groundwater planning and management

Groundwater Planning & Management

Project Navigator has been managing large complex groundwater problems at major sites since the company’s founding in 1997. Our approach is to blend sound science with strategic thinking to derive the most cost-effective, robust and simple solution to the problem. We focus on what is defined as compliance, which remedial components will best achieve compliance, and the possible timeframes required. We pay special attention to forecasting what might be the O&M timeframe, for experience shows that a large fraction of a remedy’s NPV is in O&M costs. 


Projects where we have made a significant impact on groundwater activities on behalf of our PRP clients include:

  • At the Tex Tin Superfund Site in U.S. EPA’s Region 6, PNL is the project coordinator. We have managed the entire project for the Tex Tin Steering Committee from assessment, through design/build and now into O&M. The goal of the work was to redirect shallow impacted groundwater via slurry walls and manage the plume at the downgradient end of the site.
  • At the MAR Services Site in Louisiana, PNL has worked with the major oil company project owners to structure a cost-effective remedy where the groundwater component is natural attenuation and monitoring.
  • Project Navigator has assisted a confidential client make sense of an enormous groundwater database for a local project. We have plotted all data in 3D using GIS. The resulting simulations have allowed our client to develop a project strategy.

Additional examples of Project Navigator Groundwater Experience: 

  • PNL also assist clients on groundwater analysis and interpretation issues in litigation matters. We typically become involved in the formulation of highly data-driven, site conceptual models, which permit transport and exposure scenarios to be further analyzed and validated. In this work, we make extensive use of data visualization techniques such as GIS and EVS.
  • Project Navigator managed the groundwater assessment at the Waste Disposal, Inc. Superfund Site, and was the lead advocate for the PRPs with EPA on selecting the Monitoring Only remedial alternative.
  • Project Navigator is managing the groundwater RI/FS at the Ascon Landfill Site in Huntington Beach. In 2001 we performed a focused study at the site by installing hydropunches to quickly and cost-effectively derive a snapshot of the site’s groundwater conditions. This snapshot has been used to guide the ongoing 2004 RI/FS.
  • At the PAB Oil and Chemical Superfund Site in Louisiana, PNL has managed EPA negotiations, design and construction work on a source treatment and control remedy. The groundwater is currently being monitored by PNL via an appropriately sized monitoring well network.
  • We have also performed conceptual design and project cost analysis for a major oil company at a site impacted with salt water in Florida.