As the aftershocks of Kathryn Schulz’s article The Really Big One in The New Yorker continue to reverberate across western Washington, Aspect is fielding questions from concerned family members, friends, and clients. Will everything west of I-5 really be “toast”? Should I be worried about a landslide on the hill in my backyard? Is my house going to hold up against a 9.0 quake?
Read MoreAspect's Dan Haller Breaks Down Water Rights for Appraisers and Realtors
Dan Haller is speaking at a water rights seminar for the Appraisal Institute in Seattle on Friday, June 5th. Dan shares information with appraisers and realtors on the ins-and-outs of water rights, factors that influence their value, and how they can be transferred.
Port of Bellingham Site Approaching Major Milestone
This month one of Aspect’s environmental projects moves one step closer to realizing its redevelopment vision.
The Port of Bellingham Commission is preparing to sign a master development agreement (MDA) with Dublin-based Harcourt Developments at the end of March. The agreement will allow Harcourt to start work on the first 18.8-acre piece of a contaminated Bellingham waterfront site that was formerly home to a Georgia-Pacific pulp and tissue mill.
In close collaboration with the Port of Bellingham and Ecology, Aspect’s technical and regulatory strategies have contributed to speeding the cleanup in conjunction with redevelopment of the Brownfield site. Over the next year, we will be designing and overseeing the cleanup action planned for this portion of the site.
Pending Commission approval, the MDA represents a major milestone for the Port, the City of Bellingham, and the Bellingham community where Aspect has set roots with a new office.
Click on this link to a Bellingham Herald article about the MDA.
Inspiring the Next Generation of Environmental Consultants
For an interdisciplinary WWU course focused on the Science and Management of Contaminated sites (SMoCS), Aspect’s Steve Germiat gave budding environmental consultants a “real life” experience in the MTCA cleanup process.
Steve first joined the class and Ecology staff on a rainy Saturday morning at an industrial waterfront site, viewing and discussing Aspect’s K-C Everett Mill RI/FS project that the class is using as a case study. The following month, dry in a warm classroom, Steve walked the students through the MTCA cleanup process in general, while introducing soil and groundwater sampling methods, data analysis/presentation, and remedial technology options.
In addition to the exciting scientific and technological challenges of environmental remediation, Steve addressed the more mundane nuts and bolts of a consultant’s role and the skills and attributes that enable a consultant to excel.
About SMoCS
In collaboration with Washington State Department of Ecology Toxics Cleanup Program, WWU’s Huxley College of the Environment (Huxley) offers undergraduate students a course series in the Science and Management of Contaminated sites (SMoCS). The SMoCS series includes three courses that build knowledge of the contaminated site cleanup process in Washington State with an emphasis on how scientific investigations are conducted, use of the technical documents associated with cleanups, the roles of different parties in cleanup decisions, and enhanced professional skills. For more information on the program visit http://faculty.wwu.edu/harperr3/SMoCS.shtml.
Hello Bellingham!
ACEC Washington Best in State Silver Award Winner: Riverside Property Cleanup
Mark Sadler (2nd from right), City of Everett, joined Aspect project team members at the awards banquet.
For our technical guidance on the Riverside Property Cleanup, Aspect received a Best in State Silver Award for Social/Economic Sustainability at the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Washington 2013 Engineering Excellence Awards banquet on January 18.
The cleanup of the 90-acre Riverside property on the Snohomish River in Everett was conducted collaboratively through a public-private partnership between the City of Everett and Kimberly-Clark Worldwide - the Riverside Environmental Team (RET). With the RET relying on the technical analysis to drive the process, Aspect's deep understanding of MTCA regulatory requirements and strategic application of cleanup design and engineering steered the comprehensive cleanup of the former industrial property.
Aspect worked with the RET and Ecology to develop an efficient, focused approach and practical, cost effective engineered solutions that went beyond conventional industrial cleanup. Employing innovations including backfilling with available dredge sands and installing a subsurface drain system for use in groundwater treatment, Aspect oversaw a cleanup program of complete soil removal and active groundwater treatment that resulted in non-detect contaminant levels and six No Further Action (NFA) determinations for soil and groundwater.
Achieving unrestricted cleanup standards at the former Sawmill site preserved opportunities for a full range of future redevelopment options, not limited by capped contamination or deed restrictions.
The project was previously recognized with a 2011 Association of Washington Business (AWB) Environmental Excellence Award for Kimberly-Clark.
Aspect Consulting in Action: Now on Google Street View!
It's a point of pride in this modern age, isn't it? Getting captured by one of Google's roaming car cameras is a badge of honor we'll wear proudly.
Aspect staff can be found onsite at remediation and monitoring projects state wide. Remediation engineer Eric Geissinger was captured--monitoring the Air Sparge/Soil Vapor Extraction (AS/SVE) system at the Dolarway site -- by a roving Google street view camera in Ellensburg.
The jury is still out on how worried we should be that Eric will leave Aspect to pursue a career in modelling.
One Site. Four Sources. One System.
The groundwater beneath an eight-acre shopping center exhibited chlorinated solvent impacts from four different source areas of varying ages.
To sort out the complexities of multiple sources with multiple responsible parties, Aspect hydrogeologists distinguished the relative solvent contribution from each historical source and developed a site conceptual model that was used to reach an equitable cost-sharing agreement. At the same time, our remediation engineers pilot tested an in situ chemical oxidation system for groundwater treatment without disruption to the active retail facility.
The final remediation system treats all source areas through one air sparge and soil vapor extraction (AS/SVE) system consisting of 16 soil-vapor extraction wells and 47 air-sparging wells spread over an acre of the property.
