In her article, “When Default Cleanup Levels Threaten Redevelopment: A Case for Site-Specific Risk Assessment,” Lisa Smith explains how evaluating actual site conditions can help project teams.
Smith, a Senior Technical Advisor and SCS Engineers’ National Expert in risk mitigation and risk assessment in corrective action, examines a 66-acre residential redevelopment where a site-specific approach saved the developer more than $5 million in remediation costs.
Arsenic concentrations at the property exceeded the default residential risk-based screening level. Using that screening value as the final cleanup endpoint would have required widespread soil removal and replacement with clean fill, potentially making the development economically unworkable.
Instead, SCS Engineers evaluated the property’s planned, enforceable future-use conditions and developed site-specific cleanup target levels. The resulting strategy achieved regulatory closure while maintaining required human health protections.
Jump to read “When Default Cleanup Levels Threaten Redevelopment: A Case for Site-Specific Risk Assessment”
The case illustrates a distinction that matters for property owners and developers: screening levels are tools for identifying potential concerns, but they are not necessarily the appropriate cleanup endpoint for every site.
Default screening levels use standardized, conservative assumptions about exposure. A site-specific evaluation considers whether those assumptions match how people will actually occupy and use the property. In this project, enforceable occupancy conditions and differences in anticipated soil contact supported a more tailored cleanup strategy.
Smith also addresses the practical considerations behind this approach. Developing alternative cleanup levels requires technical evidence, regulatory coordination, time, and investment. The overseeing agency must have authority to approve them, and any conditions supporting the analysis must remain enforceable.
Not every property is a suitable candidate. Complex contamination, uncertain future uses, or limitations on long-term controls may require a different strategy.
For redevelopment teams, the starting point is straightforward: ask whether the default assumptions fit before committing to a remedy based on them.
Read Smith’s full article for the project details, factors that determine whether site-specific cleanup levels are worth pursuing, and questions to discuss with your environmental consultant.
A better understanding of risk can support a more appropriate remedy—and help preserve redevelopment opportunities without compromising human health protection.
Read “When Default Cleanup Levels Threaten Redevelopment: A Case for Site-Specific Risk Assessment”
Reminder: EPA Releases FY2027 Brownfields Grant Guidelines: What Communities Need to Know
