Exponent’s remediation experts evaluate the appropriateness and cost of remediation decisions, estimate future liabilities, and apportion costs among potentially responsible parties. Our consultants rely on both hands-on practical experience and knowledge of rigorous financial and engineering models to conduct cost evaluations.
Cost Allocation and Apportionment
Exponent staff have been involved in numerous cases where liability and cost allocation are evaluated using strict review of the National Contingency Plan (NCP). These cases arise from environmental cleanup and restoration project disputes under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), and also include natural resource damage (NRD) claims for restoration costs. Projects have included commingled groundwater contaminant plumes, large river and urban bay projects with multiple contributing parties, waste landfills, mines, and other contaminated sites. This work has involved investigation of potentially responsible parties (PRPs), historical site reconstruction, financial analyses, database development, and environmental forensics.
Objective Evaluation of Remedial Alternatives and Estimation of Future Liabilities
Decision makers are often focused on a particular presumed remedy. Exponent has found that our thorough and objective evaluation of project risks and potential fatal flaws provides a sound technical basis for advising our clients about cost-effective remedial solutions. We have worked with our clients and the regulatory community to develop least-cost, effective alternatives that have been used to drive business decisions pertaining to Sarbanes-Oxley and bankruptcy requirements, while consistently receiving the approval of regulators. We have assisted our clients with oversight of the development and evaluation of alternative remedial solutions, costs, and implementation scenarios that meet the capital demands of cash-limited businesses. Exponent has no vested interest in the selected remedy, and thus, our scientists and engineers are technically unbiased and include thorough evaluation of site-specific constraints and potential impacts to onsite operations and nearby human and ecological receptors. In predicting future liabilities, we use a variety of techniques, from probability-weighted decision-tree analyses to Monte Carlo stochastic models.
Risk-Based Cleanup-Level Development and Risk-Based Alternatives Comparison
Frequently, cost contribution claims are based on remedial decisions are made expeditiously, or to be overly conservative, for various reasons. Often in such cases, the cleanup costs could have been significantly less, yet sufficiently protective, if scientifically sound, risk-based methods had been used. Exponent toxicologists and ecologists perform site-specific analyses to support the establishment of realistic cleanup goals, and to provide more appropriate comparisons of short-term and long-term human health and ecological risks for different remedial scenarios. By integrating the expertise of engineers, bioavailability chemists, toxicologists, and ecologists, Exponent provides sound, science-based assessments for selection of cost-effective remedial actions that are protective of human health and the environment.