Guidance & Documents

ITRC publishes and produces guidance documents and training courses that help state environmental agencies and others gain valuable technical knowledge and develop consistent regulatory approaches for reviewing and approving specific technologies. These include technical overviews, case studies, and technical and regulatory guidance documents. See the latest ITRC Product List, Updated in July 2023, for a list of all of ITRC's published products. 

These documents are written and reviewed by teams of environmental professionals, including state and federal environmental regulators, federal agency representatives, industry experts, community stakeholders, and academia. All ITRC documents undergo a rigorous external review, and all external comments and team responses are captured and posted to the team ITRC Connect community. ITRC will consider a lack of response during the 45-day external review period to signify no serious objection to the content within the product.


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Knowledge Map

ITRC's QUEST Knowledge Map is an interactive tool for navigating ITRC's environmental guidance documents and resources, allowing users to filter through ITRC's vast library based on concise subjects.

Guidance Documents
143 Entries
 
 
2 years ago

2020-10-27

(ISM-1-Clarifications)

An updated ITRC guidance (ISM-2) was developed and posted in the fall of 2020. The ISM-2 Update Team clarified inappropriate or inconsistent information in ISM-1 is as seen in the attached statement.  Please review this document before downloading the ISM-1 PDF.


#IncrementalSamplingMethodology

Attachments
2 years ago

2020-10-27

(ISM-2)

This updated Incremental Sampling Methodology (ISM-2) web-based document builds upon the 2012 version (ISM-1) and reflects advancements in technology in the ensuing eight years.  ISM-type investigation methods have evolved, and regulators have gained more experience in the application of ISM in the field and in the laboratory. The original 2009 survey of regulators and industry environmental experts was updated with current information on ISM practices to measure progress and understand what obstacles are still being encountered.

This document is formatted as a website that is not meant to be printed. You can access the web document at any time from the ITRC website or you can bookmark the link. If you would like to print, please enter the document website and then use the "Print" button to print. Some of the web-based documents allow you to print either the entire document or a subsection.

The updated document includes multiple examples of site scenarios for DU designation and the collection of ISM samples under different field conditions. A separate section on the use of ISM investigation methods to support human health and ecological risk assessments has been added and the simulations in the original appendices have been updated and include a recent study on Student t and Chebyshev discussion of UCL. Current case studies are summarized to provide insight into the potential applications, benefits, and challenges of the approach from recent sites.


#IncrementalSamplingMethodology

Attachments
3 years ago

2020-09-27

(PFAS-1)

This Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) online document includes the PFAS Technical and Regulatory Guidance Document, PFAS Fact Sheets and Explainer Videos, Training Module Videos and external tables of data and information prepared by the ITRC PFAS Team. The document is designed specifically to support state and federal environmental staff, as well as others (including stakeholders, project managers, and decision makers), to gain a working knowledge of the current state of PFAS science and practice. The web-based nature of this document lends itself to updating of key information in this rapidly evolving subject. It is the intention of ITRC to periodically update the document as significant new information about PFAS develops. The guidance document can be downloaded as a PDF.


#PFAS

Attachments
3 years ago

2020-07-28

(IDSS-2)

This updated web-based document offers an interactive learning experience, containing embedded links to supplementary documents and resources designed to help develop an effective, integrated strategy to manage remediation of sites contaminated with chlorinated solvents.


#IntegratedDNAPLSiteStrategy

Attachments
3 years ago

2020-06-01

(RCT-1)

This document includes a brief overview of risk communication, walks through the steps in developing a communication plan and stakeholder outreach activities, presents an overview of risk communication concepts, applies these principles in case studies, and includes various tools to facilitate risk communication plan development. The Additional Information section includes various tools to facilitate risk communication plan development and stakeholder outreach activities. This toolkit is applicable to current, immediate, and emerging environmental issues and concerns. Tools are generally applicable to environmental issues and concerns. This toolkit will be updated with links to case studies published by future ITRC teams.


#RiskCommunicationToolkit

Attachments
3 years ago

2020-04-02

(14DX-1)

ITRC has developed a resources to summarize the latest science and emerging technologies for 1,4-Dioxane.


#1,4-Dioxane

Attachments
3 years ago

2020-02-01

(OIS-ISRP-1)

Comprehensive guidance on common in situ remediation challenges, including remedial design, implementation, and monitoring.


#OptimizingInjectionStrategiesandInsituRemediationPerformance

Attachments
3 years ago

2020-01-22

(ISM-1-2012-with-Clarifications)

ISM is increasingly being used in the environmental field for sampling contaminants in soil. Proponents have found that the sampling density afforded by collecting many increments, together with the disciplined processing and subsampling of the combined increments, in most cases yields more consistent and reproducible results than those obtained by more traditional (i.e., discrete) sampling approaches.

In 2009, ITRC established a technical team to evaluate ISM for sampling soils at hazardous waste sites and potentially contaminated properties. The ISM Team convened national experts in fields such as toxicology, risk assessment, statistics, and soil sampling. This 2012 guidance analyzes ISM performance, identifies considerations for unique laboratory processes and procedures, evaluates the suitability of ISM to various contamination scenarios and contaminant categories, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of ISM.


#IncrementalSamplingMethodology

Attachments
3 years ago

2019-12-19

(ASCT-1)

The web-based guidance designed to help state regulators and other practitioners understand, evaluate, and select ASCTs to support site conceptual site model and remedial strategy development and refinement. The document describes site characterization tools that can quickly deliver semi-quantitative or qualitative data to identify locations and depths where quantitative data should be collected. These same tools typically aid in visualizing and understanding the physical and environmental characteristics of a site.  Such capabilities help target investigations and remedial actions, potentially reducing characterization and monitoring costs while improving results. ASCTs designed to provide contaminant-related data are often used in combined to bolster one another. The combination of ASCTs promotes a better understanding of the relationship between contamination mass and site geology. This understanding enhances the conceptual site model development and assists in selecting more effective remedial strategies. ASCTs in this document are divided into four general categories: direct sensing tools, downhole geophysical tools, surface geophysical tools, and remote sensing tools. An interactive ASCTs Selection Tool is provided to identify appropriate tools and information for collecting geologic, hydrologic, and chemical data. Once one or more prospective tools have been identified, more detailed information about a tool can be obtained by reviewing the description of the tool in the web-based document and the Tool Summary Tables, Case Studies, and Checklists. The Tool Summary Tables, Case Studies, and Checklists can be downloaded from the ASCT webpage in a printable format (PDF).


#AdvancedSiteCharacterizationTools
#drone

Attachments
4 years ago

2018-11-13

(TPHRisk-1)

The ITRC TPH Risk Evaluation at Petroleum-Contaminated Sites (TPHRisk-1) guidance builds on long-standing and current research, and presents the current science for evaluating TPH risk at petroleum-contaminated sites. The methods and procedures to evaluate human and ecological risk and establish cleanup requirements at petroleum release sites will assist decision makers in developing and implementing a technically defensible approach. In addition, the guidance provides information and supplemental references to assist practitioners in the assessment of fate, transport, exposure, and toxicity of TPH. Practitioners will also gain information that may be used in conjunction with classic tiered approaches for risk-based decision making (ASTM 2015b), including modifications for the assessment and remedial-decision framework for TPH impacts through direct comparison to screening levels, site-specific modification of screening levels, and complete site-specific risk assessment for sources, receptors, and pathways.


#TPHRisk

Attachments