Transcript Slide 1

7. Environmental Factors
In this module, we will discuss:
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Environmental legislation
Environmental hazards
Due diligence
Conducting an environmental site
assessment
• Preservation and restoration
efforts
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Environmental Legislation
• Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) established in 1970.
• Mission is “… to protect human
health and to safeguard the natural
environment – air, water, and land
– upon which life depends.”
• EPA works with other federal,
state, and local agencies to
develop and enforce standards
under existing environmental laws
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Underground Storage Tanks
(USTs)
• Tank (or a combination of tanks) and
connected piping having at least 10 percent
of their combined volume underground.
• Approximately 640,000 UST systems in the
U.S. today.
• Leak detection devices are integral to the
design of any approved UST.
• EPA requires all new UST installations to
have leak detection at the time of
installation.
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Brownfields
• Abandoned, idled, or underutilized industrial and commercial
facilities where expansion or
redevelopment is complicated by
real or perceived environmental
contamination
• Hazardous substances at these
sites are concerns.
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Due Diligence
• Process of investigating the
characteristics of a parcel of land
usually in connection with a land
development transaction
• Due diligence requires buyers to
exercise ““…all appropriate
inquiry into the previous
ownership and uses of the
property consistent with good
commercial or customary
practice…”
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Phase I ESA
• Visual Inspection – walking over the site
– includes the owner or current user to
answer questions
• Compilation of a comprehensive
photographic log
• Interview with the owners or users of all
the adjacent properties
• Review all practically reviewable records
pertaining to the property and surrounding
properties within American Society for
Testing and Materials consensus radii.
• Written comprehensive report.
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Phase II ESA
Includes:
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Physical sampling of the site
Explanation of the procedures used
Explanation of the results
Recommendation for remedial
action, if necessary, which would be
appropriate for the site’s intended
use.
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Phase III ESA
• Design of the remediation plan,
should one be necessary
• Includes reports and permits
necessary to achieve cleanup of
the site to bring it into compliance
with the agreed upon standards.
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Group Activity
What are the possible environmental
concerns of Sawgrass Ranch?
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Preservation and Restoration
Efforts
• Water quality—Legislation
includes the Clean Water Act and
Safe Drinking Water Act
• Inland waterways—Army Corps
of Engineers are responsible for
keeping them navigable
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Wetlands
• Areas where water covers the soil,
or is present, at or near the surface
of the soil, all year or for varying
periods during the year, including
during the growing season
• Over one-third of the threatened
and endangered species in the US
live only in wetlands
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Wetlands (cont.)
• Mitigation banking—Process of
restoring, creating, enhancing, or
preserving wetlands, which are
then set aside to compensate for
future conversions of wetlands for
development activities
• Wetlands Reserve Program—A
voluntary program for protecting
and restoring wetlands on private
property.
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Wetlands (cont.)
• Setback distance—How far away
from a wetland a given
development activity must be
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Mitigation Banking
• Process of restoring, creating,
enhancing, or preserving
wetlands, which are set aside to
compensate for future conversions
of wetlands for development
activities
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Wetlands Reserve Program
• Wetlands Reserve Program is a
voluntary program for protecting
and restoring wetlands on private
property
• Setback distance = how far away
from a wetland a given
development activity must be
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Upland Habitats
• Upland habitat is the drier land
upstream from an adjacent wetland.
• When wetlands are lost, upland
habitat is compromised.
• Without the wetlands to slow surface
runoff or remove inorganic nutrients
or organic wastes, upland habitat is
degraded also.
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Soil Erosion
• Major threat to farmland
productivity
• Average soil erosion rate for all
cultivated cropland in the U.S. in
1997 was 3.4 tons per acre
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Conservation Reserve
Program
• Voluntary program in which the
USDA contracts with agricultural
producers to retire highly erodible
and other environmentally
sensitive cropland
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Floodplains
• Lowland and relatively flat areas
adjoining inland and coastal waters
including flood prone areas of
offshore islands, including at a
minimum, that area subject to a one
percent or greater chance of flooding
in any given year
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