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Guidelines for Assessing and Managing Petroleum Hydrocarbon Contaminated Sites in New Zealand (Revised 2011)

Information on the assessment and management of sites contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons.

Update to the 1999 version

Module 7 has been updated in the 2nd edition of these guidelines (October 2011). There is a new section 7.3.1 regarding underground storage tank and underground petroleum equipment removal and replacement. This section was added to bring these guidelines up to date with the Resource Management (National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health - NES) Regulations 2011 [New Zealand Legislation website].

The ‘soil acceptance criteria’ used in these guidelines are not derived according to the methodology referenced in the NES and do not have the status of being NES soil contaminant standards. However, until the petroleum hydrocarbons standards are developed these risk-based ‘soil acceptance criteria’ are supported by the Ministry for Environment for adoption within New Zealand. Note that the Tier 1 soil acceptance criteria have not been developed for ongoing use as a petroleum handling facility. In this scenario exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons need to be managed according to occupational health and safety requirements.

For more information on the NES, visit the National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health web page.

Availability

Download PDF of the User's Guide (PDF, 194 KB)

Download PDFs of parts of the document

• Introduction (PDF, 268 KB)
  The introduction contains some background on the status and development of the guidelines, as well as a list of acronyms and abbreviations used in the guidelines. It also contains the contents pages for each of the modules listed below.
  
  
• Module 1 Risk-based approach to site assessment and management (PDF, 324 KB)
  Module 1 presents an overview of the risk-based approach to assessing contaminated sites, including the use of a tiered approach to site assessment, a general review of risk assessment and the development of soil and groundwater acceptance criteria, and an integrated approach to site investigations, risk assessment and site management and remediation.
  • Appendix 1A Overview of risk assessment (PDF, 117 KB)
• Module 2 Hydrocarbon contamination fundamentals (PDF, 1.09 MB)
  Module 2 provides a background and understanding of the physical and chemical factors important when assessing petroleum hydrocarbon contamination.
  
  
• Module 3 Site assessment (PDF, 344 KB)
  Module 3 gives guidance on suitable methods of site investigation, including information on the design of a sampling programme, the suitability of various types of investigation equipment, sampling techniques, and quality assurance.
  • Appendix 3A NZ Geomechanics Society terminology for description of soils in the field (PDF, 84 KB)
  
  
• Module 4 Tier 1 soil acceptance criteria (PDF, 838 KB)
  Module 4 outlines the key principles in health and environmental risk assessment and the detailed procedures for developing soil acceptance criteria. The generic soil acceptance criteria derived in this section are summarised in “look-up tables” and form the basis of the Tier 1 assessment process.

  Detailed procedures for deriving soil screening criteria are presented in this module, providing the basis for developing site-specific criteria used as part of a Tier 2 assessment.

  
  
  • Appendix 4A Identification of contaminants of concern (PDF, 114 KB)
  • Appendix 4B Basis for total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) criteria protective of human health (PDF, 90 KB)
  • Appendix 4C Exposure equations (PDF, 94 KB)
  • Appendix 4D Volatilisation modelling (PDF, 303 KB)
  • Appendix 4E Leaching modelling (PDF, 168 KB)
  • Appendix 4F Plant uptake (PDF, 131 KB)
  • Appendix 4G Calculation of Tier 1 acceptance criteria (tables) (PDF, 82 KB)
  • Appendix 4H Target air and produce concentration (PDF, 38 KB)
  • Appendix 4I Ecological assessment checklist (PDF, 78 KB)
  • Appendix 4J Soil gas acceptance criteria for the protection of indoor air quality (PDF, 49 KB)
  • Appendix 4K Soil acceptance criteria for excavation workers (PDF, 111 KB)
  • Appendix 4L Toxicity assessment (PDF, 126 KB)
  • Appendix 4M Phase partitioning relationships (PDF, 72 KB)
  
  
• Module 5 Tier 1 groundwater acceptance criteria (PDF, 431 KB)
  The health and environmental risk assessment principles outlined in Module 4 are applied to groundwater in order to derive generic groundwater acceptance criteria for use in Tier 1 assessments.
  • Appendix 5A Irrigation water criteria (PDF, 154 KB)
  • Appendix 5B Volatilisation modelling (PDF, 229 KB)
  • Appendix 5C Stock water criteria (PDF, 23 KB)
  
  
• Module 6 Development of site-specific acceptance criteria (PDF, 228 KB)
  Procedures for developing Tier 2 and 3 site-specific acceptance criteria are outlined. Due to the highly site-specific nature of a Tier 3 assessment, it is not possible to provide detailed guidance, rather some of the key requirements and an indication of the necessary level of detail are presented.
  
  
• Module 7 Site management (PDF, 332 KB)
  Module 7 contains an overview of the options readily available in New Zealand for addressing site contamination. These options range from control of the site to prevent exposure to site users or the surrounding environment, to treating the site soil, recovering product from the groundwater, and general water management.

 

Last updated: 23 December 2011