BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY 



3 9999 05983 430 7 



Memorandum 



To: David Cowgill, EPA - Great Lakes National Program 

 Office, Chicago 



From: Larry Schwarzkopf, Fond du Lac Natural Resource 

 Manager 



Date: January 28,1993 



Re: Demonstration Project for Sediment Contaminant 

 Mitigation 



The Fond du Lac Natural Resource Program in cooperation with 

 the University of Minnesota-Duluth has submitted the 

 proposal. Demonstration Project for Sediment Contaminant 

 Mitigation , to the Great Lakes National Program Office of 

 the Environmental Protection Agency. A copy of the original 

 proposal is attached. At this time I would like to propose 

 some modifications of our original study design that would 

 focus our objectives and provide a more efficient study. 

 The original proposal would investigate on site methods to 

 remediate contaminated sediments on the St. Louis River 

 reservoirs and estuary. The basic objectives would remain, 

 however we would concentrate our efforts on mercury and PCB, 

 and would test only for some specific PAH's and organic 

 compounds, such as pyrene, anthracene, flouranthene, and bi- 

 phenyl. A means to decrease the cost of PCB analysis is 

 also being considered to decrease the study budget. 



The project could be designed as a three year study, which 

 would give us an additional sampling season to analyze 

 biotic uptake of contaminants, and additional mitigation 

 strategies could be tested with the same number of 

 enclosures. Another benefit of this change is that it would 

 allow time to test alternative binding agents. We are 

 planning to conduct a computer search for additional binding 

 compounds which would have similar properties for binding 

 mercury or PCB (ie. QSAR Model) . Promising compounds will 

 be tested in the enclosures for their effectiveness in 

 binding contaminants. 



The three mitigation strategies mentioned in the attached 

 original proposal would remain basically the same. There 

 was a comment regarding the third strategy, as to whether it 

 would involve dredging. This is stated in the proposal as: 

 "3) in-place treatment to remove surface sediment fractions 

 (e.g. organic carbon) that are highest in contaminants." 

 The method would involve new techniques and equipment that 

 is currently being developed to remove fine particulates 

 and/or organic fractions, which are commonly associated with 

 mercury and PCB. After the highly contaminated fractions 



