Division of Life Sciences, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA; Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA; Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation, Vanderbilt University and Rutgers University, USA.
Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA; Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation, Vanderbilt University and Rutgers University, USA; Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA.
Environ Res. 2020 Jul;186:109536. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109536. Epub 2020 Apr 15.
Many nations are faced with the need to remediate large contaminated sites following World War II, the Cold War, and abandoned industrial sites, and to return them to productive land uses. In the United States, the Department of Energy (DOE) has the largest cleanup challenge, and its Hanford Site in the state of Washington has the most extensive and most expensive cleanup task. Ideally, the risk to ecological resources on remediation sites is evaluated before, during, and after remediation, and the risk from, or damage to, ecological resources from contaminants should be lower following remediation. In this paper, we report the risk to ecological resources before, during, and as a consequence of remediation on contaminated units requiring cleanup, and then examine the causes for changes in risk by evaluating 56 cleanup evaluation units (EUs) at the Hanford Site. In this case, remediation includes a restoration phase. In general, the risk to ecological and eco-cultural resources is currently not discernible or low at most contaminated units, increases during remediation, and decreases thereafter. Remediation often causes physical disruption to ecosystems as it reduces the risk from exposure to contaminants. Most new remediation projects at the Hanford Site include ecological restoration. Ecological restoration results in the potential for the presence of higher quality resources after remediation than currently exists on these contaminated lands and facilities. Although counter-intuitive, our evaluation of the risk to ecological resources following remediation indicated that a significant percentage of units (61%) will be at increased risk in the post-remediation period. This increased risk is due to DOE's successful remediation and restoration that results in a higher percent of native vegetation and higher ecological value on the sites in the post-remediation period than before. These newly-created resources can then be at risk from post-remediation activities. Risks to these new higher quality resources include the potential for spread of invasive species and of noxious grasses used in previous cleanup actions, disruption of ecosystems (including those with state or federally listed species and unique ecosystems), compaction of soil, use of pesticides to control invasive species, and the eventual need for continued monitoring activities. Thus, by greatly improving the existing habitat and health of eco-receptors, and maintaining habitat corridors between high quality habitats, the ecological resources in the post-remediated units are at risk unless care is taken to protect them. Many of the negative effects of both remediation and future monitoring (or other future land uses) can be avoided by planning and management early in the remediation process. We suggest DOE and other agencies convene a panel of managers, remediation scientists, regulators, environmental and ecological scientists, Native Americans, economists, and the public to develop a generic list of performance metrics for the restoration phase of remediation, including evaluation of success, which could be applied across the DOE complex.
许多国家在第二次世界大战、冷战和废弃工业场所之后，都面临着需要修复大型污染场地，并将其恢复为生产性土地用途的问题。在美国，能源部（DOE）面临着最大的清理挑战，其位于华盛顿州的汉福德场地需要进行最广泛和最昂贵的清理工作。理想情况下，应在修复前、修复中和修复后评估修复场地对生态资源的风险，并且在修复后，污染物对生态资源造成的风险或损害应降低。在本文中，我们报告了在需要清理的污染单元的修复前、修复中和修复后的生态资源风险，然后通过评估汉福德场地的 56 个清理评估单元（EU），检查风险变化的原因。在这种情况下，修复包括恢复阶段。一般来说，在大多数污染单元中，生态和生态文化资源的风险目前无法察觉或很低，在修复过程中会增加，之后会降低。修复通常会破坏生态系统，因为它降低了暴露于污染物的风险。汉福德场地的大多数新修复项目都包括生态恢复。生态恢复使这些受污染的土地和设施在修复后具有更高质量资源的潜力。尽管这有违直觉，但我们对修复后生态资源风险的评估表明，有很大比例的单元（61%）在修复后期间将面临更高的风险。这种增加的风险是由于 DOE 的成功修复和恢复，导致修复后场地的原生植被和生态价值百分比高于修复前。这些新创建的资源可能会面临修复后的活动的风险。这些新的高质量资源的风险包括外来物种扩散的可能性、以前清理行动中使用的有害草种的风险、生态系统的破坏（包括具有州或联邦列出的物种和独特生态系统的生态系统）、土壤压实、使用杀虫剂来控制入侵物种，以及最终需要继续进行监测活动。因此，通过极大地改善受修复影响的单元中的现有栖息地和生态受体的健康状况，并维护高质量栖息地之间的栖息地走廊，除非采取措施加以保护，否则这些受修复影响的单元中的生态资源将面临风险。通过在修复过程的早期进行规划和管理，可以避免修复和未来监测（或其他未来土地用途）的许多负面影响。我们建议 DOE 和其他机构召集一个由管理者、修复科学家、监管机构、环境和生态科学家、美国原住民、经济学家和公众组成的小组，为修复的恢复阶段制定一套通用的绩效指标清单，包括成功评估，这些指标可以在整个 DOE 综合体中应用。
