Conducting All Appropriate Inquiries in 2014 and Beyond

ASTM has issued Standard Practice E1527-13 for Phase I environmental Site Assessments, and the EPA has updated the All Appropriate Inquiries (AAI) rule to include the new standard – now what?  E1527-13 is not too different from the previous version (E1527-05), but the way EPA amended its rules created uncertainty, consternation, and some potentially significant new liabilities for the environmental consulting community.  This presentation will provide a history of CERCLA AAI and the relationship between AAI and the ASTM E1527 standard; detailed discussions of the changes in E1527-13; the problems created by the EPA’s rulemaking, wherein both E1527-05 and E1527-13, having differing requirements, are deemed to satisfy with AAI; and the potential consultant liability created by the vapor migration discussion in the rule’s preamble. The presentation will close with a discussion of why and how AAI can be conducted without using the ASTM Standard.