No Unanimity As To What New ASTM E1527-13 Standard Requires

Some environmental practitioners contend that Phase I site assessments, commonly used in real estate transactions, will now be more costly and time consuming due to the new standard. Seyfarth Shaw counsels in its Client Alert that the new standard requires that, “if the subject property has soil contamination or is underlain by groundwater contamination, unless the risk of vapor intrusion can be screened out, Phase II sampling likely will be necessary.”

But is that really the case? In his article titled, “Confusion on Role of VI in New ASTM E1527-13 Standard,” environmental guru, Larry Schnapf, argues that these law firms’ predictions are “simply incorrect.” Schnapf points out that the revised version of E1527 clarifies that the vapor intrusion pathway is like any other contaminant’s pathway and the potential for vapor intrusion should be evaluated and addressed as part of a Phase I inspection.

However, all a consultant is required to do as part of a Phase I is to recognize environmental conditions – the presence or potential presence of releases of hazardous substances. A consultant that identifies a REC due to an actual or potential source of soil or groundwater contamination will not normally collect samples as part of a Phase I.

Contrary to the interpretation of the new Phase I standard offered by some, Schnapf advises:

From a practical standpoint, the question of whether vapor intrusion should be independently flagged as a REC will only really be an issue for off-site releases where vapor intrusion is the only pathway for contamination to migrate onto the property. When the target property already has soil or groundwater contamination, the consultant would flag that contamination as a REC.

Thus, according to Schnapf, if a consultant determines that there is potential vapor intrusion because of the presence of an REC, the consultant is not required to actually collect sub-slab or indoor air samples as part of its Phase I.

The issue takes on additional importance when one also considers that Phase I diligence is required to protect both landowners and lenders from liability under CERCLA. 

According to USEPA,

"All Appropriate Inquiries," or AAI, is a process of evaluating a property’s environmental conditions and assessing the likelihood of any contamination…..The All Appropriate Inquiries Final Rule provides that the ASTM E1527-05 standard is consistent with the requirements of the final rule and may be used to comply with the provisions of the rule.

The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (the “Brownfields Amendments”) amended CERCLA to provide protections from liability for certain landowners and prospective purchasers of properties who can demonstrate compliance with specific statutory criteria and did not cause or contribute to contamination at the property.  

Therefore, if the Phase I diligence the new owner performs does not meet the revised ASTM E1527-13 standard, in the opinion of the Agency, due to the omission of vapor intrusion screening, there may be considerable adverse consequences down the road for both landowners and lenders.

The additional transactional cost to the real estate community in performing many thousands of  vapor intrusion studies in Phase I assessments each year is likely to be considerable. Considering that vapor intrusion is just one of many RECs, does it make sense from an environmental perspective to do these surveys as a matter of course?  More importantly, does the new standard require that these screenings be performed at all? 

Toxic Telephone Poles?

In a first-of-its-kind litigation, the Ecological Rights Foundation ("ERF") has alleged in a Complaint brought in federal district court in San Francisco that Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)  is  in violation of the Clean Water Act ("CWA") and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA").  ERF alleges that the treatment of PG&E’s utility poles treated with pentachlorophenol ("penta"), a wood preservative, has resulted in contamination of groundwater and surface water throughout four counties in Northern California — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Francisco, including San Francisco Bay.  The suit implicates all of the estimated 300,000 utility poles that support Northern California’s electrical power grid. Does ERF expect a court will order that all of those utility poles be taken down and replaced with poles comprised of an as-yet-to-be-invented-space-age-material that does not require chemical treatment, never deteriorates, causes no environmental harm and does not cause hazardous waste to be emitted during manufacture? 

In an article posted on its website, Foley & Lardner, which has been tapped by PG&E, cautions that  this lawsuit potentially has far-reaching implications. The Milwaukee-based law firm notes that millions of utility poles throughout the country are treated with penta or other preservatives, which are necessary to keep the utility poles from deteriorating and to keep electricity and telephone service flowing to homes and businesses.  Significantly, they observe that the environmental impact of the penta-treated poles was examined in great detail by the USEPA when the use of penta-treated wood poles as utility poles was approved.  By approving the use of penta, USEPA found that penta did not cause the significant environmental harm now alleged by ERF. If ERF is successful in San Francisco, where might this type of litigation lead? 

Apart from the serious policy considerations at issue here, ERF’s lawsuit will have to overcome significant legal hurdles, including for starters: (1) that under CWA, ERF must demonstrate that each individual pole is a "point source". It may be difficult to argue with a straight face in federal court that PG&E should have obtained a permit for each discharge from every pole–all separate violations of the statute: and (2) that under RCRA, ERF must demonstrate that PG&E is a generator of solid waste that presents "an imminent and substantial endangerment to the environment. The defendants are not the applicators of the material.  The sub-text of the litigation appears to revolve around  ERF’s unhappiness over USEPA’s past decision making concerning the use of Penta on utility poles. If so, ERF take it up with USEPA and leave our fragile power grid alone! 

Mold In Our Classrooms

My hometown newspaper Greenwich Time, reported in a front page headline on March 25, 2009 “Mold found again at Ham Ave.”  The Hamilton Avenue Elementary School in Greenwich was closed in 2005 largely due to the perception that mold made the school unsafe for students and faculty.  For the past three years, the youngsters attended classes in temporary modular classrooms, which ironically also suffered from mold problems, while awaiting completion of the oft-delayed reconstruction of the school, the Greenwich Time reported.   It was discovered last week at the newly re-opened school that a 2-to-3-square-foot patch of mold was discovered due to a leaky interior pipe that hadn’t been properly sealed during construction. It is not surprising that the school’s industrial hygienist, Hygenix, found “exceptionally low” levels of mold after sampling. What is surprising is that the decision was made to perform sampling at all considering that the source of the water infiltration was addressed and the mold removed.  Sampling is often not necessary and sampling results are frequently misinterpreted to suggest a health hazard where none exists.  In its guidance for “Mold Remediation in Schools and Contaminated Buildings”, the USEPA cautions that there a number of pitfalls associated with mold sampling which at best only provides a “snapshot” of conditions as they exist at a given time.  To suggest, as the school’s consultant did, however, that any “residual microbial hazards” had been eliminated is an unfortunate choice of words because it is probably the case that no hazard ever existed in the first place.  Ron Gots, a toxicologist based in Rockville, Maryland, who has written extensively about public misinformation about mold describes how medical statements by mold testers may result in unintended consequences in the event of a claim.  For example, the statement in a hygienist’s report that “This mold is known to produce toxins which can cause a variety of adverse health effects including……”  is not only irrelevant, but begs the question whether:(1) the mold is producing toxins in this instance?; (2) those toxins are getting to people?; and (3)  they are getting to people in sufficient quantity to cause harm?  As Dr. Gots points out, the issue is not what molds can do; the question is what they are likely or proven to do under these particular circumstances in this setting. These are the five types of mold that are harmful to people. To avoid further fear and confusion about mold (and unnecessary costs) at the Hamilton Avenue school,  a more scientifically objective approach should be considered by the Town.