Land Remediation

A report "Liability Protection for Approved Professionals in British Columbia" has been written for the ministry by the legal firm Birchall Northey. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to John Ward.

We invite qualified consultants to apply before the closing date of June 16, 2006, at 14:00.

Alan McCammon
Manager, Brownfields / Olympics
Land Remediation Section

This cs-elink message is to remind all stakeholders that:

Effective November 1, 2004, and under the authority of the new Environmental Management Act, all applications eligible under Protocol 6 shall be submitted as roster submissions by approved professionals. Please see http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/hazwaste/index.htm for further clarification of application eligibility.

Vincent C. Hanemayer
Senior Contaminated Sites Officer

This cs-elink message is to remind all stakeholders that:

The Roster Steering Committee is soliciting requests for qualifications for:

Project Manager, Practice Guideline Development - Deadline: Nov. 1, 2004.
Professional Exam Setting Services - Deadline: Nov. 8, 2004.

For additional information on these postings, please link to the following web page:

http://www.apeg.bc.ca/

Vince Hanemayer
Senior Contaminated Sites Officer

The presentations provided by Contaminated Sites Program staff, the Science Advisory Board, and the Roster Steering Committee at the Sep. 28 workshop are now available on the What's New page on the CSP website.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/whats_new/index.htm

Vince Hanemayer
Senior Contaminated Sites Officer

As promised at the workshop, and for those unable to attend, you can download (in read-only power point format) the Contaminated Sites Program presentations, the Roster Steering Committee presentation and the Science Advisory Board presentations. In addition, the Contaminated Sites Program has prepared a paper that provides more detail on the recent and future changes.

We hope to post a record of the questions and answers at the workshop in the near future.

This CS e-Link provides update information on the Workshop on Contaminated Sites Legislation and Policy Development and Forum for Contaminated Sites Practitioners.

General Information
Both events will be held at the Fletcher Challenge Theatre (Room 1900) located at the SFU Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver, BC. Start times for both events will be between 8 and 9 am. The agendas for both events will be distributed once finalized. Participants who have not yet registered (see below) for either event are requested to do so by September 10, 2004.

General information on the event location, parking and TransLink access can be accessed here.
(Note: a map of the theatre location can be accessed at the "Rooms and Facilities" link located at the top of the above webpage).

Workshop on Contaminated Sites Legislation and Policy Development

Forum for Contaminated Sites Practitioners

• The date of the forum has been changed to Wednesday, October 6, 2004 due to a facility scheduling conflict. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
• We have received a limited number of comments and queries from practitioners and others for discussion at the forum. These range from the process of addressing off-site contamination to standards/guidelines for the assessment and remediation of salt impacted sites. Other issues raised have related to administrative processes as specified in guidance documents and protocols. Over the next week, we encourage all participants to consider and provide any other topics and/or any interpretative related questions for discussion at the forum. These are requested by September 17, 2004 to allow for internal consideration and preparation of a response. Topics not addressed at the forum will be logged and a response prepared following the forum.

Please email George Szefer if you have not yet registered to attend the forum and/or if you have any suggested topics, questions or comments.

In our July 28, 2004 announcement, we provided links to the contaminated sites legislation on our ministry website and the Queen's Printer website. Since that time, the Queen's Printer has added the appended schedules, that contain standards and other information, to the Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR). We hope to have Adobe Acrobat (PDF) versions of the schedules available shortly.

Changes to the standards can be summarized as follows:

• An aquatic life standard for calcium was added to Schedule 6. (This occurred inadvertently and erroneously and the number was repealed by a minister's order last week).
• Director's standards for MTBE and nonscheduled toxic substances as well as criteria for sediments have been added to the CSR schedules. This was necessary because the new legislation states that all director's standards and criteria cease to have effect one year after they have been made (see EMA 63.1(3)).
• Many of the substances in the schedules have been rearranged so that the groupings are consistent across the schedules.
• Standards for radioactive substances have been removed since the Ministry of Health leads the provincial regulation of radioactive substances.
• A number of instances of the NS (no standard specified) acronym have been removed from the matrix standard for mercury in Schedule 5 since they were not applicable for the specified land uses.

We have received some comments from stakeholders on typographical errors that occurred during publication. We appreciate this input and welcome any other comments on the new legislation. Please direct your enquiries to Mike Macfarlane, project manager of the Contaminated Sites Review (Mike.Macfarlane@gov.bc.ca)

[To take your name off this distribution list, send an email to majordomo@majordomo.env.gov.bc.ca with the words "unsubscribe cselink-1" in the first line of the body of the message.

This CS e-link provides update information on the Workshop on Contaminated Sites Legislation and Policy Development and Forum for Contaminated Sites Practitioners.

General Information:

• Both events will be held at the Fletcher Challenge Theatre (Room 1900) located at the SFU Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver, BC. Start times for both events will be between 8 and 9 am. The agendas for both events will be distributed once finalized. Participants who have not yet registered (see below) for either event are requested to do so by September 10, 2004. General information on the event location, parking and TransLink access can be accessed at: http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/maes/harbour.htm (Note: a map of the theatre location can be accessed at the "Rooms and Facilities" link located at the top of the above webpage).

Workshop on Contaminated Sites Legislation and Policy Development

• Please email simon.shutter@gems4.gov.bc.ca if you have not yet registered to attend the workshop.

Forum for Contaminated Sites Practitioners

• The date of the forum has been changed to Wednesday, October 6, 2004 due to a facility scheduling conflict. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
• We have received a limited number of comments and queries from practitioners and others for discussion at the forum. These range from the process of addressing off-site contamination to standards / guidelines for the assessment and remediation of salt impacted sites. Other issues raised have related to administrative processes as specified in guidance documents and protocols. Over the next week, we encourage all participants to consider and provide any other topics and / or any interpretive related questions for discussion at the forum. These are requested by September 17, 2004 to allow for internal consideration and preparation of a response. Topics not addressed at the forum will be logged and a response prepared following the forum.
• Please email george.szefer@gov.bc.ca if you have not yet registered to attend the forum and / or if you have any suggested topics, questions or comments.

Please see following notice from the Roster Steering Committee (RSC) and LEP Development Subcommittee.

The draft framework for the LEP System in British Columbia, which provides preliminary details on important features of the new system, is now posted to the APEGBC website for public review and comment.

Please submit comments to Megan Begley by September 30, 2004.

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

Please see another notice from the Roster Steering Committee (RSC) and LEP Development Subcommittee.

An open meeting of the Roster will be held on September 9, 2004 from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm followed by a lunch. Details on the agenda and location will follow shortly.

Online registration for this event is now available at the following link:

https://host.softworks.ca/AGate3/?f=APEGBC.0015

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Lise-Anne Vershinin
Ph:604-412-4876
Email: lvershinin@apeg.bc.ca

A key improvement has been made to the site information request process with the introduction of amendments to the provincial contaminated sites regime in July. It will result in savings for those requesting information on sites in B.C.

We have amalgamated the two processes used for obtaining information on sites. The "site-specific information request" and "electronic site registry search" application forms have been combined - now one form, the "site information request" form will be used.

Under the old site-specific information request process, a fee of $200 was charged for most searches for single sites. Now if a client wants the ministry to conduct a search, it will usually be done by the ministry on the electronic site registry, providing the same information, at about half the cost.

You may download the new site information request application form at:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/forms/index.htm

Clients will still have the option of performing electronic site registry searches themselves if they have a BC Online account, or of hiring a firm to do a search on their behalf. The BC Online website is located at: https://www.bconline.gov.bc.ca/.

For further details, please contact the Site Information Advisor at (250) 953-3855.

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

This CS e-Link provides notice of two upcoming contaminated sites events sponsored by the Contaminated Sites Program. Both events will be held in Vancouver and there will be no charge to attend. Depending on the response, we may host similar meetings in other parts of the province.

Workshop on Contaminated Sites Legislation and Policy Development

The ministry if planning to hold a workshop to provide an overview of the recent, as well as upcoming, contaminated sites legislation and policy work. The workshop is scheduled for a full day on Tuesday, September 28, 2004 and is open to all stakeholders and the general public. Representatives from the Roster Steering Committee and the Science Advisory Board will also be present to update us on their work. Please email simon.shutter@gems4.gov.bc.ca if you plan to attend this workshop.

Forum for Contaminated Sites Practitioners

As a separate event from the legislation workshop, the ministry is also planning a forum for contaminated sites practitioners. The purpose of the forum is to discuss ways the ministry can improve communication with, and education of, contaminated sites practitioners. The focus of the forum will be to hear what practitioners have to say, and therefore participation by practitioners will be very important in this regard. The forum is scheduled as a half day (possibly full day) event on Thursday, October 7, 2004. Stakeholders and the general public are also welcome to attend. Tentative topics include an overview of the contaminated sites program, information on the web, legislation and policy education, common issues in ministry reviews / roster audits, and interpretation issues.

We are requesting suggested topics and / or any interpretative related questions from practitioners in advance. This will maximize our ability to provide helpful answers and information at the forum.

Please email george.szefer@gov.bc.ca if you plan to attend this forum and include any suggested topics, questions or comments.

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

In our July 9 email, we announced the recent changes to the Environmental Management Act and the Contaminated Sites Regulation. We appreciate your patience while the government works to provide improved access to this legislation. You can now view annotated, consolidated versions of both EMA (Part 4) and the CSR through our contaminated sites program website. Existing documentation on our website will be updated shortly to reflect these changes.

In addition, Protocol 6 - Eligibility of Applications for Review by Approved Professionals - has been revised. Highlights include:

• For approvals in principle the timeframe for completion of remediation has been increased from 2 to 5 years.
• Eligibility for roster review of local background soil estimates based on regional background soil levels now allowed. Local background soil and water estimates by other means continues to require ministry pre-approval.
• Eligibility for roster review of part of a site clarified.
• Language has been updated to reflect recent changes to EMA and the CSR.

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

In consideration of the update sent late last week, the Roster Steering Committee has agreed to extend the application deadline for the next exam to Thursday, July 22. Please see the following link for exam information:

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/roster/

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

Over the past year, the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection has been drafting a number of legislative changes that are intended to improve our laws and standards. For contaminated sites, this work culminated in amendments to the Contaminated Sites Regulation, which were approved yesterday by the Lieutenant Governor.

The CSR amendments and a number of other Orders-in-Council approved this week, bring into force the Environmental Management Act (passed as Bill 57, October of 2003), create the new Waste Discharge Regulation and bring into force select provisions of a subsequent EMA amendment (Bill 13 - passed April 19, 2004). The Waste Management Act is repealed.

Over the next few days and weeks we will be providing more information on the background and implications of these recent changes. The Queen's Printer and Attorney General's ministry are working hard to publish the amendments and we will advise you as soon as they become available. We appreciate your patience as we roll out this new legislation.

Further amendments to EMA and the CSR are anticipated as the Ministry moves forward with its commitment to improving the contaminated sites regime in British Columbia.

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

This contaminated sites update is to advise you of the ministry's next steps to reduce application backlogs and to focus our limited resources on high-risk contaminated sites.

The ministry's latest Service Plan reaffirms the high priority that we have placed on reduction of the contaminated sites application backlog. For some time now, the ministry has been actively encouraging applicants to take advantage of the roster and external review options to minimize review turnaround times. In addition, the ministry has re-directed some applications to external and other review contractors at increased cost to the ministry. These and other efforts during recent years have reduced the backlog to a limited extent only.

Therefore, to further reduce the backlog, improve client service and meet Service Plan targets, the ministry is taking additional action including the following two key steps:

• Effective July 15, 2004, all eligible applications shall be submitted either as roster submissions or for external contract review. Eligible applications are those that qualify under Protocol 6 for the roster process and those that are eligible for external contract review including site investigations, remediation plans and confirmation of remediation reports. Please see http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/updates/index.htm for further clarification of application elegibility; and
• Effective November 1, 2004, and under the authority of the new Environmental Management Act, all applications for low to moderate risk sites shall be submitted as roster submissions.

By taking these actions and continuing to improve our internal processing efficiencies, we anticipate a positive effect on backlog reduction. The number of applications that will be reviewed by those other than ministry staff will increase and review timelines will decrease.

Please see http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/updates/index.htm for an overview of these changes and for answers to some of the questions you may have.

We hope the information in this contaminated sites update will help you plan your ongoing and future site investigation and remediation projects. We look forward to your continued assistance in eliminating the backlog of non high-risk contaminated sites applications.

Alan W. McCammon
Assistant Director
Contaminated Sites Program

Please note the call for comments on two documents, prepared by the Science Advisory Board (SAB):

• Screening Risk Assessment - Level 1
• Report of the EPH/LEPH/HEPH Task Force

See http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/draft_documents/index.htm for links and instructions for responding.

Also, a new analytical method for silica gel cleanup of EPH has been posted to: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/analytical_methods/index.htm

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

Please see another notice from the Roster Steering Committee (RSC) and LEP Development Subcommittee.

A discussion forum on the Roster of Professional Experts and Licensed Environmental Professionals is now available from the APEGBC Contaminated Sites website. To enter, click the "Discussion Forum" link along the right-hand side of the screen.

The parameters of the forum are clearly defined. Should any questionable content appear on this forum, it will be removed by the administrator.

Lise-Anne Vershinin
A/Project Manager, LEP Development
lvershinin@apeg.bc.ca

Please see following notice from the Roster Steering Committee (RSC) and LEP Development Subcommittee.

Recommendations for a "Licensed" Environmental Professional System for Contaminated Sites in British Columbia.

The Roster Steering Committee has been working diligently to establish a document outlining a Recommended LEP System for Contaminated Sites in British Columbia. The document in DRAFT form has been posted to the APEGBC - Contaminated Sites website.

The draft document is linked under the "Important Announcements" section and on the right-hand side of the page under "Roster Steering Committee".

The document was developed based on the "Development of a New Contaminated Site Development Process in BC" survey which was completed in March 2004. The results of the survey were graphed and analysed and the trends were captured in this Proposal.

Please review and e-mail comments to my attention by June 28, 2004. Once comments are received and reviewed, the next milestone will be to present a finalized recommendation to the Ministry.

Lise-Anne Vershinin
A/Project Manager, LEP Development
lvershinin@apeg.bc.ca

Short Course on the Applications of the Director's Criteria for Managing Contaminated Sediments in British Columbia

On June 7 and 8, 2004, the Sustainable Fisheries Foundation (in conjunction with B.C. Water, Land and Air Protection) will be convening a short course on the applications of the recently released Director's Criteria for assessing and managing contaminated sediments in B.C. This short course will be convened at the Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites in Victoria, and will:

• Describe the purpose of the Director's Criteria;
• Describe the framework for assessing and managing contaminated sediments in the province;
• Provide background information on designing and implementing investigations of sediment quality conditions;
• Describe the numerical sediment quality criteria and their intended applications; and
• Present a series of case studies that illustrate how the criteria should be applied at contaminated sites.

Space is limited to first 100 registrants.

For more information on the workshop and a registration form, pleasse visit the Sustainable Fisheries Foundation website.

Vincent Hanemayer
Senior Contaminated Sites Officer

The Director of Waste Management has now approved the Director's criteria and 4 Volume Technical Guidance for dealing with the Management of Contaminated Sediments at Contaminated Sites under the Contaminated Sites Regulation.

These criteria and guidance came into effect for Contaminated Sites regulatory purposes March 5, 2004. These documents supersede the draft criteria and guidance posted for public and stakeholder comment in 2002 and replace previous ministry policy and advice related to the assessment and management of sediments at contaminated sites.

Copies of the criteria, guidance and the ministry's response to comments received on previous drafts of these documents can be downloaded from:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/guidance/index.htm and
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/standards_criteria/index.htm

Simon Shutter
Head, Industry and Government Initiatives
Contaminated Sites Program

Questions related to these documents should be routed to:

Mike Macfarlane
Contaminated Sites Program
Phone: 250-356-0557
Mike.Macfarlane@gov.bc.ca

The Ministry is proposing to organize and convene a workshop on the Director's Criteria and their use this spring.

The workshop will be designed to accommodate between 100 and 120 participants. The workshop will be open to representatives of the Roster of Professional Experts, Science Advisory Board, the Ministry, Federal Departments, private sector consultants and other stakeholders.

The workshop would be designed to provide:

• background information on sediment quality assessment;
• detailed descriptions of numerical sediment quality criteria and their intended applications; and
• a series of case studies and hands-on examples that illustrate how the sediment quality criteria should be applied at sediment contaminated sites.

An update on the workshop will be issued by the Ministry.

Please see following notice from the Roster Steering Committee (RSC) and LEP Development Subcommittee.

Important Questionnaire on New Contaminated Site Review Process for Completion by March 12, 2004.

The Roster Steering Committee and its LEP Development Subcommittee have issued a background document and questionnaire to further analyze and seek input on the key issues surrounding the development of a new contaminated site review process in B.C. The results of this important questionnaire will complete Stage 1 of the Roster Steering Committee's LEP development work and will form the basis for the type of LEP system that will be developed under Stage 2.

You are strongly encouraged to take 30 minutes to read the background document and complete the questionnaire, available at http://www.apeg.bc.ca/index.html (see link under "Important Announcements"), before March 12, 2004. If you will be observing the March 9 meeting of the Roster of Professional Experts, at which the background document and questionnaire will be presented and further discussed, you are advised to delay responding to the questionnaire until after the meeting. If you have not already registered for the March 9 meeting and would like to, you may do so on-line from the link provided above.

Please feel free to forward this e-mail to others you feel should complete the questionnaire.

Megan Begley
Project Manager, LEP Development
APEGBC
200-4010 Regent Street
Burnaby BC V5C 6N2

Phone: 604-430-8058
Fax: 604-430-8085
http://www.apeg.bc.ca/index.html

The Director of Waste Management has approved Protocol 9: Determining Background Groundwater Quality. This protocol provides a procedure for determining local background concentrations in groundwater. It is intended to assist persons conducting remediation where local background concentrations of a substance or substances are above numerical water quality standards. In the protocol, concentrations of a substance that occur naturally in a geographic area are considered to be representative of background concentrations. The protocol may be found at http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/policy_procedure_protocol/index.htm#2 and complements Protocol 4: Determining Background Soil Quality, available at the same web location.

It is anticipated that the use of this protocol by rostered experts will be addressed through revisions to Protocol 6 (Determining the Role of the Roster of Professional Experts).

Please contact Peggy Evans (Peggy.Evans@gov.bc.ca or 250-356-8386) or Steve Dankevy (Stephen.Dankevy@gov.bc.ca or 604-582-5209) if you have any questions or comments.

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

The Director of Waste Management has now approved a Director's standard and technical guidance dealing with Nonscheduled Toxic Substances (NSTS)

This new standard and guidance, which came into effect for Contaminated Sites regulatory purposes January 30, 2004, supersedes previous ministry policy and advice related to nonscheduled toxic substances.

Copies of the standard, guidance and the ministry's response to comments received on previous draft NSTS documents are available at http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/index.htm.

It is anticipated that the use of these new standards by rostered experts will be addressed through revisions to Protocol 6 (Determining the Role of the Roster of Professional Experts).

Questions related to these documents should be routed to:

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

The Science Advisory Board for Contaminated Sites in British Columbia (SAB) is developing screening risk assessment methodology and guidance for use in the ministry's proposed new regime for contaminated sites management in the province.

To assist the SAB in developing this new tool, the SAB is seeking information and input from CS e-Link subscribers.

To learn more about the screening risk assessment project and for details related to the input being sought by the SAB, please visit the SAB website at http://www.sabcs.chem.uvic.ca/

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