Environmental Considerations for Real Estate

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, or Sanborns, are a great historical source of information for conducting environmental site assessments. When available for an area, they are a great record of UST locations, hazardous storage areas, and historical building uses. Gasoline stations that operated from the 1920's through the 1950's usually don't show up on any type of registered UST database, largely because the facilities closed down before the database was ever created. Sanborns serve as a safety net to catch potential concerns in those type of scenarios, which we encounter quite frequently.