Demonstration of Fluorescent Magnetic Particles for Linking Sources to Sediments at DoD Sites

Contaminated sediments are a continuing regulatory issue for DoD facilities. There is continued regulatory scrutiny of contaminated sediments located in proximity to multiple DoD discharges into aquatic environments. In complex industrial settings, both the DoD and EPA have great interest in determining which nearshore discharges contribute contaminated sediments to particular areas of the depositional environment. This project will demonstrate the efficacy of a particle tracking technology to quantitatively map the depositional footprint of particulates released from typical DoD sources into adjacent aquatic environments. Fluorescent ferrimagnetic tracer particles will be released from specific sources and tracked through the water column and collected at the sediment surface to determine the transport pathways and their depositional pattern and quantitatively demonstrate where these particle sources are most likely to impact local sediments. Demonstration and validation will show the utility of this technology to map the spatiotemporal distribution of particulates, and thus any sorbed contaminants, from specific sources which would greatly assist potential remedial efforts to focus on the appropriate source of contamination. This particle tracking technology also provides direct empirical data useful for numerical model calibration/validation purposes which are often used within sediment and contaminant transport studies.