Phase I Environmental Site Assessment

The Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) has been the cornerstone of the due diligence associated with property acquisition and development. While this process is sometimes treated as a commodity or awarded to the lowest bidder without much forethought, the benefits of having a cost effective, technically accurate, and thorough Phase I ESA cannot be overstated. Missed items in the Phase I ESA can easily create development nightmares, regulatory quagmires, and significant cost increases to acquisitions and developments, virtually eliminating the profit in a project.

A little history…The Phase I ESA was developed primarily to meet the All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) requirements of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the environmental liability defenses available to a purchaser which include: Innocent Landowner, Bona Fide Prospective Purchaser, and Contiguous Property Owner.

However, Watterson understands that the primary reason for completing the Phase I ESA is often to identify business risks associated with the acquisition and/or development of a property. These risks could include costly contaminated soil management, time delays waiting for permits to remove a previously unidentified underground storage tank discovered during the installation of a footing or utility line, or waiting for regulatory closure that could delay breaking ground and missing the target store opening date.

Our approach to Phase I ESAs? We take the proposed use and schedule to develop the property into account. Primarily, these projects are completed following the guidelines of ASTM E 1527-05, which were developed to assist prospective purchasers of property in meeting their AAI requirements. In addition, Watterson incorporates client-specific requirements into the completion of the project. The components of the Phase I ESA generally include:

A records review of the environmental and historical sources for the site and nearby properties.
A reconnaissance to observe conditions at the site and adjoining/nearby properties.
Interviews with the site owner and/or occupants, former owners and/or neighboring property occupants/owners, and local government officials/agencies.
Completion of the Phase I ESA report documenting the findings of the assessment, rendering opinions about the findings, and offering conclusions regarding the potential for environmental concerns that are identified at the site.

If potential environmental concerns are identified in the Phase I ESA, we work with you to identify next steps in the process to evaluate the potential environmental risks associated with the property. Commonly, this includes developing an appropriate, cost effective, level of due diligence for completing a Phase II ESA.

Phase II Environmental Site Assessment

What if the findings of a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) identifies a potential environmental concern at a property? Some examples could include: an underground storage tank (UST), former usage of petroleum and/or hazardous materials, spilling/staining or poor disposal practices, presence of a septic system where materials were being discharged to floor drains, or historic uses of potential environmental concern. So… what now? The answer may be a Phase II ESA.

Environmental consulting, as a whole, sometimes receives a bad reputation for “recommending” Phase II ESAs for everything. Watterson evaluates your goals relative to the potential environmental concerns in order to guide you through the potential next steps, if any concerns are identified during a Phase I ESA. For example, if the potential concerns are off-site, such as at a neighboring gasoline station, or if a client is just looking to lease and the environmental impacts are not within the proposed footprint, the recommendation may be no action. Your risk tolerance and business goals are always incorporated into the decision making process about the need for a Phase II ESA. However, if a Phase II ESA is necessary to fully evaluate the property relative to environmental concerns, Watterson works with you to establish an appropriate scope of work.

The scope of services common to Phase II ESAs includes:

Soil and groundwater sampling. Typically, Watterson recommends the use of direct-push methodology to reduce cost, increase field efficiency, and minimize investigative derived waste. We also recommend soil borings using hollow stem auger methodology and installing groundwater monitoring wells when the site conditions dictate.
If there is a question about the potential presence of an abandoned/former UST at the site, geophysical survey techniques are used to find its location of this feature and guide the appropriate placement of soil borings to evaluate this concern. In addition, if a UST is found to remain at the site, we can develop a scope of work to identify the applicable removal steps.
Select samples are sent to a third party laboratory (state-certified as needed) for analysis. The analytical parameters are determined based on the nature of the potential impacts, as well as the goals of the project.
The report summarizes the work completed, the findings of the field evaluation, and the analytical results are compared to the state-specific standards to assess the levels of contaminants, if any, measured in the soil and/or groundwater at the site.

At the completion of the Phase II ESA, we help guide you through the implications of the findings relative to your goals for the property, as well as any potential regulatory requirements of the findings. Depending on the findings of the Phase II ESA, the results may trigger an obligation to report the findings to the appropriate state agency and/or additional site characterization may be warranted. The site characterization can include groundwater evaluation (flow velocity/direction), risk assessment and remedial alternative determination. In addition, the site characterization can be driven by a client’s risk tolerance and/or development needs, or can be performed in response to regulatory obligations.

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