12B — May 25 - June 7, 2018 — Greater Philadelphia Buildings Engineering & Facility Maintenance Show — ODM — M id A tlantic
Real Estate Journal www.marejournal.com
G reater P hiladelphia B uildings E ngineering & F acility M aintenance S how
By John Caccese, P.E. Earth Engineering Incorporated “FREE FILL DIRT” or is it? A Perspective on Clean Fill Testing
on the side of the road; “FREE FILL DIRT”. For a long time this was the case. M o v i n g earth from o n e p r o p - W
e’ve all been driv- ing in our car and have seen the signs
is no longer the norm. With regulatory agencies keeping a closer eye on this process and property owners becom- ing more and more concerned about their liabilities, clean fill assessments and testing have become the standard. So what does that mean for you? Well, it depends on whether you are a property owner that is looking to export the soil, an owner looking to import the soil, a construction manager, or an earthworks contractor. Each of these par- ties will be affected differently by the clean fill assessment
and testing process. Clean fill certification is not about magic, it is about liabil- ity. When materials are exca- vated and removed from a site, anything in the fill is leaving with them. That includes any contamination in them, and it will travel with the fill mate- rial to be deposited on another site. If you are the owner of the fill and are looking to export it to another site, having it certi- fied as clean is often the only way to move forward. Depend- ing on the regulatory agency responsible for oversight in your particular area, this may
mean a clean fill assessment and/or sampling of the soils will need to be performed. As the owner you should hire a reputable consultant to pro- vide advice on how to evalu- ate the fill. In some instances this may be able to be accom- plished through a Clean Fill Assessment with no sampling or laboratory testing required which can save significant dollars. Also, exporters must under- stand that property owners looking to receive this fill may have site specific requirements for the clean fill certification,
particularly if they are a regu- lated facility such as a quarry or landfill. How can we tell if its clean fill? The answer is; it depends on where the fill originates and where it is going. Where it comes from provides the source information of what could be in the fill. Where it’s going provides the require- ments for accepting the ma- terial. The requirements for fill material leaving a leaking underground storage tank site in Pennsylvania, and being taken to a Voluntary Cleanup Program Site in Maryland will be vastly different in New Jersey. The best way to find out what is actually required for a particular project is to bring all the information to a quali- fied environmental consultant who knows the requirements and rules on both ends. Oh, and do it early enough in the project so the process can be done efficiently and as cost effectively as possible. Other- wise it can result in significant unnecessary costs and delays. Earth Engineering Incorpo- rated performs there services quickly and cost efficiently so if you have a need for clean fill certification, give us a call to help you through it. John Caccese, P.E. is vice president of Earth Engi- neering Incorporated. among contract specifications • Although undersold and underpurchased, OPPI is in- creasingly becoming a pre- ferred method for managing against catastrophic loss. As a result, 2018 demands are expected to expand as owners and developers recognize the need for protection and the product becomes more widely understood • Design firms are increas- ingly turning to A&E policies to protect themselves from er- rors and omissions as well as the economic damages result- ing from design mistakes and project delays RT New Day, a division of R-T Specialty, LLC, is a spe- cialty resource for agents and brokers, assisting them and their clients find appropriate, high-quality environmental and construction-related pro- fessional liability insurance coverages. continued from page 2B Environmental & Construction- . . .
John Caccese
erty to another was often as simple as loading in into truck, moving it to another site that required import soil, and dumping it. This, however
QUALITY ͻ COMMITMENT ͻ PERFORMANCE
Geotechnical Design & AnalyƐŝƐͻ nvironmental Site Assessments and
www.earthengineering.com Corporate Headquarters: 610-277-0880 ͻ Lehigh Valley: 610-967-4540 Central PA: 717-697-5701 ͻ South Jersey: 856-768-1001
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs