LTR - Ep 46 - What Is A Phase 2 Environmental Site Assessment?

In this 46th episode, I discuss What Is A Phase 2 Environmental Site Assessment?

A Phase 2 Environmental Site Assessment ("ESA") is the second step in understanding the level of possible environmental contamination risk is associated with a particular property.

A Phase 2 Environmental Assessment involves sampling of soil, soil gas/vapor and groundwater to determine if contamination exists, at what level and if so where its located. 

Based on the results from field sampling and laboratory results, you are able to identify any areas of concern.

The purpose is for a summarized conclusion and recommendation to be obtained as to whether remedial work should be performed.  If so a Phase 3 ESA would be recommended, which will be covered in our next episode.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Thanks for tuning in to our podcast. We love having you here, and it's our mission to bring you all the latest and greatest tips, skills, and know-how to make you the best that you can be. We know that you have an idiot, and we're going to show you how. Now, now let's get started.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hey there, let's talk remediation. This is your host, Charles Fader, and this is our 46th episode of Let's Talk Remediation. Uh, it's brought to us by our ongoing sponsor, Hambi Environmental. Hambi Environmental is a manufacturer of field test kits for water and solid surface and soil analysis. And those field test kits provide accurate results within 10% of a lab result, economical results at$35 a test for soil and solid surface and$45 a test for water. And uh ECAN and Efficient providing those results in four minutes for soil and solid surface and six minutes for uh water analysis. So thank you, Hambi Environmental, for your ongoing support of this podcast. Let's talk remediation, where we're trying to have a positive impact on the environmental remediation industry. And with that, let's get started with our 46th episode, which is what is a phase two environmental site assessment? Uh in episode 45, we covered what is a phase one, and uh we described phase one as being a historical of the property from when it was raw land to its current use today. And in that investigation of that historical data, also you uh consider the nearby properties and all that, and the ultimate end all be all for the phase one is to get a recommendation uh as to whether no further recommended uh investigation or they recommend uh proceeding forward with a phase two uh side assessment, which is what we're covering today. So a phase two is okay, we performed a phase one, and the recommendation was to proceed with a phase two uh based on the historical data. So the phase two is moving from phase one into phase two. We are actually we have determined in phase one that there is some environmental risk exposure of the subject property, and uh it should be further investigated via the phase two. So phase two is doing that further investigation because of the identified environmental conditions uh causing a concern either from the prior use of the property or a nearby property that had contamination or uh uh a current use or prior use of a nearby property. So there's environmental concern of possibility of um contamination risk associated with the subject property. So we are going to further investigate um via the phase two. So the phase two um would be uh in order to further investigate into phase two, we are going to do some sampling. Um in this case, sampling would be done at the surface as well as below the surface. So a phase two environmental site assessment typically involves the collection of samples, uh, whether it's soil, soil gas, uh, groundwater samples, and submitting them to a laboratory uh to get the determination of is there any contamination present? And if so, what type and how much? Um in addition, uh, as part of the phase two and sending samples off to a laboratory, prior to sending off those samples to a laboratory, we may want to do some on-site field sampling, um, like using the Hambi environmental field test kit, for example. Um, and doing some field sampling will help you to identify um areas of concern where we would want to further investigate by taking samples and sending off to a laboratory. So field sampling should really be the first step there. And field sampling is to identify the areas on the subject property that uh are giving the most concern so that we can further investigate those areas by sending the samples off to the laboratory. So the phase two would be sampling from surface and under surface uh in soil and in groundwater to determine if there's contamination levels and if so, at what levels, and to kind of identify specific areas of concern, uh, obviously by higher uh than uh than thresholds of interest um of particular types of contaminants in uh particular areas, and determining if they're above an acceptable quantity to have that concern. So we've identified what we call hot spots or areas of concern. Um again, it all spurred from the phase one, the historical, that gave us concern for further investigation by performing this phase two. And from that, we've said, okay, let's take some samples from surface and below surface by doing some borings and that type of thing. And that way we're sampling both the soil and the groundwater to determine uh if the soil is contaminated and if there's groundwater contamination or not. And based on our findings, we're able to do some field sampling first to determine if they're very low quantities that don't really give us much concern, or oh, yeah, there's there's high quantities here. This is definitely concerning. Let's further investigate and try to see how big or small this area of concern is uh and send some samples off for laboratory analysis for more detailed information about them. And um based on both the results we got from field sampling as well as from the laboratory results that we get back, we can identify these areas and then determine if those areas are something that can be easily uh dealt with, or if there's a large enough quantity and a large enough area, the concentrations are high enough that we really need to have uh concern here to recommend um phase three. Now, for that, let's let's give some examples here. You know, if if you've got something that in its past history was um an oil chain shop or an oil chain shop was nearby, again, the typicals are oil chain shop, dry cleaning plants, uh convenience stores, convenience stores with gas in particular, or diesel, you know, fuel underground storage tanks, that type of thing, um uh fuel dispensers. Um, so whether it was on this subject property or nearby property, those gave the areas of concern. So now we're gonna do some sampling to determine if there's any contamination on site based on that historical. Now, from the data that we we get from field sampling and laboratory analytics from doing this types of sampling, what were the results? Sometimes you're gonna get negative results that say there's no contamination there, no, no areas of concern. So no, and then you'll get ultimately your summary of your phase two investigation will be hey, there's nothing here that is above and out of the ordinary, so we don't recommend any further investigation. So that's great, great news. Or the phase two has determined there's some spots of concern on this property where the contamination is higher than expected. Um, and we really think that uh there should there should be some remediation work done here, some cleanup done, and that would be recommending phase three to actually address that contamination that was found on site. However, you know, sometimes uh you might get uh some type of result here or there that something was found, um, but by further investigation, you did some other sampling, like in the nearby area, that uh found that there wasn't any. So in that case, the conclusion could be met maybe you you got an area where you you had a hit or you found, you know, maybe a little bit of oil or something like that. But then when you further investigated it, you you you delineated out, you moved out from that to try to identify, you know, how much of this area is contaminated, and everywhere around it came back clean. So in that case, uh the conclusion was we're not recommending that this stuff be remediated, that you know, rather than uh any contamination that was done uh from a prior use or a nearby property that we were that thinking it was a possibility, it really was just a one-off thing that we must just hit. We must have found where you know somebody uh drips some some oil from changing their car or something like that. You know, it really wasn't that big of a concern. It's not like the contamination migrated from the oil chain shop across the street that's never had any environmental um uh never never been uh had any problems with uh the regulatory agencies or anything like that. So um, you know, the the one hit that we got for oil in this one particular spot was just a one-off, and we determined that by moving out from it and taking more samples, and they all came back clean. So we're not recommending that we move forward. Um, so that's what takes place in a phase two environmental assessment. Again, it is doing some further investigation based on what phase one found and recommended to do the phase two. So we decided to go ahead and take some sampling just for further validation uh whether there's any or how whether there's any or how much environmental exposure risk is on the subject property. Um and that involves some sampling, some field sampling, um, some testing in the field, as well as sending uh samples off to for laboratory analysis. And as part of the phase two report, not only obviously the most important piece is the recommendation of either no further action or further action, uh meaning remediation into phase three, um, is all the you know uh the data accumulation, you know, um, so there's going to be maps of where all the samples were taken from and how they came to those conclusions of, you know, well, we we identified one spot where we had a hit, uh, whether it was from our field sample results, whether it was from the lab analytics, um, you know, either way, and so then from there we, you know, sampled around it, you know, uh both vertically and horizontally, and all those samples came back clean. So we determined that is to be a one-off hit and and to not really cause any need for concern. And so all the you know, the mapping of of where those other samples and the the sample of concern was taken, all that kind of mapping out, all that support is added into that phase two um report to support the conclusion they came to, whether they recommended uh no further action or they recommended further action of a phase three uh in doing some remedial work. So you want to always support the uh recommendation and conclusion that the the report came up with, and so all that support information is included in the report of the phase two. So the phase two is some limited sampling of soil, soil uh vapor, soil gas, uh groundwater, uh to determine if the what the environmental exposure or risk exposure of contamination is at the subject property to determine if any further remediation work would need to be performed as in phase three. And we will get into phase three in our next episode. But that's the summary of what phase two is about. Phase two is taking the recommendation from phase one of further investigating uh based on its historical information, and phase two is performing some limited sampling um in order to determine if and how much exposure uh or risk there would be for contamination on the subject property to determine if now, I mean, so in other words, a phase two is kind of like further investigation, but now through sampling as opposed to just data information, as in phase one. So in phase two, you did some sampling to uh further investigate whether uh there's really any um uh risk associated with contamination on the property, and based on those findings, now make the recommendation of whether remediation work needs to be performed in phase three or not. So that's what phase two is is some limited sampling, which is further investigation to determine if there's contamination, the extent of the contamination, and whether it warrants moving forward with remedial action or not. So that's what phase two is. So thank you for tuning in. Um that is episode 46. Thank you, Hambi Environmental, your ongoing sponsor for this podcast. And uh as I I typically say, I uh in the past episodes is if you have a topic uh you'd like for us to cover or a question you'd like for us to address on a future podcast, don't hesitate to reach out. Uh my email is C Fader, that's C F S N Frank A-T-O-R at let's talk remediation.com, and we'll get that covered on a future podcast. But this concludes episode 46, which was what is a phase two um environmental site assessment report, and we will follow it up with our next episode, which is what is a phase three. So with that, I'm your host, Charles Fader, and I'm out.