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Environmental Due Diligence: Lessons from the Trenches
PM Environmental’s due diligence team shares the advice they give most often, and the consequences of not heeding that advice. Environmental due diligence refers to the steps taken to document and quantify a property’s potential contamination risk. Its centerpiece is the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA), an independent professional report about the environmental condition…
What is a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment?
If you are considering purchasing a commercial real estate property, you may have heard the term Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA). So, what is a Phase I ESA? What is the process and why is it important? We break down the specifics regarding the main component of completing environmental due diligence on a property…
SBA Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Update: Changes Effective April 1, 2019
The Small Business Administration (SBA) recently issued the yearly update to their Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 50 10 5(K). Included in every version of the SOP are Environmental Policies and Procedures, which must be followed when making a loan using commercial real estate as collateral. With each SOP revision, PM Environmental carefully reviews the edits…
Michigan’s Two New Environmental Game-Changers
It’s a new year and there’s big news on the horizon for environmental regulations in Michigan. Two pieces of regulatory legislation passed at the end of 2018 are potential game changers for regulators, property investors, and lenders. They significantly increase available cleanup and Brownfield funding and may impact both cleanup criteria and the means and…
Affordable Housing: Low Income Housing Tax Credits
Every year, several PM Environmental (PM) employees work diligently in the spring and fall to complete environmental site assessments associated with affordable housing developers submittal of applications for Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) during competitive funding rounds through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). According to MSHDA, Michigan’s LIHTC program was developed as…
Giving Back
One of our traditions at PM Environmental is to give back to the communities in which we reside. In fact, it happens to be one of our core values. Dedication to our business community is a large part of who we are and we make a point of that by supporting charities throughout the year…
Looking Beneath the Surface: A Primer on Underground Storage Tank Trust Funds
Could a state-supported underground storage tank (UST) trust fund offer relief for cleanup costs on your property? We address some common questions about these varied and sometimes confusing environmental “insurance policies”. What are UST Trust Funds? Underground Storage Tank (UST) Trust Funds, also known as UST Financial Assurance Funds have been established in most states…
What You Need To Know About PFAS {Infographic}
For decades, Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), comprised of more than 4,000 individual compounds, including two well known regulated compounds perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic (PFOA), were used in a range of industrial and consumer applications and processes like plating, material coating, lubrication, vapor suppression, cookware, food storage, packaging products, carpet and upholstery, fire fighting products,…
Beyond the Balance Sheet: Understanding Environmental Liabilities in Mergers & Acquisitions
Pursuing a merger or acquisition? Make sure your valuation process considers all of the costs – including the cost of environmental compliance, deferred maintenance and legacy environmental issues. A company’s balance sheet details its assets and its liabilities at a given point in time. An individual, business or group of investors looking to merge with…
A Serving of Environmental Alphabet Soup
The field of environmental compliance has its own language, and it is a virtual alphabet soup of acronyms. While we won’t try to include them all, we’ve stirred together some of the regulatory abbreviations commonly used in compliance plans developed for industrial properties, just to give you a taste. Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC)…