Field Screening Method Developed Testing GRO and DRO in Drinking Water for U.S. Navy Jet Fuel Site in Hawaii

Drinking Water
Oral Presentation

Prepared by S. Greason
Sitelab Corporation, 86 Coffin Street, West Newbury, MA, 01985, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 978-363-2299

ABSTRACT

In November 2021, a large release of JP-5 jet fuel at the U.S. Navy’s underground storage tank site at Red Hill contaminated the nearby aquifer, the public water supply serving Pearl Harbor. Thousands of homes were affected, hundreds of people reported getting sick. This accident made national headlines. The tank farm, built in World War 2, has since been closed and defueled, but remediation and monitoring efforts continue to this day.

The Navy and their contractors are using Sitelab’s portable UVF-Trilogy analyzers to field screen samples on-site, followed by confirmatory lab GC analysis. This fluorescence-based instrument is highly sensitive and selective to different types of aromatic hydrocarbons and detects gasoline range organics (GRO) and diesel range organics (DRO) in less than two minutes. Water samples are collected and extracted in hexane solvent using graduated 40 mL glass VOA vials, which are less expensive and wasteful compared to sample prep methods used for GC analysis. The analyzer can detect low concentrations of hydrocarbons, with detection limits as low as 200 ug/L for GRO and 40 ug/L for DRO.

This presentation will summarize how UVF technology works, its limitations, performance testing proficiency study samples, acceptance criteria testing blanks, laboratory control samples (LCS) and other QC tests developed to meet the Navy’s requirements for this project.