Environmental Due Diligence & Risk Management

While waiting on my client appointment recently at a local breakfast place, I was listening in on a neighboring table's conversation.  (Rude I know, but they weren't exactly whispering) 

As soon as the word environmental was mentioned during their chat, my ears perked up.  One of the gentleman was speaking about a recent project they were working on for development and discussing the environmental considerations and review that had to be completed prior to breaking ground.  He said that they had been forced to do further environmental due diligence because the company that had completed the original Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) had missed recognized environmental conditions (RECs) that needed to be addressed.

I immediately thought back to my recent blog post about some consultants cutting corners and missing RECs during the Phase I ESA.  So be diligent when choosing an environmental consultant: ask for a statement of qualifications and resumes, ask for and contact references, talk to your project manager throughout the course of the Phase I and ask questions. These simple things could stand to save you a lot of money and time in the long run.