Environmental Enlightenment

Environmental Enlightenment #325: Volatile Organic Compounds – The Insensible Assailants

Environmental Enlightenment #324: Where it comes to transactions in commercial and industrial real estate, we are not aware of a law, national or local, that requires buyers or sellers or any other stakeholders to perform the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (Phase I) Process.

Environmental Enlightenment #322Commercial real estate transactions live or die by these words; we find them floating around a bit too loosely and are reminded of old Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the...

Environmental Enlightenment #321Here is an illustration taken from a video by California EPA. The name is “Supplemental Guidance: Screening and Evaluating Vapor Intrusion” and the illustration shows contaminated “gas” intruding into a building.Credit Cal EPAAnother...

Environmental Enlightenment #090(Acknowledgement: http://www.drycleancoalition.org) Dry-cleaning is the washing of fabrics in non-aqueous solvents. The first regular use of a non-aqueous solvent in garment cleaning was in 1716, when spirits of turpentine were used to...

Environmental Enlightenment #243Generally, a flammable liquid means a liquid which may catch fire easily. Oil-based paints are flammable. Gasoline is highly flammable A flash is a sudden short blaze of intense light of flame. When something flashes, it bursts suddenly...

Environmental Enlightenment #234Absolutes do not exist, and values get established only by comparisons. Suppose I said, “Three hundred.” Your immediate response could probably be, “Three hundred what? Fish? Avocado? Light years?” Suppose I said, “Three hundred...

Environmental Enlightenment #220 — An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with nonliving components.

Environmental Enlightenment #302 Unconsolidated soil and rocks, when filled with water, make aquifers. Aquifers are subsurface formations of soil and rock that are saturated with water. Aquifers are made of pores and particles. The groundwater fills the pores.  Some...

Environmental Enlightenment #320—Sustainability is how ecosystems remain diverse and productive.

Environmental Enlightenment #318USEPA defines wetlands as areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal  circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted...

Environmental Enlightenment #319—The ATSDR ToxFAQs™ is a series of summaries about hazardous substances. Each fact sheet serves as a quick and easy to understand guide.

Environmental Enlightenment #317Nowadays, most transactions in commercial and industrial properties employ the Phase I Environmental Site Assessments to ascertain potentail risks to public health and the environment from non-optimal conditions of contaminated soil,...

Environmental Enlightenment #306 Here’s a simplified, conceptual image of the fate of leaking petroleum fluids in soil and groundwater. It omits certain phenomena that the pedantic amongst us may fault me on; and my justification is, it’s being done for sake of the...

Environmental Enlightenment #185Plume can mean various things. The word comes from Latin pluma, meaning small soft feather. Here are some eagle plumes.A plume is also a feather or bunch of feathers worn as an ornament or a mark of rank(Picture courtesy of...