Environmentally Speaking

We are talking about Residential Property Transactions. If you’ve ever bought or sold a home, you know that as part of that transaction you must pay some hefty costs to both the attorney and to your lender.  Why?  It’s because if you’re borrowing money from a traditional lending institution the lending institution wants to make sure that their liability as it relates to the asset (the house) is nonexistent. How do you find out about transactions that have happened on a property, what do they mean?  Take a listen to find out.

In this week’s episode, we are going to discuss freshwater wetlands.

If you're dealing with freshwater wetlands here in Rhode Island, it’s the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management that regulates freshwater wetlands.  You should know that the state law that regulates freshwater wetlands is called the freshwater wetlands act. It talks about how the public policy of the state is to preserve the purity and integrity of freshwater wetlands, buffers and floodplains.   We are going to break these down in a little more detail so you have a better understanding of the three different categories of preservation listed.

In this episode we are going to discuss Gray Water.  Gray water is a term that refers to water that comes from your bathroom sink, shower, washing machines.  It is used water, however, it doesn't contain  any sort of human excrement bacteria. why is that important and what can you do with "gray water".  Take a listen to find out what gray water can be used for.

Storm water, for those of you that don’t know what it is, is pretty much what it sounds like.  It’s water that flows after a storm. You have probably seen the catch basins in the road as you're driving along.  That is a storm water collection system that you’re looking at with that catch basin, the grates in the road. Its job is to collect the storm water from the street and divert it elsewhere.  Where you ask?  Good question!

Take a listen as we discuss what storm water really is and how it effects your local areas.

Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is a commission that's created by state law in Rhode Island. Specifically, they are mandated to supervise, regulate, and make written orders dealing with company conduct, which companies offer to the public energy communication and transportation services. Take a listen as we breakdown in more detail who the PUC is, the different bodies of it and how they make your city or town function over all.

If you have any questions please contact us:

Office: 401-477-0023

Website: http://www.desautellaw.com

In this episode you will hear from Karen who shares her experience as an intern at Desautel Law, what it meant to her and what her future plans are.

Superfund is, a colloquial term that the United States Environmental Protection Agency dubbed appropriate for a federal statute.   That federal statute is called the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act.  The acronym for that is CERCLA.  So when you hear someone talking about CERCLA, that’s the long name for that particular federal statute.

Why superfund? Because part of the statute requires the federal government to set up essentially what is a Superfund,  a huge pot of money –  billions of dollars – that is earmarked to deal with immediate cleanup and emergency response actions for these particular polluted sites that are either burning or exploding or generally require an emergency response act.

Listen in as we discuss Superfund sites, what all is involved and how long cases like these stay open.

Public Notice is a way to keep the public informed and to ensure that the government is being transparent about topics that are not confidential and allows an opportunity for the public to be involved, to provide comment, to ask questions to a certain extent and give feedback on topics.

Take a listen as we discuss Public Notice from an environmental context, who would be involved and what to look for.

On this episode of environmentally speaking, Marisa and Clarice talk about the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and what to do if you get a notice of a violation. Marisa recommends that you first pay attention to any appeal rights that are contained in that notice. Listen to this episode to learn more.