Consulting

Expert Witness / Litigation Support

Litigation related to environmental due diligence, the occurrence of contaminants, defining cleanup objectives, and the performance of remediation involves complex range of technical issues. SMA’s scientists, hydrogeologists, and engineers, have extensive experience in providing clients and their legal counsel a thorough understanding of the relevant technical aspects of such litigation. Examples of our litigation support expertise are summarized below.

• Provided a cost estimate to an attorney regarding the remediation of a site impacted by PCBs. A settlement was reached, based on our estimate, which resulted in a major cost reduction for the client from the charges claimed.


• Provided an expert report on the cause of failure of a large storage vessel containing corrosive chemicals.


• Provided an expert report on the reasonable cost of remediating contamination from a large Indiana pharmaceutical Facility.


• Provided an expert report on the overcharges a regulatory authority made for cleanup of an industrial site in Illinois which resulted in a significant reduction in charges.


• Provided an expert opinion of anticipated remediation costs for 63 sites across the United States to assist our client in negotiation of an acquisition.


• Used 3D Animations to support a legal claim of offsite contaminate migration from an Illinois facility.


• Provided expert testimony for a major insurance company regarding the nature, timing, and occurrence of chlorinated solvent (TCE) releases at an aircraft facility in Fullerton, California.


• Provided expert opinions, consistent with the NCP, regarding the performance of remediation work, sources of chlorinated solvent contamination contributing to groundwater contamination, and the effectiveness of the groundwater remediation implemented at a Voluntary Remediation Program (VRP) site in Indiana.


• Provided an expert opinion regarding the origin of the contamination and the cost to perform remedial activities at a dry cleaning facility in Indiana.


• Provided an expert opinion for a toxic tort suit regarding the fate and transport of waste disposed and stored at a site near Rockford, Illinois.


• Provided litigation support after incumbent consultant had failed to locate TCE source areas, and had contaminated a bedrock aquifer by installing monitoring wells without adequately sealing off the upper contaminated aquifer.


• Provided expert opinions on the contribution of a client’s releases to a large pool of contamination from multiple sources.


• Provided expert report on the geology/hydrogeology and extent of petroleum contamination at a petroleum refinery in the Midwest.


• Performed contaminant transport unsaturated zone and groundwater modeling to support testimony related to the period of occurrence for a large TCE release that was the subject of insurance claims.


• Assessed and provided expert opinions on the performance of a consultant that had performed investigation and remediation services for a site where industry standards for the performance of field work and remedial measures were not met. This resulted in nearly a $1MM settlement for the SMA client.


• Provided expert assessment of the unsuccessful application of electrical resistive heating (ERH) at a site and the allocation of damages for the oversight consultant and the ERH contractor.


• Provided expert testimony on allocation of damages on numerous sites.

Merger and Acquisition Support

Businesses involved in mergers and acquisition (M&A) deals are keenly aware of the potential impact that hidden environmental issues can have on the bottom line, and therefore, conduct due diligence with far greater breadth and depth than they have in the past. SMA has the required interdisciplinary technical and scientific expertise, and business and transactional acumen as well, to be a valuable asset in M&A projects.

• Our Project Managers and Principals are directly engaged with our Clients throughout the M&A process.
• We draw upon our in–house experts in environmental remediation to provide reliable cost estimates for sites with known or potential complex soil, groundwater and environmental exposure situations that can be instrumental in M&A negotiations.
• We have been relied upon as strategic partners for our Clients due to our depth and breadth of environmental expertise.
• Our successful completion of large portfolios worth hundreds of millions of dollars has provided valuable insights into the relationship between material risk, environmental liabilities, and deal structure and value.
• We are responsive to time–critical demands, experienced in evaluating options for managing risk, familiar with financial valuation techniques, aware of the importance of exit strategies, and adept at identifying and implementing opportunities for reducing risk and increasing asset value prior to exit.
  
  

All Appropriate Inquiries / Due Diligence

All Appropriate Inquiries (AAI) is one of the requirements to maintain certain landowner defenses to CERCLA liability. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard E1527-13 for conducting a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (Phase I ESA) is approved by USEPA to comply with the requirements for AAI. SMA has the required interdisciplinary technical and scientific expertise, and business and transactional acumen as well, to perform Phase I and II ESAs and other due diligence assignments. SMA does not treat Phase I ESA assignments as a commodity due to their importance. We have firsthand experience in observing business impacts of unexpected environmental liabilities that come to light post-transaction; problems that an appropriately designed due diligence process would have revealed and provided the Client with the proper information in order to make an informed business decision.

• Project Managers and Principals are directly engaged with our Clients throughout the process, which also facilitates longer–term post-transaction support.
• Responsive to time–critical demands, and experienced in evaluating options for managing risk.
• Our due diligence professionals engage with in-house engineers and scientists to provide reliable estimates of the costs to investigate and remediate sites with complex environmental conditions that can be instrumental in pre-transaction negotiations.
• Our successful completion of a variety of assessments ranging from Greenfields to old manufacturing facilities has provided valuable insights into the relationship between material risk, environmental liabilities, and deal structure and value.
  
  

Waste Characterization

During the delineation of soil and groundwater impacts at a site, investigation derived waste (IDW) is generated and placed into properly labeled drums or roll-off boxes. The waste storage containers are staged in a designated area pending proper characterization and off-site disposal. SMA works with disposal companies to ensure that proper characterization of the IDW is completed. Typically, if multiple drums are filled for an investigation location, those drums are composited into one sample. For roll-off boxes filled with soil, one or two composite samples are collected.

Conceptual Site Models

SMA is highly experienced at addressing the key questions related to developing CSM’s, namely: What kind of contaminants are involved, how do they transform and how do they migrate?; Where are the contaminants located?; Where are the contaminants going and at what rate?; and Who will the contaminants impact? Several of SMA’s experienced staff are experts at the fate and migration of contaminants in the subsurface and this experience has equipped them to effectively use advanced investigative techniques to identify the contaminants location in the subsurface, the migration pathways and the speed at which they are moving. SMA has also developed outstanding 2 and 3-dimensional visualization capabilities to illustrate the contaminant occurrence in the subsurface to aid in our presentation of these contaminant migration pathways to clients, regulators and subcontractors in order to remediate sites more effectively.