A dedicated portable fluorineter, for use with fiber optic chemical sensors (FOCS) has been designed, constructed, tested, and calibrated. This represents a major advance in the development of a FOCS system suitable for in-field use. The portable fluorimeter uses an incandescent lamp, instead of a laser, for FOCS excitation and a photodiode, in place of a photomultiplier tube for detecting the fluorescence signal. It uses an optical system which is internally connected to a unitized optical block by 600 pm core optical fibers, to minimize alignment problems and increase overall system ruggedness. The system noise is less than .1.5 mV and the long-term drift is less than ±2 mV/hour. Measurements of organochloride were made at concentrations as low as 80 parts-per-billion with a signal to noise ratio of 40:1.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed to amend federal regulations to require vadose zone monitoring at certain hazardous waste facilities. To support this proposal, EPA evaluated previous policy on vadose zone monitoring and examined advances in vadose zone monitoring technology. Changes in EPA vadose zone monitoring policy were driven by demonstrated advances in the available monitoring technology and improvements in understanding of vadose zone processes/When used under the appropriate conditions, currently available direct and indirect monitoring methods can effectively detect contamination that may leak from hazardous waste facilities into the vadose zone. Direct techniques examined include soil‐core monitoring and soil‐pore liquid monitoring. Indirect techniques examined include soil‐gas monitoring, neutron moderation, complex resistivity, ground‐penetrating radar, and electrical resistivity. Properly designed vadose zone monitoring networks can act as a complement to saturated zone monitoring networks at numerous hazardous waste facilities. At certain facilities, particularly those in arid climates where the saturated zone is relatively deep, effective vadose zone monitoring may allow a reduction in the scope of saturated zone monitoring programs.
Sampling of soil pore moisture in the vadose zone underneath land disposal facilities (landfills and surface impoundments) for hazardous waste has been suggested as an “early warning system” to detect leakage from these facilities. Some states require vadose zone moisture sampling at such sites. Given a leak of a particular size, mathematical models can estimate the necessary moisture sample volume collection times and lysimeter spacings to guarantee detection of the leak in a homogeneous medium. Examination of 47 hazardous waste sites existing in 1984 indicated the most were located in areas with water tables too shallow to permit vadose zone detection monitoring. Several of the 47 sites had soils that could be described as loamy sand, silt loam or silty clay. Using these three soils as examples, the process of lysimeter leak‐detector network design has been illustrated. For a particular loamy sand with a saturates hydraulic conductivity of 10‐6 cm/ sec, the maximum ceramic lysimeter spacing is 15.5 feet at a depth of 30 feet to collec a moisture sample of 10 mL in one week from a 1 ft2 leak. For a silt loam, maximum lysimeter spacing would be 17 feet at depth of 15 feet. For silty clays, the maximum lysimeter spacing is 7 feet at a depth of 2 feet; maximum emplacement depth is about 9 feet. Calculations show that in some soils, suction lysimeters will not be able to collect usable moisture samples. Since soil properties vary widely and lysimeter spacing is strongly dependent on soil‐moisture characteristics appropriate soil measurements and modeling must be performed at each disposal facility to estimate lysimete performance and to select locations for emplacement.
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