Active Teams

About ITRC Teams

For information about a Team or Project, click on the name below.

Environmental Data Management Best Practices

Team Leaders: Doug Morrison (NYDEC) & Brian Pointer (NCDENR)

Effective data management serves as the foundation for accurate data analyses, data visualization, and sound decision-making. However, in the broad environmental community there is currently a lack of standardized and consistent data management practices necessary to ensure rapid access to high quality data, and to minimize the risks involved in making costly business and regulatory decisions. The goal of the team is to seek consensus on the current patchwork of guidelines for data management to develop Environmental Data Management Best Practices that can be applied across a wide spectrum of environmental data. The Team aims to be a platform for the integration and cohesion of data management policies across environmental disciplines and programs through online implementation trainings and community forums.

Microplastics

Team Leaders: Kim Nimmer (NCDEQ) & Valerie Hanley (CADTSC)

Although microplastics are small — plastic debris less than five millimeters long — they pose one of the largest emerging threats to the global environmental community today. Microplastics have been introduced to the environment over the last 50 years through plastic refuse which has been broken down, and particles in health and beauty products which have entered the waste stream. Recent studies have shown their harmful effects on environmental media, due to their chemical nature and persistence. The ITRC Microplastics Team will develop free resources and fact sheets designed to provide the latest information and best management practices for the most important issues surrounding microplastics.

Effective Application of Guidance Documents to Hydrocarbon Sites

Team Leaders: Tom Fox (CODLE) & Richard Spiese (VTDEC)

While ITRC guidance already exists for hydrocarbon impacted sites, such as the PVI, LNAPL-3 and TPH technical regulatory documents, there are many situations where these guidance documents overlap. These documents do not acknowledge interrelated disciplines, and as such, they become harder to follow when reviewed together. This team will work to develop a training series on the implementation of these guidance documents, in order to help professionals understand what information is contained within each document and how to apply these concepts holistically at a site.

PFAS

Team Leaders: Sandra Goodrow (NJDEP) & Kate Emma Schlosser (NHDES)

The state of the science and understanding of PFAS is constantly evolving. The goal of the PFAS continuation team is to update existing ITRC technical resources to reflect the latest in the science of PFAS; develop video training resources; establish a new subgroup dedicated to collecting data, information, and scientific knowledge to support states in their work to surface water; and perform classroom trainings based on ITRC's published technical resources.

Soil Background Concentrations

Team Leaders: Bonnie Brooks (WA Ecology) & Claudio Sorrentino (CADTSC)

Soil background concentrations are important to consider when conducting human health and ecological risk
assessments. Currently, there is inconsistency in the way stakeholders define background, use sampling methods, and apply statistical methods in risk assessment. Other sources of valuable information such as geochemical evaluations and forensic methods are not widely used or accepted.

The Use of Soil Background Concentrations in Risk Assessment Team will create a guidance document and training resources that will provide a useful framework for using soil background concentrations in risk assessment and its application to soil-like materials such as sediments and mining sites.

Strategies for Preventing and Managing Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms (Benthic)

Team Leaders: Rebecca Stanton (CAOEHHA) & Benjamin Holcomb (UTDEQ)

Established as an extension for ITRC’s existing project, Strategies for Preventing Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms, this team will explore further into the subject of Benthic Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms. The project will expand on existing descriptions of Benthic Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms mentioned in other ITRC documents by providing in-depth information on background, screening and sampling methodology, and toxin thresholds, as well as management and prevention strategies and communication and response planning for these blooms. The Benthic Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms Team plans develop a new technical guidance document as well as live and recorded training modules.

Performance-Based Optimization of Pump and Treat Systems

Team Leaders: Janet Waldron (MassDEP) & Michael Sexton (VADEQ)

Pump-and-treat (P&T) systems have been one of the most commonly used methods for hydraulic containment and treatment of contaminated groundwater at sites with large groundwater plumes. Optimization of pump-and-treat remedies is important for maintaining contaminant removal effectiveness throughout the remedy operation lifetime and managing the system toward an exit strategy. This proposed project aims to develop technical guidance materials and training modules that summarize existing information and best practices, and develop a systemic and adaptive optimization framework specifically for P&T well-network design and management.