Environmental Health and Safety

Construction and renovation projects at UConn often result in excess soil that must be managed properly to mitigate impacts to human health and the environment.  EHS Environmental Programs monitors UConn’s construction and renovation projects to ensure soils that contain chemical constituents (from historical spills or from incidental contaminants that are typical of urban fill) are managed and disposed of in a manner consistent with State DEEP regulations.  We typically test excess soils for contaminants and compare the results to the CT DEEP Remediation Standard Regulations (RSRs) for soil.  Once this soil characterization is done, the soils can either be reused on campus (if they are sufficiently clean to pose no threat to human health or the environment) or disposed of off-site at a licensed waste disposal facility.  Soil characterization often demonstrates that excavated soil is clean and can be reused on the UConn campus or reused at another off-site location (recycled).

CT DEEP RSRs

When soil is stockpiled, pending reuse or disposal, UConn policy requires proper management of the soil piles to ensure sediment does not run off the soil pile and impact local wetlands or watercourses.  Management of soil piles is done in a manner consistent with CT DEEP guidelines for soil stockpile management.

CT DEEP Soil Stockpile Management 

When impacted soils are managed on-site, rather than being taken off-site for recycling or disposal, they may require an Environmental Use Restriction (EUR).  The purpose of an EUR is to minimize the risk of human exposure to pollutants and hazards to the environment by preventing access to, or activities on, that portion of the property where impacted soils were left in place as the best option for management.  An EUR must be approved by the CT DEEP or a CT Licensed Environmental Professional (LEP).

CT DEEP EURs