Solid & Hazardous Waste Management

Many locations have been contaminated by past activities, including both intentional and accidental releases of chemicals and toxic wastes. These sites require investigation to characterize the concentrations and locations of contaminants in the soil and groundwater, a risk assessment to estimate the health hazards of the contamination to humans and the ecosystem, and strategies to clean-up the site and return it to safe utilization.

The worst of these sites in the U.S. are called "Superfund" sites. Clean-up of these locations is overseen by the US Environmental Protection Agency. States oversee clean-up of many other sites. In Colorado, for example, many sites are being cleaned up under the process. Many of these sites can be rehabilitated to enable use for businesses and industry. This type of work is termed "brownfields" restoration.

  • Site characterization by collecting samples of soil, groundwater, sediment, surface water, air, and biota
  • Conducting human health and ecological risk assessments with toxicologists, biologists, etc
  • Developing target concentrations for clean-up with regulatory agencies and citizen groups
  • Designing methods to clean-up sites, including in situ and ex situ treatment; these can include chemical, biological, and phyical methods
  • Using modeling software to predict the fate and transport of contaminants at sites
  • Operation and maintenance of remediation equipment at contaminated sites

Environmental Engineering Technical Electives (upper-division)

Â鶹ÒùÔº select at least Two courses from this list (or a second from list A, no double counting). Faculty can petition to add additional courses.

  • EVEN 4494 Fate & Transport (3 credits, F; prereqs: EVEN 4404/114, EVEN 4424)- *Starting Fall 2021 this course is a major required course for all, no longer a choice for an option course.
  • CVEN 4353 Groundwater Engineering (3 credits, F; prerequisites: fluid mechanics.)
  • CVEN 4834/5544 Solid Waste (3 credits)
  • GEOL 3030 Introduction to Hydrogeology (3 credits, F; prerequisites: GEOL 1150 or 1010 or 1012 and calculus 1 [min grade D-].)

*Note: "I" indicates a class on an intermittent schedule.

Geology Minor

This option is highly compatible with a .

Companies that Specialize in Remediation:

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