Abstract
Although federal and state regulations governing water quality have long been established, none have been created to govern soil contamination problems. The US EPA recently designed a procedural model for evaluating the minimum contaminant levels in soils. The proposed scheme merits additional evaluation at the federal level. The model for defining federal soil screening levels was modified to help determine state regulatory soil residual contaminant levels in the state of Wisconsin. Simplified equations are proposed for assessing the regulatory soil levels of semivolatile compounds in residential situations. Differences between federal and state soil contaminant limits are investigated. The implications of these regulatory trends for agricultural chemicals are discussed.