Evaluating future land use scenarios so the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) can apply remedial action objectives to a site

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action for VDOT

Before you can build on land, you need to know it’s safe. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Action Program, established by the US Environmental Protection Agency, requires investigation and clean up at sites previously used to treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste. Engaged by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), our environmental assessment team collected data to determine levels of metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons and developed a plan for next steps to clean up an affected site.

To properly “close” such a site and prepare it for future use, we first needed to collect data to characterize the site. We designed and implemented a pre-excavation sampling program to delineate and characterize soil conditions vertically. We also used existing data to create a targeted program for multi-depth sampling, allowing us to precisely determine excavation depths and eliminate the need for confirmatory sampling. 

Our team excavated 683 tons of contaminated soil and implemented erosion and sediment control measures. We continue to work with VDOT to record land restrictions at the site associated with the corrective measures.