HOW THE GREEN
PROJECTS CAN MAKE THE CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONALS TURN GREEN BECAUSE OF THE
INCREASING LIABILITY
Green
has become the new mantra for the construction industry. As a result,
contractors nationwide are increasingly striving to meet owner demands for
projects that are not only designed with sustainable and eco-friendly products,
but also achieve measurable results such as Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) points.
However,
contractors should never sacrifice common sense and sound reasoning for good
intentions or the need to land new business. For instance, here are just a few
of the ways environmental liability can be found on today’s green sites:
Jobsite emissions. Over the past few years, contractors have
been repeatedly sued over the third-party exposure to toxic elements, such as
dust containing asbestos fibers and/or silica, as well as carbon monoxide
fumes.
Products and
materials. Many devastating environmental lawsuits are
produced through unforeseen risks. Who knows what future results will come from
the use of recycled products needed to achieve certain “green” standards? We still can’t forget “Chinese” drywall or the
merging risks of the compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) or the cadmium containing
thin film solar panels or the crystalline silica emitted during the mining for
frac sand or sand frac sand transport, unloading and injection or the spray polyurethane
foam (SFP) that emits isocyanides inside people’s homes and businesses, nanomaterial
such as nanotubes, and so on.
These all
appeared to be benign products at the time they were sold to the consumers that
ultimately created tremendous environmental problems and they still create. Still undetermined is its impact on indoor air
quality and human health. Nonetheless, these
are excellent examples of “unforeseen” risks— just like asbestos or PCBs or DDT,
which were considered a breakthrough fire retardant, fire resistant, and
pesticide, respectively, nearly 50 years ago.
Real estate. The redevelopment
of buildings on existing sites can provide a host of challenges for
inexperienced contractors. That’s because environmental risks can be
catastrophic when properties are not investigated or properly characterized. In
addition, environmental assessments performed with little to no intrusive
sampling will only generate reports containing previously recorded information.
This is a problem for sites used, historically and possibly illegally, for the
disposal of hazardous products or found to contain unregistered underground
tanks and abandoned materials causing residual contamination.
Microbial growth. “Living buildings”
are currently being designed nationwide with new green systems that include
vegetative roofing, rainwater collection, permeable walls and exteriors, and
ornamental water features. Unfortunately,
mold is still a persistent liability problem that can be exacerbated by the use
of innovative products that are yet unproven in the field or over time.
While
the aforementioned examples are not exhaustive, they do offer an idea of the
environmental exposures that can occur during green construction. Owners, contractors, and designers all need to
fully understand the potential sources of these exposures and explore the
coverage options that will best protect their firms from the potentially
crippling effects of litigation.
Metropolitan Engineering, Consulting & Forensics
(MECF)
Providing
Competent, Expert and Objective Investigative Engineering and Consulting
Services
P.O. Box
520
Tenafly,
NJ 07670-0520
Tel.:
(973) 897-8162
Fax:
(973) 810-0440
E-mail:
metroforensics@gmail.com
Web pages:
https://sites.google.com/site/metropolitanforensics/
https://sites.google.com/site/metropolitanenvironmental/
http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/
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