Project (M.E.T.) - Simon Fraser University, 2004. / Theses (Dept. of Biological Sciences) / Simon Fraser University.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr. Joel E. Kostka, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Oceanography. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 22, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 94 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has declared the development of new, portable, and effective detection technology for toxic waste sites a necessity. Current methods are expensive, cumbersome, and often only marginally effective. This project was designed as a first step in a programmatic approach to explore the feasibility of using dogs to locate, delineate, and trace leaching from toxic chemical dump sites. Two Australian Shepherds were trained to detect formaldehyde, a chemical common to many hazardous dumpsites. The training method employed was an adaptation of the military working dog explosives detection protocol. Following training, the dogs were tested to ensure that they could indeed detect 0.5 ml of formaldehyde. Upon confirmation of the dogs’ ability to detect formaldehyde, threshold determinations were implemented. In Experiment I, 0.5 ml of formaldehyde was buried at depths ranging from zero to two feet, in an effort to determine the maximum depth at which the dogs were capable of detecting 0.5 ml of formaldehyde. Results from Experiment I indicate that the dogs were incapable of detecting 0.5 ml of buried formaldehyde, regardless of the depth at which the formaldehyde was buried, despite the fact that the dogs could readily detect 0.5 ml above ground. In Experiment II, field thresholds were determined by burying increasing amounts of formaldehyde (from zero to 10 ml in one ml increments) at a constant depth of one foot. The dogs were able to detect a combined total of 6.50 ml of buried formaldehyde. There was no difference in the dogs’ abilities when compared for ascending, descending, and overall trials. Further, no difference was found between the dogs and their abilities. Results from Experiments I and II indicate that it is indeed feasible to use dogs for the aforementioned purposes. / Master of Science

The design and development of a system for disinfecting medical waste at the site of origin is presented. Investigation of the current commercial systems that accomplish this task shows that they all expose the waste to physical conditions that are harmful to all forms of life. Further, most are very expensive to install and to operate. A recently developed biochemical process promises to effectively inactivate harmful pathogenic organisms economically and without the danger of extreme heat or poisonous chemicals. The biochemical process is not yet fully developed. Nonetheless, the development of a marketable system to take advantage of this technology has been initiated. The motivation for developing this technology and the particular system that will employ it is presented. A general overview of the system and components is presented. Previous and suggested future testing strategies are explained. Component interactions and process control are described. / Master of Science

Current Indiana regulations regarding vegetative covers on multi-layer cap systems recommend a standard seeded turf as defined by the Indiana Department of Transportation. Although in its infancy, the use of native prairie grasses and forbs is beginning to generate interest as a viable vegetative cover. This creative project examines past influences that dictated the selection of vegetative covers, examines the use of native prairie grasses and forbs, and creates and applies a design "model" for an existing hazardous waste site located in Albany, Indiana.The goals of this creative project are to identify standard design guidelines for vegetative covers on hazardous waste and landfill multi-layer cap systems, evaluate standard guidelines and case studies of hazardous waste site vegetative covers, recommend changes to standard design guidelines, recommend an alternative vegetative cover using native prairie plants, apply new design guidelines to an existing hazardous waste site (Muncie Racetrack Site) using the alternative cover, and evaluate the results of the guidelines with the alternative cover. / Department of Landscape Architecture

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed June 18, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-61).

Cost-benefit analysis plays a significant role in the process of siting hazardous waste facilities throughout the United States. Controversy regarding definitively disparate, albeit unintentional, racist practices in reaching these siting decisions abounds, yet cost-benefit analysis stands incapable of commenting on normative topics. This thesis traces the developments of both cost-benefit analysis and its normative cousin utilitarianism by focusing on the impacts they have had on the contemporary environmental justice discourse and highlighting valid claims, misunderstandings, and sedimented ideas surrounding the popularity of cost-benefit analysis. This analysis ultimately leads to an alternative means of realizing environmental justice that both acknowledges the need for greater democratic interactions and attempts to work with, rather than against, the prevailing paradigm of reaching siting decisions.

The disposal of waste is a growing environmental, political, and economic problem. Low level radioactive waste (LLW) disposal is no exception. The major purposes of this dissertation are to examine the economic tradeoffs which arise in the process of LLW disposal and to derive a framework within which the impact of these tradeoffs on LLW disposal policy can be analyzed. There are two distinct stages in the disposal of LLW--the transportation of the waste from sources to disposal sites and the disposal of the waste. The levels of costs and risks associated with these two stages depend on the number and location of disposal sites. Having more disposal sites results in lower transportation costs and risks but also in greater disposal costs and risks. The tradeoff between transportation costs and risks can also be viewed as a tradeoff between present and future risks. Therefore, an alteration in the spatial distribution of LLW disposal sites necessarily implies a change in the temporal distribution of risks. These tradeoffs are examined in this work through the use of a transportation model to which probabilistic radiation exposure constraints are added. Future (disposal) risks are discounted. The number and capacities of LLW disposal sites are varied in order to derive a series of system costs and corresponding expected cancers. This provides policymakers with a cost vs. cancers possibility function. The marginal cost of reducing cancers by changing the number and location of disposal sites is calculated. A possible policy application of this information is illustrated by comparing these costs to an assumed value of life derived from experimental evidence found in the literature. A tentative conclusion is reached that the current movement toward a system of regional LLW disposal sites may be economically suboptimal.

Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the proposed site for the underground storage of high-level civilian nuclear waste in the United States. The repository must be isolated from the general environment for at least 10,000 years. Ground water and gases are potential carriers of radioactive materials. Fractures and connected pores in the host rock are the major pathways for ground water and gases. Therefore, the mechanical and flow properties of the host rock should be understood and utilized in the design of the underground repository. Samples of Topopah Spring tuff from Yucca Mountain were used in this study. Cylindrical specimens were prepared to perform uniaxial and triaxial "damage" tests where specimens are loaded to a particular stress level to induce damage and fracturing and then unloaded. Mechanisms of microcracking at different fracturing levels have been studied by using both an optical microscope and a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The original rock sample without loading was also observed under the microscopes. Many kinds of defects including pores, preexisting fractures, and soft inclusions were found in the undamaged Apache Leap tuff samples. Pores were determined to be the main microstructures in Topopah Spring tuff that could influence the mechanical and hydrologic properties. Under compressive stresses, microcracking initiates from some of the pores. These microcracks will interact and coalescence to form large microcracks or macroscopic cracks as the load is increased. Crack propagation phenomena, such as pore cracking, pore linking, pore collapse and the formation of en echelon arrays were all found in specimens unloaded prior to complete failure. The failure of tuff specimens is often through a process of shear localization. In summary, the deformation and failure of both tuffs occurred by progressive fracturing, starting from microcracking on the small scale, and ending as fractures coalesced to form macroscopic fractures and shear localization. On the basis of the experimental studies, micromechanical models such as the pore collapse model and the pore linking model have been developed based on fracture mechanics theory. These models are used to predict the constitutive behavior for tuff and the predicted stress-strain curves match well with the experimental curves.

The human health effects of acute exposure to high levels of ionizing radiation are well understood; however, when these irradiations occur at low levels, there is controversy as to their potential health threat (BEIR V, 1990). For individuals living in areas where the level of naturally occurring background radiation is relatively high, the issue of additional exposure to anthropogenically derived sources of ionizing radiation may be of some concern. This study investigates the presence of radionuclides in surface soils near a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site near Pocatello, Idaho, where two phosphorus production facilities have operated for more than fifty years. It is hypothesized that airborne particulates from these facilities are migrating into a residential community, and are accumulating in the uppermost soil layers. Soil samples were collected from seven sites located between 1.3 and 6.7 km along a transect aligned with the prevailing downwind direction. The transect origin lies at the northern boundary of the Superfund site, and the sites were selected for their ease of public access. Samples were collected at four different 2.5 cm depths (10 cm total) for each site, and these samples were analyzed for their gamma emissions. Statistical evaluations of the sample data yielded results of no significant difference in nuclide concentrations between soil layers, or between sample sites (��=0.05). This investigation corroborates the EPA discovery that nuclide concentrations in surface soils decrease rapidly beyond 1 km from the site boundary. This study extends the available information regarding the presence of radionuclides in off-site surface soils by approximately 4 km in the prevailing downwind direction. Additionally, these data appear to contradict the EPA's conclusion that no residential exposure is occurring via a surface soil pathway. This investigation finds that surface soil exposures, at locations such as public parks and schools, may be occurring from radionuclide concentrations that are as high as 4 times that of published background radiation levels. / Graduation date: 2002