Here are some brain teasers based on actual scenarios. Can you solve by explaining why to each?  Caution: these can be addictive, wait until you get home from work to read these—I am not responsible for lost work productivity!

1.  Dump trucks constantly dumping on this parcel. Material is never removed yet grade never seems to increase. SOLVED

2. 1500 gallons of mineral spirits discharged on a road. No need to clean up the shoulders or sewers. Not a REC. SOLVED

3. Environmental company has to report a release of radioactive material—theirs! SOLVED

4. An incinerator ash sample tests hazardous for lead. Sample is submitted to the State and accepted as non-hazardous. No "fraud" per se involved. SOLVED

5.  Hand auger bit is ruined. Field tech reports no large rocks or refusals. SOLVED

6. Firm obtains brownfields funds for a cleanup. Site is not a brownfield and doesn't involve any hazardous materials.SOLVED

7. GPR technician finds a few USTs but misses one small UST and some buried drums. Not worried about liability. (SOLVED)

8. Floor tile asbestos abatement completed at a hospital. Visual and air clearances pass easily. Project deemed a failure. SOLVED

Thanks to all who participated. The winner is TNowicki with 18 points. See Round 2 for more Enviro-Riddle action!

 the case on this LIST reported on EDR states "contamination was left in place",cite classified as "inactive closure",agreement of land owner with DNR states future owners may be liable and "substances above state standards are present on the property".  We may take ownership tomorrow by a deed.  What should we do.  I talked to consulant and they said the leaking tank was removed but contamination exsist under ground.  Since the surface is clean the state closed the case.  Will we have liability or since the loan was made prior to a EDR we did not have prior knowledge of the contamination.

Governor Snyder Signs New Michigan Environmental Regulations Bill; Founders of PM Environmental Hail Revamped Environmental Policies as Boon to Business, Jobs & Economy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/idUS81323+01-May-2012+MW20120501

The Part 213 Leaking UST reform bills were signed by the governor yesterday.  PM Environmental President Pete Bosanic was present at the signing and was photographed with the governor since the Michigan Petroleum Association (MPA)
spent so much time working on the bills.  Mr. Bosanic serves as the Chair of MPA’s Environmental Issues Committee and is hopeful that the changes will allow leaking UST closures to happen again and estimates that +/-15 to 20% of open
leaking UST sites will be able to be closed without much more work.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Iron Mountain Mine is a notorious Superfund site in northern California, mined between the 1880s and 1980s for iron, copper, gold, silver, and other materials.  According to USGS, it's essentially one massive sulfate lump.  Iron Mountain is the source of acid mine drainage that is the most acidic naturally-occurring water on the planet-- the recorded pH has been as low as -3.6, and is home to newly discovered strains of extremophile bacteria.  The source of the AMD is rainwater and groundwater leaching sulfate and pyrite minerals.  It was listed on CERCLA in 1983, a treatment plant for the AMD was brought online in 1984, all mining ceased in 1987, and an EPA settlement with the successor to the Mountain Copper Company pays for the treatment plant's upkeep. 

That's where we leave normality and enter the Weird Zone.  I wish Hunter S. Thompson was still alive to write about this.

One Mr. Ted Arman bought the 8,000-acre Iron Mountain property in 1977 and was understandably rather upset when the Superfund designation essentially left him unable to use or sell his property. Mr. Arman is also identified as a RP by reason of being a site owner and for several other reasons, and has been ruled liable for $26.9 million in federal response costs, plus $30.1 million in interest through fiscal 2009.

Mr. Arman and his partner and alleged co-owner, John Hutchens, have waged a fight against EPA that is part Bleak House, part Ayn Rand, and unfortunately more than a little Ruby Ridge, with a dash of Three Stooges thrown in for flavor.  The court fight has gone on since 1987, with endless jailhouse-lawyer motions for reconsideration,  arguments over the nuances of CERCLA, Fifth Amendment takings claims, demands that CERCLA be repealed outright as an unconstitutional ex post facto law, accusations of fraud on the court, accusations of piracy, 'sovereign citizen' rejections of EPA authority, arguments that environmentalism is a religion that the government cannot enforce, accusations that the judge was being controlled by witchcraft, appeals to principles of English common law and medieval charters, and the like. Some of their arguments are so demented that I can't follow them.

The duo's most recent moneymaking endeavor was to bottle mine drainage water and sell it to farmers as a soil amendment-- I'm not sure what nutritive value an acidic soup of heavy metals has for farmland.  EPA promptly nixed the idea since the two couldn't provide a means to store and transport the material safely.

The colorful Mr. Hutchens, who claims the title of "Warden of the Gales, Forests, and Stannaries at Iron Mountain Mine," and who attempts to represent Mr. Arman in court despite not being a lawyer, has a rather lengthy record of anti-government activities, including numerous threats of violence against government officials, a claim that he was forming an armed militia of miners to defend his property rights and to assert the primacy of mining law, and the announcement that if the police attempted to prevent him from obtaining the water he wanted to sell, he would sieze it by force of arms.

The two have also spawned a host of bizarre organizations, including the Arman Mines Ministry of Natural Resources, the Arman Mines Hazard and Remediation Directorate, and the Church of Christ of the Freeminers.

In their support, Mr. Arman and Mr. Hutchens have invoked one of those odd little nuggets of historical...well, oddity... that could only happen in England, by claiming to be 'freeminers,' a term referring to persons with the hereditary right to dig for minerals anywhere on public or private property, churchyards excepted, in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.  King Edward I of England granted the miners of the Dean iron and coalfields this right after they used their tunneling skills to help him capture the fortress of Berwick-on-Tweed in 1296.

The weird sure did go pro on this one.  Should you wish to read it, their URL is iron mountain mine dot com (intentionally avoiding hotlinking).