Center Director's Report The center provides a focal point for hazardous substances research and training and technology transfer in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain areas comprising EPA Regions VII and VIII. A long-term goal is to serve the needs of the 10-state area using as many available resources within Regions VII and VIII as possible. For instance, training and technology transfer events offered by consortium universities and other institutions are listed in the quarterly newsletter HazTech Transfer. Information about the center, the annual report, and the proceedings of the annual conference are available on the Internet at http://www.engg.ksu.edu/HSRC. Through personal visits, the newsletter, telephone calls, and direct mailings, center staff have emphasized inclusiveness and the idea of "working together for a better environment." Center personnel have made visits to all of the consortia universities, several other universities, EPA regional offices, and other state and federal offices. A variety of professional gatherings and conferences have been sponsored and attended. Approximately 20,000 individuals have benefited directly through center activities. A large number of the projects funded by the center include a cooperative element. Many of them involve more than one principal investigator; there is cooperation across academic department boundaries as well as institutional cooperation. In some cases, investigators are cooperating with support through two separate projects. Often publications are co-authored by two or more faculty members. Faculty from several universities have participated in workshops offered by the center. These cooperative activities have helped to strengthen environmental research and technology transfer programs at participating universities. Participating students have benefited from working with a team of investigators. The advisory committees have been most valuable in guiding the center in selecting research and technology transfer areas to pursue and projects to support. On the advice of the Science Advisory Committee in May 1990, the director assigned the highest priority to research involving soil and processes to clean up contaminated soil, thus pursuing a focal area. Many of the new projects reflect the priority on soil-related research. Members of the committee have encouraged research on innovative applications of vegetation in bioremediation and stabilization of soil. Cooperation with other institutions and organizations has been enhanced because of leadership of committee members. The center's administrative office is in Ward Hall at Kansas State University. Stanley C. Grant, associate director; Blase Leven, program coordinator; Patrick McDonald, extension assistant; and Carla Wolfe, office manager and program associate, manage the office and provide a variety of public services, including responding to many requests for information on the activities of the center and other environmental issues. Wendy Griswold, project manager, provides administrative management for the Native American and Other Minority Academic Institutions (NAOMI) Program at Haskell Indian Nations University. Alison Hodges is the project accountant for the center, and Rita McDonald provides clerical support. Highlights February 1996 marked the completion of seven years of federally-funded center activities. During this time, over 100 projects have been funded, with over 250 principal investigators and students working on these projects. While it is very difficult to follow all of the positive impacts of the research, training, and technology transfer activities of the center, estimates show that cost savings due to technology innovation are more than ten dollars for each dollar expended through the center. After seven years of research through the center, utilization of vegetation in the remediation and/or stabilization of contaminated soil is becoming a widely used technology. The number of contractors that are actively incorporating vegetation into remediation processes is growing rapidly and the number of field sites where vegetation is part of the solution is increasing exponentially. Field studies often show cost savings of more than 60% compared to conventional pump-and-treat technology. This savings has caught the attention of those who are responsible for remediation within federal agencies and the private sector. Research on the beneficial effects of vegetation in metals-contaminated soils and mine tailings has been applied at several field sites. The influence of mycorrhizal symbiosis on plant growth and heavy metal tolerance in mine tailings has been demonstrated and communicated. Laboratory and field research has demonstrated which soil amendments are essential to revegetate mine tailings because of the need to improve nutrient availability and water holding capacity. Results have shown that concentrations of arsenic and cadmium in poplar tree leaves are below the level where they would be a health concern for deer and other animals. Vegetation reduces soil erosion and sediment transport to streams and rivers. Center investigators are providing information and advice to those who are revegetating heavy metal-contaminated sites. Vegetative stabilization is often the only cost-effective solution for large acreages of soils and mine tailings containing heavy metals. Center investigators have developed new approaches to identify and select chelators for separating heavy metals from soil. Quantitative structure-activity relationships and molecular descriptors can be incorporated into models which allow computers to be used to help identify chelators. A workshop on these concepts was presented after the May 1995 Conference on Hazardous Waste Research. A second workshop is scheduled for May 1997. The comprehensive approach to process synthesis and design developed through the center has been incorporated into spreadsheet software by a commercial firm and is now available for implementation by those who do process synthesis for chemical process industries. This will lead to significant advances in pollution prevention, save design costs, and increase profitability. Center investigators have demonstrated that Fenton reagent is effective for oxidation of a variety of contaminants including munitions compounds such as TNT. Recent work provides new information on the mechanisms of the oxidation process. Several field projects conducted through the center have demonstrated that bioremediation occurs in the field as predicted by laboratory studies. Availability of oxygen has been shown to be an important consideration for contaminants which must be degraded aerobically. Further research is being conducted to develop cost-effective oxygen transfer technologies. Several companies have provided partial support for these field studies. The Research and Re-education for Displaced Defense Personnel (R2D2) program was begun in 1995. The R2D2 program is national in scope, with all five centers receiving funding to involve former defense personnel in research programs working on center-funded research projects at center consortium universities. During its first year, this program enrolled more than 70 displaced Department of Defense employees at HSRC consortium universities. These students are working on projects that will improve remediation technologies at defense sites. The Technical Outreach Services for Communities project continues to provide assistance to communities impacted by hazardous waste in EPA Regions VII and VIII. Patrick McDonald provides leadership for this program. Recent projects include a full-day community workshop on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Denver and assistance to community groups in South Dakota, Montana, Kansas, and Missouri. This program matches expertise of center professionals with needs of communities to provide customized education and assistance to community groups dealing with hazardous waste cleanups, permitting, and risk assessment issues. The Native American and Other Minority Institutions (NAOMI) program has benefited over 60 minority academic institutions (MAIs). This year faculty members and students from several MAIs—historically black universities, Native American universities, and predominantly Hispanic universities—participated in the annual conference and/or the NAOMI Summer Cooperation Program. MAI participants in the summer program each spent approximately two months at a center consortium university working on an existing research project. This cooperative program provides valuable training experiences for MAI faculty members and students as well as the host center consortium faculty members. The NAOMI program has also produced or co-produced several video seminars and one satellite-uplinked seminar. A very important event this year was the HSRC/WERC Joint Conference on the Environment, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 21-23, 1996. The conference drew nearly 500 attendees and featured plenary speakers on environmental issues associated with minerals and mining. In addition, five workshops were held on the two days surrounding the conference. The conference proceedings were again desktop published, with further space-conscious improvements to the format. The proceedings are available on the Internet at http://www.engg.ksu.edu/HSRC. Louis Licht, University of Iowa bioremediation researcher and CEO of Ecolotree, Inc., was honored again for utilizing a poplar tree technology developed by Licht and Jerald Schnoor. The American Council of Engineering Consultants selected Ecolotree, Inc. for an Honor Award in the 1996 Engineering Excellence Awards competition for its role in the design, installation, and management of an innovative engineered plant system project for the Woodburn, Oregon, wastewater treatment plant. Poplar trees have been installed at over 30 sites in 11 states and Europe. Kenneth Klabunde, distinguished professor of chemistry at Kansas State University and a center researcher since 1990, is behind a new Manhattan, Kansas, business, Nantek, Inc., which will commercialize the destructive adsorbent technology which has been developed at the laboratory scale. Nancy Chou, a high school student from Manhattan, Kansas, was honored in a science fair competition for a project she had developed with assistance from an HSRC-funded investigator, Dr. Larry Davis, professor of biochemistry at Kansas State University. Chou was awarded, at a regional science fair, first place in the biology category, first place in biological sciences, and the grand prize for the entire fair for her project "Degradation of TNT by Higher Plants." Chou and Davis presented their work at the annual conference in Albuquerque and their paper is in the conference proceedings. A team of chemical engineering seniors under the direction of HSRC faculty designed a plant-based landfill leachate treatment process for Riley County, Kansas. Alfalfa has already been planted at the site and trees will be planted in 1997. Use of this innovative technology is expected to save Riley County several million dollars. The center co-sponsored the Seventh Billings Symposium on Planning, Rehabilitation and Treatment of Disturbed Lands. Frank Munshower, Montana State University, provided leadership for this event. The proceedings were published by the Reclamation Research Unit at Montana State University. HazTech Transfer, the center's quarterly newsletter, continues to be published and distributed to over 4,000 individuals. Centerpoint and Newspoint, joint publications of the five centers, have continued to be published with responsibility for managing and editing of each issue revolving between the HSRCs. Earth Medicine, the newsletter of the NAOMI program, is published bi-monthly and distributed to minority academic institutions, center consortium universities, tribal offices, government agencies, and other interested individuals. This year the center has added many pages on the World Wide Web. Center pages include a wealth of information about the center and its programs. Individuals all over the world can access the center's Web pages and find copies of center publications, funded project descriptions, information about center personnel, and general information about the center. The center's home page can be accessed at http://www.engg.ksu.edu/HSRC. There is also a home page for the national HSRC program and information on the four other centers. The Magellan Internet Guide recently gave the HSRC Website a rating of three out of a possible four stars. As shown by the listing of theses and dissertations in the bibliography, many students have helped with center projects while conducting research required for their advanced degrees. Many of these graduates now have important positions with contractors, industry, government, and universities. Their movement from the university to their places of employment has resulted in technology transfer which has enhanced innovation. The center repository continues to be a resource for researchers nationwide. Publications that result from funded center projects are placed in the repository at Kansas State University's Farrell Library and are available through interlibrary loan. Current holdings stand at about 1,100 items. Future Directions As with many publicly-funded programs, the future of the center is unclear at this time. Congressional budget-cutting has made it uncertain how long the national HSRC program will be continued. Despite this uncertainty, goals for the future continue to be made and worked toward. The 12th Annual Conference on Hazardous Waste Research has been set for May 20-22, 1997, in Kansas City, Missouri. This year's conference theme is "Building Partnerships for Innovative Technologies." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, National Mine Land Reclamation Center, and the Waste-management Education and Research Consortium will co-sponsor the conference. The R2D2 program has provided substantial new research dollars to the center and is an important force in the retraining of defense personnel who have left defense jobs due to governmental downsizing. The center's researchers are moving further toward commercialization of developed technologies, with each project now requiring a plan for technology transfer. By combining the center's potential for commercialized technologies and the retraining of former defense employees, the center can provide the mechanism for moving these displaced personnel into environmental cleanup field positions where they can apply their expertise in emerging technologies. The Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Hazardous Substance Research Center, the National Mine Land Reclamation Center, and the Waste-management Education and Research Consortium have initiated a cooperative effort to address the following environmental research and technology transfer needs associated with mining and mine lands: 1) national environmental leadership in research and technology transfer; 2) research to develop innovative technologies to reclaim and restore mine lands and recover minerals from mine spoil; 3) Professional support on scientific issues to bring good science into decision making; 4) advanced degree graduates with environmental expertise in mine land reclamation and resource recovery; and 5) environmental expertise to support mining and mineral processing industries with special consideration for small scale operators. With the ever-increasing number of users of the Internet and, more specifically, the World Wide Web, center personnel plan to increase availability of center resources through this medium. In addition to the myriad of center resources that have already been put on the Web, future plans include electronic publishing of the center's conference proceedings and on-line conference and workshop registration. This year the center's proposal to begin the electronic Journal of Hazardous Substance Research was the most highly ranked technology transfer proposal. Plans are to publish 20 to 40 manuscripts each year in electronic format. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Adobe Acrobat will be utilized to publish the journal. Through use of electronic media, this document can be published quickly and inexpensively and have the capability to provide hyperlinks to references as well as graphics, video, and sound. These features could be used to allow users to run simulation models.