**The Manager's Tool Kit**

**for Environmental Compliance & Pollution Prevention**

**Module 1 of 6**

**A Telecast Originating from the BLM National Training Center in
Phoenix, Arizona**

**February 7, 2002**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network and The USDA
Forest Service Present Live from the BLM National Training Center in
Phoenix, Arizona, the Manager\'s Tool Kit For Environmental Compliance
and Pollution Prevention. And Now the Host of Your Program, Tony
Garrett.

T. Garrett: Hello and Welcome To Our Broadcast. Almost a Year Ago the
USDA Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management Began Discussing
The Need for Training That Would Help Federal Manage in All Land
Management Agencies Understand Their Responsibilities and Their
Liabilities under Federal Environmental Laws. The Result of Those
Discussions Is Our Six‑part Television Series the Manager\'s Tool Kit
For Environmental Compliance and Pollution Prevention. The Goal of this
Series Is to Provide You with the Procedural And Decision Making Tools
You Need to Promote Compliance with Environmental Laws, Protect the
Safety of Your Employees and the Public and Protect the Health of The
Resources We Manage. Today in Module 1 of the Course We Will Focus on
Personal and Organizational Liabilities and CERCLA Issues. We Have
Assembled a First‑rate Team of Instructors Led by Martin Thrasher, an
Attorney With Extensive Hazardous Materials Experience in the Public
Sector. Martin, Thanks for Joining Us.

M. Thrasher: Good Morning, Tony. I Really Appreciate Being a Part Of
this Program.

T. Garrett: Martin Will Be The Principal Instructor for This Course
Through Owl Six Broadcast. Also with Us Are Senior Managers From the
Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service Who Will Help Us
Understand How the Information We\'ll Be Covering Really Applies Out
There on the Ground in Your Day‑to‑day Activities. From the BLM We Have
Nancy Dean. Good Morning, Nancy.

N. Dean: Good Morning, Tony. I Am Glad to Be Here and Able to
Participate Today. Looking Forward to Talking to The Audience Today
about Our BLM Policies and Procedures.

T. Garrett: Thanks for Being Part of Our Instructional Panel. And from
the Forest Service We\'re Fortunate to Have Frank Mills. Frank, Thanks
for Being with Us.

F. Mills: Good Morning, Tony. It\'s Fantastic Being Here with This
Historic Event and I\'m Glad To Be Representing the USDA and The Forest
Service in this Training Session.

T. Garrett: in Addition to The BLM and the Forest Service Staff We\'re
Take ‑‑ Who Are Taking this Training, We Would Also like to Welcome
Employees Of the U.S. Fish

&

wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Bureau of
Reclamation Who We Know Are Tuning In, as Well as All of You From Other
Agencies Who May Be Watching. We Want You to Know That Your
Participation Is Very Important To the Success of These Satellite
Training Sessions. To Help You Communicate in Real Time with Our
Instructors, We\'re Going to Use Push‑to‑talk Technology So That You Can
Interact with Us Directly. There Will Be Times When We\'ll Ask You to
Answer Questions During Exercise Segments or to Share Some of Your Own
Experiences with Us. There Also Will Be General Questions and Answer
Segments When You\'ll Have Questions for Our Instructors as Well as
Periods When You\'ll Be Able to Interrupt Our Trainers and Ask Questions
about the Material That\'s Being Presented. Just like You Would in
Regular, Ordinary Classrooms. Whenever You Do Push to Talk With Us, We
Ask That You State Your Name and Location and Then Wait to Be Addressed
by Us. And to Help Manage All of This, We\'ll Let You Know When It\'s Ok
To Push to Talk by Putting a Green Light Icon in the Upper Right Corner
of Your Screen. You Will See it There. And During Periods, We Prefer
That You Concentrate on Instructional Presentation and Hold Your
Questions, We\'ll Put Up a Red Light in the Corner, a Red Light Icon in
the Corner. There Is the Red Light. No Right Turn on Red Light. Just
Hold Those Questions until You Get the Green and We\'ll Get Those
Questions as Soon as We Can. We Will Try to Keep the Green Light on as
Much as Possible Because We Do Want to Get Feedback from You and Answer
All Your Questions. If We Get Short on Time Because The Segment Is
Running Long, We May Put up the Red Light and Ask You to Hold Your
Questions until A Little Bit Later. So Throughout this Program We Do
Want to Hear from You. If for Some Reason You Do Not ‑‑ Did Not Get the
Phone Number and The Numeric Pass Code for the Push‑to‑talk Telephone
Bridge For Your Agency, Please Call Our Operator Now. Call Our Operator
at 602‑943‑2279. And If You Don\'t Have the Push To Talk System at All.
At Your Viewing Site and You Have a Question or Comment for Us, We Do
Want to Hear from You Anyway. You Can Call Us Toll‑free at This Number.
You Can Also Send Us a Fax If You Would like at Any Time. We\'ll Get to
Your Questions as Soon as We Can. Later in Our Broadcast We Will Have a
Game Show Called \"The Hazmat Challenge.\" We Will Be Inviting Teams
from Our Viewing Audience to Face off And Test Your Knowledge. You Will
Be Competing for Fabulous Prizes ‑‑ Well, Some Prizes, Anyway ‑‑ as You
Answer Questions Based on the Material We\'ll Be Covering in this
Segment of Our Program. So Stay Tuned for \"Hazmat Challenge.\" Finally,
All of You Should Have Registered for this Satellite Course So That You
Could Receive The Course Training Materials, The Manager\'s Tool Kit. If
You Have Not Registered, Please See Your Agency\'s Website To Download
the Tool Kit. These Websites Contain an Outline of Our Training Content
For These Six Telecasts, the Course Goals and Objectives and Other
Useful Resources. There\'s Also a Brief Course Evaluation Form. That We
Would like You to Complete That Will Help Us Learn How We We Did Our Job
in Presenting the Material. Now with That Housekeeping out Of the Way,
Let\'s Set the Stage For this Course and Hear a Brief Message from Craig
Hooks of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

C. Hooks: Hello. My Name Is Craig Hooks. I\'m the Director of EPA\'s
Federal Facilities and Enforcement Office. First I Want to Applaud the
Initiative of the Forest Service And Bureau of Land Management in
Developing this Important Training Course on Environmental Compliance
and Pollution Prevention for Federal Facility Managers. Whatever Type of
Facility You Manage, Forest, Recreation Site, Park or Wildlife Refuge,
You Play a Critical Leadership Role At Your Facility. Facility Personnel
Will Reflect Your Purse Neck ‑‑ Perspective. It Will Determine Whether
They Disregard Environmental Requirements or Maintain Compliance. The
American Public Trusts You To Manage Federal Lands and Facilities in a
Manner That Ensures the Safety and Well Being of Both Your Employees and
The Public. And They Expect You to Protect The Natural Environment While
Still Accomplishing Your Agency\'s Mission. You\'re Not Only Stewards of
the Land, You Are Stewards of That Public Trust, and as Managers You
Play a Vital Part. This Training Is One Step Towards Building Consistent
Compliance. As You Build Your Regulatory Compliance Structure, Remember,
It Is There to Help You Achieve Your Mission and EPA Is There to Help
You. Finally, EPA Recognizes the Federal Commune Community\'s
Responsibility to Comply with Environmental Laws. The Public Expects Us
to Monitor Compliance in the Public Sector. With this Training, We Hope
You Will Find When an Inspector Comes to Your Facility You Can Rest
Assured That You Will Prove Once Again the Federal Government Leads by
Example. Thank You, and Good Luck with Your Training.

T. Garrett: All Right. We Appreciate Craig Hooks Taking The Time to
Prepare Those Remarks for Us. Now Let\'s Get down to Today\'s Coursework
and Here Again Is Martin Thrasher.

M. Thrasher: Thanks, Tony. I Want to Express My Appreciation to Everyone
Who Is Out There Listening and Who Is Going to Participate Today. As
Tony Mentioned to You, We Want to Encourage Your Participation, So at
Any Time That the Green Light\'s On, Please Feel Free to Ask Questions
or Fax in the Questions to Us. This Course Is Entitled Tool Kit For
Environmental Compliance and Pollution Prevention. I Think Oftentimes in
Government We Think of Ourselves as the Enforcement Agencies. We\'re the
Folks That Make the Rules and We Go out and Enforce The Rules Against
Industry and Against Public Users Who Are Misusing Our Public Resources
And That\'s Certainly an Important Function for Us. But the Focus of
this Course Is On Compliance by Federal Facilities with Environmental
Laws. Environmental Laws Are What I Call Equal Opportunity Laws. That
Is, for the Most Part, They Apply to Everyone. I Think in the Early
Years of Environmental Activism, the 1970s, the 1980s, There Was a Lot
of Emphasis on Industrial Compliance and Concerns in That Arena.
Nowadays, as Expressed by the Representative from EPA, There\'s More and
More Interest on Compliance with the Rules and Pollution Prevention by
Federal Agencies, and That Is the Focus Of the Course in the next
Modules over the next Few Weeks. The Laws and Regulations That We\'re
Going to Be Talking about Are Extremely Complex. There Is Simply No Way
to Accidentally Be in Compliance With All of These Rules. Several Years
Ago I Had Occasion To Work with a Large Municipality Here in Arizona
Concerning Environmental Programs, and One of the Managers as We Were
Going out to View His Facilities Said to Me, \"Well, I Hope We\'re Doing
All Right.\" And I Empathize with What He Was Saying Because It\'s So
Complex, But There\'s Simply No Way to \"Hope\" You\'re Doing All Right
or To Just to the Right Thing Because it Won\'t Suffice to Comply with
All of These Complex Rules. We must Have in Place Management Systems and
Procedures to Make Sure That We\'re Doing the Right Things and Following
the Laws. Part of That System Is to Have An Evaluation System Which
Typically We Call Environmental Auditing in this Business. Another
Component of Making Sure That We\'re Complying with the Rules Is to Have
Adequate Training for Managers and Our Employees. So Those Are Kind of
the Hallmarks That We\'re Looking for Here. Now, Why Is it That We Are
Concerned about Environmental Laws? Why Do We Care about Them? The
Bottom Line as Far as Protecting ‑‑ or Following Our Laws, Why We Care
about Them, Is To Protect Human Health and the Environment. Also
Underlying That, We Want to Make Sure That We\'re Not Subject To
Litigation, Either Personally Or Through Our Agency. So Those Are the
Reasons That We\'re Concerned about These Laws. One of the Problems That
We Always Come up with in this Business That Occurs in Every Other
Business as Well Is That We\'ve Got Lots of Acronyms and Terms That Mean
Very Specific Things, and Throughout the Course We Want to Highlight
Some Of Those. None of the Instructor Are Going To Dwell on Acronyms and
Terms, But as They Can Be Confusing, But Some of Them You Ought to Be
Familiar With. Let Me Just Mention to You That The Overall Term That We
Use Dealing with Haz‑mat or Hazardous Materials, Is the Term Hazardous
Materials, and That Term Relates to All of the Regulated Substances That
Are Regulated under the Hazardous Waste Rules, Clean Water Act, Clean
Air Act and So Forth. So Hazardous Materials Is Used In a Generic Sense.
So When We Use That Term, it Just Means the Universe of Regulated
Materials. Now, Within the Concept of Hazardous Materials We Have
Hazardous Substances. Hazardous Substances Are Regulated under the
Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation Liability Act,
Otherwise Known as CERCLA, And We Are Going to Be into Quite a Bit of
Detail about CERCLA Today. But That Relates to Hazardous Substances.
Now, Within Hazardous Substances We Have Another Commodity Called
Hazardous Wastes, and We\'re Going to Be Covering Those next Week in
Module 2. Hazardous Wastes Are Regulated Under the Resource Conservation
And Recovery Act. Another Set of Commodities Within the Concept of
Hazardous Materials Are Called Extremely Hazardous Substances. These Are
Regulated under a Statute Called the Emergency Planning and Community
Right to Know Act and We\'re Going to Be Covering Those in a Later
Module. Now, in Addition to These, There Is Another Set of Materials
That Are Nonhazardous Substances but Which Are Highly Regulated and One
of Which That Federal Agencies Deal with Quite a Bit Are Petroleum
Products, Your Gasolines, Your Diesels and Your Oils and So Forth. These
Are Not Hazardous Substances That Are Regulated Under CERCLA, but They
Are Certainly Hazardous Materials That Are Regulated under Other
Statutes. Now, There Are Two Reasons for Introducing this to You. Number
One Is to Give You the Concept That this Is a Very Complex Business. And
We\'re Going to Try to Sift Through That Complexity for You. The Other
Reason for Introducing This to You Is to Demonstrate That Each One of
These Types of Commodities or Materials Are Regulated under Different
Statutes. So the Idea Here Is to Be Very Precise about What We\'re
Talking About So We Know the Set of Rules That Apply to Them. That\'s
Why It\'s Important. All Right, Do We Have Any Questions at this Point
Insofar As What We\'re Going to Cover? Any Other Comments from Frank or
Nancy?

F. Mills: Once in a University Class I Saw You Teach, You Had a Diagram
Where You Had Diagramed All These Haz‑mat and Hazardous Substances And
All. Can You Show Us That Diagram And ‑‑

M. Thrasher: Well, I Wish I Could, but the Other Camera Isn\'t Working
Right Now, So Maybe Later in the Program If We Get the Camera Working
We\'ll Be Able to Do That.

F. Mills: Good. Thank You.

M. Thrasher: Any Other Questions from the Audience at This Point? All
Righty. Now What I Would like to Do Is Have Them Roll a Tape That Gives
A Really Good Overview of the Hazardous Materials Program That We\'re
Going to Be Covering over The next Six Modules, and That\'s Called
Haz‑mat 101.

Announcer: Our World Today, Chemical Substances Play a Significant Role
in Our Quality Of Life. Many Are Vital to Our Survival. However,
Chemical Substances Can Be Hazardous. If Released or Misused, They Can
Pose a Threat to Our Health and Safety and to the Health of Our
Environment. As Managers of Human Resources, Federal Facilities and
Public Lands, We Cannot Avoid Involvement with Chemical Substances,
Which Most of Us Know as Hazardous Materials and Hazardous Wastes. In
this Program, We Are Going to Look at How We Meet Our Legal
Responsibilities While Limiting Our Liabilities under Environmental
Laws. By Law, We Are Required to Protect Our Employees, Public Health
and the Environment from Contamination by Hazardous Materials and
Hazardous Wastes. Hazardous Wastes Is a Subset of Hazardous Materials.
By Definition, Hazardous Wastes Are Solid, Liquid or Gas Wastes That Can
Cause Death, Illness or Injury to People, or Harm to the Environment If
They Are Improperly Treated, Stored, Transported or Discarded. Chemical
Substances Are Considered Hazardous Wastes If They Are Ignitable,
Capable of Burning or Causing a Fire, Corrosive, Able to Corrode Steele
or Harm Organisms Because Of Extreme Acidic or Basic Properties,
Reactive, Able to Explode or Produce Toxic Cyanide Or Sulfur Gas or
Toxic, Containing Substances That Are Poisonous. One of the Major
Environmental Laws Governing Hazardous Materials and Specifically
Hazardous Wastes Is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Or RCRA.
RCRA Was Passed in 1976 in Response to Public Concern over Midnight
Dumping of Toxic Wastes And Was Reauthorized in 1984. RCRA Gave the
Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, the Authority to Control Hazardous
Wastes from Cradle to Grave. In Other Words, RCRA Sets Forth
Requirements for Managing Hazardous Wastes, from Transportation,
Treatment and Storage, to its Ultimate Disposal. This Law Regulates the
Handling Of Hazardous Wastes, but RCRA Sets Forth a Framework for the
Management of Nonhazardous Wastes Such as Municipal Solid Wastes. It
Sets Conditions for the Amounts of Wastes Generated by Hazardous
Materials Users. Under the Cradle to Grave Approach, There Are Three Key
Steps. First, the Party Who Creates the Hazardous Waste must Keep Track
Of it When it Is Moved from the Location Where it Was Produced. Second,
Hazardous Waste Management Sites, Such as Hazardous Wasteland Fills and
Incinerateors, must Meet Safety Standards to Get a Permit to Accept
Hazardous Wastes for Treatment or Disposal. Third, Dispose All of Many
Hazardous Wastes Is Not Allowed Until the Waste Is Treated to Make it
less Hazardous. RCRA Also Regulates Solid Wastes And Storage of
Materials in Underground Tanks. In 1986, Amendments to RCRA Enabled EPA
to Address Environmental Problems That Could Result from Underground
Tanks Storing Petroleum and Other Hazardous Materials. RCRA Focuses Only
on Active and Future Facilities and Does Not Address Abandoned or
Historical Sites. In Addition, RCRA Requires Safety Meshers in Handling
Hazardous Wastes, Sets Penalties For Not Complying with the Law, And
Makes Government Agencies And Employees Subject to Those Penalties. A
Second Important Hazardous Materials Law Is the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, CERCLA, Passed
in 1980. Commonly Known as the Superfund Act, CERCLA Provides EPA with
The Authority to Respond to Releases or Threatened Releases Of Hazardous
Substances, Pollutants or Contaminants That May Endanger Human Health or
the Environment. CERCLA Requires Reporting of Releases of Hazardous
Materials, Establishes the Liability of Persons Responsible for Releases
Of Hazardous Substances, and Establish as Trust Fund to Provide for
Cleanup When No Responsible Party Can Be Identified. Under CERCLA,
Federal Agencies, Like Other Landowners, Have the Responsibility to
Report Releases. When Hazardous Substances Are Illegally Released on
Public Lands, the Agencies Managing Those Lands May Be Required to Pay
for Cleanups, Even If They Were Not Responsible for the Unlawful
Release. CERCLA Was Modified by the Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act, or Sara, in 1986. Several Provisions of Sara Apply
Only to Federal Facilities Such As Offices, Storage Areas and Field
Sites. These Provisions Allow Citizens To File Civil Suits Against
Federal Agencies and Employees. They Require Agencies to Involve
Communities in Manning Hazardous Substances and They Require Agencies to
File Regular Reports About Contaminated Sites on Public Lands. The
Provisions of Sara Stress The Importance of Permanent Remedies and
Innovative Treatment Technologies in Cleaning up Hazardous Waste Sites.
Sara Also Required Superfund Actions to Consider the Standards and
Requirements Found In Other State and Federal Environmental Laws and
Regulations. Provided New Enforcement Authorities and Settlement Tools.
Increased State Involvement in Every Phase of the Superfund Program. And
Increased the Focus on Human Health Problems Posed by Hazardous Waste
Sites. Sara Encouraged Greater Citizen Participation in Making Decisions
on How Sites Should Be Cleaned up and Increased the Size of the Trust
Fund. Federal Agencies and Their Employees must Comply with State Laws
Concerning Removal and Remedial Action. Also, State Laws Regarding
Enforcement Apply to Removal and Remedial Action at Facilities Owned or
Operated by the Federal Government. Even If Those Laws Are Stricter Than
Federal Laws. Let\'s Turn Now to the Manager\'s Responsibility for
Protecting Employees from Occupational Exposures to Hazardous Materials.
Many People Think Hazardous Materials Are Just a Field Problem. But
Hazardous Materials Are Closer than We Think. Look Around Your Office
and Consider the Potentially Toxic Hazardous Materials in Everyday Use.
Some Employees Regularly Use Copy Machine Toner, Photo Chemicals,
Equipment Cleaners And Pesticides. Some Hazardous Materials Are Handled
and Stored in Areas Commonly Used by Employees. If They Are Not Handled
and Stored Properly, These Hazardous Materials Can Present Serious Harm.
In Your Office, Are Incompatible Chemicals Being Stored in the Same
Cabinet? Are There Barrels or Containers Of Hazardous Materials That Are
Improperly Labeled or Not Labeled at All? Are There Hazardous Materials
Like Old Dynamite Stored in Closets? Are There Containers and
Underground Storage Tanks That Might Be Leaking? Incredible as it May
Seem, These Situations Have Been Reported in Numerous Federal Agencies.
Under the Occupational Safety And Health Administration\'s Title 29 Code
of Federal Regulations Part 1960, Federal Managers Are Responsible for
Providing Each Employee with Conditions of Employment and a Place of
Employment Which Are Free of Recognized Hazards That Are Causing or Are
Likely to Cause Death or Serious Physical Arm. ‑‑ Harm. This
Responsibility Includes Protecting Employees from Accidental Release of
Hazardous Materials, as Well as Ensuring The Safe Handling, Storage and
Transportation of Hazardous Materials That Employees Are Required to Use
on the Job. To Meet Those Responsibilities, Each Agency must Develop,
Implement and Maintain at Each Workplace a Written Hazard Communication
Plan, or Hazcom Plan. The Hazcom Plan Tells Employees What Hazardous
Materials Are Used in Their Specific Workplace, Where the Materials Are
Stored and How They Should Be Used. All Hazardous Materials must Be
Identified, Labeled and Inventoried. The Hazcom Plan Identifies the
Labels and Other Forms of Warning on Hazardous Materials. It Includes
Material Safety Data Sheets, or Msdss and it Specifies the Employee
Information and Training Needs That Will Be Met. The Hazcom Plan Also
Includes a List of the Hazardous Chemicals Known to Be Present Using an
Identity That Is Referenced on The Appropriate Material Safety Data
Sheet and the Methods the Agency Will Use to Inform Employees of the
Hazards of Nonroutine Tasks and the Hazards Associated with Chemicals
Contained in Unlabeled Pipes in Their Work Areas. Each Office must Have
Material Safety Data Sheets for All Hazardous Materials That Are in Use
in the Workplace. A Material Safety Data Sheet for A Given Hazardous
Material Provides the Common and Chemical Name, the Manufacturer, and
the Physical and Chemical Properties Of Each Chemical. It Also Provides
Physical Hazards, Health Hazards and Routes of Entry, the Permissible
Occupational Exposure Limits and Its Carcinogenic Nature If Any. The
Msds Also Describes Proper Handling and Storage, the Risks Of Working
with These Chemicals And Emergency Procedures. One of the Most Effective
Ways Of Managing Hazardous Materials In the Workplace Is to Minimize
Their Use. We Can Produce Workplace Hazards And Storage and Handling
Concerns by Carefully Selecting The Types and Quantities of Substances
We Purchase and Store For Use. By Choosing Safer or less Hazardous
Chemical Substances, For Example, Using Laytex Lead‑free Paint Instead
of an Oil‑based Paint, We Can Minimize Employee Occupational Exposure
And Lessen the Amount of Hazardous Wastes We Generate and Must Dispose
Of. While Providing for the Safety Of Employees, Managers must Also
Consider the Impact of Agency Operations and Activities on the Public.
Congress Enacted Legislation on Community Safety with Title Iii Of Sara,
Also Known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act,
Epcra. This Law Was Passed to Help Local Communities Protect Public
Health, Safety and the Environment from Chemical Hazards. To Implement
Epcra, Congress Required Each State to Appoint a State Emergency
Response Commission, Serc. The Seccs Were Required to Divide Their
States into Emergency Planning Districts and Name a Local Emergency
Planings Committee for Each District. Broad Representation by
Firefighters, Health Officials, Government and Media Representatives,
Community Groups, Industrial Facilities And Emergency Managers Ensures
That All Necessary Elements of The Planning Process Are Represented.
Under Epcra, Federal Agencies Are Required to Provide Copies Of Haz‑mat
Inventories to Local Emergency Planning Committees And to Coordinate
with State and Local Authorities on Hazardous Materials Issues. Also
Keep in Mind That Hazardous Wastes May Be Generated in Our Own Offices
and Storage Facilities, or Found Illegally Dumped on Public Lands.
Federal and State Regulations Govern the Storage, Transportation and
Disposal of Hazardous Wastes. To Track These Wastes, a Manifest, Signed
by the Office Manager, must Stay with the Waste from its Generation to
its Disposal. Hazardous Wastes Can Be Disposed Of Only at Facilities
Having Current Epcra Permits to ‑‑ RCRA Permits to Receive Them. An
Especially Critical Responsibility for Managers Is Responding
Appropriately and Effectively to Hazardous Materials, or Haz‑mat
Incidents. Haz‑mat Incidents May Result From Improper Chemical Storage
Or Handling in a Facility Such As a Warehouse for an Office, or As a
Result of a Motor Vehicle Accident in the Field. Any Violation of the
Haz‑mat Laws Where Human Safety or Public Resources Are Threatened
Constitutes a Haz‑mat Incident. As Does a Threat of a Hazardous
Materials Release. To Be Prepared for Haz‑mat Incidents, Agencies must
Develop An Emergency Response Plan Which Addresses as a Minimum
Pre‑emergency Planning and Coordination with Outside Parties, Personnel
Roles, Lines Of Authorities, Training and Communication, Emergency
Recognition and Prevention, Safe Distances and Places of Refuge, Site
Security and Control, Evacuation Routes and Procedures, Decontamination
Procedures, Emergency Medical Treatment and First Aid, Emergency
Alerting and Response Procedures, Critique of Response And Follow‑up,
and Personal Protective Equipment and Emergency Equipment. The Emergency
Response Plan Sets Out Procedures for Reporting Incidents to Local and
State Agencies and Other Federal Agencies. The Plan must Be Compatible
and Integrated with the Emergency Response Plans of Local and State
Agencies and Other Federal Agencies. The Emergency Response Plan Should
Describe Haz‑mat Risks in The Area and Explain How to Assess Those
Risks. With All the Critical Information, These Plans Contain, it Is
Essential That They Be Kept up to Date. Because the Public Lands Are
Vast and Often Remote, They Are Open to Abuse, like Hazardous Waste
Dumping. Resource Managers Are Responsible for Recognizing These
Incidents and Then Reporting Them to Response Agencies or Contractors
Who Specialize in Managing and Cleaning up These Types of Emergencies.
The Level of Urgency and Type of Action We Take in Response to Haz‑mat
Incidents Are Determined By the Risks and Severity of the Contamination
and Our Level of Haz‑mat Training and Certification. A Barrel Leaking a
Hazardous Substance into a Stream Requires An Immediate Response and
Clean‑up Measures. An Illegal Drug Lab Found on Public Land Would Call
for Securing the Area to Prevent Entry in Order to Protect Public
Safety. Stable Hazardous Substances in An Abandoned Pit Could Merit a
Lower Priority Response Such as Putting up Signs or Withdrawing Land Use
Authorizations and Permits to Prevent Further Contamination While
Planning for Future Clean‑up. In Many Incidents, Land Management
Agencies Can Offer Assistance to the Appropriate Response and
Enforcement Agencies Without Risking Exposure to Employees or Equipment.
Land Management Agencies and Their Managers Should Understand That
Responding to Incidents Can Mean Unplanned Spending and Major Changes in
Work Schedules, And Can Result in Years of Agency Commitment. Federal
Agencies Have Many Roles in Hazardous Materials Management. Under RCRA
and CERCLA We Are Regulated as Landowners and Federal Facilities
Operators. Some of Our Facilities Generate, Store, Transport and Dispose
of Hazardous Wastes. We Authorize Many Different Land Uses and Oversee
Activities That Involve Hazardous Materials Handling, and Sometimes
Hazardous Chemical Substance Releases. If Hazardous Chemical Substances
Are Released on Public Lands, Agencies, Managers and Other Employees Can
Be a Responsible Party and a Defendant or Plaintiff in a Court of Law.
But We Do Have Opportunities to Avoid Haz‑mat Incidents and Limit Our
Liabilities. Here Are Some of the Positive Steps We Can Take. Carefully
Assess Proposed Land Users Involving Hazardous Materials. Discourage
Haz‑mat Use on Public Lands When Alternatives Are Possible. Work Closely
with State and Local Governments to Identify Suitable Landfill Sites
That May Be Convey to Do Local Communities. Diligently Monitor Leased
Landfills to See That Disposal Laws Are Followed and That Close
Contaminated Landfills. Obtain Good Emergency Response Plans for
Applicants Planning to Use Hazardous Materials. And When Hazardous
Materials Are Used, Require Users to Indemnify The Government for
Potential Contamination or Damages. As Stewards of the Public Lands, We
Should Be Prepared to Stop Activities That Threaten Human Health and the
Environment. For the Federal Resource Manager, the Keys to Successfully
Managing Hazardous Materials and Complying with Environmental Laws Are
Good Information and Effective Communications. We Rely on Knowledgeable
and Skilled Hazardous Materials Coordinators and Program Specialists.
These Professionals must Be Properly Trained in Haz‑mat Issues, Clean‑up
Methods, Contracting Procedures and Safety. We All Profit by Sharing
Knowledge and Experiences Within Our Own Agencies and Within Other
Agencies. Managers Should Know How to Get Help and Information from
Regional Environmental Officers, From Federal Legal Authorities, From
State and Local Political Leaders, and from State and Federal Regulatory
Agencies. Contractors Can Also Provide Highly Technical Information and
Assistance. Maintaining Current Haz‑mat Reference Libraries Can Help Us
Recognize Hazards and Evaluate Risks to Employees, Public Health and the
Environment. Coordination and Collaboration Among All Stakeholders Is
Essential. To Achieve This, We must Maintain Partnerships with State And
Local Governments, Communities, User Groups and Individuals. The
Challenge of Properly Managing Hazardous Materials and Hazardous Wastes
Is a Part of Our Mission That Grows Increasingly Important and More
Complex with Each Passing Day. This Challenge Is One That We Can Meet
Successfully by Understanding Our Legal Obligations under the Law and by
Developing Appropriate Plans, Policies and Procedures to Shape Our
Decisions and Guide Our Actions. A Prudent Course of Action Can Help Us
Meet Our Most Important Responsibilities as Managers. That Is, Ensuring
the Safety of Our Employees, Public Health and The Health of the Natural
Resources under Our Care.

M. Thrasher: All Right. Welcome Back. I Think That Tape Gives a Real
Good Overview of All of the Six Modules We\'re Going to Be Presenting
over the next Couple Of Months. Right Now What I Would like to Do Is
Spend a Few Minutes Discussing Liability, Because I Know That That\'s an
Issue That\'s Of Concern to Many Managers and Employees in the
Environmental Arena. After Reviewing this Segment, You Will Be Able to
Describe Your Personal and Agency Environmental Liabilities. I Think
First What We Need to Do Is Get a Fairly Basic Concept Of What
Environmental Law Entails. Environmental Law Is Not Just Some Particular
Statutes Passed By Congress with an Environmental Moniker. It\'s a Broad
Range of Laws That Apply to the Environmental Arena. It Includes the
United States And State Constitutions, it Includes Federal and State
Statutes Passed by the Congress And Legislative Bodies. It Includes
Federal and State Regulations. And I Should Mention at this Point That
There Are Literally Thousands of Pages of Environmental Regulations That
Need to Be Followed. Last Count, I Heard There Were Somewhere on the
Order of 15,000 Federal Environmental Regulation ‑‑ Pages of
Environmental Regulations. So They\'re Quite Complex and Complete. In
Addition to Those Laws, We Have Federal and State Court Decisions That
Interpret the Laws And, of Course, We Have Common Law. Many of You Have
Probably Heard The Term \"Toxic Torts.\" It\'s Kind Avenue Moniker
That\'s Placed on the Traditional Common Law Concepts of Torts Which
Relate to Negligence, Strict Liability, Nuisance, Trespass And Some
Other Torts That Apply To the Environmental Arena. As We Discuss the
Environmental Laws, Many of You Are Familiar With the Laws That Relate
to Your Federal Land Management Agencies, and Most of Those Regulations
Occur in the 43 Cfr Series. Well, in the Environmental Arena, We Also
Need to Get Acquainted with Three Other Chapters, If You Will, in the
Code of Federal Regulations. 29 Cfr Are the Regulations Used By the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration to Issue Its Regulations.
So That\'s 29 Cfr. Whenever You See a 29 Cfr, It\'s Osha. EPA Uses the
Friday Cfr Series. So If You See Friday Cfr, Those Are All EPA
Regulations. The Other Group That You Need to Know about Are the 49 Cfr.
That\'s the Group of Regulations That Is Used by the Department Of
Transportation. Another Thing That I like to Briefly Discuss Is the
Federal And State Relationship. Oftentimes I Think We Get the Idea That
the Relationship Between the Federal Government And the State Government
Is a Vertical Dictatorial Relationship Where You Have the Federal
Government Passing the Basic Environmental Laws That Then Dictate to the
States What They Have to Do and Then the States in Turn Dictate to Local
Governments What They Have to Do. So It\'s Kind of a Vertical Hierarchy,
If You Will, of Environmental Laws. That Causes Some Confusion Because
That\'s Not Quite the Way It Works. In Actuality, the Federal Government
Has Authority under The Constitutional Commerce Clause, and Then States
Have Independent Authority to Pass Their Own Environmental Laws. So
Often Times What We See Is The Federal Government Will Pass Certain
Statutes We Call Nondelegable to the States. They\'re Simply Federal
Programs. CERCLA, or the Superfund Law, Is An Example of That. It Is Not
a Delegable Program to The States. Now, Some States Have Programs That
Are Very Similar to CERCLA, But They Have Not Received That Delegation
from the Federal Government. They\'ve Used Their Own Independent
Authority to Do That. The Other Type of Law We See and That\'s Very
Common in the Environmental Arena from the Federal Government Are
Delegable Laws. Examples of These Are like the Resource Conservation
Recovery Act Dealing with Hazardous Wastes. We Have the Clean Water Act.
We Have the Clean Air Act. Portions of the Pesticide Act Are Delegable.
And What Congress Does There Is They Say, Well, We\'ve Got a Federal
Framework for These Programs, and If States Adopt Programs That Are
Acceptable to The Federal Government, Then the States Can Take over
What\'s Called Primacy and Run Those Federal Programs. But the States
Don\'t Have to Accept Those Programs. For the Most Part They, Do
However. On the Stay Side of the Equation, We See These Programs That
They\'ve Accepted That Are Delegated from the Federal Government and
They Run Those And Work Very Closely with the EPA on Implementing Those.
And Then We Also See Independent State Programs That Are Strictly Run by
the States and There\'s No Federal Involvement at All. So as You Go from
State to State And You See Different States Doing Different Things, You
Realize That Some of the States, Most of the States, in Fact, Have
Accepted Delegation of the Federal Programs and Then They Have the
Independent State Programs, and That Accounts for The Differences from
State to State. Frank or Nancy, Did Either One Of You Have Any Comments
about That, Delegation Authorities or State Programs?

F. Mills: I Think One of the Things That We Need to Keep in Mind Is That
in Addition to These Authorities That Have Been Delegated to the States,
Certain Of These Authorities Have Been Delegated Directly to the
Agencies Themselves And, Martin, That\'s Something That the Students
Should Really Be Interested in Later in the Broadcast.

M. Thrasher: Yeah and We Will Be Going over That Later, I Think, with
Regard to CERCLA Delegation. So We Will Cover in That a Bit. Let Me
Comment next a Little Bit About Enforcement of These Laws. Virtually
Every Environmental Law at the Federal and State Level Has Some ‑‑ Have
Enforcement Mechanisms. These Mechanisms Provide a Whole Range of
Options for the Enforcement Agencies to Use. Most of Them, Virtually All
of Them, Carry Criminal Penalties For Violations of Them. Some of These
Criminal Penalties Range up to about 15 Years in Prison and up to
\$50,000 Fine. The Statutes Also Carry Civil And Administrative
Penalties That Can Be Assessed Against Individuals and Against Agencies,
and Those Range up to About \$50,000 per Violation per Day. The Agencies
Also Have Vast Authority to Issue Administrative Orders Directly To
People Who Are Not Complying With the Rules and They Have Authority to
Go to Courts to Receive Injunctions to Enjoin Certain Unlawful
Activities. The Other Aspect about Enforcement You Ought to Be Aware of
Relates to Citizen Suits. Most of These Statutes Provide For Individual
Citizens, Which Includes Environmental Groups of Various Groups, to
Bring Actions Against Agencies and Other Individuals Who Are Not
Complying with the Law. So You Can See There\'s a Broad Range of
Enforcement Mechanisms Available. And Enforcement Is a Primary Tool of
Choice for Getting People to Comply with the Rules, Including Federal
Agencies. Another Thing That I\'d like to Mention Relates to Just Some
Concepts about Liability Relating to Federal Agencies. In Many ‑‑ in
Years past There\'s Been a Lot of Governmental Immunity for Federal
Government And State Government Agencies Against Being Liable for
Complying with the Laws. However, in the Environmental Arena,
Governmental Immunity Has For the Most Part Been Waived Congress. In
Fact under the Superfund Law Which We\'re Going to Cover Today, There\'s
a Very Broad Waiver of Sovereign Immunity, Which Permits Individuals and
States to Bring Actions Against Federal Agencies for Violating The
Rules. The Federal Agencies Are More And More Becoming Subject to the
Purview of State Laws by These Waivers. In Addition to Liability Being
Imposed Against the Agencies, Liability Can Be Imposed on Individuals
and I Will Never Forget an Occasion Back in 1983 When I Was Assigned to
Represent A Local Government Employee Who Was Sued Personally for
\$15,000 For Violation of the Federal Pesticide Act. It\'s Called Fpra.
He Was Served Personally for a \$15,000 Fine at His Home by a Federal
Marshal. One of the First Visits I Had When He Came into My Office, He
Sat down and Said, \"Martin, Why Didn\'t Somebody Tell Me That This
Could Happen to Me?\" Well Educated Person, Top Notch Person in His
Field and He Had No Idea That He Could Be Held Personally Liable.
That\'s Not to Scare Anybody, It\'s Just a Fact of Life That We Do Have
Personal Liability with Regard to Virtually All of These Laws. One Other
Thing I Want to Comment about Relates to Criminal Liability. That Is,
Even If We Don\'t Know The Particular Act That We\'re Doing Is an
Environmental Crime, We Can Still Be Charged with That Crime. We Don\'t
Have to Know That the Particular Act Constituted a Criminal Offense to
Be Charged With Criminal Liability. All of These Things Are Harsh, And I
Don\'t Mean to Scare Anybody or Get Anybody Worried About It, but I Do
Think That The Agencies Have a Responsibility in Their Carrying That out
to at Least Inform Their People That There Is Personal Liability and We
Need To Take this Very Seriously. There Are Several Factors That Are
Sometimes Used by Prosecutors to Decide Whether or Not They\'re Going to
Pursue Individuals. Let Me Just List Some of Those Factors for You. One
of Them Is Acting Outside The Scope of Your Duties. If You\'re Doing
Something That\'s Not Within the Scope of Your Duties, Ordering People
to Do Things That You\'re Not Supposed To Order Them to Do, That Is a
Basis for Assessing Liability on You as an Individual. If You Have
Authority to Direct Resources and to Make Timely Discovery of Problems,
Then That Is a Basis for Bringing Action Against You If You Don\'t Do
It. And Certainly as Managers, Most Of You Are in a Position to Direct
Resources, Your People, Your Money. You\'re in a Position to Make Timely
Discovery, and You Need To Do That. If You Have the Capacity to Prevent
Damage, That\'s Another Basis, and You Don\'t Do It, That\'s Another
Basis for Bringing Action Against You. If You Fail to Implement
Reasonable Management Programs Soap You Can Comply with the Laws,
That\'s Another Basis. A Couple of Others That I Want To Mention Real
Briefly Here. This Seems Rather Odd. But Intentionally Violating an
Environmental Law Is a Basis for Criminal Liability and Civil Liability.
It\'s Always Surprising to Me When I Go to the Field and I Hear a
Manager Say to Me, Well, I Can\'t Comply with That Because I Don\'t Have
the Money, or I Can\'t Comply Because I Don\'t Have the People. That Is
Not an Excuse for Violating the Environmental Laws. What You Need to Do
in Those Cases Is to Identify the Requirements and Build Those
Requirements into Your Resources And Request the Requirement, Request
the Resources So That You Can Carry out Your Duties. Lastly, I Should
Mention That Either Explicit or Implicit Knowledge of Your
Subordinates\' Activities Can Be Used Against You as Well. So If You
Should Know That Your Employees Are Engaging in Illegal Activities, You
Need to Be Aware of That and Address it Appropriately. So That\'s Kind
of a Rundown on Some of the Elements That Determine Personal Liability,
And, Frank, I Was Just Wondering If You Have Someways, an Example Or So
to Illustrate Some of That.

F. Mills: Yes, Martin. I Have Two Examples That Really Start with
Deceptive Simplicity. In the First Case, a USDA Agency Had Received a
State RCRA Inspection and During the Inspection a Number of Containers
Were Discovered That Were Improperly Labeled and Had Been Kept over the
Time Limit of The 90‑day Restriction of Their Generator Status, and in
this Case the State Aggressively Pursued a Case Against the Employees at
the Facility and Also Against the Agency Itself. And During this Case, a
Number Of Issues Were Brought up Such As the Aberdeen, Maryland, Case
Involving the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Cases That Were Cited
in Court, I Think Each of You out There Should Research These Cases and
Look at the Things That the Supreme Court Has Said That a Supervisor
Needs To Know about When They\'re Dealing with Environmental Issues.
Another Case Which Was Deceptively Simple Was a ‑‑ Again, it Was a State
Agency Conducting an Inspection on a District Office, and During the
Inspection, the Inspectors Had Walked out and Notice Add Tank Was
Upturned on the Ground. What They Saw in this Tank Was The Basic Residue
of Some Materials and All over the Ground There Was a Number of Spots
Which Showed That There Had Been a Leak or Spillage Around the Tank. The
State Had Asked for a Sample To Be Taken, and after That Sample Was
Taken, it Was Determined That it Was a Pentichlorpmenol Site, Which Most
of You Know as Dip Tanks And We Had Gone over the Process Of Dipping
Posts and There Was Spillage on the Ground and in That Case the State
Took an Addressive Action Against the Forest Service for That. So Most
of These Cases I Think We Can Look At, Really the Supervisors Aren\'t
Aware That They Have a Liability. They Aren\'t Aware of the Things That
They\'re Doing Are Actual Very in Violation of the Law, And That\'s
Something That Goes Back to Training. You Can\'t Just Turn Things over
To Employees and Let Them Go About Their Daily Job Without Understanding
Some of the Ramifications of That. Now, One of the Things I Would Like
to Mention Is That the U.S. EPA, They Have a Number of Training Courses
That Are Available on Cd Disks That Are Readily Available for Free, for
Anyone Who Is a Manager. If They Would like to Get These Courses, You
Can Contact the National Enforcement Training Institute and You Can
Contact Them Through the U.S. EPA Website. I Would Say Any Manager Who
Is Involved in the Field in an Area That Requires Them to Know a Lot Or
a Little about the Environmental Regulations Should Obtain Authoratative
Help, and Especially Get Online and Take These Classes If It\'s at All
Possible. So, Martin, I Think That Sums it Up. Training Is the Issue and
Not Knowing.

M. Thrasher: It\'s Amazing to Me in the Number of You Litigations Die My
Active Legal Career and I Was Always on the Defense End of Things, How
These Circumstances Were Very Simple And Innocent and Most of the People
Who Got Involved with Them Thought They Were Doing the Right Thing and
They Just Weren\'t Trained and Didn\'t Seek Access to Expert
Information.

N. Dean: I Wish I Could Say This Was a Thing of the past at BLM. We\'ve
Had Our Environmental Facilities Compliance Audit System in Place for
Almost 10 Years, but We\'re Still Finding RCRA Problems at Some of Our
Facilities, Leaking Barrels, That Sort of Thing and It\'s a Very Grave
Concern, Because, as You\'re Right, We Have a Responsibility for Making
Sure That Our Facilities under Compliance, and That Is Part of Our
Supervisors and Our Managers\' Jobs.

M. Thrasher: Let Me Just for A Moment Mention Organizational Liability
and Then I\'d Really Like to Invite the Audience to Either Call in or
Fax in Some Questions, Because Liability Is Something That Is Always of
Interest to People. But Let Me Just Mention Organizational Liability for
a Moment. Aside from Individuals Being Liable, the Government Agencies
Themselves Can Be Liable for Civil Damagess and Administrative Orders
for Violation of Environmental Laws By Their Employees, and the
Government Is Held What Is Called Vicariously Liable Through Their
Employees\' Actions. In Addition, the Agencies Can Be Liable for
Clean‑up Costs, for Natural Resources Damages That We\'re Going to Talk
about Later Under this Superfund Law. So Not Only Are Individuals
Liable, but the Agencies Can Be Held Liable as Well. I Think with That
What I Would Like to Do Is See If We\'ve Got Any Questions from the
Audience Regarding Liability I Know It\'s An Important Issue to People.
Frank, While We\'re Waiting to See If We Get Any Calls, One of The
Questions That I Get Often When I Teach Federal Employees Is Whether or
Not They Should Take out Personal Liability Insurance.

F. Mills: Well, Martin, I Think That One of the Things That Any
Supervisor of Employees Should Know Is That There Is a Personal
Liability Insurance Available for Them for Acts While They\'re Doing
Work for the Government. They Should Contact Their Personnel Office and
Ask Them If They Have Access to this Policy Information, and There Are
Some Provisions for the Government to Pay a Portion of the Premium for
That Policy. We Are Involved in Such a Litigious Society Today That
There Are So Many Things Going On Legally That a Person Who Is In a
Position of Responsibility Should Actively Seek out Some Type of an
Insurance to Protect Themselves, Especially If the Issue Comes Up, like
You Said, \"Are You Working Outside of Scope of Your Employment?\" Many
Times Our People Are Trying To Do Such a Good Job That They Do Step
Outside the Scope of Their Employment in Trying to Help the Public and
Manage the Lands That We\'re Responsible For. In a ‑‑ and a Simple Act
Can Often Cause People to Commit a Violation That They Did Not Know Was
a Violation.

M. Thrasher: All Right. Thanks. I Encourage Anybody That Has Questions
about Liability to Use Your Push‑to‑talk, and We Would Be Glad to Take
Your Questions. And, of Course, If You Think of Something Later on That
Relates To Liability, Make Sure to Go Ahead and Do That as Well. We
Would Be Glad to Digress for A Moment and Go Back and Address Those.
Nancy, Did You Have Any Comments About this Liability Issue?

N. Dean: We Don\'t Have a Particular Position about That In Our Haz‑mat
Program. We Do Have a Very Good Haz‑mat Program with a System of Haz‑mat
Coordinators at Most of Our Field Offices Who Are Responsible for
Compliance, and Generally, If You Follow What Your Haz‑mat Coordinator
Wants You to Do You\'re Going to Be in Compliance, but for Managers Who
Think That They Might Be at Risk, this Might Be a Good Insurance for
Them to Take into Consideration.

M. Thrasher: All Right. Good. Well, I Don\'t Want to Dwell on This Any
Further, but I Did Want To Emphasize the Personal Liability Aspect of
this Particular Business. My Career, Fortunately or Unfortunately, Was
Borne out of Representing People Accused of Environmental Crimes and
Sued Civilly and Administrative Actions. I Know It\'s a Reality, and
It\'s Something That You Certainly Want to Avoid, and the Answers Of How
to Avoid this Is Have Your Management Systems in Place And to Have Good
Training and to Access the People to Make Sure That You\'re Doing the
Things That Are Required by the Law. A Lot of These Things Don\'t Come
Naturally. I\'ve Always Kind of Kidded My Parents Were Really Good about
Teaching Me Not to Litter and to Camp Properly 100 Feet from Streams and
All That, but They Never Taught Me That There Were Five Different Levels
of Training under Has Wpr and There Were Three Different Types of
Hazardous Waste Generators and That There Were Different Rules For Each
Different Level of Generator. So They\'re Not Things That Come Naturally
to Us or Things That We Have to Have Training About. Now, We Got a Fax
Here and I\'m Going to Throw this to Nancy and Frank, and the Question
Is: What Is My Personal Liability as a Line Officer?

N. Dean: Do You Want to Take This First, Frank and Then I\'ll Just Add
Some Comments?

F. Mills: I Think I Will. Many Times out in the Field When I\'m
Conducting the Environmental Audits, this Question Comes up Quite Often.
But I Would like to Say That First Off, Any Line Officer Should Read the
Manuals of Your Department. I\'ve Found That Fully 85% of the Findings
That the Audit Teams Are Locating in the Field, There Are Direct
Citations in the Agency\'s Manual Which Says That The Person Has That
Responsibility. Line Officers Are Often Asking Us, \"How Do I Know about
This? How Do I Know What to Do?\" And Our Direct Answer Back Is, \"Read
the Manual. It\'s in the Manual. It Spells How Who Has the
Responsibility to Sign Off, Who Has the Responsibility to Do These
Things.\" I Think That\'s the First Place An Officer Should Look To,
Nancy.

N. Dean: I Have Not Really Addressed this Issue with a Large Number of
Our Managers or Line Officers, but We Do ‑‑ Have Had Some Cases Where
There Has Been a Legal ‑‑ Illegal Disposal By Employees and in this
Case, As a Line Officer, You Do Have Some Personal Liability There,
Maybe Even Some Criminal Liability. So this Is Something to Take Into
Account When You Are Supervising Your Employees. I Believe We Have
Another Question.

M. Thrasher: Yeah, We Do. We Got a Fax in That Asks: Where Can I Get
Some Help to Do an Analysis of My Facility? I Know That Both Your
Agencies Have Audit Programs.

F. Mills: Nancy, Why Don\'t You Address Yours. Yours Is Older than
Hours.

N. Dean: We\'ve Had a Very Well Established Facility Audit Program
Called the Cash Audit System That\'s Been Around for I Think about 10
Years, and the Person Who Contact in Regard to Getting Your Facility in
Compliance Is Ken Moore in Our National Sighance and Technology Center
out of Denver. Ken Has Done Audits Practically At All of Our Facilities.
We\'ve Been Through Our First Round Now. We Are Looking Better and
Better These Years in Our Compliance With Environmental Regulations, But
We Have Added the Issue Now Of Safety into Those Audits, and We\'re
Finding a Number of Osha Violations.

F. Mills: and I Would Also Like to Add to That, the Forest Service Has
Begun its Audit Program about a Year‑and‑a‑half Ago, and It\'s Gone
Through It\'s Very First Round of Audits on Its Facilities, but It\'s
Really ‑‑ If a Manager Believes That They Have a Problem, They Should
Contact Their Audit Program Coordinator with Their Agencies to See If
That Program Can Come out and Conduct an Active Audit of Their Facility.
Now, What Does this Mean? We\'re Going to Talk More in the Last Session
about Auditing, but Generally, the Audit Team Brings Out Professionals
Who Are Trained in Environmental Issues, And They Can Sit with Your
Leadership Team and Actually Go Over the Records, the Training, The
Facilities That You Have Available, and They Can Tell You Where Your
Problems Are. This Is Not an Adversarial Event And I Think the More the
Line Officers Realize That the Audit Teams Are Really There to Help You
Develop Your Compliance Action Plan and How to Deal with These Issues,
this Is Where Your Strengths Will Come from Using An Audit Team out in
the Field, Martin. A Very Good Program Which I Think We\'re Going to
Cover in That Last Session Very Well.

M. Thrasher: Great. We Have Another Question Here That Says ‑‑ That
Asks: I Have County Disposal Sites on Federal Land. How Should Ideal
with the Disposal Sites?

N. Dean: I Wonder If He Means Landfills There or Transfer Stations?

M. Thrasher: Well, it Looks Like Probably a Landfill Itself. Since He
Says County Disposal Site.

N. Dean: Ok, for Landfills. Do You Want to Take this One First, Frank?

F. Mills: Yes, I Think Each Agency Should Develop a Strong Policy about
the Issue of Landfills. And Each Line Officer Should Encourage Their
Washington Office Staffs to Develop These Policies. This Issue of Other
People Using Federal Lands to Deposit Materials Can Bring a Large Amount
of Liability, Especially To That Local Unit Line Officer. If You Have
These a Your Facility, the First Thing You Should Do Is Get
Authoratative Help from Either Your District Or Your Regional Office
Environmental Shops to Conduct An Environmental Assessment of That Area
and Determine Whether Or Not You Have an Active CERCLA Event in Place.
And Use Our Authorities under CERCLA to Have These Places Removed from
Our Property. That Means Getting the Proper PRPs Involved, Following the
Processes That We\'re Going to Talk about Later in the Day About How to
Use Our Agency CERCLA Authorities. But It\'s Imperative and I Know In My
Agency, the Forest Service, We\'ve Actually Made ‑‑ Have a Memorandum
from the Department of Agriculture That States That We Will Not Allow
Any More of These Facilities to Be Operated on Our Lands. I Think Any
Agency Should Look Hard at Taking That as a Rule.

N. Dean: for BLM, of Course, We\'ve Had These Unfortunate Leases in the
past under Rp and P for Landfills and We Are Left With a Lot of These
Legacy Landfills. We Now Have a Policy and Regulation under Our Lands
Regulations That Says That We Will No Long Deer Leases for These. These
Should Be Patented, Any Lands for Landfill, Should Be Patented to the
County and We Are Also in the Process of Trying to Patent All Existing
Landfills to the Operators and To the Counties, and That Has Been a
Fairly Successful Program At this Point. We Have Been Turning over These
Landfills Pretty Regularly.

M. Thrasher: Thank You. We Have One Other Fax Here, and The Question Is:
Where Do I Get Money to Clean up Problems at My Facilities? Frank,
You\'ve Made an Offer to Provide All of That, Haven\'t You?

F. Mills: I Wish We Could. Our Agency Is Very Fortunate in That We Do
Have an Office at the Department of Agriculture Known As the Hazardous
Materials Management Group, and this Group Has Been Very Active Working
With Congress and the Department In Obtaining Funds for Our Use Out in
the Field. I Think, as an Agency Manager, You Really Need to Look at
What Are Your Constraints in Your Own Local Budget, First and Then Once
You Step Outside of Your Own Constraint, Then to Your Higher Level
Region or District Offices to ‑‑ or State Office to Find out If They
Have Some Funds Available. But I Know in Our Particular Case the Problem
with the Funding Is It\'s Not Enough. We Need Probably 40 to \$50
Million a Year, and We\'re Not Going to Get That, and Even at The Best
Efforts of the Department, They\'re Only Able to Get Enough That We Have
to Look At Each Project on a Project‑by‑project Basis and We Sit down
Every Year with a Group Of Environmental Professionals From Each of the
Regions, and Sometimes from the Forest, to Determine Which of the
Projects We Can Fund and Need to Fund Based on Risk Factors. The Funding
Issue Is Something That Really Is a Departmental Issue, Because It\'s
Such a Problem with All Land Management Agencies Throughout the United
States.

N. Dean: There Are ‑‑ for BLM There Are Two Sources of Funding For
Bringing Your Facility into Compliance. There Are Large Issues ‑‑ If
There Are Large Issues Such as Replacing a Wash Rack or a Tank Or
Something of this Nature, You Can Put That into Our Five‑year Deferred
Maintenance Plan and Get That into the Engineering Budget and Take Care
of That. There Is Also the Resource Through Our Hazardous Materials
Program for Small Maintenance Issues. So You Do Have Funding and Sources
for Funding for Both of These.

M. Thrasher: All Right. Thank You Both. There\'s No Perfect Answer to
All Of this Stuff, and It\'s a Perennial Problem. I Just Assure You
Having Been Involved with Litigation, You Cannot Hide Behind the Funding
If That You Study the Aberdeen Proving Grounds Case or Lots of Other
Cases Where People Have Not Have Had the Funding and They Haven\'t Asked
for the Funding, They\'re Going to Be in Trouble. So There\'s Not a
Perfect Answer, But Yo Certainly Need to Ask for It. I Think What We
Need to Do Is Move on to the next Part of the Program, Kind of Leave
Liability Behind, Personal Liability and Corporate Liability. The next
Segment of the Program Relates to the Comprehensive Environmental
Response ‑‑

T. Garrett: Martin, I Think I Heard Someone Trying to Check in On the
Push‑to‑talk System. Who Is Trying to Call? Do We Have Someone from Fish

&

wildlife Service Checking In?

Caller: Is That Us?

T. Garrett: Try That One More ‑‑ Try That One More Time. Push the Button
and Tell Us Who You Are and Where You\'re Calling From. Ok. Anyone from
BLM Trying to Get to Us on the Push‑to‑talk System?

Caller: Yes.

T. Garrett: and You Are?

Caller: My Name Is Christopher from the Lakeview BLM District in Oregon.

T. Garrett: All Right. Thanks for Checking in with Us. What\'s Your
Question for the Panel?

Caller: Yes, I Have a Situation Here Where There\'s a Toxic Plume Site
Originating From Oregon State Land That Is ‑‑ the Plume Is Moving onto
BLM and We\'re Trying to Figure Out How to Manage this Situation.

T. Garrett:. Any Thoughts on That?

N. Dean: That Is an Interesting Problem. Usually ‑‑ Unfortunately We
Have The Plume from Plume That Is Moving onto Other People\'s Lands. So
this Is Actually a Better Situation for Us, and We Actually Have Some
Authorities That We Can Implement There That We\'ll Be Talking about a
Little Later under the CERCLA Section. What I Advise You Is to Work
Closely with Your State Program Lead in Haz‑mat up There in Oregon, Mr.
Bill Murphy and He Can Assist You with Working out On ‑‑ on this
Particular Plume And Getting the Land Owner to Be Cooperative in
Cleaning That Up. Does That Answer Your Question?

Caller: Yes, Thank You.

N. Dean: You\'re Welcome.

M. Thrasher: Thanks for the Call. I Think What I Would like to Do Now Is
Turn to the next Segment Of the Program, and That Deals With the
Substantive Parts of The Comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act. This Was Passed in 1980 by Congress.
This Act Is Also Known as the Superfund Law or Simply as Superfund,
Although Generally The Word Superfund Refers to This Pot of Money in
Washington D.c. That We Try to Use for Clean‑ups. In Any Event,
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act Is
Commonly Known as CERCLA, and So Even Though We\'re Not Really Big on
Using Acronyms, You Can See Why We like to Use CERCLA Rather than
Calling it by its Proper Name. Now, Before We Get Started on Discussing
CERCLA in Detail, We\'ve Prepared Kind of a Pre‑exercise for You Which
Should Be a Part of Your Packet Of Material. And in it There Are Six
Questions. Now, Unfortunately One of My Cameras Is Not Working Properly
Here, So I Can\'t Put the Actual Question up on the Screen for You, but
If You Could Pull out The CERCLA Exercise from Your Packet, If You\'ve
Downloaded That, There Are Six of Those, And Work Through Those. If You
Do Not Have That in Front Of You, What I\'ll Do Right Now Is to Read the
Questions, and Then You Can Jot down the Answers to Them. Ok. The First
Question, Are You Ready? The Comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act, CERCLA, Requires Reporting to the Blank
Blank Center for Releases of Blank Quantities of Hazardous Blank. So, in
Other Words, We\'re Looking for the Center That You Make the Response
Notice To. We\'re Looking for the Name of The Quantities That You Send
the Notice in For. And What Kind of Commodity. In Other Words, Hazardous
What? That\'s the First Question. All Right. The Second Question Is a
True/false. If You Legally Dispose of Hazardous Wastes, You May Still
Have Liability for Clean‑up of The Disposal under CERCLA. If You Legally
Dispose of Hazardous Wastes, Can You Still Have Liability under CERCLA
for A Clean‑up? Third Question, It\'s a True/false, If You Remove a
Hazardous Substance from Federal Land That Was Illegal Disposed And
Dispose of it Legally, You Will Be Exempt from Any Other Possible CERCLA
Liability. All Right, the Fourth One Is a Multiple Answer Question and
it Says: Mark All of the Management Techniques That May Reasonably
Reduce Exposure to CERCLA Liability. So I\'m Going to Read These
Management Techniques, and You Just Say Yes or No as to Whether Or Not
They Reduce Your CERCLA Liability. How about If You Minimize Hazardous
Waste Generation? Does That Reduce Your CERCLA Liability? Minimize
Hazardous Waste Generation. B. Do Not Remove Any Hazardous Substances
Illegally Disposed on Federal Land. In Other Words, Leave Them There.
Does That Reduce Your Liability? C. Limit the Number of Facilities Where
You Send Hazardous Substances for Disposal. D. Sell Federal Land That
Has Been Used for Illicit Disposal Of Hazardous Substances. If That
Occurred, There\'s Going To Be a Lot of Land Sales, Probably.

N. Dean: We\'ll Talk about That Later.

M. Thrasher: All Right. So, Should You Sell the Land to Avoid Liability?
E. Do Not Allow Operation of Any More Landfills on Federal Land. F. Use
Disposal Sites That Are Used by Large Industries. And, Finally, G. Do
Not Keep Records on Disposal Activities So No One Can Find You.
Hopefully Not Too Many People Go For That One.

F. Mills: I Hope So, Too.

M. Thrasher: Fifth Question: What Is Meant by Strict Liability? We\'re
Going to Talk about That Under CERCLA, That It\'s a Strict Liability
Statute. Final Question, Number 6, and This Is a Fill in the Blank, So
I\'ll Read it Slowly Here: Blank Blank Parties under CERCLA Include
Blank of Hazardous Substances, past and Present Blank of Land from the
Time a Hazardous Substance Release Occurs until the Release Stops, And
past and Present Blank of Facilities from the Time Hazardous Substance
Release Occurs until the Release Stops. All Righty. That\'s the
Pre‑exercise. I Apologize That We Couldn\'t Show That on Camera, but at
the End of this Module, We\'re Going To Be Hope ‑‑ Hopefully We\'ll Have
That Cam Recall Back Working and We\'ll Be Showing the Questions and
Then Going over The Answers. Now Let\'s Turn to CERCLA. At the End of
this Session, You Will Be Able to Identify Methods To Limit
Environmental Liabilities for Hazardous Substances. Because That\'s the
Idea of this Whole Program, Is Give You an Introintroduction to the What
The Law Requires and Then Help You Implement Management Techniques to
Reduce or Avoid Some of Those Liabilities. CERCLA, as I Mentioned
Earlier, Was Passed in 1980 by Congress, And it Had Several Impetuses to
It, but Two of the Primary Ones Were Catastrophic Events That We Now
Know as Valley of the Drums And Love Canal, and It\'s Interesting That
Nancy Has Some Personal Knowledge about Valley Of the Drums and Actually
Did Some Work There. Maybe You Could Share That with Us.

N. Dean: Yeah, Back with I Was with the EPA I Was Actually The Superfund
Rpm When We Did The Final Remediation on Value Of the Drums. Many of You
a Certain Age like May May Remember the First Broadcast on Valley of the
Drums Where Walter Cronkite Looked out Over Acres and Acres of Drums in
A Valley in Kentucky and Terms It the Valley of the Drums and That Site
Was Cleaned up in the Late \'80s. So it Does Show That Some of These
Large Sites Have Been Cleaned up over the Years.

M. Thrasher: That Was Really Interesting. To See the Picture of Valley
of The Drums and Love Canal Where The Drums Were Actually Floating Up in
Residential Neighborhoods. Very Interesting.

N. Dean: in Fact, Those Types Of Sites, as You Said, Were Really the
Spark That Implemented the Superfund Law And CERCLA.

M. Thrasher: Great. Let Me Just Describe for a Moment for You the
Purposes of CERCLA. They\'re Actually Very Simple. CERCLA Has Two Basic
Purposes. First of All, it Provides Funding and Authority for the
Government, the Federal Government, to Respond to Hazardous Substance
Releases. I Want to Men Which You to You Again That Hazardous Substances
Has a Very Specific Definition. I\'m Going to Go over That in a Minute.
The Second Purpose for CERCLA Was to Provide a Clean‑up Mechanism for
Old Waste Sites, And Federal Agencies Are Intimately Involved with That.
There Are Two Different Types of Clean‑up Mechanisms. One Is Called a
Removal Mechanism and Frank and Nancy Are Going to Describe the Federal
Authorities for the BLM And the Forest Service under the Removal
Mechanisms in a Few Minutes. Basically Removal Mechanisms Are Things
That Are Done Immediately At a Relatively Low Cost. I Say Relatively
Because I\'m Talking about under \$2 Million, To Take Some Immediate
Action to Protect Public Health and the Environment. The Other Type of
Action Is Called a Remediation Action and That\'s Generally Done under
the Auspices of the EPA, and It\'s The Type of Thing That Federal
Facilities Could Get Involved With. Now, Just for a Moment I Wanted To
Describe What Hazardous Substances Are Because That\'s What\'s Regulated
under CERCLA. CERCLA, or Congress When They Passed CERCLA, Defined
Hazardous Substances as Five Different Types of Commodities. One Are
Certain Water Pollutants Under the Clean Water Act. The Second Are Air
Pollutants Under the Clean Air Act. The Third Were Certain Toxics Under
the Toxic Substances Control Act. The Fourth Is Hazardous Wastes, Which
Are Regulated under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act. All of Those
Are Hazardous Substances. And Then Fifthly, Congress Provided EPA the
Authority to Designate Other Commodities That They Wanted to Designate
as Hazardous Substances. So That\'s the Universe of Materials That
We\'re Talking About When We\'re Talking about Hazardous Substances.
Now, I Want to Mention One Major Exclusion to this List Before We Turn
it to Frank and Get Some Examples, and That Is Petroleum. Congress
Specifically Excluded Petroleum from the List of Hazardous Substances.
So When We\'re Talking about CERCLA and What CERCLA Requires, We\'re Not
Talking about Petroleum. Petroleum, However, Is Regulated Extensively
under Other Statutes, Including D.o.t. Regulations, It\'s Regulated
Under the Clean Water Act and So Forth. So Just Because it Isn\'t
Regulated Here Doesn\'t Mean it Isn\'t Regulated Someplace Else. There
Are Just Different Rules That Are Associated with Petroleum That Don\'t
Relate to Other Hazardous Substances. So with That, Frank, I Wonder If
You Could Give Us Some Illustrations of Types of Hazardous Substances.

F. Mills: One of the Things That Many of You Are Probably Asking Today
Is ‑‑ CERCLA, How Could this Affect Me and What Could I Have on My
Facility That Might Mean I Have a CERCLA Release That Could Bring out
the State or EPA and Have Them Tell Me I\'ve Got to Clean Something Up?
Well, Let\'s Take a Look at a Couple of Things That We Have Here That
Can Give You Some Illustrations, and During this Time, Martin, If
You\'ll Highlight a Couple Things for Me On the Picture, We\'ll Talk
about These. The Picture You See Before You Right Now, it Looks Pretty
Innocent, but I Think If You Look at the Bottom, You Can See That the ‑‑
There Is an Area at The Bottom of the Building Where There\'s a Large
Stain and You Can Actually See Where the Stain. Is Coming out of the
Foundation Of the Building. At First Glance You May Sell Say, Well,
Martin Said Petroleum Products Are Not Part of the Issue of CERCLA, but
One Thing That We Have to Keep in Mind, What Was with the Petroleum When
It Left the Building? Now, Many of the Products We Use, Especially in
Our Pesticides and Especially in Land Management Chemicals Are Used ‑‑
We Use a Petroleum as The Carrier. For Example, We Might Use Malathion
Which Has Petroleum as The Medium to Move the Malthigh Yawn out into the
Grass or the Trees. What You See Here Is an Example Of a Carrier That
Left a Building, and Everyone Who Observe the Building Thought They Were
Seeing Petroleum Products When, in Fact, it Contained Pesticides and
this Is One of the Things That We Do Have a CERCLA Release. It\'s Often
Incumbent on Us to Look at the Containers and the Labels. In this
Picture You See a Label Of a Pesticide Malathion, but What I\'d like You
to Look at Is The Condition of the Container. You Notice That it Had
Been Laying on its Side and the Container Had Rusted, And, Therefore,
Allowed the Malathion To Escape and Enter the Environment. And this Is
Another Example of Where a Pesticide or Another Material That We Use
Every Day Has Used a Petroleum Carrier and That Petroleum Transports the
Chemical into the Environment. Now, I Think If You Take a Look At this
Picture, I\'m Sure Some Of You Have Seen Sites like This. What You Have
Here Is a Very Typical Oil Collection Point, But One of the Big Areas
That We Get Caught up in under CERCLA Is The Fact That Oftentimes
Employees Are Not Told Just Put Used Oil and We Have People in The Field
Who Come Back from a Slash Burn or People Who Are Working on a Pesticide
Project Or Even Someone Who Is Painting A Sign Realizes That There Is a
Container out Behind the Building Where We Can Pour Old Oil Into, and We
Tend to Class All These Things as Old Oil. If I Take That Can of Paint
Thinner and I Go Outside and I Pour into This, it Now Becomes a CERCLA
Substance. That\'s Something We Have to Keep In Mind, Because a Spill,
What You Might Believe Is Just a Spill of Oil, Could Very Easily Contain
Turpentines, Paint Thinners, Pesticides, Refrigerants from Vehicles. All
of These Things Could Actually Be Poured into That Container and Now We
Have a CERCLA Class Spill out on the Ground. I Think That Oftentimes Our
Employees Are Doing Their Job, They\'re Trying Hard to Do with Limited
Resources, Especially in The Area of Manpower and Sometimes We Allow
Things to Happen Where We\'re Mixing Things And Using Things to Help Our
Jobs Go along and We Forget What They Are, We Forget How We Labeled
Them, or We Just ‑‑ Actually Just Don\'t Manage the Area Very Well. In
this Photograph, You Can See An Area in a Paint Shop That Was Improperly
Managed. These Paints Contain Thinners, They Contain Chemicals Which Are
Listed as CERCLA Hazardous Substances and this Kind of a Release, If it
Were to Leave the Building, Would Cause Us to Be Subject to a CERCLA
Remediation, And That Would Mean That the State, Martin, or EPA, Could
Come in and Tell Us, You Have to Clean this Up. And I Think It\'s
Important That We Look Outside the Box a Little Bit on These CERCLA
Issues.

M. Thrasher: I Think That\'s One of the Things That\'s Very Difficult
for People Who Work in The. , People Who Paint, Repair Things and
They\'re Dealing These Commodities Day in and Day out And They Don\'t
Recognize That They\'re Hazardous Substances and They\'re Regulated by
the Law.

F. Mills: Exactly. And I ‑‑ the One Thing I Really Would like to
Emphasize to the Students Today Is That You Really Have to Look at this
Issue of Petroleum, Because Oftentimes What We Believe Is a Petroleum
Carries Another Chemical along with It, and That Does Make CERCLA an
Issue That We Have to Deal With, and Probably Our Biggest Downfall Would
Be in Not Knowing What Chemicals We\'re Pouring into Containers.

M. Thrasher: Right and I Want To Conclude this Portion with That
Petroleum Is Excluded, I Needed to Tell You about That, But Frank Is
Right, Too Often, In Fact, What I\'ve Found in the Field the Majority of
the Time, It\'s Not Just Petroleum You\'re Dealing With. Somebody Has
Added Something Else to It. The Exclusion No Longer Applies At That
Point. So That\'s Good. Well, What I\'d Liked to Right Now Is to Turn
the Program Back To Tony. He Promised Us a \"Hazmat Challenge\" ‑‑

T. Garrett: I Did, Indeed. Let\'s Know That the Green Light Icon Is On,
However, So Let\'s Just Pause for a Moment and See If There Are Any
Questions from The Field, Either on the Push‑to‑talk, on the Telephone
Or on the Fax Concerning the Material That We Have Covered Here in the
First Few Minutes. If You Have a Question Just Push The Bullet Unon the
Base of Your Microphone, Tell Us Who You Are And Where You\'re Calling
From. Thank You, Frank, Nancy and Martin for Your Presentation During
the First Segment of the Program. Ok, If There Are No Questions, It\'s
Time Now to Test Your Knowledge and Understanding of The Material That
We\'ve Covered This Morning with a the Game Show \"Hazmat Challenge.\"
Here\'s How the Contest Works. Using the Board You See on Your Screen,
You Will See on Your Screen Coming up Now, and It\'s Based on the
Popular Tic‑tac‑toe Game, Our Competing Teams Will Take Turns Selecting
a Square And Answering the Question Behind That Square. If They Answer
Correctly, They Claim the Square. The Team That Claims Three Squares
Horizontally or Vertically or Diagonally Will Be The Winner and We\'ll
Ask Martin To Be the Final Judge in Case There Is Any Confusion about
the Accuracy of Answers. Here\'s What You\'ll Be Competing For in this
Round of \"Hazmat Challenge,\" and I\'m ‑‑ Martin, I Wonder If You Could
Hold up That Fine Gift That We\'re Offering And See If We Can Get a
Camera On it since We Don\'t Have the Overhead Camera Working. This Is a
Beautiful Commemorative Pen If the Camera Can Capture the Pen. It\'s a
Lovely Commemorative Pen For the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Very Generously Provided to Us By the BLM in Salt Lake, and That Pen
Will Go to the ‑‑ Pin Will Go to the Person Who Provides the Winning
Answer in \"Hazmat Challenge.\" We\'ll Select a Competing Team Now by
Asking Our Forest Service And BLM Instructors to Draw Tickets from this
Hat That Are Marked with the Names of States In ‑‑ Frank, If You Would
Draw a Ticket and Announce Which State Appears on That Ticket.

F. Mills: Wyoming.

T. Garrett: Nancy, If You Would Draw a Ticket and See Who The Other Team
Will Be.

N. Dean: Nevada.

T. Garrett: Nevada. That Should Be a Very Good Matchup. I Know from the
Registration Before the Broadcast That We Had An Excellent Participation
from The Offices in Wyoming, So We\'ll Be Counting on Them to
Push‑to‑talk along with the Folks in Nevada. So We Know That Wyoming,
since You Were Selected First, You\'ve Earned the Right to Go First, So
Let\'s Have Someone Check in on Your Push‑to‑talk. Anyone from Any
Office in Wyoming? All Right. We\'re Waiting for Contact from Any Office
in Wyoming. Just Push the Button and Check In with Us. All Right, Let\'s
Go to Nevada While We Wait for Wyoming to Check In. Nevada, We\'re
Inviting Any Office in Nevada to Check in for This First Round of
\"Hazmat Challenge.\" It May Be Very Aptly Named \"Hazmat Challenge.\"
The Challenge May Be in Identifying the Participants. Ok. If We Don\'t
‑‑

Caller: Tony, Mark from Yellowstone.

T. Garrett: Thanks, Mark. Nevada, We\'ll Ask You to Be Ready to Contact
Us When Your Turn Arrives but Right Now It\'s Mark from Yellowstone.
Mark, Pick a Square.

Caller: Number 1.

T. Garrett: and the Question Is, True or False, Private Citizens Can Sue
Federal Agencies under CERCLA. Mark, You Have 15 Seconds.

Caller: Yes, They Can Be Sued.

T. Garrett: Mark Says True. The Answer Is Indeed Correct. All Right,
Collects Square Number 1. Now It\'s Nevada\'s Turn. We Will Wait for
Somebody to Check in from Nevada. Any Office from Nevada, Push to Talk.
Okay, Nevada, We\'ll Give You One More Chance to Check in on the
Push‑to‑talk. It\'s Your Turn. All Right, We\'ll Take Nevada off The
Screen Now. Wyoming, You\'re Going to Be Competing Against Any Office
and Any Agency in the Pacific Time Zone. Any of Our Offices All up and
Down the Western Coast, You\'re Free to Check in with Us Now as The New
Competitor in \"Hazmat Challenge\" Against Mark and All The Other Folks
in Wyoming. Any Agency in the Pacific Time Zone?

Caller: this Is Chris in Lakeview, Oregon.

T. Garrett: Chris in Lakeview Oregon, Thanks for Checking in With Us.
It\'s Your Turn to Select a Square.

Caller: Number 2.

T. Garrett: Ok. Chris ‑‑ the Question Chris, This Law Provides Cradle to
Grave Regulation of Hazardous Wastes. Multiple Choice. A. CERCLA B.RCRA
C. Epp Crop.

Caller: A. CERCLA.

T. Garrett: the Real Answer Is B.RCRA, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act. Chris, Nice Effort There, but That Answer Was Incorrect.
All Right, We\'ll Go Back to Wyoming. Any Office in Wyoming? Mark,
You\'re Certainly Free to Check Back in with Us from Yellowstone.

Caller: I\'m Here. Block Number 9

T. Garrett: Mark\'s Going Diagonally to Square Number 9. Let\'s See What
the Question Is. CERCLA Stands for the Comprehensive Environmental ‑‑
Complete the Answer. Is it Response, Compensation and Liability Act? The
Responsibility for Chemical Label Whering Act. Or the Rehabilitation,
Compensation and Legislative Act? Mark, You Have 14 Seconds.

Caller: A. as in Apple.

T. Garrett: CERCLA Stands for Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act. You Are Correct, Mark. Another Square
for Mark in Yellowstone Office in Wyoming. Now We\'ll Go Back to the
Entire West Coast Competing Against Mark and Ask Any Office in the
Pacific Time Zone, BLM, Fish & Wildlife, Forest Service, Anyone, Check
in with Us and See If You Can Stop That Streak That Mark\'s on by
Selecting a Square. California, Oregon, Washington, Anyone in the
Pacific Time Zone. Or Alaska. Anyone in the Alaska Time Zone. I Know We
Have a Couple Offices Watching from Alaska. Alaska or the Pacific. Mark,
Do You Remember the Song \"You and Me Against the World\"? Anyone in the
Eastern or the Atlantic Time Zones or Anyone Using Greenwich Meantime.
Anyone Else in Wyoming Want to Play Against Mark?

Caller: We Thought of That, To Have a Competition Right Here And
They\'ll Give You the Wrong Answers and I\'ll Come up the Winner.

T. Garrett: We\'re Asking Any Other Office That Is Watching Today\'s
Program to Check in with Us Now on the Push‑to‑talk. I\'m Not Going to
Let Mark Win by Default.

M. Thrasher: Why Don\'t You Let Frank Play Against Them. I Think Mark
Can Beat Frank.

T. Garrett: Let\'s Invite Chris from Lakeview Oregon to Come Back. I See
No Reason Not to Give Chris Another Shot at It. Are You Still with Us?

Caller: Yes.

T. Garrett: Why Don\'t You Go Ahead and Select a Square, Chris, and
Let\'s See How You Do This Time.

Caller: Number 5.

T. Garrett: Good Choice. The Question Is True or False. Federal Agencies
and Employees Must Comply with State Laws Even If Those Laws Are
Stricter than Federal Laws. You Have 15 Seconds.

Caller: True.

T. Garrett: and the Answer Is Correct. Nicely Done, Chris, You Blocked
That near Win by Mark in Yellowstone in Wyoming. Mark F You\'re Still
with Us, Go Ahead and Select Another Square.

Caller: Block Number 3.

T. Garrett: Mark Goes to Number 3. Sara Stands for State Authorized
Recreation Activities B. Superfund and Rehabilitation Act, C. Superfund
Amend and Reauthorization Act. You Have 15 Seconds.

Caller: C.

T. Garrett: That Is Correct. Another Square Claimed by Mark In Wyoming.
Ok, Chris, Let\'s Go Back to You If You\'re Still with Us and Have You
Select a Square.

Caller: Number 2.

T. Garrett: Chemical Substances Are Hazardous Wastes If They Are A.
Stored near Work Areas B. Stored in Metal Containers C. Ignitable or
Corrosive.

Caller: C.

T. Garrett: Chris Says C. Ignitable or Closive and That Is Correct.
Another Block, Nicely Done, Chris. Back to You, Mark, in the Yellowstone
Office in Wyoming.

Caller: Number 6. Question Is What Plan Sets Procedures and Standards
for Clean‑up at Hazardous Waste Sites: NEPA? Nerda? Or the Ncp? You Have
15 Seconds. NEPA, Nerda, Ncp.

Caller: A.

T. Garrett: the Answer He Gives Us Is A. I Am Sorry, Mark, the Answer Is
Ncp, the National Contingency Plan. Believe You Covered That, Martin.
Hope So. If Not, We\'ll Cover it Later. We\'re Going Back to Chris Now
in Oregon. Chris, Please Select a Square.

Caller: 8.

T. Garrett: What Measurement Is Determined to Determine Reportable
Quantities of Hazardous Substances, Pounds, Cubic Yards or Metric Tons?

Caller: A.

T. Garrett: Chris Says the Answer Is Pounds. The Correct Answer Is
Pounds. Once Again the Correct Answer. Thank You, Chris. That Looks like
a Win. What a Comeback for Chris in Oregon, Representing the Pacific
Time Zone Alaska, Atlantic Greenwich Meantime and All Others Who Would
like to Be on Chris\' Team. We\'re Going to Send You That Beautiful
Commemorative Pin for The 2002 Winter Olympics as a Token of Your Great
Performance Here on Our First Edition of \"Hazmat Challenge.\" All
Right, at this Point We\'re Going to Take a Well‑deserved 15‑minute
Break. When We Get Back, We\'ll Pick Things One a Look at CERCLA Release
Reporting and a Whole Lot More. We\'ll See You in a Few Minutes.
(Program Break)

T. Garrett: Hello Again. Welcome Back to Our Module 1 for The Course
Manager\'s Tool Kit For Environmental Compliance and Pollution
Prevention Presentation of the USDA Forest Service and the Bureau of
Land Management. Again, I\'m Joined by Martin Thrasher, BLM\'s Nancy
Dean and Frank Mills of the Forest Service. Before We Pick Things up
Again With Our CERCLA Discussion, I Just Want to Once Again Thank Chris
from Lakeview, Oregon and Mark from Yellowstone, Wyoming For Their
Participation in the Game, Such as it Was \"Hazmat Challenge,\" and the
Judges Have Decided to Send Both Contestants ‑‑ One of Those Beautiful
Commemorative Pins for The 2002 Winter Olympics Being Held in Salt Lake
City. So, Chris and Mark, Thank You Once Again. Now, We Do Want to
Mention Some Of Our Upcoming Satellite Telecasts Here on the BLM
Satellite Network and Keep in Mind the Modules 2 Through 6 of This
Course Will Be Presented at A Different Start Time. All Those Marge
Annuals Will ‑‑ Modules Begin at 9:00 Mountain Standard Time. Module 2
Will Be Presented on February 14th. In Module 3, Thursday February 21st,
We Will Talk about Epcra And Special Pollution Management. Next Month We
Will Pick Things Up Again with Module 4 on March 7th Covering the Issues
of Osha And Fpra. On the 14th We Will Look at Module 5 Covering the
Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Spill
Prevention Control Planning Measures. Our Final Telecast Will Air on
March 21st When We Will Explore Environmental Management Systems. And
We\'ll Take a Look at Your Agency Audit Programs for Safety, Health and
Environmental Compliance. On Thursday February 28th We Will Be
Broadcasting a One‑day BLM Course, Safety 4 Supervisors. So Please Mark
Those Dates on Your Calendar and We Look Forward to You Returning Once
Again to Our Broadcast Instruction. Now with Those Commercials out Of
the Way, Let\'s Get Back to Martin and a Discussion of CERCLA Release
Reporting.

M. Thrasher: Thanks, Tony. Welcome Back. During the Break, We Got this
Other Camera Running, and So What I Wanted to Do Was to Digress Just for
a Moment and Go Back and Illustrate for You this Relationship Between
Some of These Terms That We Use. First of All, We\'ve Got this Concept
of Hazardous Materials, Which Is a Generic Term That Relates to
Regulated Substances. So Anything That\'s Regulated We Call a Hazardous
Material. Now, Within the Broad Range of Hazardous Materials We Have
Commodities That We Call Hazardous Substances. And That\'s When We\'re
Talking About Today, Our Hazardous Substances under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act. Now, Within
Hazardous Substances We Have Another Set of Commodities Called Hazardous
Wastes. And Hazardous Wastes Are Regulated under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act, Which We\'re Going to Be Covering Next
Week in Module 2, but That\'s a Subset of Hazardous Substances. Now to
Make Things Even More Confusing, We Have Another Subset of Materials
Called Extremely Hazardous Substances And Those Are Regulated under a
Statute Called the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act,
or Epcra. And You\'ll Notice That I Drew The Line a Little Bit ‑‑ the
Circle a Little Bit Outside of Hazardous Substances Because There Are
Some Extremely Hazardous Substances Which Are Not Hazardous Substances.
That\'s Kind of ‑‑ Kind of Points Out Some of the Complexity to All this
Environmental Arena. The Last Set of Commodities That I Wanted to
Mention to You Are Non‑hazardous Substances, in Other Words, Those That
Are Not Regulated under CERCLA but They\'re Regulated under Other
Statutes and the Primary One That We\'re Concerned about Is Petroleum,
and Petroleum Is Regulated under the Clean Water Act and a Couple of
Other Acts. But the Basics Here, as I Explained Earlier S to Demonstrate
the Complexity and Then the Importance of Correctly Identifying the
Commodity That We\'re Talking About, Because Each Commodity Has a
Different Set of Rules That Are Associated With it That We Have to
Follow. . With That, One Other Thing I Wanted to Just Briefly Cover Was
The Pre‑exercise That We Had Worked Through, and I Had Had to Read You
Those Questions for Those of You That Didn\'t Have The Download, but I
Wanted to Just Briefly Go over These Questions So That You Had Them So
That We Can Go over Them Again at the End of this Module. So Very
Quickly, Question Number 1, Is Shown on the Screen There. CERCLA
Requires Reporting to the Blank Blank Center for Releases Of Blank
Quantities of Hazardous Blank. So If You Can Just Fill in the Blanks
There and We Will Show These Questions at the End of The Module. So
That\'s Question 1. The Second Question Was True or False. If You
Legally Dispose of Hazardous Wastes, You May Still Have Liability for
Clean‑up of The Disposal under CERCLA. True or False? The Third Question
Was True or False. If You Remove a Hazardous Substance from Federal Land
That Was Illegal Disposed and Dispose Of it Legally, You Will Be Exempt
from Any Other Possible CERCLA Liability. The Fourth Question Was a
Multiple Question. What We\'ve Asked You to Do Is to Mark All of the
Following Management Techniques That May Reasonably Reduce Exposure to
CERCLA Liability, and Here Are The Techniques That We Asked You To Think
About. First of All, A., to Minimize Hazardous Waste Generation That
Will B. to Not Remove Any Hazardous Substances Illegally Disposed on
Federal Land. C. Was to Limit the Number of Facilities Where You Send
Hazardous Substances for Disposal. D. Was to Sell the Federal Land
That\'s Been Used for Illicit Disposal of Hazardous Substances. E. Do
Not Allow Operation of Any More Landfills on Federal Land. F. Use
Disposal Sites That Are Used by Large Industries. And, Finally, G. Do
Not Keep Records on Disposal Activities So No One Can Find You. All
Right. The Fifth Question Was, a Fill In the Blank, What Is Meant by
\"Strict Liability\"? And We Covered That During the First Section. What
Is Meant by \"Strict Liability\"? And Finally, the Sixth Question, Fill
in the Blank. Blank Blank Parties under CERCLA Include: Blank of
Hazardous Substances; past and Present Blank of Land from the Time a
Hazardous Substance Release Occurs until the Release Stops; And, past
and Present Blank of Facilities. \>From the Time a Hazardous Substance
Release Occurs until The Release Stops. So Hopefully with That You\'ve
Had an Opportunity to Jot down The Questions and Your Answers And We
Will Be Covering Those at The End of the Module. What We Would like to
Do Now Is Just Take a Brief Preview of the First Section of this Program
And Then Quickly Go into the Remainder of CERCLA. We\'ve Covered
Training about Your Liability, Personal and Corporate Liability, for
Violating the Laws, and We\'ve Given You a Brief Introduction As to What
CERCLA Is All About. Now What I\'d like to Do Is Turn To a Discussion
about CERCLA Release Reporting. CERCLA Is One of Many Environmental
Statutes That Has A Release Reporting Requirement That must Be Managed.
After this Segment, You Will Be Able to Describe the Release Reporting
Requirements under CERCLA. They\'re Rather Straightforward. First of
All, You Have to Have The Release of a Hazardous Substance, and
Hazardous Substances, as We\'ve Discussed, Is Very Well Defined. A
Release Is Also Defined, and That Includes Any Spilling, Pumping,
Emitting, Dumping, Disposing ‑‑ Just about Any Manner in Which a
Hazardous Substance Enters the Environment Constitutes a Release. Now,
If That Release Is in a Reportable Quantity, Then it Has To Be Notified
to the Federal Agency. Reportable Quantities under CERCLA Are Always
Designated in Pounds. Each Commodity Is Designated Either by One Pound,
10 Pounds, 100 Pounds, a Thousand Pounds or 500 Pounds and Those Are All
Listed by the EPA in Technical Publications. So If You Release That
Amount of A Certain Hazardous Substance Into the Environment, and
That\'s The next Element Here. It Has to Go into the Environment. If You
Have a Spill in the Workplace That\'s Totally Confined That Doesn\'t Go
into The Water, Doesn\'t Go into the Land, Doesn\'t Go into the Air,
Then it Doesn\'t Need to Be Reported. But If it Goes into the
Environment, it Does Need to Be Reported. Then the Last Element Here to
Consider Is That the Report Has To Go to the National Response Center,
Which Is a Communications Center in Washington D.c., and Typically When
You Call There They Will Ask You Details about the Release and Whether
or Not You Need Any Other Assistance. I Should Mention One Other Aspect
about Release Reporting Before I Ask the Other. Panelists to Comment
about Release Reporting. And That Is Release Reporting Under CERCLA Does
Not Take the Place of Any Other Release Reporting Requirements. There
Are Release Reporting Requirements under the Clean Air Act, under the
Resource Conservation Recovery Act, under The Clean Water Act, under
Numerous State. Environmental Statutes, and the Mere Fact That You
Complied with The Release Reporting Requirements under CERCLA Does Not
Satisfy the Release Reporting Requirements under These Other Statutes.
And as We Begin to Talk about Management Techniques and Management
Systems, That\'s Something You Need to Keep in Mind. You Need to Develop
a System to Respond to All of the Types of Release Reporting
Requirements. CERCLA Being Just One of Them. Now, What I\'d like to Do
Is Just To Ask Nancy and Frank What ‑‑ You Know, Kind of on the Ground
Experience You\'ve Had with Release Reporting under CERCLA.

N. Dean: Well, I\'ll Start out Here, and I Wanted to Mention Something
That Our Folks Always Tell Me That When They Call the National Response
Center and Report One of These Reportable Quantities Is the First Thing
The Person in the Response Center Says to Them after They Report this
Is, Why Are You Calling? Well, the Folks in the Field Have Often Taken
this as a Personal Challenge About, You Know, Why Are They Calling In?
But this Is Not What They\'re Asking. They Are Basically Asking If You
Need Assistance. That Is What They Are Seeking. Because If You Do Need
Assistance, They Can Call in the Coast Guard or EPA to Provide an Osc
and to Move into a Major Response. Most of Our Cases, BLM Is Reporting
Small Quantities of Releases or It\'s Something from A Site That We\'re
Going to Take Care of Ourselves. So in That Case You Just Simply Report
and Say That it Is Going To Be Manage by the Agency and That You Will
Not Be Needing Any Further Assistance.

F. Mills: Martin, If You Would Please Put this on the Overhead.

M. Thrasher: Sure.

F. Mills: the U.S. Forest Service Has a Specific Responsibility Written
down in One of Our Manuals, Which Is on The Screen. It\'s the Forest
Service Guide to CERCLA. But I Would like to Point out a Couple of
Things That Each and Every One of You from Every Agency Viewing this
Broadcast Should Be Aware Of, If an Employee Discovers a Spill, the
Agency Should Provide a Specific Plan for Guideline for That Employee to
Report the Spill. In Other Words, it Should Be Written in Your Local
Policy Who The Employee in the Field Should Call, Should it Be a Haz‑mat
Coordinator? Should it Be an Environmental Protection Specialist? Or
Their Supervisor? But Whoever the Plan Designates, You Should Have That
Written Down That So All Employees Know Who to Call. Now, Once the Call
by the Employee Is Made to the Appropriate Person at the Supervisory
Level, Then That Person Should Also Have Written Procedures for
Reporting the Spill Further up to the State, Local and Federal
Governments. These ‑‑ this Should Not Be a Lot of Ambiguity in These
Planning Processes So That Everybody \'Who Is Involved Should Know the
Number to Call, What Should Be Told to the Person When They Make the
Report And How the Report Should Be Reported up the Chain of Command.
Now, If in Doubt Ever, Always Report the Spill. This Is Probably One of
the Worst Areas That a Person Can Get Involved In, Is Not Reporting.
This Is a Very Important Criminal Act for Failure to Report. So All of
Your Manuals Should State, If You Do Not Know What To Do, Make the
Report. Now, in the Case of the Forest Service, We Have Procedures Set
Aside and I Would like to Put up Another Thing on the Overhead And I
Would Encourage Other Agency Personnel Who Are Viewing This Broadcast to
Contact Our CERCLA Coordinator. , Bob Dover, He Is in the Engineering
Office in the Washington Area, and Bob Is the National CERCLA
Coordinator, and He Can Give You the Systems and The Plans and the
Things That The Forest Service Has Used in The past and I Think Having a
Comprehensive Set of Things, If You\'re Trying to Decide How We Should
Set up a Reporting Event At a Local Level, Bob Is a Person and Resource
Who Can Help You Do That. Now, Oftentimes We\'re Asked in The Field,
What Do I Report? When Do I Report? How Do I Report? And I Would Answer
That: You Should Have a Plan at the Local Level That Says Who Reports,
How They Report, and When They Should Report. So, Martin, I Think If We
Follow Those Guidelines, We\'ll Find That Most of Our People Will Pass
the Test of CERCLA Reporting.

M. Thrasher: Very Good. You Know, One Thing I Ought to Mention That
Federal Agencies Take a Very Conservative View About Reporting, One of
the Nice Things Is There Is No Liability For Making a Report If You
Didn\'t Have To.

F. Mills: Yes, I Would Agree With That.

M. Thrasher: We\'ve Gotten Four Faxes in and I\'ve Got a Chance to Look
at These. Actually, They Are Going to Fit A Little Better after We Get
Through Discussing the Liability Scheme under CERCLA, but I Wanted to
Assure the People That Sent Them in That We Are Going To Address These
Four Questions, Because They\'re Excellent. But Before I Do That, What I
Would like to Do Is Have If There Are Any Other Comments Regarding the
Release Reporting Requirement and If Not, Then We\'re Going to Move on
and Talk About the CERCLA Liability Scheme.

T. Garrett: All Right, the Green Light Is On, and We\'re Certainly
Inviting Our Viewers Out Across the Country to Push To Talk or Call in
or Fax in With Your Questions for Martin, Frank and Nancy.

Caller: this Is Kate from Virginia.

T. Garrett: I Heard Kate from Virginia. Kate, Would You Go Ahead,
Please?

Caller: in the Materials That You Sent Us, it Says That Reportable
Quantities Are Found In a Table Published by EPA. Can You Tell Me Where
to Locate That Table?

F. Mills: I Could Answer That. If You\'ll Contact Your Nearest EPA Field
Office and Ask Them For the Table of Reportable Quantities, They
Actually Will Send You a Copy. If You\'ll Also Go on the the U.S. EPA
Website, in the Hazardous Materials CERCLA Section of Their Website
under The Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, You Can Download
That in a Pdf Format Directly to Your Computer. The Document Is about
130 Pages Long and Would it Take a Few Minutes to Download. But
Remember, this List Is Constantly Changing and It\'s Appropriate to Find
That Resource and Make Sure You Have A Copy of the Least on at Least A
Yearly Basis So You Have the Most Recent Changes That\'s Been Added by
EPA.

T. Garrett: All Right, Kate, Does That Answer Your Question?

Caller: Yes, Thank You.

T. Garrett: Thank You, Kate, For Calling in from the Park Service in
Virginia. We\'re Pleased Our Colleagues in That Agency Are Participating
in The Course as Well. And I Believe as Kate Was Checking in on the
Push‑to‑talk, I Believe You on Heard Someone From BLM Trying to Get in
Contact with Us. Is There a BLM Office That Has a Question or a Comment?
Any Other Agency, Any Viewing Site at All Around the Country With a
Question or a Comment at This Time, the Green Light Is On. All Right.
Thank You Very Much. Martin, We\'ll Turn Back to You.

M. Thrasher: All Right. I Did Want to Assure You We\'re Going to Get
Back to These Four Faxes Here after We Finish up Talking about the
Liability Scheme under CERCLA. I Did Want to Spend Just a Few Minutes
Introducing You to the CERCLA Liability Scheme, Because It\'s Quite
Different from Liability Schemes That We\'re Used to under Common Law
and So Forth. There Are Actually Four Elements To the Liability Scheme
That You Ought to Be Acquainted With. First of All, CERCLA Liability Is
What\'s Called Strict Liability. If I Can Just Write That on Here.
\"Strict Liability.\" CERCLA Liability ‑‑ \"Strict Liability\" Means
Without Fault. So You Can Do All the Things You\'re Supposed to Do, Obey
All Of the Laws, Work for Government, Have the Best Intentions and If
You Dispose of A Hazardous Substance at a Location That Subsequently
Needs To Be Remediated, You\'re Still Going to Be Liable for the
Cleanup, Even Though You Complied with All the Laws. It\'s Rather
Interesting to Go to Some of These Large Meetings of Responsible Parties
and I\'ve Been to Them with Several Hundreds of Parties, and Some of
Them Don\'t Realize That It\'s Strict Liability Scheme, and They Try to
Explain to Everybody How They Obeyed the Rules, They Got Their Permits,
They Did Their Manifest, and it Simply Doesn\'t Make Any Difference.
It\'s Strict Liability. The next Aspect about the Liability Scheme Is
That It\'s Joint Liability. Let Me Go Ahead and Write on That Here as
Well. \"Joint\" Liability. That Means Everyone. Everyone Who Is a
Responsible Party and We\'re Going to Define Those Folks Here in a
Minute, Is Responsible for the Cleanup. So Whether It\'s Three
Industries, Three Government Agencies or Several Hundred and I Worked on
One Where There Were 750PRP, They\'re All Responsible For the Cleanup.
The next Concept Is Several Liability. And Several Liability Refers to
The Individuals. Each Individual Responsible Party Is Liable for the
Cleanup Of the Whole. It Doesn\'t Matter That They Contributed the
Hazardous Substances That Are the Problem. It Doesn\'t Matter That They
Only Contributed a Small Amount of The Hazardous Substances. The Statute
Says That All of the Responsibility ‑‑ Responsible Parties Are
Individually Responsible to Pay for the Cleanup. Obviously That Is Not a
Good Thing to Be Involved With. You Want to Get All the PRPs, All the
Responsible Parties Together That You Can. The Last Concept under
Liability That I Want to Talk to You about Is Retroactive Tea. CERCLA
Was Passed in 1980, but The Law Is Retroactive to Time Periods Prior to
1980, So If You Disposed of Hazardous Substances Prior to 1980, and it
Needs to Be Cleaned Up, Then You\'re Still Responsible for the Cleanup.
I Personally Worked on a Cleanup Of a Coal Site That Was Begun in 1880
under CERCLA. So this Is the Liability Scheme. It\'s Harsh, but It\'s
Very Effective. At this Point, Are There Any Questions about the
Liability Scheme under CERCLA? Let\'s Move onto the next Concept, Then,
and Then We\'ll Get into More Questions and Discussions about this after
We Get the ‑‑ Kind of the Academic Exercise out of the Way. I Need to
Introduce You to the Concept of Potentially Responsible Parties. And Let
Me Just Write That on Here. Or the Acronym, at Least. Potentially
Responsible Parties Are Commonly Referred to as PRPs, and It\'s Just an
Acronym. You Probably Ought to Get Acquainted with It. Congress Had a
Really Tough Time When it Passed CERCLA Defining What PRPs Ought to Be.
And Here Are the Three Types of PRPs That Are of Interest to Federal
Agencies. First of All, Any past or Present Owner of a Facility or Site
from the Time a Release Starts until it Stops Is a Potentially
Responsible Party. So If You\'re the Owner of Land Either in the past or
the Present, You\'re Going to Be a PRP. The Second Type of PRP Are Those
Past and Present Owners Who Operated the Land. In Other Words, on
Federal Land Oftentimes We Have Mines, Smelters, Other Land Users, and
If They Were Operating at the Time of a Hazardous Substance Release,
Then They, Too, Are Responsible for Cleanup. The Third Type of PRP That
You Ought to Know about Are Generators of Hazardous Substances.
Generators Is a Word That\'s Used For the Folks That Create the
Hazardous Substance. So If You\'re in a Wear Yard, Maintenance Yard of
Some Type And You\'re Using Solvents to Clean Engine Parts, You\'re
Using Pesticides, You\'re Using Other Types of Hazardous Substances, And
You Generate Waste out of That, You\'re the Generator of That Hazardous
Substance and Those Folks Are Responsible for The Cleanup. Let Me Just
Illustrate this Real Quick for You, and Then I Want To Turn to Nancy and
Frank and Then Any of Your Comments or Questions to Kind of Illustrate
This. Let\'s Presume That We\'ve Got a Piece of Property That in the
1940s Was Used by the Department Of Defense for Munitions. They Were
Making Munitions for The War, and in So Doing, They Used Solvents. They
Had Large Solvent Tanks. And Some of These Solvents Got Away from Them
and Leaked into The Ground. Now Let\'s Presume That in about 1961 That
Land Was Transferred To the BLM for the Use as a Field Office and a
Maintenance Facility, or as BLM Calls Them, A Wear Yard. Maintenance
Facility. At this Facility, They Took Apart Engines. They Used Solvents
in Some of Their Processes. They Used Paints. And Some of These
Materials, Hazardous Materials, Were Leaked Out onto Ground. Now Let\'s
Further Presume That In 1972 That the BLM Relocated To Their ‑‑ Their
Operations to Some Other Site and They Sold The Property to a Developer
Who Put up a Bunch of Houses on the Property. Then, of Course, as We\'ve
Described, 1980, CERCLA Was Passed. So it Predated All of These
Activities. Now, under this Scheme, Can You See Who the PRPs Going to
Be? Kind of Think it Through for Yourself. Owners of the Property Are
PRPs If There\'s a Hazardous Substance Release. Operators of the
Property. And the People Who Generated the Hazardous Substance That
Needs To Be Cleaned Up. Those Are the PRPs We Need to Know About. Well,
as You Look Through this Scenario Right Here, We\'ve Got Department of
Defense Who Released Hazardous ‑‑ They Generated Hazardous Substances
That Now Need to Be Cleaned Up. So They\'re a Generator. They Also Owned
the Property. So They\'re an Owner. And They Operated on the Property.
So in All Three Counts, the Department of Defense Is Going To Be a
Potentially Responsible Party, Even Though Their Activities Preceded
CERCLA by 40 Years. Now We Look at BLM. Same Types of Activities. They
Operated on the Property. They Owned and They Generated Hazardous
Substances That Were Released. So They\'re Going to Be a PRP. Now, If
the Release Continues, We Now Have in \'72 a ‑‑ an Exchange of the
Property with a Private Developer. Now, Unfortunately, If the Release
Continues Through this Time Period, the Law Says That The Developer and
These Homeowners, They\'re Owners of The Property, That They\'re Still
Theoretically Responsible as PRPs. This Is a Very Strict Statute. Quite
Frankly, this Isn\'t Done Very Much. You Don\'t See it in Practice. But
in Theory under the Law, it Could Happen. So, with That, That Gives You
Kind of a Little Illustration About How this Thing Works. What Kind of
Questions Do We Have out of That? Did We Have Anything on the
Push‑to‑talk?

T. Garrett: Let\'s Check and See. The Green Light Is On. So We\'ll Wait
Just a Moment to See If Anyone Wants to Check in On the Push‑to‑talk
System.

M. Thrasher: While We\'re Waiting for Any Questions on the Push‑to‑talk,
We Could Talk About a Couple of These Faxes. I Just Got One That Says:
How Much Liability Do I Have If I Ask for a Facility Review? I Could
Give My Answer to That. My Short Answer Is, it Reduces Your Exposure
Because You\'re Doing Something Proactive to Find the Problems, and a
Lot of Times If You Go Ahead and Have Those Proactive Management Systems
Defined, Reduce the Number of Them and Then If There Is Anything
Significant You Report Them to the Federal Agencies, They Are Going to
Work With You on Getting Them Fixed. As Far as Completely Absolving You,
No, You Are Always Liable For Them, but You Can Mitigate That Liability
Through These Management Systems.

F. Mills: Martin, I Would Also like to Add to this That If You\'re
Concerned about ‑‑ Your Own Personal Liability When Asking for a Review,
the U.S. EPA Has an Excellent Document Out Known as the Audit Review ‑‑
Or Audit Review Policy. If You Can Go into the EPA\'s Website, You Can
Actually Call Up this Policy and Read it for Yourself, and I Think EPA
Has to Even Some Greater Extent by Also Having a Brochure That\'s
Published Semi‑monthly on Companies and Organizations That Have Taken
Advantage of the EPA\'s Audit Policy Statement and Pretty Much this Is
Something That You Should Read for Yourself and Really Decide If It\'s
Something That Benefits You. Now, I Would Encourage Each and Every One
of Us out Here That This Is Also an Area Which You Should Remember to
Include Your Solicitors and Your Ogc Representatives or Your Legal
Staff. Any Time a Manager Makes a Decision to Ask for a Review From
Either a Federal Agency, Such as EPA, or a State Enforcement Agency,
They Should Include That Decision Making With the Solicitor or Their Ogc
Offices. And That Would Ensure That All The Legal Bases Are Founded.
Now, Also, Each of Our Agencies Have What Is Known as Our Own Internal
Audits, or Our Own Audit Programs. In the Case of BLM, It\'s the Cash
Program. In the Case of the ‑‑ in Forest Service It\'s the Environmental
Audit Compliance Program. Now, These Are Designed to Give The Agencies
Just That Heads‑up They Need to See If They Need to Contact an EPA or a
State Before Something Gets out of Hand. I Think in Those Cases Those
Programs Are Internal, and in All Supervise ‑‑ All Supervisors Should Be
Willing to Participate In an Internal Audit Program Within Their Own
Agency to Discover Things That They Need To Know About. Nancy?

N. Dean: Although It\'s Important to Have an Audit, and That Can Really
Point out and Assess Where Your Risks Are, it Is Very Important to
Correct What Has Been Found in the Audit And Schedule Those Within Your
Budget or Put Those into Our Deferred Maintenance Program at BLM to Be
Corrected. This Is Important Because, Although It\'s Nice to Have Those
Odd and its When the Regulators Come down They like to See You\'ve Done
an Audit, but They Want to Make Sure Also That You Have Made the
Corrections That Are Outlined in That Audit.

M. Thrasher: I Can Sure Second That. The Only Worse Thing I Can Think Of
than Not Having an Evaluation Or Audit System Is to Have an Audit System
and Then Not Correct the Things That Were Found During the Audit. I\'ve
Always Thought You\'re Better off Not Even Asking the Question If
You\'re Not Going to Correct What\'s There. Let Me Take One Other
Question Here. That Is, Should We Have a Haz‑mat Review of Any Lands
Being Donated or Exchanged? To My Knowledge, That\'s Required Under
Section 120 of CERCLA.

N. Dean: That Is Required. Everybody Has to Do an Environmental Site
Assessment on Any Disposals or Exchanges, and This Is Important. It\'s
Required under ‑‑ Well, It\'s Part of Our Innocent Land Owner Defense
under CERCLA. Check with Your Solicitor\'s Office If You Want to Get
into Innocent Land Owner Defense but We\'re Also Required under CERCLA
120h to Make Sure There Are No Hazardous Substances Being Transferred
with the Land, That If There Was at One Time, Though Should Be Cleaned
up Before They\'re Transferred.

F. Mills: and in the Case of The Forest Service, We Also Have A Policy
That Is Written down in Our Lands Transaction Manual, And Any Supervisor
Who Is Anticipating a Land Transaction Should Certainly Involve the
Regional or the Washington Office Staff to Make Sure That All the Bases
Are Covered for That Land Transaction.

M. Thrasher: Great, Thank You. I Think We Need to Move onto the Final
Session Here as Far as CERCLA Goes, and Then We\'re Going to Take the
Remainder of These Questions and Some Push‑to‑talk Questions. I Want to
Run over Briefly the Basic CERCLA Cleanup Process. A Lot of Times, as
We\'ve Already Discussed, the Forest Service, The BLM and Some ‑‑
Perhaps Some Other Federal Agencies Do Removal Actions under Their Own
Authority That\'s Been Delegated From the Environmental Protection
Agency, but on Occasion, You May Get Involved With a Remedial Process
That\'s Initiated by the EPA or under The Auspices of a State Agency.
And I Wanted to Outline That Process for You Real Briefly. I Want to
Preface This, Though, To Tell You, I\'ve Been Involved With 10 or 12
Different CERCLA Remediation Sites, and Every One Of Them Is Different.
These Elements That I\'m Going to Describe for You Sometimes Occur In a
Different Order. Sometimes Some of the Steps Are Bypassed or Rather
Minimal Altogether, Buzz These Are The ‑‑ but These Are the Basic Types
of Steps You Might Expect To See When You Are Involved With a CERCLA
Cleanup ‑‑ Remedial Cleanup. First of All, the National Contingency
Plan, That\'s the Overall Federal Plan That Outlines How Cleanups Are to
Proceed and All of These Remediation Projects Have to Proceed in
Conformance with That Plan. The First Element That You\'re Going to See
in Most Remedial Projects Is Called a Preliminary Assessment, or a P.a.,
and That\'s a Very Cursory Look at a Particular Site, Typically It\'s A
Paper Work Search Where They\'re Looking at Any Documents As to past
Disposal Practices. There May Be Some Cursory Interviews with People
That Know About the Site and Some Other Minor Investigations. But for
the Most Part, It\'s Fairly Cursory. If the Site Needs to Be
Investigated Further, Then They Do What\'s Called a Site Inspection.
Typically a Site Inspection Is Going to Entail an On‑site Visit By EPA
Contractors Who Will Take Samples of the Soil, of the Water. Sometimes
They Will Take Air Samples to Determine If There Are Hazardous
Substances That Are Being Released to Those Media. Then They Put it
Through an Evaluation System That\'s Called A Hazard Ranking System. The
Hazard Ranking System Is a Numeric System Whereby They Evaluate All the
Data from a Site and They Come One a Score For That Particular Site. If
a Site Comes One a Score of 28 1/2 or More, Then the Site\'s Going to Go
on What\'s Called the National Priorities List and That\'s Going to Kind
of up its Priority in Terms of a Cleanup. Now, a Lot of Sites Score less
Than 28 1/2. That Does Not Mean That it Doesn\'t Need to Be Cleaned Up.
The EPA Can Still Order a Cleanup of a Site with a Score That\'s less
than 28 1/2. The Real Significance of the National Priorities Listing Is
That a Site Then Will Be Eligible for Funding from the National
Superfund, If You Will, If Sufficient Money Can\'t Be Obtained from the
Potentially Responsible Parties. Now, I Mention That to You, but Then I
Need to Tell You the down Side of That as Well, and That Is That Even If
a Federal Site Is on the National Priorities List, it Is Not Eligible
for Funding from the Superfund, If You Will. Funding for Cleaning up of
Federal Sites Comes Primarily From the Potentially Responsible Parties
Who Are Responsible for The Cleanup of the Site or from The Federal
Agencies Themselves, And That Comes out of the General Fund for the
Agency. Now, Sometime During this Process, the EPA Will Notify the PRPs,
the Potentially Responsible Parties, That They\'ve Been Identified as
Either an Owner, an Operator or A Generator of Hazardous Substance, and
They\'re Going to Ask to Be Involved with the Cleanup of That Site. When
I Say Asked to Be Involved, They\'re Asked Rather Forcefully To Be
Involved. So Usually It\'s a Good Idea for Them to Participate. After
That We\'re Going to See a Remedial Investigation/feasibility Study.
This Evaluates the Different Options for the Leanup. It\'s Very Similar
to the NEPA Process Whereby You Evaluate Different Alternatives. During
That Same Time There Is Going to Be Assessment of Natural Resources
Damages When Can Be Quite Considerable and Those Are Damages to the
Waterways, to the Airways and to The Land. Following All of this
Evaluation, Which Can Take Several Years in Some Cases, There\'s a
Record of Decision, And That Is the EPA Decides on What Remedy It\'s
Going to Select To Clean up the Site. Following That, the EPA or its
Contractors Are Going to Design The Remedial Process and the Remedial
Action, and Then It\'s Going to Go into Place. After the Remediation Is
Done, Or They Think It\'s Done, There Is a Five‑year Review That\'s
Required, and Then in Addition To That, We Have Long‑term Monitoring
That May Last 20, 30, 40 Years. Depends on the Site. So That\'s the
Basic Scheme for The Cleanups under Remedial Actions And, Frank, I Just
Wonder If You Have a Perspective About These Cleanups from the Forest
Service Point of View?

F. Mills: One of the Things We Were Very Fortunate in as Land Management
Agencies Is the President of the United States Had Decided That this
Authority Under CERCLA Could Be Delegated To Certain Land Management
Agencies to Enforce, and this Is A Great Tool for Us to Use in The Field
to Protect the Natural Resources. Now, this Was Done Through an
Executive Order, and You Might Want to Write this Down. It Was Executive
Order 12580. Now ‑‑ Read That Read That Executive Order and it Will Give
You the Outline of What Federal Agencies Are Allowed to Do under The
Process of Enforcing CERCLA And this Is Different from Us Being a Person
‑‑ or PRP under CERCLA. This Is Us Having the Authority To Go out and
Actually Ask Someone or Tell Someone to Clean Up a Site. Now, We Have to
Follow under This Executive Order the Plan Outsign in the National
Contingency Plan, but I Do Want To Say That Each of Our Agencies Have
Developed Procedures and Policies to Use this Authority In the Field,
and If Anyone Is Considering Conducting a CERCLA Operation, They
Certainly Should Contact Their Ogc or Solicitor\'s Office and Those
People Who Are Specially Trained to Help You Process a CERCLA Action
Through The System, with the PRPs and Through the Courts. Now, Nancy Has
Brought in Today A ‑‑ the Procedures Used in BLM, And Those Procedures
Follow Very Closely to Those Used by Other Agencies, And, Nancy, If You
at This Time Could Talk about What Your Agency Has Done and How You\'re
Processing CERCLA Authority.

N. Dean: I Was Talk at First A Little about BLM CERCLA Authorities and
Then Go into How We Use the National Contingency Plan to Do Removal
Actions. Just to Let You Know, BLM, Just Like the Forest Service, Has
the Authority from the Executive Order 12580 to Conduct CERCLA Response
Actions. That Particular Authority from The President Came down to the
Secretary of Interior. That Was Passed on Through the Secretarial Order
3201, and That Was Sent down to All the Bureau Directors, Our BLM
Director, Further Delegated That Authority Down to Our State Directorors
Through I.m. 2093. This Is Good News for You at the Field Office Level
for BLM, Because That Means You Can Go Out and Conduct CERCLA Response
Actions under the National Contingency Plan. And the Types ‑‑ We Clean
up a Number of Different Kinds of Sites under the National Contingency
Plan. For Example, We Have the Midnight Dumping Problem That Everybody
Knows about Where Some Of Our Solid Citizens Go out and Dumb Appear
Little Hazardous Waste out There in Drums on BLM Lands and We Clean
Those up Under Our CERCLA Authorities. Other Types of Sites That We Have
Cleaned up Are Fairly Large Sites. Here Is a Site in Arizona Where We
Had a Claimant Who Had a Mill On Us, and You Can See Those Tanks There,
He Had All Sorts of Cyanides and Caustics in There That Were Open to the
Air, and They Were Essentially Releasing Cyanide Gases out into the
Atmosphere Killing Wildlife and Our Folks Were Able to Go in There and
Remove All Those Cyanide Wastes under the National Contingency Plan and
Dispose of Those Properly and Alleviate the Hazard out There, And at the
Same Time, We Went After the Particular Claimant Throughout for Cost
Recovery, Which I\'m Going to Talk about a Little Further in a Second.
Here Is a Few More Pictures of That Terrible‑looking Cyanide And Caustic
Waste. Here\'s Some of Our Folks out There ‑‑ That\'s the Response
Contractor, Not Our Own BLM Folks, out There Cleaning That Up. We Also
Clean up Even Bigger Sites That Have ‑‑ Fairly Historical Sites That
Have Been Around for Many Years. This Is Some ‑‑ a Response Contractor
Cleaning up Mercury Contamination Waste and Soils And So Forth at a
Mercury Retort Site up in Alaska. This Thing Was from the 1950s And We
Have Used Our CERCLA Authorities up There to Go in And Remove All the
Structures And the Contaminated Soil. These Are the Types of Sites We
Can Clean One Our Response Authorities and We Can Also, as I Said, Go in
and Recover Costs From the People Who Made the Environmental
Contamination in The First Place, and We Can Also Enter into Agreements
with Them Through Our Solicitor\'s Office. We Can Enter into Written
Legal Agreements to Have Them Do the Cleanup Instead of Us. You Can
Learn All about How to Do this Through Our New CERCLA Response Action
Handbook. This Is Handbook 1703‑1, and it Was Just Published Last
Summer. So this Is the Way You Should Conduct These Actions on BLM and
Howked to Enforcement. Now, I Have Some Other Good News For You Folks in
the Field, Especially You Field Managers. You Always like to Know about
Money, and If You Have a Release Of CERCLA Hazardous Substance on BLM
Land or Any Other Department Of Interior Land, this Is for Our Park
Service and Fish & Wildlife Friends, Too, There Is Funding for You
Through The Department of Interior. The Department of Interior Has a
Central Hazardous Materials Fund And this Fund Is Appropriated \$10
Million Annually, and it Is Available for Cleanup of These Types of
Sites. It Does Have to Be a Release and It Does Have to Be a CERCLA ‑‑
Hazardous Substance, but It\'s Available. BLM, for Example, Is Getting
\$7 Million from this Fund this Year For Cleanup of Some of Our Sites.
Before I Move onto the Removal Process, I Do Want to Make One Comment
about Our Own Liability And I Think this Is the Case With the Forest
Service, Too, Under CERCLA. We Have a Lot of Old Historic Sites on Us, a
Lot of Lessee Activities Where There\'s Been Environmental Contamination
and EPA Often Wants to Bring Us into The Liability as a Land Owner, And
this Is ‑‑ it Has Been Our Policy with These Things to Not Accept That
Liability. At BLM, Our Policy Is That It\'s The Responsible Party Who Is
Responsible and Liable for These Sites and for Cleaning up These Sites.
Now, I Know in Many Cases for BLM this Is a Problem Because We\'ve Done
a Lot of Responsible Party Searches Looking for These Folks and We Have
Found That There\'s a Lot of Cases Where There\'s Bankruptcies, Where
the Site Is So Old That There\'s No Longer Any Loaners Alive or in
Existence, or That People Who Are Left Are Just Not Financially Final.
In That Case We Would Take Responsibility, and We Would Go Ahead and
Clean up These Sites, Because this Fits into BLM\'s Overall Five‑year
Strategic Plan, Where We Are Tasked with Protecting Public Land.

M. Thrasher:

F. Mills: Can I Say Something Here in for Those of You at the Forest
Service, I Would Also Like to Mention That the U.S. Department of
Agriculture Also Has Funding Available Through The Hazardous Materials
Management Group, and You Should Contact Your CERCLA Coordinator At the
Washington Office, Bob Dover, and His Phone Number Is 303‑‑‑ I\'m Sorry
703‑605. 4526 and We Will Second Everything Nancy Has Said Here Today.
We Also Have Policies That Are Very, Very Similar to BLM\'s, Although
They Are Tweaked a Little Bit to Meet the Requirements under the Law of
Our Management Agency\'s Authorities and Responsibilities, but I Think
If You Look at It, We Very Closely Parallel Their System.

N. Dean: Now I Want to Get Back to Our National Contingency Plan
Response Actions. What BLM Does, We Do Things a Little Bit Differently.
We Don\'t Follow the Remedial Action Mode That Martin Just Described.
Use Our ‑‑ What We Call Our Removal Authorities, and We Do This Because
It\'s Faster, Cheaper and More Efficient, and It\'s a Little Bit
Different from The Remedial Process. So I\'m Going to Go over it Here.
We First Go out ‑‑ We Usually Get a Reporting of a Site If It\'s Not
Known, Maybe a Ranger Calls it In, Maybe a Neighbor Finds Something and
Reports it To Us, and We Go out and We Take A Look at and it We Verify
That It Is a Site That Is on BLM Land. This Is Important Because It\'s
Not on Public Lands. We\'re Not Going to Take Any Action on It. We Also
Verify at That Point Whether There\'s Been a Release Of a Hazardous
Substance. If There\'s No Release, We Don\'t Go and Perform Any Further
Action, However, If it Is on Public Land and There Has Been a Release,
Then We Move into a Process That Is Somewhat Similar To the Remedial
Action Process That Martin Described. The First Thing We Do Is We Do a
Preliminary Assessment and Site Inspection. This Is a Removal Site
Evaluation We Call It. At That Time We Do a Number of Studies and We
Determine If There Has Been a Release and If It Warrants a Removal
Action. If There\'s No Release, We Don\'t Go Any Further in this
Process. If There Has Been a Release, and We Determine That Removal
Action Is Not Warranted, Then We Don\'t Go Any Farther, Either. But If a
Removal Action Is Warranted, We Proceed Further Along the next Lines.
Which Is to Move into a Removal Action, and We Basically Do Two Types of
Removal Actions. The First One Is If We\'re Going To Be Able to
Implement a Removal Action Within Six Months Of Our Determination That
Removal Action Is Necessary, We Do a Time Critical Action. Ok? That\'s
Usually Our Drum Dumps. Hazardous Waste Dumped on Public Land. We Go out
and We Can Take Care Of That Pretty Quickly. Once We Determine We\'re
Going to Do It, We Do an Action Memorandum and We Go out Immediately and
Do the Removal Action. And the Other Process Here, It\'s Going to Take
Us, You Know, Greater than Six Months to Implement this Thing after We
Determine That We\'re Going to Need to Take an Action, Then We\'re Going
to Have to Go out And Do a Study Similar to What Martin Described as the
Remedial Investigation Feasibility Study. But this Is a More Rolled into
One Type Document. It\'s Called an Engineering Evaluation Cost Analysis,
or Eeca for Short. \>From That We Prepare an Action Memo and Then We Do
a Removal Action. Although Our Process Is Little Different, it Is
Authorized in The National Contingency Plan And We Have this Authority
to Do This at Any Cost of a Particular Action. EPA Also Does Removal
Actions, But Because They Have Access to The Superfund, They Have to
Limit Them to less than \$2 Million. We Have No Such Dollar
Restrictions. So We Can Use this Removal Authority to Do Any Type of
Site.

M. Thrasher: Thank You Much, Nancy and Frank. What I Would like to Do
Now Is Turn to the Very Last Subject, And We Got a Question Here about
What Is the Best Place to Dispose of My Hazardous Wastes? Let Me Just Go
over That Quickly, Because There Are Ways To Mitigate Your CERCLA
Liability for Disposal of Hazardous Substances. Many of Them Will Work
and Many Of Them Won\'t Work for You. First of All, Use Permitted Sites.
Don\'t Go to Unpermitted Sites. That\'s Illegal to Do That. If You
Reduce the Number of Disposal Sites You Use, That Reduces Your
Liability. If You Use Sites That You\'ve Already Used, Then You\'ve
Reduced Liability, Because You\'ve Already Got Liability at The Sites
You\'ve Used. Might as Well Use Them Again. Look for Alternatives to
Disposal. Can You Reuse Products? Can You Give Them to Another Agency?
Look for Some Legitimate Use Rather than Disposing of Them. Also Look
for Substitute Products So You\'re Not Generating Hazardous Substances.
If You Never Generate to it Start With, You Don\'t Have to Worry about
It. This Other ‑‑ this next Suggestion May Seem a Bit Odd, But Go Where
the Big Boys Go. I\'ve Been Involved with a Lot of This Litigation, and
it Feels Very Comforting to Sit next to People Who Come from Companies
With Lots of Money to Know That I\'m Not the Only One with the Deep
Pocket There. Consider the Site\'s Reputation. Make Sure to Go to Places
That Have Only Been Audited and Approved by Your Agency. And Those Are
Just Some of the Ways to Minimize Your Liability. It Won\'t Do Away with
Them Altogether, but it Certainly Reduces it Quite a Bit. All Righty,
with That What I\'d Like to Do Is Close the Program By Going over Very
Quickly the Previous View Questions ‑‑ Preview Questions We Posed. I
Apologize I Don\'t Have Time to Have You Call In. Let Me Read Them for
You. CERCLA Requires Reporting to the National Response Center. So
That\'s National Response Center for Releases of Reportable Quantities
of Hazardous Substances. Those Are the Answers to Question 1. Now,
Number 2, True or False, If You Legally Dispose of Hazardous Waste, You
May Still Have Liability for Cleanup for Disposal under CERCLA. Remember
That I Told You That This Is Strict Liability. So it Doesn\'t Matter If
You Did Everything Legal Bi. So That\'s False. You Can Still Be Liable
Even Though You Did Everything Legally. Number 3: If You Remove a
Hazardous Substance from Federal Land That Was Illegal Disposed And
Dispose of it Legally, You Will Then Be Exempt from All Possible CERCLA
Liability. Again, That\'s False. The Fact That You\'re the Good Guys and
Doing Everything Legally and Responsibly Does Not Relieve You of CERCLA
Liability. The Fourth One Was to Mark All Of the Management Techniques
That Could Reasonably Reduce Your Liability. Let\'s Look at Those Real
Quickly. Minimizing Your Hazardous Waste Generation. Certainly. The less
of this Stuff You\'ve Got to Deal With, the Better off You Are. Do Not
Remove Any Hazardous Substances Illegal Disposed on Federal Land. Well,
of Course, That Does Not Reduce Your CERCLA Liability. It\'s Still on
Your Land, and You\'re Still Responsible for It. So B. Is Not Correct.
C. Limit the Number of Facilities Where You Send Hazardous Substances
for Disposal. Absolutely. The Fewer Holes or the Fewer Facilities That
You Send it To, The less Likely That You\'re Going to Be Called upon to
Help Clean up a Facility. Sell Federal Land That\'s Been Used for
Illicit Disposal of Hazardous Substances. That\'s Not a Good Technique.
You May Get Another PRP to Buy The Land but You\'re Still Liable For
That. E. Do Not Allow Operation of Any More Landfills on Federal Land.
Certainly. That\'s a Way to Reduce Liability. It May Not Be Possible in
All Cases, but it Reduces Liability Because You Won\'t Get Hazardous
Substances Disposed on Your Property. F. Use Disposal Sites That Are
Used by Large Industries. Yes. That Helps Mitigate Your Liability
Because You Have Other People There with Deep Pockets That Can Help Pay
for the Cleanup and You May Not Be Stuck With as Much of the Cost. And,
Finally, G., Do Not Keep Records on Disposal Activities As No One Can
Find You. That One Is Not an Appropriate Technique. What Is Meant by
\"Strict Liability\"? I Covered That. It Means \"Without Fault.\" We
Don\'t Care If You\'re the Most Careful, Most Law Abiding Citizen in the
World. If There Is CERCLA Liability, Then You Are Going to Be Liable For
That. The Final Question, Number 6, Blank Blank Parties under CERCLA
Include. Now, this Is Looking for Potentially Responsible Parties. In
Other Words, PRPs. The PRPs Are Generators of Hazardous Substances, and
We\'ve Got past and Present Owners of Land, and We\'ve Got past and
Present Operators of Facilities. All Right. That\'s a Real Quick
Overview, And Hopefully You Did Well at That. We\'ve Enjoyed
Participating with You Today, and What I\'d like to Do Is Turn the
Program Back over To Tony to Conclude.

T. Garrett: Thank You Much Very Much, Martin. I Think We\'re Going to
Pause and Display the Green Icon There in The Corner If We Have Time to
Take Any Push‑to‑talk Calls or Comments from the Field. We Want to Give
You a Chance to Do That Before We Get to a Some Closing Remarks and a
Summary of The Module from Martin. Any Comments or Questions from The
Field? Feel Free to Go Right Ahead. Ignore That Red Light and Go Ahead
and Give Us a Push‑to‑talk Inquiry. All Right, Then, Martin. I Think
We\'ll Move to a Summary Of the Material Covered and Invite You and
Nancy and Frank To Make Any Final Comments Before We Close.

M. Thrasher: All Right. What We\'ve Covered Today Is Personal and
Corporate Liability, Which Is a Very Important to Understand and We Have
Covered Basically the Requirements for Release Reporting under CERCLA
and Who The Responsible Parties Are Under CERCLA and What They\'re
Responsible For. So Hopefully We Have a Real Good Understand. I Have to
Apologize, I Have Two Of the Faxes We Didn\'t Get Time To Get To, but
Maybe We Can Find Who They Were and Get Them a Written Response for a
Response Perhaps at the next Session.

T. Garrett: We\'ll Take Care Of That. Any Final Thoughts, Nancy?

N. Dean: Yes, We Have a Good Haz‑mat System, Haz‑mat Coordinators in
Most of the Field Offices and I Think What The Field Managers Realize
Today Is How Complex this Issue of Environmental Compliance Is. I Think
It\'s Very Important That You Have Somebody in Your Office Who Can
Reliably Advise You on These Matters and So Probably Training Is
Probably Our Most Important Issue and I Want to Leave You with That
Thought Today, Is to Make Sure That You Have Well Trained Haz‑mat
Coordinators in Your Field Office to Assist You in Compliance.

T. Garrett: and Frank Mills With the Forest Service?

F. Mills: I Would Just like To Say That, as You\'ve Seen, We\'ve Spent
the ‑‑ Today on Only One Subject, CERCLA. The Other Broadcasts Are Going
To Cover RCRA, Clean Water Act, FFRA, Issues Involving Auditing. This
Process Is a Very Extensive And Very Complicated Area When You Talk
Environmental Law. Just One Thing That We Covered Today. Remember,
CERCLA Has Both a Good Side and a Bad Side for Land Management Agencies.
On the Good Side We Can Use this As a Tool to Manage Our Properties
Better. And on the Downside, it Can Also Mean That We Can Be Subject as
a PRP. I Would Just like to Echo What The President Said, Remember,
We\'ve Got Five More Sessions to Go Through. Let\'s Roll.

T. Garrett: All Right. Thank You, Frank. Martin, Giver Osprey View of
What to Expect next Week When We Come Back with Module 2.

M. Thrasher: Tony, next Week We\'re Going to Hit Hard on the Federal
Facility Compliance Act, The Resource Conservation Recovery Act Dealing
with Hazardous Wastes and a Couple of Other Statutes, and it Should Be A
Very Good Program.

T. Garrett: Look Forward to It. That Brings to a Close Module 1 Of Our
Six‑part Series, the Manager\'s Tool Kit for Environmental Compliance
and Pollution Prevention and We Hope You\'ll Join Us from One Week From
Today and for the Remaining Modules. We Have a Have a 9:00 A.m. Mountain
Standard Time Start Time. To Help Us Judge How Well We Did Today,
Please, If You Haven\'t Already, Sign the Roster in Your Viewing Room to
Show That You Were There for Today\'s Broadcast. Also, We\'d Ask That
You Complete The Course Evaluation. It Won\'t Take Long. Just Take a
Minute to Do That For Us. You Will Find That in the Tool Kit on Your
Agency Website. Please Fill That Out. And If You Are Not a BLM Viewer,
Then Just Go Ahead and Fax That To Us at this Number. 602‑906‑5701. And
Remember this Your Primary Source of Information about this Course,
Study Materials and Resources. Will Also Be on Your Agency Website, and
Those Are on Your Screen Now. We Want to Thank Once Again Martin
Thrasher, Nancy Dean and Frank Mills for Joining Us Today. And for All
Their Hard Work on This Module. On Behalf of the USDA Forest Service and
the BLM, Thanks for Watching and So Long from Phoenix!

Announcer: this Broadcast Has Been a Presentation of the USDA Forest
Service Office of Corporate Training and the BLM National Training
Center.