Date and Time:	Friday, June 5, 8:30 am to 1:00 pm
Instructors:	Felicia Barnett, Site Characterization Technical Support Center

This field trip will consist of a visit to the Melvin L. Newman Wetlands Center in Clayton County, GA to hear a presentation on wetlands at the exhibit center. After the presentation, the wetlands center representatives will guide the participants on a walk through the wetlands trail.

After visiting the wetlands center, participants will travel to the Clayton County Water Authority's constructed wetlands where a representative will give a presentation on the county's wastewater treatment and reclamation system. This portion of the field trip will require a 30-minute walk on relatively flat board trails. Casual clothes and walking shoes, sunscreen, and or umbrellas, depending on the weather, are recommended. This walk will be through a wet wooded area which can include insects, other animal life, as well as numerous plants including poison ivy. Precautions for those with allergies should be considered.

For more information on the Melvin L. Newman Wetlands Center please visit http://www.ccwa1.com/facilities/wetlands.center.aspx.

For more information on the Clayton County Water Authority Wastewater Treatment Plant please visit http://www.ccwa1.com/operations/water.reclamation.aspx.

This field trip is limited to 30 participants. Participants will depart the hotel at 8:30 a.m. and return to the hotel by 1:00 p.m.

Date and Time:

Friday, June 5, 8:30 am to 1:00 pm

The Atlantic Station/Old Hapeville Ford Plant field trip will begin with a presentation at the hotel beginning at 8:30 a.m. After the presentation, participants will travel by bus to view the Atlantic Station site followes by a tour of the Former Ford Automobile Plant site. Please see below for additional information on both sites.

From Denver to Dallas to downtown Los Angeles, multibillion-dollar large-scale mixed-used developments are taking shape. Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta is Exhibit A. Atlantic Station is not only extraordinarily large, but it is also being built on a formerly contaminated site that was home to a hundred-year-old steel mill, which ceased operation in 1998. Now, the location has become a city within a city on 138 acres with retail, residential, commercial and public space in Midtown Atlanta, the commercial district. The development seems to be exceeding the expectations of some people. The $2 billion investment will create a total of 13 million new square feet. Much of the commercial property within the District - where the second Class A office building is coming out of the ground - is built atop a parking structure that will eventually have 15,000 spaces. (The structure was part of the environmental remediation to cap the area where the steel mill operated and it is built on top of the contained area). The main problem with the site was that in addition to being associated in people's minds with a polluted steel mill, it was separated from downtown by two merging Interstate highways. When the steel mill was built, this was the outskirts of town. But the city grew up around it, creating an enticing redevelopment spot. It has now been connected to the rest of downtown by a highway overpass and pedestrian bridge. EPA certified the property as safe for construction on December 11, 2001, after years of environmental cleanup. It is said to be the nation's largest remediation of a Brownfield, defined by the EPA as contaminated property, usually where heavy industry once operated. It took another $250 million of infrastructure investment in roads, sewers and utility lines before construction of buildings could begin in 2002. Today, the site is almost complete.

The second stop will be just south of Downtown Atlanta at the former Ford Automobile Plant site in Hapeville, Georgia. The site was the home of the Hapeville Ford Plant until its recent closure. Jacoby, the site developer will redevelop the 122-acre site adjacent to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport into an "aerotropolis" -- an aviation-intensive business district that is expected to include office, retail, restaurant, hotel and airport parking. The vision is to reshape the Hapeville Ford Automobile Plant into a 6.5 million-square-foot mixed-use redevelopment with 1.6 million square feet of retail and 2.2 million square feet for a hotel and conference center. However, significant environmental issues have to be addressed first. The site began redevelopment in 2008.

The contrast between the two sites should be interesting and enlightening.

This field trip is limited to 45 participants. Participants will begin at 8:30 a.m. with a presentation at the hotel. After the presentation, participants will depart the hotel by bus at approximately 9:00 a.m. and return to the hotel by 1:00 p.m.

Date and Time:

Friday, June 5, 6:30 am to 7:30 pm

The Savannah River Site (SRS) tour, sponsored by the Federal Facilities Forum, will introduce attendees to: site cleanup actions, green remediation, nuclear waste vitrification, and a nuclear weapons reactor.

Due to security requirements at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facility, registered RPMs (after confirmation with Nina Reyes at Tetra Tech) will need to their home address and social security number (SSN) to Allison Lintvedt, Environmental Management Support, Inc. You can only provide this information by Fax to Allison at (301) 589-8487 or you can call her with your SSN at (301) 589-5318, extension 34. Allison will confirm receipt of information by e-mail with each attendee. Information needs to be provided to Allison no later than Wednesday, May 20, 2009.

This field trip will leave the Intercontinental Buckhead Atlanta at 6:30 a.m. and will not return to the Intercontinental until 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 5, 2009. You will not be able to cancel your attendance after you register, so please make sure you can make the commitment to attend this field trip. Since the trip is limited to only 40 EPA RPMs, any last minute cancellations will make it impossible for another attendee to participate after May 20, 2009.

EPA Headquarters will pay for your lodging the night of Friday, June 5 at the Intercontinental Buckhead Atlanta if you attend the field trip.

The Savannah River Site is a key DOE industrial complex responsible for stewardship of the environment, the nuclear weapons stockpile, and nuclear materials. The facility processes and stores nuclear materials in support of national defense and the U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts. The site also develops and deploys technologies to improve the environment and treat nuclear and hazardous wastes left from the Cold War and is a National Priority List site under Superfund. The SRS complex covers 198,344 acres, or 310 square miles, encompassing parts of Aiken, Barnwell, and Allendale counties in South Carolina, bordering the Savannah River. The site is owned by the DOE and managed and operated by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC. SRNS is responsible for the site’s nuclear facility operations, Savannah River National Laboratory, and all the site’s administrative functions.

Participants attending this field trip are required to wear a hard hat, safety glasses, work gloves, and sturdy, steel- and closed-toe work shoes while touring the facility. Hard hats, safety glasses, and work gloves will be provided. However, participants will need to bring their own steel- and closed-toe work shoes with them. In addition, no cell phones or cameras are allowed in the facility. Participants are also required to bring with them two forms of government-issued photo identification. Participants must have the original forms of identification; a photocopy will not suffice. Click here for a list of acceptable forms of identification.

Please view the following resources for this field trip:

• Agenda
• Acceptable identification list

Date and Time:	Friday, June 5, 8:30 am to 11:30 am
Instructors:	Natalie Capiro, Georgia Institute of Technology Kelly Fletcher, Georgia Institute of Technology Emmie Granbery, Georgia Institute of Technology Kurt Pennell, Tufts University Kirsti Ritalahti, Georgia Institute of Technology Sara Thomas, Georgia Institute of Technology

Representatives of the Georgia Institute of Technology will give presentations on four exciting projects being conducted at the school. Presentations include the following:

Characterizing DNAPL Source Zone Architecture and Associated Plume Response Widespread use of chlorinated ethenes in dry cleaning and degreasing operations has led to groundwater contamination at thousands of industrial facilities and governmental installations, which has important implications for human health. Research has shown that in situ remediation technologies are unlikely to remove 100 percent of the chlorinated ethene dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) mass from a contaminated subsurface environment, therefore it is important to understand the effects of partial DNAPL source zone mass removal on contaminant concentrations in down-gradient groundwater plumes. A series of 2-D aquifer cell experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of source zone architecture in a mixed DNAPL system (specifically 1:1 [molar ratio] of trichloroethene [TCE] and tetrachloroethene [PCE]) on down-gradient plume concentrations as a function of source depletion. Results from these studies indicated that TCE was preferentially depleted during aqueous phase dissolution from the mixed DNAPL source zone while PCE was preferentially depleted during source zone flooding with a 4% surfactant solution (Tween 80, a nonionic, food-grade surfactant). The experimental data obtained from these studies will be used to evaluate the inter-relationships between the initial source zone architecture, mass removal, reductions in mass flux and plume evolution in subsurface systems.

Combined Remedies and Bioenhanced Dissolution for DNAPL Source Zone Bioremediation Despite documented successes of chlorinated solvent source zone mass reduction, none of the currently employed technologies (such as surfactant flushing, air sparging, co-solvent flushing, chemical oxidation, and thermal treatment) are expected to remove all dense nonaqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) contamination, even under favorable conditions. This residual contamination may lead to continued and persistent contaminant elution that poses risks to human health and the environment. In an effort to improve in situ treatment of DNAPL source zones, our research evaluates the potential to combine physical-chemical and biological technologies in order to overcome the shortcomings associated with each standalone treatment. Several approaches have been investigated, including: enhanced solubilization flushing using a food-grade, biodegradable surfactant (Tween 80) followed by microbial reductive dechlorination (bioaugmentation) to achieve detoxification of residual DNAPL, and bioaugmentation down gradient from active thermal treatment of a low permeability contaminated chlorinated ethene source zone. The combination of such technologies has the potential to biologically enhancing dissolution 1.3 to 14 times (over abiotic dissolution alone), which ultimately can lead to decreased cleanup times and costs.

Molecular Tools for Microbial Reductive Dechlorination Assessment Chloroethene contamination in groundwater poses a very real threat to drinking water. Many anaerobic bacteria reduce tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE) to cis-dichloroethene, which is also toxic. Dehalococcoides (Dhc) are strict anaerobic bacteria that completely detoxify chloroethenes to environmentally benign ethene. Dhc possess reductive dehalogenase (RDase) genes implicated in dechlorination, and these genes also are useful targets for nucleic acid-based molecular tools to evaluate in situ bioremediation. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) approaches provide reliable measures of Dhc abundance in groundwater samples. Analysis of Dhc abundance at chloroethene-contaminated sites provides RPMs with relevant information to guide decision-making and monitor the progress of bioremediation.

Radionuclide Immobilization Radionuclides, in particular hexavalent uranium, U(VI), are commonly found in soils, sediments, and groundwater at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites. U(VI) is soluble in water and spread in aquifers with the flow of groundwater. Several bacteria reduce U(VI) to U(IV), which occurs as the insoluble mineral uraninite, UO2. Hence, the activity of U(VI)-reducing bacteria results in uranium immobilization as uraninite and plume containment. This bioremediation strategy is being explored at the pilot-scale at the Integrated Field-Scale Subsurface Research Challenge (IFC) site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.