John Gondek
Ecotoxicologist
GEI Consultants, Inc.
John Gondek is an environmental toxicologist who specializes in the analysis of toxicity and chemistry data in relation to legacy and on-going sources of contamination in complex urban environments. He has conducted ecological risk assessments and other risk-based technical analyses at multiple Superfund sites and former manufactured gas plants. Additionally, he has supported the development of site-specific aquatic life criteria for several metals using bioavailability based approaches, such as the Biotic Ligand Model (BLM). Authors: John Gondek, Mike Hawthorne, Camille Carter, Lisa Reyenga, Jake Adcock
POSTER PRESENTATION
A Multimetric Approach for Optimization of Long-term Groundwater Monitoring Networks
Long-term groundwater monitoring programs can often be onerous, expensive, and may generate data that are superfluous to assessing the project goals. Such monitoring plans may have originally prescribed collecting a large suite of analytes, at frequent intervals, and have not been updated to reflect data collected since initiation of the program. Here we present a process for optimizing and streamlining future data collection efforts to specifically support remedial decision-making. This includes a step-wise process for identification of the priority contaminants, assessment of the spatial and temporal redundancy in the sampling scheme, and use of multivariable statistical analysis to define a defensible optimized network capable of characterizing the long-term trends in the data and accurately modeling groundwater plumes. Included here is a case study of how we have successfully implemented these principles at a large refinery, and our recommendations for working with regulators on optimizing and revising existing monitoring plans.