Water Resources Development Act

ERDC TN-DOER-T2

December 2000

relating to the appropriate treatment of toxic pollutants in bottom sediments. Five areas were

specified in the act as requiring priority consideration in conducting demonstration projects:

Saginaw Bay, Michigan; Sheboygan Harbor, Wisconsin; Grand Calumet River, Indiana; Ashtabula

River, Ohio; and Buffalo River, New York.

To fulfill the requirements of the act, GLNPO initiated the Assessment and Remediation of

Contaminated Sediments (ARCS) program. The ARCS program completed a number of studies

describing alternative physical, chemical, and biological treatment processes and approaches for

design and implementation of treatment (Averett et al. 1990; USEPA 1994; PIANC 1996). The

ARCS program concluded that many technologies are available for treating contaminated

sediments, and that treatment is generally the most costly component with the least amount of

full-scale experience and will require additional development for full-scale application. The level of

experience in sediment remediation, particularly with treatment processes, is very limited, and there

is a high degree of uncertainty with the estimates of costs and contaminant losses from most of these

technologies. Reliable cost estimates are developed only through the experience that comes from

the execution and observation of multiple full-scale remediation projects.

Water Resources Development Act. The Water Resources Development Acts (WRDA) of

1990, 1992, 1996, and 1999 authorized funding for the purpose of demonstrating on a commercial

scale (up to 382,277 cu m (500,000 cu yd)) the capability to decontaminate contaminated dredged

material from the harbors of New York/New Jersey. The WRDA Decontamination Program has

resulted in the development and evaluation of both thermal and nonthermal technologies from the

laboratory and bench scale to the pilot and field scale. The goal of the WRDA Decontamination

Program is the construction and implementation of one or more sediment decontamination facilities

that result in a treatment train capable of producing a viable end product for beneficial use

applications such as construction or fill materials and agricultural grade topsoil (Jones et al. 1998).

Many of the technologies evaluated for the New York/New Jersey harbor sediments were reviewed

during this PIANC Specialty Workshop.

PIANC SPECIALTY WORKSHOP: Approximately 100 people attended the workshop,

representing the navigation industry, private consulting, environmental regulatory agencies, and

academia. The purpose of the workshop was to conduct a critical review of selected technologies

available for treating contaminated dredged sediments from navigation projects. In addition, the

beneficial use potential for each technology was assessed. Six invited speakers from private

industry gave presentations. Two luncheon speakers provided information on technologies used in

Europe. Technologies presented by the speakers included soil washing, flowable fill,

stabilization/solidification, electrochemical treatment, and production of blended cement, bricks,

glass aggregate and lightweight aggregate. A panel consisting of representatives from the

navigation industry, private consulting firms, and academia reviewed the technology applications

(Figure 1).

The speakers were requested to focus their presentations on the ability of their technologies to

handle the volumes of sediment and production rates typically associated with large-scale

navigation dredging projects. They were requested to address the following topics: