Land Contamination: Technical Guidance on Special Sites: Acid Tar ...

contaminated land to be designated as a Special Site, if it meets one of a number of categoriesof land prescribed in the Contaminated <strong>Land</strong> (England) Regulations 2000. In cases where aLocal Authority believes that land, if found to be contaminated land, would subsequently be aSpecial Site, it will normally ask the Environment Agency to carry out a site inspection on itsbehalf, prior to determination of that land as contaminated land. However, the responsibilityfor formal determination of any land as contaminated land remains with the Local Authorityin all cases.Once land has been determined to be contaminated land, and where the Environment Agencyand Local Authority agree (or the Secretary of State decides) that the land is also a SpecialSite, the Environment Agency will take over the role of enforcing authority from the LocalAuthority. Remediation of the site may include further investigation and assessment(assessment action), action to remedy the unacceptable risks identified (remedial treatmentaction) or monitoring (monitoring action). The Agency is responsible for maintaining apublic register of regulatory action for Special Sites.1.3 How to Use this <strong>Technical</strong> <strong>Guidance</strong>This series of reports on Special Sites is primarily intended to provide Environment AgencyOfficers with the specialist technical information required when dealing with Special Sitesunder Part IIA (EPA 1990). Thus, every effort has been made to minimise the overlap withother guidance on generic aspects of contaminated land identification, assessment andmanagement. In practice, it is likely that the reports will also prove useful to Local Authorityofficers, and others, when dealing with these types of sites.The reports focus on the categories of land identified by Regulation 2 of the Contaminated<strong>Land</strong> (England) Regulations 2000. Separate guidance has been developed for those sites thatare Special Sites by virtue of the seriousness of pollution of controlled waters (defined byRegulation 3 of the Contaminated <strong>Land</strong> (England) Regulations 2000).The information contained in each report is arranged and presented so that it can easily bedrawn upon when using other relevant guidance such as the Part IIA EPA 1990 processdocumentation. It begins with background information on, for example, the industrial processand facility description; further sections describe key issues that should be considered duringthe characterisation, evaluation, remediation and validation stages for each category ofSpecial Site. References and a bibliography are also provided, together with a glossary ofterms (both general contaminated land industry terms and also those specific to the individualtechnical field).The format adopted in the report aims to assist the reader in the practical use of the technicalinformation it contains by the inclusion of, where appropriate, selected checklists, diagrams,photographs, case studies and the highlighting of key technical information. In addition, atthe start of each of the sections, a list of the key questions is included that highlight the issuescovered by the section. The key issues that are addressed in the various sections of this reportare as follows.R&D <strong>Technical</strong> Report P5-042/TR/04 2