Guess I should have summarized better. I'm in total agreement with Don & Ewest. Here are a few more thoughts for a Saturday morning.
If the property is contaminated, you could pay to complete the "All Appropriate Inquiry" work and completely imdemnify yourself from cleanup liability under Federal Superfund and state Superfund regs and and still find yourself in trouble with other regulations (i.e, Hazardous Waste, Clean Water Act, etc).
The Due Care requirements alone would steer me clear of this property if it is contaminated. The trick would be to find out if it is cotaminated without spending any money. Thats why I brought up the brownfield angle, which was indicated as being a longshot at best. Remember that if there is environmental data available, the owners have the responsibility to disclose that information.
One source of free information is to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the DEQ office in that district. This is where an environmental professional would always start. You will be able to review files on all of the nearby properties that have documented spills, releases, etc. You will need to determine the names and addresses of the nearby properties for the request. I would include everyone that has a connection to that basin, and all the adjacent properties and any that you know are hydraulically upgradient. If there are a number of known contaminated sites in the vicinity you can probably conclude that those contaminants have found their way to the basin. You will also learn what the potential contaminants are. Talk to the DEQ and ask them if they think the basin is contaminated. The only charges you would have are copy fees.
You could approach the seller and tell them your interested but need some environmental information before you can consider going further. Three or four sediment samples and a water sample would provide a good initial screening. If they were analyzed for metals (arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium, silver and zinc), PCBs, volatile organics, and polynuclear aromatics you would be looking at $400/sample plus labor to collect the samples). See if they are willing to pay for that. Like Ewest indicated, sellers are reluctant to generate information that is potentailly damaging. There is no way their attorney would allow them to agree to this but they may be at the point where they feel that sampling is inevitable.
We are only assuming that its contaminated with good reason, but people may not be interested because it is only a pond with no land that can be developed.
It is a simple fact at least here in Michigan that no commercial/industrial property ever gets sold without the appropriate inquiry. Unless of course it is sold for $1.
