Workgroup Meeting

During the development of the Vapor Intrusion Guidance, MassDEP staff and Workgroup members identified several potential changes to the MCP that could strengthen and streamline the notification, assessment, cleanup & closure of vapor intrusion sites.  A Workgroup meeting has been scheduled to discuss such potential regulation revisions:

• Thursday, February 9th, 1:00 – 3:00 pm @ MassDEP, One Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108

In addition, this and other reg reform initiatives will be on the agenda for the January 26, 2012 Waste Site Cleanup Advisory Committee meeting (9:30 AM – 12:00 PM, MassDEP Boston).

Interim Final VI Guidance Available

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is pleased to announce the publication of the “Interim Final Vapor Intrusion Guidance” (WSC#-11-435).  This guidance is provided to parties conducting response actions at disposal sites regulated under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP), 310 CMR 40.0000, to support the identification, assessment, and mitigation of vapor intrusion and compliance with the related provisions of the MCP.

Vapor intrusion of environmental contaminants into indoor air is widely recognized as an important and complex issue that poses many challenges.  Achieving sufficient certainty in the identification and assessment of the vapor intrusion pathway is critical for ensuring health-protective cleanups that can be relied upon now and into the future.

In the course of developing this guidance, MassDEP and external stakeholders have identified provisions in the MCP that could be revised to enhance, expedite and more efficiently assess, mitigate and close disposal sites with vapor intrusion concerns.  The Department intends to revise the regulations over the next six months.  Following the promulgation of those amendments, MassDEP will revisit this guidance and update it to reflect the regulatory changes, as well as any comments we receive on your experience implementing this interim guidance.

I would like to thank the many program stakeholders who have provided valuable input in the development of this document.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Ericson
Assistant Commissioner
MassDEP Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup

Documents Available:

• Interim Final Vapor Intrusion Guidance (12-20-2011)
  (Appendix V inserted – 1/3/12)
  • MS Word version:  vifin.doc (2.4 MB)
  • PDF version: vifin.pdf (2.7 MB)
• Response_to_Comments_on_2010_draft
• 12-20-11 External Workgroup Meeting Presentation

Next Meeting: 12/20/2011

MassDEP has scheduled a Vapor Intrusion Workgroup Meeting for Tuesday December 20^th at 9:30 at 1 Winter Street, 2^nd floor.

The purpose of the meeting is to:

•  discuss the comments received on the December 2010 Draft Vapor intrusion Guidance and MassDEP’s responses;
• discuss the changes made to the December 2010 Draft and provide an overview of the Interim Final Vapor Intrusion Guidance;  and
• present conceptual MCP amendments related to vapor intrusion being considered by MassDEP.

MassDEP intends to post the comments/responses and Draft Interim Guidance before the end of the year. Workgroup members  will informed when these documents are made available.

Thank you for your patience and see you on the 20^th.

 

July 28th Meeting Postponed

Greetings all!

I’m writing to let you know that the July 28^th Vapor Intrusion Workgroup meeting  is POSTPONED. I expect to reschedule for early September and will let you know a date as soon as possible.

I would like to thank the DEP team for all the work that they did to prepare for this meeting. Unfortunately, summer schedules and competing priorities being what they are, I have not been able to provide the appropriate review/briefings that such important (& voluminous) work deserves. The delay will allow us to present the response to comments AND the redrafted text that has resulted from all of your input.  In addition, as noted in Gerard’s email, MassDEP is interested in following up on specific regulatory changes that have periodically come up in our past VI discussions.  You may recall, the guidance is being developed for the current regulations, which have some limitations, and there are some areas where a change in the rules would make sense. We have been keeping a list of such changes and there were several mentioned in the VI comments, but I would welcome any other suggestions you would like to forward to me prior to the September meeting.

We will be in touch soon with a time/date/location for the rescheduled meeting and will provide a link to material prior to the meeting.

Enjoy the rest of the summer & see you in September!

-          Paul Locke

Comments on Draft Vapor Intrusion Guidance

MassDEP would like to thank you for submitting comments on the Draft Vapor Intrusion Guidance Document (December 2010).  We are currently organizing and reviewing the comments and we intend to compile a written summary of the comments and provide written responses which outlines how best to revise the guidance to address them. We will keep the workgroup updated as to our progress and we are planning on presenting and an overview of the comments at the April 2011 Waste Site Cleanup Advisory Committee meeting.

Your ongoing interest in this important effort is greatly appreciated… Stay tuned for additional updates as we go through this process.

Thanks again…

Sincerely,

Gerard Martin

 

VI Comments Are Available

Click on the links (the titles) to the previous 2 posts and scroll down to see comments (24 & counting) received by MassDEP on the draft VI guidance. Comments received via email (or US mail) are also being posted by DEP.

Presentation: VI Guidance Update

On Tuesday, January 11, 2011, Gerard Martin (MassDEP) was the guest speaker at the Licensed Site Professional Association (LSPA) monthly membership meeting. The presentation was titled, “Vapor Intrusion Guidance Update”, and was intended to provide a summary of what’s in the draft guidance document to facilitate the LSPA members’ review and comment.

The PowerPoint slides from the presentation are now available for download below, in both PDF and PowerPoint formats.

PDF version: 1-11-11_LSPA_FINAL_G-Martin (781 KB, pdf)
PowerPoint version:  1-11-11_LSPA_FINAL_G-Martin (1.6 MB, pptx)

Vapor Intrusion Guidance – Public Review Draft

Vapor Intrusion Guidance public review draft is now available.

MassDEP is seeking public comment on its revised Vapor Intrusion Guidance draft.  This comprehensive draft document has been developed based on input MassDEP has received through discussions with the Indoor Air Workgroup and in other forums with LSPs, PRPs and other interested parties and written comments received on its July 2009 draft document.

MassDEP’s goal in developing this guidance document is to provide clear, practical and health protective guidance on vapor intrusion assessment and mitigation approaches that are consistent with 21E and the Massachusetts Contingency Plan.  While parties conducting response actions may apply other approaches, provided they meet the requirements of the MCP, to address vapor intrusion sites, this draft reflects MassDEP’s recommendations and expectations for adequately addressing this complex pathway and achieving a protective result.

MassDEP welcomes your comments on the scope, content, and readability/clarity of this draft.  Please consider and comment on the applicability of this guidance to vapor intrusion site work you have conducted or are conducting.  Please submit comments by replying to the blog post at MassDEP’s Indoor Air Workgroup http://indoorairproject.wordpress.com/ by March 1, 2011. To facilitate MassDEP’s review and consideration of comments, please reference page and section numbers when commenting on specific topics or text.

The electronic version of the guidance consists of two files, the main body of text and the appendices. Please download both files for a complete copy.

Main Text:

• MassDEP_VI_Guidance_InterimDraft_2010-12 (REMOVED)
• MassDEP_VI_Guidance_InterimDraft_2010-12 (REMOVED)

Appendices:

• MassDEP_VI_Appendices_2010-12 (REMOVED)
• MassDEP_VI_Appendices_2010-12(REMOVED)

Appendices – REVISED 1/13/2011 – Revisions updated risk-based concentrations and commercial-industrial Threshold Values in Appendix I to reflect 8 hr/day exposure:

• Appendices-ALL-revised-2011-01-13 (REMOVED)
• Appendices-ALL-revised-2011-01-13 (REMOVED)

Seeking Information on Vapor Barriers

As discussed at the vapor intrusion workgroup meeting this past Wednesday (8/25/10),  MassDEP has developed a table outlining the type of information we are looking for relative to the effectiveness of vapor barriers.  Because of the difficulty in interpreting the results,  we are NOT interested in sites with OHM use in the building, such as active dry cleaners.

The Department is primarily looking for information on vapor barriers installed during construction of new buildings, but if people have information on retrofits for existing buildings, we would like to get that too (there is a column on the table to indicate this).

Thanks for your help on this issue…We would appreciate it if you could get the information to Gerard Martin (Gerard.Martin@state.ma.us) by Friday September 3^rd.

Table to submit Vapor barrier Information:   Site Information table F (MS Word)

Presentation for August 25, 2010 Future Buildings Meeting

The PowerPoint presentation material for the August 25, 2010 Indoor Air Project Workgroup meeting on Future Buildings and Potential Vapor Intrusion is now available in PDF format: Vapor Intrusion Workgroup mtg August 2010 (251 kb)

The previously posted discussion doument prepared for this meeting is also still available: Future Buildings draft 08172010 (MS Word)