THE MONITOR collects articles and insights from Terradex, and guest writers, about Institutional Controls for environmental and human health protection. Among other environmental protection technologies, Terradex offers state-of-the-art technology and service for Institutional Control monitoring and stewardship. For more information, see terradex.com.
Stewardship services apply beyond our shorelines into harbors, waterways and oceans. Beneath the surface of harbors, rivers and channels are contaminated sediments and unexploded ordnance (UXO). A common and disruptive offshore activity is dredging, which can unknowingly disturb these materials – often to unfortunate ends.
Dredging is a regulated activity, and thereby produces records that Terradex can track and locate on maps within our LandWatch service. When a dredging operation is located near a monitored facility, Terradex can alert regulatory or private party clients. The alerted parties can contact the applicant, and identify any issues associated with dredging at the location of concern. The approach offers parties the chance to prevent an unintended encounter with contaminated sediments or UXO.
Mix 400,000 daycares with 550,000 cleanup sites nationwide, and the vision takes shape for a national daycare screening service to vigilantly protect 6,000,000 children from inadvertent exposure to toxics. This effort started after 2006 on the failings at Kiddie Kollege, where children attending daycare were exposed to high mercury levels. The childcare facility occupied the same building that ten years earlier had been a thermometer assembly factory. The site’s environmental problems were known to environmental agencies but were lost in the site investigation backlog. Progress at the state-level, coupled with work by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), provides the basis of a national daycare screening service. This post to The Monitor describes the progress made in New Jersey, as well as different approaches taken in California and New York toward an efficient state-wide daycare screening service. Terradex has been a technology provider introducing DaycareWatch as a state screening tool.
In both a progressive and unique move, the West Virginia DEP joined the state’s call-before-you dig, or “One Call” center to help screen for improper excavations at about 100 of the state’s environmental covenant sites. The process requires a daily review of excavation tickets at or near these site which, in turn, allows DEP to alert excavators prior to contact with the area controlled by the covenant: engineered controls are protected, excavators avoid impact with hazardous substances, and residuals are not improperly disposed.
While powerful, the process can be time consuming – requiring a manual process of geocoding and comparing to environmental site locations. Furthermore, as usage of covenants increase within West Virginia, the review burden on DEP will also increase. Recently, as part of an informal collaboration, Terradex brought its One Call screening tool to help West Virginia DEP streamline the process. Once every hour, the Terradex process reads each ticket, generates a dynamic Google Earth map that, in turn, feeds into West Virginia’s existing map of environmental sites, allowing for a quick identification of excavation conflicts. Because excavation tickets come in with varied location precision, the Terradex process also records the “geocoding precision,” allowing for a quick gauge of location accuracy (they’re usually pretty good). The Google Map below shows a sample excavation ticket (the shovel placemark) near a site with multiple environmental covenants on parcels. The sample shows how the excavation can be readily viewed against the hazard (the exclamation point) described in the environmental covenant. Clicking on the shovel shows the excavation details, and clicking on the covenant accesses the covenant.
A recent EPA cleanup proposal directly recognizes what many have come to accept as a given – cleanups need institutional controls (ICs), monitoring of ICs is a critical component of cleanup remedies, and private sector landwatch services make monitoring effective.
Proposed Remedy Relies on IC Monitoring
Recognizing the key role of IC monitoring, EPA’s June 2010 “proposed plan” for a Southern California Superfund site sets forth a preferred cleanup alternative for soil contamination at a 280-acre commercial/industrial tract. The soil cleanup, engineering control, and IC strategy relies on long term monitoring of institutional controls, stating ”institutional controls, caps, and building engineering controls would be monitored in perpetuity to ensure effectiveness.”
Groundwater overflowing from a recovery well at a main entrance to the University Club.
Children playing patty-cake in the discharge of the discharge of a remediation recovery well: this article reveals first-hand challenges to landowners and responsible parties when a remedial piping fails. As the task group chair for ASTM’s Continuing Obligations Guide, Terradex’s Bob Wenzlau shares his personal encounter with a failed remedial system, the difficult to report the failure, and the lessons learned as all involved parties made improvement to both the physical system as well as communication protocols. The incident provides lessons learned toward the upcoming guidance for landowner continuing obligations.
While the release later proved to have dissolved volatile organics below drinking water standards, it generated several lessons for maintenance and communication at long-term cleanup sites, especially those with off-site migration.
What were these lessons learned? Off-site landowners are not sophisticated toward duties associated with recovery wells, emergency contact information should be up to date, permanent labeling on well heads is essential, the fire department should be informed of recovery systems, and the integrity of mechanical systems degrade across the years. This a a brief summary of the story, and how these lessons were learned, and how they can be applied to upcoming guidance by ASTM for continuing obligations at contaminated properties.
Seven years ago, we created a new methodology for increasing the effectiveness of institutional controls, and as of June 29, 2010 this innovation is protected by a patent.
So what led to the patent? Failed approaches led to a new idea. We knew a duty existed to monitor safe use of contaminated sites, but whose duty is it? First, we tried providing institutional control (IC) tools to the city for their implementation. We were inspired by the approach taken by the City of Emeryville, and thought to leverage that method to other cities. The Emeryville web database describes institutional controls that could be viewed by planners. However, after numerous visits to other local governments, we learned the hard way that most cities had other higher priorities. Except for cities dominated by brownfields, cities could not afford the time to track ICs. Ultimately, a venture capitalist challenged Terradex to take control of the process of making ICs effective. Any business must control its value proposition. This challenge sparked the innovation of Terradex’s LandWatch. Read More »
Terradex can monitor numerous transactional real estate data sources permitting the detection of problematic real estate scenarios at tracked properties. The sources include monitoring new residential and commercial listings, new sold properties, pre-foreclosure actions, foreclosure actions, tax liens, bankruptcies, new easements and new occupants. Thorough real estate monitoring is critical when the responsible party no longer owns the land, and tracking ownership and the owner’s financial health are duties to help assure the integrity of institutional controls.
Terradex alerts upon key changes including a listing of a property, ownership change, financial duress, or placement of new liens or easements. The expanded real estate monitoring services were inspired at a California site monitored by Terradex – in this case the then owner entered bankruptcy, the property foreclosed, and the convenants agreed to by the then current property owner were vanquished. This suite of real estate sources raises the reliability of institutional controls monitored by Terradex.
A recent study by the Association of State Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO) highlighted the importance of cleanup site land use controls (LUCs) and listed needed improvements and further research. “[T]here is an ever increasing universe of sites relying on LUCs as an integral part of an overall protective remedy” for cleanup of environmentally impaired property. The success of these cleanups and subsequent redevelopment, according to ASTSWMO, “will rest on understanding and effectively using LUCs.”
On April 14, 2008 Terradex was awarded a 2008 Environmental Achievement Award. In the award the agency cited Terradex’s groundbreaking work in communicating environmental information to the public enables individuals and communities to make informed decisions regarding both exposure and contaminant contributions. Terradex’s innovative prototype of layering real-time air data on top of the powerful imagery of Google Earth was the inspiration behind the EPA’s recent launch of AirNOW. This tool provides communities, including sensitive populations and emergency responders, with up-to-the minute air quality information over specific geographic areas. Terradex also created a carbon footprint calculator that enables communities to measure and understand their greenhouse gas contribution. The innovative communication tool informs and inspires individuals to reduce their contribution to global warming.
Stewardship services apply beyond our shorelines into harbors, waterways and oceans. Beneath the surface of harbors, rivers and channels are contaminated sediments and unexploded ordnance (UXO). A common and disruptive offshore activity is dredging, which can unknowingly disturb these materials – often to unfortunate ends.
Mix 400,000 daycares with 550,000 cleanup sites nationwide, and the vision takes shape for a national daycare screening service to vigilantly protect 6,000,000 children from inadvertent exposure to toxics. This effort started after 2006 on the failings at 
