AboutDavid L. Russell, PE Expertise I`m a Chemical,Civil and Environmental Engineer and have a number of projects in all phases of the environment.
I have worked in the chemical industry and am active in professional societies, and am currently on an industrial wastes committee for the Water Environment Federation, and have taught courses in remediation in the US and abroad.
I have written one book on Remediation of petroleum Contaminated Sites, and have a second book on PRACTICAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT to be published by John Wiley in September, 2006. I've also written over 30 articles on various elements of environmental problems and cleanup. Most Recently, I have addressed a NATO Scientific and Techical Conference on Ecoterrorism, and have worked with the same group on remediation of sites contaminated with Chemical Warfare Agent materials and othe materials as well. . I can answer q`s about Chemical and Environmental Engineering, land development, air pollution, water pollution, soil and water cleanup, combustion, international environmental problems, industrial processes chemical processes. Civil and Environmental and Chemical Engineering. Overall, I have over 35 years of experience in this area. Note: I do not answer homework questions
Experience I love work in the third world and developing areas
because it is challenging and one can get a sense of accomplishment.
Question I see that you are recommending Soil Pacific to people for their Soil concerns or needs. I think you should check out Dr.Yones Kabir and his engineering staff first. I am a previous customer of Soil Pacific. They did a very expensive soil report for me and it was sealed and blessed by an engineer who neither worked for soil Pacific or had knowledge of the project. Seems that there are 4 other homes on my street with perhaps the same cut and paste soils report. Now that we have slope failure and our home is destroyed due to a phoney report. Dr. Yones Kabir is now found according to his attorney to operate without insurance or engineers with proper licensing. Just thought you would want to know. One good thing that should come from my family's heartache is to have the chance to save another from the same.
Answer Debra:
I did some checking on my answer in response to your question. In March of 2006, I did recommend Soil Pacific for the purpose of answering a question about strange odors in the soil. At the time, and from the context of the question, it is clear (at least to me) that I was under the mistaken impression that Soil Pacific was the name of the local "Soil Conservation Service" laboratory. In that context of investigation of an odor the recommendation was made and it did not endorse them for any other purpose than odor investigation. In fact the recommendation was in the context of the odor investigation. I'm pasting my old answer in her for context
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I'm afraid I don't have even a clue of what a meth lab smells like, guess that I live too clean a life. Some times the odor can be natural. I really have no idea as to the cause, but you might want to try liming the soil and see if that changes anything.
I would tend to discount oil wells because the oil is relatively deep and would not make it to the surface.
About the best that I can offer is to suggest that you take some of your soil and send it off to the US Soil Conservation Service laboratory. They have a service where they will analyze your soils for agricultural purposes for about $10 per sample and recommend fertilizer application to bring it up to whatever levels are required for the plants growing there. There is a county agricultural agent in each county of the US who is charged with helping people grow the best or right crops for their soils. You might want to call him or her.
The local number is:
Soil Pacific Inc
675 N Eckhoff St # A, Orange, CA
(714) 978-1716
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In my more recent answer, I claimed that I had never heard of Soil Pacific, and that's untrue. I did recommend them but only in the context above - for assistance in investigation of an odor- but the real recommendation was to contact the SCS office, which I mistakenly though had the name, "Soil Pacific". At the time, I was attempting to help out an individual with a problem in one specific area and provided the phone number as a courtesy and not a recommendation.
The balance of my advice below stands.
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I can tell you that for a specific situation, some engineers will cut corners, especially where geology is concerned, but I'm not one of them. As far as your case, you might contact an attorney and investigate the engineer's and Soil Pacific's Lilability Insurance. Most if not all companies carry that, and they might have $2,000,000 or more in insurance. The difficulty will be in proving that the engineer missed something with regard to the soil conditions and that he/she should have known better. That type of lawsuit is expensive, but may be worth it in your case.
If you feel that there is a significant failure in the Engineer's work or that his work was either unprofessional or substandard, you can complain to the California Engineer's Board, and ask them to start an inquiry. They could review your case and make a technical determination as to the Engineer's behavior and then, if the case is serious enough, issue sanctions.
Sorry I can't help. And if you can identify the right engineer, you should write to them.
Hope that helps. Sorry for your misfortune.
Dave Russell
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And thank you for contacting me. Sorry my initial answer was incorrect, but I just couldn't recall the name.
