Read Continuing Obligations  Posts in The Monitor
Download Terradex ContinuingObligationsWatch Overview

Introducing Continuing Obligations and ASTM’s Standard Practice

As we overview in “ASTM Publishes Continuing Obligations Guide, ” the phrase Continuing Obligations owes its origins  to EPA’s “Common Elements” guidance which discussed the post-purchase steps - such as complying with institutional controls and taking reasonable steps to manage residual contamination - that non-contaminating landowners could take to successfully assert CERCLA defenses made newly available in the 2002 Brownfields Amendements  – namely, the Bona Fide Prospective Purchaser Defense, the Contiguous Property Owner Defense, and the Innocent Landowner Defense. The importance of Continuing Obligations became highlighted by the recent “appropriate care” court decisions in Ashley II  and Robertshaw  appropriate care” decisions as well as state laws and state programs, such as recent amendments to Michigan’s statute  which requires landowners to comply with institutional controls, a Wisconsin Continuing Obligation  administrative program, among others.

Together, these developments stress the importance of Continuing Obligations and showcase the evolving trend for institutional control or residually contaminated landowners to take steps on an ongoing bases - or in other words perform Continuing Obligations - to appropriately manage and steward recycled or soon-to-be recycled property.

As leaders of the consensus process that developed the ASTM Continuing Obligations Standard, we know first-hand how the Standard sets forth a methodical approach. The ASTM standard, with it’s primary focus on procedures for institutional control compliance assurance and taking “reasonable steps” in light of residual contamination, recommends a four-step process.

• The first step begins with a screening process to help identify whether Continuing Obligations are relevant.

• Next, the guide suggests steps for learning about the environmental conditions, including institutional controls and/or recognized environmental conditions, so that Continuing Obligation procedures can be appropriately designed for site specifics.

• Step 3, in turn, suggests immediate steps to take soon after the need for Continuing Obligation arises – usually shortly after property purchase.

• Finally, Step 4 describes long term inspection, monitoring, and management procedures meant to make sure that, over time, proper management of residually contaminated and/or institutional controls keeps people and the environment safe.

Aided by this four-step framework, the standard provides instruction on developing a Continuing Obligations Plan – which, when completed, sets forth the actual Continuing Obligations for site specifics. The standard goes on to recommend formats for and forms for documenting Continuing Obligation site inspections and for preparing periodic reports to document proper Continuing Obligation performance. In sum, the standard provides a uniform framework while giving users tools to tailor Continuing Obligations to site specifics.

What is LandWatch for Continuing Obligations?

For properties, property portfolios, or regulatory jurisdictions where institutional controls or residual contamination trigger the need for Continuing Obligations, LandWatch for Continuing Obligations provides the web mapping, monitoring, and property inspection tools needed to do get the job done - particularly the type of stewardship outlined in ASTM’s step 3 and step 4. The Continuing Obligations capabities integrates Terradex’s LandWatch  into a broader offering that not only monitors land activity and land uses, but also provides web-based and tablet tools for field inspectors that, together, help map, monitor, inspect, and manage the Continuing Obligations that regulators or landowners and their consultants design and identify as being needed.

Why a Continuing Obligations Module to LandWatch?

Property owners, “retained liability” property sellers, and environmental regulators each separately face the decision of whether and how to employ Continuing Obligation procedures.  At Terradex, we found that our current LandWatch services already delivered 80 percent of the solution, and by strengthening the solutions for site inspection and reporting, we developed a complete Continuing Obligaitons solution for a site with these duties.

For property owners, the desire to develop a Continuing Obligation approach typically depends on: the desire to preserve CERCLA liability defenses or similar state liability defenses; a desire to manage business risk by reducing the chance of improper future use and/or the need for additional cleanup; or the demands set by state agencies, such as the need to certify compliance with institutional controls. For environmental regulators, continuing obligation approaches increasingly cover state cleanup sites and involve or combine together an approach landowner certifications, state monitoring of land activities (such as LandWatch monitoring), and on-the-ground site audits and inspections performed by agency staff.

Whatever the driver for Continuing Obligations, LandWatch turns the sometimes elusive nature of land stewardship into a systematic process that maps, monitors, and inspects, with site stewardship status always a few clicks away in a secured web environment. If you develop a Continuing Obligations program, you will bolster your Continuing Obligations with LandWatch.

How Does The Continuing Obligations Module in LandWatch Work?

The Continuing Obligations module within LandWatch provides a flexible approach, allowing those performing Continuing Obligations to tailor LandWatch services to the site specifics, property portfolio, or regulatory jurisdiction. With a Continuing Obligations plan in hand, the Continuing Obligations LandWatch module  sets into motion, working to monitor land activities and empower site inspectors.

• Continuing Obligations Plan informs the setup process which, in turn, maps the monitoring or inspection areas and defines the monitoring and inspection duties.
• Classic LandWatch monitors land, collecting events in an easily accessible form - and alerts if activities pose a conflict.
• Site inspectors bring LandWatch to the field, where they view the inpsection areas and LandWatch history as the walk the site and record their inspection notes.
• Now LandWatch generates periodic reports, synthesizing all LandWatch monitorng and filed inspection observations into concise summaries, showing the proper site stewardship has occurred.
• Environmental professionals rely on the LandWatch to prepare their evaluations, and generate their compliance reports.
• Like a bank statement or credit report, LandWatch and the Continuing Obligations module always remains a few clicks away

Specialty Continuing Obligation Services

Continuing Obligations can take more than a web application, and if specialized expertise becomes needed - either while employing LandWatch  or otherwise - Terradex’s staff, with years of experience in land stewardship and strong engineering, cleanup, and environmental compliance backgrounds, always stands ready to support Continuing Obligation efforts.

How Do I Start?

As a first step, send us a note with your interest. Terradex can set as site up for continuing obligation during a simple web-based call. On the call we can specify the pricing, and suggest an optimum compliance approach.