Soil geochemical data from sample sites in counties that reported occurrences of anthrax in wildlife and livestock since 2000 were evaluated against counties within the same states (MN, MT, ND, NV, OR, SD and TX) that did not report occurrences. These data identified the elements, calcium (Ca), manganese (Mn), phosphorus (P) and strontium (Sr), as having statistically significant differences in concentrations between county type (anthrax occurrence versus no occurrence). Tentative threshold values of the lowest concentrations of each of these elements (Ca = 0.43 wt %, Mn = 142 mg/kg, P = 180 mg/kg and Sr = 51 mg/kg) and average concentrations (Ca = 1.3 wt %, Mn = 463 mg/kg, P = 580 mg/kg and Sr = 170 mg/kg) were identified from anthrax-positive counties as OPEN ACCESSGeosciences 2014, 4 115 prospective investigative tools in determining whether an outbreak had "potential" or was "likely" at any given geographic location in the contiguous United States.
Wide area urban contamination events, such as after a terrorist attack or other chemical, biological or radiological disaster, pose a logistical challenge for response and remediation. The extent of contamination, both on the surface and subsurface, directly impacts the costs related to characterization sampling, decontamination, and clearance sampling (e.g. personnel, consumables and waste management). Modeling tools that can predict the location and magnitude of contamination may allow for a more efficient allocation of key resources since wide area incidents may be very costly, and take an extended amount of time, to remediate. This paper identifies 27 existing water models that are able to simulate hydraulic, hydrologic and water quality processes and discusses the necessary adjustments to running the models during remediation activities. It also highlights how these features relate to the unique considerations encountered in the homeland security sector and discusses ongoing research needs.
This paper describes the modeling approach and example results for a newly introduced computational simulation tool to evaluate waste destruction in thermal incineration systems. The Configured Fireside Simulator (CFS) is a software simulator, originally developed for the Department of Defense to evaluate operations of the chemical demilitarization incinerators processing the chemical warfare agent stockpile of the US. The software was later adapted for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide for the ability to run "what if" scenarios of waste streams contaminated with chemical/biological (CB) threat agents in four specific incinerators, including the EPA's pilot-scale Rotary Kiln Incinerator Simulator (RKIS) facility, as well as three commercial incinerators based on design criteria for actual operating facilities. These commercial incinerators include a Medical/Pathological Waste Incinerator, a Hazardous Waste Burning Rotary Kiln, and a Waste-to-Energy Stoker-type combustor. The CFS uses three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics coupled with detailed chemical kinetic data for destruction of chemical warfare agents, coupled with kinetic data for biological agent destruction derived from bench-and pilot-scale experiments to predict the way agentcontaining materials will behave under full-scale combustion conditions in several different incinerator types. The objective of this paper is to describe the CFS software, how it works, and potential applications of this software to real-world situations. This software could be a valuable tool for researchers, regulators, and industry to evaluate potential operating conditions to help guide testing activities and develop operational scenarios for difficult-to-manage waste streams. Although this software has been under development for several years, this paper represents the software's first introduction to the scientific community in the peer-reviewed literature.
Large‐scale biological contamination incidents pose unique yet significant challenges to remediation operations. Previous incidents have demonstrated the utility of readily available commercial and municipal equipment for conducting remediation tasks. Preidentification and evaluation of such equipment could reduce lag time for response initiation and enhance overall response effectiveness and efficiency. The current study aimed to identify commercial and municipal equipment that could be beneficial in wide‐area biological remediation operations. Equipment were identified by market research, their utility was assessed by a group of subject matter experts, and a subset of those equipment was observed under operational conditions in a realistic urban environment. Observations and feedback from demonstration participants are presented within the article. This information is intended to support rapid decision‐making following large‐scale biological incidents, broaden the universe of potentially useful equipment to support the response, enhance response operations, and reduce the impact on the public.
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