Dirty Property

I got an email today from the EPA and I think it is just funny. Apparently the EPA is suing the parent company of clothing company “The North Face”. I have done quite a bit of outdoor stuff including rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking and the like and I think that most of the “Outdoor [...]

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I have been asked to review a number of properties that are essentially raw land that has been graded and prepared for the development of tract homes. This has been going on essentially since November and December of 2008 when I posted the article about DR Horton selling off a number of their properties a [...]

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As many of you may already know, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) publishes standards for everything from Eye Protectors for Field Hockey (F2713-09) to the test method for kinematic viscosity of transparent and opaque liquids (and calculation of dynamic viscosity) (D445-06). One of the many various ASTM standards that I work with [...]

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As I have previously stated on this blog, I graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a Soil Science degree and Environmental Management concentration. One of my friends from those days is Pablo Paster; I knew that he was studying engineering and was interested in the environmental field, but most of our conversations focused [...]

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The Underground Storage Tank (UST) Orphan Site Cleanup Fund Program (OSCF) administered by the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) through the federal stimulus program, the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (The Stimulus Package) is now accepting applications from eligible applicants that meet established requirements and are ready to move forward with cleanup activities. The [...]

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I get questions quite often about dry cleaners because I do so much work at shopping centers that contain dry cleaners.  Despite the name, traditional dry cleaning operations do, in fact, use a liquid in the cleaning process.  Most dry cleaning businesses use tetrachloroethelene (PCE).  Historically, other chlorinated solvents were used including Stoddard solvent and [...]

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The U.S. House of Representative’s version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the economic stimulus plan includes A number of programs directed toward the redevelopment of Brownfield sites.  The specific direction of these funds includes: • Superfund Hazardous Waste Cleanup: $800 million to clean up hazardous and toxic waste [...]

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The UCLA Anderson School of Business released it’s Commercial Real Estate forecast last week and the news is not very optimistic, but I suspect it is realistic.  Essentially, the report states that the markets are likely to adjust in 2010, but until that point, things will continue to be depressed. Allen Matkins/UCLA Anderson Forecast California [...]

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It appears as though Tesla Motors will be shopping for a brownfield site with an existing building for thier new Model S sedan plant.  The electric automaker had formerly planned to use a vacant property in Silicon Valley for the plant, but with the cost of construction rising, the demand for vehicles falling, and the [...]

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A few months ago I got the chance to facilitate two of the transactions described in the attached article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.  The environmental due diligence on raw land in outlying areas is a bit more straightforward process than, say an urban shopping center with a service station and dry cleaner, but is [...]

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