Litigation Support

AquAeTer is often retained to provide environmental forensics, litigation support, insurance claim support, and expert witness testimony.

Typically these cases involve a dispute concerning an industry’s environmental permit or insurance, the technology the industry is using (Standard of Care issues), and the source(s) of environmental contamination and the periods during which releases to the environment occurred (contaminant release dating).

AquAeTer performs site visits, document reviews, data analysis and interpretation (e.g., aerial photographs, chemical fingerprinting), data collection including air, soils, surface water, groundwater and sediments, and utilizes mathematical models to evaluate the fate and transport of key chemical constituents in the environment. We also utilize forensic chemistry to determine the transformations that chemicals have undergone in the environment over time.

AquAeTer professionals also provide expert and/or factual testimony in jury trials, before hearing judges, and in arbitrations.

Case Studies

Cost Recovery for Petroleum Hydrocarbon

AquAeTer provided consulting and expert witness services for a cost recovery case involving a release of gasoline from an underground storage tank. Site-specific hydrogeological data, chemical data and fate and transport analysis were used to put bounds on when the release occurred. MTBE was used as a trace to date the age of the contaminant […]

Cost Recovery

AquAeTer was retained by this client to perform a comprehensive sediment sampling and analyses to determine the cause(s) and timing of releases of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) a controversial pesticide and its metabolites. As well as, Lindane and its isomers, and arsenic from a former manufacturing facility. A multi-phased plan, involving sampling and analysis of sediments, followed […]

Expert Report

AquAeTer was retained by this client to design a sampling network, identify applicable air sampling methods, develop and implement a work plan, oversee and validate data quality, and provide an expert report for use as a basis for legal arguments. The data was to be used as part of determining impacts to the surrounding communities […]

Expert Testimony

To begin, AquAeTer conducted a combination of random and judgmental sampling of surface soils in the yards of citizens near an industrial facility to determine the presence of dioxins, furans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and pentachlorophenol (PCP) in these yards. Highly specific EPA methods were employed to obtain the soil samples and prepare the samples […]

Standard of Care

AquAeTer provided consulting and expert witness services in a high profile toxic tort case involving the historical manufacture of PCBs. At issue was what was known about PCBs and when it was known, the evolution of environmental analysis capabilities over time, and best practices at different times for industrial wastewater and waste management. A history […]

Litigation Support

Case Studies

Litigation and Expert Support Services