TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Soil Gas Safe Communities – Designation and Method Development
PURPOSE: A new approach using indicators and tracers (i.e., the IT approach) for determining when to sample will be tested in the field at the community scale instead of the select individual homes. EPA would like to be able to quickly identify: (a) homes and buildings ‘at risk’ for vapor intrusion (VI) within a community (i.e., are overlying/proximate to VI ‘sources’); (b) contaminants of concern for VI in the soil gas ‘adjacent/proximate’ to their structure’s foundations, and; (c) have ‘baseline’ measurements showing elevated soil gas intrusion into indoor air (e.g., via on-going soil gas ITS monitoring). To accomplish these goals, EPA recognizes that community involvement and community scientists/occupants are needed to be an active part of the process. EPA would like each community member ‘at risk’ for VI to have:
a) easy access to participate and collaborate with the remedial program decision makers as an equal participant (along with their expert consultants),
b) bring their own building-specific evidence of soil gas intrusion (SGI), and
c) be a part of the risk management decision making for their residence or building (for example, continuous soil gas ITS monitoring by the community scientists/occupants).
In cases where the community is a community with EJ concerns, EPA would: support the IT monitoring with meters to monitor changing conditions; provide training in chemical sampling for verifying SGI is occurring; and provide training and guidance on means and controls to reduce SGI.
Information needed from the residents address building structural features.
Indoor air monitoring with passive samplers will be necessary.
NEED AND AUTHORITY FOR COLLECTION: Survey is to determine building structural features to be used to determine placement of passive samplers and radon meters.
National Contingency Plan (NCP) § 300.415 (a) (n) (3) (i)
USES OF RESULTING DATA: Data will be used to characterize building structural features to group home/buildings into similar classes (e.g., homes with basements, homes that are slab-on-grade construction, homes with multiple floors, etc.) These groups will be used to explain differences in intrusion of radon and volatile organic compound vapors (i.e., vapor intrusion). Resulting survey data will also provide information on potential in-home cross contaminants such as use and storage of gun cleaners or dry cleaning fluids which are volatile organic compounds of interest in vapor intrusion.
DATA COLLECTION METHODS: Individual resident questionnaires and visits to residence.
PARTICIPANT UNIVERSE:
Category of Respondent |
No. of Respondents |
Number of responses per respondent |
Participation Time per response |
Burden Hours |
Residents |
60 |
1 |
45 minutes |
2,700 |
AGENCY COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is ____$20,000______.
Estimating $10K in travel to community and $10K for implementation of surveys.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: No statistical analysis on building structure features will be performed other than percentages of buildings in a “group” (see use of resulting data section above).
Contractors under the STREAMS IV contract let to Research Triangle Institute, International, will be responsible for collection and tabulation of the resulting data. The prime contractor is RTI, International who has subcontracts to Jacobs.
RTI International Jacobs
P.O. Box 12194 9304 Coachway
Research Triangle Park, NC Chapel Hill, NC 27516
27709-2194 - survey data collection
- data storage and records management
DATA QUALITY ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES: **see attached QAPP Sections 2.2.2, 2.2.3, and 2.2.5
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INSTRUMENT: (Check all that apply)
[ ] Web-based or Social Media
[X] Telephone
[X] In-person
[ ] Other, Explain
INSTRUMENT: Append a copy of the questionnaire or a screen shot of the website or app that includes the information collection.
CONTACT NAME: __Brian Schumacher________ EMAIL: ___schumacher.brian@epa.gov_
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Parker, Alison |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2024-07-24 |