Land Remediation

Earlier this year, the Contaminated Sites Program retained Grant Thornton to provide advice on financial security at contaminated sites in British Columbia. Their final report and an accompanying decision matrix are posted on the Program web site for your review and comment. You will also find a draft procedure for determining financial security. All three documents are available.

Please forward your submissions to John Ward by January 31, 2004:

John E.H. Ward
Head, Legislation and Finance Unit
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

To allow time for the BC Laboratory Quality Assurance Advisory Committee - Technical Sub-committee and the Science Advisory Board for Contaminated Sites in British Columbia to resolve issues related to the equivalency of EPH and LEPH/HEPH analytical methods and results, the Director has instructed that the period during which such results will be deemed equivalent for contaminated sites regulatory purposes be extended to July 1, 2004.

For additional information see the document titled "Clarification on Hydrocarbon Analytical Methods and Standards" (160 KB). If you have any questions, please direct them to:

Glyn Fox
Head, Science and Standards Unit
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

In January 2003 the Minister's Advisory Panel on Contaminated Sites recommended that fees for regulatory services must be clear, reasonable and proportionate with the services provided. In addition, the Panel suggested market-level hourly rates when program personnel provide professional services. In tandem with a government-wide review of fees and licences, and in response to the ministry's Service Plan, the Contaminated Sites Program compared its fees with costs of delivering the program. This comparison revealed that fee revenues did not cover Program costs.

On December 1, the fees for the ministry's contaminated sites services were revised. The changes enhance government recovery of costs of program delivery. This has been achieved through amendments to the Contaminated Sites Regulation, which involve several key changes:

• consolidating and reducing the number of existing fees;
• increasing fees and introducing new fees;
• and providing fees both in lump sum and hourly rate format.

The amendments can be downloaded.

A new Contaminated Sites Program update summarizes the key changes to the Regulation.

Please direct any enquiries on these amendments to:

John E.H. Ward
Head, Legislation and Finance Unit
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

Please read the following important update from Mike Macfarlane, Manager, Contaminated Sites Review Project:

Bill 57 was passed on October 21, 2003 and represented the first of an anticipated series of legislative amendments to the contaminated sites regulatory regime. The changes will further the Ministry's New Era Commitments and Service Plan goals to improve upon the current regime and are directed to ensuring sites are cleaned up and put back into productive use in a system that is efficient, timely, fair, and accountable.

The ministry is proposing to make the following legislative amendments to the contaminated sites provisions of the Environmental Management Act:

1. an amendment to remove the reference to "hazardous waste" from the definition of a "contaminated site" and " contamination" to reduce inconsistencies between the Contaminated Sites Regulation and proposed Hazardous Waste Regulation;
2. amendments to streamline the site profile process;
3. provisions to include the introduction of a notice of commencement of site investigation;
4. amendments to reduce Ministry oversight and improve remediation timelines due to greater involvement of qualified professionals in the administration of non-high-risk contaminated sites;
5. amendments to introduce two new statutory instruments, a "Record of Site Condition" and a "Letter of No Further Action" to provide more complete information to the ministry and public; and
6. provisions to create a fund known as the Land Remediation Fund to administer, monitor, support and encourage the remediation of brownfields in the province.

In respect of items 2 and 4 above, the Ministry has prepared two discussion papers on:

• proposed changes to the process which triggers mandatory site investigation; and
• proposed changes to the contaminated sites remediation process

The amendments proposed are intended to streamline the current contaminated sites legislation and process. The effects of these changes will ultimately be realized though a combination of changes to the regulation and the development of new protocols that will be done in partnership with industry, the Roster of Professional Experts and Science Advisory Board on a priority basis.

The Ministry welcomes your comments on these proposed amendments but requests that you provide submissions by November 21, 2003 to:

Mike Macfarlane
Manager, Contaminated Sites Review Project
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

The Science Advisory Board for Contaminated Sites in British Columbia (SAB) has now established their website at: http://www.sabcs.chem.uvic.ca/.

Subscribers to CS e-link are encouraged to visit the SAB's new website.

The website provides details related to the SAB Society including: a listing of the Society's Board of Directors, Terms of Reference for the SAB, activities and projects and a self-nomination form for scientists interested in joining the Society.

The ministry's Laboratory Services Section has revised the BC Laboratory Methods Manual and posted the new manual to the ministry's lab services site.

Please note that the new methods manual incorporates several new or revised analytical methods (e.g. Chromium VI, hot water soluble boron) which will come into effect for Contaminated Sites regulatory purposes effective December 1, 2003.

Questions related to the new manual should be directed to:

Steve Horvath
Laboratory Services Officer
Laboratory Services Section
Air, Water & Climate Change Branch
Environmental protection Division
Ministry of Water, Land & Air Protection

The Roster Steering Committee are soliciting participants for a Licensed Environmental Professional Development Subcommittee.

Please reply directly to Megan Begley, Roster Steering Committee Coordinator, if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Simon Shutter
Head, Industry and Government Initiatives
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

New documents on Nonscheduled Toxic Substances (NSTS) and Site-specific Numerical Water Quality Standards for VPHw and LEPHw have been posted to the Contaminated Sites Program internet site at http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/hazwaste/index.htm

We welcome your comments.

Simon Shutter
A/Head, Industry and Government Initiatives
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection

In recognition of the common industry practice to equate extractable petroleum hydrocarbon (EPH) analytical results with light extractable petroleum hydrocarbon (LEPH) and heavy extractable petroleum hydrocarbon (HEPH) data, and to allow sites which may have been so characterized to be reviewed by the ministry, the Director of Waste Management has approved the equivalency of EPH, and LEPH and HEPH methods, until January 1, 2004.

Full details are provided in our May 23, 2003 update (163 KB).

Please contact Glyn Fox if you have any questions.

The ministry is requesting comments on a draft protocol which provides a method for determining local background concentrations in groundwater. It is intended to assist persons conducting remediation pursuant to the Waste Management Act at sites with local background concentrations of a substance or substances above numerical water quality standards. While this draft protocol is not intended to allow unrestricted water uses at sites where concentrations of a substance are representative of the local background groundwater concentration, it does provide a release from the requirement to undertake remediation at such a site.

The proposed protocol may be viewed under the heading "Protocol 9 - Determining Background Groundwater Quality" (pdf 162 KB).

The comment period closes on July 9, 2003. Please send your comments to the following address:

John E.H. Ward
Head, Legislation and Finance Unit
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

The Government of British Columbia has introduced key legislative changes to the provincial contaminated sites regime. The proposed new rules were introduced as part of Bill 57, the government's new Environmental Management Act. They are expected to come into effect when amendments to regulations are finalized later this year.

For further information refer to our Minister's Advisory Panel on Contaminated Sites page.

A temporary process has been approved by the Director of Waste Management for the characterization of sites where methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) is a potential contaminant of concern. It is in effect until October 31, 2003, and has four key components:

• A continuing requirement to characterize MTBE in surface water and groundwater.
• A conditional release from the need to characterize MTBE levels in soil.
• Specified conditions under which Certificates of Compliance may be issued for MTBE in soil.
• Instructions on the applicability of the roster of professional experts process to sites with MTBE.

For further information on the temporary MTBE process check out the April 15th Update (166 KB).

This is to request those clients who are applying for the approval of a Contaminated Soil Relocation Agreement under the Contaminated Sites Regulation to provide a completed Contaminated Sites Services Application with their submission package. Please note that the application packages should now be sent directly to our Client Information Officer, as described below.

The ministry’s administrative procedures for dealing with the submission of contaminated sites applications, reports and plans were changed as of January 1, 2003 as described in an update

The update did not specifically mention new procedures for Contaminated Soil Relocation Agreements, and this message is to provide additional details.

First, all Contaminated Soil Relocation Agreement application packages must contain a completed Contaminated Sites Services Application form.

Second, all Contaminated Soil Relocation Agreement application packages must be sent, without a fee payment, to the Client Information Officer.

Note that clients will receive an invoice for the fees once the correct fees payable have been determined by our staff, following an initial quality assurance review of the application package.

If you have any questions about this new process, they may be directed to the Client Information Officer.

John E.H. Ward
Head, Legislation and Finance Unit
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

The public has been invited to attend future open sessions of the Roster of Professional Experts. Please check out the following link to the letter of invitation for further details.

This is to inform you that the Contaminated Sites Program’s Administrative Guidance documents 3 and 5 have been revised. The amendments reflect recent changes made to streamline the administration and review of contaminated sites casefile submissions.

Administrative Guidance 3, entitled "Applying to the Ministry for Contaminated Sites Services and Site-Specific Information Requests" informs our clients and stakeholders how to obtain services through our new Client Information Officer. My CS e-Link message of December 17 last year explains in detail how the service application process has been streamlined.

Administrative Guidance 5, " Professional Expert Recommendations Relating to Low to Moderate Risk Sites” has been revised to update the submission requirements for members on the Roster of Professional Experts. The amendments are in response to major revisions to Protocol 6, "Determining the Role of the Roster of Professional Experts”, which were announced in my January 9 message to stakeholders.

Please contact John E.H. Ward if you have any questions.

John E.H. Ward
Head, Legislation and Finance Unit
Contaminated Sites Program
Ministry of Environment

The Director of Waste Management has approved a major revision [now superceded - see latest version] to the Contaminated Sites Regulation's Protocol 6, which defines the sites eligible for review by environmental consultants on the roster of professional experts. We expect that these changes will lead to a significantly higher proportion of sites being signed off through roster submissions to the ministry.