Guidance

Treating small volumes of contaminated soil and groundwater: RPS 215

Environment Agency regulatory position on when you can carry out a small scale remediation scheme or trial to treat contaminated soil and groundwater.

• From: Environment Agency
• Published: 31 August 2018
• Last updated: 16 October 2024
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  1. 16 October 2024

     This RPS: now covers groundwater activities to allow in situ treatment of groundwater, requires use of the guidance land contamination risk management, replaces the term existing land contamination with historic, has a requirement for a calculation of how much groundwater will be treated based on hydrogeological data, sets out the requirements for secondary containment, has a restriction for the use of hazardous substances when treating groundwater, will be reviewed by 31 October 2027.

  2. 3 October 2023

     This RPS clarifies: it can be used for pollution incidents; you must be a competent person to use it; if you are treating soil and groundwater together you must not exceed the 1,000 cubic metres limit; you must not store waste for more than 12 months; what records you must keep; and the requirements for emissions, noise and vibration, and odour. The record keeping requirements have changed from 6 years to 2 years. This RPS will be reviewed by September 2025.

  3. 11 November 2019

     We have extended the review date of this RPS until September 2022.

  4. 31 August 2018

     First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Treating small volumes of contaminated soil and groundwater: RPS 215

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Details

This regulatory position statement (RPS) does not change your legal requirement to have an environmental permit to treat contaminated soil and groundwater, and temporarily store the waste, when this is a:

• waste operation
• groundwater activity  (unless a registered exemption or exclusion applies)

However, the Environment Agency will not normally take enforcement action if you do not comply with these legal requirements if you meet the requirements in the RPS.

The regulatory position does not apply to any other legal requirements.