Land Remediation

The Land Remediation Section has just released seven draft documents for public review and comment. You can view them on our web site at:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/remediation/draft_documents/

They include:

• Protocol 12. Classifying Site Risk Levels (draft)
• Protocol 13. Screening Level Risk Assessment (draft)
• Director's Interim Criteria. Air Concentration Criteria (draft)
• Technical Guidance 4. Soil Vapour Investigations (draft)
• Technical Guidance 7. Supplemental Guidance for Risk Assessments (draft)
• Procedure. Procedures for Processing Site Profiles (draft)
• Procedure. Establishing the Boundaries of a Site (draft)

When finalized, these documents will support the Section's increasing focus on high risk sites as directed by the Ministry's Service Plan.
They also will provide environmental quality criteria and guidance for environmental professionals to deal with the contamination of air by substances occurring in the soil, water and sediments at contaminated sites. Finally, they will simplify the administrative processing of site profiles and will provide guidance for decision makers under Part 4 of the Environmental Management Act on how to establish the boundaries of a site.

Please send your comments by February 16, 2007 to the staff member responsible for each document, as indicated on our web site.

To facilitate discussion and understanding of these documents, the Section is planning a series of workshops on February 7 and 8 in Vancouver. Another CS e-Link message will be sent to stakeholders in early January to provide greater detail and instructions for registration.

We look forward to your attendance and to receiving your comments to assist us in finalizing these documents.

Mike Macfarlane
A/Senior Manager, Land Remediation Section Ministry of Environment

We have just revised our Site Information Request Application form. The form has been simplified and rearranged, putting the most commonly used sections first.

Also, the section of this form dealing with requests for paper records has been deleted and a new File Contents Retrieval Application form has been created. Please use this new form for all your requests for the retrieval of paper records on sites.

If you have any questions or want to submit an application, please contact Craig Rosser, our Site Information Advisor at Advisor.SiteInformation@gov.bc.ca.

Thanks in advance.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section

We recently added a new fact sheet to our Land Remediation web site on residential heating oil storage tanks. It describes the legal obligations and responsibilities of property owners for these tanks. It also recommends how a home owner should proceed if a residential tank is found to be leaking or an abandoned tank is discovered.

You can review this publication on our web site here.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section
Environmental Management Branch
Ministry of Environment

We recently added two new fact sheets to our Land Remediation web site.

We recently started editing our contaminated sites Protocol documents, having completed this process for all of our fact sheets, and administrative and technical guidance documents.

The edits are necessary to bring the documents up-to-date with the new ministry name and government logo, as well as with changes made to the contaminated sites legal regime when the Environmental Management Act was adopted in 2004.

Over the next few months, revisions to Protocols will usually involve editorial amendments, and their substantive content will not change. I will inform CS e-Link subscribers when new versions of Protocols with significant amendments are released, but not when minor edits have been done.

Protocols 2 and 3 are the first to be updated, and you can view them here.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section
Environmental Management Branch
Ministry of Environment

We recently added two new fact sheets to our Land Remediation web site.

Fact sheet 30 summarizes the basic features of the Environmental Management Act's approved professional system. Under current ministry policy, approved professionals are expected to make service applications to the ministry for all low and moderate risk sites. A link to the Contaminated Sites Approved Professionals Society Internet site, which contains a contact list for approved professionals, is provided in this new document.

Fact sheet 31 describes requirements for the reporting and remediation of spills. It reviews the spill provisions relevant to the provincial contaminated sites legal regime, including notices of independent remediation and notices of offsite migration of substances.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section
Environmental Management Branch

Our new contaminated sites contact list has just appeared on our Land Remediation Section's home page. This list makes it simpler for clients to identify and contact the most appropriate staff member to answer their questions. A link to the list appears at the bottom of the left hand column under the "Contact Us" header.

The list contains many contaminated sites subject areas and issues. If you have a question on a particular topic, just click on the name of one of our staff members listed for that topic, and a blank e-mail message addressed to that person should appear, which you can fill out and send.

If your topic is not listed, then please send an e-mail message to our general e-mail address at site@gov.bc.ca. Your query will be routed to the most appropriate staff member for response.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section
Environmental Management Branch

Sustainable Technologies Development Canada (SDTC) recently launched its next call for funding applications (Statements of Interest).

Since its inception, SDTC has actively supported the development and demonstration of technologies with potential to improve air quality and reduce the effects of climate change. In 2004, the federal government expanded the Foundation's mandate to include soil and water technologies including those designed to prevent, treat or contain contamination that exceeds standards and to enhance land use and increase land value, for example through brownfield redevelopment.

Support provided by SDTC can help bridge funding gaps in the innovation chain and help prepare clean technologies for adoption in later-stage programs such as the Green Municipal Fund of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The deadline for submission of applications is October 11, 2006.

For further information, please visit http://www.sdtc.ca/en/soilandwater.htm

Alan McCammon
Land Remediation Section
Ministry of Environment

We have started the development of a more user friendly web site for our Land Remediation Section. Today, the first phase of these changes has been released, and you can see the results on our Section's home page.

We recently commissioned a "Website Usability Inspection" report which made a number of recommendations reflected in these changes. Improvements have been made to enable users to navigate through the site more easily, to synchronize the format and style of each page, and to update the content.

Over the coming months we expect to add more items to the Key Resources section. Also, there is additional work to be done on pages which are at a lower level in the system, for example on the approved professionals and legislation and regulations pages.

If you have any comments or questions, please contact me.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management Unit
Land Remediation Section
Ministry of Environment

This is to advise that the Ministry of Environment has posted a Request for Proposals RFP EMB 07-020 seeking consulting services to undertake supplementary research into brownfield initiatives and to prepare a paper summarizing options for a provincial brownfield redevelopment strategy.

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

Registration for the June 22, 2006 open session meeting of the Roster of Approved Professionals is now available. Please refer to the following Internet address for more information (draft agenda, pricing, time and location, etc.) and to register:

http://www.csapsociety.bc.ca/roster_meeting.htm

Subject to seat availability, registration closes on June 16.

Hope to see you there.

Sincerely,

Megan Begley
Project Manager, CSAP Development

200-4010 Regent Street
Burnaby BC V5C 6N2
604-412-4876
rsc@apeg.bc.ca

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has recently issued a Request for Proposals for municipalities wishing to pursue brownfield remediation projects. Approximately $20 million will be awarded in low-interest loans to winning projects. Municipalities may use loan proceeds to undertake the project or to extend financing to private developers for site remediation. Letters of Intent to apply must be registered before May 31, 2006.

For more information on this brownfield remediation opportunity, please
see the following website: http://www.sustainablecommunities.ca/GMF/GMF_
Brownfield_Remediation_BF.asp.

Alan McCammon
Manager, Brownfields / Olympics
Ministry of Environment

For contaminated sites regulatory purposes, the equivalency of extractable petroleum hydrocarbon (EPH) data with light extractable petroleum hydrocarbon (LEPH) and heavy extractable petroleum hydrocarbon (HEPH) data has been extended to July 1, 2007 by the Director, Environmental Management Act.

Ministry guidance on this matter is contained in our May 23, 2003 Update clarifying hydrocarbon analytical methods and standards.

If you have any questions, please direct them to Glyn.Fox@gov.bc.ca.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section
Ministry of Environment

Readers of our contaminated sites documents during the past year or so may have noticed a number of changes. The amendments almost always consist of editorial changes necessitated by passage of the Environmental Management Act and repealing of the Waste Management Act in 2004, the recent change in the name of the ministry, reorganization of the Contaminated Sites Program to the Land Remediation Section, and the adoption of a new banner for the documents.

In several instances, changes in the legislation and regulations required amending these documents in a substantive way. Apart from those types of changes, about which CS e-Link readers have already been informed, there have been no substantive amendments to our fact sheets and guidance documents. Over the coming months, we expect to review the existing protocols, procedures and remaining contaminated sites documents and make similar editorial changes.

If you have any questions or comments, please send an e-mail message to: Site@gov.bc.ca.

John Ward
Manager, Operations Management
Land Remediation Section
Ministry of Environment

The Ministry's mandate to continue with the development of the Contaminated Sites Approved Professional Society has been reaffirmed.

This summer the Director's Roster of Approved Professionals, under the Contaminated Site Regulation, will begin the transition to the Contaminated Sites Approved Professional (CSAP) Society. During this period of transition the Roster Steering Committee and the CSAP Society will exist concurrently. A transition period is necessary to ensure that there is no interruption in contaminated sites services to stakeholders while the Roster Steering Committee and the ministry complete work integral to the effective operation of the CSAP Society.

It is anticipated that the CSAP Society will be in effect by the fall of 2006 and that the Roster Steering Committee will be phased out by the end of 2006.

If you would like additional information, please click on the following link to the CSAP Society web site: http://www.csapsociety.bc.ca/

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to John Ward.

A newsletter authored by the Roster Steering Committee and providing a general update on the transition from the Contaminated Sites Roster of Approved Professionals to the Society of Contaminated Sites Approved Professionals (formerly Licensed Environmental Professionals) has been posted to www.csapsociety.bc.ca. The newsletter includes information regarding the September 2006 sitting of the Professional Experts Examination and its May 22, 2006 application deadline.  Please see the newsletter and website for more information.

Sincerely,

Megan Begley
Project Manager,
CSAP Development Roster Steering Committee Secretariat
200-4010 Regent Street Burnaby BC
V5C 6N2
(T) 604-412-4876
(F) 604-430-8085
www.csapsociety.bc.ca 

BC OnLine has recently simplified Site Registry searches by providing a shortcut to Synopsis and Detail Reports about a site, for clients who already know the correct Site ID number. As well, the Site Registry User's Guide has been enhanced with a new section on search strategies.

View update (108 KB)

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to John Ward.