Contaminated Land Management
Framework in Malaysia
By
Hazardous Substances Division
Department of Environment
1
BACKGROUND

Many industrial sites can be potential contaminated sites as a
result of industrial development over the past 25 years.
Contaminated land can be found at many places such as motor
workshops, petrol stations, fuel depots, railway yards, landfills,
industrial sites and ex-mining land

No specific legislation addressing soil and groundwater
contamination in Malaysia

No soil or groundwater quality standards

Little work carried out in identifying contaminated sites

Soil Quality is not monitored

Contaminated land is slowly gaining importance
2
IS SOIL POLLUTION CONTROL BY
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT 1974?
Section 24 of the Environmental Quality Act 1974 states that;
(1) No person shall, unless licensed, pollute or
cause or permit to be polluted any soil or
surface of any land in contravention of the
acceptable conditions specified under
section 21.
(2) a person shall be deemed to pollute any soil or surface of
any land if –
(a) he places in or on any soil any matter whether liquid,
solid, or gaseous; or
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IS SOIL POLLUTION CONTROL BY
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT 1974?
(b) he establishes on any land a refuse dump, garbage pit, soil
and rock disposal site, sludge deposit site, waste injection
well or otherwise used land for the disposal of or a repository
for solid or liquid wastes
PENALTY
(3) fine not exceeding one hundred thousand ringgit or to
imprisonment for a period of not exceeding five years or both
and to a further fine not exceeding one thousand ringgit a day for
every day that the offence is continued after a notice by the
Director General requiring him to cease the act specified therein
has been served upon him.
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Ninth Malaysia Plan

study on criteria and standard for managing and restoring
contaminated land in Malaysia by DOE
Purpose of the study
 to provide a framework for the proper assessment and
management of contaminated sites that would ensure a
consistent standard of site assessment and subsequent
management is implemented at all contaminated sites
 to provide some guidance to those responsible for
management and assurance to the community that public
health and environmental concerns on contaminated
sites are being addressed.
Toxic & Hazardous
Waste Storage
Industrial Area
5
WHAT IS CONTAMINATED LAND?
Contaminated Land means a site at which a substance
occur in, on or under the land at concentration:

Above the concentration at which the substance is
normally present in or on the land in the same locality
and pose or are likely to pose an immediate or long
term hazard to human health or the environment; or

Exceed concentration specified in the Site Screening
Levels (SSLs).
Toxic & Hazardous
Waste Storage
Industrial Area
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Overview of Contaminated Land Management
Framework in Malaysia
SCOPE OF APPLICATION
Framework applies to:-
1. Any land that are currently being used or were
previously used, to perform potential polluting activities

Polluting activities define as any activities involving
manufacture, store, use, handle and dispose of
chemicals and hazardous waste.

Industries with the potential of contaminating soil
and groundwater.
2. Any land that will involve in a change of land use from
polluting activities to non polluting activities
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GENERAL GUIDING PRINCIPLES
1. Polluter Pay Principle


Define the responsibility for performing a site
assessment and remediation.
Polluter can be the land owner or land occupier or any
polluter of any land.
2. Risk-Based Approach


Highlights potential current and future risk associated
with the presence of contaminants in the soil and
groundwater matrix.
recommended corrective actions to mitigate or control
incremental risk to the level acceptable from the human
health and ecological perspectives.
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LAND CATEGORIES
1. Land with identified responsible party
 Contaminated land will require site assessment and
remediation in accordance with the three guidelines
proposed by Department of Environment (DOE).
2. Land with no identified responsible party/Excluded
Land
 Contamination that is not possible for clean up under the
current conditions due to technology and resource
availability is economically not feasible to be assessed
and remediated under the contaminated land
management (CLM) framework due to the scale of
economic impact on the country;
 Applies for only agricultural land, municipal domestic
waste landfill, former mining land and orphan land; and
 Requires a proposed risk management plan.
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POLLUTER’S RESPONSIBILITY
 Determine if there is any
contamination in their land.
presence
of
subsurface
 Notify DOE on any subsurface contamination
 Determine if there is any unacceptable human health and
ecological risk.
 Propose a remediation action plan (RAP), implement,
construct, operate and maintain appropriate remediation
actions in order to address the risk arises from the presence
of the identified subsurface contamination.
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Responsibility on Category 2
Contaminated Land


For land properties categorized under Category 2, the
government authorities who have the direct jurisdiction
on the land will be the custodian who should perform all
actions required under the contaminated land
management framework.
The responsible authorities should ensure sufficient
resources are planned and allocated in the undertaking
of those actions until the land is cleaned up and safe for
its designated future land uses.
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SITE SCREENING LEVELS (SSLs)
 Prescribed in the ‘Contaminated Land Management and
Control Guidelines No. 1: Malaysian Recommended
Site Screening Levels for Contaminated Land’
 US EPA Regional Screening Levels has been referred in
developing the Site Screening Levels (SSLs)
 Exceeding SSLs indicates potential subsurface
contamination
 SSLs are not the national cleanup standards, it is use in
the process of identifying and defining areas,
contaminants, and conditions at a particular site.
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SITE SCREENING LEVELS (SSLs)
 Sites with contaminants concentrations exceeding the
SSLs will be considered as “contaminated land”
- further assessment will be required to determine any
health risk or ecological effects
 Risk assessment shall be conducted to define an
appropriate site-specific clean up target levels. As SSL
are derived based on conservative assumptions that
overestimate the human and ecological risk in most
cases, cleaning up to achieve SSL is considered
acceptable if the responsible party choose to achieve
the proposed SSL without developing the site specific
target level.
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Site Specific Target Levels
•
In the event if site clean up is
required, the responsible person(s)
shall justify the Site-Specific Target
Levels (SSTL) that are protective of
human health and ecological well
being.
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SITE SCREENING LEVELS (SSLs)
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SITE INVESTIGATION & ASSESSMENT

Prescribed in the ‘Contaminated Land
Management and Control Guidelines No. 2:
Assessing and Reporting Contaminated Sites’

Site assessment activities, i.e.: Initial Assessment (or Phase I ESA)
 Detailed Assessment (or Phase II ESA)
 Risk Assessment
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SITE ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES

Initial Assessment (Phase I ESA)
 Historical Site Survey/desk top study
 ‘Walkover’ Assessment (site visits) to identify hazards,
receptors etc
 Formulation of initial Conceptual Site Model (CSM)
(preferably diagrammatic for clarity)

Detailed Assessment (Phase II ESA)
 Carried out after Phase 1 ESA when findings has shown
that land is potentially impacted by onsite or offsite
activities
 Intrusive sampling (boreholes, trenches, sampling)
 Chemical analysis of contaminants
 Further refinement of CSM
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CONCEPTUAL SITE MODEL (CSM)
Transport
Source
Receptor
Example:
Example:
Example:
1. UST leakage
1. Leaching to soil
& groundwater
1. Human
2. Tanker
accident
3. Container
spillage
2. Dispersed by
wind
2. Ecology
3. Flora &
fauna
3. Flow into
surface water
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SITE ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES

Risk Assessment

Land properties which are detected with subsurface
contamination at concentrations higher than the Site
Screening Levels (SSL)

Process of estimating potential impact of contaminant on
ecosystem or human population under a specific set of
conditions

Allows most significant risks to be identified and
addressed and the more significant pathways to be
identified, facilitating effective targeting of risk mitigation
strategies
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BASELINE ENVIRONMENTAL SITE
ASSESSMENT (BESA)
For land properties which are not identified with any
potential subsurface contamination during the initial
assessment, it is recommended to conduct minimum
baseline environmental site assessment to establish the
background level of subsurface soil and groundwater
quality for future reference, this is especially applicable for
land properties that will be used for activities of polluting
industries.
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REMEDIATION

Remediation processes would apply for the
following scenarios:
Site(s) with soil and groundwater
concentration detected above the SSLs

Site(s) that are concluded to pose unacceptable risk to
human health based on the findings of human health risk
assessment performed in accordance with the
‘Contaminated
Land
Management
and
Control
Guidelines
No.
2:
Assessing
and
Reporting
Contaminated Sites’
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CONTAMINATED LAND CLOSURE REPORT

Submit the Closure Report to DOE, consists of:
Objective - to summarize project information into a
single, succinct, summary report

Documents what was planned, what was actually
completed and what remains outstanding

Identifies any post-remediation requirements for the site:

o
Long-term monitoring
o
Risk management features
o
Permanent site features that need to be protected and
maintained
Restrictions to site use
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CONTAMINATED LAND
MANAGEMENT (CLM) FRAMEWORK
Yes
Ready for
typical CLM
cycle?
Is it an excluded land?
No
No
Yes
Remediation & reporting
of contaminated sites
Assessment and
reporting
contaminated land
Exceed
SSLs?
Yes
Yes
Yes
Further remediation?
Need further
assessment?
No
Implement or
incorporate risk
control measures
Meet clean up goals
SSTLs?
No
Yes
No
Qualitative Risk
Assessment
No
No
Risk control
measures needed?
Yes
Ready for proper
closure?
No
Yes
Implement risk control
measures
Continue with risk
control measures
No
Ready for Closure?
Project Closure
Yes
Contaminated Land
Management and Control
Guidelines No. 1: Malaysian
Recommended Site Screening
Levels for Contaminated Land
Contaminated Land
Management and Control
Guidelines No. 2:
Assessing and Reporting
Contaminated Sites
Contaminated Land
Management and Control
Guidelines No. 3:
Remediation of
Contaminated Sites
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QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

All consultants or individual involved in the assessment and
remediation of the contaminated land management shall
fulfill the qualification requirements and registered with the
DOE.

All consulting firms performing any activities under the
contaminated land management framework shall be
registered with the DOE.
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ISSUES FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION

Low level of awareness amongst the public including the
professionals

CLM Framework to be agreed by other relevant agencies
e.g. Land authorities, local government, Minerals and
Geoscience Department

Capability and Resources needed for implementation of
CLM Framework
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THANK YOU
TERIMA KASIH
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