Environmental Site Assessment

Course Description

Environmental Site Assessment teaches the fundamentals, bases, and procedures of environmental site assessment: Phase I conformance with ASTM Standard E1527 and the US EPA All Appropriate Inquiries Rule (40 CFR Part 312), and the planning and performance of Phase II investigations under ASTM E1903. The course also covers environmental issues that fall outside the scope of a formal Phase I or Phase II ESA.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, EVR is the Environmental Studies prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered summer and fall, with prerequisites CHM1025C, EVR2001, EVR2001L, and GIS2040C. Contact hours are approximately 45, matching the published EVR2001 at the same college and credit value.

This is an unusually job-shaped course. Environmental site assessment is a defined professional deliverable performed to a published standard, generally as a condition of a commercial property transaction or a loan, and the person doing it is producing a report a lender and a lawyer will rely on. Students finish this course knowing how to do a specific thing that firms hire people to do — which is rarer in a 2000-level science course than it should be.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the purpose of environmental due diligence in property transactions.
• Describe CERCLA liability and the landowner liability protections due diligence supports.
• Describe the EPA All Appropriate Inquiries Rule (40 CFR Part 312) and its relationship to the ASTM standard.
• Describe the scope, purpose, and limits of a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment under ASTM E1527.
• Define recognized environmental condition, controlled REC, historical REC, and de minimis condition.
• Perform records review using regulatory databases and standard environmental record sources.
• Research historical use of a property using aerial photographs, fire insurance maps, city directories, and title records.
• Use GIS and mapping resources to support records review and site characterization.
• Plan and conduct a site reconnaissance and document observations.
• Conduct interviews with owners, occupants, and local officials.
• Identify indicators of releases, storage tanks, hazardous substances, and petroleum products.
• Evaluate adjoining properties and the surrounding area.
• Apply data gap and data failure concepts and document them.
• Prepare a Phase I ESA report to professional standards, including findings, opinion, and conclusions.
• Describe the environmental professional qualifications required under 40 CFR 312.10.
• Describe when a Phase II investigation is warranted and define its objectives.
• Plan a Phase II investigation under ASTM E1903, including a conceptual site model.
• Describe soil, groundwater, soil vapour, and other sampling methods and their selection.
• Describe sample handling, chain of custody, preservation, and holding times.
• Describe analytical methods, detection limits, and quality assurance and quality control.
• Compare analytical results to applicable cleanup target levels and screening criteria.
• Describe health and safety planning for field work.
• Describe environmental issues outside the formal ESA scope, including asbestos, lead, radon, mould, and wetlands.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe vapour intrusion assessment and its screening approach.
• Describe remediation approaches and their selection.
• Describe brownfield redevelopment programmes and incentives.
• Describe transaction screen and other limited-scope assessments.
• Describe environmental insurance and risk transfer.
• Describe Florida-specific petroleum cleanup and storage tank programmes.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Environmental due diligence in transactions
• CERCLA liability and landowner protections
• All Appropriate Inquiries (40 CFR Part 312)
• ASTM E1527 scope and limits
• RECs, CRECs, HRECs, and de minimis conditions
• Regulatory database and records review
• Historical use research: aerials, Sanborn maps, directories, title
• GIS and mapping in site assessment
• Site reconnaissance
• Interviews
• Indicators of release; tanks and hazardous materials
• Adjoining properties and area evaluation
• Data gaps and data failure
• Phase I report preparation
• Environmental professional qualifications
• Triggers and objectives for Phase II
• ASTM E1903 planning and the conceptual site model
• Soil, groundwater, and soil vapour sampling
• Chain of custody, preservation, and holding times
• Analytical methods, detection limits, QA/QC
• Screening criteria and cleanup target levels
• Field health and safety
• Non-scope issues: asbestos, lead, radon, mould, wetlands

Optional Topics

• Vapour intrusion
• Remediation approaches
• Brownfields programmes
• Transaction screens and limited-scope assessments
• Environmental insurance
• Florida petroleum and storage tank programmes

Resources & Tools

• ASTM E1527 — the Phase I standard itself. Read the current version; it is the course's primary document and firms buy access. ASTM E1903 is the Phase II companion.
• US EPA All Appropriate Inquiries (epa.gov) — free: the rule at 40 CFR Part 312, guidance, and the environmental professional definition. Authoritative and preferable to any secondary summary.
• EPA Brownfields programme — free guidance, grants information, and case material.
• Florida DEP (floridadep.gov) — free: the Storage Tank and Petroleum Contamination programme, Chapter 62-780 F.A.C. contaminated site cleanup criteria, and the Cleanup Target Levels in Chapter 62-777 F.A.C. These are the Florida-specific numbers you will actually compare results against.
• Florida DEP OCULUS and DEP Map Direct — free document and GIS portals; genuinely the working tools for Florida records review.
• EPA EnviroMapper / EnviroFacts, EJScreen, and NPL/CERCLIS records — free federal database sources.
• USGS EarthExplorer, UF's Aerial Photography: Florida (APF) collection, and the Library of Congress Sanborn maps — free historical imagery and fire insurance maps; Florida's aerial coverage is unusually good.
• EDR and ERIS — the commercial database report vendors the industry uses; know the names.
• OSHA HAZWOPER — the 40-hour training required for many field roles; see the credential note below.
• QGIS — free and fully capable; carry forward what you learned in GIS2040C.

Career Pathways

• Environmental site assessment technician and staff professional — the direct destination; environmental consulting firms hire specifically for this.
• Environmental consultant — SOC 19-4042 Environmental Science and Protection Technicians and 19-2041 Environmental Scientists and Specialists.
• Field sampling technician — soil, groundwater, and vapour sampling; HAZWOPER-certified field staff are consistently in demand.
• Remediation technician and project support.
• Storage tank compliance — a large Florida sector given the state's petroleum contamination programme history.
• Regulatory agency staff — Florida DEP, water management districts, and county environmental programmes.
• Brownfield redevelopment support — Florida has an active brownfields programme with financial incentives.
• Real estate and lending due diligence support — the client side of this work.
• Environmental health and safety roles in industry.
• Continuation to a B.S. in environmental science, geology, or environmental engineering — the standard route to becoming a qualified environmental professional in your own right.

Special Information

⚠⚠ The standard changes, and using the wrong version voids the protection

The most important professional fact about this work.

• A Phase I ESA exists to establish a legal defence. Under CERCLA, a purchaser who conducts All Appropriate Inquiries before acquisition may qualify for the bona fide prospective purchaser, innocent landowner, or contiguous property owner liability protections. Without it, a buyer can inherit responsibility for contamination they did not cause.
• The protection depends on the assessment conforming to the applicable standard. A report that does not meet the requirements does not support the defence, and the client discovers this at the worst possible moment.
• ASTM E1527 has been revised repeatedly, and EPA's AAI rule references specific versions. E1527-13 was superseded by E1527-21, and EPA rulemaking has governed which version satisfies AAI and over what transition period. Rule 11 applies with force — verify the current standard version and EPA's current recognition of it before relying on anything, including this guide.
• Reports have a shelf life. A Phase I becomes stale, and specific components have shorter viability periods than the report as a whole. An old report must be updated, not simply reused.
• Only a qualified environmental professional may conduct or oversee the assessment. The definition at 40 CFR 312.10 sets education, licence, and experience requirements — typically a PE or PG licence with experience, or a relevant degree with a specified number of years of full-time environmental experience. A student completing this course is not yet an EP, and understanding that boundary is part of the professionalism the course teaches.
• Scope limitations are stated for a reason. A Phase I is a non-intrusive assessment. It does not sample, and it explicitly excludes several things people assume it covers — see the non-scope flag below.

⚠ RECs, data gaps, and writing an opinion you can defend

• Identifying a recognized environmental condition is a judgement, and it must be justified. The definition turns on the presence or likely presence of hazardous substances or petroleum products under conditions indicating a release or a material threat of one.
• Know the distinctions cold. A CREC is a past release addressed to regulatory satisfaction with controls remaining in place; an HREC is a past release resolved with no remaining controls; a de minimis condition is not a REC. These are examinable and they are consequential — miscategorizing one changes the client's decision.
• Document data gaps explicitly and say whether they are significant. A missing interview, an inaccessible area, or a break in the historical record is a data gap, and concealing it is how reports become indefensible.
• Historical research is the most underrated part of the work. Aerial photographs and Sanborn maps reveal former dry cleaners, gas stations, machine shops, and filled areas that no database contains — and those are exactly the uses that produce contamination.
• Interviews produce information no database has. A long-tenured occupant or a local fire official often knows about a spill nobody ever reported.
• Write conservatively and specifically. State what you observed, what you reviewed, and what you concluded, and keep opinion clearly separated from observation.
• Photograph everything and log it. The photographic record is the evidence that the reconnaissance happened and what it found.
• Do not overstate certainty. "No RECs identified" is a statement about a defined scope of inquiry, not a guarantee the site is clean, and the report must say so.

⚠ Florida makes this work distinctive — and the local knowledge is employable

• Shallow groundwater is the defining condition. Much of Florida has a water table within a few feet of the surface, which means contamination reaches groundwater quickly and spreads laterally. Sampling design that would be adequate elsewhere is not adequate here.
• Karst geology and the Floridan aquifer mean rapid, sometimes unpredictable transport pathways, and sinkholes are both a contamination pathway and a physical hazard.
• Petroleum contamination is Florida's dominant site type. The state's storage-tank programme and its petroleum restoration programme exist because of the sheer number of leaking tank sites, and DEP maintains extensive records on them.
• Former dry cleaners are the other major category. Florida operates a Drycleaning Solvent Cleanup Program, and chlorinated solvent plumes are a recurring finding — with vapour intrusion implications.
• Compare to Florida's own numbers. Chapter 62-777 F.A.C. sets the Cleanup Target Levels used in this state, and Chapter 62-780 F.A.C. governs the cleanup process. Federal screening levels are not the operative criteria here.
• Agricultural history matters. Former citrus and row-crop land carries pesticide and arsenic legacy issues that surface in redevelopment.
• Wetlands and protected species are outside the ESA scope but are frequently the actual constraint on a Florida development, which is why clients ask about them.
• Coastal and flood exposure increasingly appears in due diligence, and sea level rise is a live consideration in South Florida transactions.

⚠ Field work: health and safety, and the credential that gets you hired

• Site reconnaissance is field work with real hazards — heat, wildlife, unstable structures, confined spaces, traffic, and unknown chemicals. Florida heat is a genuine and underrated risk; heat illness kills outdoor workers every year.
• Do not enter what you are not trained and equipped to enter. Confined spaces, damaged structures, and areas with unknown atmospheres are refusals, not challenges.
• Wildlife is a Florida field hazard — snakes, alligators, fire ants, and mosquitoes are routine considerations, not curiosities.
• Never work alone without a check-in protocol and never on private property without documented permission.
• OSHA HAZWOPER 40-hour training is required for many field sampling roles under 29 CFR 1910.120, with an annual refresher. Getting it makes you employable, and some programmes offer it — ask.
• Chain of custody is a legal document. A sample with a broken chain is worthless regardless of the analysis, and the discipline around labelling, preservation, holding times, and signatures is absolute.
• Understand detection limits. A "non-detect" means below the reporting limit of the method used, which is not the same as absent — and if the reporting limit is above the cleanup target level, the result answers nothing.
• QA/QC samples exist to catch your errors — field blanks, trip blanks, duplicates. They are not optional overhead.

⚠ What a Phase I does not cover — and why clients ask anyway

• The standard's scope is deliberately bounded, and several common concerns are explicitly outside it: asbestos-containing materials, lead-based paint, lead in drinking water, radon, mould, wetlands, endangered species, cultural and historic resources, indoor air quality, and industrial hygiene.
• These are offered as non-scope services, and clients frequently want them. Knowing what they are and when they matter makes you more useful.
• Asbestos and lead matter for renovation and demolition, and both carry their own regulatory regimes with survey requirements before work begins.
• Radon has a Florida dimension — the state has areas of elevated potential and its own radon programme and disclosure requirements.
• Mould is a moisture problem and a major issue in Florida's climate; Florida licenses mould assessors and remediators under Chapter 468, F.S.
• Vapour intrusion sits at the boundary. It has been incorporated into the ESA framework and remains an area of active development. Rule 11 applies.
• Be explicit in the report about what was and was not assessed. Most professional liability in this field comes from a client who believed the report covered something it did not.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

EVR2647 is 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, offered summer and fall at Daytona State. Expect report writing as a major deliverable — likely a full Phase I on a real or simulated site — plus records research and probably a field reconnaissance exercise. Keep the report you produce. A well-executed sample Phase I is a genuine portfolio piece for an environmental consulting interview, which is unusual for a 2000-level course.

The course transfers on the ordinary lower-division basis. Environmental technology A.S. degrees are applied and do not carry the A.A.'s junior-status guarantee; students planning a B.S. should confirm the pathway early, because the environmental professional definition ultimately depends on degree and experience.