© 2008, By J.G. Pohl, Principal, Integral Environmental Solutions (IES), Australia

Environmental Due Diligence

Be extremely careful when choosing an environmental consultant to carry out an environmental investigation or other similar work on your property. In one of our recent projects, our client's former consultant informed our client that their property was contaminated. In addition, our client’s former consultant informed Council that the property in question required an environmental Audit by a NSW EPA Accredited Site Auditor.

Hobby farm Owner to Develop his Land

The owner / builder of a small 0.7 hectare hobby farm wanted to develop his land. He had used the property for years by farming animals, such as cows, goats and horses. When the owner / builder originally purchased the hobby farm, the owner was provided with an environmental due diligence report, also called a Phase I & 2 Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) for the property. The Phase I & 2 report described historical usage as vacant, grazing, or unknown. A review of historic aerial photos indicated that no permanent structures were located onsite and it remained vacant during development of surrounding properties. The Phase I & 2 report concluded that the subject site may have been impacted from illegal dumping of building waste, dumping of fill, and pesticides / herbicides as evident by an area of dead grass on the property.

Based on the site history and field inspection, The Phase I & 2 report identified heavy metals, asbestos, petroleum hydrocarbons, pesticides, herbicides and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as potential contaminants. Further investigation revealed some positive findings for heavy metals, PAHs and asbestos fragments.

Council Informs Owner to Remediate or Cleanup the Hobby farm

The owner / builder was informed by the local Council that he needed to remediate or cleanup his property before a Development Application (DA) could be granted. At that point in time, the owner / builder commissioned an environmental consultant to “fix the problem”. The consultant prepared a Remediation Action Plan (RAP) for the site, which provided guidance on how to remediate or cleanup the site. In addition, the consultant stipulated in the RAP the requirement for an environmental Audit of the Validation Report before construction commences.

Sleepless Nights

The owner / builder started to engage environmental consultants to carry out site remediation or cleanup. He thought he was close to getting this contaminated land issue out of his project’s way. To his amazement, instead of things getting better, he found that things were getting more complicated, consulting costs and project delays were escalating rapidly.

Stop the Bleeding

The owner / builder contacted us at IES for a consultation on his project, environmental issues and concerns. We were able to provide our client with immediate advice and discussed cost effective and viable options for moving forward. We took the job on, and immediately evaluated all environmental reports, corresponding data and previous project strategy.

We were mystified why a NSW EPA Accredited Site Audit requirement was included as a condition of the RAP. The 'Department of Urban Affairs and Planning State Environmental Protection (DUAP 1998) Policy 55 Remediation of Land (SEPP 55), planning guidelines for assisting planning authorities in dealing with land contamination, states that site audits are not mandatory at any stage of the planning process.

Site Audits are typically requested from the planning authority when a commercial or industrial site with significant contamination is being rezoned into a sensitive land use such as day care centre or residential with full soil access. In this case, the subject site is not grossly contaminated and is being developed where there is little opportunity for soil access.

In consideration of the absence of significant site contamination, we proposed Site Audit requirements were over conservative and unwarranted. IES successfully petitioned Council, had the Site Audit requirement removed from the RAP saving our client in excess of $65,000 and a year delay in project start up.