GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to Congressional Requesters

August 2000 HAZARDOUS WASTE

EPA Has Removed

Some Barriers to

Cleanups

GAO/RCED-00-224

Page 1 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Resources, Community, and

Economic Development Division

B-285511 Letr

August 31, 2000

The Honorable Robert C. Smith

Chairman, Committee on Environment

and Public Works

United States Senate

The Honorable Lincoln Chafee

Chairman, Subcommittee on Superfund,

Waste Control and Risk Assessment

Committee on Environment and Public Works

United States Senate

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, as amended,

(RCRA) establishes three key requirements governing the treatment,

storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. First, under what is referred to as

the land disposal requirements, hazardous waste generally must be treated

to minimize threats to human health and the environment before it is

disposed of on land. Second, under so-called minimum technology

requirements, facilities that treat or dispose of waste, such as landfills,

must meet certain design standards, such as installing a double liner under

the landfill to protect soil and water from contamination. Finally, facilities

that treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste, including carrying out

cleanup activities, must generally obtain a permit to do so. In general, a

facility that has ongoing industrial activity and is requesting a permit to

clean up a portion of the site must agree to clean up all parts of its property

that are contaminated from past industrial operations. The Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) manages the cleanups at those operating facilities

posing a high potential health or environmental risk under its “corrective

action” program.

In 1997, we reported that, although these three RCRA requirements were

successful at ensuring that process waste—that is, waste newly generated

by currently operating industrial operations—is managed safely, the

requirements had the unintended consequence of deterring the cleanup of

sites contaminated with old, previously generated waste.1 Such sites

include not only operating facilities conducting cleanups under EPA’s

1

Hazardous Waste: Remediation Waste Requirements Can Increase the Time and Cost of

Cleanups (GAO/RCED-98-4, Oct. 6, 1997).
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corrective action program but also abandoned sites posing high risks that

are subject to EPA’s Superfund program and less risky sites that states are

addressing under their own programs. More specifically, RCRA did not

distinguish process waste from waste that results from site cleanups,

known as remediation waste, even though remediation waste was often

more lightly contaminated and posed less risk than process waste. As a

result, parties planning to move, excavate, or temporarily store hazardous

waste on land in connection with a site cleanup faced the three RCRA

requirements. Because complying could mean taking actions considered

more stringent and costly than necessary for the less risky remediation

waste, some parties simply did not clean up certain sites or decided to

leave waste in place when they would have preferred to treat or

permanently remove it. We recommended that the agency take steps to

address this cleanup disincentive.

Also in 1997, we separately evaluated the corrective action program and

reported that facilities had made limited progress in conducting cleanups.2

Specifically, only about one-quarter of the 3,698 nonfederal facilities in the

program were implementing final cleanup actions or had completed

cleanup. We identified four management factors that limited the progress

of cleanups under this program, including (1) a burdensome cleanup

process that required multiple reporting and review steps and (2) resource

shortfalls that prevented EPA from taking more aggressive enforcement

actions to accomplish cleanups. We also made several recommendations to

the agency to help it address these barriers.

Because of your continuing concern about the pace of hazardous waste

cleanups, you asked us to review the actions EPA has taken since our two

1997 reports and assess their effects on (l) cleanups of remediation waste

at sites subject to the three RCRA requirements and (2) the management

factors that had slowed the pace of cleanups under the corrective action

program in particular. To identify EPA’s actions since our last reports, we

compared relevant EPA regulations and guidance from 1997 with their

subsequent revisions and interviewed the EPA headquarters officials

responsible for revising the remediation waste regulations and for

managing the corrective action program. To assess the effects of these

actions on cleanups, we interviewed the key officials responsible for

cleanup policies and program management within EPA, in state programs,

2

Hazardous Waste: Progress Under the Corrective Action Program Is Limited, but New

Initiatives May Accelerate Cleanups (GAO/RCED-98-3, Oct. 21, 1997).
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in industry, and in the environmental community. State officials included

the managers in charge of cleanup programs in eight states that we selected

because they had a large inventory of sites or were geographically

dispersed. We also interviewed the directors for cleanup policies at the two

national associations for state cleanup programs. Industry officials

included the directors for cleanup policies at three national associations

representing industries involved in cleanups, as well as directors at a

number of Fortune 500 companies conducting cleanups. We also

interviewed the directors for cleanup policies at the two national

environmental associations most involved with these issues. To determine

the progress of corrective action cleanups, we compared EPA program

data for fiscal years 1997 and 2000. Our detailed scope and methodology

are in appendix I.

Results in Brief Several actions EPA has taken to revise its regulatory requirements for

handling remediation waste have removed some barriers to cleanups. First,

in response to our 1997 recommendation that EPA better inform cleanup

managers of the existing options that could exempt remediation waste

from the RCRA requirements, EPA, in October 1998, issued a memorandum

on these options. State cleanup program managers reported that their staff

are now using these options to accomplish more site cleanups. Second,

EPA issued new regulations governing the management of remediation

waste that provided some relief from the barriers the three RCRA

requirements posed, especially more flexible treatment requirements for

soil. The state and industry cleanup program managers believed that some

portions of the new rules, such as the soil standards, would help promote

cleanups. Third, in February 2000, EPA settled a lawsuit in which groups

had charged that a proposed 1993 rule providing flexibility under the RCRA

requirements for certain on-site storage and disposal units for remediation

waste3 did not sufficiently protect human health. EPA agreed to amend the

1993 rule so that certain wastes would still be subject to somewhat more

stringent requirements. According to state and industry officials, EPA’s

agreement will reduce the flexibility that the 1993 rule allowed for costeffective cleanups and will thus deter some cleanups. On the other hand,

EPA officials believe that these cleanups may increase now that the legal

uncertainty surrounding on-site storage units has been removed. The state,

industry, and environmental officials differed as to whether any legislative

3

The on-site storage and disposal units for remediation waste that are referred to here and

throughout the report are also known as CAMUs (Corrective Action Management Units).
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changes were necessary to address any remaining cleanup barriers that

EPA was unable to address through its regulatory actions. EPA does not

currently have a position on whether legislative changes are warranted.

In 1999, EPA implemented a set of administrative reforms that address

several of the management factors we previously identified as slowing the

pace of corrective action cleanups. The reforms include (1) issuing new

guidance on a more flexible process for selecting and implementing

cleanup methods and providing cleanup managers training on this

guidance, an action we had recommended in our 1997 report, and (2)

establishing new goals under the Government Performance and Results Act

of 1993 (the Results Act)4 to control human exposure to contamination and

the migration of contaminated groundwater at “high-priority” facilities by

2005. In addition to the administrative reforms, EPA noted that a new rule

issued in 1998 should increase the pace of cleanups by allowing parties to

close portions of a facility as part of a corrective action cleanup rather than

go through the separate closure program. These reforms have helped to

increase the number of facilities that have at least begun the initial steps of

the cleanup process, such as site investigations, and the number of

facilities with documented control of contamination. However, industry

officials expressed a concern—acknowledged also by EPA headquarters

program managers—that some EPA regional and state staff who are

responsible for managing individual site cleanups will resist using the more

flexible options the reforms provide. EPA is taking action to try to monitor

reform implementation. It has also just begun to address the resource

shortfall that we cited as one factor preventing the agency from achieving

more cleanups. We are making a recommendation that the agency take

additional steps to focus more attention on achieving final cleanups under

the corrective action program.

Background In our 1997 report on the management of remediation waste under RCRA,

we identified three RCRA requirements—land disposal, minimum

technology, and permitting requirements—that, while effective at

controlling contamination from newly generated waste, posed barriers to

the management of remediation waste, thereby discouraging some

cleanups. The land disposal restrictions pose barriers because they can

lead to complex and costly cleanups that involve large volumes of relatively

4

This act requires that agencies, among other actions, prepare annual performance plans

that establish goals and measures to assess the results of individual programs.
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lightly contaminated cleanup waste. The RCRA cleanup standards are such

that for some hazardous waste, the only way to meet the standards is by

incineration, one of the most costly cleanup methods. Furthermore, the

standards do not consider the fact that new technologies developed since

the RCRA requirements were established, such as using organisms to

decompose waste in place, can result in cleanups that are as protective at

much lower costs. Cleanup managers from EPA, industry, and the states

believed that the RCRA requirements increased the time and cost of some

remediation waste cleanups and caused parties to select cleanup methods

that can be too stringent, given the health and environmental risks posed

by the waste.

In addition, the minimum technology requirements posed barriers,

according to the managers, because it was unnecessary and too costly to

require that certain waste, which did not pose a health or environmental

risk, be taken to a disposal facility meeting the RCRA design requirements,

rather than to less costly facilities. Finally, because the permitting process

required large volumes of information and could take several years, the

process slowed cleanups, thereby jeopardizing the redevelopment and

reuse of some properties. To avoid triggering any of these RCRA

requirements, parties did not conduct some cleanups or chose to leave the

waste in place rather than permanently remove it, which is the preferred

option in some cases. Ultimately, these requirements can discourage the

cleanup of some sites, particularly those that states manage under their

own programs.

In our prior report on the corrective action program, we stated that the

limited cleanup progress under the program was due to in part to program

management factors, including a burdensome cleanup process. This

process required parties to follow a set of sequential steps, with multiple

reporting and review requirements between each step that were timeconsuming and costly and therefore a barrier to some cleanups. Figure 1

shows the steps parties generally follow to clean up an operating facility.
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Figure 1: Steps Generally Undertaken in a Corrective Action Cleanup

Note: At any point in this process, the facility may be required to take interim measures to address

contamination that poses an immediate threat to human health or the environment.

Source: EPA.

These key steps include the following activities:

• Initial facility assessment. EPA, or the state authorized to implement

the program for EPA, assesses the facility to characterize the risks

posed.

• Detailed investigation. The company that owns the facility, with EPA

or state oversight, conducts a more detailed investigation to establish

the nature and extent of the contamination present.

• Remedy study. The company conducts this study to describe the

advantages, disadvantages, and costs of various cleanup options, and

EPA or an authorized state approves the final method selected.

• Remedy implementation. The company designs, constructs, operates,

maintains, and monitors the selected method. This is the most costly

step in the process.

We found in 1997 that few facilities were implementing final remedies

because of this burdensome process, frequent disagreements on the extent

of cleanup required, a lack of EPA resources to fully implement the

program, and industry reluctance to initiate cleanups without an economic

incentive.

Initial facility assessment

Detailed investigation

Interim measures

to control

contamination

Remedy study and design

Remedy implementation
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EPA Actions on

Remediation Waste

Requirements Have

Addressed Some

Disincentives to

Cleanups

EPA has undertaken several actions that address the three RCRA

requirements applicable to remediation waste—land disposal, minimum

technology, and permitting requirements—although the actions did not

comprehensively reform the requirements and remove all cleanup barriers,

as EPA had originally intended. First, states found that EPA’s consolidated

guidance explaining the tools available to help them better manage

remediation waste subject to the RCRA requirements helped them

accomplish more cleanups. Second, EPA’s new rules for managing

remediation waste provided some relief from the barriers posed by the

RCRA requirements. Third, a recent legal settlement that EPA negotiated

will reinstate some of the RCRA requirements for the on-site storage and

disposal of waste that were relaxed in a 1993 rule, and state and industry

program managers predicted these requirements will be a disincentive to

some cleanups. State, industry, and environmental managers differed in

their opinions on the need for legislative changes to address any remaining

barriers that the RCRA requirements for remediation waste pose.

EPA’s Consolidated

Guidance on Remediation

Waste Management Is

Helpful for Removing Some

Cleanup Barriers

In our prior review, we found that EPA had several policies in place that,

under certain circumstances, would allow parties to manage remediation

waste without triggering the three RCRA requirements. However, the state

cleanup program managers we contacted were not aware of these options

and did not understand them. Therefore, we recommended that EPA

consolidate all of these options into a single guidance document and

provide cleanup managers training on the options. In 1998, EPA took both

of these actions. Since then, states reported that the guidance has been

very helpful, their staff have been able to take more advantage of these

options, and they are proceeding with significantly more cleanups under

their own programs. Under one option, when the party conducting the

cleanup makes a good-faith effort to determine if waste present at the site

is a “listed” hazardous waste, but documentation is unavailable or

inconclusive, the party may assume the waste is not hazardous, as long as it

does not exhibit any hazardous characteristics.5 Another option allows

parties to consolidate and treat on site any remediation waste that lies

within contiguous areas of contamination without triggering the RCRA

requirements. A third option provides that certain remediation waste can

5

EPA classifies hazardous wastes as either “listed” wastes, meaning they were generated

during specific industrial processes that are listed in EPA’s regulations, or as “characteristic”

wastes, meaning that they display at least one of the following characteristics: ignitability,

corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity.
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be excluded from the RCRA requirements if it does not pose risks to human

health. Several state program managers acknowledged, however, that when

these options and more flexible approaches cannot be applied, some

facilities continue to refrain from conducting cleanups or use less preferred

cleanup methods.

EPA’s New Remediation

Waste Rules Have Removed

Some Cleanup Barriers

Prior to our 1997 review, EPA had proposed a rule that would have relaxed

RCRA requirements for certain higher-risk remediation wastes and

excluded lower-risk wastes from the requirements entirely. EPA could not

obtain a consensus on the proposed rule, however. Industry asserted that

certain provisions requiring testing and sampling remediation waste would

have been cost-prohibitive. Environmental groups stated that some

remediation waste was just as hazardous as process waste and should not

be managed any less stringently. As a result, the final rule EPA issued in

1998 did not achieve the comprehensive reform intended, but it did provide

several changes.6 These included provisions intended to make permits for

managing remediation waste easier to obtain and to allow for more flexible

ways to store remediation waste over the short term in “staging piles” while

conducting a cleanup. EPA noted that in addition to these provisions, the

rule removed the requirement that facilities not needing a RCRA operating

permit but conducting cleanup actions had to address the entire facility at

once; instead, it now allows these facilities to manage the cleanup in

stages. EPA also noted that it issued a related rule in 1998 establishing less

stringent treatment standards for hazardous contaminated soils. Under the

previously applicable treatment standards, contaminated soils generally

had to be treated by incineration, a costly process. However, parties may

now use a variety of treatment technologies to achieve the new standards.

The industry and state managers we contacted acknowledged that these

rules provided some relief from the three RCRA requirements when

managing remediation waste. For example, several managers expected that

eliminating a requirement for facilitywide corrective action would be a

cleanup incentive. In addition, many of the managers thought that the less

stringent soil treatment requirements would provide significant relief and

more cleanup methods that could be implemented. Most industry

representatives did not think the rules went far enough to remove the three

requirements as barriers to some cleanups, however. Most state managers

6

“The Hazardous Remediation Waste Management Requirements (HWIR-Media); Final

Rule,” November 30, 1998 (40 C.F.R. part 260).
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did not think that the rule provided them significantly more flexibility than

they have been able to build into their own cleanup programs using the

existing management options described in EPA’s consolidated

memorandum. EPA acknowledged that the new remediation waste rule is

more limited than the agency intended but maintains that states do find it

helpful for their cleanups. EPA pointed out that 16 states had already

adopted the rule and 15 more were in the process of doing so.

Amendments to the 1993

Rule Governing On-site

Waste Storage and Disposal

Units Will Limit Cleanup

Flexibility, but

Environmental Groups

Believe the Changes Better

Ensure That Cleanups

Remain Safe

RCRA generally prohibits the storage of hazardous waste, except to

accumulate sufficient quantities to make treatment or disposal costeffective. However, using an existing portion of a site, such as an old

landfill, to store or dispose of remediation waste, especially over the long

term, could be a very cost-effective alternative, according to EPA, state,

and industry representatives. In 1993, EPA issued a rule authorizing the onsite storage and treatment of remediation waste in units tailored to design

and operating standards appropriate to a specific site rather than under

RCRA’s prescriptive land disposal and minimum technology requirements.

Therefore, parties could use an area of a facility, such as an old landfill, to

manage remediation waste, including storage and disposal.

However, two environmental organizations and a hazardous waste

treatment industry association disagreed with this 1993 action. They sued

EPA, contending that it did not have the authority to issue a rule that

allowed for the disposal of hazardous waste in a manner that was

inconsistent with RCRA’s land disposal and minimum technology

requirements. According to the litigants, the new rule provided too much

discretion in managing remediation waste and did not ensure that the onsite storage and disposal would remain intact and safe over the years.

Therefore, they argued, some of the remediation waste should be subject to

minimum treatment requirements and the units should be subject to

minimum design standards. This is especially important, the litigants

further stated, because they did not believe EPA and the states had

sufficient resources to monitor the continued effectiveness of the

potentially high number of units that facilities might request.

In settling the lawsuit in February 2000, EPA agreed to propose

amendments to the rule that would impose minimum treatment standards

for certain contaminants found in remediation waste intended for on-site

storage and disposal, and minimum design standards for the units. EPA

officials and representatives for the litigants we contacted believed the

proposed rule would provide parties with greater flexibility to better
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manage remediation waste than RCRA’s land disposal and minimum

technology requirements while also protecting public health and the

environment. For example, EPA predicted that as a result of the settlement,

parties would typically only have to treat 3 or 4 contaminants at a site

rather than about 30, as they would have under the original RCRA

requirements, and would not have to treat them as extensively, thereby

saving time and money. EPA officials did acknowledge that the proposed

rule would provide less flexibility than parties had had under the 1993 rule,

in part because the 1993 rule did not specifically require any treatment

activities. EPA and the litigants also pointed out that the proposed rule

would provide options for parties to seek waivers or exemptions from

some of the design and treatment requirements if site-specific conditions

and risks warrant it. They acknowledged, however, that the proposed rule

would cost parties extra time and money to seek these waivers or

exemptions. However, they did not expect the costs or burden to be high

enough to discourage parties from requesting approval for new on-site

storage and disposal units. EPA anticipated that by settling the lawsuit, it

had removed the legal uncertainties that discouraged parties from

requesting to use such units and that their use could even increase in the

future.

The representatives of industries subject to cleanup disagreed. While they

gave EPA credit for soliciting their views during settlement negotiations,

they believed the agency gave up a significant amount of the flexibility that

would have been provided under the 1993 rule when it negotiated the

settlement. They believed the proposed rule would reimpose redundant

and unnecessarily costly requirements that will discourage some cleanups.

These officials further argued that a 1998 EPA review of the existing units

demonstrated that they are protective, proving that the 1993 rule was

working and did not warrant changes.7 Finally, these officials pointed out

that because EPA and state regulators had to approve all requests for these

units, they could ensure that units built under the 1993 rule would remain

effective and safe.

State reaction to the settlement was mixed. Few of the state managers we

contacted were familiar with the details of the settlement, but several said

they did not expect that it would have a significant effect on their cleanups.

These managers believed that their state cleanup programs provided

enough flexibility and other options to manage remediation waste and

7

CAMU Survey Results Final Report, prepared for EPA by ICF, Incorporated, May 27, 1998.
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proceed with cleanups. On the other hand, officials from the two

associations representing state cleanup agencies expressed concerns. They

asserted that the resulting proposed rule, if consistent with the terms of the

settlement, would provide for more stringent restrictions on cleanups using

units than were in the provisions of many state programs. These

representatives feared that such a revision could force the state cleanup

programs to adopt similar restrictions, thus limiting the efficiency of the

programs and discouraging cleanups. Because of these concerns, the

associations jointly issued a resolution calling on EPA to work with them to

design a more effective alternative and obtain any needed statutory

changes to RCRA to implement it. The representatives said that states

would, at a minimum, like EPA to include language in the preamble to the

new rule to ensure that their cleanups will not be negatively affected. EPA

managers drafting the proposed rule said that the preamble to the rule will

clarify that the rule only affects the way hazardous cleanup wastes are

managed in on-site storage and disposal units.

Views Differ on the Need to

Initiate Legislation to

Further Remove Cleanup

Barriers

Because EPA was not as successful as it had originally hoped in achieving

the comprehensive regulatory reform of RCRA requirements for the

management of remediation waste, the agency does not plan to pursue

such broad regulatory changes in the future, according to RCRA program

managers. The managers also said the agency is not pursuing any

comprehensive statutory changes at this time. Stakeholders had mixed

views on trying to achieve further reform through new legislation.

Representatives of industries managing remediation waste cleanups and

several state cleanup agencies said that two types of legislative change

could be helpful:

• amending RCRA, which was designed to control process waste, to

clearly exempt remediation waste, or

• amending RCRA to specifically authorize EPA to issue regulations, such

as the proposed 1993 CAMU rule, to relax some of the RCRA

requirements that stakeholders have found are impediments to

cleanups, especially cleanups conducted under state programs.

These groups did not want the Congress to simply codify one of the CAMU

rules because they feared that it would be harder to change a law rather

than a regulation in the future if, for example, better cleanup technologies

became available that made the rule somewhat obsolete. The

environmental and waste industry association representatives were

satisfied with the status of remediation waste management rules and did
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not see a need for legislation. EPA said that it will continue to pursue

reforms on a limited scale but did not take a position on the need for

legislative changes.

EPA’s Reforms of the

Corrective Action

Program Are Promising

EPA’s administrative reforms of the correction action program, including

new guidance on a more flexible cleanup process and related training, have

moved more facilities into the cleanup process but may continue to face

management challenges. One of EPA’s reforms, new 2005 performance

goals for the program, has brought focus to the program, but some

stakeholders question its impact on cleanups. Beginning in fiscal year 2001,

EPA requested more program funds to address the resource shortfalls that

have continued to impair cleanup progress.

EPA’s Corrective Action

Guidance and Training

Initiatives Could Address

Some of the Management

Factors Impeding Cleanups

In 1990, EPA announced that it intended to establish a detailed process and

substantive rules for conducting cleanup steps under the corrective action

program. EPA did not issue these rules. Instead, the agency decided to

administratively reform the program as much as it could within its existing

statutory authority. For the most part, EPA chose administrative rather

than regulatory changes because that route was the least disruptive to the

33 state programs already authorized to carry out the corrective action

program. In 1996, EPA proposed a new corrective action initiative designed

to make cleanup actions more protective, faster, and more efficient by

focusing on achieving results rather than following procedural steps. That

is, EPA intended to hold facilities accountable for achieving cleanup results

but to give them flexibility in determining the best ways to achieve these

results. For example, under the initiative, EPA or state cleanup managers

could consider whether the site would be used for residential or industrial

purposes in the future when deciding on the cleanup actions to conduct. In

general, cleanups having to meet standards for residential use are more

stringent, and therefore more costly, than those for industrial use. The

initiative also urged parties and states to pursue cleanup actions under

other available programs and authorities when possible, such as clean

water and state hazardous waste cleanup programs, in order to achieve

more results. The provisions under the initiative became the primary

guidance for cleanup actions under the program.

Also as part of its administrative reforms, EPA developed, or has plans to

develop, among other things, more streamlined processes for authorizing

cleanup actions and ways to have more community involvement in cleanup

decisions and better information on cleanup progress. To ensure that the
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state and EPA staff overseeing individual cleanups understood the new

guidance and reforms and could use them properly, the agency began a

series of 3-day workshops in 1999 and is making such training available

over the Internet. State and industry cleanup managers found the training

very helpful. In our 1997 report, we had recommended that EPA undertake

such training.

In addition to the administrative reforms, EPA initiated a regulatory reform

for the corrective action program. Prior to the reform, if parties wanted to

close down a portion of a facility subject to corrective action, such as an

old landfill, they would have to conduct the cleanup under one rule and

conduct the closure under a separate and less flexible process.

Determining that this was inefficient, EPA issued a rule in 1998 to allow

certain facilities to conduct both cleanups and closure activities as part of

the same corrective action process. EPA believes that this rule will increase

the pace of cleanups by reducing the potential for confusion and

inefficiency created by the application of two different regulatory

requirements.

Several EPA regions have also initiated reforms. For example, Region V

worked with General Motors (GM) to devise a new “model order” that GM

can use to get EPA approval on cleanup requirements and activities at the

company’s facilities throughout the region. GM managers said that, as a

result, they could get a cleanup plan approved within several months rather

than several years, as was their experience in the past. Similarly, Region III

has developed a letter of commitment that it signs with a facility to conduct

a cleanup in lieu of the more rigid permitting process. The letter more

simply specifies the amount of cleanup to be achieved, the proposed

schedule, and plans for public participation in the cleanup decisions.

Regional cleanup managers said that using the letter provides for faster

action at a site and less money spent on process steps, such as sequentially

submitting, reviewing, and approving numerous documents. Region VI is

working on a number of innovations that would allow parties to better

consider site-specific risks when designing a cleanup. Cleanup managers in

this region explained that under the draft cleanup guidance the region has

proposed, it would be easier for facilities to assume that their properties

will continue to be used for industrial rather than residential purposes in

the future and consider more realistic, less extensive, but protective

cleanup measures. EPA program managers in headquarters have continued

to work with the region on the guidance and believe it has potential. EPA

noted another initiative in Region IX: If a party conducts a cleanup under a

state program that is analogous to the corrective action program, the
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region recognizes the state cleanup as fulfilling the requirements of the

federal corrective action program.

In general, the stakeholders we contacted gave EPA credit for the

significant investment it made in the administrative reforms and training

and believed that, overall, the agency is committed to the reforms. Cleanup

managers in the regions also hoped that by using the reforms, they can cut

cleanup times. For example, a cleanup manager in Region V estimated that

managers could cut the time needed for a final cleanup from an average of

12 years to about 6 years. However, given their experience to date, industry

representatives in general were less optimistic about how quickly some

EPA regional and state cleanup managers directly responsible for

overseeing cleanup at a specific site will adopt the flexibility provided by

the administrative reforms. EPA program managers acknowledged this

concern. They stated that it will take time to change the prior cleanup

culture and that they have used the workshops to begin this change. EPA

noted that in response to our 1997 recommendation to monitor the use of

more flexible cleanup approaches, the agency has used meetings with

regions, states, and industry representatives to identify problems or

obstacles to implementation and monitor progress and will continue to do

so. While the managers said they did not have the resources to continue to

provide the workshops, they planned to conduct some limited follow-up

work to assess the training’s impact on promoting the reforms. The

managers also reported that private sector groups have agreed to sponsor

additional training sessions because of their value and success.

EPA’s Performance Goals

Have Brought Focus to the

Program, but Some

Stakeholders Question the

Extent of Their Impact

As part of the administrative reforms to the corrective action program, EPA

emphasized attaining by 2005 two performance goals set for the program—

to control both (1) human exposure to contamination at 95 percent of high

priority facilities and (2) the migration of contaminated groundwater at 70

percent of these facilities. EPA stated that it had decided as early as 1990 to

use its limited resources to first focus on stabilizing contamination at

facilities and recognized it could not also afford to concurrently focus on

pushing for final cleanups. EPA subsequently set these two goals in

response to the Results Act and considers this action a part of its

administrative reforms because it gave the program a new focus. According

to RCRA managers, the agency considers achieving these goals to be more

important at this point than diverting resources to implement final cleanup

actions. With these goals, EPA is not just counting the number of activities

completed, such as facility investigations under way, but is also measuring

to some extent the impact of these activities on protecting public health. In
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addition, the stakeholders we contacted agreed the goals have brought a

consistent focus to the program and have caused regions, states, and

industry to at least begin assessing facilities that had not undertaken even

the initial cleanup steps.

As figure 2 shows, the goals may be having an effect on the program. In

February 2000, in contrast to April 1997, more nonfederal facilities were in

the initial cleanup step of investigating the contamination present, were

taking interim steps to stabilize contamination, or had already met the 2005

goals of controlling contamination.8 The number of facilities implementing

final cleanup actions increased from 142 to 231, a rate of about 30 facilities

per year. EPA program managers pointed out that the goals were not

designed to focus on implementing final cleanups, only controlling

contamination.

8

In 1997, EPA had 1,304 nonfederal, high-priority facilities in its workload; and in 2000, it had

1,309 such facilities. We compared the list of individual facilities in these two groups and

determined that 1,112 facilities were on both lists and conducted our analyses on this

subset. The two lists differed primarily because EPA updated the corrective action

information system and made adjustments for sites whose priority levels were inaccurate.

We do note, however, that using 1,112 as our analytical baseline did not limit our results. The

percentage of sites in each step of the cleanup process did not differ significantly whether

we used 1,112 or the total fiscal year 2000 workload as our baseline.
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Figure 2: Status of Nonfederal, High-Priority Facilities in the Corrective Action Process by Cleanup Step, 1997 and 2000.

Source: EPA data as of April 7, 1997, and February 16, 2000.

As figure 3 shows, federal facilities subject to corrective action had made

more progress than the nonfederal facilities. For example, about 16 percent

more federal facilities were implementing final cleanup remedies in

February 2000 than in April 1997.

17.8%• Investigating contamination (198)

27.7% • Implementing stabilization 

actions (308)

• 7.4%

Contamination under control (82)

12.8%•

Implementing final remedies (142)

•

5.1%

Cleaned up (57)

29.2%•

Cleanup not started (325)

1997 2000

Cleanup not started

Final cleanup actions begun or completed

Interim cleanup actions underway

19.2% • Investigating 

contamination (213)

26.3% • Implementing stabilization 

actions (293)

17%

•

Contamination under 

control (189)

20.8%

•

Implementing final 

remedies (231)

•

6.5%

Cleaned up (72)

10.3%•

Cleanup not started (114)
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Page 17 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

Figure 3: Status of Federal, High-Priority Facilities in the Corrective Action Process by Cleanup Step, 1997 and 2000.

Source: EPA data as of April 7, 1997, and February 16, 2000.

A number of stakeholders observed that the goals have been successful in

pushing EPA and states to begin investigating more sites and ensuring that

contamination has been controlled. However, they also believed that the

emphasis on meeting the goals to date may have been more of a paperwork

exercise to document that the facilities are meeting the goals rather than an

effort to bring about additional cleanup actions. For example, the industry

representatives said that they would not jeopardize public health and

would have already controlled any human exposure to contamination prior

to EPA’s establishing its goals. Therefore their facilities will easily meet the

2005 goal for controlling human exposure without the need for additional

work. Several state managers questioned the usefulness of the goals in

achieving cleanup progress and also considered them to be more of a

paperwork exercise for the agency. In 1997, we reported that parties tended

not to initiate final cleanup actions unless they had an economic incentive

20.6%• Investigating contamination (40)

23.2% •

• •

Implementing stabilization 

actions (45)

9.3%

Contamination under control (18)

8.8%

Implementing final remedies (17)

4.6%

Cleaned up (9)

• 33.5%

Cleanup not started (65)

•

21.6% • Investigating contamination (42)

21.1% • Implementing stabilization 

actions (41)

• 9.8%

Contamination under control (19)

25.3%

•

Implementing final remedies (49)

•

8.2%

Cleaned up (16)

13.9% •

Cleanup not started (27)

1997 2000

Cleanup not started

Final cleanup actions begun or completed

Interim cleanup actions underway
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Page 18 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

to do so. Therefore, by focusing only on controlling contamination and not

on implementing final cleanup actions, cleanups could continue to be

postponed well into the future. At the current rate of 30 facilities

implementing final cleanups per year, it will take about 27years for the

remaining 809 facilities that we analyzed to at least begin to implement

final cleanups, and years more before they are completed. EPA managers

predicted that for some facilities, these interim actions to control

contamination may be sufficient and the facility may not need to pursue

any additional final cleanup actions. Expeditiously identifying and

removing these facilities from the corrective action program helps to

minimize federal expenditures and encourages the productive reuse of the

property.

EPA program managers stated that documenting whether a facility had

controlled contamination, not just relying on industry assertions of this,

was necessary to ensure that a facility had taken adequate actions. The

managers acknowledged that some facilities had already controlled

contamination, but they said a number of facilities still needed to take

some measures to control it. These actions could include, for example,

installing a fence and using security personnel to restrict access to the site.

The managers also predicted that as the agency approaches 2005, it may

become more of a challenge to meet the goals because the remaining

facilities that had not yet controlled contamination will be the larger, more

complex, and, therefore, more difficult sites.

EPA Is Just Beginning to

Address Its RCRA Funding

Shortfall

In 1997, we reported that a lack of resources for the corrective action

program was a major barrier to cleanups. Subsequently, in September 1999,

we identified insufficient funding for the corrective action program as a

material weakness for EPA. In fiscal year 1997, EPA requested about $45

million for the program. Over the next 3 years, the agency actually

decreased the amount of funds it requested, from about $42 million in fiscal

year 1998 to about $39 million in fiscal year 2000. Also in fiscal year 1999,

the agency took about $10 million from the program, in part to help pay for

unanticipated projects that the Congress had authorized that year. The

following year, the Congress restricted EPA from using fiscal year 2000

corrective action funds for these unanticipated projects. Finally, in fiscal

year 2001, the agency increased its budget request for the program to $50

million.

Similarly, states reported that they did not have sufficient funding to

implement the corrective action program. EPA provides those states
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Page 19 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

authorized to implement the program with grants to help pay for this

activity. However, the states had not received an increase in funding for

several years but had to pay increasing salary and labor costs. States

reported that each of their cleanup managers already had too many

facilities to manage, but EPA was asking states to increase their activities

in order to achieve the 2005 goals. The agency requested $8 million more

for states for fiscal year 2001. The program managers said that the agency

requested the $50 million increase specifically so that it could achieve, at a

minimum, its annual goals for controlling contamination. The managers

said even this increase, however, will not provide them the resources they

would need to try to concurrently focus on increasing the number of

facilities that have selected and are implementing their final cleanup

actions. Also, EPA expects that as it approaches 2005 it will be harder to

achieve the goals because the facilities that had not yet controlled

contamination will be the larger and more complex facilities and the

program will continue to need more resources.

Conclusions EPA actions have helped to remove some of the cleanup barriers posed by

the RCRA remediation waste requirements that we reported in 1997.

However, these actions’ collective effects on cleanups are uncertain. State

and industry cleanup program officials expect that the revised regulations

governing the management of remediation waste will not have as

significant an effect on cleanups as possible and that EPA’s settlement of

litigation concerning the use of on-site storage and disposal units for

remediation waste will reduce flexibility and thus deter some cleanups.

Because EPA does not plan to pursue any future comprehensive regulatory

or statutory reforms, agency, industry, state, and environmental managers

we contacted did not expect more comprehensive reforms unless the

Congress legislates them. Stakeholders did not agree on the need for, or

content of, legislative reforms.

EPA actions to encourage more corrective action cleanups have achieved

some progress, but three management factors may continue to hamper this

progress. These factors include individual cleanup managers’ reluctance to

adopt the more flexible approaches that EPA has provided through its

administrative reforms; a focus on achieving EPA’s 2005 goals without a

similar focus on implementing final cleanup actions; and continuing

resource shortfalls. EPA’s continued actions to address our prior

recommendation that it monitor cleanup managers’ implementation of the

reforms and provide training may help to address the first factor. The

agency’s fiscal year 2001 budget request also represents an effort to address
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Page 20 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

the resource shortfalls that were impeding cleanup progress, although the

amount of increase may not be enough to allow the agency to accomplish

more final cleanups, especially in the longer term.

Recommendations To achieve more cleanup progress in the corrective action program, we

recommend that the Administrator of EPA direct the Assistant

Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response to (1) establish

long-term and annual goals that delineate the number or portion of

facilities that are implementing final cleanup actions and (2) identify the

additional funding the program would need to achieve these goals and

consider these needs during annual budget deliberations.

Agency Comments We provided a draft copy of this report to EPA for its review and comment.

EPA appreciated the recognition we gave the agency for its efforts to

remove cleanup barriers and acknowledged the remaining issues we

identified. It also acknowledged that at some point in the future, as more of

the facilities achieve the short-term goals, it will need to shift more

resources toward achieving final cleanup goals. In general, EPA had two

concerns with the report.

First, while the agency agreed that implementing final remedies under the

corrective action program is critical, it maintained that in 1990 it had

decided to use its limited available resources to focus on controlling

contamination at the worst sites. The agency subsequently set GPRA goals

to achieve this for most sites by 2005 and designed its administrative

reforms to support these goals. EPA further stated that the program did not

have sufficient resources to concurrently focus on implementing final

cleanup actions. EPA maintained that this is the best strategy for the

program and that the focus on controlling contamination has had the

indirect effect of encouraging facilities to implement final cleanups. The

agency pointed out that between 1997 and 2000, the number of facilities

implementing final cleanups increased from 142 to 231, the largest rate of

increase in the history of the program. We made changes to the report to

more clearly present EPA’s position on this issue. The gains equate to about

one-quarter of the corrective action facilities progressing into final cleanup.

Therefore we continue to encourage the agency to seek additional

resources for the program in order to focus more attention on moving the

remaining three-quarters of the corrective action facilities into final

cleanup.
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Page 21 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

Second, in terms of its regulatory reforms, EPA pointed out that although

its remediation waste rule did not achieve as extensive a reform as all

stakeholders would have liked, a number of states have adopted the rule,

and EPA expects many more to do so in the near future. In addition, EPA

pointed to other regulatory changes it made that the agency believes are

important reforms. We have added this information to the report, where

appropriate. In addition to these overall comments, EPA provided technical

and clarifying comments, which we incorporated into the report as

appropriate. EPA’s comments are included as appendix II.

Unless you announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of

this report until 10 days after the date of this letter. At that time, we will

send copies of the report to appropriate congressional committees and

interested Members of Congress. We will also send copies of this report to

the Honorable Carol M. Browner, Administrator, EPA; and the Honorable

Jacob J. Lew, Director, Office of Management and Budget. In addition, we

will make copies available to others on request.

We conducted this review from March through July 2000 in accordance

with generally accepted government auditing standards. Key contributors

to this report were Rich Johnson, Karen Kemper, Eileen Larence, and Karla

Springer. Please contact me at (202) 512-6111 if you or your staff have any

questions about this report.

David G. Wood

Associate Director, Environmental Protection

Issues
Page 22 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

Our overall objectives were to identify and assess the extent to which

initiatives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implemented since

our 1997 reviews of issues regarding remediation waste management and

the corrective action cleanup program have (1) improved the management

of such wastes and (2) helped cleanups to progress. We reviewed

applicable statutory excerpts and proposals, regulations, policies, and

other documents related to these issues. We also interviewed

representatives from EPA and all major stakeholder groups that have been

actively involved in negotiating new policy and regulatory initiatives for

remediation waste and corrective action issues, implementing the RCRA

rules and corrective action program, and overseeing cleanups. These

groups include the following:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

• Managers within the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response and

the Superfund cleanup program.

• Cleanup managers in Regions III, V, and VI.

State Environmental Agencies

• Policy directors from the Association of State and Territorial Solid

Waste Management Officials and the Environmental Council of States,

and officials from associations representing state cleanup managers.

• Managers in eight states responsible for overseeing cleanups under the

corrective action program or their own state cleanup programs. We

selected five of the states—California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York,

Pennsylvania—because they collectively generate about 35 percent of

the nation’s contaminated media. The remaining three states—Texas,

Washington, and Wisconsin—were selected for geographic diversity. All

states, except Wisconsin, were also included in our 1997 review.

Industry Groups

• Attorneys and cleanup managers representing major corporations who

are members of three national associations representing industries

involved in conducting cleanups. The three associations were the RCRA

Corrective Action Project, the Technical Group, and the Risk-Based

Corrective Action Leadership Council.

• Executive officers of the Environmental Technology Council, which

represents private waste companies.
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 23 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

Environmental Groups

• A principal attorney from Environmental Defense, a nonprofit

environmental advocacy organization.

• The former and current principal attorneys from the Natural Resources

Defense Council.

To assess the impacts of EPA’s initiatives to accelerate corrective action

cleanups, we first determined the cleanup status of each of the facilities

EPA considers to be among the most in need of cleanup—high-priority

facilities. We collected and analyzed information from EPA’s national

program management and inventory system of hazardous waste handlers,

the Resource Conservation and Recovery Information System (RCRIS).

RCRIS captures identification and location data on facilities that treat,

store, and dispose of hazardous materials, as well as information on

cleanup activities. We compared the current cleanup status of these

facilities with their status as of our 1997 report. However, since our report,

EPA went through a major effort to improve the quality of the data in

RCRIS and to comply with requirements to measure performance under the

Results Act. As a result of this data cleanup activity, the universe of highpriority sites changed modestly between 1997 and 2000. Consequently, we

limited our comparison of cleanup progress to those facilities that were in

both sets of data. However, we also determined the cleanup progress of all

facilities in EPA’s universe of high-priority facilities for 2000 and

determined that the results—the percentage of facilities in each phase of

the cleanup process—did not change because of the additional sites.

We did not independently verify the overall accuracy of the data in the

RCRIS database. However, for our 1997 report, we had determined that the

RCRIS data elements we were using for our analysis had small error rates

and concluded that the data were suitable for the aggregate analyses we

presented in our report. Because of EPA’s recent efforts to update RCRIS,

we expect that the data we used for our fiscal year 2000 analysis are more

accurate.

To determine facilities’ cleanup progress, we categorized the facilities using

event codes in RCRIS. Table 1 shows the cleanup categories and the event

codes included in each category.
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 24 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

Table 1: Cleanup Categories and Event Codes Used

We conducted our review from March through July 2000 in accordance

with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Category Event codes

Cleaned up CA999

Implementing final

remedies

CA550, CA500, CA450, or CA400 but not CA999

Contamination under

control

CA725 or CA750, but not any of the codes above

Implementing stabilization CA650 or CA600 but not any of the codes above

Investigating

contamination

CA200 or CA100 but not any of the codes above

Cleanup not started Any remaining facilities without dates in any of the codes

above
Page 25 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups

Appendix II

Comments From the Environmental

Protection Agency ApendxiI
Appendix II

Comments From the Environmental

Protection Agency

Page 26 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups
Appendix II

Comments From the Environmental

Protection Agency

(160522) Letr Page 27 GAO/RCED-00-224 Hazardous Waste Cleanups
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