Peer Review and Expert Witness
Bellevue, Washington

In 2000, Mr. Galloway was retained by a Seattle law firm to review various records and reports regarding a petroleum-contaminated property located in Bellevue, Washington. This contamination, found on a property recently acquired by a charity organization, was allegedly caused by the attorney's client, an independent service station owner. Remediation efforts on this property included the removal of 4,523 tons of excavated soils and the installation of a

dewatering and vapor barrier system. After these remediation efforts had already begun, the charity hired legal representation in an effort to recover the cleanup costs from the independent service station owner.

G-Logics was hired on behalf of the station owner to review documents regarding the property cleanup and to determine the station owners liability. G-Logics concluded that it was unlikely that fuel or contaminated groundwater from the station contaminated the excavated area on the charity property. We found that the primary source of contaminants in the discovered waste materials in the soils (tanks, straw, asphalt mix, and scrap pipe) was likely fill material. This fill material had been identified in previous consultant's reports (fill piles were observed on the property in historic aerial photographs) but were ignored by the charity's consultant when trying to determine a source of the contamination. G-Logics also found that the remediation activities performed on the charity property were poorly managed and unjustified by the analytical data. This included the large volume of soils that were inadequately monitored and segregated during excavation and subsequently sent to a treatment facility. In addition, the water treatment system was unnecessary to remediate groundwater on the property. These two items resulted in significantly higher remediation costs than what was necessary for the cleanup.

Mr. Galloway, a principal of G-Logics, was asked to serve as an expert witness and present his findings and conclusions during legal proceedings between the charity and our client, which lasted over a 2-year period. The lawsuit was resolved in mediation with our client not found personally responsible for any of the adjacent property cleanup costs.