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Newsletters & Articles

Updated ASTM Phase I ESA Standard is Coming

Anyone involved with commercial and industrial real estate transactions should keep an eye out for the updated ASTM Standard for “Phase I Environmental Site Assessments” (ESAs).

The new standard (ASTM E1527-21) is due for publication within the next 4 to 5 months.

Key changes to E1527 are anticipated to include:

  • Clarification of the term “material threat” in the definition of a condition being considered a Recognized Environmental Condition (REC).
  • Significant clarification of when a REC should be identified as a Controlled REC (CREC).  
  • Significant clarification of when a previous release can be identified as a Historic REC (HREC).
  • Emphasis that a previously identified CREC or HREC can be re-classified as a REC if site conditions or regulations have changed.
  • Emphasis of the need for a robust investigation of adjoining properties and the surrounding area, and the potential for them to impact the subject site.

The classification of RECs, CRECs, and HRECs is up to the judgment of the Environmental Professional.  But the updated standard specifies that these classifications are to be determined using a multi-step process that is reflected in the report’s Findings and Opinions section of the report, including the rationale for each determination.

Important Takeaway For all Users of a Phase I ESA Report:  Don’t just read the Conclusions and/or Executive Summary sections of the report!!  It is also important to read the Findings and Conclusions section of the report, as some of the most revealing information may be found there.

It is likely that the updated standard will also maintain some existing provisions, including:

  • Confirmation that the viability of an ASTM Phase I ESA Report expires after 180 days, and
  • Emphasize that the User of the Phase I Report is responsible to review title information for activity and use limitations and liens.

Contact Steve Huxta or Becky Hingley if you have any questions regarding Phase I ESAs or the upcoming changes to the ASTM Standard.

5 Questions to Avoid Risk-Related Pitfalls on Your Environmental Cleanup Project

For landowners looking to pursue relief of environmental cleanup liability under the Land Recycling (Act 2) Program or remediate a storage tank release, conducting a Risk Assessment early in the process can reduce or eliminate the need for costly remediation, capping, or other engineering controls.  Risk Assessments do, however, have specific requirements that are frequently overlooked in the project planning phase. 

In addition, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) has dramatically tightened the requirements for Act 2 and Storage Tank and Spill Prevention Program Risk Assessments.  The PADEP Central Office now reviews all Act 2 risk assessments with a critical eye to ensure that all onsite and offsite receptors are evaluated in strict accordance with the PADEP Chapter 250 – Administration of Land Recycling Program and Chapter 245 – Administration of the Storage Tank and Spill Prevention Program.

To avoid costly and time-consuming risk-related pitfalls, here are the top five questions you should ask at the onset of your remediation project: 

  1. Has enough data been collected as part of Site Characterization to provide for a statistically robust Risk Assessment?  Risk Assessments rely on a statistically sound dataset to properly evaluate site risks.  For example, if only 4 surface soil samples have been collected from within the Site and a Risk Assessment will be evaluating current residents or groundskeepers, the Risk Assessment must rely on maximum concentrations as enough data has not been collected to calculate a less-restrictive statistic (i.e., 95% UCL).  This will likely result in an overestimate of actual site risks, which may lead to an unacceptable risk requiring remediation.  Furthermore, the data set may not provide adequate spatial representation required for evaluating receptor exposure and result in a deficiency or disapproval from PADEP.
  • Have all potential exposure media been sampled that would address all current and/or potential future onsite (and offsite) use?  Although relief of liability can only be obtained from PADEP for soil and groundwater, the Site Specific Standard (SSS) requires that all media be evaluated in a Risk Assessment if exposure cannot otherwise be excluded through pathway elimination.  For example, if a stream transects a property, not only should surface water be sampled for evaluating potential risk to trespassers or recreational users, but sediment should also be sampled.  There are no PADEP Medium-Specific Concentration (MSCs) for sediment screening purposes and Chapter 93 Water Quality Standards are extremely conservative.  The likelihood that these media would result in unacceptable risks is extremely low in most cases, but without a Risk Assessment to quantitatively evaluate the risks, relief of cleanup liability cannot be granted by PADEP.
  • Have you considered potential risks to construction and utility workers who will be implementing a remedy?  Recently, the PADEP has placed an increased focus on the evaluation of potential risks to construction and utility workers during and/or after property redevelopment.  This requires that enough soil samples be collected from the 0-15 foot depth interval to adequately address typical soil exposure as a result of mixing that occurs during construction.  Does the property have contaminated groundwater that will be encountered during construction activities?  PADEP is also now focusing on the evaluation of construction/utility worker exposure to groundwater while performing digging and trench activities.
  • Have you carefully considered the risk-related implications of your list of contaminants being sought for relief of liability? When seeking the SSS, PADEP requires that all contaminants being sought for relief of liability be included in a Risk Assessment.  However, certain contaminants, such as vanadium, prove particularly challenging to evaluate for acceptable risk.  The project team should carefully discuss the list of analytes that should be included in the risk assessment and subsequent release of cleanup liability.  Remember, if there has not been a release of a particular compound, there is theoretically no cleanup liability for that compound. 
  • Does your data meet data quality objectives to support the performance of a Risk Assessment?  Frequently, Risk Assessment data quality objectives are not considered in the planning phases of an Act 2 or storage tank release project.  For example, when performing a Risk Assessment consistent with PADEP Chapter 250 regulations, the maximum reporting limit of a non-detect contaminant must be included in the risk calculation if it exceeds applicable screening criteria.  This can yield extremely high risks if care is not taken in the beginning to select the appropriate analytical method and reporting limits.  Not only can this cause undesired results from single contaminants, but even greater impacts when considering multiple contaminants (i.e., cumulative risks).

As PADEP continues to rely heavily on the Risk Assessment process and their strict compliance with Chapters 250 and 245 regulations, discussing these considerations upfront can save both time and money throughout the lifespan of a project.  Brickhouse’s decades of Risk Assessment experience with both federal and state regulatory agencies can help clients navigate the changing landscape within PADEP, participate in high-level discussions with Central Office risk assessors, and ultimately gain PADEP approv

Brickhouse Team Cleans Up Roadside as Adopt-a-Highway Sponsor

The Brickhouse Environmental team once again scoured the shoulders of the Route 322 West Chester Bypass, cleaning up over 35 bags of litter. This is our third year in the PennDOT Adopt-a-Highway program, caring for this 2-mile stretch of highway. For those of you familiar with the bypass, it sees a lot of traffic and, unfortunately, a lot of litter. It’s extremely satisfying to see the positive impact of our efforts as we share in this statewide effort to keep our highways and roads clean. 

If you find yourself on the bypass, keep an eye out for the Brickhouse Environmental sign.  If you’re lucky, you might even see us on the side of the road doing our part!

Brickhouse Environmental team cleaning up Route 322 in West Chester
Over 35 bags of trash were collected from the roadside
This is the third year that Brickhouse Environmental has been an Adopt-a-Highway sponsor

Pennsylvania Announces Final PFAS Statewide Sampling Results

Pennsylvania released the complete and final list of results of samples collected from public water systems after Governor Tom Wolf issued an executive order to address Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in drinking water. The results do not indicate widespread PFAS contamination.

To learn more, visit:
https://www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/NewsRoomPublic/articleviewer.aspx?id=21961&typeid=1

To download the article in PDF form, click the link below:

Pennsylvania-Releases-PFAS-Results

Vanadium is in your soil. What does this mean for you?

Vanadium is a naturally occurring metal that is present in all soils across Pennsylvania.  Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) recently lowered Vanadium’s residential Statewide Health Standard (SHS) in soils to 15 mg/kg.  This concentration is 2 to 6 times less than typical background concentrations in our area.  This same standard also carries over to Pennsylvania’s Management of Fill Policy, resulting in virtually any soil being unusable as clean fill if it is analyzed for Vanadium.  What does this mean for you?

Consider a school yard, or a park, or your own back yard.  There is no known contamination.  But if you analyze a sample of the soil for metals on the EPA’s Target Analyte List (TAL), you will almost assuredly find Vanadium at levels that exceed PADEP’s Residential SHS.  What do you do?  Cap the entire property with asphalt to prevent direct contact?

These questions have plagued landowners and environmental professionals when conducting due diligence, when using the Act 2 voluntary cleanup program, or when moving soil from one property to another in Pennsylvania. While PADEP is working towards an updated approach for evaluating Vanadium in the next year or two, what does this mean for sites seeking relief in the interim?  

Risk Assessment – The Best Option

When it comes to residential property use in Pennsylvania (including school yards, parks, etc.), a Human Health Risk Assessment is the best method to address Vanadium in soils.  While the PADEP’s SHS for Vanadium is based on conservative assumptions, a site-specific Risk Assessment provides an evaluation of actual risk factors, the realistic potential for human exposure to those risks, and the health effects of such an exposure.  The use of actual site-specific data provides a realistic evaluation of acceptable health effects and can result in much higher allowable concentrations of Vanadium in soils. 

Navigating A Tiered Approach

It should be noted that conducting a HHRA for Vanadium in Pennsylvania can be a bit tricky.  

  • In the absence of approved Vanadium oral toxicity values, the USEPA recommends an approach for evaluating Vanadium based on surrogate Vanadium Pentoxide values. 
  • However, the PADEP currently requires that a more stringent oral toxicity value be applied.  

The result is that risk calculations can predict unacceptable noncancer health effects in the majority of PADEP assessments, even when site concentrations are within naturally occurring background levels.  

Therefore, it is important to understand the deviation in approaches, as detailed below, in order to adequately evaluate Vanadium in a Risk Assessment that will result in an approved relief of liability for Act 2 Sites under the Site-Specific Standard (SSS).

For noncancer effects, oral toxicity values are expressed as reference doses (RfDs) for exposure through ingestion and dermal contact. The premise of noncancer toxicity values is that there is an exposure level below which adverse health effects are not expected to occur, even in sensitive populations. An RfD is inversely proportional to the toxic potency of a contaminant; the higher the RfD, the less toxic the contaminant.  

The following summarizes the USEPA and PADEP-recommended tiered approach for selecting sources for toxicity values:  

  • Tier 1 – USEPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) 
  • Tier 2 – USEPA’s Provisional Peer Review Toxicity Values (PPRTVs)
  • Tier 3 – Other toxicity values including California EPA (CalEPA) values, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Minimal Risk Levels (MRLs), and toxicity values developed by various State agencies.

Vanadium may be present in a variety of oxidation states, which differ in their toxicities.  As such, the USEPA-recommended RfD for Vanadium is derived from the only available Tier 1 oral RfD for Vanadium Pentoxide.  The USEPA recommends factoring out the molecular weight of the oxide ion in order to develop a more conservative elemental Vanadium RfD.  Note that this approach and revised RfD is used in developing the USEPA Residential Soil RSL for Vanadium, which is the PADEP-recommended source for screening contaminants as part of the HHRA Site Characterization. As this approach is not promulgated by PADEP and there is no Tier 1 value currently available for elemental Vanadium, a more stringent Tier 2 oral RfD is required to be used in Act 2 HHRAs.  

Similar to the Tier 1 RfD, which is based on Vanadium Pentoxide, the Tier 2 RfD is based on sodium metavanadate, rather than elemental Vanadium.  Although the oxidative states are the same for both of these compounds (+5), the uncertainty factor applied to the Tier 2 value is far greater than that applied to the Tier I value (3,000 vs. 100, respectively).  As a result of the applied uncertainty factors and not intrinsic toxicity, the Tier 2 value is significantly more conservative and therefore results in significantly higher noncancer health estimates in HHRAs.  

Removing the Burden on Clients

Sites seeking relief of liability for Vanadium through the Act 2 SSS should be aware that the PADEP promulgated Tier 2 RfD will likely result in unacceptable noncancer health effects in the majority of assessments, even when site concentrations are within naturally occurring background levels.  The USEPA IRIS review of the oral assessment of Vanadium and compounds is anticipated to be through external peer review in the second quarter of 2022.  

Until a more applicable toxicity value is approved for the evaluation of Vanadium in Pennsylvania, project teams should discuss seeking relief of liability for Vanadium with PADEP project officers and risk assessors in the planning phase of Act 2 Sites.  As Brickhouse has discussed at length with PADEP, a weight of evidence approach can be used in HHRAs where noncancer health effects are evaluated with both the Tier 1 and Tier 2 toxicity values. The conservatism and uncertainty associated with the Tier 2 results can then be quantitatively discussed in the Uncertainty Analysis and Risk Summary for a more realistic understanding of the impacts to current and future human health receptors due to oral exposure to Vanadium.  

In doing so, Brickhouse has removed the burden on clients to unnecessarily clean up naturally occurring background levels of Vanadium or leave Vanadium off their list of contaminants being sought for cleanup liability, saving them both time and money in the process.

Brickhouse Environmental Expands Risk Assessment Expertise

Image of Kristina Early
Ms. Kristina Early

Kristina Early joins the Brickhouse Team

Brickhouse Environmental is excited to welcome Ms. Kristina Early to the Brickhouse team as a Senior Risk Assessor and Project Manager.  Kristina brings more than 21 years of experience conducting and managing environmental investigations and human health and ecological risk assessments at a variety of Federal USACE, USEPA, National Park Service (NPS) hazardous waste sites, as well as Voluntary Cleanup Program sites in Pennsylvania (Act 2), New Jersey (SRRA), and other states.

Kristina is a respected expert in the practice of Human Health Risk Assessment, with extensive hands-on experience in soil, groundwater, stream sediment, and vapor intrusion studies.  Her realistic assessment of transport pathways, receptors and exposure scenarios, combined with her in-depth knowledge and experience navigating the Risk Assessment process, allows us to conduct a more efficient and relevant analysis of risk during the all-important Site Characterization and Remedial Design phases of projects — and provide a final, understandable Risk Assessment Report that will stand up under regulatory review and in Court.

Kristina earned her BS Degree in Environmental Health and MS Degree in Public Health from West Chester University.

Please feel free to contact Kristina directly with any questions regarding Human Health or Ecological Risk Assessments.

Read more about our Risk Assessment services here.