Spokane River Urban Waters Progress By Arianne Fernandez WA Dept of Ecology June 2012

Overview How were sampling locations chosen? How were sampling techniques chosen? Rationale Comparisons What were your findings? Did the data set meet objectives? If not, any data gaps? What would you do differently in hindsight? What more needs to be done to refine the assessments?

Urban Waters Objectives Find and eliminate sources of contaminants of concern Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB): 303(d) listed Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE) Dioxin/Furan Lead, Cadmium, Zinc

Location Decision Points 2005 Ecology fish study Direct dischargers already working on source reduction. 2007 Parsons and Terragraphics Spokane River PCB Stormwater Loading Analysis Historical Analysis Potential sources *Adaptive Management

PCB Location choice Confounding Factors Low-level tracing Small sources Historical contamination Not all data is comparable Air deposition “PCB-free” myth Contaminant in everyday products Regulatory limits Stormwater Human dimension

Spokane Urban Waters

Liberty Lake Pilot Project Purpose – Verify techniques and begin to fill CoC knowledge gaps before entering the city of Spokane to source trace. PCB Questions How well do grab sampling techniques work? What is local urban background for: New residential Old residential Industrial Sanitary vs. stormwater Conclusions Sampling techniques worked. In all media. Similar concentration in sanitary sewer and stormwater. Higher concentration in residential sewer water than industrial sewer water. Higher in old residential sewer water than new residential. Bonus: Found and facilitated elimination of two illicit discharges to Liberty Lake. *Flesh out these observations with more data points as we source trace in the city of Spokane.

PCB Source Tracing Plan Start in city of Spokane (PCB Source Assessment) Up-the-pipe stormwater and CSO tracing. Union basin Combined sewer overflow #34 Erie basin Business visits by SRHD Local Source Control Specialist, Sandy Phillips. Historical analysis Outfall sampling Sewer tracing Road data provided by Bing Maps

How were sampling techniques chosen and compared? 1. What are others doing? 2. Pros and Cons List Grab samplers Passive samplers Sediment sampler Composite sampler

Sediment Sampling Stormwater is notoriously difficult to capture and gain “solid” information Needed a device that… Captures a lot of sediment Causes no damage to system Captures adequate volume of fine particulate < 63 microns. Inexpensive Easily portable In-line

Sediment Sampler Capture Concept Flow

Sediment Sampler Validation Validation study completed Spring 2012 Grain size distribution similar to centrifuge sampler > 1800 grams captured

Up-the-pipe Source Tracing Union Basin (Green) Erie Basin (Blue) CSO 34 (Purple)

Union Basin Sample Locations 14 Sample ID Collection Date Matrix Total PCB-8082 (ng/Kg or ng/L) Total PCB-1668 (ng/L) Season Storm event Precip. from Felts Field (in) Sample Type Upstream Trent Ave Branch TRENT-TPC 6/25/2009 sed 5,820 -- SUMMER na Comp. scoop Trent_ 1384910ST 1/24/2011 sw 188 WINTER 0.49 Grab 5/16/2011 86.5 SPRING 0.29 Crestline-Springfield Ave Branch COOK - SPRG 980,000 CR/ADM 8/12/2009 226 0.27 CRSPADM 2/16/2010 324.7 No data 6/4/2010 14.1 0.56 7/2/2010 114 223 0.28 1/13/2011 33.4 0.33 3/28/2011  QA/QC in progress Napa St-Springfield Ave. Branch NAPA-SPRG 9/9/2010 285 FALL 0.06 103 745 7/29/2011 17,000 Union Outfall UNIONLPT 6/8/2009 73.0 10/2/2009 58.2 0.11 460 0.12 4/29/2010 60.6 0.48 255 1/7/2011 55.3 0.19 7/13/2011 QA/QC in progress  0.42 14

City Parcel Area Progress Over 8,000 tons of heavily PCB-contaminated soils and waste materials were dug up and removed from this site. The cleanup action is now complete at this property.

PCB Hot Spots

Additional outfall pattern highlight Differ from Union Basin outfall: Tetra/Penta/Hexa dominant vs Hexa/Hepta dominant *Adding PMF or PCA analysis may be useful *Patterns help determine if more than one source

PCB Stormwater Collected TOC, DOC, TDS, TSS, turbidity

Additional Work and Findings GIS tool enhanced source tracing and spatial analysis. Inadvertent production in everyday products significantly above local limits (ppb and ppm vs. ppq). Air Deposition Literature Review – Air deposition may contribute to local stormwater load. NE Lakes Background Study - Refined knowledge of air deposition influence to sediment and fish.

General Conclusions Business visits have limited effectiveness for finding PCB sources. Source tracing contamination at low concentrations presented unforeseen challenges for regulators and the regulated community. These include: Lack of knowledge for clean, ultra trace sampling techniques. Lack of knowledge regarding how to perform quality control on results. Current regulations do not recognize the low-level, full congener analytical method (1668) for compliance.

General Conclusions PCB sources to the Spokane river are more diffuse than originally suspected. The Spokane River watershed is unique and may be compounding the issue of elevated PCB in fish tissue. Unique properties include: Low TSS and high dissolved fraction of PCB Large urban watershed discharging to small waterbody Ready aquifer exchange that modifies PCB congener behavior Highly porous soil over fast moving aquifer Redirection of stormwater from river may help eliminate air deposition as a source.

Did we meet data objectives, any gaps? Yes Source reduction vs. source tracing

Lessons Learned-abbreviated Focused more resources sooner on tools that assimilate all local data for a fate and transport model and source tracing (help identify data gaps and sources) Pros and cons of using a dataset for multiple purposes and while collecting multiple parameters PCB behaves differently depending on the physical and chemical characteristics of a watershed, and our system is very unique. Plus, concentrations are so low that those physical factors probably play a bigger role now. This was not always apparent in the beginning since we found point sources such as Kaiser and IEP in the past.

What more needs to be done to refine the assessments? Fate and transport model Air deposition data Flow and flow-weighted data GIS tool for faster source tracing and organizing large amounts of data for spatial analysis Data consolidation across agencies and facilities Long-term monitoring in river with additional sites and techniques tailored to our unique system Congener pattern identification using PCA or PMF software. Build product list with concentrations and congener patterns for inadvertently produced PCB.

Recap How were sampling locations chosen? How were sampling techniques chosen? Rationale Comparisons What were your findings? Did the data set meet objectives? If not, any data gaps? What would you do differently in hindsight? What more needs to be done to refine the assessments?