I guess way back in 1989 I should have started a file titled "Slimey, Greasy & Devious". By now it would be full of (mis)interpretations, (biased) opinions, (shaky) positions and (sketchy) conclusions written by various consultants to Uniroyal, Crompton, Chemtura and Lanxess. I have long ago lost count of how many times Conestoga Rovers for example have decided to write something in their reports that instead of clarifying anything, it merely succeeded in making a cloudy area even darker and harder to understand.
The term client driven has been bandied about just about since the first report was written. The whole idea of the preponderance of evidence is a joke. Client driven consultants ignore well known hydrogeological rules and understandings and routinely hang their hats on some tiny anomaly or minor contradiction. Of course they fluff it up, maximize its' alleged weight and proceed in their report as if their shoddy interpretation was handed down by God himself. Similarly if there is any evidence that points to a serious (i.e. expensive) environmental problem then they happily throw out the baby with the bath water. That serious evidence allegedly is outweighed by any possible ifs, ands or maybes. The consultants will search for precedents, they will search for sketchy explanations to provide cover for their clients. They will embrace and enhance the old joke (?) about the CIA always looking for "plausible deniability" such as Oh no we didn't kill that country's leader, we were attending our child's birthday party that day.
Allan Deal of GHD presented a pile of rubbish called "Chlorobenzene Source Evaluation" just over a year ago to TRAC. He constantly conflated chlorinated solvents and chlorobenzene. He did this both verbally and in writing. Maps he produced for example might be titled "Review of historic chlorobenzene users" only to have the legend at the bottom of the map be referring to either Halogenated solvent users or chlorinated solvent users. All in all very deceptive and likely intentional. The other interpretation is just plain incompetence.
Other Figures such as the one on page 5 titled "Chlorobenzene Concentrations vs. Time purport to show the concentration difference of chlorobenzene between an on-site pumping well (PW4) and an off-site pumping well namely W4 . We were advised by Mr. Deal that this graph clearly indicated that the on-site well (PW4) was located immediately beside formerly free phase DNAPL that over time has become residual DNAPL .The off-site well with somewhat lower concentrations according to Mr. Deal had over time via pumping increased the dissolution of the residual DNAPL such that it was now gone.
Mr. Deal of course failed to explain both pumping slowdowns as well as pumping stoppages in off-site well W4. Furthermore he failed to indicate that on-site pumping well PW4 was solely pumping in the Municipal Upper Aquifer whereas off-site well W4 was pumping in both the Municipal Upper and the Municipal Lower Aquifers resulting in significant dilution and reduction of the chlorobenzene concentrations.
This has been the norm of the quality of consultants' reports on behalf of Uniroyal and successors over the decades. If they were facing an honest and competent regulator (Min. of Environment) then their literary bulls*it would go nowhere. However when your regulator is cozily snuggling with you under the covers then the least they can do is rubberstamp your consultants' reports as "A - O.K.".
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