Davis South Campus Superfund Oversight Committee
Rt. 2 Box 2879
Davis, CA 95616
530-753-9446
fax 530-753-8220
e-mail [email protected]
http://www.members.aol.com/dscsoc/dscsoc.htm

April 14, 1998

Remedial Project Managers
UCD-DOE LEHR Superfund Site
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616

Dear RPMs,

I have attached for your review Dr. G. Fred Lee's comments on the draft March 17, 1998 RPM meeting minutes. Dr. Lee's comments include a discussion of a number of items which are important to DSCSOC's interest.

Dr. Lee invites those who have questions regarding this information to contact him.

Sincerely,

Julie Roth, Ex. Dir.

cc: DSCSOC's Ex. Board
PRPs
William H. Taylor
Jane Riggan

G. Fred Lee & Associates
________________________________________
27298 E. El Macero Dr.
El Macero, California 95618-1005
Tel. (530) 753-9630 � Fax (530) 753-9956
e-mail [email protected]

April, 1998

Julie Roth
Executive Director
DSCSOC
Route 2, Box 2879
Davis, CA 95616

Dear Julie:

Please find presented below my comments on the draft, March 17, 1998 RPM meeting minutes. I discuss a number of the items that were discussed at this meeting that are important to DSCSOC's interests.

In the future, the draft minutes pages should be numbered.

Mention is made on page 2 under "No Action ROD" about the need to review how DOE Oakland and Washington, DC budget for the LEHR site activities. As you know from my previous comments, I have been concerned about the behind-the-scenes decisions being made by DOE Oakland staff on potential remediation approaches for the LEHR site for several years. It has been clear that DOE Oakland has been telling DOE Washington that the site can be remediated at a certain cost without review by the RPMs and the public of the proposed remediation approaches that DOE Oakland has selected as the basis for establishing these costs.

As was discussed at the RPM meeting, the arbitrary decisions being made by DOE Oakland staff and its associated budgets for the remediation of the LEHR site must be terminated. The RPMs and the public should have been involved from day one in establishing the budgets for the LEHR site investigation and remediation. While the draft minutes mention that the DOE budgeting process is to be reviewed at the April third conference call, thus far I have seen nothing that provides me with reason to believe that the inappropriate budgeting approaches that have been followed in the past by DOE Oakland will be terminated in favor of a full RPM - DSCSOC review of proposed budgets.

On page 3 under "Documents," I want to strongly support D. Austin's statements about the need for a proper data analysis. Thus far, in the almost three years that I have been involved with the LEHR site I have not seen a single document produced by UCD or DOE where the groundwater and surface water monitoring data for the site has been properly presented and analyzed. Even though significant errors were found in the data presentation, DOE and UCD have not been required, as they should have, to correct these errors. This is one of the most significant problems with how the LEHR site has been allowed to be investigated. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent each year collecting monitoring data at the LEHR site with no one analyzing it. I have been involved in many Superfund investigations since the mid 1980s. In all of my work of this type, I have never encountered a situation where the PRPs were not required to properly present and to appropriately analyze the data collected. As predicted, this approach is beginning to cost the taxpayers significant amounts of money as a result of failure to properly analyze the data as it is collected and make adjustments in the data collection program to ensure that the funds spent are being spent for data collection are being spent in a technically valid, cost effective manner.

The RPM should require that both DOE and UCD prepare a corrected, updated data report covering all of the data collected since January 1994 (ie the initiation of the current data collection approach.) The RPM should require that UCD and DOE reliably analyze and report on this data.

With respect to the discussions on page 3 concerning the problems with the laboratories, the key issue is that UCD and DOE select a laboratory that can in fact analyze the appropriate parameters of concern with sufficient sensitivity to provide a valid basis for assessing the potential public health and environmental significance of waste residues at the site.

Page 4, under "Long-Range Plan and Groundwater Source Delineation" discusses UDC's proposed plans for groundwater investigation. As discussed at the meeting these plans are not acceptable to DSCSOC and the public since they do not include as a highest priority item, significant immediate efforts devoted to properly defining the extent and degree of offsite groundwater pollution by UCD's mismanagement of its campus wastes and LEHR site wastes. It is preposterous to me that the UCD L. Vanderhoef administration and its staff would continue to show such low regard for its neighbors' health and welfare by placing offsite groundwater pollution plume delineation in HSU-2 and HSU-4 as a low priority for funding. I recommend that unless this situation is immediately corrected, that DSCSOC notify UCD and DOE that DSCSOC IS going to request a full public review of the inappropriate approaches being followed by UCD in investigating the LEHR site waste pollution of groundwaters. If there is insufficient funds to do both source delineation and plume delineation, then offsite plume delineation must receive the highest funding priority. As I have discussed previously, delaying source delineation by a year or so will not significantly change the ultimate remediation of groundwater that will have to occur at the LEHR site.

Page 4 last paragraph states: "Nitrate and total dissolved solids (TDS) are more difficult to address from a source standpoint." This statement is inappropriate. It is a relatively simple matter to determine whether a particular waste management unit represents a source of TDS and nitrate above upgradient background through appropriate waste management unit plume delineation. This kind of statement appears to be a smokescreen attempt to relieve UCD from the responsibility of having to clean up the pollution of groundwaters by various waste management units which are a source of nitrate and TDS. The fact that there is elevated concentrations of nitrate and TDS from other sources does not in any way relieve UCD from its responsibility of properly determining for each waste management unit through appropriately placed monitoring wells upgradient and downgradient from the waste management unit whether the waste management unit is contributing nitrate and TDS to the groundwaters as it passes under the waste management unit. This is the standard well-established approach that has been used for over 20 years in investigating pollution of groundwaters by waste management units. It is the approach that UCD will have to follow for each waste management unit at the LEHR site. UCD will not be able to take the approach of trying to use the pollution of groundwaters by ag or other off-LEHR site activities as an excuse for not properly investigating the pollution of the groundwaters by nitrate, TDS and other constituents that are derived from each of the waste management units at the LEHR site.

As discussed at the last RPM meeting, when DOE proposed to only investigate nitrate in the soil column under the western dog pens, I commented that that approach is technically invalid and suggested that the reliable approach to follow is to examine the downgradient monitoring wells from the dog pens to see if the nitrate in the groundwaters was elevated at that point compared to upgradient monitoring well concentrations. With the support of D. Austin and S. Timm, DOE was required to, for the first time, examine the groundwater monitoring data that had been collected just downgradient from the western dog pens to see if there was apparent pollution of groundwaters by nitrate as it passed under the dog pens. From the discussions that were presented at the last RPM meeting, it was clear that the dog pens have been and continue to be polluting the groundwaters by nitrate. These are the kind of studies that are needed for each of the waste management units. If there are not appropriately placed monitoring wells upgradient and downgradient of the waste management unit, such as the dog pens, various trenches, disposal pits, landfills, etc., then monitoring wells will have to be installed that properly sample the uppermost part of HSU-2 just downgradient from the waste management unit in order to determine the pollution of the groundwaters that is occurring because of materials derived from the waste management unit.

The current groundwater monitoring program at the LEHR site was not established for the purpose of defining the pollution of groundwaters by any of the waste management units. A significantly expanded groundwater monitoring system associated with each waste management unit will have to be developed. This will likely require nested wells located upgradient and downgradient that sample HSU-2 at various depths in order to determine the extent and degree of groundwater pollution by the waste management unit. As I have discussed previously since UCD's waste disposal practices at the LEHR site involved disposal in pits, trenches, etc. which would generate relatively narrow plumes near the waste management unit, a large number of monitoring wells will be required downgradient of the waste management unit to properly assess whether pollution of groundwaters is occurring today. Thus far UCD has not even begun to come to grips with properly investigating the pollution of groundwaters that has and continues to occur at the LEHR site. A much more comprehensive groundwater monitoring program will have to be initiated by UCD before the role of each waste management unit in causing groundwater pollution is defined. It is only with this type of information can decisions be made on the appropriate approach for remediation of each waste management unit and the associated contaminated soils.

Page 5 presents a discussion of the chromium situation. Again, as discussed above for nitrate pollution of groundwaters, the fact that there are elevated concentrations of chromium in the soils of the region does not in any way change UCD's requirements for clean-up of any increased chromium that occurs in groundwaters due to UCD's disposal of chromium wastes in its various waste management units at the LEHR site. Contrary to both UCD and DOE's approach, the average concentrations of chromium and nitrate in the region are not a suitable basis for determining whether UCD's mismanagement of its waste will require specific remediation of chromium, or for that matter, any other constituent in waste management units that are causing an increase in the constituent concentrations downgradient of the waste management unit compared to appropriate sampled groundwaters just upgradient of the waste management unit. Each waste management unit will have to be investigated with respect to whether the groundwaters are acquiring increased chromium as they pass under the waste management unit. Where this occurs, remediation to control chromium input must be implemented.

In the third to last line of this paragraph, "Fh" should be "Eh".

The first paragraph on page 5 briefly mentions the tritium situation. Several years after this issue was first raised by me, we still know nothing about the form of tritium that was disposed of at the LEHR site. As I have discussed this information is essential in making a proper evaluation of the remediation of tritium polluted groundwaters.

The bottom of page 5 top of page 6 presents a discussion of "natural attenuation". Because of the limited attention that has been given by UCD to delineating the offsite groundwater chloroform plume, it is not possible to evaluate the factors that control size of the offsite chloroform plume in HSU-2. Before any conclusions can be drawn about natural attenuation being an important factor in controlling the size of the onsite as well as the offsite plumes, a much more comprehensive investigation which leads to the appropriate modeling of various constituents both conservative and reactive in the plumes must be developed. It is possible that such studies could show that natural attenuation will take care of the offsite plume within an acceptable period of time especially under conditions where UCD purchases the land above the plume as is apparently being proposed today.

Before natural attenuation will be acceptable to DSCSOC, a good understanding of the factors controlling the offsite groundwater plumes that exist at the LEHR site must be developed. Several years ago I have made this suggestion; thus far nothing has apparently been done by UCD to address it. This is another significant deficiency in UCD's approach to addressing the primary issues of concern to the public namely the potential for UCD's mismanagement of the campus and LEHR site wastes to cause contamination of public and private offsite water supply wells.

Page 6 fourth paragraph summarizes some of the issues I raised about the inappropriateness of UCD's proposed groundwater investigations in which UCD proposed to place as a low priority offsite groundwater pollution plume delineation and remediation. As discussed elsewhere in these and other comments, this approach is not acceptable to DSCSOC. If UCD persists with this approach, formal full public review complaints will be filed on the inappropriate approach being used by UCD to protect the public's interest from UCD's mismanagement of its campus and LEHR site waste that have polluted HSU-2 and HSU-4.

Page 7 presents a discussion of UCD's CEQA requirements where mention is made that UCD can self-certify its own EIRs. In the past half a dozen years or so I have had the opportunity to examine several UCD generated and self-certified EIRs and have found, as have others, that this process is fundamentally corrupt with respect to providing reliable information to the public and decision makers on the potential environmental and public health impacts of UCD's projects. The public potentially impacted by these projects, namely UCD's neighbors, have learned long ago that the UCD L. Vanderhoef administration cannot be trusted to generate a reliable EIR on a project that conforms to CEQA requirements for full disclosure of potential impacts.

The UCD L. Vanderhoef administration can gain approval of the EIRs only because it is able to use taxpayer funds to hire attorneys to defend its self-certified EIRs under a situation where the public impacted by the projects does not have access to funds needed to demonstrate in the courts that UCD's self-certified EIRs are self-serving documents which present technically invalid discussions of its environmentally-related projects potential impacts to public health and the environment. If there is any doubt about the appropriateness of these comments, those who question this should critically review UCD's EIRs for its proposed development of the new campus landfill which even its own staff (dump tender) admits will ultimately pollute groundwaters. Similarly a review of UCD's EIR for a proposed new campus wastewater treatment plant shows that UCD has not discussed the problems with its existing wastewater treatment plant or the problems that will occur with the new treatment plant in protecting Putah Creek water quality. I have provided detailed comments on the significant technical deficiencies in both of these EIRs. My comments are available from my website http://members.aol.com/gfredlee/gfl.htm. As I indicated in my comments on the significant technical deficiencies in UCD's self-certified EIRs, I would be happy to have my comments independently peer reviewed by experts in the field. I am confident that such a review would confirm that my comments are appropriate.

Page 7 under stormwater runoff sampling discussion fails to properly convey the findings of DSCSOC with respect to the adequacy of the currently proposed sampling. As I indicated, the DOE proposed groundwater monitoring program is grossly deficient compared to the program that is needed to properly define the potential impacts of LEHR site stormwater runoff associated constituents on Putah Creek water quality. I have provided detailed comments on the deficiencies in the existing DOE and UCD stormwater monitoring programs. Both UCD and DOE continue to propose obviously grossly deficient monitoring programs where they choose to ignore the guidance provided to them. DSCSOC has repeatedly notified UCD and DOE that they must develop a credible stormwater runoff monitoring program. As discussed in other comments, if this program is not in place by the first storm of the fall of 1998, a request will be made of the CVRWQCB to take disciplinary action against UCD and DOE for failing to implement a credible stormwater runoff monitoring program for the LEHR site. This is the last warning that UCD and DOE will receive from DSCSOC on this matter

It has become clear that neither UCD nor DOE current staff or their contractors have sufficient understanding of basic surface water water quality issues to develop a credible stormwater runoff water quality monitoring program for the LEHR site. These entities need to contract to either hire or contract with consultants who understand the elements of surface water quality evaluation associated with stormwater runoff situations.

If there are questions about these comments, please contact me. Also please forward them to the RPMs and PRPs.

Sincerely yours,

G. Fred Lee, Ph.D., DEE

GFL:cab
Enclosures