Publication Date: April 2011
This document describes the process for developing the revised generic, soil and
groundwater Site Condition Standards (SCSs) that are in Tables 1 through 9 of Ontario
Regulation 153/04 made under the Environmental Protection Act. The revised SCSs are
contained in Tables 1-9 of the “Soil Ground Water and Sediment Standards for use Under Part XV.1 of the Environmental Protection Act”. This document does not deal with sediment
standards as they have not been changed from the sediment standards in the 2004 tables, and which are still the Lowest Effect Levels from the “Guidelines for the Protection and
Management of Aquatic Sediment Quality in Ontario (1993)”. The sediment standards in the
tables are not meant to replace the 1993 guidelines, but are used here for the purposes of Reg 153/04.
This document also introduces an overview of the principles of Tier 2, that is, the Modified
Generic process, designed to enable revision of the Generic SCSs by using site-specific values, which better capture the site’s protective features, as inputs to the same algorithms used by MOE to derive the Generic SCSs. Such revised SCSs are called Tier 2, Property-Specific Standards (PSSs), or more simply, Tier 2 standards. A user guide to the Tier 2 (Modified Generic Risk Assessment) model can be found on the Ministry of the Environment’s website.