The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) will publish changes to existing standards in The Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act (Land Recycling Act, or Act 2) (35 P.S. §§ 6026.104(a) and -6026.303(a)). These amendments update some of the Statewide health standard Medium-specific concentrations (MSCs) based on current science.
On July 27, 2016, the Office of Attorney General approved the Chapter 250 final rulemaking. The rulemaking is tentatively scheduled for publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on Saturday, August 27, at which time the regulations will become effective. As a result, this will change cleanup standards for several compounds currently in the Pennsylvania Land Recycling Program (Act 2), and for compounds analyzed during closure of regulated storage tanks. Both the AST and UST standards for soil and groundwater will be revised to update Appendix E, Standards/Action Levels for Confirmatory Samples Collected at Closure Site Assessments to reflect the new standards. The revisions will be published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin (tentatively on August 27, 2016) the same date that the Chapter 250 final rulemaking will be published. At that time, the revised guidance will be available in PADEP's eLibrary.
Revisions to MSCs for approximately 390 regulated substances will change. The standards include updated EPA exposure factors. Six newly regulated substances have been added and include: chloroactelaldehyde, ethylene chlorhydrin, methyl hydrazine, trichloroacetic acid, triethylene glycol and strontium.
For gasoline, diesel fuel and kerosene storage tank sites one parameter which has a significant change is 1,3, 5 Trimethylbenzene (1,3,5 TMB). For 1,3,5,TMB, the unsaturated soil standard will increase from 2.3 mg/kg to 74 mg/kg for sites using residential standards and from 9.3 mg/kg to 210 mg/kg for sites using the non-residential soil standard. The groundwater standard for 1,3,5 TMB for closure site assessments increased from 13 µg/l to 420 µg/l. Revised tables with all the standard changes will be available following publication.
PADEP is required to review the associated toxicological data and update the MSC values every three years in order to assure that environmental response actions at contaminated sites are remediated based on current EPA guidance and toxicological information in order to assure the protection of the public health, public welfare, and the environment from exposures to regulated substances. This periodic review also may reduce the cost of remediation where current information will allow for use of higher standards.