Soil and Groundwater Remediation
Site screening and risk assessment results may indicate remedial action is necessary to reduce contaminate concentrations or to block exposure pathways. Since 1999, Earth Systems has successfully remediated contaminated sites with the right blend of science, service, technology, and relationships with regulators and subcontractors. Treatment strategies that we routinely design, implement, and utilize to obtain regulatory closure include:
- Air Sparging
- Soil Vapor Extraction
- Dual Phase and Multi-Phase Extraction
- Natural Attenuation Monitoring
- Risk Based Corrective Action
- Phyto-remediation
- Dig and Haul
- Excavation and On Site Incineration
- Impermeable Slurry Wall Barriers
Engineering Design
The best remedial alternatives are cost effective, simple to implement, and as certain as possible to achieve the cleanup goal. Earth Systems combines talented people and an effective management system to ensure all remediation tasks are completed in a cost-effective and timely manner than minimizes risk and long term liability.
Just because it worked before doesn’t mean there isn’t a better or more cost effective method of remediation available. Our remediation engineers know they must evolve to remain successful. To ensure our project teams stay on the cutting edge of today’s technology, Project Engineers participate in continued education programs that expand their skill sets.
Cost Controls
Managing and controlling costs begins with the development of work plans and project cost estimates. During work plan development, the Project Manager and Portfolio Manager work together to determine the labor, supplies, equipment, and subcontracting requirements for the project. Earth Systems reduces costs while maintaining the integrity of our work product by developing work plans, as follows:
- Minimize mobilizations
- Remove unnecessary laboratory analysis
- Use defendable data gathered by others
- Reduce the generation of investigation derived wastes.
Our Project Managers receive monthly financial statements itemizing labor and other direct costs that have accrued against their project budgets. Cost expenditures are compared to project estimates to confirm that the remaining budget is sufficient for the remaining work. If expenditure variances are identified, the Project Manager advises the Portfolio Manager, provides analysis of the budget conditions, and implements a corrective plan to ensure the project is brought back into budgetary conformance.
Project Progression
Earth Systems uses several organizational advantages to progress throughthe various steps of a project more swiftly than our competitors. Our relatively flat management style, our commitment to building relations with clients, and our focused approach to cleaning sites up quickly (rather than relying on annual O&M budgets as a steady revenue stream) allows us to progress through project phases quickly and achieve closure in a timely matter.
Earth Systems evaluates all options for your environmental issues and applies practical science to solve your problem. Don’t let our competition fool you–most jobs don’t need to be made into “science projects.” Rather, they should be solved quickly and addressed cost effectively.
Communication & Relationships with Government Agencies
The attitude Earth Systems maintains when communicating with regulatory agencies is a direct reflection of our internal commitment to representing our clients with pride and passion, while valuing the opinions of the government case manager. Earth Systems’ communication with regulatory agencies is essential to keeping projects on-time and within budget and efficiently moving through project phases toward closure. Earth Systems project managers are continually counseled by senior level managers on relationship building and conflict resolution to ensure that the government site manager is respected for his or her opinions and recommendations, but yet assuring that our clients’ best interests continue to be taken into account.
The main aspects of our communication approach with regulators include:
- Engaging in frequent dialogue to ensure that the case manager always has timely information
- Freely exchanging information and ideas with the case manager to allow for open communication
- Holding opinions that are backed by definitive data
- Meeting in person to cement our relationship and show a commitment that goes beyond routine phone conversations
Relationship building with regulators is a key component to Earth Systems’ project management model and the resulting goodwill is passed onto our client in many ways including:
- Ability to function and relate on a friendly, “peer” level with the case manager, rather than engaging in a vertical hierarchy that can breed resistance and conflict.
- Established level of trust that allows for the benefit of the doubt during decision making by the case manager.
- Tendency to be more responsive since the relationship is cordial and amiable, not adversarial.
