CHAPTER 1
 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.1 Project Introduction

 The Sages former drycleaning site in Jacksonville, FL was the test ground for a pilot

scale in-situ alcohol flushing test in 1998. The groundwater at the site was contaminated with

the drycleaning chemical perchloroethene, (PCE), also called tetrachloroethylene and perc. PCE

was found in discrete layers in the sandy aquifer. Four previous studies have been published

about the Sages site. The first two papers studied the NAPL removal effectiveness of the 1998

alcohol flushing test [Sillan, 1999; Jawitz et al., 2000]. Next, the bioremediation of residual PCE

stimulated by the unrecovered ethanol was studied by the US EPA in the three years after the

pilot test [Mravik et al., 2003; Sewell et al., 2006].

 This thesis presents the analysis of data from multilevel sampling wells installed in the

PCE source zone and up to ten meters downgradient. These wells consist of bundles of smaller

stainless steel tubes each installed to a different depth, allowing the collection of discrete vertical

liquid samples normally diluted in standard well screen intervals. In the remedial zone, the

spatial distribution of initial groundwater concentrations of PCE, partitioning interwell tracer

tests, ethanol flushing, and post-remedial groundwater concentrations of PCE and ethanol were

obtained by sampling the multilevel well depths. After the ethanol flushing test, long term

monitoring commenced in the source zone and the additional downgradient multilevel wells.

Semi-annual sampling was conducted to monitor contaminant concentrations and to estimate

contaminant mass discharges out of the site over the six-year period from 1998-2004.

 Much of the data presented in this thesis was collected in the period prior to this author's

contributions. Field sampling continued in 2003 and 2004 while the author analyzed the results