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SAMPLE PROJECTS  (click on links below for a project summary)

Brownfields/Site Assessment

Characterization/Remediation

Contaminated Sediments

Expert Testimony

 

Brownfields/Site Assessment

Former Industrial Manufacturing Site to Public Golf Course

AEM provided technical consultation and engineering services over a three-year period for development of a strategy plan and assistance with design and implementation of interim remedial measures for remediation of PCBs at a several hundred acre defunct aircraft parts/rail car manufacturing facility in Philadelphia. This effort culminated with preparation of a Remedial Investigation Report and final Cleanup Plan. The client was the site owner. The documents were submitted to and approved by PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) pursuant to the PA Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act ("Act 2"). This difficult, innovative project received DEP's Southeast Regional Office Community Environmental Excellence Award in 1999. The remediated site, as planned, is now an 18-hole public golf course. AEM's services, as part of a technical and legal project team, helped the client to optimize data collection requirements; select and design remedial actions for soil, buildings, and groundwater; and provide sufficient documentation to DEP to allow the agency to issue one of the first Act 2 Release of Liability designations. With AEM's assistance, the client was able to show that potential exposure pathways could effectively be eliminated. An 18-hole public golf course now occupies the former industrial site.

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PCBs, Underground Tanks, Asbestos

AEM performed Phase I, II, and III environmental work for a real estate developer to identify and remediate environmental issues at a 180-acre defunct resort facility in Chester County, PA. AEM prepared and implemented work plans that, among other things, resulted in the identification and testing of 33 oil-filled electrical power distribution transformers, containers of waste oil, 24 underground fuel storage tanks, and asbestos in buildings. AEM prepared scopes of work, selected contractors, and provided construction oversight for the subsequent removal and disposal of, among other things, 24 electrical transformers and associated PCB oil, 24 underground fuel storage tanks, 650 tons of fuel-contaminated soil, containers of waste oil, and building-related asbestos. Subsequently, AEM characterized groundwater quality in a localized area after removal of one of the underground fuel storage tanks and associated fuel-contaminated soil. Based on AEM's analysis and written reports, the client obtained an agreement from the PA Department of Environmental Protection to rely on natural attenuation to restore groundwater to acceptable standards.

 

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Environmental Site Assessments

AEM has performed over 80 environmental site assessments to assist clients in their evaluation of environmental liability associated with potential land transactions. AEM’s efforts meet and exceed the requirements of ASTM E 1527-05 Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process.

 

AEM’s assessments have ranged from small single residential building lots to large industrial and commercial complexes. Generally, Phase II assessments are recommended about forty percent of the time.

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Characterization/Remediation

Chromium Contamination at Multiple Sites

AEM has provided consultation and consulting engineering services to an industrial client for more than 20 years to characterize and remediate chromium (Cr) contamination in environmental media (soils, sediment, groundwater, building surfaces) at approximately 40 individual sites. The Cr contamination likely originated from residue generated by a former chromium chemicals manufacturing facility.

AEM has been the principal technical consultant to the client for implementation of an administrative consent order (ACO), including interim remedial measures design and construction, remedial investigation, risk assessment, treatability studies, remedial alternatives evaluations, and final remediation implementation. Remedial investigation work has been implemented completely or partially at almost all ACO sites. Remediation, either ex situ treatment or excavation with off-site disposal has been completed at more than a dozen sites to “no further action” designation by the oversight regulatory agency. At the client's request, AEM serves as senior technical advisor and quality assurance reviewer for work plans, reports, engineering drawings and specifications, and written communications and documentation submitted to regulatory agencies. AEM's services have included interfacing with client management and multi-disciplined project team (e.g., hydrogeologists, contractors, analytical laboratories, research scientists, risk managers), and regulatory officials and serving as client representative and engineering adviser. Tasks have included speciation of heavy metals; analytical method development; QA conformance and usability of laboratory data; evaluation of potential regulatory cleanup standards; review of risk assessment protocols; assessment of ecological impacts; evaluation of alternative remedial technologies; and development, implementation, oversight, and evaluation of bench-scale and full-scale field pilot tests of candidate soil remediation technologies. Other AEM services have included: technical advisor in meetings with regulatory agencies; co-author of peer-reviewed papers on characterization (including analytical methods) and treatment of soils containing hexavalent chromium; and principal author of patent applications for soil remediation processes. AEM has also provided contracting and construction oversight at a number of the chromium-contaminated sites during implementation of both interim remedial measures and final site remediation.

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Senior Technical Oversight and Consultation for International Energy Service Firm

AEM is currently providing senior technical consultation and project management assistance to a multi-national corporation for site characterization and remediation of multiple North American and overseas facilities (e.g., Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom). The work is being performed as part of a divestiture agreement between our client and a third-party for environmental liabilities associated with each of the facilities. AEM’s primary role is to provide senior technical oversight and direction for site characterization and remediation activities being performed by site-specific teams on behalf of our Client, as well as provide management-level technical input on legal strategies associated with the third party agreement. Tasks have included: assisting the client and its outside counsel with the selection of project team members for each facility that typically include technical consultants/contractors and outside legal representation; providing oversight of the technical project team for each facility (typically 10 to 12 simultaneously active facility assessments); reviewing data quality from field measurements and laboratory analysis; providing input on proposed technical approaches and evaluating and managing cost and schedule implications for selected technical approaches; reviewing and commenting on project technical documents (e.g., work plans; quality assurance project plans; final project reports; interim technical letters and papers); interfacing with regulatory agencies and others on behalf of the client; participating in management-level project status meetings with the third party; providing reserve cost estimates for each facility to assist the client with reporting requirements under Sorbane-Oxley; and reviewing for accuracy and completeness technical consultant and contractor invoices for the client.

 

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Quality Assurance/Quality Control for Investigation of Gas Pipeline Contamination

AEM has for eight years been assisting a natural gas pipeline client to implement the requirements of a USEPA consent decree for assessment and remediation of soils and groundwater impacted by historical discharges that occurred during routine gas pipeline operations. AEM is serving as the Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) officer for the project and prepared a Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) and is providing technical oversight for the on-going investigation and characterization of soil, groundwater, sediment, and surface water at more than two dozen gas pipeline compressor stations. Other related activities include: generating site characterization reports for two of the impacted sites; reviewing technical reports that document the results of field investigations prior to regulatory submittal; performing QA/QC technical oversight of field characterization activities; assisting the client in formulating project strategy; and interfacing with USEPA, the jurisdictional regulatory agency.

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Asbestos, Lead, Mercury, and PCBs in Water Supply Facilities

AEM has for over four years provided ongoing senior-level strategic environmental consulting services to a large east coast municipal water department responsible for the operation, maintenance, and management of the municipality s potable water supply and distribution system. AEM originally was tasked with managing a facility characterization program to identify the presence or absence of four primary  Legacy constituents, asbestos, lead, mercury, and PCBs, at more than 350 individual facilities. AEM s responsibilities have included: the preparation of project technical specifications; the gathering and interpretation of information on past assessments and remedial actions; the preparation of an electronic database repository and population of the database with facility-specific environmental data; and technical oversight of program implementation; including technical review of program control documents and facility work plans and assessment reports. AEM has also prepared management-level technical standard operating procedures to formalize the process of assessing Legacy constituents at the municipality s remaining facilities and to provide guidance to minimize potential facility occupant or construction worker exposure to paint that contains one or more constituents of concern.

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PCBs in Gas Pipelines and Environs

Site assessments and an evaluaSite assessments and an evaluation of remedial options were performed for a natural gas transmission company at 89 sites, including 65 compressor station properties, in the eastern half of the United States. The compressor station properties had become contaminated with PCBs primarily from the use of PCB-containing lubricating oil. Site assessments (performed by others) included sampling and analysis of surface and underground soils, groundwater, sediments, biota, and equipment surfaces for PCBs and preparation of site-specific assessment reports. An AEM principal had intensive, long-term involvement as the project manager for the site investigations and as the key technical advisor in negotiations with State regulatory agencies and USEPA. The negotiations resulted in development and lodging of individual State consent orders and a federal consent decree. In addition, the AEM principal prepared written testimony and was deposed in separate proceedings addressing characteristics of PCB contamination at onsite and offsite locations on the gas transmission system, and also opining on the basis for cleanup levels, on whether the gas pipeline company's handling of pipeline fluids after the mid-1970s added materially to cleanup obligations or other costs or damages, and on where and when facilities approved by the USEPA became available for disposal of PCB-contaminated materials.

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Underground Storage Tank Releases

AEM has performed characterization and remediation for multiple clients associated with underground storage tank releases. AEM’s efforts have included coordination of soil borings, ground penetrating radar and electro-magnetic surveys and UST removals. AEM provides follow-up efforts associated with soil, groundwater and surface water impacts to sufficiently characterize the release to satisfy regulatory requirements. AEM’s knowledge of and working relationship with the regulatory agencies has been instrumental in achieving releases of liability under Pennsylvania’s Act 2 program for numerous clients.

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Contaminated Sediments

Major Contaminated Sediment Sites Database

AEM has led an ongoing fifteen-year effort for a Fortune 100 client to identify, document, and evaluate sites in the U.S. and Canada at which sediment remediation projects are either planned, in progress, or have been completed, for the purpose of understanding the details of the remedial methods (e.g., monitored natural recovery, capping, or sediment removal by dredging) including the objectives, equipment used, duration, cost, and outcome. Over 120 projects have been documented and evaluated in detail, and the results have been assembled into an extensive, searchable, electronic Database now available on the Internet. The format of the Database was developed by AEM, and the Database is maintained and routinely updated by AEM. The most recent update is ongoing. The Database was initially prepared to fill the void for a credible, detailed sediment remediation information resource and is currently being maintained in that context. The Database has proven valuable to clients and third parties for determining the remedial methods, means, outcome and costs for contaminated sediment remediation projects; identifying lessons-learned; and providing insight to assist in future contaminated sediment site characterization and remediation activities.

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Superfund Site, Extended River

AEM has been extensively involved in an on-going 15-year consultation with a Fortune 100 industrial client regarding source identification, and characterization and remediation of PCBs in a major river in the northeastern US. Ongoing consultation has involved defining, selecting, and implementing interim remedial measures to control or eliminate sources of PCBs to sediments and defining and evaluating removal and treatment technologies for PCBs in sediments for a variety of settings and river conditions. AEM's services have included review, analysis, and preparation of extensive written comments in report form regarding the justification and feasibility of an unprecedented remedial plan proposed for the river by USEPA, followed by technical assistance in the development of detailed engineering plans and specifications for one of the anticipated largest in-river environmental dredging projects to be implemented in the US.

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Expert Testimony

PCBs in Gas Pipelines and Environs

An AEM principal prepared expert testimony regarding the transport and fate of PCB contamination in natural gas pipelines and the propriety of a pipeline company's historical methods for handling and disposal of PCB-containing pipeline fluids. Testimony was provided both in deposition and also in court for the plaintiff natural gas pipeline company in litigation tried in Superior Court of Los Angeles, CA.

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Contaminated Sediments in a Large River Basin (Coeur d'Alene River)

An AEM principal prepared written expert testimony and was deposed regarding both the precedent for and also the technical feasibility, defensibility, and reasonableness of the dredging and excavation remedies presented by the Plaintiff for the Coeur d'Alene River Basin in Idaho, a Basin comprising 93 miles of river, 4,700 acres of lakes, and 4,800 acres of wetlands potentially impacted by mining wastes. AEM performed this work for one of the defendants, a group of mining companies, in litigation tried in U.S. District Court in Idaho.

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Past Practices in Waste Management Methods Associated with CA Superfund Site

An AEM principal prepared written expert testimony and was deposed regarding generally accepted practices employed in the management and disposition of industrial wastes during the 1960s and 1970s in relation to the many categories of wastes identified at a California Superfund Site. The site had been established and operated in a box canyon location that eventually became a repository for more than 33 million gallons of aqueous and solid wastes retained behind an earthen dam-like structure. Following a series of small breaches of the retaining structure and the identification of chlorinated volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hexavalent chromium in groundwater downgradient from the site, and chemical odor complaints from the nearby community, waste disposal operations at the site were terminated in 1972, and the site was subsequently designated as a Superfund site. The cleanup costs at the site have exceeded $300 million to date. AEM performed this work for counsel on behalf of the local community in litigation tried in U.S. District Court in Southern California against approximately 18 potential responsible parties, most notably the State of California.

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Assessment of Hazardous Waste Landfill Liner

An AEM principal prepared written expert testimony and was deposed regarding the condition and integrity of a hazardous waste landfill liner system at a Pennsylvania hazardous waste landfill. The focus issue was whether the soil-cement liner was functioning as designed to contain hazardous wastes in a secure landfill. The liner condition observed during field investigations was compared to the design specifications and construction methods that were considered to be generally accepted practice for the installation of soil-cement liners. The distribution of particle sizes in the “soil” used to blend with pozzolanic cementatious materials, such as Portland cement, included stones and rock fragments that were far too large to form a competent impervious bottom liner for the landfill cells. Also there were distinct multiple large cracks visible in cross-sections of the liner that would allow liquid wastes or leachate to pass readily downward into the subsurface environment, and thereby potentially contaminate underlying ground water. This work was performed for counsel in Federal District Court (PA) for the new owner of the landfill facility in connection with claims against the new and former owner by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

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