Interview mit Deana Crumbling US-EPA

Hallo,

heute geben wir ein Interview wieder, das die Kollegen von "Contaminated Sites Investigation" mit Deana Crumbling von der US-Umweltbehörde EPA geführt haben. Es geht um innovative Untersuchungsstrategien, namentlich den Triad-Ansatz der US-EPA.

"Since 1997, Deana Crumbling has been with EPA’s Technology Innovation Program, which gathers and disseminates information about technology advancements and technical strategies for investigating, cleaning, monitoring, and restoring contaminated sites. She provides analytical chemistry and general scientific support to OSWER programs. Deana comes from a diverse background, including 20 years experience as an analytical scientist and bench chemist in clinical, biomedical research, industrial, and environmental laboratories. She was also Laboratory Manager, Safety Officer and adjunct faculty for a Philadelphia college (1996-97). She began her career in the hazardous waste area as a Project Manager in the Pennsylvania DEP Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program (1990-91), later working for a site cleanup contractor/consulting firm (1994-95) and providing scientific advice to legal counsel. Since being with EPA HQ in Washington, DC, her focus has been on efforts to incorporate emerging science, best practices, and greater cost-effectiveness into contaminated site characterization and cleanup. These efforts have led to an interagency public-private partnership (the Triad Community of Practice) that has articulated the Triad framework of best practices as a catalyst to move the cleanup industry into a second-generation site management model. In collaboration with others, she has authored or co-authored over 25 journal articles, government publications, and conference proceedings in the past 8 years. Her degrees are in Environmental Science (MS from Drexel University, Philadelphia, 1997); Biochemistry (BS) and Psychology (BA) (both from Lebanon Valley College, Pennsylvania,1989).

Deana Crumbling
Environmental Scientist
USEPA Office of Superfund Remediation & Technology Innovation (OSRTI), Technology Innovation & Field Services Division (TIFSD), Technology Information & Integration Branch (TIIB), Mail Code (5203P), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460

Is the Triad concept successful in the United States?

Yes. Note that "success" can be evaluated from several standpoints:

• The number of projects using the full Triad approach and successfully achieving high scientific defensibility is growing. AT the same time, these projects are showing cost savings over the life of the project. Even projects that use only part of the Triad package get some benefit over traditional project management, altho not as great as if the full package of Triad best practices are used.• Some private & public agency clients have begun requesting the Triad approach by name. Some consulting firms are developing their own internal groups of Triad experts.

• There are now both a U.S. & EU based Triad Community of Practice (CoP). This is a group of people who join regular conference call to share knowledge, ideas & challenges related to site clean-up and Triad. The contact for the EU CoP is now Alec Tang, Alec.Tang@earth.ox.ac.uk. He is with the Environmental Knowledge Transfer Network (www.environmental-ktn.com).

• Articles that present specific Triad projects are being published in peer reviewed journals. These articles are not being published by the "original" Triad group, but by people unknown to us who have learned about Triad on their own. For example, an article about a Taiwan Triad project will be published soon in the "International Journal of Soil, Sediment and Water: Documenting the Cutting Edge of Environmental Stewardship."

• Official from the Netherlands attended Triad trainings at the 2008 ConSoil conference and are exploring how to build Triad concepts into their regulation development.

• The U.S. had its 1st Triad conference. There were about 250 attendees, with 6 countries represented (Taiwan, Marshall Is, Brazil, U.S., U.K. & Canada).

• That conference also changed the minds of some regulators. An official in the state of California wants to adopt Triad formally into their cleanup programs. There were a few senior geologists who had little exposure to Triad, and who were skeptical. They came to the Triad conference, and left with their minds completely changed. California seems to be on its way to being the U.S. leader in a systematic overhaul of their cleanup programs to increase efficiency.

What are the key points and main advantages of the concept?

Central point = management of decision uncertainty. This phrase is intended to be broad, because the sources of uncertainty in cleanup projects are many and varied. During the mo important leg of the Triad approach (systematic planning), the focus is on OPENLY identifying those issues that create project uncertainty. The next step is to determine how to manage (either by reducing uncertainty or "managing around" it) in the most efficient and transparent way possible. Many times, one important source of project uncertainty is how stakeholders will expect or react. So, involving stakeholders and building trust with them is almost always a key part of Triad. It has its own term, which is "social capital," as defined by a number of sociologists. Other sources of project uncertainty involve budgets and politics, etc. Because these complex issues can derail a project, even if the technical aspects of the project are sound, Triad projects will invest heavily in systematic planning, which continues over the course of the project. Triad projects are expected to have a multi-disciplinary team that participates in project planning and serves as technical experts over the course of the project. A well-defined conceptual site model (CSM) is also at the heart of Triad projects. There can be many aspects to a CSM (such as an exposure risk aspects, a geological aspect, a groundwater flow aspect, etc.). And the various aspects of the CSM will take different forms, as drawings & diagrams, maps, written information, charts, 3-D computer mapping, etc.

B0ut the key points that the CSM must convey in word & pictures are 1) How did contamination get there, and what kind of contamination is it; 2) Where is it now, and where might it be going, and who might be exposed; 3) Do we need to do something to mitigate risk, and if so, what.The biggest advantage of Triad is the expectation that the CSM will be evolved in real-time to the extent possible. Generating & interpreting data in real-time is much more feasible for most projects now than was possible in the past. But in the U.S. at least, the entire infrastructure for cleaning up sites was based on the idea of many static phases of work. In contrast, Triad practitioners will use their creativity to develop work plans that allow field decisions to proceed dynamically. This allows the scientific approach to be used in a highly efficient way: a preliminary CSM is postulated, data is collected to test the CSM hypothesis and is interpreted in real-time. Then a refinement of the CSM is hypothesized and it is tested in real-time. Under ideal circumstances, a preliminary CSM might be iteratively tested & refined to maturity in the space of several days to weeks, rather than in years as is common in the U.S.To support this type of dynamic, adaptive field work, real-time data generation & interpretation tools are needed. These include a wide variety of field analytical instrumentation that might be hand-held, used in the back of a truck, or in a full-fledged field lab trailer. It also includes rapid turnaround time from a traditional laboratory. Any mechanism that can generate, manage & interpret data quickly enough to keep the field team active and making decisions in real-time in the field is considered "real-time." Computer software and other technologies that manage & map data to support refinements of the CSM are critical to a Triad project. A big source of uncertainty in the CSM and in site decisions is data uncertainty. For the environmental cleanup field, the bulk of data uncertainty stems from sampling uncertainty: Is the small amount of soil or water truly representative of the much larger volume of soil or water to which the result will be extrapolated? Traditional analytical technologies have been too expensive to support the higher sampling densities needed to ensure sample representativeness and delineate different populations of contamination. With its reliance on less expensive field analytics and dynamic work strategies, the Triad approach is able to "follow the evidence" in real-time, making each data point count toward refinement of the CSM and reducing the number of uninformative data points. Field methods and traditional lab methods are used together to create a collaborative data set. In a collaborative data set, a rapid, less expensive technique is used to manage for sampling uncertainty. Then, as needed to control decision uncertainty, samples of known representativeness are analyzed by the traditional, more expensive, lab techniques in order to manage any analytical uncertainty remaining from the rapid method. Traditional laboratory typically perform better for detection limit issues, analyte-specificity, precision, etc. A flaw in traditional lab analysis is reliance on broad-spectrum analysis that try to report 100 to 200 organic compounds in a single run. An analytical method can only be optimized for a few similar behaving compounds at a time, so the analytical quality is different from 1 analyte to another in the same run. Broad-spectrum laboratory methods are good screening tools to find out what contaminants may be at a site. But higher quality analytics can sometimes be achieved by modifying sample extraction/digestion techniques and the instrument run conditions to better match the analytes that are actually the focus of project decision-making.

Which problems or opposition did you meet?

There are many challenges to changing the status quo. The scientific and technological advances of the past decade now allow implementation of highly efficient strategies not imagined in the ‘70s and ‘80s when waste program regulations and procedures were first developed. Triad synthesizes these strategies into a holistic package. However, as noted above, the current practices that have become entrenched are derived from a thirty-year-old regulatory and procedural framework of hazardous waste site investigation and remediation. There is tremendous inertia, as well as professional and personal investment in maintaining the status quo. Fortunately, that is changing with the increasing rate of retirement of "the old guard" and an influx of more open-minded, innovation-friendly recent graduates. Another issue is that some practitioners interpret Triad-based information through filters inherent to the current paradigm. We seem to get one of 2 negative responses from these practitioners: 1) We already do the same things as Triad does, so we don't need to change; OR 2) Triad is so different from what we do that there is no way we can change to use Triad. Either way, the argument is put forth to provide an excuse for why the practitioner should not be expected to change they way they do things.Another problem with the filtering is that it can be very difficult for those new to Triad to envision how Triad actually works in a project. Very often, the only way to fully explain Triad concepts and practices is to take someone through an actual project. That is usually enough for them to finally "get it" in a way that words simply cannot convey. Until someone "gets it," it is common for them to misinterpret and miscommunicate Triad concepts to others. This has led to some amount of confusion and even the perception of resistance, when the resistance is only to their misperception, rather than to the reality of Triad.Much more could be said about the barriers we have seen. Contact me if more information is required.

How do you see the future of the concept? Where are adaptations needed,what are the emerging new trends, for example on the technological side?

The future lies with adoption of Triad by open-minded practitioners. Many of those embracing Triad are those just graduating from school. They are totally comfortable with computers and remote communication & collaboration. They easily detect contradictions between science & practice.As far as emerging technologies, they are a natural fit for Triad. Because Triad is built on the principle of uncertainty management, Triad practitioners & regulators should always welcome any newly emerging technologies or strategies that help them achieve that goal.The future for Triad also lies is those countries that have not followed the current U.S. pattern for structuring a regulatory system for site cleanup. Unlike the U.S. system, a more productive, less wasteful regulatory system would be built to readily accept new technologies, to acknowledge the presence of data uncertainty, to embrace scientific transparency, and to value well-trained technical experts within their own regulatory organization, rather than expect mostly non-technical project managers to be able to supervise the work of technical contractors. Countries that avoid creating barriers to the science & technologies Triad relies on will be able to embrace Triad much faster and much easier than countries with an entrenched, out-of-date status quo.

Some say that the world is flat. How about investigation and remediation of contaminated sites in the age of outsourcing?! Even nowadays it is possible to have an investigation or measurement campaign at daylight and send the data to India for creating tables or presentations during night. We know that is not a scientific question but it might get a economic driving force and therefore lead to new approaches. Do you think under this influence we might see the development of new standards in the field of technologies, workflow and strategies?

To my knowledge, this type of global out-sourcing has not been tried in a Triad project. However, Triad projects routinely use remote data sharing, collaborating and tasking between locations in the U.S. So I don't see any why it could not be done across the globe. However, there is a caveat: ALL those involved with a Triad project must be part of the planning process and understand the big picture. You can't just "air-drop" a set of data on someone who has no project context. There must be ample communications with other members of the project team. Given the ability of the internet to do all those things remotely, sharing data interpretation and management tasks and conferring with team members or experts from around the world is certainly a possibility.

How important will be the development of new easy-to-use software forpresentation and visualization of results?

As I’m sure is evident from the above, such software are vital to the success of a Triad project. Easy-to-use is great, but software users still need to be adequately trained on both using the software and understanding the strengths and limitations of the software. Software should never be used as a "black-box" or as a cheap substitute for a technical expert.

Could you give some tips to practicioners how to approach the strategies of the Triad concept?

Renounce the one-size-fits-all approaches (they don't work in this field!). Managers must reward staff who are willing to take risks to find a better way to do their job. Approach any problem or project with an open mind. Be willing to explore "what if..." scenarios and be creative. Always assume a task can be accomplished in more than 1 way, and your job is to evaluate them all and pick the one that works best for your circumstances. Assume that the day will come when Triad practices will become the routine, rather than the exception, so there will no longer be a need for the distinguishing name "Triad." Assume that the current best practices associated with Triad today will, over time, be replaced with "better" best practices... and embrace them.

Thank you very much Deana!

For more information: http://www.triadcentral.org/ "

Soweit das Interview. Beeindruckend finden wir vor allem die Klarheit mit der Deana Crumbling die Wichtigkeit der neuen Strategien schildert und die Erfahrung, dass die Widerstände verschwinden, wenn man die Ansätze erst einmal richtig verstanden und erlebt hat. Darin unterscheiden sich die USA und Deutschland wohl nicht. Auch wird nochmal eindrücklich die Wichtigkeit unterstrichen, vor Ort und unterstützt durch digitale Visualisierung das Untersuchungsprogramm immer wieder anzupassen. Ganz so, wie es z.B. auch im NORISC-Konzept vorgesehen ist.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen


Das Envisoft-Team

Envistigator 3D-Visualisierungssoftware

Hallo,

unsere 3D-Visualisierungssoftware "Envistigator" ist nun seit dem 13.10.08 verfügbar und das Interesse ist enorm.

Deshalb hier einige grundsätzliche Bemerkungen:
Eine Testversion ist im Webshop verfügbar und kann kostenlos heruntergeladen werden. Um eine Vollversion zu erhalten, müssen Sie lediglich einen Lizenzcode erwerben und die vollen Funktionen damit freischalten. Da die Software stetig weiterentwickelt wird, werden sukzessive neue Versionen zur Verfügung gestellt. Haben Sie bereits eine Version im Einsatz, können Sie diese einfach durch Download der neuen Version upgraden. Angemeldete Kunden werden über das Erscheinen neuer Versionen informiert.

Für den Envistigator gibt es bereits einige sogenannte Legendendateien. Diese Dateien dienen dazu, bestimmte Wertebereiche für Parameter (z.B. Schadstoffe) farblich hervorzuheben. So kann man zum Beispiel Gehalte, die über dem Zuordnungswert Z2 der LAGA liegen, rot oder violett einfärben. Die zur Verfügung gestellten Legendendateien sind sorgfältig erarbeitet, trotzdem können wir keine Haftung für die Vollständigkeit und Aktualität und auch nicht für die sinnhafte und fachlich korrekte Anwendung übernehmen.

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Denn die Größe der Polygone wird nicht nur von den Messwerten, sondern auch von der Informationsdichte beeinflußt, wodurch bei der Durchführung einer Untersuchung das erreichte Informationsniveau der Daten bereits visuell abgeschätzt werden kann. Weiterhin lassen sich im Envistigator durch die Berechnung von Mittelwerten und Voronois für bestimmte Tiefenbereiche (z.B. GOK bis Gründungstiefe) in Verbindung mit einer Legendendatei problematische und unproblematische Aushubbereiche direkt visualisieren.
Ab der nächsten Version wird auch eine Möglichkeit zur unmittelbaren Volumenberechnung bestehen!

Hier ein kleines Bild in dem Bereiche mit Prüfwertüberschreitungen über einen Plan der historischen Nutzung gelegt wurden.

Im Envistigator können Sie diese Voronois natürlich auch dreidimensional ansehen.

Um auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben, abonnieren Sie einfach diesen Blog (rechte Seitenleiste) oder im Webshop unseren Newsletter. Auch wenn Sie sich im Webshop als Kunde eingeloggt haben, senden wir Ihnen regelmäßig die wichtigen Infos zu.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Das Envisoft-Team

Verkaufsstart Envistigator!

Die Envistigator 3D-Visualisierungssoftware geht am 13.10.08 in den weltweiten Verkauf. In den letzten Wochen wurden weitere nützliche Features entwickelt und die Bedienung weiter vereinfacht.
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Mit freundlichen Grüßen


Das Envisoft-Team