Welcome to falconfyre.

falconfyre, LLC provides evaluation and certification services for:

Continuing Obligations and Activities and Use limitations
pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Liabilities Act (CERCLA), the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) and the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfield Revitalization Act (Brownfields Amendments).

The significant changes made to CERCLA in the last two rounds of amendments create a two tiered approach to the evaluation required by a purchaser of (or party with secured interest in) real property to obtain and maintain the three CERCLA liability protections. The first of these are All Appropriate Inquires outlined in the Standards and Practice for Conducting All Appropriate Inquiries at 40 CFR§312. The second tier of evaluation is the Continuing Obligations which, if not adhered to, lead to the “reasonable steps” to be undertaken in defense of human health and the environment. ASTM was tasked with preparing a guide for the execution of this regulation in the absence of a detailed federal standard of practice. That guide is: Standard Guide for Identifying and Complying With Continuing Obligations on Real Property Impacted by Chemicals of Concern ASTM E50.02.

ASTM has also prepared a detailed discussion of the types of AULs: Standard Guide for Use of Activity and Use Limitations, Including Institutional and Engineering Controls ASTM 2091-05.

What does this mean to you?
Properties that are purchased after approved response actions (completed clean-up or remediation) usually have specific continuing obligations in the form of “activities and land use limitations” (AULs). These take the form of Institutional Controls (ICs) and Engineering and Access Controls (ECs). The AULs must be evaluated periodically for compliance, effectiveness and integrity. The ASTM standard recommends several minimum frequencies for the evaluation and certification of the AULs, However most states have or will set their own frequency of certification. Those that have done so have ranged between 1 to 3 years.

Properties purchased after January 11, 2002, but which have not been subject to a response action, also have continuing obligations based on the use or past use of the property. These less formal requirements may be quite minimal for instance on a office building with no history of potentially contaminating uses. However, the continuing obligations may be far more involved on a gasoline filling station, for instance, where constant vigilance is required to prevent releases of chemicals of concern to the environment. The ASTM Standard contains recommended methods and frequency intervals for the evaluation and certification of continued compliance with the law.

Failure to comply with the Continuing Obligations may result in loss of Landowner Liability Protections afforded under CERCLA!

falconfyre, LLC provides compliance evaluations for continuing obligations.
The evaluation includes site visits to the property and the recorder of deeds, an evaluation report with findings and recommendations, a certification for compliant sites, and all required notices to the many parties which much be informed of the site conditions. We will provide long-term evaluation guarantees through the various Sentinel Stewardship Corporations in each state http://www.americanbrownfields.com/services.htm and the American Brownfield Assurance Corporation, http://www.americanbrownfields.com/. We will work with lenders to create a simple tool that ensures that the Continuing Obligations are certified, on time, and without involvement or notice from the institution to do so.