Project Highlights:

• Provided expert testimony in deposition and Federal Court
• Review and analyses of thousands of documents, including 25 years of environmental data from a property that released hexavalent chromium to a drinking water aquifer.
• Reviewed effectiveness of remedial strategy
• Developed and implemented a sampling program to evaluate drinking water wells throughout the City
• Developed a comprehensive database and GIS project assimilating 25 years of environmental data to be utilized for all experts involved in the case
• Developed consensus among competing stakeholders, including local residents

EEC Environmental (EEC) was retained to represent residents in a California town, the plaintiff in litigation against a former wood treatment facility. EEC served as the primary litigation support team member and expert witness for a group of a dozen experts. In this capacity, EEC conducted thorough research and review of thousands of documents pertaining to historical operations of the plant, an exhaustive review, and interpretation of over 25 years of environmental data pertaining to the distribution of hexavalent chromium in soil and groundwater, and an evaluation of remedial methods historically and currently utilized at the site.

EEC also developed and implemented a program to investigate the distribution, migration pathways, and fate and transport of hexavalent chromium released from the wood treatment plant and its impact on the community’s water well. The sampling portion of the litigation support included the investigation and evaluation of background chromium and hexavalent chromium concentrations, a sampling of groundwater and surface water within the hexavalent chromium plume, evaluation of historical documentation and reports prepared for the defendant, preparing trend analyses, and support of groundwater modeling efforts. The project also included the development of a comprehensive database / geographic information system to assimilate 25 years’ worth of environmental documentation into a database that could be utilized by all plaintiff experts in the case.

Due to the litigious nature of the project, a rigorous sampling and analysis plan that would hold up to Daubert challenges in federal court was successfully implemented. In addition, EEC was instrumental in developing consensus among competing stakeholders, including local residents, to implement a plan on a difficult schedule. Using the results of data collected over the 25 years of prior consultants work, combined with results from EEC’s sampling and analysis program, EEC provided expert deposition and testimony in federal court regarding the migration of dissolved-phase hexavalent chromium to a community water well.