Sustainable Remediation Software Tool Exercise and Evaluation

The goal of this study was to examine two different software tools designed to account for the environmental impacts of remediation projects. Three case studies from the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, SC were used to exercise SiteWise (SW) and Sustainable Remediation Tool (SRT) by including both traditional and novel remediation techniques, contaminants, and contaminated media. This study combined retrospective analysis of implemented projects with prospective analysis of options that were not implemented. Input data were derived from engineering plans, project reports, and planning documents with a few factors supplied from calculations based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Conclusions drawn from software output were generally consistent within a tool; both tools identified the same remediation options as the 'best' for a given site. Magnitudes of impacts varied between the two tools, and it was not always possible to identify the source of the disagreement. The tools differed in their quantitative approaches: SRT based impacts on specific contaminants, media, and site geometry and modeled contaminant removal. SW based impacts on processes and equipment instead of chemical modeling. While SW was able to handle greater variety in remediation scenarios, it did not include a measure of the effectiveness of the scenario.