ABSTRACT

Risk-Based Performance Criteria for Solidification/Stabilization

Solidification/stabilization is the most commonly used remediation technology at Superfund sites. Full implementation of risk assessments at these sites could lead to lower cost remediation while maintaining full environmental protection. Despite their advantages, risk-based approaches generally have not been used to evaluate alternatives for s/s of contaminated materials because of a lack of a clear framework for such risk assessments and the lack of accepted test procedures or suitable prediction techniques to provide the information needed for risk assessments. Therefore, the goal of this project is to develop and validate a risk-based performance evaluation method for solidification/stabilization. This goal will be achieved by accomplishing the following objectives: (1) Develop procedures for testing and predicting equilibrium-limited leaching; (2) Develop procedures for testing and predicting kinetic-limited leaching; (3) Demonstrate the risk-based performance assessment procedures. These objectives will be pursued with a three part research plan in which the tasks correspond to individual objectives. The first two tasks will develop procedures to characterize behavior of materials treated by solidification/stabilization in terms that are directly useable in a framework for risk assessment. This framework considers two limiting cases - kinetic-limited and equilibrium-limited leaching. Both laboratory test procedures and predictive methods will be developed for each case. The last task will evaluate the risk-based characterization procedures and the overall framework for risk assessment using data for a range of waste materials and s/s technologies.