Guarantees provide clients with certainty of cost and time, substantially reducing risk. That said, it is hard not to roll your eyes when a remediation vendor claims to offer a guarantee. After all, what company would be silly enough to put its money at risk, when soil and groundwater remediation are so inherently difficult? The answer is TRS Group (TRS).
We have such confidence in our robust heating technologies and our employee-owners (TRS is an ESOP), we have offered guarantees on more than 75% of our projects. Further, our guarantees have real teeth, as we put a substantial amount of our money at risk. The constituents of concern (COCs) are usually chlorinated ethenes and gasoline range organics.
Here is how it works. We review the conceptual site model to understand the distribution and concentrations of the COCs, the site stratigraphy, the treatment volume geometry, and the groundwater velocity through the treatment zone. We then discuss with our clients their goals and objectives.
As TRS assumes risk by offering a guarantee, and as risk drives pricing, the cost of our guarantees varies as a function of risk. Typical guarantee premiums are 15 to 30% of the fees due TRS. Variables that affect pricing include:
- Soil goals, groundwater goals, or both
- The specific COCs
- Performance penalties (e.g., liquidated damages if project is not completed by a certain date)
- How you measure remediation success (e.g., every sample must meet the goal, a sample average must meet the goal, 95% upper confidence limit, etc.)
- Retainage percentage to enforce the guarantee
- Scope split (i.e., identifying the party responsible for paying for vapor treatment, confirmatory sampling, and energy)
- Contaminant distribution outside of the treatment volume
- Proximity of the sampling locations to the periphery of the treatment volume
- Groundwater velocity
You may wonder why TRS would not offer guarantees on all projects. Mostly, it is related to the concentration goals for the specific COCs. For example, removing low volatility compounds, such as PCBs or coal tar constituents, to near non-detect levels is not feasible at a reasonable price.
To date, TRS has guaranteed 44 projects. We have met the goals 100% of the time.
Should you desire more detailed information, please contact TRS at info@thermalrs.com.
