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Allocation of Natural Resource Damage Liability for Contaminated Waterways and Superfund Sites

EcoChem has conducted allocation of liability for natural resource damages for several large, complex Superfund sites on the west coast in support of voluntary early settlements between natural resource trustees and potentially responsible parties. The allocation process for each site involved over a hundred parties and numerous contaminants. EcoChem developed a thorough and transparent process for evaluating each party’s relative liability for each contaminant based on a detailed review of historical documents on site operations, contaminant releases, and pathways. A customized database was developed to organize and house the relevant information, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to visualize each site’s nexus between contamination and sources.