Geosyntec Staff contributed to the writing of the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) guidance document entitled "Optimizing Injection Strategies and In Situ Remediation Performance" that was made available to the public in February 2020.
Working with public- and private-sector clients, Geosyntec provides award-winning redevelopment strategies for brownfield sites worldwide. From site identification, investigation, and remediation to design, permitting, and construction management, we provide the services necessary to redevelop an environmentally impacted property to an end use that meets environmental stewardship, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder needs. We employ appropriate and efficient geotechnical engineering and environmental remediation services to solve our clients’ brownfield redevelopment challenges. Geosyntec approaches each brownfield site individually by tailoring investigations, risk assessments, and remediation approaches to the client’s planned end use. We work with regulators, developers, and insurance providers to realize the full economic and social value of their sites and develop solutions that are amenable to all parties. We provide stakeholders with start-to-finish consistency and reassurance that the environmental elements of development are being managed by one firm because of our expertise in regulations, risk assessment, groundwater and soil remediation, soil vapor mitigation, geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering, and solid waste and environmental management.
Geosyntec’s expertise in efficient site characterization, including sites that exhibit complex groundwater-flow regimes, has distinguished our firm as a leader in groundwater assessment and groundwater remediation. Our practitioners address a broad suite of contaminants, including metals, chlorinated organic chemicals, petroleum hydrocarbons, and emerging contaminants, and use award-winning, technology-based remediation strategies that are often first-to-field. Many of our hydrogeologists specialize in modeling the fate and transport of contaminants through the most difficult types of media, including fractured and karst bedrock.
Geosyntec practitioners rank among the world's top professionals in providing site assessment and remediation services at a wide range of impacted sites using innovative technologies and solutions that consistently advance the state of the practice. Through our use of innovative technologies and solutions, we provide our public and private sector clients with a wide array of services to address their toughest challenges. Our contaminated site practitioners guide our clients through a specialized remediation plan, consult on regulatory strategies, and develop a comprehensive cleanup approach. We can address numerous types of media, including contaminated soils, sediments, and groundwater. Advancing the State of the Practice Geosyntec's practitioners are pioneers in site assessment and remediation. Our senior practitioners have developed and authored guidance material and courses for local, state, and national agencies and associations on remediation techniques and technologies. Working with the Interstate Technical Regulatory Council, Geosyntec practitioners taught a training course on vapor intrusion, including mitigation options for the development of vapor-impacted brownfield sites. Geosyntec practitioners also wrote the guidance document on evaluating, optimizing, or ending post-closure care at impacted sites, including brownfield sites, and developed a patented approach for sub-slab vapor migration mitigation allowing residential, commercial, and industrial development on sites impacted by vapor intrusion. Our specialists routinely collaborate with prominent national researchers from academia and government agencies to provide innovative and defensible strategies for sites with contaminated sediments. For example, we collaborated with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to remediate chlorinated solvent-contaminated marsh sediments by applying a bioreactive mat system embedded with a dehalogenating microbial consortium, a technology Geosyntec helped develop. This project and partnership earned our client recognition as a finalist for the Service to America Medal awarded by the Partnership for Public Service. Through a collaborative research project with the University of Florida, Geosyntec professionals helped develop the FLUCL software package for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. This software is used to calculate exposure point concentration statistics in risk assessment and was the first of its kind to contain algorithms for censored datasets. FLUCL has received endorsements from several United States Environmental Protection Agency regions and the California Environmental Protection Agency. Geosyntec scientists also pioneered the use of genetic molecular tools to characterize microbes in environmental media and are engaged in applied research and development with top academic institutions around the world, including the University of Toronto, Cornell University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Developing an accurate conceptual site model (CSM) is paramount to understanding and interpreting contaminant fate and transport in the subsurface. One of the main reasons that site remediation fails or produces less than optimal outcomes is a reliance on an overly simplified CSM.
Geosyntec provides practical solutions and a clear vision for environmental remediation that exceed client expectations and help them earn regulatory approval of the solutions they deploy. Dynamic environmental laws and standards and evolving remediation guidance demand proactive cleanup solutions and a clear strategy for addressing regulatory requirements in order for businesses to minimize environmental risk while maintaining economic benefit. Environmental remediation projects are often complex and multi-faceted. This means reaching regulatory closure is not necessarily just about reducing contaminant concentrations below a defined threshold. A range of stakeholders usually need to be satisfied that efforts have been genuinely spent in an attempt to result in better outcomes. A successful remediation project often requires stakeholders agree and own some of the key performance indicators; understand key milestones and their implications; and gain insight on the uncertainties and contingencies to address these. Geosyntec has acquired considerable experience in regulatory advocacy and stakeholder engagement in a range of jurisdictions across the globe. Our practitioners convey complex remediation strategies in a manner that these can gain support from a range of stakeholders. We work closely with clients to develop risk-based closure strategy and criteria, advise on site closure and reuse options, and negotiate closure criteria with key regulators Stakeholder comments are addressed to achieve consensus and approval from multiple regulatory agencies. Our environmental compliance services include helping clients obtain permits through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program and determining the regulatory compliance of a waste storage facility under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). For example, for a sediment remediation project Geosyntec worked hand-in-hand with our client, the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office, and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great lakes, and Energy on a cost share partnership throughout the investigation and remedial design process. Through this interaction we were able to identify and design a project that not only met federal and state requirements but could be implemented within the client’s available funding. Geosyntec practitioners help negotiate cleanup goals with regulatory agencies during strategy development and, of course, steer clients through the implementation of long-term remediation plans with their goals as our foremost focus.
The role of environmental due diligence during merger, divestiture, and acquisition (MD&A) activities has evolved significantly since the early years of conducting straightforward Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) for the purpose of identifying potential environmental concerns. Today, transactional due diligence can encompass far beyond just the routine Phase I ESA, advancing to higher level deal optimization through evaluation of sustainable practices and environmental, social and governance (ESG) to not just mitigate, but optimize the environmental foot print of the transaction. What once may have required only a small team of environmental professionals, has now developed into a requirement to assemble a myriad of inter-disciplinary professionals; skilled not just in environmental matters, but in financial and business matters as well with an aim of seeking value creation in addition to risk mitigation. Our clients look to Geosyntec to become a strategic and sustainable business partner looking beyond just a response to regulatory requirements. We understand that our clients may be driven by varying degrees of capitalization and risk tolerance. Certain investments may be time-limited while other investments such as mergers may present a need for a longer term vision of risk mitigation. We specialize in translating environmental risk into financial terms used for sound business decisions, requiring sophisticated integration of technical, regulatory, practical, and financial drivers.
Environmental Liability Valuation (ELV) focuses on evaluating the financial relevance of environmental liabilities and opportunities by applying fundamental engineering and scientific analysis within a specific financial, legal and risk management framework. The technical analysis, consulting support and expert testimony of our practitioners provide a better understanding of cost certainty and liability valuations, potentially reducing both the size and share of cost allocations related to insurance transactions, risk transfer, financial report, and portfolio management. Building upon our renowned expertise in environmental remediation, geotechnical, water resources, and infrastructure risk engineering, Geosyntec provides public and private sector clients with defensible valuation of environmental liability to support business decisions, such as those pertaining to insurance transactions, risk transfer, financial reporting, and portfolio management. When ELV matters to the bottom line, corporate management and legal counsel seek out Geosyntec to provide technical analysis, consulting support, and expert testimony. They know that Geosyntec offers a unique set of qualifications to apply fundamental environmental engineering and scientific analyses within a financial, legal, and risk management framework inherent to key business decisions, negotiations, and disputes. This provides our clients greater cost certainty and more usable valuations. For example, Geosyntec: Focuses on complex environmental liability portfolios. We provided concurrent evaluation of environmental liabilities at more than 1,000 sites in 48 states and international locations with alleged environmental liabilities in the billions of dollars. Focuses on environmental risk management. We provided the technical basis for a greater than $30 million insurance recovery to a clients' bottom line in less than 18 months from project inception. Offers unique environmental costing tools. We have developed and employed costing techniques and models specific to the intricacies of environmental valuations. Provides expert support. Our experts have consulted and opined on approaches, magnitudes, and appropriateness of environmental costs for more than 10,000 sites worldwide, representing billions of dollars of alleged environmental liabilities.
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