environmental Strategist, between the lines: For several years we have been sharing with you information on vapor intrusion (ASTM 2600) and what a serious issue it can be for any property owner. As the article below points out, the EPA also feels vapor intrusion is a serious enough liability that it deserves to get Superfund designation financing.
Vapor intrusion can impact any property owner. What if the party at fault causing the vapor intrusion can’t pay to clean up the contamination? Then the impacted property owner becomes the owner of a piece of contaminated property. Pollution liability insurance can protect property owners from vapor intrusion.
In Michigan we have 9,000 known leaking underground storage tanks that there is no money to pay for the cleanup. That means in Michigan we have a minimum of 9,000 locations causing vapor intrusion.
ERMI Environmental Risk Management Tip: Buyers of commercial real estate should confirm that vapor intrusion testing was included as part of their environmental due diligence.
Fed Reg Watch: Should Vapor Intrusion Count for Superfund-ing?
by Seth Fisher
February 3, 2011
EPA looking into addition of vapor intrusion component to the hazard ranking system
The EPA is collecting public input on whether vapor intrusion should be added to the hazard ranking system, effectively allowing sites where contamination has gone airborne to be eligible for Superfund financing.
The potential revisions to the Hazard Ranking System (HRS), which is the EPA’s principle mechanism for determining whether a site can be added to the National Priorities List (NPL) under CERCLA.
This potential addition would allow the HRS to directly consider the human exposure to contaminants that enter building structures through the subsurface environment, and thus enable sites with vapor intrusion contamination to be evaluated for placement on the NPL.
Comments are due by April 16, 2011.
The agency in 2007 issued regulations to require vapor intrusion to be included in Phase I site assessments Before and since, many sites have been identified where pollutants are migrating to the air from contamination in the soil or groundwater, and this has led to a widespread reevaluation of the level of danger posed by such sites. It follows that evaluation for federal cleanup dollars – prioritized by respective level of hazard to the health of U.S. citizens – might change as well. However this could also be a game- changer for other sites waiting for federal help, on a list that the Government Accountability Office (in 2009) said is filled with unaddressed sites that would be a “priority” under any reasonable definition of the word. Adding a consideration for vapor intrusion, then, ostensibly makes sense, but the practical results could mean the indefinite delay of sites that previously had a reasonable expectation of being addressed soon, or else a substantial rise in the amount of federal dollars committed to the program in order to keep things on schedule.
SOURCE: Federal Register