I just read an article from a Colorado paper about a site being eyed for purchase by the city for redevelopment. It struck me as I read it that the article's a treasure trove of information for any future environmental professional doing a Phase I ESA there. For instance, you'd find out that:

• the downtown site once housed a longtime dry cleaning business 
• preliminary sampling of soil and groundwater revealed low-level contamination, but high enough to "likely spark some type of cleanup"
• current owner says he followed state laws during 26 years of ownership and "knows nothing about possible PCE issues" BUT...
• the site has been a dry cleaner for decades under various owners "long before the state laws became active in 1980"
• the site's been on the state's radar "for some time" because groundwater tests on adjacent properties show low levels of PCE in the groundwater going back to 1989
• there's '05 sampling data that detected PCE at a former gas station a block away (66 ppm vs. state standard of 5 ppb)
• owner has not allowed additional groundwater testing on the site (red flag)

It made me wonder how common it is for EPs to automatically google a site's address or business name for articles like this that may be in the archives of the local newspaper. Seems like the more a story about property contamination made local headlines, the more a court would deem this information "commonly known" under the AAI rule. Under section 312.30, the AAI rule references that in seeking to find commonly known information, the EP may refer to newspapers, along with web sites, community organizations, local libraries and historical societies.

It brought to mind a charasmatic attorney I once commissioned to speak at EDR's Due Diligence at Dawn seminars advising the EPs in the audience to routinely google the site address because "you just never know."

So, do you do this as a matter of course? only sometimes or never? Ever find anything good?