NEWS GOVERNMENT States, ASTM developing standards for voluntary cleanups States are beginning to grapple with issues of risk assessment, exposure methodology, and technical feasibility as they develop cleanup standards to put recent voluntary cleanup legislation into practice. At the same time there are signs that some broadly acceptable methods for setting standards are emerging from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Ohio and Pennsylvania, two of the states that recently enacted legislation, are devising standards that encourage the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated property while protecting human health and the environment (ES&T, July 1995, 306A). Both states are required by their new cleanup laws to set generic or statewide standards for soil and groundwater and to devise a method for conducting sitespecific risk assessments. Landowners who participate in the program can choose which set of standards to use. Both states are also devising standards that take future land use into account so that residential areas would have to meet stricter standards than industrial sites would. Pennsylvania, which enacted legislation in May, is expecting to produce proposed guidance by July 1996, but Ohio's efforts are likely to take more than two years. The difference can be explained by two factors, according to Amy Yersavich, coordinating supervisor for Ohio's voluntary program. First, Pennsylvania legislation specifies a lifetime risk factor for carcinogenic substances of between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000,000; the Ohio legislation does not address risk. Ohio's risk advisory committee "has not been able to come to a consensus on what value to use or on what confidence level to use," Yersavich said. Second, Ohio's legislation privatizes the voluntary cleanup process, authorizing the state EPA to certify consultants and laboratories to investigate, manage, and verify cleanups. "This means that
States are struggling to devise standards and procedures to expedite voluntary cleanups of urban "brownfields" like this contaminated steel plant in Chicago, which has been abandoned for nearly a decade.
our regulations have to be very detailed and prescriptive," Yersavich said. "We may know nothing about a cleanup until the final document lands on our doorstep, and then we have only 30 days to evaluate it." Pennsylvania, on the other hand, can rely more on guidance because the cleanup law provides for more interaction between the state and consultants. Although Pennsylvania law specifies cancer risk factors, the scientific advisory board charged with recommending statewide standards is studying the exposure and toxicological data involved in risk assessment, according to Cathy St. Hilaire, chair of the advisory board. "We'll be looking closely at exposure pathways, and because of the tremendous uncertainty surrounding some pathways, like dermal, we may not consider them at all," she said. St. Hilaire spoke at an Oct. 25 seminar in Harrisburg, PA, which considered the technical issues surrounding the state's Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act. States that recently passed legislation are struggling to craft regulations, but Minnesota, the first state to enact cleanup legislation in 1989, takes a different approach, according to Ken Haberman, supervisor of the state's Pollution Control Agency Voluntary Investigation and Cleanup Program. Minnesota's program depends more on close liaison between state officials and con-
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sultants. Instead of detailed rules, the program relies on an accumulated body of knowledge and experience. "Our legislature felt that having too many detailed rules and regulations would be too bureaucratic," he said. While individual states are toiling to craft cleanup standards, a group led by ASTM is working to produce a set of generally applicable, risk-based standard selection methods. The society's RiskBased Corrective Action Group has already developed a uniform way to determine cleanup standards for petroleum products based on risk and is working on standards for voluntary cleanup programs to address the full range of hazardous chemicals. "Rather than go through the rule making, they are developing a lot of the rationale and coming up with good concepts and good methods," said Haberman, a member of the ASTM group. Despite initial concern that states might lower cleanup standards, the evidence so far indicates that the emerging standards are high, according to Charles Powers, director of the Institute for Responsible Management, a nonprofit organization that works on brownfields issues. "Based on a study of 15 states in 1994, I can say that no standards are less stringent than CERCLA [Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act] requirements." —REBECCA RENNER
