Due diligence for transactions where being wrong is expensive.
TerraPoint takes the environmental questions that decide deals: independent review of another consultant's work, pre-listing reviews that put sellers ahead of the buyer's report, complex Phase I and Phase II assessments, and portfolio programs. Every opinion carries a licensed Professional Geoscientist's judgment.
Four distinct engagements
These are not steps in a process. They are separate engagements, and most clients begin with one.
Peer and Expert Review
Someone handed you a Phase I and you need to know whether it supports the conclusion being drawn from it. We review the report the way a regulator, a lender's counsel, or opposing counsel would: whether the scope met the standard, whether the findings justify the opinions, and what the report does not say.
- Review of Phase I and Phase II reports for adequacy, defensibility, and compliance with the applicable ASTM standard
- Assessment of whether conditions were correctly classified as recognized environmental conditions, controlled or historical RECs, or de minimis
- Evaluation of data gaps and whether the report supports All Appropriate Inquiries and the landowner liability protections
- Plain findings on what additional work, if any, the transaction actually requires
Pre-Listing Environmental Review
An expert walks your property before a buyer's Phase I does. The point is timing. A condition surfaced by the buyer's consultant lands inside their diligence window, when your leverage is at its lowest, and becomes a price adjustment, a holdback, or a delay. The same condition identified months earlier is a project you control: resolve it, document it, or prepare an accurate account of it.
- Site walk with historical and regulatory review by a licensed Professional Geoscientist
- Identification of conditions likely to be flagged as recognized environmental conditions in a buyer's Phase I
- A candid sort of what is genuinely a REC, what is resolvable with documentation you may already hold, and what a thorough environmental professional would treat as de minimis
- A documentation gap list: the closure letters, tank records, and permits to locate now, so the buyer's consultant finds clean answers instead of open questions
- Where useful, a seller-side Phase I that a buyer and their lender can rely on, which removes weeks from their diligence
Complex Phase I and Phase II Assessments
The assessments where the answer is not obvious: industrial and manufacturing legacies, agricultural chemical history, large multi-parcel acreage, sites where a prior report found something and nobody agrees what it means. When investigation is warranted, the sampling program is scoped to the decision being made rather than to the size of the property.
- AAI-compliant Phase I ESAs performed and certified by a licensed Professional Geoscientist
- Rural and forestland assessments under E2247 where that standard fits the property better than the conventional one
- Phase II sampling plans built around the specific question that has to be answered
- Findings written to survive lender and investor counsel review the first time
Portfolio and Public Sector Programs
For clients with recurring work rather than a single transaction. Reports tracked against their ASTM component windows and your financing and closing milestones, refreshed on schedule at pre-agreed rates, with reliance letters issued on request instead of re-procured under deadline.
- Portfolio-wide tracking of report currency against transaction and financing milestones
- Master service agreements structured for procurement teams, with pre-agreed rates and a single point of accountability
- TxDOT hazardous materials initial site assessments and public-sector environmental support
When the hydrogeology is the hard part
Most environmental professionals are not hydrogeologists. On an ordinary site that rarely matters. On karst, on fractured bedrock, or on a site where something has already been released, it decides whether the assessment is right.
Contaminant migration is not a straight line
In karst and fractured rock, groundwater moves through conduits and fractures rather than uniformly through pore space. Contaminants can travel far, fast, and in directions a standard gradient map does not predict. An assessment that assumes porous-media flow over the Edwards Aquifer can reach a confident conclusion about an adjoining property and still be wrong.
The same judgment, applied to the deal
Reading that behavior correctly is the core of our karst practice, and it carries directly into due diligence: which off-site sources actually matter, whether a vapor pathway is plausible, and where a Phase II should sample if one is warranted at all.
When sampling is the right tool, we say so without hesitation. When it isn't, we say that too.
Whether we are the right firm
Work we are built for
- A report you have been handed that you are not sure you can rely on
- A property going to market where surprises during the buyer's diligence would be costly
- A site with industrial, agricultural, or long and undocumented history
- A condition where the right answer depends on how groundwater actually behaves
- A transaction where the environmental finding affects price, schedule, or liability
- A portfolio that needs reports kept current rather than re-procured one emergency at a time
Work we are not
If a transaction needs a routine Phase I on a low-risk property and nothing more, there are firms built for that volume and they do it well. Our work begins where the answer is not obvious, where a previous answer is in question, or where someone needs to be right rather than merely covered.
Saying that plainly saves everyone time, which is the same reason we will tell you when a site does not need the investigation someone has recommended.
The credential behind the opinion
Due diligence is a judgment product. What you are buying is whose judgment it is, and whether it holds up when someone with an incentive to disagree reads it.
Licensed P.G., nearly two decades in practice
Every assessment, review, and professional opinion carries a licensed Professional Geoscientist's evaluation, with nearly two decades of due diligence, hydrogeology, and regulatory experience behind it.
Former National SME for Phase I ESAs
Served as the firm-wide subject matter expert on Phase I ESA practice at one of North America's largest engineering and environmental consulting firms. Reviewing other consultants' work is not a new line of business here.
300+ Phase I ESAs, 500+ projects
Experience across commercial, industrial, agricultural, energy, and public-sector property, in Texas and nationwide.
Automation where it belongs
A structured field-capture and report-production pipeline handles the repeatable work, which is why senior-led work does not have to be slow work. The professional opinion is never automated. The paperwork around it is.
A seat on the committee behind the standard
TerraPoint is represented on ASTM Subcommittee E50.02, which maintains E1527 and E1903, the Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessment standards, and on ASTM Subcommittee D18.27 on Karst. The reports we write and review are measured against standards this practice helps develop.
Send us the question.
A report you need reviewed, a property going to market, or a site where the answer is not obvious. You will get a direct response from the geoscientist who would do the work.