The Alberta Tier 2 guidelines for soil and groundwater remediation are used when considering site-specific conditions implemented through modifying Tier 1 remediation guidelines. It is also applied to remove exposure pathways that do not apply to specific sites. Compared to Tier 2 remediation guidelines, a lot of information about a site is needed to implement Tier 2 guidelines. The required information is essential for formulating solutions that are specific to the particular site. The Water Act (Government of Alberta, 2000) and the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (Government of Alberta, 2006) provides the legal basis for which Tier 2 remediation guidelines are formulated and enforced.
Particular factors necessitate the adoption of Tier 2 remediation guidelines. It includes situations where contamination occurs within 30 cm of a building’s foundation, the flow of groundwater to stagnant bodies, organic soils, presence of contamination within 10 cm of surface water body, unaccounted sensitive receptors under Tier 1 guidelines, and when the source of contamination length parallel to the flow of groundwater is greater than 10 meters. If these conditions exist in a site, then Tier 2 guideline consideration is made to assess the site-specific risks.
Tier 2 Appendix A Soil and Appendix B Groundwater provides the site-specific parameters considered in the implementation of remediation initiatives. The values expressed for soil and groundwater may be adjusted or modified to meet the site-specific conditions. If the adjustment of parameters results in a decrease in the calculated guideline values, then the lower site-specific value is applied compared to Tier 1 guidelines. The use of Tier 2 Appendix A Soil and Appendix B Groundwater is focused on increasing the accuracy of risk estimates and exposure based on the collected site-specific data. The guidelines are applied for ecological and environmental protection and the protection of human health from contaminants.
Alberta Tier 2 Soil and Groundwater Remediation Guidelines are now available in ESdat. ESdat is a specialist environmental database system; used to validate and import a broad spectrum of Environmental Data and to help users analyze and report it.
ESdat Online delivers a highly cost-effective and efficient approach to store your ongoing monitoring environmental data, optionally with a historical data upload provided as a getting started service. ESdat Online is perfect if you want a cloud-based system that collates and reports your ongoing laboratory and field results.
ESdat Server provides the advantages of ESdat Online with the option of adding ESdat Desktop for data experts to upload their historical data, effectively interrogate the raw data being used within the database, and automatically launch and send data to other Desktop Applications such as Surfer, ArcGIS and Excel.
A variety of complementary products are also available to help with related work, such as sample planning and electronic Chain of Custody (LSPECS), offline field data collection or bore logging (pLog), production of bore logs (ESlog) public portals and customized reporting.
All compiled environmental guidelines and standards are shown on the ESdat website. These are pre-loaded into ESdat Online.
Reference
Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP). 2019. Alberta Tier 2 Soil and GroundwaterRemediation Guidelines. Land Policy Branch, Policy and Planning Division. 150 pp.Retrieved from https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/aa212afe-2916-4be9-8094-42708c950313/resource/157bf66c-370e-4e19-854a-3206991cc3d2/download/albertatier2guidelines-jan10-2019.pdf
