LTMO and Sustainability (part 1)

Sustainability is the new black.The concept of sustainability, as it applies to the environmental cleanup projects, centers on evaluating the impact of greenhouse gas generation or energy dependence of specific remediation processes. The tedious work of calculating the dependence of processes on fossil fuel input and other sustainability metrics will inevitably fall to Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) departments and consultants. From my perspective, the practice of sustainability assessments is about where risk assessment was in the 1980's. As Herb Ward once told me in reference to risk assessment, it is a "dark art". The origins of the inputs, the construction of the formulae and meaning of results are not currently based on consensus science, as the science has yet to evolve. As with risk assessment during the 1980's, we are experiencing myriad approaches to calculating sustainability metrics with no single, reliable template for making these calculations. This is an exciting time, but can cause a lot of sleepless nights when you are assigned the task of assessing processes for 'sustainability' with no roadmap for conducting these audits. In the US, sustainability practice really crossed the Rubicon with the issuance of Executive Order 13423 Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management in January 2007, when sustainability became an official policy with respect to federal agencies. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070124-2.html) Among other things, the executive order sets goals for federal agencies including improving energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing water consumption (through life-cycle cost-effective measures), and instituting 'green' building standards. Notably, heads of agencies are tasked with the "collection, analysis, and reporting of information to measure performance in the implementation of this order". Where present, the stated goals (reduction of water consumption 2% annually) are not astounding. However, requiring a process for accounting for water and energy use and documenting 'sustainability' is a major step. Now, how does long-term monitoring optimization fit into the mandate for sustainability assessments? The process of groundwater monitoring may not, on the surface seem like a major environmental threat; however, once you consider the amount of effort that goes into mobilizing crews, sampling wells, disposal of purge water, laboratory analysis (with the associated chemical waste), and managing the data -- you can see where the impacts can be relatively large for the amount of information gained. Site managers that are able to reduce the frequency of groundwater sampling or reduce the total number of wells sampled while maintaining the same level of confidence in the size and concentrations within the plume can make major steps toward sustainability goals at legacy waste sites. Moving from quarterly sampling to annual sampling alone cuts sampling related impacts by three quarters. The key to accomplishing these reductions is the careful documentation of historic site data, articulating the goals of the monitoring program and identifying your future data needs. These will be topics of future postings.