2. ACCEPT THAT CONTAMINATION IS ROUTINE

Realize that almost every piece of municipal, industrial, or commercial real estate has some contamination. Look for it. Expect to find it. Want to find it. Ordinary commercial buildings, well-kept factories, warehouses, farmland, and even unimproved land and "open space" can be contaminated.

EPA under Superfund has certified National Priority List (NPL) sites and has other under investigation. Additionally, CERCLIS, the computerized inventory of potential sites, contains thousands of sites in the database. Since Superfund’s inception in 1980, 30,429 sites have been logged. There likely will be tens of thousands more sites discovered in the next few decades. Essentially, we are discovering, and cleaning up, the chemical legacy of 200 years of the Industrial Revolution.

Thus, dealing with dirty property will become routine. Rather than run from dirty property or assume that a piece of land is useless, you should gather the kind of information needed to make rational business decisions. The value and usefulness of a piece of property is directly proportional to where is the waste, what kind is it, where has it gone, how fast has it traveled, how difficult is its removal, whether treatment of it is possible, and how clean the property will have to be to satisfy government requirements.