EPA Floats New Draft Guides For Vapor Intrusion With Key Changes

摘要

EPA has released for public comment separate draft guidance documents for assessing and mitigating vapor intrusion risks from chlorinated solvents and petroleum contamination, documents that many fear will result in stricter cleanup and monitoring requirements at contaminated sites and add more sites to the Superfund list. But the draft documents the agency unveiled April 16 revise earlier versions. Officials appear to have dropped previous language from its chlorinated solvents guide for calculating limits to protect against health hazards from short-term exposure to toxic levels of contamination in indoor air, an issue that officials have long been struggling to address. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details. (Doc. ID: 2431174) EPA also appears to have weakened its recommended cleanup standard for the amount of clean soil that the agency deems necessary to protect buildings overlying petroleum contamination, cutting the so-called separation distance in half from 30 feet to 15 feet.