I support the proposed…

I support the proposed increase in maximum size of a soil pile under the Soil Rules.

With respect to the proposed changes relating to "low risk" Project Areas, while I am generally supportive of the Ministry's efforts to reduce regulatory burden on "low risk" activities, I have two comments.

FIRST, the Ministry should consider changing the proposed exemption from the planning requirements for low risk sites (presumably, by including them in Schedule 2 of the regulation) to including these sites in Section 14, and not repealing Section 14. This way, these sites will be making postings on the registry (but will not need to prepare the reports required under sec. 11, 12, and 13, which is appropriate for truly low risk sites).

The Registry is a potential resource for sites seeking soil for beneficial reuse and is also a potential auditing tool for the Ministry and for both reasons the Ministry should be INCREASING the number of sites that need to make a posting, not reducing the number.

SECOND, without the completion of an Assessment of Past Uses (or similar work program) it is likely that Project Leaders will err in determining that a particular Project Area meets the requirements for consideration as "low risk". It therefore will become incumbent upon Reuse Sites to evaluate whether a particular Project Area truly is low risk. This appears to be contrary to the overall intent of the Regulation, which is to shift the burden for environmental characterization of Excess Soils to the generator of these materials (i.e., the Project Leader, not that Reuse Site).

For this reason, I would further propose that Section 14 of the Regulation be amended such that meeting the requirements of this section requires that a Qualified Person determine that there is no reason to believe or suspect that the Project Area may have been impacted by a contaminant. (The Project Leader should be required to maintain a copy of the documentation to this effect, and to provide it to a Provincial Officer upon request.)