The standards for demonstrating that persons have conducted ôall appropriate inquiryö into environmental conditions before acquiring a property are being revised pursuant to the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2001 (ôBrownfields Lawö). A new rule governing what will be deemed ôall appropriate inquiryö under CERCLA is being promulgated by the US EPA. A draft of that proposed rule was made available to the public by EPA on December 5, 2003. With these new rules, there will be some significant changes in the environmental site assessment process.
This 2-hour online course reviews the current ASTM Standards applicable to Environmental Site Assessments, as well as how Brownfields Law and the proposed EPA standards are increasing the level of education, experience, effort and services that will be required of environmental professionals. Any professional consultant performing environmental site assessments will need to become familiar with the new standards in order to protect themselves and their clients from potential new risks and liabilities.
Relevant sections of the new Brownfields Law and the proposed EPA are set forth at length, together with a discussion of how they may be applied. Commentary and insights of individuals that participated on the committee that drafted the proposed EPA rule are included. The text of this course will be a handy and practical resource reference for those involved in environmental site assessments.
At the completion of this course, you will:
- Understand the important aspects of the new Brownfields Law impacting the performance of an environmental site assessment (ESA) and the standards to be applied by the environmental professionals performing such an ESA.
- Be familiar with many of the details of the new EPA proposed rule with respect to the standards to be applied when conducting an ESA.
- Be better able to provide professional services for project owners desirous of receiving the benefit of the innocent landowner defense under the Superfund Law.
- Understand how the new requirements and implementing policies and procedures to assure compliance with these standards reduces risk of liability and you may benefit from better and less expensive insurance coverage than might otherwise be available.
This course is by J. Kent Holland, Esq. - a nationally known construction lawyer with 25 years experience representing project owners, design firms and contractors, and governmental agencies (including 5 years as an attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). The co-author of the course is Richard Zarandona, Vice President of the Arch Insurance Group, Environmental and Design Professional Liability Unit. He has a Masters Degree in engineering and is a licensed professional engineer in numerous states. Mr. Zarandona has spent more than 25 years working in the environmental and insurance fields. He has provided expert testimony for environmental projects and has managed Phase I and Phase II site assessments, site remediations and numerous Federal and State clean up actions and studies.
Course Level: Fundamental
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