IN THIS EDITION:

• Updates To The Laws For Contaminated Sites In British Columbia
• PHH Acquires ARC Inc.
• PHH Opens Office in UK
• River Valley Clean Up

PHH Acquires ARC Inc.

In order to enhance our scope of environmental services we can offer to clients across Western Canada, PHH Environmental completed the purchase of Arc Inc On June 1, 2004. Arc's services, staff and client portfolio are a perfect complement to PHH's. Arc Inc is an Alberta based environmental engineering and project management company has a staff of 28 in Edmonton and Calgary. Arc's operations with extensive experience and expertise in upstream and downstream oil and gas and forestry sectors. Their services encompass a full range of environmental consulting including environmental permitting, environmental impact assessment, soil and groundwater remediation, risk assessment, ecological assessments landfill design and full service remediation delivery. The two former Principals of Arc, Doug Rabb P. Eng., and Jeff Powers P Geol will remain with Arc in a managerial capacity. They have a combined experience of over fifty years in environmental engineering. Through this acquisition we expect to be able to offer a broader range of environmental compliance services to our existing real estate, institutional and industrial clients while offering safety and industrial hygiene services to the oil and gas sector. Arc will remain a separate entity for the balance of 2004. It will be run by Don Jakul, VP Southern Alberta/Saskatchewan and Principal.

We are excited to offer the following new services:

• Aquatic, terrestrial and ecological assessments
• Environmental Impact Assessments
• Watercourse crossings
• GPS Surveys/Magnetometer surveys
• External air quality modeling and monitoring
• Regulatory applications and approvals
• Environmental permitting
• Waste management
• Landfill design

Our clients will benefit from the fact that we can offer fully integrated environmental solutions over a wider range of regulatory scope. Our staff will benefit from this development through expanded opportunities to broaden their experience. I would like to welcome the Arc staff and clients to PHH and the Pinchin Group of companies. We will be making every effort over the coming months to blend the best of both companies into services and solutions that continually exceed our clients expectations. For more information on the new range of services offered with the addition of ARC, please contact me or Don Jakul at 1-877-322-4744. You may also visit ARC's website at www.arcinc.ab.ca.

PHH Opens Office in UK

We're happy to announce that July 1 2004 sees the opening of our first overseas office in the UK. PHH Environmental (UK) Limited ­ a joint venture of PHH Environmental and Pinchin Environmental will have its first office in Cardiff Wales. Our Managing Director will be Mr. Stephen Cooper. Mr. Cooper is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Building and he has over twenty years of senior to executive level experience in the sheltered housing and residential care sectors. We intend to open subsequent branch offices in other cities in the UK in the coming years. Our primary focus in the UK office will be asbestos surveys and management. This is precipitated by the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulation (2002) requiring all UK workplaces to survey and compile ³asbestos registers² and subsequent management plans by May 2004. We intend to broaden our service line to offer the full range of our Canadian services in the UK.

The motivation to open the office was a combination of market conditions (strong European currencies, stiffening regulations and relative diffusion of competition) and a long held desire of mine to return to my roots and market some of the Canadian skills and processes that we have developed in a market of 400 million people. The PHH venture will enable us to service European companies with quality economical consulting services, while leveraging our twenty years of experience as a company in dealing with asbestos management It will also create opportunities for our staff to be able to perform work in Europe. We also expect to be able to support our CAT Alliance affiliates more effectively in the European marketplace.

River Valley Clean Up

On Sunday May 2nd from 12:30pm to 2:30pm some PHH Environmental Edmonton staff got together to help clean Edmonton's River Valley and City Parks. It was a great day, they picked up garbage for a couple of hours and had fun helping the city look its best!

Feature Article

UPDATES TO THE LAWS FOR CONTAMINATED SITES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
By: Paul Embregts, B.Eng., Project Coordinator

Third Stage Amendments to the Contaminated Sites Regulation

The Third Amendment to the Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR) was passed on November 20, 2003. The Amendment can be viewed at the following website address:
http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/contam_sites
/regulations/index.html

The amendment has established a new set of fees related to services offered by the Contaminated Sites branch, such as reviewing site profiles, accessing the Ministry site registry, reviewing environmental reports, and issuing certificates of compliance (CoCs) and conditional certificates of compliance (CCoCs).

Overall, the amendments have instituted a higher rate of fees. The increase in fees is reflective of monetary losses the Ministry sustained in provision of the Contaminated Sites program in the past. This is significant to owners of contaminated sites as it will now cost substantially more to obtain a CoC or a CCoC.

The following highlights some of the key amendments to the CSR:

1. Ministry fees are outlined in Tables 1 and 2 of Schedule 3 in the CSR. Table 2 lists fees associated with Determinations of Contaminated Sites, Reviews, Agreements, Inspections, Approvals, Certificates and Orders. Prior to the third Stage Amendments, fees for each service were subcategorized for each site based on site size and complexity. This has now been amended so that the fee for each service is subcategorized only into site complexity, that being simple and complex sites. The method for determining site complexity is provided in Part D of the Contaminated Sites Services Form.
2. A comparison of pre and post Third Amendment fees indicates the following key changes
   • Site Profiles: The submittal fee has not changed from $100
   • Site Registry Searches: Costs have increased in the order of 200 to 300%.
   • Determination of a Contaminated Site (under section 15 (3)) of the CSR): The fees for simple and complex sites are $1,000 and $2,000, respectively. The previous range of fees was $250 to $750.
   • Review of Preliminary Site Investigation Reports: Fees for simple and complex Site are $2,000 and $4,000, respectively. The previous fees ranged from $250 to $2000.
   • Review of a Detailed Site Investigation Report: Fees for simple and complex Site are now $3,000 and $6,000, respective. Previous fees ranged from $750 to $10,000.
   • Review of a Risk Assessment or Environmental Impact report: The fees for Simple and complex sites are $3,000 and $9,000, respectively. The previous range of fees was $800 to $12,000.
   • Contaminated Soil Relocation Agreement (under section 43 (2) of the CSR): Fees for Simple and complex sites are $1,000 and $2,000, respectively. Previous fees were in the range of $250 to $3,000.
   • Approval in Principle (AIP) for a remediation plan: Fees for a simple and complex site are $1,000 and $3,000, respectively. Previous fees were in the range of $100 to $600.
   • Certificate of Compliance: Fees for simple and complex site are $2,000 and $6,000 respectively. The previous fees ranged from $750 to $10,000.
   • Conditional Certificate of Compliance: Fees for simple and complex sites are $4,000 and $12,000, respectively. The previous fees ranged from $1,200 to $16,000.
3. Reports submitted to the Ministry that contain errors or omissions may be corrected and resubmitted to the Ministry. Previously, the resubmission charge could be as much as 20% of the original fee. Under the new Amendments, the maximum resubmission charge is 50% of the original fee.
4. Under section 10 (2) of the CSR, a person may request that an external reviewer assist with the review of a report or remediation plan. The benefit of requesting this is that it would provide a quicker turnaround time. The surcharge for having an external review completed has been raised from 20 to 30% under the new Amendments.
5. Under Section 49.1 of the CSR, a person is able to have reports and remediation plans reviewed by members of the roster of professional experts. The previous surcharge for doing a roster review was 10%. This surcharge has been increased to 50%. This fee increase is a result of higher auditing costs than were anticipated by the Ministry.

Standard for Non Scheduled Toxic Substances

The standards used to assess contaminant concentrations are provided in Schedules 4, 5 and 6 of the Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR). Schedules 4 and 5 provide numerical concentration standards for soil, based on land use including agriculture, park land, residential, commercial and industrial uses. Schedule 6 provides numerical concentration standards for groundwater, based on water uses including aquatic life, irrigation, drinking water for livestock and drinking water for humans. There are numerous parameters contained within each of the schedules, however by no means is it an exhaustive list of all toxic chemicals that may be present at a contaminated Site.

For the purposes of evaluating a site contaminated with a Non Scheduled Toxic Substance (NSTS), the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection (MWLAP) has established a listing of NSTSs that is documented in Table 1 of Technical Guidance Document 18, which can be found at the following web address:
http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/contam_sites
/guidance/index.html

The standard for this listing of NSTSs came into effect on January 30, 2004. The standard can be found at the following web address:
http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/contam_sites
/standards_criteria/index.html

Under the Standard, a site is considered contaminated if a soil or groundwater sample has a concentration of an NSTS parameter that exceeds either the Practical Quantification Limit (PQL) or the respective Remedial Target (RT), which are listed in Table 1 of Guidance Document 18. The PQL is essentially the lowest possible laboratory detection concentration multiplied by a factor of five. Similarly, soil cannot be relocated to another site without a soil relocation agreement if it contains concentrations of an NSTS greater than the respective PQL or RT.

For Sites contaminated with an NSTS substance, a Certificate of Compliance (CoC) for adequate remediation would be issued from the Ministry only under the following circumstances:

1. Concentrations of NSTSs are remediated to concentrations below PQL levels.
2. Concentrations of NSTSs are remediated to concentrations below RT levels, and the responsible person for the contaminated site issues a letter to MWLAP stating that the levels of any NSTS substance remediated to an RT standard are not a risk to ecological receptors.

The reason for the above point 2 is that the remedial target values were derived considering human heath risks only. The Ministry will issue a CoC for an NSTS Site remediated to RT standards, however the liability for ecological risks related to an NSTS substance will remain with the responsible party, not with MWLAP. The Ministry does not require information to support any assertion that an NSTS will not pose a risk to an ecological receptor. Furthermore, the Ministry will not review any information upon which the assertion may be based, nor verify the assertion through any third party means.

In summary, the NSTS standard in significant to property owners potentially contaminated with an NSTS substance as:

1. The NSTS standard approximately doubles the total amount of regulated substances in the BC Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR). In general, this increases the potential of a Site to be contaminated with a regulated substance. It also potentially will increase the cost of environmental investigations as consultants may need to be more diligent in evaluating potential contaminants, and may also need to test for a wider range of parameters.
2. Site owners choosing to remediate to RT values will inherit liability associated with environmental protection. As such, a risk assessment may be prudent to quantify this risk, and evaluate the potential for future liability. Alternatively, a Site owner may choose to remediate to PQL levels to reduce potential liability. PQL levels are stricter than RT levels, and therefore this would results in higher overall costs.