Document RJ8XG4BzNG6pjaV7DB9yo0BZE

ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 1 STATE OF ALABAMA IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR ETOWAH COUNTY 2 (Transferred from Calhoun County, Alabama) 3 SABRINA ABERNATHY, et al . , 4 Piaintiffs, 5 CIVIL ACTION NO. versus CV-2001-832 6 (Consolidated) MONSANTO COMPANY, et al., 7 Defendants. 8/ 9 DEPOSITION OF RICHARD S. WILLIAMS, PH.D., P.E. 10 11 The deposition of RICHARD S. WILLIAMS, 12 PH.D., P.E., was taken before Deborah Salers 13 Garrett, Certified Shorthand Reporter, 14 Registered Professional Reporter, as 15 Commissioner, commencing at 1:00 p.m. on 16 September 11, 2001, by the Plaintiffs, at the 17 law offices of Lightfoot, Franklin & White, 18 The Clark Building, 400 North 20th Street, 19 Birmingham, Alabama, pursuant to the 20 stipulations set forth herein. 21 Regional Reporting Service, Inc. 22 755 Walnut Street Gadsden, Alabama 35901-0755 23 2 1 APPEARANCES 2 For the Plaintiffs: 3 CHARLES CUNNINGHAM, Esq. Morrissey Building, Suite 200 Page 1 HARTOLDMON0032233 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 304 West Liberty Street Louisville, Kentucky 40202 5 6 For the Defendants: 7 WILLIAM G. COX, III, Esq. LIGHTFOOT, FRANKLIN & WHITE, LLC 8 The Clark Building 400 North 20th Street 9 Birmingham, Alabama 35203 10 INDEX 11 Page 12 Stipulations 3 13 Reporter's Certificate 209 14 EXAMINATIONS 15 Witness: RICHARD S. WILLIAMS, PH.D., P.E. 16 Page 17 By Mr. Cunningham 4 18 EXHIBITS 19 Plaintiffs' Marked Offered 20 One 4 21 Two 188 22 No other exhibits were marked for identification, offered or attached as 23 exhibits hereto. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 3 1 STIPULATIONS 2 3 IT IS STIPULATED AND AGREED by the 4 parties, through their respective counsel, 5 that the deposition of RICHARD S. WILLIAMS, 6 PH.D., P.E., may be taken before Deborah 7 Salers Garrett, CSR, RPR, as commissioner and Page 2 HARTOLDMON0032234 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 Notary Public, Alabama at Large, at 9 Birmingham, Alabama, on September 11, 2001, at 10 1:00 p.m. 11 12 IT IS STIPULATED AND AGREED that it 13 shall not be necessary for any objections to 14 be made by counsel to any questions except as 15 to form or leading questions and that counsel 16 may make objections and assign grounds at the 17 time of trial or at the time said deposition 18 is offered in evidence or prior thereto. 19 20 IT IS STIPULATED AND AGREED that notice 21 of filing by the Commissioner is waived. 22 23 REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 4 1 BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 2 3 RICHARD S. WILLIAMS, PH.D., P.E., 4 after having been first duly sworn, was 5 examined and testified as follows: 6 7 (Plaintiffs' Exhibit Number 8 One was marked for 9 identification.) 10 Page 3 HARTOLDMON0032235 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 EXAMINATION 12 BY MR. CUNNINGHAM 13 Q. Mr. Williams, good afternoon. My name 14 is Charlie Cunningham. I'm from 15 Louisville, Kentucky. I represent the 16 plaintiffs in some litigation out of 17 Calhoun Circuit Court here in Alabama 18 styled Abernathy, et al, versus 19 Monsanto, et al, and some cases 20 consolidated with it. 21 Have you been involved in a 22 deposition before? 23 A. Yes. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 5 1 Q. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 So you understand that the lady to my left, to your right, is going to take down everything that we say so that we can read it back later and remember it verbatim. And you are under oath. This is not a test or a quiz. It is just an effort to find out what facts or information you might have to light everybody's understanding of the case. There are two particular idiosyncrasies about me that I like to share with witnesses beyond their typical experience of depositions. MR. COX: There are more than two, Page 4 HARTOLDMON0032236 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 but there are only two that 16 he will tell you about on the 17 record. 18 Truly. First, I have a bad habit of 19 asking a question and you will give me 20 some part of an answer, and I will 21 either think that you have finished or 22 will get this brilliant idea, and I'll 23 fire another question off without you REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 6 1 having had a chance to conclude your 2 answer, if I do that, please let us 3 know, because we do want complete 4 answers. 5 The second thing, I have a 6 tendency to ask questions with absolute 7 confidence, as though I know exactly 8 what I'm talking about. And sometimes 9 you may listen to it and think that's 10 not right, but you will answer as though 11 it is because I sound so confident, if 12 I say something that sounds inaccurate 13 or incorrect or you just don't 14 understand it, please ask for 15 clarification. 16 Okay. 17 Now, we'll start with some easy ones. Page 5 HARTOLDMON0032237 18 19 20 A. 21 Q. 22 A. 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Will you give us your full name, pi ease? Richard S. Williams. And where do you reside? In Naperville, Illinois. And is that where you work as well? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 7 1 A. 2 Q. 3 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 A. 11 Q. 12 13 A. 14 Q. 15 A. 16 Q. 17 A. 18 Q. 19 20 21 A. Yes, that's where my office is. And do you live with anyone there in Naperville? My wife. And have you ever had your serum PCB level interpreted or diagnosed? No. Have you ever had your fat biopsy tested for PCB level? No. Do you have any idea what the level of PCB in your household dust is? No. In the backyard di rt? No. In the ambient air at your home? No. What would be the closest Superfund site to where you reside there in Naperville that you know of? About a mile, mile and a half from my Page 6 HARTOLDMON0032238 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. home. And what is that site? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 8 1A 2 3Q 4A 5Q 6 7 8A 9Q 10 11 12 13 A 14 15 16 Q 17 18 A 19 Q 20 21 22 A 23 Q It's an old Army Nike missile base that has TCE in the groundwater. Okay. And does your home have a well? No. So you are on what people call city water, a domestic municipal water supply? That is correct. Okay. Do you have any sort of routine medical examination that you -- or surveillance that is performed on you pursuant to your employment? No. I have an annual physical, but not specific for the occupation health exams. That is just something you choose to do? Yes. You told me before you have been through depositions. How many times have you been deposed? Somewhere between six and ten perhaps. Okay. And what sort of subjects have Page 7 HARTOLDMON0032239 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. ?9 1 2 A. 3 4 5 Q. 6 A. 7 8 9 10 Q. 11 12 13 14 A. 15 Q. 16 17 18 A. 19 Q. 20 21 A. 22 23 those depositions been on? They've related to remediation at Superfund sites. They have related to landfill design and performance -When would --- regulations, landfill regulations, and Superfund regulations. Those typically have been the topics I've been deposed on. Have you ever given deposition testimony or courtroom testimony concerning situations arising at the Anniston, Alabama Monsanto facility? No, I haven't. Do you have a resume or curriculum vitae that you keep at least somewhat current? Yes, I do. How -- Do you have one here in Alabama anywhere, in Birmingham? Not that I can think of. I can certainly supply one. MR. CUNNINGHAM: Do you think you REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 10 Page 8 HARTOLDMON0032240 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 might have one on hand? 2 MR. COX: Let me ask a question. 3 Was there one attached to 4 the initial work plan for 5 the on-site RFI/CS 6 investigation? 7 THE WITNESS: There may have been 8 one, yeah. That was back in 9 '97. if so, that would be 10 the most recent I would have 11 here. But it has been 12 updated since then. 13 Okay. Well, let me take you through a 14 few things. Let's start with -- You say 15 you have been deposed. In this case, 16 you have been working as a consultant to 17 a company that bore some measure of 18 responsibility for some contaminants of 19 concern. 20 MR. COX: Object to the form. 21 I've been working as a consultant to 22 Solutia for five years. 23 All right. Have you been in a similar REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 11 1 setting in all of the other six to ten 2 cases in which you gave deposition 3 testimony? Page 9 HARTOLDMON0032241 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. No. It has varied. I've worked both for the plaintiffs as well as for the defense. Okay. Well, let me ask you, please, about cases where you worked for the plaintiff or plaintiffs. Tell me about those cases. Plaintiff cases, I'm currently working on one of them now as an expert witness. A landfill company that owns and operates landfills is suing their insurers for environmental liability. So you represent the landfill owner? That is correct. In an insurance litigation? That is correct. And I'm curious. What is your role in that case as an expert? What opinions in broad terms do you understand you are going to be supplying? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 12 The operation of the workings of a landfill, how landfills work, with particular emphasis on gas transport and volatile organic transport in landfill gasses and their impacts in groundwater. Is there some dispute in that case as to whether or not landfills generate gasses Page 10 8 9 A. 10 11 A. 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 A. 17 18 19 Q. 20 21 A. 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. or -There is a dispute as to whether -- MR. COX: Make sure he finishes. Could you ask that -- restate the question, please? I'll restate it. I'll make it very simple. What is in dispute in the case? Whether landfill gas can transport volatile organic constituents out of the landfills into shallow groundwater. Are you rendering an opinion that it can or that it cannot? That it can. That it can. Okay. And are there particular volatile organic chemicals REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 13 1 2 3 A. 4 Q. 5 A. 6 Q. 7 8 9 A. 10 Q. that are of concern in that particular case? Yes. Benzine isone ofthem. Okay. The primary one. Is there any data in that case showing PCB contamination in shallow groundwater? No. So it is just not an issue in that Page 11 HARTOLDMON0032243 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. particular case? PCBs are an issue at that site, yes, not in groundwater. All right. What is the nature of the concern about PCBs at that site? PCBs, there is a creek which runs through the landfill. The company that I worked for previously did the investigation, what is called the remedial investigation, feasibility study. This is a Superfund site. We detected PCBs in the sediments of that creek as well as in the sediments of REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 14 some wetlands which bordered the landfill. Where is that landfill located? It is in a city called Waukegan in II 1 inois . And your client or the plaintiff in that case is what company? Allied -- I'm not sure what their formal name is. I think it is Allied Waste Systems. I'm not sure of the corporate name. Okay. And I take it the insurance company has found some expert who is willing to come in and render an opinion Page 12 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. that gasses coming off the landfill cannot carry with them benzine? I believe that is the case, yes. I've seen -- I've seen an affidavit to that effect, yes. And you are basically going to talk, I'm guessing, that the transport gas is methane? That is correct, yes. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 15 And it is carrying along some benzine, and that is in turn showing up in the shallow aquifer? That is correct. Has that impacted this creek that is running through? I'm not sure I understand. Has what impacted the creek? Is some of that benzine making its way from the shallow aquifer into this creek that you mentioned that runs through the site? Not that we detected during the investigation. Okay. Aside from that case where you were an expert retained by the plaintiff who we think may be Allied Waste Systems ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 against its insurer, any other cases 19 where you have represented someone on 20 the plaintiff side of litigation? 21 Yes. I'm also working as an expert 22 witness -- Here I'm not really sure. My 23 client is a potentially responsible REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 16 1 group, PRP group at a Superfund site. 2 They are interveners in the litigation. 3 They are not one of the primary 4 plaintiff or defense. They are 5 interveners on behalf of the plaintiff. 6 Okay. And what is your role as you 7 understand it? What expertise are you 8 bringing to bear in that case? 9 Again, it is a landfill. The particular 10 charge that I have was to look at 11 groundwater records, chemistry, 12 groundwater chemistry, as well as other 13 data reports, inspection reports by the 14 state agency, whatever available reports 15 there are, and to render an opinion as 16 to whether there was a release from the 17 landfill over a certain period of time. 18 Again, this is litigation where the 19 plaintiff is the landfill owner and 20 operator and is suing his insurance 21 company for coverage. Page 14 HARTOLDMON0032246 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. And aside from -- Where is that landfill located? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 17 1 A. 2 3 Q. 4 5 6 A. 7 Q. 8 A. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Q. It is in a city called Bel videre in II 1 inois . Okay. Any other testifying experience where you were on the side of the pi ai nti ff? Yes. Okay. Tell me about that one, please. It was litigation -- Again, this was the owner of -- It was a multinational corporation. They owned a number of industries, including a railway and foundries. It was called the Whitman Corporation, as it still exists, I believe. And again, they were suing their insurers for coverage at a number of sites. These were industrial sites. And my role in that litigation was basically to render opinions as to the absence or presence of groundwater impacts, soil impacts, basically just general environmental impacts to various media. Were PCBs at all an issue in the Whitman Page 15 HARTOLDMON0032247 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 18 1 2A 3Q 4 5A 6 7 8 9Q 10 11 12 13 A 14 Q 15 16 17 18 19 20 A 21 22 23 litigation? No. What about the case that arose in Belvidere? PCBs were not -- They may have been present in leachate in various concentrations. I can't recall. They were not a major issue. Does that cover the universe of what you recall of the personal experience as a person who gave deposition testimony on behalf of a plaintiff in litigation? As near as I can recall, yes. Okay. Have you had other experience that perhaps didn't get to the point of a deposition where you were representing or rendering opinions for a plaintiff other than the cases you have already talked about? Yes, I have. I have worked on a number of cases over the years that were, you know, settled before they got to either a deposition or certainly before they REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 19 Page 16 HARTOLDMON0032248 1 2 Q. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A 11 12 Q 13 A 14 Q 15 16 17 18 A 19 Q 20 A 21 Q 22 A 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. got to trial. Okay. We may come back to some of that here in a moment to the extent that seems to pertain to what you are doing in this case. Let me, before we move on, get your educational background, if I might. Obviously you graduated from high school. Where did you do that? In the Caribbean, an island called Trinidad in the West Indies. Are you a native of Trinidad? Yes, I am. Williams is not what I think of as a classical Caribbean surname. Your family, how many generations there on T rinidad? As far back as I can -- as I know. So is English your native tongue? Yes, although - Fluent in others? No. There are some people that question whether I have fluency in English or REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 20 1 2 Q. 3 not. I think your English is very good. Of course, I'm from Kentucky. We have low Page 17 HARTOLDMON0032249 4 5 6 A. 7 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 A. 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 A. 20 Q. 21 22 A. 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. standards of spoken English. Where did you go to college? At McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Now, my limited understanding of geopolitics, Trinidad is an independent country. Isn't it Trinidad and Tobago? Yes. So you go to McGill. What did you study at McGill? My bachelor's degree is in civil engineering. My master's and Ph.D. are in geotechnical engineering. And did you get both of those degrees from McGill as well? Yes. Do you recall what year you were awarded your bachelor's degree? 1967. And your master's? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 21 1 A. 2 Q. 3 A. 4 Q. 5 6 7 1969. And your Ph.D.? 1973. Okay. And can you just tell me roughly why it is that you ended up at McGill? That is a little bit north of where you went to - Page 18 HARTOLDMON0032250 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. My older brother was -- that is where he went to college. I have no idea why he elected to go there. Well, I can't say anything. I followed my older sister to college too. What was your master's thesis on? It dealt with the mobility of track equipment, basically bulldozers. And when you say mobility were you comparing one type of track to another as far as performance? Yes. I was looking at the geometry of the individual track as to how that developed its driving power. Okay. And your Ph.D. doctorial thesis was on what? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 22 Again, it related to the mobility of wheels on clay soils. And again, I'm assuming what you did was take a particular tread pattern and tire and compare one to another in an effort to determine which provided the best traction or power? No. What I was looking at was more fundamental research into how energy is transferred from a wheel to a soil with 11 12 13 14 15 Q. 16 17 A. 18 Q. 19 20 A. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. a view to being able to predict when the wheel would become self-propelled, go from a tote condition to a propelled condition. And you say that was specifically limited to clay soils? Yes. Do you know if any of your work in that regard has been published? Yeah. We -- My major professor, my thesis advisor and I published a number of reports on it primarily to the funding agency, but they were put out as REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 23 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. 8 9 Q. 10 11 12 A. 13 14 official reports by the Canadian government. The research was funded by the Canadian government. Just out of curiosity, why was the Canadian government interested in that sort of thing? It was funded by the Canadian defense research. Aside from that, have you done other work that has resulted in published papers? Yes. There was one project that I worked on in Trinidad, a foundation project where I published a couple of Page 20 HARTOLDMON0032252 15 16 Q. 17 A. 18 19 20 21 Q. 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. papers in referee journals. What sort of project was that? We -- The company I worked for were doing the geotechnical investigation for foundation design. So it was a geotechnical project. Okay. And what sort of scholarly journals was that published in? One was published in the Canadian REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 A. 8 9 Q. 10 11 A. 12 13 14 Q. 15 16 17 Geotechnical Journal, which as I say is a referee publication. The other was published in Geotechnique, which is the professional publication of the British Geotechnical Society. More of an industry trade journal? No, not quite. It is more of an academic journal than anything. Okay, if we got a copy of your CV, would it list these publications? No. I don't think I've included them in my current CV. I can certainly get the citations for you if that is necessary. I can't fathom that they would have any real bearing on the case and my understanding. Any other things that you have had Page 21 HARTOLDMON0032253 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 published? And by that, again, I mean 19 in a journal of some sort. 20 Yeah. About four years ago, I guess, I 21 was asked to write an article for a 22 trade publication. I can't remember the 23 name of it. It was an environmental REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 25 1 remediation trade publication. I was 2 asked to prepare a paper which sort of 3 gave the consultant's view of the 4 practice of environmental remediation in 5 the United States. But I can't remember 6 the name of the journal. It was not a 7 referee journal. 8 if somebody was to offer you a million 9 dollars for a copy of that, how would we 10 go about getting our mitts on a copy of 11 that? 12 That's a good question. My guess is I'd 13 have to go back to my ex-employer. It 14 was done while I was employed with this 15 other company. My guess is they would 16 probably have a copy of it in their file 17 somewhere. They maintain files of all 18 of their employee's publications. 19 Okay. Before I get to your employment 20 history, let me ask you if you had any 21 sort of specific education, be it a Page 22 HARTOLDMON0032254 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 seminar or classwork or hands-on work as 23 part of your education where you worked REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 26 1 2 3 A. 4 5 6 7 Q. 8 A. 9 10 11 12 13 14 Q. 15 16 17 A. 18 19 Q. 20 21 22 23 A. with PCBs and learned about how they move through the open environment? Yes. Certainly on I guess four of the projects that I've worked on, those projects have involved remediation of PCBs. Okay. And then as you say, as part of my education, part of my education involved looking at the physics and chemistry of soils and groundwater, and that also included considerations of chemical transport, including PCBs. Do you believe that, therefore, prior to 1973 you actually had that come up in your classwork? I don't recall if PCBs came up per se, you know, as an entity in and of itself. Might you have talked about a class of compounds such as semivolatiles and how semivolatiles might have moved through soil? I think we would have looked at it more Page 23 HARTOLDMON0032255 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 27 1 in terms of its solubility in 2 groundwater and its movement through 3 groundwater. 4 Okay. You mentioned you had worked on 5 four projects in your professional 6 career where PCBs were a significant 7 issue. 8 Yes. 9 That is my sense. Is that correct? You 10 said yes. Let's take those one at a 11 time, please, in whatever order is easy 12 for you to remember them, and tell me 13 some more detail, please, about those 14 projects. 15 Sure. The first one was a Superfund 16 site called the Waukegan Harbor 17 Superfund site. The company I worked 18 with was employed by Outboard Marine 19 Corporation, OMC, who were the 20 responsible party at that site. 21 Specifically we were employed to provide 22 planning and preliminary design purposes 23 -- information for the design of REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 28 Page 24 HARTOLDMON0032256 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. 8 9 10 Q. 11 12 A. 13 Q. 14 15 16 A. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. containment cells at that site. The only constituent of concern at that site was PCBs. And was that a hydraulic fluid, the source of the PCBs? Do you know what the source of the PCBs was? PCBs were used in hydraulic fluids, but they were also used as coolants in die casting. This is a die casting facility that made outboard engines? Yes. You say containment cells. Were you working on a landfill site that y'all were trying to get under control? No. There were three containment cells that we looked at that were eventually constructed. Two of them were on shore and involved slurry wall containments with synthetic covers. The third, there was a slip in Lake Michigan, immediately adjacent to the facility, and that slip was later converted into a containment REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 29 1 2 3 Q. cell, again by the construction of slurry walls and synthetic covers. When you say construction of slurry Page 25 HARTOLDMON0032257 4 5 6 7 8 A. 9 Q. 10 11 12 13 14 A. 15 16 17 18 19 20 Q. 21 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. walls, did you excavate down and then construct a slurry wall that was designed to impede the movement of PCBs past that point? That is correct. And then -- so the PCBs were left in soil surrounded by this slurry wall, and then you put a cap over top of that to prevent downward migration of rain water? No. Well, the slip that was converted into a cell, dredge material that had been dredged out of the harbor was deposited into that cell. And it was converted. I guess it would be analogous to a landfill. And what did you make these slurry walls out of? Cement and bentonite, a mixture of cement and bentonite. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 30 1 Q. 2 A. 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. And I take it that - Strike that. Soil and bentonite. That is what I meant, soil and bentonite. Is that designed to give you a relatively pervious substance once it is mixed and put in place? No. It is designed to give you a Page 26 HARTOLDMON0032258 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. relatively impervious. I'm sorry. That is what I meant to say. A nonporous substance? That's correct. You said a synthetic cap. Roughly, if you can tell me, what did that consist of? Yes. It consisted of high density polyethylene. I don't remember the mil thickness, although I think it was forty mil. And I think it was a couple of feet of soil cover. And do you have any recollection of the kinds of concentrations of PCB in soil that were contained in these cells? The highest concentration in the slip REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 31 was six hundred forty thousand parts per million. Or in essence two-thirds PCB? Sixty-four percent, yes. And what kind of bottom end were you working with? At what point did you say, "At this point we are going to cut our trench and put in our slurry wall because the PCB on the other side is too low to worry about"? 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. In the particular case of the slip, it was confined because the slip was confined by dredge. It was a dredged slip, and it was confined by sheet piles. The slurry wall was installed on the outside of those sheet piles. But with respect to the other two cells, which I perceive to have been soil that was already contaminated, how did you decide where to draw the line, so to speak, around those cells? Again, those two containment cells were used to contain excavated material. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 32 2 3 4 A. 5 6 7 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 So in essence any contaminated soil of any level was put in one of these three cel 1s? No. I don't believe that's correct. There was a cutoff, a lower cutoff level. I just do not recall what it was. That was a while ago. Was there any groundwater monitoring at that site in an attempt to verify the efficacy of these containment cells? Not that I recall. There were groundwater piezometers put into the containment cells to determine whether there was an -- whether they had created Page 28 HARTOLDMON0032260 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 an inward gradient. The design of the 16 cells called for pumping of the 17 groundwater over the -- You know, the 18 sediments were put in the cell. They 19 were wet. So those were pumped to 20 maintain the liquid levels or, if you 21 like, the groundwater levels within the 22 cells at a level that was lower than the 23 outside so there would be, as I say, an REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 33 1 2 Q. 3 4 5 6 A. 7 Q. 8 9 10 A. 11 12 Q. 13 14 A. 15 16 Q. 17 inward gradient. So I take it, then, that water that was pumped out from within the cell was never tested to determine if it had a PCB content? No. I believe it was treated. So they didn't even bother to test it, just run it through, what, activated carbon? I wasn't involved in that. I don't know. And roughly when did you work on that project? It would have been 1986, 1987, in that time frame. Okay. And do you have an estimate that you can give us for the size of these Page 29 HARTOLDMON0032261 18 19 A. 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. three cells? I can't remember them. The slip to me, my recollection of the slip is that it was probably two or three hundred feet long by maybe a hundred feet wide. The on-shore containments I just can't REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 34 1 2Q 3 4 5 6 7A 8Q 9 10 11 12 A 13 14 15 16 Q 17 A 18 19 Q 20 A 21 remember. It sounds like maybe an acre? I think an acre is roughly forty-two thousand square feet. So if you have two to three hundred feet long by a hundred wide, you are not quite an acre? Something in that range. Okay. And any recollection cost-wise of how much was spent to build these slurry walls and put this cap on these three cel 1s? I believe at the end of the day the total remediation cost to OMC was in the range of twenty to twenty-five million dol1ars. Okay. Let's go to number two, please. The second site is the landfill I talked about earlier in Waukegan in Illinois. Okay. There were PCBs disposed of in the landfill. Some of those PCBs -- or PCBs Page 30 HARTOLDMON0032262 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 were detected in the creek which runs 23 through the landfill as well as the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 35 1 2 3Q 4 5 6 7A 8Q 9 10 A 11 Q 12 13 14 A 15 Q 16 17 A 18 19 20 21 22 23 Q edges of wetland on one side of the landfill. And if I might stop you. When you say in the creek, this is aqueous phase? In other words, it was a water sample that tested positive for PCBs? No, sediments. Okay. And when you say the wetland, again, this is a soil sample? Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You were representing who on this particular project? The potentially responsible group. That had theoretically sent the PCBs to the landfill? Well, the folks who sent the -- who supposedly sent the PCBs to the landfill were a member of the responsible party group. They were one of the PRPs. Again, this was a Superfund site or is a Superfund site. What kind of levels of PCB are we Page 31 HARTOLDMON0032263 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 36 1 talking about in the sediment and in 2 this wetland? 3 In the wetland the highest level as I 4 recall was about two parts per million. 5 In the creek the highest level was 6 eighty or eighty-five parts per million 7 in the sediments. 8 Okay. And what sort of remediation work 9 did you do at that site to deal with 10 these PCB impacts? 11 The remediation hasn't been completed. 12 A record of decision has been issued by 13 EPA. The record of decision requires - 14 It is a municipal landfill, and methane 15 migration is an issue. Therefore, it 16 requires an active gas collection system 17 around the landfill, and then it 18 requires a cover, a cap over the 19 landfill. It also requires excavation 20 of sediments in the creek and 21 consolidation of those sediments on top 22 of the landfill under the new cover. 23 Got you. And let me take some of those REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 37 Page 32 HARTOLDMON0032264 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 in order. It is my limited 2 understanding of RODS or records of 3 decision that typically there is a 4 discussion of remedial alternatives and 5 then a decision is made that this is the 6 alternative that will be the best thing 7 for us to do at this site. 8 Yes, that's correct. 9 And the alternative that was selected by 10 the EPA in that case that you have just 11 described, is that consistent with the 12 recommendation which you made on behalf 13 of the PRP group or inconsistent with 14 the recommendation you made? 15 The EPA took our recommend -- or the 16 alternative that was recommended and 17 added an additional layer in the cover. 18 Other than that, it is what was 19 recommended by the PRP group. 20 Got you. Let's talk about it a little 21 more. You talked about the active gas 22 collection. Tell me how you go about, 23 on a landfill that is already, I guess REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 38 1 -- these particular cells are closed out 2 in the sense they are covered with soil 3 and vegetation, or is it active cells? Page 33 HARTOLDMON0032265 4A 5Q 6 7 8A 9 10 11 12 13 Q 14 A 15 16 17 Q 18 A 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. No. It has been closed for many years. How does one put into place an active gas collection system to a closed landfill cell? This particular landfill is different from most landfills. Do you want me to speak about this particular landfill? As I say, it is different from most landfills. Yes. Call me crazy. I'll bite. In this particular -- Normally you would put in wells through the waste and just put a suction to the gas. Okay. You extract gas with a suction. It's as simple as that. In this particular landfill the groundwater surface is very close to the ground surface. The depth to groundwater is small. Under those circumstances gas extraction wells REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 39 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 A. 6 7 aren't very efficient unless they are placed very close together, literally within a couple to five feet. Okay. This is a fifty-acre landfill, so you would imagine that it is not an efficient system. What was specified Page 34 HARTOLDMON0032266 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 A. 21 Q. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. for this particular landfill was a trench around the perimeter of the landfill. And the gas would migrate to the trench. The migration would be accelerated by the application of a vacuum to the trench. And as the gas gets into the trench, it is collected in the pipe, and the vacuum pulls it out, and it will be flared, burnt. And I take it -- Are you expecting or anticipating PCBs to be present in that gas? No. Okay. Let me -- Then what is the mechanism by which you are attempting to prevent additional movement of PCBs in REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 40 1 2 A. 3 Q. 4 5 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 to the sediment and the wetland? The cover. And have you in fact analyzed the gas coming off the landfill -- I guess that system is not in place yet. You said that. That's correct. Is it anticipated that you will do any sort of confirmatory sampling once that system is in place to see what is coming Page 35 HARTOLDMON0032267 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 off in that gas? 12 Yeah. I'm sure that the final operation 13 and maintenance plan that is yet to be 14 written -- and that will be written 15 towards the end of the remedial 16 construction. But I'm sure that will 17 include some periodic monitoring of the 18 gas that comes off the system. 19 Is the method for burning the gas that 20 comes off -- does it envision just 21 methane, which wouldn't take a very 22 fancy incineration system as I perceive 23 it, or is it one that anticipates REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 41 1 burning more complex molecules like a 2 PCB molecule? 3 At this point it would be the simple 4 flare system. There is no reason to 5 expect PCBs. Because of their very low 6 vapor pressure, there is no reason to 7 expect PCBs would be a significant 8 component of the landfill gas. 9 And what kind of level of PCB are you 10 finding in the ambient atmosphere when 11 you did the air testing there? 12 The ambient samples weren't analyzed for 13 PCBs. They were only analyzed for 14 volatile organic compounds. Page 36 HARTOLDMON0032268 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 Okay. And then the cap that you are 16 going to put over this fifty-acre 17 landfill, can you tell me what you 18 recommended and then tell me the 19 additional layer the EPA has requested 20 in the ROD, please? 21 Our recommendation was that the cap 22 consist of -- starting from the bottom 23 up, there is an -- First off, I should REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 42 1 say there is an existing clay cap on the 2 landfill. It was placed on there 3 twenty-odd years ago. 4 What we recommended was that a 5 gridding layer be placed over that cap. 6 The gridding layer would be constructed 7 so that the final cover would have 8 enough positive slope to allow a sheet 9 flow of rain water off the cap. The 10 gridding layer, the top six inches of 11 that gridding layer we specified to be 12 sand to act as a gas collection layer. 13 Gas will, you know, move upwards 14 through the waste. And most of this 15 landfill is below grade. So we needed a 16 mechanism for the gas to collect so we 17 could pick it up and draw it off the Page 37 HARTOLDMON0032269 18 19 20 Q. 21 A. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. top, or in this case, conversely, take it down to the sides to the trench. Got you. The next layer we recommended was synthetic membrane. On top of that we recommended a synthetic drainage layer. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 43 2 3 4 5 A. 6 7 8 9 Q. 10 A. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Now, let me get you to explain that. Up to then I was following you. What was envisioned as being a synthetic drainage layer? What would that actually be? It could take many forms. The most common form that is used is a high density polyethylene web, if you like. It is almost like corrugated cardboard. Okay. With the outside layers being a geotextile filter fabric and the inside being very similar to a thick corrugated cardboard, except it is made of a high density polyethylene. And the purpose of that is for water, rain water, snow melts, whatever which percolates through the soils above that will collect in that. It is highly transmissive. Once it hits that, it will flow sideways rather than pooling on top of the geomembrane. Page 38 HARTOLDMON0032270 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. And at the boundaries of the cell, I take it, it has some sort of piping REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 44 1 2 3 A. 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. 8 9 10 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 A. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 design to take that transmitted water out, away from the cell? Yes. Okay. So I cut you off at the synthetic drainage layer. What is the next thing above that? Above that was two feet of fill soil to act as frost protection, and then I believe it was a further six inches of topsoil. And that topsoil is intended to be vegetative. That was what was recommended. And what did the EPA, just to be ornery, throw in on top of all that or somewhere in the middle of all that? They required the addition of what is called a geocomposite layer below the geomembrane, below the high density polyethylene. The geocomposite layer is basically a very plastic clay called bentonite that is enclosed between two layers of geotextile filter fabric. Page 39 HARTOLDMON0032271 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 45 1 Bentonite when it is hydrated, when it 2 is wet, increases in volume several 3 hundred percent and becomes a very low 4 permeability material. 5 The thought being that if a void or hole 6 arose in the membrane, water coming 7 through would hit this bentonite and it 8 would expand and basically fill that 9 gap? 10 That's correct. 11 Do you have a ball park figure you can 12 share with us for what it will cost to 13 install this system over the fifty-acre 14 landfill cell we have talked about? 15 The estimated cost of the cover was 16 between ten and twelve million dollars. 17 And just to set the record, be clear on 18 the record, there are actually two 19 non-contiguous portions. One is about 20 fifty acres. The other is about twelve 21 acres. The ten to twelve million that I 22 just quoted was for both. So it is a 23 combined area of about sixty-two acres. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 46 Page 40 HARTOLDMON0032272 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 MR. COX: Can we take two minutes? 2 (A break was taken.) 3 Okay. I think we beat to death the 4 Waukegan site. Let's move on to number 5 three. 6 Okay. I had to stop and think. Number 7 three was another Superfund site. It 8 was called the Belvidere municipal 9 number one landfill. Again, it was an 10 old closed municipal landfill. The EPA 11 did the remedial investigation, detected 12 PCBs in the groundwater. 13 Also there was an area off the 14 landfill, on the side of the landfill 15 where drums containing PCBs had been 16 stored. They removed -- The EPA removed 17 the drums as an emergency removal 18 action. 19 There were soils -- The soils in 20 that area contained PCBs, and the 21 concentrations varied. None of them 22 were above fifty parts per million. But 23 many of the samples were above ten parts REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 47 1 per million. 2 The record of decision for the 3 site -- Well, the proposed plan, before Page 41 HARTOLDMON0032273 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 I get to that, the proposed plan for the 5 site included groundwater extraction and 6 treatment, pretreatment and then 7 disposal at the publicly owned 8 treatment works. The pretreatment 9 required was for PCBs. 10 And was that carbon filtration? 11 At the time of the proposed plan, the 12 details hadn't -- It was just treat the 13 water to remove the PCBs. 14 It also required the excavation of 15 the soil in the area where the PCBs - 16 where the drums were stored. It 17 required the excavation of the soils 18 down to a maximum concentration of ten 19 parts per million. The excavated soils 20 were to be carried and consolidated on 21 top of the landfill. And then the area 22 of the excavation was to be backfilled 23 with a minimum of ten inches of clean REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 48 1 soil. So it was ten inches of clean 2 soil over a maximum concentration of ten 3 parts per million. 4 Okay. That is backfilling on the sites 5 that had been excavated? 6 That's correct. 7 Okay. Page 42 HARTOLDMON0032274 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 So what was left in place was a maximum 9 of ten parts per million. 10 Okay. I'm with you now. Sorry. 11 The landfill itself, a new cover was to 12 be constructed on the landfill. During 13 the public comment period we prepared 14 comments, and we analyzed the results of 15 the investigation. We also asked for an 16 extension of the public comment period, 17 which allowed to us go out and do some 18 sampling ourselves, of our own. 19 We did some very careful sampling 20 of the groundwater using quiescent 21 sampling techniques and other special 22 measures, including vigorous well 23 development and searching of the insides REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 49 1 of the casing. Basically we took great 2 care to get as low turbidity as possible 3 in the samples. 4 By doing that, when we analyzed 5 the samples, there were no PCBs 6 detected, because we made the argument 7 that the PCBs were not in the aqueous 8 phase, that they were not dissolved in 9 the groundwater, that they were 10 suspended solids. Page 43 HARTOLDMON0032275 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Q. 20 21 A. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. The sampling established that, and because of that the ROD does not require pretreatment or did not require pretreatment. It did require groundwater extraction but for benzine. And the extracted groundwater is piped directly to the POTW without pretreatment. Okay. And what sort of cap are they putting over top of that landfill? Construction is done. It was three feet of clay compacted to a maximum permeability of one by ten to the minus REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 50 1 2 Q. 3 A. 4 5 Q. 6 7 A. 8 9 10 11 12 Q. 13 14 six centimeters per second. Okay. And six inches of topsoil on top of that. Were any residential areas impacted at the Belvidere municipal one site? No. There were some residences within -- probably within a thousand feet. There were no impacts there. The landfill is in the middle of a conservation park. In other words, the surface has been turned into ball fields and playgrounds and such? Page 44 HARTOLDMON0032276 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Not on the landfill itself. But it is a nature preserve. Okay. That reminds me. At the Waukegan landfill site you said there had been an impact to the wetland. Was there any remediation undertaken in the wetland itself? No. It is not required. The level that was set, the cleanup level that was set REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 51 by the U.S. EPA in their ROD was higher than the maximum concentration found in the wetland. And I take it no residential areas were impacted at that site? Oh, yes. It was in the middle of the city. Okay. So - There are houses on three sides of the landfill. So how many houses had PCBs present in their yards? The only place they found PCBs was in the sump of one building. Okay. That would be a nursing home. The impacts to the surrounding houses were ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 from landfill gas. And there was one 19 structure that the PRPs had to install 20 an air exchange and ventilation system 21 because of elevated gas concentrations 22 as well as elevated volatile organics, 23 primarily vinyl chloride in basements. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 52 1Q 2A 3 4 5Q 6 7 8A 9 10 11 12 Q 13 A 14 15 Q 16 17 A 18 19 Q 20 A 21 Q So they did this in one house? It was actually an apartment building, so there were seven separate basement units. Okay. And that was a piece of equipment that would filter the air and exchange fresh outside air? Yeah. What it was is a whole new piping system that pumped fresh air into the basement and extracted the air out the other side. And was there a fourth project? Yes. Again, a Superfund project called the Cross Pail recycling site. Can you spell that Cross Pail for me, pi ease? Cross, C-r-o-s-s, and Pail, P-a-i-1, two separates words. And where is that located? Kankakee, Illinois, K-a-n-k-a-k-e-e. And what was the nature of the Cross Page 46 HARTOLDMON0032278 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 Pail site? 23 This was individuals who accepted used, REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 53 1 you know, discarded paint containers and 2 solvent containers for recycling. And 3 what he ended up doing was basically 4 emptying them on the ground. It was an 5 incredibly beautiful site. The dirt was 6 green and orange and blue. 7 There was one portion of it which 8 actually eventually EPA separated as a 9 separate operable unit. It was called 10 the PCB operable unit. PCBs were in the 11 soils to depths of -- I believe it was 12 about eight or ten feet. 13 I beg your pardon? 14 I believe it was about eight or ten 15 feet, as I recall. And the specified 16 remedy for that was excavation and 17 off-site disposal. There was a cleanup 18 level, and I do not recall what it was. 19 Do you recall whether it was an action 20 level based on kind of residential 21 assumptions of exposure or 22 commercial/industrial? 23 It was commercial/industrial. Page 47 HARTOLDMON0032279 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 54 1 Q. 2 A. 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 8 A. 9 Q. 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 A. 21 22 Q. 23 Okay. And - I don't recall the PCB concentrations. I know it was high enough that some significant portion of the excavated material was eventually incinerated. Do you know where that was done, that incinerati on? No, I can't remember. And do you have a rough idea of how much volume we are talking about? A couple of hundred cubic yards. MR. COX: Total excavation or incinerated? THE WITNESS: Total excavation. Incinerated, I can't remember. And the balance that was excavated, if it wasn't incinerated, do you know what happened to the balance of it? I believe it went to a Subtitle D landfill. And do you recall what the cost of that remediation was? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 55 Page 48 HARTOLDMON0032280 1 A. 2 Q. 3 A. 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 A. 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. No, I don't. And who was covering the cost of that? Again, the responsible parties. And do you recall what the source of the PCBs was, what kind of PCB in use was involved? No, I don't. Do you recall how many dollars were expended in that remediation project for the PCB operable unit? No. I mean, there wasn't a groundwater operable unit. I believe the total cost of the remedy was less than five million dollars. But as to how much was for the operable unit, the PCB operable unit, I don't recal1. Okay. And I guess I did not ask you about the cost of the remediation at the Belvidere site. Can you tell me what - how much money was spent there? About two and a half million dollars. Okay. So aside from what you have done here at Anniston, those are the four REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 56 1 projects you have worked on where there 2 was a significant concern regarding 3 PCBs? Page 49 HARTOLDMON0032281 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Yes, as far as I can recall. Okay. Let me ask you about your referral library. Is there a journal to which you subscribe that you believe to be particularly informative in terms of staying current on technology for remediation of landfills? The American Society of Civil Engineers puts out a number of division journals. One of them is put out by the environmental division. It tends to be very academic, but it does in my opinion carry some very interesting articles. Is there something that is less academic, perhaps more talking about how we are going to move dirt around and lay out these membranes and such that you have found helpful in keeping you current on the newest ideas? There are a number of trade REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 57 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 A. 7 Q. publications. I'm not sure I would consider any one, you know, better than another across the board. Are there any that you purchase year after year? Not currently, no. Any that your employer purchases and Page 50 HARTOLDMON0032282 8 9 10 A. 11 12 Q. 13 14 A. 15 16 Q. 17 18 A. 19 Q. 20 21 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. sends your way and says, "It might be nice if you read this"? Not my current -- I am my own current employer. Okay. So you talk to the boss all the time? Yeah, right. He is a difficult fellow to reason with. So you do not currently subscribe to any journals. Do you get the ASCE -Not any more. What about books? Is there a bookshelf close to your desk and you find yourself grabbing with some regularity a particular -Absolutely. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 58 1 Q2 A. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 What would that be? Most of the books I use frequently as references relate to fatal transport of organic chemicals. There are a number of publications, a number of books that I have used fairly recently that relate to bioremediation. There is one particular book that I use quite frequently, and I'm sitting here drawing a blank. However, it relates to the Page 51 HARTOLDMON0032283 11 12 13 14 Q. 15 16 A. 17 18 Q. 19 20 21 A. 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard treatment of waste water for the various processes that somebody can use to treat various chemicals. That might be like industrial waste water treatment? That may very well be the title of the book, as a matter of fact. I remember one in engineering that was white, has a picture of some nasty looking stuff on the front of it. No, no, not this one. Now, you mentioned some books on fatal transport of volatile organic chemicals. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 59 1 2 3 A. 4 5 6 Q. 7 8 A. 9 Q. 10 11 12 13 A. 14 Q. Do you remember the name of one or more of those books? Yeah. Typically the ones I use very often are called the Organic Chemicals Desk Reference. Now, would they have pages in them dealing with PCBs? The properties of PCBs, yes. if you want to know a vapor pressure, solubility, they are going to have a table in there that is going to give you that data? Right. All right. I'd like to know the nature Page 52 HARTOLDMON0032284 15 16 17 18 A. 19 20 Q. 21 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. of your work experience just generally. Did you have employment in your field while you were still in school? Other than summer jobs, no. That was it. So what was the first job that you took after you had your Ph.D.? I worked for three years for a consulting company in Trinidad called REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 60 1 2 Q. 3 4 A. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 17 Trintoplan Consultants. And what was the nature of your work there? I was responsible for all of the geotechnical input into their various projects. They are a general consultant. The projects I worked on included highways, multi-lane divided highways, arterial highways, water supply systems including large dams, water treatment plants, transmission pi pelines. And your job would be to evaluate the soil in those areas and determine how big footers might need to be, where pilings might need to be driven, how to install embankment walls, that sort of Page 53 HARTOLDMON0032285 18 19 A. 20 Q. 21 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. thing? Yes. How much gravel or so to put under a supply pipe so that it doesn't shift and snap? Correct. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 61 1 Q. 2 3 A. 4 5 6 7 Q. 8 9 A. 10 Q. 11 12 A. 13 14 15 Q. 16 A. 17 18 19 20 Q. 21 Okay. And after three years of that, what did you do? I joined -- I moved to Canada. I went back to Canada and joined a company called Golder Associates, G-o-l-d-e-r, in their Toronto offices. Now, if I do my math halfway decent, that would be roughly the 1976 era? Yeah, that would be right. What was the nature of Golder's business? They were specialist geotechnical consultants dealing with soil and groundwater. And how long did you work for Golder? In Canada I worked for Golder from 1976 through 1985, and then I was transferred from Canada to the United States to Atlanta, still with Golder Associates. And how big an outfit is Golder Associates? Page 54 HARTOLDMON0032286 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Around the world they employ probably - Well, when I left them four years ago REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 62 1 2 3 4 5 Q. 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 17 A. 18 19 20 21 22 23 they were just on about I think eighteen hundred to two thousand people at that time. I believe they have grown since then. I would think that is pretty big as geotechnical consultants go. Very large. In fact, is there a bigger company that is specialized in geotechnical consulting services than Golder? There are certainly equals. There is - Dames and Moore would be bigger. Now, I think of Dames and Moore as being a little bit broader than just geotech. Has Golder actually branched out into other things? Yeah. They have, but not to the same - They don't offer the same -- as large a suite of services as Dames and Moore does, for instance. So they are still relatively confined in the breadth of services they offer, but they have certainly gone beyond purely Page 55 HARTOLDMON0032287 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 63 1 2 3 Q. 4 5 6 7 8 A. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Q 16 17 A 18 19 20 Q 21 A 22 23 geotechnical engineering and groundwater supply. Got you. Give us some rough idea of the kinds of projects you did for Golder and the kinds of clients you had for Golder in the nine or so years you were working for them in Canada, please. A number of large projects in Trinidad that I worked on. They were primarily foundation investigation design projects. They were the foundations for a steel making facility, electric, steel making facility, an ammonia manufacturing facility. I'm curious. Is there iron ore in T rinidad? No, but there is lots of natural gas. What they are selling is the cheap energy. Got you. I did a large project throughout the Caribbean that was funded by the Canadian government for the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 64 Page 56 HARTOLDMON0032288 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 A. 6 7 8 9 10 Q. 11 12 13 A. 14 Q. 15 A. 16 17 18 19 20 Q. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. rehabilitation and upgrade of pavements at I believe about twenty-two airports - Okay. -- throughout the Caribbean. I worked some with the mining industry in siting and design of tailing stems, basically impoundments to store the mining wastes the metal wastes. Basically to ensure that the embankments or impoundments, dams were going to stay put? Yes. Okay. There were a number of smaller projects. Those were the major projects. A lot of these projects tended to go on for two or three years at the time. These were large projects. Nothing in the list you just described involved assessing landfills and how water or gasses might move through or from landfills. Did you, however, do REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 65 1 2 3 A. some landfill projects in that time frame? Not significant, no. There were a Page 57 HARTOLDMON0032289 4 5 6 7 Q. 8 9 10 A. 11 Q. 12 13 14 A. 15 Q. 16 17 A. 18 19 20 21 Q. 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. couple of projects that that was involved in, that involved construction of landfills. Where it would be kind of important to know if methane is going to come up through the basement? Correct. And did you design gas capture systems underneath the structure to try to steer that away? In that case it wasn't necessary. And how did you determine it wasn't going to be necessary? Well, in one case it actually involved more of a constructability problem than gas migration. In the second case the developer decided not to build. Okay. So you wind up in Atlanta in the mid '80s? Yes, sir, '85. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 66 1 Q. 2 3 A. 4 5 6 7 And what made you decide to transfer to Atlanta, or did you have a choice? Oh, sure, yeah. I was asked -- I was given the choice -- Well, I wasn't given a choice. I was asked if I would be interested in moving to the U.S. At the time Golder was expanding quite rapidly Page 58 HARTOLDMON0032290 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Q. 17 18 A. 19 Q. 20 A. 21 Q. 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. in the U.S. They were looking for senior folks within the organization to help manage that growth here in the U.S I was one of maybe a dozen folks that over the course of, you know, a couple of years were requested to consider moving to the U.S. to help manage U.S. growth. Where was Golder based? Where was headquarters? Toronto. So you were at headquarters? Yes. Was the Atlanta office when you went down there a new office? No. At that point it was probably ten REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 67 1 2 3 Q. 4 5 A. 6 7 Q. 8 9 10 years old. But as I say, they were expanding very rapidly. A lot of building took place in that era? No. Their expansion was primarily fueled by environmental work. A lot of that going on too. So tell me what kind of work you did in the Atlanta office. Well, first off, when did you leave the Atlanta office? Page 59 HARTOLDMON0032291 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 15 A. 16 Q. 17 A. 18 19 20 21 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard 1988. Okay. And in that time frame until 1988 what sort of projects were you working on? From '85 to '88 in the Atlanta office? Yes. Superfund sites. One site in particular, the Pickettville Road Landfill in Jacksonville Florida, investigation and permitting for solid waste landfills, Subtitle D landfills. Which are the -- I call them municipal landfills. They take municipal garbage REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 68 1 2 3 A. 4 Q. 5 A. 6 7 8 Q. 9 A. 10 11 Q. 12 13 14 and construction waste, that sort of thing in general? Yes, they do. Okay. Design of a new disposal cell at I guess it is two hazardous waste Subtitle C facilities. Which ones were those? Emelle, Alabama and Lake Charles, Louisiana. What sort of design components -- Let's take the one at Emelle. What sort of design components did you put in place for the new cells at Emelle that were Page 60 HARTOLDMON0032292 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 going to take hazardous waste? 16 All the cells that I was involved in 17 have -- the cells are lined with what 18 are called double composite liners, 19 meaning that there are two sets of 20 liners, one on top of the other. Each 21 set consists of compacted clay with a 22 maximum permeability of one by ten to 23 the minus seven centimeters per second. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 69 1 On top of the clay they placed a sixty 2 mil thick high density polyethylene 3 liner. So there are two of those 4 composite liner systems. 5 So like four layers of plastic and two 6 layers of clay? 7 Two layers of clay and two layers of 8 plastic. And in between is a leachate 9 collection or leak detection system. At 10 Emelle, in addition to that, because the 11 cells were below the groundwater table, 12 a groundwater pressure relief system was 13 constructed. That is the first thing 14 that was put into the excavation, and 15 then the liners were constructed on top 16 of that. 17 That is somewhat similar to what many Page 61 HARTOLDMON0032293 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 houses have to keep water from coming up 19 in the basement that might come in? 20 Similar principle. It is kind of like a 21 sump. 22 It is more complex, needless to say. 23 But similar principle. The groundwater REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 70 1 will flow into this system, flow to the 2 sump in the system, and will be 3 extracted by -- and is extracted by a 4 pump. 5 And what about on the top of these 6 cells? Was there envisioned ultimately 7 that there will be some sort of a cover 8 or gas collection or monitoring system 9 on these cells? 10 Emelle does not require any gas 11 collection system because the waste - 12 They do not accept detritus waste. All 13 the waste is inert waste. The cover 14 therefore consists of two feet of 15 compacted clay, again compacted to 16 provide a maximum permeability of one by 17 ten to the minus seven centimeters per 18 second. A forty mil high density 19 polyethylene lining is placed on top of 20 that. A drainage layer is placed on top 21 of the HDP lining, and then two feet of Page 62 HARTOLDMON0032294 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 soil including six inches of topsoil is 23 placed on top of the drainage layer. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 71 1 Q. 2 3 A. 4 5 6 Q. 7 8 A. 9 Q. 10 11 12 A. 13 14 Q. 15 16 A. 17 Q. 18 19 A. 20 21 Q. 22 23 Got you. All right. Let's move on, then. Where did you go then after 1988? Again, Golder asked me to move to Chicago and open a new office for them, which I agreed to do. Naperville I take it is essentially a suburb of Chicago? Yes. And your concept of suburban versus Louisville's suburban is different, but it is in that neck of the woods anyway. Yeah. Naperville is about thirty miles due west, at the lake. You have been there ever since, I take it? Yes, that's correct. But at some point, if I understand it, you became self-employed, left Golder? Yes. I left Golder towards the end of 1997. All right. Let's take the roughly nine years that you were in the Chicago office of Golder and tell me what sorts Page 63 HARTOLDMON0032295 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 72 1 of projects you worked on there. 2 Primarily Superfund projects and 3 landfill design projects. The Superfund 4 projects involved, you know, the full 5 range from starting at investigation 6 through the feasibility study through 7 remedial design, into the management of 8 the remedial construction. Obviously 9 not all of the projects -- I wasn't 10 involved through that full range of all 11 of the projects. Some of them went 12 through the full range, others just some 13 portion of that. 14 Okay. And I'm presuming the Belvidere 15 site and the two Waukegan sites we 16 talked about in some detail and the 17 Cross Pail site you handled out of that 18 Chicago office? 19 The Waukegan Harbor site was handled - 20 I was in Atlanta at the time. The 21 others, yes. Between Atlanta and 22 Chicago I have worked on I think at last 23 count either fourteen or fifteen REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 73 Page 64 HARTOLDMON0032296 1 2 3 4 5 Q. 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 A. 11 12 Q. 13 14 15 16 17 A. 18 19 20 21 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Superfund sites and been involved in the various aspects of design and permitting and construction of I think either twenty-three or twenty-four landfills. And how many of those landfills were hazardous waste facilities? Three of them. Emelle and Lake Charles, and what's the third one? The Adamsville landfill in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And what sort of -- Was there any marked difference between the design of the cells at Lake Charles and Fort Wayne as compared to what you described for us in some detail at Emelle? No. The lining systems were very similar, you know. The scale of Emelle is different. It is the largest hazardous waste disposal facility certainly in the country, maybe in the worl d. It is the Big Kahuna? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 74 1 A. That's correct. Other than scale - 2 Q. The technology is the same? 3 A. Yes. Page 65 HARTOLDMON0032297 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 A. 13 14 15 Q. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Okay. The other landfills you worked on, I assume some of them are Sub D type facilities. Were any RCRA facilities involved? That is what I think of at this Anniston landfill, as being a RCRA landfill. It has hazardous waste, but it is not a permitted hazardous waste landfill like Emelle. I'm sorry. There are four haz waste landfills. One -- Well, Emelle is RCRA. Lake Charles is a RCRA facility. Let me -- Okay. I don't think of - They are not generating waste in those spots, as I understand it. People are shipping waste to them often under a RCRA permit. But I'm talking about places like Anniston where it was a facility that had its ongoing RCRA permit that included a permit waste disposal, land disposal, SWMU. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 75 1 2 Q. 3 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 MR. COX: On-site disposal. So how many of those other than the Anniston site have you worked on? None that I can recall. And then you left Golder in '97 and are you operating as -- under a business name? Page 66 HARTOLDMON0032298 8 A. 9 10 Q. 11 12 13 14 A. 15 16 Q. 17 18 A. 19 Q. 20 21 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Yes, incorporated company, R. S. Williams and Associates. I've actually deposed people who did business as so-and-so and associates, and there aren't any. But are there any associates in your business? No. At this point there are two employees, myself and my wife. Okay. Now, is your wife technically trained? No. She does -- She is like me, just does the grunt work and you are the brains of the outfit? That's correct. (Discussion held off record.) REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 76 1 Q. 2 3 4 5 A. 6 7 8 9 10 All right. So tell me what made you decide to become self-employed as opposed to continuing your long association with Golder Associates. Golder decided to close the Chicago office as part of, you know, their business strategy. They basically gave me a blank check and said, "You tell us where you want to move, and we will move you, but you must move." I said, "No. Page 67 HARTOLDMON0032299 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 A. 17 Q. 18 19 20 A. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. I'm not interested in moving." That was what precipitated my leaving. I was in Chicago weekend before last, and I can understand where people can become attached to the area. It is a very livable city. Tell me what sort of work you have done in the roughly four years now that you have run your own shop. Solutia has been my primary client. Other clients I've had have -- The bulk of the other work I've done has been a little bit of work for BFI, prior to REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 77 1 2 3 4 5 Q. 6 A. 7 8 9 10 11 Q. 12 13 A. 14 Q. their acquisition by Allied Waste Systems, at a Superfund site just west of Chicago. I prepared a remedial action work plan for them. Okay. Other than that, it has been as an expert witness on, oh, probably at this point half a dozen various cases. The bulk of them have been cases in which BFI or Allied has been involved. And in those cases you are rendering expert testimony, I'm assuming? Yes. And those opinions are with respect to Page 68 HARTOLDMON0032300 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 the anticipated releases from facilities 16 they operate? 17 In one form or another. Some of them - 18 You know, BFI or Allied are the 19 plaintiffs either directly or through a 20 Superfund PRP group. And yes, most of 21 them involve looking at the history of 22 closed landfills and rendering opinions 23 as to, you know, if there are releases, REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 78 1 when the releases occurred. 2 Okay. 3 It involves -- They have a part of - 4 Several of the cases involve provision 5 of opinions related to the applicability 6 of various regulations. Under Superfund 7 there is a concept called ARARS, 8 applicable relevant and appropriate 9 regulations. 10 Okay. 11 And that then involves, you know, the 12 opinion as to what regulations apply to 13 the selection of remedies at Superfund 14 sites. To give an example, if the 15 remedy is a cover or involves a cover, 16 under the principle of ARARS that cover 17 must satisfy the applicable relevant and Page 69 HARTOLDMON0032301 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 appropriate regulations. In most cases 19 that would mean the cover must be built 20 to satisfy either Subtitle C or Subtitle 21 D regulations. 22 Okay. I'd like to talk to you briefly, 23 before we get into the Anniston site, REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 79 1 about preparation for today. I'm 2 certainly presuming that you spoke with 3 Mr. Cox, who advised us before we went 4 on the record that he represented you as 5 your personal attorney for purposes of 6 this deposition. But aside from talking 7 to Buddy or his colleagues, did you 8 speak to anyone else before you came 9 here today or within the last week or 10 two in anticipation of coming here 11 today? 12 No. 13 Did you review anything? 14 Last night -- This morning I reviewed - 15 Yes, I reviewed one document. It is a 16 U.S. EPA document that was published I 17 believe back in 1982 called Treatability 18 Manual. I looked at a couple of 19 drawings from the work plan for the 20 on-site remedial investigation and 21 feasibility study. Page 70 HARTOLDMON0032302 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 Okay. 23 I looked at the most recent semiannual REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 80 1 groundwater monitoring report. That was 2 about it. 3 Let me take those in order. The 4 Treatability Manual from '82, why did 5 you look at that? 6 I was interested in looking at what 7 could be potentially other sources of 8 PCBs. And in particular what I 9 wanted -- The Treatability Manual is a 10 manual which was compiled by EPA. It is 11 in five volumes, and what it did at that 12 time was reviewed a number -- a large 13 number of industrial processes used in 14 the United States that generated waste. 15 And they were principally interested in 16 water, waste water. They looked -- they 17 describe the process. They went out and 18 sampled the effluents, waste water 19 effluents, and had them analyzed for a 20 wide range of parameters. These are 21 reported as these are the typical 22 results for this type of industry. 23 And I know in some permitting processes Page 71 HARTOLDMON0032303 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 81 1 you put down that your waste is an F015, 2 plating waste for instance, and EPA and 3 these manuals kind of describe the 4 typical constituents in that waste. Is 5 that what you are talking about? 6 No. The Treatability Manual is not that 7 type. It is in the sense that it 8 describes the typical constituents 9 associated with a particular 10 manufacturing process. 11 Okay. 12 What I was looking at was the ferrous 13 foundry process this morning. 14 What did you find if anything in the 15 1982 EPA Treatability Manual about 16 ferrous foundry wastes? 17 Of the plants or the facilities they 18 looked at in the United States -- I 19 believe they ended up taking about 20 fifteen samples -- they found that, 21 among other things, the waste water 22 stream contained PCBs. The average 23 concentrations of PCBs were in the range REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 82 Page 72 HARTOLDMON0032304 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Q. 9 A. 10 11 Q. 12 13 A. 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 A. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. of sixty to ninety parts per million - I'm sorry -- parts per billion in water. The total suspended, the average total suspended solids content of the waste water was, again, I believe fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred parts per million. Okay. And those were, you know, the statistics I was primarily interested in. Do you know when that sampling process took place? It would have been the late '70s, early '80s that it was done for this particular study that was prepared by EPA. And why did you care what the level of PCB in waste water effluent from foundries around the United States was in the late '70s and early '80s? As I said, I was looking for potential other sources of PCBs other than Solutia into places like Snow Creek or into the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 83 1 drainage features around Anniston and 2 certainly looking -- You know, the kinds 3 of average values quoted by that Page 73 HARTOLDMON0032305 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. publication could easily explain the types of concentrations we are seeing in the sediments. Okay. So are you going to testify in this case that the PCBs that are seen in the sediments of Snow Creek did not come from Monsanto manufacturing processes or their associated landfills but rather came from the foundries in the area? No, sir. Is that because they didn't, or you just don't know? I just don't know. They could have come from the foundries, or the foundries could be a source. That is the only conclusion I'm prepared to draw on those data. Have you done any sampling in an effort to further explore this possibility? A very limited amount of sampling of REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 84 sediments upstream of the surface water effluent or surface water discharge point, if you like, from the Solutia plant. It is what is called the Eleventh Street ditch. During the off-site remedial facility investigation, a limited number of Page 74 8 9 10 11 Q. 12 13 A. 14 15 Q. 16 17 A. 18 Q. 19 20 A. 21 22 Q. 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. samples were taken upstream of that in Snow Creek, and low levels of PCBs were found in those sediment samples. Are there foundries upstream of the site where you took these samples? There have been and still are some today, yes. Did you actually personally collected these samples? No, I did not. You are just looking at data that somebody else generated? That's correct. They were working under my general direction. And who would that have been? The company that was responsible for REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 85 1 2 Q. 3 4 5 6 A. 7 8 9 10 collecting it was BBL. And why would you have told them to go and collect these? Is that somehow impacting your job that you are doing for Monsanto, Solutia? The investigation was designed to describe the nature and extent of PCBs in the sediment of Snow Creek. Obviously that included the portion of Snow Creek downstream of the Eleventh Page 75 HARTOLDMON0032307 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 Street ditch. But we decided, you know, 12 we would also look upstream to identify 13 if there were any past or present 14 ongoing sources other than what may be 15 coming off the Solutia facility. 16 Did you see higher levels or lower 17 levels of PCB in the sediments of Snow 18 Creek downstream versus upstream of 19 where water -- surface water, for that 20 matter, groundwater would flow from the 21 Solutia site into Snow Creek? 22 MR. COX: Object to the form. 23 Surface water is what it was, where REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 86 1 surface water flows from the facility. 2 Typically as a general comment, the 3 concentrations downstream tend to be 4 higher than the concentrations upstream. 5 But I preface that by saying we have 6 limited data upstream. 7 Okay. Have you been forbidden from 8 collecting any data where you have 9 thought, well, it would be nice to go 10 out and do X but Monsanto or Solutia 11 said we are not going to do that? 12 No, sir. 13 So if you have limited data, it is 14 because you haven't chosen to go get Page 76 HARTOLDMON0032308 15 16 A. 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 A. 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. more data? That's correct. Okay. Did the Treatability Manual have anything about PCB production facilities and what kinds of waste streams they had? No. Have you lookec1 at any of the historical documents -- REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 87 1 A. 2 3 4 Q. 5 A. 6 Q. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 A. 14 Q. 15 16 17 The reflection of that is that PCB manufacturing was basically banned in the United States. By that time? By that time. Do you know historically what kind of concentrations of PCB existed in the waste water effluents of the Monsanto Anniston facility as compared to the eighty to ninety ppb reported for ferrous foundries as an average by the EPA? Historically, no, I don't. Would that be important to you in trying to assess this situation of where the PCBs in the sediments of Snow Creek came from? Page 77 HARTOLDMON0032309 18 19 A. 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. MR. COX: Object to the form. Yeah, it would be. But I don't think - I mean, we are looking at potential sources. And clearly the Solutia manufacturing facility in Anniston is a potential source of PCBs. We are REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 88 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Q. 9 A. 10 Q. 11 12 13 14 A. 15 Q. 16 A. 17 18 19 20 21 Q. looking -- In the upstream samples we were looking for current -- for evidence of current releases upstream. Because obviously that becomes important in the sense of in terms that if you have to do any remedial work, you don't want to be remediating this piece of it and then - You want to do it once? You want to do it once, exactly right. So if I was going to look for current releases, I might be doing some aqueous phase testing. Did you ever sample the water of Snow Creek for PCBs? No, we did not. Okay. I don't -- I don't necessarily agree with you that I would look for aqueous phase. I would be doing aqueous phase investigation if I was interested in PCB transport. Well, you said you wondered about the Page 78 HARTOLDMON0032310 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. current releases. Wei 1, current, yes. I did say that REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 89 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 A 18 Q 19 20 A 21 Q 22 23 Let me backtrack on that. What we are looking at is not so much what is currently coming out of a pipe. What we are looking at is what is upstream that can be mobilized and coming downstream, not necessarily what was released today or last week or last month but in terms of what is in the sediment upstream that can be mobilized to come downstream. Okay. I've got you. And have you invited anybody else to the party, so to speak? Have you sent a letter to a foundry upstream and said, "Hey, we are spending a lot of money cleaning up Snow Creek, and we would like for you to participate"? Not to the best of my knowledge. But you wouldn't necessarily be the author of that letter? That's correct. Have you identified folks and turned it over to your -- employer is the wrong word -- to Solutia/Monsanto or their Page 79 HARTOLDMON0032311 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 90 counsel and said, "Here are people for which there is some scientific basis to believe they contributed to the PCB loading of Snow Creek"? No, I haven't done that. And isn't that because you have no evidence that would support any such recommendation? No. It is just that it has not been an issue to date. All right. I thought you said you were curious about this stuff and other sources. But you are saying it is just an academic interest? No. I'm saying it is a fairly recent interest that started me looking at potential other sources. But you have been working at the site for four years now, right? Yes. Is it safe to say a decent amount of money has been spent out there on remediation? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 91 Page 80 HARTOLDMON0032312 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 Yes. 2 Isn't it fair to say that the question 3 of whether other people have been 4 contributing to that PCB loading has 5 been a question of great interest all 6 along? 7 MR. COX: Object to the form. 8 I think the emphasis to date has been on 9 the near-site environment. The bulk of 10 the expenditure has been on remedial 11 measures very close to the plant itself, 12 storm water control measures primarily. 13 It has only been within fairly recent 14 time that we have gotten out of that 15 near-plant environment, within the past 16 I guess two years where we did the 17 investigation in the creek. 18 Aside from Snow Creek have you looked at 19 anything, be it a document like the 20 Treatability Manual or data, with an eye 21 towards trying to determine if there is 22 an alternative site -- or source, 23 rather, of PCBs that are being found in REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 92 1 other locations, i.e., residential yards 2 near the site? 3 Yes. Page 81 HARTOLDMON0032313 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 Tell me what you have done in that 5 regard. 6 Well, we have started doing a fair 7 amount of testing of residential 8 properties under an administrative order 9 of consent which Solutia entered into 10 with U.S. EPA. We have actually 11 remediated a removal, as defined by the 12 AOC on one property. The soil that was 13 removed from that property -- and as I 14 recall the results, the composite, there 15 was one composite sample taken in the 16 front yard. As I recall, the 17 concentration of PCBs was above fifty. 18 I stand to be corrected, but I'm 19 reasonably certain of that. 20 You said above fifty? 21 Yes, parts per million. The soil that 22 was excavated was primarily foundry 23 sand. It was not naturally occurring REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 93 1 soil. It was fill. The color was 2 characteristic of foundry sand. The 3 debris found within the fill was 4 characteristic of foundry waste. So 5 that clearly, you know, the foundry sand 6 was the source of the PCBs that were 7 detected on that property. Page 82 HARTOLDMON0032314 8 Q. 9 10 A. 11 12 Q. 13 14 15 16 17 18 Q. 19 A. 20 21 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Okay. Let me stop you there for a moment. Where is this property? I believe the address is 717 Zinn Parkway in Anniston. This is the one that is like two doors from Lincoln Park? MR. COX: It is within Lincoln Park. Oh, you mean the park itself? MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes That was the emergency cleanup? Yes. It was done under the administrative order of consent, which is the removal. That was an interim measure, and at some point a decision will be made about what REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 94 1 2 3 A. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 the final remedy for that location will have to be? The EPA is -- will make -- Yes. The cleanup level that was set under the administrative order of consent, under the removal action, is a short-term chronic exposure level. The EPA will make a decision as to what the long-term -- not short-term chronic, short-term acute level. But what the long-term Page 83 HARTOLDMON0032315 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 A. 17 18 Q. 19 20 A. 21 Q. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. chronic level will be, the EPA will make that decision. Were you in charge of that remediation? Let me put it differently. What role were you playing in that remediation? I was responsible for planning the work, not necessarily for executing it. Where did you plan for them to take the dirt when they dug it up? It went to Emelle. Do you know how much it cost to clean that site? You can give me a range if you need to. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 95 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 8 A. 9 10 11 12 Q. 13 14 Probably in the range of somewhere about ten thousand dollars would be my best - I haven't seen all of the bills. Okay. And I have seen the front yard of that place. It is pretty small, smaller than this room we are in. Did you do a remediation of the backyard as well? That wasn't required. The sample the EPA took in the backyard was less than the removal level of ten parts per million. Do you have any information that would suggest that the PCBs, assuming you are correct in your belief they came to the Page 84 HARTOLDMON0032316 15 16 17 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. site via some foundry waste or sands, were manufactured by anyone other than Monsanto or Solutia? To the best of my knowledge Monsanto didn't operate a foundry at the facility. MR. COX: He is talking about the PCBs that ultimately ended up in the foundry sand, where REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 96 1 2 3 A. 4 5 Q. 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 A. 11 12 13 14 Q. 15 16 17 did that originate before they got to the foundry sand. That, I have no idea where they originated from. In fact, you don't know what foundry that stuff may have originated from? That is correct. How do you know what foundry sand and foundry waste looks like? Past experience, having worked with it at a number of landfills, both closed Superfund sites as well as operating landfills. Was there -- Were you able to find a layer of ordinary soil and a layer of this foundry waste at this site, or was it all intermingled? Page 85 HARTOLDMON0032317 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. It was fairly well intermingled, although the fill was fairly clearly evident. And the fact there was fill was fairly clear from the topography of the site, in that, you know, the house itself, the yard is fairly level. And REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 97 1 2 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 8 9 A. 10 11 12 Q 13 A 14 Q 15 A 16 17 Q 18 A 19 Q 20 21 A then there is a fairly abrupt drop of a couple of feet to the road. And that to me, in any event, clearly indicates that was fill since it is higher than the surrounding ground. I guess what I'm mistified by is this conclusion you then drew that the PCBs must have come to the site on this fill. Because they were in the fill. They were primarily in the fill. As I said, the fill - How do you know that? The fill was clearly evident. But was it nothing but fill? Samples were taken in the depth range of zero to three inches. How do you know that? That is what the EPA said they sampled. So there was nothing but fill in the first three inches? Not where they sampled, not as far as we Page 86 HARTOLDMON0032318 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. could see, no. So there wasn't even grass, just a big REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 98 pile of fill? Oh, no. There was grass. And the grass isn't going to grow on one hundred percent foundry sand? No. There would have been some soil in there. So there is a mixture there of this foundry waste/foundry sand and soil? Yes. And my question to you is how can you say that the PCBs that were found in that top three inches got there via that fill and not via some surface water transport or via an air pathway? I would find it difficult to reconcile concentrations of greater than fifty parts per million as being due to mere transport. Water, surface water flow, the property is higher than -- about two feet higher than the ditches and the street. The street would have to be under at least two feet of water for water to be the transport mechanism ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 99 1 accounting for the PCBs on that 2 property. 3 But is it not true that dirt has been 4 found within walking distance of that 5 yard with no foundry sand or foundry 6 waste in it but more than fifty parts 7 per million of PCB in it? 8 I don't know. I wasn't there when they 9 sampled the other sites. I don't know 10 what was sampled. 11 So you don't know that they have found 12 high levels of PCB in ditches and 13 sediments running from the south 14 landfill down towards Snow Creek, 15 through that neighborhood? 16 Sure, I know they found high -- but at 17 that particular -- You asked me about 18 that particular site and water 19 transport. I'm saying that site is at 20 least two feet above the drains and the 21 street outside. So for surface water to 22 inundate that property, the street would 23 have to be under at least two feet of REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 100 Page 88 HARTOLDMON0032320 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 15 A. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. water. Maybe it happened. I don't know. Given that slope, it would be difficult for me to conceive of that. I guess what I'm getting at, you don't know where the soil that was present there came from either, do you? No, I don't. And obviously if someone brought in fill, they then had to put a little soil on top of it to make grass grow? Yes. And you don't know if that came from a ditch in the neighborhood or where it came from? That's correct. That is one circumstance. There are other instances or other sites at the Oxford softball fields and Oxford park. Again, PCBs were detected in soils there. The soil is clearly fill, including foundry sands but including other soils. There is a lot of debris that we found in the soils when we excavated the softball fields, REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 101 1 wire, pipe, rebar, reinforcing bar, a 2 concrete vault, all kinds of debris. 3 Some of the fill was, you know, Page 89 HARTOLDMON0032321 4 5 6 Q. 7 A. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 A. 21 Q. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. characteristic of foundry sand, not all of it, but some of it. Okay. And I talked with a gentleman named Dale Garrett, who is the director of public works for the City of Anniston. And he told me that, yes, it is fill, that the whole area was filled. He personally was involved in the reclamation of that area that used to be a swamp. So he corroborates our opinion that what was there and what we were digging was not natural soil but was fill. Now, this Oxford park, as I understand it, it is a municipal park. People go and take their kids and play on it? Yes, sir. And they are not playing on rebar. They are playing on soil. Again, there is dirt there with this fill, correct? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 102 1 A. 2 3 4 5 Q. 6 7 A. Yes. There was. The particular piece of rebar that impressed itself on me was no more than about three-quarters of an inch belowthe ground surface. But the fact of the matter is there is dirt there too? Yes. Page 90 HARTOLDMON0032322 8 Q. 9 A. 10 11 Q. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. It didn't come from any foundry? There was topsoil placed there. I don't know where it came from. And you haven't -- Or tell me if you can of any sampling you know of where somebody took what looked to be almost exclusively this fill that you referred to coming from a foundry versus some of the topsoil and tested the two to see which if either contained PCBs. Yes. At the expansion for the Oxford mall, Quintard Mall. Some of the soil excavated was pretty much all pure foundry sand. And samples of that were taken and analyzed for PCBs, and it did contain PCBs. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 103 1 Q. 2 A. 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 A. 8 Q. 9 A. 10 At what kind of level? I don't recall. I'm going to say I recollect somewhere in the five to ten ppm range. But it was a while ago since I looked at that. When was that done? 1999. And was that done under your direction? I wasn't there when the samples were taken, but yes. Page 91 HARTOLDMON0032323 11 Q. 12 13 14 15 A. 16 17 18 19 20 21 Q. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. I thought I had seen numbers quoted for Quintard Mall soil that were a lot higher than five to ten parts per million. Yes. There were sub-vein soils that were excavated that were greater than fifty parts per million. I think there was about three or four hundred yards of that material that was taken to Emelle for disposal, correct. It would be an order of magnitude more contaminated, if you will -- The concentration of PCB in those soils was REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 104 1 2 3 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 A. 11 12 13 14 at least higher than what you just described as foundry waste? MR. COX: Object to the form. Yes. And how far in a physical sense were those kinds of soils or sediments was this sample, for lack of a better word, of pure foundry waste that you say tested at five to ten parts per million? Probably a couple of hundred feet away, a hundred or more feet away from the edge of the creek. The soils that were excavated and sent to Emelle, the soils which contained PCBs in concentrations Page 92 HARTOLDMON0032324 15 16 17 18 Q. 19 20 21 A. 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. in excess of fifty parts per million were pretty much all within the banks of the creek. Okay. Was the sample, this foundry fill, within the floodplain of the creek? Yes. And do you know how long it had been there? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 105 1 A. 2 Q. 3 4 5 6 A. 7 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 15 A. 16 17 NO. Do you know how long the -- Did Mr. Garrett tell you when he supervised placement of fill in the swamp to create Oxford park? I think it was 1978, I believe, that it was built. Okay. The second thing that you looked at was the drawings for the on-site Rl/FS work plan? Yes. RFI, not RI/FS, RFI. if you could, please tell me why you looked at that and which drawings you looked at. Oh, the particular drawings I looked at were related to the south landfill. And the specific drawing I wanted to look at Page 93 HARTOLDMON0032325 18 19 20 21 Q. 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. was the results of the surficial soil testing on the top of the south landfill. Okay. And what did you find? That the -- There were surficial soils which contained PCBs, had concentrations REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 106 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Q 10 11 12 A 13 Q 14 15 A 16 Q 17 18 A 19 20 Q 21 generally less than five part per million; although, there were some samples that contained between five and ten parts per million, but that the majority of the soil samples were less than five parts per million across the top. I just wanted to refresh my memory on those results. And the south landfill is a big old place. Can you tell me what portion of the south landfill got tested? All of it. Okay. The eastern cells and the western cel 1s? Yes, sir. And how many samples are we talking about for that many acres of land? I didn't count them, but it had to be fifty or more. Okay. And do you know when that sampling took place? Page 94 HARTOLDMON0032326 22 A. 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1996 or 1997. Okay. The planning you did for that REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 107 1 2 A. 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 8 9 A. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Q. 20 21 22 23 property - Excuse me. 1995 or 1996, one of the two years. Going back here for just a moment to the place on Zinn Parkway, you said you planned that remedial work. How many residential yards have you planned the PCB remediation of? That was the only one that we have obtained access to thus far that required remediation. We have an overall work plan. We have a number of work plans that have been approved by U.S. EPA. One of the work plans, it covers the removal action in residential yards which contain PCBs more than ten parts per million in the upper three inches. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to limit it to here in Anniston. I meant just anywhere in your professional life. How many other yards have you planned the PCB remediation of? Page 95 HARTOLDMON0032327 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 108 1 A. 2 Q. 3 4 5 A. 6 Q. 7 8 9 A. 10 11 12 13 14 15 Q. 16 17 A. 18 19 20 21 22 23 That is the only one I've had to do. And the third thing I understand you looked at was the most recent semiannual groundwater testing report? Monitoring report. And would you tell me, please, what you recall and what you saw when you reviewed that? Again, what I was specifically interested in were the groundwater results for some of the wells in the south landfill. Specifically I was looking to see if PCBs had been detected in any of them. And did you see any data that indicated a positive hit for PCBs? On one well during the remedial -- the facility investigation, during the RFI, and that well was pretty much directly in line with the groundwater extraction system. So even if it wasn't there, the system was pulling it there. But that was the only well that PCBs were REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 109 Page 96 HARTOLDMON0032328 1 2 3 Q. 4 5 6 A. 7 Q. 8 9 10 A. 11 Q. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. detected in downgradient of that landfill. Do you know if the data, the samples that you have looked at in that report were filtered samples? Both filtered and unfiltered. Okay. Had you ever done any work with Monsanto before you came to Anniston and started working on this project? No. My colleague, Mr. Feld, tells me when he took the deposition of an air monitoring expert last week he talked about having done some computer modeling or having a colleague do some computer modeling for that site and then they decided they weren't going to continue with that process. Is there any sort of sampling program that you have undertaken here where y'all started getting some results and then just decided to stop that particular effort? MR. COX: Object to the form. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 110 1 A. 2 3 No. And my understanding is that the air modeling was discontinued because the meteorological data that it is based Page 97 HARTOLDMON0032329 4 5 Q. 6 A. 7 8 9 10 11 12 Q. 13 14 A. 15 16 17 18 19 20 Q. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. on are not reliable. But that was only discovered recently? Yes. We have a new consultant working with us, and that was one of his initial observations, was that the meth station wasn't high enough to provide reliable information about wind direction or wind speed. Did you have some involvement in the decision to do some air modeling? No, not particularly. I was aware of it. I was aware that the modeling was going to be undertaken. But I have not been particularly involved in the air issues of the facility or to look at the monitor or results as they come out. So you were not involved in any way in this decision to consider, at least at one point in time, a vapor flux investigation of the south landfill and REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. Ill 1 2 A. 3 4 Q. 5 6 A. 7 certain other areas? I have been involved in discussions about it, yes. What was the nature of your involvement in those discussions? Well, I ventured my thought that based on what I understood them to be Page 98 HARTOLDMON0032330 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 proposing or to be requested -- what I 9 understood the agency to be requesting, 10 I questioned what the results would mean 11 and how the results would be 12 interpreted. I didn't see a whole lot 13 of value in generating a number if I 14 didn't know what the number would do or 15 if I didn't know what the number meant. 16 Okay. In the sense that even if it 17 generated some PCB concentration level, 18 what would it mean or give the 19 parameters of, how this system was going 20 to be set up you could predict pretty 21 well it wasn't going to find a PCB 22 concentration? 23 No. I mean, since there are -- to the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 112 1 best of my knowledge there are no 2 established standards for airborne PCBs 3 other than those promulgated by OSHA - 4 For workplace standards? 5 For workplace standards. I guess my 6 question is before I go out and generate 7 a measurement, what am I going to 8 compare that measurement to. I also 9 have some reservations about the 10 suitability of the test because I think Page 99 HARTOLDMON0032331 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. what you are going to find, what you are going to measure is just ambient concentrations. You can't see the systems. You would truly get what is coming up out of the dirt? Yeah. I think all you are going to get is the ambient concentration. You told me that Solutia is the principal customer, if you will - client may have been the word you used -- for your business. And I don't want to get, you know, the total dollar REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 113 volume you do. But is it five figures total gross receipts in 2000 or six figures or - Six. And what percentage of that number would be gross receipts for work done on the Monsanto/Solutia projects? About eighty percent of it, ninety maybe. And would I be safe in assuming that you and your wife are the only people who have a financial stake in Richards L. Williams and Associates? Yes. Richards S. Page 100 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 Do you have a Web site? 16 No. 17 Okay. I'd like to start with your first 18 involvement with the site and have you 19 tell me what it was and how it came to 20 pass that you were working on it. 21 Yeah. In 1996 Monsanto -- At the time 22 it was Monsanto. That was prior to 23 Solutia. Golder Associates had been REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 114 1 working at this facility for probably a 2 couple of years prior to my own personal 3 involvement. And sometime early in 4 1996, Golder Associates were selected to 5 be the consultant to implement the 6 on-site portion of the RFI. Monsanto 7 requested that Golder provide a very 8 senior project manager. At the time I 9 was a vice president of Golder 10 Associates and obviously had a lot of 11 remedial experience. And my name 12 together with two other employees, 13 senior employees, were provided. 14 Basically Golder sent Monsanto three 15 resumes. I was asked to come for an 16 interview in St. Louis. And on the 17 basis of that interview, they asked me Page 101 HARTOLDMON0032333 18 19 Q. 20 21 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. to join the project. Okay. And were there other people with Golder who were very involved with this project? Oh, sure. Golder at the time were doing two tasks, two major tasks. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 115 1 Q. 2 A. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q. 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 A. 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 A. What were those? One was the -- provide quality assurance for the construction of the cover on the west end landfill, and the second, as I said, was to plan and execute the on-site portion of their remedial facility investigation. Each of those major tasks has to have a project manager from Golder. Which was not you? Correct. But then you became the project manager after this interview process? Well, I became the overall project manager. Those specific task managers remained with what they were doing. Okay. And what portion of your professional work time with Golder was spent on this project as opposed to any other project you had on your plate? Once I started, it got to be about Page 102 HARTOLDMON0032334 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. sixty, maybe seventy percent of my time. Do you remember who you interviewed REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 116 1 2 A. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q. 10 11 12 13 14 A. 15 16 17 Q. 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 Q. with? Yes. A fellow called Alan Faust, who was the Monsanto project manager -- I'm sorry -- the Monsanto remedial manager, and a woman called Jo Hanson, who was the Monsanto project manager. I believe those were the job titles that Monsanto used at the time. Okay. And as you started work and spent a good chunk of your time on this project, did those two people remain the folks you primarily dealt with on the project? Yes, until Jo left Monsanto in -- I think it was May of 1997. I think it was. Whenever. Then Alan Faust moved back to St. Louis, in -- Oh, I don't know. It was towards the end of '99 I think. I think he was replaced by Craig Branchfield, who is the person that I currently report to. And is your principal task right now Page 103 HARTOLDMON0032335 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 117 1 still this on-site remedial facility 2 investigation, implementing that? 3 No. Even while Jo was still there my 4 role basically grew into being one of 5 the technical advisors to all aspects of 6 the project. So, you know, basically 7 anything associated with the remedial 8 project at Anniston that required 9 technical input, I was asked to provide 10 that technical input, involvement in 11 assisting with the selection of the 12 consultants who were actually to do the 13 work and setting the scope of work for 14 those consultants, reviewing the 15 technical work product. After Jo left I 16 also became involved to some extent in 17 the financial management of those 18 consulting projects. And today that 19 still remains my role. 20 Well, let me start with some of the 21 components of that. Then we will come 22 back and try to get some more idea of 23 where that actually is hitting the road, REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 118 Page 104 HARTOLDMON0032336 1 2 3 4 5 A. 6 Q. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 A. 15 16 Q. 17 A. 18 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. so to speak, out there. Let's start with picking consultants. What kinds of consultants have you had input in selecting at that location? What kinds of consultants? I mean, for instance, did you pick out who was going to operate the bobcat that picked soil up at that residential yard? Did you pick the hazardous waste landfill that it would go to? Did you pick the laboratories to confirm the level of contamination in the soil that was left? I was involved in the selection of all of those things. Okay. Contractors for the remedial work, lab. The lab is a specific case in that Monsanto and now Solutia really prefer to do business with two laboratories in the United States. And that is for purposes of quality control. They have spent an enormous amount of efforts REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 119 1 2 3 Q. auditing these laboratory to be sure their end product is reliable. Who are those? Page 105 HARTOLDMON0032337 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 So to some extent we deal with those 5 1 abs. 6 What are those two labs? 7 It is now called STL. It used to be 8 called Savannah before they were 9 acquired about a year ago, I guess. And 10 the second lab -- we have done very 11 limited business with them -- is a 12 company called Lancaster Laboratories in 13 Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We have not 14 sent any significant numbers of samples 15 to them. Most of the work we have done 16 -- Most of the analysis we have done has 17 been done by STL. Our groundwater 18 non-PCB groundwater analyses over the 19 past four years, three to four years has 20 been done by a third lab in Baton Rouge 21 called -- And I'm drawing a blank on 22 their name. They were audited as well 23 and were approved for non-PCB analyses. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 120 1 When you say audited, you mean Monsanto 2 itself actually went in and looked at 3 this facility, sent them some samples, 4 said, "We know what is in here. You 5 tell us what is in here," that kind of 6 stuff? 7 Yes. Page 106 HARTOLDMON0032338 8 Q. 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 Q. 16 17 18 A. 19 Q. 20 21 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Have they done that with places and not liked what they found and said we are not going to use you? Not in my personal experience, but I'm sure of it, which is the reason why they only deal with these two or three 1aboratories. And I take it this is just something you have been told. You weren't involved in that auditing process? That's correct. For all you know, they sent stuff there and they underreported what was there, and they said, "This is great"? MR. COX: Object to the form. I don't know that. All I will say is as REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 121 1 a routine QA measure, we currently 2 routinely send what we call planned 3 performance samples to the lab, which is 4 exactly what you are talking about. We 5 had an independent company make samples 6 with known concentrations of PCBs. We 7 routinely include the samples in 8 shipments to the lab. The lab is not 9 aware these are specific performance 10 samples. They report the results like Page 107 HARTOLDMON0032339 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 A. 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. anybody else, and when we get that, we are the only people who know the identity of those samples and what the assay concentrations are. And I will also volunteer that the results are not underreported. Another specific item that you mentioned is that you started to become involved with the financial management, if I understood your testimony. Yes, financial management of consulting budgets. Do you have any role to play in the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 122 1 2 3 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 A. 10 11 12 13 14 budgeting process where Monsanto/Solutia has been trying to decide how much money they are going to be spending out there? No. Are you then, for instance, looking at invoices that come from Savannah Labs or STL nowadays and saying this looks reasonable or this looks high? That's correct. I get involved in the front end by looking at -- requesting proposals, reviewing the proposals, which includes reviewing the cost estimates, the budget estimates, any negotiations that might be involved in Page 108 HARTOLDMON0032340 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 those budget estimates or the scope of 16 work. And then once the work is 17 initiated, yeah, reviewing their 18 invoices on a monthly bases. 19 One issue of financial cost that is of a 20 particular interest to me and to my 21 clients is again the costs of 22 remediating residential properties. As 23 I recall, you said that the one property REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 123 1 that you all had an opportunity to take 2 some action on, which was the one on 3 Zinn Parkway, had you think maybe a ten 4 thousand dollar price tag associated 5 with it. 6 Yeah, right. 7 Do you have some kind of number that you 8 can share with me that you all -- by 9 that I mean the consultant you have 10 selected for Monsanto/Solutia to do this 11 kind of work, what this is costing you 12 on some kind of a per unit basis? 13 I'm not sure I understand your question, 14 what the consultants are costing? 15 Right. Or do you have a price for what 16 it costs you to send a cubic yard of 17 dirt to Emelle or to the landfill up in Page 109 HARTOLDMON0032341 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 Three Corners? Do you have a set price 19 of what it costs you to excavate a cubic 20 yard of soil? Do you have a unit price 21 for labor? I'm just trying to find out 22 if you just send them out there and they 23 send you a bill and you say, "This REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 124 1 sounds about right," or do you have some 2 idea going in of what this is supposed 3 to cost? 4 We have some idea going in. As a part 5 of any one of our remedial construction 6 efforts -- certainly in the case of the 7 storm water control efforts, in the case 8 of the softball field reconstruction -9 Quintard Mall was kind of a separate 10 deal. By and large wherever we have a 11 consultant doing any remedial design for 12 us, a part of that, his scope of work, 13 is to prepare a cost estimate. And we 14 call it an insurance estimate. So 15 either the consultant does that or the 16 construction manager. There are times 17 when the construction manager prepares 18 that engineer's estimate. So, yes, we 19 have an idea of what it should cost 20 going into it, before we solicit 21 proposals or bids from consultants Page 110 HARTOLDMON0032342 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. and/or contractors. I guess that is what I'm trying to find REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 125 1 2 3 4 5 6 A. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 A. 16 17 18 19 Q. 20 A. 21 22 23 Q. out. What is your sense of the costs that are associated with cleaning residential properties that are contaminated with PCBs in the Anniston area? I don't think you can find one number because it depends on -- It depends for instance on the PCB concentrations, if they are greater than fifty, then the disposal costs are one number, if they are less than fifty, the disposal costs are a completely different number. Do you know what those numbers are in a range? In an approximate sense disposal of, you know, greater than fifty material, it is about a hundred and twenty-five to hundred and fifty dollars a ton. Okay. For material that is less than fifty parts per million, it is varied depending on the landfill we send it to. You have a few more options with that Page 111 HARTOLDMON0032343 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 126 1 2 A. 3 4 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 A. 16 17 Q. 18 19 A. 20 21 A. 22 23 Q. stuff? Right. And you know, it will range between -- It has ranged between twenty-five and fifty dollars a ton. Okay. And I know how to go to some books and get a figure for what a cubic foot or cubic yard of soil allegedly weighs. But I'm not sure what foundry sands and foundry waste weighs. Ultimately that is what will have be dug up and hauled off. Can you tell me how many pounds -- You say -- How much is a ton of this stuff in a dimensional sense? Well, I didn't say that this is mostly foundry sands. I understand. And I'm certainly not saying that either. Okay. Good. MR. COX: He can't help himself, if you are looking for a sort of rule of thumb conversion - That is exactly what I want. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 127 Page 112 HARTOLDMON0032344 2 3 4 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 A 11 Q 12 13 14 A 15 Q 16 17 18 A 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Per cubic yard, the numbers we have used, you won't be too far off by using one cubic yard being equal to one point five tons. Okay. And what about transportation costs? What do you all find to be a reasonable range of costs to anticipate when you have to haul this stuff to one of these places? Those numbers include transportation. Do those numbers also include the labor, material, and equipment, rather, to get it off the grounds and into the truck? No. What kind of numbers are you all finding to be reasonably anticipated for that kind of labor and equipment? Excavation, again, that is going to be widely variable. In the particular instance of 711 Zinn, for instance - 717 Zinn on a per cubic yard basis, that would be high because there was a limited number of cubic yards, because REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 128 1 of the space constraints. You know, we 2 used little -- almost toy equipment. An 3 average, average of five to six dollars Page 113 HARTOLDMON0032345 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 per cubic yard is a reasonable number. 5 So that will translate to, what, about 6 four or five dollars a ton. 7 And then what about backfilling, for 8 labor and materials, seeding? 9 Backfilling is again very variable 10 because it depends on the extent you 11 have to compact material. Structural 12 backfill, where you are going to build 13 something on top of it and you have to 14 carefully compact it -- and again, the 15 placement of structural backfill might 16 run probably -- I don't know -- three or 17 four dollars a cubic yard. The cost of 18 the material, the transport depends on 19 the location of the borrow pit. 20 We have found that, again, the - 21 I'm going to say that at the Oxford 22 fields, the softball fields, fill, 23 compacted fill in place, it is running REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 129 1 us somewhere in the range of seven to 2 ten dollars a cubic yard. That includes 3 buying the material, transporting it, 4 putting it in place, compacting it. 5 I guess I would not have anticipated 6 that you needed compacted backfill on a 7 ball park. Page 114 HARTOLDMON0032346 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 A. 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 22 A. 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. You have to have some degree of compaction. You wouldn't have to compact it the same way you would for a building foundation. But there was some degree of compacting required, if you left it too loose it would become very uneven very quickly and unsuitable for folks to run on? Right. Do you know how deep they ended up having to go at this particular yard that we are talking about there on Zinn Parkway in terms of how many inches of soil they took out of the yard? Twelve inches, one foot. Was that planned from the get-go, or did REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 130 1 2 3 A. 4 5 Q. 6 A. 7 8 Q. 9 10 they start with three or six and have to keep going? No, that was planned from - MR. COX: Let him finish. I was. I'm sorry. That was planned from the beginning to go do a depth of a foot. And I take it some sampling took place after the first twelve inches was removed to determine if there was a Page 115 HARTOLDMON0032347 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 level above ten -- Actually, you tell 12 me. What did they look for when they 13 did this confirmatory sampling below 14 twelve inches? 15 The sampling was done prior to 16 excavation. It was done to a depth of 17 four feet. And under the terms of the 18 administrative order of consent, the 19 concentrations we found only required 20 the removal of the first foot of soil. 21 Under the terms of the AOC below a depth 22 -- you know, below a depth of a foot, 23 ten parts per million or greater can be REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 131 1 1 eft in pi ace. 2 Do you know if your samples beneath 3 twelve inches, lower than twelve inches 4 had any PCB detection at all? 5 I can't recal1. 6 And talking in terms of projects, you 7 have mentioned the Oxford ball park, the 8 Quintard Mall, the on-site 9 investigation. I get the sense, since 10 you talked about doing some stuff on 11 Snow Creek, that you are starting to get 12 involved in the off-site investigation 13 as wel1. 14 I have always been involved in it. Page 116 HARTOLDMON0032348 15 Q. 16 17 18 19 A. 20 Q. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. And these residential properties that you are doing under the AOC with the U.S. EPA, you are obviously very involved in that. Yes. Is there any remediation work taking place out there that you know of that Monsanto/Solutia are involved with that you are not involved in providing REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 132 1 2 A. 3 4 5 6 A. 7 8 9 Q. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 technical consulting on? Not -- Of the work that was done since 1976 when I became involved in the project - MR. COX: '96. '96, rather, when I became involved in the project, I can't think of any where I haven't been involved to some degree. And you were listed in this case as a fact witness, which means that it is not anticipated that your testimony will involve rendering opinions but simply talking about this is what I know about what is going on out there. Do you have any idea as you sit here today what testimony you might be asked to provide in the trial of this case? Page 117 HARTOLDMON0032349 18 A. 19 20 21 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Not specifically, no, other than what you just said, the facts associated with any one of the particular remedial projects. Are there any of the remedial projects that you have been involved in providing REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 133 1 2 3 4 5 6 A. 7 Q. 8 9 A. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Q. 17 18 19 A. 20 21 technical oversight on to your knowledge that been approved by any regulatory agency as a final remedy for whatever it was that that remediation was trying to address? Yes. Tell me about those, please, or it as the case may be. The one final remedy we have approval for is for the work we propose to do at what is called the Highway 21 bridge, which is a new bridge that the Alabama Department of Transportation intends to construct over Choccolocco Creek on Highway 21. How much PCB are you leaving in the soils on the highway right-of-way on that final remedy? Of the soils that are excavated, all the material greater than fifty will be - fifty parts per million will be sent to Page 118 HARTOLDMON0032350 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 Emelle. The rest will be incorporated 23 into the roadway embankment. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 134 1 Q2 A. 3 Q. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Q. 21 22 A. 23 Underneath the pavement ultimately or - Yes. And I guess what I'm trying to find out is, are you taking all of the PCB-impacted soil that you can find and putting it under what will eventually be paved areas, or are there places where there is soil that tests positive for PCB, but you are leaving it there because it is not enough to worry about? No. The only thing we are putting under the roadway embankment are soils that are to be excavated as part of the construction and which do not have PCBs greater than fifty parts per million. There are other parts of the site that contain PCBs, but the soils do not require excavation. As part of construction they will be left in place. And has this actually taken place, or have the plans just been approved? The plan has been approved. Construction has not yet taken place. I Page 119 HARTOLDMON0032351 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 135 1 should add, we are not just leaving it 2 in place. On the areas where we will 3 not be excavating, we will be putting a 4 cover, clean soil cover. 5 Okay. Were you involved at all in the 6 sampling of some of the plaintiffs' 7 properties in May of 2000? 8 No. 9 I took the deposition a couple of weeks 10 ago of a Mr. Pricewith Genesis Project. 11 Do you know him? 12 Yes, I know him. 13 And we were talking --Theyactually 14 came and picked up the dirt, the samples 15 from several of my clients' properties 16 back in the spring of 2000. And they 17 did not take those samples, as I 18 understand it, and have them analyzed by 19 Savannah Labs. They were analyzed by 20 somebody else. And when I asked him who 21 -- how did you pick this other outfit, 22 he said, I thought, that it was your 23 idea. But I could be wrong about that. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 136 Page 120 HARTOLDMON0032352 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 Does any of that make any sense to you 2 at all? 3 MR. COX: This is the sampling 4 that ESN was the laboratory? 5 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. 6 And it was a mobile lab. And my sense 7 is he said this Mr. Williams, who used 8 to work for Golder but who became a 9 private consultant for Solutia, said we 10 ought to try a mobile lab. And so if he 11 is fibbing I will go and get on him. 12 But if he is not, I would like to know 13 some details. 14 At the time that the sampling of the 15 plaintiffs' properties was about to 16 start, we were also about to start 17 investigating the Eleventh Street ditch, 18 sampling in the Eleventh Street ditch. 19 At that same time Savannah Laboratories 20 was inundated. Their response time had 21 become quite lengthy. They were 22 handling a lot of samples for Solutia, 23 but they also had a couple of other REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 137 1 large projects, they tell me. I don't 2 know the details on it. 3 In any event, this -- our purpose Page 121 HARTOLDMON0032353 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Q. 19 20 21 A. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. -- Eleventh Street ditch was basically to characterize the sediments in the bottom of the ditch. And I was the one who basically approved the use of a mobile lab on the Eleventh Street ditch. At that same time Mr. Cox was kicking off the investigation of the plaintiffs' properties, and he called me and asked me if they could use the mobile lab for that purpose. And certainly, you know, I said, "Fine. By all means, we have it on site, and if you can make use of it, by all means, let's do it." Now, how did you go about selecting this ESN as the contractor to bring a lab over and do that sampling? The consultant we hired to do the sampling had worked with this company before and had some experience with them REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 138 1 and recommended them. That was the 2 basis we hired them on. 3 Q.What contractor was that? 4 A. The consultants who we had hired to do 5 the sampling in the ditch. 6 Q. And again, who was that? 7 A. Oh, pardon me. A company called Roux Page 122 HARTOLDMON0032354 8 9 Q. 10 11 A. 12 13 14 Q. 15 16 A. 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 A. 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Associates, R-o-u-x. Okay. And how did your experience with ESN turn out? For the purposes that we hired them for, which is characterizing of the ditch, I think they provided acceptable work Did you report their work to EPA as what you perceived to be valid data? Yes. Am I correct in saying a certain percentage of their samples went to a fixed laboratory in Atlanta as kind of a backup or quality control? They went to Savannah. Do they have a fixed laboratory somewhere? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 139 1 A. 2 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 8 9 10 Yes, yes. Some of the samples did go to their fixed based laboratory in Atlanta. In addition to that, however, we took some submitted samples and sent them to Savannah Labs as well. Did you see any discrepancy in the samples that they reported to you - that ESN reported to you from the Eleventh Street ditch sediments as compared to samples reported to you by Page 123 HARTOLDMON0032355 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 their fixed lab or Savannah Labs for 12 sediments? 13 MR. COX: Object to the form. 14 There were obviously differences between 15 the results between Savannah and ESN. 16 But those differences were not anything 17 that would not be expected from soil 18 samples. I mean, you use the word 19 duplicate, but there is no such thing as 20 a duplicate. You are essentially 21 dealing with two separate samples. So 22 you would expect differences between the 23 two, just by the heterogenous nature of REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 140 1 the soil. Those are the differences 2 that we saw. You know, there was 3 nothing to cause us to sit back and say 4 there is something wrong or these data 5 are suspect or there is something wrong 6 with this data set. As a matter of 7 fact, we reported both sets of data to 8 ADEM. 9 All right. Now, let me take the data 10 set that these different labs generated 11 for the plaintiff properties. Did you 12 notice anything about any of that that 13 caused you concern? 14 MR. COX: Object to the form. Page 124 HARTOLDMON0032356 15 A. 16 Q. 17 18 A. 19 20 21 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. I haven't seen that data set. Okay. Have you heard anything about how that turned out? No, other than, you know, I asked Mike. He said they compared similar to what they found in the Eleventh Street ditch. That was the extent of the conversation. Would it be important to you as somebody who is picking consultants for ongoing REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 141 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 A. 8 9 10 11 12 Q. 13 14 15 16 17 work projects to know whether or not the mobile laboratory had performed appropriately or adequately on the samples taken from the plaintiff properties? MR. COX: Object to the form. It is of interest, but I had a separate set of data that I could compare from the Eleventh Street ditch to make that data evaluation that I was personally involved. Okay. Let me talk to you for a moment about the work that you're doing for the off-site remedial investigation. Are you helping to create a work plan for cleaning up PCB contamination off site? MR. COX: Object to the form. Page 125 HARTOLDMON0032357 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 The only work plan that has been created 19 for off-site remediation -- Well, two of 20 them. One is for the Quintard Mall, and 21 the other is for Highway 21. I think 22 that's correct. I'm sorry. Strike 23 that. Oxford softball park. So there REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 142 1 are three work plans. And yes, I was 2 involved in all of those. 3 MR. COX: I think he was using 4 work plan in a more generic 5 sense than just the specific 6 documents that have been 7 generated to date. 8 MR. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. 9 Let me try to be less confusing in my 10 terminology. I take it that in addition 11 to those, did you have some input 12 into -- And maybe work plan is not the 13 term of art, but the protocol for how 14 these residential properties were going 15 to be cleaned under this consent 16 agreement with EPA? 17 Yes, I did have input to those. 18 Okay. Just tell me, please, if you 19 would, how you had input and with whom 20 you shared that input. 21 I was involved in -- as part of a group Page 126 HARTOLDMON0032358 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 in developing the protocol. I was 23 involved -- I was one of the reviewers REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 143 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 A. 8 9 10 Q. 11 12 13 14 15 16 A. 17 18 Q. 19 20 A. 21 Q. 22 23 of the draft document. So that was how I had input into the development of the work plans. And that was something that was created by Monsanto and tendered to EPA saying here is what we propose to do? Yes. They were work plans required under the administrative order of consent. Okay. Did you have any role to play in selecting the action levels at which a determination would be made that in a particular yard, a, an immediate action was necessary and, b, how much excavation? No. Those are specified in the administrative order of consent. You took no position yea or nay about what those should be? No. Do you know who in Monsanto or on their team, if you will, advocated what those numbers should be? Page 127 HARTOLDMON0032359 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 144 1 2A 3 4 5Q 6 7 8 9A 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Q 17 18 A 19 Q 20 21 22 23 MR. COX: Object to the form. No, I wasn't present at the negotiations of the consent decree, so I don't know specifically who advocated what. And in fact you had zero experience in setting or implementing action levels for residential impacted soils? MR. COX: Object to the form. I certainly knew what the regulations required for residential levels. I certainly knew and was familiar with the kinds of levels that the risk assessment was producing. But, however, had I ever excavated a residential yard before? The answer is no. The regulations you speak of I assume include this Mega Rule? Yes. And does the Mega Rule as kind of a default value suggest one part per million as an action level in residential soils? MR. COX: Object to the form. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 145 Page 128 HARTOLDMON0032360 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 For unrestricted use as a long-term 2 cleanup level. Under the AOC, again, we 3 are dealing with short-term acute 4 exposure, not long-term exposure. Those 5 values, as you quite correctly pointed 6 out, are still to come. 7 Have you said anything to your client, 8 Monsanto/Solutia, along the lines of, 9 you know, "It is really kind of crazy to 10 dig these yards up twice. Why don't we 11 just go ahead and clean it up? We 12 should clean it up the first time 13 through"? 14 No, I haven't, because I don't know what 15 the final answer -- I don't know what 16 the final cleanup level is going to be. 17 EPA has to set that. As you said, the 18 Mega Rule is a default value. The final 19 value may be different. It may be 20 greater, may be less. 21 Let's assume for the sake of discussion 22 that you said, "Let's clean it up to 23 background." How much more soil would REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 146 1 you have had to take out of the front 2 yard of 717 Zinn Parkway? 3 I don't know. We never made that Page 129 HARTOLDMON0032361 4 6 7 8 9 10 A 11 Q 12 13 14 A 15 Q 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 A 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. determination. Was there ever any discussion about doing that? They certainly weren't going to set it at lower than background as a final remedy, were they? MR. COX: Object to the form. Probably not, but I won't guarantee. So there was never any discussion about maybe we ought to just go ahead and get it all while we are here? No. Can you and I agree that based upon the data you have looked at there are a number of residential yards in Anniston that need attention, that need remediation of some level to address PCB impacts? MR. COX: Object to the form. Thus far, I believe there have been either thirteen or -- somewhere between REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 147 1 2 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 thirteen and fifteen properties that have been identified where the surface soils contain PCBs greater than ten parts per million, and action is required at those properties. Okay. And if we were to presume the default value of one part per million in Page 130 HARTOLDMON0032362 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 A. 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 A. 20 Q. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. the Mega Rule as an action level for some phase of the remedy, interim or final, the number of properties impacted would be significantly larger than thirteen or fifteen, correct? MR. COX: Object to the form. Based on that assumption, they would be greater. Significantly or not, I don't know. But they would be greater. You haven't done a census to try to determine that? That's correct. Have you actually gone out and implemented any kind of a sampling regime in residential areas yourself? Have you suggested that and had that REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 148 1 2 3 Q. 4 5 6 A. 7 8 9 Q. 10 implemented? MR. COX: I think - Other than the ones we talked about in May of 2000 on some of my folks' properties? Well, certainly we are doing that now under the AOC for conceivably what will be a very large number of properties. So you all will go out and kind of do a broad sampling of whole areas? Is that Page 131 HARTOLDMON0032363 11 12 A. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Q. 20 21 22 A. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. envisioned? We are looking -- We will be going out and sampling residential properties within the floodplains, including the tributary floodplains to Snow Creek. Where U.S. EPA hasn't done sampling, we will go out and do the properties that haven't been sampled to this point. Okay. And what other potentially responsibility parties have you been talking to about all this work, if any? To the best of my knowledge, none. But again, I would not necessarily be REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 149 1 2 3 4 Q. 5 6 7 8 A. 9 10 11 12 Q. 13 14 involved in those discussions. Those don't require technical input at this point. Well, they would if you were going to try to convince somebody that they should fork over some cash, would it not? Eventually they will require technical input. But at this point if such discussions are going on, I haven't been involved. if you were testifying tomorrow under oath in this case, you would have to say that you haven't told Solutia based on Page 132 HARTOLDMON0032364 15 16 17 18 19 A. 20 Q. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. the data I'm seeing,"Here is somebody else you could invite toparticipate in the financial aspects of this remediation work"? That's correct. Have you been involved in -- I know you said you kind of reviewed some of the air modeling. You knew it was done. You looked at the vapor flux plan. You REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 A. 7 8 9 10 Q. 11 A. 12 13 14 Q. 15 16 17 A. looked at the data. Are you involved as a consultant with selecting the methodology of air sampling or the timing of it or the placement of the monitors? No, not in any meaningful way. As I say, I reviewed the results. I have been in discussions with a new consultant Solutia recently hired. Mr. Hoffnagle? Yes. I have been in meetings with him as part of the selection process in which he was hired. Did you actually select Mr. Hoffnagle or recommend him I guess would be a better word? I was one of three or four people that Page 133 HARTOLDMON0032365 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. interviewed him, and then I provided an opinion as to whether he should be hired or not. That was just one opinion. Did you talk to other air consultants other than Mr. Hoffnagle? Yes. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 151 Was he your first pick? Yes. Why? I can only speak for myself. He impressed me as the most competent of those we interviewed. Do you feel confident based upon your training and experience to say whether or not there are elevated levels of PCB in the atmosphere around that site as compared to other places in the United States? I can only tell you what I -- what the data say, the data I have seen. Right. The data that I have seen say that there are elevated levels. Yes, we are measuring elevated levels in the ambient air around the facility, elevated with respect to the background levels at other places in the United States as Page 134 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 well as background levels that were 23 established for this particular REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 152 1 facility. Certainly one monitoring 2 station and at times two have shown 3 elevated levels above that background. 4 However, the data that I have seen 5 also tells me that the concentrations 6 are not sufficiently high as to cause 7 concerns about -- you know, health 8 concerns, exposure concerns. 9 You know, there are orders of 10 magnitude below any published level, 11 which as we talked about earlier, the 12 occupational levels. But even if you 13 adjust -- attempt to adjust those 14 occupational levels for increased 15 exposure conditions for, you know, 16 non-occupational levels, basically try 17 to translate from an eight-hour exposure 18 to a twenty-four-hour exposure, they 19 still order -- the regulatory levels 20 would still be orders of magnitude 21 higher than the maximum levels that 22 we're measuring in ambient air around 23 the facility, and certain even much Page 135 HARTOLDMON0032367 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 153 1 higher than average levels we are 2 measuring around the facility. 3 And am I correct in recalling your 4 testimony -- we talked about the vapor 5 flux study -- that you don't know of a 6 concentration that is out there as a 7 benchmark as an acceptable level for PCB 8 concentration in ambient air? 9 Not as a regulatory level, no. That is 10 what I said. 11 As contrasted with workplace standards, 12 or I have seen levels for water, warm 13 water aquatic habitat standards measured 14 in parts per trillion of what you want 15 to have in the water, what you want to 16 have in fish before the FDA actions 17 levels, but you are just not aware of 18 one in air? 19 That is correct. As I just stated, the 20 closest we can come is try to make an 21 adjustment to the occupational levels to 22 account for the higher exposure. 23 Got you. Are you aware from the work REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 154 Page 136 HARTOLDMON0032368 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 that you have done that there are a 2 number of individuals in the area, 3 residents of the area who have been 4 tested for PCB body burdens and found to 5 have a PCB body burden that appears to 6 be higher than would be expected? 7 MR. COX: Object to the form. 8 What I've seen in the newspapers, what 9 I've seen perhaps in some ATSDR reports, 10 that is the extent. I have not seen the 11 data set. 12 In any of the other sites where you have 13 worked on PCB remediation -- And I guess 14 some of them involved tens of millions 15 of dollars of work being done. In any 16 of those sites do you recall there being 17 instances of individuals with 18 demonstrated body burdens of PCB? 19 Not as far as I recollect, no. 20 Let me talk to you for a moment about 21 the geology of the site. Do you have 22 any information to suggest that there is 23 coarse terrain underlying any of the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 155 1 site? When I say site, let's talk about 2 the south landfill, the west land fill, 3 and the production facility itself. Page 137 HARTOLDMON0032369 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 All of the information we have indicates 5 that there is no -- there are no coarse 6 features below any portion of the site. 7 Or if there are coarse features, they 8 are sufficiently deep and have a 9 sufficient thickness of low permeability 10 over burdened soils that they are not in 11 any way, shape, or form influencing 12 groundwater flow at the site. 13 if I had been asked back in 1996, 14 prior to coming to the site and starting 15 to look at data, to prepare, to just 16 sketch a potential metric map 17 physically, contours of what the 18 groundwater surface would look like for 19 the site, what I would have sketched 20 would be very similar to what we have 21 today on the basis of measurements. The 22 only piece of information I would not 23 have been able to put on that sketch REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 156 1 would have been the depth of the water. 2 But the only -- if I had been 3 given the surface topography and 4 somebody said, "Kind of draw me what you 5 think the water table would look like," 6 what I would have drawn would have been 7 actually remarkably similar to what we Page 138 HARTOLDMON0032370 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 have there. 9 By and large the groundwater table 10 mimics the ground surface in most places 11 across the United States. Where it does 12 not mimic the ground surface, those are 13 the areas you would look to see why, 14 because it is a departure from the norm. 15 What we have in Anniston, the 16 groundwater surface by and large mimics 17 the topography. You have high 18 gradients, steep groundwater surface 19 coming down the side of the mountain. 20 The gradient is higher. Then you get on 21 to the flat portion below the toe of the 22 mountain, where the plant itself is. 23 The gradient flattens out. And you see REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 157 1 that in terms of -- in the shape of the 2 groundwater surface. And so that tells 3 me that there is nothing below the 4 ground that is causing the groundwater 5 to behave abnormally. 6 Well, let me give you my personal 7 definition of coarse flow, which sounds 8 slightly different from what you have 9 described, and let's talk about it from 10 that perspective. When I think of Page 139 HARTOLDMON0032371 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 coarse flow, I think of flow that, as 12 opposed to being laminar through an 13 aquifer, that you have conduit flow. 14 And that conduit flow can be -- based 15 upon how the rock has been weathered and 16 channelized, can be other than what you 17 would expect from the potentiometric 18 surface of the aquifer. Do you 19 acknowledge that happens in certain 20 places in the world? 21 It happens, yes. 22 Can you comfortably say there is nothing 23 underneath that south landfill in the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 158 1 way of a rock formation that could 2 constitute an area where there is flow 3 that is not laminar through the rock, 4 through the strata, but rather is more 5 of a channel flow? 6 Within the rock itself, bedrock flow, 7 there will be a weathered zone. And in 8 that weathered zone, certainly in the 9 top of the weathered zone, the highly 10 weathered zone will approximate what you 11 call laminal flow. As you get into the 12 less weathered zone you will tend to get 13 -- start getting more of -- I hate to 14 call it a fracture flow, on fractures, Page 140 HARTOLDMON0032372 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 but it is less weathered. So if that is 16 what you are calling conduit flow, then, 17 yes, that will happen. 18 But the flow above that -- all 19 right -- is through overburdened soils. 20 All of the information we have says the 21 predominant gradients, hence the 22 predominant flux, the predominant volume 23 of groundwater flow across a plain is REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 159 1 horizontal, not vertical. And so the 2 predominant groundwater flow is going 3 to, at least to be affected by the 4 landfill -- to the extent it is being 5 affected by the landfill, is going is 6 going to occur in the overburdened 7 soils. 8 Have you seen any information about the 9 history of the south landfill area that 10 references ore pits? 11 Yes. I'm aware that at one time it was 12 -- all or a portion of the south 13 landfill was an iron mine. 14 So do you presume from that that it is 15 likely or perhaps even probable that 16 some of the waste placed in the south 17 landfill was placed directly into rock Page 141 HARTOLDMON0032373 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 without any soil between it and the 19 first layer of bedrock? 20 It is possible. I don't know that for a 21 fact. I haven't seen reports that say 22 one way or the other. The fact it was 23 an abandoned iron mine or strip mine, REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 160 1 you could say, yes, there are places 2 where the rock was probably exposed. 3 Now, if one presumes that there was this 4 connection between the water that can 5 pool around the waste and is right on 6 some layer of rock down beneath, how, 7 if you know, that is not going fairly 8 deep and then heading for Coldwater 9 Spring? 10 Well, again, you specifically asked 11 about Coldwater Spring. Coldwater 12 Spring has been -- Samples have been 13 obtained of Coldwater Spring for many 14 years. Currently I believe they are 15 sampled quarterly and analyzed for PCBs. 16 There has never been any detection. 17 Do you know what the detection limits of 18 those samples have been? 19 I haven't looked at them, no. The fact 20 that they haven't been detected -- You 21 know, the lowest detection limit in Page 142 HARTOLDMON0032374 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 water now routinely tends to be either 23 point five ppb or one ppb. More REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 161 1 commonly point five ppb tends to be the 2 detection limit. 3 Well, that is not the technological 4 limit of what they can look for. That 5 is what typically is reported for 6 municipal water samples? 7 Well, I don't know. According to U.S. 8 EPA, for six methods, point five parts 9 per billion is the -- you know, the 10 method -- is the required reporting 11 limit for that method. They can get 12 below that, and it certainly isn't a 13 method detection limit. A method 14 detection limit is not the reliable 15 quantitation limit. It can be reliably 16 replicated in a number of samples. That 17 is the instrument limit. 18 So you were saying in part because you 19 don't see it in Coldwater Spring - 20 We have not seen it in Coldwater Spring. 21 And again, I repeat that, based on all 22 the gradients we have, based on all the 23 flow we have, based on the monitoring Page 143 HARTOLDMON0032375 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 162 1 data we have, which the monitoring wells 2 on the south landfill, certainly on the 3 eastern half of the south landfill are 4 in bedrock. 5 How far down into the rock do they go? 6 I can't recall exactly how far down into 7 the rock they go. There are no PCB hits 8 in any of those wells. So all of the 9 evidence that we have says that 10 groundwater is flowing in the 11 overburdened, is flowing primarily 12 horizontally, and that the landfills are 13 not releasing PCBs. 14 Okay. And do you feel that if there was 15 a plume in the rock, in the deep 16 aquifer, that plume should have reached 17 Coldwater Spring and should be in a 18 concentration where it would be picked 19 up? 20 Yeah. Given that PCBs were placed there 21 forty-something years ago, if it was 22 going to leak, I would assume, 23 particularly if the transport mechanism REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 163 Page 144 HARTOLDMON0032376 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Q. 8 9 10 11 12 13 A 14 Q 15 16 17 A 18 Q 19 20 21 A 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. is as you described it, more a conduit mechanism. Then groundwater flow velocities within those conduits, I would expect them to be relatively high, higher certainly than what you call laminar flow through the porous medium. You haven't seen any dye test results, I trust, in terms of anybody putting - trying to pump some dye down into the landfill cells and then monitor springs and streams in the vicinity for the presence of the dye? No. I'm sorry. I don't remember if I asked you if you all had done any aqueous phase testing for PCBs in Snow Creek. No, we have not. Would it surprise you if someone tested Snow Creek for PCBs and found it in the aqueous phase? if it was truly in the aqueous phase, in other words, if it was dissolved, then, yes, I would be surprised, given the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 164 1 very low solubility of PCBs, 2 particularly the Aroclors that we are 3 finding in the soils which tend to be Page 145 HARTOLDMON0032377 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 the more chlorinated Aroclors with the 5 lower solubilities. My first -- My 6 first impression -- My first question 7 would be then to look at any 8 corresponding total suspended solids 9 measurements that remained in those same 10 samples, because -- and I would go so 11 far as to then filter the samples and 12 try to collect enough filtrate, the 13 suspended matter, and test that 14 suspended matter. Because my belief is 15 that what you are finding would be not 16 truly aqueous phase PCBs but in fact 17 PCBs associated with suspended solids. 18 Okay. Have you seen any data on that, 19 i.e., the PCB concentration in suspended 20 solids pulled from or filtered from a 21 Snow Creek sample? 22 Yes. 23 And who did that sampling, and what did REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 165 1 the data show? 2 BBL did the sampling as part of the 3 first phase of the off-site RFI. The 4 PCB concentrations on the solid matter 5 in Snow Creek, I'm going to say it was 6 in the four to eight parts per million 7 range. But again, I stand to be Page 146 HARTOLDMON0032378 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 corrected. I have not looked at those 9 data. The data was certainly reported 10 to ADEM. 11 MR. COX: It is in the June 2000 12 off-site report, if that 13 helps, Charlie. 14 MR. CUNNINGHAM: It probably does, 15 but - 16 MR. COX: It is the first BBL 17 report that reported sampling 18 for the off-site - 19 THE WITNESS: The procedure that 20 was used there was we 21 collected water samples, what 22 we call whole water samples, 23 and then filtered those REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 166 1 samples and submitted the 2 filters to the lab for 3 analysis. 4 And just threw the water away? 5 Yes. 6 Didn't have that looked at? 7 No. 8 As someone whose job it is at this site 9 to provide remediation technical advice, 10 would you agree that one of the things Page 147 HARTOLDMON0032379 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 that is going to have to be done is 12 remediate somewhere, somehow, in a 13 fashion that will get that number down 14 lower? 15 MR. COX: Object to the form. 16 Get the number - 17 Is that a number that tells you we are 18 going to have to -- if that number 19 doesn't come down with all the other 20 work we are doing, if it is still there, 21 then we are going to have to do 22 something in Snow Creek? 23 Yes. It is just to me -- What that REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 167 1 something is, I don't know. But it is 2 -- Snow Creek is an area that we have 3 definitely -- As a matter of fact in 4 that same June 2000 report, one of our 5 recommendations to ADEM was that we go 6 in the upper portion of Snow Creek, 7 which is where we found the elevated 8 PCBs or the higher PCBs in the 9 sediments. We recommended to ADEM that 10 we do a corrective measure study there 11 now. That corrective measure study is 12 the mechanism by which you compare the 13 alternatives and come up with the 14 selected or recommended remedial Page 148 HARTOLDMON0032380 15 16 Q. 17 18 19 A. 20 21 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. actions. And you are still in the process of trying to devise what that recommended action will be? The report is still with ADEM. It is recommendation that we do the study. ADEM has not given us the approval at this point to do that study. All you did was say, "We would like to REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 168 1 2 3 4 A. 5 6 7 8 Q. 9 10 11 12 13 A. 14 15 16 Q. 17 try to investigate this further," and ADEM hasn't given the green light for that? No. We would like to come out and actually do the study to select the remedial alternative, not investigate further. Right. And you are going to go out and look at things and take more samples and say, "Here is where we think we need to do something, and here is how we propose to do it"? Yeah, in essence, yes. MR. COX: Off the record. (Discussion held off record.) Are you presently doing anything with respect to the south landfill or the Page 149 HARTOLDMON0032381 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 west landfill? 19 No. Other than monitoring groundwater, 20 that is about it. Routine operation 21 maintenance, cut grass, inspect it 22 quarterly I think is what the schedule 23 calls for, that kind of stuff. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 169 1 When you do these work plans -- you 2 described doing one for Quintard Mall, 3 one for the Highway 21 bridge, and you 4 have been involved in doing the planning 5 for the residential cleanup in the 6 consent order -- are you also involved 7 in, as you generate those documents, 8 determining what personal protective 9 equipment the personnel doing - 10 implementing the project will have to 11 use? 12 Only in a very general sense. The 13 contractor or the consultant doing the 14 work -- It is Solutia's policy, and I 15 think most companies have the same 16 policy, that they -- I mean, the Solutia 17 plant has a certain safety program, 18 health and safely program. That is the 19 minimum that any contractor or 20 consultant must practice. 21 Greater levels of protection then Page 150 HARTOLDMON0032382 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 are left to the individual consultant - 23 individual company to specify. So each REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 170 1 company in -- Each company is 2 responsible for writing its own health 3 and safety plan to protect its workers. 4 Are you at all involved in oversight of 5 that aspect to ensure that in fact they 6 do meet that Monsanto minimum? 7 In a very general sense, not in any 8 detail. Each contractor or consultant 9 that is asked to provide services, to 10 provide data, to provide a proposal, 11 must have satisfied Monsanto's 12 pre-qualification requirements. And in 13 those pre-qualification requirements are 14 spelled out things like minimum safety 15 records, you know, what the minimum 16 plant health and safely requirements 17 are. And that pre-qualification is 18 renewed, I believe, on an annual basis. 19 It is to ensure no contractor who hasn't 20 been pre-qualified can work on the 21 project. 22 Well, I realize you are in Naperville, 23 but I'm assuming you have spent a fair Page 151 HARTOLDMON0032383 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 171 1 2 3 4 5 A. 6 Q. 7 8 9 10 A 11 Q 12 13 14 15 16 17 A 18 Q 19 A 20 Q 21 22 23 number of days in Anniston, maybe like me, earned a few free flights on Southwest going from Midway to Birmingham? From time to time, yeah. As part of that do you actually go out and, if somebody is digging stuff up, you will actually go eyeball what they are doing? Yes. if you went out there and somebody was remediating a PCB-impacted area and they had mud all over their hands and they weren't wearing gloves, had sandals on, you would feel constrained to say something, I presume? Yes. Because that would be inappropriate? Correct. What about medical monitoring? Is that part of your -- Does that get incorporated in these work documents as well, that there be a baseline REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 172 Page 152 HARTOLDMON0032384 1 2 3 4 A. 5 6 7 8 Q. 9 A. 10 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 A. 17 18 Q. 19 A. 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. examination of any personnel and then some kind of followup? MR. COX: Object to the form. That's part of the pre-qualification, that the company must have a medical monitoring program and a policy in pi ace. Okay. Where there is baseline medical with either annual or biannual updates for certain people that are, you know, exposed or out in the field. Got you. Have you had any role to play in the Choccolocco Creek conservation corridor plan? Yes. Not a major role, but, yes, I have been involved in that. What has been your involvement? I was involved in the early stages of sort of conceptualizing the plan. I have been involved in providing information to the consultants, to the folks who were managing that effort. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 173 1 You know, we have a large database of 2 topograph information, land use type 3 information, that sort of thing, which Page 153 HARTOLDMON0032385 4 5 6 7 8 9 Q. 10 A. 11 Q. 12 A. 13 14 15 Q. 16 17 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. they found useful. So making sure that was made available to them. I was involved in the selection of one of the consultants who has been working on the project. Who was that? Golder Associates. Okay. And I have been involved and I was involved in some early meetings with, you know, some of the community leaders. Let me take those one at a time. Early involvement in conceptualizing the plan, was this your idea? No. I was part of the group that sort of came up with the idea of how would you provide institutional controls. And this was, you know, a concept that seemed to provide that while providing obvious benefits to the community as a REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 174 1 2 Q. 3 4 5 A. 6 7 whole. Okay. Who was in the group that came up with this idea of putting institutional controls in place? Initially myself, Alan Faust. Obviously Alan discussed it with hissupervisor. We discussed it with folks from BBL. We Page 154 HARTOLDMON0032386 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 discussed it with a group of folks in 9 Washington, D.C., called the 10 Conservation Fund. It wasn't -- It 11 didn't evolve -- it wasn't born as a 12 grand idea. It was one of those things 13 you talked about, and as you talked 14 about it, the concept developed. 15 I take it you were being asked at some 16 point for technical advice on what are 17 we going to do with contaminated 18 floodplain soil and sediment on 19 Choccolocco Creek. 20 That was one of the -- certainly one of 21 the considerations, was if in fact we 22 have to provide institutional controls 23 to limit access to soils containing PCBs REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 175 1 in the floodplain, what sort of 2 mechanism, short of going and buying the 3 floodplain and putting up a fence, how 4 else could you exercise institutional 5 controls. 6 As an alternative to institutional 7 control, I assume one option perhaps 8 financially out of the question would be 9 to just remediate, correct? 10 if by remediate you mean dig it up, Page 155 HARTOLDMON0032387 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 yeah, that is one option. 12 Was that option ever entertained in 13 these conversations you had with 14 Mr. Faust and his supervisor and BB&L? 15 Yeah. We discussed it, and -- you know, 16 potentially how major an undertaking 17 that would be and what were the 18 alternatives to it. 19 And the conservation corridor and 20 institutional controls conceivably could 21 be a much less expensive alternative way 22 of dealing with that contamination? 23 Yeah. But it would have to satisfy, you REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 176 1 know, the protection standards. 2 Basically it would have to be justified 3 by a risk assessment and have to be 4 protective to the satisfaction of ADEM 5 and U.S. EPA. So in and of itself, any 6 institutional control provided by the 7 conservation corridor isn't necessarily 8 going to be the final remediation. 9 I've seen some discussion about waste 10 piles at the waste water treatment 11 facility, the Anniston waste water 12 treatment facility down in Oxford, 13 basically where Snow Creek empties into 14 Choccolocco Creek. Have you had any Page 156 HARTOLDMON0032388 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 involvement in that? 16 Yes, I have been involved in that. 17 What has been your role in that 18 situation? 19 Thus far we have produced two work 20 plans. We have produced one work plan 21 for characterizing the areas which 22 remain to be excavated for the 23 expansion. The water treatment plant as REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 177 1 you may or may not know is expanding its 2 ability to handle storm water surges. 3 And to do that, part of that 4 involves the excavation of three basins. 5 They have excavated two of those basins. 6 The third one still remains to be 7 excavated. 8 We have prepared a work plan which 9 was accepted by ADEM and have actually 10 completed the characterization of the 11 soils at the site of the third basin, as 12 well as the soils associated with 13 pipeline corridors which remain to be 14 excavated. 15 We also prepared a separate work 16 plan to characterize the soils which 17 were excavated prior to our involvement Page 157 HARTOLDMON0032389 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 with the site and which are currently 19 stockpiled on the east bank of Snow 20 Creek. We have not received any 21 comments from either on that work plan. 22 Okay. Let me review a little bit more 23 about what you have done at the Oxford REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 178 1 park and Quintard Mall, and I think I'm 2 done. 3 Let's start with Oxford park. I 4 think you have told me basically what 5 you all's role was there. What happened 6 to the soil that you all took and picked 7 up, remediated? 8 Any soil that contained PCBs at 9 concentrations higher than fifty parts 10 per million were sent to Emelle. 11 Okay. 12 I'm going to say it was maybe a thousand 13 yards or so that went to Emelle, 14 something of that order of magnitude. 15 It might have been fifteen hundred, 16 might have been two thousand, somewhere 17 in that range. 18 The rest of it is currently being 19 incorporated under a parking lot 20 adjacent to the softball fields, all the 21 soils with PCBs less than fifty parts Page 158 HARTOLDMON0032390 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. per million. And do you have an idea of what all that REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 179 1 2 A. 3 4 5 6 7 Q. 8 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Q. 22 23 A. is going to cost? Yeah. By the time it is done, including investigation, design of the parking lot, the excavation and reconstruction of the softball fields, about a million dollars, maybe a little bit more. And how much -- What's the action level? At what point -- what concentration of PCBs do you all agree -- did everyone agree would be left there in the soil? In areas where we detected greater than ten parts per million, we excavated to a depth of one foot. Everywhere else where PCBs were at the -- surface concentration of PCBs were less than ten parts per million, we excavated the upper three inches. Now, in reality, construction equipment is such that that three inches is probably closer to six inches. Because I assume you would have them err on the side of taking more? Absolutely. Page 159 HARTOLDMON0032391 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 180 1 Q2 3A 4Q 5 6A 7 8 9Q 10 A 11 12 13 14 Q 15 16 A 17 Q 18 19 A 20 Q 21 22 23 A So as far as you know there is no PCB left on that park? Not above one foot depth. Right. Do you have data to suggest that there are PCBs there beneath one foot? Yes, there are. We have test results which show PCBs below a depth of one foot. At what kinds of concentrations? Some -- There are some samples that we have that were greater than ten. None were greater than fifty. Many of them were less than ten. So is that -- I take it this is an interim remedy, then? Yes, it is an interim remedy. And in theory you might have to come back and dig up even those deep PCBs? Yes, it is possible. And do you know how long it took to implement that process from investigation to completion? The softball fields, from the start of REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 181 Page 160 HARTOLDMON0032392 1 2 3 4 5 6 Q. 7 8 9 10 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 15 16 A. 17 18 19 20 21 Q. 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. the investigation until the time we turned it back over to the city and they used it, about a year. The parking lot, we should finish construction this month. All right. Now, let me go to the Quintard Mall for a moment. And am I correct in understanding some of that impacted soil was taken to Emelle, again anything above - Fifty parts per million. And somebody may have suggested to me that they actually used forty, just to err again on the side of caution. Do you recall anything like that? I -- We used forty to the extent that if we -- You know, if we were excavating and there was a sampling point that came back at forty, yeah, we took it and sent it. Okay. And that which was beneath that cutoff point and didn't have to go to Emelle got put under the parking lot? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 182 1 A. 2 3 Yes, that is correct. It was incorporated under the parking lot. Some of it was incorporated behind the Page 161 HARTOLDMON0032393 4 5 Q. 6 A. 7 Q. 8 9 10 11 12 A. 13 Q. 14 15 16 17 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. lining of the Snow Creek channel itself. Which is concrete? Yes. This too I guess in theory is an interim measure, and in theory the regulators could come back later and say, "Let's dig it up and deal with it in some other way"? That is correct, yes. Have you -- Did you ever say to your client, you know, "That is kind of crazy. Let's just go ahead and put it somewhere now where we know we are not going to have to worry about it again"? We talked about it, but, again -- well, two things. One is that the exposure scenario at the mall is such that what was left in the ground there we feel - or I feel comfortable that the risk assessment will show it is adequately REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 183 1 protective, given the cover that is 2 there and given the fact that it is out 3 in the parking lot. So the exposure is 4 such that -- you know, the frequency and 5 duration of exposure is such -- It is 6 not residential. It is what is called 7 low occupancy. Page 162 HARTOLDMON0032394 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 So that together with the fact 9 that we have at this point no idea what 10 a final cleanup number is going to be, 11 you know, it doesn't make sense to do 12 anything to try to pursue something 13 that -- I mean, if we pick one, the 14 agency could come back and say, "No, 15 that is not protective enough. Dig it 16 up again." 17 I thought I heard some references to 18 dirt having been taken from the Quintard 19 Mall and put in other residential areas, 20 sold as topsoil I guess. Have you heard 21 anything about that? 22 More than I care to, but, yes. 23 Did that happen? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 184 1 Yes, it did. I don't know if it was 2 sold. I mean, this was done entirely 3 outside of our knowledge. And we found 4 out about it well after the fact, when 5 somebody called ADEM and said, "I have 6 dirt from Quintard Mall. Can you come 7 and test it?" They tested it. They 8 found low levels of PCBs and called us 9 at that point, and we became involved. 10 Do you know how many yards, residences Page 163 HARTOLDMON0032395 11 12 A. 13 14 Q. 15 16 17 18 A. 19 Q. 20 21 22 23 A. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. we are talking about? Twenty-seven -- either twenty-seven or twenty-eight. And could I be pretty confident in assuming that if there were more you would know about it, that you are kind of very much in the loop on this? Yes. And these twenty-seven or twenty-eight properties, if -- were they pretty scattered or pretty centralized around the Quintard Mall? They are pretty scattered. They go as REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 185 1 2 Q. 3 4 5 A. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 far as Jacksonville. Oh, my. And these are the properties that have all been tested and they have all tested positive for PCB? No. Some of them -- As a matter of fact, I venture to say maybe half of them were tested as being non-detect. There was one property that tested higher than twenty-five. There were either two or -- No. I think there were seven properties that tested higher than ten. All the rest of them were below ten parts per million. And of all of the rest, some significant portion of Page 164 HARTOLDMON0032396 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 15 those were non-detects. We have issued 16 a report. There is a report that has 17 been submitted to ADEM on the results of 18 the testing. 19 So to your knowledge has any remediation 20 occurred on any of these properties? 21 Yes. On several of them -- and I can't 22 remember how many several is. We are 23 preparing a report on that now. Soil REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 186 1 was removed from a number of them, 2 including some of the properties that 3 were tested -- where PCBs were not 4 detected in the piles. The owners 5 basically said, "Look, I don't care if 6 you found PCBs or not. I don't want the 7 dirt on my property." And we didn't 8 argue. We sent one of our contractors, 9 and we picked up the dirt. 10 Did you have a particular contractor 11 that was involved in that work? 12 Yeah. All of that was done by a small 13 contractor we use at the plant for 14 incidental work called Hall Excavating. 15 And any idea how much dirt we're talking 16 about that you all picked up so far from 17 these various sites? Page 165 HARTOLDMON0032397 18 A. 19 20 21 22 23 Q. ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. No. I mean, it has been probably a couple of hundred cubic yards, would be my guess, at least one roll-off, two roll-offs gone to the landfill. That would be at least a hundred yards. Do you know what you have spent so far REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 187 1 2 A. 3 Q. 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 A. 14 15 16 17 Q. 18 19 20 21 on this? No, I don't. Who is footing that bill? Solutia is. And I take it, then, in those residential properties there is not a debate about whether or not there needs to be action or whether there should be some kind of interim action or not. if that contaminated dirt is there, y'all are just coming and getting it if the people want it gone? if the people request it be removed, yes. In this particular instance we have gone along with that and have removed it. I said I was going to finish with that, but I recall that I brought this document which I'm going to label for purposes of identification as Exhibit Two to your deposition. Take a look at Page 166 HARTOLDMON0032398 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 that, please. Have you seen this 23 document? This is an excerpt. This is REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 188 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Q. 13 14 A. 15 Q. 16 17 18 19 20 A. 21 Q. 22 23 A. not -(Plaintiffs' Exhibit Number Two was marked for identification.) MR. COX: I object to the extent it is not complete. MR. CUNNINGHAM: I knew he would almost have it memorized so it wouldn't be necessary to bring the whole thing. MR. COX: Not yet. You have reviewed this document before, I presume? Yes. And it is my understanding from reading it that these folks came down and talked to various people prior to preparing this report. Were you perhaps one of the people they talked to? Yes. Do you remember a name of a particular person or persons that you spoke to? No, I don't. They were both employees Page 167 HARTOLDMON0032399 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 189 1 of Lockheed Martin as I recall. They 2 were contractors to U.S. EPA. There 3 were two of them that I spoke to. There 4 may have been others that came and met 5 with other people. There were just the 6 two that I talked to. One was called 7 Cavy, C-a-v-y, Chiu, C-h-i-u. I don't 8 recall the other person's name. 9 What if anything do you recall about the 10 substance of that conversation? 11 The bulk of it was they wanted 12 information as to what we had done on 13 the south landfill in terms of storm 14 water control, the work we had done 15 there, the cover, the caps and covers 16 that we had built. I mean, that was 17 really the bulk of the conversation. We 18 talked a little bit about some of the 19 sampling we had done on the plant site 20 during the on-site RFI. We gave them - 21 There was a supplemental work plan that 22 we prepared for additional sampling that 23 they were not aware of. We provided REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 190 Page 168 HARTOLDMON0032400 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 that to them. I think that was the bulk 2 of the conversation. 3 I want to ask you about some of their 4 recommendations just to determine if any 5 action is being planned in light 6 thereof. One of those was stated that 7 -- and this isn't necessarily the 8 recommendation. It might be better 9 characterized as a conclusion. That 10 considering the volume of PCB waste 11 disposed of at the south landfill and 12 west landfill as well as the operation 13 duration of the two landfills, the 14 amount of analytical data on PCB 15 contamination in soil, groundwater, 16 surface water, and sediment and air for 17 the Solutia property appears to be 18 somewhat limited. 19 Have you made any recommendations 20 to your client about gathering 21 additional data to address what they 22 perceive to be a limited amount of data? 23 No, because I don't agree with them. I REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 191 1 mean, as they point out in the report, 2 we only started doing PCB analyses in 3 1997. That is when the new RCRA permit Page 169 HARTOLDMON0032401 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 was issued to the facility. And since 5 then we have been collecting and 6 analyzing media samples, certainly 7 groundwater samples on a semiannual 8 basis. 9 I'm not sure what more frequent 10 sampling would suggest because 11 groundwater, if you are talking about 12 groundwater, it moves so slowly that 13 more frequent sampling -- it is just 14 going to be another of the same number. 15 In terms of surface water sampling, we 16 do that quarterly as part of our NPDES 17 permit. 18 Are you finding any PCB coming off the 19 landfills or the site? 20 Coming off the landfills, no. We have 21 tested water coming out of the lower 22 detention basin, which is where the 23 storm water off the south landfill goes. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 192 1 We have tested that particular effluent 2 stream on more than one occasion, and 3 every time it has been non-detect. 4 We recently -- recently being I 5 think two quarters ago, the first 6 quarter of this year, April, March or 7 April, somewhere in there. In that Page 170 HARTOLDMON0032402 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 sample, we detected very low levels of 9 PCBs, two parts per billion I think, in 10 the storm water effluent off the plant 11 site itself. And we can discriminate 12 the effluents because the way the system 13 has been designed is that each one is 14 contained in a separate pipe. So we 15 know where the water is coming from. 16 That water from that pipe is coming from 17 there. 18 Go ahead. 19 We detected those, as I said, a very low 20 level in the water. And we implemented 21 a program of going upstream to see if we 22 could identify the source of that. What 23 we found was that there were some REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 193 1 residual materials on the outside walls 2 of a warehouse in the plant which tested 3 -- We took samples and it contained high 4 concentrations of PCBs. 5 We submitted a work plan to ADEM 6 to characterize that warehouse. We have 7 done that. We have submitted the 8 results of the characterization and 9 submitted an interim measures plan 10 proposing to implement those measures Page 171 HARTOLDMON0032403 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 now. As a matter of fact, we haven't 12 heard back from ADEM. But we have 13 received bids from a contractor or 14 contractors last Friday. 15 When I got to take a plant tour several 16 years ago, I only recall one warehouse 17 kind of in the middle of everything. Is 18 that - 19 No. There are two warehouses. There is 20 one warehouse adjacent to the plant 21 gate, not the main -- You know, you come 22 in off the road to the administration 23 building, and then there is a gate, a REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 194 1 fence and a gate, which is accessing 2 into the plant. As soon as you go 3 through that gate, there is a warehouse 4 off to your right, which would be the 5 south side of the access road -- north 6 side. Sorry. It is sort of a tin 7 siding and roofing. That's the 8 warehouse I'm referring to. 9 Okay. The next statement that is made 10 in here is that analytical data shows 11 that PCB-contaminated soil remains in 12 the manufacturing facility. Do you 13 agree or disagree with that statement? 14 Yes, it does. But it is covered by one Page 172 HARTOLDMON0032404 15 16 Q. 17 18 19 20 A. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. type of cover or another. And they recommend that the extent of that contamination should be investigated one way or another. Do you disagree with that conclusion? Yes, by and large, because as I say, we have a cover of one kind or another. It is concrete, asphalt, gravel, or it is a thick root mat. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 195 1 Q2 A. 3 4 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Okay. So I mean, I'm not sure why I need to go defining the extent any more if I have it under cover. All right. They talk also about some cells in the former catchment basins in the south landfill should be covered with a composite geosynthetic cap or diligently maintain the existing cover. Would you agree with that? Yeah. We diligently -- The option being to either put a new cover on or maintain it. We have -- We have an operation maintenance plan which has been approved whereby we, you know, maintain the landfill cover on the cells. So we are comfortable that the cover is in good Page 173 HARTOLDMON0032405 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 shape. And if in fact it becomes 19 eroded, we would identify the erosion 20 fairly early. 21 It says it may be prudent to collect a 22 representative number of samples from 23 the uppermost soil of the cap to ensure REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 196 1 the absence of PCBs. It seems to me 2 that is one of the things you looked at 3 before today, looked at data in that 4 regard. Do you know if that has been 5 looked as since the data you talked 6 about? 7 No, it hasn't. 8 Do you - 9 MR. COX: Now, I think that is the 10 recommendation to vary the 11 source of the borrow 12 material. 13 THE WITNESS: Yeah. They are 14 talking about doing it on the 15 new cover. 16 Right, the new cover. And I'm saying I 17 think that may postdate some of these 18 numbers -- some of the data you were 19 looking at. 20 Certainly. The data I was looking at 21 was prior to the construction of the new Page 174 HARTOLDMON0032406 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 cover. 23 Do you envision going out and doing the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 197 1 kind of sampling they recommend to see 2 if there is PCB in that cap? 3 Again, I don't see the need for it. The 4 borrow materials came -- the borrow 5 materials in those landfills came from a 6 forty-foot deep pit, which was excavated 7 on soil that was never a part of the 8 manufacturing process, never anything 9 built on that area, if you go back and 10 look at the historical aerial 11 photographs, it was always heavily 12 forested and treed. So to the extent 13 there may have been PCBs, they would 14 have been near surface PCBs, and those 15 soils were, you know, stripped and 16 removed. The soils that we used, as I 17 say, in the cover came from forty feet 18 deep. 19 Okay. 20 And they are natural -- It is forty feet 21 deep natural soils, not fill. We didn't 22 find any foundry sands there. 23 With all due respect, I'm guessing that Page 175 HARTOLDMON0032407 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 198 1 2 3 4 A. 5 Q. 6 7 8 9 10 A. 11 12 13 Q. 14 15 16 17 A. 18 Q. 19 20 21 22 23 a year ago you wouldn't have envisioned a need to clean up the side of the warehouse either. That's true. It says the vertical extent of PCB contamination of the area adjacent to the west end land fill requires delineation. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? I disagree because I don't see what purpose it would serve to develop that information. In other words, as far as you are concerned, whatever may be there, it ain't going anywhere, so what difference does it make? That's exactly right. if the levels were really high, like - you mentioned finding some stuff by the slip there in Waukegan of basically sixty-four percent PCBs. Have you seen some of the early sampling data from APCO where they found, again, percentage REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 199 Page 176 HARTOLDMON0032408 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 1 PCB hits? 2 Yes, I'm aware of that, 3 if you had levels like that beyond this 4 west end landfill, would that be 5 something that you felt should be dealt 6 with more strenuously than has been done 7 to this point in terms of what is 8 covering it? 9 No, sir, because, again, I look at what 10 the potential exposure routes are. It 11 is behind a fence, and it is on property 12 that is controlled and owned by Solutia. 13 Trespassing, you know, there are no 14 attractive nuisances that would 15 encourage people to climb the fence to 16 get out on the property. So 17 trespassing, to the extent you can 18 control trespassing, is minimum, or the 19 potential for trespassing. And you have 20 at least a foot of clean soil over the 21 top of it. Solutia will not be digging 22 in that area, nor will Solutia permit 23 anybody to dig in that area. So when REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 200 1 you talk about risk, to have a completed 2 pathway -- to have completed exposure, 3 you to have a pathway, and that pathway Page 177 HARTOLDMON0032409 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. isn't there. Okay. The last sentence in that paragraph reads sediments in the drainage ditches, the sediment pond, and silt-fenced areas in the west end landfill should also be collected and analyzed for PCBs. My sense there is we are talking about more surficial soils, and therefore a completed pathway is more envisioned or hypothesized. So would you agree with that statement? I'm not sure what they are talking about when they say the silt-fenced area of the west end landfill. I mean, I read it, but I don't know what they are talking about. All right. In the sedimentation pond itself, there is always water in the pond. Well, there is always some water, but REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 201 that level fluctuates, does it not? Yes, it does. But the sediments in the pond, at least the area where the fine sediments settle out, pretty much is always covered with water. It has been for the past couple of years. And the reason -- we basically manage the pond Page 178 8 9 10 Q. 11 A. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Q. 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. to maintain water in it as a wildlife habitat. Okay. Now, the drainage ditch along 202, there has been sediment that has collected in there since we constructed it. I don't know how -- the sediment that has collected in the bottom, I don't know how far it goes back. I know we have removed sediments from the bottom of that ditch probably three or four times since we have -- since we lined the ditch. So the sediment has been removed. You are talking about what collects on top of the concrete? REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 202 1 A. 2 Q. 3 A. 4 5 Q. 6 7 A. 8 Q. 9 A. 10 Q. Yeah. We have removed that. What was the PCB content? We didn't test it. We just disposed of it in a landfill. When we tested it, it tested positive for PCBs. Like I said, we just sent it - Just assumed it did? Yes. Okay. Do you envision -- So you are not Page 179 HARTOLDMON0032411 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 11 going to test it because you are always 12 going to take it to a landfill? 13 Yeah, clean it and send it. Now, I 14 won't say always. We did that because 15 at the time that -- you know, the time 16 the sediment was collecting -- Very 17 little sediment collects now. The time 18 of the sedimentation was fairly soon 19 after construction. 20 Now that we have a very healthy 21 vegetative cover on the landfill and the 22 areas around the landfill, to the extent 23 sediment is collecting now, I would REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 203 1 advocate they test it rather than make 2 the decision to send it to a landfill, 3 because I believe enough time has gone 4 by that the vegetative cover we have has 5 stabilized it to the extent that I don't 6 think that sediment is going to test 7 positive. I mean, that is an opinion. 8 I -- You know, we may test it and may 9 find PCBs. 10 And the fact that there is sediment 11 there suggests that the vegetative cover 12 -- to the extent that sediment came from 13 the cap area, that there is some erosion 14 going on? Page 180 HARTOLDMON0032412 15 A. 16 17 Q. 18 A. 19 20 Q. 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. Yeah. But as I say again, there is very little. It is getting less and less? Yeah. (A break was taken.) Coming down in the next paragraph, PCB contamination has been found in two wells located on the buy-out property across the railroad tracks from the REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 204 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Q. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 A. 16 17 manufacturing facility. Is that consistent with your interpretation of the data? MR. COX: He skipped the part about groundwater not being a major pathway. Certainly compared to the amount of PCB being spread from other pathways, it is comparatively trivial. But if you are drinking it, I don't think it is trivial, but I don't think anybody is. But does that statement that they say -- is that consistent with your interpretation of the data? PCBs have been detected in samples from those two wells. Looking at the filtered data, again, I don't believe it Page 181 HARTOLDMON0032413 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 18 is in the aqueous phase. 19 You think it is PCBs attached to some 20 parti cles? 21 Yes. 22 And while groundwater tends to be fairly 23 clean of sediment, it does typically, if REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 205 1 it is in soil, it is going to contain 2 some? 3 Absolutely. In particular at this site 4 what we have noticed is the wells - 5 these wells have been in for quite some 6 time. The wells have been in the ground 7 for quite a while. The screens, there 8 has been some deterioration in the 9 screens. The sand packs around the 10 screens have become dirty, all of which 11 you would expect with old wells. The 12 inside of the well casing, you know, has 13 its own coating of fine stuff that has 14 sort of settled out of the groundwater, 15 the standing column, and adhered to the 16 side of the casing in the wells. 17 All of that makes it very 18 difficult to get low turbidity samples 19 at this site. 20 The next paragraph, a little past 21 halfway down, there is a statement that Page 182 HARTOLDMON0032414 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 22 the air pathway remains a major concern. 23 PCB-contaminated particulates can become REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 206 1 airborne easily, and the nearby 2 residents can be exposed to 3 PCB-entrained particulates through 4 inhalation. Again, do you concur or 5 disagree with their conclusion that the 6 air pathway remains a major concern? 7 I disagree, because the monitoring 8 results we have, you know, based on all 9 the data that I seen, like we talked 10 about earlier, tells me that no, that is 11 not a major concern. 12 Okay. And later it that paragraph it 13 says recent photograph documentation 14 shows that some areas near the Solutia 15 property are still subject to flooding. 16 Have you seen such photographic 17 documentation? 18 No, I haven't. When I read the full 19 report, I starred that statement because 20 I haven't seen any significant flooding 21 in the area. That doesn't mean it 22 doesn't happen. 23 The next paragraph indicates that to Page 183 HARTOLDMON0032415 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 207 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A. 9 Q. 10 11 A. 12 Q. 13 14 15 16 17 A. 18 19 20 21 22 23 Q. determine if PCBs are released to the air from the Solutia property, it will be necessary to conduct high volume ambient air sampling at the two landfills and at the manufacturing facility. Is Solutia still conducting high volume air sampling? Yes, they are. Have you changed your regime in any way since this report came out? No. And if I understand correctly, you all are still debating with ADEM exactly what the final protocol will be for trying to get a handle on where this elevated PCB in air is coming from? That's correct. At this point we had a meeting fairly recently with ADEM, and where we're at is we undertook to submit a work plan to them outlining steps that we propose or basically the scope of the investigation that we propose. Okay. So you all are working up this REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 208 Page 184 HARTOLDMON0032416 1 2 A. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. revised proposal? That's correct. MR. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. That's all I have. (The deposition concluded at 5:40 p.m.) REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 209 1 I do hereby certify that the witness 2 whose attached deposition was taken before me 3 was by me first duly cautioned and sworn to Page 185 HARTOLDMON0032417 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 4 tell nothing but the truth in the cause 5 aforesaid; that the testimony contained herein 6 was by me reduced to writing in the presence 7 of said witnesses by means of stenography and 8 afterwards transcribed by means of computer 9 aided transcription. The foregoing is a true 10 and accurate transcript of the whole of the 11 testimony given by said witness, as aforesaid. 12 I do further certify that I am not 13 connected by blood or marriage with any of the 14 parties or their attorneys or agents and that 15 I am not an employee of any of them, nor 16 interested in the matter of controversy. 17 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set 18 my hand and affixed my notarial seal at 19 Gadsden, Alabama, County of Etowah, this 20th 20 day of September 2001. 21 Deborah Salers Garrett 22 Certified Shorthand Reporter Registered Professional Reporter 23 Notary Public, Alabama-at-Large My Commission expires: 3-6-05 REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. 210 1 WITNESS' CERTIFICATE 2 I, the undersigned RICHARD S. WILLIAMS, Ph.D., P.E.,, do hereby certify that I have 3 read the foregoing deposition transcript and that to the best of my knowledge said 4 deposition is true and accurate with the exception of the following corrections listed 5 below: 6 Page | Line | Reason for Change or Correction 7 Page 186 HARTOLDMON0032418 ABERNATHY 09-11-2001 Williams, Richard S. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 (DATE) (SIGNATURE) REGIONAL REPORTING SERVICE, INC. Page 187 HARTOLDMON0032419