Best Practices for Application of Triad

Best practices for application of Triad include steps that build on risk-based and streamlining principles.

Best practices for applying Triad principles to a petroleum releases site involve building on risk-based and streamlining principles already established. Best practices for application of Triad include the following 10 steps:

Step 1 Create Reuse Team Stakeholders need to empower and charter the "A" team or Reuse Team. This Reuse Team should consist of any and all stakeholders that have a stake or that can influence the reuse of local sites affected or perceived to be affected by contamination. If possible, the Reuse Team should include an environmental professional knowledgeable in contamination assessment and remediation techniques. The Reuse Team should identify a single regulatory authority to work with for the review and approval of project documents and project actions and seek out and obtain a suite of funding resources to funds the reuse/revitalization planned.

Step 2 Establish Ground Rules Step 2 involves electing a leader and officer for the Reuse team and establishing fundamental ground rules for how the team will operate, including, but not limited to: conducting meetings, recording of meeting notes, responding to action items, and communicating needs and results to team members.

Step 3 Systematic Program Planning The Reuse Team needs to establish criteria for selecting candidate sites and establish reuse goals for the candidate sites. The criteria are largely Reuse Team-specific, but a common exercise will involve establishing the universe of sites with a likelihood of reuse and then prioritizing sites for the expenditure of the funds, time, and resources available. Criteria for selecting sites for reuse could involve redevelopment zones, transportation corridors, watersheds, aquifer recharge zones, and/or geographic regions affected by single or multiple petroleum releases. Additional criteria for batching sites may include:

• Sites with similar CSMs (like UST release sites—"corner gas stations")
  
  
• Sites with the same contaminants (but different CSMs)
  
  
• Sites with similar problems involving elevated "background" concentrations
  
  
• Locales with strong leadership and good social capital (the make-up of the "A" team is well understood)
  
  
• Projects where a clear leading organization can be found (similar regulations, funding; this could be a state, a tank insurance fund, or common contractor)
  
  
• Projects with a quick turnaround required (revenue pressure)
  
  
• Projects located within an aquifer protection zone or recharge areas that must be protected
  
  
• Projects with a given geology amenable to a given RTMS technology (coastal plain and not Piedmont)

Step 4 Take Advantage of Economies of Scale The Reuse Team needs to take maximum advantage of economies of scale. With the help of the environmental professional, the Reuse Team needs to establish and administer contracts with vendors that can assist in the creation and implementation of planning/execution documentation required by the host state. State-specific documentation can include: creation and refinement of CSM sample collection/sample analysis plans and data management and quality assurance plans associated with the assessment of the candidate sites.

Step 5 Prepare Programmatic Documents The Reuse Team needs to direct the vendors to prepare program-wide documentation that can be applied at all of the sites in the reuse universe so that said documentation has to be prepared only once. The Reuse Team also needs to direct their vendors to take advantage of accelerating and streamlining components in approaches such as the Triad and American Society of Testing and Materials Standards (see http://www.triadcentral.org and www.astm.org) and such approaches in existing state regulations when said documentation is prepared. To the maximum extent possible, the Reuse Team must direct their vendor to integrate Real Time Measurement (RTM) techniques coupled with DWS in the planning documents.

Step 6 Select Vendors for Common Denominators Look for "common denominators" at the candidate sites and in the planning documents. For those contaminants and activities common to all sites in the reuse universe, to the maximum extent possible the Reuse Team needs to select a single vendor or vendors (common denominator vendors) to assess those contaminants and perform those common activities. The Reuse Team should direct the vendors selected to prepare DWS that incorporate the ability to adapt project activities, including the output of RTMS, to site conditions as better information becomes available while work is underway. Common denominator contaminants for UST sites are likely to be petroleum-related (e.g., total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), gasoline range organics (gasoline range organics (GRO), diesel range organics (DRO), benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX)). Common activities will vary from state to state. To address state-specific requirements, the vendor(s) will likely focus on areas in proximity to UST tank pits and product-dispensing units, and along the paths of UST fill lines, product distribution pipe chases, and underground utilities. Common activities at UST sites will also likely focus on assessment of potential receptors, including surface water features, that drain the site in question, water supply wells, vapor migration/intrusion pathways to inhabited buildings, and sensitive ecological receptors.

Step 7 Perform Systematic Project Planning Working with the "common denominator" vendor(s), the Reuse Team needs to perform systematic project planning to address site-specific subtleties. The systematic project planning process is meant to link project goals to the data collection needed by identifying data gaps in the project CSM.

Step 8 Respond to Data Inputs As the program and project is underway, the Reuse Team needs to be able to react and respond to the RTMS data as it is generated. Data collected could fit with the program planning performed in earlier steps in the recipe, but the Reuse Team needs to be able to adapt to unexpected inputs as the CSM is refined.

Step 9 Implement Remedy As the CSM is refined, the Reuse Team needs to select and implement the remedies required to allow the site reuse goals to be achieved.

Step 10 Reuse Site and Monitor Remedy In some cases, remediation takes a long time. As a result, the Reuse Team may need to allow for continued participation in the process, spanning time frames from years to decades.