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Federal Government

Project

Name: Hunter's Point Groundwater Monitoring
Client: U.S. Navy
Location: San Francisco, California

Client Benefits

The joint venture CE2-Kleinfelder provided the Navy with recommendations to reduce or eliminate several unnecessary wells from the program, resulting in a cost savings to the Navy and aided in earlier transfer of land to the city of San Francisco.

Trusted Advisor in the Federal Government

In November 2003, the U.S. Navy retained Kleinfelder as first-tier sub-consultant under a multimedia contract where CDM Federal was prime contractor to implement base-wide groundwater monitoring at the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, California. As the contract came to an end, the Navy desired to keep Kleinfelder as the groundwater experts at Hunter’s Point. Not having a prime contract with the Navy, Kleinfelder’s federal program proposed a mentor-protégé relationship with CE2 Corporation, a firm federally designated as a Section 8(a) Small Business. This relationship would allow the Navy to sole-source the groundwater program and have direct access to Kleinfelder’s groundwater expertise.

The CE2-Kleinfelder team was awarded the contract for continued implementation of the groundwater program at Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard. The program involved quarterly sampling of 235 groundwater wells and collecting water level measurements at 442 groundwater wells. Each sampling event collected nearly 40,000 pieces of data for reporting. Due to the large volume of data, previous contractors experienced a significant percentage of quality control issues. The regulatory community raised concerns over the ability to replicate such a large quantity of data every quarter. Heavy scrutiny was placed on the stability of five water quality parameters that indicated whether or not the collected groundwater was in fact representative of aquifer conditions.

As a result of regulatory agency comments, the Navy requested that CE2-Kleinfelder research and develop a strategy that would best answer the agency’s concerns. After significant research, the team was able to provide the Navy with scientific data showing that samples collected were representative of aquifer conditions and that aquifer conditions were reached by pumping no more than 10 liters and often as little as 2 liters. This data will allow the Navy to continue the groundwater program and not incur additional costs due to over-pumping the aquifers.

In addition, CE2-Kleinfelder provided the Navy with recommendations to reduce or eliminate several unnecessary wells from the program, resulting in a cost savings to the Navy. CE2-Kleinfelder has revised several components of the sampling analysis plan, providing the Navy with more accurate analytical results and giving it the ability to conduct more extensive and accurate feasibility studies that will aid in earlier transfer of land to the city of San Francisco. Finally, CE2-Kleinfelder is in the process of developing a database that will allow faster, more precise and less expensive responses to various data requests by the Navy and regulatory agencies.

Ryan Ahlersmeyer, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, recently commented on the progress of work for this task order stating, “The CE2-Kleinfelder joint venture team is leading the improvements in several key project areas. The schedule for new reports is on track for the first time in several months. Also, the project is benefiting from increased management attention, fresh technical capabilities and new resources. I believe the joint venture will result in higher quality, better relationships with regulators and a better understanding of the site.”

Due to the team’s significant efforts in providing the Navy with high-quality data and Kleinfelder’s extensive knowledge of groundwater conditions at Hunter’s Point, the Navy has instructed each of the other contractors working on site to utilize Kleinfelder’s services when new or replacement groundwater wells must be installed. The Navy intends to broaden Kleinfelder’s scope of services in October 2006 to include the installation of an additional 30 wells and the repair of nearly 250 of the 700 wells on site. To date, Kleinfelder has been awarded over $4 million under five different contracts for a wide variety of groundwater services at Hunter’s Point. The contract was awarded to the joint venture despite the Navy having several other small and large businesses already working at Hunter’s Point that had the ability as well as existing contracts to perform this work. The Navy’s strong desire to maintain Kleinfelder as the groundwater experts at Hunter’s Point demonstrates the firm’s position as trusted advisor to the federal government.