Location Acquisition
The author of this report has been asked to step in as an Environmental and Safety Manager to inspect a polluted work location that was bought "as is" with the understanding that the acquiring company would pay any and all costs of remediating and fixing the polluted ground and such on the worksite. The early study indications include the fact there is oil pollution in the higher earth around the plant. However, the actual source material is not known and thus a waste delineation study will be necessary. There are also three buildings where equipment has been stored and there seems to be a pit where amounts of oil and other potential substances were discarded. The author of this report is being asked to design a waste delineation program that addresses all of the necessary factors including soil impact, groundwater impact, whether there are any dissolved contaminants in the groundwater and so forth.
Analysis
The most important things to know at the onset is what precisely is in the soil and whether those substances (and what they are) reached the groundwater. It should also be ascertained what precisely is in the waste pools. Of course, what precisely is in those waste pools and what is in the soil would determine what all has to happen to remediate the site and make it ready for any future operations. Regardless, there should be no time-specific plans about what will be done with the plant...
The acquiring firm surely has an idea what they want to use the location but the location needs to start with as clean a slate as possible. Further, buying this site "as is" without first knowing the depth and breadth of the problem was probably less than wise. If at all possible, the prior owner should be required to offer all of the information they know and they should be made to pay a penalty if they intentionally misrepresent what happened there and/or omit important details that the buying company as a "right to know." Even if the selling company tries to sell a clause that such recourse is not allowed for, lying and fraud in contracts is not protected by contracts and the courts will handle the matter as such.
The following things would need to happen with this location:
The precise substances that are in the soil need to be identified. They will then need to be removed using all of the necessary and required disposal techniques including stripping the polluted soil, getting rid of it and replacing the scraped area with an infrastructure that will allow for the capture and removal of any future spills without having to involve the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and so forth (EPA, 2016; OSHA, 2016).
The plant will need to be retrofitted in a way so that after the spills are…
