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For Members

Members' Update - Summer 2026

President’s Message

Tara Siemens Kennedy I hope everyone is enjoying the summer months and finding opportunities to spend quality time with family and friends. Things at CSAP Society continue to be a little on the slow side, with the number of submissions received thus far this fiscal year approximately 75% of that forecasted. As always, I would like to thank our members, volunteers, and Board of Directors for their continued commitment to the Society.

This quarter, I am pleased to continue our “Meet the Board” series by introducing our third Board member spotlight: Mandeep Purewal, CSAP’s Vice-President.

Mandeep has been working in contaminated sites for over 20 years and specializes in human health and ecological risk assessment, toxicology, and serves as a Human Health Lead for environmental impact assessments.

As Vice-President of CSAP, Mandeep plays a key leadership role within the Society. She chairs both the Exam Sub-Committee and Membership Committee, leads the Risk Exam Development Team, and contributes to the Performance Assessment Panel. Through these important roles, she is committed to advancing professional standards and supporting the continued success of CSAP and its members.

Mandeep is passionate about making risk assessment more accessible and approachable, helping bridge the gap between complex science, regulatory requirements, and practical decision-making. Outside of work, Mandeep enjoys spending time with her family and her three young children.

I would like to thank Mandeep for her dedication, leadership, and significant contributions to the Society.

I would also like to recognize one of our members, Patricia (Patty) Carmichael, for an extraordinary act of generosity. Patty recently donated a kidney to her friend, renowned Vancouver shoe designer John Fluevog. In recognition of Patty’s gift, John Fluevog designed a special limited-edition pair of shoes named “The Patty” and “The Alan”, honouring both Patty and her husband, Alan. The shoes, along with a commemorative kidney pin, were created to raise awareness about kidney disease, organ transplants, and the importance of living kidney donation.

Patty’s selfless act is an inspiring reminder of the profound difference one person can make in another’s life. Living kidney donation continues to offer hope to thousands of individuals awaiting transplants, and increased awareness can help more people learn about this remarkable opportunity to save and improve lives. You can read more about Patty’s donation at the following links:

As we continue through the summer, I wish everyone a safe, enjoyable, and relaxing season.

Tara Siemens Kennedy
President, CSAP Society

Ministry Updates


We’ve had a busy first quarter at ENV, with the implementation of the updated fees in the Contaminated Sites Regulation and the recent amendments to Protocols 4 and 9. The sediment standards project with the Science Advisory Board for Contaminated Sites is moving forward, along with the development of director’s interim standards for PFAS. We’re seeing application volumes consistent with the previous two years while also seeing faster median turnaround times, which has helped reduce our backlog. SRP staff are busy testing the newest version of the SRS webapp and we are looking forward to its completion in late fall 2026.

Applications

The volume of AP-recommended applications received each quarter over the past few years has remained relatively stable, with 67 applications received in Q1 (April 1 – June 30) of this fiscal year. This total includes applications submitted to meet director-imposed reporting requirements, which have been reviewed by the CSAP Review Services Committee.

The Site Remediation Program continues to make strong progress in reducing its application backlog, helping to increase capacity and support the timely review of new applications as they are received. Over the past three fiscal years, the number of applications in the queue, awaiting review has steadily declined, with further meaningful reductions achieved during the most recent quarter (FY27 Q1: April 1 – June 30, 2026). This positive trend reflects the program’s ongoing commitment to improving service delivery and review efficiency.

Building a Better Digital Intake Experience

The SRS Digital Transformation Team is redesigning the SRS web app to create a modern, reliable digital intake solution that better supports program processes and user needs.

Current work focusses on simplifying intake, reducing manual handling, and enhancing usability. User feedback has been incorporated to improve clarity, strengthen guidance, and streamline connections in the application workflow.

The program is targeting completion by the end of the year and will continue engaging with users to ensure the solution meets the needs of the CSAP community. Comprehensive internal and external user testing is underway to confirm the new solution delivers the functionality, efficiency, and user experience expectations.

SRP Standards Projects

  1. Sediment Standards – SRP is preparing to launch Phase 2 of the Sediment Standards project, which will focus on developing a Matrix Sediment Standards derivation framework in collaboration with the Science Advisory Board for Contaminated Sites (SABCS) and a Technical Working Group.
  2. Non-Prescribed Substances Guidance – The project plan has been finalized, and a project update was recently posted on the Site Remediation website and distributed through Site Remediation News. The project is now underway, and we welcome feedback, comments, questions, and perspectives related to the investigation and remediation of non-prescribed substances.
  3. Director’s interim standards for PFAS – The project plan is currently being finalized. Once approved, work will begin on developing Director’s interim standards for PFAS.

Stay Connected

Site Remediation updates and announcements will be made through the Site Remediation News email subscription service.

Performance Assessment Committee Updates

There were two Q&A questions received by the Performance Assessment Committee (PAC) within the last quarter. The question responses are summarised as follows:

  • The boundaries for a site changed after the AiP was issued, as it was consolidated with an adjacent non schedule 2 parcel. Can a CoC be applied for the consolidated site, without investigation on the adjacent parcel? If all the APECs have been investigated the combined parcel should be eligible for a CoC. However, it would be essential that the reports address the whole situation including the consolidated portion, and that all APECs (regardless of whether they are Schedule 2 uses) be investigated and included in the submission reports.
  • CSR Schedule 3.1 identifies that the AL standard for livestock ingestion is 150 µg/g for Cr VI and 60 µg/g for Cr III. Is this accurate? The soil standard for Cr III is more conservative due to the toxicity data used in the derivation. The derivation is based on a limited data set, and the CSAP PAC will look into this further to determine if there is a potential discrepancy.

The Q&A Summary from this and previous updates have been uploaded to the Members’ Portal. It’s in the ‘Documents & Links’ page and under ‘Other Resources’.

PAC Submission Lessons Learned include:

  • When completing a drinking water exemption, please describe the results in a way that follows the Protocol and clearly identifies that the requirements are met. It isn’t always clear what type of confining barrier is being selected, and some direction would be helpful for review.
  • Please include a cross section for a Determination as it assists in reviewing the Conceptual Site Model.
  • Please make sure to include logs of vapour wells used for confirmation of remediation to confirm appropriate use of attenuation factors.

When varying from guidance, identify the variance and the rationale for the variance. For example, if using a single vapour event, provide rationale why it covers seasonal variance. Without rationale, a reviewer may think that something is missed.

Detailed Screening Sub-Committee Updates

Fewer issues continue to be identified in most Detailed Screenings, but please continue to watch for all the common errors that have previously been shared (e.g., water uses, spellings, etc!). Here are a couple of newer issues that have been identified in more than one submission in recent months during Detailed Screenings or by ENV:

  • If your submission is for a site with an existing AiP, make sure the AiP statements are up to date prior to making the submission.

Ensure that the signatory on Part 8 of the SoSC, the STATEMENT OF SITE OWNER / AGENT / LESSEE has signing authority.

Preliminary Screening

Submissions to CSAP Society continue to be of high quality, and preliminary screening has generally been completed quickly with few issues. Some things to remember are listed below:

  • Both CSAP and ENV fees have changed in recent months, so please consult the fee schedule on our website before getting cheques made for submissions.
  • To obtain a Final Determination, a draft Final Determination and Cover Letter must be emailed to [email protected] after the 35-day comments period has ended, and not later than 60 days from the date of the director’s signature on the Preliminary Determination. If this 60-day deadline is exceeded, a new Preliminary Determination will be required.
  • When applying for a Certificate of Compliance or Determination with an existing Approval in Principle, all reporting requirements in the Approval in Principle must be satisfied.
  • Please remember to use the ‘Anything CSAP/ENV need to know’ section of the Transmittal Letter. This section can be used to highlight and explain a lot of administrative screening issues ahead of time (for example inconsistencies in civic addresses and site owner names, or documentation that was created before the site had a Site ID).
  • When submitting emails as supporting documentation for a submission, please convert them to PDF first. Outlook files cannot be transferred to ENV or uploaded to Dropbox, and they may not be extracted properly when downloading the submission files.

Review Services Sub-committee Updates

As of July 21, 2026, there have been 30 Review Services submissions. 27 of these have been transferred to ENV, and 19 of those have had Acknowledgement Letters released.

The bulk of these submissions were made in April and May, where we saw increased submissions compared to previous years. Review Services submissions have since slowed over June and July to be more in line with prior year’s numbers.

We thank all of our RSC reviewers for their hard work in reviewing the reports in a timely manner. We would also like to remind our members to make sure any reporting requirements mandated in AiP’s or CoC’s are submitted within the required reporting periods.

Technical Review Committee Updates

The Technical Review Committee (TRC) most recently met as a whole on January 28, with additional meetings held with working groups of the TRC to continue work on the Special Projects we have proceeding this year as well as prepare for the AGM that was held on June 3. Additional details on the projects are included below.

Emerging Contaminants Special Project – The purpose of this project was to evaluate emerging contaminants (ECs) with a focus on Schedule 2 uses, and to provide guidance and information to ENV to be used in future amendments to the Contaminated Sites Regulation. The final report for this project, published by Active Earth, is now available on the CSAP website.   A presentation of the project findings was given at the Spring 2026 CSAP PD workshop and is also available on the CSAP website.

Lower Mainland Soil Arsenic Background Concentrations Project – The project builds on the Background Soil Concentrations work completed last year. Its objective is to better characterize arsenic concentrations in the Lower Mainland and assess whether background levels exceed those in ENV Protocol 4 (Table 1) within specific sub-regions. The project was awarded to Core 6 Environmental. A draft report was provided to CSAP in March and has been reviewed by CSAP and ENV. The results were presented at the Spring 2026 CSAP PD workshop. The project team will meet with ENV before publishing the final version of the report.

Road Salt Impacted Soil Management Review – The purpose of this new project is to inform the contaminated sites community in British Columbia on the issues and possible remedies for the management of road salt contaminated soil during development projects and provide practical management options to the BC Ministry of Environment and Parks for future regulatory consideration. This project was awarded to Active Earth in March and is currently underway. The results of this project will be discussed at the Fall 2026 CSAP PD Workshop.

Use of Research & Technical Studies Materials – A reminder that the reports and guidance documents provided on the Research & Technical Studies page are intended solely as guidance resources. They are not Ministry‑endorsed and do not replace regulatory requirements. Members must continue to rely on their professional judgement when using these materials and ensure all decisions and submissions comply with applicable legislation and policy.

Scholarships – CSAP provides three scholarships per year, totaling $17,000, to applicants enrolled in a science or engineering graduate program with a focus on contaminated sites. CSAP Society was honoured to present these scholarships to three well-deserving applicants – Georgia Douglas (Mike Macfarlane Award), An Duong and Emily O. Each of the recipients gave a short presentation regarding their research projects which can be found on the CSAP website.

If you have any suggestions for a topic that you would like the TRC to tackle, please send your ideas to [email protected].

Membership Committee Updates

The Membership Committee would like to remind Associate Members, as well as CSAPs mentoring prospective members, to review the Membership Guidelines and eligibility requirements. In particular, we encourage careful attention to:

  • the requirement to document experience, and
  • the expectations for participation in the submission of applications for Ministry certification documents.

These details are outlined in Sections 3 Eligibility Criteria of the Membership Guidelines. Templates for how to present experience can be found in Appendix 4. By reviewing these materials early, we hope more practitioners will begin documenting their experience in advance, making the application process smoother when the time comes to apply. Membership Guidelines are located here: https://csapsociety.bc.ca/join/guidelines/

2026 Candidate Experience Review

The 2026 candidate experience review process has concluded. Candidates have been notified of their results. Those approved to write the exams have received details regarding the date, time, and location of their respective exams.

Exam Dates:

  • Numerical: November 2, 2026
  • Risk: November 2, 2026
  • Regulatory: November 3, 2026

Approved Candidates:

  • Total Candidates: 7
  • Numerical Exam: 4
  • Risk Exam: 2
  • Regulatory Exam: 7

The deadline to apply for the Regulatory Exam is July 31, 2026, for members who were unable to complete a CSAP submission as part of their renewal requirements.

Acknowledgements

The Committee extends its sincere thanks to all committee members, experience reviewers, and exam content developers for their valuable contributions to the membership and examination processes.

Professional Development Committee Updates

AGM & Spring PD Workshop

Our Annual General Meeting and Spring Workshop were held on June 3, 2026 at the Vancouver Convention Centre – East Building. Thank you to everyone who was able to attend, including our colleagues from the Ministry of Environment and Parks.

The session presentations can be found on the CSAP website, with the ENV presentations in the Members’ Portal.

Lunch and Learns

We held two well-attended lunch and learn sessions this spring, including a webinar on April 22 covering the CSAP Performance Assessment & Detailed Screening processes with Jason Christensen and Tara Siemens Kennedy. A second session on the Local Government Perspective on Contaminated Sites Management in BC was held on May 26 with Chad Paulin and Nadia Chan of the City of Richmond. In addition, on July 16 the Ministry of Environment and Parks provided an update on the recent changes to CSR fee amendments. Find the recordings of these sessions here.

The next sessions will take place on September 24 and December 10. Stay tuned for more details in an email with the link to the session. For the most up-to-date details on all Lunch and Learn sessions, bookmark the webpage. If you have a suggestion for a topic or presenter for an upcoming session, please email [email protected].

Fall PD Workshop

Mark your calendar! The Fall PD workshop will take place on November 5, 2026, at the Vancouver Convention Centre – West Building. More details will be shared in the fall, but our tentative list of speakers include:

  • Director’s Update (ENV)
  • Policy Update (ENV)
  • TRC Special Project Presentation – Road Salt Management
  • PAC Lessons Learned
  • Interactive Discussion (CSAP and ENV)
  • Presentation by the Musqueam and YVR
  • Presentation by Registrar, BC Institute of Agrologists

Hope to see you there!

Submission Statistics Update

(as of July 29, 2026)

What’s New At CSAP

CSAP WebMap: Quick Refresher

The CSAP WebMap is an online mapping tool maintained by the CSAP Society that allows members to locate Sites, explore map data, and view Site-specific information. Here are step-by-step instructions to use the WebMap.

  • Login to Members’ Portal
  • Select Map
    • The default map will contain all Sites that are recorded in the Web Map. You may simply click on any colored pin to view Site information or search by:
  • Address or
  • Site ID
  • Submit/Enter
  • Colored pin will appear on the map
  • Click on the pin to view Site information such as:
      • Site ID
      • Address
      • DW Applicable: Yes/No
      • Latitude
      • Longitude
      • Uploaded documents
  • Always refresh browser for new search

These instructions can also be found in the Members’ Portal under ‘Documents & Links’.

Professional Development Opportunities

Please note, these are virtual unless otherwise noted.