The commercial office sector in cities around the country is facing unprecedented challenges due to high vacancy rates that have been driven by factors including the work-from-home trend and the highest interest rates in almost 20 years. SCS Engineers worked with a panel of experts in the fields of economics, law, architecture, property development, and building sciences to explore the opportunities and challenges of the adaptive reuse of existing commercial buildings into new uses such as residential ones.
The resulting article provides valuable solutions and insight and can be found in Western Real Estate Business at this link: Western Real Estate Business April 2024 Page 20
SCS Engineers provides environmental consulting services for the real estate industry, including asbestos and lead-based paint surveys that are often needed before any building renovations or adaptive reuse. Once asbestos-containing materials or lead-based paint is identified at the building site, abatement activities to remove or mitigate the risks from these materials take place.
SCS monitors these abatement activities with air monitoring and inspections to make sure the removal is conducted according to regulations, and to protect workers and members of the surrounding community from exposure to these harmful chemicals; protecting and rehabilitating these spaces for re-occupancy.
About the Author: Cristobal Ramirez, CAC, is an environmental professional with over 20 years of experience in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As a bilingual speaker in Spanish and English, he provides environmental services for clients in the United States and Mexico. His experience includes completing over 2,000 environmental assessments and implementing remediation activities for contaminated properties. He is an expert in performing Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) according to U.S. EPA 40 CFR, Part 312, Standards and Practices for All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI); and Final Rule and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process E 1527-13. In addition to ESA services, he conducts subsurface investigations, health and safety plans, community health and safety plans, geophysical surveys, soil vapor surveys, health risk assessments, remediation conceptual cost estimates, property mitigation plans, and soil reuse plans.
Additional Information:
SCS Engineers recently attended the Florida Association of Environmental Professionals (FAEP) Annual Conference held in Orlando on April 25 and April 26, 2024. FAEP was founded in 1987 as an affiliate of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) and has eight local chapters throughout the State. This annual conference aims to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing among environmental professionals from Florida and beyond.
A panel of brownfield redevelopment experts featuring SCS’s Whitney Rodriguez, P.E., Allison Amram of Hillsborough County, and Mike Sznapstajler of Cobb Cole discussed the regulatory framework, available incentives, and liability protection available under the Florida Brownfield Program.
Whitney, along with the other members of the SCS brownfield practice, has successfully obtained millions of dollars in Voluntary Cleanup Tax Credits for clients. One featured project was the City of Oviedo’s Regional Stormwater Pond. The City acquired former agricultural land intending to construct a large stormwater pond to facilitate regional redevelopment, including a community park and trail around the perimeter. Given the past land use, the soil testing results showed arsenic impacts. SCS defined the extent of arsenic-impacted soil and developed a remedial action plan, implementing it concurrently with pond construction. SCS developed a remedial strategy that fits within the City’s budget and time constraints and secured an excess of $1 million reimbursed through Voluntary Cleanup Tax Credits.
SCS’ Amy Guilfoyle received thanks and recognition for serving on the FAEP Conference Planning Committee as the 2024 Technical Chair. She was honored to receive the Hasbrouck Award “In Appreciation of Outstanding Service to FAEP.”
Amy has been an active member of NAEP, FAEP, and the Central Florida Chapter since 2011, serving on the board of directors of all three groups and as the President of both FAEP and the Central Florida Chapter for multiple years. In addition, Amy acted as the co-chair of the 2013 FAEP Conference and was a member of the FAEP Conference Planning Committee from 2015 to 2019.
In 2023, the FAEP established the Hasbrouck Award, named after Bruce Hasbrouck, a long-time supporter and promoter of NAEP, FAEP, and the Tampa Bay Chapter. Having served as the President of each group for multiple years, Bruce continues to support the organization and its membership actively. Amy was the second recipient of this award after Bruce in 2023.
About FAEP: FAEP is a multidisciplinary professional association of Environmental Professionals from various disciplines, including biologists, scientists, geologists, environmental engineers, environmental attorneys, wetland scientists, botanists, planners, and other disciplines that perform environmental work. A Board of Directors consisting of five officers, eight local chapter representatives, three at-large elected members, and an NAEP representative govern FAEP. Click to become a member of FAEP.
About SCS Engineers: SCS Engineers is an exciting, challenging, rewarding place to work that is recognized as an industry leader. SCS is comprised of specialized practices in the design, monitoring, permitting, construction, operation, and maintenance of sustainable environmental solutions serving many business sectors. We work to prevent, mitigate and remediate environmental events, and our employee-owners are recognized for their deep knowledge of environmental regulatory systems and success for our clients.
Join SCS Engineers at the 2024 WV Brownfields & Main Street Conference, taking place September 10th to 12th, 2024, at the Summersville Arena & Conference Center. This premier redevelopment event in West Virginia offers insightful sessions and workshops focused on brownfields redevelopment and downtown revitalization in rural communities.
Registration opens in June, so mark your calendars and join us for this all-day event where industry leaders converge to discuss strategies for sustainable development and community renewal. Don’t miss this opportunity to at the 2024 WV Brownfields & Main Street Conference connect, learn, and contribute to the future of West Virginia’s economic and environmental landscape.
Melissa Schick will be speaking at the conference!
Join SCS Engineers at the 2024 Virginia Brownfields Conference, an event hosted by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the City of Lynchburg Office of Economic Development & Tourism. This conference, held in Lynchburg, VA from June 25th to June 27th, offers a comprehensive exploration of brownfield redevelopment and the revitalization of communities.
Attendees will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the captivating story of Lynchburg’s development, including the remarkable transformation of landmarks such as Jefferson Street and The Virginian Hotel. Through engaging sessions, participants will gain valuable insights into the various facets of brownfield redevelopment, from initial concept planning to the final stages of development and reuse.
Melissa Schick will be presenting on Numbers Talk! Elevating Communities Through Data and Funding
Join SCS Engineers and fellow attendees for three days of learning, networking, and exploration at the 2024 Virginia Brownfields Conference. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this dynamic event shaping the future of brownfield redevelopment in Virginia and beyond.
Join SCS Engineers at The 2024 Florida Brownfields Association (FBA) Annual Brownfields Conference June 26th-28th. Working in cooperation with a wide range of governmental and non-governmental organizations and citizen groups, are a group of environmental stakeholders and professionals who provide brownfields information, assistance, and redevelopment strategies to communities and the public. The 2024 FBA Annual Brownfields Conference brings stakeholders together for networking, learning, and a community day for local organizations to help support and strengthen environmental justice support. The conference is June 26th – 28th in Gainesville, FL.
Melissa Schick and Douglas Latulippe will be in attendance. Register today!
Douglas will be presenting Solar on Brownfields at the conference. Don’t miss it!
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9 and the CA Department of Toxic Substances Control’s (DTSC) Office of Brownfields in collaboration with the Center for Creative Land Recycling will host the California Land Recycling Conference (CALRC): From the Ground Up, this September 17-19 at the Carson Event Center in Carson, CA. Come visit SCS Engineers, an exhibitor and sponsor at this leading Conference. CALRC is the premier event for community, municipal, and redevelopment professionals focused on the beneficial reuse of underutilized and contaminated properties. With unprecedented resources to address brownfield cleanup and reuse challenges, CALRC provides the tools, training, and connections you need to create and capitalize on opportunities for revitalization. This conference will spotlight the passion driving redevelopment projects, showcase the partnerships created, and help practitioners gain valuable insights into available funding opportunities that support these transformative programs. SCS can provide support for a variety of land use and brownfield redevelopment services, including:
Stack and Sequence: Building a Capital Matrix for Brownfield Redevelopment Funding
Brownfield Process & Funding
1:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Community Hall BC
Every brownfield project requires multiple sources of capital to be successful and the more difficult the project, the more capital sources are needed. This workshop will identify and describe a wide variety of brownfield capital sources that will range from brownfield-specific funding to traditional redevelopment financing. A deeper dive will show how sources can be integrated and stacked, used sequentially for the various stages of redevelopment, and combined with private investment. This workshop offers more than just a list of capital sources: in the first half of the workshop capital sources will be described and presented in a “generic” matrix showing the stack and sequence possibilities. Then in the second half of the workshop we’ll collectively work through a few stack and sequence project scenarios to demonstrate the wide range of possibilities for brownfield redevelopment funding/financing programs. The workshop will accommodate individual sites as well as broad areas, and both urban and rural scenarios. Public agencies and non-profits will benefit by learning how to best promote redevelopment through utilizing multiple capital sources. Additionally, practitioners will gain insights, tools, and strategies for working with developers and investors and cultivating successful public-private partnerships that support communities’ neighborhood revitalization goals. All participants will come away with a greater understanding of the wide variety of brownfield redevelopment capital sources and will have the opportunity to create their own plan.
Speakers
West Sacramento 20 Years Later – A Vision Becomes Reality
Brownfield Process & Funding
10:45 AM – 11:45 AM
Community Hall BC
For over 20 years, West Sacramento has been a prime example of actively preparing and implementing a Redevelopment Plan for various City Districts. From Master Plan to Redevelopment Transition Plan to Plan execution, West Sacramento has been at the forefront of Brownfields Redevelopment, using a variety of Financing and Funding resources, including EPA Assessment and Multi-purpose Grants, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), as well as public-private partnerships to help transform a once-overlooked City along the Sacramento River into a highly desirable place to live, work and visit. The session will describe the City’s visioning, financing and funding, assessment, and revitalization process used to transform key target areas such as Pioneer Bluff, Stone Lock and the Capitol Avenue Districts. West Sacramento is a prime example of Brownfields Redevelopment planning and execution. Examples of this transformation are evident across the City (Pioneer Bluff deindustrialization, Stone Lock rehabilitation, and affordable housing developments in the Capitol Avenue District). Attendees will gain a better understanding of full scope redevelopment projects from visioning to execution, the creative financing and partnership building needed to effect such a transformation, and the inspiring story that is West Sacramento. This session is intended for all CCLR CALRC attendees and will cover visioning, financing and funding, regulatory agency collaboration, environmental considerations, and stakeholder consensus building. Attendees will also view a GIS-based Story Map which graphically captures the West Sacramento transformation, past, present, and future.
Speakers
Find out more information about this Conference or to register!
We are excited to announce that SCS Engineers will be sponsoring and exhibiting at the Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR) Arizona Brownfield Workshops this April 23rd, 24th, and 25th in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Our very own Iain Olness will be a panelist and Eric Williams will moderate a panel. Similar content will be presented at all workshops, so choose the date and location most convenient to you! SCS can provide support for a variety of land use and brownfield redevelopment services, including:
Register now for any or all of these workshops!
Join SCS Engineers at the 2024 Pennsylvania Brownfields Conference, presented by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in partnership with the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP). Taking place from March 25th to 27th at the Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center in State College, PA, this conference is a key event for environmental professionals, developers, and stakeholders involved in brownfield redevelopment across the state.
The Pennsylvania Brownfields Conference is a premier platform for exploring innovative solutions and best practices in brownfield redevelopment, environmental remediation, and community revitalization. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage in insightful discussions, gain valuable industry insights, and network with experts and peers from various sectors.
Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with professionals passionate about transforming blighted properties into vibrant community assets. Visit the 2024 Pennsylvania Brownfields conference website for registration details, agenda information, and more!
Get more information on Brownfields and Grants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announces it is lowering recommended screening levels and strengthening guidance for investigating and cleaning up lead-contaminated soil in residential areas. This is the second time that EPA has reduced the screening value for lead in soil at residential properties. The original screening level range of 500 to 1,000 parts per million (ppm) was established in 1989. The original screening value was reduced to 400 ppm in 1994.
As a result of lower screening levels, EPA expects to investigate more residential properties for potential cleanup under the Superfund law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Today’s action delivers on the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing commitment to protect communities from lead poisoning, particularly in disadvantaged and overburdened communities facing multiple sources of lead exposure, advancing President Biden’s environmental justice goals.
EPA is lowering the screening level for lead in soil at residential properties from 400 ppm to 200 ppm. At residential properties with multiple sources of lead exposure, EPA will generally use 100 ppm as the screening level. Screening levels are not cleanup standards. EPA aims to help site teams make site-specific cleanup decisions to protect nearby communities; EPA makes cleanup decisions specific to each site, using site-specific factors, including risk factors and community input that can vary from site to site.
While the guidance goes into effect immediately, EPA welcomes feedback from the public for any future updates to the guidance. Please submit written feedback on the guidance in the public docket (Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OLEM-2023-0664) for 60 days, from January 17, 2024, to March 17, 2024.
For more information or implications for a site, visit the updated guidance webpage, or contact an SCS environmental professional in your state.
The contaminated site rehabilitation (cleanup) provisions promulgated in Florida are based on Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA) principles. This approach to rehabilitating sites combines traditional site assessment with risk assessment principles and site-specific conditions to develop risk management options (RMOs) that meet the client’s objectives and the mandated human-health risk levels. RBCA allows us to tailor our assessment and remediation strategies to the unique characteristics of each site and avoid costs associated with unnecessary environmental assessment or remediation.
The RBCA provisions offer a number of default RMOs to achieve site closure. The most commonly used RMOs include natural background evaluations, total recoverable petroleum hydrocarbon fraction analysis, and synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP) analysis. One of the lesser-used RMOs includes calculating alternative soil cleanup target levels (ASCTLs) using site-specific soil properties. A downside of this approach is that one of the input parameters, soil moisture content, requires one year of data collection; this is too long for most of our clients (particularly developers). Nevertheless, given the right conditions, this RMO can yield beneficial results by justifying a higher cleanup level without needing a year of data. An example of how SCS has used this approach is below.
Background – SCS calculated a leachability-based ASCTL using site-specific soil properties for a former agricultural site undergoing redevelopment for residential use. We considered this site to be a good candidate for this RMO due to the following site-specific conditions:
Data Collection – SCS collected discrete samples from the relevant intervals to obtain site-specific data for the required soil properties. The measured parameters include a fraction of organic carbon, dry soil bulk density, and soil moisture content. Using these measured parameters, SCS calculated the remaining site-specific soil parameters, specifically, the water-filled soil porosity, total soil porosity, and air-filled soil porosity.
ASCTL Calculation – We calculated the ASCTL using the site-specific soil properties and the equation below. The table following the equation presents the default and site-specific soil property input values and the method for deriving the site-specific values. Refer to the DERM Technical Report: Development of Cleanup Target Levels (CTLs) for Chapter 24, Miami-Dade County Code (September 2005) for information concerning the remaining input parameters.
|
Parameter |
Symbol |
Source |
Default Values | Site-Specific Values | |
| Fraction Organic Carbon in Soil (g/g) |
foc |
Field measurement, Walkely-Black analytical method (Nelson, D.W. and Sommers L.E., 1982) |
0.002 |
0.0536 |
|
| Water-Filled Soil Porosity (Lwater/Lsoil) |
θw |
Calculated, θw = ω* ρb |
0.3 |
0.2622 |
|
| Air-Filled Soil Porosity (Lair/Lsoil) |
θa |
Calculated, θa = η – θw |
0.134 |
0.4271 |
|
| Dry Soil Bulk Density (g/cm3) |
ρb |
Field measurement, ASTM D2937 method |
1.5 |
0.8233 |
|
| Average Soil Moisture Content (gwater/gsoil) |
ω |
Field measurement, ASTM D2216 method |
0.2 |
0.3185 |
|
| Total Soil Porosity (Lpore/Lsoil) |
η |
Calculated, η = 1- (ρb/ ρs) |
0.434 |
0.6893 |
|
| Soil Cleanup Target Level (mg/kg) |
SCTL |
0.002 |
0.046 |
Using the site-specific soil properties resulted in an ASCTL of 0.046 mg/kg, significantly higher than the default leachability SCTL of 0.002 mg/kg.
Sensitivity Analysis – As mentioned above, soil moisture content requires one year of data collection; generally, this parameter is an average of results obtained from four quarterly events (designed to represent variability in moisture content during wet and dry seasons). Since we speculated that organic carbon content is driving the ASCTL, and the client could not wait a year to get approval of the ASCTL, SCS performed a sensitivity analysis of the various soil parameters on the ASCTL calculation. The results indicated that soil moisture content does not impact the ASCTL calculation for dieldrin (at the site-specific organic carbon content), even using the unrealistic scenarios of 0% and 100% soil moisture content. With this finding, we could justify using a single data point for soil moisture content instead of averaging one year of soil moisture data.
Summary – ASCTLs using site-specific soil properties can be calculated for any COC. However, consider several criteria when evaluating the feasibility of this approach, some of which include:
We can also calculate the direct exposure ASCTLs based on site-specific soil properties. Use the soil properties in the volatilization factor portion of the direct exposure SCTL equation; therefore, COCs with a significant fraction of the risk associated with the inhalation route would benefit most from this RMO.
Ultimately, an environmental professional with expertise in environmental assessment, risk assessment, and soil science/geology can help assess whether calculating an ASCTL would be beneficial in meeting your client’s goals. Approval of a higher leachability-based ASCTL can result in significant savings by minimizing or eliminating the need for additional assessment, remediation, or groundwater monitoring.
DERM Technical Report: Development of Cleanup Target Levels (CTLs) for Chapter 24, Miami-Dade County Code. September 2005, prepared by the Center for Environmental & Human Toxicology, University of Florida. Link
Hagan, D., F. Escobedo, G.Toor, H. Mayer, J. Klein, and C. Dobbs. 2010. Soil Bulk Density and Organic Matter in Urban Miami-Dade County, Florida. SL 327. Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Link
Nelson, D.W. and Sommer, L.E. (1982) Total Carbon, Organic Carbon and Organic Matter. Methods of Soil Analysis, Part 2. Chemical and Microbiological Properties, 2nd Edition. ASA-SSSA, Madison, 595-579. Link
Anabel Rodriguez-Garcia is an environmental scientist, with a decade of experience in sustainable management of soil, heavy metal contamination in soils and organic fertilizers, physical, chemical and biological characterization of soils, including sample collection and documentation. She serves SCS clients as a senior project professional, and is particularly valuable for environmental site assessments. She has worked on projects for government agencies such as Florida Department of Transportation, Miami-Dade County Regulatory and Economic Resources, public utilities, and for the private sector.
Lisa L. Smith has three decades of experience in a variety of roles in the field of environmental science. Lisa serves SCS clients as a senior technical advisor and expert in the field of risk based corrective action (RBCA). She has worked as an environmental regulator at the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM), a risk assessor at a national environmental consulting firm, and a research chemist at the University of Florida.
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