds, which accounted for 84 percent of all the detectable events in the composite data set involving Appendix IX organic constituents. The abundance of the remaining subsets of Appendix IX organic constituents decreased in the following order: base/neutral compounds (8.6 percent), acid extractable compounds (3.5 percent), pesticides (3.0 percent), RCRA pesticides (0.6 percent), and non‐priority pollutants (0.25 percent). A total of 66 Appendix IX organic constituents, including one volatile compound, two pesticides, three base/neutral compounds, and 60 non‐priority pollutant compounds were not detected in any of the waste disposal site ground water monitoring records that were reviewed. The current regulatory requirement to monitor for Appendix IX organic constituents is approximately four times more expensive than monitoring for conventional priority pollutants (volatile, base/neutral, acid extractable, and pesticide compounds). Because the non‐priority pollutant compounds account for an estimated 76 percent of the Appendix IX analytical costs but only 0.25 percent of the detectable events in disposal site ground water, it has been recommended that this class of compounds be deleted from routine monitoring programs. A scaling back of the current requirement to the conventional priority pollutants would still target more than 99 percent of the Appendix IX organic constituent occurrences in ground water and result in an analytical cost savings of approximately $2750 per sample or an estimated $51 million a year without significantly reducing the volume of useful organic monitoring data that would be generated to assess ground water conditions in the vicinity of waste disposal sites.

Toxicological Profile for Ethylbenzene

“…These authors found that ethylbenzene was detected at ≈25% of the waste water effluents (receiving secondary treatment) and only 3% of the groundwater sampled in the vicinity of sanitary landfill sites. Groundwater monitoring at 479 hazardous waste disposal sites indicated that ethylbenzene, like the other 9 VOCs monitored, was detected at more than 100 of the 479 sites tested (Plumb 1991). Ethylbenzene was also one of the VOCs detected in groundwater samples from hazardous waste sites in all 10 EPA regions.…”

The Application of Nano‐Sized Zero‐Valent Iron for In Situ Remediation of Chlorinated Ethylenes in Groundwater: A Field Case Study

“…Dichloroethylene includes three isomers: 1,1-dichloroethylene, cis-l,2-dichloroethylene, and trans-l,2-dichloroethylene. Preparations containing PCE and TCE have often been used as industrial solvents and degreasers and, along with petroleum products, together represent the most common organic contaminants found in groundwater and soil (Jiricek et al, 2007;Plumb, 1991). Currently, environmental contam ination by these substances is mainly a consequence of old ecological loads from old industrial manufacturing.…”

Field Screening for Halogenated Volatile Organic Compounds

“…He suggested that monitoring for VOCs be used as an early warning system for excursions to indicate the need for more extensive laboratory analysis for organics, and that statistical considerations show that this will work correctly more than 90% of the time. The top 18 VOCs of interest are listed in Table 1 (Plumb 1991). A similar, but not identical, list was developed for sites in Germany (Kerndorff et al 1992).…”