Fort Ord Groundwater Remediation Project

The Fort Ord Groundwater Remediation project leverages an already existing investment of nearly $3 million in remediation technology design. The state-of-the-art research systems capture, in real time, the flow dynamics and chemical response of contaminants to the remediation. In collaboration with the Department of Army, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LLBL), we will test the wider application of the detection and monitoring systems in operational scale remediation strategies. This includes an assessment of the system's current effectiveness, refinements of its original design, expansion of its capabilities and data presentation methodologies, and an assessment of its overall technical and cost effectiveness.
The preliminary equipment was designed to significantlyincrease the data collection capability related to the initial remediation efforts (kind, quantity and quality of data). Our research will further increase and refine the spectrum and quality of data capture and the ability to adjust, in real time, the operating parameters of the remediation processes, which will increase their effectiveness and decrease the related time and cost investments by the DOD in that and similar remediation efforts elsewhere. The specific objectives are to:
(1) develop real time sampling, analysis, and data transmission for subsurface contaminants;
(2) integrate real time plume characterization in to useful visualization tools for process engineering decision making;
(3) explore the identification of source zone locations by using a combination of real time measurement with process control; and
(4) explore expansion of technologies and processes to contaminants from munitions and to homeland security needs such as drinking water systems and waterway contamination detection.