CHEE Seminar: Jim V. Rouse
Monday, February 21, 2022 – 3:00 p.m.
Jim V. Rouse, MS
Principal Geohydrologist
Acuity Environmental Solutions
“Unintended Consequences of Poor and Uninformed Policy Regulatory Decisions”
Harshbarger Bldg., Room 206 | Zoom Link
Social Hour: Harshbarger 118B, 2:30 to 2:50 p.m.
ABSTRACT
This presentation will discuss the unintended consequences of poor and uninformed policy regulatory decisions. For example, most current Superfund sites resulted from the fact that RCRA allowed waste disposal by ‘evaporation,’ even in areas where precipitation exceeds evaporation. Those working in the field recognized this would cause extreme ground-water contamination, but the law did not allow them to prevent such actions. The discussion will address the history over the last (first) 60 years of pollution control. After all, in 1961, when Jim Rouse started, there was essentially no regularity control!
BIOSKETCH
Mr. Rouse has 50 years of experience, including 17 years with various Federal agencies and 28 years as a consultant to industry throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He is internationally known for his work on the subsurface behavior of heavy metals and radionuclides and has developed innovative approaches for in-situ remediation of metals, especially hexavalent chromium, in soil and groundwater, starting in 1982. Mr. Rouse has authored more than 50 publications, dealing primarily with the subject of natural and man-aided attenuation of heavy metal, radiochemical, and cyanide contamination, and vadose zone monitoring. He has made a number of presentations to technical meetings and taught numerous short courses. He has been qualified as an expert witness approximately 30 times, in the area of heavy metal and radiochemical migration and remediation. Mr. Rouse has been involved in the investigation, design, and operation of in-situ remediation systems for soil and groundwater contamination by hexavalent chromium at more than a dozen sites in the United States and abroad, starting in 1982. These are in geological environments ranging from low permeability silts and clays to uniform, permeable glacial outwash sands, and include karst limestone. Delivery systems have included injection wells, infiltration trenches, infiltration galleries, borehole-placed reactive barriers, and direct-push hydro-fracture systems. He is listed as an expert in the U.S. EPA publication “In Situ Treatment of Soil and Ground Water Contaminated with Chromium: Technical Resource Guide” (EPA/625/R-00/005, October 2000). He recently served as a consultant to the Glasgow, Scotland city council as an advisor in the remediation of extensive deposits of chromium-ore processing residue (COPR) scattered throughout that city. Mr. Rouse also served as an advisor to a major industrial client on remediation of COPR under an East Coast residential area.