Environmental Due Diligence & Consulting Specialists
408-406-3850
Serving all of California and major metropolitan areas across the country
Division of Silicon Valley Environmental Group
Our company is comprised of a group of environmental professionals that date back to 1980. Laws were passed then that forced owners of underground fuel and chemical storage tanks in California to install leak detection systems. At that time, one of our Founders, Stuart Solomon, was in the outdoor security alarm business, and had access to a system that could adapt to detect leaks in tanks. Gen-Tech Environmental was founded in 1980 in San Jose. Leak detection systems and tank testing soon discovered 55,000 leaking underground fuel tanks in California. All of these had to be removed. Gen-tech evolved into a tank removal contractor. Over 5,000 underground tanks were removed by Gen-Tech over the following 12 years.
Leaking tanks, of course, caused soil and groundwater contamination, which had to be investigated and remediated. Gen-Tech investigated and performed clean-ups on 2,000+ sites, ranging from fuel to various solvents. Their clients included Bechtel Corporation, Reliance Steel, Santa Clara University, Di Salvo Trucking, Dan Caputo Construction, Golden Gate Petroleum, Selby Petroleum, Lloyd Wise Auto Dealerships, Western States Oil (Pacific Pride), Quikrete, State of California, Valero, and many more.
By the early 1990’s most of the leaking tanks in California had been removed. In 1992, PIERS Environmental Services was founded, and the group moved into Phase I site assessments. PIERS developed one of the first environmental database platforms in the Country, whereby records of contaminated sites from regulatory agencies could be stored and searched electronically. The system incorporated a GIS mapping platform that could graphically display the sites and their relative distances from each other. PIERS used this to perform over 3000 Property Phase I’s during the 1990’s.
In 1997, a California law was passed that required all residential sales transactions include a Natural Hazard Disclosure (NHD). Research for NHD’s was done manually, by visiting various government agencies and reviewing maps for high fire hazard areas, earthquake fault zones, dam inundation areas, etc. The PIERS environmental database platform lent itself perfectly to automating the NHD report. E-Risk Information Services was formed in 1997. All of the Natural Hazard maps were collected for the State of California, embedded over street maps, and an automated search program written. E-Risk was the first automated Natural Hazard Disclosure in the Nation. Virtually all Title companies in California subscribed to E-Risk NHD reports. The E-Risk program and platform was acquired in late 1999 by a Public company, and ultimately ended up in the ownership of Fidelity National Title Co., where it exists today.
PIERS was sold to its employees, and today, is still a leading environmental firm in Northern California.
Under strict NCA, our Founder, Stuart, and his son, Christopher, went on to form an environmental compliance business (ERS South) that specialized in bringing service stations and other fuel system owners into compliance with a variety of California’s ever-changing environmental laws. This work ranged from consulting, to complete rebuilding and modernizing of service stations.
Released of the NCA, in 2013 Phase-1 Environmental Services was founded. We reunited with our original programmer and founding staff and have once again created one of the top-rated environmental database in the Country. With this, we provide services to our clients that no competitor can.
Phase I Environmental Site Assessments, Limited Environmental Transaction Screens, Preliminary Property Reports, Phase II Investigations, Phase III Environmental Remediation, Tank Removals, Service Station Construction, Environmentally Distressed Property Consulting, Environmental Re-Zoning, Regulatory Negotiations, Review of other companies Phase I or Phase II Reports, Environmental Project Planning & Management, Expert Environmental Witness, Environmental Advise, and more…
