MERIT ENGINEERING provided 27 complete Phase I ESA studies and 2- Phase II ESA studies for this project, including radon testing and asbestos inspections. The project involved 27 apartment complexes in Western U.S. including Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, and California. For fulfilling the diligence requirement for the property transactions, Merit Engineering conducted site investigations in accordance with ASTM 1527 guidelines and completed the project within the 60-day period specified by American Property Development. For this study, the following information was researched both from literature review and from site visual reconnaissance:

• U.S. EPA CERCLIS (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Indexing System) and RCRIS (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Information System).
• State DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) databases for lists of hazardous waste sites, state leaking UST (underground storage tank) and state registered UST lists.
• Local County and City government agencies were contacted for ownership and permit application histories, geologic critical/sensitive area ordinances including landslide hazards; erosion hazards; flood hazards; seismic hazards volcanic hazards; and mine hazards.

We also conducted a site reconnaissance to verify the site conditions and studied literatures regarding site geologic, soil, surface and groundwater, and site ecological conditions.