Many Wyoming communities have brownfield properties that are abandoned or underutilized because of known or suspected environmental contamination. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (WDEQ) has established the Brownfields Assistance (BA) program to support these communities by helping local governments investigate, clean up, and reuse brownfield properties. The BA program provides technical assistance through Phase I environmental site assessments (ESAs), which include a historical investigation of the property’s previous uses and a visual site inspection.

As the sole source for this work, RETTEW faced some unique challenges including the diversity of the properties as well as their locations spread across the state. The scope of our work involved identifying any recognized environmental conditions that should be further assessed and remediated in later phases of the BA program. We committed a dedicated team to respond to the individual requests from each community and used standard operating procedures, checklists, and templates to ensure consistency among all the ESAs. This project promotes sustainable communities and allows these towns and cities to complete the first step toward restoration of the subject properties. To date we have completed six Phase I ESAs encompassing 17 parcels within communities across Wyoming.