Chapter 296
2013 -- H 5617 SUBSTITUTE A AS
AMENDED
Enacted 07/15/13
A N A C T
RELATING TO
HEALTH AND SAFETY - INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY REMEDIATION AND REUSE ACT
Introduced By: Representatives Edwards, Williams, Newberry, Ackerman, and Nunes
Date Introduced: February 27, 2013
It is enacted by the
General Assembly as follows:
SECTION 1. Section 23-19.14-1 and 23-19.14-4 of the General
Laws in Chapter 23-
19.14 entitled
"Industrial Property Remediation and Reuse Act" are hereby amended to
read as
follows:
23-19.14-1.
Legislative findings. -- It is recognized and
acknowledged by the general
assembly that:
(1) In
contamination from hazardous materials;
(2) The contamination
is often an obstacle to redevelopment due to the liability relating
to the sites;
(3) Clean up standards
and objectives must be consistent with a site's current and
reasonably expected future use;
(4) Financial
institutions are often cautious or unwilling to lend to businesses that wish
to expand at or relocate to sites that have or are
feared to be contaminated;
(5)
state programs to be contaminated;
(6) The following
cities and towns have numerous known sites:
municipalities that may have been contaminated by historical
industrial activities;
(7) [Deleted by P.L.
2002, ch. 186, section 1.]
(8) Proper
redevelopment and reuse of these properties would not only benefit the state's
economy and the employment of those who live in the urban
corridor, but would also benefit the
state's environment; and
(9) The redevelopment
and reuse of these impacted sites will control and remove the
existing contamination and will reduce the artificial economic
incentive to develop previously
undisturbed natural resources.
23-19.14-4.
Objectives of environmental clean-up. -- (a) The department of
environmental management will develop, maintain and publish
numerical objectives for the most
commonly found hazardous substances. These objectives will be
applicable for the clean-up of
contaminated properties to levels which are protective of human
health and the environment
based on current and reasonably foreseeable future use of a
property and the surrounding natural
resources. To further ensure the safety of school children
while attending school, the department
of environmental management, shall:
(1) Adopt numerical
objectives for properties dedicated to school use equivalent to the
numerical objectives set by the department for residential use
of such properties;
(2) Evaluate
chemicals of concern for vapor intrusion and adopt numerical objectives for
those contaminants in soil and groundwater where such
standards do not already exist in
regulation and apply the numerical objectives for residential
use established for said chemicals
and petroleum to properties dedicated to school use; and
(3) Develop and adopt
procedures for determining whether levels of chemicals of
potential concern for vapor intrusion and petroleum in soil or
groundwater pose a reasonable
potential for migration of contaminated vapors or gases into
structures to be utilized as school
facilities.
(b) (1) The construction of any new school building; or
(2) Construction of an
addition to any existing school building; or
(3) Leasing of any
portion of an existing building to serve as a school shall be prohibited
on any portion of a parcel of property for which,
upon occupancy, there exists an ongoing
potential for hazardous materials and/or petroleum to migrate
as vapors or gases into the building
from the subsurface of the parcel of property, including
any potential failure of engineered
remedies to address said vapors or gases. unless:
(i)
At a property where concentrations of chemicals of potential concern for vapor
intrusion or petroleum in the subsurface exceed the residential
direct exposure criteria in soil,
source areas of said chemicals or petroleum within the vadose zone of the site that includes said
property shall be remediated:
(A) Through the
physical removal of said chemicals or petroleum through excavation or
in situ treatment; and
(B) The school
building shall be equipped with both a passive sub slab ventilation system
capable of conversion to an active system and a vapor barrier
beneath the school building or
incorporated in the concrete slab, all in compliance with an
approved department of
environmental management remedial action work plan and completed
prior to the occupancy of
the school;
(ii) At a property
where concentrations of chemicals of potential concern for vapor
intrusion or petroleum in the subsurface do not exceed the residential
direct exposure criteria in
soil but contamination exists on the property due to the
presence of any chemicals of potential
concern for vapor intrusion or petroleum in groundwater, the
department of environmental
management shall:
(A) Require the
property's owner or operator to prepare a site specific conceptual site
model and conduct soil gas sampling to determine the
location of the source area of said
chemicals or petroleum in the site’s vadose
zone;
(B) Evaluate the
results of said model and sampling to determine if levels of any
chemicals of potential concern for vapor intrusion or petroleum
could migrate as vapors or gases
into the occupied portions of the building where the
school is proposed based on procedures
developed pursuant to this chapter; and
(C) Where the
reasonable potential for migration of contaminated vapors or gases is
determined to exist, the department shall require remediation to
eliminate said potential as
follows:
(I) Where the source
area is located on the site that includes said property, requiring the
physical removal of said chemicals or petroleum in the source
area in the vadose zone through
excavation or in situ treatment; provided, the concentrations of
said chemicals or petroleum in
said source area exceed the direct residential exposure
criteria in soil; and
(II) Requiring the
installation of both a passive sub slab ventilation system capable of
conversion to an active system and a vapor barrier beneath the school
building or incorporated in
the concrete slab, all in compliance with an approved
department of environmental management
remedial action work plan and completed prior to the occupancy
of the school; and, provided
further, should monitoring of a passive sub-slab ventilation
system indicate that active ventilation
is necessary to protect the health and safety of users
of a school equipped with a passive system,
the department of environmental management shall require
conversion of the passive system to
an active system along with financial assurances to
provide for the funding of the operation and
monitoring of said active system for as long as active
ventilation is deemed necessary by the
department.
(iii) At a property
where concentrations of chemicals of potential concern for vapor
intrusion or petroleum in the subsurface do not exceed the
residential direct exposure criteria in
soil on the site that includes said property, and where
the department has determined that levels of
any chemicals of potential concern for vapor intrusion or
petroleum will not present a reasonable
potential for migration of contaminated vapors or gases into
structures to be utilized as school
facilities on the property, the property may be used for school
purposes subject to any conditions
that the department of environmental management may impose
pursuant to this chapter.
(c)
The construction of any school building, or construction of an addition to any
existing school building, or leasing of any portion of an
existing building to serve as a school on
any portion of a parcel of property formerly used for
industrial, manufacturing or landfill
purposes that is contaminated by hazardous materials, other
than on a parcel of property
described in subsection (b) of this section, shall be prohibited unless at least thirty (30) days
prior
to selecting the location for construction or leasing
the building the project sponsor undertakes all
of the following measures with ten (10) days prior
written notice to the public of each measure
undertaken:
(1)
Prepares and posts on the sponsor's website a written report that: (i) Projects the
costs to acquire or lease the property, and to cleanup and
maintain the property in accordance
with the department of environmental management's Rules
and Regulations for the Investigation
and Remediation of Hazardous Material Releases (the
Remediation Regulations); (ii) Projects the
time period required to complete a cleanup of the property
for school purposes prior to occupancy
by obtaining either a an Interim Letter of
Compliance, a Letter of Compliance or a Non-
Jurisdictional Letter indicating from the department of environmental management or
a
determination by said department that the property is not jurisdictional under the Remediation
Regulations of the department of environmental
management;
(iii) Discusses the
rationale for selecting the property for use as school purposes and an
explanation of any alternatives to selecting said property
considered by the project sponsor;
(2)
Solicits written comments on the report prepared pursuant to subdivision (1) of
this
subsection for a period of at least thirty (30) days after
posting said report on the sponsors website
and conducts a public hearing during said thirty (30) day
period at which public comment is taken
on said report; and
(3)
Prepares a second written report that summarizes and responds to the public
comments received during the public comment period and at the
public hearing and posts said
second report on the sponsor's website.
(d)
The sponsor of any school project subject to the provisions of subsection (c)
of this
section shall consider the results and findings contained in
the reports required by subsection (c)
when selecting the location of said project.
(e) As
used in this section.
(1)
The term "school" means any residential or non-residential school
building, public,
private or charter, of any city or town or community
educational system regulated, directly or
secondarily, by the board of regents for elementary and secondary
education or the department of
elementary and secondary education or any other state education
board or local city or town
school board or school committee or other legal educational
subdivision acting under it. As used
in this chapter, the term "school or schools"
includes, but is not limited to, school playgrounds,
school administration buildings, indoor school athletic
facilities, school gymnasiums, school
locker rooms, and similar school buildings. A school shall
not include any institutions for
education of adults (e.g. colleges, universities, graduate
schools, trade schools) or child-care
facilities as regulated by the department of children, youth and
families.
(2)
The term "landfill" means for the purposes of this section, any
portion of a parcel of
property that was used as a landfill as defined in § 23-19.1-4
or a sanitary landfill, dump or other
disposal area where more than thirty (30) cubic yards of solid
waste was disposed.
(3)
The term "hazardous materials" means any materials defined as
hazardous materials
pursuant to § 23-19.14-3.
(4)
The term "solid waste" means any materials defined as solid waste
pursuant to § 23-
18.9-7.
(5) The term "chemicals of potential
concern for vapor intrusion" means those
chemicals that the
during vapor intrusion assessments in said Agency's
most recent guidance on the assessment of
vapor intrusion into indoor air from subsurface
sources, and any other chemicals that the
department of environmental management may recommend for said
routine evaluation.
(6) The term
"source area" means the horizontal and vertical extent of natural or
man-
made media impacted by a release of hazardous materials or
causing a release of hazardous
materials at concentrations in excess of the numerical
objectives developed pursuant to paragraph
(a) of this section.
(7) The term "vadose zone" means the full extent of the soil column
existing above the
elevation of groundwater.
(8) The term
"conceptual site model" means a written and/or illustrative representation
of
the physical, chemical and biological processes that
control the transport, migration and actual or
potential impacts of hazardous materials in soil, air,
groundwater, surface water and/or sediments
to human and/or ecological receptors at a site.
(f) The provisions
of this section shall not apply to the renovation or reconstruction of
any building for school purposes that was used
continuously as a school for a period of at least
twenty-five (25) years where: (1) The footprint of the building
after renovation or reconstruction
does not exceed more than five percent (5%) of the current
footprint of the building; and (2) The
site of the building is not subject to a remedial action
work plan approved by the department of
environmental management.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon passage.
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LC01369/SUB A
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