Beacon is poised to provide assistance for your environmental assessment needs. The first question you may ask is why am I being asked to have an assessment done? The most common answer is that you are either buying or refinancing a piece of property and your financial institution is requiring it or your attorney has recommended it. The reason behind this is to provide you and, by extension, your financial institution with liability protections from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, also known as Superfund. By completing a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) and being named as someone who may rely on the information contained in the report, you satisfy the requirements of the USEPA as a bonafide purchaser. This does not relieve you from other potential issues on the property such as petroleum releases, hazardous materials on the property or underground storage tank issues, but it does remove you from the chain of liability if the property were to enter Superfund at a later date.
Beacon, as a service to our customers, includes recommendations, not a requirement according to USEPA, in our Phase I ESAs which can assist you with making an informed decision as to whether the risks associated with a given property are worth purchasing the property, or if further investigation (Phase II ESA) could provide insight as to whether the risks are real or not.
As with all of the work Beacon performs for our clients, we are here to answer your questions foremost before any work commences. Our policy is to provide quality work at an economical price but keeping in mind that each client is different and may have a different level of understanding of the world of environmental risks and regulations. Never feel discouraged from calling us with any question, we have probably heard the question before and if not we will get you an answer as quickly as we can. Remember, without you as clients, we are nothing.