Contaminated Site Clean-Up Information (CLU-IN)

Technology Innovation News Survey for April 16-30, 2026

Fri, 5 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The April 16-30, 2026 Technology Innovation News Survey has been posted to the CLU-IN web site. The Survey contains market/commercialization information; reports on demonstrations, feasibility studies and research; and other news relevant to the hazardous waste community interested in technology development.

Seminar: FY26 M2S2 Webinar: Data Usability Assessments, June 25, 2026

Thu, 4 Jun 2026 22:07:59 GMT

The Data Usability Assessment (DUA) is a defined process that considers whether data meet project data quality objectives (DQOs) as they relate to the decision to be made and evaluates whether data are suitable for making that decision. DUAs are critical to ensuring that Munitions and Explosives of Concern (MEC) and munitions constituents (MC) data are of the right type, quantity, and quality to meet project DQOs. The project-specific requirements for conducting the DUA process are defined during the Systematic Planning Process and documented in the project-specific QAPP. This webinar will discuss the DUA process for both MEC and MC during remedial investigation and remedial actions. At the end of this webinar, attendees will be able to explain the purpose of DUA, identify the project team members required to participate, select the appropriate inputs, conduct the assessment, and document the DUA outputs. Presentations will be suitable for the varied M2S2 webinar audience, which typically includes government, regulator, and contractor attendees, and there will be opportunities for questions and discussion.

CLU-IN Spotlight: Small Business Program Funding Opportunities Are Now Available for NIH/NIEHS/Superfund Research Program

Tue, 2 Jun 2026 19:15:33 GMT

NIH just released the new Small Business Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for eligible U.S. small businesses advancing innovative technologies toward public health impact. In addition to reviewing the current funding opportunities, applicants are encouraged to register for NIH Small Business 101, a new webinar series designed to help small businesses prepare for this next chapter of the program. Attendees will learn how to navigate new opportunities and policy changes, with each session followed by live Q&A with NIH Small Business experts. For questions about remediation and detection technology project ideas, please contact Heather Henry at heather.henry@nih.gov.

CLU-IN Spotlight: Notice of Funding Opportunity: Superfund Hazardous Substance Research and Training Program (P42)

Tue, 2 Jun 2026 19:14:54 GMT

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program (SRP) is pleased to announce the continuation of the Superfund Hazardous Substance Research and Training Program (P42). The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), RFA-ES-27-004, calls for applications to establish P42 Centers, which support problem-based, solution-oriented research relevant to Superfund. The Centers consist of multiple integrated projects representing both the biomedical and environmental science disciplines. Center cores are also tasked with administrative (that includes Center’s leadership, data management and analysis, and training functions) and translational research and engagement, and as applicable, research support functions. The next application due date is September 25, 2026 (5:00 PM local time of applicant organization).

Courses and Conferences Section Update for June 2, 2026

Tue, 2 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The CLU-IN Upcoming Courses and Conferences section was updated on June 2, 2026. There is 1 new entry, for a total of 8 upcoming courses and conferences related to hazardous waste remediation:

RemPlex and SURF: Enhanced Natural Attenuation: Pathways to Sustainable Remediation, Jun 16 , 2026, Internet Seminar

Federal Contract Opportunities (FedBizOpps) Update for May 25-31

Sun, 31 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The latest Federal Contract Opportunities update has been posted to the CLU-IN web site. It contains summaries of procurement and contract award notices issued between May 25-31 that pertain to hazardous waste, solid waste, underground storage tank remediation, and other environmental topics.

CLU-IN Spotlight: EPA Waste and Materials Management Decision Support Tools

Thu, 28 May 2026 22:06:46 GMT

Natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes) and wide-area chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) incidents (e.g., the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, foreign animal diseases), can generate a significant amount of debris (including both materials and waste) during the incident itself or subsequent remediation efforts. The quantification, segregation, transportation, staging, storage, and disposal of waste resulting from disasters can be an arduous and costly undertaking that is difficult for states, local governments, tribes, and territories to manage. In addition, processes are linked with decisions made throughout the response and recovery timelines and therefore, the remediation, including materials and waste management, must be holistically considered. To this end, many EPA program offices and teams have worked over the years to develop waste and materials management tools to assist decision makers with waste management decisions in the pre-planning, mitigation, response, and recovery phases of an incident.

I-WASTE: Incident Waste Decision Support Tool
Assists planning in how to handle, transport, treat, and dispose of contaminated waste and debris. I-WASTE helps characterize and produce order-of-magnitude estimates for the weight and volume of waste materials that may require management and/or disposal, as well as identifies and locates potential treatment and disposal facilities. This tool has been used to support several past responses and exercises including: Hurricane Florence response, planning for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza carcass disposal, examining disposal options for floods and fires in Idaho, estimating potential waste during the Ebola response, and it has been used during national level exercises. I-WASTE has an active user-base with over 63,000 views in 2025. Previously recorded training is available for I-WASTE.
AHWMPT: All Hazards Waste Management Planning Tool
Assists emergency managers and planners in creating or updating a comprehensive plan for managing materials and wastes generated from manmade and natural disasters. This tool walks users through the process of developing and implementing a plan while serving as a resource on various aspects of the planning process. EPA is currently working on enhancements to the AHWMPT in order to improve usability and to increase community uptake of the tool. Since 2022, there have been over 20 communities that have created waste management plans. Step-by-step instructions and a previously recorded training are available for AHWMPT.
DDRT: Disaster Debris Recovery Tool
Interactive mapping tool for locating recyclers and landfills capable of managing different materials and wastes that may be found in disaster debris. This tool provides information and locations of over 20,000 facilities with data for all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. The DDRT has been used to inform Tribal Emergency Operations Plans. It has an active user-base with over 179,000 requests for the national DDRT feature layer from September 2024 to March 2025.
WEST: Waste Estimation Support Tool
Estimates waste generated from remediation and cleanup activities following a radiological incident. This tool allows users to evaluate various decontamination and demolition strategies that examine the impact of those strategies on waste generation. It has been used to provide waste quantity estimations for the 2017 Gotham Shield Exercise which included a scenario of an improvised nuclear device in New York City. For more information on this tool, check out our webpage.
Waste Storage and Staging Site Tool
Identifies and prioritizes locations for staging and storing waste. Using a site suitability analysis, the tool considers complicating factors such as soil type, land cover, topography, ease of transportation, and proximity to surface waters. The tool will analyze various criteria for a specified geographic area to identify candidate sites and their total available land surface areas.
Waste Logistics Tool
Identifies optimal routes for transporting large volumes of waste from a disaster response area to waste management facilities. This tool calculates the cost and time to manage user-specified quantity of waste and allows users to run routing scenarios with user-defined destinations. Factors specific to waste type, hauling rates, and acceptance rates allow users to explore options and evaluate constraints to improve preparedness for managing large volumes of waste.

CLU-IN Spotlight: Call for Abstracts: Abandoned Mine Cleanup Information Exchange

Fri, 8 May 2026 19:43:22 GMT

This event, co-sponsored by US EPA Region 9 and the Society of American Military Engineers, San Francisco Post, will include structured opportunities for facilitated technical exchange, presentations, posters, and networking focused on key mine cleanup topic areas. The submission deadline for presentations and posters is May 19, 2026.

Seminar: "ITRC ITRC: Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) Identification Framework" from May 7, 2026 has been added to the Internet Seminar Archives

Fri, 8 May 2026 18:41:00 GMT

In 2023, the ITRC Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) Framework was published to help environmental regulatory agencies and other stakeholders identify, evaluate, and manage CEC's while acknowledging uncertainties in their environmental fate and transport, receptor exposure, and/or toxicity. Such an approach can be conducive to improved allocation of regulatory response resources and provide a foundation for communicating potential risk to stakeholders.

The ITRC framework is comprised of a white paper and four associated fact sheets. In the white paper, CEC are defined as: "substances and microorganisms including physical, chemical, biological, or radiological materials known or anticipated in the environment, that may pose newly identified risks to human health or the environment." The framework is meant to help environmental regulatory agencies and other stakeholders by providing examples of CEC monitoring programs and guiding the user through the process of identifying CEC key characteristics, how to communicate real and perceived risk from CEC to the public, and how laboratory analytical methods can be used in the identification process.

The ITRC CEC training presents this entirely new framework for identification, prioritization, and communication of CEC. This course includes the following topics:

An overview of the framework, how and why it was developed, the factors that influence the creation of CEC management units at the state level, and a listing of existing CEC monitoring programs.
A discussion of key variables that may be used as criteria to identify and prioritize CEC for response actions. This portion of the course includes a case study that illustrates how the identification and prioritization process works with an "unknown" chemical CEC.
Practices and methods for stakeholder messaging and how to share incomplete information on CEC that could impact human health and the environment. This portion of the short course builds upon the ITRC Risk Communication Toolkit by providing additional detail addresses communications plans, message maps, and audience identification.
A paradigm for how laboratory methods can be used to identify CEC ranging from:
- "Is compound X in the sample and at what concentration?" (i.e., known knowns) to
- "Which compounds from the list are in this sample?" (i.e., known unknowns) to
- "What is in the sample?" (i.e., unknown unknowns).

CEC are typically compounds or substances whose occurrence or effect is unknown but may or may not be understood through similar compounds or substances. This module includes a discussion of the use of targeted and untargeted analysis to identify a CEC.

Participants will learn the elements of the CEC framework and gain an understanding of the framework application from case studies. Participants are encouraged to review the ITRC CEC Framework prior to the class.

Seminar: "ITRC ITRC: Pump & Treat Optimization" from May 5, 2026 has been added to the Internet Seminar Archives

Fri, 8 May 2026 18:41:00 GMT

ITRC's Pump & Treat (P&T) Optimization training aims to summarize existing information and best practices while also developing a systemic and adaptive optimization framework specifically for P&T well-network design and management.

P&T systems have been one of the most commonly used methods for hydraulic containment and treatment of contaminated groundwater at sites with large groundwater plumes. This method cleans up groundwater contaminated with dissolved chemicals by pumping groundwater from wells to an above-ground treatment system that removes the contaminants. Optimization of P&T remedies is important for maintaining contaminant removal effectiveness throughout the operation lifetime and managing the system toward an exit strategy. A strategy for routine optimization of P&T remedies is key for maintaining the contaminant removal efficiency of these systems.

The primary audience for this training is environmental project decision-makers, which may include federal, state, tribal, and various local agency employees; contractors to these agencies; and potentially liable parties and their engineers and consultants as well as involved stakeholders. Generally, those involved in designing, building and operating, and optimizing pump & treat systems would benefit.

The goal of the training is to provide a roadmap for optimizing a P&T system and refining the remedial strategy or shifting toward another remedial approach. Pump & Treat optimization should be systematic and data-based, and the training and document aim to provide tools and direction to assist in this rigorous process.

Key Takeaways

Understanding the P&T project lifecycle: evaluation, optimization, and transition, as well as considerations for sustainability, resiliency, and regulatory and stakeholder entities.
P&T optimization should incorporate adaptive site management.
P&T systems are influenced by a diverse collection of outside factors, which should be considered throughout the entire optimization process.
Transition and termination should both be considered during the optimization process.
Remedial objectives dictate evaluation and optimization efforts for P&T systems..

Prior to attending the training class, participants are encouraged to view the associated ITRC Pump & Treat guidance document

Courses and Conferences Section Update for May 4, 2026

Mon, 4 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The CLU-IN Upcoming Courses and Conferences section was updated on May 4, 2026. There are 3 new entries, for a total of 8 upcoming courses and conferences related to hazardous waste remediation:

CLU-IN Spotlight: Environmental Monitoring and Remediation Technology Assessment Initiative (EMRTAI) Call for Applications

Wed, 8 Apr 2026 22:44:57 GMT

The Environmental Monitoring and Remediation Technology Assessment Initiative (EMRTAI) announces a Call for Applications for assessments of technologies to characterize and recover critical minerals from mining and mineral processing waste. The deadline for applications is May 8, 2026.

Seminar: SRP Progress in Research Summer 2026 Webinar Series: Session II, July 16, 2026

Wed, 8 Apr 2026 15:47:28 GMT

This Progress in Research webinar series, hosted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program (SRP), showcases research from 6 schools funded by SRP in 2025. These awards were made as part of the P42 grant solicitation RFA-ES-20-014. In the two-part series, awardees will highlight their research projects, accomplishments, and next steps. The newly funded centers, including Baylor College of Medicine, University of Arizona, and University of Iowa, are bringing fresh ideas and approaches to tackle complex problems related to hazardous substances.

The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) SRP Center investigates whether the maternal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emanating from superfund sites, as well as other environmental chemicals, increases the risk of preterm births (PTBs) and augments major neonatal morbidities such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. The BCM SRP Center wants to determine the mechanisms by which PAHs contribute to PTBs and understand the factors that could be targets for interventions to prevent and reduce the health burden associated with PAHs present in Superfund sites.

The University of Arizona SRP Center works to address the unique human health risks encountered in the U.S. Southwest, a region with a rich history of metal mining and generation of mine wastes. Their overall goal is to construct a mechanistic model of how chronic exposure to mining-impacted dust that is co-contaminated with metal(loid)s and fungal spores contributes to the development of nonmalignant lung diseases. They aim to implement this model to predict exposures and associated health outcomes, to inform public health prevention in communities neighboring mine waste sites, and design remediation-based interventions to exposure.

The University of Iowa SRP Center focuses its research on polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The center studies PCBs in the air, particularly in schools and those emitted from contaminated soils and water of Superfund sites. Researchers examine the health impacts of inhaled PCBs, particularly on adolescents, with a focus on neurodevelopmental and metabolic effects. The University of Iowa SRP Center's long-term goal is to develop recommendations to prevent and/or limit human exposure to airborne PCBs and to improve the health and well-being of the population.

To learn about and register for the other session in this webinar series, please see the SRP website.

Courses and Conferences Section Update for April 2, 2026

Thu, 2 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The CLU-IN Upcoming Courses and Conferences section was updated on April 2, 2026. There is 1 new entry, for a total of 8 upcoming courses and conferences related to hazardous waste remediation:

2027 National Brownfields Training Conference, May 25 - 28, 2027, Salt Lake City, UT

Seminar: "ITRC Vapor Intrusion Mitigation (VIM-1) - A Two Part Series: Session 2" from March 17, 2026 has been added to the Internet Seminar Archives

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:35:00 GMT

ITRC's Vapor Intrusion Mitigation training is a series of eight (8) modules, presented over two sessions. If you took the ITRC VIM series previously, the content has stayed the same, but the new course directs people to the Vapor Intrusion (VI) Toolkit resources published in January 2026 by ITRC.

The Vapor Intrusion Mitigation training series provides an overview of VIM and presents information from the 2026 ITRC VI Toolkit (which includes fact sheets, technology information sheets, and checklists).

Session 1:

Introduction & Overview of Vapor Intrusion Mitigation Training Team
Conceptual Site Models for Vapor Intrusion Mitigation
Community Engagement During Vapor Intrusion Mitigation
Rapid Response & Ventilation for Vapor Intrusion Mitigation
Remediation & Institutional Controls

Session 2:

Active Mitigation Approaches
Passive Mitigation Approaches
System Verification, OM&M, Curtailment and Shutdown

When certain contaminants or hazardous substances are released into the soil or groundwater, they may volatilize into soil vapor. VI occurs when these vapors migrate up into overlying buildings and contaminate indoor air. The ITRC VI Toolkit combines the previous ITRC VI-related guidance documents (VI 2007, PVI 2014, VIM-1 2020), along with updates, into one comprehensive resource toolkit (including fact sheets, technology information sheets and checklists) published in January 2026.

After the Vapor Intrusion Mitigation series, you should understand:

How to locate and utilize the relevant document, fact sheets, technology information sheets, and checklists
The importance of a VI mitigation conceptual site model
How community engagement for VI mitigation differs from other environmental matters
When to implement rapid response for VI and applicable methodologies
The differences between remediation, mitigation, and institutional controls
Available technologies for active and passive mitigation, and design considerations for various approaches
How/when/why different mitigation technologies are appropriate
How to verify mitigation system success, address underperformance, and develop a plan for curtailment of a mitigation system and shutdown

We encourage you to use the ITRC VI Toolkit and these training modules to learn about VI mitigation and how you can apply these best practices to improve decision-making at your sites. For regulators and other government agency staff, this understanding of VI mitigation can be incorporated into your own programs.

While the training makes every effort to keep the information accessible to a wide audience, it is assumed that the participants will have some basic technical understanding of chemistry, environmental sciences, and risk assessment. As with other emerging contaminants, our understanding of VI mitigation continues to advance. This training provides the participants with information on areas where the science is evolving and where uncertainty persists.