Astm Standards on Environmental Site Assessments for Commercial Real Estate (Environmental Assessment)

After 4 years of work by more than 1,000 real estate professionals, standards E 1527, Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process; and E 1528, Standards Practice for Environmental Site Assessments; Transaction Screen Process have been approved. The purpose of the standards remains the same: "to define good commercial and customary practice in the United States of America for conducting an environmental site assessment (ESA) of a parcel of commercial real estate with respect to the range of contaminants within the scope of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and petroleum products." However, the standards have a stronger emphasis on business environmental risk as a driving force for due diligence in order to reflect the specific business needs and concerns of users. Among the 74 revisions to the standards, major areas of change include: • Additions and deletions in the terminology sections, including the addition of such terms as business environmental risk, activity and use limitations, engineering controls, institutional controls, historical recognized environmental condition, and material threat. • Additions to users' responsibilities, such as the requirement to make known the reason for performing the ESA if other than to qualify for the innocent landowner defense under CERCLA . • The requirement to provide all supporting documentation in the report or have it adequately referenced to facilitate reconstruction of the assessment by another environmental professional • The addition of guidance to assist users in the preparation for and selection of an environmental professional to conduct a Phase I Site Assessment.