Providing Education for Clients as a Consultant

I believe it is often forgotten that as consultants, our primary role is customer satisfaction.  This is difficult if the client assumes you are an unnecessary expense. This may be a common thought from our clients because they have not been educated in the business we do. 

It is our duty to educate our clients on the situation they are in and the repercussion of their decisions including a do nothing option. In the long run, we are there to provide consultation that will save them money and/or allow them to continue their operations on the site.

In addition, we are often compared by price. I understand why, however, I don't think is the optimal method of comparing consultants.  In life, we don't pick the cheapest items because we know the quality we will get. The same idea should be applied for consultants. 

The client can be educated that by paying a fair price they will get a service that benefits them with minimal headaches because their problems now rest with us. As a consultant, our role is to provide a painless service that will accommodate the exact solution they require at a lump sum they have agreed to upfront. 

There have been many incidents when clients come back and inform that while they used a cheaper consultant at first that either the extras have been horrendous or the work was not sufficient to meet their needs. That would then increase their costs significantly, not to mention headache, loss of time and potentially loss of profits from their operation. 

I believe the best approach is to educate the clients with upfront actual costs, maybe even promise them that if the project were to exceed by 10% that they will not be charged for it. Then educate the client the foreseeable costs, even if it means losing the client.  This has been an ethical barrier and I find that sleeping well at night much easier if I inform the client of everything that is to come.  There is nothing worse than dealing with an angry client who thinks you didn't tell him the whole truth to make an extra buck.  That just loses their trust and honestly you would feel awful. 

Monitoring Well Basics

Monitoring wells can provide several types of information to the consultant.

A monitoring well is installed by first drilling a borehole with a diameter somewhat greater than the intended outer diameter of the well. While this may seem obvious, note that the increase in radius must also be somewhat significant for several reasons.  There is always a change of cave in, therefore a wider whole is preferred to acquire the desired depth for the monitoring well.  The sand pack may not be deposited properly for the installation of the well due to limited space. Geotechnical personnel tend to install piezometers, which I feel does not serve the purpose required for Environmental investigations.

The purpose of a monitoring well is to provide access to the groundwater table. This is provided by means of slotted Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) piping (or other material) in combination of a sand pack that permits the groundwater to flow. The groundwater will flow through the well if the well was properly installed and developed (this concept will be explained elsewhere).

The general structures of the wells can be depicted as follows:

Monitoring wells can be either flush with the ground surface or stick up.  Both serve different purposes, such as an operational commercial property may not want something sticking out of their parking lot. At the same time, you may have difficulty finding a well in the middle of a farmer's field if you install flush mount wells. 

Monitoring wells are typically 50 mm (2 inches) in diameter (the consultant can always change that). The slotted PVC pipe comes in 5 ft and 10 ft lengths (the lengths can be customized, however, you will need to invert the monitoring wells to do so). Typically, I have installed Schedule 40 50 mm PVC as well as High Density PolyEthylene (HDPE) pipes.

The sand pack is paced to approximately 1 ft above the slotted pipes. Then the rest of the void is filled with a Bentonite seal to mitigate infiltration of undesired fluids from certain depths as well as to mitigate cross contamination from sources from the surface. 

The flush mount and stick up casings are usually made of metal and have a locking mechanism to prevent vandalism and introduction of impacted material to these wells. 

The correct installation of monitoring wells is key in the Environmental investigation and may get you into trouble if not completed properly. 

The drawing on the left depicts a monitoring well that has been installed properly for sampling of Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (LNAPL) such as gasoline. The slotted sections have been isolated so a clay layer without allowing the fill layer to cross contaminate the sampling section. This is more of an ideal installation if we were not concern about impacts to the fill layer.

The groundwater sample collected here would represent the quality of the water within this layer. 

The final depth of the monitoring well is not shown, however, is important as well.  You do not want to penetrate another layer and potential provide a new pathway for contaminants to be transferred. 

Obtaining Maps for Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment

The following maps and drawings are typically presented in Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) reports.

Bedrock Geology - This information can be downloaded and viewed on Google Earth
https://www.ontario.ca/data/1250-000-scale-bedrock-geology-ontario

Surficial Geology - This information can be downloaded and viewed on Google Earth
https://www.ontario.ca/data/surficial-geology-southern-ontario

Topograhic Maps - This information is available for review by the public from Natural Resource Canada
http://atlas.gc.ca/toporama/en/

Ontario Base Map (OBM) - This information is available to the public
http://www.geographynetwork.ca/website/obm/viewer.htm

Physiography - This information is available for public view by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/en/mines-and-minerals/applications/ogsearth/physiography

Searching Well Records

The well records information for Ontario can be found at:

https://www.ontario.ca/environment-and-energy/map-well-records

This information can assist with identifying potential depth to groundwater. However, wells that are too deep would only present an artesian aquifer.

It has been noted through my experience that certain Hydrogeological personnel do not like the term aquifer misused. I have been informed that the preferred terminology during investigations within 10 m below the ground surface (bgs) or more should use the term "water bearing horizon".

TSSA Request

As part of the Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) we typically use the Technical Standards & Safety Authority (TSSA) for information available to the public.

You can request for information on Aboveground Storage Tanks (ASTs) and Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) by emailing:

publicinformationservices@tssa.org

You can request a maximum of ten addresses at one time for free!

Fire Insurance Plans Resources

Fire Insurance Plans (FIPs) can be collected from various sources.

City of Toronto FIPs can be found in the University of Toronto website. I typically use:

https://mdl.library.utoronto.ca/toronto-fire-insurance-plans

These FIPs can also be found in the reference library.

Aerial Photograph Sources

Aerial photographs can be collected from various sources.

Google Earth can provide historical satellite photographs for the year 2000 and beyond at certain intervals.

Certain municipalities have their own website with free access to aerial photographs such as the City of Toronto.  Typically I would get them from the following:

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=fb38757ae6b31410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&vgnextchannel=7cb4ba2ae8b1e310VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

The other way would be to go down to the reference library and request the staff for aerial photographs. This is rather time consuming and cumbersome. 

ERIS Express

Environmental Risk Information Services (ERIS) provides a service that looks up information from federal, provincial and private source databases and displays them on a map which includes the property you are studying and a 250 m or even a 300 m radius around the center point or property boundaries.

They have options for Standard Reports (typically for Canadian Standard Association or CSA level studies) and Record of Site Condition (RSC for Ontario Regulation studies).

Recently, I discovered that they also have an express report.  I have only tried it for a CSA level report. It was surprisingly helpful since it generated a report instantly (instead of waiting five or so business days) and was good enough for the report I intended to write. This was available for only $20 CDN more than the Standard Report.

This may be a new trend for cutting down the timeline for a completed Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) report.

I may add more information about ERIS at a future date.

Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment Brief Overview

A Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) is a non-destructive study of a property or properties based on current and historical activities on the site. 

A Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standard assessment would be presented as a "Phase I ESA".

An Ontario Regulation standard assessment would be presented as a "Phase One ESA".

The CSA and Ontario Regulation reports are often different. I would say the Ontario Regulation is more structured and has many more requirements. 

CSA Standard Phase I ESA

Should you wish to carry out or review a Phase I ESA, then keep in mind what it is good for. A Phase I ESA is accepted by financial institutes for the acquisition and sale of a land for the purpose of acquiring a mortgage or refinancing on the property. It is sometimes used to determine the potential risks associated with a property even when a financial institute is not involved. 

The Phase I ESA will include a historical search based on available public and private information often provided by the governing bodies. In Ontario we use companies such as EcoLog ERIS to carry out many of our searches. They can also include Fire Insurance Plans, City Directories, Maps and so on.

The amount of data produced in these searches are overwhelming. Here is a way to do an easy preliminary scan. Try to look for things that can potentially contaminate the property in question (we refer to this as the Phase I Property). The worst things are Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) usually from gasoline service stations, dry-cleaning facilities and heavy manufacturing. Once you have pass these you may review other items that may bring up issues like spills (they tend to be a short burst of contamination with minor concerns). It would be a good proactive exercise to see what other environmental investigations were carried out within close proximity of the Phase I Property and figure out why such an investigation was carried out. 

Fire Insurance Plans (FIPs) are great for finding information on past operations and locations of tanks. The typical problem with FIPs is that they are sometimes illegible or not available. In this case, the author of the report just states that these were not available at the time of the investigation and move on. 

City Directories were carried out up until 2000/2001. They have listings as far back as 1939 (I'm pretty sure more) of names of homeowners and businesses. This is where you can find gasoline service stations, garages and dry cleaners. The problem with city directories is based on how thorough the person looking for them were. For instance, if ordered through Ecolog ERIS, the person who purchased the city directory may only request 20 addresses.  That in my mind is somewhat limiting as your 21 address may have been the gas station. However, it also comes down to cost. Was the client willing to pay so that we could search 100 addresses or was the person who was searching actively searching for potential sources that may impact the Phase I Property.

Aerial photographs are a great way to see the changes to the Phase I Property and the surrounding area over time. It is usually beneficial to start from the earliest available (usually looking at farmland) and seeing the progression over time. This method is heavily reliant on availability of the aerial and satellite (more recent aerials) photographs and the client's willingness to pay for them. Aerial photographs can present re-landscaping, gasoline service stations (look for the canopies), and general developments.

Maps are great because there are many that show the bedrock composition, soil stratigraphy, topographic maps and so on. As consultants we use this information to generalize the direction of groundwater flow. We tend to assume that groundwater will flow in the same direction as the downward slope of the land (topography) while taking into account bodies of water that are within close proximity. This is not always the case, but it is probably the best way to guess without actually drilling or digging into the soil.

There are other sources we tend to search including the Freedom of Information (FOI) where you pay like $35 to have the governing body search for historical incidents. In addition we contact the Technical Standards & Safety Authority (TSSA) to request information about USTs on the Phase I Property and other addresses within close proximity. Depending on how thorough the consultant is, we may do more.

Every Phase I ESA will require a site visit and interview with a "knowledgeable" site representative. The site visit is intended for the consultant to find out what is the current condition of the site. It also provides an opportunity to walk around the neighbourhood to see if we can find the sources we had previously identified in our historical search. This is also when the powerful Google Map and Google Earth comes into play.  This is an amazing tool that allows for preliminary reconnaissance of the site even before stepping foot on site.  Please note, this will never replace actually going on site.

The interview with the "knowledgeable" site representative is often not helpful. This is because the current owner usually hasn't owned the land for very long or doesn't remember much about the property. They are usually only able to provide details on current operations of the site and maybe a few renovations that may have occurred in their time.  The information provided is sometimes backed up with a written document.

The Phase I ESA report then brings the aforementioned information into one single document. Depending on the consultant, this report is often in excess of 100 pages. The interesting part of this is that the report is over 100 pages because of liability purposes. The entire report can be depicted into a single drawing.

The single drawing will show you the boundaries of the Phase I Property, the on-site sources of potential impact and off-site sources of potential impact. There will be times when actual sources of impact may also be present. The drawing should also show the inferred direction of groundwater flow. This single drawing can then be used to map out a design for a Phase II ESA (which will be discussed later).

Ontario Regulation Phase One ESA

This report is similar to the CSA report, however, it follows the Ontario Regulation structure as pointed out in Ontario Regulation 153/04 (as amended). Many consultants will actually follow this structure even in a CSA standard report. The Ontario Regulation report must also be signed by a Qualified Person. Generally speaking, a Qualified Person (QP) is typically either a Professional Engineering (P. Eng.) or Professional Geologist (P. Geo), though there are some exceptions and changes in rules based on different provinces.

A Phase One ESA is typically used to either meet the requirements of MOECC (you were ordered to do it) or you want to change the zoning of a property (usually from a less stringent to a more stringent). So if a client wanted to change his commercial former gasoline station to a high-rise multi-tenant residential building.

One additional information that is added to the Phase One ESA that does not appear in most CSA Phase I ESAs is the Title Search.

Title Searches lets you see who had owned the property in the past and could go as far back as Crown. Should the Phase I Property have an order from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) then it will appear here. Many of the names you will see will probably mean nothing. However, sometimes names of companies appear and their names sometimes reveals the type of work they did.

The Phase One ESA report requires justification and rationale as to why a Potentially Contaminating Activity (PCA) has an Area of Potential Environmental Concern (APEC) or not. That's why the QP will review groundwater flow, bedrock formations and proximity to the Phase One Property. This is somewhat stylistic and there are often disagreements between professionals. I believe even a Phase One ESA report can be summarized into a single drawing, however, for the purpose of meeting the MOECC requirements, it is best to complete the reports crossing every "Ts" and dotting every "Is".

I will breakdown where you can find the information and relevant data in future postings.

Introduction

This document is provided to guide my younger self if I could provide him with insight about the future and how to do it better. If you plan on becoming an Environmental Specialist or in my case an Engineer, then here are some tips and tricks to make life easier. 

Once out of school, you realize that life is not built for the best and brightest. Actually, its based on the bold, the action takers. As an Environmental Specialist you review or write reports to assess the quality of soil, air and water and its impacts to the human health, wildlife and environment.

Try to open your mind and see what is the true purpose of what you do. Why do you do what you do. The following documents will provide insight on some technical details I have acquired that may assist.  Please note, my research and experience are based in Ontario following Ontario Regulations and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).