AME offers significant advantages to our clients. Our services provide technically superior decisions; safe working environments; and clear, concise communications; which are all critical elements in the successful cost-effective management of environmental projects.

We define our competitive advantage in four components: (1) Environmental Logistics; (2) Technical Expertise; (3) System Design and Optimization; and (4) Negotiation and Litigation Support. As part of a cohesive project management program, these components provide our clients the ability to understand the critical technical, regulatory, and political elements of a project; to conduct field investigations in a timely and safe manner; to maximize the return on characterization and remedial efforts; and ultimately, to enable its project managers to achieve the project goals. The following outlines in more detail our competitive advantage.

AME recognizes that technical expertise is essential to solving difficult environmental problems. Our experience shows that smarter solutions produce cheaper solutions. Specifically, we maintain expertise in areas that historically have produced "uncontrolled costs" in the environmental industry. These include NAPL characterization and remediation, MTBE, chlorinated solvent (PCE, TCE, DCE, and VC) and metals (arsenic and chromium) transport and treatment, and monitoring and sampling programs. Finally, our breadth of expertise enhances our ability to arrive at creative solutions for our clients.

Our NAPL expertise is supported by Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, a leading expert in the field who has published numerous technical articles related to NAPL, many of which have been coauthored by clients' staff. These technical papers address important issues, including: representative LNAPL thickness, NAPL mobility, NAPL recoverability, characterization of soil properties and capillary pressure conditions, and NAPL dissolution. In these publications, Dr. Johnson was a technical lead in the development of the API Interactive LNAPL Guide, which was spearheaded by one of our major clients. Through this technical capability, we provide expertise in the characterization and remediation of NAPL, assessment of NAPL mobility, movement and retention of NAPL within the vadose and saturated zone, mass transfer to the aqueous and vapor phases from an NAPL source, and effective solubility and mass flux calculations of dissolved impacts from NAPL.

Although MTBE is currently being phased out, this highly soluble and recalcitrant compound continues to produce regulatory concerns and third-party impacts. Our staff has considerable experience in MTBE dissolution, transport, and fate, and has applied this knowledge on various projects, including several high-profile sites. At these sites, we conducted transport modeling to evaluate past, current, and future impacts at a well field. From these analyses, we determined the mass discharge through time and accurately predicted the distribution of dissolved MTBE in the aquifer. We are involved in a study of monitored natural attenuation to characterize the potential degradation of MTBE to TBA in the saturated zone. In addition, we are evaluating the potential influence of ethanol on the production of TBA in the vadose zone.Our knowledge of MTBE transport and degradation gives us full capability to design MTBE treatment systems. We have extensive experience in the design of Activated Carbon and UV/Peroxide treatments.

Inefficiencies in monitoring programs result in significant long term costs and produce increased worker exposure to risk. Specifically, inefficient monitoring plans drive increased costs due to unnecessary chemical analyses, the production of unwarranted waste, and excessive labor and materials. We have recognized this problem and implemented monitoring program optimization at a client's facility. Led by Dr. Meng Ling, an expert in monitoring program optimization, the optimization consists of three phases: (1) a site and historical evaluation; (2) a statistical monitoring assessment; and (3) a summary evaluation. The site and historical evaluation utilizes visual imagery and concentration trend analysis to delineate low-value monitoring wells. Subsequent statistical analyses utilizing innovative methods developed by Dr. Ling quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of each monitoring well and its respective sampling frequency. These results are then evaluated against regulatory and technical requirements at the site to produce the new optimized monitoring program. Substantial benefits are achieved by monitoring program optimization; these include cost savings, increased safety, and reduced site disruption. Since the evaluation program optimizes both the number of monitoring wells and the frequency of sampling, the results are both immediate and long-term. These analyses have been supported by the U.S. EPA and other regulatory agencies throughout the country, and have been published in various technical journals.

Our professionals have broad experience solving many types of problems for diverse clients. This range of expertise enhances our abilities to tackle unusual problems and apply creative solutions to achieve project goals. In addition to retail gasoline stations, distribution terminals, and refineries, our experience includes marinas, truck fueling facilities, exploration drilling sites, quarries, chemical plants, paper manufacturing facilities, lumber and plywood mills, ordnance facilities, municipal solid waste landfills, and hazardous waste landfills. Implementation of these projects has provided us with knowledge of a wide variety of methods and technologies, including: geophysical well logging, surface geophysical surveys, large-scale soil vapor surveys, and numerous means of invasive subsurface characterization and sampling.

AME's engineers have considerable knowledge of remedial system design and optimization. We have successfully applied our experience at numerous sites in addition to other facility locations. Our staff specializes in the design of air sparging and soil vapor extraction systems, ozone injection systems, air stripping systems for both remedial and drinking water applications, activated carbon for both ground water and vapor treatment in remediation and drinking water treatment applications, resin treatment systems, reinjection systems, and in-situ chemical oxidation. Our office and field staff have extensive experience preparing detailed equipment specifications and installing, operating, maintaining, and troubleshooting remediation equipment. We have operated and maintained a variety of equipment, including: thermal oxidizers, catalytic oxidizers, water pumps, product pumps (including viscous residual oils), blowers, vacuum pumps, ozone injection equipment, vapor phase carbon, liquid phase carbon, and air stripping columns. We have achieved significant run times, providing our client the benefits for which the systems were designed. On numerous occasions we have acquired sites with poorly performing remedial systems, identified shortcomings, upgraded the systems, and improved the overall performance.

Our remediation system design and operation experience spans a range of project sizes. At the site of two former terminals in California, we performed pilot testing, prepared the RAP, and completed the design and installation of a soil vapor and ground water remediation system. The site covers 23-acres and is presently an active intermodal cargo container shipping terminal. The remedial construction included installation of 92 vapor extraction and 269 air sparging wells, with approximately 39,000 feet of underground piping installed within approximately 18,000 feet of trenching to connect the remedial wells to aboveground vapor extraction and air sparging equipment. The aboveground equipment, installed in two enclosures at different locations, includes three 500-scfm thermal/catalytic oxidizers and 17 air sparging blowers. To date, over 500,000 pounds of combined methane and gasoline hydrocarbons have been removed.

AME's professionals have extensive experience in regulatory and third-party negotiations and have provided expert witness litigation support to various clients in state and federal court. Technical issues have included impacts to soil and ground water resulting from the presence of hydrocarbon and chlorinated organic constituents. Our staff has supported clients at hearings and negotiations before regulatory agencies throughout the United States, including: the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the environmental regulatory agencies of California, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming. Furthermore, we have been involved in various third-party negotiations and multi-party settlements.

In our negotiations and litigation support, we have successfully employed visual imagery to communicate highly technical information to non-technical managers and lawyers. Advanced visual technology is a differentiating service to our clients that can only be measured by our high rate of success.