FasTracks Expansion Program

Regional Transportation District (RTD) contracted with WSP USA to perform environmental services on the multi-billion-dollar Colorado transportation expansion program.

Client

Regional Transportation District (RTD)

Project Status

2005, Ongoing

WSP was involved in the negotiation, preparation, and implementation of the RTD state-wide Asbestos Contaminated Soil Management Standard Operating Procedure (ACSM SOP). The ACSM SOP was agreed to and signed by both RTD and the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) and was considered a major accomplishment by both parties.

As part of the ACSM SOP implementation, WSP served as the liaison between RTD, CDPHE, local municipalities, RTD subcontractors and local community groups, while ensuring that the complex cost, scheduling, public relations, permitting and regulatory requirements of the project were being met.

WSP has spent years developing environmental management solutions that facilitate construction of the project on time and under budget. We have had a seat at the Project Manager’s table as a variety of contractors encountered contaminated soil, contaminated groundwater, asbestos, hazardous waste, underground storage tanks, dewatering treatment and permitting, land swaps with private and public entities, and materials management.

WSP developed and implemented solutions that avoided construction delays, maintained regulatory compliance and reduced RTD’s overall environmental liability. Our solutions focused on using science as a bridge between construction and risk mitigation, including providing expert testimony in an eminent domain case that allowed RTD to purchase a Superfund site as part of the project, and supported a reduced property price and eliminated any need for remediation prior to construction of a transportation maintenance facility. Our team:

Provided solutions to environmental management such that construction was not inhibited.
Guided a variety of stakeholders and competing interests through a pre-planned and single regulatory agency framework that saved RTD more than $50 million (M) dollars.
Facilitated risk assessments and contamination assessments of more than 100 land parcel swaps between RTD and the City of Denver, City of Lakewood, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, and Union Pacific Railroad.