Friday, December 02, 2011

Pesticide contamination on golf course: Florida DEP position

Florida does not have statewide soil standards; however, when cleanup is required as a result of a spill or dumping of a chemical onto the ground, Soil Cleanup Target Levels(SCTLs) are used by the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection to determine when cleanup is complete.  The Central District of DEP just posted the following relating to a golf course property where adjacent residential property owners are expressing concern about the offsite migration from the golf course of the pesticide Dieldrin.  (In the past, it was common construction practice to use Dieldrin as a subsurface slab treatment.)

"The DEP does not generally enforce Direct Exposure-based SCTLs when a pesticide is present as a result of proper use of a product. The Leachability-based SCTLs may be enforceable if dumping, spilling, or misapplying a pesticide can be linked to groundwater contamination.”