[CPEO-BIF] Mapping Shallow Volatile Groundwater Plumes in Silicon Valley

[Bob Wenzlau <bob@terradex.com>]

This post transmits a public mapping resource that shows where groundwater contamination plumes are located as well as basic information to begin to judge their impact. The post describes the challenges faced when assembling a groundwater plume maps, their relevance and relation to recent USEPA’s attention to vapor intrusion hazards in Silicon Valley, and we describe the impact of a subset of these plumes – the ten that are deemed Superfund sites. 

For context, in Silicon Valley, unknown to many is that former industry, gas stations, and dry cleaners left residual chemicals in shallow groundwater plumes below new office parks and homes. The residual chemicals can vaporize into the soil gases and migrate to structures. One key chemical, trichloroethene (TCE), is carcinogenic and poses an impact to a young fetus, thus any young woman is particularly vulnerable. A young workforce unknowingly inhales vapors from unknown underlying groundwater plumes containing potential carcinogens. 

Knowing where groundwater plumes are located is basic to assessing the hazard posed when volatile organics vaporize from these plumes. Current groundwater plume maps, however, fail to clearly reveal the occurrence of groundwater plumes to key stakeholders – local government, contractors, and the general public. Terradex is building a map service called the CleanupDeck that seeks to communicate this information in a form intuitive to stakeholders. All the valley's groundwater plumes are shown on one map, and information on any plume can be gained through a single click.  Terradex is introducing this as a resource to local government to make informed land use decisions.

Link: http://blog.terradex.com/2014/01/22/mapping-shallow-volatile-groundwater-plumes-in-silicon-valley/

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Bob Wenzlau
Terradex, Inc.
bob@terradex.com
(o) 650-227-3251
(c) 650-248-4467

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