[{"_1":2,"_115":-5,"_116":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75,85,95,105],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":44,"_46":47,"_48":49,"_50":51,"_52":53,"_54":55,"_56":57,"_58":59,"_60":61,"_62":63,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":69,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":73},"mediaId",6144958,"mediaKeyId","5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a","parentId",5533346,"title","Panelists urge earlier community engagement, cross-agency partnerships and cleanup over building-by-building mitigation","audioSeconds",0,"startMs",2915000,"endMs","viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a&start=2915&end=2915","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a/thumbnail_2915000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6144958/California/Panelists-urge-earlier-community-engagement-cross-agency-partnerships-and-cleanup-over-building-by-building-mitigation","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6144958-92e64ec712debaacf74232249ebbda85/orig.mp4?Expires=1775288441&Signature=im6wuzWhL2lz2copnD-~TLZ728sfR00B~fL~wIotyP0MxKMnS-7GLBm2P95KZC45R5~WQIYPigTsGtYXUIYRHAcuqhXjh2s3yDhpJH9FsTvzcx8-tChzPmLVGE5PKT5ClLXctgpn-s8wE4egm3N6cBUv1HDhv4gDdWNsjftjPmp3UXyMAtIKwqxuTgg0116-Ah3uJEB4haiWnPuzhDDt27MNAmyNJLhPy-bQ8uWoyEqt~jJS~BtyoQV2fgNLKTL45kRsKLy79xKbxgtGi0qUv9NY1bvCgLtT2GK2nzZOiS38itIJ-CezlqBXdYnve~xAZXImGwITClx-0QYiej~1Zw__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","State Water Resources Control Board Meeting","date","2025-08-05T22:14:04.157Z","article","A multi-stakeholder panel at the CalEPA vapor-intrusion workshop highlighted common themes: engage communities earlier and in plain language, strengthen local government capacity to coordinate with regulators, and consider remediation as an area-wide mitigation strategy rather than relying solely on building-by-building vapor-intrusion mitigation systems.
Maricela Fuller (Innovative Housing Opportunities) and Renee Funston (Link Housing) described the Lincoln Beach affordable-housing project and asked for clearer mitigation templates and cost guidance to help budgeting and financing. “We had to shift funds…including taking money away from other things such as resident services,” Funston said.
Steve Lewis, an environmental consultant, urged faster project timelines and recommended more front-loaded investigations and scoping meetings so consultants and regulators can develop robust conceptual site models that reduce iterative review cycles. “Front loading investigations pays dividends down the road,” he said.
Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, argued that remediation can provide broader, more permanent protection than individual sub-slab depressurization systems. “If you actually clean up as remove the source of the contamination from the groundwater or the soil gas, less long term management is required,” Siegel said.
Academics and nonprofit practitioners urged agencies and consultants to treat vapor intrusion as a community-level problem, not only a single-building issue, and to invest in social engagement. Dr. Kelly G. Pannell, a researcher on vapor-intrusion fate and transport and community engagement, described a “social-ecological” approach that evaluates mitigation options at individual, interpersonal, organizational and community scales and recommended community-level solutions where feasible; she described a case in which a sewer lateral gas trap at a multifamily site was a lower-cost, effective solution compared with home-by-home interventions.
Why it matters: The panel underscored that technical investigation and remediation decisions interact with community trust, funding timelines and local permitting; stronger coordination and practical templates were presented as ways to reduce delays and improve outcomes.
Ending: Panelists urged agencies to increase outreach, provide plain-language materials in multiple languages, include local governments earlier in decisionmaking and consider remediation strategies that provide area-wide protections where feasible.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","CalEPA Vapor Intrusion Public Workshop Kickoff - July 24, 2025","oneSentenceSummary","Representatives from developers, consultants, community groups and academics at CalEPA’s workshop emphasized building relationships with communities, coordinating local government and regulators, and prioritizing remediation (where feasible) as a durable form of mitigation for vapor-intrusion risks.","taxTitle","State Water Resources Control Board, Boards and Commissions, Executive, California","taxId",76764,"location","California","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":42,"_43":78,"_45":78,"_46":79,"_48":80,"_50":81,"_52":82,"_54":55,"_56":57,"_58":83,"_60":61,"_62":63,"_64":84,"_66":67,"_68":69,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":73},6144963,"Affordable-housing developer says vapor-intrusion requirements threatened financing and design of Anaheim project",3057000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a&start=3057&end=3057","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a/thumbnail_3057000.jpg","/articles/6144963/California/Affordable-housing-developer-says-vapor-intrusion-requirements-threatened-financing-and-design-of-Anaheim-project","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6144963-de7693db5c091c30f86b4aea997cb625/orig.mp4?Expires=1775288441&Signature=ahyUq72sQCN5khqKq3RUiy5Dca4tC0BO3JEYu7bhwuHCcaXZ8aLdKQyuMiu~rTQvpagJHL1c7ZVCWpjTn70a-OsNdq6T~A9kJ76~d01yAFxPTeB3ahCb~68VunTP1EsCXkXKjwtYb2eXgbB~O7Cj3g3gtZgHkihosdrsb2PphTyxWDZIqkobPyNuovyeCWFxbXF04hIud-npoTkNanDxwliv15kHUryuUlqYmPC1b8JLVYU~Ce5Ps~6Esv40h8wkKrXPKbWivoIg7C-3IuYVaSPdeud8zp2buyHkc0E6Hn5RsZMKZMu1IdZbbUW9e14v0fGgKU~lr17avbcxs~Mq1w__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","Developers described at the workshop how vapor-intrusion assessment and long-term monitoring requirements affected financing, design and schedules for an affordable-housing project in Anaheim called Lincoln Beach.
Maricela Fuller, director of real-estate development for Innovative Housing Opportunities (IHO), and Renee Funston, project manager for Link Housing, outlined the project and the challenges it faced. The site is roughly 0.65 acres and the planned development includes 47 apartments for seniors and transitional-age youth.
Fuller and Funston said developers needed a regulatory ‘‘ready-to-build’’ determination from DTSC and other milestones in order to meet an April 2025 readiness deadline to close on tax-credit financing administered by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (TCAC). They said uncertainty about testing costs, frequency and the duration of long-term monitoring forced conservative budgeting and contingency reserves; in their case these contingencies reduced funds available for resident services and construction quality.
“Our budgets are already extremely tight,” Funston said. “We had to shift funds…including taking money away from other things such as resident services, doing value engineering to reduce the quality streamline design.”
Fuller and Funston called for practical tools from agencies: mitigation templates, cost guidance for ongoing monitoring, examples of conditional approvals that can be issued in advance of financing, and clearer early coordination between regulators and developers to avoid surprises and timeline risk.
Why it matters: Affordable-housing projects often rely on time-limited public funding and tight budgets; prolonged environmental review or conservative contingency requirements can make a project financially infeasible or reduce services and design quality.
Ending: The developers said the Lincoln Beach project ultimately met requirements after significant coordination with DTSC and partners, and they encouraged agencies to produce templates, examples and expedited pathways to help similar infill projects proceed.","Developers of a 47-unit affordable housing project in Anaheim said vapor-intrusion cleanup testing, uncertain long-term monitoring costs and uncoordinated agency deadlines put a TCAC funding readiness date at risk and required budget tradeoffs on resident services and design.",{"_33":86,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":87,"_41":42,"_43":88,"_45":88,"_46":89,"_48":90,"_50":91,"_52":92,"_54":55,"_56":57,"_58":93,"_60":61,"_62":63,"_64":94,"_66":67,"_68":69,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":73},6144968,"State agencies urge consultants to upload paired building data to GeoTracker to build California-specific attenuation factors",1784000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a&start=1784&end=1784","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a/thumbnail_1784000.jpg","/articles/6144968/California/State-agencies-urge-consultants-to-upload-paired-building-data-to-GeoTracker-to-build-California-specific-attenuation-factors","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6144968-f7b1a2e68352f5ad33d9bb3b1c00ae6e/orig.mp4?Expires=1775288441&Signature=AjPRtsmL9xCee3pd2e88vRS7BRG1jMXmhnvR4wapZWzA9We7j4agO9Ei3GDR0NnZJbL8U-yiBgJYw71ydOWZA~D4CYAnbCVAyDuL3AT5GzmdxTxYfifpQB~jDRtzryBC77wL9Ytpv195~f~~SD~MEMuCrlZcvtbf0Eil8NHzmb02j-BcFrFH3S6CkAuPNVMe1gPL0-eyu8AFtPRBmVFqn36Ip~cDSsJoFisq9x0sGaAZuKtN6ACU3hk7KpLotS~jTcPicvg8P3kJbg2nme2L~oLbHmm3M1A9Ix49JOw7P5q9ivZdVJ1gBxt3VKTWQ5rndsvTFTR79DcXun0-~VGneA__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","State Water Board staff leading the GeoTracker initiative said California needs more paired building and subsurface data submitted electronically to develop or validate California-specific screening attenuation factors.
Tina Yeris, the dataset team lead, told the workshop that GeoTracker currently holds building information for about 135 open cleanup cases statewide while the board identifies more than 5,000 open cleanup cases (excluding UST petroleum cases) that could add representative data by climate zone, building design and age. She said the goal is to evaluate whether one or more California-specific attenuation-factor scenarios (for example, residential or commercial building designs) are warranted, or whether the U.S. EPA national attenuation recommendation is applicable.
What the agencies are collecting: paired data types to be submitted include indoor air, sub-slab soil gas, soil gas, outdoor air, crawlspace and sewer gas, plus groundwater and precise sample location (latitude/longitude). Additional building-specific attributes — foundation type, area, HVAC operating status at the time of sampling and building age — are voluntary but “critical,” Yeris said, because they help explain how physical attributes influence attenuation.
Yeris described a projected timeline: continued outreach and training in the near term, a GeoTracker BI (building information) public workshop tentatively in early 2026, finalization of study evaluation criteria after that workshop, and an initial evaluation of the assembled dataset tentatively mid-2026. She urged responsible parties, consultants and accredited laboratories to upload their VI data and building attributes to accelerate the evaluation.
Why it matters: CalEPA staff said national datasets have limited representation of California’s warm-climate, slab-on-grade building stock and that a state-specific dataset will improve screening and reduce unnecessary indoor sampling or conservative assumptions in redevelopment scenarios.
Ending: Staff said agency teams will publish resources (upload checklists and a public dashboard of current data needs) and provide GeoTracker training; they invited attendees to a BI database breakout session to discuss data upload details.","CalEPA staff said the GeoTracker building-information dataset needs more statewide representation and paired sampling (indoor air/sub-slab/soil gas/groundwater), and they outlined milestones that aim to produce an evaluative dataset in 2026 if sufficient data are uploaded.",{"_33":96,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":97,"_41":42,"_43":98,"_45":98,"_46":99,"_48":100,"_50":101,"_52":102,"_54":55,"_56":57,"_58":103,"_60":61,"_62":63,"_64":104,"_66":67,"_68":69,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":73},6144973,"DTSC, Water Board outline ‘path to closure’ findings: robust conceptual models, early scoping speed closure",1378000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a&start=1378&end=1378","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a/thumbnail_1378000.jpg","/articles/6144973/California/DTSC-Water-Board-outline-path-to-closure-findings-robust-conceptual-models-early-scoping-speed-closure","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6144973-d459587b4dfe13340ea544fbccaaa044/orig.mp4?Expires=1775288441&Signature=bINGx-KCmWYViEcscI58AMfUH1i52Q2Vs03dZz6R3bd26VHyrwfUEJ5spwMAiXzSKQDo~rrVXM4Gq0M~WGQ45HwgRDkToPE8ZtctHRcotMxAHN1M9e1shllkbnMGV~HYtqRKqbHKs34h8xEIHYluGDcrQtdNkl-HwPabXzXP1V5HhTsR88x61JCJ7RV08bh5VsksgGg9Tre2PUpNO4VLKELDJOvvj6Ozt9xPvcCbv8FgNilBfF2bKo57U82ufmxT1oU9-eJpouPIXi1gcZSEczYn0yeOGzN-5JYqnlmRufo15PUlgNHpjHmU84T~QTZw7DfWCH0WT3GKg4IfxztDRw__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","Department of Toxic Substances Control and State Water Board staff described a range of site outcomes and practical steps that have helped move vapor-intrusion sites to closure since the agencies issued supplemental guidance in 2023.
Ben Stanfill of DTSC summarized the CalEPA \"path to closure\" review, which surveyed case managers and project managers on sites that had reached closure or entered long-term stewardship after the guidance. He said closure can take multiple forms: unrestricted \"no further action,\" media-specific closures (for example, soil closed while groundwater remains under management), certified remedies with land-use controls and ongoing duties, or \"suitable for occupancy\" letters used by local governments.
Stanfill said common features at sites that achieved endpoints included robust conceptual site models (CSMs), site-specific data with good temporal and spatial coverage, evidence that subsurface concentrations were stable or decreasing, targeted source removal (for example, soil excavation or soil-vapor extraction) and, in many cases, some form of long-term stewardship. He emphasized that subsurface concentrations above screening levels sometimes remained at sites that nonetheless reached practical endpoints if other lines of evidence supported the decision.
On best practices, staff recommended scoping meetings early and often, front-loading investigations to build datasets that anticipate regulator questions, quick and direct issue resolution (for example, in-person or regular calls rather than multiple written comment-response cycles), and clear communication on project timelines so agencies and consultants can coordinate resources. Stanfill and panelists said interim remedies and mitigation can and should proceed where appropriate instead of waiting for every investigative question to be resolved.
Why it matters: The guidance’s stated goal is to protect occupants earlier in the process; practitioners at the workshop argued that pragmatic, site-specific approaches and early regulator-consultant coordination shorten delays that otherwise threaten redevelopment, including housing projects under time-bound funding deadlines.
Ending: CalEPA staff said they will continue to develop case studies for future technical workshops to show examples of successful closures and to provide guidance on when alternative attenuation factors, mitigation and monitoring approaches have supported site endpoints.","CalEPA practitioners told workshop attendees that case studies show scoping meetings, robust conceptual site models, site-specific data coverage, and source removal accelerate closure of vapor-intrusion sites; alternate endpoints and stewardship were identified as common outcomes.",{"_33":106,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":107,"_41":42,"_43":108,"_45":108,"_46":109,"_48":110,"_50":111,"_52":112,"_54":55,"_56":57,"_58":113,"_60":61,"_62":63,"_64":114,"_66":67,"_68":69,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":73},6144978,"CalEPA pauses new vapor-intrusion policy to focus on implementing 2023 supplemental guidance",1104000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a&start=1104&end=1104","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5533346-e5d7c19e9b1f1ddd5e55de9cb3e1563a/thumbnail_1104000.jpg","/articles/6144978/California/CalEPA-pauses-new-vapor-intrusion-policy-to-focus-on-implementing-2023-supplemental-guidance","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6144978-97a29d288151413a6541ec11b28ce0b6/orig.mp4?Expires=1775288441&Signature=BEKfQM9y5thW7Lk7PuednGD08H-o79NTn2eGq~UhsP~y-Kql4Au4psnMwmGkURzzebjOxLlmPPM4alKcUHqwmkqVe~Q6MiOMxjInrvsvgHRsUztsNiU6-rhooWe9onyBkTikmpuY~mtKWnLfxRvEkHfJTdLejIQOU~q~Zvp1OLRC7~RhMUJ8i1vOp8a7CE4yBQOpcNz-tDbuQjpuK-t60D2NDsJfz2-dXokNFiMZNnTs~~X-Fn0pz8jnrbpgIS4hStsDCtSIzpx0mU8HeiLINBHkr42hkk7AXgs6IBF6QRLlLvk-cVTh5KIIH-Ptp2fUfAYY6VwLWeHG5zAAedlZfg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","CalEPA officials told hundreds of participants at a public workshop that the State Water Resources Control Board will pause further work on a proposed statewide vapor-intrusion policy to focus instead on implementing the supplemental guidance released in February 2023 and building related data resources.
At a kickoff session hosted by the CalEPA Vapor Intrusion Work Group, State Water Board assistant deputy director Annalisa Kihara said the agencies want “these information-sharing discussions to be useful to you and for us to achieve our priority to protect human health and the environment when we remediate contaminated sites, especially for residential use.”
The shift was described by Steve McMasters of the State Water Resources Control Board, who said the board is “holding off on further work on this proposed policy so we can align our priorities with implementation of a supplemental guidance, support development of this GeoTracker vapor intrusion dataset, and continue the coordination with our sister agencies and regional boards on the holistic approach toward vapor intrusion.”
Why it matters: CalEPA’s decision means the agencies will concentrate resources on training, casework guidance and an expanded GeoTracker dataset rather than pursue rulemaking at this time. Agency staff said the move is intended to promote consistent, practical implementation across regions and to use real-world case data to inform future technical decisions.
CalEPA staff outlined short- and long-term deliverables tied to the guidance: staff training, public-facing training materials, development of an open dataset of paired building and subsurface measurements in GeoTracker, and a planned series of six technical workshops (the kickoff plus five topic-focused sessions) through 2026. “We view this as evergreen and look forward to ongoing communication and collaboration,” DTSC technical services chief Craig Sanchez said.
The agencies emphasized that the supplemental guidance is not regulation. McMasters said the guidance emphasizes multiple lines of evidence, holistic decision-making, and use of models like the Johnson and Ettinger approach as a supplemental line of evidence rather than as a primary screening tool. DTSC representatives said they have modified the Johnson and Ettinger model and updated associated user guidance in 2024 to address bugs and add features such as capillary-fringe modeling and 2018 California toxicity values.
Planned next steps announced at the workshop include a GeoTracker building-data workshop tentatively in early 2026, continued staff and public training, case-study workshops, and incorporation of public feedforward from today’s event into fall technical workshops. Attendees were told that presentations and Spanish-language materials from the workshop will be posted and that staff will accept written comments by email after the meeting.
Ending: Agency leaders said the approach is iterative — they will use data from implementation and the GeoTracker dataset to reassess technical approaches and, if necessary, revisit policy work in the future.","CalEPA agencies told roughly 500 attendees at a public workshop that they will prioritize rollout and implementation of the February 2023 supplemental vapor-intrusion guidance and data-building projects rather than advance a separate statewide policy in the near term.","actionData","errors"]

Article not found

Panelists urge earlier community engagement, cross-agency partnerships and cleanup over building-by-building mitigation

Affordable-housing developer says vapor-intrusion requirements threatened financing and design of Anaheim project

State agencies urge consultants to upload paired building data to GeoTracker to build California-specific attenuation factors

DTSC, Water Board outline ‘path to closure’ findings: robust conceptual models, early scoping speed closure

CalEPA pauses new vapor-intrusion policy to focus on implementing 2023 supplemental guidance