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News Release
RI Department of Environmental Management
235 Promenade Street, Providence, RI 02908
(401) 222-2771 TDD/(401) 222-4462
For Release: December 2, 2004
Contact: Gail Mastrati 222-4700 ext. 2402
Stephanie Powell 222-4700 ext. 4418

DEM'S NEWEST INVESTIGATIVE TEAM SAVES STATE TIME AND MONEY

PROVIDENCE - The Department of Environmental Management today introduced its newest investigative team - a highly-trained group that uses specialized equipment to search out and remediate underground contamination at selected sites. Called the Field Investigation and Remediation Support Team, or FIRST, the six-member team is expected to save DEM and cities and towns throughout the state hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, and has already proved its worth.

FIRST actually got its start during the Pascoag drinking water well contamination emergency in 2001. Faced with a bankrupt responsible party and a multi-million dollar clean-up, DEM needed to balance the use of its in-house expertise with the use of contractors to get the most cost-effective approach possible. As a result, DEM staff from the Office of Waste Management's leaking underground storage tank program conducted almost all of the investigation work, and contractors were used primarily for the remediation phase.

The team's success, which to date has saved an estimated $350,000 at the Pascoag project alone, has led to its expansion to include staff from several other DEM waste management programs including landfills, brownfields, and superfund. Pooling equipment, personnel resources and expertise, FIRST performs investigation and remediation work for those programs in varied ways. It employs a powerful Rapid Site Assessment procedure to collect and analyze air, soil and water samples and provide initial findings within hours using a mobile lab and specialized equipment. Traditionally, samples are sent to private labs for analysis, adding cost and time to the investigatory process.

FIRST was introduced at a press conference today in West Warwick, at the site of one of its current investigation and remediation projects. Through soil, air, and groundwater sampling, the team, with the town, is collecting additional information about the status of the town's old landfill. The expected savings to the town is $24,500. The town will use the information to develop an effective and cost-efficient remediation strategy for the site.

Participating in today's event were US Senator Jack Reed; Susan Studlien, Director of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Site Remediation and Restoration; Jeanne-Marie DiMasi, West Warwick Town Council President; and Frederick Vincent, Acting Director of DEM. The FIRST team provided a demonstration of its mobile lab and specialized equipment.

Several significant pieces of equipment, including a Geoprobe, a field Gas Chromatograph (GC), and an X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzer, are used in FIRST's Rapid Site Assessments. All of the equipment was purchased with EPA funds and DEM legal settlement fees. The Geoprobe, a powerful and compact drilling machine used to collect soil and water samples from deep underground, is FIRST's central piece of equipment. The Geoprobe can drill to over 100 feet deep and install small groundwater monitoring wells for follow-up sampling. Those samples can then be analyzed by the GC, for volatile compounds, such as those found in gasoline, degreasers, and solvents, and by the XRF, for metals, such as lead, arsenic, and chromium. The GC, which is essentially a portable laboratory, is worth over $50,000; it was obtained through the federal surplus program for only $3,000.

In many cases, DEM is using the FIRST team to work with municipalities to assess the condition of their old landfills, leveraging the small amount of funds that municipalities have budgeted for this work to collect and evaluate all the information necessary to assess these sites. Other cases involve unknown sources of groundwater or surface water contamination. Among the projects FIRST has tackled this year, or is currently tackling, are:
  • Installation of several groundwater monitoring wells in a search for bacteria contamination from an unknown source that caused periodic closures of Scarborough state beach, at an estimated savings to DEM of $12,500.


  • Installation of a monitoring well and sampling of existing wells, in a joint effort with the Town of Little Compton, to better understand the environmental condition of the town's old landfill, at an expected savings to the town of $4,000.


  • Installation of more than 10 monitoring wells and sampling of soil and air in a joint effort with the Town of West Warwick, to collect additional information about the status of the town's old landfill, at an expected savings to the town of $24,500.


  • Drilling and fieldwork to investigate the unknown source of gasoline contamination found at a commercial property in East Providence, at an expected savings to DEM of $11,000.


  • Drilling to find the source of MTBE contamination of an elderly North Smithfield couple's well, at an estimated savings to DEM of $15,000.


  • Installation of wells to help DEM's Emergency Response Team identify several possible sources of petroleum contamination of a small stream in Cumberland, at an estimated savings to DEM of $4,000.


  • Continuation of the Pascoag investigation and cleanup, including an additional deep groundwater investigation, a long-term aquifer test of the Pascoag public water supply, and monitoring and sample analysis of more than 100 groundwater wells in Pascoag, at an estimated savings to DEM of $118,500.
FIRST has also completed the portions of four leaking underground storage tank contamination investigations that the owners could not afford, at a combined estimated savings of $24,000. The team will also examine five additional leaking tank incidents this year at an estimated additional savings of over $40,000. Those investigations are part of a DEM-EPA initiative to close old leaking underground storage tanks. The information derived from the investigation will support quicker, more effective cleanups for these sites.

DEM's FIRST members include James Wilusz, Chris Walusiak, George Mouradjian, Frank Gally, Michael Andrews, and Michael Cote.

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