Using Phytoremediation to Optimize the Resale Value of Your Industrial Site

Contaminated land issues in Poland and other countries mainly arise when a new owner decides that they want to build something, usually in a hurry. The quickest way to address their construction schedule is to "dig an dump." The consequences of this are normally that the seller has to take a huge hit in their sale price to accommodate the remediation bill. Intelligent owners of contaminated land can use their period of ownership to start phytoremediation where it is feasible, get a plan approved, and then not face discounting of their sale based on a hurry-up and expensive cleanup.

In Poland and most of the EU, the cleanup standard is locked to current land use only. This means that the risk assessment may give a site a pass on residual contamination if the site has controlled-access and there are no exposure pathways. Later, the sale of the land can likely be to a developer who wants to do more with it as a commercial property. The cleanup issue will have to be revisited and the former industrial owner will take a big hit. The same process works with banks' "real estate owned" - which typically may be held for years prior to sale.

Using the delay for a real cleanup to do a phytoremediation project at 10 to 15% of the alternative costs, would be the smart play. This will enable the seller to later avoid a huge discounted price or cleanup claims. Approval of the phytoremediation project also reduces the risk to the buyer of having to do a "dig and dump" remedy later. There is simply no comparison between paying for disposal of 20-30 tons a year of contaminated plants vs paying for excavation and disposal of hundreds of thousand of cubic meters of contaminated dirt.

As the market place opens up to this reality, we expect phytoremediation to become far more common.

See www.phytoremedia.eu.  [Phytoremediation feasibility studies are an inexpensive investment that can save you literally millions.].