CP Environmental Group -

Management Strategies

Site-specific remedial action goals must be consistent with the client’s business philosophies, fiscal limitations and operational schedules, in addition to meeting applicable regulatory requirements and optimizing positive public relations impact. The CPEG team considers each of these factors when developing the appropriate business solution for managing an environmentally impacted property. Whether the remedial action is preventative, voluntary, or regulatory-driven, the goals must be cost-effective and technically feasible. Some of the management strategies used by our engineering, consulting, and construction teams are briefly summarized below.

Negotiations and precedence-setting agreements with regulators

CPEG has been successful in minimizing or eliminating enforcement action, and attaining letters of no-further-action and covenants-not-to-sue from regulatory agencies. These results are accomplished, in part, using successful negotiating and conflict resolution techniques that consider the client's regulatory obligations without losing sight of the client's business objectives. For each project, a site-specific strategic plan and decision-making flow path are prepared that empowers the project team and the client. By presenting a feasible strategy to the regulatory agencies, project control and direction remains with the client and the project team.

Preparation of site-specific risk assessments

>A site-specific risk assessment can effectively reduce potential corrective action costs by focusing on the actual and reasonable land uses of the site, instead of simply quantifying the traditional maximum-exposure worst-case land use scenarios for day care centers or hospitals. CPEG uses reality to the client's advantage. Our experienced associates have prepared risk assessments that alone lead to no-further-action letters, or significantly reduced the scope and cost of the selected corrective action.

Recycling/resale of recovered chemicals/waste streams

"One man's garbage is another man's gold" is an old saying that is all too often forgotten when looking at waste streams. CPEG, where possible, finds a purchaser/recycler for recovered chemicals/waste streams rather than using traditional disposal. This option both minimizes a client's future liability and reduces the total cost of remediation.

Natural attenuation and passive remediation technologies

Natural attenuation and enhanced in situ passive bioremediation techniques can reduce the capital costs, as well as the operation and maintenance costs at sites that exhibit characteristics and contaminants receptive to biodegradation and/or other natural attenuation processes. CPEG associates project, using standard methods, the length of time the site will require to attain chemical-specific remedial action goals using passive techniques. Estimated costs for monitoring per current regulations are compared with the costs of more intrusive remedies to enable the client to make a business decision based on cost-effectiveness and timeliness.

Source and hot-spot control, mitigation, and removal

One of the first steps in any remediation is to identify and control the source and to mitigate hot spots that act as sources. CPEG can offer feasible control options that envelope many types of alternative technologies, from traditional excavation of soil or vacuum extraction of free product from groundwater, to site-specific systems such as in situ vitrification of soil or designing and installing recovery wells for dense and light non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs and LNAPLs).

Development of site and chemical-specific remediation goals

Applicable federal, state, and local regulations influence the development of chemical-specific remedial action goals. CPEG's associates identify site indicator chemicals and chemical-specific target concentrations that reflect the appropriate/reasonable site circumstances and land use, thereby providing the corrective action project with chemical-specific end-points.

Horizontal directionally-drilled well remedial applications

These cutting-edge remediation solutions are site-specific applications that combine remedial processes using horizontal directionally-drilled (HDD) wells to maximize subsurface effectiveness of the remedial processes. This method aggressively obtains cost and time-effective remediation of highly/broadly impacted sites by concurrently addressing each contaminant distribution phase and minimizing or eliminating waste generation. For example, groundwater, vadose zone, and adsorbed separate-phase product can be addressed concurrently using HDD wells in situ, thereby yielding remediation without generation of a waste stream.

Traditional remediation approaches

For some projects, a "traditional" remediation approach is best suited to meet the identified project goals. CPEG associates are knowledgeable in traditional remediation methods such as soil vapor extraction, dual-phase vapor extraction, air sparging, bioremediation, and pump-and-treat and utilize this knowledge during the planning stages of a project through remedial design and implementation.

Remediation system troubleshooting and optimization

The cost of operating an improperly designed treatment system can at times exceed the cost of redesigning the system so that it can effectively achieve site closure. Remedies range from optimization of the system O&M to the last resort of system redesign. In some cases, simple modifications to the aboveground equipment can result in major reductions in the cost and time to closure. Cost-benefit and time-to-closure analyses for recommended modifications allow clients to evaluate the modifications from both an economic and a risk standpoint.

Facility decommissioning

CPEG provides turnkey services to decommission facilities ranging in size and scope from a corner gas station to a chemical manufacturing plant or bulk oil storage plant. Our services include UST and AST removal, permitting, asbestos and lead abatement, drum handling and demolition. We can coordinate disposal, treatment or sale of hazardous and non-hazardous waste to cost-effectively decommission a facility, rendering it ready for sale or redevelopment.

Financial risk management and liability transfer

The ability to reliably budget remediation expenses and possible liability costs is critical to evaluating a project's economic viability. CPEG's relationships and experience with financial risk specialists allow us to offer fixed-price remedial action contracts and liability risk transfer strategies that are tailored to the client's unique circumstances and supported by insurance.

Summary

CPEG's team combines their remediation skills with progressive teamwork strategies, to bring our clients cost-effective business solutions to their environmentally impacted properties. Our team members have utilized business solutions to successfully remediate environmentally impacted sites in less time and cost than the traditional approaches presented by others.