Environmental priorities

Green buildings, sustainable growth and global warming are among today's "hot" environmental topics.  Environmental site assessments, on the other hand, are so 1980s. Right? Wrong. The result of focusing on the "hot" issues is too many business people are taking their eye off the ball - ignoring fundamental concepts such as knowing what they are buying.  This neglect of the environmental review can be extremely costly.   In the 1980s, it became standard practice to perform a thorough environmental assessment, to avoid purchasing someone else's problem. Recently, however, I am seeing many property owners who recognize the need for environmental expertise only after they purchase a problem.  The result is developers stuck with remediation projects that can cost more than the purchase price of the property. An environmentally challenged property is not necessarily a property to be avoided.  There are many techniques that can be used to avoid the risk, reallocate the risk or insure against it. Planning is always cheaper than remediation.  Thus,  when people ask me whether global warming and green buildings have become central to my environmental practice, I tell them that I still spend much of my time dealing with environmental problems that were created a long time ago, that are sitting in the ground waiting to ensnare the unsuspecting. Aaron Gershonowitz, Esq., is a partner at the law firm of Forchelli, Curto, Schwartz, Mineo, Carlino & Cohn, Mineola, N.Y.