TOSC Services

TOSC will provide the following services to address the concerns of area citizens. Area citizens assisted TOSC in developing the list of services. Dr. Shu-Guang Li, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at Michigan State, will lead TOSC’s technical team. Assisting Dr. Li as Co-Investigator will be Dr. Miles Khire, Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering. Dr. Khire will address issues of landfill design. Other staff members include Kirk Riley, TOSC Program Manager, Saradhi Balla, TOSC staff engineer and Alice Diebel, Project Specialist.

TOSC services will include the following:

1. Provide information on key issues and concepts related to the characterization of the contamination at the ESOI property; and hold workshop(s) to explain those issues and concepts with specific reference to how they relate to the ESOI contamination.

U.S. EPA approved the RCRA Facility Investigation (RFI) Work Plan for the ESOI facility on April 10, 2002. ESOI has begun sampling and analysis activities as part of Phase 1 of the Work Plan. Most of the Phase 1 fieldwork has been completed. As a first activity, TOSC proposes to assist the community in understanding key issues related to the investigation of the ESOI property, in particular, and to the investigation of contaminated sites, in general.

Many of the questions that TOSC received reflect a need to understand the site conditions more completely. Citizens have expressed difficulty understanding the technical documents and want TOSC assistance in interpreting them. Citizens have stated that reaching a better understanding will allow them to participate in formulating decisions about the cleanup of the site. In this activity TOSC will prepare a series of informational handouts related to the characterization of the ESOI site that explain such concepts as:

TOSC will also hold workshops on those topics. The workshops will be advertised to the public and be held in a location to be determined in discussion with our community partners; TOSC meetings are frequently held in public school buildings. TOSC plans to hold the workshops in January or February 2003, following the release of the validated data for Phase 1, but prior to the release of the Phase 1 report.

For this activity, we note that, while our knowledge of the site is incomplete (due to lack of data that the RCRA Corrective Action process is designed to address), we do have sufficient information to identify key areas and make workshop materials generally applicable to the investigation of the ESOI property. TOSC considers it essential to the success of our outreach effort that we link any educational programming to the issues in question: the investigation of ESOI property, the risks posed by the contamination (to people and the environment) and to the eventual cleanup of the property.

2. After the release of the Phase 1 report (scheduled for March 2003), TOSC will carry out a modeling/visualization exercise to explain the report’s findings.

TOSC will develop a 3D Flow and Transport Modeling and Visualization of the Envirosafe site based on typical or average values. The visual model will use existing data and assist citizens in understanding the effectiveness of the monitoring network and corrective action plan. TOSC will use a software program called “Interactive Ground Water Modeling,” developed by Dr. Li, for this activity. (For more information on the program click here. This stage is outlined in detail below.

Task A
TOSC will develop a preliminary visualization model of the ESOI site based on existing data presented in the Description of Current Conditions (DOCC) document and other documents (e.g., the Geophysical Report).

Data needed:
· Geologic contact elevations at the various borehole locations, including 1) ground elevations, 2) landfill base elevations, 3) bottom elevations of the lake deposits, 4) bottom elevations of the upper till, 5) top and bottom elevations of the sand "contact zones", and 6) bottom elevations of the lower till/top elevations of the bedrock.
· Chemical concentration data in the monitoring wells in the different geological units throughout the site and the xy coordinates of these monitoring wells and screen locations (x,y,z1,z2)

Task B
TOSC will review, process, and analyze Phase 1 data and develop an improved visualization model for the Envirosafe site.

Task C
TOSC will interpret the visualization model, identify potential data gaps, and provide feedback to the community. The interpretation will be provided to U.S. EPA and other agencies for use in formulating the work to be carried out under Phase 2 of the RFI Work plan.

Task D
TOSC will use the visualization model to help Oregon citizens to understand the complex contaminant hydrology and contamination dynamics at the Envirosafe site. TOSC will use the visualization model to help the citizens to become more informed and interact more effectively and objectively with the ongoing characterization and corrective action process.

The visualization model from this TOSC project should provide a high impact, integrated picture of the Envirosafe site geology, monitoring network, and contamination, and should be useful for the community members as well as the site planners, managers, and regulators at U.S. EPA and Ohio EPA.

3. Assist Oregon citizens in staying informed during the development of a site cleanup plan.

Toledo area citizens have asked TOSC for assistance in staying informed about during the Corrective Action process, including the regulatory framework and opportunities for public comment. TOSC will work closely with the Oregon citizens, the City of Oregon, the U.S. EPA and the Ohio EPA in the interest of open communication and information flow. TOSC will publish all documents that we generate (for example, this TOSC Outreach Plan, the Cooperative Agreement, fact sheets, and review documents) on its website. TOSC will also publish selected documents generated by other parties that are of particular interest to residents. For example, we have been asked to publish the monthly site updates on RFI Work Plan implementation progress, which Ohio EPA and ESOI provide.

Other sections of the TOSC Outreach Plan:

• Summary of the Outreach Plan
• Introduction
• Site background
• ESOI facility arrangement
• Current status of the project
• Citizen concerns
• TOSC services
• Additional activities