Save the Date! 

The following LSPA compliance tip was presented at the March 2022 Membership Meeting, which was held virtually through the Zoom webinar platform, on March 15, 2022.  

Compliance Tip:
An LSP may request an advisory ruling from the LSP Board of Registration for an interpretation of one or more of the LSP Rules of Professional Conduct.  Advisory rulings will be issued at the Board's discretion and only upon written request.  The regulation at 309 CMR 5.00 provides rules for such requests.  

• There are five seats on the Board for currently-licensed LSPs
• David Austin, AECOM
• Kathleen Campbell, CDW Consultants
• Craig Ellis, Beta Group
• Gregg McBride, GZA GeoEnvironmental
• Paul McKinlay, Weston & Sampson
• Three Board members must be members of statewide organizations that promote the protection of the environment 
• Kirk Franklin, Frank Corp.
• Patrick Herron, Mystic River Watershed Association
• Debra M. Listernick, O'Reilly Talbot & Okun Associates
• One Board position is designated for a hydrogeologist
• Gail Batchelder, HRP Associates, Inc
• One member of the Board is designated for a member of a labor organization
• James N. Smith, Department of Neighborhood Development, City of Boston, MA

Here are two more news stories about the Wareham family dealing with a fuel oil spill: 

• How an oil leak may cost Massachusetts couple their recently-purchased home - WCVB 5
• Homeowners face a fortune in cleanup bills after oil tank leak - Boston 25 News

Any homeowner in Massachusetts who has faced this situation, without insurance coverage, knows how challenging it is. Hopefully this media coverage is raising awareness and more homeowners will buy fuel oil insurance riders. We hope that state legislators will also be motivated to pass Senate Bill No. 676, An Act relative to the remediation of home heating oil releases, which would require that all Massachusetts homeowner insurance policies provide coverage for the cleanup of accidental releases of home heating oil. Please contact your state senator and representative to ask for their support.  

Thank you to the Boston Globe's Sean Murphy for his article highlighting the terrible plight of the Proctors and the hundreds of other homeowners in Massachusetts who face this situation annually. The LSPA is the sponsor of Senate Bill No. 676, An Act relative to the remediation of home heating oil releases. This bill would require that all Massachusetts homeowner insurance policies provide coverage for the cleanup of accidental releases of home heating oil. This important pro-consumer, pro-environment bill will help homeowners with the financial burden of addressing accidental spills of their home heating oil, and ensure the prompt cleanup of such spills to better protect groundwater and mitigate damage to the environment.  Please contact your state senator and representative to ask for their support.

The following LSPA compliance tip was presented at the February 2022 Membership Meeting, which was held virtually through the Zoom webinar platform, on February 16, 2022.  

Compliance Tip:

LSPA members who are stakeholders of the MassDOR UST Reimbursement Program are encouraged to participate in the public meetings of two subcommittees recently formed by the 21J Board.  One subcommittee is working on the goal of evaluating and updating the Appendix 3 Fee Schedule.  The second group is the Fee Schedule and Policy Review Subcommittee which will evaluate the fee schedule and policies including Board Approved Site Assessments (BASA), reimbursement for analysis of EPH samples, and reimbursement for soil transportation and disposal.

All meetings are listed on the UST Board website.  More details here.

The following LSPA compliance tip was presented at the January 2022 Membership Meeting, which was held virtually through the Zoom webinar platform, on January 27, 2022.  

Compliance Tip:
All LSPs should have recently received an invoice from the LSP Board of Registration indicating that their annual renewal fee of $225 is due by March 1, 2022. Paying this fee in a timely manner is necessary to maintain your license. If you have not yet received an invoice, you should contact the LSP Board at [email protected]. More details about payment can be found at 309 CMR 2.09 Annual Fee. 

The following LSPA compliance tip was presented at the December 2021 Membership Meeting, which was held virtually through the Zoom webinar platform, on December 14, 2021.  

Compliance Tip:
When using a Method 2 or Method 3 risk characterization to establish a condition of NSR, you must consider reasonably foreseeable, as well as current, site activities and uses. In particular, future vapor intrusion exposures could result from changes in building use or altered building conditions. Potentially problematic activities and uses can be eliminated from consideration in the risk characterization through an appropriate AUL, per 310 CMR 40.0923(3)(b).

LSPA's December 2021 Member Newsletter has been published! Table of Contents is listed below. Please log in to your account and visit Member Materials to view the full newsletter.

In this Issue....

• LSPA Blog
• MassDEP Audit Checklists Filed on LSPA Website
• 31 Out of 32 Risk Characterization-Related NOAFs Received NONs
• Review of FY 2020 NOAFs Related to NAPL
• Review of Vapor Intrusion Notice of Audit Findings, FY 2019 - FY 2020
• FY 2020 NOAFs Citing Response Action Performance Standard (RAPS)

The following LSPA compliance tip was presented at the October 2021 Membership Meeting, which was held virtually through the Zoom webinar platform, on October 28, 2021.  

Compliance Tip:
Even if you have demonstrated that no Imminent Hazard exists and there is a condition of No Significant Risk at your site, you still need to address a Critical Exposure Pathway (CEP) if one has been identified.  As required by 310 CMR 40.0414(3)&(4), you must conduct response actions to eliminate, prevent, and/or mitigate the CEP, or submit documentation that it is not feasible to do so.  

The Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is holding a listening session on disposal capacity issues for contaminated soil coming from Massachusetts disposal sites (“contaminated” soil meaning concentrations > RCS-2).  This session will help MassDEP better understand the scope and impact of contaminated soil disposal issues and identify possible avenues for addressing them. 

The listening session is planned for December 16 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, to be held via Zoom, and hosted by MassDEP’s Liz Callahan (Acting Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup), Greg Cooper (Division Director, Business Compliance & Recycling), and Paul Locke (Acting Deputy Commissioner, Policy & Planning).