Later that week, the LSPA submitted two letters in response to the article. The shorter Letter to the Editor was published in the March 3, 2014 Boston Globe letters section. Click here to read that letter.

Sometimes it takes a village to pull off a 200-word Letter to the Editor and get it published. But the LSPA knew that we needed to do so to set the record straight for the practice and for LSPs. Thanks to Kevin O'Reilly, LSP, of O'Reilly, Talbot, & Okun Associates, for first putting the words down in response to the Globe article, and to the LSPA Regulations Committee for spearheading this.

Outgoing MassDEP Commissioner Kimmell wrote the LSPA in an email: "And thanks to the LSP Association for setting the record straight-good letter in the Globe yesterday."

The Daily Free Press, the independent student newspaper at Boston University, picked up the story on the arsenic and lead angle. They were able to assemble a very balanced piece that was published on February 25, 2014, and included some quotes from the LSPA's very own Susan Chapnick, Board member and Treasurer. Click here to read the article.

The LSPA will continue to look for news stories about brownfields and other topics in our work, and respond to them accordingly.

This is the first in a series of articles profiling current members of the LSP Board of Registration.

The fact that geologists practicing in Massachusetts were on the losing side of an effort to get recognized as professionals stuck in Gail Batchelder's craw. A licensed geologist in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Batchelder was not recognized as a licensed professional in her home state of Massachusetts despite her strong credentials and her doctorate in geology from UMass Amherst with a research focus on hydrogeology and low-temperature geochemistry.  

So in 1992, Batchelder was quite pleased by the creation of the Commonwealth's "new" privatized program and the licensing of engineers, geologists, and other scientists to oversee the assessment and remediation of contaminated properties. By virtue of the program, geologists and scientists could become licensed and be viewed in the marketplace as professionals rather than contractors. Batchelder had planned to become an LSP herself, but missed the initial application deadline when a complicated project in Connecticut - where she subsequently became licensed as an LEP - kept her from getting her application in on time.      

Four years later, that lapse proved fortuitous when a call from former LSP Board Director Alan Fierce to discuss LSP Board approval for a continuing education course turned around, with Fierce making a pitch for her to throw her hat in the ring for consideration for the board's recently-vacated hydrogeologist seat. Although not specified in the LSP Board's enabling statute, it had become the board's policy that the hydrogeologist seat should be held by a non-LSP, which Batchelder said was explained to her as a compromise between the environmental consultants who wanted a majority of board members to be LSPs with the appropriate technical expertise to judge their peers, and legislators who did not want to give the newly minted LSPs too much power.

Batchelder jumped at the opportunity. "I thought, 'Aren't I lucky that I didn't get everything together on time,'" said Batchelder. "To me it was important to have a part in shaping the program. This was an opportunity to be involved in something that created a new profession," she said. "Being a licensed professional means something. It was important to be part of that process."

Appointed in 1997, Batchelder is the longest sitting member of the current LSP Board. She intends to step down this year once a disciplinary complaint that she is involved in concludes and revisions to the LSP exam have been completed. Even though she intends to leave the Board, she still feels a strong sense of responsibility to the organization and to the individuals impacted by the decisions it makes.

Serving on the Board has been an incredible experience, said Batchelder, who views the Commonwealth's privatized program as the best in the nation and a model for other states. "When you see how it was put together, you realize how incredibly brilliant the team was that put the process in place," she said. "The public has to believe in LSPs for the program to work," she said. By prequalifying and licensing LSPs, professionalizing the practice, and establishing a structure for audits and oversight, the creators laid the foundation for a novel and forward-looking approach to clean up contaminated properties and return them to active reuse.

The LSP Board's agenda has changed since the Board promulgated its initial regulations in 1993, Batchelder says, and its duties have evolved from creating the new program to maintaining the process and the quality of the profession. "In the beginning, we used to have a lot of very good philosophical conversations regarding the board's role and how to interpret its own regulations," Batchelder said. "It was really interesting and challenging because it made you think about questions such as: What level of performance is appropriate to maintain the integrity of the profession? How can the Board hold an LSP to such standards? And most broadly, how can the Board help the program work effectively?"

"We spent a lot of time working out procedural matters," Batchelder said. "Once the procedures were in place, our primary focus seemed to transition more into the investigation of complaints and related disciplinary activities."

"The Board worked really well together because we liked and respected each other, even when we disagreed," Batchelder recalled. "It was fortunate that we really enjoyed each other's company because we spent a lot of time together."

Early on, the Board saw only a handful of complaints a year, a fact that Batchelder attributed to MassDEP's willingness to work with LSPs rather than penalize them. "In the beginning not too many complaints were filed," Batchelder said. "The Department was just getting into the audits and was figuring out how to handle them. It seemed they were much more willing to work with LSPs, and found "deficiencies" instead of "violations" because they understood people were learning the program."

That changed as the program matured, and the Department began "inundating" the Board with complaints, Batchelder said. "The program got a little older, and it seemed that the Department figured that people should know better by that time. They saw the same LSPs doing the same things over and over. It was just the process of the program aging."

The complaint process is the toughest and least understood part of being a board member, Batchelder said. "The time and thought that goes into complaints is enormous," she said. "To sit in judgment is the most stressful aspect of being a Board member."

"We read every bit of the complaint files ourselves," Batchelder said, recalling how former LSP Board member Gretchen Latowsky once brought a milk crate full of documents pertaining to a single case to an LSPA membership meeting featuring a panel of LSP Board members. "We felt it was very important to be personally familiar with every aspect of a case," she said. "It is extraordinarily stressful for a board member to be investigating a complaint and to sit across from someone, especially someone you know," Batchelder said. "But we said we would do our job to ensure that LSPs were practicing in a way that was protective of the public and that was our objective. Everyone took that very seriously."

The flow of complains has dropped off considerably in recent years, said Batchelder, and the Board's focus has shifted to education, outreach, rewriting the LSP exam and reviewing applications for licensure. The exam needs to be revamped to address the regulatory changes expected to come down from MassDEP within the next few months, Batchelder said, and education is an ongoing process. Batchelder expects the Board will look more toward distance learning to complement the face-to-face learning. But, she said, she hopes the Board will keep a balance between the two. "The real learning doesn't happen in the eight-hour presentation," she said. "Where you learn and get really engaged is when you interact with others. There is so much value in discussing various topics with fellow professionals to provide a broader perspective on how other LSPs might handle a particular issue."

Even with its shift in focus, the Board still has the responsibility to maintain the integrity of the profession and the law that created it, Batchelder said. Being appointed to the Board means something, and should not be pursued if a candidate is not totally committed to the Commonwealth's privatized program and willing to do the required work. The position - which pays nothing, not even expenses - is time-consuming, and anyone considering a seat on the board should expect to spend a minimum of between 10 and 20 hours a month on Board work, depending on the agenda.

Batchelder also feels that it is critical that the Board maintain the statutorily established separation between itself and MassDEP. The two are separate entities, the only links being the Board Chair and the fact that the LSP Board staff are MassDEP employees, she said. "The clear distinction between the two entities was intended to be maintained and is a fundamental part of making the program successful," Batchelder said. By and large, MassDEP, the LSP Board, and the LSP community work well together, but when differences of opinion arise, it is important to remember that while MassDEP has the authority to decide whether a violation of the MCP has occurred, it is within the jurisdiction of the LSP Board to decide whether an LSP's actions constitute a violation of the LSP Board's regulations and rise to a level at which discipline by the LSP Board is warranted, she explained.

"The most important role for the LSP Board is to continue to support the LSP program by maintaining the integrity of the profession," Batchelder said. "It has a responsibility to make sure the proper people are licensed and that LSPs maintain, and hopefully improve, their skill level. When an issue with an LSP arises, Board members must continue to respect the LSPs but remember that they still have the responsibility to protect public health, safety, welfare, and the environment. LSP Board members take an oath when they accept the position, and honoring that responsibility is important to me." 

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The LSPA Regulations Committee developed and provided an informative "for credit" presentation on the topic of The Crisis of Soil Management at the November 14, 2013, LSPA monthly meeting. You may ask:  Is the management of soil really a crisis?  Well, based on feedback from the audience, it is undeniably so. 

The evening opened with a review  by Michelle O'Brien, Esq. (Mackie, Shea & O'Brien, PC) on "Soil Management 101" and some sobering statistics compiled by Kelly McQueeney (LSP, Harvard University).  Some food for thought from Kelly's presentation: using some basic assumptions and based on prior trends in non-residential development, over the next 5 years an estimated 4 million cubic yards of urban fill could be generated at development sites in the greater Boston area.  An additional 2 million cubic yards of excess native soil could also be generated.  These are soils that cannot be reused on site and need to find a home elsewhere.  The options for where to take them are very limited and the ability to accept this soil varies dramatically among potential receiving facilities.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to predict, from a cost and schedule standpoint, just what impacts the disposal of soil will have on a given project. Developers and contractors have to wrestle with arranging for multiple outlets for disposal, increased requirements for characterization with long lead times, and increased budget requirements for longer hauls and increasing tipping fees. Not a great situation.

To further illustrate the challenges, Bryan Sweeney (PE, Haley & Aldrich) described typical scenarios encountered when attempting to bid, contract and execute a building project that requires soil management.  While the classic risks for developer clients that relate to unknown subsurface conditions used to be the more typical geotechnical or "buried treasure" issues, more and more often the cost of managing what comes out of the subsurface is presenting a significant risk to schedule and budget.  Challenges to the preferable management options (stockpile and reuse on site or excavate, load and transport to a pre-determined facility at the contract bid price) have become routine; these include:

• no facility is open to take the materials at the bid price,
• the only available facility is farther away than the budget anticipated,
•  there is a facility but it limits the daily volume it will take, and
• on-site reuse isn't feasible because the soil has contaminants that won't meet the MCP's "similar soils" requirements. 
   

To minimize adverse impacts to economic development in Massachusetts, more locations for appropriate disposal or reuse are needed.

Paul Locke (Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup (BWSC), MassDEP) presented an overview of what the agency has in store to help address the "crisis."  He noted that the BWSC's "Similar Soils Policy" is now final and available on line.  This policy addresses a small chunk of the universe of soils in need of a home, and facilitates the implementation of 310 CMR 40.0032(3).  The new policy works well as far as it goes and provides clear direction on when and how you need to sample a receiving location, and what it means to be "not significantly less than"; it also includes tables, sampling considerations and performance standards.  But what about the rest of the universe of soils?  These include soils from MCP sites that are not remediation waste, soils whose contamination did not result from an MCP release, and soils that have levels of constituents between RCS-1 and RCS-2.   Unfortunately, there is no immediate solution for dealing with these soils, but Paul noted that finding a path forward for their management is a high priority for MassDEP in 2014.  (He also noted at a recent BWSC Advisory Committee meeting, "The Department's overarching goal is that non-21E soils do not become 21E sites.") 

By this point in the evening there appeared to be consensus that a soil management crisis exists, and the final presentation of the evening provided a glimpse of what needs to happen in the future if the crisis is to be alleviated. Jim Doucette (Bureau of Waste Prevention, MassDEP)  presented information about the solid waste constraints to soil management.  He noted that soil is not solid waste by definition, and that contaminated soils can be used in the right circumstances under Comm 97-001 (the policy governing the reuse and disposal of soils at Massachusetts landfills) without prior approval.  Solid waste landfill closure has historically provided a reasonable outlet for soils from development, but the capacity for this reuse is limited and shrinking.  Soils from development projects could provide a beneficial resource in getting old landfills closed and capped properly, but local concerns are a major issue.  Jim noted that Comm 97-001 was and continues to be a success.  Success stories include 19 unlined landfills that have been closed using contaminated soils since 1999, several quarries that were filled and closed as part of the Central Artery Project soil management, and a significant amount of soil that has been used by active landfills for daily cover.   As the landfill closure opportunities are diminishing, however, other resources will need to be evaluated, such as the closure of quarries and other potential fill projects. 

MassDEP is looking at addressing soil management on multiple fronts.  The agency continues to press forward through BWSC to develop policies for managing soils, building on the success of the Similar Soils Policy.  At the same time, the BWP is also working towards solutions through its review and approval of fill projects, both via the permitting process for landfill closure and through potential non-landfill options. 

Stay tuned. This is clearly a crisis that needs solutions, and developing these solutions will require the participation of a broad range of stakeholders and the coordinated efforts of multiple departments at MassDEP.

Click here to see slides from the November 2013 LSPA membership meeting on the soil management crisis. 

If you aren't crazy about all this white fluffy stuff that is great for skiing, snowshoeing, and snowball making, step into the warmer past with these photos from the August 2013 outing of the LSPA's Technical Practices Committee (TPC).

Esplanade

The TPC's 2103 annual summer outing was a kayaking trip on the Charles River.  Eleven hardy, seaworthy souls embarked from the Kendall Square location of Charles River Canoe and Kayak, and set out to explore the lower  Charles River Basin, between the Esplanade  and the Science Museum.  It was a great way to unwind after a day at the office - perfect temperature, a balmy breeze, and the river spotted with sailboats, paddle boarders, and the occasional Duck Boat.

We noted the electric plant sitting on

Jim Occhialini, Alpha Analytical Labs

the Cambridge side, as well as the Hatch Shell on the Boston side.  We discussed the chronology of activities by both the public and private sectors to improve water quality in the river. Some of us even remembered Governor William Weld's 1996 plunge, fully clothed, into the river to prove his commitment to cleaning it up.  We agreed that, while there is still much to do, the river ecosystem and water quality have improved in the 21^st century.  We considered taking a few surface water samples to prove our point but then decided against it - much to the chagrin of fellow paddler Jim Occhialini of Alpha Analytical Labs (see photo). 

Wes Stimpson and Denise Kmetzo

After about an hour, all of us managed to make our way back to the starting point, where we posed for this photo to document our adventures.  We then made our way to a nearby restaurant to reward ourselves with pizza and salads. 

Like to kayak?  Golf?  Bowl?  While discussing technical topics related to hazardous waste site cleanup? Consider joining the TPC so you can have fun at the 2014 outing. Contact Co-Chairs Denise Kmetzo at denise.kmetzo@gmail.com and Glen Cote at gcote@cecinc.com.

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The December 2013 LSPA meeting was all about oil, or LNAPL if you like.  While light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) has been on the minds of many LSPs this winter, as we anticipated the long- awaited regulatory changes to the MCP, our speakers gave us three different perspectives on the subject. 

From the world of field assessment, Matt Ednie from Zebra spoke about utilizing Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) to collect high resolution real time data on the distribution of LNAPL in the subsurface.  Coupling LIF with conductivity data, it is possible to simultaneously collect field data on both changes in stratigraphy and changes in the presence and relative concentration of LNAPL.  For more information on LIF and to view Matt's presentation,  click here.   

Fayaz Lakhwala, Ph.D., from FMC Corporation, presented an innovative approach for in-situ geochemical stabilization (ISGS) of NAPL.  NAPL in a soil matrix can act as a secondary source which supports an on-going groundwater contaminant plume.  FMC's technology is a blend of permanganate and mineral salts that form a stable mineral precipitate which creates a "crust" on soil particles.  This crust immobilizes NAPL and reduces permeability and the flux of NAPL into groundwater.  For more information on ISGS and to view the FMC presentation, click here.      

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