Site Cleanup

I have found it interesting to see how similar the world is getting. We are all quickly moving towards the middle in all facets of life. Environmental is no different. As the developing nations develop they want to be respected in all areas including environmental. It does not hurt that the World Bank requires that any project they loan money for must comply with their environmental guidelines; similar to EU or USA standards.

What I try to convey to people is that most all countries on the planet have environmental regulations, but what separates them is enforcement. Some countries strictly enforce, while others selectively enforce. It is the selective enforcement that gets most companies. It is common for US companies to be highly regulated by a country, while local businesses go unchallenged. The US company managers ignore the regulations and end up paying in the end to keep it quiet.

Be aware that these country laws can give the regulating agency a lot of latitude to pierce the corporate veil and can issue criminal as well as civil violations.

Site cleanup is not difficult in these countries as the local regulator typically does not use the comical EPA standard of clean. As long as you can show that you have returned the site to at least the condition you found it in then you should be good to go. It is always best to do your homework in advance, ignore whatever the commercial people say. A baseline assessment will go a long way to allowing you to sleep well at night.