News

Important Amendments to Act 2 Regulations Go into Effect -- Changes May Impact Your Cleanup

On Saturday, January 8, 2011, the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board ("EQB") published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin amendments to regulations under the Pennsylvania Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act ("Act 2"). The amendments include numerous revisions to environmental remediation standards developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ("PADEP") to implement the statewide health cleanup standard under the Act 2 remediation program that are found in the tables that are part of the regulations. The revised remediation standards are now in effect and reflect recent changes in federally promulgated Maximum Contaminant Limits ("MCLs") under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The revised remediation standards also include corrections to address errors that occurred when the Act 2 regulations were originally promulgated. Cleanup standards for a significant number of new regulated substances have been developed and many existing remediation standards have either been raised or lowered to account for new toxicological information.

The revised remediation standards apply to remediation projects being voluntarily conducted under Pennsylvania's Act 2 program as well as to cleanups of releases from regulated underground storage tanks and remediation projects being carried out pursuant to enforcement initiatives or to satisfy regulatory requirements.

Manko, Gold, Katcher and Fox, LLP has prepared a simplified analysis of the impacts that the revisions have on each of the regulated substances listed in PADEP's tables included in the Act 2 regulations. The summary tables also reflect remediation standards for regulated substances that have been newly added by the regulatory action.

If you have any questions about either the regulatory amendments or the new remediation standards, or if you wish to receive the summary tables that we have prepared which reflect the revisions, please contact either Michael Meloy (mmeloy@mgkflaw.com; 484-430-2303) or MGKF senior technical consultant Darryl Borrelli (dborrelli@mgkflaw.com; 484-430-2302).