Major Port in Southern California

SERVICES USED ON THIS PROJECT INCLUDE:
	Environmental Compliance

Sapphos Environmental, Inc. provided technical and legal support to a major port authority in California in an effort to prepare the port in the event that it would be named as a potentially responsible party regarding a Cleanup and Abatement Order (CAO) issued by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB). Sapphos Environmental, Inc. provided coordination and oversight of the peer review of reports with respect to the human health risk assessment, ecological risk assessment, environmental toxicology, and tidal prism research including sediment supply and transport models.

Sapphos Environmental, Inc. provided the client with annotated bibliographies by reviewing existing port tenant records and port authority files. The result of this review by Sapphos Environmental, Inc. was the preparation of a detailed legal and historical timeline of the development of the port and a resulting key issues matrix in preparation for the RWQCB issuing a technical memorandum for existing tenant facilities for litigation.

Sapphos Environmental, Inc. prepared a report pertaining to the remedial alternatives in response to abatement orders and sediment cleanup policies at U.S. ports. This report presented and evaluated the range of available remediation management strategies for contaminated marine sediment and presents cleanup levels used and proposed at the port. The goal of the report was to assist port officials and attorneys with understanding the RWQCB’s process for selecting an effective and appropriate site-specific remedial strategy. This report outlined the regulatory framework for sediment cleanups in California; provided an overview of the existing conditions of the CAO site, in terms of economics and land use, and of the surrounding watershed; defined and evaluated ex-situ and in-situ cleanup methods; provided case studies of cleanup methods; and discussed additional relevant and existing reference documents.

Sapphos Environmental, Inc. also prepared a memorandum regarding trash-burning activities in the watershed that drained into the port. This memorandum identified the location of landfills that used burning activities as a means of trash compaction. It also detailed the types of contaminants contained in burn ash and how the ash flowed through the watershed and into the port, thereby exacerbating the contamination issue within the port.