KMK Law Real Estate Blog

The terms “waters of the United States” and “navigable waters” play a critical role in defining the scope of federal programs that protect water resources nationwide.  These federal water protection programs have a direct and substantial impact on real estate development, construction activities, mining, farming and other commercial activities.

As an additional update to a previous posting, on November 6, 2013, ASTM issued the updated standard for Phase I Environmental Site Assessments, ASTM E 1527-13, Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process.

Should you have any questions or need guidance about EPA’s All Appropriate Inquiry Rules please contact Brian Babb at (513) 579-6963 or at bbabb@kmklaw.com.

To update an earlier posting, please note that effective October 29, 2013, EPA has withdrawn the direct final rule for the Amendment to Standards and Practices for All Appropriate Inquiries published on August 15, 2013.

Should you have any questions or need guidance about EPA’s All Appropriate Inquiry Rules please contact Brian Babb at (513) 579-6963 or at bbabb@kmklaw.com. 

Probably the most widely used environmental standard to emerge in the last ten years is the “All Appropriate Inquiry” (AAI) Rules which dictate the level of scrutiny a prospective real property purchaser must undertake to protect itself from environmental liability due to pre-existing contamination on the property.  Since 2005, U.S. EPA had made it perfectly clear how the AAI Rules could be satisfied.  However, in a recent and somewhat bizarre rulemaking action, EPA has left purchasers wondering what really constitutes “all appropriate inquiry.”  The problem stems from EPA’s attempt to finalize changes to its AAI Rules which ties AAI compliance to another standard that has yet to be issued by a separate non-governmental entity.