Risk Assessment

Environmental Issues Questions

1. What do High, Medium and Low Risk mean?

   Currently, we display environmental sites that fall in three basic categories.

   High Risk

   "High Risk" sites include the highest priority cases for remediation. These sites include Superfund, Brownfield and other serious soil and groundwater contamination cases. Many of these cases are actively being remediated, and have state and/or federal oversight for cleanup.

   Medium Risk

   Second, facilities with known leaking underground storage tanks or surface spills are shown as a "moderate" hazard to the surrounding area. Many of these sites have impacted groundwater at nearby properties.

   Low Risk

   Facilities that store hazardous materials and/or generate hazardous wastes are shown. Many of these sites have not had a reported spill or release to the environment, and are considered to be a "low" hazard to the surrounding properties. Minor surface spill incidents are also included in the "low" hazard category.

2. Where do you get the environmental data

   We obtain our data from city, county, state and Federal government agencies. Much of this data is readily available to the public via the agency's websites. However, some agencies only provide this information for a fee and/or only upon receipt of a Freedom of Information Act request. We process this data using our Geographic Information Systems and a lot of custom analysis software and present it here with Google maps.

3. How current is the data?

   This varies depending up the specific source of the data. We have nearly 300 data sources!

   Governmental agencies, which are our primary data sources, can have update cycles from daily to yearly. However some data seems to have been orphaned and has not been updated in several years.

   We update our master database with the latest on a quarterly basis per the ASTM-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) standards.

4. Do you also provide ASTM-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) compliant reports?

   We created the STARReports^tm software for environmental engineers so they can create a radius report on demand. See the Other Products section for more data or ontact us at chris@cypresssolutions.com.

   If you would like to order the reports but do not wish to have the software running on your computer contact our partner, PIERS Environmental Services, at www.pierses.com.

   If you are a lender, contact our partner, EnviroCheck Solutions, at www.envirochecksolutions.com for products tailored to your needs.

5. What is a ASTM-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) compliant report

   This is a report usually performed on a commercial, industrial or multi-tennant property as part of a professional environmental risk analysis. This report is not appropriate for most residental applications. We are working with our partners to provide a more consumer-friendly report.

6. How can I get more information about particular hazard sites near my property?

   There are two types of reports you can get to give you this information.

   The first is our residential focused Detailed Risk Assessment. This report provides basic informatio on the sites without getting into any technical mumbo jumbo. Select the Learn More button on the main page to learn more about this report and how to order.

   The secon is an ASTM-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) compliant report, additional information about these sites will be included. See a previous FAQ entry for ordering information.

7. Is there a significant risk to my property if there are several sites nearby?

   It's impossible to answer this question without knowing what type of sites are nearby, what the status of the cases are, and what other factors may contribute or mitigate the potential risks (e.g. groundwater flow direction). For example, a leaking underground storage tank case across the street from your property may not present a health risk at all, assuming the property is on city water. The best course of action to take is to hire an Environmental Professional to evaluate the risks of the nearby sites.

8. I am interested in seismic, flood, fire and other natural hazards. Will you offer this information in the future?

   We plan on adding seismic and earthquake fault zone information for the State of California in the near future. Other types of natural and environmental risk data will be added as well.

9. What are Aboveground and Underground Storage Tank sites?

   Most of these sites shown on MapHazards pertain to current and former gasoline service stations, as well as fuel/heating oil storage for residential and commercial uses.

10. What are Leaking Underground Storage Tank sites?

    As indicated above, these sites generally refer to gasoline service stations or other businesses that store gasoline or diesel fuel in underground tanks. Following removal/replacement, many tanks are found to have leaked. If the leak requires remedial activity such as soil and/or groundwater sampling, then the applicable regulatory agency will list the facility as a leaking underground storage tank case. Typically, the agency will provide the case status, case closure date (if applicable) and media impacted (soil and/or groundwater).

11. What are Emergency Response Notification System sites?

    Emergency Response Notification System sites encompass a wide range of accidental spills or releases of hazardous materials to the environment. The majority of these incidents pertain to vehicle accidents, failure of mechanical equipment, illegal dumping and accidental spills.

12. What are Spills, Leaks, Investigations and Cleanup sites?

    The State of California Water Resources Control Board created a Spills, Leaks, Investigations and Cleanups listing, which includes unauthorized releases of hazardous materials to soil, water and/or groundwater. These types of cases are much more significant than Emergency Response Notification System cases, and typically require soil and/or groundwater remediation to remove the contaminant. Other states have similar type listings (Spills sites).

13. What are Brownfield sites?

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a Brownfield site as "real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant."

    Common examples of Brownfield sites are abandoned gas stations and dry cleaners, railroad properties, factories, and closed military bases. Brownfield sites are located throughout the country, and the U.S. EPA as well as state governments have compiled a listing of these sites. MapHazards includes these sites in its highest priority listing.

14. What are Superfund and National Priority List sites?

    The Superfund database contains information on hazardous waste sites, site inspections, preliminary assessments, and remediation of hazardous waste sites under CERCLA (Superfund).

    The database contains general information on sites including location, status, contaminants, and actions taken. This database includes those Superfund sites not included on the National Priority List or Proposed National Priority List databases.

    National Priorty List sites are a special category among National Superfund Sites listed in the EPA's CERCLIS database. National Priority List sites are of serious, high concern and priority based on a national comparison to sites needing investigations and contamination cleanup activities (remediation). These sites, some of the worst in the nation, normally contain high levels of various contaminants that have spread over relatively long distances and usually require long term, highly expensive remediation technologies.

    We also include Superfund sites where a No Further Remedial Action Planned determination has been made.

15. What are Hazardous Waste Generator, Corrective Actions and Treatment, Storage or Disposal sites?

    These come from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) database. There are three categories of RCRA sites - Corrective Action (Corracts) sites, Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) sites, and hazardous waste generator sites.

    The hazardous waste generator sites are further divided into small and large quantity generator categories. RCRA Corrective Action is the process by which areas at a hazardous waste facility are evaluated and, if necessary, are cleaned up. As such, TSD and Generator sites that are listed in the Corracts database require corrective action to be in compliance with RCRA. TSD sites treat, store and/or dispose of hazardous materials and are federally permitted.

16. What are Defense sites?

    We have obtained a listing of Department of Defense (DOD) sites and Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and/or the U.S. Department of Defense is actively working or will be taking the necessary steps to address any cleanup activities needed on these properties.

17. What are Engineering Control and Institutional Control sites?

    The Engineering Control Sites list are facilities that have engineered controls in place, such as capping, containment, slurry walls, extraction wells and/or treatment methods that are intended to manage environmental and health risks by reducing contamination levels at a site, or limiting exposure pathways. The Institutional Control Sites list are administrative or legal devices, such as deed restrictions, to ensure that engineering controls stay in place and/or to ensure that land use restrictions stay in place.

18. What is a Landfill site?
19. Are all Landfills included in the Landfill database?

    We include all open and closed municipal solid waste landfill sites, as well as landfill facilities that include hazardous wastes.

20. What are Hazardous Material Transporter sites?

    This is a registry of sites that have had hazardous wastes transported to an off-site disposal facility.

21. What are Hazardous Material sites?

    Many of these sites are simply businesses that are required to obtain a permit from the applicable local and/or state agency to store hazardous materials. These sites are also listed on other databases if they have had a reported release, generate hazardous wastes, or have aboveground or underground storage tanks.

22. What is a Deed Restrictions site?
23. What is an Air Emmissions site?

General Questions

1. Who helped you develop this web site?

   Thanks go out to Joren Mathews for taking my vision and creating a beautiful design. He also is a genius at cross-browser javascript and CSS issues.

   The guys and gals on Google Maps APi group are awesome.

   Thanks to Mike Williams for his GMaps API tutorials and other help.

   Buttons were done by www.buttongenerator.com.

Detailed Risk Assessment Questions

1. I deleted the e-mail which has the link to my report

   Have no fear, we store your report for at least 60 days. Go to the Resend A Report Email page, enter you e-mail address and you will be re-sent the links.

2. The report is not printing correctly

   All of the browsers we have tested have bugs and idiosynchrosies with printing. We have used all of the known tricks for fixing the ones we could.

   There are a few things you can do to make sure your reports print as correctly as possible.

   • Some browsers, like Firefox, will not print the arial photos very well, so select Map view before printing. 
   • Firefox, Opera and Safari browsers have a bug that prevents the circle from printing correctly. Hopefully they will have this fixed in a future version. If you really must have the circle, use Internet Explorer to view and print the report.
   • The transparent part of the backgrounds on the markers may print as a grey box. This is true of Internet Explorer v6 and earlier as well as FireFox browsers. This is not ideal, but most people do not even notice this.

• MapHazards.com Professional
• The STARReport^tm Radius Reporting System
• Get STARReport^tm Radius reports
• Environmental Database Licensing
  

MapHazards.com Professional. Coming soon!

We are excited to announce that we are extending the MapHazards.com service you are using now so that it will be an invaluable resource for environmental engineers, regulatory agencies and lenders.

• Get ALL of the information available for every site.
• Save addresses for easy lookup.
• Customize the types of sites you are interested in viewing.
• Search for sites by street name, sitename, site type and more.

We are curently in development of MapHazards.com Professional and you have a chance to shape it to what YOU need and want! Do you have a suggestion for a feature or want further information? Click here to send us an e-mail right now!

The STARReport^tm Radius Reporting System

The STARReport system is the most advanced Environmental Radius Report system in existence today and here's why:

• Nationwide, fully ASTM E 1527-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) standard reports.
• Get your full and complete radius reports right now! Not when your existing provider decides to send them to you.
• Fully customizable templates. Want site type sorting? Your name and logo? Almost any option is possible.
• More report and analysis features than you can shake a stick at. Or just click the mouse twice to a finished report.
• Version 4 available by the end of September.
• Drop us an e-mail or call us at 831-262-8859 if you would like to know more.

Get STARReport^tm Radius reports

You can get the superior accuracy and easy of use of a STARReport Radius Search report without the need to install the software. We have partnered with two very experienced and competent firms to provide individual orders.

If you are a lender contact EnviroCheck Solutions, at www.envirochecksolutions.com for products tailored to your needs.

For Environmental Engineers doing Phase I and ETA reports, contact PIERS Enironmental Services, at www.pierses.com.

Environmental Database Licensing

Do you just need the data to feed your own application? We have what you are looking for!

Here are the advantages of our data:

• Nationwide, fully ASTM E 1527-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) compliant data.
• Complete datasets. We have virtually every data field provided by the agencies.
• Flexible. We can section, trim or transform the data any way you need it for your application.

Some potential uses:

• In-house radius report application.
• Addiitonal data for Natural Hazard Disclosures.
• Insurance analysis.
• Governmental regional planning.
• Environmental Impact Reports.

Thank you for your interest!

We very much want to hear from you with comments and suggestions.

The best way to reach us is by e-mail or the contact form below. If you have any questions about any of the hazard data we show you on this site, please check the Envionmental FAQ for answers first. If the answer is not in there, then by all means, ask away. That's how the FAQ's get built!

We try very hard to respond to any questions and inquiries quickly.

E-mail: info@maphazards.com

Cypress Technology Solutions, Inc.
514 Primavera Rd.
Boulder Creek, CA 95006

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Cypress Technology Solutions, inc. is a provider of environmental hazard data and the software used to analyze that data.

We have been doing this for over 5 years and the principals have a combined 25+ years of experience in this field.

We have watched the free software movement along with the excellerating democratization of data in recent years and figured it was about time someone gave you, the consumer, easy and ready access to environmental hazard data. And since we are the experts, why not us? Google Maps has made this possible without needing a venture capitalist or a very rich uncle.

Meet Us

Chris Olsen, Executive Director

Chris has worked in the environmental consulting industry since 1994. Experience includes performing and reviewing Phase I Environmental Site Assessments and overseeing the research and acquisition of nationwide environmental databases. Chris was previously the Director of Operations at VISTAinfo's Property Disclosure Division. Currently, Chris is the Executive Director for Cypress Technology Solutions, Inc., a provider of software and environmental data for the environmental consulting industry. Chris has a BA in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Barbara, and an MBA from Santa Clara University, Leavey School of Business. Chris is a Registered Environmental Assessor I (REA-07343) with the State of California Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Brad Mathews, Chief Technology Officer

Brad Mathews has been creating professional software for over 20 years. In 1993 his one-man consulting company, Digital Intention, was hired to build one of the very first computer map based radius search report systems for the environmental engineering market. Thus started his experience with computerized mapping technologies (GIS to you techies) and the environmental hazard market.

In advancing the state of the art in data processing and map system automation Brad joined some like-minded peole and they started E/Risk Information Services providing natural hazard disclosures (earthquake, flood, fire, etc.) to the residential real estate market. This was an industry crying out for advanced technology which Brad, practically single handedly, supplied.

Brad and his partners sold that company and in 2002 Chris and Brad decided to start Cypress Technology Solutions, Inc. and soon advanced the state of the art in radius search reports for the environmental engineering industry.

Cypress Technology Solutions, Inc. (CTS) has researched and obtained certain local, state and federal environmental databases. The data presented is intended to give the user a general overview of environmental hazards in a particular area. The MapHazards service is not intended as a replacement for an ASTM E 1527-05/All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI) compliant regulatory database report. In addition, CTS cannot insure the accuracy of the environmental information as obtained from the above referenced sources. CTS is in no way responsible for any errors and/or omissions occurring in data conversion and/or geocoding. No warranty expressed or implied is made in any way in connection with the data presented on the MapHazards website.

High Risk

"High Risk" sites include the highest priority cases for remediation. These sites include Superfund, Brownfield and other serious soil and groundwater contamination cases. Many of these cases are actively being remediated, and have state and/or federal oversight for cleanup.

Medium Risk

Second, facilities with known leaking underground storage tanks or surface spills are shown as a "moderate" hazard to the surrounding area. Many of these sites have impacted groundwater at nearby properties.

Low Risk

Facilities that store hazardous materials and/or generate hazardous wastes are shown. Many of these sites have not had a reported spill or release to the environment, and are considered to be a "low" hazard to the surrounding properties. Minor surface spill incidents are also included in the "low" hazard category.

The Detailed Risk Assessment will tell you more about the hazards around this address.