Effective elution of RDX and TNT from particles of Comp B in surface soil.

During live fire training exercises, large amounts of explosives are consumed. Low order detonations of high explosive payloads result in the patchy dispersal of particles of high explosive formulations over large areas of firing range soils. Dissolution of explosives from explosive formulation particles into soil pore water is a controlling factor for transport, fate, and effects of explosive compounds. We developed an empirical method to evaluate soils based on functionally defined effective dissolution rates. An automated Accelerated Solvent Extractor was used to determine the effective elution rates under controlled conditions of RDX and TNT from soil columns containing particles of Comp B. Contrived soils containing selected soil geosorbants and reactive surfaces were used to quantitatively determine the importance of these materials. Natural soils from training ranges of various soil types were also evaluated. The effects of geosorbants on effective elution rates were compound- and sorbent-specific. TNT elution was less than that of RDX and was greatly slowed by humic acid. Iron and iron-bearing clays reduced the effective elution rates of both RDX and TNT. This empirical method is a useful tool for directly generating data on the potential for explosives to leach from firing range soils, to identify general bulk soil characteristics that can be used to predict the potential, and to identify means to engineer soil treatments to mitigate potential transport.

Post-Katrina fecal contamination in Violet Marsh near New Orleans.

Fecal material entrained in New Orleans flood waters was pumped into the local environment. Violet Marsh received water pumped from St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward. Sediment core samples were collected from canals conducting water from these areas to pump stations and from locations within Violet Marsh. Viable indicator bacteria and fecal sterols were used to assess the levels of fecal material in sediment deposited after the levee failures and deeper sediments deposited before. Most of the cores had fecal coliform levels that exceed the biosolids criterion. All of the cores had fecal sterols that exceeded the suggested environmental quality criterion. Our data show both a long history of fecal contamination in Violet Marsh and an increase in fecal loading corresponding to the failure of the levee system. The work was performed as part of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force investigation into the consequences of the failures of the New Orleans levee system.

Application of oligonucleotide microarrays for bacterial source tracking of environmental Enterococcus sp. isolates.

In an effort towards adapting new and defensible methods for assessing and managing the risk posed by microbial pollution, we evaluated the utility of oligonucleotide microarrays for bacterial source tracking (BST) of environmental Enterococcus sp. isolates derived from various host sources. Current bacterial source tracking approaches rely on various phenotypic and genotypic methods to identify sources of bacterial contamination resulting from point or non-point pollution. For this study Enterococcus sp. isolates originating from deer, bovine, gull, and human sources were examined using microarrays. Isolates were subjected to Box PCR amplification and the resulting amplification products labeled with Cy5. Fluorescent-labeled templates were hybridized to in-house constructed nonamer oligonucleotide microarrays consisting of 198 probes. Microarray hybridization profiles were obtained using the ArrayPro image analysis software. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) were compared for their ability to visually cluster microarray hybridization profiles based on the environmental source from which the Enterococcus sp. isolates originated. The PCA was visually superior at separating origin-specific clusters, even for as few as 3 factors. A Soft Independent Modeling (SIM) classification confirmed the PCA, resulting in zero misclassifications using 5 factors for each class. The implication of these results for the application of random oligonucleotide microarrays for BST is that, given the reproducibility issues, factor-based variable selection such as in PCA and SIM greatly outperforms dendrogram-based similarity measures such as in HCA and K-Nearest Neighbor KNN.

Particle-scale understanding of the bioavailability of PAHs in sediment.

This study reports results of sediment bioslurry treatment and earthworm bioaccumulation for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contaminants found in sediment dredged from Milwaukee Harbor. A significant finding was that bioslurry treatment reduced PAHs on the sediment clay/silt fraction but not on the sediment coal-derived fraction and that PAH reduction in the clay/silt fraction correlated with substantial reduction in earthworm PAH bioaccumulation. These findings are used to infer PAH bioavailability from characterization of particle-scale PAH distribution, association, and binding among the principal particle fractions in the sediment. The results are consistent with work showing that the sediment comprised two principal particle classes for PAHs, coal-derived and clay/silt, each having much different PAH levels, release rates, and desorption activation energies. PAH sorption on coal-derived particles is associated with minimal biodegradation, slow release rates, and high desorption activation energies, while PAH sorption on clay/silt particles is associated with significant potential biodegradability, relatively fast release rates, and lower desorption activation energies. These characteristics are attributed to fundamental differences in the organic matter to which the PAHs are sorbed. Although the majority of the PAHs are found preferentially on coal-derived particles, the PAHs on the clay/silt sediment fraction are more mobile and available, and thus potentially of greater concern. This study demonstrates that a suite of tests comprising both bioassays and particle-scale investigations provide a basis to assess larger-scale phenomena of biotreatment of PAH-impacted sediments and bioavailability and potential toxicity of PAH contaminants in sediments. Improved understanding of contaminant bioavailability aids decision-making on the effectiveness of biotreatment of PAH-impacted sediments and the likelihood for possible reuse of dredged sediments as reclaimed soil or fill.