[CPEO-BIF] Reporting Phase 1 and Phase 2 Environmental Site Assessments

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

One of the most valuable elements of an improved disclosure model for 
site contamination would be to make Phase 1 and Phase 2 Environmental 
Site Assessments, conducted most often in support of potential property 
transactions, available to the public.

Critics of this suggest say that this requirement would kill deals. For 
example, they say that early notice of buyer/developer intentions would 
make it much more costly to aggregate property.

Could this conflict be resolved by allowing a delay in the reporting of 
the site assessments? If the deal is consummated or a specified period 
of time expires, then the reporting would be required. It seems that 
such in approach would not only benefit public health and the 
environment, but it the deal falls through, another buyer/developer 
would benefit from - but still have to update - the original studies.

In addition, the requirement for reporting could be supplemented by 
incentives. Those buyers/developers with a strong economic interest in 
delaying reporting would skip the incentives, but those with no reason 
to delay would reap some type of benefit.

A vast amount of information about potential threats to public health 
has been collected in this country, but many of those studies simply 
sit, collecting dust, on a shelf someplace - or consuming memory on 
someone's hard drive. There should be a practical way to make it 
available to the people who might be impacted by the releases of 
hazardous substances documents in such studies.

Lenny

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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