Expert Witness Support – Evaluation of Air-borne Manganese Deposition on Surficial Soils in the Vicinity of a Steel Mill

Expert Witness Support – Evaluation of Air-borne Manganese Deposition on Surficial Soils in the Vicinity of a Steel Mill

Challenges:

A citizen’s group (Plaintiffs) living in the vicinity of a steel mill (Defendant) filed a lawsuit seeking damages for the alleged diminution of property values due to air-borne deposition of manganese onto their properties. It was alleged that the concentration of manganese in surface soils was well above published background concentrations, which would result in a loss of property values for the Plaintiffs. Because of Cox-Colvin’s recognized expertise in the evaluation of background metals concentration in soils, the Defendant retained the firm to prepare an expert report and testimony on the situation.

Solutions:

Cox-Colvin used GIS/database applications to complete a spatial and statistical evaluation of the Plaintiff’s dataset against the published state dataset and found that there was no significant difference in manganese concentrations as alleged. Following the submission of the expert report and testimony, the Plaintiffs withdrew the lawsuit.