The taking of an open-ended contamination case to a near term CLOSURE
The cleanup of leaking underground storage tank sites is a multi-party task involving the responsible party, environmental consultant, regulators of various agencies and the California Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund (which reimburses eligible claimants on the cleanup expense).
With the exception of cases owned by major oil companies, in most cases, the responsible parties are at a loss as to what is really going on.
In their weakness, they defer to the controls exercised by the consultant, regulators and the Cleanup Fund. However, with few exceptions, regulators and the Fund do not manage the technical aspects of the cases; this responsibility is the domain of the consultant who works under general oversight of the regulators. The Fund is charged with the duty to ensure that all funds have been spent reasonably. The Fund usually executes its obligations by demanding that consultants will back up their charges with detailed analyses of costs on Time and Materials basis.
As one can see, the ingredients are there for breeding of circumstances that are not conducive for consultants to carry out cases to closure in the most cost effective way. There is an old maxim that one’s production usually aligns with the incentive. The point is being made that by and large; with the exception of personal conviction, there is no incentive for consultants to manage cases to closure in a cost effective manner.
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In spite of the adverse factors, four years ago our firm etched on its banners the CASE CLOSURE mantra and embarked on a crusade to close cases as fast as our resources could allow us; and moved at the same time to impinge its mission on all concerned parties. The story that follows illustrates one of several cases that we moved to closure in the past 12 months.
In February of 2007, our firm was asked by the owner of a contaminated site to review and submit a second opinion on the (since 1988) ongoing cleanup. The case had previously been managed by a number of engineers and the owner was deeply concerned as he had already drained 1.1 million dollars of the $1.5 million available from the Cleanup Fund—and there was no end in sight. Therefore, the owner was stalling the corrective action. There were two agencies overseeing the case: Fire Department and California Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Upon review of the case history, we found that implementation of the pending plans was likely to deplete and could even exceed the remaining cleanup funds. Our geologist and environmental engineers studied the case in detail and in consideration of all relevant information concluded that the case merited “low risk closure”. We then called for a conference with the regulators to work out a solution.
The meeting took place on in July of 2007. At the conclusion it was unanimously agreed that in fact, the case was a good candidate for “low risk closure,” and we were authorized to submit a case closure application package:
- In the meeting we presented a summary of the current status, including previous site remedial activities, contaminant concentrations, locations of municipal wells, and depths to water
- We represented that several municipal supply water wells were located within the vicinity of the subject site, and none were impacted by the unauthorized release.
- We indicated that substantial mass of hydrocarbons had already been removed from the formation.
- The participants agreed that no additional assessment or remediation was required at the site at this time.
- The site was determined to be eligible for “monitored natural attenuation” status.
We are now proceeding to summarize all the site activities related to the remedial work. With the report, we will submit a formal request for monitored natural attenuation status for the site.
Before our intervention there had been $1.1M dollar expenditure with a stalled case and no closure in sight. This has now changed to a case moving positively to closure with clear objectives agreed upon by all concerned parties.
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