ABSTRACT
This manual is designed to provide guidance and assistance with the environmental remediation and cleanups of all types. Initially this book discussed just the cleanup of gasoline-and diesel-contaminated retail outlets and bulk terminals, but the ”eld has advanced greatly since 1992, and many more techniques are available for a much wider variety of compounds. My hope is to provide some guidance to the methods and their application. This chapter provides an overview to the cleanup process, a brief introduction to the hows and whys of site cleanups, and the management of consultant and contractors whom site owners employ. In this chapter you will ”nd both facts and opinions on the remediation programs operated by the federal and state governments, and some of the legal requirements that set forth the framework for cleanup activities. In later sections of this book, geology, data gathering, cleanup alternatives, and remediation costs are discussed in greater detail. In the following discussion, speci”c solutions for a typical site cleanup are avoided, as each site is unique, and so are its problems and cleanup solutions. Because I am U.S. based, the discussions of regulations reference U.S. laws and regulations. For non-U.S.-based readers, the principles cited and discussed are often the same in their countries, but details of the regulations may be different.
