The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) published 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)) that became effective on August 27, 2016. Revisions include documentation of public notices that are required to be submitted with Act 2 reports, the ability of PADEP to waive Act 2 report fees for resubmission of reports due to minor deficiencies, changes to how EPA drinking water health advisories are incorporated as Statewide health standard Medium-Specific Concentrations (MSCs), and changes to the MSCs. In addition, PADEP published revisions to the Underground Storage Tank (UST) and Aboveground Storage Tank (AST) closure documents to incorporate the new Chapter 250 MSC revisions into tank closure assessment protocol.
Revisions to MSCs for approximately 390 regulated substances changed. 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 are available.
The markup of the revisions that are effective are available here.
The new regulations are available here.
The revised AST guidance documents are available here.
The revised UST guidance documents are available here.
Any reports that PADEP has received prior to August 27, 2016, will be reviewed based on the prior regulations in effect. This includes reports that were received by August 27, 2016, that contained minor technical deficiencies that are resolved by the remediator within 60 days. Any reports, including reports that were previously disapproved and are being resubmitted, that are received after August 27, 2016, will need to comply with the new regulations. However, where Site Characterization Reports, Remedial Investigation Reports, Remedial Action Plans, or Cleanup Plans were approved prior to the effective date of the new MSCs, PADEP will not require those reports to be changed to incorporate the new MSCs.