CEU Credits - Certificate of Attendance

10/20/2025 6:30 AM - 7:00 AM

Credit will be awarded as follows:

• ½ credit per hour of session attendance
• 1 credit per hour of workshop attendance

Sign in and out: Attendees who have registered and paid for CEU credit are required to sign in and out each day. Please do so at the main AEHS registration desk (or at the workshop door, as applicable), and present a photo ID each time. Be sure to sign out at the end of the day before leaving. For workshops, sign out at the main desk and sign in again at the workshop entrance.

Show your ID: Photo ID is required when signing in and out.

Don’t forget to sign out! Those who sign in but do not sign out, will not receive credit for that day.

Certificates are e-mailed by mid-November

Workshop 02: Environmental Forensics (1p-5p)

10/20/2025 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

 

Enter Promo code WKSP2FREE to attend this workshop free (one free workshop per paid registration)

Environmental forensics continues to expand and evolve. This workshop presents updates focused on the four topics listed below. 

1. Distinguishing PFAS Sources
   The source attribution of PFAS contamination is a rapidly developing field, and investigators must navigate different methods having different levels of data quality as well as different approaches to distinguishing source.  This presentation focuses on PFAS forensics investigations using both targeted and nontargeted methods.  What can we do now and what is happening in the research space that may improve our understanding?
    
2. Radiological Forensics
   Forensic radiochemistry distinguishes natural and anthropogenic sources of radioactivity in soil, sediment, water, and air. This presentation introduces a range of forensic applications using routinely quantifiable radioisotopes. Case studies will feature isotopic signatures of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), technologically enhanced NORM (TENORM), transuranic isotopes, Cold-War-era nuclear weapons testing fallout and common household sources.  Additionally, contaminant age-constraining, field sampling and tiered measurement techniques are highlighted.

 

3. Practical Applications of GCxGC Fingerprinting
   Two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC) is an underutilized method to unravel complex mixtures of hydrocarbons through the simultaneous separation of chemicals by molecular weight and by polarity/degree of unsaturation.  This presentation demonstrates the utility of separating hydrocarbons into non-polar, and polar/unsaturated fractions to distinguish among different legacy petroleum distillate fuels (gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel) and modern biofuels (biodiesel and renewable diesel) and between contamination and natural background. 
    
4. Role of Chemical Fingerprinting in Natural Source Zone Depletion
   The rate of NAPL mass loss via NSZD is conventionally measured indirectly by CO2 efflux.  Chemical fingerprinting of NAPLs provides another basis to estimate NSZD rates and quantifying %mass reductions in selected hydrocarbon fractions (e.g., VPH/EPH) and individual chemicals (e.g., BTEX and PAHs).  Case studies of NSZD in fuel-derived NAPLs pools are presented, including a reversal in NSZD rate indicative of a new petroleum release.

Workshop 04: The SURF Guide to Tools for Optimizing Remediation Projects - An Interactive Workshop (2p-5p)

10/20/2025 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM

 

Enter Promo code WKSP4FREE to attend this workshop free (one free workshop per paid registration)

This course, taught by members of the Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF), will provide an overview of several publicly available tools that can be used to integrate and evaluate resource, social, and economic impacts of remedial actions throughout the remediation project lifecycle. The training will include several case studies and hands-on demonstrations of a wide range of tools, and course participants will learn how to use these tools, the differences between them, appropriate use cases for each tool, and how to interpret results. 

Workshop Overview: The focus on the comprehensive impact and resilience of remedial actions continues to grow in the remediation field, with stakeholders and regulatory agencies continuing to place more emphasis on the impacts of remedial actions on resource, social, and economic considerations and also ensuring resilience of site remedies themselves. Several open-source publicly available tools have been developed and gained recent popularity to address these concerns. These tools span a broad range of applicable use cases, providing anything from simple qualitative assessments to complex quantitative metrics. The goal of this course will be to provide an overview of several commonly used and publicly available tools, discussion of the most appropriate use cases of each tool, a comparison of the tools and results they provide, and hands-on exercises for participants to learn how to use these tools in their own work. This course will also provide a brief overview of the current regulatory context for use of these tools at both the federal and state level. 

The tools that will be discussed during this course include the following: 

• Battelle’s SiteWise™ tool 
• USEPA’s Spreadsheets for Environmental Footprint Analysis (SEFA) 
• The ASTM Standard Guide for Greener Cleanups (E2893-16) 
• The ASTM Standard Guide for Remedial Action resiliency to Climate Impacts (E3249-21) 
• The ITRC Guidance on Sustainable Resilient Remediation 
• USEPA’s Engineering Forum Issue Paper Conducting Climate Vulnerability Assessments 
• Environmental Justice screening tools 
• SURE By Ramboll 

Attendees will have the opportunity to complete representative examples using these tools and will leave the course knowing when to use these tools, where to find them, and how to start using them on projects. 

Lunch - Tuesday

10/21/2025 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM

Workshop 07: Environmental Forensics - Applications, Techniques, and Interpretations (6:30p-9:30p)

10/21/2025 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM

 

Enter Promo code WKSP7FREE to attend this workshop free (one free workshop per paid registration)

 

Environmental forensics has become an important area of research since the early 1970s. Interest was driven both by development in analytical technology and greater awareness of environmental issues. The basic premise of environmental forensics remains the establishment of the relationship between the contaminant in the environment and possible sources. Since the early 1970s there have been major advances in analytical techniques in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, and specificity. The range of contaminants of concern has also greatly expanded. The 1970s saw hydrocarbon releases being of major interest but major attention has expanded to cases involving MTBE, chlorinated solvents, PBDEs, pesticides, PFAS, EDB, 1,4-dioxane and many other persistent pollutants in air, soil, and water. This course will discuss what an environmental forensic expert needs to investigate these environmental incidents. A good understanding of analytical chemistry and what happens to products after release into the environment are essential since the fingerprints of the spilled product may be quite different from the original product in the storage tank. A good understanding of the origin and manufacturing processes involved in the synthesis of the contaminants can also be extremely useful. Historical changes in product composition over time resulting from manufacturing processes or end use specifications are also critical areas. Preliminary characterization of environmental samples is undertaken by gas chromatography (GC) followed by more detailed analyses using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) and possibly MSMS along with 2D GC. Stable isotope composition of individual contaminants, including C, H, N, Cl, Br, or S isotopes, can also be utilized for single component contaminants where GC and GCMS are of little use for correlation or differentiation. This course will discuss the evolution and application of these techniques to different environmental forensic problems. In addition, integration of historical product information, site histories and other potentially useful information will be discussed. The ultimate goal being to provide a comprehensive picture of what is required to be an environmental forensic expert or scientist.

Workshop 08: Advanced Topics on Exposure Point Concentrations and Background Evaluations (6:30p-9:30p)

10/22/2025 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM

 

Enter Promo code WKSP8FREE to attend this workshop free (one free workshop per paid registration)

 

This workshop provides an in-depth, hands-on exploration of advanced statistical methods for calculating exposure point concentrations (EPCs) and making comparisons to background.  The U.S. EPA’s ProUCL software will be the primary featured tool. The course is designed for environmental professionals, risk assessors, and technical managers looking to build skills and experience in practical applications of ProUCL for risk assessment and site decision-making. These are considered advanced topics building on prior ProUCL workshops offered by AEHS and the LSPA that focused on standard approaches to estimating EPCs using ProUCL. 

 

To provide context, past course content will be reviewed briefly for the benefit of those who have not attended previous courses, including a discussion of methods to estimate EPCs from judgmental and systematic sampling data.  An example of area-weighted averaging using a Thiessen polygon approach will be included.  Limited statistical theory will also be presented to provide insights on these data analysis methods.

 

The instruction will also include approaches to assess site data against background data sets, such as background threshold values and two-sample comparisons. A theme throughout will be highlighting statistical and conceptual site model assumptions, including understanding how outlier treatment and data distribution assumptions influence the calculated statistics.

 

Participants are required to bring laptops with ProUCL installed*, as the workshop will center on working through example datasets to develop proficiency in executing analyses and interpreting the resulting statistical outputs. To reinforce the practical exercises, the workshop will integrate discussions of core statistical concepts underpinning ProUCL’s methods. Participants will gain insights into the statistical theory that informs ProUCL’s calculations, ensuring they can critically assess the validity of outputs in the context of their own site data.

 

* ProUCL software, as well as a user’s guide and technical guide, are freely available for download from the USEPA.  ProUCL installation on a laptop may require administrator permissions (or IT assistance), and ProUCL may be available for only certain operating systems (e.g., Windows 10).