Loan Support Services — Environmental Risk Screening

The RSRA is an environmental risk screening tool comprised of historical research, physical setting analysis, and review of known, listed potential sources of contamination in the vicinity of the target property. Other data, such as old reports, may be considered as well. This information is evaluated by an Environmental Professional (as defined by the USEPA), who offers an opinion as to the environmental risk.

No. The RSRA is an environmental risk screening tool, while the much more comprehensive Phase I ESA is intended as a defense against potential future liability. A Phase I is required to qualify for the landowner liability protections under CERCLA; an RSRA is not a substitute for it.

EZ-Screen™ is Sierra's name for its Records Search with Risk Assessment (RSRA).

There are a variety of situations when an RSRA can be a very cost-effective alternative to the Phase I ESA: SBA and USDA loans over $150,000 where the property's current and past uses are not on SBA's list of environmentally sensitive industries, and non-SBA lending where a first-cut screen decides whether a Phase I is warranted at all.

No. While this quick and inexpensive report was originally developed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) for use on its real estate loans, there is no reason why it cannot be used in non-SBA situations. Many of our smaller lending customers have incorporated the EZ-Screen™ into their lending policy as a standard first-cut environmental evaluation. This minimizes risk and maximizes efficiency for the lender while apportioning costs for the review directly to each deal.

SBA (or USDA), as well as most lenders, usually like to see separate, discrete reports specifically prepared for each individual parcel. It is even more true when the parcels are not contiguous and have separate histories. So while we can sometimes combine them, it is unusual. One report per parcel is a good rule of thumb.

This does not necessarily mean that the property is contaminated. It may simply mean that a Phase I ESA is recommended in order to adequately evaluate the property. There are a variety of reasons this may happen, and it is typically dependent on the experience and professional judgement of the Environmental Professional who performs the risk assessment.

If your RSRA EZ-Screen report indicates elevated risk and recommends a Phase I ESA, there will be no charge for that report. You are free to engage any environmental professional to perform the Phase I ESA. In this way, Sierra Environmental Consultants completely eliminates any conflict of interest. We have nothing to gain by upselling our clients to a more expensive report.

For the most part, not any more. For 25 years we were a full-service environmental consulting firm, which gives us tremendous experiential advantages when we are working on your EZ-Screen™. In order to honor our Clean or Free guarantee we have chosen, since 2015, to focus strictly on EZ-Screens for our clients around the country.

We still have a special relationship with our loyal clients, some of whom have been calling us for decades, so we still take on certain projects for them. If you have one of our old reports and would like it updated or redone, contact us and we will be glad to take a look at it for you.

We perform RSRA EZ-Screens™ over most of the United States, in communities both large and small. The best way for us to confirm coverage in your area is for you to provide the property address and your contact information. If you are in a remote area where address information is sometimes sketchy, we can usually still get the job done using latitude and longitude coordinates.