ABSTRACT
In the town of Solventville, a printing shop, a former dry cleaner, an electrical utility substation with several large transformers, and a printed circuit board manufacturer are all located within a short distance of each other. The neighboring gas station investigates a fuel tank leak and discovers perchloroethylene (PCE) in groundwater samples. The regulator suspects that the PCE originated from the printed circuit board manufacturer, which is located up-gradient from the gas station. The electronics fi rm retains a consultant, namely you, to advise it of its potential liability in the PCE spill. Your initial review shows that PCE was used in varying amounts at different times at all the four facilities, and even though two facilities are cross-gradient of the current known occurrence at the gas station’s monitoring wells, sewer lines and storm drains may have provided a horizontal conduit through which PCE could have migrated. How will you proceed? It is time to open your environmental forensics toolbox and see what you have got to work with. Solvent stabilizers are a potentially useful forensic tool; however, very little work has been published documenting their application in completed studies.
