To assess the potential for risk from contaminated sediments and to help determine contamination levels for remedial designs, EPA's Land Research Program has developed several ecological risk assessment tools including: 1) Biota-Sediment Accumulation Factor Data Set, which can be used to evaluate the transfer of chemicals from sediments into the aquatic food chain; 2) PCB Residue Effects (PCBRes) Database, an abundance of information for risk assessors to use for correlating polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other dioxin-like compound residues with toxic effects and developing Toxicity Reference Values (TRVs); and 3) ECOTOX Database, for use when risk assessors and managers need to develop TRVs for sediment sites that have contaminants other than, or in addition to, PCBs and dioxins and provides ready access to single-chemical toxicity information for aquatic and terrestrial life. Each of these tools facilitate a scientifically defensible risk assessment, improve the decision-making ability of risk managers at Superfund and other contaminated sites, and facilitate successful remediation efforts.

A little over a year ago, over 260 individuals gathered from the U.S. and abroad at UMass-Amherst in Massachusetts to discuss the use of the Triad Approach to conduct investigations and remedial actions faster, better, and at a reduced cost. The Triad Community of Practice (CoP) has will redeliver updates of several of the same sessions to benefit the greater CLU-IN audience that either may not have been able to attend the conference, or were not able to attend a specific presentation while at the conference. By doing this, the Triad CoP hopes participants can learn more about some of the Triad tools and how they have been applied by the environmental industry.

EPA's new petroleum brownfields web site is designed to make information more accessible for those working to foster the cleanup and reuse of petroleum-impacted properties. It provides easy access to information that both new users and those familiar with brownfields will find useful. For instance, the Web site provides access to: "how to " guides, ways to find petroleum brownfields sites, assessment and cleanup information, financial guides and EPA Brownfields program and grants information, public/private partnership information, and sustainability and petroleum brownfields.

This issue of Technology News and Trends highlights innovative applications of soil vapor extraction (SVE) and bioventing for removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). SVE has accounted for approximately 25% of the in situ technologies used for source control over the past 25 years, and recent years have shown rising interest in bioventing technology.

Comparison of the concentrations of perchlorate, RDX, and HMX in diffusion samplers placed in wells against concentrations in samples collected by low-flow pumped sampling indicates generally good agreement between the pumped and diffusion samples for concentrations of the subject contaminants. The concentration differences indicate no systematic bias related to contaminant type or concentration level.