LSPA Continuing Education Seminar
Environmental Symposium 2025

While the MCP requires that LSPs and other practitioners evaluate exposure scenarios for “reasonably foreseeable” future activities, conditions, and uses at a disposal site, it does not specifically define what these anticipated impacts could be or how they should be addressed under The Response Action Performance Standard (RAPS).

Climate change can influence future site conditions in numerous ways that are difficult to ascertain. What are the implications of climate change at your disposal site? This course will discuss potential climate change factors in site assessment, cleanup, and closure under the MCP. We will explore ways to incorporate climate change vulnerability assessment into the conceptual site model and risk characterization, and implications for achieving Temporary and Permanent Solutions. We will also share available screening tools and references for evaluating how climate changes may impact site conditions and what adaptations may be needed to ensure remedy resilience over “reasonably foreseeable” timeframes.

The course will also include a presentation on recent research into flooding vulnerability of existing MCP sites with Activity and Use Limitations (AULs). Woodard & Curran created maps to demonstrate the many MCP sites with AULs in MassGIS mapped flood vulnerable areas. A focused review of nearly 200 recent AUL filings (2022-2024) suggests that of these, only 2% have references to these potential climate change impacts.

This work highlights the need to develop and use a framework to assess climate vulnerability for ongoing and future MCP projects and stresses the importance of documenting evaluations for disposal sites in known risk areas, providing a clear record of the assessments conducted and decisions made, to ensure transparency and accountability.

Click here for course outline.