Dirty Property

Back to our regularly scheduled program of regulatory how-to.  One of the problems that I mentioned in my last post that you may encounter is the potential that the Underground Storage Tank (UST) that you were planning to remove leaked during it’s former use.  Let’s assume again that the tank held automotive gasoline.  Let’s also assume that the tank is located in Los Angeles County and therefore all work will be overseen by the Site Mitigation Unit of the Health and Hazardous Materials Division of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

You went ahead and filed the permits to remove your tank, paid the fees and got approval.  You also scheduled with your contractor to excavate the tank and remove the tank in the presence of the inspector.  The inspector also required you to have a marine chemist on site during the tank pull, so she shows up and runs her tests, fills out her forms and now you are good to go.  Until the tank is pulled and exposes a small rust hole  and a relatively large  patch of stained soil beneath the tank.

Now you have a site investigation on your hands.  You will still collect samples from the sidewalls and the base of the excavation, but the samples you collect from the base of the excavation will be impacted with gasoline.

The County Fire Department will require an investigation  whether you backfill or not, so let’s just say that in this case you need to backfill because you have other redevelopment contractors that need to be able to drive over the area.  Go ahead and order your 1 sack slurry from your local cement supplier and fill that excavation up.  You will also have to dispose of the pea gravel or sand that was around the tank so call your favorite trucking company and find a place that will accept the material.

Call a drilling company and plan on collecting soil samples and installing a soil vapor extraction system.  We’re into remediation now, hold tight for the next installment in the process.

I know that this post is a diversion from the Regulatory FAQ series that I promised in my last post, but I feel this is important so here it is:

I received an email yesterday from the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) , the agency responsible for determining the levels at which chemicals, compounds, and elements are toxic to human health and/or the environment. This email stated that candies containing chili powder and tamarind have been found to contain lead in the candy wrapper and in the candy itself. The lead is believed to be naturally-occurring and is also believed to be somewhat avoidable through good agricultural and manufacturing practices. The email went on to state the following:

Chili powder and tamarind are popular ingredients in Mexican-style candies that are sold in California. Data have shown that some of these Mexican-style candies are contaminated with the toxic metal lead. Research has determined that some of the lead in the candies comes from the chili powder and tamarind ingredients. A new law in California requires that OEHHA develop standards for the naturally-occurring level of lead in candies and for the acceptable levels of lead in candy wrappers. This law is intended to help identify candies that should not be sold in California (California Health and Safety Code, section 110552). OEHHA is in the process of determining how much lead in chili powder and tamarind, as well as other candy ingredients, might be due to naturally-occurring lead. OEHHA is also determining other ways lead may contaminate chili powder and candies, include processing and packaging.
OEHHA requests submission of data relevant to its determination of the level of naturally-occurring lead in candies containing chili and tamarind, as defined in California Health and Safety Code, section 110552(c)(3).

Workshops will be held at the following times and locations:

San Diego Area:

DATE: March 5, 2008
TIME: 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
PLACE: Sherman Heights Community Center
2258 Island Ave.
San Diego, California

Los Angeles Area:

DATE: March 6, 2008
TIME: 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
PLACE: Junipero Serra State Office Building, Pacific Ocean Room
320 West 4th St.
Los Angeles, California

Additionally, interested parties are encouraged to contact:

Dr. John Faust
Reproductive and Cancer Hazard Assessment Branch
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
1515 Clay Street, Suite 1600
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 622-3185 (phone)
(510) 622-3211 (fax)
jfaust@oehha.ca.gov (e-mail)

I will post here as more information becomes available.

One question I commonly get is, “What is the regulatory agency for my property?”.  This relatively simple question has an amazingly complex answer.  The answer is so complex that I will spend the next few blog posts answering it.

Let’s first discuss a relatively common and relatively simple situation, a site with an Underground Storage Tank or UST.  In this scenario lets say you will need to remove the tank as part of your property redevelopment activities.  Maybe the property was an old gas station, maybe it was an old warehouse that had a diesel UST for delivery trucks, or perhaps the UST was used to store waste oil from some sort of operation that was formerly conducted at the property.  In any case, the tank must be removed and you need a permit to do that, but who will be issuing the permit?

Again, this relatively simple question has a quite difficult answer when we go to hunt down the regulatory agency for the property.   In the State of California, issues of this nature are overseen by the local Certified Unified Program Agency or “CUPA ” .   The CUPA was created by SB 1082 in 1994 to consolidate a number of hazardous material programs into one single agency.  In many areas the local CUPA is the local fire department, but based on where your property is located your CUPA may be a city agency, the department of health services, or the local arm of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Other programs overseen by your local CUPA include:

• Hazardous Materials Business & Emergency Response Plans;
• Underground Storage Tank Regulations;
• Hazardous Materials Business Plans;
• Hazardous Waste Regulations;
• Hazardous Waste Treatment Regulations; and
• Risk Management Plans.

For converstaion’s sake, let’s narrow it down a little and say that the property is located in Los Angeles County, specifically the City of Santa Monica and let’s just say the property is a former gas station and the tank formerly held automotive  gasoline.  These assumptions will narrow the CUPA agency down to the City of Santa Monica Environmental Programs Division.   A quick review of the City of Santa Monica website (link) tells us what form has to be filled out and what fees are required to file the application.  There is an extensive packet of CUPA information that (hopefully) was partially filled out when the tank was installed, but you may have to catch up on the filing if it wasn’t done or if it was done incorrectly.  This could also mean paying back-fees.  You will have to file the forms, schedule a contractor to pull the tank, schedule an inspection at the time of the tank pull, collect soil samples, arrange for a laboratory to analyze the soil sample, write a report, submit the report to the CUPA agency (City of Santa Monica in this instance), and backfill the excavation.

Hopefully the tank didn’t leak.  If it did, there is usually an investigation and removal action required that involves more agency interaction and will most likely be more than just the CUPA, but that also depends on the property location and every City/County is different.

There is also always the chance that your property is part of  a larger investigation area or Federal Superfund investigation.  The complexity increases quite a bit at that point, more info in my next post…

The Sate Water Resources Control Board has launched a new program to provide low-interest loans for projects that benefit the State of California and local entities.

The specific types of projects that the program will support include:

• Construction of wastewater treatment and water recycling facilites;
• Implementation of nonpoint source projects and programs;
• Development and implementation of estuary comprehensive conservation and management plans; and
• Storm water treatment projects.

The SWRCB will be holding workshops at four different locations throughout California during the month of Januay.

More information can be found on the attached flyer: SWRCB Flyer

Welcome to my blog!

My name is David McAlister, thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog. Here I will post my thoughts and impressions on the commercial and industrial real eastate market, specifically propety where the soil and/or groundwater has been adversely impacted in some way and requires environmental scrutiny. To put it briefly, dirty property.

I have been working in the environmental consulting field in the Los Angeles area for a little over 6 years now, first at Environmental Resources Management (ERM) and now at GeoTrans, a division of TetraTech.

My professional experience has been predominantly in the support of industrial and commercial real estae transactions, specifically Phase I & Phase II investigations, agency interaction, and in-depth site investigation / remediation work. I have been working with real estate agents, loan agents, loan processors, investors, and developers. My professional experience has also included litigation support and regulatory compliance as well site investigation and remediation for a number of Fortune 100 companies over the years at various sites in the greater Los Angeles area. This has provided me with exposure to vast array of environemtnal challenges that are facing property managers and risk management professionals today.

I hope you find my blog informative and somewhat entertaining. I will attempt to keep things light because I know that some of the technical details I work with can be extremely dry. Feel free to post your comments and / or questions any time, I would love the feedback!