March 1, 2013 is the due date for filing the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) annual Right-to-Know (RTK) Survey.  All employers covered by the Act must complete surveys listing the names and quantities and locations of hazardous chemicals stored and used at their facilities.

In addition to submitting the survey, There are other major requirements of the Act:

• Label containers of chemical products.
• Establish a RTK Central File at each facility that the list of hazardous substances.
• Post a RTK poster in each facility. 

By:  Al Moffit, Director

Receptor Evaluations are just one of a myriad of technical requirements with regulatory and mandatory timeframes that are part of compliance with the new Site Remediation Reform Act (SRRA).   Due to the number of cases undergoing remediation and the limited amount of available Department resources, NJDEP is notifying responsible parties there will no longer be an assigned case manager and should consider retaining a Licensed Site Remediation Professional (LSRP). 

Are you aware of a law New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) follows that places a cap on the amount of oversight costs (fees) NJDEP can charge for a specific site?  EWMA has negotiated a refund for several clients due to excess oversight costs based on this law and other reasons. 

After April 22, 2010, property owners who perform renovation projects in pre-1978 buildings or space utilized by child-care facilities must use certified contractors and follow the lead-safe work practices required by United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Renovation, Repair and Remodeling rule.  It is important to note that the new USEPA lead-based paint renovation rule applies to buildings that may not be covered under current local or state lead-based paint renovation rules and regulations, such as co-ops and condominiums.

The New Jersey State Department Of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has developed a new and more stringent standard for removing chromium waste from contaminated soil.

In a new effort to reduce and thwart the effects of toxic substances within New Jersey soil, sites designated to be developed for housing or educational facilities may not contain more than 20 parts per million of hexavalent chromium.  The previous standard had been 240 parts per million, which is still a safe level according to the NJDEP. However, the less hexavalent chromium present the better. Hexavalent chromium, commonly found where industrial production occurs, is recognized as a human carcinogen. Long term exposure to the compound has been found to cause lung cancer.  The chromium ore waste has been a problem for New Jersey, a large industrial state, for years. The new NJDEP standard would affect 184 sites in Hudson county, once a busy area for chromium ore refineries.  As Hudson county has seen a surge of redeveloment in the recent years, the standard of 20 parts per million in new developments will surely protect the health of current and future residents and the environment.

In December 2006, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a final rule amending the requirements and deadlines for facilities subject to EPA’s Oil Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations.  The SPCC regulations require covered facilities to prevent, prepare for and respond to oil discharges.  The final rule will provide alternative compliance options for certain regulated facilities.

In particular, they clarified rules pertaining to facilities with smaller oil storage capacities, qualified oil-filled operational equipment, motive power containers, and certain vehicle fuel tanks and other on-board bulk oil storage containers.  EPA also removed sections of the rule that are not appropriate for facilities with animal fats and vegetable oils, and extended the compliance dates for farms.

On December 20, 2006, President Bush signed the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 into law.  The new law includes both an extension and an expansion of the Federal government’s Brownfields Tax Incentive.  Originally signed into law in August 1997, the Taxpayer Relief Act (Public Law 105-34) included a tax incentive to spur the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields in distressed urban and rural areas.  The new law extends the incentive to December 31, 2007 and makes it retroactive from December 31, 2005.  Under the Brownfields Tax Incentive, environmental cleanup costs are fully deductible in the year they are incurred, rather than having to be capitalized over a period of time, thus making redevelopment of brownfields more financially appealing.  The government estimates that approximately 8,000 brownfield properties will be returned to productive use, making the tax incentive a valuable tool for restoring brownfields and spurring economic growth.

Traditional environmental remediation methods of cleaning up soil and ground water contaminated with chlorinated solvents, such as soil excavation and disposal or ground water pumping and treatment, are often prohibitively expensive or impractical due to site conditions.  An alternative environmental remediation method used to cleanup chlorinated solvents, known as in-situ chemical oxidation, is growing in popularity and gaining industry and regulatory acceptance as it is proven to be a cost-effective, time-efficient and less intrusive alternative remedial method to achieve compliance with environmental cleanup standards.
  
In general, chlorinated solvent contaminants exist in the subsurface in multiple phases; vapor, dissolved, adsorbed and liquid, which is known as DNAPL.  When the original chlorinated solvent liquid is lost into the subsurface, portions of it may volatilize and become a component of the air in the vadose zone (dry soil), dissolve into and become a component of the ground water, become adsorbed (molecularly bound or “stuck”) to individual soil particles, or remain as a liquid.