Contamination Cleanup

Regarding “Sites Unseen” by Diane Wedner, June 25: It may be of interest to you and your readers to know that the state of California has established the Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund, which pays for investigations and cleanup of petroleum-contaminated sites such as the one you described. Furthermore, the State Fund gives residential properties the highest priority.

One troubling aspect of our business is that there are too many shoddy contractors with only minimal qualifications, inadequate professional experience and insufficient environmental insurance to handle cleanup projects. To avoid the kinds of liabilities associated with such contractors, property owners should demand that the environmental assessors and contractors they deal with are registered with the state, have professional civil engineers and/or geologists on staff, and maintain at least $1 million in environmental professional and contractors’ legal liability insurance.

ULF M. LINDMARK

Long Beach

The writer is a registered civil engineer, registered environmental assessor, certified hazardous materials manager and licensed general engineering contractor--Class A & HAZ (hazardous substance removal).

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