March 26, 2001

The following CSSAB Members were present:

The following Department of Environmental Protection staff were present:

Guests Present:

The meeting was called to order at 9:38 AM

The minutes of the meetings held February 3, 2000, April 12, 2000, and June 22, 2000 were approved as written. Mark Urbassik offered a correction to the minutes of the meeting held February 22, 2001 to remove the title "Dr." from his name. The minutes were approved as corrected.

Dr Ron Buchanan reported on the meeting of the Safe Fill Subcommittee. He noted two major differences between the CSSAB proposal and the final regulations as written.

1. The regulations do not make it clear that knowledge of the nature of the material may be used in determining safe fill. Bill Pounds indicated that was not the intent of the regulations and agreed to insert clarifying language. Board members and Department representatives agreed that under the safe fill requirements, a person could utilize knowledge of the material to designate it as safe fill. However, if it is later shown that the material does not meet the criteria, there is no liability protection afforded to the person for the material.
2. The CSSAB had proposed using the SPLP test and areawide background as alternative criteria for determining safe fill, but these were not included in the regulations. Jim Snyder commented that the Department wanted to make the process as simple as possible and did not include all of the Board’s recommendations.
3. For other than Category 6 material, the CSSAB had recommended that safe fill requirements are satisfied if the Act 2 levels are not exceeded but this is not in the regulations. These materials would qualify as Permit by Rule material under the regulations.

Tom Fidler reviewed changes in the proposed Chapter 250 regulations and asked for the Board’s comments. The following points were discussed:

1. Mark Urbassik commented that in the section on tank attainment, there is a requirement that for excavations larger than 1,000 yd³ the Department must approve the attainment sampling plan. He asked how this process works, since it is not specified in the regulations. Tom Fidler responded that he surmised that prior to sampling the remediator would submit a sampling plan to the Department for approval. Mark Urbassik commented that it should be made clear in the regulations what a remediator must do to get the plan approved.
2. Craig Robertson commented that the PCB standards are not listed in the regulations as agreed to by the CSSAB. The remediator should have the choice in groundwater of demonstrating attainment of either the MCL for total PCBs or the individual Aroclor-specific MSCs. The Department agreed to include both the MCL and the Aroclor-specific MSCs in Table 1 for groundwater. The Aroclor-specific values for direct contact and soil-to-groundwater will be used for soils; the soil-to-groundwater numeric values in Table 3b will be calculated using the Aroclor-specific MSCs as the endpoint for the generic model.

The MSCs for chromium in groundwater should also be changed to refer to total chromium, not both species individually. This will avoid the possibility that a remediator will attempt to have each species meet an MSC of 100 m g/L, and thus a total chromium level of 200 m g/L which is above the MCL of 100 for total chromium. The Department agreed to make the change to total chromium in the table.

3. Mark Mummert commented on the postremediation care requirements for the nonuse aquifer designation. He felt that the program puts undue obligations on a municipality and former owner of a property and required them to do work after they should be finished with their obligations at a site. He felt that the obligation to demonstrate that the used aquifer MSC be met at the property boundary within 30 years be accomplished by fate and transport modeling, rather than by installing wells and sampling.

The Board approved the proposed regulatory package, with the provision that changes discussed at this meeting be incorporated. This includes revision of the MSCs for PCBs and chromium, the sampling plan approval for excavations greater than 1,000 yd³ and the nonuse aquifer postremediation care program.

The following issues regarding the revised Technical Guidance Manual were discussed:

1. Craig Robertson commented that the Department’s new position on the removal of Separate Phase Liquids seems to require a regulatory change. He has no problem with denying the availability of the Statewide health standard when SPL is present at the POC. However, the requirement under the background standard that the remediator show that no additional mass has been added to the SPL present on a site from sources other than the site operations is problematical. This means that there can be no release. During the initial development of the regulations the CSSAB was only concerned with the concentration upgradient vs. the concentration downgradient. Craig and Annette Guiseppi-Elie both objected to moving from a concentration-based standard to a mass-based one.
2. Mark Urbassik commented that the Risk Assessment flowchart in Section II.C.1 needs to be revised to match the text. After pathway elimination is performed, a remediator is finished, and does not need to calculate site-specific numeric standards, and this should be documented in the remedial investigation, not in another simplified risk assessment report. The Department agreed to make the necessary corrections.
3. Kevin Reinert commented that in the list of CPECs, the last entry should be for xylenes, generically, not specifically m-xylene.
4. Several members of the CSSAB commented that the calculation of mass of contaminants removed or addressed during remediation is not a good indicator of program success.

A motion was passed that the CSSAB approve the draft TGM for purposes of releasing it for the public comment process, with the understanding that further revisions to address the Board’s concerns regarding SPL and the calculation of the mass of contaminants will be made.

Kevin Reinert reviewed the history of the indoor air issue in the proposed and final regulations. The Subcommittee consisting of Annette Guiseppi-Elie, Bruce Fishman, Craig Robertson and Kevin Reinert looked at the issue, reviewed the Johnson and Ettinger model, and reviewed other states’ regulations. They applied the Johns and Ettinger model to several scenarios, particularly the nonuse aquifer standards and found that especially for benzene in sandy soil the inhalation MSCs could be exceeded.

Jim Logue and Joel Hersh from the PA Department of Health discussed the issue of vapor intrusion into buildings at the Transguch site in Hazleton reported on at the previous CSSAB meeting by Bob Gadinski of DEP.

The discussion centered around considerations of vapor intrusion when the Statewide health nonuse aquifer standard is used for groundwater. It was envisioned that there might be a screening process involved similar to the ecological screen under Statewide health. The screen would determine if some modification of the nonuse aquifer standard is necessary in some circumstances.

Kevin Reinert proposed a conference call in April, to include the four subcommittee members, Tom Fidler, Regional staff, Sam Fang and representatives from the Department of Health.