Triad (environmental science)

The Triad is an approach to decision-making for hazardous waste site characterization and remediation. The Triad Community of Practice (CoP) includes representatives of federal, state, and private sector organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

The term Triad represents three main elements: systematic project planning (SPP), dynamic work strategies, and innovative rapid sampling and analytical technologies. While elements of the Triad have long been used for site cleanup, Triad packages these best management practices together with the guiding principles:

1. Utilize a thorough systematic planning process, which includes participation of all stakeholders (including a multidisciplinary project team, federal and state regulators, legal counsel, community members, and other environmental professionals), to determine the types of data required and to evaluate whether the site could benefit from utilizing a dynamic work strategy and real-time measurement technologies.

2. Transparent, open, honest discussion of uncertainty management, data representativeness, and site closure strategies that are continually refined throughout project lifecycle.

3. Utilization of a continually evolving conceptual site model that recognizes site characterization is an element utilized at all stages of remediation, and is updated through a dynamic work strategy.

4. Maximized use of innovative sampling, measurement, and data management technologies to support uncertainty management strategies that address data heterogeneity.

5. Project teams that have effective communication, trust, open discussion of individual interests and goals, and diverse expertise in the appropriate fields (i.e. high social capital)

Triad is an idea where dissemination of the concepts are far more inportant than the moniker itself, since it is an open-marketplace idea that is not owned by one entity. There is considerable U.S. Multiagency support for Triad. In 2006, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation supported Triad by requesting the cooperation of its regional managers to expand the use of Triad at Superfund sites, where appropriate [1].

Elements of the Triad

Although the following elements are the legs that gave the impetous for calling the process "Triad," the goal of the Triad approach is to infuse the concepts into hazardous-waste site cleanups, no matter what the lead organization calls the process. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Technical Project Planning Process TPP for systematic planning, for example.)

Systematic Project Planning

Systematic project planning identifies the problems and encourages stakeholders to negotiate the steps necessary to mediate the risks the environmental contamination pose to human health and ecology. The specific goals of a project (redevelopment, revitalization, et al.) may differ, but the specific objectives during the SPP process are:

Frame the Problem: identify project objectives, constraints, stakeholders, the regulatory framework, and primary/secondary decisions.

Developing a Conceptual Site Model: constructing and maintaining a conceptual site model that captures information pertinent to the primary/secondary decisions that must be made. The term CSM is updated by identifying data gaps, and developing a dynamic work strategy to fill in the data gaps.

Evaluating and Managing Uncertainty: evaluating and managing the uncertainty associated with decision-making in the context of the CSM so that decisions can be made with acceptable levels of confidence.

Dynamic Work Strategies

Dynamic work strategies are strategies that incorporate adaptable project activities to site conditions as new information becomes available while work is underway. This adaptation may be in response to data collection activities designed to address CSM unknowns, or it may be in response to completely unexpected site conditions encountered during the course of work.

Dynamic work strategies as part of a Triad approach can be integrated into almost every activity associated with hazardous waste site characterization and remediation. This includes overall project strategies, sampling and analysis programs for characterization purposes, remedial action design, implementation, and performance monitoring, long-term monitoring for sites that require it, closure plans, and quality assurance/quality control activities.

Innovative Rapid Sampling

Sometimes referred to as 'real-time' measurement systems, these are analytical or measurement technologies capable of producing data quickly enough to direct the progress of field activities (characterization or remediation) while they are underway [2]. Example analytical methods include X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), portable gas chromatograph and mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) technologies, and immunoassay test kits. However, this also could include standard laboratory approaches with quick turn-around of sample analyses if the analysis enables in-field decision-making and ensures logical internal consistency among Triad concepts.

Conceptual Site Models

At the core of each project is the conceptual site model (CSM). The term CSM is sometimes used to only describe pieces of the whole model. Geological, hydrogeological, contaminant fate and transport all may have computer models referred to as 'conceptual,' and a risk assessment may contain a CSM, but in a Triad sense, a CSM is the wholistic model that can effectively portray site concerns significant to the decisions that must be made. Elements of the model are added and updated as necessary.

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