Lancaster gets Non-Use Aquifer Designation
As reported in the Lancaster Sunday Times earlier this week, PADEP recently granted the City of Lancaster's request for a non-use aquifer designation. I didn't see any mention of that on the PADEP website, but it sometimes takes some time before a non-use aquifer designation makes it onto the running list that is kept on the website.
If you have an Act 2 project in the City of Lancaster, you can now thank City officials for making it a little easier to attain the Statewide Health Standard under Act 2. Both the groundwater MSC and the soil-to-groundwater pathway numeric values are increased significantly when you are within a non-use aquifer. The rationale is that since no one is using the groundwater as a source of drinking water, you shouldn't have to remediate the groundwater to a level that would make it safe for human consumption. You still have to do the required site characterization and attainment sampling, but the actual numbers in the chart that you have to meet are several orders of magnitude higher.
At the outset of Act 2, it was much easier to get a non-use aquifer designation than it is today. Early on in the process, it was much more intuitive. Now, there are forms you have to fill out and you need to satisfy the requirements set forth in the Act 2 Technical Guidance Manual starting on pages II-32. I've had recent instances where, for example, I was working on a site that was just down the road from a site that had already received a non-use aquifer designation. I contacted PADEP and said "hey, there is an Act 2 site that is two doors down the road from my project and it's a non-use aquifer, can't I just get a letter saying that my site is in the same non-use aquifer?" The answer years ago might have been "sure, we'll send you out the letter." Now, the answer is you have to go through the process of designating your specific site as a non-use aquifer by doing the site characterization work and the fate and transport analysis and everything else that you have to do, even if the site next door is a non-use aquifer. From a purely scientific standpoint, I don't see how you could have one property that is considered to be within a non-use aquifer and have another site just down the street that isn't part of the same non-use aquifer. When we were putting together the Act 2 regulations, we wrestled with the idea of defining areas of the Commonwealth where the water was or was not part of an "aquifer." Ultimately, the technical staff convinced us that the entire Commonwealth was really just one big interconnected aquifer (except for the Wissihickon Schist). In any event, there is a process that you have to go through now to get the designation, even if you have another non-use aquifer site next door, and it isn't as simple as asking for a letter.
The beauty of the Lancaster situation is that the designation covers the entire City. The City must have followed the process in the regulations for certifying the entire geographic area as part of a non-use aquifer. In the article that I read, Kathy Horvath from the ECP program in the Southcentral Regional Office was quoted as saying that the Department recognized that "you're never going to bring [the groundwater] up to pre-industrial standards" in a City like Lancaster. I've always known Kathy Horvath to take a very common sense, practical approach toward Act 2 remediation projects. That is the right approach for those that continue to see Act 2 as helping to drive the economic engine of the Commonwealth.
