Phase I & II Environmental Site Assesments

PEC performs Phase I Environmental Site Assessments according to ASTM standard practice E1527-13. The purpose of this practice is to define good commercial and customary practices in the United States of America for conducting an environmental site assessment of a parcel of commercial real estate with respects to petroleum products and the range of contaminants within the scope of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The goal of the process established by this practice is to identify Recognized Environmental Conditions (REC). The term REC means the presence or likely presence of any hazardous substances or petroleum products in, on, or at a property:

1. Due to any release to the environment
2. Under conditions that indicative of a release to the environment
3. Under conditions that pose a material threat of a future release to the environment

This practice is intended to permit a user to satisfy one of the requirements to qualify for the innocent landowner, contiguous property owner, or bona fide prospective purchaser limitations on CERCLA liability. The ASTM E1527-13 standard practice constitutes “all appropriate inquiries” into the previous ownership and uses of the property consistent with good commercial and customary practice.

PEC performs Phase II Environmental Site Assessments according to ASTM standard practice E1903-19. This practice covers a process for conducting a Phase II Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) of a parcel of property with respect to the presence or likely presence of substances including but not limited to those within the scope of CERCLA, pollutants, contaminants, petroleum and petroleum products, and controlled substances. It specifies procedures based on the “scientific method” to characterize property conditions in an objective, representative, reproducible, and defensible manner.

This practice contemplates that users may seek such data to inform their evaluations, conclusions, and choices of action in connection with one or more of the following objectives:

Objective 1 – Assess whether there has been a release of hazardous substances within the meaning of CERCLA, for purposes including landowner liability protections

Objective 2 – Provide information relevant to identifying, defining or implementing landowner “continuing obligations” including taking reasonable steps to prevent or limit exposure to previously released hazardous substances

Objective 3 – Develop threshold knowledge of the presence of substances on properties as required for qualifying for brownfields remediation grants from the EPA Brownsfields Program

Objective 4 – Provide information relevant to target analytics that may pose risk to human health or the environment, or risk of bodily injury to persons on the property and thereby give rise to potential liability

Objective 5 – Provide information relevant to business environment risk in transactional and contractual contexts, including transferring, financing and insuring properties, and related due diligence

Objective 6 – Provide information to support disclosure of liabilities in financial statements and securities reporting