Ghirardelli Associates was awarded a contract with the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to support the Exide Division (Project Team) in the largest Residential Lead Remediation Project in the history of California. Exide operated a lead-acid battery recycling facility in Vernon, CA, that the State of California has determined polluted potentially up to 10,000 properties reach within a 1.7 mile radius of the plant.
The Exide remediation program is incredibly complex. The department intends to clean up over 3200 properties in two years. This amounts to fully remediating 31 properties per week for two years. This work takes place on owner’s properties who were not planning on a construction project. The many processes and procedures that are necessary to complete this type of work were not well developed within DTSC. DTSC contracted with Ghirardelli to support the Exide Project Team with program management, contract and specification development, construction project management, data management, and construction inspection services to support the affected properties within these communities and complete the program in accordance with Assembly Bill 118. This includes the review of current performance measures and updating processes and procedures using industry best practices to better align with DTSC’s organizational goals. In addition, Ghirardelli assists with developing management systems and strategies for tracking cleanup work progress (including contaminated soil excavation and disposal, property restoration, and compliance with applicable plans, policies, and other requirements). The team also assists the project with day-to-day oversight of contractor deliverables to ensure success of DTSC’s implementation of its Cleanup Plan.
Ghirardelli incorporates industry expertise through development of DTSC’s guidance documents, Project Management Plan (PMP) and Quality Management Plan. Ghirardelli also collaborates with DTSC to contracting process, improve change order procedures and identifies cost savings that could be achieved while creating more efficient and robust practices. In effort to enhance DTSC’s processes and procedures, Ghirardelli developed and implemented recommendations to improve the Letter of Completion review process, which is the closeout procedure for each individual property. These changes increased reviewer efficiency through enhanced workflows and comprehensive review checklists. To improve management of this project’s time and materials expenditures, Ghirardelli created a custom database which captures all DTSC’s property cleanup and management invoices. At the field operations level, Ghirardelli assessed the existing inspection and zone tracking systems and provided recommendations to revise existing survey form inputs to improve data collection and reporting. This resulted in improved inspector reporting, and a more effective documentation process.
KEY PROJECT ELEMENTS
• Specification/Document Development
• Database Development/Maintenance
• Data Analysis
• Quality Audits/Reviews
