51 Rustling Ridge Rd., Glasgow, KY 42141, US
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard “I’ve lived here my whole life and that apartment building has always been there.” Many times my clients are lending or investing in a residential property, and to the best of their knowledge the area has always been residential. It is easy to believe in these cases that a Phase I ESA is not necessary and this is understandable, especially when our clients feel pretty familiar with a particular property.
A Phase I ESA by definition has to track the property use to its first developed use. If the property was developed after 1940, then tracking the property to 1940 is sufficient. If the property was first developed in 1825, then the Phase I ESA should track the use of the property to that date. Historical uses of a property can easily go well beyond the memories of people that are familiar with the property. Not only can surprises arise with the subject property, but often time’s adjacent properties and nearby properties have hidden pasts that predate any current recollections.
For example, in Bowling Green, Kentucky the city had a revitalization program in which several blocks of older homes were relegated to make way for new multi-story apartment complexes. After razing the homes and during the dirt work for the new apartments the contractor discovered several underground storage tanks. If a Phase I ESA had been performed, it would have shown that on the corner a gas station existed in the 1920’s some eighty years prior to the building of the residential homes. These prior uses are particularly important to know about because environmental regulations and technologies to prevent contamination to soil and groundwater were not in place to dictate how underground storage tanks were installed, maintained, or removed.
In another case in Glasgow, Kentucky an investor was buying an apartment complex which was built in the 1960’s. Our clients’ main concern was for lead based paint and asbestos and requested a Phase I ESA. To their surprise, in the 1940’s and 1950’s the property was the location for a metal plating facility. The sequential Phase II ESA showed lead and arsenic levels in the soil substantially above EPA’s Residential Screening Levels.
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