Title:	PRETTY MUCH RETIRED
Date / Time:	11/15/23
Description	I have moved back to Washington but I am easing into retirement and not taking any new clients or sites. Email me if you need a referral.
Title:	BATTELLE MEETINGS 2020-2021-2022
Date / Time:	Dec 2021
Description	The 2020 Battelle Chlorinated meeting in Portland, Oregon was postponed until 2021 due to Covid and was to be held in Portland in combination with the Battelle 2021 Bioremediation meeting. However, those two meetings were also postponed due to COVID. I was coauthor on 2 presentations that were submitted to those meetings and resubmitted for the 2022 meeting but I did not attend.
Title:	HIGHLIGHTS FROM TALKS I ATTENDED AT THE BATTELLE PALM SPRINGS MEETING
Date / Time:	April 22, 2018 (Earth Day)
Description	Bruce Alleman gave a talk on the state of Abiotic to start the abiotic degradation session and mentioned the Clemson/Battelle Pelobacter/QPCR work on acetylene degraders. Chuck Newell (GSI) gave a talk on the state of source area treatment to start a session and talked about Ron Falta’s new RemChlor model which includes matrix diffusion. He also talked about some 2013 lab experiments that Tom Sales (Col St.) did, where simulated aquifers were loaded for X pore volumes and then various remediation techniques were applied including just rinsing. Even though loading periods were only pore volumes and not time (30+ years, let’s say), there was still massive rebound after the remediation had removed what appeared to be 99% in the water phase. He also talked about some more recent field work that showed busting up the matrix in the source area helped considerably. Mark Harkness (formerly of GE) gave a nice talk on 20 years of bioremediation experience. His best point was that additional $ spent on investigation up front will usually save more in design and implementation costs later. Lee Slater from Rutgers gave a geophysics talk on a fractured rock site that Beth Parker is also involved with. You can use NMR to measure porosity and pore size even on cores in the lab. USGS woman (Denise Akob) gave a talk on acetylene degraders and what it means for interpreting field data. She also said acetylene inhibits Dhc so I went to the mic and asked her what concentration and it was 3 mg/l. I said you would never see that because of acetylene degraders except maybe in a microenvironment near where it is being produced (on the soil particle). She liked that I came up with an answer to fit her statement but 3 mg/l would not survive in bulk ground water and there should be plenty of Dhc there to dechlorinate after it is gone. She said there is also evidence of gene transfer in acetylene bugs.
Title:	BATTELLE REMEDIATION MEETING: PALM SPRINGS, CA. APRIL 9 - 12
Date / Time:	January 11, 2018
Description	I will be attending the Battelle meeting in Palm Springs in April. I will file a summary report of important talks I attended when I return.
Title:	HIGHLIGHTS FROM BATTELLE MEETING IN PALM SPRINGS
Date / Time:	June 15, 2016
Description	Wildest innovation talk was given by Julie Konzuk of GeoSyntec on the possible uses of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). I had been exposed to NMR back in 1978 and at the time, the equipment took up half the room with metal racks and wires everywhere. Now there are desktop versions the size of a big coffee maker and they are likely more powerful. Uses included complex compound identification, DNAPL detection and pore structure. Travis McGuire of GSI (Houston) gave a talk on MNA in low K zones and said they are finding aerobic cometabolic biomarkers in anaerobic aquitards. I have a theory. One of the bugs in one of Sirem's cultures is a trichloropropane degrader. A student in Frank Loeffler's lab isolated a NON Dhc microorganism that makes ethene from Grape pomace saying they only looked there because Frank likes wine. I see a "loeffleri" organism in the future. Paul Tratnyek gave a talk on sulphidated nZVI (nano zero valent iron) being 20X more reactive with TCE than regular nZVI which is more reactive with water. Rumor has it the next meeting will be in Palm Springs in 2018 and 2020 as well but I just filled out a Battelle questionaire that asked if we preferred Monterey or Palm Springs.......
Title:	BATTELLE REMEDIATION MEETING: PALM SPRINGS, CA. MAY 22-26
Date / Time:	May 19, 2016
Description	I will be attending and presenting two posters. I will try to post highlights when I return
Title:	NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE (NAS) MEETING ON REMEDIATION IN FRACTURED ROCK
Date / Time:	Feb 23, 2016
Description	The prepublication of the report from the NAS meeting on remediation in fractured rock is now available at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/21742
Title:	I HAVE MOVED
Date / Time:	October 20, 2015
Description	I moved from Seattle area to Akron, OH in September. My new phone # is 330-805-4272. My email address is still the same.
Title:	3RD PARTY ARTICLE ON REAL TIME MONITORING AT DRY CLEANER PROJECT
Date / Time:	June 4, 2015
Description	https://in-situ.com/blog/troll-9500-used-in-combined-remedy-approach-at-former-dry-cleaning-site-contaminated-with-pce/ Project is going well.
Title:	BATTELLE BIOREMEDIATION MEETING 2015 - MIAMI
Description	I was not able to attend the meeting this year. See you at Monterrey in 2016
Title:	REPORT ON BATTELLE CONFERENCE IN MONTEREY
Date / Time:	May 29, 2014
Description	Todd Wiedemeier gave a presentation on a new MNA screening tool for chlorinated solvents that is being developed to supplement the original screening tool in the 1998 EPA guidance document. The new screening tool will include the molecular biological tools (MBTs) that are now available, the use of CSIA, and will consider abiotic degradation as well. Mary Deflaun of GeoSyntec gave a very nice presentation on using Newman’s Zone and KB-1 on 4 dilute plumes, all of which were done within 3 years. I have requested her presentation in support of the most common approach I use at sites. The return of cometabolic biodegradation: Paul Hatzinger of CB&I (formerly SHAW) gave a nice presentation on cometabolic degradation using propane and ethane to biodegrade compounds (1,4-dioxane, EDB) that are often found as dilute plumes or in very low concentrations. An EDB pilot test was very successful at the Massachusetts Military Reservation. Hope Lee of Pacific Northwest Lab (PNL) gave a very good talk on cometabolic enzyme probes and their usefulness in supporting MNA arguments by showing low but real rates of biodegradation in aquifers where very little degradation appears to be occurring (ie. no daughter product generation). The probes have now been used as a line of evidence at more than 20 MNA sites. SiRem’s KB-1+ culture has now been shown to work very well on dichloro- and trichloropropanes at concentrations in the 1 mg/l range. SiRem is looking for samples from other sites to test; Contact Jeff Roberts. Our poster looked great, was very well received and was in a great location so it got a lot of attention. Congratulations to OTIE for putting it together.
Title:	BATTELLE REMEDIATION MEETING: MONTEREY, CA. MAY 19-22
Date / Time:	May 5, 2014
Description	I will be attending the Battelle Remediation meeting as I usually do. I am coauthor on a poster presentation on the use of emulsified vegetable oil (EVO) and bioaugmentation for chlorinated solvent remediation at a site that had been first treated thermally. I will try to post a summary report after the meeting.
Title:	SUMMARY OF FRACTURED ROCK WORKSHOP
Date / Time:	June 5, 2013
Description	I presented at the National Academy of Science Fractured Rock Workshop in late May. I will present a summary after the committee comes out with their final report some time next year. Report is still not out as of March 15, 2015 but rumor has it will be out in the next few months.
Title:	BATTELLE BIOREMEDIATION MEETING: JACKSONVILLE, FL JUNE 17-21
Date / Time:	April 2, 2013
Description	I will be attending the Battelle Bioremediation meeting as I usually do. I have a platform presentation and am coauthor on 3 poster presentations. Platform and one poster are on the use of emulsified vegetable oil (EVO) and bioaugmentation for chlorinated solvent remediation at sites in the UK and Florida. The UK site is the first private site to use enhanced bioremediation with bioaugmentation for chlorinated solvents in the UK outside of the SABRE demonstration project. The other posters are on research projects that I am helping David Freedman and his grad students at Clemson University with. One is on testing enhanced bioremediation at a fractured bedrock site in southern California, the other is on methylene chloride serving as an electron donor for dechorination of TCE to ethene. I will try to post a summary report after the meeting.
Title:	WESTERN PROCESSING OFFSITE PLUME OFFICIALLY GONE......
Date / Time:	February 28, 2013
Description	According to the EPA Region 10 website (as of April 2012): "Offsite contaminants have declined to the point that concentrations of groundwater contaminants in the affected area are frequently below quantification limits at this time." For project description, see: http://co2andwater.com/project_details.asp?projectid=2
Title:	MNA DOCUMENT REVIEW
Date / Time:	October 25, 2012
Description	I am currently reviewing a Draft of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about MNA in the 21st Century document for GSI's ESTCP project (ER-201211) that will come out next year. It is well done and looks like it is going to be a very useful document.
Title:	BATTELLE HIGHLIGHTS SUMMARY (TALKS I ATTENDED)
Date / Time:	June 6, 2012
Description	State of Environmental Remediation Panel (Pre B1 session) 7 big names. My favorite take home messages were from Beth Parker; "the biogeochemistry of aquitards is very different (from aquifers)", and from Tom Sales, who made a statement about how we had originally characterized sites via wells and now were just figuring out that might not be the best way. I summarized his statement in my notes with my favorite quote from John Wilson; "Wells are holes in the ground that tell lies." Daniel Leigh of SHAW gave a talk on bioaugmentation of Aerobic Aquifers (F3). Commercial bioaugmentation cultures are apparently not as sensitive to oxygen exposure as we all believe. They did several exposure experiments (with SDC-9) up to 72 hours and still had good survival of activity. However, it was not clear if the exposure experiments simulated something that would happen in handling or time in the ground while mixing with aerobic ground water. I would say the jury is still out. Bruce Henry of Parsons (C4 session) gave a presentation on the protocol they are developing for testing new natural attenuation enhancers (NAE), especially ones for emerging compounds. They did laboratory microcosm studies, column studies and field pilot tests (push-pull). One of his big conclusions was that lab and pilot tests work very well, and one could skip the more difficult column tests and go right from lab microcosms to the field. I attended the Emerging compounds session (A6) and there was a 1,4-dioxane biodegradation pilot test talk sandwiched in between two talks on academic lab studies. I learned you can get dioxane from other sources than 1,1,1-TCA, in this case poorly "fixed" glycol waste, and the concentrations were high; 600+ mg/l. He attempted to use methane as a cometabolite but unfortunately, the pilot failed to generate positive results (author's conclusion). I think he liked Francisco's anaerobic degradation talk immediately following.
Title:	BATTELLE REMEDIATION MEETING IN MONTEREY
Date / Time:	May 25, 2012
Description	I attended the meeting May 21-24. I was coauthor on two platform presentations. The first involved an overview of the natural TCE degradation (biotic and abiotic) occurring at a fractured sandstone site in California, was presented by Rich Andrachek of MWH, and he did a great job. There were several other presentations at the conference on the same site, including ones by John Cherry and Beth Parker. The 2nd was an update of last years's presentation at the Battelle bioremediation meeting in Reno, on the anaerobic biodegradation of 1,4-dioxane work which I am collaborating on with Clemson University. It was presented by Francisco Barajas, the grad student doing the lab work. He did a great job, got a lot of good questions which continued into long discussions after with several people working on dioxane degradation. I will try to have a highlight summary on the talks I attended within a week or so.
Title:	CLIENT QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Date / Time:	April 4, 2012
Description	Regarding our responses to EPA comments on a work plan: "I sent out the response yesterday, EPA gave me approval today. I've never seen them move that fast."
Title:	ANOTHER NO FURTHER ACTION REQUEST APPROVED
Date / Time:	November 17, 2011
Description	Client just received the approval letter from the regulatory agence for No Further Active Remediation on the third TCE plume at their site. Everyone is happy. I guess this bioremediation stuff works.