GPR Complete at the Garrido Home in Antioch

Diablo Green Consulting has completed the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys at the home of Phillip & Nancy Garrido in Antioch, Contra Costa County, California. We would like to thank the City of Hayward Police Department, City of Dublin Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Contra Costa County Sherriff's Office, Alameda County Sheriff's Office, and all other agencies involved in this extensive operation. Thank you for your assistance and understanding in making this a successful operation and search.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/32964770

GPR Continues in Antioch & Digging Begins

GPR is continuing at the home of Phillip & Nancy Garrido in Antioch, California. Since Thursday, September 17, 2009, Diablo Green Consulting has defined ten areas of interest at both the Garrido home and the northern adjacent neighboring property. Scanning has been completed at all ten areas and results on some of the areas is pending.

Digging has begun at the area of interest as of Monday, September 21, 2009. Diablo Green Consulting identified areas of potential interest where GPR anomalies were identified.

Please click below to access Lieutenant Chris Orrey's press conference regarding the activities at the site as of September 21, 2009.

Diablo Green Assists Hayward Police in Crime Scene Investigation

Diablo Green Consulting, an environmental consulting firm located in San Ramon, California, was referred to the City of Hayward Police Department to provide Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Magnetometer services at the home of Phillip Garrido in Antioch, California. GPR is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface and can identify anomalies in the soil.  GPR is often employed to detect underground storage tanks and utilities for both residential and commercial properties.  Diablo Green’s reputation for providing such services led to the opportunity to assist Hayward Police in their search for anything unusual in the ground at both the Garrido and neighboring properties.

GPR, as a technology, has long been used to map cemeteries, Native American, and other archeological sites.  Diablo Green’s environmental project management team includes professional environmental scientists, geologists, engineers, and biologists that specialize in various areas of the earth sciences. Diablo Green tasked a Senior Archaeologist, with the performance of both the Ground Penetrating Radar and Magnetometer field work and analysis to ensure the most comprehensive analysis of the data collected from the sites.  The result of this effort will provide investigators another tool in their due diligence to fully understand what may or may not exist at the Antioch crime scene.

New Jersey Day Care Facility on Former Thermometer Factory

June 5, 2009

In July 2006, the Kiddie Kollege day care facility in Franklin Township, New Jersey, as closed down due to extremely high levels of mercury vapor. The day care center was built atop a now-closed thermometer factory. The day care facility was closed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).

The discovery prompted Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey to ask the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to test the homes of families and expand the testing and monitoring of children which were exposed to mercury while attending the day care site. It is estimated that more than 30 children, aged 18 months to 3 years, were exposed to mercury vapors at the day care facility.

The New Jersey DEP argued that it was the property owner's responsibility as the potential buyer and owner to perform proper due diligence on the property prior to his investment, citing AAI. The township’s attorney’s stated that a notice had been posted in the local newspaper prior to selling the tax liens stating that the industrial properties could potentially be contaminated. The judge contends that this notice was not enough. The property owner's lawyers contend that the polluter of the property (now bankrupt) should be held liable to clean-up the site.

According to Environmental Data Resources, Inc (EDR), "A Superior Court judge is absolving a site owner from liability associated with mercury contamination stemming from the site's past operations." The Superior Court judge has ruled that the owner of the site is not liable for cleanup. The owner purchased the site at a tax sale and subsequently leased the building to a day care center (Kiddie Kollege). The judge determined that the purchaser had not been properly notified of the contamination prior to the 1997 transaction, and held the township responsible for making the owner aware of information regarding the contamination at the time of purchase.

The state has already announced plans to appeal the court's decision, and local reports indicate that the township may also do so on the grounds that state guidelines only require tax collectors to publish notices in local newspapers warning potential tax-lien purchasers that some properties may be contaminated.

This example supports the completion of due diligence activities, inclusive of a Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment, when buying or selling a property!

Former Dry Cleaner Impacts Existing Neighborhood

May 2009

Another reason to complete a Phase 1 ESA whenever buying or selling a property........

The Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources recently filed a lawsuit against the owners and operators of the former Maryland Square Shopping Center. The shopping center housed a dry cleaning facility from 1969 to 2000. The dry cleaner is now bankrupt.

In August 2000, subsurface soil and water conditions were investigated along the eastern boundary of the property by drilling one soil boring. The soil boring was converted to a monitoring well identified as MW-1. The groundwater sample collected from groundwater monitoring well MW-1 showed that (PCE) concentrations of tetrachloroethylene / perchloroethylene (PCE, or PERC), in groundwater at the property exceed the United States EPA maximum contaminant level (MCL) for PCE in drinking water of 5.0 micrograms per liter/parts per billion. Remediation at this site has been ongoing since at least November 2002, and has involved the drilling of multiple monitoring wells in the affected area. Trichloroethene (TCE) has also been detected in select wells on the site.

A Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) website was developed to track the assessment of the site and the related cleanup process. This database indicates that PCE contamination from the dry cleaner migrated off-site via groundwater in a plume that stretches east about 4,000 feet beneath another shopping center, a residential area and the Las Vegas National Golf Course.

According to letters documented on the DEP website, residents are concerned the contamination could be impacting their property values and their health. The state DEP started indoor air sampling in 2008 at homes that were in and around the affected area. Letters to residents published by the DEP noted that while most results were negative, a few homes contained concentrations of PCE that exceeded NDEP's health protective levels.

Stay tuned for further details on this case as it progresses!

ASTM and AAI require an Environmental Professional for due diligence activities. Learn what is a qualified Environmental Professional?

Under the new AAI rule, in order to qualify for liability protection, you must rely on qualified “environmental professionals” who possess specific mixes of licenses, education and relevant experience. Only qualified environmental professionals (EPs) can develop opinions and sign off on AAI-compliant reports. Further, the USEPA recommends that only qualified EPs visit the sites.

* Hold a current Professional Engineer (PE) or Professional Geologist (PG) license or registration from a state, tribe, or U.S. territory and have the equivalent of three years of full-time relevant experience; or

* Be licensed or certified by the federal government, a state, tribe, or U.S. territory to perform environmental inquiries and have the equivalent of three years of full-time relevant experience; or

* Have a Baccalaureate or higher degree from an accredited institution of higher education in a relevant discipline and the equivalent of five years of full-time relevant experience; or

* As of the date of the final rule by the USEPA, have a Baccalaureate or higher degree from an accredited institution of higher education and the equivalent of ten years of full-time relevant experience.

A qualified EP oversees and/or completes all site work and investgiations.

USEPA All Appropriate Inquiries Standards for Phase 1 ESAs

On November 1, 2005, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final All Appropriate Inquiries (AAI) Rule (70 FR 66070) titled "40 CFR Part 312, Standards and Practices for All Appropriate Inquiries; Final Rule." Download the final rule at http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/regneg.htm.

The final rule establishes specific regulatory requirements for conducting all appropriate inquiries into the previous ownership, uses, and environmental conditions of a property for the purposes of qualifying for certain landowner liability protections under CERCLA. The final rule will be effective on November 1, 2006, one year following the date of publication. Until November 1, 2006, parties may use either the requirements set forth in the all appropriate inquiries final rule (see below), or the requirements of the interim standard for all appropriate inquiries established in the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (the Brownfields Amendments to CERCLA) to satisfy the statutory requirements for all appropriate inquiries. The interim standard is the ASTM E1527-00 Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process. Parties also may use the newly revised ASTM standard, ASTM E1527-05 standard.

After November 1, 2006, parties must comply with the requirements of All Appropriate Inquiries Final Rule, or follow the standards set forth in the ASTM E1527-05 Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process, to satisfy the statutory requirements for conducting all appropriate inquiries. All appropriate inquiries must be conducted in compliance with either of these standards to obtain protection from potential liability under CERCLA as an innocent landowner, a contiguous property owner, or a bona fide prospective purchaser.

DGC completes all Phase I ESAs in accordance with the AAI or ASTM (November 2006) standards.

New ASTM Standards for Phase I ESAs

On November 21, 2005, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) released a new E1527-05 standard entitled "Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process". The new ASTM standard is consistent with the new AAI standard released by the USEPA in November 2005.

The purpose of this practice is to define good commercial and customary practice in the US for conducting an environmental site assessment of a parcel of commercial real estate with respect to the range of contaminants within the scope of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) (42 U.S.C. 9601) and petroleum products. As such, this practice is intended to permit a user to satisfy one of the requirements to qualify for the innocent landowner, contiguous property owner, or bona fide prospective purchaser limitations on CERCLA liability.

More information on this standard can be found obtained from ASTM here.

DGC completes all Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) in accordance with the ASTM standards.