Steps Towards a Record of Site Condition (RSC) – The Submission Process

Concluding this past month’s theme of the RSC submission process we will be concluding (logically) with the submission of the RSC. To start, an RSC is a document submitted to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment describing the environmental conditions at a site. Included in the RSC is such information as the site owner, the assessor, the size of the property, the concentrations of chemical species on the site at the time of reporting and the scope of any remedial activities that occurred at the site. The RSC stands as a snapshot of the site conditions and documents that the property is in agreement with applicable standards, this could be important in the future if…

i) More stringent regulatory standards are adopted for a chemical found on a property. In this instance the RSC indemnifies the owner from having the responsibility of having to bring site within the new standards as the RSC shows that the owner has already performed the necessary due diligence at the site.

ii)The property is sold and then an environmental incident occurs on the property. With the RSC it is easy refer to the historical condition of the property for baseline information.

iii)The land use is going to be changed from a less restrictive to a more restrictive use (eg. Industrial to residential)

Regardless of why the RSC is being submitted it requires a Qualified Person (QP) as defined by the Ontario Brownfields Regulation in the completion and submission of the required documentation. As the act defines it, a qualified person is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) or Professional Geologist (P.Geo.) who is certified to practice in Ontario and has registered themselves as a QP (Please note, just because a consultant is a P.Eng. or P.Geo is does not necessarily mean that they are a QP, as they may not have registered themselves as a QP).

An RSC can be submitted by a QP at any time in the investigation after an appropriate Phase I ESA has been completed. That being said, an RSC will only be accepted and filed by the MOE once all potential environmental concerns regarding the site have been determined, studied and if present, quantified and addressed (eg. Remediated). So there is no point in attempting to submit an RSC for a property after a Phase I ESA if the historical searches showed that a gas station was next door in the 1950’s. Also, there is no point to try and file an RSC for the same property after you've tested the soil and found PHC to be above regulatory limits, in fact, you won’t even be able to submit the RSC because the on-line submission process will reject your submission if any of the chemical concentrations your enter are above criteria. Also, if the land use of the property is going to be changed to a more restrictive one, then any chemical results for the property must reflect the standards for the more restrictive land use. For instance if you are going to be switching from an industrial land use to a residential land use then the property must be classified as a residential property in the RSC and the chemical results entered must be below residential property standards.

Even once a site meets the proper conditions to file an RSC (not contaminated and has evidence to prove it) there is a whole list of other secondary documents that are required to support the RSC submission. These documents include:

- A current legal survey of the RSC property
- A certificate of status for the consultant submitting the RSC (also required for the owner if the owner of the property is a company)
- A letter from the property owner granting the consultant permission to file an RSC in their behalf
- A deed for the property confirming ownership of the property

This list comprises the minimum number of documents you will be asked to submit in support of an RSC submission. The number of document submitted varies from site to site and is governed by the regulation. Owners should be prepared to submit previous reports for the property, chemical results, articles of incorporation and a number of other similar documents.

One final note on the RSC submission process… be prepared for an audit by the MOE. The MOE audits some of the RSCs submitted to ensure the supporting documentation meets the standard. This is different from the initial review of a submitted RSC to ensure the property identification information matches, which may result in the need correct minor inconsistencies like the legal description for the property not matching the one listed on the RSC EXACTLY. Or GPS coordinates for the site not lining up with the Ministry’s data base.

This seems like a good place to stop as it serves as a good segue way into next weeks topic in this thread….the RSC audit process.

Benjamin Goldstein (bgoldstein@aeonegmond.com)