Author: Jeff Carnahan

Long-Tail Environmental Liabilities; That’s Why You Bought Insurance

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Steve Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics
As seen in the June 2013 issue of Cleaner & Launderer

 

Last month over 200 active or former dry cleaners received a letter from the State of California informing them that if they would pay money to the State, the State would settle a claim against them for contributing to environmental contamination at a long closed out solvent recycling and waste management facility.  The drycleaners followed the law and sent waste solvent and filters to a hazardous waste management facility that was licensed by the State of California to handle such material.  As part of having a license to operate, this facility was required to have a cleanup bond to pay for the removal of stored material and the cleanup of environmental contamination at the site.   Should they shut down and walk away before such cleanup activities were completed.

While this particular situation seems unfair, I assure you that it is not uncommon.   Whether it is the government, or a neighboring property owner, or a new owner of the site, environmental liability does not go away.  Environmental contamination can lay dormant for years, even decades, but at some point, more often than not, it gets cleaned up and somebody has to pay for it.  And when somebody has to pay, even if that somebody is the government, those that owned or operated the facility that generated, transported or disposed of the hazardous waste, contributing to that contamination, can be held liable for the cost of investigation and cleanup.

Today I want to tell you once again about long-tail liabilities and how they won’t go away.  In fact, like taxes, the environmental statutes were written so that they would not be discharged or forgiven through a bankruptcy, ownership transfer, possibly even estate probate.  Continue reading “Long-Tail Environmental Liabilities; That’s Why You Bought Insurance”

Selecting An Environmental Consultant; What Firm Is Best For Your Situation

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written By Stephen R. Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics
As seen in the May 2013 issue of the Cleaner & Launderer

Selecting an environmental con­sultant can be a daunting task and for small business owners that do not have day-to-day exposure with soil and groundwater contamination it’s very difficult to know the difference between consultants. This article is meant to shed light on the differences between environmental consultants and to present the different methods for selecting an environmental con­sultant. It’s my goal to show people that selecting the right consultant for your situation is a very important decision and should not be taken lightly. If a business person doesn’t know that there are differences be­tween environmental consultants, countless hours and dollars may be wasted, projects could drag on and site closure could be a distant glimmer.

This article will go through some of the selection and screening meth­ods that small business owners use when selecting an environmental consultant to address environmental liabilities.

Continue reading “Selecting An Environmental Consultant; What Firm Is Best For Your Situation”

Practical Approaches for Remediation of VOCs in Clayey Soils

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Stephen R. Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics
As seen in the April 2013 issue of Cleaner & Launderer

The question is often posed, “How much will it cost to clean up contamination at a drycleaner?”  Invariably the answer is, it depends.  Factors that come into play include, but are not limited to, the concentration of VOCs present in the subsurface, whether or not the groundwater is impacted, the depth to groundwater, how far the contamination has spread, whether the cleanup will be focused on residential or commercial land use, and the type of geology and stratigraphy underlying the site.  This article focuses on how clayey soils affect cleanup considerations.

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed of very fine-grained particles.  Clayey soil is a term used for soils containing at least 30% clay.  When clay comes in contact with liquids, it swells and becomes plastic.  When it dries out it shrinks and cracks. Clay is very porous and can hold liquids (e.g. water) between the fine-grained particles, but it is not very permeable, meaning liquids won’t move through the material rapidly.  Clayey soils can hold water and moisture, but water does not move through it very fast.  Likewise, air doesn’t move through clayey soils very well.

Continue reading “Practical Approaches for Remediation of VOCs in Clayey Soils”

PREFERENTIAL PATHWAYS; UNDERGROUND PIPES AND UTILITY LINES CAN BE CONDUITS FOR THE MIGRATION OF CONTAMINANTS

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Stephen R. Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics

As seen in the March 2013 issue of Cleaner & Launderer

PDF Version

You can imagine that if wastewater is discharged into a sewer line with cracks in it that the wastewater could contaminate the soil and groundwater.  After all, sewer pipes can be very old and made of a variety of material such as transite, clay, concrete, plastic, or steel.  Of course, leaks are not uncommon in sewer lines.  Sewer lines can crack or break, they can corrode, or the couplings, where pipes are fitted together, can leak and result in “point source” areas of contamination.  Sags and low points are common when a sewer line goes underneath streets and structures.  These low areas can result in sediment and dense chemical liquids pooling in these sag points, resulting in contamination source areas.  Sewer pipes can become blocked and clogged and result in backups that can create points of leakage. 

Historically speaking, sewer pipes were not designed to be leak proof.  The first sewers were essentially brick lined tunnels.  Later, short sections of clay pipes were coupled together to create long lengths of sewer.  The clay sections consisted of a male end and a female (bell) end and the lengths of clay pipe were coupled together.  Gaskets were hopefully placed in the bell end to minimize the leakage, but of course those gaskets would degrade over time.  Transite pipes and concrete pipes similarly had male and female ends and were coupled together.  Continue reading “PREFERENTIAL PATHWAYS; UNDERGROUND PIPES AND UTILITY LINES CAN BE CONDUITS FOR THE MIGRATION OF CONTAMINANTS”

Risk Based Closures Require Long Term Monitoring; What is the True Cost of Implementing Institutional Controls?

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Steve Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics

As seen in the February 2013 issue of Cleaner & Launderer

PDF Version

 I’ve been involved with a number of environmental site cleanups where the chemicals in the soil and groundwater were not believed to be a significant threat to human health or the environment.  There are a number of situations where this scenario applies, such as an old light-industrial manufacturing site in the middle of a blighted industrial urban area.  In such a case, the surrounding sites were identified as being the cause for the majority of the groundwater impacts in the near vicinity and if we were to remediate the groundwater beneath our site, the contamination from neighboring sites would continue to migrate beneath our property essentially re-contaminating it.  Another example would be when a site exhibits soil impacts, but the groundwater does not indicate significant impacts, even though the contamination has persisted for 20 plus years.  The site is capped with an asphalt or concrete parking lot and building.  

There are many, many scenarios where it would appear that a risk-based closure with no physical remediation is warranted.  The assumptions are that the site has been adequately characterized so the extent of the contamination is known in the soil and groundwater.  The contamination is not reaching the groundwater and that an inventory has been conducted to determine that no wells are located nearby and that no person is drinking from nearby wells. Finally a risk evaluation is conducted to determine what pathways might exist where by contaminants from the site could have an adverse impact on people or the environment.  That is to say that no person or animal (including wildlife and marine organisms) would come into physical contact with the contamination, breathe vapors emanating from the contaminants, or drink contaminated water.   Continue reading “Risk Based Closures Require Long Term Monitoring; What is the True Cost of Implementing Institutional Controls?”

EPA OVERREACHESU.S. EPA HAMSTRUNG BY STRICT WORDING IN CLEAN WATER ACT IN VIRGINIA DEPT. OF TRANS., ET AL V. US EPA

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Justin Gifford, General Counsel, EnviroForensics

In an attempt to employ best practices in managing stormwater runoff in Virginia, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found itself on the wrong end of a federal district court’s ruling on January 3. Although charged with overseeing the environment, naturally a science-heavy directive, the EPA (and state-level regulatory agencies) found their hands tied by strictly worded legislation that has little room for innovation.

Ruling for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, District Judge Liam O’Grady held that while the EPA is granted the authority by Congress to regulate the discharge of pollutants into impaired waters in the form of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL’s), it can’t use proxies in favor of the pollutants it has the authority to regulate. Continue reading “EPA OVERREACHESU.S. EPA HAMSTRUNG BY STRICT WORDING IN CLEAN WATER ACT IN VIRGINIA DEPT. OF TRANS., ET AL V. US EPA”

Source Removal: The Key to Effective Site Remediation

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Steve Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics

As seen in the January 2013 issue of Cleaner & Launderer.

PDF Version

Risk-based cleanup approaches to obtain environmental site closures are becoming more and more acceptable to the regulatory agencies.  In general, if it can be demonstrated that contaminants left in soil and groundwater won’t cause an adverse impact to people or the environment (animals and their habitat), they may be able to be left in place and allowed to degrade over time.  To evaluate risk-based cleanups, the exposure pathways need to be indentified and evaluated.  Exposure pathways are the avenues or ways in which the contaminants could affect human health or the environment and include ingestion or uptake of water, direct contact with water or soil, and the inhalation of vapors or dust.

Risk assessments are now a routine part of determining appropriate cleanup approaches.  If the risk assessment can demonstrate that no one is drinking untreated groundwater (well water) in the area, that pathway is considered closed and can be checked off in terms of its risk to human health and the environment.  More specifically, the assessment could state the groundwater ingestion pathway is incomplete and there is the risk for cancer due to exposure to contaminants in groundwater is less than1 in 1,000,000.  The other exposure pathways are evaluated in a similar fashion to evaluate the likelihood that an exposure pathway is or is not complete.  Continue reading “Source Removal: The Key to Effective Site Remediation”

Should You Let Your Sleeping Environmental Dog Lie?

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

How Upcoming Changes in Property Transaction Practices and Developing Vapor Intrusion Concerns May Decide for You

Written by Jeff Carnahan, L.P.G., Vice President, Director of Technical Services, EnviroForensics
As seen in the December 2012 issue of Cleaner & Launderer.

Everyone has heard, and probably declared, that it’s “best to let sleeping dogs lie” at some point.  This old proverb presents the question, “Why bring up issues from the past that will only cause trouble”?  Let’s leave these things alone and as they are.  There is wisdom in this saying, but it’s not necessarily applicable for every situation.  Is there an actual sleeping dog in your path?  Sure, let it lie.  Have you encountered an old adversary with whom you’ve had a disagreement in the past?  Maybe you should just say hi and don’t bring up those old issues.  Of course, I get it.  Do you own a property with a potential environmental problem from past operations?  Are you in a position where you may be blamed for an environmental release?  I don’t believe that the sleeping dog proverb applies here.  If it were me, I’d rather wake that dog myself, gently and cautiously, than have someone else wake him abruptly and make the situation go from manageable to unmanageable.  I’m referencing, as you have guessed, the question of if, when, and how you approach looking for a potential environmental release at your property. 

 

As experienced business owners well know, a large number of environmental problems are discovered during commercial real estate property transactions.  When properties are to be exchanged from one business entity to another, or even refinanced through a new mortgager, potential liability for environmental issues may also be exchanged if the new owner or lender doesn’t perform an adequate inquiry into the environmental conditions at the property.  In turn, financial lending institutions are especially interested in looking for “environmental sleeping dogs”.  They would like to take possession of the property that was used as collateral in the transaction without assuming liability for a costly cleanup, should their loan become default.  Now, I don’t want to bore you with the details and if you’d rather be sleeping you wouldn’t be reading, but it’s important to understand just how you can end up being one who has to deal with that environmental dog regardless of how or by whom he is awaken.  So here we go. Continue reading “Should You Let Your Sleeping Environmental Dog Lie?”

Commingled Plumes – Who Is Responsible For The Cleanup?

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

When contaminated groundwater plumes run together, how is the cost of cleanup divided

Written By Steve Henshaw, P.G., President & CEO, EnviroForensics

PDF Version

A commingled plume is the term used when two or more plumes of contaminated groundwater blend together.  The blending or commingling of groundwater plumes is a fairly common occurrence in urban or commercial settings.  A very common illustration of commingled plumes is when the groundwater beneath two corner gas stations is contaminated with releases from the underground storage tanks.  The groundwater may all move in the same general direction, but because the plumes spread or fan out as they migrate, the plumes blend together and overlap one another. 

 

Commingled Plumes
Commingled Plumes

 

Continue reading “Commingled Plumes – Who Is Responsible For The Cleanup?”

Here Comes the Next Game Changer; Phase I Environmental Site Assessments

Posted on by Jeff Carnahan

Written by Darci Cummings, L.P.G., Project Manager, EnviroForensics

Revisions to the standard by which Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) are performed are currently in review by the U.S. EPA with some significant proposed modifications that are expected to have a considerable impact on the environmental due diligence process as we know it.  In 2005, we saw a major revamping of the Phase I ESA process in response to the 2002 enactment of the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act.  Under this law, the US EPA was charged with establishing by rule the “generally accepted good commercial and customary standards and practices” that had to be followed by a party seeking immunity to CERCLA liability.  The EPA responded by establishing the All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) rule, which went into effect on November 1, 2006. Prior to establishment of the rule, Phase I ESAs were generally performed to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E 1527 Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process.  To meet the requirements of the EPA’s AAI rule, ASTM rolled out E 1527-05.  The varied interpretations of portions of the rule have sparked debate amongst Environmental Professionals (EPs) and other interested stakeholders over the past 7 years.  These debates have ranged from determining what really constitutes a Recognized Environmental Condition (REC), to whether or not soil vapor should be considered as a potential source of impact, to when EPs are required to do a file review.  The ASTM E 1527 standard is currently undergoing revisions that will serve to clarify the process and comply more closely with the AAI rule as it was intended.  The revised standard, to be known as ASTM E 1527-13, is currently under review by the EPA and is expected to be finalized within the first half of 2013, when it will officially replace E 1527-05.  Continue reading “Here Comes the Next Game Changer; Phase I Environmental Site Assessments”