About this document
In Australia, the normal approach for triggering further investigation during contaminated land investigations is to determine whether the concentration of contaminants of concern in soil and/or groundwater exceed published health screening levels (HSLs) or ecological investigation levels (EILs). These levels can also form the basis for clean-up criteria. In the case of petroleum hydrocarbons, a number of HSLs exist; however, these are limited and do not extend to a variety of soil types and aquifer situations, or to the assessment of volatile hydrocarbons.
????In Australia, the normal approach for triggering further investigation during contaminated land investigations is to determine whether the concentration of contaminants of concern in soil and/or groundwater exceed published health screening levels (HSLs) or ecological investigation levels (EILs). These levels can also form the basis for clean-up criteria. In the case of petroleum hydrocarbons, a number of HSLs exist; however, these are limited and do not extend to a variety of soil types and aquifer situations, or to the assessment of volatile hydrocarbons. There is guidance on how the assessment of risk associated with such contaminants should be carried out, and it is common practice to undertake a risk assessment to determine whether the concentrations might pose a human health or ecological risk. As such, there is a basis for developing a set of HSLs and clean-up guidelines for petroleum hydrocarbons, but the detail of this has not yet been agreed and carried out.
The Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE) research program includes Subprogram 1.4: Risk Characterisation and Communication, which includes the objective of preparing HSLs for hydrocarbons in soil and groundwater. This project forms part of this program, and has the objective of developing an accepted set of HSLs and clean-up guidelines for petroleum hydrocarbons in soil and groundwater, in the context of land uses and the beneficial use of groundwater typical of Australia.