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Dorinda Shipman, Phil Tringale and Julie Frankel

The Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite® is nationally recognized as the largest and most prestigious gathering in California of leaders in environmental, land use, and natural resources law. For the twelfth consecutive year, Treadwell & Rollo, now part of Langan Engineering, is proud to have been one of the sponsors. T&R Senior Associates Dorinda Shipman and Patrick Hubbard, Director of the Western Region Phil Tringale and Marketing Manager Julie Frankel attended the conference, which was held at Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp, California on October 20-23rd.

Being one of the supporters of the nationally-recognized event, which is sponsored annually by the State Bar of California Environmental Law Section, has been a priority for our firm for more than a decade.  This conference has consistently been a great opportunity for our staff to stay current on the latest environmental and regulatory issues affecting the environmental law community, which includes many of our clients as well as other environmental officials, lawyers, and consulting professionals.

There were a variety of sessions to choose from with a wide range of speakers and topics and social activities in the evenings. Select topics of interest included:

  • CERCLA and Superfund- Progress, status, and accomplishments in cleanups.  Less future work at multi-party groundwater sites but current mega remediation in mining and river/ bay sediments; vapor intrusion growth and more natural resource damages cases are coming.
  • Green Advertising and Claims- Review of Federal Trade Commission Green Guides and California statutes; increased enforcement and lawsuits likely involving certifications and terms such as biodegradable, green, and others.
  • Is Brown the New Green?- A discussion of energy and environmental issues in the Brown Administration, views on reaching the Governor’s renewable energy goals, prospects for CEQA revisions, and the Brown Administration’s vision for California.

Keynote speakers included Cliff Rechtshaffen who works on energy, environmental and agricultural issues in the governor’s office; Ken Alex who works on energy and environmental matters for the governor; Nancy Sutley, the Chair of CEQ where she serves as the principal environmental policy advisor to the president; Pete McCloskey who co-chaired the very first earth day in 1970 and co-authored the 1973 Endangered Species Act; and Catherine Sandoval with CPUC.

Vapor Intrusion Diagram

In October 2011 The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) released two documents related to Vapor Intrusion issues.   The document titled “Guidance for the Evaluation and Mitigation of Subsurface Vapor Intrusion to Indoor Air” represents a revised document that incorporates public comments.  This document,  considered by the DTSC to be a final version outlining a stepwise approach to performing vapor intrusion evaluations,  includes recommendations for field investigation techniques (i.e. soil gas, sub-slab, and air indoor sampling), screening of sampling results, and specific information relevant to California for use with the commonly applied Johnson and Ettinger vapor intrusion model. A description of changes to its prior guidance document is included.

The DTSC also released a final version of its Vapor Intrusion Mitigation Advisory document, which provides details on selection and design of vapor intrusion mitigation systems and operation and maintenance of mitigation systems.

Finally, the DTSC also noted that it plans to finalize its document titled “Advisory – Active Soil Gas Investigations” during the Fall of 2011.  This document will provide greater detail on planning and designing field investigations related to soil gas characterization than other DTSC documents.

The link to these documents on the DTSC’s website can be found here.  For more information on Vapor Intrusion, please contact Michael Chendorain.

Dr. Ramin Golesorkhi will be speaking about the earthquake ground motions provisions of ASCE 7-10 which is a reference code for the IBC 2012 and the 2013 version of the California Building Code (CBC).  These new provisions present a significant change from previous codes.  The presentation will discuss the implications of these changes and give examples from a comparative study in California.  The presentation will be today, Wednesday October 19th, at the URS Corp Office at 1 Montgomery Street, in the One Montgomery Tower from 5:30-7:30.

Dr. Golesorkhi has more than 23 years of experience in seismic analysis and foundation engineering.  He provides engineering consultation for projects involving deep excavation, tunneling, foundation support and settlement, vertical and lateral evaluation of pile foundations, stability of earth structures, seismic soil-structure interaction, seismic hazard evaluation, ground response analysis, liquefaction potential evaluation, evaluation of ground improvement techniques, and other geotechnical and environmental projects.

For additional information on our seismic services, contact Ramin Golesorkhi.

Please join us on 11.1.11 for our 1st Anniversary Celebration at the SPUR Urban Center at 654 Mission Street, San Francisco.  The event will occur from 6 – 9pm.  To RSVP, please click here.  For additional information, please contact Julie Frankel.

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