I have been hearing a bit about this case on and off for the past couple of years from colleagues and it is always interesting to see something hit the streets like this and see what the media picks up on.

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Toxic soil lurks beneath Carson neighborhood
The discovery of methane gas and benzene has transformed a 50-acre neighborhood into an environmental case study — a reminder of Southern California’s history as a center of the oil industry.

By Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times

April 27, 2010

Full Story

Regulatory FAQ
Regulatory FAQ II
Definition of Terms
and
Industrial Facility

Those posts described the basic steps associated with the work I do at various types of sites. This post will describe my involvement in the standard dry cleaner site located in a standard shopping center.  Let’s say that there is a shopping center that has multiple units and one of them is a dry cleaner.  This tenant has been in operation as a dry cleaner since the center was built some 20-30 years ago.  The dry cleaning process, as I have discussed in my previous post about green dry cleaning, uses tetrachloroethelene (PCE).  From an environmental standpoint, this chemical can be a hassle to purchase, manage, dispose of, and generally use.  Due to the difficulties associated with disposal of PCE, many operators of dry cleaning facilities historically disposed of the chemical in the sewer by either dumping it in a floor drain, sink, or the toilet.  This practice was generally conducted up until the mid-1970s when environmental regulations became more mainstream.  Releases can also occur beneath the dry cleaning machine itself and in the area where the chemical is stored.

Investigating the potential for releases at these types of sites is generally performed in a few phases starting with a soil vapor survey in the area along the sewer line followed by soil samples in impacted areas identified during the soil vapor survey.  The final phase of investigation generally consists of groundwater samples in impacted areas identified during the soil sampling.

Remediation of a dry cleaner site generally involves soil vapor extraction (SVE) in the area of impacts.  The SVE methods can range from carbon adsorption to chemical oxidation (Generally, carbon is sufficient).  Since the impacted areas are commonly inside the building, excavation using small drill rigs and Bobcat-type excavators is necessary.  There are a number of challenges associated with the process, but it is rather common and these types of sites can be usually be remediated within a few years.

Long Beach Press-Telegram Article

It seems there is soil impacted with Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) at the wetland site that is confusing the issue, along with other potential roadblocks. This is not entirely surprising considering that there are electrical transformers on the wetlands property powering the oil well pumps and those transformers have likely been there long before the 1979 PCB ban.

Although no longer commercially produced in the United States, PCBs may be present in products and materials produced before 1979. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the products that may contain PCBs include Transformers and capacitors, voltage regulators, high voltage switches, electromagnets, hydraulic oil, fluorescent light ballasts, thermal insulation, oil-based paint, and some construction mastic materials.

The EPA is conducting a sampling program and will be performing a risk assessment for the wetlands that will likely include PCBs and other oil-field related compounds. This is not an uncommon process, the part that I do find uncommon is that the City of Long Beach is having this investigation performed by the EPA and that it is happening so late in the game. The EPA does good work and has some very good scientists and engineers at their disposal, but they are a governmental agency and move at the pace that you would expect a governmental agency to move. A private consulting firm would be able to conduct the sampling and risk assessment that the EPA is doing in far less time. This timing is becoming a factor as the property owner has only given the City of Long Beach until the end of the calendar year (December 31st) to make a decision, and I can almost guarantee that the EPA will not have their investigation completed at that time, let alone the reporting on the investigation or the risk assessment.

I wish the best of luck to the City of Long Beach and the property owner but this deal sounds like it is beginning to sour. As a citizen of the City of Long Beach, I am hoping I can assist the city in this manner but so far they haven’t taken me up on my offer. Strange, seeing as how they are turning down free consulting but that is their prerogative.

Regulatory FAQ
?????????Regulatory FAQ II
and
Definition of Terms

Those posts described the basic steps associated with investigation of your standard corner retail gas station. For this post, let’s assume that you own an industrial facility of some sort. Either you owned the property and leased it to a widget manufacturer or you are the widget manufacturer and you own the property were you do your work. For whatever reason, the decision has been made to close the widget factory and sell the property. To do so, you will have to decommission all the various parts of the facility. A vital step in this process is what is called the, “Hazardous Materials Inventory”. This process will identify everything from mercury switches in thermostats and PCBs in light ballasts to large storage tanks and make recommendations for the appropriate method(s) for their decommissioning.

Let’s just say that a portion of this facility was used as a steam cleaning area with floor drains that conveyed the wash-down water into the sanitary sewer. Before the wash-down water went into the sanitary sewer, it flowed through a three-stage clarifier to allow the solids to settle out. All of this is a very common feature in industrial facilities. The Hazardous Materials Inventory identified the use of chlorinated solvents, specifically TCE, during the 1970s in various parts of the property including the steam cleaning area. Based on these findings, the recommendations are to advance soil borings in the area of the steam cleaning area, the floor drains, and the three-stage clarifier. The data collected from this investigation will allow us to evaluate how much soil (if any) around of the steam cleaning area is impacted with TCE and / or anything that was being washed off the widgets that were being steam cleaned.

Can’t wait to hear the next part? What do we do? How much do we have to dig out? How much will it cost? How long will it take to do all the work? Well, it takes a couple weeks to get data back from the lab and write the report. Check back next month!

Environmental Assessment and Risk Management Standards

ASTM has released a new version of the D-2488 Standard Practice for Description and Identification of Soils (Visual-Manual Procedure). This is to replace the previous versions, D-2488-06 and D-2488-00; originally published as D-2488-66 T. I will be evaluating this standard over the next couple of weeks and will post my thoughts on it at that time. If you would like to download and review the standard for yourself, feel free to click the link below to go to the ASTM website.

http://www.astm.org/Standards/D2488.htm

U.S. EPA to sample indoor air at Oakland homes, businesses near former plating shop

Release date: 07/23/2008

Contact Information: Wendy Chavez, 415/947-4248, chavez.wendy@epa.gov

High levels of VOCs found underground in Oakland

(San Francisco, Calif. — 07/23/08) – On Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will begin testing the air inside several nearby homes, an adjacent business, and a day care center near the former Lane Metal Finishers site, where high levels of volatile organic compounds were found underground in Oakland, Calif.

Department of Toxic Substances Control scientists discovered elevated levels of VOCs in five samples taken at eight feet below the surface of the former metal plating site located at 30th Street & San Pablo Avenue. DTSC contacted the EPA to sample the indoor air to see if contaminants in the soil have migrated and are accumulating in nearby homes and businesses.

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“Because of the unknowns below the surface of the rest of the site, the EPA will sample the indoor air as a precautionary measure,” said Bret Moxley, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator. “The EPA and DTSC are working together to make sure that VOCs are not accumulating indoors, and if needed, will take the necessary steps until the situation is remedied.”

The underground samples showed very high levels of VOCs, particularly trichloroethylene (TCE), cis-dichloroethene, trans dichloroethene and vinyl chloride in the soil vapor. Soil vapor is in the spaces between the grains of sand or soil underground. Soil vapor can move through soil, but does not move as easily through clay and silt as it does in sandy soil. This site does have several clay layers in the soil which may have reduced the migration of the soil vapors.

Once under a home or other building, it is possible for vapors to come up through cracks in foundations and accumulate inside. If indoor VOC levels are high enough, it can create a health hazard for residents, especially children and pregnant women.

Soil, soil vapor and groundwater contamination at the Lane Metals facility is most likely the result of solvents used as degreasers during plating operations on the site dating back to the 1950s. The solvents are not uncommon at plating shop sites. DTSC has been overseeing the investigation of the site since June 2007.

By John Johnson Jr., Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 6, 2008

New soil chemistry tests by NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander have unexpectedly uncovered evidence of perchlorate, a highly reactive salt found naturally on Earth and used in a variety of products, including fertilizer, fireworks and rocket fuel, scientists said Tuesday.

The finding has surprised scientists evaluating results from Phoenix, but they denied that the presence of large amounts of the salt would render Mars uninhabitable.

“It might even be a positive” indicator for habitability, said Peter Smith, principal investigator on the Phoenix mission.

On Earth, perchlorate is found most abundantly in the surface soils of Chile’s Atacama Desert, which coincidentally has long served as a Martian stand-in for researchers trying to understand conditions on the Red Planet.

The 600-mile-long strip of land in Chile is about 50 times drier than Death Valley. Even so, it is not uninhabited. Microbes flourish there, and some life forms even feed on the perchlorate in the soil.

“This is an important piece in the puzzle” surrounding Mars and its ability to sustain life, Smith said at a media briefing in Tucson, where much of the Phoenix research is based at the University of Arizona. “In itself, it’s neither good nor bad for life,” he said.

Perchlorate was first detected several weeks ago with Phoenix’s onboard wet chemistry lab, which mixes water from Earth with Martian soils.

The scientific team held back the information while researchers tried to confirm the finding with a second onboard instrument, known as the thermal and evolved-gas analyzer, which can heat the soil up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit to determine its exact chemical composition.

Those tests remain incomplete, but NASA decided to publicize the perchlorate discovery Tuesday after word spread that the agency was hiding evidence that Mars was hostile to life.

The scientists Tuesday denied that they were being secretive, saying they simply wanted to consult with other scientists before publicizing the data.

Researchers said they were initially startled by the size of the chemical signal. Because it was so large, they at first discounted it, thinking the instrument had developed a problem.

Some scientists thought the device might even be picking up contamination from the rocket engines that carried Phoenix across 200 million miles of space from Earth to the vast, rolling northern plains of Mars.

But on Tuesday, the scientists tended to discount contamination because the craft’s descent engines use hydrazine, not chlorine. Also, no perchlorate was found when Phoenix calibrated the wet chemistry lab after its landing May 25 on the Red Planet.

The wet chemistry lab is a set of four beakers into which water is injected to mix with the soil. A collection of 26 sensors then samples the mixture to analyze its contents.

Because perchlorate is so soluble in water, it is rarely found in surface soils on Earth. Even though Phoenix is sitting atop a vast underground sheet of hard-as-concrete ice, it hasn’t rained on Mars in billions of years.

As well as confirming the wet chemistry finding with the TEGA instrument, the scientists are trying to understand the mechanism that could deposit such large amounts of perchlorate on the surface.

The only other chemistry done on Mars was by the twin Viking landers in the 1970s. They found possible evidence of peroxide, a very different compound.

Because Phoenix is stationary, it won’t be possible to determine how widespread these varieties of soils are. That must wait for the giant Mars Science Lab, scheduled for launch in 2009.

john.johnson@latimes.com

A transaction screen is a limited environmental assessment designed to identify readily apparent and potential environmental liabilities associated with a site or facility. All work is conducted in accordance with the ASTM E 1528-06: Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Transaction Screen Process. This ASTM standard was established by the ASTM Committee E-50 on Commercial Real Estate Transactions to provide landowners and purchasers with a basic understanding of the potential environmental concerns that may be associated with a particular parcel of real property. Exceptions to the ASTM standards are allowable to the extent that they are reasonable and that they are identified in the report.

A transaction screen can be described in short as a, “Phase I light” because it is a form of property due diligence, but is not as in-depth of an investigation as a full phase I. Transaction screens can be a very useful tool when an environmental investigation is required, but the property is not expected to be impacted, contaminated, or otherwise dirty.

From the late 1980s to 1997, a manufacturer of metal fasteners for the aerospace industry and military was located at the site.  These former operations are reported to have included the use of Aboveground Storage Tanks (ASTs) and petroleum solvents.  The former property owner also operated a waste storage area near the center of the southern portion of the site.  The site is currently occupied by various tenants that utilize the property for warehousing, distribution, and small-scale manufacturing.  

Several phases of soil, soil gas, and groundwater investigations have been performed at the site between 1998 and 2006.  The primary objective of subsurface investigations at the site was to provide analytical data that will identify the nature and extent of PCE in soil and groundwater beneath the site.  To help meet this objective, a total of twelve soil borings have been advanced at the site to help characterize PCE in soil.  Three soil gas probes were advanced at the site to help characterize PCE in soil gas.  Additionally, GeoTrans installed and sampled groundwater monitoring wells at the site in two locations to characterize PCE in groundwater.  

Based on the results of this current program and previous soils investigations at the Site, GeoTrans concluded that very low concentrations of PCE are present beneath the southern portion of the Site.  We worked with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and concluded that the presence of this constituent at the concentrations detected during our site investigations is unlikely to pose a significant threat to human health or the environment. Therefore, no further work is warranted at this time in regards to soil and groundwater at the site. 

Now, it’s time to get on with the investigation of the tank leak. Let’s assume that the depth to groundwater in this area is relatively shallow (<30′). Let’s also assume that the soils in the area are sandy or fine-grained (not cobbles or boulders). With these assumptions, we will be able to perform our investigation using a direct-push rig. This device is a truck mounted device that uses the weight of the truck and a hydraulic hammer to drive rods into the sub-surface allowing the operator to collect soil, soil gas, and groundwater samples.

We will collect a few soil samples, soil gas samples, and groundwater samples around the tank area, but there is a significant amount of setup work that needs to be done first. I’ll get into that in my next blog post.