Establishing the Chemical Footprint of Potential Injury from Petroleum Product Releases at Fuel Terminals

Abstract

ABSTRACT Owners and operators of waterfront fuel terminals can be liable for natural resource damages (NRD) caused by releases from their facilities. While NRD assessments typically focus on measuring exposure and predicting injury, there is often insufficient consideration of two key issues: 1) adequate and specific consideration of the chemical background, and 2) establishing the release(s) footprint through linking sediment chemistry to the particular release(s). Recent changes in the legal framework used to assign and apportion remedial and NRD liability further increase the need to quantify a facility's contribution to environmental harm. The goal of this paper is to discuss the changing legal framework and present a multiple lines of evidence approach both for characterizing the chemical conditions that would be expected in the absence of a release, and for identifying a facility-specific chemical footprint related to possible natural resource damages. Critical components include a thorough understa...