A Baseline Environmental Assessment (BEA) is an evaluation of environmental conditions for a piece of property or facility prior to being purchased. A BEA focuses on the contamination of hazardous substances on the piece of property.
Baseline environmental assessments (BEA) are often performed when addressing brownfield sites. A brownfield is any property that has contamination that exceeds residential clean-up standards and that has the potential for redevelopment. Additionally, any property that is blighted or functionally obsolete is designated a brownfield.
When a property is determined to be contaminated (i.e., a “facility”), the Baseline Environmental Assessment (BEA) demonstrates how a new owner/operator will be able to differentiate contamination they could cause from any pre-existing contamination. The complexity of this demonstration varies, depending upon the types of contamination and how the property will be used in the future.
A successful BEA is dependent upon full knowledge of all likely forms of contamination resulting from past uses of the site, and what and how hazardous substances will be used on the site in the future.
Verde Environmental Consultants incorporates many of the elements required for a successful BEA into the earliest phases of the site assessment.