Category Archives: Environmental Site Assessment

Could PCBs in Caulk be a REC?

The abbreviation REC is short for “recognized environmental condition”; a term defined in the ASTM standard for conducting Phase I environmental site assessments.  The ASTM standard is the generally accepted method for identifying environmental risk from releases of hazardous materials … Continue reading

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MassDEP and Perc: Unhappy Ending?

In March, we ran two posts about the USEPA’s revised analysis on the toxicity of perchloroethylene (aka “perc or PCE”).  Coming up with reliable toxicity information and numerical toxicity values for PCE is something the agency has struggled with for … Continue reading

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Phase I Environmental Site Assessments – Something Missing?

Over the past 5 years, a remarkable change has taken place in the world of Phase II Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs); vapor intrusion (“VI”) has become the dominant human exposure pathway of concern.  VI is shorthand for a counter-intuitive process … Continue reading

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The Beginning of the End for AULs?

In Springfield earlier this week we had a well attended and interesting breakfast seminar on the recent developments in vapor intrusion (VI).  One topic that received a lot of discussion was the expanded use of Activity and Use Limitations (AULs) … Continue reading

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How Buying Contaminated Property Reduces Environmental Risk

Recently we were discussing a pending real estate purchase with a client who was surprised when we commented that the best way to reduce environmental risk was to purchase a property that was already known to have soil and/or groundwater … Continue reading

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