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Approved Professional drafts and cover letters

Last updated on June 1, 2022

Preparing draft certification documents for the director 

Approved Professionals must prepare drafts of legal documents, such as a Certificate of Compliance, for the director to approve and issue. 

The templates are available from the Contaminated Sites Approved Professionals (CSAP) Society and can only be requested by a CSAP member. 

Certificates of Compliance, Approvals in Principle and Determinations of Contaminated Site include Schedules A, B, C and D. 

Schedule instructions

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Schedule A: site description, boundaries, plans and location maps

In addition to the instructions listed in the document template, follow these steps:

  • Provide the latitude and longitude (accurate to 0.5 seconds) for the centroid of the site
  • Remove any company logos from all site plans. Fit location maps onto a single page. The location map should show street names clearly and be oriented north
  • Clearly define and establish site boundaries
  • Do not combine parcels with different owners into one site unless that is agreed to in writing by each parcel owner
  • Clearly indicate in the legal document which PID/PIN belongs to each parcel if the template refers to more than one parcel of land and PID/PIN
  • Show portions of legal parcels of land by a metes and bounds description and drawing provided by a legal surveyor. Ensure the name of the surveyor, or engineering firm, the stamp of the legal surveyor, and the date of the drawing is provided
 

Schedule B: requirements and conditions 

In addition to the instructions listed in the document template, follow these steps:

  • Only risk controls that are essential to the management of risk at the site should be included as principle risk controls in Clause 2 of Schedule B. Remember that risk controls need to be in place before the Certificate of Compliance or Approval in Principle is issued
  • Include remediation progress reports as a condition in all Approvals in Principle. The frequency and form of reports may vary depending on site conditions and remediation approaches
 

Schedule C: land, water, vapour and sediment uses and substance lists

In addition to instructions listed in the document template, follow these steps:

  • If there are multiple uses of any environmental medium at the site, provide a unique label for each part of the site in both a supplemental site plan and in Schedule C of the template, to indicate each area of the environmental medium with a different use. You may need to include metes and bounds descriptions
  • If future site use is considered in the Certificate of Compliance, remediation for the future site use must be completed
  • VHw6-10 and EPHw10-19 in Schedule 6 of the Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR) have generic numerical water standards that apply to all sites, irrespective of the water use at the site. If one or both of these are the only substances with generic numerical water standards at a site, use the phrase "no specified water use” in the template to describe the water use applicable at the site
  • Only those substances appearing in the CSR and the Hazardous Waste Regulation may be listed in the template. Use the exact spelling of each substance as it appears in the applicable regulation
  • You may list a non-prescribed substance or non-prescribed use for a prescribed substance in Schedule C as meeting the risk-based standards in a Certificate of Compliance if the site is a contaminated site due to the presence of some other prescribed substance, but only if:
    • The non-prescribed substance or the nonprescribed use for a prescribed substance is included and evaluated in the risk assessment
    • The results of that risk assessment are shown to comply with the risk-based standards of the CSR
  • Only list odorous substances, nonaqueous phase liquids and hazardous waste if substances evaluated at the site are not known (for example, constituents of nonaqueous phase liquids) or do not have a numerical standard in the CSR
  • Do not list substances that meet the applicable numerical vapour standards after the application of attenuation factors in Schedule C of a Certificate of Compliance as they are not considered contaminants. Substances that meet the applicable numerical vapour standards after the application of attenuation factors should be listed in Schedule C of a negative Determination of Contaminated Site
 

Schedule D: document list

List all technical reports, such as preliminary and detailed site investigation reports, risk assessments, remediation plan, remediation confirmation report in draft Schedule D of the document template. Include the Summary of Site Condition, performance verification plans, communication records, preapprovals under Protocol 6 and any other authorizations, approvals or director's decisions that may be applicable to the contaminated site.  

When applying for a Certificate of Compliance after an Approval in Principle was issued, list all relevant documents from the Approval in Principle in the Certificate of Compliance.

 

Preparing draft cover letters for the director

Approved Professionals should prepare draft cover letters for legal documents for the director to approve and issue. The templates for the cover letters are available from the CSAP Society and can only be requested by a CSAP member.

When preparing draft cover letters, approved professionals should:

  • Use current templates for cover letters
  • Address cover letters to the applicant for a legal document
  • Complete cover letters in full, with names, addresses and emails of all parties receiving copies of the correspondence. The parties to receive copies are suggested in the templates for the legal document cover letters
  • Copy the Client Information Officer on all correspondence
  • Copy both the owners and current operators of the site and associated affected parcels where the applicant is not a responsible person for the site

For Preliminary and Final Determinations, the following people should be listed as recipients of copies in the draft cover letter:

  • The person who submitted a site disclosure statement under the site identification process if the process was used as the basis for making the determination
  • A municipality or approving officer that received, assessed and forwarded a site disclosure statement to the registrar for the site to which the preliminary or final determination pertains
  • Any person with a registered interest in the site as shown in the records of the land title office or a land registry office of a treaty first nation at the time of the determination
  • Any person who may be a responsible person under section 45 of the Environmental Management Act
  • Any party who appears as a charge number on the land title, including the full name and mailing address as well as the charge number
  • Any person who has commented on a Preliminary Determination for the site