Technical insight for complex environmental decisions.

Tracing Macondo Oil Along 1,300 Miles of Gulf Coast Shoreline Some contamination events unfold at a scale that makes ordinary site investigation methods feel almost quaint. When the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded in April 2010 and the Macondo well released oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, the resulting shoreline impact stretched across…

I walked into Dr. Jerry Neff’s office at Battelle Memorial Institute (Duxbury MA) in 2000 hoping to discuss polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). I walked out two hours later infinitely more aware of contaminant toxicity and risk assessment from one of the most generous thought-leaders in the business. Under my arm I held a signed copy…

Environmental forensics focuses centrally on determining contaminant origins. In its infancy, it relied heavily on measurements of priority pollutants using standard methods and declining gradients from the point of release to the area of impact.  While these techniques continue to work well, over the years practitioners cross-fertilized univariate methods from the 1970’s with a broad…

Petroleum, coal tar, and refined hydrocarbon products are not typically single, uniform substances. Each one carries a distinct chemical composition shaped by its starting materials, process of formation, and environmental degradation. Chemical fingerprinting is the branch of environmental forensics that measures and assesses the composition of hydrocarbon residues in contaminated media (e.g., oil, soil, sediment,…

Groundwater contamination is prevalent in the developed world due to incidental industrial, commercial, and residential releases of solvents, cleaners, refrigerants, and other substances. The diversity of sources can present complicated source-identification challenges in areas with multiple potential origins. Environmental investigations in developed areas often encounter sites where several historical operations each had plausible access to…