Creek Run has been working on a remediation project in Howard County, Indiana, for the past 22 months, but what makes this project special is that the Creek Run team discovered the environmental concern during a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA).  Creek Run was hired in 2018 to conduct Phase I ESAs on 19 financial institution properties across Indiana.  Multiple recognized environmental concerns (RECs) were revealed for the Howard County site through the Phase I investigation, including the identification of historical underground storage tanks (USTs) at the subject property since the early 1900s.

The next stage of investigation proceeded with a Phase II ESA and Subsurface Soil Investigation (SSI) to determine if and where contamination existed on-site.  To confirm or negate the presence of the USTs on-site, Mr. Ryan Peterson, CHMM and Senior Project Manager of Creek Run conducted a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of the suspected area.  Results from samples collected from the SSI soil borings revealed elevated levels of petroleum contamination, and the GPR survey indicated evidence of at least one buried, abandoned UST.  Based on the investigation results, the client requested Creek Run to proceed with site remediation.

Creek Run filed an application for the Voluntary Remediation Program (VRP) through the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), and the site was accepted into the program in October 2019.  Creek Run completed an excavation of the source area in August 2020 and removed not just one, but four abandoned USTs, as well as approximately 890 tons of contaminated soil.  The USTs and excavated soil were sent to a landfill for proper disposal.