The Wise Report
Henry M. Wise, P.G.
June 11, 2011
The Leaking Petroleum
Storage Tank (LPST) Reimbursement Fund closes August 31, 2011. The deadline for
TCEQ receipt of applications to transfer responsibility for corrective action
at reimbursement-eligible LPST sites from owner/operators to TCEQ's State Lead
program is no later than July 1, 2011. An application to transfer into the
State Lead program can be found at www.tceq.texas.gov/remediation/pst_rp/downloads.html.
Owners/operators who
elect not to transfer their sites to the State Lead program will be required to
continue corrective action until closure using their own private funds. Failure
to perform necessary corrective action may result in enforcement penalties.
Owners/operators who
request an (r-1) transfer are not required to contract with any
particular consultant. Rather, once the site is transferred to the State Lead
program, TCEQ assumes contracting and remediation responsibility. Under recent
legislation passed to ensure greater continuity in work, TCEQ may enter a
direct award contract with the same consultant who worked on the site under the
Reimbursement Program (even if the consultant is not already a State Lead
contractor). (See House Bill 2694, Article 1, sections 1.05 and 1.06 from the
82nd Texas legislative session).
For more information,
please contact Don Boothby at 512-239-2485, Jonathan Walling at 512-239-2295 or
Maria Lebron at 512-239-1898.
The annual update of the
Tier 1 PCL tables is now available on the TRRP PCLs web page at http://www.tceq.texas.gov/remediation/trrp/trrppcls.html.
A brief list of this year's changes is included in the Updates sheet in the
toxicity and chemical/physical properties file. Please also note the following
information regarding this year's changes to the PCL tables:
RS-ESL values have been
rescinded by the Toxicology Division as more scientifically rigorous methods
are available for the derivation of inhalation toxicity factors which impact
the setting of regulatory standards (i.e., TRRP PCLs). Consequently, there are
no RS-ESLs to serve as a source of inhalation toxicity factors for TRRP, and
RS-ESLs have been removed from the Toxicity Factors table (see the 2011 Tox
Factors Updates sheet for changes to toxicity factors). If inhalation may be
the driving exposure pathway for a chemical in a particular instance (e.g.,
groundwater-to-air or subsurface-soil-to-air for Class 3 groundwater) but no
inhalation toxicity factors are listed in the TRRP Toxicity Factors table,
contact the TCEQ using the process described at http://www.tceq.texas.gov/remediation/trrp/pclrequests.html
to request that an inhalation toxicity factor and PCLs be derived. For
questions on toxicity factors, contact the Toxicology Section at 877-992-8370
or