Alaska Administrative Code
Title 18 - Environmental Conservation
Chapter 60 - Solid Waste Management
Article 7 - Monitoring and Corrective Action Requirements
18 AAC 60.830 - Groundwater sampling and analysis
Current through February 27, 2024
(a) When groundwater monitoring is required at a facility under 18 AAC 60.820, the owner or operator shall prepare a groundwater monitoring plan that includes a quality assurance project plan and that includes consistent sampling and analytical procedures that will ensure that groundwater monitoring in each monitoring event will accurately document groundwater quality in all wells constituting the groundwater monitoring system installed under 18 AAC 60.825.
(b) The groundwater monitoring plan must conform to the requirements of (c) - (j) of this section and any site-specific requirements that the department determines are necessary, and must receive the department's approval. The approved groundwater monitoring plan shall be placed in the operating record of the facility and the owner or operator of the facility shall revise the groundwater monitoring plan as required by the department at the time of permit renewal, and also as needed in response to a change in
(c) The owner or operator shall ensure that the groundwater monitoring plan includes sample collection procedures and analytical methods that are appropriate for groundwater sampling and that yield accurate measurements of monitoring parameters and analyte concentrations at an acceptable level of sensitivity. The groundwater monitoring plan must include the procedures and techniques for
(d) Groundwater samples may not be field-filtered during collection. They must be analyzed for total constituent concentrations.
(e) During each monitoring event, measurements to establish groundwater elevations shall be taken in all wells constituting the groundwater monitoring system, before purging the wells and within a period of time short enough to avoid temporal variations in groundwater elevation that could preclude accurate estimation of groundwater flow rate and direction.
(f) The number of samples collected to establish groundwater quality must be consistent with the statistical methods selected under (g) of this section.
(g) The owner or operator shall specify in the groundwater monitoring plan one of the following statistical methods to be selected from and used in evaluating groundwater monitoring data for each constituent retained for statistical analysis. The statistical method selected must be conducted separately for each constituent in each well and the statistical analyses under each method must be developed in consideration of the Statistical Analysis of Groundwater Monitoring Data at RCRA Facilities - Unified Guidance (EPA 530-F-09-007, March 2009), adopted by reference, unless an alternative approach is approved by the department. The statistical methods to be selected from and used are
(h) A statistical method selected under (g) of this section must comply with the following performance standards, as appropriate:
(i) The owner or operator of the facility shall determine whether there is a statistically significant increase over background values for each constituent required to be analyzed in each well by the particular groundwater monitoring program that applies to the facility, as determined under 18 AAC 60.840. To determine whether a statistically significant increase has occurred, the owner or operator of the facility shall compare the concentration of each constituent detected in a monitoring well to the background value of that constituent, according to the statistical methods and performance standards set out in (g) and (h) of this section.
(j) The owner or operator of the facility shall furnish groundwater sampling data and analyses to the department in the format approved by the department not later than 90 days after completing each sampling event or on an alternate date or schedule approved by the department, and shall maintain in the operating record of the facility a complete record of all groundwater monitoring conducted under this section.
Authority:AS 44.46.020
AS 46.03.010
AS 46.03.020
AS 46.03.100
AS 46.03.110
AS 46.03.800
AS 46.03.810