Certification Program Newsletter — January 2009

This electronic newsletter provides recent regulatory news of general interest to environmental professionals practicing as Certified Environmental Managers (CEMs), Underground Storage Tank Handlers (UTHs), and Underground Storage Tank Testers (UTTs) in Nevada.

Certification Program Renewal Process:
The Certification program has entered the digital age! All renewal notices continue to go out by email up to 3 months ahead of your expiration date. For this reason, it is important to keep emails and other contact information up to date. You will notice the renewal forms have been updated though content has not changed. All individuals now have the ability to pay for renewals, as well as application and test fees online with our new e-payment system! Please follow instructions carefully — Contacts: 775-687-9379

Document Certification Statements for CEMs, UTTs, and UTHs:
Please review the following clarification on how the certification statements (also known as a "jurat") must be used on all reports and documentation that relate to services requiring certification. The required statements must be used verbatim. Note that all ASTM Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments and All Appropriate Inquiry investigation conducted under 40 CFR Part 312 in the State of Nevada must be performed by a CEM and include the certification statement. Tank test reports and tank installation documentation should also contain the certification statement — Contacts: 775-687-9379

Monitoring Well and Borehole Abandonment Regulations:
The monitoring well regulations are found at Nevada Administrative Code (NAC) 534.360 through 534.500. These regulations should be followed prior to installation, during drilling and construction, and decommissioning (including plugging and abandonment) activities related to wells. Note that boreholes (definition at NAC 534.047) for soil borings also have specific plugging requirements listed at NAC 534.4369 through NAC 534.438 — Contact: Division of Water Resources 775-684-2800

Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP)
The VCP law was passed in 1999 to provide a means of giving permanent relief of liability to owners of property where a cleanup is conducted under the oversight of NDEP staff. The program was designed to encourage voluntary cleanups by providing a release from liability to 1) the current owners of contaminated sites, 2) prospective purchasers, 3) financial entities who hold an evidence of title to protect a security interest, or 4) a government entity which has received a parcel of real property through default. Additional information and an application can be found on this website — Contacts: 775-687-9379

Overpurging as a Remediation Technology
As some CEMs may already be aware, NDEP case officers have recently been given specific direction to critically review applicability and effectiveness of a technique commonly called "overpurging" to address dissolved phase contamination at remediation and LUST sites. Purging employs a variety of methods in an attempt to ensure that groundwater samples collected from monitoring wells are representative of aquifer formation water. At some sites, overpurging has been employed as an attempt at low-cost cleanup of selected monitoring wells by periodically extracting groundwater volumes above that needed to collect representative groundwater samples. NDEP has developed specific language to be included in letters at sites where overpurging is being used to address dissolved phase plumes — Contact: 775-687-9376

Remediation Wells and Monitoring Wells
BCA has also directed case officers to require additional information justifying the use of data collected from groundwater remediation wells as the sole performance monitoring of remediation system effectiveness. NDEP has found that monitoring effectiveness of a groundwater cleanup with wells that are part of the remediation system provides an incomplete dataset with which to assess groundwater restoration — Contact: 775-687-9373

Soil Excavation and Petroleum Fund Reimbursement:
BCA has developed a guidance document describing when regulatory concurrence is needed for excavation and initial abatement activities. Guidance is also given when bidding is required for soil disposal in Northern Nevada. The intention of this document is to communicate the regulatory requirements of BCA to reduce the potential for delay and denied fund reimbursement, and to improve communication with responsible parties — Contact: 775-687-9374

Management of Petroleum Contaminated Soils at Mine Sites
The Bureau of Mining Regulation and Reclamation has recently published Guidance for Mine-Site Petroleum-Contaminated Soil (PCS) Management Plans. PCS Management Plans prepared by a consultant for a mine need to include the certification statement — Contact: 775-687-9403

New Remediation and LUST Corrective Action Plan Concurrence Letter:
This letter [MS Word] will now be used by case officers for concurrence, or concurrence with minor conditions, on a cleanup (either corrective action plan or interim abatement) action proposed by the facility owner/operator. This letter generally applies to active cleanup system approval, including in-situ remedies. It will likely need to be modified for excavation or monitored natural attenuation. This letter will not be used by the case officer if the CAP or interim abatement plan needs major revisions or is being rejected — Contact: 775-687-9373

Phase I and Public Information Requests:
NDEP has prepared procedures for the public and consultants to help guide them through the process of reviewing files and gathering public information. These procedures apply to the gathering of information for Phase I Environmental Assessments. Please review the procedures located on our website — Contact: 775-687-9384

Central Truckee Meadows Remediation District 2006 Annual Groundwater Monitoring Report:
NDEP has posted on our website the above titled report as a reference document to be used by consultants, the public and other agencies as a tool when doing working in the Truckee Meadows, Washoe County, Nevada — Contact: 775-687-9373

Archive — 2007 CEM Newsletter

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