Assessment of soil-gas contamination at the 17th Street landfill, Fort Gordon, Georgia, 2011

Abstract

Assessments of contaminants in soil gas were conducted in two study areas at Fort Gordon, Georgia, in July and August of 2011 to supplement environmental contaminant data for previous studies at the 17th Street landfill. The two study areas include northern and eastern parts of the 17th Street landfill and the adjacent wooded areas to the north and east of the landfill. These study areas were chosen because of their close proximity to the surface water in Wilkerson Lake and McCoys Creek. A total of 48 soil-gas samplers were deployed for the July 28 to August 3, 2011, assessment in the eastern study area. The assessment mostly identified detections of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), and gasoline- and diesel-range compounds, but also identified the presence of chlorinated solvents in six samplers, chloroform in three samplers, 2-methyl naphthalene in one sampler, and trimethylbenzene in one sampler. The TPH masses exceeded 0.02 microgram (μg) in all 48 samplers and exceeded 0.9 μg in 24 samplers. Undecane, one of the three diesel-range compounds used to calculate the combined mass for diesel-range compounds, was detected in 17 samplers and is the second most commonly detected compound in the eastern study area, exceeded only by the number of TPH detections. Six samplers had detections of toluene, but other gasoline compounds were detected with toluene in three of the samplers, including detections of ethylbenzene, meta- and para-xylene, and octane. All detections of chlorinated organic compounds had soil-gas masses equal to or less than 0.08 μg, including three detections of trichloroethene, three detections of perchloroethene, three chloroform detections, one 1,4-dichlorobenzene detection, and one 1,1,2-trichloroethane detection. Three methylated compounds were detected in the eastern study area, but were detected at or below method detection levels. A total of 32 soil-gas samplers were deployed for the August 11–24, 2011, assessment in the northern study area. All samplers in the survey had detections of TPH, but only eight of the samplers had detections of TPH greater than 0.9 mg. Four samplers had TPH detections greater than 9 mg; the only other fuel-related compounds detected in these four samplers included toluene in three of the samplers and undecane in the fourth sampler. Three samplers deployed along the western margin of the northern landfill had detections of both diesel-and gasoline-related compounds; however, the diesel-related compounds were detected at or below method detection levels. Seven samplers in the northern study area had detections of chlorinated compounds, including three perchloroethene detections, three chloroform detections, and one 1,4-dichloro-benzene detection. One sampler on the western margin of the landfill had detections of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene and 1,3,5-tr-methylbenene below method detection levels.