Deborah A. Chiavelli, PhD

Dr. Chiavelli has over twenty years of experience in contaminated site investigation, regulatory support, environmental forensics investigation and litigation support at contaminated sites.

Dr. Chiavelli is an expert in environmental forensics, having led forensic source evaluations of chemical contamination of soil, groundwater, sediment, and vapor throughout the United States and Canada. Her forensic source investigations have supported conceptual site model development, remedial footprint negotiations with regulatory agencies, negotiations among potentially responsible parties, source apportionment and cost allocation, natural resources damages allocation, and litigation. Her expertise includes VOCs, PAHs, petroleum hydrocarbons, PCBs, metals, dioxins/furans, pesticides, chlorinated solvents, and PFAS. She has taught continuing education environmental forensics courses for the Environmental Professionals of Connecticut (EPOC) and the Massachusetts Licensed Site Professionals (MA LSP) programs, with qualifying credit for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York.

Dr. Chiavelli has extensive experience in supporting liability management at complex contaminated sediment sites, including regulatory support, nature and extent, environmental chemistry, environmental forensics, environmental risk assessment, fate and transport, natural resources damages allocation, cleanup liability allocation, and liability litigation.

• Strategic and Technical Support, Industrial Client, Sediment CERCLA Site, New York. Leader of a multi-firm, multi-disciplinary team providing technical and strategic support to limit the client’s long-term liability at a major Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, i.e., Superfund) Sediment Site. Responsibilities include strategic and technical review of work plans, reports, and agency communications; attendance of potentially responsible party (PRP)/regulatory agency meetings; participation in technical work groups; natural resources damages (NRD) support; oversight of remedial cost allocation modeling and nexus report development; and tracking and advising on the interaction of PRPs, citizen groups, and regulatory agencies.

• Remedy Allocation and Natural Resources Damages Allocation, Sediment CERCLA Site, Utility Client. Lead expert for client’s allocation at a large urban river CERCLA site with dozens of PRPs. Developed a sediment remedy allocation for PAHs, PCBs, dioxins/furans, and pesticides for over 20 distinct cleanup areas by linking sediment forensic analysis with three-dimensional contamination delineation and the record of decision (ROD) remedial technology designations to apportion sediment cleanup liability. Authored 13 expert, rebuttal, and surrebuttal reports. Also provided NRD allocation support resulting in a substantial reduction in damages allocation to the client. Designed and managed forensic sampling events and collaborated with engineering teams to ensure upland and sediment sampling programs were consistent with allocation data quality objectives.
• Petroleum and MGP Hydrocarbon Forensics. Provided petroleum hydrocarbon forensics expertise at numerous sites, including former refineries and MGPs, pipeline releases, service stations, and other UST sites. Depending on the site, the work has been applied to support conceptual site model development, responsible party footprint delineation, and contaminant source apportionment and allocation, including mediation and litigation support. Dr. Chiavelli’s practice prioritizes and specializes in using existing site investigation data, designing and overseeing forensic chemistry sampling programs only where the benefits are likely to outweigh the sampling costs. Projects have apportioned petroleum hydrocarbon source impacts to soil, NAPL, and groundwater using fingerprinting analysis and other lines of evidence to distinguish impacts from sources such as gasoline, diesel, heavy oils, crude oil, MGP tar, commercial coal tar products, and creosote.
• PCB Contamination Litigation, Urban Waterway, Industrial Client, Massachusetts. Conducted PCB congener fingerprinting in support of remedial cost recovery litigation. Developed innovative, site-specific forensic diagnostic indicators to separate multiple weathered forms of the client’s released PCBs from numerous other PCB sources. Assisted with expert and rebuttal report preparation, preparation for deposition of experts, and development of trial demonstratives. The jury decision reduced the client’s liability by 15%.
• Remedial Investigation/Fesability Study Strategic and Technical Support, Utility Client, MGP Sediment Site, New York. Project manager and a technical lead for a supplemental remedial investigation and feasibility study in a lake sediment operable unit for a former MGP site in upstate New York. A lead for client and regulatory agency meetings, communications, and negotiations. Developed and managed a sediment quality triad benthic risk assessment, including work plan development, field work management, and benthic risk analysis. Managed remedial investigation report and feasibility study report development.

• Residual Oil Quantification, Urban River Crude Oil Spill, Energy Client, Michigan. Chemical forensic quantification of residual crude oil in 40 miles of river sediments following a major pipeline release. Forensic analysis of PAHs and petroleum biomarkers in thousands of sediment samples, including development of a site-specific, multi-ratio, concentration-based mixing model to distinguish the release from varying background and legacy contamination sources while quantifying weathered residual spill oil mass in sediments. Statistically aggregated results within geomorphological river regions to quantify whole river residual oil mass. In response to this work, the EPA released a revised residual oil estimate 50% lower than their initial estimate.

• Quadrini, J.D., W. Ku, J.P. Connolly, D.A. Chiavelli, and P.H. Israelsson, 2015. “Fingerprinting 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin Contamination Within the Lower Passaic River.” Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 34(7):1485–1498.

• Byard, J.L., S.C. Paulsen, R.S. Tjeerdema, and D. Chiavelli, 2014. “DDT, Chlordane, Toxaphene and PCB Residues in Newport Bay and Watershed: Assessment of Hazard to Wildlife and Human Health.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 235:49–168.

• CIESM 2004. “Executive Summary.” In Novel Chemical Contaminants and Pathogens in Coastal Waters. Editor, N.S. Fisher; Chiavelli one of 13 authors. CIESM Workshop Monograph No. 26, 2004.

• Chiavelli, D.A., K.L. Cottingham, and R.K. Taylor, 2004. “Linking the Ecology, Epidemiology and Pathogenicity of Vibrio cholerae: A Molecular Genetic Approach.” Novel Chemical Contaminants and Pathogens in Coastal Waters. Editor, N.S. Fisher. CIESM Workshop Monograph No. 26.

• Cottingham, K.L., D.A. Chiavelli, and R.K. Taylor, 2003. “Environmental Microbe and Human Pathogen: The Ecology and Microbiology of Vibrio cholerae.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1(2):80–86.

• Threlkeld, S.T., D.A. Chiavelli, and R.L. Willey, 1993. “The Organization of Zooplankton Epibiont Communities.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 8(9): 317-321.

• Chiavelli, D.A., E.L. Mills, and S.T. Threlkeld. 1993. “Host preference, seasonality, and community interactions of zooplankton epibionts.” Limnology and Oceanography 38(3): 574-583.