Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can

Be Solved...

October 1989

NTIS order #PB90-142209
Recommended Citation:

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Coming Clean: Super fund’s Problems Can

Be Solved ..., OTA-ITE-433 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October

1989).

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-600751

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents

U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402-9325

(order form can be found in the back of this report)
Foreword

This report, which responds to requests from the House Committee on Public Works and

Transportation and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, examines the

implementation of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. An

additional request was received from the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Ocean and

Water Protection. Before the currnt assessment, OTA had responded to a number of other

congressional requests to examine various aspects of the Superfund program. Previous OTA

works on Superfund include Technologies and Management Strategies for Hazardous Waste

Control (March 1983), Habitability of the Love Canal Area (technical memorandum, June

1983), Superfund Strategy (April 1985), and a number of special responses on specific

Superfund sites. OTA has also published two earlier documents as part of this assessment: Are

We Cleaning Up.’) 10 Superfund Case Studies (special report. June 1988); and Assessing

Contractor Use in Superfund (background paper, January 1989);

OTA recognizes the enormous challenge posed by the Nation’s commitment to clean up

uncontrolled toxic waste sites. The challenge is to our scientific knowledge about properties,

environmental transport, and health effects of toxic substances; to our technological

capabilities to manage hazardous waste and cleanups; to our national workforce which, prior

to Superfund, had little experience in site cleanup; to the government institutions charged with

implementing Superfund, notably the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and last, but

certainly not least, to everyone’s patience.

From its beginning. controversy has surrounded Superfund, and the program has had to

cope with an unusually high level of public scrutiny, criticism, and debate. OTA is sensitive

to the frustrations of many hard-working people trying to meet the Superfund challenge and

recognizes that people are still learning. And a great deal has been accomplished, although it

is easy to lose sight of the accomplishments amidst all the criticism. For example. hundreds

of emergency responses have been successfully carried out, an enormous amount of

contamination of land and groundwater has been carefully documented. and the major.

near-term threats at many sites have been eliminated. Yet most of the national cleanup job lies

ahead of us and the need to get increasing effectiveness per dollar spent is bound to grow.

In this report, OTA concludes that there is ample reason to be optimistic about the

potential of the Superfund program and presents a number of possible strategic initiatives and

incremental program changes in some detail. As difficult as the national cleanup job is, there

are many ways to build a better balance between health and environmental needs and the

limitations that technology, experience, and economics will always impose. OTA thanks the

project’s advisory panel members for their invaluable assistance and appreciates the

contributions made by all the other reviewers of the drafts of this report. But the contents of

this report are solely OTA’s responsibility.

Ill
Assessment on Superfund Implementation

Advisory Panel

David Marks, Chairman

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Kirk Brown

Texas A&M University

Richard Brownell

Malcolm Pirnie, Inc.

William Child

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

Henry Cole

Clean Water Action and National Campaign Against

Toxic Hazards

E. William Colglazier

Waste Management Institute

University of Tennessee

William B, DeVille

Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality

Deborah Hankins

General Electric Corp.

Bob Harris

ENVIRON Corp.

William N. Hedeman

Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.

Robert G. Kissell

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc.

Steve Lester

Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste

William Librizzi

New Jersey Institute of Technology

George Muhlebach

Ciba-Geigy Corp.

Robert N. Ogg

CH2M Hill

Robert B. Pojasek

ChemCycle Corp.

Frank J. Veale, Jr.

Texas Instruments, Inc.

James N. Welsh

formerly with Shirco

NOTE: OTA appreciates and is grateful for the valuable assistance and thoughtful critiques provided by the advisory panel members.

The panel does not, however, necessarily approve, disapprove, or endorse this report. OTA assumes full responsibility for the

report and the accuracy of its contents.

iv
OTA Project Staff-Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Lionel S. Johns, Assistant Director, OTA

Energy, Materials, and lnternational Security Division

Audrey B. Buyrn, Manager

lndustry, Technology, and Employment Program

Joel S. Hirschhorn, Project Director

Kirsten U. Oldenburg, Deputy Project Director

Karen L. Jordan, Research Assistant

Vickie B. Boesch, Analyst

David A. Dorau, Analyst

Contractors

Apogee Research, Inc.

ENVIRON Corporation

Frank R. Wolle

William J. Lacy

Jeffrey P. Perl

Lynn M. Powers

David Sheridan

Administrative Staff

Christopher N. Clary, Administrative Assistant

Diane D. White, Administrative Secretary
Contents

Page

CHAPTER 1. Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

SUMMARY OF OTA’s FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

THE BACKGROUND FOR PUBLIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

POLICY OPTIONS TO IMPROVE SUPERFUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

CHAPTER 2. The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

SITE DISCOVERY AND INVENTORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

SITE EVALUATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

APPENDIX 2A A HEALTH CARE MODEL FOR SUPERFUND SCREENING . . . . . 130

CHAPTER 3. Cleanups and Cleanup Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

10 KEY ISSUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

CHAPTER 4. Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

A PYRAMID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

SHRINKING SUPERFUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

SUPERFUND STANDS ALONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

ARE OTHER PROGRAMS THE SOLUTION? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

vi
Chapter 1

Summary, Introduction, and

Policy Options
CONTENTS

Page

OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Health and Environmental Priorities and Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

. . . . .

Workers and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Government Management

. . . . .

... ... ... ... ... .**. ... ... ... ... ... ..c. o**. $o. ... o*coo. .o 5

Conclusion of This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Key Superfund Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Public Demand for Cleanup

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Regaining Public Confidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

SUMMARY OF OTA’s FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

General Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Specific Problems and Findings

. . . . . . . . . . .

● . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

THE BACKGROUND FOR PUBLIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Breaking Out of the Superfund Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Do Superfund Sites Pose Significant Health Risks? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Strategy v. Spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Different Perspectives on Fixing Superfimd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

. . . . . . . .

POLICY OPTIONS TO IMPROVE SUPERFUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Summary Policy Overview in Three Key Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Policy Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

PART I: Strategic Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

. . . .

PART II Program Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Boxes

Box Page

l-A. How Does Superfund Operate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

l-B. How a State Cleanup Can Differ Substantially From a Superfund Cleanup . . . . . . . . 14

l-C. Three Kinds of Inefficient Superfund Spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

l-D. Questions and Answers About Policy Option 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

l-E. Examples of Using Current v. Future Risk in Cleanup Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

l-F. A Hierarchy of Preferred Cleanup Technologies and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Figures

Figure Page

1-1. CERCLIS Inventory and National Priorities List Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1-2. Approximate Reductions in Risk and Cost for Different Types of

Cleanup Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Tables

Table Page

1-1. Policy Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1-2. Summaries of Results of Some Epidemiologic Studies for Toxic Waste Sites . . . . . . 23

1-3. Examples of Use of Risk Assessment to Justify Superfund Cleanups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Chapter 1

Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options

OVERVIEW

Superfund started out in 1980 as a short-term

crash cleanup effort. By 1985, when Congress

debated reauthorizing Superfund for a second 5

years, it had become controversial and confrontational. It has remained so. Superfund still lacks:

10

2.

3.

a carefully crafted strategy with implementation policies to spell out environmental

priorities and goals;

an effective partnership among government, site communities, and private sector

parties responsible for cleanup; and

a unified national infrastructure of education, training, databases, research, and

development.

Superfund has not yet balanced protection of

public health and environment against constraints of information, technology, time, and

money very well.

Unless serious consideration is soon given to

making fundamental changes in the structure

and policies of the Superfund program through

strategic initiatives, OTA’s assessment is that

significant risks to public health and environment will remain poorly managed, public expectations will remain unmet, and public confidence will worsen. Fine-tuning or incremental

program changes are feasible and necessary too,

but they alone will probably not suffice.

Another general OTA finding is that reducing

excessive flexibility in Superfund implementation is critical to reducing the constant confrontation among nearly everyone affected by and

working in the program. OTA calls the current

adversarial condition the Superfund syndrome.

Public fears of toxic waste and toxic chemicals

set high expectations for Superfund; site communities perceive substantial risks to their

health and environment and they want effective

and stringent cleanups from the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA), regardless of cost;

but communities have experienced slow, incomplete, and uncertain cleanups. EPA tries to limit

fund-financed cleanups by getting parties held

liable for sites to voluntarily pay for cleanups.

However, responsible parties often believe that

their liabilities are largely unfair, that risks are

not as bad as communities think they are, that

cleanup objectives are unnecessarily stringent,

and, therefore, that they must work hard to

minimize their cleanup costs. Unless everyone

breaks out of the Superfund syndrome, most

cleanups will seem to do too little or too much.

Billions more dollars will be spent. Hardly

anyone will be satisfied. Hardly anyone will feel

treated fairly. Hardly anyone will seem in

control.

Another general OTA finding is that Superfund’s environmental mission is being undermined because of inefficient spending. OTA

estimates that between 50 and 70 percent of

spending by government and industry is inefficient because:

1. about 50 percent of cleanups address

speculative future risks which preempts

spending to identify and reduce current

risks at many other sites;

2. about 75 percent of cleanups are unlikely

to work over the long term; and

3. there are many unnecessarily high or

avoidable administrative, study, and transaction (negotiation and litigation) costs.

OTA has found that many of the problems

plaguing the Superfund program can be grouped

in three areas: health and environmental protection priorities and goals; workers and technology; and government management. A threepoint restructuring of the program focusing on

these areas is possible. We summarize below

our detailed findings in these areas. Later in this

chapter, we discuss 38 policy options that,

separately or in combination, Congress may

wish to consider to improve the Superfund

-3-
4 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

program. There are so many options because the

problems identified by OTA in Superfund

implementation are numerous and complex. The

38 policy options have been divided into two

categories: strategic initiatives, which would be

major new directions in the program, any

significant number of which would result in

program restructuring; and program changes,

which are more modest in scope and which

could be integrated into the existing program.

Table 1-1 lists the 38 options within the two

categories and three problem areas.

Health and Environmental Priorities and Goals

Clearer priorities and less maneuvering room

in environmental goals can make the Superfund

system work better, fairer, and faster. By not

setting clear priorities, government has fed

unrealistic public expectations, making management of Superfund with limited resources a

thankless task. Government has largely ignored

the front-end of Superfund; for example, there is

no Federal site discovery program. New National Priorities List (NPL) sites are no less

hazardous than sites discovered earlier, according to EPA data. But sites in the program may

wait years for significant attention. The size of

the NPL is a policy choice, and cleanups are

channeled from Superfund to other less stringent cleanup programs in the shadow of Superfund. Thus, Superfund may increasingly become a re-cleanup program.

A central conclusion of OTA’s 1985 report

Superfund Strategy was the critical need for

taking faster, but limited, actions at all sites

nationwide to reduce immediate threats and

reduce the spread of contamination.l Today, the

critical question is: Which expensive final

cleanups are truly necessary now? The distinction between significant, current threats v.

speculative, potential ones could be used to

answer this tough question. Prudent use of the

current-future risk distinction could get more

sites into and through the system faster, at least

through site stabilization to reduce current risks.

Although, permanent cleanups would have to

wait at sites where only future risks existed. The

current large backlog of sites at the front and

middle of the Superfund process could be traded

for a backlog at the end, producing more rapid

risk reduction for more people.

Workers and Technology

The relatively young and inexperienced national cleanup workforce requires better management, information, and technical assistance.

Long-term government support is needed for

basic research, R&D on critical problems, and

education programs to improve and expand the

national workforce. Frontline Superfund workers need more stringent policies on technology

evaluation and selection, more information on

what is and is not working in cleanups, and more

access to technical experts. EPA needs more

staff, to reduce its dependence on contractors,

but it faces recruitment problems. The enormous

potential size of the cleanup business has

touched off a ferment of R&D and the emergence of hundreds of new companies with

advanced cleanup technologies. But use of

better, but often more expensive technologies, is

limited by decisionmakers who are overly

cautious, have poor information, or are primarily interested in minimizing front-end costs. It is

equally important to recognize that some contamination problems do not yet have good

solutions. For large contaminated aquifers, pumping and treating contaminated groundwater is

less effective than previously believed. For large

landfills, capping is an impermanent solution.

l~d ~ ~u~uenl, ~~~ rep~s Are We cie~ing Up? 10 Superjioui Case Studies (June 1988) and Assessing Cmfmcfor use in SWeCfU~

(January 1989), as well as in testimony at a number of congressional hearings OTA identified many implementation problems, particularly at the

fiont+nd of the program. However, nearly all public attention on Supxfund still pertains (o remedial cleanup and the backlog at the front-end of

Superfund remains.
Chapter 1--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 5

Table 1 -l—Policy Options

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Setting Cleanup Priorities and Goals

1. Set Priorities on Basis of Current or Future Risks

2. Establish a Federal Site Discovery Program

3. Use Environmental Criteria to Eliminate Sites at PA and S1

Screening Stages

4. Remove Range of Acceptable Risk Objectives

5. Establish National Minimum Cleanup Standards

6. Define and Limit Meaning of Permanent Cleanup

Developing Workers and Technologies

7. Reduce Dependency on Contractors, Expand EPA Workforce

8. Establish a Hierarchy of Cleanup Technologies and Methods

9. Restrict Use of Groundwater Cleanup Technology

10. Establish Generic Site Assistance Program, Including Expert

Systems

11. Establish Technologies Assistance Program

12. Better Define Mission of SITE Technology Demonstration

Program

Improving Government Management

13:

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

Use Generic Site Classification

Limit Responsible Parties to Implementation of Remedies

Reexamine Financing and Enforcement of Liabilities to

Improve Environmental Performance

Strengthen EPA Headquarters Direction and Oversight of

Regional Implementation

Commit to a Permanent Superfund Program

Establish an All Inclusive List of Cleanup Sites in the United

States

Begin Examination of Moving Superfund Implementation

Outside of EPA

Government Management

By clarifying statutory requirements and

improving EPA’s compliance with them, public

policy, statutory requirements, regulations, funding, and program administration could work

together with less confrontation and friction.

Congress, EPA, and States can find common

ground in providing protection of health and

environment without threatening the public

welfare economically. Many of EPA’s actions,

such as its interpretation of cost-effectiveness,

seem inconsistent with statute. Many statutory

provisions provide insufficient direction to EPA

on how to resolve competing goals; for example,

PROGRAM CHANGES

Setting Cleanup Priorities and Goals

20. Use Hazard Ranking System in More Limited Way

21. Reassess and Limit Use of Indicator Chemicals for Site

Studies, Risk Assessments

22, Clarify and Strengthen Cost-Effectiveness Requirement for

Remedy Selection, Reject Use of Cost-Benefit Analysis

23. Better Integrate Community Perspective Into Enforcement

Site Decisions

Developing Workers and Technologies

24. Make Site Managers Responsible for Sites From the FrontEnd of the Program Through Final Disposition

25. Establish Program for Certified Public Environmental Auditors

26. Strengthen Effort to Offset Current Limitations of the Government and Contractor Workforce

27. Establish a Bureau of Mines Superfund Support Program

28. Establish a Superfund Support Program at the U.S. Geological Survey

29. Increase R& Depending, With Focus on Groundwater Cleanup

Improving Government Management

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

Combine Preliminary Assessment, Site Inspection, HRS

Scoring, and Remedial Investigation Phases into Single Site

Evaluation Program

Combine Removal and Remedial Programs Into Single Site

Cleanup Program

Reexamine Current Statutorily Required Program Performance Schedules

For Records of Decision, Require a Statement of inconsistency for Selected Remedy

Reduce Need for Formal Regulatory Compliance for Onsite

Cleanup

Establish a Formal Evaluation Program for Completed Site

Cleanups and Long Term Ones in Progress

Establish Formal Measures of the Program’s Environmental

Progress

Address Conflicts of Interest Associated With Technology

Selection

Reauthorize Superfund for 10 Years

what is a permanent remedy and when does

fund-balancing identify excessively costly fundfinanced cleanups?

The tension between obtaining more cleanups and industry’s interest in minimizing

costs has not been resolved satisfactorily.

Allowing responsible parties to conduct site

investigations and feasibility studies, which

guide cleanup decisions, poses a conflict of

interest between minimizing costs and assuring

effective protection; it gives an advantage to

responsible parties over communities. Superfund site communities want as much influence

as the companies found liable for cleanup costs.
6 ● Coming clean: Superfund problems Can Be Solved . . .

Responsible parties are paying for over 50

percent of site studies and cleanups through

voluntary settlements; EPA wants to increase

this contribution. OTA’s analysis shows,

though, that many of those cleanups are less

stringent than government-paid ones. In fiscal

year 1988, for example, 75 percent of remedies

based on land disposal were for enforcement

Records of Decisions (RODS) which are likely

to lead to responsible party cleanups; 78 percent

of remedies based on waste destruction technology were for fund RODS, which are likely to

lead to fund-financed cleanups. These and

other OTA findings show a pattern of EPA

selecting less stringent cleanup technologies

to obtain voluntary or negotiated settlements

with responsible parties. Excessively flexible

government policies and rules allow significantly different cleanups at similar sites. But

an affected community cares more about getting

effective cleanups than whether the government

or responsible parties pay.

Conclusion of This Report

The task facing Superfund is formidable—

cleaning up over 1,200 toxic waste sites currently on the NPL as well as another 900 sites

(EPA’s estimate) to 9,000 sites (OTA’s estimate) which could be added over the next 10

years+ specially in light of tight Federal budgets and shortages of technologies and experienced workers. Fortunately, though, opportunities exist for making both the strategic and

incremental changes in the program that would

allow it to fulfill its mission. Making Superfund

a permanent program would be a logical first

step in this effort because achieving complete,

rapid, and permanent cleanups everywhere in a

decade or two is impossible. Over many decades, spending by all parties on cleaning up

toxic waste sites could total $500 billion, unless

there are major technological innovations that

bring the costs of permanent remedies down.

BACKGROUND

Key Superfund Questions

As the time approaches for Congress to

reauthorize Superfund a second time, after a

decade of experience, there is ample reason to

ask: Can Superfund perform effectively—not

perfectly-to address the environmental problem of uncontrolled toxic waste sites? Can we

develop a strategy consistent with time, money,

and technology constraints? Can Superfund earn

public confidence? OTA’s findings support

positive, optimistic answers to these questions.

The Superfund system is complex (see box

l-A) and it is easy to lose sight of the basic

technical driving forces. Which sites require

cleanup? How much cleanup is necessary? What

cleanup technologies can do the job? The

answers to these questions determine the human

and financial resources and time for cleanup.

But there are few unequivocal, scientific right or

wrong answers for the Superfund program, and

often few (if any) precise answers for individual

contaminated sites much less for all sites. The

need for judgment is constant. Consensus and

trusted answers are scarce. Are procedures and

systems for site evaluations as effective as they

could be? If not, are sites being rejected which

truly need attention? Yes, they are. Has the

dilemma of spending a lot quickly on a few sites

while many more sites wait long times been

resolved? No, the backlog of sites waiting to be

evaluated in a preliminary way remains substantial.

Bringing more sites into the program, following statutory cleanup standards, and using

effective technology would require a lot more

money. More payments by responsible parties

seem necessary. But will more enforcement

mean a faster, more complete national cleanup

effort? Not necessarily. Determining who pays

for cleanup and building a strong legal case

takes time and the legal and administrative

transaction costs are high. And building a

successful legal case is not necessarily consis-
Chapter l-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 7

Box l-A-How Does Superfund Operate?

The Superfund system is complex. Sites are identified and enter an inventory because they may require a

cleanup. At this point, or at any time, a site may receive a Removal Action because of emergency conditions that

require fast action or because the site could get a lot worse before a remedial cleanup could be implemented. (Most

of SARA’s requirements for remedial cleanups do not apply to removal actions, even though removal actions can

cost several million dollars and resemble a cleanup.) In the preremedial process, sites receive a Preliminary

Assessment (PA); some then go forward to a Site Inspection (SI), with some of those sites scored by the Hazard

Ranking System (HRS). If the score is high enough, the site is placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) and

becomes eligible for a remedial cleanup paid for by the government, if necessary, or by responsible parties identified

as having contributed to creating the uncontrolled toxic waste site. Undercurrent procedures, only about 10 percent

of sites which enter the system are likely to be placed on the NPL. Some States have their own lists of sites which

require cleanup; these often contain sites not on the NPL.

NPL sites receive a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study (RIFS) to define contamination and

environmental problems and to evaluate cleanup alternatives. The public is given an opportunity to comment on

the RIFS and EPA’s preferred cleanup alternative. Then, EPA issues a Record of Decision (ROD) which says what

remedy the government has chosen and the reasons for doing so; the decision may be that no cleanup is necessary.

A ROD may only deal with part of a site’s cleanup and several RODS maybe necessary for a site. The ROD also

contains a summary of EPA’s responses to public comments. EPA chooses the cleanup goals and technology in the

ROD. In actual fact a number of actions involving different technologies are likely to be chosen for any but the

simplest sites. The ROD is like a contract in which the government makes a commitment to actions which will render

the site safe. If responsible parties agree to clean up the site, they sign a negotiated consent decree with the

government; this stipulates the exact details of how the responsible parties will proceed. If the cleanup uses

Superfund money, the State must agree to pay 10 percent of the cleanup cost.

In the post-ROD process, the site receives a Remedial Design (RD) study to provide details on how the chosen

remedy will be engineered and constructed. The whole process ends with the Remedial Action (RA), the actual

implementation of the selected remedy. Many cleanups include long-term monitoring to determine whether the

cleanup is effective and if more cleanup is necessary. A ROD may be reopened and amended because of new

information discovered or difficulties encountered during the design and remedial action. When a cleanup is deemed

complete and effective, the site can be delisted by EPA from the NPL.

SOURCE: U.S. CmgtwM, OffIcc of Technology Assessment, Are We Cleanutg Up? 10 Smpqftud Cuw Mu&s, OTA-lTE-362 (Wsshingtcm, DC: U.S. Govcmmctu

*Ofli=, kc 19ss).

tent with engineering a good cleanup solution. trols to offset the limitations of a largely

Obtaining settlements with responsible parties

tests EPA’s resistance to compromising environmental goals and incurs high oversight costs.

Even if we had enough money and technology, experienced and expert technical people in

government and in the contracting pool are in

short supply. Are special efforts needed to

increase and strengthen the national cleanup

workforce, especially at EPA where turnover is

high? OTA’s 1989 report on contractor use

showed how important this problem is, and a

number of the policy options in this report

address this issue. In the short term, can we use

information technology, special teams of experts, and stronger, central management coninexperienced workforce? In theory, yes, -but

new programs must be created.

Public Demand for Cleanup

Without intense public demand for cleanup,

there would be no Superfund program. But the

general public and Superfund site communities,

for the most part, have little confidence in the

Superfund program.

As a new, large, technically complex program

born in a crisis atmosphere in 1980, Superfund

faced many difficulties under the pressure of

high public expectations and intense fears about

toxic waste. Public expectations have remained

high. But the issue is not perfection. The public
8 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

wants open and honest communication and

information, opportunities to participate, and

environmental results. The public is not the

cause of Superfund’s poor performance to

date. OTA’s research finds that the government

has not yet balanced necessary environmental

goals with real world constraints of money,

information, technology, and time.

Sometimes the public must be-and is—told

that their expectations exceed technical or

economic resources. The issue is the credibility

of government reasons for not providing the

most stringent cleanups. Should the community

be content to wait for an indefinite period for

reliable site information and for a complete,

permanent cleanup? Or with full information,

might the community consent to accept an

interim action which greatly reduced immediate

threats, even though that meant waiting for

something more complete later on? Understanding this choice and participating in its resolution

requires complete and timely information and

participatory opportunities. The government has

not yet achieved these routinely. Sometimes the

need and choice seems clear to the community and to others; it is the government that

seems reluctant to do what is environmentally necessary and feasible.

Regaining Public Confidence

How the government identities and communicates cleanup needs and solutions shapes public

confidence. Superfund implementation needs

commonsense practices. Analyses which make

sense only to technical experts do not breed

public confidence. When Superfund’s managers

depend solely on risk assessments, cost-benefit

and other technical analyses to defend their

policies and actions they do not succeed. Some

Superfund managers do not speak in plain

English. They justify their actions in terms of

bureaucratic schedules and arcane regulations

rather than environmental goals. Of course,

within Superfund there are government people

saying and doing the right things. But it is

difficult for government workers to look (or

feel) good when the public criticizes the program they work in.

What does a permanent cleanup mean to an

ordinary person? It means that more studies,

tests, and cleanup will not be needed, unless the

most unexpected and unpredictable event occurs. In terms of safety, permanence means that

people living near Superfund sites do not have

to worry about exposure to toxic chemicals left

in their community. People understand that

some sites are very complicated and that new

information obtained during the cleanup process

may force significant changes. But people

rightly lose confidence when they are told it is

safe and effective to leave toxic waste in the

ground and cover it up with soil, or to bury

untreated toxic chemicals in a landfill, or to let

groundwater slowly flush contaminants into a

river.

Can a community accept a higher residual

level of contamination compared to another

community? Not if the real explanation seems to

be who is paying for cleanup. People living near

Superfund sites can understand that some legitimate technical factors (like a difference in route

of exposure or the presence of a sensitive group

of people or animal species) explain different

cleanup standards. But understanding complex

technical factors requires good information and

effective dialog.

Do people who live near a Superfund site

want their toxic waste shipped to a landfill in

some other community? Based on what people

have said during open discussions about remedy

selection, for the most part the answer is no.

When they do, they may be poorly informed

about the feasibility and safety of onsite waste

treatment, which the law prefers, but which may

be under attack because of higher costs.

Lack of public confidence in Superfund and

criticism of Superfund may cause some people

to discount the real environmental problem and

abandon the effort. With billions of dollars at
Chapter I--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 9

stake and widespread concern about competing environmental problems and harm to

American industries, building public confidence in Superfund is more necessary than

ever.

SUMMARY OF OTA’S FINDINGS

Superfund’s primary purpose is not to punish

guilty parties, not to sustain a cleanup industry,

and not to respond to people’s fears about toxic

chemicals. Superfund’s essential mission is to

clean up land and water that are so contaminated

that they constitute threats to human health and

the environment. Therefore, OTA has examined

Superfund from technical and environmental

perspectives. However, OTA finds that the

widespread interest in stronger enforcement to

get more financing of cleanups by ‘ ‘responsible

parties’ must be addressed because settlements

with these parties are affecting some cleanup

decisions adversely. Therefore, this dimension

of the enforcement issue is important in this

study.

There are three other chapters in this report

and OTA urges the reader to examine them

because only a small fraction of the detailed

information and analysis in them t’s given in

chapter 1.

Chapter 2 presents OTA’s research results

on the front-end stages of the Superfund

system, starting with site discovery, including several levels of site screening and

investigation, and ending with the listing of

some sites on the National Priorities List

(NPL). Even though the Superfund program has received so much attention, few

people know much about the preremedial

part of the program, yet it is critical to

understanding the issue of setting priorities

for the program and understanding potential resource needs.

Chapter 3 covers cleanups and cleanup

technologies. A number of key issues are

examined, including the meaning of permanent cleanup and distinctions among

different kinds of cleanup technologies,

and obstacles to using new cleanup technology. There is also an extensive analysis

of recent cleanup decisions which identifies the impact of settlements with responsible parties.

Chapter 4 presents information on the

whole national cleanup system and the

many different cleanup programs in it,

focusing on potential significant impacts

on Superfund implementation and future

resource needs.

General Conclusions

Accomplishments and startup problems notwithstanding, Superfund’s overall poor performance

is not a result of inadequate funding,2 lack of

cost-effective technology, inadequate legal authority for the government to get responsible

parties to pay for cleanups, insufficient policy

direction from Congress, or low public support.

Superfund has not been neglected, ignored, or

short-changed. OTA finds two root causes for

Superfund’s current low level of performance:

1) ineffective management of the Superfund

program by EPA; and 2) unsuccessful congressional actions.

The closer one gets to Superfund’s implementation the more that many cleanups look like

decisionmaking has worked backwards, that is:

1) on the basis of some rough measures of the

site’s problem an amount of money for a site

cleanup was determined, based on what responsible parties or the government were willing to

spend; 2) some set of technologies and responses were chosen; 3) the combination of the

first two determined the targeted level of

cleanup. Of course this overstates and over

simplifies the process. But money and bureau-
10 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

cratic imperatives to show that something is

being done seem to dominate Superfund, instead

of independent scientific assessment of sites,

cleanup objectives based on health or environmental effects, and engineering analysis of

cleanup options.

This study has identified options for a threepoint restructuring of Superfund:

1.

2.

3.

The

Health and Environmental Priorities

and Goals: Establish general and site

priorities explicitly based on environmental goals so that money is spent to

rapidly reduce the greatest and most imminent risks at the greatest number of

places; 3

Workers and Technology: Improve the

quality of work and reduce costs by

improving the government and contractor

workforce and the technologies and procedures it works with; and

Government Management: Clarify statutory requirements and congressional intent and improve compliance with them by

EPA policy and program management.

38 policy options presented in the last

section of this chapter could be used to implement this restructuring, separately or in combination, if Congress chooses to do so.

Specific Problems and Findings

In each of the three areas described above, we

identify first EPA’s and then Congress’ contribution to OTA’s identification of particular

problems. Then, we briefly discuss OTA’s key

findings.

Health and Environmental Priorities and Goals

Problem: Loss of the first priority, Superfund's

environmental mission.

EPA—It has subordinated the environmental

mission of the program to short-term fiscal and

administrative objectives by, for example, limiting the number of sites placed on the National

Priorities List and using an accounting approach

to measure program performance instead of

environmental accomplishments.

Congress—Some statutory directives have

led to actions which are counterproductive to

environmental goals---ego, non-environmental

performance schedules—which drive EPA to an

accounting measure of success. Such statutory

requirements provide incentives to artificially

shrink the size of the cleanup problem or to

shorten and undermine the quality of studies.

OTA Findings—Limiting program size

through controlling site discovery. Current EPA

data on how many sites require cleanup under

Superfund underestimate the true scope of the

national problem. But, as figure 1-1 shows,

looking at the past rate of increase in Superfund

inventory sites and National Priorities List sites

conveys a key message. Cleanup is a growth

business. This is despite the fact that EPA has

not carried out a comprehensive and systematic

site discovery program nationwide, even though

they have developed and, to some extent,

verified such a program in a few parts of the

country. Sites are also kept out of the inventory,

because once in it, they must be processed

within certain times.

Eliminating sites which really require cleanup.

EPA’s screening procedures for determining

whether sites require remedial cleanup under

Superfund incorrectly eliminate some sites which

really do require cleanup. EPA has not estimated

the magnitude of these false negative decisions,

but OTA has. From 240 to 2,000 false negative

decisions may exist. The criterion for deciding

whether a site qualifies for detailed examination

q~e su~rf~d ~endment5 and Reau~orization Act (SARA) of 1986 strengthened EPA’s abdity to perform linuted cleanup aCtiOfls under ltS

removal program. But there is no evidence that the program has shifted its focus substantially to faster, partml remedies, even taking into account the

use of operable unhs in the remtxlial program. Moreover, EPA current public discussions of setting priorities so that the worst sites get addressed first

does not include consideration of carrying out site discovery, moving all sites entered into Superfund mentor-y through preremedial evaluation quickly,

or being concerned about incorrectly eliminating sites during preremedial evaluahon which really req.ure cleanup.
Chapter 1- Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 11

Figure 1-14 ERCLIS Inventory and National Priorities List Sites

I 31,522

k

541 857 887 1,174 1,224

1 1

80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

(9 months)

Fiscal year

SOURCE Office of Technology Assessment, 1989.

has changed significantly. Originally, there was

a strict, but simple environmental criterion

applied at the earliest screening stage (the

Preliminary Assessment): Does it look like the

site may require cleanup? Lately, the criterion

has changed to: Is the site contaminated bad

enough to warrant cleanup under Superfund?

Indeed, the Hazard Ranking System (HRS) was

originally applied as the third and last screening

step. Now, the HRS is applied at the beginning

of the preremedial process when information

about a site is weakest. The question should nor

be: Do we know enough to keep the site in

Superfund? And, the response should not be to

eliminate it if we do not. The question should be:

Do we know enough to eliminate it from

Superfund? And, the response should be to keep

it in if we do not. The percent of inventory sites

examined in the preremedial process that made

it to the National priorities List sites started out

at over 20 percent, decreased in the past few

years to less than 10 percent, and must decrease

further if EPA is not to exceed its estimate of a

2,100 site NPL by the year 2000.4 A different

choice is possible. With site discovery, with

improved procedures for examining and

selecting sites, and without massive deferral

of cleanups to other programs, particularly

State programs, the NPL could ultimately

reach 10,000 sites or more, conceivably by the

year 2000 with a full-throttle effort. The size

of the NPL is a policy choice which controls

the distribution of cleanups among Superfund and other cleanup programs.

4MY invcntov sites, however, r~eive removal actions prior to or instead of placement on the NPL. However, there is little public Xcountability

for removal actions and EPA now defers them to responsible parties and State and local government agencies before it considers performing them.
12 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Problem: Luck of setting clear, environmentally

based program priorities.

EPA—It has not made sharp enough distinctions between sites that really require major

cleanup in the near term and those that can wait,

nor has it used alternatives to actions that cannot

provide permanent, cost-effective cleanups. There

is too much bureaucratic separation between

preremedial and remedial activities.

Congress—It has not adequately established

program priorities. Conflicting goals have often

been compromised as EPA tries to do a little bit

toward meeting them all.

OTA Findings—Permanent clogged preremedial pipeline. Under current procedures,

the program will never eliminate its large

backlog of unassessed sites which still require

a Site Inspection and possibly application of

the HRS. For example, it could take 10 years to

move all currently known sites through the

preremedial stages and then there would be

another 10 years of backlogged sites because of

newly discovered sites. At times it has been

suggested that the backlog is not that significant

because the Nation’s worst sites have already

been identified and are on the NPL.

However, OTA'S analysis of HRS site

scores shows that newly identified Superfund

sites pose about the same level of environmental threat as older ones. Letting sites wait

for years before they receive significant examination and attention, therefore, can be a serious

problem. To illustrate current delays, OTA

examined the 229 June 1988 additions to the

NPL; from the time of initial site discovery,

one-third of sites waited 8 years or more,

one-third waited between 4 and 7 years, and

one-third waited 3 years or less to get proposed

for the NPL. Analysis of the 47 April 1989

additions to EPA’s site inventory database (i.e.,

sites with completed site inspections) found

that, from the time of initial site discovery, over

50 percent of sites waited 8 years or more while

fewer than 20 percent waited 3 years or less.

All risks considered equal when they are not,

With few exceptions, EPA has not made a

distinction between estimated risks which are

real and current versus those which are more

speculative and contingent on uncertain future

uses of contaminated land or water or uncertain

migration of contaminants. If it did so, EPA

would have an important way to establish

priorities and postpone major spending. (However, this would complicate attempts to get

voluntary settlements with responsible parties.)

From examining several hundred cleanup

decisions over several years, OTA concluded

that as many as 50 percent of cleanup decisions

(some sites have more than one) addressed

future, uncertain risks. Confirmation of this

observation comes from a study by Oak Ridge

National Laboratory; it found that two-thirds of

groundwater cleanups and one-third of soil

cleanups were for sites without current risks

(considering both cleanup categories, the average was 50 percent cleanups for sites without

current risk).5 At the same time, EPA has

implicitly or explicitly deferred actions at sites

that pose significant, more certain, and nearer

term risks.6

There are limits to speeding up cleanups, but

room for improvement. Detailed data on how a

5c.B. My and C,C. Travis, ‘‘The Superfund Remedial Action Decision Process’ draft, undated; received by OTA on May 30, 1989; 50 out of 74

fiscal year 1987 RODS were examined; this is the same set of RODS from which OTA selected 6 positive and 10 negative examples for its June 1988

-.(Rele* as ORNJJN1-780, September 1989)

me following conclusion supports the importance of this issue and this finding: “The most important policy need is to develop realistic criteria

for making remediation decisions. We need to find a balance between technical and economic criteria, Identify statutory constraints on what remedies

can be implemented and what cleanup standards, if any, limit the selection of remedies, . . .[G]ream attention should be focused on developing criteria

to guide the decisions concerning whether to undertake remediation and when to stop remediation. Glen D. Anderson, WhutNeeds To Be Done ~ A Policy

Perspective on Ground Waterund Soil Rernediurion, presented at Researching Ground Water and Soil Contamination: Are Science, Pohcy, and Public

Perception Compatible?--+ colloquium by the National Research Council, March 1989, Washington, DC.
Chapter I--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 13

site moves through the entire Superfund system

(given in OTA’s 1988 report) show that between

4 and 5 years pass from when a site is first

identified until the Remedial Investigation and

Feasibility Study at a site is started; a complete

cleanup can take 10 years or more. But very fast

complete cleanups at complex sites would often

be inconsistent with technically sound cleanups.

No one should underestimate the technical

difficulties in fully understanding a site’s problem(s) and selecting a cleanup remedy.7 However, a major way to speed up overall protection

of health and environment is to move sites

through the early stages of Superfund faster.

And EPA’s preference for eliminating sites

from Superfund, incomplete and impermanent

cleanups, and unstringent cleanup standards

help produce statistical progress instead of

measured environmental performance. No good

measures of environmental performance either

at the site or program level are currently used.

Other cleanup programs exist but offer less

stringency. A myth has developed that Superfund is the national cleanup program for toxic

waste and other types of chemically contaminated sites. It is not. Superfund is just the visible

tip of an expanding national pyramid of cleanup

programs. All cleanup programs draw on the

same national workforce and technologies. Some

of the most important aspects of Superfund are

missing in other cleanup programs; for example,

in other cleanup efforts there typically is no

preference for permanent cleanups, less opportunity for effective public participation in the

entire cleanup process, less attention to all

significant risks to both health and environment,

and less public accountability.

Implementation of other cleanup programs

are uncertain. By ignoring site discovery and

controlling the preremedial process and the size

of the NPL, EPA diverts increasingly more

removals and remedial cleanups to other programs, especially to State programs. But few

States have effective cleanup programs. Current

information indicates that State programs rely

extensively on land disposal and containment

remedies, which ultimately will prove to be

impermanent.

Information on several major State programs

(e.g., California, Minnesota, and New York)

indicate that about 80 percent of cleanups, not

counting groundwater cleanup, bury or cover

hazardous site material already buried, compared to 26 percent for Superfund’s remedial

program. However, the figure for land disposal

and containment is close to 90 percent for

Superfund’s removal program, in which smaller,

more urgent actions are taken (one-third are

classic emergency responses). In other words,

State cleanups are more like smaller Superfund

removal actions (both are likely to cost several

hundred thousand dollars, rather than tens of

millions of dollars for remedial cleanups). See

box 1-B for an example of a State cleanup which

is inconsistent with current Superfund practice.

Because Superfund is the most stringent

cleanup program, there is more and more

shopping around for alternatives to Superfund.

The flight from Superfund can be viewed as a

significant national problem to the extent that

cleanups outside of Superfund are less comprehensive, effective, or permanent environmental

solutions. Ironically, Superfund may increasingly be required to fix poor cleanups of the

past from other programs, just as it was

originally conceived to address poor past

waste disposal practices.

_Jfi@en@ su~~~d ca~W[or ~ofesslon~s have o~~~: “using current site investigation and remediation technologies, it IS not possible

to locate all significant contamination, nor can anyone accurately predict contaminant movement, fate, exposure, effects, or remedial technology

performamx.” William A. Wallace and David R. Lincoln, How Scientuts Make Decisions About Groundwater and Soil Remedi@ion, paper presented

at Remediating Ground Water and Soil Contamination: Are Science, Policy, and Public Perception Compatible?--+ colloquium of the National Research

Ccxmcil, April 1989, Washington, DC.
14 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved , . .

Box l-B—How a State Cleanup Can Differ Substantially From a Superfund Cleanup

In May 1989, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency released its proposed cleanup plan for the Ashland Oil

site in Cottage Grove. As an industrial site where a variety of wastes were land disposed, the site is typical of many

Superfund sites. At the request of the State, the responsible party conducted the Remedial Investigation and

Feasibility Study, and it has indicated that it will implement the cleanup. It took about 5 years to reach the site study

stage, after the site was first identified as possibly requiring cleanup. Different levels of soil contamination, low

levels of groundwater contamination, and buried drums were found. Contaminants include various asphalt and oil

wastes as well as some volatile organic chemicals. Ten cleanup alternatives were examined, including no action.

The cleanup plan selected by the State has three components: 1) offsite disposal of excavated drums; 2) excavation

and consolidation of contaminated soils under a hazardous waste cap onsite; and 3) regular groundwater monitoring

to detect any significant increase in contamination. The cost of the selected remedy is estimated at $500,000.

The Minnesota cleanup program has generally received high marks and a lot of attention because it emphasizes

settlements with responsible parties. This cleanup seems representative of others in Minnesota and other States.

Compared to Superfund, however, a number of concerns can be raised:

. Not one of the cleanup alternatives considered involved the use of treatment technology to permanently

destroy hazardous material, unlike normal Superfund practice for a feasibility study. The type of chemical

contamination at the site could be so treated.

● The selected remedy is based on OffSite and onsite land disposal, the least preferred type of Superfund

remedy. The Superfund preference for a permanent remedy was not met. The source of potential increased

contamination of the groundwater, for the most part, remains onsite. No hazardous waste landfill liner was

selected, which would offer another level of protection against migration of buried contaminants into

groundwater.

. The proposed remedy plan does not tell the public of any specific risks to health or environment posed by

the site, nor any specific cleanup standards, unlike normal Superfund practice. It does acknowledge a current

(pre-cleanup) risk as human skin exposure for people entering the site without protective clothing. Them

is uncertainty about what level of detected increases in groundwater contamination would trigger further

cleanup action.

This example shows that successful settlements with responsible parties for State cleanups, like some

Superfund sites, can result in cleanups which are inconsistent with Superfund goals and requirements. Cleanup of

this site under current Superfund rules, without the influence of settlement, would have likely involved substantial

use of onsite treatment, such as incineration, increasing the cost to several million dollars. Even with a land disposal

approach, cleanup under Superfund would probably have required a hazardous waste landfill liner, especially

because of the evidence of groundwater contamination and because the site is along the Mississippi River. This

would have increased the cost significantly. In fact, this site was scored with EPA’s Hazard Ranking System and

was scored high enough to qualify for placement on the National Priorities List. But many States retain sites for their

own cleanup programs.

Workers and Technology Congress—It has appropriated enormous

Problem: Decentralized decisions by an

inexperienced workforce.

EPA--Superfund’s managers have not effectively addressed organizational and workforce

problems, such as the need to closely monitor

activities by 10 EPA regional offices and to

provide a young, inexperienced government and

contractor workforce with better information

and technical assistance, more explicit policies,

and closer supervision.

amounts of money quickly and put many

pressures on EPA to spend that money. There

has been little anticipatory concern about inefficient implementation resulting from excessive

demand for contractors, technical information

and methodologies, and cleanup technologies.

OTA Findings—Regionalized management.

Demand has outstripped the ability of government to respond efficiently, especially in EPA’s

10 regions. EPA Regional Administrators have
Chapter I--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 15

been granted extraordinary autonomy to implement Superfund. EPA headquarters has done

little to assure that regional cleanup decisions

meet high standards and are consistent on

key issues like cleanup goals and technologies. Nor do EPA regions learn effectively from

each other’s experiences, both positive and

negative. Regionalized management has also

stood in the way of developing effective national

databases and developing major support from

key Federal technical agencies.

[nexperienced Superfund workforce. The Superfund workforce in EPA, States, and contractors

has been given enormous responsibilities in a

high-pressure environment that demands quick

solutions to new and complex technical problems. But as already noted, the Superfund

workforce is largely inexperienced, untrained,

and poorly supervised. There is insufficient

technical oversight of critical studies, analyses,

and decisions. There is insufficient access to and

use of the latest, reliable information on cleanup

technologies and past cleanup failures and

successes.

8

Poor site studies and questionable cleanup

decisions. The costly and lengthy studies of site

problems—a scientific pursuit of knowledge—

and cleanup alternatives—an engineering analysis on how to construct a remedy—all too often

are riddled with inaccurate and incomplete

technical information and analyses (see OTA’s

1988 study). Poor studies help to explain why

the government does not routinely select the

most advanced, permanent, and cost-effective

cleanup technologies. EPA’s data on remedy

selection, for example, show that in fiscal year

1987 and fiscal year 1988 only about 25 percent

of source control RODS chose permanent remedies, using OTA’s criterion of destruction or

recovery of hazardous material. The Oak Ridge

National Laboratory study mentioned above

concluded that 19 percent of remedy selections

could be interpreted to offer a permanent

remedy; it also found that nearly 50 percent of

soil cleanup decisions lacked specific cleanup

goals and that RODS and backup studies do not

provide discussions or rationales to support the

selection of remedy based on a costeffectiveness criterion.

Heavy use of contractors. Nearly all Superfund activities are performed by contractors,

including some that should not be, such as

policy-related work (see OTA’ s

exert enormou s

influence over Superfund policies and programs, because government depends on them

not merely for carrying out engineering and

construction, but for the core technical expertise, information, and analysis which form the

backbone of Superfund policies, programs, and

decisions. Contractors frequently work both for

the government and for companies the government is regulating and trying to get to pay for

cleanups.

High spending levels cause inefficiency. The

rapid demand for Superfund contractor services

has been caused by the rapid escalation of

spending demanded by many groups and provided by Congress. Moreover, at the same time,

other cleanup programs have also geared up.

The result is predicted by classic economics.

Excessive demand creates a market which

provides easy entry for inexperienced firms and

too many jobs for inexperienced people as older

companies expand. This contributes to low

productivities and efficiencies, and it causes

widespread and rapid turnover of the relatively

few experienced workers and escalation of

ah imp~m[ obsemation a~u( tie workforce problem and environmental performance has been made by MI cxperlcnccd cnvlronrnental

professional: “The Superfund program suffers from a combination of a shortage of human resources and extraordumnly stringent environmental

objectives. On the one hand the nation is faced with a shortage of trained and experienced environmental scientists capable of’ cvaluat]ng complex risk

and exposure models at Superfund sites. On the other hand, the system has dclcgatcd to these same overworked and relauvely mcxperlenccd people tie

responsibdity for makmg risk balancing decisions wluch the [EPA] Adrmrustrator has frequently been unable or unwilling to make. Walter C. Barber,

Environmentuf LegIslan”on und Regufa!ory Pracnce, paper prepared for Envlronmentai Quahty and Industrial Cornpetitivencss workshop, American

Academy of Environmental Engineers, April 1989, Baltimore.
16 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

salaries. Expertise has been drained away from

government to higher paying industry jobs.

Currently, the government provides too few

incentives for quality work, too little management control and auditing of contractors, and too

little attention to layers of contractors and

subcontractors with high overhead costs.

Government Management

Problem: Conflicts between the statute and its

administration.

EPA—The agency often seems ambivalent

about implementing statutory policies and directives, such as the goal of minimizing impermanent remedies based on containment and land

disposal, and making technical assistance grants

to communities. Interpretations which are inconsistent with congressional intent are a problem, such as converting cost-effectiveness into

cost-benefit decisionmaking.

Congress—Some statutory provisions lack

clarity, especially on resolving competition

among objectives, or provide what gives, in

retrospect, too much flexibility to EPA—such as

the preference for permanent remedies which

does not define what permanent means nor

which treatment technologies are preferred.

OTA Findings—Mixed results from the removal program. Most actions are sound emergency and site stabilization responses to immediate threats, but some large removals circumvent statutory requirements for remedial cleanups. Removals frequently use offsite land disposal. EPA frost tries to defer actions to responsible parties and States. There is little easily

accessible public information on removal actions. EPA’s Inspector General recently reported not being able to find valid documentation for 30 percent of removal activities in

Regions’ files.9

Key remedial cleanup decisions inconsistent

with statute. With too few exceptions, EPA’s

key remedial cleanup decisions—Records of

Decision (RODs) are inconsistent with statutory requirements. They often are assertions or

expectations instead of closely reasoned decisions supported by data and thorough analysis.

Various kinds of environmental risks may be

ignored or discounted. Consequently, it is not

clear how the cleanups will be implemented or

how effective they will be. Descriptions of

decisions and remedies are frequently misleading (see OTA’s 1988 report). For example, a

ROD might say a cleanup is permanent, even

though the cleanup relies on land disposal, or

uncertain institutional measures such as deed

restriction on future land use, or the uncertain

outcomes of future tests, studies, and monitoring. The study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory mentioned above found that 68 percent of

final remedial RODS required additional studies

to confirm the extent of contamination, effectiveness of a technology, or applicability of the

selected remedy to the site conditions. A ROD

might say treatment technology will be used,

when in fact land disposal will be used for most

or much of the sites contaminants. For example, the cleanup at the Brown Wood Preserving

site in Florida consisted of sending 94 percent of

the carcinogenic contaminants to a landfill in

Alabama, leaving 6 percent for a biological

onsite treatment whose effectiveness is uncertain.

The cost-effectiveness criterion turned into

cost-benefit. Everyone knows that cleanup cost

has to be considered. However, EPA has transformed the statutory directive to minimize cost,

after cleanup objectives are identified, into a

cost-benefit approach which can reduce cleanup

objectives to reduce cleanup cost. Cost-benefit

thinking allows nearly any kind of cleanup

decision to be rationalized and undermines

the environmental goals of Superfund. Costbenefit reasoning backs up the selection of

impermanent remedies because of excessive

W.S, Environmental Rotection Agency, Progress Toward Irqulementing S~erjimd-Fiscal Year 1987-Report @ Congress, April 1989.
Chapter 1--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 17

flexibility in cleanup goals. RODS compare

cleanup alternatives which do not offer comparable environmental protection and, on the basis

of cost-benefit analysis, select low-cost remedies because a judgment has been made that they

provide enough of a cleanup.10 Communities

often want more environmentally stringent remedies which, however, cost more money than the

ones preferred by EPA, States, and responsible

parties.

Problem: Conflict between enforcement and

environmental protection.

EPA—It has not emphasized using the strong

enforcement tools provided by statute and,

therefore, has relied on making voluntary or

negotiated settlements with responsible parties

which sometimes are less stringent and less

costly than fund-financed cleanups at sites

where settlement is not feasible.

Congress-Congress has paid little attention

to the intrinsic conflict of interest EPA faces as

it pursues enforcement and settlement (to minimize cleanups paid for by the trust fund) while

trying to uphold its environmental mission and

adhere to strict statutory environmental provisions.11

OTA Findings-Cleanup decisions affected

by desire for settlement with responsible parties. The selection of remedy as embodied in the

ROD should be, but often is not, disconnected

from enforcement and funding considerations .12

For example, RODS from the enforcement

division show substantially greater use of containment and less use of permanent treatment

remedies than do RODS from the fund financed

part of the program. In fiscal year 1988, 14

percent of enforcement RODS (backed up by

responsible party studies) selected treatment

technologies which permanently destroy toxic

waste (chiefly incineration and biological treatment); 44 percent of fund-financed studies and

RODS selected destruction technology. Cleanup

standards at sites where settlement with responsible parties is a factor are frequently substantially less stringent than at sites with fundfina.need cleanups. An extreme example is for

two similar wood preserving sites, one in

Florida and one in Maryland. The cleanup

standard agreed to for the enforcement site in

Florida was 100 times higher (i.e., less stringent) than the standard for the fund site in

Maryland. Based on its analysis of fiscal year

l~c Oak Ridge Na~on~ Lahr@~ study mentioned above found that 34 percent of RODS selected either no action or the least cost iIkIMUVe

other than no action; only 8 percent selected the most costly remdy. OTA June 1988 report said ‘‘The average estrmated cost of the cleanups in the

six good RODS. . was $20 million. In contrast, the average estimated cost of not-so-good cleanups in the 10 case studies. . was $12 million.

1 l’rhls ob~mation supports this prs~tive: ‘‘In some respects, Congress has never explicitly resolved the policy issue as to whether the Superfund

program is basically a public works program (through the Fund-financed cleanups), a public health program, or a regulatory/enforcement program,

though SARA tips the balance more toward the latter. A consequence of a regulatory/enforcement focus is the demand for technical information you

can go into court with, thus leading to more intensive site studies to provide ‘enforcement quality’ data. . . this may be one of the root cm.ses, at least

horn a policy perspective, for the slow progress toward actual cleanups. ’ Glenn Paulson, Tools and Resources Av&”lable Policy Issues, paper presented

at Remediating Ground Water and Soil Contamination: Are Science, Policy, and Public Perception Compatible?---+ colloquium of the National Research

Council, April 1989, Washington, DC.

12A ~ent public statement of ths pdk’t’I was: c ‘The problem arises precisely because the risk assessment model has resulted m a further downturn

in the Superfhnd program credibility with waste site communities, which cumulaavely include millions of Americans. .[T]hese fears boil down to

a conviction that the government is more interested in justifying partial cleanups which do not offend the pocketbooks of industry than it is in having

an honest dialogue with affected citizens. ” Rena I. Steinzor, Decbions Based on Public Policies and Perceptwm, paper presented at Remediating

Ground Water and Soil Contamination: Are Science, Policy, and Public Perception Compatible?—a colloquium of the National Research Council, April

1989, Washington, DC. A study of EPA RODS noted that how closely a cleanup approaches legal mandates can be influenced by responsible parties:

‘‘when the PRP [potentially responsible party] plays an active role (provided that public acceptance is possible), the EPA may be willing to negotiate

and accommodate. Negotiation allows the EPA to gain PRP participation and financial resources where the alternative would likely be htigazion.

, . . ‘clean’ becomes whatever can be done at a reasonable cost with the technology available and that will be accepted by the public. ’ C.F. Baes 111 and

G. Marhtnd, Evaluation of Cleanup Levels for Remedial Action at CERCLA Sites Based on a Review of EPA Rtxords of Decision, Oak Ridge National

Laborato~, January 1989.
18 ● Coming Clean: Superfund problems Can Be Solved . . .

1988 RODS, OTA concludes that responsible

parties may eventually save as much as 50

percent or as much as $1 billion for those

actions, compared to more stringent remedies.

With settlements and consent decrees, much

can happen after a ROD is issued. For the Rose

Township site in Michigan, EPA changed the

selected remedy after the ROD in order to obtain

a settlement with responsible parties. The

change will reduce the cleanup cost by $19

million to $24 million. However, in EPA’s

proposed settlement plan and explanation of

significant differences it did not inform the

public that the settlement involved more than

replacing some incineration of contaminated

soil with soil flushing to remove volatile organic

chemicals. (Soil flushing had been considered

originally by EPA but not selected.) In fact, a

stringent numerical cleanup goal in the original

ROD was dropped and the consent decree

allows the responsible parties to propose cleanup

standards during the implementation of the

cleanup.

Several conflicts of interest risk the environmental performance of Superfund actions. Responsible parties have a conflict between minimizing

their costs and providing the public with environmental protection. In accordance with the basic

congressional strategy of restricting fundfinanced cleanups, EPA has decided to emphasize the tactic of shifting workloads and decisions to responsible parties. But letting responsible parties exercise control over the definition

of contamination problems, the selection of

remedies, and the implementation of remedies

requires closer, effective government oversight.

Increasingly, there is also a conflict between a

responsible party using its own cleanup technology or business versus someone else’s technology or services that might be more effective

environmentally.

THE BACKGROUND FOR PUBLIC

POLICY DEVELOPMENT

Breaking Out of the Superfund Syndrome

After examining Superfund implementation

since its beginning, OTA has found it instructive

to define a condition it calls the “Superfund

syndrome’ which can help us understand perceptions and problems of this program, as well

as the adversarial nature of Superfund implementation. A syndrome is a set of complex

symptoms of an undesirable condition. For

Superfund, the undesirable condition is constant

confrontation among nearly everyone affected

by and working in the program. Mutually

reinforcing but opposing values, interests, and

objectives make program management and program improvements exceedingly difficult. For

example, there are community-government disputes over technical issues and cleanup objectives; there are responsible party-government

disputes about technical issues and cleanup

costs. The Superfund syndrome forestalls consensus on identifying key issues and resolving

them. “Analysis breeds paralysis” as stakeholders with different perceptions of risk and

different priorities fight data with data. Contractors keep busy, reports pile up, contamination

spreads into soil and groundwater, many sites

wait to get into the system. It is very difficult to

break gridlock situations by invoking explicit

policy direction, and litigation waits in the

shadows. The syndrome slows improving program effectiveness and efficiency through upward movement on a learning curve.

OTA has identified two causes of the syndrome: 1) opposing views of risks to public

health and environment and, therefore, of necessary cleanup costs; and 2) excessive flexibility

in the statutory structure and implementation

policies of the program. The first factor has no

near-term solution, but the second cause does.

The result of these two factors is a system in

which competing interests find too many opportunities to achieve their objectives at too great an
Chapter 1 Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 19

expense to their adversaries. Site-specific circumstances and variations among communities,

responsible parties, and government officials

determine who ‘‘wins’ and who ‘‘loses. ’ With

the Superfund syndrome, the system tears itself

apart as it overresponds or underresponds at

sites. Only rarely do cleanup decisions satisfy

all parties and meet the full range of statutory

preferences and requirements.

First, consider the root causes of the opposing

views on cleanup risks and costs. One one side,

there are people who are primarily concerned

about risks to health and environment: the

general public who knows Superfund indirectly

through news media coverage and people in

affected communities who have had direct

experience with Superfund implementation. Repeated sharp visual images of leaking drums of

toxic waste, pools of foul liquid waste, discolored streams and creeks, and abandoned homes

near Superfund sites have etched permanent

impressions in the minds of most Americans.

Superfund’s implementation has documented

much chemical contamination of land and water

nationwide. For years, the public has heard a

steady stream of disturbing information about

political scandals related to Superfund, criminal

behavior of some toxic waste companies, continued conflicts between Congress and executive agencies over Superfund implementation,

and slow, patch-work, and ineffective government actions documented in many reports by

OTA, GAO, congressional committees, and

environmental organizations. After a decade of

such indirect experiences based on many sources

of information, the American public has a lot of

fear and anxiety about toxic waste sites.

At the community level, experience with the

government’s ineffective implementation of Superfund, as well as feelings about involuntary and

catastrophic risk, cause outrage and distrust,

dread, fear, and confusion. Again and again,

people living near sites say they feel victimized;

they face risks to health, environment, jobs, and

home values; they feel left out of key decisions

affecting their lives.13 These experiences and

emotions have increased people’s perception of

risks posed by toxic waste sites and made

cleanup costs a secondary issue compared to

obtaining effective protection of health and

environment. 14

Pressures from responsible parties push in the

opposite direction. These pressures result, in

part, from a perception that the toxic waste

problem has been blown out of proportion and

has caused an expensive over-reaction by government. In fact, the actual health effects of

many chemicals are questionable or unknown,

although many have known dangers. Natural

processes of dispersion, dilution, and degradation can sometimes reduce health and environmental effects of released site contaminants, but

this cannot be assumed. And chemical contamination of land and water does not necessarily

translate to exposures to those chemicals and,

hence, significant health or environmental risks

or effects. For some people, therefore, perceived

risk from toxic waste sites seems small compared to other environmental problems and too

small to justify the large amounts of money

being drained from specific companies and the

general economy.

Many responsible parties believe that they

have much more than money to contribute to

IJEpA’s rout~c com~ty relations effo~s are insufficlcn[ to prevent discontent in communities t.hOUgh early public participation and early

chssemination of information. For sites managed under EF’A’s enforcement prot?~, eff~tive public p~cipation is limlt~ by tie government ‘S inter~t

in building a strong legal cax.

140TA hw fo~d it CfitiC~ly impo~t to underst~d an important ~uding of risk communication: risk = hazard + outrage. (see peter M. Sandman,

‘‘Hazard Versus Outrage in the Public Perception of Risk, ‘‘ in Effective Risk Communicafwn, Vincent T. Covello et al. (eds. ), (New York, NY: Plenum

Press 1989), pp. 45-49. Hazard reflects scientific information about chemical contaminants, their health effects, and exposures to them. The outrage factor

is a result of dwerse experiences and feelings; for toxic waste it is higher than for other environmental problems, This explains why many Americans

view toxic waste sites as more threatening than other environmental problems, even though more people are afftxtd by other environmental problems

(e.g., w pollution and radon contamination of homes), which pose high health risks.
20 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Superfund’s implementation, including technical expertise, project management experience,

and more interest in trying innovative cleanup

technologies than government. An expensive

cleanup is not necessarily a truly effective

cleanup, they argue and, as OTA’s reviews of

cleanup decisions have verified, that is often

correct. As much as community people feel left

out of the decisionmaking process, so do many

responsible parties. Moreover, as much as

community people may feel like victims because of threats from toxic waste, many responsible parties feel like victims because the

liability imposed on them is not related to past

violations of laws or regulations then in place.

Economics affects risk perception. For those

being asked to pay cleanup costs, perceived risk

is usually lower than it is seen to be in Superfund

communities. (This lower perceived risk often

changes when responsible parties become members of an affected community.) If risk is

underestimated, then there is a potential for

underresponses by the cleanup program. Moreover, this economic perturbation of risk sometimes occurs with EPA officials who, like

responsible parties, place high value on minimizing individual cleanup costs in order to

spread Federal money around to more sites. And

they too may believe that risks are not as high as

affected citizens believe them to be. Indeed,

EPA has said this officially.ls

Next, consider the causes and characteristics

of excessive program flexibility. Normally,

flexibility is valuable. Indeed, at the beginning

of the program, flexibility was critically needed.

Superfund was a new government program and

cleaning up toxic waste sites was a new and

largely unknown challenge. There was a true

need for flexibility because there was little

reliable information or experience to fine-tune

policies and objectives. Today, after nearly a

decade of experience and a lot of information,

the flexibility in the program seems excessive,

and seems to the public like a way to minimize

costs by lowering protection.16 There are too

many opportunities for opposing interests—

including the public—to achieve their objectives at too great an expense to others. Government officials have too much room to make

different kinds of decisions, and often contradictory ones at different sites, depending on

circumstances and bureaucratic goals, such

as obtaining settlements with responsible

parties.

Excessive flexibility means that there are few

safeguards against underestimating risk and

cleanup needs, and designing cleanups accordingly. This ultimately increases public concerns,

which results in the public seeing more risk.

Increased perception of risk leads to greater

public demands, making it harder for government to satisfy expectations. But, excessive

flexibility also allows over responses to heightened perceptions of risk. Selecting an overly

stringent cleanup at a site or giving high priority

to what seems like a less serious situation often

prompts responsible parties and some government officials to fight the desired remedy or to

reduce costs at other sites. And in some cases,

there are several community groups expressing

diametrically opposite views on cleanup objectives and remedies. This contributes to gridlock

at the site level. If responsible parties refuse to

go along with a stringent cleanup and EPA

cannot compromise because of strong community positions, then the State may become the

15u.3 ~v~wmt~ Ra=um Agency, u~n~~dBusiness: A Comparative Assessment of Environmental Problem, Febm~ 1987.

161*~b~ ~‘mulmm flexibility/yninimum ~co~~illty’ ~proach by community grOUpS living woundthe dump sites, this approach dlOWS

EPA to take into account numerous variables, most notably cost, in addition to the need to protea human health and the environment when cleaning

up sites. . . [T]k major objection that environmental and community groups have about the current EPA approach is that it does not guarantee a minimum

level of protection to citizens across tk country; rather, a number of factors, many of which are never quantified or explicitly discussed, appear to

determine the amount of contamination that will remain at the site after cleanup. ” Linda E. Grtzr, “How Clean is Clean? An Environmentalist

perspective,” Hazardaus Wurte Site Management: Water Quality /ssues, Report on a Colloquium Sponsored by the Water and Tkdnology Board

(W-,~: Nadortd hi(ktly hSS, 1988).
Chapter 1-Summary, introduction, and Policy options ● 21

controlling factor because it may not provide the

required 10 percent matching funds for what it

considers an overly expensive fund-financed

cleanup. The Superfund syndrome is sustained.

Excessive program flexibility entails:

a great deal of EPA regional autonomy,

permitting different interpretations of statute and EPA headquarters’ policies (i.e.,

how much protection from toxic waste a

person receives depends on where in the

United States that person happens to live);

a widespread belief among EPA staff that

every cleanup is unique;

a broad range of acceptable risk for setting

cleanup objectives;

no official definition for permanent cleanup;

little distinction among the environmental

results of very different cleanup technologies and methods;

using cost-benefit instead of costeffectiveness to justify selected remedies;

using public opposition to an expensive

treatment cleanup alternative to help reject

it, but ignoring public opposition to a

low-cost, land disposal alternative in order

to select it;

no specific criteria for using the statutory

fund-balancing provision to reject highcost cleanup alternatives; and

selective use of different enforcement mechanisms.

Theoretically, responsible party concerns about

cleanup cost might balance the demands for

more stringent and effective cleanups by people

at risk. But instead of opposing priorities

creating optimum cleanups, the Superfund system often creates site decisions that individually

overrespond or underrespond to site hazards.

Site outcomes depend on the relative strengths

of affected citizens and responsible parties at

specific sites and often the views of the State.

Without viable responsible parties, articulate

community groups may obtain overly stringent

cleanups. Without well-organized community

groups, settlement cleanups may be weak. At

those sites where there are both strong, united

community and responsible party interests,

gridlock is likely. 17

In addition to the general public and affected

communities, there are tens of thousands of

people implementing Superfund, both government employees and contractors, who think that

they have done the best they could with an

impossible situation. Some people in Congress

think that no matter what they do the program

remains deeply troubled. Nearly everyone is

frustrated, but nearly everyone has learned to

find opportunities within the system excessive

flexibility to achieve their goals, at least some of

the time, or to prevent remedies they oppose, or

to make implementation of them difficult.

Cleanup decisions can be reopened or changed

considerably during their implementation.

There is another complication. Spending

billions of dollars has created a new industry. A

legal, consulting, technology, and site and

laboratory services industry thrives on Superfund and other cleanup programs. National

cleanup spending is between $2 billion and $3

billion annually—and growing at a high rate,

probably 20 to 40 percent for most companies in

the business of cleanup. Changing Superfund

inevitably affects the financial interests of this

cleanup industry as a whole and, in a more

complicated way, the relative competitive interests of different companies. Of course this

industry is filled with people who genuinely care

about the cleanup problem and about doing a

good job. They too have to live with Superfund

implementation problems, and they would like

I T~e eff=tlveorg~zatlm of community intere5~ into a single set of well-articulated demands and acti vities to achieve them s=ms to be determmed

by several factors. For example, the clearer and more imminent the threat to public health, the more likely it IS that the community WIII rally around a

particular set of cleanup objectives and remedies. Another factor is whether the community is able to lap the reso~ces of a nationaJ environmental or

public interest organization or local tezhrucal experts, such as engineering faculty. in some cases there may be a strong relationship with the prime

responsible party which also IS the commumty chief’ source of employment.
11 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

to see them solved. But, overall, the cleanup

industry pays little penalty for Superfund’s

ineffectiveness and inefficiency. Nor does it

receive much incentive from the government for

improved performance. Because of strong public support for Superfund, a backlash effect

which would diminish cleanup activity has

seemed unlikely. And the cleanup industry has

benefited from other, growing cleanup programs. For the most part, this industry is viewed

with distrust by communities because it works

for the government and responsible parties

which, as discussed above, are seen to have

different priorities than communities.

Do Superfund Sites Pose Significant

Health Risks?

Superfund was not created on the basis of

lengthy, detailed studies which made the case

for its need. Sup-fund was born out of something close to public hysteria, news stories about

leaking toxic waste sites, vivid pictures of sites,

and first-person accounts of health effects. Do

uncontrolled toxic waste sites in fact pose a

problem that justifies a multibillion dollar

program? The evidence available now indicates to OTA the answer is yes.

First, mainly because of hundreds of Superfund studies (and the availability of advanced

analytical techniques to detect smaller and

smaller amounts of contaminants), there is

massive documentation of substantial contamination of air, land, surface water, and groundwater in virtually every part of the United States.

For many of the prevalent contaminants, there is

undisputed information on adverse health and

environmental effects.

Second, adverse health effects in populations

exposed to releases of contaminants from cleanup

sites have been documented (and some effects

have not) through a few epidemiologic studies

which, however, are almost always viewed by

many professionals to have serious shortcomings. Examples of these are summarized in table

1-2; nearly all of them are controversial. Such

studies are difficult and costly to conduct.

Proving the contribution of past exposures to

currently identifiable health effects, having

many other possible causes, and in a mobile

population is very difficult.

Third, Superfund has produced many exposure and risk assessments. These have documented past, current, and future exposures and

risks through a variety of routes of exposure,

including ingestion, inhalation, and dermal absorption, and for different types of people,

including workers, residents, and occasional

visitors. Risk assessment methodology has major

limitations, often yields imprecise estimates,

and produces numbers that very much depend

on who does the work.18 Using seemingly the

same methodology, people working for the

government or a responsible party can analyze

a site and produce estimates of risk differing by

a factor of 10 or 100, or even more. But the point

is that many of Superfund’s assessments have

yielded undisputed high estimated current risks

like 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 excess cancer deaths.19

EPA’s decision document for the cleanup of the

Rose Township site in Michigan noted an excess

cancer risk as high as 0.7 (i.e., 70 percent of

exposed population dying of cancer) for consumption of groundwater contaminated principally with PCBs, vinyl chloride, and arsenic;

and a non-carcinogenic risk as high as over 100

times the safe value, arising principally from

lg~e ~ of EpA’s SWe@~ f~lic Health Evaluation Manual does not eliminate these problems. Also see Joel S. Hirschhom et al., ‘ ‘Ustig Risk

Concepts m Superfund,’ Supe@nd ’87, proceedings of November 1987 conference, Hazardous Materials Research Institute, Silver Spring, MD.

lg~r C]emups are jmtifi~ only on me basis of estimated and, to a large degree, hypothethized future exposures and risks. Will residences be built

on the land, groundwater be used as drinking water, or institutional controls such as fences and deed restrictions always be effective? The uncertainly

for future, potential rtiks is tnevitubly larger than for curreru rhk. But the statute requires cleanups for potcnual as well as current risks. And this

requirement demands thinking through what mighr happen at a site. However, EPA has not routinely made an explicit distinction between future potential

risks and significant currenl risks.
Chapter I--Summary, introduction, and Policy Options . 23

Table l-2--Summaries of Results of Some Epidemiologic Studies for Toxic Waste Sites

Hardeman County, Tennessee By 1977, 5 years after burial of pesticide

production wastes had stopped, local residents were complaining of

bad-tasting, smelly well water and were reporting health problems.

Groundwater testing confirmed that a variety of chlorinated solvents

had leached from the site, including carbon tetrachloride, chloroform,

methylene chloride, and tetrachloroethylene. Providing a new water

supply for some residents resulted in the disappearance of acute

symptoms, such as nausea, diarrhea, skin and eye irritation, and upper

respiratory infections But persisting problems were identified 2 years

later, including enlarged livers and eye problems. Eleven county

residents were hospitalized with a variety of symptoms. A limited

health survey by the University of Cincinnati found evidence of liver

dysfunction.

San Jose, California A water supply had been contaminated by leakage

from an underground storage tank; 1,1,1-trichloroethane and 1,1-

dichloroethylene were found in a municipal well. A study by the

California Department of Health Services in 1980 and 1981 documented a doubled rate of spontaneous abortions in the exposed area

as compared to a control area. The study also found a nearly four-fold

increase in all birth defects combined. After the well was closed, a

1986 follow-up study found no excess malformations. In a different

study, the rates of cardiac defects in the affected area were compared

against the rest of the county. An excess number of major cardiac

defects occurred in babies born to residents in the affected area for

1981. In May 1988 the State sad, that the leak, was an “unlikely”

cause of the observed health problems, but also that “it probably will

never be possible to determine conclusively what the role the leak

played .“

Love Canal, New York In the 1970s there was ample evidence to residents

of leaking toxic waste from the former disposal site. Testing confirmed

SOURCE. Contractor work for OTA by ENVIRON Corp 1989

chlorobenzene in the groundwater. But these

risks were for a ‘‘hypothetical exposure’ not a

current exposure to the contaminated groundwater.

Table 1-3 gives a summary of descriptions of

significant estimated risks at seven Superfund

sites, based on EPA site documents. These

examples illustrate the kind of results being

obtained at Superfund sites, including sites for

which cleanup has been justified only or partly

on the basis of future potential risks. However,

many times, actions are taken on the basis of

information obtained about current releases of

contaminants, likely exposures to them, and

possible health effects. For example, New

Jersey recently decided that it had to recontrol

86 sites contaminated with chromium by coverheavy contamination in air, water, and soil, Beginning in 1976, local

residents began reporting elevated incidence of a variety of health

symptoms, Residents reported elevated incidences of miscarriages

and children with multiple birth defects, severe asthma, and congenital

heart defects, A 1978 preliminary health survey of over 100 residents

by the Love Canal Home Owner’s Association showed an increase in

health problems; these included urinary tract problems, central

nervous system disorders, and adverse reproductive outcomes such

as miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects In August 1978 the State

declared a health emergency.

Woburn, Massachusetts Drinking water was found to be contaminated

with solvents at concentrations one-tenth of those in San Jose,

California. Some residents were supplied with contaminated water to

a much greater degree than others. In 1984, a team from Harvard

University conducted a study The study groups were women who

received less than 20 percent or more than 20 percent of their drinking

water from contaminated wells. Relative risks were found to be

elevated for eye and ear birth defects and for birth defects generally

considered associated with environmental exposures, such as spina

bifida, central nervous system problems, and cleft palate During the

3 years after use of the contaminated wells was discontinued, the

relative risks of perinatal death and birth defects among exposed

mothers were comparable to those in other parts of the community,

Also, the incidence of childhood Ieukemla was Increased In Woburn,

especially in the areas receiving almost all water from the contaminated wells. Childhood leukemia continues to be studied In exposed

adults in Woburn, neurological damage, immunologic problems, and

cardiac arrhythmias persisted for at least 5 years

ing them with asphalt for perhaps 2 years until

a final remedy is selected. Monitoring had found

high levels of chromium in dust in a school.20

Controlling windblown chromium dust to minimize health risks was the stated goal.

Other Reasons for Cleaning Up Sites

As important as health risks are, there are

other reasons for cleaning up sites. Protecting

the environment is important in itself. Also,

damage to sensitive parts of the environment can

signal future damage to human health for two

reasons. First, toxic chemicals may enter our

food chain, but take long times to manifest

themselves as a cause of human health problems. Second, environmental damage may happen at low concentration levels, but contamiThe New York Times, July 26, 1989.
24 ● coming clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Table l-3-Examples of Use of Risk Assessment to Justify Superfund Cleanups

Baird and McGuire site, Massachusetts Future risk. Out of 102

contaminants, 53 critical contaminants were selected using methods

suggested by EPA; they included 26 carcinogens, 11 noncarcinogens,

and many suspected carcinogens. Because the site is not homogeneous in its geology, hydrology, and contamination, it was divided into

10 zones. The risk assessment focused on potential risks under

hypothetical future conditions, because groundwater was not being

used, a fence prevents direct contact with soil and surface water, there

was no current fishing or recreational uses of the area. All the zones

were found to have at least one pathway for exposure with the

estimated incremental lifetime cancer risk greater than 1 in 10,000 and

several pathways pose risks greater than 1 in 100. Moreover, all but

two of the zones have at least one pathway with the Hazard Index for

noncarcinogenic substances greater than the cutoff of one. The

pathway showing the greatest potential risks was groundwater

ingestion by adults.

Price Landfill site, New Jersey Future risk. Major groundwater contamination exists. The primary route of exposure was found to be ingestion

of contaminated groundwater. Past and current exposures were

evaluated for municipal and private water supply users. Actual

concentrations of volatile organic chemicals in the groundwater

supply wells were used. Although past risks were high for the

municipal water users, current risks were low, even if it was assumed

that the wells had not been taken out of production, which they had

been. Risks for the private well users had in some cases been as high

as 4 in 10,000 cancer risk, but the homes had been connected to

public wells. A major groundwater cleanup was selected for the site,

presumably because of potential future use of the groundwater. A

qualitative risk assessment showed that ingestion of soil inorganic

contaminants by children posed a significant risk which justified site

capping and fencing.

Tinkam’s Garage, Now Hampshire Future risk. Indicator contaminants

were chosen based on concentrations of volatile organic chemicals

found in groundwater, surface water, and soil, and their toxicity; there

were 10 carcinogens and 10 noncarcinogens. Future risks were

estimated on the assumption that an alternative water supply had not

been installed, and residents continued to consume contaminated

groundwater under two scenarios: either at the levels measured in

supply wells, or at the maximum concentrations measured in site

monitoring wells. The latter produced estimated cumulative cancer

risk of 2 in 100 compared to 3 in 10,000 for the lower concentrations

at the well point. For the noncarcinogens, the Hazard Index was over

30 for the higher site concentrations and 2 for the well concentrations.

Two scenarios for children with oral and dermal routes of exposure to

contaminated soil were used: a worst-case scenario assumed

contaminant concentrations equal to the maximum measured values;

a more-likely scenario assumed contaminant concentrations equal to

the average measured values. The worst-case produced a cumulative

cancer risk of 1 in 1,000 and the more-likely scenario 5 in 100,000. For

noncarcinogens the Hazard Index was 1.7 for the worst-case and less

than the cutoff of one for the more-likely case.

Summit Nationai site, Ohio Current and future risks. Studies showed the

presence of more than 100 chemicals in different media on and offsite.

Indicator chemicals were selected for groundwater, soil, and sediment, Under current use of the site and surrounding area, these

exposure pathways were of concern: ingestion of site soils by

trespassers, ingestion of offsite soils by residents and workers, and

ingestion of sediments, Ingestion of groundwater under the current

use scenario was not considered because onsite wells were not being

used and local residential wells had not been found to be contaminated. For current use, the worst case cancer risks were in the 1 in

10,000 to 1 in 1 million range but the average exposures did not

warrant cleanup using a cutoff of 1 in 1 million; nearly all of the Hazard

Indices were below 1. The potential future use scenario considered

ingestion of groundwater and soils by onsite workers and residents.

An average (based on geometric mean contaminant concentration)

and worst case (based on maximum detected value of contaminant)

exposure were calculated. For future use, both the average and worst

case scenarios could justify cleanup, with the worst case risks being

as high as the 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 levels for the groundwater ingestion

route; the Hazard Indices were very high for the worst case

groundwater route, as much as 400.

Leetown Pesticide site, West Virginia Current and future risks. Risks

were determined for exposure to most of the pesticides detected and

arsenic. Ail major site contaminants were considered carcinogens.

The current exposure route was ingestion of milk by local residents

from cows fed silage grown in areas of soil contamination, assuming

either all milk drunk was contaminated or that the daily mixed

contaminated milk with noncontaminated milk. Only under the

all-contaminated milk scenario was the risk significant enough to

justify cleanup; it was at the 1 in 10,000 level. The future exposures

were inhalation of contaminated dust and dermal exposure to

contaminated soil by farmers tilling fields; this scenario assumed that

the former orchards, then used mostly for pasture, might change to

more intensive agriculture. Site sampling did not indicate groundwater

contamination. Cumulative cancer risks for different areas were based

on average contaminant concentration. For nearly all areas and for

both inhalation and dermal exposure, the risks were high enough to

justify cleanup, with inhalation risks being much higher and ranging

from the 1 in 100 to 1 in 1,000 levels in four areas out of six.

Wildcat Landfill site, Delaware Current and future risks. Of 80

contaminants of heavy metals, PCBs, and other organic chemicals, 60

were used in the risk assessment. Current exposure pathways

examined were: ingestion of groundwater by off site residents,

incidental ingestion of surface waster from nearby river by occasional

site users, ingestion of contaminated fish from river by occasional

users, and direct contact with soil and surface Ieachate by occasional

users. High excess lifetime cancer risk was estimated for current site

users through inadvertent ingestion of contaminated soil (1 in 1,000)

and through surface water (8 in 100,000). The cancer risk for current

offsite groundwater users was 1 in 1 million. Future use exposure

scenarios examined were: ingestion of groundwater by future onsite

and offsite residents, and direct contact of soil and Ieachate by future

site residents. The future potential risk for onsite residents consuming

contaminated groundwater produced the highest lifetime cancer risk

(4 in 1,000) and noncarcinogenic hazard index (104).

Sol Lynn/Industrial Transformer site, Texas Current risk. Site investigations found PCB and TCE in soil, plus several other organic

contaminants. Risks were estimated for soil under current use

scenarios. Only the risk of exposure to PCB through ingestion and

dermal absorption was estimated. Due to the proximity of people

within one mile (the Houston area) of the contaminated soil, exposure

concentrations for PCB were assumed to equal maximum concentrations. The exposed population included workers, trespassers, and

clientele of the businesses which currently operate at the site. Excess

lifetime cancer risk associated with exposure to PCBs at the site was

estimated to be 1 in 1,000.

SOURCE: Contractor work for OTA by Environ Corp., 1989.
Chapter 1--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 25

nants may later be concentrated to high enough

levels in food chains to affect human health.

Another reason for cleaning up chemical

contamination of land and water is ethical.

Many Americans believe that they, as individuals and as a society, have a moral obligation as

guardian, steward, or conservator of the planet

to keep our environment inhabitable-and to

pass on to future generations an environment

which is in as good or better shape than when we

inherited it. They believe that cleaning up sites

is important even without quantified certainty

about health or environmental risk, or even if the

costs of cleanup seem high relative to the

benefits. American society does many things in

the name of this environmental ethic, some of

them expensive, which are not justified strictly

on the basis of specific health benefits. Public

concern about littering is a manifestation of the

ethic. Superfund cleans up chemical littering

which is as visible in people’s minds as street or

highway litter is to their eyes.

It seems that the moral or social reason for

cleanup has a lot to do with the public’s desire

for permanent cleanups and for waste reduction

at its source. Even after early cleanup actions

have removed immediate health or environmental risks, going back to a site is important, in

this view. For instance, addressing residual soil

contamination or buried toxic waste (which may

seem relatively immobile) fulfills the responsibility to leave the earth to future generations

without our chemical litter. This moral value

stands in contrast to a more materialistic perspective. Government officials are inclined to

justify spending money on cleanups only when

risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis support it. 21 Ethical considerations It. do not lend

themselves to quantification.

Is Superfund Worth the Costs?

Inevitably, some people will focus on risk and

cost information for cleanups to decide whether

the costs and benefits of Superfund seem

reasonable compared to other environmental

programs, or even to very different government

programs. In 1987, EPA’s Administrator had a

study done on risks from different environmental problems that concluded Superfund was

an area of high agency priority and spending but

low to medium health and environmental risks.22

But EPA’s conclusion about risks was not

supported by analysis. 23 Another Cornparativ e

examination concluded that ‘‘reduced lifetime

cancer incidence is often very small for

Superfund cleanups and, compared to a problem

like radon contamination of homes, the Superfund program seems clearly misdirected.24

In fact, cleaning up uncontrolled hazardous

waste sites is expensive and will remain so. For

Superfund, OTA estimates that the average cost

per life saved, the commonly used program

evaluation criterion, varies greatly from site to

site, but at a rough average is $5 million, if only

ZIMX mu~n~ co~s t. ~hicve ~n=ncy and stringency are supported---demanded-by the public, because publlc cIcanup demand = utility

(protection) + morality. [See Amitai Etzioni, The A40ralDimenswn The Free Press, 1988.] But Superfund managers focus on utdity, leaving some public

expectations stemming from moral considerations unsatisfkl. This conrnbutes to the Superfund syndrome.

~u.s. ~vlronmen~ ~oLWtlon A~ncy, U@nished Business.’ A Comparative Assessmetu of Environmental Problerm, February 1987. EPA ‘S view

that “total health unpacts do not appear to match public concerrs in most areas’ sets up an adversarial relationsiup between commumties and EPA on

the key issue of different perceptions of risk and cleanup needs.

230TA*S Cxmlnation of ~s s~dy fomd sever~ is~es, including: tie me~odology WaS b~on “inforrn~ judgmen~’ and ‘‘ex~~ OplniOrl, ’

rather than objective and quantitative analysis, from about 75 EPA managers and experts, only 2 of which were directly involved in Supedund

implementation; there was no systematic compilation, presentation, and analysis of data from Superfund risk assessments or health effects stuches; and

the report acknowledged considerable uncertainty’ for cancer risks because it considered only 6 chemicals and extrapolated information on 35 sitm

to a universe of 25,000 sites.

mPauI R. Portney, “Reforming Environmental Regulation: Threz Modest Proposals, ’ Issues in Sc[ence and Technology, Winter 1988.
26 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . .

cancer risks are considered.2s Superfund costs

are not absurdly high. To the contrary, they are

comparable to those of other government programs, especially if about half of the spending is

allocated to health, environmental, and social

benefits other than preventing cancer deaths.

These can be significant for many sites.26 The

larger issue is that unless Superfund’s performance is improved, cleanup costs may increase

and benefits may decrease, making the program

seem economically irrational relative to other

national needs.

Strategy v. Spending

Few people question cleaning up chemically

contaminated land and water, both for our own

sake and for the sake of future generations. The

tough question is: How much cleanup is really

necessary? Insisting on perfect, quick and certain solutions, and ignoring resource limits can

defeat cleanups of specific sites and threaten the

national program. Conversely, insisting on lowcost cleanups can compromise protection of

health and environment. The unsuccessful attempt to balance Superfund’s environmental

goals against technical and economic resources

has revealed the lack of a well-crafted, longterm strategy in statute or implementation.

Much of the past policy debate focused on

Superfund funding levels and who pays, and not

about strategy and priorities. Ideally, Superfund

would eliminate all significant risks at all

uncontrolled sites through permanent cleanups.

In reality, however, limited financial, human,

and technical resources make this ideal unattainable in the short term. The question, therefore,

arises: what is the most efficient means of

allocating Superfund’s limited resources to

achieve maximum protection of the public and

environment? The answer to this question lies in

how the spending is to be distributed with

respect to sites and time. In other words,

strategy, not just spending, has to be considered.27

Currently, spending is focused on relatively

few sites and on complete, defensible cleanups

at those sites, which are often, nonetheless, hotly

debated. Many sites—both known and as yet

undiscovered—remain largely unattended. In

trying to deal with resource constraints, a

host of largely ad hoc policies minimize: 1)

the number of sites entering the program; 2)

the number of sites deemed to require cleanups under Superfund; 3) sometimes the level

of site cleanup; 4) often the cost of site

cleanup through remedy selection; and 5)

expenditures from the fund through settle-

~h comp~50n, he study mention~ m footnote 22 calculated a cost of onfy $2,500 per lifetime case of lung cancer prevented by radon remedation.

The OTA estimate of $5 milllon per fatal cancer prevented from Supcrfund sites is based on the figures: 2,000 sltcs with a total of 10 million people

at risk, a cancer rmk reduction from 1 m 1,000 to 1 m 1,000,000, and an average cleanup cost of $25 milllon. The average exposed populauon of 5,000

people per site is consistent with EPA figures. (EPA, “Extent of the Hazardous Release problem and Future Funding Needs--< ERCLA SectIon

301(a)(l)(C) Study, December 1984. Mean populations exposed were 5,00(1 for groundwater and 3,600 for surface water; since HRS scorey have not

changed significantly, these figures still seem applicable. ) However, because of uncertainties about risks and cleanup costs as well as large variations

in site risks and cleanup costs, the cost per cancer death prevented probably vanes plus or minus a factor of 10, from about $500,()()0 w $50 mllhon per

cancer death prevented. Sites at the h@ end result from complex contaminauon, requiring expensive cleanup, bu( posing low health risks or affecting

relatively few people, or both; however, other benefits for such sites may be signficam.

~Work for ~c ~p~enl of Energy ‘S cleanup of hazardous waste sites uses a value of $5 mdlion as Consistent With preventing a fatallty. (~ley

W. Merkhofer et al., “A Program Optimization System for Aiding Decisions to Fund the Cleanup of Hazardous Waste Sites at Department of Energy

Defense Facilities, ” Superfi.tnd ’88, proceedings of November 1988 conference, Hazardous Materials Research institute, Silver Spring, MD.,) Other

benefits include preventing or minimizing non-cancer health problems, loss of home values, and loss of a community’s economic activity and

development. Moreover, addressing environmental problems could be significant; for example, in 1984 EPA estimated that about half of NPL sites posed

threats to sensitwe environments such as freshwater wetlands, coastal wetlands, and critical habitats. Cument EPA guidance suggests that a regulation

is warranted if the cost per hfe saved is less than $1.5 milllon, Most Federal agencies regulate vigorously if the cost per life saved is about $2 million

or less.

~SupPfi~g ~ls ~rwtive is he following comment by Tom GrumblY, President of Clean Sites ~c.: ‘ ‘The EPA has a history of lurching from

one tactic to another without having developed an ovcrafl strategy. . Although 1‘m sympathetic to the wew that some of the Supcrfund commentary

has been negauve, criticism can be traced back to EPA’s failure to articulate a definite strategy. ” Environmental Bumess Journul, May 1989.
Chapter 1 Summuryt Introduction, and Policy Option-s . 27

ments with responsible parties. Such actions

erode public confidence in Superfund, making

managing it even more difficult,

Two facts about the Superfund program are

worth recalling. First, even after nearly a

decade, Superfund is still in its experimental

stages. It is an evolving program which has

provided some benefits. For example, enormous

amounts of toxic waste and contaminated soil

and water have been identified and many sites

which posed significant immediate threats to

health and environment have been addressed

through emergency and removal actions. But the

Nation has probably spent only about 1 or 2

percent of what ultimately might be spent by

all parties to clean up chemically contaminated sites—now roughly estimated by OTA

at $500 billion over 50 years.

Second, although the program seems largely

ineffective and inefficient in meeting its objectives, most attention has focused on specific

events, sites, decisions, and narrow policies.

This has blocked seeing the whole, complicated

Superfund program and examining broad policy

and implementation issues. After the original

statute was passed in 1980, the accumulation of

many administrative and legislative decisions

(in the 1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act—SARA) have shaped and

reshaped Superfund. Congress, EPA, and the

public have not had the benefit of a major policy

discussion of where Superfund has come from,

where it is today, and where it might go during

the next 10 years and during the decades

thereafter.

Different Perspectives on Fixing Superfund

Among those who see a need for change, there

are fundamentally different perspectives on how

to fix Superfund. Can incremental fine-tuning

work or are fundamental changes necessary? In

this report, both types of improvements are

identified and discussed. Incremental changes

(called program changes in this report) tend

to be easier to implement in the near term

and are useful, but OTA’s assessment is that

fundamental changes (called strategic initiatives in this report) will be necessary for an

effective long-term program.

Many people see Superfund mostly in terms

of its financial and legal dimensions and believe

that how Superfund is financed, how much

money it gets, how it is enforced, and how it

imposes liabilities are key. For these people,

some changes in these areas seem justified. But

it is Superfund’s environmental mission which

is its reason for being, and environmental and

community groups work hard to keep attention

focused on that mission. All other issues pale in

comparison. Stressing non-environmental goals

(e.g., numbers of cleanup decisions and actions, dollars obtained from responsible parties) polarizes environmental and community

interests against those of industry and government, and it encourages EPA officials to

lose sight of their mission.

Moreover, there are clear links between

certain groups and non-environmental issues;

for example, major parts of American industry,

which face paying for cleanups, and Superfund

contractors would like changes in Superfund’s

liability provisions; by virtue of their training

and interests, many people in the legal world and

government are inclined to see enforcement as

the key issue; industrial and insurance groups

focus on level of funding and how the money is

raised through taxes and fees. It is important to

see whether, and if so how, addressing nonenvironmental issues affects the environmental

performance of the Superfund program.

POLICY OPTIONS TO IMPROVE

SUPERFUND

Summary Policy Overview in Three Key Areas

Health and Environmental Priorities and Goals

Expensive cleanup actions could be postponed when: 1) risks are not current, or 2)

selected remedies are not to likely produce a
28 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Box l-C—Three Kinds of Inefficient Superfund Spending1

(OTA estimates that between 50 and 70 percent of current Superfund program spending is inefficient and undermines the

environmental mission of the program. We discuss below three kinds of inefficient spending and explain how we arrive at the

estimate of 50 to 70 percent. At any one site, some or all types of inefficient spending may occur. Many of OTA’s policy options

are meant to address one or more of the three areas.

L Spending to address uncertain future exposures to hazardous substances released into the environment or

remaining onsite and, therefore, speculative future risks to health and environment. OTA’s examination of FY87 and FY88

RODS and a study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory of FY87 RODS

2 found that, overall, EPA finds about 50 percent of cleanups

necessary primarily or, in many cases, solely because of hypothetical, speculative, and uncertain future exposures and risks. (See

table 1-3 and discussion of policy option 1.) OTA analysis of data in the ORNL report substantiates that the percent of cleanup

costs attributable to uncertain future risks is about the same as the percent of cleanup decisions. Therefore, about 50 percent of

cleanup costs (whether paid by government or industry) are likely directed to reducing hypothetical risks which may not

materialize. OTA calls such spending inefficient because of the opportunity costs, including: inadequate spending on site

discovery and early site assessment, inspection, and ranking (i.e., EPA’s preremedial activities); delayed cleanup of sites which

pose current exposures and risks, and whose cleanup costs may escalate as contamination spreads into soil or groundwater; and

the deferral of cleanups from Superfund to other, often less effective cleanup programs (e.g., States), motivated in part by the

need to save Superfund money.

2. Spending on cleanup remedies which are unlikely to be permanent, leading to more spending in the long term for

re-cleanups and perhaps posing expodures, risks, and damage to health and environment. OTA considers that a site has

been permanently cleaned up when the contamination that was the cause of high enough risk to warrant cleanup (either current

or future risk) is rendered irreversibly harmless through destruction (e.g., incineration or biological treatment) or recovery and

muse of the hazardous substances (e.g., recovery of lead from contaminated soil and buried battery casings). Using this definition

of a permanent cleanup, about 75 percent of FY87 and FY88 RODS selected impermanent remedies for cleanup of onsite

hazardous waste and contaminated soilou l (see ch. 3). (An even higher percent of removal actions use impermanent remedies.) Also,

about 75 percent of groundwater cleanups use technology that experience is now showing to be unreliable in practice, even though

it seemed to be permanent in theory. (See ch. 3’s discussion of pump and treat for groundwater cleanup.) For these cases, the

relationship between percent of decisions and percent of spending has not been assessed quantitatively. But on the basis of its

examination of FY87 and FY88 RODS, OTA concludes that impermanent remedies contribute substantially to inefficient

spending on cleanups, even though impermanent remedies usually cost less than permanent ones (see OTA’s 1988 case study

report and ch. 3). For example, if impermanent remedies on average cost one-third as much as permanent ones, and three-quarters

of decisions are for impermanent remedies, then half of total spending is for impermanent remedies, and is inefficient. OTA calls

such spending inefficient, because impermanent remedies provide uncertain long-tan pmection of health and environment and

may lead to substantial future re-cleanup costs.

Now assume, in line with Point #l, above, that spending on impermanent remedies is distributed 50/50 between cleanups

justified primarily or solely by future risks and those with current risks. Then, avoiding double counting of inefficient spending,

75 percent of spending is for impermanent remedies and future risks. And looking at the extremes, we see that, atone extreme,

if all impermanent remedies are for future risk sites, then the total of inefficient spending is still 50 percent; at the other extreme,

if all impermanent remedies are for current risk sites, then the total of inefficient spending is 100 percent. OTA concludes that

probably 75 percent of the money spent on cleanups is inefficient because of the reasons discussed in Points #1 and #2. Forty

percent (or $1.7 billion) out of EPA’s Superfund total spending (of $4.4 billion) from FY86 through FY89 is for cleanup3 and

therefore, 30 percent of total program spending is probably inefficient because of the two reasons we have just discussed. We

discuss the other 60 percent of program spending in Point #3, below.

3. Spending on the administration and management of the program, extensive site studies, and prolonged

negotiations and litigation between government and industry (responsible parties) which is either unnecessarily high or

avoidable with different policies and program management. From FY86 through FY89, about 16 percent (or $7(K) million)

of EPA’s Superfund total spending (of S4.4 billion) was for site studies and 44 percent (or $1.9 billion) was for all types of

administration and management activities.

Examples of unnecessarily high or avoidable study costs are: 1) RIFSs which have been of such low quality that further

studies by responsible parties, or work in the design phase or even work during actual cleanup has revealed the need to redo the

EPA work; 2) RIFSs that have not made effective use of information from preremedial site studies, from removal actions, or

earlier studies by responsible parties; 3) redundant, concurrent RIFSs by EPA and responsible parties motivated by distrust of

the accuracy or completeness of the other’s work; 4) RIFSs for site problems that could have been judged on the basis of prior

information to pose only future risks and, therefore, which could have been deferred; and 5) many policies and program

requirements which lead to excessive or ineffective analysis of cleanup alternatives. (See OTA’s policy options on, for example,
Chapter I-Summa ry, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 29

defining and limiting permanent cleanup, hierarchy of cleanup methods, using site generic classification, and using technical

assistance experts in generic types of sites and technologies.)

Two examples of unnecessarily high or avoidable administrative and management costs are particularly important. The first

concerns the large and complex system of contracts by which EPA spends about 90 percent of its funds. As we discussed in our

background paper,4 this contracting system has not been structured to achieve efficient spending nor has it been managed

efficiently. s Secondly, the high level of autonomy given to EPA Regions, coupled with ineffective central management oversight

and control by EPA headquarters mean that cleanup decisions are often vulnerable to challenge because they are inconsistent

with EPA policies or statutory requirements.

In OTA’s judgment, a major cause of unnecessarily high or avoidable costs for prolonged negotiations and litigation is the

excessive flexibility inherent in the current program (see discussion at beginning of this chapter). As a consequence of excessive

flexibility, there are many points of conflict or disagreement about cleanup objectives, about remedy selection, about enforcement

of liability. These disagreements become the basis for prolonged and expensive negotiations and litigation between the

government and responsible parties (and often among responsible parties). In turn, confrontational negotiations and litigation

lead to excessive and overly defensive studies and analyses to bolster the positions of adversaries.

OTA sees no possibility for precise quantitative analysis of the linkage between these areas and spending. However, it is

OTA’s judgment that a substantial fraction of current spending on studies, administration, management, negotiation, and

litigation is inefficient, Support for this view exists. EPA has recently said that it wants to reduce RIFS costs by about 32 percent,

and a number of EPA Inspector General and GAO reports have documented wasteful spending in the Superfund program.

Moreover, the Army Corps of Engineers, which carries out large, complex engineering projects, spends only about 10 percent

of its total budget (which is about twice that of Superfund) on administration and management compared to Superfund’s 44

Percent.6 If we assume a range of one-third to perhaps two-thirds for inefficient spending, and apply it to the 60 percent of total

program spending covering these efforts, then from 20 to 40 percent of total program spending is inefficient because of the reasons

discussed here in Point #3. OTA defines as inefficient those administrative, management, study, and transaction costs that do

not contribute to timely and effective cleanups. Unnecessary and avoidable spending outside of actual cleanups preempts

spending time and money on identifying and solving significant current health and environmental problems.

Conclusion---Combining the 30 percent from Points #1 and #2 with the range of 20 to 40 percent for Point #3, we estimate

that 50 to 70 percent of spending in the Superfund program is inefficient. This range probably also applies to private sector

spending on Superfund activities. Responsible parties perform about half of current site studies and cleanups and many of their

activities and problems mirror EPA’s. For example, they also bear high administrative, management, and transaction costs. But

the mix of private sector spending in the latter area is probably different than for EPA. Responsible parties are probably spending

much more, proportionately, on litigation than on studies, administration, and management. In addition to negotiation and

litigation with the government, responsible parties are in negotiation and litigation with other responsible parties, insurance

companies, and private citizens and community groups. One recent review of Superfund concluded that ‘of the total funds spent

since 1980 . . . something between 30 and 60 percent has gone for legal expenses.”7 Of course, not all legal expenses are

unnecessarily high or avoidable, but, here too, OTA believes it is fair to estimate that a significant portion of legal spending is

unnecessarily high or avoidable and, therefore, inefficient.

INot all inMcimt speding iss complete waste, much of it produces something of value butt& qxmding is eit&r suboptitxul relative to pmgrsrn priorities

(of wM t& public Ihinks tiy dmuld be) or it pmeulpts mom productive spending.

karolyn B. thy and W C. Travis, The Snpetjiuui Remedial Actwn Decuwn froces~,~contmcl wak pctfomd for EPA. Fifty out of

seventy-four RODs w~e cxamimd

3W ~ mA’g amlysis of EPA bud-~.

4LJ.S. GXIm, offkc of Ttiogy Aswmnmt, Assessing CotUroctor Use in Supe@41d-Backgrotuld Puper, oTA-BP-tTE-51 (Washington, Ix!: Us.

oov~ Printing Ofrm, Iuluuy 1989).

sNor has uxttr=t~--~l=f~ ovorsight been suffkiem to idatt@ md prevent fmud wute, and ● buse. Sea EPA’s tmpectcx

~mm SUprfIKKJ in Much KUJ Scptanbcs 1988, ad a number of GAO rcpcm aSupafund contracts.

%conlp8rison Mwcm Supcrftmd and the Cqs is approximate; for example, the Corps tk$ not have expenses for cost recovery, but it faces costs for

sitin# facilities, and tbc WY off8ct exh otk.

7~ticc R. -LKXg, “To ClearI Up the Residue of tigress, A NtioMI ~v~ ml Trust ~“ Financ’

to have baa tnuk for both govcsmnent dpriv8tc Sxxor spmding.

w, April 1989. % observation ~

permanent remedy. Box 1-C presents a discus- another on impermanent remedies. That spendsion of the kinds of inefficient spending, one of ing could be used to bring more critical sites into

which is spending to address future risks and and through the Superfund system, receiving
30 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

fast interim attention and major—but not necessarily complete—risk reduction. Only when

expensive thorough cleanups are necessary to

address current risks would they be used, unless

responsible parties wanted to finance cleanups

for future risks. The cost for faster and more

widely distributed near-term protection on the

most hazardous sites is that many less hazardous

sites would be waiting for their final cleanup.

Essentially, with this strategy, the current backlog at the front-end and in the middle phases of

Superfund would be exchanged for a backlog at

the back-end of the program.

There are other components to the overall

strategy. Another kind of inefficient spending is

for umecessarily high or avoidable administrative, transaction, and study costs. This is the

third factor discussed in box l-C.

Workers and Technology:

1. Improve quality of government and contractor work to reduce costs of making and

fixing mistakes in studies and actions.

2. Develop and use technologies and methods which reduce unit costs for site

investigation and cleanup and provide

better information for decisionmaking.

Government Management:

1.

2.

3.

Through improved technical capabilities,

make the system more efficient by reducing time and cost for necessary tasks,

particularly site studies for a larger number of sites moved into the system, and by

eliminating unnecessary tasks.

Reduce unnecessary and unproductive transaction costs and delays related to enforcement, lack of public confidence, and

policy conflicts.

Provide clearer program needs, goals, and

priorities to the private sector, and promote competition among private sector

providers of services.

Policy options

There are many near- and long-term ways to

improve the environmental effectiveness and

economic efficiency of Superfund. The 38

policy options described below are comprehensive but not exhaustive. They are diverse—some

are broad, substantial changes in the direction of

the program and have been called strategic

initiatives. Implementation of a significant number of the strategic initiatives would result in a

restructuring of the program. By their nature, the

strategic initiatives will engender strong support

or opposition from different interest groups.

Other policy options are called program changes,

and these could be integrated into the current

program. Each option has the potential to

improve Superfund. They are not mutually

exclusive or mutually dependent; each option

stands on its own. All or some of the options

could be implemented although, as discussed

below, some of them are strongly related to

others.

Although some of the following policy options might be implemented solely by EPA, the

focus is on congressional actions. And even

when an option might, theoretically, be implemented by EPA alone, considering the history of

Superfund, it may be beneficial for Congress to

express itself. When OTA’s assessment had

been nearly completed, EPA released its report

A Management Review of the Super-fund Program (June 1989); it was the result of a limited

90-day EPA review of the Superfund program.

OTA has not presented a detailed comparison

between EPA’s intended actions and OTA’s

findings and policy options. A follow-up EPA

report will provide the necessary details on how

EPA’s recommendations will be implemented.28

EPA’s report announced “a new long-term

strategy for Superfund" and presented 50 recommendations for improving Superfund. In general, there is some agreement between EPA’s

2SmC HOW commltt= on ApprOpria@ns Said $ ‘~]e the repo~ pf tie $)()-day management rewew contains many thoughtful rezornmendations,

h remains to be seen what decisions will be made and what actions will bc taken to make these reforms a reality. Report 101-150, July 17, 1989,
Chapter I-Summary, introduction, and Policy Options ● 31

and OTA's identification of major problems and

issues. The EPA report offers an important

recognition of problems in the Superfund

program, and its specific recommendations

for improving the program are significant

within the effort’s attempt to fine-tune the

program and not make major changes in it.

Many of the specific issues addressed by OTA

and its policy options, however, are not similar

to those in EPAs report, including, for example:

site discovery, preremedial site evaluation, selection of remedy, permanent cleanup, costeffectiveness, variable cleanup objectives, impact of settlements on cleanup decisions, and

inconsistencies with statutory preferences and

requirements.

Below, the basis and nature of each OTA

option is discussed, then its benefits, and then

implementation issues, including concerns, problems, and costs. Linkages to other options and

chapters in the report are also made. Before

reading all 38 policy option sections, the reader

will probably find it useful to peruse table 1-1 to

get some sense of their scope and diversity.

PART I: Strategic Initiatives

Setting Cleanup Priorities and Goals

OPTION 1: Set Priorities on Basis of Current

or Future Risks

There is a desperate need to find an environmentally sound way of setting priorities and making

hard choices. Current implementation is too

influenced by non-environmental factors, such

as the willingness of a responsible party to pay

for cleanup, or the ability of communities to get

political and news media attention as well as

support from national organizations—which

depends more on a community’s affluence or

education, than on environmental needs. With

this option, a critical distinction would be made

between current and future health and environmental risks posed by sites on the NPL. That

decision could be made in an official EPA

decision document, including the supporting

facts and analysis, or it might be included as part

of a site’s initial proposal for the NPL or as part

of an initial ROD. Box 1 -D presents questions

likely to be raised about this option and OTA’s

responses to them.

Cleanup actions based solely or primarily on

future potential risks would no longer compete

on an equal standing with actions justified on the

basis of current risks or damage to sensitive

environments. For example, Class I sites would

pose current risks to health or environmental

damage and Class II sites would pose future

potential health risks or environmental damage.

However, the delayed cleanups for Class II sites

would not replace the priority assigned to

interim recontrol actions necessary to prevent

sites from becoming worse through the spread

of contaminants into the environment. Moreover, assignment to either Class would not be

rigid; new information about a site or actions at

a site could justify reclassification.

Major decisions and allocation of resources

within all Superfund implementation phases

would automatically put Class II sites into a

second, lower priority state; within Classes

priorities might be based on chronological order

of initial site discovery or identification (which

would serve as a worthwhile incentive for early

site discovery), and/or relative levels of assessed

risks.29 Classification could change over time,

as actions (what EPA now calls removals and

operable units) are taken at a site to mitigate

risks. The default option when too little information exists for making a judgment about current

v. future risk would be a Class I designation.

Exposure and risk assessment are by nature

imprecise and produce uncertain results which

are dependent on who does the work. Neverthe29@c ~pro=h ~ou]d & [0 ~~~ll~h high, m~m, ad low r~gcs o f risks wi[hin cl-sI ~d 11, For ex~ple, for Cmcinogenic risks, High = greater

than 1 m 1,000, I.mw = less than 1 in 1, O(X),000, MedIurn = the range between H@r and LcIw; for use of the H~ard Index for non carcinogenic materials,

High = greater than 50, Imw = less than 2, and Medmrn = the range in between.
32 ● Coming Clean: Super-fund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Box I-D-Questions and Answers About Policy Option 1

Is This Idea Inconsistent With Current Law And Program?

The law requires a consideration of present and potential threats to health, welfare, and environment. From the

very beginning of Superfund, it was recognized that some threats are imminent, even emergencies sometimes. Thus,

the need for the removal part of the program. However, in the most expensive part of the program--remedial

cleanups-an explicit distinction between current and future risks has not been made. If the scope of the national

cleanup problem were small, it would not be important to make this distinction. But with so many sites requiring

cleanup, not making this distinction means that some sites which pose risks in the near term may not get cleanups

in the near term, while other sites which might pose some risk in the future will get cleanups in the near term.

Is This Idea Just a Way To Reduce Superfund Spending?

This option has no bearing necessarily on increasing or decreasing total Superfund spending. This option only

provides away to decide priorities and to decide exactly how whatever money is appropriated or otherwise made

available is spent.

How Do We Know Whether a Site Poses Current or Future Risks?

The key to moving beyond information about site contamination with hazardous substances to risks is to

evaluate specific paths of exposures. Exposure pathways will be based on some current condition, such as people

having contaminated groundwater as their only source of drinking water, or some possible future condition, such

as people using a site for recreation or housing and children possibly eating contaminated soil. Cleanup may be

wholly or mostly justified on the basis of current or future exposure, or some portion of a site may be assessed to

pose current exposure and another only future exposure.

If Risk Assessment Has So Many Problem% How Can We Confidently Assess Current v. Future Risks?

Exposure assessment combines qualitative information about a site’s contamination and human and ecological

receptors which can contact the contamination. Formal, quantitative risk assessment, based on detailed

dose-response relationships, has more uncertainty and is not necessary.

Will Addressing Current Risks First Mean Using More Low Cost Actions Like Land Disposal?

Placing the highest priority on addressing current risks may entail using recontrol and interim actions to reduce

current risks to safe levels. Those actions may use permanent technology which is practical and cost-effective or

they may use other kinds of treatment technology, land disposal or containment, and institutional controls. But no

site would be considered finally and completely cleaned up--and delisted from the NPL-unless permanent cleanup

technology had achieved a final cleanup.

Will Sites Ever Get Permanent, Final Cleanups?

Sites will get their current risks addressed, possibly with permanent cleanup technologies, but may have to wait

for a final cleanup which addresses future risks. But eventually the government must provide such sites with final

remedies which use permanent cleanup technologies to the maximum extent practical.

If Future Risks Are Not Worth Addressing Now, Why Spend a Lot of Money Later

on Expensive Permanent Cleanups?

This option does not change the current law or national policy. The government is just as obligated to

permanently clean up sites which pose potential risks as ones which pose current risks. The issue addressed by this

option is the timing of final, permanent cleanups. The Nation has already decided that it is worth cleaning up sites

to protect health, welfare, and environment. But since we cannot do everything at once, some environmentally

sensible way of allocating scarce resources is necessary.

less, the uncertainty about future potential risks cleanups are based on hypothesized scenarios,

is intrinsically different qualitatively. Study of such as possible future use of land or groundwapast Superfund site decisions shows that many ter (see box l-E). Indeed, EPA sometimes has
Chspter 1-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 33

Box 1-E—Example of Using Current v. Future Risk in Cleanup Decisions

The approach in Policy Option 1, of using the distinction between current and future risk as a primary way to

decide whether to clean up a site, is used currently, to some extent. The Record of Decision for the first operable

unit of remedial cleanup for the Arkansas City Dump site in Arkansas City, Kansas was signed in September 1988.

A key part of the decision was that there was only one current risk which required near-term attention. That

risk was direct exposure by onsite workers to acid sludge; workers might get burned if they came into contact with

the 47,000 tons of the sludge onsite.

However, the groundwater under the site was found to be heavily contaminated with arsenic, beryllium, and

a group of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. The total carcinogenic risk resulting from long-term ingestion of

the groundwater was said to be greater than 1 in 1,000 (actually, the figures in the ROD suggest a risk in the order

of 1 in 100, which is very high). Testing of offsite groundwater did not find contamination from the site.

The ROD said: “It must be remembered, however, that the risk of cancer is present only if consumption of

ground water from contaminated aquifers were to occur based on a 70-kilogram adult over a 70-year lifetime. At

the present time there is no known consumption of onsite ground water, and consumption of offsite water poses no

risk. ‘‘

With this reasoning, EPA elected to postpone consideration of groundwater cleanup until a second operable

unit ROD. However, from a discussion OTA staff had with the site’s remedial project manager, it appears that EPA

may not pursue groundwater cleanup. Indeed, on the basis of the absence of current risk and lack of evidence that

contaminants are causing a problem in surrounding groundwater or the nearby Arkansas River, EPA could maintain

the same reasoning used in the first operable unit ROD. The only complication is that EPA invoked the formal

waiver provision of SARA in order to postpone groundwater cleanup in the first ROD. This was necessary because

the groundwater contamination was found to exceed State and Federal drinking water standards. The issue for the

future becomes whether EPA can postpone groundwater cleanup on the basis of no current risk and, if that is the

case, also postpone addressing the source of the groundwater problem. The latter seems to be a large amount of

subsurface petroleum material and buried metallic waste.

The estimated cost of the remedy selected in the frost ROD is less than $1 million; it is based on in situ

neutralization of the acid sludge and a soil cover. If complete source control and groundwater cleanup were pursued,

cleanup would probably cost from $20 million to $40 million.

With OTA’s Policy Option 1, deferral of this groundwater cleanup and full source control would be acceptable,

but the site would not be considered permanently cleaned up, it would not be delisted from the NPL, and there would

be continued monitoring of the surrounding groundwater offsite as well as institutional controls prohibiting use of

onsite groundwater. As the above figures show for this example, a relatively large amount of money would become

available to address current risks at other sites. This example, however, also shows the difficulty of postponing

expensive cleanup, for addressing future risks, under current statutory requirements.

sOmcE: office of lbchnology ANesmUm, 1989.

applied this option, as illustrated in box l-E. actions, as resources become available. This

This example shows the considerable potential

for shifting spending with this option.

Benefits: It is sound environmental thinking

to defer actions when risks are future, potential,

and highly uncertain. The chief benefit would be

channeling Superfund resources where they are

most needed. At many sites, limited cleanup

actions may effectively deal with current risks,

while leaving future uncertain risks for future

means that site studies would be smaller and

faster, because whole final remedies require

much more study. (Other options presented

below would help reduce studies.) Interim

remedial actions would be easier to define and

implement.

The cost of not delaying final remedial

cleanups is to postpone attending to sites with

more certain current risks. Postponement means
34 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

that people suffer health effects, sensitive parts

of our ecology are damaged, and sites get worse

from the spread of contamination.

Another benefit is that criticism of many

cleanups would be reduced; what often now

appears to be an inconsistent or ineffective final

remedy may be a compromise remedy because

the site only poses a future, uncertain risk.

Currently, instead of not acting (or using a

recontrol approach), a lower cost, less stringent

final cleanup is chosen, in part because responsible parties and government officials want to

reach closure on sites.30

Finally, delaying final cleanup probably increase the chances that an innovative treatment

technology leading to better cleanup will be

available.

Implementation: The current statute requires

EPA to address future potential risks; it does

not, however, preclude EPA from implementing

this option. However, because this option would

have major impacts, congressional action seems

necessary. This option could be implemented

along with the currently used Hazard Ranking

System. With current site study and risk assessment practices it is possible to identify the

difference between current and future risks, and

to distinguish current or potential environmental

damage. For example, consistent with OTA’s

observations, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory study was able to distinguish between

current and future risks in all but 4 of the 50

RODS it examined.

The State of Missouri uses a site classification

system which makes the kind of distinction

discussed here. The State notes that:

The relative need for action at each site is based

solely upon the potential impact of the site on public

health and the environment. The type of action

required, the feasibility of such an action, and its cost

benefit are not the primary factors in deciding

whether the action is needed.3

1

The Missouri experience demonstrates an important aspect of current-future risk classification: it does not require detailed, quantitative

risk assessment. Qualitative analysis of a site

and exposure routes can be sufficient to identify

the presence of future risks for all or part of a

site. New Jersey has recently found it necessary

to distinguish between ‘proximate risk and long

term priorities‘‘ in order to ‘‘ensure work on the

‘worst’ cases first’ and to ‘‘allocate resources

to high priorities. A proximate risk remedy or

30A g~ exmp~e of~ls is ~e FY88 ROD for tie Coshocton City Landfill site in Ohio (discussed in ch. 3). The responsible ptiies con~st~ EPA’s

P- containment remedy sttcc.essfully and a less stringent cont. “ammcnt cleanup was obtained. The responsible parties said: ‘‘Gwen the neglible

present risk and speculative future risk, the remedy would not seem to meet any kind of test for cost-effectiveness. . . In the absence of any significant

present threat to human health and the environment, EPA appears to rely on the potential threat of future releases and their postulated impact on human

health and the environment as a justification for requiring corrective action at the site. EPA admitted that potential threat of future releases was a‘ ‘major

factor’ in its original remedy Seldon. OTA’S point is that, with this option, EPA could have defended a mxd for a recontrol action-perhaps as stringent

as its original containment remdy+d eventually had a strong case for a stringent final remediat cleanup. With the current ROD, there is considerable

uncertainty about how future cleanup needs will be addressd after the likely settlement is obtained, and public accountability is mmimat after the ROD.

Similarly, the remedy selected in the fiscal year 1987 ROD for the large Bayou Sorrel sne in Imuisiana, which gets flooded periochcatly, essentially gave

the responsible parties the containm em remedy that they wanted in order to agree to a settlement, but which had been opposed by most of the comm unity

and others. In an internal memorandum urging approval of the remedy, EPA staff noted that ‘‘the endangerment posed by the site is questionable and

the risk assessment for the site is not well prepared. With this option, the containm ent action would be considered a recontrol, interim remedy requiring

close monitoring, rather than the final cleanup with delisting from the NPL. [t also has become clear, since the completion of the Feasibility Study in

early 1986, that the cost of the rejected onsite incineration option has become much lower than the one estimated originally.

3 I Briefly, WsWfi cl~s I si~s pose imminent tiger and require immediate action; this IS like EPA current emergency and, possibly, removal

actions. Class II sites pose significant threat and require action; this is Ilke EPA’s current remedial cleanup program. But Class 111 sites are such that

action may be deferred. Here are some examples of statements for specific Missouri sites which illustrate the nature of Class III sites, conflnn the

feasibility of identi~ing future risks, and show the consistency with the approach of this policy option: ‘ ‘There are no known environmental problems

at the present time, but there is the potential for surface and groundwater contamination at the site due to the leachable nature of the wastes. ‘‘Following

remedial actions at the site, residual contamination remains in the soil and groundwater. Groundwater in the area is not used for drinking. ‘‘. . . the

potential does exist for soil and surface water contamination If drums deteriorate. “ “NO environmental problem exists at this site unless it is disturbed

by construction and/or drilling. ” “ There is some possibility for contamination of groundwater due to permeability of the soils. Surface water

contaminadon from erosion is also a possibility. Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Division of Environmental Quality, “Confirmed

Abandoned or Uncontrolled Hazardous Waste DisposaJ Sites in Missoui--Fiscat Year 1987 Annual Report. ”
Chapter 1-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 35

interim action addresses “areas of immediate

environmental concern, in which it is possible

and necessary to control the contaminant source

and reduce or eliminate the threat to the potential

receptors." 32

An immediate question to raise is: What is

current? A legitimate environmental concern is

potential abuse of the current-future risk distinction by an over-zealous placement of sites into

Class II. Functionally, the need is to define

whether a cleanup action is necessary in the near

term or whether it can wait for some years. The

planning horizon for site cleanup is about 5

years, from serious site study to serious implementation of the selected remedy. Therefore, if an

exposure currently exists or is likely within

about 5 years, the risk could be considered

current. If this period is increased (i.e., moving

from what exposure is likely to what may

possibly occur), then the intended benefits of

making a distinction between current and future

risks would be reduced.

A legitimate concern is whether the time

would ever come when resources would be

available for Class 11 sites. Would, for example,

the continued discovery of Class I sites always

preempt taking actions at Class II sites? Would

political will and funding diminish for second

priority actions’? Would the whole system move

back to using impermanent remedies, converting current risks to future risks? These uncertainties cannot be completely removed. However, they should be compared with the probability that unless this risk distinction is made, the

Superfund syndrome presented earlier will get

worse and many sites will get worse from

complete inattention. Honoring the national

commitment to address Class 11 sites can be

accomplished institutionally, for example, by

keeping Class 11 sites on the NPL (not delisting

them) or otherwise removing their visibility.

Moreover, this option presumes site recontrol

(controlling current exposures and preventing

sites from getting worse) for Class 11 sites and

that interim remedial actions (addressing current

risks) for them fulfill the statutory preference for

using treatment technologies.

On a more technical level, implementation

could be made difficult by the quality of

information and analysis during the history of a

site. Site investigation is a continuing process

which starts with the first evaluation of a site and

continues throughout a site history until complete, final remedial cleanup is attained. Site risk

classification must always be a professional

judgment because qualitative or quantitative

risk assessment is not a precise science, no

matter who practices it. But it would be useful

for successful implementation of this option if

EPA provided more refined guidance for the

conduct of risk assessments and made the

analytic procedure more consistent by users in

order to reduce variations in risk estimates (this

is also important for Option 4).

Another potential problem is that communities might insist on more and more site investigations to prove a site would be safe as a Class

II, thus effectively keeping sites in Class I. EPA

needs to document its case for Class II designation with care. Conversely, certain safeguards

from a community perspective are necessary.

For example, assignment to Class II in EPA’s

official decision document could be subject to

an appeal process. Moreover, assignment to

Class II would not preclude a community from

receiving a Technical Assistance Grant under

Superfund. And there could be a formal procedure for petitioning reclassification to Class Ion

the basis of new information obtained by parties

other than EPA.

As information increases and becomes more

complete and accurate, the assessment of whether

the chief risks are current or future may change.

Moreover, many factors not directly associated

32NCW Jer~y ~lvl~]on of Wakr Re~ur~e~ HUardOUS Wawe Programs Case Management Commllwc, L’dsr Munagemenz .$rrareg)’ MunuuL daft,

May 1989.
36 ● Corning Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

with the site, but which affect exposures—such

as nearby residential development—and, therefore, risks may also change over time. These too

must be a basis for reassessing site risk classification. 33

Another implementation issue is whether this

option would pose a serious obstacle to the

government’s obtaining complete payment of

cleanup costs from responsible parties. Action

would not have to be deferred because of future

risk classification if one or more responsible

parties are able and willing to pay for the

necessary cleanup. But communities could see

this penalizing fund financed deferred cleanups.

Payment of an upfront cash premium to cover

future costs for deferred cleanups is also possible (see Option 15).

Implementation could be thwarted because

the States have the power to withhold the legally

required 10 percent match for fund-financed

cleanups. For example, a State could make

cleanup of a Class I site impossible, even though

EPA deemed it a high priority, and could offer

matching funds for a Class II site for which EPA

determined a sound basis for deferring action.

This potential problem could probably be handled in most cases by negotiation between EPA

and the highest levels of State government, if the

public were kept informed. An example of this

State authority being used in association with

future risk recently occurred for the Saco

Tannery Waste Pits site in Maine. The basis for

EPA’s original cleanup decision was future risk

in the event of residential development. But,

without viable responsible parties, the State

wanted to reduce its cost. It convinced the EPA

to switch from a $33.5 million cleanup based on

chemical fixation of hazardous material to a $10

million one based on containment of the site, so

it could save $2.35 million. The State must

assure that no one will develop the site. EPA will

avoid spending $21 million to address the future

risk at the site.

OPTION 2: Establish a Federal Site

Discovery Program

The Federal Government could establish a

site discovery program whose mission was to

identify chemically contaminated sites which

may require cleanup, including those which

might not be managed within the Superfund

program. A number of different approaches

have been used on a limited basis with results

good enough to justify full-scale national application. In particular, there is a large inventory of

historical aerial photographs and procedures for

analyzing them can identify likely chemical

waste sites which are no longer readily apparent.

Benefits: It is in the national interest to know

the full scope of the cleanup problem as soon as

possible. Only in this way can effective and

efficient national strategies, policies, and programs be conceived and implemented. Setting

sharper and more useful cleanup priorities

requires that program managers understand

what their current and future workload really is

or will likely be. Moreover, the laws of nature—

principally entropy—mean that undiscovered

contaminated sites will become more difficult to

clean up over time. Contaminants will leave

their original containers or places of disposal,

spread into the environment, increasing the size

and complexity of cleanup. Money spent on site

discovery would be relatively small compared to

almost all other Superfund activities. For example, a site discovery program that started at $5

million per year and increased to say $25 million

per year over 5 years pales in comparison to site

qq~e ~p]e may view this witi aIarm because, for example, it suggests that a developer might intentionally locate a new residential community

near a Class II site in order to obtain a Class I rating and a permanent cleanup which removes a disadvantage of the loath (and increases its market

value). Given the time and uncertainties for achieving complete cleanups, this is not likely to be a significant problem. Moreover, the government could

take the position that until the new exposure situation existd the site remained Class 11; this would make it difficult to initiate and implement the new

development. But it can also be argued that providing this kind of incentive for final remedial cleanup (or removing the disincentive for worthwile use

of the land) is not without merit.
Chapter I-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 37

study and cleanup costs. Moreover, identifying

a few serious sites a year and taking early

cleanup action could pay for the entire program

several times over in reduced cleanup costs.

Implementation: Current cleanup staffs resist

site discovery for different reasons. Adding

more sites to the program makes achieving

success and meeting performance goals seem

more difficult; and discovering new serious

cleanup sites also challenges conventional wisdom that the worst sites are already known

(which OTA shows to be incorrect in ch. 2).

EPA has resisted a formal site discovery program in part because sites would be identified

which would not necessarily qualify for cleanup

by Superfund. However, this should not block a

site discovery program, because knowing what

the appropriate cleanup program is cannot be

determined until the sites are identified and

assessed. This option requires congressional and

EPA commitment, consistent with a long-term

national cleanup program.

OPTION 3: Use Environmental Criteria to

Eliminate Sites at PA and SI Screening

Stages

Bureaucratic criteria now being used to control the flow of sites into and through the

program, in order to achieve performance goals

and meet resource constraints, would be replaced by environmental criteria. Instead of a

site being judged-on the basis of very sparse

information-to be contaminated enough to

merit attention by Superfund, the critical decision would be whether or not the site appeared

to require cleanup. There is no information or

analysis to support the contention that sites

eliminated from the Superfund program that

may require some degree of cleanup will

receive adequate attention from other cleanup

programs. The presumption in this option is

that a site eliminated from Superfund is not

assured of cleanup elsewhere. Indeed, getting

cleanup attention elsewhere is made difficult by:

1) the stigma of being eliminated from the

Superfund program, and 2) the demand for

resources in other programs to address the many

sites which do make it through the Superfund

system and on to the NPL. (For example, States

must provide matching funds for governmentfinanced cleanups and may have insufficient

funds to carry out all other cleanups; responsible

parties and Federal agencies would naturally

devote resources to required cleanups.)

Benefits: Improving public confidence in

Superfund and reducing public outrage requires

that key program decisions be based on sound

environmental thinking. Over time, by creating

excessive flexibility, Superfund’s management

has met resource constraints, in part, by bureaucratically controlling the workload of the program. If Superfund is primarily a public health

program, then it ought to employ standard

thinking used in health screening. This means

having as much, if not more concern, for false

negative findings in the earliest stages of

Superfund than for false positive ones. That is,

making certain that sites which really do require

cleanup are not eliminated should be of paramount concern to the government. Letting sites

through which really do not require cleanup is

important because money could be wasted,

perhaps preventing action at sites which really

require cleanup. However, subsequent site work

can and sometimes does reveal the false positive

problem. But a site falsely eliminated from

Superfund may never be rediscovered—until,

that is, the problem becomes evident through

damage to health or environment.

Implementation: This option probably requires statutory direction to EPA. The key issue

is the need to let sites proceed through the

system until reliable information and its analysis

can be used to make an environmentally sound

decision about the need for cleanup.
38 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

OPTION 4: Remove Range of Acceptable

Risk Objectives

Because environmental standards currently

exist for only a tiny fraction of cleanup situations, especially for safe limits of contaminants

in soil, EPA has appropriately used risk assessment as a means to set cleanup levels. However,

the current broad range of acceptable risk

(expressed as above normal deaths in a population), from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 10 million poses

opportunities to compromise environmental protection at sites and to have inconsistent cleanups

nationwide. 34 With this option, the range would

be replaced by a single value.35

What that value should be deserves attention

beyond the scope of this study; however, it

appears that a value of 1 in 1 million with a

variance procedure is most consistent with

current decisions. Moreover, the inherent limits

to current practice (e.g., examining only indicator contaminants for which health effects data

exist), and the need for a margin of safety

relative to the considerable uncertainties of risk

assessment support this level of risk. Yet

another reason for a margin of safety is that

whatever a cleanup objective is set at, corresponding to a risk of 1 in 1 million (e.g.,

concentration of contaminants in soil), the

actual cleanup will have some statistical spread

around that target. Some people may believe

that this level of risk is overly stringent, but the

popular belief that risk assessment is intrinsically overly conservative has recently been

shown to be inaccurate.36

It should also be understood that the risk

considered here refers to individual risk, not

total population risk. This option presumes, of

course, that explicit cleanup goals or standards

for a site are set. But, in fact, this is not the case

for many sites. One problem is that many

cleanups are implicitly based on cleanup technology performance, for whatever cleanup technology is selected, which most of the time is not

one based on destruction of hazardous material.

Another way of seeing this current form of

implementation is that there often is no explicit

risk reduction identified as the goal of cleanup.

Benefits: Removing environmental protection as a variable in cleanup decisions can

improve public confidence in Superfund. Current excessive flexibility would be reduced.

From a long-term perspective, reducing cleanup

costs through lowering of cleanup levels is not

consistent with the basic environmental mission

of Superfund. When circumstances exist to use

a higher level of acceptable risk, then they

should be articulated by the government and

defended on technical or fund-balancing

grounds. Using a single acceptable level of risk

also offers an opportunity for more certainty in

the operation of Superfund. It removes one issue

over which there sometimes is considerable

34A ~nt exarnination of cleanup levels said, ‘4. . . if the allowable level of risk is not held constant, “How Clean Is Clean?’ levels become ‘moving

targets’ and the probability that they will be applied inconsistently increases significantly. D. Killian, “‘How Clean Is Clean?’ contaminant remrxdiation

levels in soil,” in Managewwuof Hazardow Materialr aria’ Wastes: Treatment, Minimization and Environmental lrrpacts. Edited by S.K. Majumdar,

E.W. Miller and R.F. Schrnalz, 1989, The Pcmsylvania Academy of Science.

ss~rdingto EPA, ith~not USCXIt,he lowest end oftie risk range (i.e., 1 in 10 million). Moreover, in defending why the range should not be narrowed

by reducing the lowest risk by a factor of 10 (to 1 in 1 million), as desired by the Office of Management and Budget to prevent higher cost ckamqm

EPA also noted that its risk range “has not been a point of contention” with responsible parties. (EPA internal memorandum, identified as the notes

Of famer Assistant Adnum“ “strator J. Winston Porter, Sept. 30, 1988, in Committee Print 101-B, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Hou=

Committee on Energy and Commerce, March 1989.) Why was EPA successful in convincing OMB to keep the original risk range? EPA told OMB that

ranovingthe Iowestrisk, which it had not used, would, however, lead to a ‘” !irestorm’ which might ‘destroy much of [its] flexibility. But the flexibility

referred to by EPA was at the opposite end of the risk range; that is, higher risks (i.e., Ies than 1 in 1 million) have been used by EPA and sometimes

have been important in aelecting mnedics with lower costs which have facilitated settlements with responsible parties. Selecting higher risk levels has

bca a point of contention with site canmunities.

~John C. Bailar, 1~, et ~.. “One-Hit Models of Carci.nogenesis: Conservative or Not?” Risk Analysis, vol. 8, No. 4, 1988. The study found that

mkmstimation of risk occurs in about 2.5 to 4 percent of the cases, and overe stimates occur in about 5 to 7 percent of the cases. This paper has been

instrumental in supporting the position that risk assessments of chemicat hazards are not nczasarily substantially conservative. Ln the case of vinyl

chloride, for example, standard risk asaessm ent methodology underestimatcxi risk by a factor of 9.
Chapter 1--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 39

confrontation and costly delay. This option,

however, offers no benefits relative to cleanup

decisions for sites posing threats from substances which cause health effects other than

cancer and threats which are not now described

in terms of numerical risks, such as threats to

sensitive environments.

Implementation: Action by Congress seems

necessary for such a critical policy change.

Because of the sensitivity of the issue of not only

selecting a specific level of risk, but of selecting

what that risk is, it might be useful to begin with

an independent study. The study would examine

the issue and provide a recommendation for a

national risk level for cleanup based on health

and environmental protection criteria only. The

National Research Council has performed a

number of relevant studies in the past, such as on

risk assessment and the Oak Ridge National

Laboratory has performed very detailed work on

the use of risk assessment in Superfund.

A major concern about this option, especially from responsible parties and government officials, is the inevitable loss of flexibility in determining site cleanup objectives.

But to people living near Superfund sites,

flexibility has meant the ability to legally

reduce the stringency of cleanup in order to

secure funding from either the government

or responsible parties. In other words, the

current range of acceptable risk automatically

makes it legal to offer varying degrees of

protection to people without explicitly explaining why that is appropriate or necessary. The

public is especially sensitive to less stringent

cleanups based on higher than normal (for

Superfund) risk levels, because normally no

benefits to the community are lost by demanding the most stringent cleanup. (One exception,

which has occurred at several Superfund sites, is

when a responsible party is also a major

employer in a community.)

Another potential problem is that the inherent

lack of precision in risk assessment and its

susceptibility to subtle manipulation could make

the use of a single value of acceptable risk

ineffective. Refining guidance on risk assessment methodology to tighten its application,

therefore, should be part of any study on this

option.

Some consideration should also probably be

given to the question of whether estimating risks

at Superfund sites should take into account

exposures to similar hazardous substances from

nearby sources. For example, there may be other

cleanup sites nearby. Or the government Toxic

Release Inventory database obtained under Title

III of SARA could be used to factor in exposures

from industrial operations. It is difficult, from a

health protection perspective, to judge cleanup

need or extent in isolation, ignoring other

exposures which, in some cases, might make the

critical difference between cleanup or no cleanup,

or affect cleanup standards significantly. This

option does not preclude following the current

statutory requirement to use applicable or relevant and appropriate regulations (ARARs),

which, however, do not cover many contaminants and exposure routes at Superfund sites.

Finally, the use of national cleanup standards,

particularly for soil cleanup, is another way to

achieve certainty and efficiency by stepping

outside of the risk assessment methodology (see

Option 5).

OPTION 5: Establish National Minimum

Cleanup Standards

All cleanups of chemically contaminated

sites, performed by any public or private entity,

would have to comply with minimum Federal

requirements comparable to those of Superfund.

All available information indicates that very

different procedures, actions, and results are

occurring in different Federal, State, and private

cleanup programs. For example, the use of land

disposal is far more prevalent outside of Superfund (see ch. 4), the influence of those paying for

cleanup on decisions about the scope and level

of cleanup appears more significant in programs
40 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

outside Superfund, and substantially different

levels of residual contamination in soil and

water pervade the national cleanup system.

Federal requirements could include, for example: compliance with existing Federal numerical

standards for safe levels of contamination in air,

water, and soil when they exist, unless more

stringent standards have been set by the State;

setting numerical standards for cleanup goals of

major types of contaminants unless a waiver was

granted in response to a detailed environmental

justification for so doing (e.g., acceptable residual levels in soil of lead, PCBs, and creosote

chemicals); use of standard exposure and risk

assessment methodology and acceptable level(s)

or risk to establish cleanup objectives; the

preference for permanent onsite treatment remedies; use of a Superfund hierarchy of cleanup

technologies and methods; use of costeffectiveness analysis as a means to minimize

site cleanup costs after determination of site

cleanup goals; full public participation from

start to finish of the cleanup process; and 5-year

reviews of sites where contamination remains.

Benefits: National standards would introduce

consistency and certainty into the national

cleanup effort. Excessive flexibility would be

reduced. The flight from Superfund would

largely be stopped and, therefore, sites deferred

out of Superfund would not be penalized by

receiving less stringent cleanups; this would

also reduce future Superfund needs.37 Those

paying for cleanups, including all types of

government agencies and companies, would

have: 1) less incentive to shop around for a

cleanup program which posed the least stringent

requirements and, hence, minimized their costs,

and 2) less trouble and costs dealing with

different cleanup programs with different cleanup

standards or procedures in obtaining them. The

current inequality and inconsistency in the

array of cleanups nationwide, often providing uncertain, incomplete, and ineffective

protection of health and environment would

largely be eliminated. Many studies, particularly risk assessments, could be eliminated

because fixed cleanup standards could be used.

Conversely, national standards could also reduce excessive cleanups, as well as reducing

transaction costs by reducing confrontation over

cleanup goals at sites and shifting of sites among

different cleanup programs (see ch. 4).

Eventually, this option would make it more

feasible to shift implementation of Superfund to

States (see Option 19), because of the assurance

that their programs would provide comparable

protection. State officials have concluded:

The lack of development of cleanup standards or

goals has been a major impediment in achieving a

more rapid remediation of hazardous waste sites

throughout the country. The ARAR concept is good,

but States have looked to EPA for guidance in the

development of national standards or models for the

establishment of site specific cleanup goals without

receiving much meaningful assistance. The National

Superfund Program Strategy must include a commitment by EPA to develop, in conjunction with the

States, tools to generically answer the question

“How Clean is Clean?” . . . The overall goal of

developing cleanup standards, models, and criteria

should be to assure a consistent approach to the

cleanup of hazardous waste sites.38

Implementation: This option requires statutory enactment. Many parties would find this

option objectionable because of, for example:

losing flexibility, facing increased costs, and

facing the need to make initial changes in

existing State statutes, regulations, and programs. In other words, implementation would

be difficult and opposition to the option substansTAt a Scnu hearing on June 15, 1989 the WA ~“ ‘srrator indicated that the agency would not pursue at that time its deferral proposal as part

of the new NCP. The reasoning was that cleanups for sites deferred to other programs could not be axmred to offer the same kind of remedies, standards,

and procedures found in Supedtmd. Response of William K. Reilly to question km Senator Lautenbcrg; Superfund oversight hearing, Senate

Subcmnmittee on Superfund, Ocean and Water Protection, June 15, 1989.

38-l~m of Swm ~d ~rn~ri~ Solid Wme ~agemcnt of fici~s, w-n, DC., position p-r ‘‘N~on~ SUprfund hStrategy+tting More Done With Limited Public Funds,” Apr. 28, 1989.
Chapter ISummary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 41

tial, as any such Federal environmental legislation has historically been. Actual implementation problems and costs would depend on the

exact requirements, their enforcement, and on

penalties for noncompliance, as well as incentives which might be used to motivate compliance. Analysis of these details is beyond the

scope of this study, but implementation problems could be minimized by keeping requirements as simple as possible. OTA concludes

that the potential environmental and economic benefits justify serious consideration

of this option for a permanent national

cleanup effort. A first step by Congress might

be to have a l-year independent study of this

option by, for example, the National Academy

of Sciences or a university with experience in

the cleanup area, such as the federally sponsored

program at the Center for Environmental Management at Tufts University. One issue requiring study is the extent to which numerical

cleanup standards for soils would define a very

large universe of potential cleanup sites (e.g.,

areas near highways with heavy metal contamination).

OPTION 6: Define and Limit Meaning of

Permanent Cleanup

Superfund is necessary because of past shortsighted waste management practices. The idea

of achieving a permanent cleanup has intrinsic merit. But “permanent cleanup" is not

now well defined by statute or EPA policy.

However, EPA has recently explained the role

of treatment technology, which according to

OTA is the means of achieving permanence,

versus containment technology, which according to OTA is not a permanent remedy. EPA said

that treatment technology “will be used most

often for highly toxic, highly mobile waste,

whereas containment is generally reserved for

low concentrations of toxic materials or relatively immobile wastes. ’39 This position makes

containment an acceptable remedy for many

types of sites, especially ones with soil contamination and low levels of groundwater contamination. (Moreover, EPA’s application of the

land disposal restrictions under the RCRA

regulatory program to Superfund essentially

promotes leaving hazardous site material in

place and capping it, instead of treating the

hazardous material or even containing it in a

RCRA hazardous waste landfill with liners and

leachate collection.40) In fact, EPA has indirectly defined sites for which the statutory

preference for permanent remedy applies and

sites for which it does not, a distinction the

statute does not make. If permanence is not an

overarching cleanup goal, then lower cost,

impermanent remedies are likely to prevail; in

the past 2 years at least 75 percent of selected

remedies are impermanent, according to OTA’s

definition of permanent remedy (i.e., destruction or recovery of hazardous material). (See ch.

3.)

With this option, permanence would mean

that cleanup objectives are achieved without

further action at the original site or at any

other site which has become a part of the

cleanup, such as an offsite landfill that

receives cleanup waste. People living near sites

want to feel confident that there are not enough

toxic chemicals left in land or water to threaten

their health. Conversely, impermanent cleanup

means--or should mean-permanent contamination of land or water, because hazardous substances remain hazardous and a potential threat

through uncontrolled release or exposure. (Unlike radioactive materials, there is no natural

predictable decay of the hazardous characteristics of chemical waste.)

39EPA Memor~d~, ‘‘Advancing the Use of Treatment ‘Mmologies for Supcrfund Remedies, OSWER Directive No. 9355.0-26, Feb. 21, 1989.

@Environmental Protection Agency, ‘‘Policy for Supcrfimd Compliance With the RCRA Land Disposal Restrictions, ’ OSWER Directive 9347.1-02,

Apr. 17, 1989 and “Land Dipmal Restrictions as Relevant and Appropriate Requirements for CERCLA contaminated Soil and Debris, ” OSWER

Directive No, 9347.2-01, June 5, 1989. SCC discussion inch. 3.
42 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Without definite cleanup goals it is impossible to know whether any action is permanent.

Permanence does not imply reaching zero contamination or zero risk. Cleanup standards that

are less protective of public health and environment make it easier to achieve permanence. But

certain kinds of action are inconsistent with

permanence, including any form of land disposal or containment, and any use of engineering or institutional controls, including long term

monitoring for releases. All of these mean: 1)

site hazardous material remains hazardous; 2)

there is uncertainty about releases of hazardous

material and, therefore, risks to health and

environment; and 3) there are a host of uncontrollable possible future events which might

compromise the effectiveness of the protection.

Some important examples of problems are: deed

restrictions which later are forgotten, ignored or

overturned; physical failure of caps on buried

waste which goes undetected or, even if known

about, is not effectively and expeditiously dealt

with by repair or replacement because of lack of

money or confusion over who has responsibility; new commercial or residential uses of land

or water which were not anticipated and which

cannot be blocked legally; natural catastrophes,

such as flooding of a capped landflll or a

lightening hit on a leachate treatment system;

monitoring systems which may fail, may not be

operated properly, may not be properly maintained with required sensitivities, and may not

be responded to with fast and effective remedial

action.

OTA concludes that it is not technically

correct to convert the concept of permanence

into a variable parameter. That is, OTA disagrees with the notion that land disposal or

engineering or institutional controls provide

a “degree of permanence.” What varies is the

level of protection provided by different cleanup

technologies and methods, not the degree of

permanence. To tell the public that a remedy is

permanent for perhaps a decade does not build

public confidence. However, impermanent

actions have an important role to play in

decontrolling sites to reduce or even eliminate

current risks without, necessarily, producing

a complete and permanent cleanup.

Benefits: Current statutory provisions are too

ambiguous and lack the clarity necessary for

effective program management. With this option Congress could establish a clear policy for

Superfund management and reduce excessive

flexibility, that now is enjoyed by EPA staff.

OTA concludes that there is a net benefit to

focusing on achieving permanence through

reduction of the cause of the intrinsic hazard,

such as toxicity, compared to current statutory attention to reducing mobility and volume. Scientifically, reducing mobility is not

achievable through techniques which offer certain long-term effectiveness on a par with

destruction; reducing volume of hazardous material usually results from application of a

technology which concentrates the truly hazardous component of some larger volume of soil or

water or non-hazardous waste and, therefore, is

not on a par environmentally with reducing

hazard through destruction or recovery of valuable material.

The public intuitively understands the environmental, economic, and psychological benefits of

a permanent cleanup. Permanent cleanups offer

more certain and more effective environmental

protection and can prevent future cleanup costs.

But many cleanups have not and cannot, with

available technology and resources, completely

eliminate the source of the problem. Still, public

confidence in Superfund and EPA’s implementation of it would benefit substantially from a

commitment to achieving permanent remedies.

And the public can understand that achieving

permanence for all Superfund sites (currently

known and yet to be identified) is not technically

or economically feasible in the near or even

mid-term.

Under current statute, 5-year reviews are

necessary when hazardous material remains
Chapter I--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 43

onsite and many RODS acknowledge that future

requirement. Whenever that requirement is invoked, the remedy is not permanent. (Nor is a

remedy necessarily permanent if this provision

is not invoked. ) Current policy, however, means

such sites can be delisted from the NPL. With

this option such delisting would not occur.

Implementation: EPA could implement part

of this option through revised policy and, if the

current proposed NCP becomes final, through a

regulatory change. However, because of the

wide difference between past congressional

actions and EPA interpretations, congressional

action may be advisable. It would be difficult for

EPA to implement this option without thoroughly revising its nine criteria for remedy

selection. Moreover, current statutory language about reducing toxicity, volume, or

mobility through treatment as a cleanup

preference must be addressed for complete

implementation of this option.

There would be major impacts on remedy

selection and delisting which would raise concerns about implementation of this approach

(see Option 22). The trend of moving away from

land disposal to treatment would become stronger,

and the diverse set of treatment technologies

would take on a different meaning. Only some

treatment technologies offer permanence (see

ch. 3). Costs might increase significantly in the

short term. But R&D, technology demonstration, and competition would probably reduce

costs in the longer term.41 Increasing competition among an increasing number of destruction

technologies and, for example, mobile incinerators, have already reduced costs. More effective separation technologies, which concentrate

hazardous material for recovery or treatment by

destruction technology, have also emerged rapidly and will continue to expand.

Implementation of this option could be made

difficult because of the power States have in

withholding their legally required 10 percent

match for fund-financed cleanups, EPA may

want to use a permanent but more expensive

remedy at a site, but the State may only provide

their matching funds for a lower cost, impermanent remedy. Indeed, this has happened already.

One solution is for senior EPA officials to make

this situation known to the public and to appeal

such actions to the highest State officials.

Finally, this option can make use of the

concept of Option 1, current versus future,

uncertain risk. If there is an identifiable future,

uncertain risk, the cleanup achieved to date may

not be fully complete, even though a permanent

treatment technology has been used. In such a

cases, the remedy might be classified as an

interim action and a permanent remedy might—

or might not—be needed later.

Developing Workers and Technologies

OPTION 7: Reduce Dependency on

Contractors, Expand EPA Workforce

Superfund implementation will always make

extensive use of private sector contractors. But

the current degree of dependence on contractors

seems too high and, with this option, would be

reduced. Too much dependence on contractors

means a lack of independent technical expertise

and information in government. Improved

public confidence in Superfund is contingent

on the public believing that government

workers, working in the public interest, know

enough to solve cleanup problems. The previous option as well as several others above also

address this problem. Another aspect of contractor dependency is the use of contractors for

inherently governmental work, particularly policy development and program implementation.

Inevitably, reducing contractor dependence means

41 EPA Currently uses figures which indicate that total site cleanup costs, including EPA’s administration of the program, total ahout $30 million on

average. OTA believes that implementation of this and some other options discussed in this report might increase the average site cleanup cost to $50

million, although variations among sites would remain very large. But this is really a worst-case scenario, because technological innovations and program

restructuring, as discussed in the policy options of fhis report, could prevent such a large increase in average site cleanup cost.

20-011 0 - 89 - 2 : QL 3
44 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

recognizing that Superfund is a permanent

program and, therefore, accepting the necessity

to increase EPA’s workforce at headquarters

and in its regional offices. There is also a need

to increase Superfund activities in EPA’s Inspector General’s office, a need presented in

OTA’s 1989 Background Paper on contractor

use.

Benefits: The effectiveness and efficiency of

Superfund in the near term depends, in some

significant measure, on building up EPA’s

workforce and reducing the dependence on

contractors. This option recognizes the absolute,

permanent need to use private contractors in

Superfund implementation. With this option,

however, balance would be restored between the

roles of government and private sector workers.

Some of the dependency on private contractors

could also be reduced if EPA would make

greater use of other Federal agencies, including

the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of

Mines, and the National laboratories (see Options 27 and 28).

Implementation: EPA could implement this

option with congressional support for shifting

funds from contracting to building up the

permanent EPA staff. This option does not

imply a net increase in funding.

OPTION 8: Establish a Hierarchy of

Cleanup Technologies and Methods

A possible hierarchy is given in box l-F.

Using a hierarchy is meant to introduce an

environmentally sound logic into the identification and evaluation of cleanup alternatives. For

remedy selection decisions it means that it

would be necessary to demonstrate that alternatives higher on the hierarchy than the one

selected had been carefully considered, and the

reasons for their elimination provided. It does

not imply that specific cleanup technologies or

methods would be required by the government,

nor does it rule out combinations of technologies and methods which taken together may

provide an effective site remedy. The hierarchy

would establish destruction and recovery

technology at the top of the hierarchy; this

means that it is the most preferred, using

permanence of remedy (or permanent risk

reduction) and certainty of that outcome as

the ranking criteria.42 For combinations of

technologies and methods, the one lowest on the

hierarchy is key. For instance, reduced certainty

places separation plus destruction lower on the

hierarchy than just destruction. When separation

technology is used first, its effectiveness determines the overall achievement of permanence;

however, the combination of separation and

destruction technologies can achieve a permanent site remedy. Lower on the hierarchy is land

disposal, containment, and other engineering

controls, followed by institutional controls,

including ongoing monitoring and provision of

alternate water. Relying on natural conditions

(e.g., biodegradation in a contaminated aquifer)

usually offers far more uncertainty than a

controlled treatment process and can correctly

be considered a form of no action. In some

instances, separation technology alone may

offer a permanent remedy because the collected

and released hazardous material may be so low

in concentration (after dispersion) that destruction technology is unnecessary environmentally

and impractical (e.g., air emission of very small

amounts of volatile organic chemicals from

groundwater air stripping). But this variation is

best characterized by a combination of separation and natural treatment.

Benefits: It would be helpful to achieve a

better understanding of the functional differ42~c ~plc m~~ thti tec.hnologi~ and methods which reduce mobility or exposure (and therefore risk) without destroying or recoving a site’s

hazardous substances offcx comparable protition. OTA’S finding, as discussed in ch. 3, however, is that the long-term certainty of protection is

maximized what hazardous substances are destroyed or recovered. With other technologies and methods, the duration of effectiveness cannot be assured

and they are impermanent remedies, but in some cws they maybe the only feasible options, and they are espxidly important for emergency, rwontrol,

and inwim cleanup Wtkms,
Chapter 1 Summary, introduction, and Policy Options ● 45

Box I-F--A Hierarchy of Preferred Cleanup Technologies and Methods

Purpcme-The hierarchy recognizes the environmental preference for some outcomes and types of

uncertainties over others. “ Primarily, onsite permanent destruction or recovery of hazardous substances is favored.

Note that SARA’s use of “or” with regard to reducing toxicity, mobility or volume is inconsistent with a hierarchy

of preferred environmental benefits. The hierarchy does not guarantee that the highest level of technology is used

at a specific site because other factors must enter into the analysis, especially the type of action (e.g., recontrol v.

final remedy). But the hierarchy provides a consistent framework for studies and decisions. The following is a

possible hierarchy of Preferred cleanup technologies and methods:

Clam I: Destruction or Recovery-Actual destruction of hazardous organic substances to irreversibly

eliminate the source of the problem. Examples: thermal, biological, and some chemical treatments (e.g.,

dechlrination). Recovery of pure metals or chemicals suitable for commercial use.

Class II: Separation Followed by Destruction--Technologies which separate hazardous from nonhazardous materials. Examples: extraction or stripping of volatile chemicals from soil or groundwater, gas venting,

soil washing and flushing, precipitation, and carbon absorption of contaminants from groundwater.

Class 111: Stabilization-Any form of chemical fixation, stabilization, and solidification which cannot assure

actual destruction of all hazardous components. There are numerous commercial forms which vary according to the

materials mixed with the hazardous material. In some cases there are claims that organic molecules are permanently

altered by the process, but this has not been well documented scientifically.l Effectiveness and reliability for toxic

metals are well proven.

Class IV: Engineering Controls-A variety of methods can restrict the movement of contaminants or

exposure to them. Although such methods are not permanent, they can recontrol a site by: 1) imposing physical

barriers (e.g., slurry walls, landfill caps and liners, leachate or groundwater pumping); 2) keeping water away from

hazardous material (e.g., diversion ditches, soil and plastic covers, storage vaults); and 3) keeping people away from

hazardous material (e.g., fences, caps, and soil covers). Techniques in this class must be assessed routinely for failure

or deterioration of materials. Repair and maintenance, as well as less than 100 percent effectiveness, pose

unavoidable uncertainties. Onsite re-disposal of hazardous material, followed by engineering controls, provides

more reliability than applying controls to hazardous material in their original condition (e.g., buried waste or

taminated soil).

Class V: Institutional Controls--These depend on people and organizatons to deal indirectly with hazardous

contaminants by controlling exposures to them or by detecting the need for further action (e.g., restrictive deeds;

alternate water supplies; relocation of residents; periodic monitoring, testing, or inspection). Unavoidable

uncertaintiesrcsult from: l)potential failures of people or institutions to adequately fund or implement the controls,

and 2) possible changes in the original cleanup objectives without public accountability.

Class VI: Natural Treatment-Any onsite or no-action approach which depends on a natural form of

treatment being effective over the long-term (comparable to time over which hazardous properties persist) for

expected but inevitably uncertaain site conditions and future land and water use. Includes: natural biodegradation,

chemical breakdown or decay of hazardous molecules, adsorption to soil. Dilution and dispersion of hazardous

Substances into the environment which produce "safe" concentrations maybe considered by some people as natural

treatment or attenuation.

lb ~~ ~

h likely to Ml illm Ihi9~bocuuo Ooulplue rbxnal~Cama be assured (EPA’s SITE

. .

pgmn places it in he

dnhm$alcatosuy).

N-Rr CIMSOS I-IIL the tlrst pmfamma is m#it8 m4m=tC 9ocCm4 in situ Uoslxmaq ~ UaupLm mxl Ofhita tmummt.

~:Ofh8 aflbcbldogy Ama9um@ 19s9.

ences among waste treatment technologies. Past excessive program flexibility, introduce efficieneffort has focused on the distinction-between cies into studies, help compliance with statutreatment technology and land disposal and tory requirements, help the public better

containment. The hierarchy would reduce understand analysis and selection of remedy,
46 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

help channel government R&D and private

sector technology R&D and commercialization into the most productive areas, and

motivate technology developers to provide

better data. In particular, in too many past

Feasibility Studies, significant options high up

on the hierarchy have not been thoroughly

considered; this has blunted compliance with

statutory preferences and requirements and it

has caused community people to fight selected

remedies which they correctly perceived to offer

lower levels of protection.

Implementation: There is no statutory obstacle to EPA’s implementation of this option.

Alternatively, Congress could define the hierarchy and require EPA to implement the hierarchy

in all implementation efforts. Although there are

bound to be legitimate concerns, there seem to

be no major obstacles to implementation. But

questions may arise as to whether a technology

destroys hazardous material, or how a technology gets classified when it destroys only some

hazardous substances at a site, or about the

labeling of a technology which destroys some

hazardous material but produces new hazardous

byproducts.

Destruction can be dealt with through scientific enquiry; proponents of a technology should

have the burden of demonstrating scientifically,

through experimental results, that hazardous

substances have been rendered nonhazardous

without the production of hazardous byproducts. (The rendering to a nonhazardous state

does not necessarily imply the loss of original

chemical identity; for example, some metals are

only significantly toxic in one electronic valence

state which can be changed through treatment.)

Currently, without a good distinction between

destruction or recovery and other types of

treatment technologies, some companies are

making unsubstantiated claims of permanence.

With regard to partial destruction or recovery

of site materials by a particular technology, the

first scientific principle should be that n o

destruction technology can destroy or recover

all conceivable hazardous substances. Therefore every destruction technology has limits; for

example, incineration cannot destroy toxic metals. The second scientific principle is that no

process can operate with 100-percent” efficiency.

That is, every destruction technology inevitably

must provide information about hazardous emissions and residuals due to incomplete destruction. The third principle is that any destruction

or recovery technology may produce new hazardous substances; this is a well-known aspect

of incineration but an often neglected issue for

other technologies, such as biological treatment.

The question of incomplete site contaminant

destruction is another matter; it requires addressing the use of destruction technology

relative to the quantity of all hazardous site

material and the use of other cleanup technologies. Information should be presented on the

relative contribution of different site cleanup

technologies when they are intended to be used

at roughly the same time; for example, at a site

at which incineration and land disposal is used,

information should reveal what fraction of the

hazardous material-the actual hazardous substances, not the total volume of soil or water

which may contain the hazardous substances—

has been destroyed, versus the fraction land

disposed. The degree of site contaminant destruction may often be maximized by using a

combination of destruction technologies, or by

a combination of separation and destruction

technologies. Using separation first can reduce

total costs substantially because destruction

technologies are usually more expensive per ton

processed than separation technologies.

Another issue is whether a natural form of

treatment qualifies as destruction technology, or

as presented here as the lowest, most uncertain

option on the hierarchy. Here too, scientific

analysis must be used. For example, it may be

argued that natural adsorption of a chemical to

site soil is treatment; perhaps, but that treatment

is not destruction, it is a form of separation
Chapter 1-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 47

technology. Moreover, it intrinsically has uncertainty, because soil conditions might change and

reduce the adsorption, releasing the hazardous

substance. Another important example, because

it is frequently invoked in cleanups, is natural

flushing. This means that water infiltrating

contaminated soil removes contaminants and

transports them away, typically into groundwater which may release the contaminants into a

river. This too is a case of separation technology, with uncertain cleanup effectiveness and

uncertain environmental effects due to subsequent exposures; natural or solar evaporation of

volatile chemicals is similar. An example of

natural destruction is biological destruction of

an organic contaminant by naturally occurring

microbes, in soil or groundwater, without,

however, engineering controls to ensure continued effectiveness. Natural treatment may sometimes be used to make no-action seem more than

it really is.

Adoption of the hierarchy does not impose

options, but it does make it more difficult to

choose an option low on the hierarchy without careful explanation of why ones above it

have not been used. It is important to

recognize that for some cleanup actions lower

level options are appropriate, especially for

emergency and recontrol actions.

Lastly, the impact of the hierarchy on treatability testing may raise concerns. Although

treatability testing is critical to the maximum

use of newer treatment technologies, the selection of specific technologies for evaluation

remains an issue. The hierarchy would guide

project managers in thinking about which technologies should be targeted for treatability

testing. It is important to have representation of

technologies from top to bottom, in case the

most desirable one(s) are not found successful.

In this way, the public can understand the

technical basis of why more preferred technologies have not been selected.

OPTION 9: Restrict Use of Groundwater

Cleanup Technology

The most common form of groundwater

cleanup (other than providing alternate water) is

pumping contaminated water to the surface and

treating it through a variety of technologies,

with the aim of rendering it suitable for use,

discharge, or reinfection into the ground. But

exactly when the program has substantially

increased its use of pump and treat, research

results and analyses have concluded that current

practice does not offer predictable performance

and success (see ch. 3) for complicated cleanups. Moreover, most decisions to clean up

groundwater are for sites for which the government’s analysis has shown no current risks, the

source of the contamination has not been

brought under control, and the underground

aquifer is not yet well understood. Although

pump and treat can remove some contaminants, there is major uncertainty about the

ultimate levels of contaminant reduction and

the time to reach them. But this uncertainty

is not communicated in RODS. Over a year

ago, a senior EPA official said:

. . . a recent analysis by EPA’s own Office of

Research and Development strongly indicates that

the groundwater pump and treat systems, which the

agency has been selecting to control groundwater

contamination, will not achieve the levels of cleanup

required by agency standards in less than tens,

perhaps hundreds, of years, ., . [T]his new data

illustrates that there is still a great deal to learn about

how to remediate some of the problems at these

Sites.43

With this option, Superfund management

would reassess the current selection of pump

and treat as a proven, predictable, and effective

groundwater cleanup remedy for nearly all

situations. This means examining ways to improve the practice of pump and treat, and

alternatives to pump and treat, including point-ofuse treatment, hydraulic containment of the

plume, in situ biological treatment and other

43Gtmc A. Lucero, “&m of Supcrfimd,” The Envirotvnend Forum, March/April 1989.
48 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

new treatments, and natural attenuation and

biodegradation. This issue also highlights the

need to pay more attention to identifying and

eliminating the source of groundwater contamination at a site. The greater the difficulty of

cleaning up groundwater, the greater the

urgency to remove the source of groundwater

contamination.

Benefits: The public’s demand for action by

Superfund is not well served in the long term by

using an unreliable cleanup method. An enormous

amount of money might better be spent on other

sites, providing the public with more protection.

Indeed, the current approach may be counterproductive environmentally. Expensive pump and

treat cleanups may eventually be stopped because either the cleanup level is thought to be

attained when in fact it has not been (e.g.,

because chemicals de-adsorb from subsurface

soil), or because cleanup will be judged complete even though cleanup standards cannot be

met (i.e., health effects standard is replaced by

a technology performance standard). With this

option, there would be more limited use of pump

and treat, and more explicit institutional commitment to near-term monitoring and recontrol

which, however, does not imply permanent

cleanup.

Implementation: EPA could act on this option

through, for example, a special high level task

force study. Alternatively, Congress could require an independent study (perhaps by the U.S.

Geological Survey which has developed improved pump and treat practices) which integrated the current state of scientific knowledge

and the performance of current pump and treat

practices at cleanup sites. The congressional

route may be advisable, because EPA has shown

little interest in addressing this issue, in part

because of a natural tension between the Superfund program, with its primary interest in taking

action, and the R&D program at EPA, with its

primary interest in better understanding technology and its limits. Indeed, facing heavy public

demand for action, it would be difficult for EPA

on its own to shift away from the pump and treat

approach, using it only when its effectiveness

can be well substantiated (e.g., for contamination of a simple, well understood, and relatively

small aquifer by only one chemical or a few

similar contaminants).

Some people are concerned about underreaction to groundwater problems. But if spending large amounts of money on pump and

treat at complicated sites is going to prove

ultimately wasteful, then the public needs to

understand that. If pump and treat is not a

reliable permanent remedy for many types of

sites, then it would be better to focus on

recontrol actions to address current risks from

groundwater contamination, careful monitoring

of the problem, and the need for a major R&D

program (see Policy Option 29). Moreover, it is

possible to increase the chances for success of

pump and treat by improving the technical

methods used (see ch. 3), which mean increased

costs.

OPTION 10: Establish

Assistance Program,

Systems

Generic Site

Including Expert

Groups of experts in generic types of cleanup

sites (e.g., PCB, wood preserving, lead battery,

municipal landfills) would be established at

EPA headquarters. This means expertise centered around site problems rather than around

cleanup technology (see following option). The

key functions of the groups would be to: 1)

provide technical assistance to front-line Superfund staff in EPA regional offices, Federal and

State agencies, and contractors through telephone assistance, site visits, reviews of technical documents, and special reports; 2) develop

and update expert systems (to replace or supplement technical guidance documents) for implementers to use on their own from the earliest site

evaluations through assessment of the effective-
Chapter 1-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 49

ness of a permanent remedy;44 and 3) provide

formal peer review of RODS prior to their

regional approval and release.

Benefits: This option would provide an efficient way to use the greatest technical expertise

present in the Superfund system, improving

technical work and information transfer. Low

quality and unnecessary site study work could

be cut substantially because of the expert help

and systems; indeed, with this option it becomes

feasible in many cases for EPA to perform

Remedial Investigations and Feasibility Studies

on its own. The impact on the program of

front-line staff turnover would be reduced,

because there would be a stable core of technical

expertise for site managers to draw on. This

group of experts would also provide the mechanism for transferring information and technology from R&D efforts into the field. The public

would be better assured that the best available

cleanup technology was being selected by the

government. Expert systems compensate for

inexperience; they could also be very useful for

educating members of the community, making

their public participation more effective. The

placement of this effort within the Superfund

office and not EPA’s Office of Research ‘and

Development is important. This effort is envisioned as operational, not research. Current use

of ORD personnel for operational support

detracts from ORD’s primary mission.

An important benefit would be to provide a

capability within government to assess the

credibility and importance of technical information obtained by responsible parties. Currently,

government spends a substantial amount of

money on contractor work to duplicate site

analyses or cleanup technology evaluations

performed by responsible parties. This often

means delay in cleanup and, very often, the

government contractor work provides no new or

different information.

Implementation: Either EPA or Congress

could implement this option. The key to successful implementation is having the Nation’s

best technical experts, more so in science than

engineering. This means people with major

experience in investigating and cleaning up

certain types of sites. OTA believes that many

qualified experts already work for different EPA

programs, such as in some of EPA’s regional

offices where they have accumulated many

years of experience. Others are in universities,

consulting firms, and some technology development companies. Work in this program could be

seen as a rotating assignment, for EPA staff and

for those in universities and elsewhere. The

level of effort envisioned here is about 20 to 40

professionals administering this program; total

annual spending would probably be in the range

of $3 million to $5 million. But about $10

million might be necessary initially for development of several expert systems.

OPTION 11: Establish Technologies

Assistance Program

Groups of experts in generic technologies

would be established at EPA headquarters; for

example, incineration, biotechnology for soil

cleanup, chemical fixation, low temperature soil

stripping of organics, vacuum extraction of

organics, groundwater cleanup. The groups of

experts would provide operational assistance to

site managers and staff by phone, personal

visits, and quick reports in all phases of the

program. The technology experts would be able

to interpret new R&D results, as well as help

design and interpret the results of site treatability tests (i.e., testing of site materials to evaluate

effectiveness of a particular technology). They

would stay abreast of all commercial developments and data, and provide an independent

evaluation of vendor information. During design and implementation, they would also be

available as consultants and trouble-shooters;

ti~e Cxwfl ~s~m w~d & ~~r=tive computer SOfiWSR program which should also be made available to commtities, mwnsible Pfies~

and the consulting engineering cmnrmmity.
50 ● Corning Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

they would also collect and analyze performance data from cleanup implementation. The

experts would be the key instruments in transferring information from all government and

industrial efforts to the front-line people implementing Superfund. Teams of experts could

help regional site managers and staff resolve the

difficult issue of what technologies or what

combination of technologies could best be used

at a site. This group would also provide another

level of formal peer review of RODS prior to

their regional approval and release.

Benefits: This option would improve the rate

at which the best, most innovative, and costeffective cleanup technologies were implemented.

It would give the government much needed

independent expertise cost-effectively, because

it is impossible for site managers and staff in

regional offices to be experts on a large number

of very different, rapidly changing technologies.

Moreover, OTA’s research has shown that

Superfund staff need to be less dependent on the

expertise of vendors, contractors, and responsible parties. This option would help EPA conduct

some of its own Feasibility Studies. Conflicts of

interest which may affect key technology choices

would be minimized. More consistency in

Superfund implementation would also result,

and the successes and failures of technologies

would be quickly integrated into program implementation.

Implementation: The key to successful implementation by EPA is to assure that the highest

caliber, experienced professionals are chosen

for this critical task, more in engineering than

science. OTA believes that many qualified

experts already work for different EPA programs, such as in some of EPA’s laboratories

where they have accumulated many years of

experience. Others are in universities, consulting fins, and some technology development

companies. Work in this program could be a

rotating assignment, for EPA staff and for those

in universities and elsewhere. A key need is for

objective, critical analysis and evaluation of

information. In this regard, it is important that

EPA personnel be totally committed to this

work, as compared to current practice where

some EPA experts provide technical assistance

to Superfund staff on a part-time basis from their

current home bases, such as in ORD. The level

of effort envisioned here is about 20 to 40

professionals administering this program; total

annual spending would probably in the range of

$2 million to $4 million.

OPTION 12: Better Define Mission of SITE

Technology Demonstration Program

This option would not change the basic

premise of the SITE program; the need for the

program remains. What appears necessary, however, is to make the program perform faster, be

more user friendly, and be less bureaucratic.

Moreover, the program needs a better focus on

the demonstration of truly innovative technologies which seem too risky or uncertain for the

private marketplace. This probably requires

more sharing of cost and risk by the government.

Too many of the technologies in the SITE

program (21 out of the 30 technologies currently) have already had extensive private sector

use and support. Attention would also be given

to the need to say that a technology has not

worked when it hasn’t, and to minimize the use

of SITE participation as a marketing tool,

especially when SITE results do not fully

support the claims of a vendor. Moreover,

technology companies not in the SITE program

should not be penalized by, for example, receiving less attention or support from EPA and

Superfund staff. This option first means an

independent evaluation of the SITE program by,

for example, EPA’s Science Advisory Board or

the National Research Council. A short 6-month

study would provide specific recommendations

on how to improve the program.

Benefits: For a long-term cleanup program

there are enormous benefits from the demonstration of innovative technologies which offer true

breakthroughs in solving particularly difficult
Chapter 1~Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options • 51

and important cleanup problems, and also to

produce substantial and even dramatic reductions in unit cleanup costs. Incremental technological improvements are well handled by the

private sector, particularly because the cleanup

market is so large and competition among and

within generic technologies so intense. So the

mission of the SITE program should be to

push the frontiers of cleanup technology. The

benefits, however, are questionable if the program competes with private sector efforts in

promoting the demonstration and diffusion of

more modest incremental technical improvements. With this option, current or anticipated

spending levels for the SITE program might be

decreased, because so much of the program’s

activities now have little to do with cutting edge,

innovative technologies.

Implementation: EPA or Congress could

require the study and specify its scope and

objectives. The study should make use of

detailed interviews with companies that have

already participated in the program, with experts

in cleanup implementation who are able to

evaluate the types of technologies chosen for the

program, and with academic experts in the areas

of technological innovation and diffusion. Special attention should also be given to how sites

have been selected for the program and whether

the SITE technologies met a need that could not

be satisfied by any currently available commercial technology.

Improving Government Management

OPTION 13: Use Generic Site Classification

A site classification system could be established and all existing sites and each site

entering the Superfund system classified according to the best applicable generic description. A relatively small number of site classes

is possible; the types would focus on the

origin and nature of site contamination.

Some feasible site classes are: wood preserving,

pesticide, lead battery recycling, complex industrial manufacturing facility, PCB cleanup, municipal landfill, industrial landfill, solvent contaminated well field, asbestos, mixed heavy

metals, and mining waste. All Superfund records, documents, and public notices would

show a site’s classification on a level of

importance comparable to the site’s name and

location (e.g., site name, location, a municipal

landfill).45

Benefits: This is a way to simplify the

Superfund program and introduce management

efficiencies. It also offers an opportunity for

more certainty in the operation of Superfund by

reducing excessive flexibility in key decisionmaking. For too long, EPA has chosen to see

every cleanup site as unique. While every site,

like every person, may differ from others, it

is also possible to see the important commonality within certain classes of sites. Classification becomes critical for a large and growing

cleanup program; it is based on the principle that

much is learned over time about certain classes

of sites and that transferring this expertise

prevents unnecessary, redundant, and inconsistent work. Major amounts of repetitive contractor study work (particularly in the FS) could be

eliminated, speeding up cleanups and reducing

study costs; major regional inconsistencies for

selection of cleanup standards and technologies

could be eliminated. It is feasible to have generic

protocols for all program activities based on site

classification. Early classification of a site could

also speed up removal and interim cleanup

actions.

Implementation: Congress could statutorily

require EPA to devise and implement a site

classification system, or Congress could itself

establish site classes. There are no major

implementation obstacles; all current sites

should be classified as well as new, incoming
52 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

sites. One class would have to be something like

“No Generic Classification” for sites which

cannot be accurately fit into a generic category.

When a site is first discovered or identified little

information may exist and it might automatically be assigned NGC. But site classification

should not be a rigid decision; as information on

a site increases, its classification may change.

The workload to apply a classification system to

existing sites is relatively small; experienced

EPA staff should take no more than 2 months to

classify NPL sites and perhaps 1 year for all

other sites in the system.

OPTION 14: Limit Responsible Parties to

Implementation of Remedies

This option involves a major change in

policy. EPA has sought and achieved substantial

increases in the number of site studies (RIFSs)

performed by responsible parties (actually by

contractors they hire). More than half of site

studies are being done by responsible parties

with government oversight provided chiefly

through government contractors (under EPA’s

Technical Enforcement Support contracts). Onethird of all fiscal year 1988 RODS were for sites

at which responsible parties conducted RIFSs.

From June 1988 to June 1989, information from

EPA indicates that there was about a 50-percent

increase in the fraction of RIFSs conducted by

responsible parties.46 EPA has said that it wants

to give responsible parties a larger role in

defining site problems and evaluating cleanup

alternatives. This approach offers the benefit of

reducing the need for fund-financed studies and,

to the extent that studies performed by responsible parties also promotes settlements with them

to perform cleanups, also the benefit of reducing

the need for fund-financed cleanups.

A study on the RIFS process done for EPA

concluded that “Many of the RPMs [site

managers] believe that the PRPs [potentially

responsible parties] often seek the least expensive, rather than the best, clean-up techniques

and are willing to expend considerable amounts

of money in attempts to establish justification

for the less expensive clean-up procedures. ”47

An earlier EPA headquarters study that examined the concern about risk assessments being

different in enforcement actions, but which did

not evaluate individual risk assessments, came

to several pertinent conclusions: EPA regional

staff believed that there was no difference

between risk assessments prepared by EPA or

responsible parties; about half the EPA regions

‘‘recognizing PRPs’ biased perspective and the

‘malleability’ of a risk assessment. . . have their

contractors prepare all risk assessments, even if’

PRPs are conducting the rest of the site investigation; and because of ineffective oversight

EPA headquarters ‘‘would not necessarily know

if differences between Fund and Enforcement

assessments are occurring. ’ ’48

With regard to the use of innovative cleanup

technology, EPA has said that ‘Difficult negotiations [with potentially responsible parties] are

most likely where innovative technologies are

proposed for sites where containment remedies

are consistent with CERCLA mandates. PRP

concerns generally focus on continued liability

in the event of remedy failure, implementability

problems, and cost. ”49 Thus EPA recognizes

the tendency for responsible parties to favor

containment remedies (see Option 6 and discus-

%s change appears to be related to EPA’s desire to meet the congressional requirement in SARA for starting 275 RIFSS by oetober 1989 as well

as the desire to reduce the demand on fund financed studies and cleanups. Another factor often brought up is that the more studies and cleanups performed

by responsible parties the less the fund itself is used, making more money available from the fund for other cleanups. But it has also km noted that

there has consistently kn unused M money which offsets the Ftxleral deficit.

47Research Triangle Institute, Ourreach initiative on SWerfund Remedial lnvestigationlFeasibiluy Study (R1/FS), Summer 1988.

UEPA, Ev&Wn of the Pre~r&n of Risk Assessments for Enforcement Activities, September 1987.

49EPA M~orandum, 1‘Advancing the Use of Treatment Rdmologies fOr Superfund Remedies, ’ OSWER Dirwtive No. 9355,0-26, February21,

1989.
Chapter Z-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 53

sions in ch. 3). Also, EPA seems to acknowledge

that the effectiveness of protection of health and

environment is not a primary concern of responsible parties, but is the responsibility of the

government.

In November 1988 a senior EPA enforcement

official said:

I am getting anecdotal information from a number

of regions that some work being done by PRPs on

RI/FSs is of substandard quality and is not being

completed in a timely manner. . . . The most

sensitive portion of the PRP work and the area that

EPA must pay particular attention to is the remedial

alternatives and the endangerment [risk] assessment

portions of the RI/FS.50

More recently, EPA has acknowledged public

concerns about this issue and has said the

following:

According to nearly all Regional managers and

staff interviewed on this topic, many PRPs try to

economize and propose only the most minimal

remedial action. Some variations exist, of course;

this characterization certainly does not apply to all

PRPs. Nonetheless, EPA’s basic approach to oversight must first assume that PRPs will try to conduct

RI/FSs geared to their interests alone. . . . There was

broad consensus among EPA managers and staff that

the Agency needs to put more effort and resources

into oversight of RI/FS performed by PRPs. . . . In

light of the increasing number of PRP leads to be

conducted in the coming months and the general

concerns raised during this study . . . the task group

believes that EPA must act quickly to upgrade

current oversight practices and, in particular, involve

citizens in this process.51

Responsible parties play a major role in many

cleanups being conducted under the jurisdiction

of States; the sites are not Superfund NPL sites,

although many of them might qualify. A forthcoming GAO report on State cleanups says,

“When private responsible parties clean up a

non-NPL site, the state role in remedy selection

is normally limited to reviewing and accepting

or modifying a cleanup plan proposed by the

responsible party. The state does not normally

evaluate other alternatives or cost-effectiveness. ” OTA agrees with the GAO assessment,

State cleanups are not likely to offer environmental protection comparable to that required

under Superfund. This is significant because the

responsible party community has an interest in

moving the Federal Superfund program in the

direction of this type of interaction between

responsible parties and government. The current

rapid increase in the number of site studies and

cleanups performed by responsible parties in

Superfund stresses EPA’s capabilities to exercise independent control over data acquisition,

analyses, and cleanup actions.

The current policy, with its emphasis on

having responsible parties conduct site studies, does not promote public confidence in

Superfund for several reasons:

1.

2.

3.

4.

there is an intrinsic, potential conflict of

interest because responsible parties have

strong reasons to give as high or higher

priority to minimizing study and cleanup

costs than to stringency of cleanup;

responsible parties have an advantage over

community groups in the pre-ROD stages

of cleanup and can have greater impact on

EPA RODs;

the current EPA oversight process, based

nearly entirely on contractors and constrained by EPA’s lack of experienced

personnel and high workload, lacks public

accountability and provides nearly no

information to affected communities (e.g.,

critiques of responsible party contractor

work);

there is so much inherent flexibility in

EPA’s policies and requirements as well

as in many statutory preferences and

50Bruee M. Diamond, ‘‘Tightening Up on Enforcement, ’ paper presented at Superfund ’88 conference, Washington, DC, November 1988.

51EpA, A ~mgemnr ReV1w ~ft~ ,$we~~ Progrm, J~e 1989, This s~dy consider~ but &d no( endorse disallowing responsible parties from

conducting site studies. The rtxommendation was for closer oversight of private party studies, but improved overs@t could be more expensive than

the approach of OTA’S opuon.
54 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

5.

requirements that it is well within legally

defined boundaries to select cleanup objectives and remedies at the low end of

health and environmental protection; and

there is statistical and site-specific evidence (see ch. 3) that key EPA decisions

on cleanup objectives and remedies are

sometimes less stringent for sites when

settlement with responsible parties is possible and sought by EPA as compared to

government-paid site studies and cleanups.

The first two factors cannot be easily

changed, but the last three factors could, theoretically, be removed with substantial improvements to EPA’s workforce, policies, and requirements, as well as statutory changes (as

suggested in many of the options in this report).

Accomplishing the latter would take time, and

only their successful implementation over time

might create enough improvement in the Superfund system to restore public confidence and

overcome public concerns about the first two

factors. That is, the intrinsic potential for

conflict of interest might become unimportant if

the government’s set of rules for studying sites,

examining cleanup alternatives, and making key

cleanup decisions, as well as its own technical

expertise, reduced the risk of responsible parties

biasing cleanup decisions to minimize cleanup

costs. And the advantage of responsible parties

over communities might in time be offset by an

improved Technical Assistance Grants program

and improved public participation activities by

EPA. As it now stands, however, OTA concludes that this option is one of the most

important in this report for the Congress to

consider. Congress might also wish to consider

limiting its implementation to perhaps 5 years,

at which time Congress could assess whether it

was still needed.

Responsible parties strongly oppose this

option. They believe it critically important that

they have the opportunity to conduct RIFSs.

Responsible parties maintain that they have

technical and project management expertise,

often superior to and more stable than that of the

government. And sometimes they do. They also

maintain that they follow EPA guidance and

regulations as well as statutory preferences and

requirements. But, as discussed previously,

excessive flexibility blunts the significance of

compliance with government rules. They point

to low-quality site studies done for the government and questionable cleanup decisions—

which OTA has also identified-and maintain

that they can do better work or ensure better

contractor work for themselves. Moreover, they

maintain that EPA provides significant oversight and retains the ultimate authority to make

the key cleanup decisions in RODS.

52 Overall,

responsible parties believe that they are ready to

accept the responsibility assigned to them by the

government and that responsibility should not

be limited to providing money for or doing the

cleanup. Nearly everyone acknowledges that

providing responsible parties the opportunity to

conduct site studies helps get settlements with

them to perform post-ROD design studies and

remedial actions.

With this option, responsible parties would no

longer conduct site investigations or feasibility

studies, and there would no longer be any

remedial cleanup effort under the jurisdiction of

an enforcement office.53 Until the government

itself concluded what problems had to be

addressed and what remedies would be used,

there would be no settlements with responsible

parties for cleanup implementation, or formal or

informal negotiations for settlements which

discussed cleanup standards or remedies as

negotiable issues.

5aAb obwrvd, IWWCVCX, thti EPA’s RODS often contain verbatim excerpts from responsible party study documents and fiequendy depend upon

M data obtained in those studies. In other cases, EPA’s contractors redo work performed for responsible parties.

S3R_ible @=aISO incl~e Fedcr~ agencies and States for some Superfund slh%+.
Chapter 1--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 55

A key goal of this option is to balance the

participation by responsible parties prior to

RODS with that of site communities. That is,

this option does not preclude responsible party

activity at a site prior to the ROD, but it does

transfer the official RIFS activity to the government. Responsible parties would still have the

right to conduct their own studies if they desired

and to contribute, as communities do, to the EPA

site study and cleanup decision process. EPA

site managers could consider information provided by responsible parties and use that information in significant ways, but the government

would retain the principal responsibility for site

investigation and evaluation of remedies.

With this option, the government would still

retain its authorities to recover the costs of site

studies from responsible parties or even to

obtain agreements to pay such costs.

Benefits: This option would definitely improve public confidence in Superfund. Whatever the problems in having the government

conduct site studies, with this option all such

work would have public accountability and

visibility. It seems as if, to some degree, EPA

has addressed its workforce, contractor, and

funding issues by privatizing site studies. But

ultimately those issues must be addressed by the

government without yielding its responsibilities

to responsible parties and contractors.

If the contractor workforce is available to

responsible parties to conduct studies, then it is

also available to the government. The large

amounts of money spent on oversight of responsible party studies-which can be as great as the

costs of the studies themselves-would instead

be spent on conducting the studies themselves.54

There is considerable potential to reduce a lot of

redundant contractor work in the current system.

In its research on site studies and RODS,

OTA has not found any consistently higher

level of technical quality in studies performed

by or for responsible parties. Although that

may have been the case at one time, the recent

growth of responsible party studies has met the

same problems faced by EPA because of the

explosive growth of Superfund. With this option, there is an opportunity for a net reduction

in all contractor studies. This in turn could

remove some of the pressure on the contractor

workforce which now contributes to low-quality

work and high costs.

A subtle benefit of this option is associated

with another use of site studies. Completely

objective and comprehensive RIFSs provide the

public with an invaluable source of detailed

information about a site which may contribute to

the public’s ability to pursue legal actions under

common law because of personal injury or

property damage. If a responsible party conducts an RIFS, certain kinds of information may

not be obtained or may not be given in public

documents. For example, the following advice

was given to the responsible party community in

the context of managing environmental claims:

If a company believes that it could be susceptible

to third-party suits either because data exist to show

effects on neighboring wells or because there is a

likelihood that the contamination could affect the

neighboring wells in the future, further investigation

may be an undesirable strategy. Action is called for,

and any actions must fit in with the other aspects

involved in overall claims management.ss

WS& tie OveBl@t Cmt is ge~r~ly @d for by responsible parties as agreed to in consent decrees, there could be a saving for responsible parties

if they only pay for government studies, assuming that, under this option, the government would not pay more than the current tod for responsible party

contractor studies plus government contractor overs@t work. A recent news story described two cases with higb oversight study costs: the A.Y.

Mcllcmald Manufacturing Co. of Dubuque Iowa paid $279,000 for EPA’s oversight contractor which was almost m much as the company paid for the

ckanup, and the John Deere Dubuque Works paid more than $1 million for an EPA contractor to contlrrn that the $8 CI0,0(XI cleanup wm woriung. Norm

Brewer, “Another Iowa Buaincwxnan Raps ‘Ridiculous’ EPA Cleanup Costs, ’ The Des Moines Regtiter, June 15, 1989.

Michael J. Murphy and Richard E. Freudcnbergcr, ‘‘Environmental Claims Management: A Case Study of 7kdmical Support, in /nrwance Cluinu

for ~nvtionmcntaf Damages (New York, NY: Executive Enterprises Publications, 1989),
56 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

In other words, the responsible party’s interest

in minimizing cleanup costs also extends to

minimizing or avoiding other costs as well.

Implementation: Considering EPA’s high

interest in having more responsible party studies, this option would probably not be implemented without congressional action. A new

statutory provision to override current language

could preclude responsible parties from conducting site studies and limit settlements to

implementation of government cleanup decisions, from design studies through implementation. Cost recovery for government studies

would still be encouraged. Clearly a current

inducement for responsible parties to enter into

voluntary or negotiated settlements with EPA is

the opportunity to conduct RIFSs. Adopting this

option, therefore, would make it all the more

important for EPA to use the full array of strong

enforcement tools provided it by statute. Moreover, if EPA provides effective participation in

the pre-ROD process for responsible parties (as

for communities) then the negative impact of

this option on post-ROD settlements will be

reduced. However, in the short term, this option

would increase the need for spending significantly more fund money on RIFSs, but eventually these costs could be recovered.

A negative impact of this option on the

duration of site studies and cleanups does not

seem likely. OTA examined fiscal year 1988

RODS on a regional basis and found that in five

regions fund sites moved faster from placement

on the NPL to issuance of a ROD, and in five

regions enforcement sites moved faster.56 Nationwide, the average for enforcement sites was

4.0 years and for fund sites 3.9 years. OTA also

analyzed EPA’s data on RIFSs and remedial

action projects in progress, which presented data

on schedule performance from January 1,1987

through September 30, 1987;57 189 activities

designated as responsible party lead averaged a

delay of 1.7 quarters and 68 designated as

fund-enforcement averaged 1.6 quarters, compared to an average delay of 1.1 quarters for 163

activities designated fund-financed.58 For minimizing delays, these data indicate a potential

advantage for shifting work from responsible

parties to EPA.

However, the recent study Coalition on

Superfund Research Report (September 1989)

presented ‘ ‘intriguing interim trends and conclusions’ but cautioned against drawing broad

national conclusions; 21 sites in Region 5 were

examined, including 7 pre-SARA sites from

1984 and 1985. The study concluded that RIFSs

performed by responsible parties were of equal

quality to those by EPA, that sites move faster

through the Superfund process when responsible parties conduct studies, and that cleanup

standards are similar for the same type of sites

for government financed and responsible party

financed cleanups. All three conclusions are

opposite to those of OTA’s, which are based on

examination of national data as well as a larger

number of specific case studies in a number of

EPA regions, all for 1987 or 1988. In the

Coalition study, of the 6 sites that responsible

parties performed the RIFS, 3 were from 1984

or 1985. Because Region 5 is large, the sites

5~e mo~ s~~g ~fferenca were: Region 6 where fired sites were 1 year faster; Region 7 where fund sites were 1.6 years faster; Region 10 where

enforcement sites were 1 year fmter. Nationwide, for enforcement sites, Regions 2 and 7 had the longest times (4.8 years) and Regions 3 and 6 the shortes~

times (3.4 and 3.5 years); for fund sites, Regions 1, 2,4, 8, and 10 had the longest times (4.6 to 4.8 years) and Region 6 the shortest time (2.5 years).

57~s is a ~tab~ over t.hrw tiesluger than FY88 RODS; 85 percent of the data covered over 450 RIFSS in progress and, therefore, these data

suggest the possibility of discernible differences betwcxm fund and enforcement RODS released after FY88. EPA, ‘‘Progress Toward Implementing

Superfund: Fiscal Year 1987 Report to Congress-Appendix D Status of Active Remedial Investigations/Feasibility Studies and Remedial Actions in

Progress on Sept. 30, 1987, ” April 1989 [statutorily, the report was due on Jan. 1, 1988]. ‘l%edatapresente ddonot reveal delays which may have occurred

prior to Jan. 1, 1987,

5J3Nom~Iy, ~~~ble p~ 14 ~tivities wodd be plac~ in the enforcement category, We think that fund-enforcement ~tivlties mean that

responsible pan.ies have been identified and that the site is slatd for enforcement action to subsequently obtain settlement for future work and cost

recovery for work financed with the fund. Responsible party lead activities probably mean that responsible parties are conducting work agreed to as a

rcauh of a settlement and consent deuec.
Chapter 1--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options . 57

evaluated in the Coalition study are a small

fraction of that region’s output.

Overall, the key to successful implementation is improved EPA capabilities and procedures which would assure that its site studies

will be more effective, efficient, and consistent than they have been. (A number of policy

options identified in this report could assist that

goal.) As noted above, implementation of this

option could be for a limited time, perhaps 5

years, with the expectation that sufficient improvements in the program might make responsible party conduct of site studies less contentious.

OPTION 15: Reexamine Financing and

Enforcement of Liabilities to Improve

Environmental Performance

Superfund’s environmental performance is

affected by its financing and enforcement of

statutory liabilities. To limit the amount of

money for fund-financed studies and cleanups,

Congress imposed very strict liabilities which

would set the stage for major financing of

cleanups by responsible parties. A number of

strong enforcement powers were given to EPA

and the Justice Department to ensure that

responsible parties, if they could be identified,

would pay for cleanups either before or after the

fact. In large measure, the basic congressional

strategy has worked, because responsible parties

have probably provided several billion dollars

for studies and cleanups. OTA has not included 100 percent public financing (as for a

public works program) without liabilities as

an alternative to this basic congressional

strategy. One of the more important reasons

is that Superfund liabilities have been seen by

nearly everyone as a powerful incentive to

promote industrial waste reduction and improved waste management.

But success has had several undesirable

impacts: delayed studies and cleanups, added

administrative and transaction costs for the

government and responsible parties, and compromised environmental quality at some sites.

These effects are an inevitable consequence of

the natural confrontation between government

goal of maximizing spending by responsible

parties and responsible parties’ goal of minimizing their costs. Delay and added administrative

and transaction costs have also resulted from the

reluctance of many responsible parties to actively participate and negotiate with the government. This, in turn, has resulted, in large

measure, because EPA has not used some of the

strongest enforcement powers given it by statute. That is, uncooperative responsible parties

are not necessarily penalized. But some of the

problem has to do with the difficulty of making

a strong legal case. Thus EPAs preference for

voluntary or negotiated settlements which is

only one of several tactics given it by statute to

implement the basic congressional strategy.

Settlements have been promoted through: 1)

allowing responsible parties to conduct RIFSs,

and 2) implicitly or explicitly reducing the scope

or extent of cleanup and selecting less permanent remedies to reduce costs at some sites.

With this option, Congress would reexamine

how the mix of statutory tactics can best be used

to implement the original congressional strategy

(i.e., maximizing financing of cleanups by

responsible parties) and obtaining stringent

cleanups comparable to fund-financed ones.

Principally, this means exploring: 1 ) using more

government funds to act quickly at sites—

implying increasing current special taxes or

establishing new ones initially-followed by

increased cost recovery; 2) using the stronger

enforcement tools provided by statute to compel

more responsible parties to pay for stringent

cleanups; and 3) developing more effective

incentives for voluntary settlements so that it is

not necessary for EPA to compromise environmental goals.

For the first two tactical approaches, OTA’s

research has not yielded any new technical

insights and congressional discussion of them

will largely center on legal, financial, and
58 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

implementation issues. However, for the third

tactical approach there is an idea debated, but

rejected by Congress in 1986, which merits

reexamination. Responsible parties have argued

that giving them complete and final closure to

the government’s claim on them at a specific site

would get more voluntary settlements and get

them more expeditiously. Obtaining quick and

certain closure has monetary value. The government could provide this settlement incentive:

If the responsible party or parties pay a

premium to the government—above the nearterm estimated cost for cleanup--then the

government will irreversibly close its case.59

(EPA sometimes uses this approach today with

de minimus responsible parties; i.e., those

assigned a small fraction of a site’s cleanup

cost.) To lower its monetary risk with broad

application, the government would have to have

a good sense of what the ultimate complete

cleanup might be and cost, taking into account

uncertainties about site contamination, risks,

cleanup objectives, and cleanup technologies.

This may, however, not be feasible at all sites.

Benefits; Improving Superfund implementation requires the examination of all aspects of

the program and, especially, their interactions.

Giving the public the kind and amount of

environmental protection it demands expeditiously is, inevitably, linked to Superfund’s

components relating to financing and enforcement of liabilities. Past and current tactics have

provided some key financial benefits, but they

have come at some environmental and monetary

costs. OTA believes that there is no intrinsic

conflict between the twin goals of obtaining

expedient, comprehensive, and permanent

environmental protection and making responsible parties pay for cleanup. The issue

really is what mix of tactics best achieves both

goals.

implementation: Congressional action is required. Although CERCLA already gives EPA

some of the necessary statutory authority (e.g.,

enforcement tools and cost recovery), history

has shown how contentious and difficult it is to

deal with financing and enforcement of liability

issues. The idea of responsible parties paying a

premium to quickly reach complete and final

closure at a site is actually an extension of

something already implemented by EPA in a

limited way. However, the release from future

liability does not cover the discovery of new

conditions or other extraordinary circumstances.

These are not improbable events. Thus, the

responsible party cannot obtain total protection

from future liability. However, for complete

elimination of future liability as considered in

this option, Section 122(f) of the CERCLA/

SARA statute would have to be changed. A

critical policy issue for implementation of the

premium option is: Would the public interest be

served by giving responsible parties complete

and total release from future payments and

liability if they pay a special one-time premium?

The answer, of course, may depend on how

well the government can identify what that

premium should be. In 1986 making this determination was viewed as infeasible and the idea

of allowing responsible parties to pay for a

complete release was rejected. OTA’s examination of many cleanup decisions and the development of new information at many sites during

their cleanup leads us to conclude that it would

be difficult to calculate a premium but not as

infeasible at most sites as it seemed in 1986.

Much experience has been gained through

hundreds of remedy selections, remedial desg~4~e Em ‘risk Premlw payment’ refers to a risk apportionment device similar to insurance premiums, under which the risk taken by the

governrmmt for providing PRPs with a broader release from liability is offset by a payment in excess of the projected cost to complete the remedy, ‘I%e

premium should be sufficient to compensate EPA for taking the risks associated with contingent future costs, such as cost overruns in completing the

seleaxi runedy or future costs that may be incurred if the selected remedy is not adequately protective of human health and the environment. Robert

J. Mason and Mark F. Johnson, “Structured Settlements: A New Settlement Incentive, ” SWe@md ’88, proceedings of November 1988 conference,

Hazardous Materials Re=arch Institute, Silver Spring, MD.
Chapter I--Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 59

signs, and remedial actions. A study could show

the relationships between estimated costs in

RODS and actual costs of implementing remedies (and some such work is underway). The

distinction between current and future risks

discussed above might also aid this effort. The

example given in the discussion of Policy

Option 1 (box l-D) is also instructive here.

Although only a small amount of money would

be associated with the immediate cleanup, a

much larger sum would be necessary to address

complete source control and groundwater cleanup

in the future.

OTA believes that it is possible to estimate

(with reasonable but not complete certainty) the

costs of future cleanup at most sites and factor

in the delay before future actions might take

place. High eventual costs would be often offset

by longer times before action is necessary, if at

all, and low costs would usually be offset by a

need to take action fairly soon. Too low a

premium would result from higher than anticipated cleanup costs and/or costs that became

necessary faster than anticipated; too high a

premium would result from a lower than anticipated remedy cost and/or one more delayed than

anticipated. (The premium situation described

here is not unlike that facing insurance companies in setting life insurance premiums.)

Implementation of some of the other policy

options presented in this report would help EPA

estimate premiums, these include: site classification, defining permanence, using a hierarchy

of cleanup methods, the site technical assistance

program, and the technology technical assistance program. Uncertainty about future cleanup

costs cannot be eliminated, but it can be reduced

to reasonable levels for many sites and translated into risk premiums.

In terms of economic principles, there is a

benefit for the government to get significant

money upfront. In effect, premiums are like

mini-trust funds for individual sites, covering

future cleanup contingencies, and building value

over time before they are needed. They are like

life insurance premiums used by companies to

earn money before payment is necessary. The

government also might pay less for administrative and transaction costs when negotiating

because a one-time premium may reduce the

length and complexity of the settlement process

or other, sometimes multiple, enforcement actions.

OPTION 16: Strengthen EPA Headquarters

Direction and Oversight of Regional

Implementation

There is little dispute that Superfund actions

and program performance vary widely among

EPA regions (see OTA’s 1988 case study report

and ch. 2). In its recent management review,

EPA said that nearly 80 percent of fiscal year

1988 RODS, for example, used the agency’s

required nine criteria for selecting remedies. But

the fact that over 20 percent of RODS did not use

the agency’s method for remedy selection indicates excessive regional autonomy. In checking

the accuracy of information provided by EPA in

its first report to Congress on Superfund implementation, EPA’s Inspector General recently

found “30 percent of removal activities and 13

percent of remedial activities claimed by the

Regions were not supported by valid documentation in the Regions’ files."60 A recent study of

Superfund examined this issue and concluded:

In reality, the Administrator has little time to

“manage” the Regional Administrators. As a result,

they operate with considerable autonomy and, it

appears, frequently without close adherence to

national policy. [There is] a lack of clearly defined

responsibility, authority and accountability between

the Regions and Headquarters.61

%33% Progress Toward implementing Supe@nd Fiscal Year 1987-Ueport to Congress, A@l 1989.

blcl~ Siks hc., Ma&ng Supe@md Work, JiiLNMXY 1989.
60 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

The flexibility regions want competes with

national consistency. With this option, EPA

regional offices would still maintain primary

implementation responsibility, but they would

have less flexibility in interpreting or ignoring

EPA policy and guidance. EPA headquarters

would have a primary goal of national consistency for Superfund implementation. There

would be routine examination of RODS and

studies for inconsistent regional decisions, especially for cleanup standards and remedy selection. 62 ROD bunching at the end of the fiscal

year and ROD inconsistencies for substance and

format would be given special public attention.

Deviations from program policy would be

identified, such as using design studies to

circumvent the need for treatability studies on

alternative cleanup technologies during the

pre-ROD study phase.

Benefits: This is a way to reduce excessive

flexibility in program management, restore public confidence in the program, and strengthen

environmental performance. There is no basis

in law or policy for environmental protection

depending on what region a Superfund site is

in. It is also a critical way to reduce unnecessarily high administrative and transaction costs for

the government and the responsible party community. Reducing regional variation in the implementation of Superfund is key to having a

single, truly national cleanup program. There is

no inherent contradiction between the desire for

central national policy and management versus

the desire for regionalized implementation.

Regions could identify regional, State, and site

specific conditions which merit special attention

or different responses from the national norm.

Implementation: Regional managers a nd

staff’s are likely to resist this option. Finding

a middle ground between the need for regional flexibility and central national control,

however, is necessary if Superfund's performance is to be improved. Theoretically,

EPA could implement this option. But, considering the historical relationship between EPA

headquarters and EPA regional offices, it may

be advisable for Congress to explicitly require

action by the EPA Administrator. For example,

all key summary information on Superfund’s

performance could be required to be presented

on a regional basis. The Administrator would

identify significant differences among regions,

the environmental impacts of those differences,

and actions to address those differences and

impacts. Special attention should be given to the

impact of State laws and actions on regional

departures from agency policies. Explicit and

public evaluation of regional performance against

nationwide, program objectives would also be

required. Programs designed to rotate key regional people among regions to bring the

poorest performing regions up to the level of the

best performing regions might be required.

OPTION 17: Commit to a Permanent

Superfund Program

As a matter of public policy, Sup-fund

would be acknowledged to be a permanent

program, requiring a national infrastructure and

institutional delivery system. This means, for

example, establishing: university programs to

support a well-educated, stable workforce in

government and the contracting industry; a

continuing R&D effort; well-defined policies

for short- and long-term priorities; effective

inter-agency and Federal-State relationships;

and central, national information systems. As a

first step, Congress could consider requiring an

independent study to: 1 ) assess whether and, if

so, how current Superfund activities have been

based on detailed long-term program needs and

strategic objectives, and 2) identify specific

policies, programs, and funding requirements to

establish an effective national infrastructure for

a permanent cleanup effort. The study would

produce a long-range strategic plan for SuperWther program components, such as site evaluation, also need headquarters oversight snd periodic assessment.
Chapter 1-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 61

fund, identifying and discussing issues, needs,

and policy options beyond the scope of this

OTA study.

Benefits: Public confidence in Superfund

would be improved by the government taking

specific steps to ensure an effective long-term

delivery system. It would help make public

expectations for Superfund more realistic, and it

would help the private sector in making efficient

and effective contributions to the government

effort.

Implementation: Congressional action is required. It could take the form of both a statutory

policy statement and a series of specific program

spending authorizations and appropriations. Broad

public support is likely because it is in virtually

everyone’s interests to minimize future uncertainties.

OPTION 18: Establish an All Inclusive List

of Cleanup Sites in the United States

The new list might be called the National

Cleanup List and a new NCL office would be

established at EPA to be a central, national

clearinghouse for key information about sites

for which some governmental agency had determined that cleanup was probably necessary.63

This corresponds to the Superfund’s National

Priorities List. All cleanups of chemically contaminated sites would be tracked through the

new NCL; Superfund sites would be a subset of

the NCL and they could be designated as

belonging to the National Priorities List. Twice

a year, the office would issue a revised NCL

document, made freely available to the public.

By using a set of simple symbols, for example,

the following important information could be

presented for each site: what cleanup program

the site was being managed in (e.g., Superfund,

RCRA corrective action, a State program, a

Federal agency); when the site first was recognized as requiring cleanup; what actions have

been taken at the site (i.e., site investigation,

emergency action, recontrol, interim or final

cleanup) and when those actions were completed. Appendices in the report could provide

names and telephone numbers of key government cleanup offices, and a list of sites which

have received complete cleanups.

Benefits: Cleanup in America has not only

grown, it has become increasingly fragmented

among many different programs, making it

increasingly difficult for anyone in or outside of

government to have a good sense of the overall

effort. This option would greatly improve public

accountability. A chief use of the NPL is to

provide information to the public, but the

current NPL covers only a small fraction of

cleanup sites in America. This option would

inform the public about the relative contribution

of Superfund compared to other cleanup programs. And from the perspective that sites in

other cleanup programs may ultimately become

Superfund sites because of less complete or less

stringent cleanups than in Superfund, this option

is important for a long-term Superfund program.

Moreover, there is relatively little information in the current NPL which really helps

people understand what is going on at sites.

With this option, the NCL would be become a

quick-reference report card for cleanup sites.

The NCL would become the key instrument for

disseminating the results of a national clearinghouse for centrally collecting key facts about

cleanup sites. The NCL office would also have

the capability to provide important summary

information to Congress and others about cleanup

in America. Environmentally, there is bound to

be increasing attention to cumulative exposures

and risks; contaminated sites in different cleanup

63~1~ is ~ ~onh~t t. ~ list of inventow si~s; hat is, sites which have ~n identifi~ ss possibly ~~mg cleanup but which require some

aswwmcmt, inspection, and evaluation before dcterrninadon of the need for cleanup. The number of inventory sites is much larger than the number of

sites eventually determined to likely require cleanup. In Superfurtd, about 10 percent of examined inventory sites have become NPL sites. But 10 to 20

percent of the inventoried sites become the responsibility of other cleanup programs. Some estimates of the potential number of Superfund invento~

sites reach hundreds of thousands of sites.
62 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

programs may be close enough to affect the

same people. Determining safe levels of residual

contamination in land or water may require

accurate information on multiple cleanup sites

as well as other sources of toxic chemicals, such

as operating industries reporting information to

the Toxic Release Inventory maintained by EPA

under Title III of SARA.

Implementation: This option requires statutory action by Congress, possibly including

authority to obtain key information from ail

cleanup programs in the nation. Implementation

of this option would not in any way affect

current statutory requirements for NPL sites.

Establishing this new effort means more people

and money. But the effort would be relatively

small, probably no more than 10 to 20 people

could carry out this function; EPA already

commits some resources to the administration of

the NPL. Procedures would be established to

receive information in a routine, periodic way

from all cleanup programs. Total annual cost

would be probably be in the range of $1 million

to $2 million, including publishing and mailing

NCL reports (the report could also be made

available electronically). This cost would be

balanced against the potential benefits of improving public information and confidence, as

well as the help it could give to managers of all

cleanup programs and companies in the cleanup

business. A few States, such as Florida, now

provide the kind of comprehensive and informative listing of sites considered in this option.

OPTION 19: Begin Examination of Moving

Superfund Implementation Outside of EPA

Direct implementation of such a large-scale

field activity is not, theoretically, what a regulatory agency is supposed to do. Moreover,

Superfund implementation pits the environmental standard setting role of EPA against

EPA’s compliance with environmental standards. It is similar to asking EPA to build and

operate, for example, hazardous waste landfills

or incinerators. In fact, this fundamental problem helps account for the trend in EPA’s

management of Superfund to privatize the

program as much as possible, through both the

extensive use of private contractors and

settlements with responsible parties. But there

are other strategies to shift Superfund implementation away from EPA, leaving it to concentrate on setting cleanup standards and goals and

ensuring compliance with them by all parties

which perform cleanups.

Two main alternatives seem worth detailed

examination, which is beyond the scope of this

OTA study. First, Superfund implementation

might be transferred to the States. A number of

other EPA efforts have taken this route. On the

plus side, the States are closest to the problem

and, for the most part, want as much responsibility as they can get in implementing environmental programs, although that is usually contingent on obtaining substantial financial support from the Federal Government. On the

negative side, State implementation of environmental programs has had mixed results, and the

State participation in current Superfund implementation (through site specific cooperative

agreements) also has not been especially successful. Moreover, although many States have

significant cleanup programs of their own, there

is very little detailed information to support a

general conclusion that State implementation

has been better than EPA’s of Superfund. Still,

State implementation of Superfund could be a

longer term strategy, perhaps in about 10 years

or more.

Second, Superfund implementation might be

transferred to a new quasi-Federal agency,

designed especially to carry out the national

cleanup effort-perhaps including many other

cleanup programs. The Federal Government has

established new agencies in the past to implement a major national technical effort (e.g.,

National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Indeed, neither OTA nor others have been

able to make a good case for using an existing

Federal agency other than EPA for Superfund
Chapter I-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 63

implementation, even though, in theory, several

of them seem qualified. The chief problem

seems to be a lack of public confidence in those

existing agencies to move beyond their current

missions and undertake a major hazardous waste

cleanup program (e.g., the Army Corps of

Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation) or the

relatively small size and limited scope of the

current organization (e.g., U.S. Geological Survey). Moreover, there are unique benefits of

establishing a new quasi-Federal agency. In

particular, it is a way to overcome many

personnel constraints, especially the cap on

Federal salaries for technical professionals in

short supply.

Benefits: If Superfund is accepted to be a

permanent program, then there are enough

theoretical benefits for shifting implementation

away from EPA to warrant a serious study of the

option.

lmplementation: This option requires congressional action. The frost step would be a special,

independent study delivered to Congress. It

would focus on the costs and benefits of specific

options, paying special attention to identifying

transition problems and their solutions. Such a

study could be done by a major university

government or public policy center with some

experience in the environmental area, and could

take about 2 years. Another early action could be

providing grants to States which submit proposals on how they would develop their resources

in order to implement the Superfund program in

the way EPA regional offices now do.

PART II: Program Changes

Setting Cleanup Priorities and Goals

OPTION 20: Use Hazard Ranking System in

More Limited Way

The HRS (in its present or revised form)

would no longer be seen as yielding numbers

accurate to two decimal places and scores would

no longer be assigned to NPL sites for their

entire history. Instead, the HRS would be used

as a binary decision tool: either a site poses a

significant environmental problem which may

require cleanup, or it does not. Years of research

and analysis of the HRS has found that it cannot

reliably make fine distinctions from site to site

(see ch. 2). Its appropriate use is as an aid to

early site decisions based on limited information. Instead of the current cutoff score of 28.50

for placement on the NPL, which was set on

nonenvironmental grounds, two scores would

be used: a high score above which a site

certainly merits detailed examination and possible remedial cleanup, and a low score below

which there is little chance of the site having a

significant environmental problem. For sites

with scores between these two critical scores, a

panel of experts would make a consensus

professional judgment as to whether the site

does or does not get placed onto the NPL, on the

basis of the information prepared for the site.

Benefits: This new use of the HRS would save

a lot of effort and money which now goes into

the determination, review, revision, and use of

scores, which, in fact, serve little purpose. For

example, in the shift from proposed to final

status, scores are often changed very small

amounts-amounts which make little sense in

terms of the accuracy of the methodology nor in

terms of how the scores are used. There is no

evidence that EPA regions make important

decisions about sites because of their precise

scores. The chief priority-setting accomplished

by the NPL is to distinguish between sites on the

NPL and sites not on it. Site scores, however,

have not set priorities among sites on the NPL.

EPA’s practice of changing site rankings on the

growing NPL, based on site scores, serves no

useful function. The extensive quality assurance/

quality control efforts by government and contractor staffs is largely misdirected to achieve a

false and unnecessary precision. Moreover, the

use of a single score for the entire history of an

NPL site doesn’t mean much technically or

environmentally. The score is determined when

information on the site is at its early and worst
64 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

stage; the score is never changed on the basis of

new and improved information, such as the

eventual risk assessment, nor is it changed to

reflect the environmental consequences of emergency, removal, or remedial cleanup actions at

the site. To its credit, the Department of Defense

updates its site scores to reflect changes in sites.

With this option, sites which may not now get

on the NPL because of deficiencies in the HRS

methodology would have a better chance of

being placed on the NPL.

Implementation: EPA could do this on its

own or Congress could direct it to make these

changes through statute. There are no significant

obstacles to implementation. Unnecessary work

by government and contractor staff could be

stopped. Some effort would be necessary to

determine the two new high-low score boundaries. This could be done by EPA’s Science

Advisory Board, which has already done work

on the HRS. This study could be done within 6

months; it should also recommend a standard

form which would be filled out by the technical

review panel in explaining its decision on a site.

The composition of the panel of technical

review experts to make the decisions for sites

with scores between the high-low boundaries

should not be difficult. To make the application

of the HRS efficient and timely, this group

should be a permanent staff function at EPA

headquarters (not a contractor activity). From

three to six of EPA’s most senior, experienced

technical staff should be selected for this

important function. The review panel should

prepare its standard brief report on a site within

1 month of receiving the job; the panel should

have the right to visit a site. Currently, regulatory rulemaking is used for site placement on the

NPL, which carries with it many legal and

procedural burdens, including challenges to

HRS scores. However, this option would not

require changing that procedure. Sites would be

proposed on the basis of a score which exceeded

the high-boundary score or the judgment of the

review panel. Challenging EPA’s decision would

remain essentially the same as it is now.

OPTION 21: Reassess and Limit Use of

Indicator Chemicals for Site Studies, Risk

Assessments

The selection of indicator chemicals to study

risks at sites merits more attention and public

scrutiny. The purposes and technical appropriateness, in theory, of using indicator chemicals

needs policy clarification. For example, the Oak

Ridge National Laboratory study mentioned

earlier found that 54 percent of RODS used no

formal screening procedure for selection of

indicator chemicals. This option would require

an independent examination of current policy

and procedure, and a detailed analysis of how

indicator chemicals have been selected and used

in critical site cleanup decisions. As a means of

simplification and study cost reduction, using a

short-list of representative site contaminants

stands on its own merits. The problem lies in

implementation of the concept, especially by

relatively inexperienced people, and unintended

uses of the short-list.

First, indicator chemicals used in risk assessment may not produce accurate risks because

too many site contaminants are left out. The

extent of this problem is linked to what concept

of risk is employed. If risk assessment is

centered around possible worst case individual

risk, as it is currently, then using a short-list is

less problematic, as long as the worst site

contaminants in terms of health effects are

chosen. However, if the risk concept is population risk, reflecting actual or likely total risks to

a whole exposure group, then using a short-list

of contaminants could greatly underestimate

total estimated risk and the total benefits from

risk reduction. The latter is favored by people

who want to have cleanups justified by costbenefit analysis. But using only indicator contaminants inevitably means underestimating

total risk and total benefits (or total risk

reduction) from cleanup.
Chapter 1--Summary, introduction, and Policy Options . 65

A second major problem is that indicator

chemicals are used for technology evaluation

and implementation. But selection of indicator

chemicals because of their documented health

effects is not necessarily consistent with differences among site contaminants with regard to

their chemical and physical properties which are

critical to cleanup. Therefore, decisions regarding remedy selection, design of remedy, and—

most critically—measurement of cleanup success may be seriously affected by the originally

selected indicator chemicals. For example, it is

quite conceivable that a cleanup could be judged

to be successful on the basis of cleanup levels for

indicator chemicals. But such a cleanup could

leave a site contaminated with other contaminants which, in their own right, pose unacceptable levels of risk to health or-especially—

environment, because environmental effects are

not used on a par with health effects in the

selection of indicator chemicals. Or site contaminants which are not indicator chemicals might

seriously reduce the effectiveness of chosen

cleanup technologies.

Benefits: More effective and consistent cleanups could be achieved, as well as fewer surprises

arising in the later stages of the cleanup process

that often mean increases in cleanup costs.

Applying more public scrutiny as well as

technical expertise early on in the selection of

indicator chemicals could, in the longer term,

make the entire cleanup process more efficient

and effective.

Implementation: Either EPA or Congress

could initiate a study which implemented this

option. Such a study should be possible to

complete in about 1 year by a university

program with experience in chemistry, health

effects, and environmental engineering. The

study should include a detailed examination of

sites within a few generic categories (e.g, wood

preserving sites) to see if past practice has used

consistent types of indicator chemicals. And the

study should examine the performance of some

recently completed cleanups to see the extent, if

any, of problems arising because of the use of

indicator chemicals.

OPTION 22: Clarify and Strengthen CostEffectiveness Requirement for Remedy

Selection, Reject Use of Cost-Benefit

Analysis

Major policy attention is necessary if we are

to clarify what cost-effectiveness means, how

the goal is achieved by the remedy selection

process, and how it is different from cost-benefit

analysis. This option embodies a policy commitment to cost-effectiveness as the way to meet

national and site environmental objectives with

limited resources. The keystone of this commitment is using health and environmental

criteria to decide on the extent of cleanup

(risk reduction) first. Then, the lowest cost

alternative able to reliably provide the selected level(s) of cleanup is selected.64

This option requires a reexamination of the

current framework for remedy selection, which

uses nine criteria. One of these is cost—not

cost-effectiveness. 6s The nine criteria have provided enormous flexibility to Superfund managers, enough to select virtually any kind of

remedy and maintain that it is consistent with

~~e me~~ of sttmg cle~up obj~tlves ftr~ and then detenmmng the cost- effective remedy has been expressed by Congrc\s ‘‘The term

‘cost-effective’ means that in determining the appropriate level of cleanup the President first determutes the appropriate level of cnvironrnental and health

protection to be achieved and then selects a cost-effective means of achieving that goal. ” Conference Report 10 accompany HR. 2005, Supcrfund

Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986, U.S. House of Representatives, 99th Congress, 2d session, Report No. W-962, p, 245. In the debate on

the conference report, Senator Mitchell said ‘‘An amdysis of cost effectiveness begins only after a remedial action has been selected m compliance with

the health and environmental protection requirements, permanent treatment requirements, and other standards, requiremen~, critcri a or Iimitat]ons

imposed under the law. Congressional Record [dai!y cd,], 99th Cong,, 2d SCSS., Oct. 3, 1986, at S14913.

65~e other ei@[ ~. ovc~l ~o~~tl~n of hum~ he~~ and tie environment; compll~~e witi applicable or relevant and appropriate requirements

of other statutes (’ ‘ARARS ‘); long-term effectiveness, reduction of toxicity, mobility or volume; short-tern effectiveness; implemcntabihty; State

acceptance; and community acceptance.
66 ● Coming Clean: Super-fund Problem Can Be Solved . .

statutory requirements and effective environmental protection. A recent study of Superfund

concluded:

EPA has not clearly defined each of the criteria

nor how they are to be applied. , , . The Agency’s

current remedy-selection policy, in that it treats all

the criteria equally, does not provide EPA staff,

States, PRPs and concerned citizens with a framework that clarifies how tradeoffs are to be made

among the different criteria in selecting a remedy.66

The current nine EPA criteria might be reduced

to two essential steps after the precise cleanup

objectives (based on existing environmental

standards, risk assessment, and perhaps special

cleanup standards) are determined: 1) analyzing

each alternative for its ability to meet those

cleanup objectives, and 2) estimating the full

costs for each cleanup alternative (including

factors which are now in some of the nine

criteria, such as implementability and less than

complete permanence). Then, with this option,

the lowest cost alternative able to meet the

cleanup objectives would be selected.

The goal of selecting a cost-effective remedy

is not the same as cost minimization, which, in

large measure, is the current practice. Nor does

current practice define or use specific detailed

cleanup objectives to examine cleanup alternatives and to justify the one selected.b7 When

using cost-effectiveness, minimization of cost

occurs after a remedy is selected, consistent with

the cleanup objectives originally selected.

Superfund managers have a number of ways

to minimize cleanup costs, starting with deciding as early as possible which are current risks

and which are future, possible risks. Similarly,

early recontrol and interim cleanup actions can

reduce final cleanup costs because they prevent

sites from becoming worse. Analysis of alternative technologies, including value engineering

and full short- and long-term costs is also

critical. More generally, costs will be minimized

through: R&D and technology transfer; design

optimization; pilot testing; new information

about contamination or exposures which can

reduce cleanup needs; competition among providers of cleanup services; and effective government procurement procedures and oversight of

contractors.

Current Superfund practice has largely

replaced the statutorily required costeffectiveness approach with cost-benefit analysis. This option would explicitly reject the use

of site cost-benefit analysis to justify cleanup, to

set the extent of cleanup, or to select a remedy;

it would prevent the changing of cleanup

objectives with little public scrutiny. As an

example of a conclusion based on cost-benefit

analysis, a recent ROD said: ‘‘The selected

remedy provides overall effectiveness commensurate to its costs such that it represents a

reasonable value for the money."68 EPA’s

proposed National Contingency Plan has similar

language, which would make current practice

official policy.

The chief attribute of cost-benefit analysis,

and its apparent attraction, is to consider

environmental protection goals as variable.

The chief presumption of the approach is the

ability to accurately quantify both costs and

benefits, even though experience demonstrates

the inability to do either. Indeed, research shows

that cleanup costs have more impact on remedy

selection than any other factor, even though

costs are nearly always underestimated at every

stage of Superfund before cleanup is actually

completed. Cleanup happens or stops when

costs seem appropriate relative to estimated

~lean Sites Inc., Mti”ng Sq@knd Work, January 1989.

67~e O* R1d~ N~m~ ~~r~~ mtiy m~ti~abOVC found that only 12 pcreent of cleanup decisions were b- on a qumtittiivc ~ysis

of the degree of risk reduction provided by different cleanup ahematives. Even though some form of cleanup goals were also identified, the study noted

that “few sites incorporated the cleanup goals into the evaluation of alternatives. ”

MEPA Re@on III, R~d of D&ision, Ambler Aslxstos Piles site, Ambler, PA., Sept. 30.1988.
Chapter I-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 67

benefits. A recent analysis disclosed that changing the current statutory structure for Superfund

(i.e., risk-based decisions, for the most part,

followed by cost-effectiveness analysis) to the

cost-benefit approach would exacerbate current

problems. According to the analysis, replacing

the statutory approach with cost-benefit decisionmaking would, on the negative side, reduce

risk reduction and equity from high to low,

public accountability from high to very low, and

administrative simplicity from high to low. On

the positive side, the change would increase

efficiency from low to very high.69

Some inevitable consequences of the costbenefit approach include the following examples:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

not cleaning up identically contaminated

sites because at one, in a rural area, there

are relatively few people potentially affected and other short- or long-term environmental benefits are ignored;

not cleaning up a site at all because there

are no quantifiable current benefits and

future benefits are discounted;

not using available cleanup technology

which offers a truly permanent remedy

because it is more expensive than another

one, which is based on containment of

toxic waste and not its destruction;

cleaning up only part of a site, which

accounts for most of the risk to health,

which can be quantified, but not the part

which might pose some uncertain risk to

environment;

stopping cleanup, even though original

cleanup standards have not been met,

because the marginal cleanup costs are

high relative to the incremental benefits

obtained, leaving, contamination in groundwater or soil above the cleanup standards;

having very different levels of cleanup

among sites for specific contaminants in

soil or water.

Benefits: This is a way to reduce excessive

flexibility in remedy selection and, therefore,

ensure that environmental protection is not

compromised in order to minimize spending by

the government or responsible parties. It is also

a way to ensure that all approaches to reduce the

cost of a cleanup with specified environmental

objectives are examined and used where appropriate. Current flexibility is reduced in order to

comply with statute and to obtain national

consistency. By stressing proper use of costeffectiveness, program managers would also be

required to formulate specific environmental,

risk reduction cleanup goals, something that is

not now commonly done.

Implementation: This option requires congressional reaffirmation of the cost-effectiveness

approach to Superfund management. Explicit

statutory language would give the meaning and

use of cost-effectiveness as well as the preclusion of implicit or explicit cost-benefit analysis.

This would likely be opposed by those valuing

maximum flexibility. Support would likely

come from community and public interest

groups.

Lastly, the statute has provided EPA a way to

reject some fund-financed cleanup alternatives

simply because their costs are too high. The

fund-balancing provision is based on the legitimate environmental position that a very expensive fund-financed cleanup could consume so

much money that the action would preempt a

substantial number of other fund-financed cleanups. However, EPA has rarely used this statutory provision to reject cleanup alternatives with

relatively high costs. If Congress provided more

guidance on what level of spending could trigger

use of this provision, it would make it possible

for EPA to move outside of the costeffectiveness approach discussed here in exceptional fund-financed cleanups. However, there

is now no statutory basis for rejecting high cost

responsible party-financed cleanups obtained

@kstcr B. Lave and Eric H. Males, “At Risk: The Framework for Regulaung Toxic Substances, ” Env. Sri. & Tech., vol. 23, No. 4, 1989.
67 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

directly through a settlement (i.e., not subsequent to a fund-financed cleanup followed by a

cost recovery action).

OPTION 23: Better Integrate Community

Perspective Into Enforcement and Site

Decisions

It was the perceived lack of public confidence

in Superfund implementation which motivated

Congress to enact the Technical Assistance

Grants program in 1986. (OTA suggested this

option in its 1985 report Super-rid Strategy.)

Since 1986, implementation of the TAG program has been slow and interpretation of

statutory provisions has resulted in complex,

burdensome procedures and requirements for

community groups. This option would provide

major policy direction for the TAG program and

its integration into Superfund implementation.

Another trend since 1986 has been the expanded

role of responsible parties in Superfund implementation, mainly because EPA has emphasized

the settlement route to enforcement. Therefore,

an emerging issue is whether EPA has balanced its enforcement of the polluter pays

principle with concerns about victim’s rights.

(Victim may be a strong word, but it is important

to acknowledge that community members are at

risk; they perceive themselves as actual or

potential victims, either because of health or

economic effects.)

The presumption of this option is that victim’s rights have become overshadowed by the

desire by EPA to shift cleanup spending from

Superfund to responsible parties primarily

through voluntary or negotiated settlements.

With this option, better balance between the two

concerns would be sought. For example, EPA

could be required to:

1. include community representation during

its settlement negotiations and provide

opportunity to comment on consent decrees and other formal instruments implementing settlements or carrying out en2.

3.

4.

5.

forcement actions for anything other than

payment;

solicit formal community comments about

key cleanup decisions;

provide more than perfunctory responses

to community comments in its RODS;

instruct site managers to maintain ongoing

communication with community groups

during the entire time a site is within the

Superfund program; and

require responsible parties implementing

cleanups to maintain ongoing communication with community groups and to notify

them of any new information which reveals changes in perceived site problems

and problems in the performance of the

selected remedy.

Benefits: This option would help balance the

role of communities and responsible parties. If

the emphasis on enforcement continues, this

option becomes more important in improving

public confidence in Superfund.

Implementation: Congress would provide statutory direction to EPA. A major implementation

concern would be whether this option would

result in delays in key cleanup decisions and

actions. It seems that the best way of minimizing

this problem is for government site managers to

inform communities that their actions may have

negative impacts. After all, it is not in the

community’s self-interest to cause unnecessary delays. But delays in the pursuit of

improved environmental protection are justifiable. A site manager who concluded that community activity was causing a loss in environmental

protection has an obligation to tell the community that and to take action to mitigate that

impact. Another concern would probably be that

the option would interfere with enforcement

objectives. But enforcement should take second

place to environmental protection and to the

public’s confidence in the government’s sincerity and ability to provide that protection. The

increase in program administrative costs to

implement this option are uncertain. Congressional
Chapter 1---Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options . 69

oversight could give special attention to the

effectiveness of this option and make changes if

necessary.

Developing Workers and Technologies

OPTION 24: Make Site Managers

Responsible for Sites From the Front-End

of the Program Through Final Disposition

One person would have operational management responsibility for a site from the time it

enters the Superfund system until the time it

leaves it. The Superfund site manager option

would apply the concept of project management

in engineering or a case worker in social

services. Indeed, the site manager has many

engineering responsibilities and, moreover, critical responsibilities for dealing with affected

communities, local officials, and responsible

parties. The latter would look to the site manager

as the person providing environmental services

on behalf of the government. The site manager

would have total responsibility for seeing that

the site is handled efficiently, fairly, and

consistently under law and EPA policies, and

compared to other sites in the program. The

site manager would draw on a broad array of

experts to support his or her efforts, including

experts in the areas of: technology, contracts,

conflict resolution, policy, law, and health.

Benefits: Cleaning up sites is a complex

process whose management could be made

more efficient by having one person responsible

from beginning to end. Many human endeavors

fall into the project management category and

historically everyone has acknowledged the

virtue of having a single point of management

responsibility to provide continuity over time.

Accountability is improved by having a single

overview of diverse activities carried out by

many different people, including contractors

and government staff. A site manager could be

key in preventing unnecessary, redundant site

efforts which now occur as different site activities are handled in different bureaucratic stages.

Implementation: This is a management option for EPA, but Congress could, through

oversight or legislation, support or not support

this approach. An obvious concern about this

option is that EPA is currently having major

problems retaining remedial project managers.

Some people may believe that this option is

infeasible because of this problem. But one of

the ways to improve the status, importance, and

pay for these key front-line people is to expand

their role. Superfund site managers would

become an elite corp of professionals; they

would have the most comprehensive knowledge

of the entire program, from one end to the other.

People working in other parts of the program

would aspire to become site managers. Having

assistant site managers could provide on-the-job

training under experienced EPA staff, as well as

support for the site managers. The workload of

site managers would be balanced by providing

new site responsibility, for a site entering the

system, as other sites near the end of the

Superfund process.

OPTION 25: Establish Program for

Certified Public Environmental Auditors

This option would require EPA to establish a

new program to certify people who could attest

to the quality of site and cleanup data and reports

(i.e., for onsite investigation and engineering

activities outside of analysis and studies which

require no onsite activity). Responsible party

studies and cleanups would have to use certified

public environmental auditors. Government

agencies and groups receiving EPA Technical Assistance Grants would also be required

to use certified public environmental auditors to the extent that the work was conducted by non-governmental contractors for

onsite investigation and engineering activities. The basis for certification would be meeting a set of criteria established by EPA after

discussions with a number of organizations

representing professional engineers, consulting

engineers, hazardous waste professionals, and
70 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

EPA’s Science Advisory Board. Such criteria

would pertain to minimum cleanup experience,

level of science or engineering education, and

professional certification. EPA would make lists

of certified individuals available to the public.

Benefits: Certification of experts would aid

government oversight. This approach would

improve the quality of contractor work, which

seems critically needed because of the explosive

growth of the industry and the rapid entry of

many new companies. It would also help build

public trust in contractor work for responsible

parties.

Implementation: Congress could direct EPA

to establish a certification program expeditiously. Certification could be implemented

effectively through a concerted effort by EPA

with the help of other groups in perhaps 1 year.

Comments and ideas should be solicited from

about a dozen engineering, professional, and

trade organizations. Out of this activity would

come a set of criteria and procedures for

certification. Within EPA, certification could be

managed by the procurement and contracts

management office. Recertification could be

every 5 years. To offset the cost to the government of administering this option, certification

and recertification would require a fee, which

would be paid into the trust fund in the same way

that the primary fees are.

OPTION 26: Strengthen Effort to Offset

Current Limitations of the Government

and Contractor Workforce

The rapid expansion of Superfund created the

conditions for workforce problems. It is axiomatic that the more inexperienced the

workforce, the greater the need for strong

management. In the case of Superfund, the

situation was exacerbated by the enormous

amount of money spent on contractors, resulting

in a steady loss of government workers, keeping

the government workforce inexperienced. And

the growth of spending on contractors (from

Superfund and other cleanup programs) has

forced companies to hire more and more inexperienced people, despite siphoning away government workers. If Superfund implementation is

to improve for the long term, then the government must give high priority to identifying

weaknesses in the workforce and ways to offset

them. With this option, EPA would have a

permanent activity within its Superfund office

to improve the performance of the national

cleanup workforce. For example, continuing

education and training, intensive technical assistance, improved administrative support, expanded use of electronic support (e.g., databases, expert systems), and more opportunity to

attend technical conferences. Moreover, EPA

could establish special programs with contractors, State programs, universities, research laboratories, other Federal agencies, professional

and trade associations, and responsible parties to

meet the objectives of this option. A special

position would be established under the director

of the Superfund office to carry out these

responsibilities.

Benefits: For long-term success, the Superfund program must provide assurance to the

public that the government is doing everything

possible to make the cleanup workforce first

rate.

Implementation: EPA could implement this

option, but congressional support for increased

spending seems necessary. Annual spending for

this effort might be in the $5 million to $10

million range, which is small compared to

cleanup costs.

OPTION 27: Establish a Bureau of Mines

Superfund Support Program

Many Superfund sites are contaminated with

toxic metals, such as lead, arsenic, and chromium. Achieving a permanent remedy for such

contamination means recovering and using the

metal. The Bureau of Mines is the Federal

Government’s major source of expertise appro-
Chapter 1 Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 71

priate to accomplishing this goal. The Bureau

has already performed some important work at

a few sites for some regional offices, but the

Superfund program has not fully optimized its

use of the Bureau.70 This option would require

a long-term commitment of funds to support the

Bureau’s continuing involvement, particularly

for developing techniques applicable to generic

categories with many sites, such as lead battery

sites. Moreover, some sites have a combination

of organic and metal contamination, and there is

an opportunity to integrate metal recovery

techniques into a series of cleanup steps for

contaminated soils to achieve a permanent

remedy. The Bureaus Superfund support program would include R&D, site treatability and

feasibility studies, site demonstrations, technical assistance to site program managers and

others implementing cleanups, and possibly

managing some cleanups instead of contractors.

Benefits: This would be an efficient way to

greatly improve the technologies used to clean

up hundreds of current and future NPL sites

contaminated with toxic metals. Very little

recovery of metal site contaminants is currently

used to achieve permanent remedies. The government has already invested millions of dollars

over many years in creating the Bureau of Mines

and its technical expertise is undisputed. The

Bureau also is well positioned to network with

experts in the academic and industrial communities. Developing techniques to clean up sites

might also provide an opportunity to develop

new mining techniques. The kind of expertise

the Bureau has does not exist within EPA or the

technical environmental consulting community

now providing major support for Superfund

implementation.

lmplementation: Although EPA could implement this option, congressional action seems

appropriate to establish a significant program,

probably at the level of $10 million to $20

million annually initially. This is particularly

important if EPA is to move beyond the current

limited use of the Bureau by its regional offices

toward a national program with some long-term

certainty to facilitate internal development of

resources by the Bureau. One concern may be

that pursuit of the recovery approach for metal

cleanup will be expensive compared to current

approaches. First, current approaches usually

consist of: 1 ) offsite land disposal which is not

a permanent remedy; or 2) onsite containment

(i.e., capping of a site) which is not a permanent

remedy; or 3) chemical fixation or stabilization

treatment technologies whose permanence over

very long times is uncertain. Moreover, the

limited work to date with recovery and recycling

does not suggest exorbitant cleanup costs. To

the contrary, because there are large numbers of

relatively similar metal-contaminated sites, it is

likely that generic cleanup techniques can be

developed and applied at many sites, bringing

cleanup costs down. Moreover, the sale of

recovered metal could reduce cleanup costs. The

recently completed cleanup of the Jibboom

Junkyard Superfund site in Sacramento, California ended up costing about $400 per ton to

excavate and ship lead-contaminated soil to a

landfill in Utah. But a decision to use a recovery

technology developed by the Bureau for a

permanent remedy at the United Lead Superfund site in Ohio involves a cost of about half

that land disposal rate.

OPTION 28: Establish a Superfund Support

Program at the U.S. Geological Survey

The USGS is one of the most respected

technical Federal agencies; it has extraordinary

information and expertise about groundwater.

But to date the Superfund program has made

relatively little use of USGS. With this option,

a formal and stronger supportive role of USGS

7~is ~m ~ ~ but ~m ~~am@~ of ~ gener~ su~glc choice exercl~ e~]y in Supfind’shls~~; ~al is, it was &ci&d to emphasizt @Yatt3

sector contractors for Superfund implementation and not immediately avadable and potential resources of Federal agencies, The one exception is the

Army’s Corps of Engineers at the back-end of Superfund.
72 ● coming clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

for Superfimd implementation would be created. For example, USGS could:

●

●

●

●

●

assist R&D efforts to identify and develop

effective groundwater cleanup technology;

provide assistance in evaluating technical

information provided by responsible parties concerning groundwater problems and

cleanup;

conduct parts of or all site investigation and

feasibility efforts at sites where groundwater is the major problem, or review contractor studies;

provide independent evaluation of the performance of groundwater containment and

cleanup efforts at Superfund sites; and

perhaps manage the cleanup of some particularly complex groundwater contamination.

Benefits; This option would improve the

environmental performance of Superfund by

using an existing Federal resource. It also

compensates for the shortage of highly experienced technical personnel in EPA and contracting fins.

Implementation: There is no significant obstacle to implementation. EPA, however, has

not used USGS effectively, and, therefore,

congressional direction to do so may be advisable. This option seems feasible and valuable

because for the past several years USGS has

significant y and successful y carried out technical support for the U.S. Air Force’s site cleanup

program. Moreover, it is OTA’s understanding

that EPA’s Inspector General’s office has used

USGS in the past to review Superfund studies

and actions. Currently, USGS is working on site

investigations and feasibility studies for about

20 to 25 Air Force sites, at an annual spending

level of about $10 million. This is the type of

Superfund activity currently performed by contractors. The level of activity envisioned for this

option is annual spending of perhaps $20

million initially. USGS was able to develop its

Air Force effort within its existing resources and

staff; it is not clear how quickly it could commit

to implementing this option. But USGS has

some competitive advantage, relative to EPA, in

attracting first rate technical specialists. Moreover, in its Air Force work, USGS has successfully expanded its capabilities through the use of

certain types of contractors (e.g., site drilling

and laboratory analysis) and, most interestingly,

by using the experienced staff of some other

Federal agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation. There is also probably substantial opportunity for USGS effort in the R&D area.

OPTION 29: Increase R&D Spending, With

Focus on Groundwater Cleanup

A long-term national cleanup program requires a stronger R&D program to develop more

effective and lower cost cleanup technologies

for the most prevalent and difficult cleanup

problems. This option would frost consist of an

independent study, for example by the National

Research Council or EPA’s Science Advisory

Board. The basic objective is to define the exact

targets for increased R&D spending within and

outside EPA. A national research agenda is

critical for avoiding unproductive and redundant

research efforts. For example, improved groundwater cleanup technology is a critical need, as is

permanent cleanup of large landfills through

some type of treatment technology, but without

large-scale excavation. Major attention to the

potential use of in situ biological cleanup of

groundwater seems critical. Even without a

study, a major increase in the outstanding

groundwater program at EPA’s Robert S. Kerr

Environmental Research Laboratory seems critically needed. There are also needs outside of

cleanup technology; for example, more and

better non-intrusive and non-invasive site investigation technologies to determine hot spots of

underground contamination. Moreover, if cleanup

in America is a permanent effort, then much

more support of basic research is critically

necessary.

Benefits: To the extent that there is a need for

a wider range of technologies to effectively run
Chapter l-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 73

along-term cleanup program and to find innovative ways to reduce costs, a stronger commitment to R&D stands on its own merits. Moreover, a strong R&D program which inevitably

means more university activity helps address the

long-term need for greater education to improve

the national workforce.

Implementation: This option requires action

by Congress and support by EPA and OMB.

Considering the enormous future spending on

the national cleanup effort, a major increase in

cleanup R&D spending is in a special class. The

key issue is determining how much money to

spend on R&D. It seems useful and appropriate

to see annual R&D spending relative to total

government and private sector cleanup spending. The latter is probably in the range of $2

billion to $4 billion currently by all parties.

Spending say 5 percent on R&D suggests a

target of $200 million annually; this seems

necessary because the national cleanup effort

is still in its infancy, and because there is a

critical need to reduce costs and come up with

new, effective solutions. This figure is probably about three times larger than current

public spending on R&D related to cleanup

of chemically contaminated sites. In particular, a several-fold increase in annual spending

for EPA’s Robert S. Kerr laboratory and for the

Superfund Basic Research and Training Grants

Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Services would probably yield an

enormous payoff in the years ahead. Together,

current annual spending on these two programs

is less than what is often spent on a single major

site cleanup. Another important target for increased funding is the University Hazardous

Substance Research Centers established by

Congress in 1986.

Improving Government Management

OPTION 30: Combine Preliminary

Assessment, Site Inspection, HRS Scoring,

and Remedial Investigation Phases Into

Single Site Evaluation Program

Three technical activities now make up the

preremedial part of the Superfund program:

preliminary assessment, site inspection, and

HRS scoring. The Remedial Investigation is

now part of the remedial program. This option

would combine all four EPA staff activities into

one organizational unit at the headquarters and

regional levels. The premise of this option is that

understanding the hazards posed by a site is a

continuing learning experience based on getting

more and better information about a site over

time. All four activities constitute site evaluation. Use of the four current individual activities

could be retained with this option, but they

would be parts of a unified process and a single

bureaucratic operation.

Benefits: Improved program efficiency and

probably improved environmental performance

would result from this organizational streamlining. Currently separate, often redundant activities would be combined in a simpler operation.

Bureaucratic disconnects would be eliminated.

Moreover, the front-end of Superfund would,

through this consolidation, become more visible

and important. Currently, relatively junior people perform the earliest, but, in a critical sense,

the efforts with the largest long-term impacts.

More senior and experienced technical people

would be more likely to be attracted to these

activities because of the greater scope of responsibility.

This option is particularly important in overcoming the currently popular view that cleaning up

sites is a straightforward engineering job. In

fact, however, the ‘ ‘specifications’ for cleanup

are not fixed quantities, easily determined at one

particular time. As complexity of contamination

(e.g., types, amounts, and distribution) and

natural site conditions (e.g., geology, hydrology, soil parameters, etc. ) increases, site evaluation increasingly takes on the character of an

evolving investigation instead of a one-time

event producing correct answers. With complex

sites, new information leads to new probes about

the site and its problems. Moreover, as site
74 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

complexity increases, more discrete types of

actions are taken at the site (e.g., emergency,

removal, interim or operable unit actions, groundwater cleanup, soil cleanup, final remedial

cleanup) and when these are implemented new

information often arises which leads to unforeseen needs for new and different site investigation.

Finally, separating site investigation from

current feasibility study activity could offer

benefits. The feasibility study is supposed to

take information about the site and its problems

and determine possible cleanup solutions. This

is a very different technical activity than site

investigation. In fact, site investigation is fundamentally a scientific endeavor, seeking knowledge to define the problem (i.e., the cleanup

specifications)-the demand side of cleanup. A

feasibility study in conjunction with cleanup

actions themselves, is fundamentally an engineering operation, in which a solution to the problem

is conceived, designed, and constructed-the

supply side of cleanup in which cost is explicitly

factored into remedy selection. By keeping the

activities separate—but with effective, continuing communication between the two-the integrity of the two different functions could be better

maintained. This is in contrast to the current

situation, where sometimes the definition of the

cleanup problem and cleanup goals are compromised to fit what engineers (working for the

government or responsible parties) say is feasible, desirable, effective, or low cost. In other

words, by separating site investigation from

the remediation function, environmental needs

will drive engineering solutions instead of the

other way around.

Implementation: This is a management improvement that could be implemented by EPA.

However, current separate bureaucratic activities and different contracts pose a serious

implementation problem. Unification of separate activities is never easy. However, from a

long-term perspective, the ultimate benefits of

bringing together essentially the same technical

activities may be worth overcoming bureaucratic

obstacles in the near term. Congressional action

might be necessary to overcome bureaucratic

inertia.

OPTION 31: Combine Removal and

Remedial Programs Into Single Site

Cleanup Program

This option would recognize and institutionalize the relationship over time of different types

of cleanup actions. The sharp distinction between emergency/removal actions and remedial

actions would cease. Instead, Superfund management would recognize a continuum of cleanup

actions over time: emergency, recontrol, interim

(currently called operable unit), and final.

Total risk reduction decreases over time (see

figure 1-2) as extent and cost of studies and

actions increase over time. In other words, in

moving from emergency response to final

remedy, the marginal costs on average increase, producing less environmental benefit

per dollar over time. This progression of cost

motivates aiming for initial cleanup actions

at as many sites as possible, instead of aiming

for final cleanups at relatively few sites.

Postponement of the final remedy (as with

Option 1) is a way to optimize the entire

Superfund system.

This option provides an explicit definition to

each of these four types of cleanup action:

●

●

Emergency response is self-evident: an

immediate, urgent, and certain threat is

addressed and is more important than

procedure or policy preferences regarding

analysis of the problem (Site Investigation)

or selection and implementation of remedy. Emergency responses in this option

would be essentially the same as emergency responses are now and applicable to

non-NPL sites.

Recontrol stresses preventing the spread of

contamination into the environment aside
Chapter 1 Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options . 75

Figure l-2—Approxlmate Reductions In Risk and Coat

for Dlfferent Types of Cleanup Actions

Emergency Recontrol Interim Final

Type of action

&XRCE: Offioa of Technology Asaeaament, 1989

from addressing risks.71 Recontrol also

means addressing near-term risks to health

or environment because of current, certain

exposures to hazardous material. Studies

should be minimal for recontrol actions.

Decontrolling a site may mean actively

maintaining effectiveness through expedient engineering or institutional controls.

That is, a service or continuing activity

may be required to implement the action,

such as monitoring, maintenance, and periodic repair. Recontrol measures usually: 1)

impose physical or institutional barriers

between the contamination and its environment, such as a cap on contaminated soil or

buried waste, a slurry wall between buried

waste and groundwater, above-ground storage of hazardous waste or contaminated

soil, groundwater extraction wells which

prevent a plume of contamination from

spreading, fencing to prevent human exposure to contaminated soil, restrictions on

use of contaminated groundwater, provision of new supply of water, relocation of

homes etc.; or 2) use treatment technologies which leave residual contamination.

With recontrol actions which leave hazardous material onsite, the need for a permanent remedy eventually is acknowledged.

The proclivity to send hazardous waste to

a landfill in the current removal program

would be replaced by a policy to either

store waste temporarily or send it to a

treatment facility. Recontrol actions would

be applicable to non-NPL sites, as with

current removal actions.

An interim remedial action achieves a

partial remedy by addressing current risks

to health or environment, leaving either

future, uncertain risks to address or current

risks for which no current technology

offers a permanently effective remedy.

That is, in contrast to recent.rol actions,

there would be a preference for permanently effective technologies. Part of a

site’s problem may be addressed through

an interim action, such as a soil or groundwater cleanup, or surface soil cleanup but

TiM~@~m is ~me s~lM~ ~tmn reC~UOI and removal (in the current program), this option could lead to a much larger use of KZOIIIIO1.

Removal actions do not stress reamtrolling sites when spreading contamination does not pose immediate risks. For example, EPA said ‘‘States generally

me going to have to be rmpmsible for ncm-time-critical removals where there is not an immediate danger but the site is deteriorating in a way such that

~g needs to be done over the next year or two. ” In general, EPA has acknowledged that its conduct of the removal program stresses limiting

removal actions by defering actions to responsible parties and State or local government agencies, and non-NPL sites have tie lowest priority. It is not

clear that EPA provides significant oversight of actions taken by other parties. Limiting spending on the removal program has dictated the scope and

number of actions. (Karen Burgan et al., “Setting Removal Program Prionues,’ Superfund ’88, proctxxiings of November 1988 conference, Hazardous

M#riais Research Institute, Silver Spring, MD,)
74 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

●

not subsurface soil cleanup; several interim

actions at a site may be necessary.

A final remedial action would address all

remaining current or future risks through

technology which irreversibly renders hazardous site material nonhazardous. Delisting of a site from the NPL would only

occur after completion and confirmation of

a permanent final remedy.

Transfer of a site from Class I to Class II, as

described in Option 1, could occur after emergency, recontrol or interim actions.

Organizationally, EPA would combine all

cleanup activities into one unit, Site Cleanup,

because all are fundamentally engineering solutions to a contamination problem, employing

similar methods and technologies. Use of removal and operable unit terminology, which has

not conveyed useful notions to the public, would

cease. With this option EPA would formally be

required to issue Records of Decision for every

site cleanup action, except that an emergency

action would not be held up for its ROD. For

emergency actions a post-action ROD would be

acceptable to establish a public record of what

occurred. Currently, RODS are only issued for

remedial actions, including operable units.

Benefits: This option would provide a technically rational framework for a range of complex

site actions. Some current practices which seem

to circumvent statutory requirements would be

eliminated, such as performing remedial cleanups as removal actions. There has been confusion about the nature and purpose of removal

actions. Neither public opinion or public policy

supports removal in a literal sense, whereby

toxic waste or contaminated material is removed

from a site to a landfill, for example. The first

choice is removal to a treatment or storage

facility, although sometimes landfilling may be

necessary. With this option, recontrol actions

would be integrated into the full remediation of

a site; currently, removal actions are not necessarily matched well with remedial actions.

Another benefit might be reduced studies,

because recontrol and interim actions should not

require extensive studies as are now being done

for nearly all remedial actions and some larger

removal actions. Public understanding of the

true, complex nature of site cleanup would be

improved and, hence, public confidence in the

program could improve. The requirement that

EPA issue RODS for every cleanup action would

also improve public accountability and public

confidence. Currently, there is virtually no

accessible information to the general public or

Congress which provides substantive information on what emergency or removal actions have

consisted of, accomplished, or cost. All RODS

should reference earlier RODS at the site in order

to help people understand the history of site

actions.

Implementation; This option requires statutory action. Definitions and limits for all four

categories would replace current statutory dis- ,

tinctions for removals and remedial cleanups.

An immediate issue is how current statutory

provisions would apply to this framework.

Therefore, there would have to be an explicit

assignment of critical statutory requirements to

the four types of actions. For example, current

remedy selection and cleanup standards provisions, or modifications of them, might only

apply to interim and permanent actions. Current

spending constraints on removal actions could

be applied to recontrol actions. Within EPA,

there will be some resistance to this kind of

conceptual and organizational change. Over

time, competition has developed between the

removal part of the program and the remedial

part. Problems with existing contracting mechanisms would not be affected too much. Contractor services for emergency responses remain a

unique kind of need. However, current distinctions between contract support for removal v.

remedial actions would cease.
Chapter 1-Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 77

OPTION 32: Reexamine Current Statutorily

Required Program Performance

Schedules

Congress established a number of program

performance schedules in 1986. However, in

setting performance goals for the program,

unintended impacts, such as eliminating or

reducing environmental criteria for key decisions have occurred. EPA has said ‘‘Achieving

targets can mean trade-offs with achieving

environmental results. Targets are numerical

goals that do not measure quality, timeliness or

risk reduction. ’72 A recent study of Superfund

said ‘‘Time pressures sometimes reduce opportunities to involve all the affected parties

(including the community) early in the remedyselection process to promote consensus. ’73

OTA agrees with these views. With this option,

either the performance schedules would be

dropped or they would be supplemented by

explicitly directing EPA to assure that compliance was obtained without environmental

compromises.

Benefits: Subtle but negative impacts on

environmental performance would be eliminated by removing pressures on EPA to meet

timetables which have little to do with effective

cleanup. Mandated schedules direct EPA’s attention away from satisfying requirements on

cleanup objectives and remedy selection.

Implementation: Congressional action is required. This option requires rethinking the

benefits of imposing performance schedules

against the negative impacts they have on

environmental performance. EPA is facing

almost a Catch-22 situation: either it compromises environmental goals to comply with

schedules or it maintains environmental standards and fails to comply. Either way, the

agency draws public criticism. For the most

part, EPA has done the former. But because of

the complexity of the Superfund program, it has

received relatively little criticism thus far for

most of its environmental compromises, such as

restricting the inflow of sites into Superfund.

But such compromises are bound to have

significant negative effects in the longer term.

OPTION 33: For Records of Decision,

Require a Statement of Inconsistency for

Selected Remedy

All RODS would be required to have a

separate section for a statement of inconsistency, or a statement that none has been found

necessary. This statement would force a routine

consideration by site managers and their superiors of any significant inconsistencies between

the cleanup action, particularly its cleanup

standards and remedy selection, and statutory or

EPA policy requirements, as well as with

general practices (e.g., a deviance from a

generally standard type of remedy selection for

a generic type of site, or a postponement of a

treatability study until after the ROD).74 The

inconsistencies would have to be identified and

the environmental justification of them fully

presented. Use of a new, innovative technology

or a technology demonstration would be described and explained.

Benefit: This option would improve public

accountability and, hence, public confidence in

Superfund. It would reduce current inter-site

and EPA regional inconsistencies. It would

provide an incentive for effective use by Superfund staff of technical assistance resources and

information transfer programs. EPA headquarters control of regional efforts would be enhanced. Congressional oversight would be improved.

Tz~vlrmenM Protwtion Agency, A Management Revitnv of the Superfum.i Program, JU.IIC 1989, PP. 1-6.

73CIa Siks kc. Mahng Superjimd Work, J~uiuY 1989.

TWA hu &n told ~a[ ~UCh ~[alemenLS we sometimes a pm of tie adminls~a(ive r~ord or b~kup informtiion to a ROD,
78 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Implementation: Either EPA or Congress

could implement this option. More effort would

be required in ROD preparation by regional

offices and another responsibility is placed on

site managers, increasing administrative costs.

But the cost seems marginally small both in an

absolute sense and relative to potential benefits.

OPTION 34: Reduce Need for Formal

Regulatory Compliance for Onsite

Cleanups

In meeting the goals of simplification and

speeding up cleanups it seems appropriate to

eliminate regulatory requirements for permits—

not health or environmental effects based standards-if their environmental objectives can be

met more simply. The objective is to eliminate

intensive time, labor, and paperwork requirements for regulatory compliance. On the assumption that a government agency wants to

satisfy the functional requirements of environmental regulations, and that the need for expeditious cleanups has intrinsic environmental imperatives, elimination of formal, regulatory

compliance is unlikely to jeopardize environmental goals. This option would go beyond the

current statutory provision that eliminates formal compliance with Federal permitting requirements for onsite cleanups. With this option, all Federal, State, and local regulatory

requirements for obtaining a license or permit to

operate, or substantiating compliance with a

regulatory requirement through documentation,

would automatically be waived. The only requirement would be that EPA would have to

publicly identify which requirements it was not

planning to formally comply with and how it

was achieving the same environmental objectives of the regulations. This would be done in

a separate section of the Record of Decision.

Benefits: Cleanups would be speeded up and

administrative costs reduced substantially.

Implementation: Congressional action is required. As a form of Federal preemption, this

option poses certain traditional issues. However, many regulatory requirements would still

pertain to Superfund cleanups, including, for

example, all health or environmental effect

based standards for acceptable levels of contamination in environmental media, regulatory definitions of hazardous wastes and substances, and

regulatory bans against land disposal. Successful implementation without sacrificing environmental protection is contingent on the motives

and capabilities of key Superfund staff, principally site managers. As long as only government

personnel are entrusted with the power to bypass

formal regulatory compliance, as compared to

contractors or responsible parties, the risks of

compromising environmental protection can be

minimized. It might be useful, nevertheless, to

also provide through statute the legal right of

any governmental authority with regulatory

powers or member of the public to petition the

EPA Administrator within say 30 days after a

ROD is issued for reconsideration because of

some basis for believing that the intended

noncompliance would likely lead to adverse

environmental consequences (noncompliance

because of emergency responses would not fall

under this provision). OTA recognizes that

some State agencies and regulations have been

critical to achieving improved cleanups and this

option is not meant to reduce the positive

influence of stringent State programs.

OPTION 35: Establish a Formal Evaluation

Program for Completed Site Cleanups and

Long-Term Ones in Progress

There is a critical need for independent

evaluation of the environmental and economic

performance of Superfund actions. With this

option, an ongoing performance evaluation

effort would be established outside of EPA.

Some sampling of sites in generic classes would

yield critically needed information on how well

technologies are performing in the field in an

absolute sense and relative to estimates and

projections made by the government or respon-
Chapter 1 -Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 79

sible parties. It is important to discover the

extent to which technologies are succeeding and

failing, and the extent to which originally

chosen cleanup objectives or requirements identified in RODS and consent decrees are being

met or not met.

For example, for the Pepper’s Steel & Alloys

site in Florida, for which the responsible party

was successful in gaining EPA approval for a

first time, large-scale application of new technology, the cleanup has recently been completed. However, the responsible party, which

now markets the cleanup technology, has requested EPA to do more than delist the site from

the NPL because the remedy is successfully

completed. It has also asked for ‘‘unrestricted

use of the affected property’ and in its discussion of its implementation of groundwater

monitoring has said:

If [the presence of the constituent above the target

level] is confirmed, then, if appropriate, an effort to

determine the source of the constituent, or some

other action consistent with the facts presented,

might be undertaken. 75

The latter is not a strong commitment for taking

remedial action in the event that monitoring

finds that the chemical fixation technology used

at the site, contaminated in large part with PCBs,

does not perform as expected. Indeed, the long

term effectiveness of this technology for PCBs

has been a major issue. The ROD had said:

the action will require monitoring and institutional

controls on future land use to ensure the continued

effectiveness of the remedy. These activities will be

considered part of the approved action.

Yet, immediately after the onsite treatment, the

responsible party has reached a high level of

certainty about the cleanup’s effectiveness on

the basis of laboratory testing and wants to

remove the institutional controls on land use.

Industrial use of the site, as desired, would also

complicate interpretation of monitoring results

with regard to responsibility for groundwater

contamination.

With this option, if information was obtained

which could immediately impact current decisions and program implementation, the program

would issue some form of alert notice to EPA

headquarters and regional offices, as well as

other programs which are part of Superfund

implementation (such as the efforts in Options

10, 11, 27, and 28). Otherwise, semiannual

collections of site evaluations could be released

to these groups and the general public.

Benefits: In a program as technically complex

as Superfund and one in which there have been

major problems with implementation, quality of

work, and public confidence, there are benefits

from having an independent performance review effort. Both the environmental performance and economic efficiency of Superfund

would be improved, because there would be

more use of the most effective technologies and

less use of ineffective ones. Moreover, there

would be improved information transfer

through the system, improving the expertise and

performance of the workforce. Public accountability would be improved. There is a particular

need to build public confidence for less visible

post-ROD activities, especially because of increasing implementation of remedies by responsible parties. There are also a lot of selected

remedies which include institutional and engineering controls. This option would help in the

implementation of the current statutory requirement for 5-year reviews when contamination

remains onsite.

Implementation: Congressional action is necessary. This would be a new activity requiring

additional funding. As envisioned here, the level

of effort would be perhaps $5 million annually;

that is, it seems feasible to examine about 25 to

50 sites annually, assuming a site evaluation

cost of from $100,000 to $200,000. Although

ls~orida POWW & L@ CO,, Final Report on Rcmedkd Actiom+epper’s Steel & AlJoys Supe@tnd Site, Medley, FIOridtI, J~e 1989.
80 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

this effort would not have to be permanent, it

seems useful to see it extending over the next 5

to 10 years. The most difficult implementation

issue is the selection of the group to perform the

independent analysis. Having a lot of experienced and expert professionals seems at odds

with having true independence of the Superfund

program, because nearly everyone associated

with cleanup may have some involvement in

Superfund. One possibility would be to create

something like a Superfund Evaluation Board

administered by the National Research Council;

it could have a small core staff (such as recently

retired, experienced government cleanup professionals) supplemented by consulting academics

and others who would only examine sites for

which they had no conflict of interest. Statutory

direction to EPA to supply all requested information to the Board would be useful. It might

also be beneficial, as with peer review of

scientific journal articles, to maintain the anonymity of the professionals evaluating a site.

The impact of cleanup reviews on Superfund

implementation by EPA would be a priority of

congressional oversight, if this option was

adopted.

OPTION 36: Establish Formal Measures of

the Program’s Environmental Progress

Improving Superfund implementation for the

long term requires developing meaningful measures of the program’s environmental success.

With this option, the current practice of

using bureaucratic outputs, such as numbers

of studies and actions started and completed

per quarter, number and dollar value of

enforcement actions, numbers of different

types of technologies used, and speed o f

passing through program stages would be

replaced (or supplemented) by environmental

outcomes. There are two fundamental areas

which, theoretically, could form the basis for

formal measurements. First, some measure of

how well professionals understand site contamination and conditions could be defined. Second,

some measure of how much site cleanup has

occurred over a given time could be derived; for

example, whether current risks have been fully

addressed, but not future risks (in terms of

Option 1), and the extent of risk reduction or

contaminant reduction. The goal in developing

formal measures should be simplicity and a

good analog is the use of technology performance standards, as, for example, the percentage

of input hazardous material destroyed by an

incinerator. For environmental performance at a

site, therefore, we might want a comprehensive

percentage to indicate how well the site is

understood and a reduction percentage to indicate how much the site’s contamination (or total

risk) has been reduced. A special notation would

indicate whether all current risks have been

addressed permanently. Performance at the

regional and national levels could be presented

by some type of averaging of site performance

figures over the appropriate population of sites.

Benefits: In the past, in other areas, approaches by EPA or others have been effective;

for example, percent reductions in atmospheric

or surface water pollution, or percent reductions

in the amount of toxic chemicals in people’s

blood. If the American public can get a semiquantitative sense of the percent of the nation’s

contamination being destroyed, for example, its

confidence in Superfund will be improved.

Moreover, EPA itself needs to measure environmental results to assess its staff and regional

offices.

Implementation: Congress could direct EPA

to develop some formal measures of environmental performance. There are significant implementation problems. Designing specific factors to measure environmental progress is not

easy. This is something that EPA’s Science

Advisory Board or a university might be able to

help with over a 6-month period. Another

problem is that the Superfund base is continually increasing, in terms of numbers of sites and

information about sites moving through the

system. One way to overcome this problem
.

Chapter 1 Summary, Introduction, and Policy Options ● 81

might be to present figures only for individual

sites. For program performance it might make

sense to have an annual report which based

performance on what was known to EPA at the

beginning of the year; another way might be to

base performance on a set of NPL sites. A

detailed approach is beyond the scope of this

OTA study, but the potential benefits justify

serious attention to this basic need. Lastly,

implementing this option will be made difficult

by poor quality information on sites and by the

frequent lack of specific cleanup standards.

OPTION 37: Address Conflicts of Interest

Associated With Technology Selection

The selection of cleanup technologies in

RODS is a primary determinant of future spending and, therefore, affects the economic interests

of many responsible parties, cleanup companies,

and technology developers. The chief potential

problem is a selection of remedy which does not

assure the best environmental results. Secondarily, decisions which are influenced by specific

commercial interests interfere with market competition and can impede the introduction of

newer technologies. For example, some of the

major engineering firms working as Superfund

or responsible party contractors own specific

cleanup technologies. And a number of large

corporations who are responsible parties at

many Superfund sites have gone into the cleanup

business, often by developing a particular new

technology. 76 Therefore, there is a need for

explicit attention to the potential for conflicts of

interest which may affect critical cleanup decisions (see OTA’s 1989 report on contractor use

and a GAO report77). With this option, RODS

would be required to have a statement that

certified that all parties who have been involved

in the execution of site studies or who have

provided significant information on the site or

its potential cleanup have been examined for

conflicts of interest. A finding of no conflicts or

of business interests which exist but which have

not affected the site’s decisions would be

required.

Benefits: There would be more assurance that

the best cleanup technologies for effective and

minimal cost cleanups have been selected.

Competition among cleanup technologies, particularly newer ones, would be safeguarded. The

influence of responsible parties on remedy

selection which compromise environmental protection would be reduced.

Implementation: EPA could implement this

option. This option requires more staff activity,

places another responsibility on site managers,

and increases administrative costs. However,

these additional requirements seem to be outweighed by the potential benefits. This option is

likely to engender strong opposition from some

firms and people.

OPTION 38: Reauthorize Superfund for 10

Years

Consistent with Superfund being a long-term

program, the period of the second reauthorization would be increased from 5 to 10 years. This,

of course, does not preempt congressional

action, should the need arise, for changing

statutory provisions.

Benefits: Considering both the past, difficult

history of Superfund and the possibility, as

envisioned in this report, of making fundamental as well as incremental changes in the

program, providing stability and certainty appears highly desirable. This option would make

program management and implementation by

76Fm ~xap]e, me che-n]c~ fix~lon tw~ology ~1~~ for tie c]e~up of tie pep~r’s S@] & A]]oys site in Norida WZLS one developed and now

commercialize by the responsible party; EPA staff expreswi some concerns about using the technology for cleanup of PCBS. For the cleanup of a

number of PCB sites in Indiana, the government .seJectd a novel but unproven type of incineration, which the responsible party could also develop

commercially; there have been many objections to using this technology and cleanup has been delaycxl.

T7GA0, SWe#~ contru~, EPA)S Proceduesfor Prevennng Conjlicts of Interest Need Strengthening, Feb. 17, 1989.
82 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

EPA easier, and it would also help everyone delay in finalizing the new National Continelse, such as affected communities, public gency Plan to reflect statutory changes.

interest groups, responsible parties, and technology developers. It is significant that EPA has Implementation: Committees with legislative

had great difficulty implementing SARA within jurisdiction would have to act. Appropriations

5 years; for example, there has been a substantial actions do not have to change.
Chapter 2

The Front End of Super fund:

Site Discovery and Evaluation
CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION *.**, ****. ... .* * * * *, * * . * * * * * * * * * * . * . * . . . . . . * . . . * * *, . . . . . . . . . . . . .

National Site Discovery Through Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Site Evaluation: A Management or Environmental Decision? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SITE DISCOVERY AND INVENTORIES ● ..e. **. o.*. ,*. ,.. .*. **e, ,*. .e, ,*. *o.,..

Why Should We Want to Know? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

What Have We Done So Far? **. ,**. *.. .,**e. .**. *". *.. .oo**. ..*. .*. .. o*.....,.

Comprehensive, Active Site Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Inventories, Lists, and Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SITE EVALUATION **. ***** *.*** ... ..**. *.. , ********e.**,.*,*****..*,.*.*.,,*,

Environmental Fulcrum Shift *.. ,*. .*. .*, ... *o. *,, .,, .*. ,*, .,. o.. .*. ... .. *e,..*

A Better Environmental Priorities Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Changing PA **. *.. ***** ..*. ..**. .**. .*. ..*. .. e......*..**...**.*......*.*

Two SIs and a Deferral Point .o*. .,. .***. ,.. ... .., *.. *.*. **. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

False Negatives and Regional Comparability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The HRS and the NPL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The NPL Grows ... .**. o*. *.. **. *.. ... *.*. ... ..o. ... .*. *.*. ... .*. ..e*. *e....**

APPENDIX 2A A HEALTH CARE MODEL FOR SUPERFUND SCREENING . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

False Positives and False Negatives in Superfund . .........*.**.***...*.......**.

A Model of Superfund Screening .*. ..ee*** ***. *6. ..e6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Accuracy in Superfund

Precision in Superfund

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . .

Screening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Screening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Boxes

Box

2-A. Historical Axial Photography and Site Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2-B. Historical Aerial Photography (HAP)--Project Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2-C. From NFA to NFRAP ... .. ........*.**.*.**...*...*.*.***............*.***.

2-D. How Many False Negative Decisions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2-E. SARA and the Hazard Ranking System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2-F. The Office of Technology Assessment’s 1985 Comments on the

Hazard Ranking system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2-G. Summary of EPA’s Science Advisory Board Hazard Ranking

System Recommendations .**. ..*. .*. ... .*. *.. *.. . e * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure

85

85

86

86

86

87

91

99

101

101

102

103

106

111

115

124

130

130

131

131

135

135

135

90

96

103

113

116

122

122

Figure Page

2-1. Land Disposal in the 1950s Hidden by Land Use in the 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

2-2. Revised EPA Preremedial Process -

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

2-3. National Priorities List Actions$ Fiscal Years 1983-89 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

2-4. EPA Panel’s Ranking of Sites v. HRS Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

2-5 Growth of the National Priorities List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

2-6. HRS Scores of NPL Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

2A-1. Estimation of True/False Positives and Negatives . ..***.*....*.......*.*.,*.. 132

Table

Table Page

2-1. Pre-RemediaI Program Accomplishments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Chapter 2

The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation

INTRODUCTION

Before major site studies are done and long before

cleanups start, uncontrolled sites spend 5 or more

years in the front end of the Superfund pipeline. First

someone has to discover a potential site, then others

evaluate it to determine whether or not the Federal

program will take action.

In this chapter OTA reviews both the site discovery and evaluation aspects of the Superfund program; how site discovery has remained the same and

site evaluation changed during the first 8 years of

Superfund, and the consequences for the future.

OTA concludes that Superfund’s environmental

mission could be measurably enhanced by the

addition of a national site discovery program and

the revamping of the evaluation process. Both

changes will involve spending more money at the

front end of Superfund but can mean saving more

money over the long run. The upfront costs of having

better information sooner and making sounder

environmental decisions, instead of expedient management choices, are small, compared to the cost of

a few Superfund cleanups.

National Site Discovery Through Technology

Almost a decade after obvious problems like Love

Canal drove the Federal Government to get actively

involved in cleaning up environmental damage, we

still do not really know how many sites need

attention. As Russell Train, former administrator of

EPA, said in 1987 in answer to the question, How

serious is the problem? “Distressingly little is

known, in fact, about the number of toxic waste sites

and how serious a risk each site poses.

We do not know how many sites there are because

there has been no comprehensive or systematic

search for them. The sites that have been discovered

are listed on various Federal and State inventories

for which there are no listing criteria nor attempts to

avoid duplications among lists.

Despite haphazard and passive site discovery,

over 31,000 sites have been reported to EPA’s

CERCLA Information System (CERCLIS) inventory of sites that potentially require cleanup. Over

the years of the program, 1,274 of these sites have

been proposed for the National Priorities List (NPL);

the list now includes 1,224 sites. All sites on the

NPL qualify for cleanup funding under the Superfund program, except the 115 sites belonging to

Federal agencies.

For some years EPA has maintained that a

maximum of about 2,000 sites will ultimately be

Superfund’s responsibility. Those estimates have

always been constrained by the choices that EPA has

made about the Superfund program. OTA said in

1985 that ultimately 10,000 sites might be on the

NPL. That estimate, still valid, assumed that EPA

would have an active site discovery program and

would apply environmental criteria to the site

evaluation process. It did not take EPA’s deferral of

cleanups to other programs into account. Today’s

CERCLIS inventory and its growth rate--despite

passive site discovery-imply that over 4,000 sites

could be on the NPL by the year 2000.

Enough sites to keep the Superfund program

challenged? Of course, but the real question ought to

be: Have we found them all? OTA and many others

don’t think so, and data from the Superfund program

shows that the worst sites are not necessarily

accounted for. Both site discovery and the way sites

are inventoried can be improved—and the costs of

doing so contained-by the use of technology.

Active, comprehensive, and systematic site discovery could be built around a method such as

historical aerial photography analysis. A national

program could be supplemented by State efforts

using traditional site discovery methods. With

funding assistance from the Federal Government

and in combination with improved preremedial site

analysis, this could move the Nation quickly to

finally knowing with more certainty the true size of

the cleanup problem. But the history of the Superfund program so far tells us that a comprehensive

site discovery program will not occur unless

Congress gives explicit direction to EPA, or some

other authority, to proceed.

IRussell Train, ‘ ‘Big Questions Facing the Cleanup, ” EPA Journai, JanuaryiFebruary 1987, p. 8.

-85-
84 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Site Evaluation: A Management or

Environmental Decision?

Most observers express great concern with one

point in Superfund’s site evaluation process: the

on/off NPL decision, whether or not a site is on the

NPL. Few, however, seem to care about what

happens before that point. OTA concludes that there

are many reasons to suspect that the entire site

evaluation process is biased against making sound

environmental decisions.

Should the Superfund program bear the burden of

determining whether or not discovered sites are

potential environmental threats, even though the

program may not have the authority or resources to

respond to all those threats? Or, should the Superfund program’s site evaluation process be restricted

to only finding potential Superfund sites? If so, how

early in the process is it reasonable to make that

decision? When it is made, how can the public best

be notified when a site is rejected for management

reasons even though it poses a threat to public health

and the environment?

There is evidence that past Superfund site evaluations have produced many false negative decisions.

That means that sites have been rejected when they

really require cleanup. OTA estimates that from

240 to 2,000 false negatives may exist so far.

Recent changes in the process-meant to cope with

demands to work faster-are likely to aggravate this

problem. Another characteristic of site evaluation is

regional inconsistency; across the Nation wide

differences exist in the efficiency and apparent

environmental effectiveness of site evaluation.

SITE DISCOVERY AND

INVENTORIES

This section sums up what the Nation knows and

does not know about potential sites; how many sites

might need to be cleaned up? The ad hoc nature of

EPA and State searches and reporting systems is a

result of EPA (and Congress) not having paid much

attention to (or spent much money on) site discovery

since the Superfund program began in 1981. In the

interim and without knowing the full extent of the

potential universe, EPA (and Congress) have concentrated on evaluating sites that are known.

Further, what we do know about the potential size

of the national problem is confused by a multiplicity

of site inventories. OTA has identified other national

inventories, besides the well-known CERCLIS and

NPL lists associated with the Superfund program, In

addition, each State has some kind of list or lists.

Today, there is no way to know the extent of overlap

of these lists. This situation will be exacerbated if

EPA’s proposed deferral policy (see ch. 4) for

Superfund sites goes into effect. Increased deferral

of sites out of the Superfund program and into other

programs will create dynamic lists of sites as the

authority for cleanup changes and sites are moved

back and forth among programs. Accountability at

the national level will become more difficult. Some

sites deferred to other programs will essentially

disappear. Not only are the other cleanup programs

less visible to Congress and the public than is

Superfund, but few of their site inventory systems

are as available. Some programs do not have formal

inventories.

Why Should We Want to Know?

The major, longstanding bureaucratic argument against site discovery has been that we

know enough without it to keep us busy for years.

But this argument ignores the environmental mission of the Superfund program. And it perpetuates

the crisis atmosphere around Superfund. Without a

strategy to decide which sites get attention first,

newly discovered sites that engender a lot of

publicity tend to push existing work aside.

The number of sites potentially requiring any kind

of cleanup defines the magnitude of the national

problem, its ultimate cost and length. The number of

sites actually needing cleanup will always be less

than any inventory of known potential sites, such as

CERCLIS. But, all potential sites consume national

resources because they all require some type of

evaluation to separate out duplicate and obviously

nonhazardous sites from hazardous sites requiring

some kind of attention.

From a policy perspective, knowledge of the

outside bounds of site cleanup determines the

necessary scope and, therefore, acceptable pace and

financial impact of a national program. Unrealistically low estimates of potential sites lead to underestimates of sites requiring cleanup and low estimates
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 87

of resource needs. If a site is a problem today, it will

probably be a worse problem tomorrow. Ignoring

potential sites only saves resources in the short

term and decreases protection of human health

and the environment. Overestimates of the size of

the national problem that overwhelm systems and

resources result in an unnecessarily slow pace of

cleanup.

A relatively small number of potentiai sites may

mean that limited funds can be used quickly to clean

up the universe of sites, but a small number devalues

the importance of a priority system for determining

which sites get attention sooner. The larger the

number of potential sites becomes, more care must

be taken in assigning priorities to sites and managing

limited funds. Issues of environmental protection

and cost-effectiveness become more difficult to

balance; thoughtful development of a long-term

strategy becomes critical.

What Have We Done So Far?

In 1982, the General Accounting Office (GAO)

stated that ‘‘a national hazardous waste site inventory does not exist. ”2 In 1985, GAO stated, “A

complete inventory of hazardous waste sites does

not exist. And, in late 1987, GAO said, “While

still not fully understood, the extent of the nation’s

potential hazardous waste problem appears to be

much larger than is indicated by EPA’s inventory of

sites.

These statements are not surprising since an EPA

official stated in 1981 that a comprehensive search

for sites needing cleanup was “against EPA policy. ‘‘5 This attitude was still policy in 1985 when the

then director of the Superfund program said:

There is no national policy that says go out and

aggressively look at sites. I’m not sure, if we had

such a policy, that we would have more to deal with

then we currently do, however. The national inventory (not the NPL) has grown about 3000 sites a year.

It is growing faster than we have the resources to

assess and inspect those that come to our attention,

I’m not sure, frankly, what more we could do. Or

how one would go about actively investigating for

the presence of new sites ...6

Congressional Direction and Funding

Congress has been largely silent on site discovery.

In CERCLA, little attention is paid to site discovery

except to say that the NCP shall include ‘‘methods

for discovering and investigating facilities. ”7 GAO

and OTA analyses at the time of Superfund reauthorization concluded that the ‘methods’ being used by

EPA were not producing comprehensive information. But site discovery was not art issue during

reauthorization and nothing was added in the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986

(SARA) to prompt more action from EPA.

Sufficient site discovery funding levels have been

authorized under the Resource Conservation and

Recovery Act (RCRA) since 1980 but Congress has

only appropriated the funds once,8 When the

authorized level was $20 million, Congress appropriated $10 million for fiscal year 1983 for State site

inventory programs. Subsequently, Congress raised

the authorized level to $25 million per year for fiscal

years 1985 through 1988. None of that money was

ever appropriated. If it had been appropriated and

directed toward site discovery, the question of how

large the potential universe is might have been

answered by now.

The fiscal year 1983 funds were actually drawn

from the Superfund trust fund. They were earmarked

2U3, ~ner~ ACCoUINi21g Oft%% “Environmcntat Protection Agency’s Progrcw in Implementing the Superfund Program, ’ GAO/CED-82-91.

SU.S, ~ner~ ~comting ~fi=, EPA’S /nvemoV of poce~~/ Hazardous Wastes Sites IS Incomplete, GAO/RCED/-85-75 (Gmthcrsburg, MD: U.S.

General Account.tng Office, Mar. 26, 1985).

dust Gewr~ ~comung offiu, SWeflu~: Ex[e~ of NanOn’S polenti~ Ha~r&~ Waste Problem Stili Unknown, GAO/RCED/-88-44

(Gaithersburg, MD: U.S. General Accounting Office, Ikember 1987).

SMorW K~@m, hen EpA ~p~ller, m nod in [el~hone log of Vem Webb, then direztor, Envlrommmld photowaphlc ~nlerprelatlon center,

Aug. 25, 1981.

6W11ha N H~man, Jr., ~ quo~ in ‘‘s~rf~d ~ef @~ines Svategy on HaZM&)US WaStC C] CaIIUpS, ’ Chenucal & Engineering News, June

3, 1985, p. 17.

7CIZRCLA Section 105(1).

8RCRA Section 3012, Hazardous Waste Site Inventory
88 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

for site discovery and evaluation. Congress referred

to that appropriation as a “one time event. ’

There was no followup accounting by EPA (or

examination by Congress) to ascertain how useful

the funding was for site discovery purposes. However, EPA has said that activities were funded “. . .

in the following order of priority: preliminary

assessments, site inspections, responsible party searches,

discovery, and site inspection follow-up” [emphasis added].10 Given such low priority, little of the $10

million was likely spent on site discovery.

EPA and Site Discovery

EPA has never requested funds from Congress for

site discovery. EPA has no site discovery program,

has no budget for site discovery, and does not allow

States to spend Superfund monies for site discovery.

Instead, EPA has relied on varied State-funded

efforts and a few regional investigations to identify

potential sites.

Traditionally, EPA officials give two reasons why

the program devotes no effort to site discovery. First,

there is no need for a site discovery program because

the extent of the problem is known; the worst sites

have been found already. Second, the Superfund

program has enough to do just evaluating the known

sites. Discovering more would simply choke the

system.

EPA has implied that some kind of a site

discovery program once existed. In 1984, EPA told

Congress that it had shifted the emphasis in the

Superfund program away from site discovery. ‘These

changes reflect EPA’s belief that many of the sites

posing more serious problems have been identified

and EPA resources should increasingly focus on

further assessment and inspection of these sites. ”11

Today, EPA’s policy is the same even though it

has abandoned the idea that the extent of the

problem is known. GAO reported in 1987:

EPA officials now recognize that many more

hazardous waste sites may exist, [but] they believe a

higher priority is to meet the deadlines imposed by

SARA for assessing and evaluating those sites

already included in the CERCLIS inventory .12

In other words, resources and SARA schedules

are determining the size of the inventory rather

than the inventory size establishing the funding

level. This management, rather than environmental,

perspective of the CERCLIS inventory ignores the

higher future costs (both resources and public health

and environmental damage) of not fully understanding the extent of the problem today. Moreover,

limiting the size of the inventory and the NPL

diminishes the need to develop a strategy for

distinguishing between near- and long-term remedial actions.

EPA reported on the extent of site discovery to

Congress in 1984 with a list of site discovery

methods in use: 13

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

required reporting under CERCLA Section

103 of known sites (following enactment of

CERCLA) or subsequent releases;

government investigation under CERCLA response authority;

reporting by permit holders under other statutes when required;

inventory efforts (i.e., RCRA Section 3012) or

random observations and reports; and

‘‘other sources,‘‘ including formal analysis of

various industries.

EPA said the one-time reporting requirement of

Section 103 (#1 above) had been a major source of

initial site discoveries. Since then, EPA said it was

9HOW of Rep~n~tivcs, ~fcmce Re@ [appropriations for HUD and Independent Agencies for fiscat year 1983], H.Rep. 97-891, Sept. 29,

1982.

IUU.S. Environmental protection Agency, ‘‘The Effeztivcness of the Superfund Program, CERmA Smtion 301(4(1)(A) st~yt’ D~em~r 1984)

p. 1-14. According to Frank Wolle, who was then with EPA’s Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center, the funds were actually used to redo

RCRA inventories conducted in 1976 and 1980 that were considered to be invalid. llms, the monies were not spent on gathering any new information.

llIbid., p. 1-13.

IZU.S. ~er~ ~co~~g ~fice, fjWe~ Extew of the Nation’s polenti~ Hamra’ou ware Problem Still Unknown, op. cit., footnok 4, p. 28.

In a rare public statement, an EPA officiaJ from Region 2 lamented on national TV in July 1989 that just as we think we know where all the sites are

another one becomes known.

13uts. ~v~ment~ Protection Agency, ‘‘The Effectiveness of the Superfund Program, CERCLA !ktion 301(a)(l)(A) Study,’ op. cit., footnote

10. These “methods” are the same as those listed by EPA in the National Contingency Plan.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 89

relying on inventory efforts (#4) and other sources

(#5) for discovery. For the future, EPA said it was:

. , . currently developing a method to systematically

evaluate various industries to determine categories

of waste generators which are more likely to involve

hazardous release problems that require Superfund

action. 14

The new method may have been developed, but

industries have not been systematically evaluated by

EPA since 1984. OTA could locate only one

industry study: “U.S. Production of Manufactured

Gases: Assessment of Past Disposal Practices, ”

completed in 1988.

EPA did contract with Booz-Allen & Hamilton to

conduct a study on site discovery. The results are

contained in a 1987 draft report, which begins:

To date, discovery and identification of releases or

threatened releases of hazardous waste have been

reported to the EPA through a wide variety of

uncoordinated channels . . . The magnitude of the

hazardous waste problem on a national level remains

unknown and EPA is unable to forecast the resources

required to understand and mediate this problem. An

active site discovery program is needed to better

forecast future EPA resources and schedules in

which Superfund’s overall objectives may be met. 15

The study remains in draft form; the need

expressed in it for an ‘‘active site discovery program’ is not EPA policy and does not reflect official

EPA thinking. Two followup studies mentioned in

the report-to develop management options and

guidance for a site discovery program-were not

done. Followup work was confined to reviewing

discovery techniques and drafting some guidance.

The Aborted 200 Cities Plan

There were some technical people in EPA in the

early days of the Superfund program who saw value

in site discovery. EPA’s Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) had a comprehensive site discovery program-the 200 Cities

Hazardous Waste Site Discovery Plan-underway

in 1980. It lasted barely a year; in August 1981,

EPA’s comptroller told the laboratory to cancel the

project because “we already have more sites than

there is money for so we do not need more.16 EPIC

asked the Superfund program in March 1982 to

support its $850,000 request for funding the project.

According to the director of EPIC, the Superfund

program director told him that there was not to be a

200 Cities project.

There was some initial support for the EPIC

project within EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD). EPIC had $161,500 in fiscal year

1981 for a pilot program and received guidelines

from ORD for an expanded program in June 1981.

The guideline document called for the 200 city

search to be completed and 50 sites analyzed by

1985. An accelerated program was also outlined in

which 100 of the most serious sites found would

receive detailed analysis. Total funding through

fiscal year 1986 was estimated at $6.4 million for

discovery and site analysis. Of the four city inventories selected for the pilot project, two were finished.

The 200 Cities plan was based on EPIC’s experiences since 1973 in developing the use of historical

aerial photography for environmental purposes. By

the late 1970s, it was an established technique for

site characterization. One intent of the initial 200

Cities pilot project was to demonstrate the practicality of using the technique to conduct a site discovery

program and to determine if the criteria for selecting

the 200 cities were valid (see box 2-A). Figure 2-1

shows how a series of aerial photographs, the basis

for HAP analysis, can uncover past disposal practices no longer visible.

State Site Discovery

State site discovery efforts are funded by States.

States have become, by default, fully responsible for

collecting national data. But EPA does not allow

States to use Cooperative Agreement (CA) money

for site discovery, because CERCLA Section 104b

confines its planning authority to only site-specific

actions. Thus, since site discovery actions-by their

very nature--cannot be site specific, EPA reasons

that States cannot use CA funds for site discovery

141bid., p. 1-8.

151J.s. ~v~omcn~ prottxtion Agency, Office of Solid Waste and hncrgemy RMPOKW) “CERCLA Site hscovery Program Evaluation, ” draft

~~ by BOOZ, A1len & ~ikon. Inc.. Mar. 5, 1987, p. 1. EPA told OTA that the report never went from &aft to finat form because of resource

eonarramts in the preremedial program.

16Morgm K~@m, hen WA compVoller, ~ not~ in telephone 1og of Vem Webb, hen EPIC dirwtor, Aug. 25, 1981.
90 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Box 2-A Historical Aerial Photography and Site Discovery

Site discovery using historical aerial photographs allows a trained analyst to peel back layers of construction

and vegetation in a particular area that have occurred over time and hide past practices and to review those practices.

This process of looking back in time uncovers sites where wastes have been dumped. The technique cannot confirm

that hazardous constituents are present at a site. Instead, a probability of their presence is inferred from activities

observed or if the site has remained scarred over a long period of time and does not support vegetation.

Historical Aerial Views of the United States

The United States has been extensively photographed from the air since at least the 1920s and especially after

1938. The photographs have been taken primarily for mapmaking and soil survey purposes. After World War II,

aerial photography increased with the availability of surplus military reconnaissance equipment and pilots and

crewman trained in the technique during the war. For maps, a series of overlapping photographs are taken of the

terrain as an aircraft progresses along a straight flight path. The photographs are taken from a height of 12,000 feet

and each one covers an area 11.5 square miles. Viewed through a stereoscopic microscope, a three-dimensional view

of the terrain is obtained. Towns and cities undergoing the greatest development and expansion have been the most

recoded areas, generally on a three-to-five-year cycle.

The collection of historical aerial photography (HAP) is now stored in five government archives: the National

Archives in Washington, DC; the Earth Resources Observation System in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; the USDA’s

Agricultural Conservation and Stabilization Service in Salt Lake City, Utah; the National Atmospheric and Oceanic

Administration in Rockville, Maryland; and the Tennessee Wiley Authority’s Mapping Services Branch in

Chattanooga, Tennessee. Additional photos and index services are sold through commercial firms. In the past, some

commercial negatives have been destroyed to reclaim the silver value. For instance, during the speculation of silver

by the Hunt brothers in the late 1970s, the value of the silver in film rose ten-fold and millions of feet of commercial

photographic records were lost. An unknown amount of aerial photographic film was destroyed as well.

The use of historical aerial photography for purposes other than mapmaking is not new. In the past, it has been

used to:

● analyze coastline erosion or change over time;

● note changes in watersheds following darn construction;

● collect evidence for litigation involving land change, such as wetlands; and

 locate historical landmarks, such as Civil War fortifications.

When EPA’s Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) was established in 1973 part of its

charter was to develop techniques and methods for the extraction of environmental information from the historical

aerial photographic libraries of other Federal agencies. At the time, many people considered historical aerial

photography to be of no value in addressing environmental problems. Instead, the prevalent belief was that aerial

photographs could be used to record current environmenal events such as oil spills, fires, and agricultural practices

rather than uncover practices of the past. Work at EPIC has proven the value of HAP analysis as a site discovery

technique.

Using Historical Aerial Photography for Site Discovery

The process of using aerial photographs to locate unknown hazardous waste disposal sites involves: 1)

selecting an area of high probability; 2) acquiring a historical series of aerial photographs of the area; 3) analyzing

the time series of photographs for indicators of hazardous waste activities; and 4) for any area where indicators are

four@ following up the analysis with ground investigations to ascertain whether hazardous substances are present.

Areas of High Probability-For the 200 Cities project at EPIC, a number of criteria were used to select areas

with the highest potential of having abandoned hazardous wastes. Criteria included: 1) knowledge of where

hazardous waste had been generated through manufacturing, 2) knowledge of traditional waste disposal areas, 3)

consideration of transportation methods and corridors between the 1930s and 1960s, and 4) cancer incidence rates.

Four cities (one each in EPA Regions 1,2,3, and 4) were selected for the pilot project: Worcester, Massachusetts;

Buffalo, New York; Charleston, West Virginia; and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They were chosen because of their

population density, concentration of chemical manufacturers or users, and health data.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 91

Selection of Photographs-A time series of photographs, usually in 4-to-5-year increments, is selected and

printed from negative transparencies. A current aerial photograph may have to be taken.

Analysis of Photo Series--A photo analyst, using a backlighted table and magnifying stereo optics, scans each

transparency for indicators of hazardous waste activities, such as ground scars, indiscriminate dumping, waste

ponds, landfills, quarries, ground stains, junk yards, etc. By viewing successive years of photographs, an analyst

can see changes that have occured over time and are no longer visible on the surface.

Ground Investigations--Like all discovery methods, once a suspect site is located through photo analysis,

the site must be investigated on the ground. For instance, all sites placed in the CERCLIS inventory must undergo

a Preliminary Assessment to determine if there is any evidence of an environmental problem and to assure that the

site reported is not a duplicate of another one in CERCLIS. In the case of sites discovered through HAP, the same

process must occur. However, HAP sites also provide information not available through other discovery methods,

such as the exact location and extent of the possible contamination.

purposes. But EPA has not invoked this interpretation to explain its own lack of attention to site

discovery, and there is no reason to believe that, if

EPA allowed States to use CA funds for site

discovery, anyone—including Congress-would be

concerned.

EPA also does not allow States to use Core

Program Cooperative Agreement (CPCA) funds—

money that is explicitly not site specific-for site

discovery. In this case, EPA reasoned:

Site discovery is not eligible for funding at this

time. It is OERR’s [Office of Emergency and

Remedial Response] opinion that all sites presently

listed in CERCLIS should be addressed prior to any

funding for site discovery under the CPCA. 17

This decision by EPA was made despite admitting, in the same memorandum, that CPCAs are a

result of congressional “intent to increase the scope

of Cooperative Agreements. ’ ’18 The congressional

SARA Conference Report mentions “site inventory

and assessment efforts” as a class of activity that

may be included in these expanded Cooperative

Agreements.19

The consequence of delegating site discovery and

funding to States is that there are 50 different site

discovery programs. According to the 1987 Booz-Allen/

EPA study:

[State] discovery efforts have not been consistent.

They range from minimal efforts with little interest

for change to an active state effort based on state

“Superfund” legislation, which may result in site

lists larger than CERCLIS.20

Eighteen out of fifty States surveyed by BoozAllen claimed to have an active, as opposed to a

passive, program. Booz-Allen’s review of the site

discovery methods used by States, however, shows

that passive methods predominate. Citizen complaints topped the list of methods (47 States) with

referrals from other programs second (38 States).

Third on the list (22 States) was some kind of survey

review (e.g., a records search), which, of the three

most used methods, is the only active one. Other

active methods (e.g., aerial photography, property

transfer regulations, and special studies) were used

by less than a quarter of the States.

Comprehensive, Active Site Discovery

The existing structure for site discovery and

listing of sites that may need cleanup is largely a

disconnected maze. Various authorities (Federal and

State) seek out sites. The degree of effort and

comprehensiveness each applies to the task varies

widely; each approach lies along a spectrum from

passive to somewhat aggressive. Once discovered,

knowledge about potential sites is handled in many

Im,s. EJNiKIMIa~ Protection Agency, “Final Guidance on State Core Program Funding Cooperative @eanents,” Directive 9375.2-01, Dw.

18, 1987, transmittal memorandum, p. 3.

%id.. p. 1.

lgH_of RePre~mtive, ~~e~u Re~ [on ~endmen~ ~ mRCLA], H.R. Rep. 99-%2, p. 195.

W1.s. Env”won.mental Protection Agency, “CERCLA Site Discovery Program Evaluation, ” op. cit., footnote 15, p. 26. OTA found in a review of

many Stale programs’ annuat reports that site discovery efforts were rarely mentioned. The topic, thus, appears to be of little interest at the State level.

20-011 0 - 8!3 - 3 : OL 3
92 ● Coming clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Figure 2-l--Land Disposal In the 19509 Hidden by Land Use In the 1970s

1948

1952
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 93

These three photographs are from a larger series of historical aerial photographs of one end of

Neville Island in the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, PA. A number of chemical plants are located at the

opposite end of the island. Across from t he island are industrial plants. A 1938 photograph (not included)

shows that before the war the island was a large farm. Over time, land use on the island changed to a

mix of residential, light and heavy industrial, and recreation.

Even viewing the photographs without the aid of a stereoscopic microscope, as is done in HAP

analysis, it is possible to see activity taking place overtime t hat eventually created a need for a cleanup.

In the first photograph-taken in April 1948--victory gradens from WWll still remain the dominate

feature, although at the tip of the island (circled area) t he gardens have been destroyed and t he surface

appears disrupted. It may indicate the beginning of land disposal. In the second photograph—April

1952—farming here has ceased and this portion of the island has become a disposal site for solid and

Iiquid wastes.

By October 1973 (the third photograph), however, visual evidence of dumping has almost

disappeared. Vegetation has returned to most of the area, although in the circled area (where Iiquid

dumping has taken place) the soil does not support much vegetation. By 1979 the area had bee n

donated to the local community for a park. Cabins, roads, trails, and a parking lot further obscured past

waste disposal practices.

1973
94 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problem Can Be Solved . . .

ways, from entering the information into a database

in a timely manner to letting the information sit in a

file drawer for years. Communication among all

these discovery and inventory systems ranges from

nonexistent to formal handoffs. Thus, sites discovered in one system but judged not eligible may be

officially turned over to another authority or may be

simply ignored, even though some cleanup may

appear necessary.

Often site discovery methods do not respect

regulatory or legal boundaries. Historical aerial

photography (HAP), for instance, discovers sites on

evidence of land use over time. HAP does not

necessarily distinguish between underground tanks

that store a nonhazardous or hazardous material.

HAP does not distinguish between a RCRA hazardous waste and a CERCLA hazardous substance.

HAP also does not tell whether the private or public

sector is responsible for creating a problem or

whether or not the owner of the property has had a

RCRA permit or not. It does, instead, provide some

environmental evidence of a problem.

The undiscriminating nature of many site

discovery methods suggests that it is better to

think of site discovery not as the responsibility of

Superfund or RCRA or some other program but

as a national responsibility. A national site

discovery program, whether solely a Federal

function or in cooperation with States, could

produce inventories of potential sites to feed into

a variety of cleanup programs.

A comprehensive, active site discovery program

will, of course, cost money. But, as discussed above,

such a program can be cost-effective in the long run,

and the costs seem small compared to what is

routinely spent to study and clean up individual

sites. From among a variety of methods used in the

past to discover sites, some could be part of an active

program, and existing technology can be adopted to

minimize the immediate program costs. OTA has

estimated, for instance, that resurrecting and retargeting the 200 Cities plan today would cost about

$100 million over a 5-year period. The cost includes

detailed analysis of an estimated 7,500 found

sites—part of the work now done by EPA during the

preliminary assessment (PA) phase of site evaluation.

Once sites are discovered, the information found

needs to be aggregated to make the necessary

followup efficient and to avoid duplication by EPA

and others. One solution is to develop a nationally

consistent listing system or compatible ones that can

be used by all cleanup authorities (see later discussion). Once sites have been evaluated as needing

some cleanup, OTA has suggested (see ch. 1, option

18) that a national cleanup list be maintained.

Technical Options for Comprehensive Searches

In heavily populated areas, it may be true that

obvious uncontrolled sites have been found. People

have smelled them or seen them leaking. 21 T o

discover those sites not yet emitting odors or liquids,

techniques can be applied that sweep large geographic areas and collect information about what

may be occurring under the surface. Such ways

include using knowledge about contaminated

ground and surface waters as indicators and peeling

back layers of earth through historical aerial photo

analysls. 22 California has conducted studies in two

counties using the contaminated water technique.

EPA and others have used historical aerial photo

analysis. OTA has chosen to review the latter for its

potential as a cornerstone for a national site discovery program.

HAPPI: A Historical Aerial Photography

Program Initiative

Despite the halt of the original EPIC pilot project

to initiate the proposed 200 Cities plan in 1981, EPA

and others have used historical aerial photography

(HAP) to discover, verify, and characterize hazardous waste sites. The technique has not been used

comprehensively for site discovery, however, Instead, various government authorities (i.e., the U.S.

Army, some EPA regions, and some State governments) have used the method on an occasional basis

or for special projects.

21~, have fol]ow~ up ~me ~t~tion This hap~n~ in %lin@on, VA, in 1989 when a pime of industrial property was being reviewed fOr Sde tO

the U.S. Navy. Testing based on suspicion proved that PCBS had been disposd on the land, presumably by a metal rcxycling fmn that had leased the

PVW.

22Rem~~ ~m~g by s~llltc is ofien t.hou@I of as ~otier way, however, the technique has shortcomings such as poor KSOIUtiOn md he in*ilitY

to view subsurface conditions.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 95

OTA has evaluated some of the projects and

found that most evidence suggests the technique,

when properly applied, is a very useful tool. Because

of past inattention and lack of follow up evaluation,

a new pilot program is advisable, especially one that

carries sites through at least a PA type of evaluation.

Ultimately, the best use for HAP would probably be

in examining areas with the highest probability of

having abandoned hazardous wastes since cost

prohibits and logic denies a blanket examination of

the entire country. HAP is one of the few methods of

site discovery that can systematically analyze a

given area for unknown and abandoned sites. One

analyst says, ‘‘Historical aerial photographs may be

the only source of reliable information for identifying active and inactive landfills. ’ ’23 Another expert

calls HAP the most ‘‘impersonally recorded document available’ for conducting inventories.24

Other methods tend to be biased and limited by

the information used for discovery. For instance,

surveys are limited by the accuracy and completeness of responses, historical document searches are

limited by how well records were kept and have been

maintained, and property transfer regulations are

limited by the types of property (usually existing

commercial or industrial) included in the regulations

and only are triggered if property is sold.

Historical aerial photography analysis is limited

by the extent of the availability of historical photographs and trained analysts. As long as the existing

archives of aerial photographs are preserved and

maintained, there does not appear to be any shortage

of photographs. Trained analysts are another matter;

in the initial stages of a major government program,

demand could outstrip supply.

If the pilot phase had been completed before the

200 Cities plan had been canceled, a wealth of data

would be available today to analyze its potential in

full. Since the termination of the 200 Cities plan,

EPIC has used aerial photography analysis almost

exclusively (about 90 percent of its work) for site

characterization for EPA’s RCRA and Superfund

programs. Still, site discovery work has not been

totally abandoned, and OTA has based its analysis

on available information. We have included in our

analysis: 1) existing results from the 200 Cities

project; 2) the U.S. Army’s Toxics and Hazardous

Materials Agency work under the Facilities Restoration Program; 3) a Monroe County, New York,

project; 4) a Memphis, Tennessee, emergency response project; 5) an EPIC inventory of Love Canal,

New York; and 6) several inventories conducted for

EPA Regions 2, 3 and 4. Brief summaries of the

projects are presented in box 2-B.

These projects show that the HAP method locates

sites found through other discovery methods and

adds sites to existing inventories generated through

other methods. In other words, HAP could replace

many commonly used site discovery methods.

There is no information available to determine

whether the HAP method generates any more or

fewer false positive sites (sites that do not need to be

cleaned up) than any other site discovery method.

This void exists because followup on HAP has

seldom been done, or, if done, records have not been

kept, so that determinations of false positive rates

cannot be made. Similarly, no records have been

kept on the false positive rates of other methods.

Although information is available on the cost of

various HAP projects, there is little cost data

available on conducting site discovery through other

methods, Cost comparisons should be made on the

basis of the costs of discovering true hazardous

waste sites. There is, however, no information

available on the costs of discovering true hazardous

waste sites through HAP or any other means.

Another aspect of site discovery is the time

required to complete a project. A State of California

project using traditional methods took 33 months to

search for sites in two agricultural counties; 9 sites

were located. The time and cost of the U.S. Army

searches of military installations depend on the size

of the installation; some have been ongoing since the

early 1980s. In comparison, the duration of the 10

HAP Re-Look projects reviewed by OTA were all

less than a year,

Pros and Cons of HAP-No one questions

HAP’s viability as a site discovery technique. Its

lack of use is a consequence of site discovery being

~~omfi L. Erb et al., “Analysis of Landfills With Historic Airphotos, ” Phdogramme tric Engineering and Remote Sensing, vol. 47, No. 9,

Sqmxnber 1981, p. 1364.

~Fr~ R wol]e, fomer]y ~1~ EPA’s fivlromen~ photo~aphic 1nte~retauon Gnter, prsonal conversation, January 1988.
96 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Box 2-B-Historical Aerial Photography (HAP)-Project Summaries

EPA Region 3:84 sites Added to CERCLIS; Other projects Await Screening

Two of the four inventories planned by the 200 Cities pilot project were done. The HAP inventory of Buffalo,

New York has not had a followup to verify the results. The inventory of Charleston, West Virginia was released

to EPA Region 3 in 1983 but was not used until the Bhopal, India, chemical release incident in 1984 heightened

concern about a similar plant near Charleston. Field teams then checked the 74 areas identified in the report, many

of which had multiple sites. As a result of the followup, 84 sites were added to the 56 Buffalo sites already in the

CERCLIS inventory. Acceding to Region 3, about 25 percent of the HAP sites required an Site Inspection (SI) and

four sites may receive a listing SI. In other words, 5 percent of the 84 sites may end up on the NPL.

The value of the inventory convinced Region 3 officials to fund two more inventories (southwestern

Pennsylvania and the Elizabeth River watershed). Because of resource constraints, the new inventories were not

finished by EPIC until 1987. As of April 1989, Region 3 had not done the followup on the southwestern

Pennsylvania inventory because it has a lower priority than getting normal preremedial work accomplished.l

The Elizabeth River inventory covering 1937 through 1985 turned up 650 potential problem areas. Over half

were eliminated as potential Superfund sites; the scope of the inventory had been purposefully broad, including such

areas as grain storage systems, gas and petroleum storage facilities, and other pollution sources that do not qualify

for the program. Almost 300 potential Superfund sites have, as of April 1989, not been added to CERCLIS because

the necessary field investigations have been delayed due to funding priorities.

U.S. Army Re-Look Project: HAP Equals and Betters Other Site Discovery Methods

The U.S. Army’s site discovery program has evaluated hundreds of Army installations using HAP as well as

methods such as exhaustive record searches and interviews with current and former employees. The Army considers

its search and interview methods possible of yielding a 90 percent discovery rate because of its penchant for

recordkeeping and a stable workforceo

In a program called Re-Look, the Army asked EPIC to verify the site discovery program’s accuracy using HAP.

In a random sample of 10 (one-third) of the Re-Look projects, HAP added 25 new sites to the Army’s inventory.

HAP was particularly useful in finding errors in the previous searches at large installations; at some small

installations HAP found all the known sites (i.e., had an equal discovery rate). At three large installations, 23

previously unknown sites were discovered. Eleven sites were later confirmed as hazardous waste sites; others were

placed in a lower priority for additional screening.

Monroe County: HAP Project Added 33 Sites to Existing Inventory

In Monroe County, New York, record searches, interviews of residents, and an advertising campaign

requesting citizen reports had produced a list of 10 landfills for a RCRA inventory. In a 1981 project to test HAP

as a site discovery method, nine of the 10 reported landfills were identified and 33 additional sites were found. The

one landfill not found by HAP was an incorrect entry in the inventory.

Of the 42 sites, the HAP process classified 12 sites as dumps or landfills, 19 as possible dumps or landfills,

and 11 as unspecified sites. After followup interviews and field inspections, 22 sites were confirmed as dumps or

landfills, 11 were classified as possible dumps or landfills, and six remained unspecified. Three sites were eliminated

from the inventory because they contained clean fill.

Region 4: Eight Percent of HAP Sites with Sampling Hazardous

A HAP project, initiated for emergency response planning, discovered 350 potential sites in and around

Memphis, Tennessee, in 1980. Field investigation of the sites was limited to visual observations samples at 44 sites

were subsequently taken, and 29 sites were found to pose some degree of hazard.

Despite some prescreening, all 350 sites were entered into CERCLIS, at least doubling the number of

Tennessee sites in the inventory at that time. Since all PAs have been done for sites entered into CERCLIS prior

to October 1986, PAs have been done on all the HAP sites. This set of data of sites with PAs could be used to

compare the false negative/positive rate of the HAP process v. other discovery methods. Unfortunately, once in
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 97

CERCLIS the HAP sites cannot be distinguished from all other entries. And Region 4 has misplaced the EPIC map

sheets with overlays so that it is not possible to separately identify the HAP sites.

Love Canal, New York: HAP Confirms Known Sites and Adds 55 More Sites

As a part of the EPA investigation at Love Canal in 1980, HAP was used to verify 107 sites identified by a

task force. EPIC located and confirmed 46 of the 107 sites as potential hazardous waste sites. In addition, 55 sites

were discovered that the task force has missed. Of the61 task force sites that HAP did not confirm, some were were

inside buildings and thus invisible. Others HAP confirmed as negative findings by the task force. For instance, for

one very large disposal area in the task force inventory, HAP could not find any sign from 1938 to the present that

any dumping had occured.

Regions 2 and 4: HAP Inventories Not Used

EPA Regions 2 and 4 have engaged EPIC to do nine inventories since 1981. However, no followup work has

been done in the regions, so it is not possible to ascertain the accuracy of the HAP analysis. The inventories have

not been used as sources of potential sites.

Three inventories done for Region 2 found 1,341 potential sites. A removal action was later taken on one site

when buried drums-identified by HAP but ignored—were uncovered during subsequent housing construction.

Instead of using the inventories as intended, the region considers them as a source of supplemental information on

sites discovered by other means. (The New York State cleanup program, which has a site discovery project, was

not aware of the availability of the inventories until OTA happened to contact a State official asking questions about

its status.)

EPIC HAP analysis for Region 4 located 2,076 potential hazardous waste sites, of which 873 are sites

containing liquids. OTA could not locate anyone in Region 4 with any knowledge of how the inventories have been

used or whether any followup has been conducted

IRegiond pcrformsncc is uaaacd on wbetk a not targets (i.e., numbers of PA and Sls) arc muf. Ddng the followup on an EPIC invcmtay, despite its

-~sipiftcamx, wdd W coutlf. Tqccs arc WI bed cm numbers of situ shady in the CERCLIS invcutory.

a low priority in the Superfund program and being of The following statement is representative of

little concern to Congress or public interest groups.

Most of those who have used HAP to assist in site

discovery work see its value; no one disputes its

ability to comprehensively and efficiently survey an

area and uncover valuable environmental information. The major argument against its use is its drain

on resources; finding hundreds of potential sites in

a given area means that hundreds of sites have to be

checked out. But the same argument is used against

active site discovery, in general. Hundreds of

potential sites will need hundreds of assessments

today but assessments today can save millions of

dollars tomorrow if finding truly hazardous sites

sooner rather than later means that the cost of

cleaning them up is minimized. Identifying hazardous sites faster also means that protection of

human health and the environment is enhanced.

several that OTA received from EPA and other

officials who have used HAP. The same kind of

statement could be made about any site discovery

method:

The major drawback is that historical analysis

[is] only a screen tool. A completed, historical aerial

photography study does not define potential CERCLA hazardous waste sites exclusively. As a result,

a significant amount of follow-up work is necessary

to define the true number of potential CERCLA

hazardous waste sites. This additional work includes

screening out obvious non-CERCLA sites, file

search, mapping, cross-referencing other environmental data bases, and offsite reconnaissances.

These subsequent activities are both time and

resource intensive.25

Like all other discovery methods, the HAP

method locates potential sites that may or may not be

true hazardous waste sites. HAP and other methods

nsk~a WmWmug, ~tor,-do~ Wwe Management Division, EPA Region 3, letter to O’rA, Fe~MY 1988,
98 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

will discover sites regardless of their appropriate

cleanup authority. Because of the comprehensive

sweep of an area that is possible using HAP and the

resultant large numbers of discovered potential sites,

its use may require that more resources be devoted

in the field to verify sites than would be necessary

with other methods. One analyst has estimated that

competing the 200 Cities project could add another

30,000 potential sites to CERCLIS, doubling the

inventory. It took EPA, under current policies, 7

years to complete the PAs for 24,185 sites, a task that

was accomplished only because Congress mandated

EPA to do SO by January 1988.

It is important to note that thousands of HAP

discovered sites would not be added to the CERCLIS inventory overnight. They would be added

over 5 to 10 years. Under the current passive site

discovery program, the inventory grows at a rate

of 2,000 sites per year. An active site discovery

program, using HAP and other methods, could at

least double the rate of growth. Thus, EPA could

require twice as many resources as are currently

devoted to preremedial work (about $50 million per

year) to keep up with the discovery rate. However,

some of this need for additional resources could be

offset by adopting a more efficient site evaluation

process (see later discussion and app. 2A).

Other drawbacks of HAP mentioned to OTA

include:

"6

. . . it is only cost effective in highly industrial

areas or areas where many sites are clustered

together. ’26

“EPA has no dedicated resources to verify

critical information such as street addresses for

many of these sites. ’ ’27

The first problem is resolved by carefully selecting

the areas in which to use HAP, such as was done

under the 200 Cities proposal. The second problem

of identification is one aspect of ground proofing

unique to HAP. HAP discovered sites are identified

by map coordinates; sites are listed in CERCLIS by

street address (and assigned code number). Today

off-the-shelf commercial computer programs are

available that will match coordinates (latitude/

longitude) with street addresses.28

Beyond its site discovery capabilities, HAP can

provide additional valuable information, not available from other site discovery methods, that is

pertinent in later stages of site cleanup analysis.

Some of this information is available directly from

the site discovery work, other information can be

provided with additional photo analysis. For instance, U.S. Army documents say that, even in cases

where HAP projects did not locate additional sites,

“the study was very useful in confirming the

existence and a real extent of various potential sites

identified in the initial assessment report."29 

One expert has classified the information about a

landfill derivable from HAP as: 1) existence (i.e., the

location, extent, and possible nature of a landfill), 2)

general or detailed temporal land use and land cover

information, and 3) physical environmental aspects

(i.e., the geology, soils, and surface and subsurface

drainage). The expert says,

In general, [HAP] can provide the most efficient,

complete source of information regarding the physical environment, particularly, in the absence of soil

survey or surficial geology reports.30

The original EPIC inventory done for EPA

Region 3 (as part of the aborted 200 Cities project)

was later used for other projects in the Charleston,

West Virginia, area. For the Kanawha Valley

Integrated Environmental Management Project, the

study provided spatial relationships of potential and

actual hazardous waste sites and of production

facilities to populated areas. In another study on

concentrations of dioxin in fish, the inventory

provided valuable information for developing a

sampling plan of river sediments by pinpointing

areas of high potential sources of contamination.

~B~b~a Mc~ger, EPA Region 2, letter to OTA, January 1988.

27N~~ M. Kumar, EPA Region 4, letter to OTA, May 1988.

‘Mapping Information Systems Corp. (MAPINFO) offers one that covers 330 metropolitan areas.

Z9U.S. ~y Tbxic and Hazardous Materials Agency, “Update of the Initial Installation Assessment of Green River Launch Complex, UT, ” Nov.

12, 1987.

3~rb et al, op. cit., fOOtnOte *3.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 99

Inventories, Lists, and Estimates

Once sites are discovered, the information needs

to be put somewhere. The Superfund CERCLIS

inventory is perceived as the national list, but it is

not. The CERCLIS inventory is, more accurately,

the Superfund remedial list. There is also the

Emergency Response Notification System (ERNS),

the Federal Facilities Hazardous Waste Compliance

Docket, and various inventories associated with

other Federal cleanup programs, such as RCRA

corrective action.

type of inventory

these inventories

pendently of one

with CERCLIS.

n addition, most States have some

many have multiple lists. All of

or lists have been created indeanother and few are compatible

Sometimes a site is included in more than one

inventory. For example, there are Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST), RCRA, and Federal

facility sites in CERCLIS. But, not all RCRA,

LUST, and Federal facility sites are in CERCLIS.

While all known potential Federal sites are included

in the Federal docket, EPA does not have, as yet, an

operational RCRA correction action database and

has no plans to create a national LUST inventory.

National Lists

CERCLIS was originally created by combining

three separate databases (13,392 sites) in 1982 and

a group of sites reported by States in 1983 that

brought the total to over 15,000 sites .31 This list now

grows at a steady rate of about 2,000 sites per year

(see figure 1-1 in ch. 1) despite the lack of an active

national discovery program or any consistency on

how and when reporting occurs.

To be evaluated by the Federal Superfund program, a site is supposed to be placed in CERCLIS.32

Actual site entry into CERCLIS is the responsibility

of EPA regional offices. But, how the information

flows to that point is dependent on who discovers the

information and how it is reported. There is no

national criteria or guidance on the timeliness of

entering a site into CERCLIS or if any prescreening should take place. The Booz-Allen/EPA report

on site discovery identified a number of States (e.g.,

California, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, West Virginia,

and New Jersey) that prescreen sites prior to turning

them over to EPA for placement in CERCLIS.

GAO investigations of just five States in 1985

showed that 837 sites on State lists were not in

CERCLIS. By 1988, a followup report confirmed

that 494 of those 837 were still not in CERCLIS.33

States do not report all potential sites for various

reasons, Some States claim that not reporting sites to

CERCLIS gives them an edge in negotiating to get

potentially responsible parties to clean up sites.

Sometimes States do not report sites they feel will

never qualify for the NPL, Florida, according to the

Booz-Allen/EPA report, ‘‘only adds sites to CERCLIS if the State believes that the site will require [a

Site Inspection]."34 California, according to the

same report, only submits those sites ‘‘it wants to

address through a CERCLA cooperative agreement. ’35

Lack of listing guidance has backfired in a way

probably not intended by Congress when it mandated (through SARA in 1986) schedules for the

preremedial process. EPA subsequently added a

policy that all sites must have a PA within a year of

entry into CERCLIS. The nature of CERCLIS as a

list of all reported potential sites is changing. Sites

are now sometimes held outside of CERCLIS until

regions have some confidence that resources are

available for a PA within a year. An example is the

EPA decision to move some 3,000 potential RCRA

corrective action sites through the Superfund PA/SI

process. Since this move requires the entry of

thousands of sites into CERCLIS, the sites are being

31CER~IS Ww C~I~ ERRIS ~tll the mid- 1980s. h be law few years. CERCLIS has become much more than simply an lnvento~ of polentld

Superfund sites. It is now THE database of the Superfund program and contains the data for tracking NPL and non-NPL sites through the program.

32Convenuon~ ~sdom is hat a ~1~ ~~ & ~ CERCL]S ~ move In[~ AC Supe-d program. This is not necessarily wue, [n 1984 EPA identifial

19 California sites that had been submitted directty for HRS evaluation without having been placed in CERCLIS. [U.S. Env]ronmcnul ProtectIon

Agency, “Extent of the Hazardous Release Problem and Future Funding Needs, CERCLA Section 301(a)(l)(C) Study, ” December 1984, p 4-.?, ) Also,

in an analysis of the time it took to move a set of sites from discovery to proposal for the NPL in June 1988, OTA could not find about a dozen of the

NPL sites in CERCLIS.

33u, s. Ge~r~ ~omting Office, t?%A’s Inven[oq of Poterrrrd Hazardous Waste Sites IS l?t@?@ete, Op. cit.. foomole 3; ad s~efluti Exteti of

Nanon’s Potennal Hazardom Waste Problem Still Unknown, op. cit., fcmtnotc 12.

34u.s. Environmen~ Protection Agency, ‘‘CERCLA Site Discovery Program Evaluation, ’ op. cit., footnote 15, p. 5.

Js[bid., p. 10,
100 ● Coming Clean: Super-fund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

phased in to relieve the pressure caused by the

one-year policy. Thus, RCRA sites are being

prescreened prior to entry; high priority sites were

scheduled to be entered in fiscal year 1989 and

medium and low priority sites in fiscal years 1990

and 1991.36 This cautious approach to CERCLIS

entry appears to duplicate workload; one outcome of

the PA done once a site is in CERCLIS is to give

sites priority labels. In another example, an inventory of potential sites was discovered through

historical aerial photography and given to EPA

Region 3 in 1987. As of April 1989, the data was still

being held outside of CERCLIS until it can be

prescreened prior to entry. Again, the bureaucratic

reason is to avoid creating a workload for which

there are no resources within the required one-year

timeline.

Holding sites outside of CERCLIS has several

effects. From a management perspective, it helps

meet SARA targets and conserves existing resources. If, however, the preremedial program has

more work than it can handle, which is justified

environmentally, another approach is for EPA to ask

Congress for an increase in funding. Otherwise, the

practice of circumventing congressional intent of

speedy PAs serves to avoid rather than solve

potential problems. The practice devalues CERCLIS

as a timely inventory and source of knowledge of the

national extent of the problem. Delays in entry will

artificially cause the growth of CERCLIS to

decline, falsely implying that site discovery has

peaked.

Other Lists or Estimates

CERCLIS is the largest single Federal inventory,

but it is not the only source of potential Superfund

sites. Other Federal and State inventories, lists, or

estimates include:

● Federal Facilities Hazardous Waste Compliance Docket. The docket lists Federal facilities

or sites that may require cleanup. Reporting is

required under CERCLA every 6 months.

Reporting is on a facilities basis (except for

sites belonging to the Department of the

Interior (DOI)); each listed facility may have

●

●

●

●

one, a few, or hundreds of sites. The Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Rocky Mountain

Arsenal, for instance, has 165 sites, As of

November 1988, the last update, the docket

contains 1,170 facilities; 115 sites are on the

NPL.

GAO Review of Civilian Agencies. This September 1986 report reviewed agency data and

identified 1,882 potential sites (excluding some

7,000 sites believed to be DOD’s responsibility). The study implies that over half of the

civilian agency sites (about 1,000) will need

some cleanup.37

Individual Agency Estimates. Federal agencies are required to report to Congress annually

(under CERCLA) on the status of their cleanup

programs. Data from those reports is more

recent than the GAO report data. In fiscal year

1988 reports DOD listed 8,139 sites; DOE,

1,700 sites; and DOI 254.

RCRA Corrective Action. A formal national

inventory does not yet exist. There may be

anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 RCRA sites

requiring some kind of cleanup; differing

estimates depend on the counting scheme. A

1989 EPA document accounts for 5,081 known

RCRA facilities. Using a 1987 GAO estimate,

at least one unit in 52 percent of the facilities,

or 2,626 facilities, will need remediation. In

November 1988, EPA estimated that 29 percent

of 80,000 units in RCRA facilities, or 23,066

units, will need to be cleaned up. A unit (called

a Solid Waste Management Unit in regulatory

jargon) can range from a small tank to a large

landfill. Another EPA document says that close

to 5,000 closing RCRA facilities are potential

sites. None of the above accounts for the

thousands of municipal landfills that may

require cleanup and for which there is no

national listing.

Mining Sites. The DOI’S Abandoned Mine

Lands Remediation Program has not inventoried noncoal mines needing cleanup. GAO

estimated in 1987 that there could be 22,339

hazardous waste sites at mines and processing

facilities, over 90 percent of them located at

WJ.S. ~vlro~cn~ pro~tim Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, ‘‘Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1988. ’ EPA/68-01-7X9,

November 1989, p, 31. The sites scheduled for entry and PAs in fiscxd year 1989 had not been entered by July 1989.

37u,s, Ge~r~ ~cowting Office, SWe~& clvll~n Federal Agencies Slow to C!e~ w H~~do~ Wrote, GA OIRCED-87-15.3 (Gaithemburg,

MD: U.S. General Accounting Office, July 1987).
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 101

closed or abandoned mines.38 Of the 24 sites in

the Uranium Mill Tailings remediation program, 22 have yet to be cleaned up.

. Leaking Underground Storage Tanks. The

estimated number of potential leaking underground storage tanks ranges from 300,000 to

400,000. Discovery and development of inventories has been left to State programs. (When

writing Underground Storage Tank regulations, EPA rejected a suggestion that active

discovery be required.)

. Asbestos Abatement. EPA has estimated that

over 44,000 public schools contain asbestos

that may need attention. Between 300,000 and

700,000 public and commercial buildings have

asbestos that may have to be removed. This

hazardous material gets deposited primarily in

municipal landfills (see ch. 4).

● State Lists. Many States have inventories;

usually a State list (or lists) contains more sites

than the number of that State’s sites in CERCLIS. The results of an Association of State

and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO) survey taken in July 1986

reported a total of 31,910 confirmed and

suspected sites in 45 States and Puerto Rico.39

This number compares with 24,544 sites listed

in CERCLIS, as of October 1986, for those

same States and Puerto Rico. If the same

State/CERCLIS ratio holds today, States have

over 40,000 sites inventoried. State inventories

vary widely in content (types of sites listed), in

knowledge level on sites (confirmed or only

suspected problems), and whether or not they

include sites that are also in CERCLIS.

It does not have to be this way. New Jersey has

recognized that because of multiple and incompatible lists, “the actual number of sites requiring

remediation [by the State] is unknown."40 As part of

a new strategy to coordinate various State cleanup

programs, a computer database-a Comprehensive

Site List—has been established. Data input will be

done by and be accessible to individual programs.

The central database replaces individual program

inventories that caused overlap or duplicate counting and collection of data.

SITE EVALUATION

Site evaluation in the Superfund program starts

with a preliminary assessment (PA) and doesn‘t

really end until a remedial investigation/feasibility

study (RIFS) has been completed. (But, to some

extent, site evaluation continues through remedial

design and implementation, especially for complex

sites, ) This section reviews the conduct, status, and

outcomes of preremedial Superfund site evaluations; the PA and site inspection (SI) stages and the

use of the Hazard Ranking System (HRS) to score

sites for the NPL on/off decision. Along the way

from a PA to scoring, the majority of sites in

CERCLIS get rejected; only 10 percent make the

NPL. Those few sites, however, are not the only ones

that pose threats to public health and the environment. They are also not necessarily the worst sites .41

OTA has estimated that from 240 to 2,000 sites may

have missed being placed on the NFL because of

false decisions made during preremedial screening.

Environmental Fulcrum Shift

The goal of preremedial site evaluation has

always been—and still is—to ultimately decide

which sites belong in the Superfund program. Over

time, early decisionmaking has shifted from an

environmental bias (’‘Does the site need cleanup’?’

to a management bias (’Will the site qualify for the

NPL?"). A site no longer moves beyond the first

screening step unless a case can be made that it may

warrant Federal attention (i.e., has a probable HRS

score of at least 28.50). A PA no longer simply

determines whether or not a site is a threat or not.

The shift, part of the narrowing of Superfund

discussed in chapter 4, has occurred quietly without

any public discussion. There has been little public

notice of the shift because the public doesn’t pay

much attention to preremedial activities and

because public statements by EPA imply that

J81bid,, p. 16.

J$’A~lafiOn of State and ~rnton~ Solid Waste M~agcment offi~la]>, ‘ ‘State Programs for Hazardous Waste Site ASwswllcn[\ wd Rcmedlal

Actions, ” June 1987, p. 1.

40 New Jcr~y &p~Cn[ of Eirvironmental ~o~tlon, “Case Managcmcnt Strategy Manual, ” draf[, May 1989.

41~e km ~or~f ~tfe~ Is rwcly &fined, [t cm mem a ~mpllcat~ Sl[e, a si[e hat IS expensive to clean up, or one that poses high nks to the s~o~~n~

camnumty. It could also mean a s]te that poses current risks as opposed [u a wte that only poses potenwd future risks.
102 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

nothing has changed. The shift may have been

occurring before SARA was passed in 1986 but was

certainly enhanced by congressionally mandated

activity levels for site evaluation.

The management bias means that the Superfund

program has fewer sites to deal with not only during

the preremedial process but in all following stages of

Superfund. The shift saves money for the Superfund

program and makes it easier for EPA to meet targets

mandated by SARA. In 1988, EPA stated:

A key management initiative in fiscal year 1987

was a strategy designed to expedite the pre-remedial

process by focusing attention on early decisions to

ensure that fewer low priority sites reach the

resource-intensive stages of the pre-remedial process

[emphasis added] .42

The environmental consequence is that, as the

kinds and numbers of sites rejected early by EPA

grows, increasing numbers of those sites probably truly need attention. The earlier they are

rejected, the less anyone will know about them. If

ignored, the future costs of cleaning up those that do

need cleanup will probably be greater than they

would be today and, in the interim, protection of

public health and the environment has been reduced.

The Superfund site evaluation process is what the

health care field calls screening. Screening generates

two kinds of correct (true) and incorrect (false)

outcomes. True positive and true negative decisions

are the desired information. But, there is always a

probability of making false positive and false

negative decisions. For Superfund and in a strict

environmental sense, false positive sites are those

that do not pose a threat but are judged to be threats.

False negative sites are sites that are a threat but are

judged not to be.43 EPA worries more about whether

a site is judged a problem, when it is not, than

whether a site is judged not a problem, when it is.

False positives mean that money is spent unnecessarily in site analysis. False negatives may cause

harm to human health and the environment until

sites eventually resurface for attention, and then

cleanup costs will be higher. False negatives also

can downplay the extent of the cleanup problem to

Congress and the public by underestimating the

number of sites requiring cleanup.

Screening in Superfund is done in a series: PA, SI,

HRS scoring, RIFS. Series processes tend to generate more false negatives than false positives (see

app. 2A). Despite this inherent bias in the Superfund

process, EPA assumes that false negative outcomes

are minimal. EPA has never assessed the 8-year

universe of rejects from its process to determine

how well it performs, environmentally. On the

other hand, EPA has spent time and effort to assure

the lowest possible numbers of false positive outcomes.

A Better Environmental Priorities Initiative

EPA’s Environmental Priorities Initiative (EPI) is

a minor adjustment in the Superfund site evaluation

process, It is a good example of a move by EPA to

integrate two cleanup programs (see ch. 4). EPI does

not appear to have the environmental significance

that its name implies or EPA claims, however. But,

a broader initiative with true environmental focus

could have.

As it now stands, EPI partially integrates the

RCRA and Superfund programs by evaluating under

the existing Superfund preremedial system those

sites covered by either program. At a point during

the SI stage, a management decision is made about

whether Superfund or RCRA has responsibility for

a site.

In combination with a national site discovery

program, this kind of integration could encompass

all cleanup programs. To regain art environmental

focus, the PA would need to be returned to its

original threat/no threat role and sites would be kept

in the system until a case could be made that a threat

does not exist. At the decision point, sequential

decisions would be made: Is it a threat or not? If not,

a site would be tagged no further action (NFA). If

yes, which program has the authority to act? Then,

a formal notification would send the site to the

proper authority and the appropriate indication

would be entered into the CERCLIS database so that

tracking would be feasible.

42u.s. ~vlromen~ ~ot~[ion Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, ‘‘Superfund AdvisoV, Winter 1988. P. 1.

431f & intmt IS m find NIL sites, hen fatse negatives are sites that qualify for the NPL but haw ~n rcjwti.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evacuation . 103

Just where the environmental/management decision point should be assigned is a key element of a

better EPI. What may be required is to throw out the

PA/SI concept, to view site evaluation as a continuum rather than two distinct steps. Instead of a

system that says that at a specific point sufficient

information is always available to make a binary

decision, a better system could be built around the

principle that when enough information is available

a decision will be made. Unlike the current Superfund evaluation process, this system would require

the development and use of experts as decisionmakers.

State programs, if they had sufficient resources to

do so, might be inclined to make better judgments

about whether a site is a threat or not. States, unlike

EPA, have no one to defer sites to. If a site is a

problem and does not qualify for the Superfund

program, the State itself will eventually clean it up.

The Changing PA

It is primarily at the PA stage and to some degree

at the SI stage where the environment-tomanagement shift has occurred in the Superfund

program. The change has crept in with changes in the

definition of a PA and its outcome and with the use

of the HRS to prescore a site. That a change has

occurred is obvious by the change in the language

used to tag a site that is rejected during the

preremedial process (see box 2-C). No longer does

a PA simply say whether or not a problem potentially exists, leaving it up to the more extensive

information of the SI stage to make a judgment about

NPL qualification. The PA now concludes whether

or not a site may qualify for the NPL. With little

change in the information available, EPA has cast

the PA in a new role for which it is inappropriate.

According to the 1982 National Contingency Plan

(NCP), the PA originally was a method for the

removal program to assess whether: 1 ) no threat was

present at a site, 2) a threat required immediate

attention, or 2) a potential threat should be turned

over to the remedial program. This concept is similar

to that in the medical field where a process called

triage separates patients into three categories: no

attention, immediate attention, and later attention.

Box 2-C—From NFA to NFRAP

Concurrent with the changes in the PA have been

changes in the nomenclature for sites rejected by the

preremedial process. The original no further action

(NFA) was changed around 1986 to no further

remedial action planned (NFRAP).

An NFA had an environmental meaning: no

threat was present at the site. The current NFRAP is

more a policy statement and can mean, according to

a 1988 EPA documental

1. sites that never received CERCLA hazardous

substances;

2. sites where the CERCLA hazardous substances are clearly not releasing, and have no

potential to release, into the environment and

no removal action is required;

3. sites where EPA is not legally authorized to

respond to the release; and

4. sites with no reasonable potential to score

28.5 or higher upon application of the current

HRS at the end of an SI.

EPA further explained in another 1988 document: “Note that the NFRAP designation does not

mean that there are no environmental hazards at the

site. There may be hazards but these hazards may

not be of sufficient magnitude for NPL listing

purposes."2 A 1989 EPA document is more succinct; it defines NFRAP as “those sites with no

reasonable potential to score above the HRS

cutoff. ‘‘3

lu.s# ~vuonmcntd protection Agcmy, Office of Solid Wawe and

Emugulcy R=%== ‘ ‘*l- Asaessanem GuI-, Fiscal Year

1988,” directive 9345.0-01, January 1988.

2U,5. ~~MI protection Agcmcy, Office of Solid Waste ad

~=yk3$p01MC, “P’rc-RcmcdialS matcgyfor hnplemen ting SARA,”

dimctivo934S.2-01, Feb. 12q 1988, p. 5.

3U,5. fi”’~Pnwctiori Agcwy, Offkc of Solid Waste ad

Emergency Rcqonsc, “RcgionaJ h-remedial P!wgrarn objectives for

FY 89 and FiiQtmta of FY 90,” dinxtive 9345.242, Mar. 10, 1989,

p. 3.

By 1985, the PA had become the province of the

remedial program, but the triage concept remained.

That year the NCP listed three purposes of a PA: 1)

to eliminate nonthreatening sites from further consideration [no attention], 2) to determine any potential need for removal action [immediate attention],

and 3) to establish priorities among sites requiring

Site Inspections (SIs) [later attention].44

4450 F~r~ Re~ster 47972, NOV. 20, 1985
✑✐✔ ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved ., .

As late as April 1987, the PA still retained the

triage concept. EPA stated in a training manual then

in use:

A PA is not intended to give a full or complete

picture of a site and its associated problems. A PA is

by design, a relatively quick, low-cost review of

relevant available data to determine whether the site

potentially poses a problem and, if so, what type of

follow-up work should be undertaken to further

assess the site.45

And, in public documents, EPA said that an SI

proceeded ‘‘if a preliminary assessment turns up

evidence that a site may pose a threat . . .‘ ’46

Thus, the official use of the PA has been to

determine whether a site needs emergency attention,

whether it should move on to the second screening

step (an SI), or whether it is dropped from further

consideration because the site does not pose a

problem. In a 1984 report to Congress, EPA defined

sites rejected by the PA—no further action sites—as

sites that ‘‘pose no threat to public health or the

environment, and thus warrant no further investigation or remediation. ’47 Examples of such sites are

sites reported to the CERCLIS that do not actually

exist, have already been identified under a different

name, and demonstrably contain no hazardous

substances. Dropping such narrowly defined types

of sites early is environmentally appropriate and

cost-effective.

Under December 1988 proposed rules for the

NCP, the PA appears to be unchanged, except that,

in the preamble and a section called ‘‘Point of

Clarification, ’ EPA is explicit about the entire

preremedial process being one to determine whether

or not sites ‘‘warrant remedial action, ” The phrase

‘‘warrant remedial action’ clearly means whether or

not a site qualifies for the NPL, whether it will attain

an HRS score of 28.50 or greater and will not be

deferred to another authority (e.g., is not a RCRA

site). No longer is a potential threat sufficient cause

to keep a site in the evaluation process. Only if a site

shows evidence of a significant threat may it move

to the SI stage of site evaluation, according to the

proposed NCP.

Today’s PA (and SI) appear to be the result of

studies such as one done for EPA in 1987 by

Ecology & Environment, Inc. The study, “Workload and Resource Requirements for Preliminary

Assessments, Site Inspections, and Hazard Ranking

System Evaluations Under SARA,” was funded by

EPA after SARA mandated EPA to meet specific

target dates and objectives.48 This document, like

other similar EPA documents, does not discuss or

mention the possible environmental effects of changing the preremedial process.

At the time that such internal EPA documents

were changing the concept of the PA, public

statements were projecting the original environmental image of a PA (and SI). EPA told Congress

in 1988 that the information collected for a PA:

. . . is then evaluated to determine whether the site

has handled hazardous substances and if those

substances have the potential to affect human health

or the environment . . . If a PA indicates that there

may be a release of hazardous substances that may

threaten human health or the environment, EPA then

recommends a site inspection (SI) to better understand the problem. On completion of the SI, if the site

still poses a potential threat, it is scored . , .

[emphasis added] .49

Compare the above “potential to affect human

health or the environment’ determination that keeps

a site in the screening system with a March 1989

directive to EPA regional offices that says, at the end

of a PA (and a screening SI), sites ‘ ‘with no

reasonable potential to score above the HRS cutoff

will be rejected from the system.50

45u,s, fivlromen~ ~o~um Agency, H~~doussite Ev~uation Division, ‘‘sup-f~d pA/sJ Tr~ning COUW, ‘ s~tion 1,], undat~ but USCXJ

in training sessions on Apr. 22-24, 1987.

‘

i

’’ Steps in Cleaning Up a Superfund Site, ” EPA Journuf, January/February 1987, p. 17.

4TU.S. fivirolnen@ pro~tion Agency, Office of Emergency and Remedird Res@nse. ‘‘The Effectiveness of the Superfund Rogram-CERCLA

Section 301(a)(l)(A) Study, ” December 1984, p. 1-9.

48s= SARA Sections 105 and 116.

49 LJ,s, Environrnent~ protection Agency, ‘‘ Superfund Advisory, ’ op. cil., fOOtMMe 42. pp. 5-6.

SOU.S. fiviromen(~ Pmtectim Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency ResinSe, ‘‘Regional Pm-remedial program Objectives for Fiscal

Year 1989 and First Quarter of FY90,” chrecuve 9345.2-02, Mar. 10, 1989, p. 3,
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 105

HRS Prescoring

The Hazard Ranking System (HRS) was designed

to score a site with data collected from the SI stage

of the preremedial process; the score is used to make

the on/off NPL site decision. Even this documented,

quality assured set of information does not (and was

never intended to) fully characterize a site and the

risks it poses. That occurs later during a Remedial

Investigation (RI).

Now, EPA has moved the HRS up to the PA stage.

The HRS is being used to prescore (or, estimate the

HRS score for) a site when most of the available

information comes from existing records. There is

no site sampling done for a PA. EPA has defined two

types of prescores. A preliminary HRS score is a

minimum value; missing data is assigned a zero. A

projected score is a possible score with missing data

estimated by the evaluator. The PA guidance document says that the prescore will “be used to assign

a priority to the site for an SI or to eliminate the site

from CERCLA remedial activity. ”5l Clearly, the

PA has changed from being a threat/no threat

decision to being a method to eliminate sites as

early as possible from the Superfund program.

To make the ruling of significant threat to move

a site from a PA to an SI, agencies conducting the PA

have been told, through the proposed NCP, that they

‘‘may use a combination of a preliminary HRS score

and best professional judgment. The latter tool—

professional judgment—is, however, only to be a

supplement ‘‘to the preliminary score in making

decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next

phase of evaluation. ”5z EPA’s Preliminary Assessment Guidance Fiscal Year 1988 requires the use of

preliminary and projected HRS scores as a basis for

site decisions. Thus, the NCP proposal is not only

codifying the use of prescoring but appears to be

making it more difficult than does the guidance to

move a site forward.

Adding a quantitative measure and, perhaps,

professional judgment to the PA evaluation appears

to be a step toward objectivity. And, EPA is

designing a computer program to standardize and

reduce the workload. However, the numerical outcome of the HRS--even when used after an SI—is

based on subjective decisions, and because the

information available at the PA stage is the poorest,

the HRS prescore is most uncertain. Since the PA

relies on existing information, evidence of contamination may not be uncovered without sampling,

which does not occur until an SIq.53 Confirming this,

a memorandum from two EPA officials said: ‘‘Often

it is difficult at the PA stage to recommend no further

action without field visits and sampling. ’54 PA data

collections and evaluations are done by entry-level

employees, adding uncertainty both in the application of the HRS and the use of professional

judgment.

Another point is that getting HRS scores high

enough to qualify for the NPL is sometimes an art.

It is not an uncommon practice to recalculate HRS

scores repeatedly until a sufficiently high score is

obtained so that a decision can be made to proceed

with formal scoring.55 One regional official told

OTA that it is “always possible” to get the crew to

go back to the site and get more information to raise

the score. This is an overstatement because scores

from repeated attempts would eventually approach

a ceiling. However, the practice points out that the

51 us, EnvU~~ent~ %o~tion Agency, Office of Energency and Rcmedial Response, Prehrruna~ Assessment Guidime ~L\( df ~k~ 19~~,

Dir(xtIve 9345.0-01, January 1988, p. 14.

SZS3 F&r~ Register 51394, N. 21, 1988, p. 51413.

Sqsmpllng Is not ~ways done fm ~ SI el~er. ~ EPA InspWtor General report cited several instances where samphng dld not occur In onc au~t

of State work that had not received adequate Region oversight, the [G sad, ‘ ‘The most common deficiency was the fadure m perform the necessary

sampling during the S1 process. [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Capping Report on EPA, Office of the Inspector General Audits of

Superfimd Cooperative Agrwments for Fiscal Years 1985 through 1987, ” Mar. 29, 1988.] Also an EPA contractor stud> found that samplmg was not

done and no pre-existing analytical data was available for 22 percent of 212 sites that had received SIS. [U.S. Envlronnlenml F’rotcctmn Agency,

“preliminary Assessment and Site Inspection Program Quality Assurance Review, ” draft, Sept. 11, 1987. ]

54 LJ.s. Envumrnema] Protection Agency, “Guldarrce on Prellminq Assessments and Site Inspections Under CERCLA, ’. draft. no date, sent to the

all EPA Regions on Sept. 8, 1987, by Gene Lucero (Office of Waste programs Enforcement) and Henry bngest (Office of Emergency and Remcxhal

Rcqxmse), p. 10. In the past, sne visits were not an official part of a PA. Now, they might occur. Under the proposed NCP: “A PA shall . mcludc

an off-site ruorumssance as appropriate. A PA may Include an on-s]tc reconmssance where appropriate. [53 Federal Register 51502, Dec. 21, 198X ]

s5An EpA ~SWtor (jener~ rewfl &L~ M~~h 1 ~~~ doc~len(~ ~Veral examples, s~le progr~ officl~s ~so gave OT’,4 numerous f2X&UT@tX Of’

multiple sampling to finally obtain the necessary data. For instance, W}lliam De Vine, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, swd that m was

sampled numerous umes al the Dutchtown site m Lows]ana before a rclcasc could be documented.
106 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

aggressiveness with which information is collected

and the comprehensiveness of the information affects the ultimate HRS score. Using an HRS

prescore before most of the information is collected

can prematurely bias the ultimate fate of a site.

This is not to say that prescoring does not have

value during a PA. As a tool, it can help focus future

data collection and sampling efforts. For example, if

prescoring indicates that no information is known

about contaminant migration paths, the SI can be

designed to look specifically for them. EPA’s

contractor in Region 5 has been using prescoring

expressly for this purpose since mid-1984. Prescoring can also be used as an indicator of environmental

threat to help decide which sites with PAs should get

SIs first,

What prescoring cannot do is make a definitive

determination of the possible environmental

threat of a site nor does it necessarily forecast a

site’s ability to make the NPL. A preliminary

score, as a minimum score, can tell whether a site

appears to be a significant threat, if the information

is valid. In an environmentally biased system, the

default option would be to always move sites

forward unless a case can be made that a site is

not a threat. That decision would require an HRS

prescore that is maximized and still shows no

threat. 56

Focusing so narrowly and early in the process on

only the data needed for HRS scoring also detracts

from a positive step EPA may be trying to take and

that OTA has suggested as a policy option. That is,

to link the site evaluation process with the RI to

avoid the current duplication of effort that occurs as

sites move from the preremedial to the remedial

phase of evaluation.

Two SIs and a Deferral Point

EPA now has two SIs: a screening SI (SSI) and a

listing SI (LSI). The goal is to flush out Superfund

false positive sites that have managed to get beyond

the PA stage (i.e., have received a high or medium

priority rating when in fact they will not qualify for

a Superfund remedial action). From EPA’s management perspective, there is no point in spending

resources on collecting more data for these sites. If

they need to be cleaned up, Superfund won’t be

doing it.

Introducing a new screening stage does provide an

opportunity to find false positive sites that have

gotten through the previous stage and to prevent

them from moving to a more expensive stage. It also

means that additional false negative decisions will

be made because all screening stages make both

types of false decisions. Under the old one-SI

system, all sites that made it through the PA stage

got a full SI, lessening the chances of making false

negative decisions.

Now, under an SSI all sites get a ‘‘refined” I-IRS

prescore. In conducting an SSI, the ‘‘rigorous ILSI]

data quality objectives (DQOs)” do not have to be

met.57 Thus, like during the PA, the incompleteness

of the data for the prescore may bias the outcome.

Not having to adhere to DQOs, however, saves

resources. Based primarily on the new prescore, sites

with SSIs will either be rejected (get an NFRAP

designation), be recommended for an LSI, or get

deferred to another authority. EPA says that deferral

at this point ‘‘indicates that the site has the potential

to score above the cutoff score for NPL listing but

the release could be more effectively addressed by

another statute or authority. ”58 For now, this is a

CERCLA/RCRA decision point. However, it is

designed to accommodate more extensive deferrals,

if a comprehensive deferral policy is implemented

(see ch. 4).

What Are the Outcomes?

Over the last few years, the budgets for site

evaluation have increased some. For fiscal year

1990, EPA has requested almost $47 million to pay

%~ me of a series of p~rs prepw~ for the Massachusetts Contingency Plan, the question of proper bias was discussed as: ‘‘. whether the

Department should assume, when little information is available, that a substantial hazard exists or whether it should designate a site as a priority disposal

site only when available information indicates a substantial hazardous exists. [’‘Site Classification System, Mussachusefrs Conn”ngency Plan,

Discussion Papers, December 1987.] NW that not included is the Superfund program concept that when httle information exists a site can be classified

as not hazardous.

5TU.S. ~v~omen~ protution Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, “Pre-Remdial Strategy for Implementing SARA,”

Directive 9345.2-01, Feb. 12, 1988, p. 8.

S8U.S. ~vuoment~ protwtion Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, ‘‘Regional Pre-remedial Program Objectives for FY 89

and First Quarter of FY 90, ” Directive 9345,2-02, Mar, 10, 1989, p, 5,
Chapter 2—The Front End of Super fund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 107

contractors for PAs, SIs, and HRS scoring work; in

fiscal year 1987, $34 million was appropriated.59

Still, the annual cost of site evaluation is comparable

to cleaning up one large site, and taking sites from

a PA to the NPL consumes only about 3 percent of

the annual Superfund budget. And, the budget

increases for preremedial work may not be keeping

pace with an increasing effort required.60

At the regional offices, the internal EPA

workforce in terms of numbers of full-time equivalents (FTEs) is very small. It has decreased from a

high of 47 FTEs in fiscal year 1988 to 41 FTEs in

fiscal years 1989 and 1990.61 The near leveling of

PA/SI funding and decrease in staffing may reflect

EPA’s goal to change the process to reduce the

overall workload, i.e., evaluate fewer sites.

Site evaluation is not done by EPA staff. Staff

supervise the work of Field Investigation Team

(FIT) contractors and State government agencies,

whose employees or contractors do site evaluations.

EPA’s FIT contracts have been held throughout the

history of the program by two firms: Ecology &

Environment, Inc., and NUS Corp. The current

contracts run for 5 years from November 1986 to

October 1991 and are valued at $154 million and

$130 million, respectively.

Like the other portions of the Superfund program,

the accomplishments of site evaluation are recorded

as numbers of PAs, SIs, and NPL listings completed

per fiscal year. These numbers are not only used to

show the progress of the program to the outside

world but also internally as regional performance

measures. Table 2-1 shows the numbers from fiscal

years 1980 through 1988.

Additionally, since SARA imposed mandatory

activity levels in 1986, EPA’s performance has been

judged on whether or not those schedules are met.

The first requirement, that PAs be completed for all

sites in CERCLIS as of the date of enactment of

SARA, was met on schedule by January 1988.

Within that same year, however, EPA had stated that

the other deadlines—all necessary SIs and HRS

scores by January 1989 and October 1990-

respectively, could not be met. Actually, EPA

Regions 6 and 10 did complete the SIs on all their

pre-SARA sites by the deadline. Those two regions

had only 6 percent of the total backlog. Thus, 94

percent of the SIs were not done as required by

SARA.

Congress also placed continuing pressure by

saying EPA should complete all necessary HRS

scores within 4 years for sites entered into CERCLIS

after SARA was enacted. EPA told the House

Appropriations Committee in early 1987, that it

would be able to meet that goal.62 Historically, EPA

told the committee, to go from CERCLIS entry

through HRS scoring may take as little as 2 years or

as long as 5 years. The conclusion from an OTA

analysis differs. OTA reviewed all 229 sites proposed for the NPL on June 24, 1988. The average

time from discovery date to proposal was 5.5 years.

For 54 percent of the sites it took 6 to 10 years. While

for 20 percent of the sites it took 3 years to complete

the process, an equal number took 8 years.

The new PA/SSI/LSI/HRS scoring screening will

be more time-consuming than the old PA/SI/HRS

scoring screening was. To shorten the time it takes

to move a site through the process, EPA could

reduce the time a site sits between stages.63

The Persistent SI Backlog—Meeting the initial

SI and HRS deadlines has been impossible due to a

persistent backlog of sites awaiting SIs and an

apparent unwillingness or inability on EPA’s part to

fund SIs at the level needed to resolve the backlog.

Even if full funding were available, a question

remains as to whether or not the technical expertise

S%fi=~ yw IWO rque~ is $1 million more than the estimated budget for fiscal year 1989.

60tiHW ~lam~ hat EPA’s prereme~~ Prmess has chang~ over he put several years and has bexome more time-consuming The effect for

Mimesota is a reduction in the number of sites identified for placement on the NPL. [’ ‘Minnesota pollution con~ol Agency’s Report on the Use of the

Environmcntat Response, Compensation and Compliance Fund During Fiscal Year 1988,” November 1988, p. 4.]

61~ ~mp~Son, at EPA he+u~ers fie Sik Eval~[ion Division of the Office of Emergency and Remediat Response (OERR) has over 30

professional positions in three branches.

624 *A RePfi m tie Commltt= on Approp~ations,us,Hou~~ of Repre~cntafives, on tie Statm of tie Environrnentd Protwtion Agency ‘S Su@hnd

program,” March 1988, Appendix I, p. 31.

63~rd~g m EpA data, tie ~t~~o~t of time to do tie work to complete a pA, S1, and ms Scoring has averagd abut 4 months. Thus, a site

that made it through the process in the average 5.5 years sits around m the pqx4ine for over 5 years.
108 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Table 2-1—Pre-Remedlal Program Accomplishments (numbers of sites)

Fiscal year:

Sites in CERCLIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PA completions’

Fiscal year total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cummulative total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fraction of CERCLIS with PAs . . . . . . . . .

SI completions’

Fiscal year total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cumulative total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fraction of SIs required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Number of SIs requiredb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SI backlogb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Percent of sites with PAs

that require Slsb c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1980

8,000

1981

10,500

1982

13,386

1983

16,309

1984

18,884

1985 1986 1987

22,621 25,194 27,571

1988

29,987

2,204

2,204

0.276

1,072

3,276

0.312

1,209

4,485

0.335

1,809

6,294

0.386

4,447

10,741

0.569

5,181 4,262 4,001

15,922 20,184 24,185

0.704 0.801 0.877

2,953

26,913

0.897

613

613

0.348

1,761

1.148

428

1,041

0.397

2,622

1,581

566

1,607

0.448

3,587

1,980

642

2,249

0.447

5,031

2,782

1,308

3,557

0.414

8,592

5,035

1,618 1,267 1,343

5,175 6,442 7,785

0.406 0.399 0.402

12,746 16,145 19,366

7,571 9,703 11,581

1,258

9,048

0.562

16,100

7,052

80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 60

a~l sfles in CERCLIS must have PA; Sites with NFA after PA do not get an S1

hkulated by OTA from EPA data in rows above

Wne explanation fort ha same, constant percent over 7 years and a reduced percent for FY88 is that the EPA numbers for S1s were generated using 80 percent

FY80-87 and 60 percent In FY88.

SOURCE: offim of Technology Assessment, 1989; using EPA data.

would be available, as well.64 The situation is

compounded by the fact that EPA is already over one

year behind the SARA date of April 1988 in

finishing the development of the new HRS.65 The

scope of the HRS determines the data collection

needs for the SI, and although sites scored prior to

the availability of the new HRS do not have to be

rescored using the new HRS, there will have to be a

phase-in period.

So far, the program has cumulatively completed

56 percent of the SIs necessary. That rate jumped

from 40 percent at the end of 1987 because of a PA

reassessment conducted in 1988 during which some

3,000 sites were reclassified as not requiring SIs (see

later discussion).67 Before the reassessment, EPA

had over 11,500 sites awaiting SIs; that is, almost

4,000 more sites awaiting SIs than had been

completed in the previous 8 years of the program!

Now, there may be over 7,000 sites in the SI

backlog. And, it may start growing again because

EPA’s projections for SIs do not appear to take the

backlog into account. For fiscal years 1989 and

1990, EPA expects to complete 1,325 SIs each

year.

68 At that rate, if 1,600 SIs are required a year,

EPA will be adding 275 sites to the backlog each

year. If EPA is estimating that only 66 percent of

sites with PAs will require SIs, the backlog will

persist at the current level. Even if only 50 percent

of the incoming sites per year require SIs, only 325

of the backlogged SIs could be done each year.69At

Since the CERCLIS list grows at a rate of about

2,000 sites per year, EPA must complete about 2,000

PAs per year to comply with its own policy of

completing PAs within one year of CERCLIS

entry. 66 EPA’s performance, budgets, and projections clearly show that it can complete those PAs.

Historically, the program has rejected 20 percent of

the sites for which PAs are completed, Thus, 80

percent of all PAs have needed SIs. To keep up, EPA

should have been doing about 1,600 SIs (80 percent

of 2,000) per year. Only in 1985 has this happened

(see table 2-l).

*- ~T ~n~X~r in Re@on 5 estimated in 1987 tiat m additional 2(N techmcxd staff (tripling their staff level at that time) would & n~ed to

get the S1s required by SARA done in time. [Ecology & Environment, Inc., 4 ‘Analysis of and Solutions to Problems Related to the Completion of the

SARA Man&red Site Inspection Goal, ” Jan. 26, 1987. ]

tiRu16 W- prom December 1988; final rules are expected in February 1990.

%ongress, through SARA, has required EPA to complete a PA petition (a citizen’s request for a PA) within one year. EPA has made that one-yew

rule a policy for afl PAs.

67As @le 2.1 shows, he reassessment also reduced the cumulative percentage of sites rquiring S1s from 80 to 60 percent of PAs completed

‘U.S. Env ironrnental Protection Agency, ‘‘Justification of Appropnaiions Estimates for Committee on Appropriations, Fiscal Year 1990, ” Other,

internal EPA documents show the fiscal year 1990 S1 target to be 1,250 sites.

%PA’s workload report calculated that 1,211 S1s would have to be done each year to meet SARA’s requirement of 5 years. This assumes that only

60 percent of the sites with PAs—instead of the historical 80 percent-would need S1s.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 109

that rate, it would take 21 years to eliminate the

backlog.

The reality is that to eliminate the SI backlog in,

say, 5 years while handling the normal flow of

required SIs from the PA stage, EPA needs sufficient

resources to complete about 3,000 SIs per year.

Assuming that no cost efficiencies could be found in

conducting SIs, doubling the number of SIs per year

amounts to a doubling of the current SI funding level

to over $70 million per year for 5 years.

If Not By Adding Resources, How?—Not having

asked for or been given budget levels and staffing to

rapidly reduce the SI backlog, EPA is trying to

manage away the problem of a mismatch between

the numbers of sites to evaluate and schedules

imposed by Congress.

70 EPA says it has developed

a strategy that “reduces the overall pre-remedial

workload while increasing resources available for

the highest priority sites. ”71 The PA/SI process

outlined in the proposed NCP is the result of this

strategy. Figure 2-2 is OTA’s version of the new

flow for site evaluations.

The necessary program changes are, according to

EPA’s preremedial strategy document, to:

1. More effectively screening out sites that do not

require SI through improved PA procedures.

2. Adjusting the way we conduct SIs so that we are

more efficient in applying resources appropriately.

3. Increasing the resources available to do PAs, SIs,

and HRS scoring packages .72

The first change, ‘‘improved PA procedures, ’ has

been made by changing the criteria for rejecting sites

at the PA stage, and the second change, ‘‘adjusting

. . . S1s,’ ‘ means splitting the SI into two stages.

While the third change, ‘‘increasing. . . resources,”

implies increased budgets (and they have been

increased), according to the preremedial strategy

document, EPA planned to reduce FIT contractors’

overhead by 10 percent and to ‘‘exercise future FIT

[contractor levels of effort] options now’ to increase

available funds up to 25 percent, nationally .73 Funds

were also to be made available by discouraging the

use of FIT resources for non-preremedial work.

The EPA analysis assumed that the current levels

of effort allowed for the PAs and SIs were appropriate and that if new work was added, the levels of

effort would have to be increased.74 However, added

workload because of increased pace does not necessarily require increased resources. Efficiencies might

have been found by evaluating the validity of the

established levels of effort for PAs and SIs. One

State official has disputed EPA’s assumption of a

need for increased levels of effort. A bureau chief in

Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources claims that

his staff can complete PAs in about 40 (instead of

100) hours and SIs in 240 (instead of 400) hours.

And, EPA could have searched for cost efficiencies

by reconsidering the PA/SI process itself. But that

option might have been foreclosed by SARA, which

by establishing schedules effectively codified the

existing process.

One tactic EPA has employed is a one-shot

attempt at reducing the level of need for SIs. To cut

down the SI backlog, EPA had the regions

retroactively apply the new PA-to-SI rules to sites

that had already received PAs. Many of those sites

had been evaluated in the days when the PA decision

was a threat/no threat decision. In 1987, EPA

identified over 8,000 sites awaiting SIs and in a

serious of documents, asked or required the regions

70~~rding t. he Hou.w ApprOpfi~lO~ cwnxnlttw rcpw cited earlier, in one fiscal year EPA’s rUIUCSt fOr i.ncread funding was denied by the

Office of Management and Budget.

71U.S. Environrnent~ Protection Agency, ‘‘Pre-RemediaI Strategy for Implementing SARA, ” op. cit,, footnote 57, p. 3.

721bid., p. 3.

73~s Option ~m suueq~ by EPA’S cm~xt study on workload needs. Although it appears in the EpA’s lamr premm~~ s~ategy docwent, it

was apparently imtially rejected by EPA bemuse ‘‘a shortage of experienced staff exists. IEzology & Environment, inc., ‘‘Workload and Resource

Rqwrements for Preliminary Assessments, Site Inspections, and Hu.ard Rarkng System EvaIuatlons Under SARA, prepard for EPA, October 1987,

p. 21.]

741t is ~lew from comp~ng tie fiolofl & Environment repn for EpA wl~ tie prerem~~ Suategy doc~ent ~a[ EPA relied heavily on Lht?

contractor’s conclusions to make demions about how to fmd the resources with the curretu program to increase the workload
110 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

CERCLIS

(ail sites)

1

1

M H

1 T

NFRAP

Screening

site

Inspection

NFRAP

evaluation

Figure 2-2-Revised EPA Preremedial Process

I I

Other

programs Listing

site

NFRAP

M (medium priority SI) = HRS prescore

indicates potential to

score above 28.50

H (high priority) = HRS prescore

indicates site likely to

score above 28.50

● ✝ same as H

(a) =

(b) =

(c) =

(d) =

(e) =

Initial HRS score >25.0

QA’d initial score <28.50

Region adjusted score >= 28.50

Proposed score >28.50

Final score >= 28.50

Back to region for more/better

data; HRS score adjusted

1 A A

(b) (c)

NFRAP Other Final

programs NPL

site

NFRAP (no further remedial action planned) = sites with no reasonable potential to score above 28.50

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assesment, 1989.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation . 111

to reevaluate these sites.75 In August 1987, for

instance, EPA said:

A new criterion applies to this re-evaluation.

Those sites which do not have a reasonable chance

for scoring high enough to be listed should be rated

as ‘ ‘no further action This differs from the past

tendency to designate ‘‘no further action’ only if

there was no hazard potential. The remaining sites

should be designated as “medium’ or “high’

priority based on their preliminary HRS score.

76

In a later document, EPA said that although the

8,000 sites already had been given low, medium, and

high priority ratings, they must be reassessed

“against the new criteria’ and given NFRAP,

medium priority, or high priority .77 Regions were

given the option of simply reclassifying low priority

sites as NFRAP sites without any reassessment.

The reassessment was highlighted in the OSWER

Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1988 as having been

necessary to ‘‘more accurately assess the future SI

workload. Out of approximately 5,000 low priority

PAs re-evaluated, it was determined, said EPA,

‘‘that no further action was necessary at approximately 3,000 sites, ’ saving ‘‘substantial resources

for use at more serious sites. ’78 What this means is

that the Superfund program is no longer responsible for 3,000 sites. While the Superfund program

may have saved 1.4 million hours of contractor

time by avoiding SIs, someone else (State programs, probably) will have to spend a portion of

that time and the money to discover which sites

are problems.79

False Negatives and Regional Comparability

With SARA, EPA was forced to review the site

evaluation process. As discussed above, the reviews

have all focused on how to match increased workload needs with available resources. There has been

no assessment of the environmental effects of the

process or how a speeded up program might affect

environmental outcomes, In particular, EPA has not

asked the question: How many false negative

decisions are we generating?

In any screening process, some false positive and

false negative decisions are unavoidable but mechanisms can be built in to minimize these errors. (See

OTA’s comparison of the Superfund screening

process to a health care model in appendix 2A.) The

EPA process in use today is biased toward finding

false positives rather than false negatives for two

reasons, First, false positives in any serial screening

process stay in the universe being evaluated, providing further chances to find them. But false negatives

are shunted out of the universe being evaluated and

join true negative sites in a universe that receives

little, if any, attention. Second, EPA tries to minimize false positives to save unnecessary costs to the

trust fund.

No one knows the real frequency of false decisions because EPA has not kept records. But EPA

apparently assumes that false positives exist at a

level that needs to be reduced. One contractor report

for EPA looked at the feasibility of spending more

resources during SIs to reduce the number of false

positives; the issue of false negatives was not

raised. 8o In the 1987 workload report (see above),

false negatives were mentioned once:

T5~m is ~ obvious di=repmcy ~1 we have not tin able to resolve between EPA’s 1987 b~klog number of 8,000 si[es and OTA’S earlier

calculation, based on EPA data (see table 2-1) of over 11300 sites, as of the end of fiscal year 1987. To add to the discrepancy, EPA workload report,

dated October 1987, said that there were 13,719 sites m CERCLIS awaiting S1s. And a 1989 EPA documem says there were 7,150 backlogged S1s as

of October 1988. Since this date is after the PA r easse.wment was completed and 3,000 sites had been eliminated, it implies that 10,150 sites, rather than

8,000 sites awaited S1s.

76u.s. Environmental Prottxtion Agency, ‘‘Attached Dra.fl Pre-Remcdud Strategy for Implementing SARA, ’ memorandum from Stephen A. Lingle,

director, Hazardous Site Evaluation Division, to Superfund Branch Chefs, Regions I-X, Aug. 14, 1987.

77u.s, Environmental protection Agency, “Pre-Remedial Strategy for Implementing SARA, ” op. cit., footnote 57, p. 5.

78us. Environmental protection Agency, “Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1988, ” EPA/68-01-7256,

November 1988, p. 9.

Tg~A’s wmklo~ rem jn 1987 es~at~ ~jt wo~d t*e 20 ho~s to re~ss a site PA versus 500 ho~s to pU_fOml aII S1 for a sltc. Thus, If these

=timates are valid. Supcrfund spent 100,000 hours on 5JXKI reassessments and quatified 2.000 sites for SIS (w~ch will take 1 million hours to do) instead

of spending 2.5 million hours on S1s for all 5,000 sites. [Ecology & Enwronment, Inc., “Workload ~d Resource Requirements for %.)uninq

Assessments, Site Inspections, and Hazard Ranking System Evaluations Under SARA, ’ op. cit., footnote 72, p. 19.1

Mstm ~us (~~ COT.), ‘‘~~ysls of tie ~pWt on Supfid Rogm cow of ~rea Expenditures for Site inspections, &tit, &t. 28,

1986,
112 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

It is assumed that the EPA Regional offices tend

to err on the side of caution, and that the incidence

of false-negatives is rare [emphasis added] .81

Later, in response to congressional questioning,

EPA agreed that there was a statistical possibility of

false negative decisions but, reiterated that they were

minimized by a‘ ‘conservative approach’ to making

NFA decisions. EPA further minimized the impact

of errors by stating that sites are not precluded from

“reentering our system if new information indicates

a mistake was made” earlier.82 This ignores the

possible added costs of getting a site under control

later rather than sooner.

What Is the Rate of False Negatives?

Many people working in EPA and State programs

can provide anecdotal information about false negatives. OTA’s comparison of a common screening

model used in the health care field and Superfund’s

site evaluation process shows the inevitability of

false decisions (see app. 2A). And, OTA’s analysis

of the changes in the preremedial process raises

questions about the potential for making more false

decisions.

While there have been no records kept on false

negatives in Superfund, OTA has found some

information about false negatives in EPA contractor

studies. Using these studies and other information,

OTA has estimated that between 240 and 2,000 false

negative decisions may have been made so far (see

box 2-D).

Evidence From Studies-In a paper assessing

how Region 5 could meet the SARA SI goal by

January 1989, EPA’s FIT contractor tested the

assumption that a PA conclusion is predictive of a

site’s ultimate HRS score. 83 The point of the

exercise was not to calculate false decisions but to

make a case for changing the way SI workloads were

assigned. The PA conclusions (low, medium, high

priorities) for 308 sites were compared with each

site’s eventual HRS score, The correlation was poor

and indicated a problem with both false positives

and false negatives. Only 30 percent of the 104 sites

with a high priority rating after the PA ended up with

an HRS score of at least 28.50. Viewed another way,

70 percent of high priority PAs missed the NPL; the

46 percent (48 sites) that got HRS scores of zero

were clearly false positives at the PA and SI stages

but were eventually caught by HRS scoring.

At the other end of the spectrum, while 57 percent

of the 30 low priority PAs had HRS scores of zero,

10 percent of them received HRS scores higher than

the NPL cutoff of 28.50. These sites managed to

make the NPL because, for some reason, they stayed

in the screening process long enough to be among

the 308 sites that got scored, Under the new

preremedial process, HRS prescores would eliminate them from further consideration at the PA stage.

The study did not consider sites that got dropped out

(NFAs) before being scored.

The same contractor stated, in another study:

‘‘False-negatives are those sites that are erroneously

classified as NFA or low-priority sites after the PA’

[emphasis added].84 This is simply a statement of

general reality in the program at the time, that low

priority sites often did not move beyond the PA

stage. (EPA made this practice explicit policy by

eliminating the low priority category in 1988 and, as

discussed above, suggested to regions that low

priority PAs when reassessed could be simply

designated as NFRAP sites.)

Thus, it is not unreasonable to assume that up

to 10 percent of the sites judged as NFAs, in

addition to low priority sites, might have made

the NPL. With 26,913 PAs completed through fiscal

year 1988 and a historical NFA rate of 20 percent, at

least 538 sites (2 percent of PAs completed) may be

false negatives. This estimate would be higher if data

on low priority PAs were available.

There is other evidence that some NFAs might be

false negatives. A Booz-Allen contract study reSIECO]OU & Environment, he., ‘‘Workload and Resource Reqturements for Preliminary Assessments, Site Inspections, and Hazard Ranking System

Evaluations Under SARA, ” op. cit., foomote 72, p. 18.

82HWX of Represenwtivesl ‘‘preliminary Findings of OTA Report on Superfund, ’ hearing before the Subcommittee on investigations and Oversight

of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation, Apr. 20, 1988, p. 270.

E3~Io0 & Environment, hc., “Analysis of and Solution to Problems Related to the Completion of the SARA Mandated Site Inspection Goal,”

Jan. 26, 1987. The contractor used all HRS packages that it had completed over a 15-month period for which PA priorities were available.

~Eco]oa & Environment, Lnc., ‘‘Workload and Resource Requirements for Preliminary Assessments, Site Inspections, and Hazard Ranking System

Evaluations Under SARA,” op. cit., footnote 72, p. 18.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 113

Box 2-D-How Many False Negative Decisions?

From 240 to 2,000 false negative site decisions may have been made so far in the Superfund program.

OTA used several sources of information to arrive at these estimates. Each source covers a different set of the

Superfund three-stage screening process. Each provides a different estimate. The first two estimates are based on

existing studies which used actual data from the program. The third is a model; the numbers used are similar to the

number of sites that have passed through the screening process. The fourth estimate is based on known errors caught

during the quality assurance for assigning HRS scores to potential NPL sites.

1) A study by an EPA preremedial contractor in Region 5 covered the PA stage only. OTA’S extrapolation from

that study gives an estimate of 538 false negative decisions, or 2 percent of the PAs completed through fiscal year

1988.

2) A study done for EPA by Booz-Allen & Hamilton covered both PA and SI stages. OTA’s use of that study

data provides an estimate of 2,056 false negative decisions for PAs and SIs completed through fiscal year 1988.

3) An OTA comparison of the preremedial process with a health care field screening model covered all three

stages (through the RIFS). The model using conservative assumptions estimates that, for 10,000 sites evaluated (of

which 1,200 are problems and would qualify for the NPL), 240 false negative decisions would be made.

4) OTA review of two different data sets of sites with SIs moving through the HRS scoring phase of evaluation

reveals an 18-20 percent error rate in calculating scores (see pp. 34-36). EPA data implies that, through fiscal year

1988, just over 7,000 sites have received NFAs after an SI. A 5 to 10 percent error rate in underestimating

preliminary HRS scores for these sites would produce 350 to 700 false negatives. This assumes the error rate is lower

or the same for these sites. Actually, the error rate could be higher since the data can be weaker and less attention

may be paid to fine tuning preliminary scorns.

viewed PA and SI files in eight EPA regions to mates of the national count of possible false

assess how well regional work-reflected headquarters guidance.85 In each region, a random set of PA

and SI files was selected for evaluation. As part of

the study, Booz-Allen checked to see if NFAs were

justified by data in the files. In 406 PA files, 19

percent had NFA recommendations, and BoozAllen concluded that 28 percent of those decisions

(22 out of 79) were not supported by PA file

contents. Thus, 5 percent of the PAs completed

may be false negatives. Regionally, the percentage

of possible false negatives, out of PAs completed,

ranged from zero to 16 percent. Out of a total of 212

SIs reviewed, 31 percent of the 49 NFAs, or 8

percent of the SIS completed were possible false

negatives. For SIs the range of possible false

negatives across the regions was larger than that for

PAs; from zero to 30 percent.

If the Booz-Allen data is extrapolated to the total

numbers of Superfund PA and SI decisions, estinegatives can be made. As of the end of fiscal year

1986, the period when the Booz-Allen study ended,

EPA says it had completed 20,184 PAs and 6,442

SIs. Using the Booz-Allen rates, 1,009 PAs and515

SIs could be false negatives. Between then and now,

another 556 false negative decisions may have been

made for a total of 2,056 sites. This does not

necessarily mean that over 2,000 sites might be

added to the NPL but that 2,000 problem sites may

be hidden among the universe of sites rejected by the

Superfund program through fiscal year 1986. Some

of them may qualify for the NPL,

Anecdotal Information-Every region, every

State can provide examples of false conclusions.

Anecdotes, however, are only possible when sites

once judged no problem become evident as problems. In other words, until they resurface, false

negative sites are unknowns. Known turnarounds

include:

~Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc., “U.S. I%vironmental Protection Agency Preliminary Assessment and Site Inspection Program Quality Assurance

Review,” draft, Sept. 11, 1987. The study did not include Regions 4 and 9.
114 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

●

●

●

●

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

provided OTA with a list of 12 sites that had

been tagged after the PA with a low priority or

NFA designation. Two sites (one low priority

and one NFA) are now on the NPL; the balance

are being cleaned up under the State program.

In Region 8, the Martin Marietta (Denver

Aerospace) site had a PA/SI completed early in

the Superfund program that did not involve any

sampling. Contamination was later discovered

when monitoring wells were required under

RCRA. After a second SI was completed, the

site was proposed for the NPL in 1985 with an

HRS score of 46.01.

The California State program told OTA of a San

Diego site that was evaluated using existing

county information and determined to be no

threat. Later, when the property was sold and

construction began, an old incinerator was

found and a cleanup is now required.

In a survey prompted by SARA, EPA regional

staff identified a dozen sites that they felt

should be on the NPL but were not because they

had not qualified.

Why Regional Differences?—The wide variance

in NFA rates by EPA region, reported in various

EPA documents, may indicate that regions get

distinctly different kinds of sites to evaluate. The

wide ranges of unsupported NFAs in the Booz-Allen

study, however, indicate that it is more likely that the

differences are a product of varying regional and

contractor staffing problems and the fact that, until

January 1988 an official PA guidance document did

not exist. (The SI guidance document awaits the new

HRS.) The first directive covering site evaluation

was issued in February 1988, 7 years after the

program began to evaluate sites. The consequence is

that where you live may determine how many sites

are being ignored.

Turnover and lack of skills, as reported in OTA’s

Assessing Contractor Use in Superfund,86 will

certainly decrease the accuracy and reproducibility

of PA, SI, and HRS decisions. A MITRE official, for

instance, told OTA that turnover in the EPA regions

severely affects their ability to assure that properly

trained employees do HRS scoring packages.87

For the first 8 years of Superfund, EPA regions

had some direction from a State participation

manual issued in 1985 and in some training manuals.

FIT contracts also provide some written detail on

PAs and SIs. EPA did issue PA and SI forms for use

by the regions that could have provided some

consistency, but not all regions used the forms and

revised forms have been ignored in some cases. The

Booz-Allen study found that only one of eight

regions used a form on all PAs, Region 9, which was

not included in the Booz-Allen study, told OTA that

the FIT contractor does not use a form in reporting

PAs.

Issuance of the recent documents may improve

the consistency across regions or it may not.

Comments made to OTA by an EPA headquarters

official in the Hazardous Site Evaluation Division

indicated that while headquarters would prefer all

regions to conduct their work in a consistent manner,

EPA is unwilling to require them to do so. Guidance

documents do not assure consistency unless they are

followed. Assuring national consistency may require periodic evaluations of regional performance.

Where Do False Negatives Go?—False negative

sites from Superfund end up in the universe of sites

rejected by the site evaluation process. The universe

includes NFA (now NFRAP) sites as a result of PAs

and SIs; sites rejected when their official HRS scores

fall below 28.50, either before being proposed for

the NPL or afterwards when MITRE Corp. does the

quality assurance; and sites that EPA has decided—

on a policy basis-do not belong in the Superfund

program.

Since an estimated 90 percent of the sites in

CERCLIS don’t make the NPL, the universe of

rejects is now approximately 17,000 sites. OTA has

calculated (see above) that the false negatives within

this universe may total over 2,000 sites. Currently,

there is no easy way to track the fate of these sites.

In the CERCLIS database an NFA entry indicates

the site decision. In the early years, when sites were

rejected primarily because no environmental threat

S6U.S. Congess, Office of khnOIog Assessment, Assessing (lonmxtor Use m Supetii, OTA-BP-ITE-51 (Washington. ~: us. Governm~t

Printing Office, January 1989).

87~~ iS ~e fim that deve]o~ be HRS ~holds he con~~( from EPA to do tie quality sur~e on ~ I-IRS scoring packages completed

by regional offices (see later discussion).
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 115

existed, there was no need to develop any kind of a

notification system other than the CERCLIS entry.

But, as EPA’s own statements show, today’s NFRAP

is not an indication of lack of hazard. Although 1988

EPA documents tell the regions that they should

notify States of sites that are rejected, there has never

been, nor is there anticipated to be, a formal national

notification process.88

In the last couple of years, States have increasingly taken on more of the task of site evaluation.

When States do the PAs and SIs, they know when

sites are rejected and presumably assume responsibility for those sites that are problems. But, once a

site is judged NFA or NFRAP by EPA, funding by

Superfund effectively dries up.89 For the sites

rejected in years prior to State involvement, any

State has two choices: 1) to verify all EPA decisions

(i.e., search for false negatives), or 2) to assume EPA

decisions are correct and focus on the more obvious

problem sites—those that have moved through the

preremedial process and have at least acquired an

estimated HRS score.

While State cleanup resources vary widely, they

are often extremely limited. Taking the first path—

reevaluation-is most unlikely. Louisiana, for instance, has 297 sites that EPA has tagged as NFAs.

While the State cleanup program admits that an

unknown number of those sites may require some

attention, there are 209 sites yet to receive evaluation. Louisiana is a State program with few resources; a 1989 report poses the question: ‘‘where

will the necessary resources be found?"90 Initiating

209 site evaluations for which Superfund funding is

available has a higher priority than reevaluating 297

NFA sites for possible false negatives. Conversely,

the New Jersey State program’s strategy document

states that no site should be listed as NFA ‘‘without

file documentation and sampling to justify no

action."91 This is a recognition that a State does not

really have the option to defer sites away to someone

else.

The HRS and the NPL

The HRS score calculated for a site determines

whether or not it will go on the NPL. Being on the

NPL (a score of 28.50 or more) means that trust fund

money may be spent for remedial action. Being off

the NPL (less than 28.50) means trust fund money

cannot be spent for remedial action. The NPL also

has informational significance; NPL sites receive

considerably more public attention than non-NPL

sites. The critical on/off decision is an EPA policy

enunciated in the NCP. Congress, through SARA,

expressed concern about the HRS and its use by

requiring EPA to examine several questionable

effects of the HRS and to revise it by October 1988

(See box 2-E).

Scoring

Once a site has received an SI, the EPA region

prepares an HRS scoring package. For those sites

scoring at least 25.00, the package may be submitted

to EPA headquarters, which turns it over to the

MITRE Corp. for quality assurance (QA).92 If

verified at 28.50 or greater the site is eligible for

proposal for the NPL. Sites get returned to regions

if the QA determines that the score is less than 28.50

or if the information does not support the score. Sites

can also get returned to regions if EPA determines

that the site does not qualify for the Superfund

program (i.e., is exempt by the statute or policy).

Once formally proposed for the NPL, a site is

subject to public comment, which may push the

score, up or down. If adjusted below 28.50, the site

is removed from the proposed list. If not, sites are

eventually placed on the final list.

EPA says the HRS process currently costs an

average of almost $60,000 per site, including the PA

88A lg89 EpA d~~en( says hat EPA wt notify Sta@s when a site is given an =Ap after a PA and shadd inform states when a site is given

an NFRAP tier an SS1.

89 Not officl~Iy, hOwever, ~~W tie N~ m]e is hat supe~~d monies c~ot be U.MXJ for re~diaf UCfk)?I ~ non-NPL sites. That means that, legally,

States could apply for funding to continue site evacuation when EPA stops doing so.

%uisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Progress and Problem: Cleaning Up Louisiana’s Inactive and Abandoned Hazardous Waste

Sties, A Report to the Louisiana bgislature, April 1989, p. 1.

gl~went of Environmental ~o~tionl “New Jersey’s Case Management Strategy for Hazardous Waste Programs Reme&d Actions, ” June

1987.

‘?ZRevlew of ~TRE dala indicates hat only 12 sites submitted for QA slnu 1984 M scores iess t.h 28.50.
116 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Box 2-E--SARA and the Hazard Raking

System

In The Statute:

● Section 105 (c)(l): “.. . assure, to the maximum extent feasible, that the hazard ranking

system accurately assesses the relative degree

of risk to human health and the environment

posed by sites and facilities subject to mView”

● Section 105 (c)(2) :”... ensure that the human

health risks associated with the contaminati“on

or potential contamination. . . of surface water

[used for recreation or potable water consumption] are appropriately assessed. . .“

● Also, in Section 125, EPA was ased to revise

the HRS to “assure appropriate consideration” of specific site characteristics of facilities that generate wastes such as fly ash,

bottom ash, and slag and that emit flue gases.

In the Conference Report, Congress asked EPA

to determine:

● the “effect of establishing a threshold value of

28.5 for facilities to be included on the

[NPL],” and

. “whether a new threshold value should be

established.” 1

ls~ ~ ~ pp. m-m .

and SI.m EPA pays up to $4 million per year for the

MITRE QA services. Based on the average number

of sites processed each year, QA alone may cost over

$12,000 per site.

At Least 28.50!

The cutoff score of 28.50 has no technical basis.

It is an arbitrary number; or, as EPA calls it, a

management tool.94 The number was selected in

1982 to come as close as possible to the ‘at least 400

sites” required by CERCLA for the first list.95 In

essence, then, the hazard level of the first set of sites

from which the initial 418 NPL sites came serves as

the basis for inclusion on the NPL of all sites that

have followed. If the hazard level of that collection

had been lower, then some sites subsequently

rejected for the NPL would be on the NPL.

The cutoff score is often reported as 28.5 instead

of its real value: 28.50. The zero plays a major role

and implies a certain numerical precision even

though there is no possible technical rationale for

taking the number to the hundredths, or even

tenths. % Using two decimal places means that a site

with a score between 28.45 and 28.49 does not get

rounded up to 28.5 and get on the NPL.

EPA is aware of the HRS score’s lack of precision

but has not used that information to convert the

cutoff score to a whole number or a range. In a study

prepared after SARA, EPA commented: “because

of the uncertainties associated with the HRS, it is

possible that a site scoring 35, for example, is more

hazardous in terms of absolute risk than a site

scoring 36."97 If so, then there maybe no difference

between a site at 29 and one at 28. Furthermore, EPA

groups the sites on the NPL instead of listing them

by HRS score ‘‘to emphasize that minor differences

in scores do not necessarily indicate significantly

different levels of risk. ”98

Once calculated, the HRS score does not serve

any official function other than to make the NPL

decision. EPA repeatedly states that the HRS only

measures relative risk and that the score is not used

as a way of making priority cleanup decisions.

However, OTA showed in its 1985 report, Superfund

Strategy, that, even if the method works, the

resultant score is not a measure of relative risk

9353 F- Register 51%2, DCC. 23, 1988.

%~ a Report tO congress, EPA stated t.luu the cutoff score was not chosen because ‘‘. . . it represents any threshold in the significance of the risks

presented by sites. ” [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Progress Toward Irnpfemen/lng

S~erfund, Fiscal Year 1987, Report to Congress, EPA 540/8 -89~3, April 1989, p. 27.]

9SE.PA M a 11~ Slb M h~ been SCord. Using 28.50 as the cutoff score generated a proposed list Of418 SikS.

%~y m~em~ici~, ~i~is~, or @~r kIIOWS t.hti ksolution to any calculation Can Ofdy CUfkd to M many decimal pl=es m tie lem a~~~

number for any data used in the calculation. Many numbers used in the HRS calculation are whole numbers, i.e., 3 or 5.

97U.S. En””wonmental Rotection Agency, “HRS Revisions Support: SARA Studies on HRS Scores and Remedial Actions, HRS Scores and Potential

Dangers, and the Effect of the 28.5 Cutoff Score,” November 1987, p. 9.

9853 F~c~ Re@~ms 1%2, ~. 23, lgg& p, s IQ&$. &h group h~ so sl~s; -h time IMW sites wadded to the NPL, the sites are reordered into

new groups of 50.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 117

because not all sites receive complete scores.99 HRS

scores are a combination of three possible routes of

exposure--groundwater, surface water, and air. Air

subscores are frequently not calculated if the two

water routes or even one of them provides enough

information to push a site score over 28.50.

For this report, OTA reviewed the sites submitted

to MITRE for QA since 1984. Ninety-four percent of

sites were submitted without air subscores and 97

percent of the sites with final HRS scores did not

have air subscores. Conversely, 98 percent of the

final sites do have groundwater subscores. Thus, the

resultant HRS score says, at the most, something

about the relative risks of sites due to contaminated

groundwater.

It is true, however, that the HRS score does not set

priorities. 100 Higher ranking sites do not necessarily move through the system first or faster. On the

whole, there is no discernible relationship between

a site’s HRS score and, say, the start of its RIFS. It

is, in fact, possible to find cases where an inverse

relationship exists, such as occurred with three sites

Region 7 proposed for the NPL in April 1985.

Despite its lack of technical foundation and

usefulness after the fact, the cutoff score has taken

on serious meaning within the context of its use.

Regions, States, public interest groups, industry, and

others are at times keenly interested in making sure

that a particular site gets on the list or stays off.

States with few resources or without an enforcement

program to clean up sites on their own may prefer to

have as many sites as possible on the NPL so that

they only have to pay the CERCLA 10 percent

match rather than the full cost of cleanup. Some

States, like California, make decisions in advance

about whether or not they want a site on the NPL and

in the Superfund program. If not, they intentionally

keep sites off the CERCLIS, which eliminates them

from consideration and scoring, Having a site on the

NPL projects a negative image to the public, and a

company may have a strong interest in not having its

property listed.l0l Communities have been known to

press to keep a site off the list because of the stigma

and possible negative affect on their economic

welfare. Congress can intervene; through SARA the

Silver Creek Tailings site in Park City, Utah, was

effectively removed from the proposed list. 102

This jostling to be on or off the NPL position adds

inefficiency to and detracts from Superfund’s environmental role. As discussed previously, calculating an HRS score is not a science. When scores are

close to the cutoff, it is not uncommon for regional

offices or State agencies to seek out more information to move the score above the cutoff. A Kansas

State official, who was formerly with the New Jersey

State program, told OTA that he got 65 sites on the

NPL by sampling judicious). 103 There is no way to

calculate the national costs of pushing sites over

28.50, because the data to do so is spread among files

in 50 States and 10 regional offices. It could be

significant if each entity spends extra money and

time on just a few sites each year.

Because the setting of an HRS score on a site has

been made a regulatory procedure, the score must be

proposed for public comment. This can cause

reworking of the number and has led to an official

change of at least 224 site scores. Twenty-three of

those sites were removed from the proposed list

because their revised score was below 28.50. For 66

of the 224 (30 percent), the difference between the

proposed and revised scores was less than 1 point

and ranged from 0.01 to 0.99, up or down. In none

of these cases did the reworked score affect the site’s

NPL status. Obviously, the level of effort required to

rework scores varies, but EPA was unable to give

IWU,S. Congcss, ~fice of ~hnoIoW A~ssment, S~e@md Strategy, OTA-ITE-252 (Springfield, VA: Nauonal lkhnical Information Service,

April 1985), p. 163.

Im~ c~lfofia it does: ‘‘. . cleanup priorities are now generally established based on the HRS migration score . . .‘ ICalifomla State Department

of Health Services, Expenditure Plan for the Hazardous Substance Cleanup Bond Act of 1984, revised Januw 1988, p. 51.1 In Louisiana, priorities are

ba.sd on whether or not a PRP exists. In Minnesota, sites in the cleanup pipeline have precedence over sites that have not yet started the process.

10INot ~~g 1lst~ d~s not Prohlblt WA from ~ing CERCLA enforcement action, however.

IOzS~A, Srxtion 118(P) SW al~t ‘ ‘Selection for Superfund List Puts Utah Resort in Dumps: As EPA Reconsiders, Property Wlues Plunge, ”

Washington Post, Mar. 2, 1987, p. Al.

lm~, aS a New JerXy document StateS: ‘‘Since the criteria for placement (HRS) was relatively undefined, NPL placement wa.. easily accomplished.

[Department of Env~onmentat Protection, “New Jersey’s Case Management Strategy for Hazardous Waste Programs Remedial Actions, ” June 1987. ]
118 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

OTA a rough estimate of the cost and staff time (for

either EPA or MITRE).l04

What Are the Results?

So far, almost 2,000 sites have gone through the

HRS scoring QA system. As of July 1989, 1,274

sites have been proposed for the NPL. Accounting

for removals and deletions from the list, the NPL

stands at 1,224 proposed and final sites. Figure 2-3

shows NPL actions by EPA from fiscal year 1983

through 11 months of fiscal year 1989.

CERCLA requires EPA to update the NPL at least

once a year. Since 1983 there has been at least one

update a year for the proposed or final list.105 In

addition, at irregular intervals sites have been

removed (from the proposed list) or deleted (from

the final list). NPL removals are part of the HRS

scoring process, while deletions occur after remedial

actions have been completed. Deletions can also

happen because the Remedial Investigation/

Feasibility Study (RIFS) shows that no remedial

action is necessary.

There are a number of aspects of HRS scoring that

deserve some attention. The managerial significance

but questionable relevance of the cutoff score has

already been discussed. Another aspect is the

reworking of scores. This is driven by the cutoff

score and the need to calculate THE score for a site.

MITRE checks the region’s work before a site is

proposed and then, as discussed above, scores can be

altered between proposed and final listings. When a

score is revised, it is because some kind of error has

occurred. It could be caused by poor math, improper

use of the HRS, or inaccurate or incomplete information. While the two revision points catch those

errors, examination of some data raises questions

about why regional work varies so much and what

the errors and the variances mean regarding sites that

do not make it to the first or second revision point.

The difference between the number of sites

submitted for QA ( 1,970) and sites proposed ( 1,223)

through early 1989 says that almost 40 percent of the

sites submitted by regions have not been proposed.

Some were rejected for policy reasons. Some have

not yet been verified. These two categories may

represent up to half of the nonproposed sites.l06

Then, almost 400 of the submitted sites may have

been rejected because of errors in the regional

offices. QA determined that their scores were below

28.50 or there was not proper documentation backup.

If 20 percent of the submitted sites have errors,

for how many sites that do not get submitted (i.e.,

judged NFRAP after an SI or PA) are errors

made? Remember that there is less documentation

for and attention paid to these sites for which HRS

scores are only estimated.

The fact that the 224 scores discussed earlier

could be changed between proposed and final

listings is indicative of the lack of precision to an

HRS score. More information and reevaluated information can change an HRS score, up or down, by as

little as 0.01 and as much as 31.57 points. In terms

of the on/off NPL decision, all of these errors are

significant since 0.01 can make the difference

between 28.49 (off the NPL) and 28.50 (on the

NPL). From a risk perspective, however, because 79

percent of the errors are between 0.01 and 10.0, the

errors may be insignificant. Should the Superfund

program be spending money looking for and adjusting site scores, especially when they have no

relevance afterwards?

While the 224 changes represent a national error

rate of 18 percent in proposed scores, the rate ranges

from 8 to 37 percent by region. Nationally, most of

the errors (54 percent) are on the plus side (i.e., the

proposed score is higher than the final score), but

they range from 37 to 66 percent on a regional

basis.l07 Four regions have higher minus than plus

IMEPA did provi~ OTA with detail on five score revisions. Obviously, the amount of time and resources ncxessary to respond tO public mmments

is proportional to the complexity of the comments rather than to the eventual score chmge. Of the five scores, two were each changed 0.01 points (one

went up, the other down) because of rounding errors discovered while considering comments. The other thrcz were revised (maximum, 0.14 points)

because of comments received regarding the surface water subscores.

lm~ ~rv~ llw~g may ~ mme ~W~t ~m a fi~ llsting. EPA does not necessarily wait until a site gains final status to ~~ the R~S or the

search for PRPs.

l-sis a ~ev comm~ve ~um~e. For ~~ce, las ~~ 4 ~rcent of the sites ~bmitti for QA in 1988 and 1989 still wait to b ~OpOstd.

lU7~s “~on~ ~nd for over~~at~g sores may & ~nfm~ by ~~data on ~1 initi~ (SS submitted by regions for QA), proposed, and final

site scores. On average, as sites move through the QA process, they systematically decline. It may be, however, that score depression is a product of

tbe QA process, rather than regional tendencies to overestimate initial scores, especially since score depression occurs between proposed and final scores

aim.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 119

Figure 2-3-National Priorities List Actions, Fiscal Years 1983-89

560 —

T

B

4(

R F

FYa3

316.

132

D PRF D

I= Y&l

P =

R =

F =

D =

170

PRF D PRF D PRF D

FY85 FY86 FY 87

NOTE: SFwtmg Indcatea that more than one update occurred in a fd year.

SOURCE: Offioe of Technology Aaaesament, 1989; baaed on EPA data.

error rates which means they are more likely to

underestimate HRS scores. Finally, if 18 percent of

proposed scores are in error, that strongly suggests a significant error rate on sites that don’t

make it that far.

False Negatives and False Positives

The error rates discussed above suggest that false

decisions (both positive and negative) can persist

proposed site

removed from proposed list

final site

deleted from final list

2!

F’ (88 FY 89 (11 r-no,)

through the HRS scoring stage. EPA does not know

how many false negatives scoring has created in 7

years of use but does know for sure that at least three

false positives exist because three sites have been

deleted from the NPL after an RIFS was completed. l08 While EPA is “concerned that lowering

the [cutoff score] might substantially increase the

number of [false positives] . . .,” the agency has not

expressed a corresponding concern about false

negatives.

10E53 F-dRe@~r51962, ~. 23, 1988, p. 519M, ~em may ~ mom ~~~ f~~ psitives. OTA mview~ all RODs issued ti the program.

At least nine sites have M deleted because no remedial action was rezornmendcxl in the ROD.
120 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) assumes

both types of false decisions have been made and has

suggested that EPA establish a review process:

Screening models like the HRS must be simple.

They do not have much resolving power and

therefore, some false positives and false negatives

are inevitable. Because of this limitation, HRS

scorns should not be overemphasized. A process

should be established either to review sites subject to

scoring or to review HRS scores in an attempt to spot

fake positives and negatives.l09

Some studies and certain aspects of the HRS point

to the possibility of false decisions. In one study,

EPA compared current HRS scores with potential

dangers at 32 sites using a risk assessment methodology. The results showed poor correlation between

the HRS score and the potential danger at a site. The

study concluded:

Based on the sites used in this study, potential

false-negative results (sites that pose potentially

significant risks, but receive HRS scores below the

cutoff) are more common than false-positive results

(sites that receive HRS scores above the cutoff, but

do not pose potentially significant risks). *10

For another study, EPA’s Office of Policy Planning and Evaluation (OPPE) assembled a panel of

EPA experts from the various disciplines involved in

site evaluation. The panel studied documentation on

a set of Superfund sites, developed its own ranking

methodology, and scored the sites by consensus

along a spectrum from high risk to no problem.lll

When the panel’s ranking of sites is compared

with the sites’ HRS scores, the HRS is shown not

only to be a poor predictor of risk-as judged by

experts-but also to be source of many false

negative decisions, As figure 2-4 shows, 6 of 18 sites

(33 percent) with scores at or below the cutoff were

judged by the panel as medium or high risk. Another

conclusion is that the HRS underestimates risk as

most of the panel’s decisions placed the sites above

the diagonal line that represents concurrence between the panel and the HRS.

Figure 2-4-EPA Panel’s Ranking of Sites v.

HRS score

● 0

a ● *

Relatively

low

risk

“No

problem”

1 i 1 i i I 1 I i

20 40 60 8o 100

HRS score

SOURCE: Environmental Protection Agency.

On the NPL are three examples of the HRS as a

poor predictor of risk. Under CERCLA, each State

is allowed to place one site on the NPL regardless of

how it scores. Three such sites, with scores of 5.49,

8.27, and 17.68, have moved through the system and

received RIFSs, and RODS have been issued. In all

three cases, EPA has decided that a remedial action

is necessary. If the sites did not present a risk, EPA

could have decided that no action was necessary and

deleted them from the NPL. While the cost of

cleaning up these sites ranges from $1 to $2 million

and is below the average for Superfund sites, the

sites are not dissimilar to many sites that qualify for

the NPL on the basis of higher scores.

Two other problems with the current HRS, which

may be corrected by the pending new HRS, are also

creating false negatives. When there is not enough

information to assign a number to a factor, a default

l@IJ.s. ~v~wen~ Roteaion Agency, Office of the Mmitistrator, Science Axivisory Board, ‘Review of t-be Superknd Hazard Ranking Sy*m, ’

s~-~-88~8, hllUIUy 1988, p. 6.

I IW,S. fi~men~ Rotection Agency, ‘‘HIM Revisions Support: SARA Studies on HRS Scores and Remedial Actions, HRS Scores and Potential

Dangers, and the Effect of the 28.5 Cutoff Score,” op. cit., footnote 97, p. 50.

11 IA@~ ~ision AllalySis, k., “A Site-Ranking Panel Evaluation of the Relative Risk Posed by Twenty Superfund Sites, ” draft, July 14, 1987,

pp. 44-45.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 121

value has been used.112 In 1982, EPA advised

scorers to assign a default value of zero, 113 The result

for toxicity is, according to an EPA scientist:

A default value of zero would enhance the

possibility of false negatives in the absence of

toxicity data, while a default value of 5 would tend

to enhance the possibility of false positives, A

mid-range default value of 3 in the absence of

appropriate toxicity information would reduce any

directional bias toward either false positives or false

negatives.114 

In the proposed HRS, some default values have

been adjusted. For example, a default value of 3 (a

midpoint in the toxicity scale) has been proposed for

a pathway’s toxicity factor value when ‘appropriate

toxicity data for scoring does not exist for any

hazardous substance relevant to that pathway .’’l15

Under the current HRS, when a site appears to

have only a direct contact threat, the site will not

make the NPL.l16 But, two EPA contractor studies

have shown that a threat of direct contact is a major

rationale for remedial action. EPA has in the past

added two sites to the NPL, using provisions in

CERCLA other than the HRS, when their scores

were below the cutoff, because of their direct contact

threat. 117 If direct contact is added as a new pathway

in the proposed HRS, these kinds of sites may have

a better chance of being on the NPL. However,

among the universe of sites scored under the current

HRS, they are false negatives. Some, but not

necessarily all, may have been cleaned up by

removal actions.

How Will the New HRS Change Superfund?

Many concerns had been raised about the efficacy

and fairness of the HRS. Box 2-E lists the concerns

expressed by Congress in SARA. A summary of

major problems with the HRS from OTA’s Superfund Strategy are included in box 2-F. Box 2-G

contains a summary of recommendations made by

EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SBA).

Has EPA Resolved the Concerns ?-For this

report, OTA could not do a comprehensive analysis

of the new HRS because the new HRS does not yet

exist. EPA proposed the new HRS in December

1988 but does not plan final action on the rules until

February 1990 (almost 2 years beyond the promulgation date that SARA specified).ll8 And, so far,

EPA has not tackled a major issue—the algorithm—

cited by the SAB:

The Subcommittee places special emphasis on the

algorithm issue because it is impossible to review the

components of the HRS without considering how the

components fit together.l19

In the proposed rules, EPA recognized SAB’s

concern and said about suggested changes:

EPA is planning to evaluate and possibly test such

changes in the algorithm prior to promulgating a

revised FIRS,120 

The SAB was concerned about the algorithm

because it is the basic logic of the model. The board

implied that the way the current HRS was designed

may have been a backwards approach. A better way,

according to the SAB, is a risk assessment approach

that begins with an understanding of how to list sites

quantitatively if all needed information and resources were available. This risk assessment model

is then transformed into a scoring system and

simplified to operate at reasonable cost and with

sparse information. 121

Despite outside concern and advice, EPA has

.postponed consideration of the basic logic of the -

112A fw~r in tie HRs is a point ~ Which a number is assimed based on the judgment of the person doing the scoring package. For instance, a factor

u)tdd translate toxicity data mto a numerical value for calculation purposes.

11347 F~r~ Regi~er 31222, July 16, 1982.

114~s &Row, chief, EpA ~emlc~ ~xtwes Aswssment Branch, letter ~ Scott Parrish, acting chief, I-kard Ranking ~d Listing Branch, sept.

22, 1987.

115u.s. Envlro~ent~ ~o~tion Agency, preamble to me HRS propo~d rule, drti, Ca. February 1988, p. 40.

116A &at ~onwzt ~e~ mems w a ~rson co~d come into direct con~t wim K)xic substances at the site.

1 ]7~ slta ad ~ores we L~~me R~atlon Q&, pA (20.32) ~d Q~l R~, Mo (21.19).

I18SMA Swtion Ios(c)( 1 ) rqul~ (he new HRS t. & promulgat~ by April 1988 and m b in effect by October 1988.

1 lw.s, Environmental Protection Agency, “Review of the Superfund Hazard Ranking System, ” op. cit., foomote 109, p. 5.

lzo53 F~er~ Register 51%2, k. 23, 1988. p. 51970.

IZI sa, U.S. Enwronmentd Protection Agency, “Review of the Superfund Hazard Ranking System, ” op. cit., footnote 109, Appmdix A5.
122 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Box 2-F—The Office of Technology

Assessment’s 1985 Comments on the

Hazard Ranking Systeml

OTA summarized other criticisms of the Hits at

that time. Problems identified were that the HRS:

. had a bias toward human exposure at the

expense of the environment

● had a bias against low density populations;

● required documentation for air releases but

none for water;

● scores were based on site contaminantt rather

than known or potential released contaminants;

. averaged route scores creating a bias against a

site with only one route score greater than

zero; and

● considered only waste quantity rather than

quantity and distribution.

kl.s. ~, Oracc of -IwA$@@==@l s#@+@#

Swawgy, (YTA-lTE-2S2 (S@ngfbkJ Vk N@mal Tbctmical lufammtioo SmJkXl? A@ 19ss).

HRS. Meanwhile, the proposed HRS is replete with

the “fine tuning” that the SAB thought to be less

important than the algorithm. These changes apparently will result in “vast new data requirements’

that also concerned SAB. EPA says that the new

HRS will cost almost $150,000 per site; that is,

two and a half times ($90,000 more than) the

current HRS costs. EPA expects the new HRS to

add $56 million in total costs to the program.122

EPA says it “expects that the changes will result

in increased accuracy in assessing the relative degree

of risks to public health and the environment for

certain sites [emphasis added].’’123 EPA also says

that “at this point, it is impossible to predict whether

the revised HRS would result in more or fewer sites

being included on the NPL. ” Unanswered is Congress’ concern that the HRS accurately as possible

assess the relative degree of risk posed by sites.

EPA did not, according to the SAB, properly

assess the current HRS prior to proceeding with

changes. Also, EPA has apparently not tested the

Box 2-G-Summary of EPA’s Science

Advisory Board Hazard Ranking System

Recommendations

When the Superfund program requested the

Science Advisory Board (SAB) to review the HRS,

only three specific issues were posed: types of

toxicity to address and how, relevant distance from

a site for air pollutants, and large volume wastes and

waste concentrations. On these issues, SAB recommended that:

1. the toxicity rating scale in use be replaced by

multiple measures of toxicity and exposure

measures to be improved;

2. since a potential for air release seemed

appropriate and possible, a scoring system

weighing population exposure in concentric

rings be employed; and

3. although applying the HRS to mining (large

volume) sites has not treated them with

systematic error, it does have the potential to

do so and could be improved with the

adoption of several factors.

But, the SAB subcommittee that studied the HRS

chose to also address some fundamental issues. For

instance, the SAB said: “Improving the algorithm

could potentially do more to improve the HRS than

fine-tuning individual Components.”1

IUOS, “ Emmmmaltal Frotcc.tian Agency, Sciemc Mviaoey Bo8rd,

“Rsviow of b Su@und Hawd Rxsystem,” SAB-EC-SS-OOS,

Jmnlsry 1!MS, p. m.

proposed HRS to assess its impact (other than cost

of using it). EPA’s request of the SAB was made

after an advance notice of a proposed rule on the

HRS had been published (April 1987) and public

comments received. That is, the process of revising

the HRS was well underway at the time of SAB’s

involvement. Thus, SAB made suggestions about

how to better proceed with the next revision. On the

top of its list was the need for an ‘‘empirical

retrospective evaluation of how successfully the

FIRS predicts risk . . . based on an in-depth technical

review.” 124 What SAB had in mind was a review

comparing sites’ HRS scores with the knowledge

gained as a result of their RIFSs. In other words,

IM53 F~r~ Register 51%2, Dec. 23, 1988, p. S*ME

l~Ibid., p. 51966.

IUI_J,S. Enviroment~ Protection Agency, “Review of the Superfund Hazard Ranking System, ” op. cit., foomote 109, p. A6-1.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 123

EPA should ask the question “How does it err in

practice?” before trying to fix it.

The copious proposed changes in the kinds of data

used and how used to calculate an HRS score have

been backed up with a plethora of contractor studies.

But, the algorithm remains the same and there has

been no analysis of the combined affect of the

changes. The debate will continue as to whether or

not the HRS can provide an appropriate or accurate

measure of relative risk among sites. As the SAB

said:

Each step in this process affects the final score

and, therefore, how well the HRS discriminates

between sites of greater and lesser risk to human

health and the environment. {x

As to the steps, EPA appears to have adopted

some of the SAB’s recommendations regarding

toxicity, air releases, large volume sites, and waste

concentrations. The proposed HRS has four instead

of three pathways: surface water, groundwater, air,

and onsite exposure. The new onsite (or direct

contact) pathway may improve one shortcoming of

the current HRS, as discussed earlier. Currently,

direct contact is only used to determine whether or

not a site needs a removal action.

In the HRS, current and proposed, each pathway

is made up of three categories (release, waste

characteristics, and targets) and each category has a

number of factors. As described by the SAB:

After a numerical value is assigned to each factor,

it is multiplied by a weight to obtain a factor score.

Factor scores within the same category are added.

Scores for the categories are multiplied together.

This procedure yields a score for the pathway. The

pathways are then combined through a method

called quadratic averaging. 126

Most of the fine tuning of the HRS has involved

changing factors or how to obtain the numerical

value assigned. The structure of the groundwater and

air migration pathways are unchanged although

some of the factors of the three categories have been

changed. A mobility factor has been added to both

pathways to account for exposure. Potential releases

are now calculated for the air pathway, and the

distance to sensitive environments has been increased. The surface water pathway has been substantially expanded and now consists of four threats:

drinking water, human food chain, recreational, and

environmental. Under food chain, bioaccumulation

and fishery use are considered for the first time.127

A New Cutoff?--In response to congressional

concerns about the cutoff score, EPA says that a

study did ‘‘indicate that some sites with scores

below the cutoff can also pose potential dangers to

human health and the environment’ [emphasis

added]. 128 This is in contrast to EPA’s stronger

statement in 1984 to Congress: “Many of the sites

that score below the 28.5 HRS cutoff still pose some

threat to human health” [emphasis added],129

Review of State programs yields information that

“some sites’ is a major understatement. In reality,

many sites with scores well below the cutoff do

pose current or potential dangers. For instance,

Minnesota uses the HRS to score all sites, whether

for the Superfund program or its own program. The

scores for 118 sites in the State program run from 2

to 51.130 Illinois also uses the HRS to score all sites;

sites with scores greater than or equal to 10 gain

placement on the State Remedial Action Priority

List. The list currently has sites with scores from 10

to 28.16. Further, the State acknowledges that sites

with scores less than 10 may ‘‘present immediate

threats’ and are handled through removal actions. 131

EPA has proposed that the revised HRS have a

cutoff that is “functionally equivalent” to 28.50

because ‘‘EPA believes that the current cutoff score

l~Ibid., p. 10.

l~tbid., p, 10.

127~s new dam may m~e it ~ier for m~ne ~lment si~s 10 gain NPL status. Until such sitis are scored under the new HRS, however, it is not

possible to know for sure.

12853 F~er~ Register 51%2, Ik. 23, 1988, p. 51966.

INu.s. Env~onment~ Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, ‘‘Extent of the Hazardous Release Problem and Future

Funding N~ERCJ_A Section 301(a)(l )(C) Study,” December 1984, p. 2-2.

130A ~neW~ officl~ told OTA mat ~me of tie sites wl~ ~ores over ~~,50 m the State pro~~ were m~icip~ l~dfi]ls ~d hti not been submitted

to EPA txxause at the urne the pohcy was to reject smch sites regardless of their scores.

1.311111nol~ Environmen~ ~o~tlon Agency, Dlvis~on of L~d pollutlOn con~ol, C/eting ///1/10 is, Apfi] 1988, p, 15.
124 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

has been a useful management tool” [emphasis

added].132 But, EPA has not determined the current

HRS’ false positive/negative rates, dealt with the

algorithm, or evaluated how sites will fare under the

new HRS. Thus, an equivalent cutoff maybe a useful

management tool, but its environmental implications are not at all clear. Two of EPA’s three

suggested ways of determining equivalency are

designed to produce an NPL of the same size that

would be produced under the current HRS. The third

way would attempt to produce the same level of

quantitative risks for sites evaluated with the old and

new HRS.

EPA has not grasped the nettle of the improbability of ever finding a single point (especially one with

two decimal places) above which sites can be judged

to present substantially more risk than those below.

It may, however, be possible to design a more

equitable system with two points (see OTA’s option

20 in ch. 1).

Effects of the Delay-Congress specifically exempted EPA from having to reevaluate sites that

have been listed on the NPL prior to the effective

date of the new HRS, which Congress set at October

17, 1988. It may have been that the SARA schedule

for revision was unrealistic, but the fact remains that

the delay in issuing the new rules is causing

problems in scheduling SIs. Further, while the

method chosen by EPA to switch to the new HRS

appears designed to save money, it may generate

false positives.

SI data collection is dependent on the data needs

of the HRS. The new HRS will require the collection

of different information (and, perhaps, more information) than the current HRS does. This means that

at some point EPA has to define and start new SI data

collection. To avoid having a period during which no

SIs and scoring packages are done, EPA has devised

a phase-in of the new HRS. It is biased against low

scoring sites and toward finding false positives.

EPA is assuming that a non-NPL site under the

current HRS will be a non-NPL site under the new

one but that some NPL-bound sites under the current

HRS will be rejected by the new HRS. Sites that

score below 25.0 during the transition will not be

reevaluated. An exception is allowed for sites that

have an element (e.g., direct contact pathway) that

might allow them to score high enough for the NPL

under the revised HRS. These exceptions ‘‘should

be infrequent” according to EPA. 133 However, sites

that do score at least 25.0 (i.e., could be submitted

for QA) are to be reevaluated using the new HRS.

Thus, positive sites under the old HRS have to pass

another screening and be judged positive under the

new HRS, as well, to make the NPL.

Instead of just 2 years after SARA of current HRS

evaluations, EPA will have had almost 4 years, if the

new HRS is effective in February 1990. Between

SARA’s enactment and mid-1989, 458 more sites

have entered the MITRE QA system and 355 sites

have been proposed for the NPL using the existing

HRS. The NPL updates in May and July 1989 would

have been under the new HRS if EPA had finished

it on schedule.134 Because of the uncertainty of the

effect of the new HRS, it is unknown whether more

or fewer than 62 sites would have been proposed if

the new HRS was used.

The NPL Grows

The NPL’s annual growth and its eventual size

depend on how thorough EPA is in discovering sites,

maintaining inventories, and evaluating potential

sites. So far, site discovery has been ad hoc,

inventories incomplete and incompatible, and evaluation has been driven toward limiting the growth of

Superfund. Still, the NPL continues to grow, proportionally increasing the responsibilities of Superfund.

NPL growth is also affected by the rate at which

EPA moves sites through the HRS scoring stage,

primarily by the numbers of sites proposed (see

figure 2-3). The total number of sites on the NPL at

any one time is the sum of the proposed and final

sites less those that have been removed or deleted,

Figure 2-5 shows NPL growth from fiscal year 1983

(546 sites) through 11 months of fiscal year 1989

13253 F~a,l Regiwer 51%2, M. 23, 1988, p. 51966.

133U.S. fi””wonrnental Protection Ageney, “Pre-Remedial Strategy for Implementing SARA,” op. cit., footnote 57, p. 6.

134~t~]y, Cve@ng iS ~~d. me J~y 1989 u~e had ~n ~h~~~ f~ emly 1$)89, and a IXX Up&UC was to happen in the summer of 1989

but, by mid-September, had not.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfubd: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 125

Figure 2-5 Growth of the National Priorities List

1

1

1

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment, 1969; baaed on EPA data.

(1,224 sites).135 Although the growth has been

uneven and sporadic, EPA has complied with the

CERCLA requirement to update the list annually but

did not add enough sites to meet the 1,600 to 2,000

level by January 1988 suggested by the SARA

Conference report.

Another way to analyze the NPL is by the quality

of the sites. EPA claims that HRS scores are a

measure of relative risk among sites. EPA has also

long maintained that the worst sites have been found.

If so, one would expect the HRS scores to decline

over time. OTA has averaged the scores of sites

proposed in each fiscal year.136 Figure 2-6 shows

that the average score declined somewhat from 1983

to 1986 but from 1986 to 1989 has increased. The

changes-up and down—are all within a 6-point

spread that is probably insignificant for the HRS. It

is not possible to conclude-if HRS scores are a

valid measure--that sites now coming through

the system pose less (or more) threat than those in

previous years.

OTA also looked at the spread of HRS scores (see

figure 2-6) and the distribution of scores in each

fiscal year. These data suggest that the HRS scores

may be approaching an equilibrium. The spread in

scores (minimum to maximum score) shows a trend

similar to the average scores. The spread compressed between 1983 and 1986 and then expanded

between 1986 and 1988. 137 In 1989, the spread

compressed again although the average is up,

slightly. The distribution of scores is roughly similar

for all years except the first year (1983). In 1983,44

percent of the scores were between 28.50 and 40.00.

For all other years, from 60 to 73 percent of the

scores were in that range. Conversely, 27 percent of

the scores were greater than 50.00 in 1983; for all

other years, 7 to 15 percent were greater than 50.00.

It is important to note that the changes in HRS

scores averages, spread, and distribution over time

do not necessarily reflect differences in the character

of the sites. They can be the result of changes in

policy (e.g., for a number of years EPA discouraged

Regions from submitting landfill sites) or other

factors. While the highest scoring sites (scores

greater than 70.00) were all proposed in the first 2

years, all nine of these sites have high air subscores.

As discussed earlier, 97 percent of the NPL sites

processed by MITRE since 1984 have air subscores

of zero. A zero air subscore may mean that air

migration is not a problem or that an air score was

not necessary to push a site score over 28.50.138

Estimates for the Future

Looking to the future, it appears that-if the

environmental mission of the Superfund program is

regained-the size of the NPL should increase

substantially. OTA, GAO, and EPA data all point

toward growth. Today’s CERCLIS inventory and

its growth rate implies an NPL of over 4,000 sites

by the year 2000. Ultimately, with a national site

discovery program, minimal deferrals, and a

need for secondary cleanups, over 10,000 sites

could qualify for cleanup under Superfund.
126 ● Coming Clean: Superfurnd Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Figure 2-6HRS Scores of NPL Sites (averages and minimum/maximum)

80

0

0 0

60 - 0

0 0

A

40 “

A A A A A

20 “

I I I I I I

~ Average O Maximum

score

SOURCE: Offim of Taehnology Aaaeawnant, 1989; baaed on EPA data

EPA’s Projections-The Superfund program’s

projections do not agree with OTA’s conclusions

about the future size of the NPL. EPA makes its

projections based on the choices it has made for the

program. Those choices include no active site

discovery, deciding that the preremedial program

should make management rather than environmental

decisions, and explicit or implicit deferral of cleanups to other programs. For instance, EPA told

Congress in 1988 that it was not possible to give an

estimate for the future size of the NPL because

“future changes in the preremedial program. . . will

likely revise [the traditional] percentage” of CERCLIS sites that make the NPL.139

The Superfund program estimate of the NPL has

always hovered around 2,000 sites despite a growing

CERCLIS inventory. An assessment in 1983 projected an eventual CERCLIS inventory of 22,000

sites and an NPL of 1,400. Uncertainty about types

of sites to be included in the NPL in the future

produced an upper bound estimate of 2,200 sites.

Today, EPA says that, with an inventory of 31,000

sites, there will be 2,100 NPL sites by the year 2000.

EPA says that about 5 percent of the evaluated

sites end up on the NPL. How EPA arrived at

historical average of 5 percent of evaluated sites is

unclear since at the same time EPA presented data

showing that the rate stood at 11 percent by 1986 and

7 percent by 1989.140

CERCLIS and the NPL--Using the size of

CERCLIS to estimate the NPL is problematic, Not

only do changing site evaluation and listing policies

change historical averages but there is the pipeline

effect. It can take 5 years or more for a site to move

from CERCLIS entry to the NPL. Additionally,

CERCLIS is not the master list of potential sites for

the Superfund program. But, most importantly, as

the Superfund program’s long adherence to an NPL

of about 2,000 sites shows, the size of the NPL is a

product of choices made about how large the NPL

should become. Thus, a choice of whether or not to

139Hw of RcpIWCIN@W “Prelimhmry Findings of OTA Report on Superfund,” op. cit., foomotc 81, p. 270.

1~.s. Environmental Protection AgcMy, “A Management Review of the Superfund Program,” June 1989, p. 1-6,
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 127

conduct a site discovery program alters the size of

the NPL.

OTA calculated a cumulative rate of 9 percent of

CERCLIS sites making the NPL from 1983 through

1988 (using EPA data from table 2-1). OTA took the

numbers of sites evaluated each year and compared

it with the NPL of the following year to take into

account some of the time lag between evaluation and

final placement on the NPL. On a noncumulative

basis, the initial rate was 22 percent in 1983 (the first

NPL year) and for 1988 was 11 percent. Thus,

historically-by either measure-a declining percentage of CERCLIS sites have become NPL sites,

but the EPA average rate of 5 percent has not yet

been encountered. 141

OTA estimates that 10 percent of the sites on

CERCLIS, or over 4,000 sites, could be on the

NPL by the year 2000. The 10 percent rate assumes

that the preremedial process is improved such that

sites are evaluated on an environmental rather than

management basis and that cleanup deferrals are

minimal. Thus, if the CERCLIS could be frozen at

31,000 sites, the NPL could grow to at least 3,100

sites by the year 2000. But, a CERCLIS growing by

2,000 new sites each year will eventually contribute

another 200 NPL sites per year. Taking evaluation

time into account, 1,000 of those sites (or, 5 years

worth) could be on the NPL by the year 2000. A

national site discovery program could add several

thousand more sites to the NPL.

CERCLIS may becoming an increasingly poor

indicator of the potential size of the Superfund

program. First, EPA plans-under the Environmental Priorities Initiative—to enter some 3,000

sites the agency clearly intends to defer to the RCRA

corrective action program. That action, however,

will broaden the concept of the CERCLIS inventory

and move it toward being more of a national

inventory. Second, as discussed earlier, the bureaucratic response to the policy to complete a site’s PA

within a year of its entry into CERCLIS has been to

hold up site entry. The result may be a decline in the

2,000 sites per year growth rate.

Calculations based only on known CERCLIS/

NPL data can underestimate the future size of the

Superfund program (and national cleanup needs),

Despite the move to add RCRA sites, CERCLIS is

not a master list. But, using combinations of lists can

result in overestimates. As previous discussions

show, lists of potential sites abound and no cross

checks have been made for double counting either

among these lists or between each list and CERCLIS.

Further, when and if cleanups fail in other cleanup

programs, they may become a new source of NPL

sites: secondary cleanups (see ch. 4). OTA estimates

that failures from other cleanup programs could add

over 1,000 sites to the NPL. This estimate assumes

that, while 10 percent of CERCLIS sites become

NPL sites, an additional 20 to 30 percent actually

require cleanup. 142 A failure rate of only 5 to 10

percent of those cleanups, could add 410 to 1,230

sites to the Superfund program.

Ultimately, An NPL of 10,000 Sites or More?—

OTA’s 1985 estimate of 10,000 or more Superfund

sites remains valid. It assumes that the Superfund

program has an improved preremedial process,

active site discovery, and minimal deferrals. In terms

of the national cleanup problem, the 10,000 site

projection is a major underestimate (see ch. 4).

The original OTA estimate was based on a

conservative analysis of only three categories of

potentiai sites. It produced a total of 8,000 sites: 1)

solid waste facilities (5,000 sites), 2) groundwater

problems created by RCRA Subtitle C hazardous

waste facilities (1,000), and 3) an improved site

analysis and selection process for the NPL (2,000).

EPA’s own estimate at the time of a maximum 2,000

sites, which did not include the OTA categories, was

added to the 8,000 figure to arrive at a total estimate

of 10,000 sites.

Since 1985, when the OTA analysis was done, the

OTA categories still remain as potential problems

for the Superfund program:

● For solid waste facilities (active and closed

municipal and industrial landfills and surface

141 ~1 ,s~~~lb~c t. ~,biwn ~ ~mulatlve rate of 3 or Q percent by ~ompwlrlg tic number of NPL si~cs in onc yew Witi the cERCLIs sites irI the same

year but that lgnorcs the evaluation and t]mc lag cl fccI.

1421n 1985 OTA Prcwnlcd Sta[c da~a [hat ~ ~s[lmatc~ 40 pcrCCn[ of po[Cn[lal sl[es would rcqulre a ~lc~up, see, OTA’S .$~e?fund Strategy, Op. Cll,

Also, DOD data for fiscal year 1988 shows tlw 30 percent of’ that agcnc} potential sltcs will rcqulrc a cleanup.
128 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

●

●

impoundments), there has been no comprehensive study, subsequent to OTA’s, to identify

problem sites. In fact, municipal landfills were

actively kept off the NPL (and thus not

evaluated) by EPA until external pressure

caused a policy reversal in August 1987. Even

so, few landfills have been added to the NPL

since the policy was changed. 143 A more recent,

proposed policy is to defer such sites to State

Subtitle D correction action programs. Proposed Federal rules for those cleanups, however, only cover new and existing landfills;

closed landfills and other types of solid waste

facilities would still, presumably, qualify for

the Superfund program.

Estimates for hazardous waste RCRA Subtitle C cleanups range from 2,000 to 5,000 sites

now, but those sites are being actively deferred

by EPA to the RCRA corrective action program. Since 1983, EPA has designated about 80

sites proposed for the NPL as possible RCRA

corrective action sites; about a dozen have

made the final list. In June 1988 EPA proposed

to officially designate 30 proposed NPL sites as

RCRA Subtitle C corrective action sites and 15

as NPL sites.l44 For all future sites moving

through Superfund site evaluation, EPA will

decide whether or not they qualify for the

RCRA program. If so, they will become RCRA

rather than Superfund sites. GAO estimated in

1987 that 818 sites would fail to get cleaned up

under RCRA corrective action and end up in the

Superfund program.

The selection process for the NPL remains the

same. Site analysis has actually been adjusted

such that fewer, instead of more, sites should be

expected to move far enough through the

process to receive NPL evaluation. OTA concluded in 1985 that if EPA paid more attention

to environmental factors, more sites would end

up on the NPL. Congress has required EPA to

revise the HRS, but those new procedures will

not be effective until February 1990, or later.

As the discussion on the proposed HRS has

shown, whether or not the new HRS wili

improve environmental decisionmaking is unknown.

OTA has identified two new categories of sites

that could add work to the Superfund program: 1)

newly created sites, and 2) secondary cleanups.

Illegal dumping still occurs.145 California recently

cited its Transportation Department for dumping

toxic and other waste materials into a pit at a

maintenance yard for 10 years. The practice only

ceased in May 1989. Firms that legally operate

outside of the regulatory system are also creating

new sites. One example is bankrupt firms that have

used hazardous substances but were not required to

have a RCRA permit because they did not store,

treat, or dispose of hazardous wastes and, thus,

received no enforcement actions while in operation.

The need for secondary cleanups will occur when

impermanent cleanups done by programs other than

Superfund fail.

Uncertain Future--The maximum number of

potential sites, from which eventually come CERCLIS and then NPL sites, is approaching 500,000.

Ten years ago, the maximum base number was

50,000. It was estimated by an EPA contractor who

concluded that from 30,000 to 50,000 hazardous

substance sites existed.146 The report was roundly

criticized at the time as an inflated estimate. Then,

in 1984, EPA said in its Report to Congress that

systematic investigation efforts could expand the

universe of problem sites and thus increase the

response needs of the Superfund program. EPA

estimated those “problem sites” to be between

131,000 and 379,000 from a larger universe of

known sites in five categories: RCRA Subtitle C

TSD facilities, municipal landfills, industrial

landfills, mining waste sites, and leaking under14qAsof May ]986, 184 rn~c]p~ solid waste landfills were on NPL according to the Subtitle D regulations proposed Aug. 30, 1988. CERCIJS dam

as of July 1988, classifies 220 NPL sites as landfills.

14.4Even ~ou@ tie 15 sl~s t. remfi on tie NPL h~ &n on fhe NpL for a num~r of ye~, EPA chow to repropo~ them. They now wtit again

to become final sites.

14SD~ from me remov~ ~rogm shows ~ incre~ ~ 1987 over 1986 in remov~ actions at illegal dump sites. [U.S. Environmental ProtecUon

Agency, Progress Toward Implementing Supefind Ftical Year 1987, Report to Congress, op. cit., footnote 94. ] Also, New York City Envuonment.al

Police tit has a 22-member force working fulltime to seek out illegal dumps. [“Toxic Avengers, ” Discover, August 1989. ]

146F~ C, H~, kc., “Preiirninary Assessment of Cleanup Costs for National Hazardous Waste Problem, ” Feb. 19, 1979, as cited in EPA’s “Extent

of the Hazardous Release Problem and Future Funding Needs, CERCLA (301)(a)(l)(C) Study, ’ op. cit., footnote 32, p. 1-2.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 129

ground storage tanks.147 EPA did not estimate how

many of these sites would eventually require cleanup;

only that ‘‘some subset would require more intensive investigation, and a subset of those could

require removal or remedial response by Superfund. 148

In 1987, using EPA data, GAO recalculated the

number of potential sites and arrived at a new range

of 130,000 to 425,000. This group includes: RCRA

Subtitle C and D facilities, mining waste sites,

underground leaking storage tanks (non-petroleum),

pesticide-contaminated sites, Federal facilities, radioactive releases, underground injection wells, town

gas facilities, and wood preserving plants. 149 Again,

no estimate was attempted of how many of these

sites would actually require any cleanup. They are,

however, classes of sites which currently are handled by the Superfund program. The estimate does

not include classes of sites that are the exclusive

purview of other cleanup programs, such as LUSTS

with petroleum. Federal agency sites are included on

the list. Although the Superfund trust fund is not

used to pay for those cleanups, EPA incurs related

costs due to its responsibility for oversight of

Federal agency cleanups. 150

OTA has updated two categories of the 1987 GAO

estimates for a new upper bound of at least 439,000

potential sites. GAO’s estimate for LUSTS containing hazardous substances was 10,820 in 1987; using

1988 data from the Office of USTS that estimate

should be about 20,000 tanks. Federal facilities now

contain over 10,000 known sites, instead of the

5.800 estimated by GAO.

If 10 percent of these potential sites do require

cleanup, the Superfund program could be facing a

total NPL of from 13,000 to 43,900 sites. If only 5

percent, then from 6,500 to 21,950 sites. These are

not necessarily the worst case national scenarios

because they do not account for any sites currently

resigned to other cleanup programs-such as LUST—

some of which could eventually become Superfund

sites (see ch. 4).

Comments on the RCRA corrective action program by the General Accounting Office in a 1989

discussion paper make clear why sites in other

programs may eventually have to be redone by the

Superfund program:

Preliminary indications are that over half of the

5,000 operating hazardous waste facilities are leaking and causing contamination . . the pace of

cleanups has been slow. in part because there is no

overall strategy to deal with the problem . . . the

agency has not been able to devote sufficient

resources towards its corrective action program . . .

remedy selection has often been conflicting and

inconsistent, with no clear criteria for selecting a

remedy that is most protective of- human health

and/or the environment . . . The longer these problems persist and remain unresolved, the greater the

likelihood that operators will be unable to take

corrective action and that the facilities will become

Superfund sites. ‘5*

147u.s. Environmental Protection Agency, “Extent of the Hazardous Rclcmc Problem and Future Funding Needs: CERCLA Sccuon 301 (a){ 1 )(C)

Study, ” op. cit., footnote 32, p, 5-3.

1

481 b]d., p. 5-2.

149GA0 only incjud~ those RCRA Subtit]e C facllltles hey fell would cnd up in tie su~fiund, ralhcr than RCRA L. OrrCCIIVC W’IIOTI, program.

150]n ~ reswnw t. ~uestlons ~sed by the How commlt~~ on publlC Works and Transportation, EPA stated in 1 !)88 that [hc maximum number of

Potential sites m the 1987 GAO study should be 84,000. EPA argued that the count for three categories should be decreased not bccausc the sites might

not be contaminated but bezause-bureaucratically -+hey should not be Ilstcd m CERCLIS. EPA subtracted RCRA Subtltlc D 1 tic 11 } ucs on the ba.ws

of a Supctfund pohcy that had been reJectcd by EPA m 1987. EPA ObJe~tcd to GAO’s count of Federal sires rather thmfac’//irtrs bccauw the NPL list~

Federat facilities. However, Federal agencies inventory numbers of potcntd sites not facilities, EPA eliminated the bulk of lnjectlon wells countcci by

GAO because they are ‘‘non-hazardous by definmon.’ GAO Justlficd the inclusion of these WCIIS bccauw of cwdcnce that (lass 5 wcll~ have a low

[o high probablll~y of bclng contaminated. [‘‘Prcllmlnag Findings of OTA Report on Supcrfund, ’ op. CII., footnote 81, p. 269. J

151 L’s, con~css, General .AccounUng OffiCC, “?ktajor Ektvuomenlal Issues. 1991- 1994, ” dlsusslon papers, Scptcmbcr 1989.
130 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

APPENDIX 2A

A HEALTH CARE MODEL FOR

SUPERFUND SCREENING

Introduction

Because the Superfund program does not collect

the proper data, OTA cannot make a definitive

analysis of the environmental effectiveness of its

screening process. Analogies are possible, however,

with the health care field where screening tests are

routinely used to detect the presence of illness (e.g.,

mammography for breast cancer) or risk factors

(e.g., high cholesterol levels) that may require

treatment. The efficacy of medical screening tests

receives a lot of attention and making improvements

is often high priority research. In addition, cutoffs

are set with explicit consideration of the costs of

missing cases and of incorrectly labelling a healthy

person as diseased. The Superfund program, which

justifies cleanup decisions on protection of human

health, has not sought the same high standards in its

approach to screening sites and setting a cutoff.

A potential Superfund site must pass three levels

of screening prior to site cleanup: 1) the preliminary

assessment (PA), 2) the site inspection (SI) and HRS

scoring, and 3) the remedial investigation and

feasibility study (RIFS) and Record of Decision

(ROD). Starting with the PA, screening is simple

(only existing information is used), but at each of the

two higher levels, increasingly more and better

information is used. A site must be judged positive

at each screening stage in order to enter the next

screening stage and, finally, to receive a cleanup.

At each stage, some sites are eliminated and

labeled NFA—No Further Action. * Elimination

does not necessarily mean that a site is free from

public health or environmental problems. First,

because no screening process is perfect, some sites

are judged negative-not requiring cleanup-when

in fact they are positive. Second, sites are eliminated

because it is estimated or shown that they will not

score at least 28.50 using the HRS. Third, sites are

eliminated because, for statutory or policy reasons,

they are not covered by the Superfund program. All

of these classes of rejected sites have been lumped

together in the universe of sites that don’t need

cleanup.

Based on a health care model, two characteristics

and two outcomes can be used to assess how well the

three Superfund screening stages perform, both

independently and collectively:2

●

●

●

●

Sensitivity—What is the probability that screening will identify the true positive sites, i.e.,

those sites requiring cleanup? This is the valid

hit rate of the screening method.

Specificity-What is the probability that the

screening method will identify the true negative sites, i.e., nonproblem sites that do not

require cleanup? This is the valid reject rate.

Accuracy—What is the probability that a

decision made by the screening is correct?

Accuracy is a dependent variable. It is affected

by sensitivity, specificity, and the fraction of

sites needing cleanup,

Precision-Is the screening decision reproduce -

ble if different people or offices examine the

same site?

Embodied in sensitivity and specificity are two

fundamental pitfalls: making false positive and false

negative decisions. It is critical to understand that a

screening test is not necessarily equal in its abilities

to detect problems and nonproblems; sensitivities

and specificities may differ widely.

For example, using x-ray examination (mammogram) to screen for breast cancer may have a

relatively high sensitivity (find a high fraction of

cancers) but a lower specificity (identify many

noncancers as cancers). Although such false positives present many problems, in this case it may be

better to have false positives than to have false

negatives. Any positive finding can be followed up

with more sophisticated testing. But a negative

finding leaves the system without a second chance,

and its true nature only becomes apparent if symptoms appear later when cure (remediation) is more

difficult. Another form of medical examination may

have greater accuracy because, for example, it can

detect smaller size cancers. High precision would

1’IIE term now used IS NFRAP, no further remedial action planned.

2S=, forimmce, R.M, ~omer md Q.R, Rernek, ~rinci@les and Procedures m the Evaluation of Screening for Duease, Rbllc Heal~ Mono@@

No. 67, Mily 1967,
131 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

mean the test would detect the same cancer if

performed by different people at different times and

under different conditions.

False Positives and False Negatives in

Superfund

In Superfund, a false positive is a site that is

selected for cleanup but really does not need one.

Money is wasted and an opportunity cost may be

paid because other sites do not get the cleanup

attention they require in a timely way. A false

negative is a site that is eliminated from the system

even though it really needs cleanup. In this case,

near-term costs are avoided but long-term costs,

including environmental damages, are very likely to

grow.

Improving the environmental performance of

Superfund screening process means reducing false

negatives, It is necessary to find out at what level,

where, and why the process produces false negatives. When the problems are found, ways to solve

them must also be found and then resources must be

devoted to do the job. Management must want to

evaluate and improve system performance, but

current pressures are to meet numerical quotas with

fairly constant budgets. There are no allowances for

reassessing what has been done,

The result for Superfund is that there has been

almost no critical examination of the efficiency and

accuracy of screening procedures nor of alternative

screening strategies. Some effort has been made at

determining false positives but not false negatives.

By nature, the system responds to positive test

results and not negative ones; the system has several

chances to detect a false positive (because it stays in

the system), but not a false negative (because it

departs). But to detect a false negative (and to

measure sensitivity and specificity) requires that

money be spent on evaluating the successive levels

of screening and, perhaps, the ultimate remediation

to assess whether sites labeled as negatives and

positives are really so. Clearly, no system would

expend such effort on all findings because that

would eliminate the reason for conducting screening

tests, whose costs are supposed to be small relative

to the final cleanup, In the health care field, research

is conducted on smaller numbers of subjects in order

to establish the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and

precision of screening tests. The results are compared with some “gold standard, ” usually a definitive diagnostic test or the closest thing to it. The

costs and benefits of improving the efficiency and

accuracy of a test are dealt with explicitly.

A Model of Superfund Screening

The percentage of false positives and false negatives for each screening stage can be calculated when

three things are known: the true incidence rate

(percentage of sites in the inventory of possible

cleanup sites that actually require cleanup) and the

sensitivity and specificity of each stage. Either

special tests must be done or some reliable historical

information must be used to obtain these figures; it

is not possible to get them from current Superfund

records. OTA has assumed values to gain insight

into the nature of the current system, to illustrate

possible problems, and to suggest strategies to solve

the problems.

With the model shown in figure 2A-1, the three

serial screening stages in Superfund allow for

calculations-analogous to a mass balance-to

track the disposition of sites as they move through

the system. Positives from one stage pass on to the

next, while negatives leave the system. As with any

model, some details and richness of the real case are

simplified or ignored. For example, OTA has

combined the SI and HRS scoring into one stage,

because for the most part the same information has

been used for both, although in reality some sites are

eliminated after the SI. Now, with two SIs (a

screening and a listing SI) the level of the information is different and EPA has added another rejection

point.

It is important to emphasize that there is no one

correct result from the model. Numbers are assumed

for key variables. For figure 2A-1, OTA assumed a

CERCLIS inventory of 10,000 evaluated sites and a

true incidence rate of 12 percent, or that 1,200 sites

really require cleanup. We assumed that at the PA

stage the sensitivity is good, but not exceptionally

high, and resigned it a value of 0.85 (i.e., a 15

percent miss rate on the true problem sites) and the

specificity is rather low, a value of 0.25 (i.e., 75
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 132

Figure 2A-1 -Estlmation of True/False Positives and Negatives

N = 10,000 Sites

I I

false negatives rate = 7.6%

L I

I

1,020 true positives

6,600 false positives

7,620 sites to SI

false positives rate = 87%

t

I 1

I I

false negatives rate = 0.8%

I I

I

969 true positives

66 false positives

1,035 sites to RIFS

false positives rate = 6.4%

1w

63 true negatives

Sensitivity = 0.99 10 false negatives

Specificity = 0.95 RiFS 73 NFA Sites

false negatives

rate = 14%

~ To cleanup

959 true positives

3 false positives

962 sites to cleanup

false positives rate = 0.3%

80URCE: Offkx of Technology Awe8wnenl, 19S9.

percent of nonproblem sites pass through to the SI do require cleanup and 6,600 sites that go on to the

stage). next stage do not really require cleanup.

As figure 2A-1 shows, 7,620 sites pass the PA At the SI/HRS stage the level of information is

stage; 7.6 percent of the NFA sites are false improved and the sensitivity increases to 0.95. The

negatives and 87 percent of the sites approved for an specificity increases to 0.99. Figure 2A-1 shows that

SI are false positives. That is, 180 NFA sites really 1,035 sites pass this second screening stage. The
133 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

false negatives are 0.8 percent, and the false

positives are 6.4 percent. The number of true

problem sites missed (false negatives) is 51.

At the RIFS/ROD stage, the quantity and quality

of information are greatly improved. OTA assumed

that the sensitivity increases to 0.99 and the specificity is 0.95. The specificity was decreased somewhat

to reflect the likelihood that investigators would

have some reluctance to reject a site at this last level

of screening after so much investment has been

made in the site. Figure 2A-1 shows that 962 sites

pass through the RIFS/ROD stage to actual cleanup;

14 percent of the negatives are false and 0.3 percent

of the positives are false. Ten more true problem

sites (false negatives) are missed.

Overall, out of the 1,200 true problem sites, 959

are detected and 241 sites are missed. The number of

unnecessary cleanups is three. A total of 9,038 sites

are eliminated. It is only the number of false

positives at the last screening stage that results in

unnecessary cleanups. But false negatives drop

out at each screening stage and accumulate. Thus,

for the three-stage process, 0.3 percent of the

positives are false while 2.7 percent of the negatives

are false. The overall sensitivity for detecting true

problem sites is 0.80, less than for any of the

individual stages. Thus, out of 1,200 true problem

sites, 20 percent (241 sites) are missed because of the

cumulative effect, The specificity is very high at

99.97 percent (i.e., nearly all the nonproblem sites

are rejected); only 3 false positives get through the

last stage.

Applying Results to Superfund

The model and the numbers assumed and calculated simulate current Superfund results. About the

same size NPL is created (roughly 1,000 sites) from

about the same universe of inventory sites and sites

examined through the three screening stages. Available data show that the historical NFA rate at the first

screening stage (the PA) has been about 20 percent

(24 percent in the model) and that the NFA rate at the

last screening stage is about 8 percent (7 percent in

the model). Other numbers might lead to the same

overall performance; therefore, the model shows

several important things about the possible behavior

of the current Superfund screening system:

●

●

●

●

It probably does a good job of minimizing false

positives; that is, very few totally unnecessary

cleanups result, although responsible parties

asked to pay for cleanups sometimes believe

otherwise.

It may do a poor job of minimizing false

negatives; that is, a rather large number of sites

that require cleanup can be missed with no

indication that they exist; they are buried within

a large number of true nonproblem sites. While

some State programs may do a good job at

detecting which are problems, not all can (see

chs. 2 and 4).

It is impossible for the second two screening

stages, with their higher levels of sensitivity, to

overcome or offset the inefficiency of the first

screening stage where 180 out of the total of

241 false negatives are created; only 10 false

negatives stem from the last screening stage.

Most false positives come from the first stage

and very few from the second two screening

stages.

Ways to Minimize False Negatives

The results of the model suggest two fundamental

strategies to cut down the number of false negatives

and their attendant problems of high future cleanup

costs and damage to human health and the environment. A High Risk Site Strategy creates a parallel

track of sites and a Better Information Strategy

results in a two-stage process,

High Risk Site Strategy-A case can be made to

circumvent the three-stage screening system and its

inherently lower overall sensitivity and very long

evaluation time by going directly to the third stage.

In the health care field a subpopulation with a higher

incidence of a certain disease is identified, and this

high risk groups is sent directly to a more advanced

stage of screening. The key is to use preexisting

information to define the subpopulation.

This strategy offers Superfund a parallel route to

cleanup for some sites with a higher incidence of

risk. Example subpopulations include: 1) sites that

have been identified through historical aerial photographs, analysis of which clearly shows past hazardous waste management practices that lead to contamination; and 2) sites that have received emergency or other removal actions and that professionals who have worked onsite believe need a cleanup.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 134

A high percentage of such sites are apt to require

cleanup, perhaps 70 to over 90 percent. They could

be skipped directly to the third screening stage

where the very high sensitivity would confirm

almost all of them. For example, for 1,600 such sites

with an incidence rate of 75 percent (i.e., 1,200 true

problem sites, the same as in figure 2A-l), 1,188

sites would be correctly detected, and 12 sites would

be missed. This strategy results in a 1 percent miss

rate rather than the 20 percent miss rate for the

current system.

Better Information Strategy--lt is conceivable

that the first screening stage, where most false

negatives are created, can be improved to raise its

sensitivity. This approach runs counter to the basis

of the current three-stage screening process which is

simple and low-cost (typically days or weeks and a

few thousand dollars) at the first stage and gets much

more costly and longer (typically a few years and

several hundred thousand dollars) at the third stage.

Improving the first screening stage means spending

more money on a very large number of sites—an

activity that could make subsequent stages redundant. This redundancy seems to be happening now;

for example, pushing the use of the HRS into the PA

stage. But, the current use of the HRS at the PA stage

does not include using better information.

Making a significant improvement in PA screening so that its sensitivity increases is worth considering. For example, if its sensitivity is increased from

0.85 to 0.95, the PA and SI/HRS stages can be

combined into a new, more efficient first stage with

the benefits of the current second stages That is, this

strategy uses the second and third stages of the

original model. The result is that, after the third

stage, 71 true problem sites are missed and there are

4 false positives in the total of 1,133 going to

cleanup.

Instead of missing 241 sites in the current system

and 12 sites in the High Risk Site strategy, 71 sites

are missed in the Better Information strategy. The

sensitivity for the Better Information strategy is 94

percent (as compared to 99 percent in the High Risk

Site strategy and 80 percent in the current system).

However, the basis for comparison is not quite the

same for all three cases, even though there are 1,200

true problem sites in each. Although the current

system and the Better Information strategy could be

used on the same group of randomly selected sites

within the entire Superfund inventory, the High Risk

Site strategy is used on a selected group of sites for

which it is known that the percentage of sites

needing cleanup is high. The advantage of the High

Risk Site strategy, therefore, depends on having

information which reliably predicts that a site is a

true problem requiring cleanup.

Comparison With EPA Attempts

To Improve Screening

One of the paradoxes of Superfund is that the PA,

the first screening stage traditionally gets the least

attention, uses the least and probably worst information, and probably is implemented by the most

junior, inexperienced people. This condition means

that the sensitivity and specificity are probably low,

as reflected in OTA’s modeling of the current system

above. EPA’s interest (as detailed in ch. 2) is to

reduce the workload of the SI/HRS, the second,

more expensive screening stage. Thus the drive is to

improve the specificity (i.e., finding nonproblem

sites) of the PA rather than the sensitivity (i.e.,

finding problem sites). But, it is the sensitivity that

determines how many false negatives are created.

The model helps to assess the effects of EPA’s

expansion of PA screening to reduce the workload at

the SI/HRS stage; that is, to reduce as early as

possible false positives. The subtlety is that it is

possible to increase the specificity without increasing the sensitivity; that is, by increasing the specificity the number of false positives is decreased, but not

the number of false negatives. If something is done

to better detect true nonproblem sites, such as using

crude field sampling and analysis to show no

contamination, a specificity of 0.75 instead of 0.25

(as in the current system model) for the first

screening step could be assumed. This reduces the

number of false positives from 6,600 to 2,200. The

number of sites going on to the SI/HRS stage-the

workload-decreases from 7,620 to 3,220 sites, a 58

percent reduction. The false positive rate drops from

87 to 68 percent. The false negative rate decreases

from 7.6 to 2.7 percent even though the actual

3This is s~llw ~ ~~W=@-I in ch. 2 mat wreening be a continuum rather than one in which at a specific point, say the PA stage, it is tlssumed

that enough information exists u make a site decision.
135 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

number of false negative sites remains constant

(because a larger NFA base is created).

However, the real danger is that whatever action

is used to increase the specificity also affects the

screening’s sensitivity. In fact, the likelihood is very

great that the sensitivity would decrease, thereby

increasing the rate of false negatives. For example.

in a modified PA, using crude sampling and analysis

with high detection limits and very few samples per

acre could miss major contamination. Similarly, as

is currently the situation, application of the HRS

scoring at a time when very little reliable information exists could reduce the sensitivity as much as

the specificity is increased.

Reducing the sensitivity, such that more false

negatives are created, has an apparent effect of also

increasing the number of sites eliminated and

reducing the workload for the next screening level.

If the sensitivity decreases from 0.85 to 0.80 at the

PA stage, then an additional 60 false negatives are

created (240 as compared to 180 in the current

system).

Accuracy in Superfund Screening

The degree to which screening decisions are

accurate is yet another problem. In Superfund, the

increasingly critical factor is the use of the HRS. Just

as in some medical tests, a cutoff score is used to

decide whether a site is “bad” enough to merit

cleanup. As discussed in chapter 2, the HRS has

been criticized for many years by many people. No

available evidence has established a valid relationship between the score—and certainly not the

arbitrary cutoff value of 28.50--and the actual threat

to human health and environment.

It is not clear that there is any one cutoff score

that would accurately indicate that a significant

environmental threat exists or does not exist. If

there is one point of uncertainty below which no

cleanup problem probably exists and another point

above which there is almost certainly a need for

cleanup, these points among HRS scores has not

been determined. If such points were determined,

then the policy decision would be whether or nor to

consider sites between the points as positives or

negatives.

Precision in Superfund Screening

The higher the precision of screening tests, the

greater their reproducibility. No matter who applied

the screen, or when, the result would be the same. In

Superfund, good precision would mean that it would

not make any difference, with regard to whether a

site is judged to require cleanup, what EPA region a

site is in, nor what contractor or State office

performed the work, nor which people did the work,

nor when the work was done. Unfortunately, no

specific attempts (such as having some sites evaluated by different offices) have been made to evaluate

the precision of the three-stage screening process

and, especially, the HRS. What data exist, however,

suggest a substantial level of inconsistent results in

every aspect of Superfund implementation (see chs.

2 and 3). Thus, the probability is high that a site

which is judged to be positive or negative could

receive just the opposite label if it was examined at

a different time by different people in a different

office.

Conclusion

The examination of sensitivity and specificity in

combination with an overview of problems with

accuracy and precision in Superfund’s screening

steps leads to an unsettling conclusion. No detailed

data have ever been intentionally gathered that could

rate the worth of Superfund’s screening steps.

However, whatever analysis can be done with the

meager information available leads one to suspect

that current screening efforts may miss substantial

numbers of sites that really require cleanup. But the

system is much less likely to result in cleanups that

are really unnecessary.

In fact, for every one unnecessary cleanup, the

model used here suggests 80 sites are not cleaned up

that should be. The costs of better or extra screening

designed to minimize false negative sites seem small

compared to the higher costs of delayed cleanup.

Doubling preremedial costs, for instance, to 6

percent of the Superfund budget would add about

$40 million to screening. That is comparable to

today’s average cost of cleaning up a site, $30

million. If improved screening found most of the 80

sites, it is possible that hundreds of millions in future

clean up costs could be saved.
Chapter 2—The Front End of Superfund: Site Discovery and Evaluation ● 136

When the problems of poor accuracy and the model used here. On the other hand, errors may

precision are also taken into account, then it is clear be systematic, not random. Indeed, some actions

that the margin of error in any estimate of false have been discussed that bias results, and the

negatives and false positives is probably very large, pressures on Superfund point to a predilection to

even as much as plus or minus 100 percent. This ignore false negatives while attempting to minimize

means that if all errors were random there may be no false positives. Short-term costs are being minisignificant problem of false negatives or the rate

might be twice as large as the estimates made with mized at the expense of higher long-term costs.
Chapter 3

Cleanups and Cleanup Technology
CONTENTS

Page

10 KEY ISSUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Issue 1: Is there now available a full range of proven, safe, and cost-effective cleanup

technologies so that land disposal and containment can be largely avoided? . . . . . . 139

Issue 2: Is the Superfund system using proven cleanup treatment technologies—

preferably permanent ones-where and when they are applicable and feasible?.. 142

Issue 3: Is the current enforcement emphasis on obtaining settlements with

responsible parties affecting remedy selection? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Issue 4: Are analyses and selections of cleanup technologies inconsistent and, if so,

does it matter? .*. ... ***. ... *.. ... *.. ... ...0. *.. ..*. ... .*. **. ..$. ... .*. *.e 4*.. 174

Issue 5: Are there incentives built into the Superfund program for making broad use

of improved cleanup technologies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Issue 6: Will using permanently effective cleanup technologies mean that cleanup

costs will skyrocket? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Issue 7: Are research and development producing a steady stream of more

cost-effective cleanup technologies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Issue 8: Are the rules clear on what constitutes proof of cleanup effectiveness for

new technologies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Issue 9: Is poor information affecting the use of better cleanup technologies? . . . . . . . 187

Issue 10: Is experience leading to easier, faster, and less expensive analyses and

decisions on cleanup technologies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Boxes

BOX Page

3-A. 10 Case Study Sites With Capsule Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

3-B. Key Issues for Onsite Incineration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

3-C. Key Issues for Biological Treatment . . . . * *, * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

3-D. Key Issues for Separation Technologies ● . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

3-E. Key Issues for Chemical Fixation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

3-F. How a Technical Assistance Grant Analysis Concluded That a Pump-And-Treat

Approach Did Not Offer a Reliable Cleanup of Groundwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

3-G. Summaries of Eight FY88 Region 5 Decisions Selecting Containment/Land

Disposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172

Figures

Figure Page

3-1. Possible Restoration Scenarios When Evaluating Performance Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

3-2. Conceptualization of the Trade-offs Between Investigation and Cleanup Costs as a

Function of the Sophistication of Site Characterization Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Talks

Table Page

3-1. Comparison of Mobile/Transportable Incineration Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

3-2. Site Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Chapter 3

Cleanups and Cleanup Technology

What is a permanently effective treatment technology? The Superfund Administration and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) strongly supports

its development, demonstration, and use for site

cleanup, but the statute does not say exactly what

“permanent,” “effective,” or “treatment” mean.

The resulting ambiguity for Superfund has fueled

public criticism of specific cleanups and clashes

between statutory requirements and implementation. Some flexibility is necessary for the people

trying to find cleanup solutions to complex sites.

The challenge is finding an approach which follows

statutory requirements and preferences, uses the

latest understanding of science and engineering, and

also allows enough flexibility for front-line people

to solve tough problems.

OTA’s analysis of site cleanup in this chapter

focus on how well technology is evaluated and

selected to solve contamination problems and to

meet cleanup objectives. Ten key issues are identified and discussed.

This chapter is not a treatise on Superfund

procedures and cleanup technologies. While many

people want to know details about cleanup technologies, especially newer ones, the technology area is

evolving rapidly and detailed descriptions of specific technologies are quickly out-of-date. 1 Also, the

objectivity and reliability of available information

cannot be guaranteed because so much of it comes

from technology developers themselves. Moreover,

engineering specifications have limited value to

policymakers charged with making the Superfund

program work more effectively and efficiently.

OTA’s analysis is meant to provide a background

for the discussion of policy options to improve

Superfund implementation. Accordingly, general

scientific and engineering principles and trends are

set out, in somewhat of a tutorial style, which should

be of particular use to the non-specialist in cleanup

science and technology. Given the paucity of exact

information, examples of site decisions also play an

important role in OTA’s analysis.

10 KEY ISSUES

Issue 1: Is there now available a full range of

proven, safe, and cost-effective cleanup technologies so that land disposal and containment

can be largely avoided?

In large measure, the answer is yes, Perhaps the

best proof is the current smorgasbord of treatment

technologies for different kinds of Superfund sites

from hundreds of technology vendors. But land

disposal and containment are still needed and

particular treatment technologies accomplish different things.

Nor can cost-effectiveness be separated from

cleanup objectives. That is, no cleanup technology

is intrinsically cheap or exorbitantly expensive. The

range of cleanup applications is very broad, and

cost-effectiveness depends on what the cleanup need

is, including what the contamination and site conditions are. Claims that a technology is intrinsically

cost-effective are misleading. Yet, some technologies commonly used for generic applications earn

the engineering label “proven.” Assessment of the

availability of treatment alternatives to land disposal, therefore, is linked to general cleanup goals

(e.g., permanence, cost-effectiveness), specific site

cleanup objectives (e.g., levels of residual contamination for specific contaminants to attain risk

reduction objectives, compliance with regulatory

standards), and an understanding of different generic

cleanup applications.

Because not all treatments are the same, the

general availability of all treatment technologies that

are lumped together can be misleading. Some

treatments are preferred over others, and if some

cleanup problems have no good treatment solutions

(e.g., very large municipal landfills).

The mere label of “treatment’ for a technology

can be misleading. The government has not established a clear hierarchy of preferred treatments and

preferred environmental outcomes. One possible

1 In its 1985 ~cp~ swe~~ s~~eO., OTA ll~t~ s~lfic t~hnology vendors with some dl~ussion Of the~ new tedlnologles. TO a kge degree,

the information quickly became outdated; it was also unintentionally unfair to fms not llsted. At this time, there is no convenient single source of the

latest information on new cleanup technologies.

-139–

20–01 1 0 – 89 – 4 : QL 3
140 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

hierarchy is given in box l-F, chapter 1. Treatment

technologies, such as thermal destruction (incineration) and biological treatment, which actually destroy or detoxify hazardous substances, and technologies that recover contaminants for reuse are the

most desirable; OTA concludes that such treatments

offer permanent remedies. EPA has said that

permanent remedy “has not been strictly defined. ”2

Permanence is at one end of the performance

spectrum for treatment technologies. At the other

end, for example, are simple treatments that extract

water from a sludge type of waste, reducing volume

but leaving the hazardous substances in their original chemical form and quantity. For environmental

protection, treatment that permanently renders hazardous substances harmless is most preferred. The

reason is simple. To the extent that the treatment is

maximally effective, there are no uncertainties: the

source of hazard is removed, not merely reduced,

separated, or contained. Permanent treatment provides maximum risk reduction, especially if it can be

done for all of a site’s contaminants. Russell E.

Train, former EPA Administrator, stated the importance of permanent cleanups: ‘‘Haunting Superfund

is the nightmare of spending millions to clean up a

site, then discovering the cleanup is far from

permanent. ’

Some treatments, however, only reduce mobility,

such as chemical fixation, stabilization, and solidification; these also generally increase volume.

Some are only separation technologies (e.g., soil

washing, solvent extraction from soils, carbon

adsorption, and precipitation of contaminants in

groundwater) which may reduce volume but actually

produce a more concentrated hazardous waste that

must be treated or landfilled. Some separation

technologies can (and often do) release hazardous

materials directly into the environment (e.g., air

stripping of contaminated water, soil aeration, and

extraction of volatile chemicals from soil) unless

contaminants are collected and some form of destruction technology is also used.4

Treatment and Permanence-To begin with, the

word ‘‘treatment is not especially informative

technically. At best, treatment as applied to hazardous waste problems has come to mean anything

other than land disposal of hazardous waste. By

itself, treatment does not convey what happens to the

hazardous waste. In particular, treatment does not

imply a permanent transformation of hazardous

material to harmless material.

Cleanup permanence may also be seen as a form

of pollution prevention. A permanent treatment

technology removes the source of future pollution.

Other types of treatment leave hazardous material as

an uncertain threat, which may require action later.

In contrast to primary pollution prevention for

industrial hazardous waste generation, cleanups start

out with hazardous waste already created. It is only

through destruction or recovery that source reduction can be applied to cleanup; this application might

be called secondary pollution prevention.

Theoretically, every hazardous substance and

contaminated material can be permanently treated to

render it irreversibly harmless. Engineering, economics, and the ability to apply such technology to all

site contaminants are another matter. Organic hazardous substances can be destroyed by supplying

enough energy to break chemical bonds, such as

through incineration or biological activity, and

through chemical reactions, such as dechlorination,

ultraviolet photolysis, wet air oxidation, and supercritical water oxidation. Materials containing toxic

metals can be treated to recover the metals, converting them back into their original commercially

valuable form. Even some organic hazardous substances can be recovered and sold commercially;

recovery of oil from refinery waste sludges and

contaminated soils is commercially available

ZRc~Ww 10 question, in pre/lmMV fi-l~ings oj” (YKA Report on Superfund, Committee Report on Hearing ~fore the subcommi~~ on

Investigauons and Overs@t, Comrmttee on Public Works and Transportation, U.S. House of Representatives, Apr. 20, 1988, p, 273.

sRussell E. Train, ‘ ‘Big Questions Facing Lhe Cleanup, ” EPA Journul, January/February 1987.

q[ncre~smgly, separation t~hnology is used m Conjunction with a destruction technology, but litde allenf.iOn may be given to the enviromentd

release of contaminants from the. separation technology. For example, air ~tnpping of contaminated groundwatermay be used prior to biological treatment

in a reactor; a case study which described a groundwater cleanup of such a combination provided no information on the relatlve contribution of the air

stripping to cleanup versus actual dest.rwmon of orgarnc contaminants by microbes. Robert Sanford and Donald Smallbeck, ‘‘Startup of a

Physical/Biological Treatment Plant to Treat Groundwater Contarmnated With Chlorinated Hydrocarbons and Soluble Orgarucs, ” proceedings of

Haztech International Conference, St. I.muis, MO, August 1987.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology . 141

through various solvent extraction processes, Acidic

or alkaline wastes can be chemically neutralized.

Asbestos can be classified. Therefore, in terms of

scientific principles, destruction, recovery, or some

form of chemical conversion are treatment approaches that produce permanent cleanups. In

assessing commercial availability of alternative

treatment technologies, therefore, it is useful to fist

distinguish between those that offer permanence, in

a scientific sense, and those that do not. Not all

treatment technologies can meet environmental

goals.

Reducing the volume or mobility of hazardous

substances offers some environmental benefits relative to the goals of controlling the release of

hazardous material into the environment and minimizing exposures to hazardous substances. Such

treatment technologies may play an important role

prior to using a permanent treatment technology.

But, in themselves, reducing volume and mobility

(or reducing exposure by encapsulating a toxic

substance) does not produce the kind of certain

environmental benefit that destruction or recovery

do (even with less than perfect performance) because the source of chemical hazard remains.

Current EPA thinking on the various outcomes of

cleanup approaches is different from OTA thinking.

For example, under the heading of ‘‘program

principles/expectations, at a technical information

forum for Superfund personnel, EPA said:5

●

●

‘‘Protwtion can be achieved by the destruction

or immobilization of waste through treatment

or by preventing exposure through engineering

and institutional controls. ” (Although engineering and institutional controls must be used

at times, this statement can be interpreted to

mean that a Record of Decision (ROD) could

consider land disposal and deed restrictions as

comparable to incineration.)

“Expect most remedies will involve a combination of treatment and containment technologies. ” (Although this statement is true to a

large degree and there is a role for containment

technologies, this statement does not tell front-

●

line personnel that treatment is to be maximized and containment minimized; see the

discussion below on extent of permanence and

different types of cleanup actions.)

‘‘Highly toxic, highly mobile waste (waste that

can be contained reliably with engineering

controls, e.g., containment, capping) generally

will not need treatment. ’ (The problem is the

limited information on and in the interpretation

of what is highly toxic and highly mobile; the

interpretation suggests to personnel a rationale

for not selecting treatment.)

Is it useful to think of degrees of permanence? No,

not for what a particular technology accomplishes.

Superfund implementation, thus far, has shown that

it is important to keep the distinction between

permanence and volume or mobility reduction clear.

Otherwise, too many treatments are credited with

permanence. However, EPA has favored use of the

degree of permanence concept and this practice

has been important in providing the flexibility—

which OTA considers being excessive—to equate

different cleanup alternatives as equally satisfying the goal of obtaining permanent remedies. For

example, former Assistant Administrator J. Winston

Porter said: “. ., There are degrees of permanence,

. . . Certainly digging everything up and burning it is

about as permanent as you can get. On the other

hand, if you take just putting a cap over it and

walking away, that’s about as least permanent as you

can get. Then there is a gradation. . . . Certainly

things like solidification, I would say, is not as

permanent in the sense as some destruction techniques. . . . When we put a cap on or when we put

monitoring wells in or we do in situ (in-place)

solidification or various other things, we do it with

the understanding that we hope that will work

permanently, not in geologic time . . . but for some

finite time period we expect that to work. ’

In OTA’s view, working for a finite time may

mean months or years. What varies is not the degree

of permanence but the degree of environmental

protection provided by the treatment or containment

technology. Indeed, even land disposal and contain5(-J.fj. fivfimen~ protection A~ncy, materials distributed at EPA’s Technical Information F~. Arlington, VA, Feb. 22-23, 1989.

6Rc~pm t. ~ue~on, in p~~i~’~ Fi~ings Of OT,A Report on s~e~~, op. cit., foo~ow 2, PP. 189, 191.
142 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

ment have sometimes been described as giving a

degree of permanence.7

A related issue is the extent of use of a permanent

technology at a site. It is not always possible to apply

permanent treatment technology to all of a site’s

contaminants. When more than one technology is

used for a cleanup, including technologies and

methods other than destruction and recovery, only

part of a site’s contamination may receive permanent

treatment. Therefore, if at all possible, the percent of

hazardous site material rendered harmless through

destruction or recovery should be calculated to

describe the extent that permanent treatment technology is used. Maximizing the extent of such use to

satisfy statutory preferences and requirements is the

goal.

Three Limiting Principles for Permanent Treatmets--Unless proven inapplicable, there are three

fundamental limits to any destruction or recovery

technology. First, no destruction or recovery technology can work on all conceivable hazardous

substances. For example, incineration does not

destroy toxic metals, and biological treatment is

very chemical-specific. This limitation implies the

need for effective pollution controls to deal with

untreated substances.

Second, no process is 100 percent efficient.

Incomplete destruction or recovery must be carefully examined and measured. EPA currently requires an efficiency of 99.99 percent for incineration

(and even more for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

If this requirement was applied to other treatment

technologies, few would currently pass muster. This

deficiency too implies the need for effective pollution controls to deal with untreated material. The

deficiency also implies the need to set acceptable

levels of residual un-destroyed or un-recovered

contaminants at a site on the basis of insignificant

health or environmental effects.

Third, a treatment may produce new hazardous

substances as byproducts of chemical reactions.

Testing for toxic byproducts takes special effort.

While the problem is well known for incineration, it

is an often neglected issue for other technologies,

such as biological treatment. Also, a treatment

process may use chemicals which themselves pose

some problem, such as additives to make in situ

biological or chemical fixation work effectively.

Conclusions—The market for cleanup technologies is rapidly changing, Over the past several years

many new technology companies have entered the

marketplace. Technology availability has increased,

but evaluating different technologies has gotten

more difficult. Increasingly, the competition will not

be between containment/land disposal and treatment

but among different generic treatment technologiesespecially permanent ones—and among different

options within generic categories. Although permanence is a key goal of final remedial actions, cleanup

technologies which do not offer permanence have an

important role to play in emergency responses,

attempts to recontrol sites, and interim remedial

actions. But there it is important not to blur the

distinction between technologies which offer permanence and those which do not.

Issue 2: Is the Superfund system using proven

cleanup treatment technologies-preferably

permanent ones-where and when they are

applicable and feasible?

Types of Cleanup--This question cannot be

fairly answered unless it is understood that there are

four types of cleanup actions. First, there is emergency action, for which any type of fast response

necessary to reduce the immediate danger is appropriate. There is no requirement to choose treatment

technology and, indeed, there would rarely be time

to pursue treatment.

Second, there is what is now called removal

action. Both emergency and removal actions can be

taken on any site, without the requirement of the site

being selected for the National Priorities List (NPL).

Originally, removal action was supposed to deal

7A ~fitiquc of ~ EpA s~dy @ a ~n~~tor working for responsible parties at a si~: “.. c The FS [feasibility study] incorrectly eliminates from

&tailed consideration those alternatives, such as capping with groundwater renovation, which permanently reduce the mobility and volume of hazardous

substances and which arc more cost-effective than the alternatives considered by EPA. (’‘Review Comments on the Re-Solve Site, Dartmouth,

Massachuxm, Draft Feasibility Study and U.S. EPA Preferred Alternative, ’ ERT Company, August 1987,) No mention of reducing toxicity is made.

Accurding to the contractor, leaving hazardous materials in the ground is a permanent remedy. It should be understood that EPA and its contractors have

made similar arguments in their work. l%e Re-SoIve site decision is one of the cases cited by OTA in its 1988 report as an example of SUperfind at its

best becu of h treatment cleanup technology sclwted (i.e., dechlorination).
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 143

with imminent threats of release or exposure and was

done relatively quickly and simply, prior to the

remedial cleanup, often by removing hazardous

material to a landfill. The amounts of such materials

can be larger than the amounts treated subsequently

during a remedial cleanup. Data from EPA indicates

that less than 10 percent of removal actions used

some kind of treatment technology (about half of

these used destruction technology);8 the vast majority of removals--over 90 percent—used land

disposal and engineering or institutional controls.

But over time some removal actions have come to

look like major cleanups, sometimes using treatment

technology. Indeed, SARA increased the time and

spending limits for removals. A number of multimilliondollar removals examined by OTA are no different

than major cleanups. For the period of fiscal year

1987 and about half of fiscal year 1988, EPA said

that there were 22 removals for which it waived the

12-month/$2 million limit of SARA; the average

cost for those removals was just over $4 million.9

However, such multimillion-dollar removals are

outside the stringent cleanup standards of SARA

which apply to remedial cleanups,

Third, there is an interim remedial action, now

called by EPA an operable unit, which is a partial

remedial cleanup, in terms of part of a site or fraction

of contamination targeted. Unlike the previous two

categories, interim remedial action requires major

site investigation and a feasibility study of cleanup

options. Also, EPA issues a Record of Decision

which describes the selected remedy and cleanup

objectives.

Fourth, there is a final remedial cleanup which,

as with an interim effort, requires major site study

and a ROD and is covered by the stringent cleanup

standards of SARA; that is, in these two remedial

categories there is a clear statutory preference for

using permanent treatment technology. A final

remedial cleanup would set the conditions necessary

for delisting a site from the NPL.

The Record on Technology Use—First, it is

important to recognize that, contrary to some popular beliefs, SARA does not require EPA to select

permanent solutions and alternative treatment technologies but only to give them preference and to use

them “to the maximum extent practicable. ” The

statutory requirements are vague and permit many

different interpretations. There is no government

guidance to remove the ambiguities and inconsistencies. Considerable progress toward using more

treatment technology has been made, but all too

often it is not used. This was a major lesson from

OTA’s case studies, many of which either used no

permanent treatment technology or no other type of

treatment technology, or selected unproven and

untested treatment technologies (see box 3-A for a

summary from the 1988 report).

Second, there are many technical application and

implementation issues for any generic cleanup

technology; see box 3-B for an overview of such

issues for incineration, and see table 3-1 for a

summary comparison of the many types and sources

of mobile and transportable incinerators available

today. Over the past few years, there has been a

substantial expansion, nationwide, of the mobile/

transportable incinerator business. This competitive

market has brought down prices. The key difference

between mobile and transportable is that transportable units require significant effort to dismantle, set

up, and move while mobile units do not. See boxes

3-C, 3-D, and 3-E for overviews of application and

implementation issues for biological treatment, separation, and chemical fixation technologies.

All of these application and implementation

issues illustrate the complexity of remedy selection.

Despite increasing experience with cleanups and the

introduction of more treatment options, the cleanup

workforce has found remedy selection to be more

complicated. The need for narrowing down cleanup

alternatives as early as possible without, however,

foreclosing on important options has become greater,

But narrowing down requires in-depth experience

and insight about generic types of sites and recent

technology developments and experiences, so that

truly infeasible or impractical cleanup alternatives

can be eliminated while retaining important options.

8U,S. Envir-ent~ ~o~tlon Agency, ~, ~lt,, f~mo~ 5, me flg~e of less ~aII 10 percent for ~ea~ent Cornpm ~just under 70 perCent fOr

remdird actions in fiscal year 1988, but the data for removals is cumulative, covering all actions since the beginning of the program; the comparable

cumulative figure for remedial actions would be much lower than 70 percent, but significantly higher than 10 percent.

9R=WW t. question, in prel~”~ Fi~ings of OTA Report on SUpe?@d, op. cit.. foomote 2V P 200.
Table 3-l-Comparison of Mobile/Transportable Incineration Technologies

Rotary kiln Infrared furnace Circulating bed Electric pyrolysis Plasma arc torch

Operating Temperature . . . . . . . . . .

Residence Time

solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Waste Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Estimated Throughput . . . . . . . . . . .

Energy Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Estimated Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Movability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Startup Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1,200-1,800”F primary

chamber

Up to several hours

1-2 seconds

solid, sludges, Iiquid

1-5 tons/hour (mobile)

5-20tons/hour (transportable)

Yes, for some units

$100-$500/ton

Commercial

Mobile

Transportable

24 hours (mobile) 4-6

Week (transportable)

(Mobile)

M & S Systems, Broad

Brook, CT

ENSCO Environmental

Services, Little Rock,

AR

Thermal Dynamics,

Mt. Kisco, NY

Vesta Technology,

Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Roy F. Weston, West

Chester, PA

Incinerex, Houston, TX

(Transportable)

ChemicalWasteManage

ment, Oak Brook, IL

ENSCO Environmental

Services, Little Rock,

AR

Envirite Field Services,

Atlanta, GA

lnternationalTechndogy

Corp., Torrance, CA

600-1,900'F primary

chamber

10-180 minutes

2 seconds

Solids, sludges, Iiquid

adaptable

80-210 tons/day (tpd)

Commercial

Mobile

1-2 weeks

Environmental Treatment

&Technologiescorp.,

Findlay, OH

Reidel Environmental

Services, Portland,

OR

Westinghouse Environmental Services,

Pittsburgh, PA

1,500*F

About 30 minutes

2 seconds

solids, sludges, Iiquids

4 tons/hour

Yes

$100-$400/ton

Commercial

Transportable

3 weeks, not including

site preparation

Ogden Environmental

services, San Diego,

CA

3,000-3,200 oF

Variable from minutes

to hours

2 seconds

solids, sludges, Iiquids

5-10 tpd, pilot 100 tpd,

proposed Commercial

$300-$400/ton, pilot

(preliminary)

Pilot. Commercial in 1

year

Mobile

l-2 weeks, proposed commercial

Westinghouse Environmental Services,

Pittsburgh, PA

Over 10,OOO”F plasma

plume

500 milliseconds, plasma

plume

Liquids, certain Iiquified

sludges

2.5-3 gallons/minute; 1

(on/hour

No

$800-$2,000/ton

(preliminary)

Commercial unit in final

testing; available by

mid-1989

Mobile

1 week

Westinghouse Environment Services,

Pittsburgh, PA

SOURCE: Adapted from B. Rey de Castro, “SIX Burn Technolqes Roll Onto !Mes,” Waste Age, February 1989; and Paul N Cheremisinoff, ‘M&Me, Tranqortable and Package Treatment

Systems,” PoHti”on Ew”neering, April 1989.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 145

Box 3-A—1O Case Study Sites WitA Capsule Findings

Case Study I

Chemical Control Corp., E:llxill)t>th, New, jersey

~;~)l~ 1<1’gloll ~: Nl)l, rank 223 out of 77(I

f{~llmatwl cost: $7. LI million

(Jnprtjtcrl solidification (f. h[!nlical fixation) technology

w,is selt!ctml to treat i n situ highly contaminated subsurI;i(,c w)I1, whlf.h ~)r[:viou~ r~!m[)~al actions had left below

t ho wdt er t at)le ,Int{ [.l)~er(;d up with gravel. No treatabilit y

St u(iv \~’ii\ utfxl, ‘1’h I: (.mt of ]ncinerat ion was overestimated.

‘1’h~! [,]f:anu[~ 1%’lli ]e,iv~! LI ntr(!i]td contamination orrsite.

Case Study z

Compass Industries, ‘[’l]l~i) (hunty, Oklahoma

~:[~lf R{:glorl f): N})l. rilr]k 483177(J

F;st imiitf!d ( [)sI $12 mllli(jn

( ;ai)l)t n~ (Lorlt,1 inmf; nt) of ~.ti]st(! was chosen ov[!r inclnt!rat ion. (LI pp i n~ wci~ (Iilll(!d a (.f)st-(~ffc(;ti~~(:, permanent cleanu [) [!v[!n though it (lo~;s not provide perma n[!nt protection

(.() rn pd rdblt: t t) i n(. I nerd t ion. .N() corn m i I ment was made to

t rl?iit (’onti] m I Il:ltfXl gr{)l] ndwatf:r.

Case Studv 3

Conservation Chemical Co., K,lnsas ( ;it}f, Missouri

FIPA Regl{)n 7; N 1’1. ri]r)k i)cn(lln~

E;st Imatf:d (()~t $2 k rn Illlon

(;ii[)pir)g {If th[! s]t[: ii n(l ii bydriluli(; (x)ntainnwnt systt!rn

to pu rn[) a n(i t rf!iit sunlf> cl)rltiinrl nated ground wrater were

choserl (1~’(!r t?~(:d~ri]t I n~ ,1 nd treat ing COntam inat~!d SOi] and

buried wastes, which was r[!commcnded in an EPA stildy

and by the Stiitf). Wi]t(:r treiitment cannot remo~e all the

(Iii’t’rsc (.ont am iniints i]t the site. The ROD said that no estim,it[; ~ ~)uld hc m,}dc for the rfurat ion of t h~! clc~nup.

Case Study 4

Crystal City Airport, (;rystal (;it}, TtIxas

EPA Region 6: NPI, #(j39/770

b;stirnated cost” $1.6 million

~;~(.ci~ilt Ion of contilminated soils and wastes (which were

buriwf in a previous ri!rnot’al action) and their disposal in

an urrl ined landfill with a cap over it were selected over

incirleratioll. No treatability study supported the conclusion that the selected remedy is permanent on the basis

(If the adsorption of diverse contain inants to site soi]. Major failure modes for the landfill were not examined.

Case Study 5

Industrial Excess Landfill, Uniontown, Ohio

~;pA Region 5; NP1, #164/770

Estimated cost: $2 million

Providing i]lterna!t} water to houses that have or are likely

to have contaminated wells was a satisfactory interim remedial action. Howe\(er, actions to address the source of

contaminant ion and to stop and treat contain inated groundwatt~r are long nverdue.

Case Study 6

Pristine, Inc., Reading, Ohio

EPA Region 5; NPL #531/770

Estimated cost: $22 million

[n situ vitrification was developed originally for rildi[)-

act ive soils, but its use for chemical}. contarn i n,ited sites

is still unproven. In situ kfitrification was selecttx - wit bout

treatability test results—chiefly because its estimated cost

was about half that of onsite incineration. Rut the est imate(i

cost for incineration is probably high by ir factor of Z. I rl -

cineration offers more certainty and probably would cost

no more than the chosen remedy. Ground water will be

pumped and treated by air stripping and carbon adsorption.

Case Study 7

Renora, Inc., Edison Township, New ]ersey

EPA Region 2: NPL #378/770

Estimated cost: $1.4 million

The sefected remedy makes use of of fsite land fiiiing for

soils contaminated with PCBS. Also, biological treatment

was selected for soils contaminated with diverse organ ic

compounds and toxic metals and for contain inatecf groun{iwater, but no treatabil it y study su pportcd its selection.

Case Study 8

Sand Springs Petrochemical Complex

Tulsa County, Oklahoma

EPA Region 6; NPI. #761/770

Estimated cost: $45 rniflion

EPA originally said that solidification technology was

ineffective for the high organic content wastes and that

onsite incineration was effective. EPA then reversed itself

and selected solidification for most of the cleanup, which

the responsible party had claimed effective based on its

treatability study. Incineration is to be used if solidification technology is not successfully demonstrated or fails

after sol id i fied material is I and filled on the floodplain site,

but criteria for failure are unspecified.

Case Study 9

Schmalz Dump Site, Harrison, Wisconsin

EPA Region 5; NPL #190/770

Estimated cost: $800,000

A simple compacted earth cover over the soil contaminated with lead and chromium was s(!lected. Sol idification/stabilization treatment was rejer-ted, although this was

a textbook example of appropriate use of the technology.

Voluntary well abandonment and monitoring was chost!n

over pumping and treat ing contaminated grou ndwater.

Case Study 10

Tacoma Tar Pits, Tacoma, Washington

EPA Region 10; NPL #347/770

Estimated cost: $3.4 million

NO treatability study results supportwf th(! s~!lcct ion of

chemical stabilization. Significant amnu nts of u ntrwated

contaminants as well as the treated materials will be ]t?ft

onsite. The effectiveness of the treatment i> LI n(:f)rti] i n. Incinerat ion was said to offer no better protection and was

rejected because of its higher cost.

SOURCE: U.S. Congress, OfticcofTrchoniogy~ Are We Cleaning Up? 10 Snpe@md Cme Stndies, OTA-H’E-362 (Wash@uq

*-J- 19ss), p. 9.

DC: Us. GOWWDCu
146 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. .,

Box 3-Key Issues for Onsite Incineration

Extra Cost Variables-Wastes or soils with: 1)

high water content or large inert objects (e.g., buried

automobiles, large rocks), 2) high levels of corrosive chemicals (e.g., chlorine), or 3).high levels of

toxic metals require costly materials handling,

special construction, or additional pollution control

technology, respectively. Materials with low heat

value (low organic content) require more external

fuel or energy, increasing costs. Such needs do not

eliminate the intrinsic advantage of incineration:

the ability to destroy organic hazardous substances.

Unit Costs==Unit costs for mobile incineration

depend on volume of treated treated becasue there

is significant economy of scale. Smaller cleanups

are proportionately higher in cost because of high

mobilization“on, set up, and testing costs. For very high

volumes, unit cost is substantially lower, but total

site cleanup cost remains relatively high (e.g., for a

large landfill).

Environtmental Risk--General concerns about

environmental risks of incineration (e.g., air pollution, no standards for toxic air emissions) can

increase costs (e.g., permits, tests) and public

opposition which itself results in incereased costs

and delay because more data and assurances of

safety must be provided.

Imcinerator Market-An inCreasing diversity

of mobile incinerators, differing in: 1) size, design,

and type of heating (e.g., rotary kiln, infrared,

fluidized bed, plasma-arc); and 2) the degree of past

experience and proven reliability, requires more

analysis prior to selection of remedy and causes

greater variables in estimated costs.

souRcB: Omc80r l=l=@Y~ 19s9.

EPA’s data for source control RODS (excluding

no further action and groundwater cleanup decisions) for fiscal years 1987 and 1988 indicates:

. use of land disposal/containment in 52 percent

of RODS in fiscal year 1987, down to 26

percent in fiscal year 1988;

. destruction treatment (incineration and biological) in 21 percent in fiscal year 1987, which

●

●

improved to 30 percent in fiscal year 1988; and

separation technology in 7 percent in fiscal year

1987, which increased to 21 percent in fiscal

year 1988;

various types of chemical fixation or stabilization techniques in 13 percent in fiscal year

1987, which increased to 17 percent in fiscal

year 1988.

Note that some RODS used more than one

technology and that some technologies were not

categorized. Separation technologies were not necessarily followed by destruction.l0

In understanding the selection of treatment technologies, it is necessary to take into account cost, site

conditions (e.g., hydrogeology, climate, geochemistry), Complexity and widely varying levels of

contamination, and other factors that may rule out

technology that otherwise appears technically feasible from a more scientific perspective. But nearly

always there is more than one technically feasible

treatment option and increasingly the options are for

onsite treatment in mobile or transportable equipment or, to a lesser extent, for in situ application to

undisturbed soil or groundwater. Onsite treatment

offers the advantage of eliminating the costs and

risks of transporting hazardous materials and, increasingly, the high costs and limited availability of

some waste treatment technologies at commercial

facilities. Moreover, different treatment technologies can be combined or even used in conjunction

with land disposal/containment approaches; for

example, only hot spots of contamination may be

excavated and treated when there are truly enormous

amounts of buried materials.

Different forms of a generic technology may vary

so much in terms of equipment, cost, mechanism of

hazard reduction, environmental safety, and other

factors that Feasibility Studies and selections of

cleanup technology may have to go beyond generic

categories. This situation is definitely the case for

forms of thermal and biological destruction that vary

greatly. Serious problems result because greater

expertise and analysis is required, which can lead to

longer and more costly studies.

l~os. ~“”worm.wntal Prutcctiom A-y, ‘‘Solid and Hazardous Wsste Report for Fiscal Years 1987 and 1988,” and informal corrections provided

to OTA.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 147

BOX 3--Key Issues for Biological Treatment

Lack Of Field Experience--The enormous promise of biological treatment, as a destruction technology for

organic hazardous subtances and for the conversion or recovery of some toxic metals, is impeded by the lack of

documented field experience in meeting stringent (low residual contaminant level) cleanup standards. This problem

is exacerbated by aggressive marketing by an increasing number of vendors with little, if any, experience. Much

vendor experience has been for confidential clients, which limits detailed public information.

Chemical Specificity-Biological effectiveness is chemical-specific, meaning that sites with diverse

contaminants are difficult and require more testing, verification, and process monitoring. Even variations of a type

of chemical can be very significant; e.g., PCB molecules with higher numbers of chlorine ions are difficult to

degrade.

Sustaining Performance--Very low and very high contaminant concentrations pose problems for sustaining

biological performance. Hazardous material is both a food source and at high concentrations, potentially, a poison

to microbes, depending on many factors in addition to concentration.

In Situ Problems--In situ application (i.e., leaving wastes where they are) is more difficult than using

above-ground engineered equipment (i.e., bringing wastes to the biological process) because: 1) degree and speed

of effectiveness depend on controlling critical variables such as oxygen and nutrients to sustain biological activity,

2) natural soil or aquifer conditions can inhibit effectiveness (i.e., bacteria may not be able to reach contaminants

because of low permeability subsurface soil or slow moving groundwater), and 3) variations in contaminant

concentrations and unexpected contamination can drastically reduce effectiveness which is difficult to detect.

Correlations of Effectiveness--Varying degrees and rates of effectiveness have not been well correlated with

various waste and site characteristics. This limits learning about technology and extrapolation of results to other

sites.

Uncertain Choices--A very high level of R&D is underway and substantial new or different approaches

introduce uncertainty into applicability and remedy evaluation; e.g., aerobic v. anaerobic bacteria fungi v. bacteria

natumily occurring site bacteria v. proprietary microbes and genetically engineered bacteria; i.e., acceptance or

rejection of the generic approach requires an increasing amount of treatability testing and analysis of specific

techniques, requiring more cost and time prior to critical remedy selection decisions. This problem is exacerbated

by a generally low level of microbiological literacy in the cleanup workforce, especially those who examine and

select cleanup remedies.

Costs-Although there is, theoretically, an intrinsic economic advantage for biological treatment (particularly

with thermal destruction technologies), because of low capital, energy, and materials costs, claims of comparative

cost advantages for biological cleanups discount offsetting factors, including: high testing costs, the need for using

other technologies before or after biological treatment high contingency costs to account for encountering upset

conditions (sudden occurrences which cause treatment systems to crash-i.e., stop performing according to

specifications), sometimes long processing times, and similar costs for competing generic technologies (even

though they might not be permanent treatment technologies) or combinations of technologies, such as low-cost

separation technology followed by incineration.

Proof of Destruction Above Ground-Above-ground processing may suggest contaminant destruction

which actually is contaminant transfer to the air or water. Data to substantiate contaminant destruction is often

lacking, and this issue is complicated by the use of other treatment technologies (e.g., air stripping of groundwater)

in a site cleanup.

Toxic Byproducts--There is very little information on production of toxic byproducts.

Process Controls--Process controls may not reflect detailed determination of failure points; i.e.,

combinations of loading and engineering control parameters that cause biological treatment systems to exhibit

sudden effluent deterioration and failure.

Biodegradability-Lists of chemicals that say whether or not they are biodegradable reflect scientific

knowledge more than engineering information and field experience.

SOURCE: on%= of lkclmology Aswsmc@ 19s9.
148 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Box 3-D--Key Issues for Separation

Technologies 1 2

Identifying Contaminants--The disposition of

the separated contaminant (s) requires precise identification. Sometimes a contaminant is released into

the air or disposed of in a landfill, although it is

always feasibIe to destroy organic material through

Some form of incineration or to recover toxic

metals.

Concentration Levels--The effectiveness and

efficiency of many techniques are sensitive to the

concentration of contaminants; some techniques

work cost-effectively within certain“ concentration

ranges.

Many Contaminants Need Extra Treatment—

When many diverse contaminants are present, any

single technology is unlikely to be fully effective on

all of them. Use of several technologies can meet

stringent cleanup objectives but adds significant

new costs, whose avoidance may compromise

Cleanup objectives. Detailed treatability testing of

site material “ s and onsite demonstrati“on of system

are critical.

In Situ Effectiveness--For in situ techniques,

soil conditions, depth of contaminati“on, and water

can drastically reduce effectiveness. Complex site

conditions increase costs substantially and increase

the need to show, in site demonstration, that the

technology works.

1~~,.~.

.McmmlexUUaKm

~

“ d dr a H 91ripp@ d VdUile agmic

ksait (in simk

•h~J~“ fmul d (m 8inl Or m ~

● soil flq m Wabiug (m situ ff m yylnlll?mk

● SdveatoxUMXim dmib (in ~ qupmem “

● Ak9Uippiq

~

, ~~~*WV w

of~in w- (m ~oq9ip

Ilmnt).

~aMpUUianmdXmbgy an beumdfa~

~(-~~X)- al k$ sbilky topru&ce

P - ~ mitabb far ~-. In ambbUim Wilil

tkructb= ~~t~‘ ~-~~

W===-”

SOURCE: CMfbeof ‘MmotaW ~IW.

Use of Land Disposal and Containment--No

one should jump to the conclusion that land disposal/

containment options are no longer being selected, or

that they will not be selected in the future. Although

there are some kinds of sites for which containment

remains an appropriate action, the issue is whether

to call such actions permanent remedial cleanups.

There are still sites where treatment technologies are

ruled out, sometimes in a preliminary screening of

alternatives and sometimes on the basis of poor

information and evaluation, as OTA’s case studies

have shown.ll In many cases, containment/land

disposal options are being used unnecessarily. There

is more experience in rejecting treatment technologies than in selecting them. Here are (in no special

order) 23 generic explanations for rejection of

treatment technology, which OTA has found are

often used singly or in combination in studies for

Superfund sites:

10

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

110

12.

13.

Land disposal or containment provide comparable environmental protection.

There is too little hazardous material to

justify treatment.

There is too much hazardous material to treat

cost-effectively.

Treatment technology provides unnecessary

risk reduction at excessive cost.

Excavating material would pose unacceptable short-term risks because, for example, of

volatile chemicals or explosive materials.

There is no treatment technology with enough

reliability and implementability to use.

The treatment technology used elsewhere

will not work for this site, because of its

uniqueness.

Future land use restrictions are sufficient and

the waste can be left in the ground.

Natural dilution of contaminated water will

be enough.

No one is using the contaminated groundwater.

An alternative source of water has already

been provided.

If treatment was used, the clean material

would only get re-contaminated because of

other sources of contamination.

Information on the true extent of contamination and risk exposure is still incomplete and

more studies are necessary.

Ilu$s. cmw~~, ~lw of ~~loa ~sment, Are we clea~”ng fJp? 10 s~e~~ c~e Sti’cs, OTA-ITE-362 (Wd@tOU, ~: U.S.

Oovunmcnt Printing Office, June 1988).
Chapter 3-Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 149

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

o f

No test results show that the technology

works for this site’s problem.

The costs of the treatment technology cannot

be estimated.

The local community does not want uncertain, innovative treatment technology to be

used.

If incineration is selected, some commercial

operation will begin after cleanup and other

people’s wastes will be treated on-site.

Regulatory permits cannot be obtained expeditiously.

The residues of the treatment are hazardous

and will have to be disposed of at a permitted

hazardous facility at great cost.

The law does not say that treatment technology must be selected, only that it be examined

and given preference.

The technology will not treat all the contaminants at the site.

If the technology is used, then some other

treatment technology will also have to be

used afterwards for residues.

Natural treatment will take place through, for

example, biodegradation, adsorption to soil,

or release to the environment.

course, sometimes such explanations for

rejection are valid. But when this is so it is necessary

to give a well-documented technical case or logical

analysis rather than mere assertion. Moreover, many

times an obstacle could be effectively overcome if a

decisionmaker has the will to do so. For example,

poor information can be corrected and tests can be

conducted.

Last, there is the emerging issue of how newly

developing land disposal restrictions for hazardous

waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) affect Superfund cleanup decisions

in response to the SARA statutory requirement to

comply with current government regulatory standards. Briefly, EPA’s current guidance to people

implementing Superfund suggests several ways to

justify using land disposal by evading land disposal

restrictions, particularly treatment requirements: *2

. The cleanup waste must be placed, but placement does not include: waste capped in place,

Box 3-E—Key Issues for Chemical Fixation

Permanency-Although there are increasing

claims of permanency for new and advanced forms

of fixation, there is very little scientific evidence to

verify irreversible molecular change for organic

contaminants or chemical bonding for toxic metal

atoms. Any such evidence cannot be extrapolated

from one contaminant to another. Solidification

(forming a hard solid) does not necessarily mean

that the material is resistant to leaching-out of

contaminants.

Contaminant Compatibility-There is too little recognition that using the technology for sites

with diverse contaminants requires extensive finetuning of formulations. Incompatible contaminants

can reduce effectiveness substantially.

Long-Term Effectiveness-Long-term effectiveness cannot be proven experimentally (unless

permanency is demonstrated) and modeling has

inherent uncertainties. For example, changing environmental conditions (e.g., acidity, chemistry, temperature) might cause increased leachability of contaminants from solidified/treated material.

Air Releases--Processing and mixing of materials can release volatile contaminants into the air.

Volume Increase—Often, there is a large volume increase which may complicate onsite disposal.

Dangers of Private Formulas-An increasing

number of vendors offer proprietary formulations,

leaving users with significant uncertainties, such as

questions about worker health and safety, toxic

byproducts, and patent infringement.

SOURCE: Office of ‘l&.hnoIogy ~t, 1989.

waste consolidated within a cleanup unit, waste

treated in situ, waste processed within the unit

to improve its structural stability for closure or

for movement of equipment over the area.

● The cleanup waste may not be a RCRA

hazardous waste and is not sufficiently similar

to a known RCRA waste.

. The cleanup waste may not be restricted in a

regulatory sense.

12U.S. &“uwnfncntal Protection Agency, op. cit., footnote 5.
150 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

. If treatment standards cannot be met: apply for

a no-migration petition; apply for a case-bycase extension; apply for an equivalent treatment method petition; delist the waste; or apply

for treatability variance through rulemaking or

administrative permission, particularly for soil

and debris cleanup wastes.

It seems, therefore, that expectations that the

RCRA land disposal restrictions might promote

more use of treatment technology in cleanups should

be tempered by the many ways such requirements

may be circumvented. For example, many cleanups

consist of capping waste in place or consolidating

site wastes within a cleanup site.

New Technologies--Though more sites are using

permanent cleanup technologies, new technologies

still face difficulties. It may seem to some people

that progress is being made because, for example,

rotary kiln incineration and not land disposal is

chosen for a cleanup. However, some other permanent technology, such as a newer form of thermal

destruction or a type of biological treatment, might

offer cost, environmental, or technical advantages

but has not even been considered and evaluated.

Although nearly everyone working within the Superfund system understands the congressional intent

to shift to permanently effective cleanup technologies and acknowledges the public’s support of that

policy, numerous factors account for its slow and

uneven implementation.13

One recent survey concluded, “The array of

technological tools available for treatment of hazardous waste streams and site remediation continues

to grow at an ever faster pace . . . In fact, technological advance is in many ways outpacing the rate at

which treatment choices made by regulatory agencies can be put into action. . . . The regulatory push

toward permanent solutions that can be accomplished

onsite and that avoid present and future risk liability

is likely to spawn many more new technologies of

varying applicability. ’ ’14

A study by Tufts University concluded that “. . .

there are elements which result in a bias against the

use of innovative treatment technologies. . . Limited

data on cost and operational history has resulted in

screening out innovative technologies early in the

evaluation process. Because of the liability for

damages resulting from failure of the technologies,

contractors, potentially responsible parties, and government alike are reluctant to recommend the use of

innovative technologies that have not been fully

demonstrated to remedy hazardous waste problems. ”15

The frustration of technology developers is widespread. This is what one developer said at a

congressional hearing: ‘‘The Remedial Division, the

group which should be performing cleanups as

dictated by the principles of SARA, appears so

wedded to A&E (architecture and engineering) firms

for their Records of Decision that it appears virtually

impossible to get a new technology accepted in any

reasonable time."16 EPA has made progress in

overcoming obstacles to using treatment alternatives

to land disposal and has recently clarified its policy

objectives,

17 but use of new treatment technologies

still faces major obstacles (see following issues).

There is a significant lag not only between

research and development and demonstration but

also between successful demonstration--considered

here as enough onsite work with site materials to

establish technical effectiveness and reliability—

and full-scale application. This lag tends to push the

expanding national cleanup effort toward older

technologies rather than toward the risk and uncertainty—

but the chance for bigger payoff--of newer technologies. Furthermore, the public may have little patience with delays in Superfund cleanups. In other

words, insecurities inside the Superfund system and

pressures from outside cause the adoption of newer

13s= OTA*S 1988 report and following issues.

14Jim Bishop, “Treatment TMmologies,” Hazmu Worfd, June 1989.

lscen~r for Environmental Management, ‘lhh University, “The Use of Innovative Treatment Technologies at SuperfUnd Sites, ” Environment.d

hnpuctAsseswnenf Review, vol. 8, 1988, pp. 181-191.

16paul s. McGou@, ~ument m~e at h~ng, Su&om.mittee on Transportation, Tourism, artd Hazardous Matiri~s* comrnitt~ on ficr8Y ad

Gxnmeree, U.S. House of Representatives, Hoboken, NJ, Dec. 7, 1987.

17u.sC ~vlromen~ ~otatim Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response memorandum, ‘‘Advmcing tie UX of Tr~~ent

lldmologies for Superfund Remedies,” OSWER Directive No. 9355.0-26, Feb. 21, 1989.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 151

technologies to be slow even as the need for them is

increasing,

Information transfer and communication are key

problems too. For both the general public and

members of the Superfund workforce, it is difficult

to cope with the flood of scientific and technological

data and details, which is increasing at a rapid rate

as more vendors enter the market. But technology

development and selection of new technologies are

crucial to making Superfund work more effectively

and efficiently.

The SpeciaI Case of Pump and Treat for

Groundwater-Cleaning up contaminated groundwater increasingly means using the pump-and-treat

approach, which means that contaminated groundwater is pumped up to the surface and treated in

some manner. The treated water may then be

pumped back into the ground (through injection

wells), sent to a municipal water treatment plant for

further treatment, or discharged to a river. The

increasing use of pump and treat is in response to the

public demand for cleanup of contaminated groundwater. However, over the past few years, there has

been increasing discussion in the technical community (particularly from EPA’s Robert S, Kerr

Laboratory, Ada, Oklahoma) of the uncertainty and

probably ineffectiveness of pump and treat. Some

key thinking and findings on this issue are excerpted

below:

●

●

‘‘ [U]nless the hydrology and contaminant characteristics at the site are adequately understood,

the perceived success of pump-and-treat technology can be misleading. A failure to understand the processes controlling contaminant

transport can result in extremely long pumping

periods and consequently, costly and inefficient remediation." 18

‘‘Using current site investigation and remediation technologies, it is not possible to locate all

significant contamination, nor can anyone accurately predict contaminant movement, fate,

●

●

exposure, effects, or remedial technology performance. 19

“[T]here are two principal phenomena of

subsurface contaminant movement that limit

the effectiveness of pump-and-treat remediation. One is the hydrologic effects of subsurface

heterogeneity. In the real world, ground water

flows through preferential pathways; that is,

through zones of higher permeability . . . The

practical effect on pump-and-treat remediations is that it may take much longer to flush out

or exchange the water in zones of finer grained

materials than is estimated from traditional

mathematical models that average flow rates

over the thickness of the aquifer. The result is

the long tailing effect on (contaminant) recovery curves. . , This effect increases with the age

of the contamination because of more time for

the pollutants to diffuse into the finer grained

subsurface materials.

“The second phenomenon concerns the

chemical and physical forces that retard the

movement of contaminants in relation to water

movement. Most contaminants sorb onto and

into aquifer materials and ‘partition’ between

the solid and liquid phases, Many common

contaminants also have a vapor phase in the

subsurface. . . . [T]he amount of contaminants

in each of these phases is a function of the

characteristics of the subsurface material and

the chemical properties of the contaminant. If

only samples of groundwater are used to

estimate the amount of contaminants to be

removed by pumping, that amount will often be

greatly underestimated because, in general,

most of the contamination will be associated

with the solid phase. Slow contaminant transfer

from geologic material to water, where it can be

extracted by pumping, is further exacerbated

when immiscible fluids are present."20 

“An analysis of the mechanisms that control

separate phase migration and dissolution reveals that groundwater extraction as a cleanup

lgcl~~n W. H~, ‘‘practical Lfiits to Pump-and-Treat lkchnology for Aquifer Remediation, ’ Hazardous iUaterials Technical Center Newsletter,

hdy 1988.

15WiIIjm A W~I= and David R. L~co]n, 1‘ HOW scienti~s Make Deaslons About Groundwa[er and S011 Remediation, ’ PreWI(Cd at Natlmd

Research Council Colloquium Remediating Ground Water and Soil Conmtnmatwn: Are Science, Policy, and Public Perception Compatible?

%linton W. Hall (Director of EPA’s Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Laboratory), letter to OTA, Sept. 6, 1988.
152 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

●

technology is very inefficient-Petroleum hydrocarbon and organic solvent liquids are trapped

within porous media as ganglia and lenses due

to air-liquid and water-liquid interracial surface

tensions.21 Water table fluctuations, either regionally or locally, can emplace lighter-thanwater liquids below the water table as lenses.

Under conditions encountered in aquifers, these

ganglia and lenses cannot be mobilized by

groundwater extraction. . . . The time required

for separate phase contaminant dissolution into

groundwater is on the order of decades and

produces a dilute waste stream that is expensive

to treat. The low boiling points of these liquids

indicate that steam injection could mobilize the

trapped contaminant phase. A series of experiments has demonstrated the inadequacy of

groundwater pumping and the feasibility of

steam injection for complete recovery of separate phase liquid contaminants. ’22

‘‘Depending upon the nature of the subsurface

terrain and the composition of the contaminants

present, remediation may be relatively easy or

virtually impossible. . . . [T]here needs to be a

recognition that there are many existing sites of

contamination that, if not entirely beyond our

ability for rectification in an environmentally

satisfactory way, may at least require many

years to remediate, may involve enormous

sums of money, and may create other environmental and social problems that may be equal

to or greater than that posed by the contamination itself. Because of the great diversity of the

problem sites, setting criteria and priorities for

cleanup is not a simple task. An easy solution

is not likely to be found. Even the effectiveness

of proposed solutions is often quite uncertain

●

●

because of the many unknowns inherent in site

characterization and the absence of proven

technologies for remediation. ’ ’23

“New models have been developed that are

potentially sophisticated enough to deal with

almost any geologic or hydrologic setting. The

problem now lies in our continuing inability to

collect sufficient subsurface information to use

in the models. Because of the nature of the

subsurface, the uncertainties can never be

resolved with today’s investigation technology.

"

. . . [T]he hazardous waste engineer might

reasonably want to know in which direction a

plume of dense, pure-phase TCE (trichloroethylene) might flow along the base of an aquifer

and whether or not it would be possible to

follow it to a low point and extract it through a

well.

"

. . . [T]he answer to the hazardous waste

engineer’s question is just not obtainable, and,

therefore, the pure-phase TCE can neither be

located, if it exists at all, nor extracted during

the cleanup.

“There is not now, nor will there soon be,

quantitative guidance or standards to go by in

designing hazardous waste site investigations.

(Best judgment) will occasionally result in

errors: unnecessary samples will be taken; data

of the wrong quality will be collected and will

have to be collected again; and other errors will

occur." 24

‘‘For NAPLs (non-aqueous phase liquids) such

as benzene and other petroleum products,

which tend to float on groundwater, there have

been successes in pumping a significant fraction of the NAPL to the surface. Yet for others

21T& i=u of whe~er con~iu~ sink or float in groundwater is very important. In general, petroleum-based materials are lighter than water, and

chloMated chemicals are heavier than water. Volubility in water also determines the physical state of contaminants in groundwater. Dense chlorinated

solvents, for example, are not very soluble in water either; therefore, they will tend to sink in aquifers until stopped by the solid aquifer material, and

then they may spread laterally. Over time, more of the contaminant may dissolve in the groundwater, particularly if the water is moving, exposing cleaner

water to the contaminant. Lighter-than-water contaminants float on the surface of underground water. Essentially pure, discrete forms of insoluble liquid

contaminants in an aquifer are just like above ground or subsurface soil sources of contamination, which enter the groundwater because of veztical

downward motion, perhaps with the help of water entering the site and moving into the aquifer.

22J== R. Hunt et id., “Organic Solvents and Petroleum Hydrocarbons in the Subsurface: Transport and Cleanup,” University of California,

Berkeley, Sam’tary Engineering and Environmental Health Research Laboratory Report No. 86-11, August 1986. Note that steam injection faces many

of the same problems as pump and treat and it has not yet reached commercial availability.

‘Perxy L. McCarty, “Scientific Limits to Remediation of Contaminated Soils and Ground Water, ” presented at National Research Council

Colloquium, Remediating Ground Wattr and Soil Contamkuion: Are Science, Policy, and Public Perception Compatible? April 1989.

24 HUdoU WNW ~tion CoWtion, ~e~cm Consulting Enginwrs council, Tk i-faz~do~ Waste Practice-Technica/ and Legal Environment

1988, 1989.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology . 153

more dense than water (e.g., chlorinated solvents, creosote, and PCB-rich oils), very little

success has been achieved in even locating the

subsurface NAPL sources, let alone removing

them. "

. . . [E]ven after exceptionally detailed site

investigations are conducted, it is normally not

possible to predict reliably where these (dense)

NAPL pools are, Not knowing the size and

location of (dense) NAPL pools and zones of

residual (dense) NAPL makes it impossible to

predict how long a pump-and-treat program

must operate in order to clean the aquifer.

‘‘The mass of NAPL at or below the water

table is not known with sufficient detail at most

sites to make reliable predictions of the time

necessary for cleanup by pump-and-treat programs. In general, it is appropriate to view such

approaches as remediation in perpetuity [emphasis added]. ”2s (In contrast to this view

about NAPLs, EPA’s view seems overly optimistic. *6)

. “Complex groundwater flow patterns present

great technical challenges in terms of characterization and manipulation (management) of

the associated contaminant transport pathways.

. . . One result is that certain parts of the aquifer

are flushed quite well and others are remediated

relatively poorly. Another result is that those

previously uncontaminated portions of the

aquifer that form the peripheral bounds of the

contaminant plume may become contaminated

by the operation of an extraction well that is

located too close to the plume boundary,

because the flowline pattern extends downgradient of the well. The latter is not a trivial

situation that can be avoided without repercussions by simply locating the extraction well far

enough inside the plume boundary so that its

flowline pattern does not extend beyond the

downgradient edge of the plume, because doing

so results in very poor cleansing of the aquifer

between the location of the extraction well and

the downgradient plume boundary.

“It is not possible to determine precisely

where the various flowlines generated by a

pump-and-treat operation are located, unless

detailed field evaluations are made during

remediation. Consequently, there is a need for

more data to be generated during the remediation (esp., inside the boundaries of the contamination plume) than were generated during the

entire RI/FS process at a site, and for interpretations of those data to require much more

sophisticated tools. ’27

“Originally, we were confident long-term groundwater remediation (i.e., pump-and-treat) could

be accomplished in approximately 20 years.

Now, with our present knowledge and experience, many professionals suggest these

actions may take much longer, in some cases up

to 100 years. , . . Is it cost-effective to continually remediate ground water or should we

accept wellhead (point-of-use) treatment and

rely on natural attenuation for the aquifer? If we

do, then what will be the long- and short-term

impacts on surface water and the environment? ’28

“Complex fate and transport mechanisms of

contaminated ground water often make it difficult to predict accurately the performance of

ground water remedial action, . . . To illustrate

this principle, figure 3-1 presents three possible

situations that may occur after several years of

a groundwater response action. In the first

scenario (case A), the target concentration will

be reached within the desired time period. In

the second scenario (case B), the target concentraMmuglm M. Mcby ~d John A. men-y, ‘‘Groundwater Contammauon: Pump-and-Treat Remechation, ’ Environmental S~lenc e and Techologj,

vol. 23, No. 6, 1989.

MU.S. fivuomen~ ~otauon Agency, Guldame onl?e~dialActu)~f~r Contaminated Ground Water at S~erfund Site.\. Dcccmbcr 1988. EPA’s

view is: ‘‘The presence of dense non-aqueous phzw liquids (DNAPLs) also may affect the extent to which contaminants can be removed from the ground

water; points of accumulation are difficult to Identify, and, unless the well screen IS located in the non-aqueous l]quid phase. the contaminant will only

be extracted slowly as it dissolves in[o the groundwater. ’

27 Joseph F. Keeiy, ‘ ‘Performance Evaluations of Pump-And-Treat Rcmcd]atlons, draft of EPA Supcrfund Groundwater Issue Paper. SW foilowmg

discussion on the observational method.

Zgstephen R. Wassrsug and Christopher J. Corbetl, ‘ ‘Policy AspecIs of Currcn~ Practices and Appllca(]ons, presented al National Research Council

Colloqwum Remediatvrg Ground Water and SOJ[ Contamination Are .~~lence, Policy, and Public Perceptwn Compatible? April 1989.
154 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

figure 3-1-Possible Restoration Scenarios When Evaluating Performance Data

Case A: Groundwater goal wiII

be ● chieved

Actual

performance

Case B: Groundwater goal wiII

be ● chieved in longer

time frame

Case C: Groundwatergoal will not

be ● chieved over long

period of time

Remaining

groundwater

contaminant

concentration

1 I

Duration of remedial action

LEGEND

‘ Remedial action performance goal

t Time of performance evaluation

\

\

- - --- -

4

Duration of remedial action Duration of remedial action

SOURCE: National Research Council, Hazadous Waste We Management: Water @a#ty ksues, report on a Cdloquim sponsored by t ha Water Science and

Technology Board (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988).

●

tion will be reached somewhat later than the

desired time period. In the final scenario (case

C), the target concentration will not be reached

in a foreseeable time period. ”29 (This is an

idealized portrayal wherein contaminant concentration declines continuously to an apparently irreducible level. In actual fact, contaminant rebound may occur after pumping is

stopped and then started again because of

diffusion of contaminants within spatially variable sediments, hydrodynamic isolation, sorptiondesorption, and liquid-liquid partitioning. The

main problem, however, is that case C seems to

be a far more likely situation than originally

thought.)

‘‘There seems to be widespread overconfidence

“Additional effort devoted to site-specific

characterizations of natural process parameters,

rather than relying almost exclusively on chemical analyses of groundwater samples, can

significantly improve the quality and costeffectiveness of the remedial actions at such

sites. . . . [S]ome investment in specialized

equipment and personnel will be needed to

make the transition to more sophisticated

approaches, but those investments will be more

than paid back in reduced cleanup costs (see

figure 3-2). The maximum return on increased

investments is expected for the state-of-the-art

approach and will diminish as the state-of-thescience approach is reached (see table 3-2)

among those not directly” involved in ground- because highly specialized equipment and perwater quality research regarding the ability to sonnel are not widely available. It is vitally

predict transport and fate of contaminants in the important this philosophy be considered besubsurface. cause the probable benefits in lowered total

2f93-j~ F. B~ UI et ~., c ‘Es~bli~ing and Meeting Ground Water Protection Goals in the SuPCrfund b~~,’ * H~r~~ Wrote Sfie

Manugewunt: Wuter Quality Issues (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988),
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 155

Figure 3-2--Concaptuallzatlon of the Trade-offs

Between Investigation and Cleanup Coats as a

Function of the Sophistication of Site

Characterizatlon Efforts

Conventional State-of- State-Ofapproach the-art the-science

SOURCE: Journa/ WPCF, vol. S6, No. 5, May 1966,

costs, health risks, and time can be substantial." 30

OTA’s main conclusions from its assessment of

pump-and-treat technology are:

1. Superfund implementation (i.e., Records of

Decision) currently conveys a sense of certainty

about groundwater contamination and cleanup

that is inconsistent with the above kinds of

insights. Some private sector practitioners also

convey a different viewpoint; a recent article said

this about pump-and-treat: “This method is effective with most, if not all, types of contaminants.

Remediation time, while protracted, is predictable. "31

This kind of general optimism misleads the public.

Both duration and potential to achieve cleanup

objectives are highly uncertain with the prevalent

pump and treat method, especially for complicated

sites. Little attention seems to have been paid to

addressing multiple sources of aquifer contamination, which really adds complexity to groundwater

cleanup. Other than non-point contributions to

contamination (e.g., pesticide runoff), individual

aquifers may face contamination from multiple

Superfund sites. An EPA study of 877 sites found 12

aquifers threatened by three or more sites,32 yet few

Superfund cleanups seem to be integrated with other

ones. All things considered, the current large commitment of money to pump-and-treat groundwater

cleanups may be largely misdirected with current

practices. Except for the simplest contaminated

groundwater, current technology and practice do not

offer a reliable cost-effective solution. The latest

thinking about groundwater cleanup by EPA’s

Superfund office does not convey the generally

negative view about pump and treat consistently

found in the technical community .33 Moreover,

inevitably, the public will learn what the technical

specialists know. Indeed, Superfund’s technical

assistance grants virtually assure this. One of the

frost reports from this program illustrates how this

public knowledge will probably influence EPA

cleanup decisions, as summarized in box 3-F.

2, Because of the difficulty in cleaning up

groundwater, much more attention should be

given to identifying and removing the source of

groundwater contamination. In the past, the size

and complexity of buried waste and soil contamination have sometimes lead to groundwater cleanup

starting without any source elimination. While

capping such a site has the merit of minimizing

water infiltration, it does not preclude continued

movement of contaminants into the groundwater,

30J~@ F. Kee]y et id., ‘‘Evolving Concepts of Subsurface Contaminant Transport,’ JOIUM1 of the Water Poilutwn Control Federation, vol. 58,

No. 6, May 1986. As an example of improved practice, see Steven M. Gorelick, “Reliable Remediation of Coatarninated Aquifers,” in Um”ted sum

GeofogicaJ Survey Yearbook Fiscal Year 1988, 1989. ‘I%e new methodology describexi are techniques that use combined simulation-management

models; these join computer simulatim techniques, for predicting subsurface contaminant migration, with advanced mathematical and statistical

methods, for determining alternative and economical designs for remediation. llmusands of simulations for each site are necessary to assess and design

reliable cleanups.

31Gary J. Ziegler, “Remediation Through Groundwater Recove~ and Treatment, ” Pollution Engineering, July 1989.

3ZU.S. Ertvironmenud Protection Agency, ‘‘Extent of the Hazardous Release Problem and Future Funding Needs—CER CLA Section 301(a)(l )(C)

study, *’ December 1984.

33U$S+ ~v~mm~ ~uon Age~y, G&_e on Re~di~ Acno~ for co~~’~ed Gro& water a s~e~ Sites, kemk 1988.

Months earlier, a former senior Supet-fimd manager published an article which discussed “a recent analysis by EPA’s own Office of Research and

Development’ that revealed the problems discussed here with pump and treat. Gene A. Lucero, “Son of Superfund<an the PrOgriUn Meet

Expectations,” The Environmental Forum, March/April 1988.
156 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Table 3-2-Site Characterization

Conventional approach State-of-the-art approach State-of-the science approach

Actions typically token

Install a few dozen shallow monitoring wells

Sample and analyze numerous times for

129+ pollutants

Define geology primarily by driller’s log and

cuttings

Evaluate hydrology with water level maps

only

Possibly obtain soil and core samples

(chemical extractions)

Benefits

Rapid screening of problem

Moderate costs involved

Field and lab techniques standardized

Data analysis relatively straightforward

Tentative identification of remedial options

possible

Shortcomings

True extent of problem often misunderstood

Selected remedial alternative may not be

appropriate

Optimization of remedial actions not possible

Cleanup costs unpredictable and excassive

Verification of compliance uncertain and

difficult

Recommended actions

Install depth-specific well clusters

Sample and analyze for 129+ pollutants

initially

Analyze selected contaminants in subsequent samplings

Define geology by extensive coring/splitspoon samples

Evaluate hydrology with well clusters and

geohydraulic tests

Perform limited tests on solids (grain size,

clay contents)

Conduct limited geophysial surveys (resistivity soundings)

Beneflts

Conceptual understanding of problem more

complete

Better prospect for optimization of remedial

actions

Predictability of remediation effectiveness

increased

Cleanup costs lowered, estimates improved

Verification of compliance more soundly

based

Shortcomings

Characterization costs somewhat higher

Detailed understanding of problem still

difficult

Full optimization of remedial actions not

likely

Field tests may create secondary problems

Demand for specialists increased

Idealizes approach

Assume state-of-the-art approach as starting point

Conduct tracer-tests and borehole geophysical surveys

Determine percent organic carbon, exchange capacity, and other other properties of solids

Measure redox potential, pH, dissolved

oxygen, and other properties of fluids

Evaluate sorption-desorption behavior using

select cores

Identify bacteria and assess potential for

biotransformation

Benefits

Thorough conceptual understanding of problem obtained

Full optimization of remedial actions possible

Predictability of remediation effectiveness

maximized

Cleanup costs lowered significantly, estimates reliable

Verification of compliance assured

Shortcomings

Characterization costs significantly higher

Few previous field applications of advanced

theories

Field and laboratory techniques not yet

standardized

Availability of specialized equipment low

Demand for specialists dramatically increased

SOURCE: J- F. Keely et al., “Evolving Concepts of Subsurface Contaminant Trmsport,” Journal WPCF, vol. 5S, No. 5, May 1966.

resulting from subsurface groundwater flow through

the site’s contamination or possibly the sinking of

dense liquids. Nor is the long-term effectiveness of

caps assured; many current Superfund cleanups put

new caps on older ones which evidently were not

effective. (The intrinsic problems of pump and treat

should be borne in mind for soil cleanup based on

flushing, because the same subsurface problems

pertain.)

3. Making pump and treat more predictable

and effective requires improved practices which

will tax the current workforce and may increase

costs substantially. Still, development of improved

pump-and-treat practices is important. However,

more strategic thinking and economic analysis

should go to two other primary options:

a. Point-of-use treatment: “Serious consideration

should be given to point-of-use treatment for contaminated groundwater rather than attempting to

reverse the random movement of organic molecules

at tremendous pumping and treatment expense. The

pumping and treatment of billions of gallons of

groundwater to recover a few pounds of spilled

solvent requires serious rethinking. Technology

development should focus on how to economically

and consistently surpass low part-per-billion treat-
Chapter .3-Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 157

Box3-F--How a TecbnicalAssistance Grant1 Analysis Concluded That a Pump-And-Treat Approach

Did Not Offer a Reliable Cleanup of Groundwater

The following excerpts illustrate how an understanding of the limits of pump and treat can affect a community’s

perception of a remedy proposed by EPA, in this case one largely based on site containment and pump and treat.

The community and its technical advisers, of course, wanted the groundwater cleaned up. But their insights into the

limits of pump and treat led them to other alternatives, including obtaining the kind and quantity of information

necessary to make pump and treat work effectively and giving higher priority to effective source control of the

contaminants in the landfill (through identification of hot spots for excavation and treatment, for example). This

particular experience also illustrates how the U.S. Geological Survey can perform analyses of use to Superfund site

investigations and selection of remedies; their work was not integrated into EPA’s efforts.

“. . . [T]here are too few wells, particularly to the south and west of the landfill, to define the full extent of the

contaminant plume or to understand the complex pattern of groundwater flow. The U.S. Geological Survey has

reached the same conclusion. Furthermore, the EPA used inappropriately low flow rates to estimate the area of the

potentially contaminated groundwater.

"

. . . [A] groundwater punp and-treatment system based on ERA’s current understanding of flow may be

grossly inadequate to prevent the continued offsite contamination of groundwater. If potent NAPL [non-aqueous

phase liquid] pools are present they may be drawn into the extraction wells and overwhelm the treatment system

designed for much lower contaminant levels. Another possibility is that lowering the groundwater under the landfill

(resulting from groundwater extraction) may actually dislodge NAPLs and thus aggravate groundwater

contamination problems.

“An evaluation of the site remedy selected by EPA in the Feasibility Study is not possible at this time because

the database defined by the RI is insufficient to evaluate the effect or the efficacy of the proposed pump-and-treat

system.

" . , . the USGS report prepared for ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) evaluated

the hydraulic characteristics of the flow system over an area encompassing 4 square miles. This large-scale view

allowed them to place the IEL site in a proper regional context and led to conclusions which are at odds with those

reached by EPA.

“The approaches selected do little, if anything, to remove or even stabilize the potentially large amounts of

toxins in the landfill. This is exactly what one would expect since they based the selection of the proposed remedies

on a lack of data on what is in the landfill. ”

(It should be noted that EPA’s Proposed Plan for the site (December 1988) offers no information on risk or

risk reduction or any specific information on the objectives of the groundwater cleanup. Nor does it say anything

about the limits to or uncertainty of pump and treat. The Feasibility Study for the site speaks of meeting MCLs and

preventing a lifetime cancer risk of from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 10 million (i.e., the broadest risk range used by EPA),

but gives no specifics.)

1~ . Aumauce Oramww@e@AMiSM w Caqmu m SARA m $uim WIXXUWS in-lK@aOOIMqKalkm -dem

SOURCE: “Comumm on EPA’s Pmfaxcd kmxiial Alwnauva“ for * IIKiustrid Excem LamlfW Superfuad Site in Uniaumvn, Ohio,” pmpwect for ‘k

Cumermd C&mu ofhke T- by Tho Clam Water I%@ Diqocal Safcq be., ad The Ham@nre‘ Rueal’eh Institute, May 31, 19s9.

ment levels with a margin of safety required for gation techniques. Some form of enhanced in situ

potable water supplies. ”34 biological treatment is particularly desirable, but

other approaches, such as injection of steam or

b. Other aquifer cleanup methods: There is a clear surfactants, also need more support. The in situ

need for a focused R&D effort to find more reliable biological approach is probably the most important

groundwater cleanup methods, including site investi- option and it is currently receiving much attention

34~@~ c. Downey! ‘ ‘Applying New llxhnologies: A Scientific Perspective, ’ presented at National Research Council Colloquium, Remediating

Ground Water and Soil ContaMmtion: Are Science, Policy, and Public Perceptwn Cotnpasible? April 1989.
158 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

and some use. But the advice of two groundwater

experts should be heeded: “Laboratory studies and

small-scale field prototype trials are likely to yield

overoptimistic expectations for the application and

efficiency of these (new) technologies. ’ ’35

Another important view is: “In situ biodegration

is frequently among the remediation options recommended for soil and groundwater decontamination.

. . . Our experience has shown that a 250-milliliter

flask has little or nothing in common with the

contaminated subsurface and its response to nutrient

and hydrogen peroxide (oxygen) additions. Permeability problems and rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide have both been documented in the field

with little warning from laboratory experiments.

While microbiologists have proven the principles of

biodegradation in the laboratory, engineers are

having less success achieving a uniform reaction in

heterogeneous aquifers. ”36 An independent review

of experiences with biological groundwater cleanups came to generally negative conclusions about

their proven effectiveness, including: “While seeding of an acclimated or mutant microbial population

holds a great deal of potential . . . results from

previous attempts have not proven it to be responsible for the removal of contaminants. Further work

needs to be done to demonstrate that seeding

microbes is a viable technique for the restoration of

contaminated aquifers. “37 One of the more detailed

case studies for a Superfund site concluded”. . . the

large volume of ground water that has flowed

through the contaminated zone has failed to produce

appreciable removal of the sorbed contamination.

. IB]iodegradative processes were a major means

of dissolved contaminant removal [emphasis added].’

A study of anaerobic biodegradation of groundwater

at a Superfund site confirmed that trichloroethene

resulted in the production of vinyl chloride as a toxic

byproduct.39

4. Cleanups using pump and treat may be

stopped because data on pumped groundwater

indicates that contaminant concentration has

reached a stable low level, but in fact subsequent

testing (or testing in different locations) might

show that contaminant levels have increased or

rebounded. Original cleanup objectives should not

be foregone (or changed to whatever the technology

has been able to deliver) until there is convincing

evidence that equilibrium has been achieved (case C

in figure 3-1) and that no other cleanup options exist.

Current EPA thinking on this issue is to favor a

“flexible decision process” that includes using

performance information to change the cleanup

objectives. 40

Moreover, there is some indirect indication that

EPA is already adjusting its cleanup objectives for

sites to reflect, in some way, the problems with

pump and treat. For example, the cleanup level for

carcinogens in groundwater at the Seymour Recycling site (which was assessed to pose a relatively

high aggregate risk of 4 in 10,000) is an aggregate

risk of 1 in 100,000 in addition to meeting individual

MCLs (maximum contamination levels under the

Safe “ Drinking Water Act), One of the reasons given

to justify this cleanup level (which is less stringent

than the more typical 1 in 1 million risk level) was

“low levels of contaminants will continue to migrate when the extraction system is terminated. ”41

In other words, the more typical, more stringent

cleanup level would be difficult to attain.

5. There is a distinct possibility that, for some

sites, natural attenuation, including biodegradation,

of contamination within the aquifer might produce

essentially the same cleanup results as lengthy and

costly pump and treat. Research on biodegradation

is ongoing and some results are very positive, but it

is not yet a reliable cleanup alternative. Indeed, a

recent study of a site for which natural attenuation

gs~kay ~d chc~, op. cit., f~ote 25, 1989.

36@mey, OP. cit., fOOtllO@ ~.

3?L,W. Cmwr ~d R.C. ~ox, Grow Waler Po/i~ion Conmo/ (Chel=a, w: bwi.s Publishers, 1986).

3SRo~fi ~yle and Michael Piotrowski, “In-situ Bioremediation at a Superfund Site,” The Second Annual Hazardous Materials Management

CoqferencelCentral, procdings of conference March 1989, ‘Ibwer Conference Management Co., Glen Ellyn, IL.

s~yle R. Silh d ~U@S A. ‘~len’ “Observed Rates of Biotransformation of Chlorinated Aliphatics in Groundwater,” Supe@md ’88,

P~“ gs of November 1988 conference, Hazardous Materials Research Institute, Silver Spring, MD.

W.S. Environmental Protea.ion Agency, op. cit., footnote 33.

dl~A, “GuidmW on Rem~~ ~tims for con~in~~ Grolmd Water at Suprfud Sites, ’ December 1988.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 159

was selected concluded that site conditions favorable to natural attenuation ‘‘are not going to be found

at a large number of sites, due primarily to complex

hydrogeologic conditions and significant exposure

potentials. ’42 Augmentation of natural biodegradation by supplying dissolved oxygen, for example,

has possibilities, but success depends on a variety of

factors, such as the soil permeability and groundwater flow rates being high enough.

6. It should be understood that there are appropriate uses of pumping groundwater to contain the

movement of a plume of contamination and to treat

relatively simple, well understood aquifers and

relatively simple and well identified types of contamination. Indeed, beginning pump and treat very

early at a site may be important as a recontrol

measure. Improved practices are needed to make

these applications more cost-effective. However,

pumping contaminated groundwater and reinfecting

it upgradient in order to prevent plume migration

and contamination from entering a sensitive area

(e.g., a withdrawal well for a municipal water

supply, a river) is also uncertain. For example, one

modeling study showed that the effect of pumping

and injection was “to reduce the total amount of

contaminant entering the river at the onset of the

operation and to spread contaminant flow into the

river at later times. ’ ’43 The point is that the method

reduced the average concentration of the contaminant entering the river over many years, but

eventually all the contamination reached the river.

Comments on the Observational Method-The

Hazardous Waste Action Coalition, a trade association of hazardous waste technical consulting firms,

has endorsed what it calls the observational method

as appropriate for hazardous waste site investigation, assessment, and remediation design and

implementation. 44 In addition to hypothesized environmental benefits from improved recognition and

resolution of the inevitable uncertainty about a site’s

contamination, reduction of contractor liability is a

goal in adopting the observational method. The

observational method seems to be especially relevant to the problems of groundwater contamination

discussed above, The method is based on the correct

belief that no amount of site study can eliminate all

uncertainties about the site’s problem(s) and the

effectiveness of the selected remedy (ies). However,

after examining the main points of the observational

method, OTA concludes that in addition to its

potential benefits there are significant implementation issues and problems, as discussed below under

the five key contributions defined by the coalition.

After this discussion, two alternatives or supplements to the observational method are presented.

1. “The site remediation design is based on the

most probable site conditions. ’ Remediation design

follows the formal government decision on cleanup

objectives and remedy selection. Remedy design is

currently based on the best understanding of the

site’s contamination and conditions. Therefore, this

contribution does not say anything different than

current and necessary practice. The implication that

current practice presumes complete and certain

understanding of a site’s cleanup problems and

natural conditions might have been true for some

people early in the cleanup business; but most

people are now skeptical about obtaining site

information in the Remedial Investigation which is

the last word. The need is only to obtain enough

good information to select a cleanup strategy, the

details of which will be worked out in the design

phase.

2. “Reasonable deviations from these conditions

are formally identified and accounted for. This

approach seems beneficial. Presumably, the formal

remedy design, performed by an engineering consulting firm, would identify potential deviations

concerning site contamination and natural conditions which might arise from new information about

the site. But there are typically a lot of possibilities

which could be identified. This approach, therefore,

might add significant new costs to the design part of

the process. There is a potential for unnecessary

42Rlchard L. Hebert et al., “Case Study of Factors Favoring Natural Attenuation as the Prefertd Ahemauve for Aqwfcr Rcstorauon, ” Supe@und

’88, procecxhngs of conference November 1988, Hazardous Materials Control Research Lnstitute, Silver Spring, MD.

43R.W. Nelmn, 1‘me N~ t. U@a~ Gro~dwater pollution con~o] S~ategles--A ~hnicat Basis and Historical perspcc[lve, ’ Proccedmgs of the

International Conference on Advances in Groundwater Hydrology, Tampa, FL, November 1988.

44~e Bead of Duwtors of tie HU~dou~ Wrote ~tion coall~on of tic Amefi~an Consdting ~ngti~rs COUCI1 endorsed Ihc obsemational method

on Mar. 16, 1989, and the coalition’s members cumcntly advocate this approach in pubhcatlons, testimony, and presentations. The coa.lltion’s fums

repremt most of the major Superfund contractors.
160 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

contractor work. Moreover, presumably a really

first-rate Remedial Investigation and Feasibility

Study would do this under current practice, according to the degree of understanding about the

uncertainty of the site’s contamination and conditions.

3. "Parameters are identified for further observation in order to detect deviations. ’ Another part

of the design study would presumably design

continuing site investigation efforts to verify whether

the remedy is working and whether previously

identified potential deviations are occurring. There

is a potential for continuing site investigation after

a ROD and as part of remedy implementation. In

current practice, most experts recognize that during

remedy implementation new site information may

arise, especially because information is obtained on

the remedy’s performance. But this situation is

different than a directed effort to obtain new

information about the site which might alter the

selected remedy, except that an interim action

(operable unit) already implies that key decisions

have not yet been made about some part of the site.

Remedial investigations now can proceed while an

interim action is being implemented.

4. “Contingency plans for each deviation are

incorporated into the remediation design. ” The

design study report would also presumably present

detailed contingency plans (akin to a feasibility

study) if such deviations became documented.

However, contingency planning means that changes

in the originally selected remedy might be made.

OTA has expressed concerns about remedies changing after a ROD is issued, when public participation

is minimal. Significant new information about a site

after a ROD is now recognized as a possibility, and

there is a procedure to amend a ROD or issue a new

one without compromising public participation and

accountability.

5. “Post-remedial monitoring is established as an

essential component of hazardous waste site remediation. There is potential for more monitoring to

replace action and closure to a cleanup. The law

currently requires such monitoring if hazardous

waste remains onsite, and EPA normally requires

significant monitoring when there is potential groundwater contamination or when impermanent remedies

are used.

Overall, the observational method changes the

process of study and cleanup. This method may have

technical benefits, but it also might complicate

public accountability of the critical cleanup decisions for a site, although its proponents say it would

improve communication and accountability. By

focusing on uncertainties, the method may also

produce increased uncertainty about remedy implementation, and health-based cleanup objectives may

be transformed into technology performance ones

(especially when pump and treat is used). A s

intended, contractor liability might be reduced

because the cleanup process would become tentative

and be maintained longer, and produce increased

information to reduce the possibility that a selected

remedy is ineffective; this last point is clearly a

benefit. But considerably more contractor work

might be created and there would be more reliance

on the engineering judgments of contractor staff and

the responses to them by either the government (for

fund-financed cleanups) or responsible party (for

settlements which give the responsible party implementation authority). Indeed, the people who

have devised the observation method said “The

party responsible for operating the remedial action

will have to have the judgment required to determine

if a deviation has occurred and which response to

take. . . . In cases where more than one response is

possible to a deviation, considerable judgment may

be required to select the most appropriate response. ’45 To some degree, EPA appears to have

accepted the observational method.%

Two alternatives or supplements to the observational method are: 1) improving the technical

methods and practices used in site assessment and

cleanup design to reduce and better understand

uncertainties about a site, and 2) changing the kinds

of cleanup decisions made to reduce the negative

impacts of imperfect information on decisions. First,

as discussed in the previous groundwater section,

4sstM M. Brow ~1 ~., ,@pli~~i~n~f & Ob~erv&io~Me~d @ Remedi~ion OfHam&w Waste Sites (Bellevue, WA: cI-i2~i]], Apd 1989).

.WFor exmp]e, In its guidance for groundwater clmup. EpA said: “Data to reduce the uncertainty of important variables should be collected

throughout the remexhal selection [presumably pre-RODl, design, and construction phases to refine and modify the remedy.” U.S. Environmcntal

Protection Agency, op. cit., foomote 33.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 161

shifting from the conventional to the state-of-the-art

approach for site investigation (table 3-2 and figure

3-2) offers environmental and cost benefits. This

shift recognizes the problem that the engineering

community, to a large extent, is not using the best

available techniques for site investigation. Although

better techniques (e.g., the simulation-management

model developed at the U.S. Geological Survey)

require more skilled personnel, may take more time,

and cost more money, they ultimately lead to more

cost-effective cleanups, greater reliability, and fewer

failures. In fact, even now there are wide differences

in the capabilities and practices of firms working on

groundwater cleanup. With the observational method,

conventional techniques may remain dominant and

change slowly as the more conservative, analysisintensive process attempts to reduce errors and

failures.

Second, key cleanup decisions can change to

reflect an improved understanding of the complexity

of site investigation and cleanup. The options

include: 1 ) stressing the distinction between actions

necessary because of current risks and actions that

can be postponed because of uncertain, future risks;

2) emphasizing different types of remedial actions

over time (i.e., emergency, recontrol, interim remedial, and final permanent); 3) refraining from calling

a remedy complete and permanent when impermanent technologies or highly uncertain ones (e.g.,

pump and treat for groundwater) are used; and 4)

avoiding making critical cleanup decisions after the

ROD unless there is full public participation and

accountability. For groundwater cleanup, for example, the alternative would be making a different

decision about the groundwater cleanup, including:

continuing the site investigation before committing

to pump and treat or postponing cleanup if no

significant current risk exists, trying a different

cleanup method (e.g., in situ bioreclamation), or

implementing a recontrol approach based on plume

containment but not aquifer restoration. With the

observational method, the increased use of pump

and treat would probably continue and changes in

the original cleanup objectives might be unknown to

communities and other interested parties who are not

directly implementing the cleanup (see following

discussions of landfill cleanup decisions).

Issue 3: Is the current enforcement emphasis on

obtaining settlements with responsible parties

affecting remedy selection?

After examining nearly all fiscal year 1988 RODS,

summary statistics on them, and studying some

RODS in detail, OTA arrived at a number of findings

about how settlements with responsible parties

influence selection of cleanup technologies and

standards, and about other major issues .47 The most

important findings for the settlement impact issue

are summarized first:

● Cleanup standards, the extent of cleanup, the

permanency of cleanup, and the selection of

cleanup technology are often compromised in

formal or informal negotiations to obtain settlements with responsible parties. What responsible parties are willing to pay, together with

the flexibility inherent in the current system,

can lead to less stringent cleanups. Indeed, a

former administrator of EPA said, “We do not

believe it is wise to select a remedy that cannot

be implemented because of . . . unwillingness

of the responsible parties to agree to a settlement. ’48 Of course, when responsible parties

are successful in obtaining remedies they

believe more cost-effective, they correctly maindT~ ~t~l~discussion under I.S,WW 3 of RODs from fiscal year 1988 supplements OTA’S 1988 case study report, Are We Cfeunmg Up 710 Supecfund

Care Studies which examined fiscal year 1987 RODS. A number of observations in the discussion here pertain to general IMUCS concemmg Superfund

implementation, such as conflicts betw-n statutory requirements and cleanup decisions.

48fipW~ ~~lmony of ~ M. ~om~, in Pre[ti~ Ftndings of OZA Report on Supe?fund, COtIUIUttCC RCPOII on Hcanng before the

Subcommittee on Invesugattons and Oversight, Committee on Publlc Works and Transportation, U.S. House of Representmves, Apr. 20, 1988, p. 99.

At the hearing, EPA’s former Assistant Administrator J. Winston Porter aJso testifhxi, “Let me tell you the worst result in Superfund, and that 1s If 1

get in a bind where the State won’t pay the 10 percent-+hat means we can’t move ahead with the fund-nor will potential responsible parties {PRPs)

_@do it?” P. 189 AIso, in EpA’s remov~ program “re@onaJ offices must agwssively PWSW cleanup by tie potentially responsible party (PRP)

before initiating any Fund-financed removat action. ” (Karen Burgan et al., ‘ ‘Setting Removal Program Priorities, ” Supe@nd ‘6’8, proc~ings of

November 1988 conference, Hazardous Materials Research Institute, Silver Spring, MD. Ixgally, EPA may not be able to perform a fund-i_manced

remedial action without State agreement to pay the matching 10 percent, and if responsible parties will not settle and if EPA does not wam 10 delay cleanup

untd successful legal enforcement action, then again act]on becomes conungent on State agreement to pay the 10 percent. One way out of this dependency

on State cooperation might be for EPA to take a removaJ or, m duscussed in this repxt, a rezontrol acuon which would not require State agrmmtmt.
162 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

tain that the government has affirmed their

adequacy to protect health and environment.49

. The decisions for 12 sites discussed below, for

which the desire for settlement is probably

important may save responsible parties about

$400 million, compared to estimated costs of

more stringent remedies in the sites’ RODS or

in matched-site RODS. Roughly, that seems to

represent about a 50-percent saving overall. In

fiscal year 1988, OTA estimates that there may

have been 50 to 70 decisions affected by the

desire for and pursuit of settlement.50 Through

the decisions documented in these RODS,

responsible parties may eventually save many

hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps as

much as $1 billion. If all these settlements lead

to permanent, complete cleanups, the savings

are laudable. But will in fact those cost-saving

remedies work effectively in the long term?

Only time, effective environmental site monitoring, and effective government oversight will

provide conclusive answers. But science, common sense, and experience suggest that, eventually, major follow-up cleanups may be necessary. And if some of these cleanups prove

ineffective, then damage to public health and

the environment may result.

. Cleanup standards, such as the acceptable level

of residual soil contamination at a site after

cleanup, are sometimes substantially less stringent at sites where decisions seem influenced

by the government’s desire to obtain a voluntary settlement with responsible parties—

compared to sites where settlement is not an

issue. These differences cannot be explained

technically, for example on the basis of major

differences in site conditions. While current

risk assessment methods can easily lead to

different results for the same conditions (because many somewhat arbitrary assumptions

have to be made, and because it is not always

clear just what data should be used), sometimes

higher levels of residual contamination (less

cleanup) result from using high levels of

acceptable risk.

. When sites are in EPA’s enforcement program

and when responsible parties perform the

critical Remedial Investigation and Feasibility

Study (RIFS),51 cleanup actions are much more

likely to use land disposal and containment

techniques rather than waste destruction technologies. For fiscal year 1988 RODS, 78 percent of

RODS using waste destruction technologies

were in the fund program, and 75 percent of the

RODS using containment/land disposal were

enforcement RODS. Some Superfund cleanup

waste is still being sent to commercial landfills.

And EPA’s statistics on use of treatment

cleanup technologies may present an overoptimistic picture, because many of the treatments

do not destroy toxic material and sometimes

deal with a very small portion of site contamination.

. In enforcement cases, low-cost cleanups that

facilitate settlement are sometimes based on

relatively speculative or unproven treatment

(but not destruction) technologies.52 They are

tested for their effectiveness on site materials

after the government has selected them and

during Remedial Design, which is much less

visible to the public than the pre-ROD activities. Assurances that consent decrees provide

for the contingency of ineffective test results

are not entirely satisfactory. Who will interpret

the post-ROD test results? How much more

time will be added to the already lengthy site

cleanup process if another remedy has to be

selected? Moreover, an important issue is

whether specific cleanup standards committed

to by the government in the ROD may be

changed years later to accept the limited

accomplishments of the selected technology.

That is, health-based cleanup objectives may be

replaced by technology performance standards,

especially for groundwater cleanup. The way to

promote use of innovative technologies is
Chapter 3-Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 163

through pre-ROD treatability studies which

provide a basis for confidence in the technology

selection for a particular site.

. For about the last 2 years, EPA has used a

framework for evaluating cleanup alternatives

(and the one in EPA’s proposed National

Contingency Plan) that permits virtually any

kind of decision to be rationalized. This excessive flexibility affects settlements with responsible parties. EPA uses cost-benefit analysis of alternative cleanup approaches, in which

the level of environmental protection is a

variable. EPA’s instruction to personnel implementing Superfund is, ‘‘Make final determination of which alternatives provide overall

effectiveness proportionate to costs ”53 [emphasis added]. But the statute requires a costeffectiveness technique, which first sets specific environmental objectives of a cleanup and

then finds ways to minimize costs. Alternatives

that offer far less certain and effective protection of health and environment are sometimes given the same ratings as better techniques, making it appear that cleanup goals

have not been compromised.

Research-OTA examined summary statistics on

remedy selection provided by EPA for RODS

classified either as enforcement or fund. In addition,

OTA examined pairs of sites in three generic

categories (wood preserving, PCB contamination,

and lead battery); that is, sets very similarly contaminated sites whose RODS were issued in fiscal year

1988, one or more sites involving settlement, and

one or more which did not. Sites were chosen solely

on the basis of finding matches in the nature of site

contamination and on the basis that there were no

site condition variables that could explain substantially different cleanup decisions, Nine cases are

discussed below.

Third, OTA examined all the fiscal year 1988

RODS in Region 5 for which containment/land

disposal was selected. All these sites were landfills

of various types. Five were enforcement RODS and

three were fund RODS, but one of the latter said that

EPA was negotiating with responsible parties for

remedy implementation.

Statistical Patterns--From EPA’s summary statistics, we conclude that there is a substantial

difference in cleanup technology for sites in the

enforcement program compared to sites in the fund

program. For example, in fiscal year 1988, the

enforcement program selected land disposal or

containment actions in 42 percent of its source

control (these exclude groundwater action RODS),

compared to only 12 percent for the fimd-fma.need

program. Between fiscal years 1987 and 1988, the

fund program substantially decreased its use of land

disposal from 44 to 12 percent, but the enforcement

program showed a smaller decrease from 64 to 42

percent. There has been wide agreement for some

time that land disposal and containment are not

permanent remedies, are bound to fail eventually,

and pose uncertain long-term costs and threats to

health and environment, Indeed, many of EPA’s

RODS that have rejected land disposal and containment cite these reasons for doing so. Moreover, the

law expresses a particular policy against sending

hazardous waste from Superfund cleanup sites to

offsite landfills. In the past 2 years, 83 percent of the

remedial action cases using offsite landfills were in

the enforcement program.

Conversely, in fiscal year 1988, the enforcement

program selected those kinds of treatment technologies (chiefly incineration and biological treatment)

that permanently destroy toxic waste in 14 percent of

its source control RODS; the fund program selected

permanent treatment in 44 percent of its source

control RODS. Between fiscal years 1987 and 1988,

the fund program substantially increased its use of

destruction technology from 26 to 44 percent, but the

enforcement program’s usage remained constant at

14 percent. The law explicitly expresses a preference

for permanent treatment remedies over land disposal

and containment.54 Sometimes, treatment technology, for example at a very large landfill or mining

waste site, could be rejected by invoking the

statute’s fund-balancing provisions for fundfinanced cleanups; in such cases there may be no

53u.s. EJI~mmM Praeetion Agency, op. cit., footnote 5.

54T-en[ [w~Ok@=.~ ~a[ o~y ~we Volme or rnobili~ of h~~do~ w~e do not ~~t~ Wrm~ence, but hey are alSO preferred over l~d

disposal and containment. SARA does not explicitly favor destruction tecbnolo~es over other forms of treatment. EPA has not provided a technical

-Won of permanence the way OTA has.
]64 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

other choice with current technology but a much less

costly containment approach. But the nine examples

given below are not such cases.

EPA’s data on remedy costs shows that enforcement costs are less likely to be at the high range

(above $20 million) and more likely to be at the low

range (below $5 million) as compared to fund

decisions. In fiscal year 1988, only 7 percent of

enforcement costs were above $20 million but 16

percent of fund decisions were; also, 51 percent of

enforcement costs were below $5 million, while 64

percent, of fund decisions were in this range. One

plausible explanation is that, to encourage settlements, the enforcement effort selects containment

remedies for source control (and possibly justifies

taking no action for groundwater contamination) for

relatively large sites in order to arrive at a cost

acceptable to responsible parties. However, in order

to balance this bias for using containment, relative to

the need to be responsive to the statutory preference

for treatment-based remedies which assure permanence, the enforcement effort selects treatmentbased remedies for smaller sites. Because of smaller

volumes of hazardous waste for treatment, the costs

remain low enough to facilitate settlement.

For fund program RODS, having proportionately

more remedies with costs at the low and high ends,

a plausible explanation is that containment is more

likely to be used for relatively smaller, simple sites

and destruction technology for larger, more complex

sites. In other words, this interpretation suggests that

responsible parties for smaller sites pay more for

cleanup than the government spends for similar

sites, and responsible parties for larger sites pay less

for cleanup than the government spends for similar

sites.

Nine Cases

Four Wood Preserving Sites

These four Superfund sites have similar histories

and similar contamination. The contamination is

principally from the use of creosote, which consists

of many toxic chemicals, including a number of

known carcinogens.

The first site is the Brown Wood Preserving site

in Florida, an enforcement program site. The Brown

site may be the clearest example we have found of

the environmental consequences where settlement is

the goal. Responsible parties contracted for the

RIFS. The ROD did not use EPA’s required nine

criteria for evaluating remedial alternatives. Most of

the hazardous material from this site was sent to the

Nation’s largest hazardous waste landfill in Emelle,

Alabama, in a removal action several months before

the ROD was signed in April 1988. (Landfilling was

rejected in the three other wood preserving site

examples. ) A total of 16,500 tons of the site’s most

contaminated sludge and soil was sent offsite. Ten

thousand tons of less contaminated soil was left

onsite for biological treatment which, however, had

not yet been proven effective for the whole range of

chemicals at this kind of cleanup.55 A background

document for the Brown site reveals that 840 tons of

the carcinogenic chemicals (in the soil) were

landfilled offsite and 50 tons were left onsite for

biological treatment; that is, 94 percent of the

carcinogenic contaminants were landfilled offsite. 56 The cleanup level for contaminants was 100

parts per million (ppm) carcinogenic chemicals in

the soil. (With exactly the same exposure route of

soil ingestion for residents and acceptable risk of 1

in 1 million excess cancer deaths, the corresponding

value for the Southern Maryland site in Maryland,

discussed below, was 2.2 ppm, and for the L.A.

Clarke & Son site in Virginia, discussed below, 0.08

ppm.) The ROD said that cleanup standards had

been changed from the original risk assessment but

did not say what the changes were.

In its explanation for the removal action, EPA’s

ROD said that it “contributed to the acceleration of

the site along the Superfund enforcement process

track. The ROD also said that the responsible

parties “have been very cooperative in furthering

55A ~enl ~~c~ ~Wr on biologic~ ~ea~ent no{~ some problenls with the kinds of chemicals found at sites WrIt_fflatd by crwsote. F~st*

the rate of degradal.ion of larger polyaromadc hydrocarbons decreases with increasing molecule size and decreasing volubility. Second, if the creosote

is ~nt as small droplets within pores of soil, the degradation process will be inhibited. Gaylen R. Brubaker, $ ‘Screcmng Criteria for In situ

Bioreclamation of Cmmtrninated Aquifers, ” The Second Annual Hazardous Materiak Management Conference/Central, proceedings, Tbwer

Conference Management Co., Glen Ellyn, IL, March 1989.

-s cleanup illustrates how important it is to have data that can be used to identify the contribution of different twhnologies to the overall cleanup.

For example, EPA credits this site with using biological treatment, even though it addressed only 6 percent of the contamination,
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology . 165

the cleanup of the site. ” The timing of the removal

was significant. At a public meeting in October

1987, an EPA official explained that the RCRA land

disposal bans imposed by Congress were going to

make it impossible to landfill the site’s toxic

material and that he ‘‘was told by Headquarters

within the last couple of days that virtually all this

type of waste will eventually have to be incinerated

onsite or offsite. The type of land disposal whereby

excavation and removal were accomplished will be

a thing of the past. Therefore, the government

cooperated in circumventing the congressional intent to prohibit land disposal of certain toxic

materials.

The remedy approved by EPA was estimated in

the ROD to cost $2.4 million (apparently $1.9

million for the landfilling and $0.5 million for the

biological treatment), while the use of onsite mobile

incineration was estimated to cost $5.4 million.

EPA’s analysis of cleanup alternatives acknowledged that onsite incineration would provide greater

environmental protection, was more consistent with

statutory requirements, and would take significantly

less time to fully implement than the remedy

selected. There was no explicit acknowledgment of

the inconsistency between the selected remedy and

statutory requirements and preferences.

Second, consider the June 1988 ROD for the

Southern Maryland Wood Treating site in Maryland,

a fund program site, EPA selected onsite mobile

incineration for treating over 100,000 cubic yards of

contaminated materials at an estimated cost of $38

million, including groundwater cleanup. There is no

apparent viable responsible party to settle with. An

early attempt by the responsible party at using

biological cleanup at the site had failed. The ROD

specifically rejected the use of a hazardous waste

landfill at $23 million and biological treatment at

$31 million; for landfilling, the ROD said that

potential leaks and leachate migration made “the

permanence of this option . . . dependent upon the

expected life of the landfill, ” and for biological

treatment it said that it had ‘‘a higher risk of remedy

failure than thermal treatment. ” In contrast to the

Brown site in Florida, the Southern Maryland ROD

presented extensive data on contamination, risks,

and cleanup standards. The key cleanup objective

selected was 1 ppm carcinogenic chemicals in

subsurface soil necessary to protect groundwater—

i.e., 1 percent of the 100 ppm standard for the Florida

site. (In both cases the risk level was said to be 1 in

1 million excess cancer deaths. ) The cleanup standard for surface soil was 2,2 ppm.

At a third site, an enforcement ROD was issued

for the Brodenck Wood Products Co. site in

Colorado. Most of the RIFS work has been done by

responsible party contractors. A small amount of

surface impoundment material (4,000 cubic yards of

sludge and oil) will be incinerated onsite. Except for

visibly contaminated soils beneath surface impoundments, the ROD commits to using onsite incineration only if the volume of soil is less than 2,500 cubic

yards. If, as is likely, the volume is greater than 2,500

cubic yards-and it may be as much as 30,700 cubic

yards-the material will be stored onsite for further

study and, it appears, may not be incinerated, There

is no technical or environmental reason why the

larger amount of contaminated soil could not be

incinerated, except that it would of course cost

more—an estimated $11 million for the larger

amount of incineration, instead of $1 million for

either the small amount of incineration or the

stockpiling.

The Brodenck ROD presents no actual cleanup

standard for soils beneath impoundments, other than

the somewhat subjective identification of visible

contamination. Soils can be quite contaminated

without being visibly contaminated. The more

routine ROD requirement is a specific level of

residual contamination above which soil would have

to be excavated and remediated. Moreover, data in

the ROD suggests that soil beneath the impoundments

may be contaminated with dioxins, because relatively high levels were found in some impoundment sludges. This situation argues for using onsite

incineration, sooner rather than later. (The presence

of dioxins was also a factor in the decision for using

incineration at the Southern Maryland site; dioxin

contamination at wood preserving sites is likely

when, in addition to creosote, pentachlorophenol

was used, as was the case for the Brodenck site. )

A fourth wood preserving site—the L.A. Clarke &

Son site in Virginia—illustrates a general problem

facing analyses of Superfund implementation. Some

site RODS that EPA classifies as a fund program

may, nevertheless, reflect the consequences of a

preference for and pursuit of voluntary settlement, a
166 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

process that often begins before the ROD is issued.

The L.A. Clarke & Son site is a sister site of the

Southern Maryland Wood Treating site discussed

earlier. Both sites are in EPA Region 3, L.A. Clarke

& Son operated both facilities, and the estimated

volume of contaminated material was nearly the

same for both sites (the volume of material requiring

cleanup at the L.A. Clarke & Son site was said to be

119,000 cubic yards). But the ROD for the Virginia

site selected a combination of soil flushing, biological treatment (i.e., a combination of in situ bioreclamation, biotreatment in tanks, and land farming),

and landfilling of an unspecified amounts of material which are not effectively treated by the in situ

flushing and biological treatment.57 The selected

remedy would have to be proved effective by

extensive post-ROD testing. (Biological treatment

was selected in two of these examples [Broderick

and L.A. Clarke& Son] and rejected in the other two

[Brown and Southern Maryland], and its effectiveness for this cleanup is uncertain.58) The site’s

contamination is complex, including a layer of dense

creosote that lies on top of a clay layer beneath an

upper aquifer, which raises serious concerns about

the selected remedy’s ability to be effective. The

flushing component would probably generate hazardous waste for land disposal.

Moreover, the L.A. Clarke & Son site ROD

selected an acceptable concentration for soil for a

standard group of carcinogenic chemicals of 10.3

ppm for protection of groundwater (corresponding

to a risk level of 1 in 100,000 excess cancer deaths

and 10 times higher than corresponding figure for

the Southern Maryland site). Onsite incineration was

not evaluated as a cleanup alternative and no

explanation was given, but an offsite incineration

option was estimated to cost $76 million. Cleanup of

contaminated groundwater was deferred to a later

ROD. The estimated cost for the L.A. Clarke& Son

site cleanup was about half that for the Southern

Maryland site, a difference of about $20 million.

EPA has indicated that if a cleanup goal of 1 in 1

million risk had been used “the only feasible

remedy would have been incineration, ”59 A few

months after EPA issued the ROD, based on its own

RIFS, a complete settlement was reached with a

responsible party for implementation of the selected

remedy; the ROD had identified the responsible

party and said that negotiation with it was intended,

and the responsible party had submitted extensive

comments to EPA on its RIFS and proposed remedy.

The ROD provides strong indication that the desire

to allow the industrial facility to keep operating was

a significant factor in remedy selection. To implement incineration, it would be necessary to remove

the site’s buildings because of the extensive contamination below them. The ROD noted that “many

residents are skeptical of the treatment technology

proposed in the preferred alternative and are unhappy with the length of time projected for the

cleanup (the longest of the alternatives ).’ The desire

of some residents to shut down the facility was also

noted.

The L.A. Clarke & Son site decision is actually

more indicative of environmental compromise and

less protective than it first appears. The safe soil

cleanup level was determined to be 0.08 ppm for

ingestion (compared to 2.2 ppm for the Southern

Maryland site), but the ROD used the figure for soil

of 10.3 ppm for protection of groundwater based on

a lower risk level of 1 in 100,000 instead of 1 in 1

million (compared to 1 ppm for the Maryland site).

To justify replacing the 0.08 ppm figure for surface

soil with a cleanup objective over 100 times higher,

the ROD said, “To achieve surface soil levels

protective of direct contact exposure, the site will be

5TNo~g ~K1~ ~ tie ROD p~ludcs a rnajof amount of the site’s contaminated materiidS from being lartdfilled.

5SOTA exmln~ tie resu]~ of a prelimin~ fe~ibi]ity study on the potential for indigenous microbes to destroy the site’s polynuclear aromatic

hydrocarbons reported to EPA’s RIFS contractor for this site in October 1986. There were 51 laboratory results for percent destruction of four chemicals

in soil and surface water samples horn different locations. Only 29 pmcent of the results were vety successful (i.e., % to 99 percent reduction of

contaminants), nearly half of the results were zero or close to zero percent reduction, and the other 20 percent were partially successful but not sufficient

for effective cleanup. The results are particularly important because they indicate a potential problem for achieving effective in situ bioreclamation

selected for subsurface soils. But a report which designed a formal treatability study, issued in March 1987 by an EPA contractor, described those initial

results as finding that “indigenous microbes were capable of degrading” the four chemicals tested. Apparently the 8-month $70,400 treatability study

was not cxxtducted prior to completion of the RIFS and ROD about a year later.

59~ ~~~~~km~ ~A Region 3 memo provid~ ~(_JTA$ The memo ~SCI refers to a cost of incineration of $125 million which d~s not awith the ROD, and says that the soil volume needing treatment was twice as much as at the Maryland site, which also does not agree with ROD

information.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 167

covered with 1.5 feet of seeded topsoil. This move

is not standard EPA practice, especially as no

institutional controls on future land use were imposed by the ROD for this containment solution.

Indeed, the industrial facility is still active. In other

words, cleanup costs were also reduced by replacing

some biological treatment with crude capping; that

is, soil cover and not an engineered hazardous waste

landfill cap.

Three PCB Sites

Technologically, the cleanup of PCB contamination illustrates the availability of competing permanent treatment techniques, mostly incineration and

to a lesser degree chemical dechlorination and

biological treatment. The enforcement ROD for the

MGM Brakes site in California, however, selected

offsite landfilling of over 10,000 cubic yards of

contaminated soils. The cleanup standard for soil of

10 ppm PCBs was for a risk level of 1 in 100,000

excess cancer deaths and not the more typical 1 in 1

million risk level. The estimated cost of the selected

remedy is $5.3 million.

A previous Feasibility Study had selected onsite

incineration at a cost of $8.4 million, but in response

to public opposition EPA issued a revised FS and

changed the remedy to offsite landfilling. The MGM

Brakes site is still a major operating industrial

facility and is a prime employer in the community.

This fact may explain why, according to the ROD,

community opposition focused on ‘‘the economic

and health risks’ of onsite incineration. The ROD

noted that there was no public opposition to the

selected remedy of offsite Iandfilling. (Landfilling

was rejected in the next two PCB cleanup exampies.m

)

The ROD for MGM Brakes noted that some

testing of PCB dechlorination technology, which

EPA has selected elsewhere for a Superfund PCB

cleanup, had been done in 1987, but the ROD said

that ‘it was deemed impractical due to the nature of

site soils’ and because of “process control problems. ” However, the ROD did not support this

interpretation with specific technical data. Chemical

fixation, which EPA has used elsewhere for a

Superfund PCB cleanup, was rejected in part because it would not destroy the PCBs and would not

offer a permanent solution (consistent with OTA’s

views on permanence), and also because treated

materials would have to be landfilled which would

require institutional controls such as deed and land

use restrictions, The ROD said that ‘‘EPA also does

not have well-developed administrative capabilities

to oversee and enforce institutional controls,"61 But

the selected remedy of offsite landfilling also has the

disadvantages of impermanence and uncertainty,

But the most significant issue is the cleanup’s

apparent violation of the statutory requirement to

comply with applicable or relevant and appropriate

regulatory requirements. Regulations promulgated

under the Toxic Substances Control Act (40 CFR

761.60) require that PCBs in concentrations greater

than 500 ppm must be disposed of by incineration.

The MGM Brakes ROD said, Soil sampling results

showed a significant percentage of samples with

PCBs in excess of (milligrams per kilogram) 1,000

mg/kg (1,000 ppm). ’ The ROD referred only to a

regulatory requirement that concentrations over 50

ppm be incinerated or disposed of in an approved

landfill, Actually, the regulations speak of the range

between 50 and 500 ppm for the option of land

disposal or incineration.

Next, consider the fund program ROD for the

LaSalle Electrical Utilities site in Illinois, The fiscal

year 1988 ROD selected onsite incineration at a cost

of $28.6 million for 23,600 cubic yards of soil and

sediment. There is no viable responsible party to

settle with. The cleanup standard is 5 ppm down to

one foot and 10 ppm beneath one foot of soil; the

ROD said that a soil concentration of 0.03 to 3 ppm

of PCBs corresponds to a risk of 1 in 100,000 excess

cancer deaths (indicating a relatively high residual

~owever, landfWing of PCB cleanup waste has been practiced elsewhere; for example, the cleanup of the Geneva Industries site in Tkxas is based

on sending 47,000 tons of PCB-contarninated soil to the commercial hazardous waste landfdl in Ernelle, Alabama.

61~s ~t~ment is p~c~wly Si@ficmt ~a~m~y Superfund RODS rely on institutional controls m pm Of tie *lt%ted remdy. It ~so is a good

example of regional autonomy, because EPA headquarters has not expressed this view and probably would not as policy or guidance because H frequently

endorses institutional Contiols.
168 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

risk for the cleanup levels selected).62 The least

costly option of landfilling at about $3.5 million was

rejected because of the “difficulty in assuring the

long-term integrity of hazardous waste landfills. ”

The options of biological treatment and dechlorination were rejected initially on the basis of uncertain

effectiveness and implementation times. A 1986

ROD for the LaSalle site had selected onsite

incineration for contaminated soils in a residential

area offsite. The 1988 ROD noted that costs for the

earlier selected incineration cleanup, started in early

1988, had been 45 percent less than the original

estimate ($15 million instead of $27 million) because of ‘the current competitive atmosphere in the

thermal destruction business. ”63

Another fiscal year 1988 ROD labeled as fund

program (like the L.A. Clarke site in Virginia) was

that for the French Limited site in Texas, for which

PCBs are a major contaminant in about 150,000

cubic yards of sludges, sediments, and soils. However, responsible parties have been very active at the

site; they conducted a multimillion-dollar technology demonstration for in situ biological treatment

and have produced a supplemental Remedial Investigation, which EPA said it used. Indeed, EPA

overturned its original selection of incineration and

selected in situ biological treatment in its ROD.

(Biological treatment was not selected in the above

two PCB site examples.) The estimated cost for the

selected biological remedy was $47 million as

compared to the ROD’s estimated $120 million for

the rejected onsite incineration option; the biological alternative was the second lowest cost treatment

option (a containment option at $42 million was

rejected). A few months after EPA issued the ROD

a complete settlement was reached with responsible

parties for implementation of the selected remedy.64

The French Limited cleanup standard was 23 ppm

for PCBs which the ROD said corresponds to a risk

of 1 in 100,000 excess cancer deaths. (This is a

relatively high risk and a high level for PCB cleanup,

which in the previous two PCB examples was 5 to 10

ppm,) The site study conducted by the responsible

parties, as noted by EPA in its ROD, found that

PCBs were not reduced to below the relatively high

allowable PCB level of 23 ppm, and that some

secondary chemical fixation treatment would be

necessary. The ROD acknowledged that the pilot

study had presented “no data . . . to show what

portion of the decrease is specifically attributable to

degradation. In other words, some of the apparent

decrease in measured PCB contamination levels

might not have resulted from molecular destruction

by microbes but may have resulted from a transfer of

PCBs to another medium, such as air or water. The

current scientific literature on biological treatment

of PCBs does not show that all PCB molecules

(higher chlorine types) can be destroyed biologically

to low residual levels.65 A professional paper by

people working for the responsible parties which

described the remedy selection made no mention of

the issue of PCB destruction.66

Moreover, the French Limited ROD also noted

that “some degradation of the water quality in the

upper aquifer did occur during the pilot study. ’

Furthermore, “Recovery and treatment of the shallow aquifer is necessary to control any groundwater

degradation which may occur during implementation

‘In other words, it seems that a trade-off was made, increasing the risk to reduce the amount of soil rtquiring incineration; however, the 5 and 10

ppm levels for PCBS are typicat of many PCB cleanups. The risk assessment may have been overly conservative or a mistake may have been made (W

discussion on risk assessment in ch. 1).

ISmS o~atim su~~ OTA’S conclusionthat com~tition among generic cleanup technologies and within classes of technologies has reduced

unit cleanup costs, preventing permanent remedies from becoming exorbitant, as some people feared would happen as a result of SARA.

amestim~ WQ fm iM&r~lon ~ms hi@; using the unit cost from the LaSalle cleanup would suggest a cost of $90 million md a still lower

cost is likely-perhaps S60 million--beeause of the much larger (six times) volume of materiat at French Limited and there are significant

economy-of-scale effem for incinmtion.

6s~ effativenew of biological treatment of soil contaminated with PCBS remains a controversial issue and there is a large literature on the subject.

(see EPA, Technology Screening GuMe for Treatment of CERCLA Soils and Sludges, September 1988; and S. Niaki, “Treatment Tedmologies for

PCB-Contaminated Soils,” conference proceedings Hazt.wh International, St. Imuis, Missouri, August 1987) EPA concluded that with more than 5

chlorines per molecule bacteriat degradation was not readily observed. (EPA, Microbial Decotquosition of ChforinasedAroma.rlc Compounds, September

1986.) Some commercial vendors of biological cleanup technology say that they are effective on PCB-contaminated soil, but little detaikl data are

available. professor John Waid of La Trobe University in Australia has informed OTA of promising results of a field test in the United States using his

method, based on white rot fungus and landfarming techniques, to destroy PCBS in soil.

‘Richard L. Sloan et al., ‘The French, Ltd. PrOJCCt: A Gse study, supetiund ’88, proceedings of conference Novemkr 1988, HUudOus Mwri~s

Itescmch hmitute, silver S*8, ~.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology . 169

of the biotreatment remedy. ” Based on our extensive study of RODS, such uncertainty about effectiveness and implementation problems would typically rule out an alternative. However, the ROD’s

evaluation of alternatives gave the selected remedy

the same ratings for effectiveness and irnplementability

as incineration, But the ROD acknowledged that

incineration ‘offers destruction of all of the contaminants to levels below the health-based criteria’

whereas biological treatment would require stabilization for PCBs and that the stabilization would not

destroy the PCBs. Chemical fixation had been

evaluated and rejected in the MGM Brakes site

ROD, which said that it ‘‘would not provide a

permanent solution for the site. ” For most of the

many commercially available forms of chemical

fixation, effectiveness on PCBs is unproven.67

Two Battery Recycling Facilities

Lead is the principal contaminant of concern at

two very similar battery recycling facility Superfund

sites. Unlike organic contaminants (e.g., creosote

and PCBs) discussed earlier, toxic metals cannot be

destroyed by treatment technology; however, the

statutory goal of recycling when it is feasible is the

key issue for metals. It is through recovery and then

recycling of toxic metals that a truly permanent

remedy can be obtained. At both sites presented

here, the chief problems are battery casings and

contaminated soil, both surface and subsurface.

The enforcement ROD for the Gould site in

Oregon selected a cleanup standard for surface soils

of 1,000 ppm of lead; the standard for subsurface soil

and the unrecyclable materials was the failure of

EPA’s EP Toxicity test. Twenty-nine-thousand cubic

yards of contaminated soils will be treated by

chemical stabilization and backfilled onsite. (OTA

notes that the estimated volume appears to be based

on the responsible party RIFS which used a 3,000

ppm level for lead [which EPA apparently rejected]

and, therefore, underestimates the volume based on

the selected standard of 1,000 ppm.) It was estimated

that about 25 percent of the lead in the casings would

be recycled, plus some other materials. Contaminated unrecyclable battery casing materials, from a

total of 81,000 cubic yards of casings, will be sent to

an offsite hazardous waste landfill. Estimated cost

for the selected remedy at the Gould site is $21

million, but this figure does not count any income

from sale of recycled material.

The fund program ROD for the United Scrap Lead

site in Ohio selected a cleanup standard for 45,000

cubic yards of surface soils of 500 ppm of lead-onehalf of the value for the Gould site—and the failure

of EPA’s EP Toxicity test for subsurface soils

(unestimated volume, but could be two to three times

surface volume) and 55,000 cubic yards of residual

battery casing materials, Contaminated soils and

battery casings will be treated using a chemical

process developed by the Bureau of Mines, and the

safe residuals of treatment will be replaced onsite.

This treatment process uses fluosilicic acid to

remove and purify lead for recycling. Similar to

technology currently used in the mining industry,

the process was evaluated in laboratory treatabilily

tests and was found to successfully reduce lead

content of soils and battery casings below the

cleanup standards. Further tests and a pilot study

will be conducted as part of the design phase to

optimize the process. For the United Scrap site, the

ROD noted that “the 500 ppm level was chosen in

order to assure protectiveness. It is also the level

chosen at other CERCLA sites nearby . . . Soils

contaminated with lead at or above 500 ppm level

represent a health threat. ” Consistent with OTA’s

perspective on permanence, the ROD also said that

LV~ ~IWtim of chefic~ fix~on for tie pep~r’s Steel & Alloys site in Florida was an unusual dezision. In addition to PCB contamination, the

site also had very high levels of toxic metals which posed a problem for incineration. The site decision was based on test work and analysis by the

responsible party which developed and now sells the chemical fixation technology. A fidl settlement was reached for this SIIC. Significant uncertainty

about long-term effectiveness remains. Indeed, about one month before the ROD was sigrd, EPA’s expert on chemical fixauon m Its Office of Research

and Development said, “’l%e subject report [responsible party’s] does not provide conclusive evidence that soil from the waste wte can be treated to

provide a solid that will be harmless to the environment. The waste would appear to be capable of leaching unacceptably high levels of lead mto a h@dy

used aquifer system. ” A few weeks earlier, a professor at Lm.usiana State University submittcxi a report as a consultant to EPA’s contrac~or; the report

raised a number of issues about the limits of the testing done by the responsible pany. Afl.er the responsible party began the cleanup, EPA said:

“SolidificatkmM.abilization costs less than the other alternatives. It is also more likely to perform as expected. . A extmwve tesnng program was

cmducted by EPA and Florida Power & Light to make sure that the stabilmd and solidified materials would meet the goal of isolating the waste from

the environment over an extendd period of time. ” About 2 ‘/2 years after the ROD and before the remedy was complete, ~ EPA Region 4 memo on

the cleanup said, ‘ ‘Time will tell if the remedy mcwts our expectations. . . . Umversally accepted tests to characterize either short- or long-term

performance did not and still do not exist.
170 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

‘‘since the contaminants are removed and recycled,

the possibility of future actions is eliminated. ” The

estimated cost for the selected remedy is $27

million, which accounts for sale of recycled material.

These two RODS illustrate:

●

●

●

A surface soil cleanup standard for lead at the

enforcement site half as stringent as that

selected for the fund program site; this difference cannot be explained on the basis of

fundamentally different exposure or risk factors. The consensus in the technical literature is

that a cleanup level of 1,000 ppm for lead in

surface soil could pose a significant health

threat to children who might come into contact

with such soil.68

A selected remedy at the enforcement site

which, in part, uses a treatment technology

(stabilization) for soil that does not recover

lead, whereas the treatment technology at the

fund program site does. Institutional controls

for the enforcement site are an important part of

the remedy because lead will remain onsite.

The ROD for the fund program site, which

rejected chemical stabilization, said, “Since

contaminants are contained rather than removed, the possibility for future remedial

actions at the (cleanup) site or at the offsite

landfill site will remain. ” This position agrees

with OTA’s concerns about the uncertainties

and impermanence of chemical fixation, compared to recovery of metal.

The recovery of lead from casings at the

enforcement site relies on a less- effective

mechanical separation technique (a grinding

and physical separation operation); the one at

the fund program site uses a chemical tech-

*

nique, which is likely to remove more of the

lead, producing, therefore, a permanent remedy. Therefore, for the enforcement site, significant quantities of hazardous material will be

sent offsite for landfilling, but for the fund

program site safe treatment residuals will be

backfilled onsite.

It is difficult to compare costs for the two sites.

About 80 percent of the cost for the enforcement site is operation and maintenance (mostly

for offsite landfilling); the cost for the fund

program site consists almost entirely of capital

costs for the more sophisticated chemical

recovery treatment facility (10 times more

capital cost than for the enforcement ROD

cleanup); the cost also accounts for revenue of

about $4 million from selling recovered metal.

Still, if the enforcement ROD had used the

cleanup standard of the fund program ROD and

its cleanup technology, then it might have cost

perhaps as much as another $10 million.69

Eight Landfills

Sites at which wastes were buried initially vary

greatly, some were used only for industrial wastes

but many were municipal or mixed waste landfills.

But there are also significant similarities from a

cleanup perspective. For example, the cleanup of

landfills nearly always is based on leaving the

wastes buried, capping them, and, if necessary,

addressing groundwater contamination, which is

very common around such sites. The assumption is

nearly always that the volume of buried waste is too

large to consider excavation and treatment; little

attention is normally given to identifying hot-spots

of contamin ation amenable to excavation. In many

cases these sites already have caps on them, but they

@At a majm Su@und site in Michigan (Rose Township), the cleanup standard for lead in soil was 70 ppm, which is quite low for lead dillu~ws

the benefit of having uniform cleanup standards for common contaminants in soil, which for lead would probably be higher than 70 ppm. lltis site cleanup

was also a settlement with originally stringent cleanup objectives. However, subsequently, as asked for by the responsi le parties, a portion of the

incineration was replaced with less expensive soil flushing for volatile organic chemicals, and EPA’s usual cleanup standard was dropped, with a new

om to be determined by the responsible parties during post-ROD work. This suggests that a technology performance standard might replace a

health-based one. The Natural Resources I.kfense Council testified that “The Rose Township reversal is a sobering reminder of the power wielded by

PRPs, and of the numerous means by which a protective remedy can be undermined. Donald S. Strait and Jacqueline M. Warren, testimony before

Senate Subcommitttx on Supxfund, Ocean and Water Protection, June 15, 1989. The reduction of cleanup cost issue was described recently: ‘“It was

Srnct.ly a money thing, ’ said Kevin Adler, tbe EPA’s project manager. The maximum the companies would pay voluntarily was $14 million; any more

and they’d take the EPA to court. Newsweek, July 24, 1989 The situation at the Rose Tbwnship site also illustrates the potential significance of

distinguishing between cunent and future risk (see discussion in ch. 1 of policy option 1) because much of the justification for cleanup was baaed on

speculative future risks. This appears to weaken EPA’s position in obtaining stringent cleanups by responsible parties.

69~t~}y, ~estim~ cql~ cost fm the B~eau of ~nes tre~ent p}~t W* probdly ovemtti because the equipment could be ud u other

Superfund sites and the capital costs distributed over several cleanup projects.
Chapter 3-Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 171

have not prevented the need for further action which,

ironically, is often to use another cap.

Instead of matching a small number of similar

sites, as in the previous sections, all the fiscal year

1988 RODS in Region 5 for which containment/land

disposal was selected were examined to determine if

there were effects from settlements with responsible

parties. Summary findings are given in box 3-G

Three of the eight RODS were labeled by EPA as

fund and five were designated enforcement. That is,

62 percent of the containment/land disposal RODS

were enforcement, compared to a national average of

71 percent. Region 5 is a large but representative

EPA region.

The general conclusion is that enforcement containment RODS had significantly more issues related

to effects from settlements or the conduct of RIFSs

by responsible parties. Issues include the reduction

of cleanup costs by: selecting simpler caps, consistent with municipal instead of hazardous waste

landfill regulations; rejecting the use of incineration

for small amounts of hazardous material (with costs

similar to typical cleanup costs) or for large amounts

(with costs which are high-perhaps $50 million to

$100 million-but not necessarily infeasible);70

avoiding or minimizing groundwater cleanup.

The total costs of the five enforcement RODS and

the one fund ROD which EPA said it was negotiating with responsible parties (Belvidere) is $44.2

million compared to costs which might have totaled

$283.6 million if more stringent cleanups considered

in the RODS had been selected.

Conclusions

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with EPA’s

desire to maximize settlements which reduce the

need for fund-financed remedies. OTA’s research

shows that EPA’s emphasis on using negotiated

settlements as its chief enforcement tool, however,

is linked to EPA’s ability to reduce cleanup costs to

levels attractive to responsible parties by compromising environmental objectives. However, there is

nothing illegal about this, because there is currently

a lot of flexibility in statute and EPA’s implementation of it to allow different kinds of remedies and

levels of protection for similar sites. This conclusion

suggests the need for routine EPA examination of

remedy selection and cleanup objectives in RODS

and, perhaps, a policy about enforcement which

assures consistent levels of environmental protection, regardless of whether a cleanup is fundfinanced or responsible party-financed.

But it is also important to note that there are

examples of responsible parties showing great

interest in performing first-rate cleanups, sometimes

more consistent with statutory provisions than

EPA’s selected remedies. For example, at the

Tyson’s Superfund site in Pennsylvania the responsible party did its own technology demonstration

and convinced EPA to change its ROD, replacing

major offsite landfilling with onsite vacuum extraction and destruction of volatile organic chemicals, if

further testing confirms its effectiveness.

OTA’s analysis also shows that technical work in

Superfund looks better when enforcement site decisions, in which non-technical considerations strongly

affect outcomes, are separated from fund site decisions.

EPA spends hundreds of millions of dollars on its

Technical Enforcement Support contractors. A major

job for them is oversight of responsible party

contractor work and supplemental work at enforcement sites. But this extensive EPA contractor

activity is not preventing EPA decisions that sometimes compromise environmental protection. Given

this and the increasing rate of settlements, the key

question is: Will future government oversight, from

the same system, reveal whether or not settlement

cleanups performed by responsible parties are com701t is cmvatlo~ ~~om w for 1~ge lan~l]ls it is ~onomical]y infeasible to employ expensive cleanup technologies, such as incineration. But

there has been no attention by EPA or others to exactly what level of cleanup cost is unacceptable or prohibitive. The statute gwes EPA a way to reject

very expensive jimd-finunced cleanups; it is called fund-balancing, which means that when costs for a cleanup get so high as to seriously reduce the

government capability to address other Superfund sites, the expensive cleanup can be rejected on economic grounds, even though it might be the best

environmental sohmion for the site. EPA, however, rarely invokes the fund-balancing provision when it rejects high cost alternatives for fund-fiiance

cleanups. How much money is too much for a site? At enforcement sites where responsible parties-which for landillls often include local

government---could pay a high cleanup cost, should high cost alternatives be dismissed automatically? The issue of whether the lower cost containment

remedies being selected are permanent is also important, and whether settlements and consent decrees hold responsible pames hable for future major

Scc41ndary cleanup actions
172 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . 

Box 3-G--Summarie s of Eight FY88 Region 5 Decisions Selecting Containment/Land Disposal

Belvidere Municipall No. 1 Landfill, Belvidere, Illinois: fund ROD, EPA did RIFS.

The ROD did not give specific groundwater cleanup levels, but extensive details from the site’s risk assessment

were given. The cap selected is consistent with that required for a hazardous waste landfill, even though the limited

amount of hazardous waste was disposed before 1980. ((Men, EPA defends using a solid (municipal) waste landfill

cap when there is documentation that hazardous waste disposal was prior to 1980.) The ROD rejected an incineration

option for 790,(X)0 cubic yards at a cost of $127.6 million [which is low but realistic in today’s market] chiefly

because it was “so much more costly. ” No fired-balancing argument was given, Environmental benefits for the

incineration option were not given. The selected remedy’s estimated cost was $7.9 million. The ROD said that EPA

was negotiating with responsible parties to implement the ROD.

Kummer Sanitary Landflll, Northern Township, Minnesota: fund ROD, State did RIPS.

The ROD rejected a hazardous waste landfill cap, but justified it correctly on the basis of no documented

disposal of hazardous waste and an estimate of the small increased protection over using the State’s required

municipal landfill cap, which is stringent. Incineration of the 1.3 million cubic yards in the landfill was eliminated

early on because of short-term problems and “excessive cost” and because it was “cost-prohibitive.” No explicit

use of the fund-balancing provision was made. The selected remedy’s estimated cost was $6.9 million to $12.5

million. A 1985 ROD had selected an alternative water supply: a future ROD will address groundwater cleanup.

The case for deferring a decision on groundwater cleanup was well discussed

Oak Grove Sanitary Landfill Site, Oak Grove Township, Minnesota: fired ROD, State did RIFS.

The ROD acknowledged documented disposal of hazardous waste, but rejected using a hazardous waste

landfill cap because only about 0.1 percent of the 2.5 million cubic yards of landfilled waste is hazardous was* and

it is dispersed throughout the landfill. Using the hazardous waste cap had an estimated cost of $7.4 million to $14.6

million compared to the selected remedy’s estimated cost of $5.1 million to $10.7 million. Incineration wa s

eliminated early on because of cost and short-term risks. The deferral of the decision on groundwater cleanup was

well presented

Cashocton City Landfill, Coshocton, Ohio: enforcement ROD, EPA did RIFS.

The originally proposed remedy (at $17.5 million) was changed because of comments by responsible parties

primarily a lower cost option (at $8.9 million) was selected. Cost was reduced by eliminating a leachate

treatment system and a system to vent landfill gases, but these were to be considered in the design

of the remedy. Although groundwater contamination on and signficant risks were documented in the ROD, no

groundwater cleanup was selected; monitoring was selected instead. Even though there was documentation that 6.4

million pounds of hazardous waste were disposed in the landfill, a cap for a municipal and not a hazardous waste

landfill (as was proposed initially) was selected. The ROD acknowledged that the responsible parties want an even

less stringent cap and that waivers are possible later. The ROD contained candid discussions of the desire by the

responsible parties to minimize immolate costs, even though EPA thinks that they risk higher long-term costs due

to eventual cleanup needs. But clearly EPA gave the responsible parties what they wanted. From the ROD: “The

PRPs’ proposal suggests a remedy which is less costly, initially, but which could be substantially more expensive

should the monitoring system detect changed conditions... . The PRPs. . . have expressed a preference for a less

comprehensive (and less costly) initial containment option, with the understanding that should said initial action

not be sufficient, the ensuing remedy could be more costly. While it may not be appropriate for the federal

government to ‘gamble’ in this way, if financially viable private entities agree to undertake the remedy and are

willing to enter into an enforceable court order by which they would be obligated to quickly act in response to

changed the g o vernment maybe willing to consider a remedy by which the PRPs explicitly assume such

a risk.” How well this arrangement does not jeopardize public health and environment depends on effective EPA

oversight of post-ROD activities and fast responses by responsible parties should they be necessary.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 173

Republic Steel Quarry Site, Elyria, Ohio: enforcement ROD, EPA did RIFS.

The decision not to pursue groundwater and sediment cleanup was well supported. The ROD gave good details

from the site’s risk assessment. However, the ROD selected offsite Iandfilling for 100 cubic yards of contaminated

soil at an estimated cost of $63,2(M). The alternative to use offsite incineration at an estimated cost of $279,700 was

rejected because of its higher cost.

Mason County Landfill, Mason County, Michigan: enforcement ROD, EPA did RIFS.

To its credit the ROD selected a cap consistent with a hazardous waste landfill because industrial slurry and

sludge wastes had been disposed there (prior to 1978). The ROD gave good details on the site’s risk assessment

results and the case for deferring a decision on groundwater cleanup was well presented. An alternative of using

chemical fixation for excavated material at a cost of $43 million was rejected on sound technical grounds.

Incineration for the relatively small landfill (140,000 cubic yards) was rejected without detailed examination, but

its cost might be about $50 million. The selected remedy’s estimated cost was $2.8 million.

Allied Chemical/Ironton Coke Site, Ironton, Ohio: enforcement ROD, responsible parties did RIFS.

Cleanup levels for groundwater cleanup were given in the ROD. However, numerous statements indicate that

the pump and treat method is not likely to reach those levels, will be stopped when “technical unfeasibility is

demonstrated” during cleanup, and a formal waiver from regulatory requirements for contaminant concentrations

will then be implemented. The ROD had few details from the site’s risk assessment. Options to excavate most and

all of the site’s hazardous materials and incinerate them were seriously examined. But they were rejected because

the overall environmental protection was not rated higher than capping the landfill, and because of high costs ($92.2

million and $218 million). The ROD acknowledged the difficulty of the selected remedy being effective for the layer

of dense non-aqueous contaminants which have settled at the bottom of the site. The higher cost incineration option

which would treat all 456,000 cubic yards of site hazardous material was actually overestimated in cost by close

to $100 million, based on current costs for onsite incineration. The ROD referred to the high cost incineration option

as “cost prohibitive” and offering advantages “not commensurate with the costs. ” To its credit, the ROD selected

a hazardous waste landfill cap; hazardous waste disposal had stopped in 1977. The estimated cost of the selected

remedy, which also includes a slurry wall around the disposal area was $13.1 million. The ROD included a

discussion about comments from the Department of Interior: “DOI asserted that the major advantage of the selected

remedy is cost, and without reviewing the cost assumptions, asserted that future operation and maintenance of the

preferred alternative will meet or exceed the cost of the most expensive alternative [incineration of all site hazardous

material]. DOI also raised concern about the source of money for continued long-term operation and maintenance,

and the future environmental consequences if long-term operation and maintenance% is not conducted. ”

Waste Disposal Engineering, Andover, Minnesota: enforcement ROD, responsible parties did RIFS.

The ROD lacked details from the site’s risk assessment and specific cleanup objectives for the groundwater

cleanup. Optimism about the pump and treat groundwater cleanup was contradicted by other ROD statements: “The

extraction system will effectively intercept all [emphasis added] contaminated ground water migrating from the Site

in the Upper Sand aquifer and currently entering Coon Creek. . . . The extraction system will be active indefinitely,

and will greatly reduce, if not eliminate, any loadings to Coon Creek, . .“ Serious attention was given to excavating

and incinerating a confirmed hot-spot called the Pit. But it was not selected, even though only 5,500 cubic yards

was estimated to cost $6.3 million. The argument was that only 10 percent of the site hazardous waste was in the

Pit. But this position is undermined by many statements in the ROD which refer to the Pit as the “major,”

“dominant,” and “most serious” source of groundwater contamination. There is no mention of the benefit of

permanently removing such a major confirmed source of groundwater contamination. Moreover, the cost for the

incineration is overestimated by about 100 percent and the issue of ‘severe safety risks’ from excavation seems

overstated because a test excavation in 1986 did not result in safety problems. To its credit, the ROD selected a

hazardous waste landfill cap, even though disposal had stopped in 1974. The selected remedy’s estimated cost was

$11.4 million, which includes a slurry wall around the Pit and pumping from within it.

sOuKE: Omcc of Tbdnlology ~,19S9: based on exmninuion of EPA RODS.
174 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

parable environmentally to fund-financed cleanups

and SARA’s stringent cleanup requirements?

The issue that seems important for future Superfund implementation is: Is there a better way to get

responsible parties to pay for cleanups without

compromising environmental goals? After all, SAM’S

cleanup requirements do not distinguish between

enforcement and fund-financed cleanups. EPA could

maintain uniformly high environmental standards

for all Superfund cleanups and make cleanup

decisions independent of who pays for cleanup. EPA

could use the tough enforcement tools given to it by

statute to get those responsible for creating Superfund sites to pay for environmentally effective

cleanups that are consistent with statute and congressional intent. The more EPA uses strong enforcement tools, the stronger its position in reaching

voluntary settlements which do not require compromising environmental goals. However, it should be

noted that responsible parties believe that settlement

cleanups are effective environmentally and satisfy

statutory requirements. Indeed, there generally is

enough flexibility or ambiguity in key statutory

requirements to permit some widely different interpretations. Moreover, EPA’s implementation has

already included so many different types of cleanups

for essentially the same types of sites that responsible parties can easily point to the least stringent

cleanups as precedents for cleanups providing effective environmental protection. (See several policy

options in ch. 1)

Finally, OTA’s findings on effects of settlements

should also be examined with regard to other

cleanup programs into which potential Superfund

sites may be deferred, especially programs in which

responsible parties routinely select and implement

cleanups (e.g., EPA’s corrective action program

within its RCRA hazardous waste regulatory program, the leaking underground storage tank program, and many State cleanup programs). Such

cleanup programs include many more sites than in

Superfund and influence Superfund in several ways

(see ch. 4).

Issue 4: Are analyses and selections of cleanup

technologies inconsistent and, if so, does it

matter?

OTA’s 1988 case studies have documented substantial cleanup inconsistencies among and within

the 10 EPA Regions and EPA headquarters. The

inconsistencies are for critical decisions about cleanup

objectives and remedy selection. The situation can

be credited to excessive regional autonomy—there

literally are 11 different EPA and Superfund programs.

An environmentalist’s 1987 analysis of 10 postSARA RODS is consistent with OTA’s case studies:

Our review of the 10 RODS reveals a disorganized, confused bureaucracy making seat-of-thepants, poorly documented decisions that fail to

protect public health and violate the law. Seven years

into the program, we have not progressed beyond ad

hoc and inconsistent process that was the hallmark of

Superfund’s grim first few years. [The] Superfund

program . . . continues to make bad and inconsistent

cleanups the rule and the reality. The inconsistent

approaches taken in the 10 RODS underscore the

urgent need for the agency to develop specific

national policies for its regional offices to use in

making such decisions.71

A rarely addressed consequence of inconsistent

decisions was also noted:

In short, the agency’s erratic, inconsistent approach to cleanup standards today could compromise the fiscal integrity of the fund years into the

future. 72

A study by Washington State University and

Battelle’s Pacific Northwest Laboratory on improving site study methodologies said:

Although EPA has provided general guidance for

conducting an RI, EA (endangerment assessment),

and FS, detailed procedures are not readily available

to implement these guidelines; as such, analyses tend

to be inconsistent from site to site, and the quality

and quantity of documentation varies.73

Another recent observation was that:

71 A.Fj. &ly, ~s~ony &fom the %nti Subcommittee on Supdmd and Environmental Oversight, June 2S, 1987.

~fiid.

TsKe~~ E. H-~ Gene Wilson, ‘“~As ~d ~As Mc~odOIOgieS ss hqga~ hto the R~~s PKXX?SS,’ supt?rjid ’88, PKWX!&XlgS

of cmfenmce November 1988, Hazardous Materials Research Institute, Silver Spring, MD.
Chapter 3-Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 175

The ROD process, occurring in ten EPA regions

as well as at headquarters, results in wildly inconsistent remedies and sometimes conflicting rationales,74

Why is there so much inconsistency? Different

information is used. For example, the unit cost of a

technology such as mobile incineration may vary by

100 percent or more (see OTA’s 1988 case studies).

The problem is caused, in large part, by having many

different contractors working on sites for 10 EPA

regions that are responsible for selecting remedies.

At the Pristine site in Ohio, incineration was rejected

because it w as estimated to cost twice as much as the

selected remedy (in situ vitrification). In fact, its cost

was overestimated by a factor of 2, according to

detailed incineration costs contained in two feasibility studies on other sites by the same contractor, but

at a different regional office of the contractor.

Different technical criteria and different structures for analysis are used in feasibility studies and

RODS. Some RODS have analyses that really do help

a reader understand why the remedy selected is

better than the others. But, more often, the analyses

can be used to justify any remedy selection because

either they are superficial and qualitative, or they are

lengthy and redundant with no sharp distinctions. A

State official summed up his view of EPA’s method

to evaluate cleanup alternatives and select a remedy:

Sometimes it seems that “guidance” is followed

so faithfully that common sense is neglected. Flexibility is a crucial missing component when remedial

alternatives are developed and evaluated, but it is

overutilized in actual remedy selection. In our view

it is best to consider a wide, variable range of

alternatives and allow the best one to emerge.

Instead, EPA does a rigid evaluation of generic

remedies, only to be confronted with a choice

between several square solutions for a round problem. At that point flexibility is too late.7s

Variable interpretation of SARA’s provisions on

remedy selection is also important in understanding

the presence of inconsistent Superfund implementation. EPA has tacitly encouraged subjective, variable, and inconsistent interpretations of statutory

language. No attempt has been made to clarify the

meaning of terms such as treatment, permanence,

reduction in toxicity, cost-effectiveness, and future

failure modes. Nor has there been any attempt to

establish hierarchies for types of treatment technologies and their outcomes. The current use of nine

different criteria-apparently with equal importance

and no hierarchy-to evaluate cleanup alternatives

does not help to make clearly understood, sharp

distinctions. Regions and specific remedial project

managers emphasize whatever criteria they choose

to.

Some of the nine criteria could have been simple

requirements to be met by a selected remedy rather

than criteria for which alternatives have different

levels of performance (e.g., compliance with regulatory standards, long-term effectiveness, community

reaction, State support). Also, the overlapping and

ambiguity of some of the environmental criteria

(e.g., short-term effectiveness, reduction of toxicity,

mobility or volume, implementability, overall protection of human health and the environment) fosters

an analysis that can be made to support any decision.

The inclusion of cost (but not cost-effectiveness)

has also facilitated ruling out alternatives early in the

screening process and in combination with the

flexibility of the preceding environmental criteria

facilitates a cost-benefit kind of analysis. All of this

is compounded by the lack of detailed analysis,

including references to the technical literature,

scientific principles, and actual data. In its place is

qualitative assertion and cost-benefit reasoning.

As OTA’s case studies have documented, use of

any treatment technology and, in some cases, even

use of land disposal or containment are interpreted

as meeting SARA’s requirements and preferences

concerning the examination and selection of remedial cleanup technologies. Confirmation of this OTA

conclusion comes from a study of fiscal year 1987

RODS which concluded, “The degree to which

selected alternatives are cost-effective cannot be

determined based on the limited discussions and

74Roger J. Marzulla, ‘‘Superfund 199 1: How Insurance Companies Can Help Clean Up the Nation Hazardous Waste, paper presented to Insurance

Information Institute, Washington, DC, June 13, 1989.

75 Mic&l J. Bti,Dir~tor of New Mexico’s Environmental Improvement Division, letter to OTA, July 5, 1988.
176 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

rationales provided in the documents reviewed."76

This conclusion is all the more significant because

the study also concluded that:

. . . cost was the most significant factor in the

selection of remedial alternatives in the decisions

reviewed. Thirty-four percent of RODS reviewed

selected either no action or the least costly alternative

other than no action; 8 percent selected the most

costly alternative evaluated. In 40 percent of RODS,

more protective alternatives not selected cost at least

an additional $10 million; some of these remedies

cost an additional $100 million or more. . . . [C]ost

appeared to play a more significant role in the

selection of remedial alternatives than did risk.77

This work supports our previously discussed finding

concerning money saved by responsible parties as a

result of settlement-impacted RODS, and the conclusion that cost-effectiveness has given way to

cost-benefit thinking which leads to selection of

low-cost remedies and rejection of higher cost

remedies which, however, offer higher levels of

environmental protection. In other words, not using

the statutorily required cost-effectiveness form of

decisionmaking has lead to inconsistent cleanup

decisions in Superfund.

In addition to the case studies, a few more

examples from RODS illustrate the diversity of ways

to comply with the statutory requirements:

●

●

For the Powersville Landfill site in Georgia, the

selected remedy consists of capping the

landfill, grading of the surface, groundwater

monitoring, providing alternate drinking water,

and restricting the site deed. The 1987 ROD

said: ‘‘This remedy satisfies the preference for

a treatment that reduces toxicity, mobility, or

volume as a principal element. . . . [T]he

remedy utilizes permanent treatment technologies to the maximum extent practicable. ”

For the NW 58th Street Landfill in Florida, the

selected remedy closes the landfill in accordance with regulatory requirements, including

leachate control and probably capping, groundwater monitoring, and providing municipal water

to some private well users. The 1987 ROD said:

“The statutory preference for treatment is not

satisfied because treatment was found to be

impracticable due to the magnitude of waste to

be treated (estimated 27 million cubic yards). ’

Treatment of contaminated groundwater was

rejected because the contamination is too

widespread; a 1985 ROD selected air stripping

at the water treatment plants, The ROD also

noted that: “The present worth estimate of the

cost of excavation alone is $439 million, Since

this is two orders of magnitude higher than the

other alternatives that would provide comparable protection, this alternative is rejected on the

basis of cost [emphasis added], ” But if treatment offers better protection, then the selected

remedy does not offer comparable protection

and is not cost-effective. The fund-balancing

provision of the statute, which provides a way

to avoid spending so much at any one site that

cleanups at other sites would be jeopardized,

could have been used, but was not, to justify

rejection of excavation and treatment.

For the Tri-City Oil Conservationist Corp. site

in Florida, the selected remedy was no further

action. The 1987 ROD said: “The statutory

preference for treatment is not satisfied because

treatment was found to be impracticable. Treatments which reduce toxicity, mobility, or

volume of wastes would not have been costeffective at this site because of the small

volume (850 cubic yards) of wastes present.

The ROD also said “. . . the remedy utilizes

permanent treatment technologies to the maximum extent practicable given the small volume

of contaminated materials. ” In fact, the 850

cubic yards had been removed and landfilled in

1985 and, therefore, the volume present that the

ROD actually addressed was zero.

For the Vega Alta Public Supply Wells site in

Puerto Rico, the selected groundwater remedy

was treatment of some well waters and shutdown of some others with connections to

another source of water. The 1987 ROD said:

‘‘The statutory preference for treatment, while

not fully satisfied in that the sources still need

to be considered, is partially addressed in that

7~uo]yn B. Doty and Curtis C. Travis, ‘‘The Superfund Remedial Action Decision Process’ draft, Oak Ridge Nationat Laboratory, undated, racived

by OTA in May 1989. The study was done for EPA and &d not analyze the effect of responsible parties on cleanup decisions.

‘Ibid.
Chapter 3-&lean ups and Cleanup Technology ● 177

●

●

●

●

●

●

the groundwater treatment system reduces the

toxicity and volume of contaminants.

For the Presque Isle site in Pennsylvania, the

selected remedy was no further action, The

1987 ROD Said: “This remedy satisfies the

preference for treatment that reduces toxicity,

mobility, or volume as a principal element.

Finally, it is determined that this remedy

utilizes permanent solutions and alternative

treatment (or resource recovery) technologies

to the maximum extent practicable. ” All the

deep well-injected wastes will be left onsite.

EPA has examined the presence and cause of

inconsistent Superfund implementation with

regard to risk assessments, an important part of

the RIFS process that leads to setting cleanup

goals which cleanup technologies must then

meet. Some of the EPA report’s findings

substantiate an organization and management

structure that also explains inconsistent technology analysis and selection like this:

“The current guidance, Regional review, and

HQ oversight systems will not necessarily

detect or prevent inconsistencies. ”

“Guidance cannot ensure consistency. Unresolved technical and policy issues and the

continuing need for judgment leave room for

differences to emerge. ”

"

. . . [N]o one group. , . has a broad view of all

risk assessments, limiting HQ’s ability to

identify inconsistencies between sites or Regions."

‘ ‘Regions, intent on their own work, know little

about the actions of other Regions.

". . . [N]o one really knows the extent of

inconsistency. As the number of assessments

grows, it becomes increasingly likely that some

significant inconsistencies will go undetected. ’78

The report omits the possibility that non-EPA

activities might elucidate the presence and significance of inconsistent Superfund implementation,

including congressional oversight, studies by public

interest groups, and news media coverage. Instead,

staying within its own perspective and system, EPA

concluded that no major new actions were necessary

but that existing activities could be strengthened.

OTA does

Superfund

reasonable

A more

also found

not concur. The level of inconsistent

implementation is so high that it is

to seek new ways to remedy the situation.

recent study of fiscal year 1987 RODS

many problems in the processes leading—

up to RODS.

79

Summary--Inconsistency is not necessarily bad.

But similar Superfund sites and cleanup problems

have received different cleanups with different,

uncertain, and sometimes relatively low levels of

environmental protection. Variable environmental

protection is the central problem with inconsistent Superfund implementation. Counter to statutory requirements and preference, non-treatment,

impermanent remedies based on land disposal,

containment of wastes, or wait-and-see monitoring

are often selected. ROD selections of untested and

uncertain treatment technologies also occur. Particular treatment technologies have become favorites of

some EPA Regions and are ignored by others.

Moreover, as said earlier, some treatments do not

destroy or detoxify site contaminants and cart crowd

out more effective treatments, which may be more

costly. Inconsistency makes the marketplace very

difficult for technology developers, creating major

uncertainties that have little to do with the merits of

the technologies.

Issue 5: Are there incentives built into the

Superfund program for making broad use of

improved cleanup technologies?

There are nearly none.

SARA does, of course, provide a basic national

policy framework that favors improved treatment

technologies, and public opinion helps, But this

policy can be responded to superficially, ignored,

and misinterpreted. There are far more penalties than

rewards for going with new solutions over older

ones, even though the older ones may not offer

reliable, permanent long-term protection.

All those who bear costs generally see treatment

alternatives as more expensive in the near term than

conventional containment/land disposal and monitoring options. Those who pay include responsible

78u s fiv~omen~ ~otwtlon Agency, Ev~utlon of ~c ~epwatlon Of RI* As~s~en~ for Enforcement &tivities, September 1987.

. .

T!?~ty ~d Travis, op. cit., footnote 76,
178 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

parties, States, and EPA. EPA also is driven by a

desire to distribute funds over as many sites as

possible and by its interest in facilitating agreements

with responsible parties so that they pay for cleanup.

Responsible parties may worry about the long-term

uncertainty and liability of newer cleanup techniques. Engineering consulting companies worry a

great deal about liability for ineffective work or

work that is judged later by different standards.

Inevitably, engineers see less risk with favoring use

of ‘standard’ off-the-shelf technologies. Few people want to be the first to use a new technology on

a major scale. The view of professional consulting

engineers is this:

Engineers incorporating unproven technologies in

their designs are gambling with their clients’ money.

If the gamble backfires, the engineering firm could

be held liable. Thus, engineers are not like] y to often

make use of unproven technologies in remedial

designs. This results in an impasse: engineers do not

want to use unproven technologies, but technologies

cannot reach commercial status unless they are

used.w

Within government, there are also bureaucratic

pressures on people to finish reports and RODS,

pressure that goes against what could be a more

lengthy and costly examination of alternative treatment technologies.

There is an important exception regarding incentives. Some responsible parties have been very

aggressive in examining and selecting newer treatment technologies, chiefly because they see a

reduction in cost over some other alternate-often

another older, more expensive treatment technology.

Moreover, responsible parties want to minimize

their future liabilities and, therefore, sometimes

work very hard to have a permanent remedy

selected. Indeed, some EPA decisions to use land

disposal have been changed because of responsible

party work that demonstrated the effectiveness of

treatment technology; this happened at the Tyson’s

site in Pennsylvania.

Last, an important disincentive built into the

current system is the need to obtain a regulatory

delisting of the residue of a treatment operation if the

material is to go offsite after treatment. The RCRA

regulatory program has considerable inefficiencies.

If delistings cannot be obtained quickly, then the

cost of using a treatment technology escalates,

because the residue is automatically considered

hazardous unless found otherwise through the delisting process. This situation means that the residue

must go to a permitted hazardous waste facility or

that one must be built onsite, instead of a lower cost

solid waste one or just backfilling the material into

the site. Uncertainty about delisting and high cost of

residue management can block adoption of effective

treatment technology.

issue 6: Will using permanently effective cleanup

technologies mean that cleanup costs will

skyrocket?

No one seriously believes that American society

can afford Superfund cleanups at any cost, regardless of who is paying for the cleanup. But discussions on cost and, eventually, where the money

comes from, and liability issues have obscured some

basic points about technology which, after all, is the

tool with which cleanups are accomplished, The

same is true about discussions of cleanup standards

and goals that ignore the means of meeting expectations.

Better cleanup technology is not the enemy of cost

reduction. In the long-term, permanently effective

technologies avoid uncertain and possibly high

future repeated cleanup costs. Certainly in the

long-term and probably in the short-term, technological innovation and development will reduce

costs as well as increase technical effectiveness to

meet stringent cleanup goals. These gains are clearly

happening for some cleanup technologies already.

Competition among more vendors and more available treatment capacity is also helping to reduce

costs. In several areas, such as thermal destruction

and removal of volatile organic chemicals from

contaminated soil, unit cleanup costs for permanent

remedies have decreased in the past few years.

Combinations of newer technologies at complex

sites can also reduce total long-term costs, particularly use of separation technologies to reduce the use

of more expensive destruction technology such as

~azardous Waste Action Coalition, American Consulting Engineers Council, The Hazardous Wa.we Practice-Technical and Qgaf Environment

1988.1989,
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 179

incineration, For example, a variety of in situ

techniques can remove volatile organic chemicals

from soil which can then be burned, thus avoiding

the high cost of excavating the contaminated soil and

burning a largely inert, uncontaminated mass.

More reliable comparative data on costs of

different permanent and containment/land disposal

technologies are needed. In particular, it is critical

that actual cleanup costs be collected, analyzed, and

disseminated to compare with data from vendors and

with estimated costs in feasibility studies. One

preliminary study of 30 completed Superfund cleanups found that cost estimates tend to be less than

actual costs at all stages of the projects (i.e.,

feasibility study, ROD, design, and contract procurement). The study noted, ‘‘Even at late project

stages the estimates do not ‘hone in’ accurately on

actual costs. ‘ ’81

OTA’s 1988 case studies show an average cost of

$20 million for a cleanup considered consistent with

SARA and $10 million for one which can be

questioned, but some of these costs are only for parts

of a site’s total cleanup.

On the one hand, EPA said: ‘‘More permanent

remedies are not necessarily slower or more expensive remedies. ’ ’82 But EPA’s Assistant Administrator J. Winston Porter had said earlier: ‘ ‘There’s

probably not enough money in the world to clean up

all the sites permanently. ”83

OTA has examined EPA’s official figures for

estimating the average cost of a remedial cleanup in

its regulatory impact analyses, as published in the

Federal Register. In 1984 and 1986, EPA said a

remedial cleanup would cost $7.2 million in 1984

dollars. In 1987 and 1988, the figure was adjusted

upward to $8.6 million, but only to reflect the earlier

cost in 1986 dollars (no real change). In 1989, the

figure became $13.5 million in 1988 dollars, the first

real increase since 1984 and after SARA. (Interestingly, the net present value of operation and

maintenance over 30 years at a 10 percent discount

rate remained exactly the same at $3.77 million in

1984, 1986, and 1988 dollars, If these calculations

are not mistaken, then such costs are decreasing in

real terms.)84 More recently, EPA said that the

average construction cost per site is $25 million,

which with study and administrative costs might

total $30 million. In other words, EPA’s data

indicates that some increase in remedial cleanup

costs has been foreseen because of the more

stringent requirements in SARA, but not what would

be described as skyrocketing costs. However citing

an average cleanup cost is not especially instructive,

because costs vary enormously (from several hundred thousand dollars to the $50 million to $100

million range) and because a number of site actions

may be taken over some years at a particular site.

However, there has been a lot of rhetoric about

skyrocketing cleanup costs. A view from the responsible party community is: ‘‘, . . SARA includes a

strong bias in favor of permanent remedies and

onsite remedies and requires that applicable or

relevant and appropriate State and Federal standards

be applied. , . . SARA has created a cleanup process

with great potential for inflating costs. EPA has

estimated that the cleanup requirements in SARA

would drive the cost of a Superfund cleanup from its

present average of about $8 million-$9 million per

site to between $25 million and $30 million per

site. ’85 The major cause of the shift in cleanup costs

has been the shift away from impermanent remedies

based on containment and landfilling. Indeed, a

study for the Chemical Manufacturers Association

estimated high post-SARA costs of over $60 million

for using incineration, This compared to $27 million

for using incineration for hot spots and onsite

containment which was called modified permanence.

86 However, the scenario based on using

gl~xdent Project Analysis, Inc., “Bener Cost and Schedule Estimates for Hazardous Waste Cleanup,” background package, Great Falls, VA,

January 1989.

SZEPA JOIVA, 13 (1), January/February 1987.

gJEnviro~nt Reporter Curreti Developmetis, Sept. 26, 1986, P. 778.

U-fiWes ~e from he fouowlng F&r~ Register notices: Sept. z 1, 19~; J~e 10, 1986; Jm. 22, 1987; June 24, 1988; Mw. 31, 1989.

85~M, He~mm ~dDA,H~wk~s,in H&@&~ Wrote site &fmgeme~ w~er QwIL~ Issues (wmhin~on, m: Nauonal Academy Press, 1988),

pp. 98-119.

s%u~ Fullerton et d., “Irnpaet Analysis of SARA on the CERCLA Remediadon Program, ’ Supefind ’88, proceedings of November 1988

conference, Hazardous Materiats Research Insutute, Silver Spring, MD.
180 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

incineration pervasively for Superfund cleanups

overstated costs for achieving permanent remedies,

because incineration is more expensive than some

other technical approaches, unit costs for incineration have decreased, and it would not be used for

very large landfills.

Sites with large amounts of landfilled material

definitely pose a particularly difficult problem for

using excavation-treatment approaches. Consider a

volume of 1 million to 10 million cubic yards. There

may be hundreds of sites in this range, typically old

municipal and industrial landfllls whose leachate is

hazardous. Though the actual amount of hazardous

substances in the landfill may be very small, they are

distributed within a large mass. At a low cost of $200

per cubic yard, the cleanup cost would range from

$200 million to $2 billion-both costs are beyond

the routine capabilities of Superfund for fundfinanced cleanups. It is not a question of costeffectiveness, because containment does not offer

comparable protection to treatment. Large landfills

illustrate an appropriate use of the fund-balancing

provision of Superfund. That is, cleanup at too many

other sites might be blocked because of enormous

individual site cleanup costs. But the containment

remedy should not be called permanent. Very low

cost in situ permanent treatments or clever ways of

identifying hot spots of contamination for excavation and treatment are needed. Otherwise, traditional

containment approaches will prevail.

Another major problem is that decisions are made

with unreliable cost estimates. As one insightful

analysis concluded: “It is difficult enough to estimate costs at this early (screening) stage of the

feasibility study when ‘old’ technologies are involved; it is hardly prudent to try to estimate the

costs of innovative technologies before a much more

detailed analysis (not to mention extensive pilot

testing) is performed. ”87 OTA’s case studies have

revealed major under-and over-estimates of cost.

While it is generally recognized that a desire to

minimize cleanup costs might be influencing decisions, it is another matter that estimated cleanup

costs can easily be manipulated to create the

appearance of too high a cost for a treatment

alternative (that allows cost-effectiveness to rule it

out) or too low a cost (that makes it appear that cost

is not the main reason for rejecting it).

Finally, there will be increasing debate over how

much contaminated material will be treated in a

cleanup and to what levels of residual contamination. The shift to treatment technologies is being

compromised by limiting the extent of treatment in

order to reduce costs while still getting credit for

using treatment. Some cleanups may use treatment

for very small fractions of site-contaminated materials. A good example of this issue is a study done by

two national environmental organizations for a

community group concerned about the selection of

remedy for a Superfund site in New Hampshire. The

report concluded:

The community-based plan would provide permanent treatment for a much greater volume of soil,

would destroy nearly all PCB’s and would clean up

groundwater to a cancer-risk level that is 100 times

lower than EPA’s cleanup, Equally important, the

community-backed alternative is cost-effective. . . .

[A]ll of the above benefits can be achieved for a total

cost that is less than 13 percent higher than EPA’s

substandard cleanup. The new Superfund clearly

indicates that such increases are warranted where

they bring about large benefits.88

Note that the remedy selected by EPA did include

incineration.

Another example is the complaint for the Bayou

Bonfouca site in Louisiana:

Although the remedy selected by the agency

involves the excavation and incineration of some

contaminated sludges, 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil will be left onsite and covered with a cap

to keep out rainfall. The entire area is characterized

by standing water and saturated surface soil,89

Issue 7: Are research and development producing a steady stream of more cost-effective

cleanup technologies?

STD. T~tt md J. C~dwcll, ‘Evaluation of Innovative Waste Treatment T@mologies, ‘‘ Waste Management Conference-Focus on the West, Colorado

State University, June 1987.

88H. ~lc et ~,, *’The Ottari and GoasKlreat Lakes Container Corporation Cleanup Dwision: A Bad Precedent for the New Superfund, ” National

Campaign Against lbxic Hazards and Clean Water Action, June 1987.

89~1y, op. Ci[., footnok 71‘
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 181

The answer is yes. The cleanup market is enormous

and private sector funds so available, because of the

perceived volume of business, that extensive R&D

is constantly producing new and improved cleanup

technologies. Government spending and university

activities have also increased, some with the help of

SARA programs. The activity in separation and

biological treatment technologies is particularly

intensive and productive.

Of particular importance is the rapid emergence of

in situ cleanup technologies; these have the advantage of eliminating the need to excavate contaminated soil or to extract groundwater, which add

expense, and sometimes cause concern over site

worker safety (for soil) or releases of contaminants

into the environment (for soil and groundwater).

Moreover, testing and demonstration of cleanup

technologies at cleanup sites are taking place at an

increasingly rapid pace because of actions by

responsible parties, EPA Regional offices, States,

and the formal SITE program (discussed below)

established by Congress. Still, this technical activity

is not necessarily reflected by program decisions and

commitments at actual sites.

The main problem continues to be a “clogged

pipeline. ” That is, R&D efforts are driven by

continued optimism about the number of cleanups,

the availability of government cleanup funds, and

the availability of venture capital. But the cleanup

market rarely meets the expectations of technology

developers. Enormous amounts of money can be

spent in ways that do not create business for

companies selling newer cleanup technologies. Paradoxically, the rapid growth of Superfund and the

public pressures on the government to produce more

cleanups as fast as possible do not necessarily

promote the adoption of newer, innovative cleanup

technologies. Already one company with anew form

of thermal destruction, which had received a lot of

attention and had passed several site demonstrations

successfully, has gone bankrupt. Some biological

treatment companies have failed. Moreover, the

competition is constantly increasing so that available business and opportunities for site demonstration

are being distributed over more technology companies. Small market share can limit company success

and continuing technology development.

Government agencies themselves that spend lots

of time and resources developing a technology may

interfere with fair competition among other, privately developed technologies. For example, EPA

developed its own mobile incinerator and gave it

preferential treatment, publicity, and work over

privately developed mobile incinerators, But the

EPA incinerator offered no significant technological

advance. Indeed, EPA’s interest in incineration has

dwarfed its interest in biotechnology, although the

agency has tried to offset this imbalance in the past

year. New York State with some EPA assistance has

spent substantial time developing a plasma thermal

destruction unit without the same level of success of

some private enterprises. Such government activities make sense to the extent that private industry

is not already doing similar development and if they

do not remove comparable testing, demonstration,

and application opportunities from private technology developers. In the cleanup area, there is some

basis for believing that direct financial development

of cleanup technology by government agencies has

not been adequately justified. Nor is there any

evidence that the government efforts have been

cost-effective.

The EPA SITE Program—in 1985 and 1986,

Congress had discussed the need for a joint government

industry effort to aid the introduction of innovative

technologies into the Superfund program during its

initial authorization period, and later Congress

created the SITE program in SARA. Thus far, the

SITE program has had mixed results. A few corporate participants in the program commented on it

recently:90

●

●

●

“Those hoping involvement in SITE will turn

quick profits in the short-term may be disappointed. ” (Carl Brassow, Soliditech, a subsidiary of United Resource Recovery.)

“[SITE was] very slow moving.” (Mark Zwecker,

American Combustion Inc.)

“The analytical expense that the EPA went to

was close to $1 million. We could have cleaned

up the entire site for less than half that

amount.” (James Malot, Terra Vac Inc.)

A recent survey of the program found that:

~Envlromer@ Business Journal, May 1989
182 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Nearly one-third of the interviewed company

officials (28 technology developers) claimed that the

contractors hired by EPA to sample, test, and analyze

data were unsatisfactory.. . . Some industry representatives felt the contractors were slow, inexperienced,

and generated irrelevant data. . . . One official

commented that contractors continue to analyze and

re-analyze the same data, making more money for

themselves and taking away dollars from both

industry and EPA,91

In this same study, of the five technology companies that had completed their demonstrations, four

had problems with EPA’s contractors that prompted

the study to note, “Future demonstrations may be

hindered unless the contracting system is improved

in the future. ”

An issue that merits more attention is the degree

to which participating technology developers in

SITE are sometimes making public statements to

advance their commercial interests, despite the lack

of SITE results to back up those claims. Moreover,

sometimes EPA officials seem to be cooperating in

such efforts. For example, a report by EPA’s

Inspector General documented several instances

where publications spoke about a successful test

within SITE “despite a lack of successful operations. ’ ’92 Indeed, EPA’s published results on the

B.E.S.T. process,93 which portray test results as

successful, are in disagreement with the results of

the Inspector General’s office. A broader issue,

therefore, is whether there is an inclination within

the SITE program to emphasize positive findings

and to discount negative results. Similarly, for an

incineration technology, the Inspector General’s

report said that “PCBs and particulate (mainly

lead) were released into the air and thousands of

gallons of wastewater containing lead were sent to

the local wastewater treatment plant. ” But EPA’s

SITE program said, ‘[Lead] remained in the ash and

was not transferred to the scrubber water or emitted

to the atmosphere.”% The SITE program literature

does not explicitly point out that the test results show

that the stringent requirements of the Toxic Substances Control Act for PCB destruction were not

met.

In an article in a technical magazine, the president

of a participating company said, ‘‘The EPA’s Paul

DePercin, project manager for the HAZCON SITE

field evaluation, stated the test ‘. , , was an unqualified success in stabilization of heavy metals and

PCBs in the presence of 25 percent by weight of oils

and grease. ”95 In fact, some months later, EPA’s

Demonstration Bulletin in March 1989 said that

volatile organics were primarily released to the

environment during processing, and that test data

showed that base neutral/acid extractable organics

were higher in the treated samples than the untreated

ones. No data to support effective stabilization of

PCBs was obtained. The only clear positive result

was the lack of toxic metals in leachate for treated

materials. But this result is what is expected of

commercially available chemical fixation technologies. To its credit, the SITE program also publishes

Application Analysis Reports which give a broader

and more interpretive presentation of a demonstrated

technology; the one for the HAZCON technology

(almost 2 years after the site demonstration) said:

“Data shows immobilization of organics in a few

instances but not in most. . , . It can be concluded

that immobilization of volatile and semivolatile

organics does not usually occur. ’96 While this

official EPA work does not rule out the technology

for Superfund cleanups involving organics, EPA

definitely shifts the burden of proving effectiveness

to detailed site-specific treatability and demonstration tests.

In the June 1989 issue of Chemical Engineering

Progress, Gee-Con said in an advertisement: “Deep

Soil Mixing and its sister technique, Shallow Soil

91J. c~~e~ et ~., ‘‘An Evaluation of the EPA SITE Demonstration Program, ’ Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Washington, DC, Project Center,

December 1988.

w~=mr~na~, U.S. Environmental Rotection Agency, ‘‘Review of Region 4’s Management of Significant Superfund Removal Actions,’ Sept.

26, 1988.

93u.s. ~v~onment~ Protection Agency, Hojwt summwt “Evaluation of the B. E.S.T. (TM) Solvent Extraction Sludge Treatment ‘Ikchnology

Twenty-Four-Hour T@t, ” November 1988.

Muos. ~v~ment~ ~t=tim Agency, &mon~atim bu]ktin, ‘‘EIw~c kfi~d kineration, ’ A@l 1989.

gsRay Funderburk, “EPA’s SITE ‘I&t of Solidification,” Poilution Engineering, December 1988.

XU.S. Environmentid protection Agency, “HAZCON Solidification Process, Douglassville, Pennsylvania, ” April 1989.
Chapter 3-Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 183

Mixing, have been proven effective in the U.S.

EPA’s Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation (Sites) program at Hialeah, FL, where PCBcontaminated soil was stabilized in place. ’ But at

that time no report had been issued by EPA on the

demonstration.

A critical concern about the SITE program is that

it has never focused on truly innovative technologies, ones that would make major breakthroughs in

particularly difficult cleanup applications and ones

for which prior R&D has justified field demonstration. Some of the technologies in EPA’s SITE

program are variations of well-known, commercial

technologies and have been demonstrated several

times already or have even been used for an actual

cleanup. It appears that the SITE program has

become a public relations opportunity for companies. OTA’s examination of the 30 technologies and

firms in the SITE97 program indicates that at least 21

technologies have been commercially available for

some time, used in cleanups, and cannot be interpreted to be innovations. Four other technologies are

variations of existing, commercially used technology. An EPA spinoff program is the Emerging

Technologies Program to develop “cutting-edge

technologies. The goal is to prepare technologies

for demonstration; direct financial assistance is

available to support R&D. Of the seven technologies

in the program, two are known commercial technologies,

One company has told OTA: “Three years ago the

Terra Vac process was being labeled as ‘unproven’

technology even though the process was initially

developed over six years ago at a Superfund site.

Terra Vac’s independent application of the technology at more than 60 sites across the country has done

more to promote the technology than the reams of

data collected during the demonstration and still

awaiting final evaluation. Instead of paying (Terra

Vac) for worthwhile services rendered while partially cleaning up a Superfund site during a demonstration, EPA paid five times as much for a

subcontractor (who is one of our competitors and

now offering our technology to clients) to learn the

process from Terra Vac. “98

To some extent, the SITE demonstration program

looks redundant or like a formality that EPA

imposes on technology companies, and it may be

impeding development and adoption of truly innovative technology. In most cases thus far, several

years or many months have passed before the results

of demonstrations have been completely analyzed

and presented to the public. Meanwhile, some

companies can complete actual cleanups and may

have enough data to convince others that the

technology merits adoption. Waiting for ‘‘proof’

from a SITE demonstration may only maintain the

stigma of being ‘‘unproven’ and ‘‘innovative. An

added complexity, in the case of thermal destruction

technologies, is that some companies have also

carried out test burns at sites in order to meet various

government requirements, The results of these are

just as important as those from formal demonstrations.

Issue 8: Are the rules clear on what constitutes

proof of cleanup effectiveness for new technologies?

The answer is no. There seems to be much

disagreement on how to prove that newer cleanup

technologies work. Inconsistent cleanup technology

selections are being made because there is no clear,

generally accepted understanding of what amount

and type of information are reasonable proof of

effectiveness and reliability. Moreover, the engineering side of technology selection can obscure

fundamental environmental protection goals, with

the result being the rejection of environmentally

more effective cleanup technologies.

The key problem is how to bridge the gap between

technology selection decisions and laboratory results or very limited use of a newer technology. The

problem is compounded by rapidly changing and

increasing data and experience as well as by

increasing numbers of companies and individuals

implementing Superfund.

There are at least three types of inquiry where

actual Superfund site materials are tested; in order of

mu.!j. EnvirOnrnental Protection Agency, ‘ ‘The Superfund Innovation Technology Evaluation Program-Progress and Accomplishments Fiscal Year

1988,;; March 1989.

ggjme~ ~ot, Resident of ~rra %c, personal communication, Wing 1989.
184 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

increasing cost they are: treatability studies, pilot

studies, and site demonstrations.

Non-site materials (prepared to simulate actual

site waste) are generally used in laboratory experiments carried out as part of R&D programs or by

technology developers. In these cases, the materials

are typically very simple chemically compared to

complex mixtures of contaminants at many Superfund sites. The unavoidable risk is that field tests

may not be successful even though laboratory tests

were. This risk is greatest for in situ techniques

where actual site conditions and not just the chemical nature of the contaminants are important.

Overall, it is not clear to everyone implementing

Superfund just how these various types of tests differ

or what has to be done to satisfy EPA in reaching a

conclusion, which itself is currently informal, that a

given new technology can be considered as proven

for some types of Superfund cleanups.

Treatability Studies--Increasing attention is being

given to treatability studies in which actual site

materials and newer treatment technologies are

evaluated in offsite laboratory facilities. Treatability

refers to the ability of treatment to work effectively

on site hazardous material. Relatively few treatability studies are currently being done before RODS; an

EPA survey of fiscal year 1988 RODS found that

only 4 of 50 source control RODS examined

discussed treatability studies.99 A key issue is when

such studies are done; another is with what technologies they are done. OTA’s 1988 case studies showed

that treatability testing of technologies was often

delayed until the post-ROD Design Phase, which is

not subject to much public scrutiny. It is difficult to

accept the legitimacy of selecting a remedy before

tests show that the selected remedy can work unless,

of course, the technology has been widely used on

similar problems successfully. For example, a preROD test of commonly used forms of incineration is

probably unnecessary for most cleanups. Yet, if tests

are delayed, then negative post-ROD test results also

mean major delays because it is necessary to go back

to the study stage; such a delay happened at the

Conservation Chemical Co. site in Missouri, and at

the Re-Solve site in Massachusetts. Clean Sites, Inc.,

has described two of its sites. At one, a post-ROD

treatability study will “likely indicate that the

selected remedy will not be effective’ and delay is

likely. At the other site, the treatability study is being

conducted 3 years after completion of the feasibility

study. 100

Considering its historic lack of confidence in

Superfund, the public is likely to be suspicious of

exactly how post-ROD test results will be verified

and what criteria will be used to conclude that the

test results are positive enough to proceed with the

remedy’s implementation. This suspicion is particularly true for remedies implemented by responsible

parties. The danger is that cleanup objectives can

shift from health-based to technology performance.

If the basic purpose of treatability testing is to

provide data on the feasibility of a cleanup

technology for site materials, then it must be done

during the RIFS and before the ROD. Otherwise,

it is possible to rule out or select technologies

without enough credible technical data to support

the ROD analysis and decision. For post-ROD

treatability tests with negative results, there are

incentives and pressures to avoid re-opening the

ROD, carrying out another feasibility study, and

possibly performing another treatability test.

On the other hand, if the purpose of the test is to

get more detailed data to implement the Design

Phase, then it could be done at the beginning of the

stage. A pilot study definitely fits into this legitimate

need to obtain refined engineering data for reliable

design of the cleanup.

Selection of technologies and test laboratories is

another issue. Based on their technical expertise,

innovative technology developers (and not Superfund contractors) should perform treatability studies. Their self-interests requires detailed documentation of results and careful review by government and

independent experts. Another problem is fairness in

ensuring that all interested and qualified parties have

equal access to laboratory results. Very often only

one treatment technology or company has the

advantage of a treatability test. Remedy selection

and establishing of site cleanup objectives may be

!wswe~~ Report, July 5, 1989.

lfJWWI sites, tnc., Making Supe@tnd Work, JanuarY 1989.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology . 185

biased in favor of a particular technology within a

generic class.

Engineering consulting firms that perform Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Studies are not

necessarily expert enough about new cleanup technologies to conduct treatability studies. There may be a

conflict of interest if treatability testing is done by

companies that also perform RIFSs or by responsible

parties, both of which may have a financial interest

in certain technologies remedy selection. The point

is not to legally prohibit such practices, but to raise

the conflict-of-interest issue. EPA has a responsibility to ensure fairness in order to ensure that the most

effective cleanup solutions are found.

Another issue is: Is the technology considered

proven from a scientific perspective? If so, is its

appropriateness for a specific site to be demonstrated

through a treatability study? In most cases the

answer should be yes. If the range and levels of site

contaminants are different from a previous demonstration, it is necessary to perform a treatability

study.

Alternatively, can an innovative technology that

has not been tested very much at the laboratory stage

nor considered proven by EPA be adopted for use on

the basis of a positive treatability test result? Unless

the answer to this question is yes, doing treatability

studies (which increase as more new technologies

enter the picture) as part of the RIFS process may be

a waste of considerable money because they can be

expensive, from tens to hundreds of thousands of

dollars. But, on the other hand, allowing a treatability study to be sufficient for remedy selection

shortcuts the R&D process. Such a shortcut is likely

to sidestep obtaining data on the more subtle aspects

of performance, including production of toxic byproducts and the dependence of effectiveness on

contaminant concentration.

Pilot Studies-A valid reason for a site pilot study

or small-scale test (including incinerator test bums)

is that laboratory results cannot take into account

actual site conditions. For example, even treatability

studies on site materials do not necessarily encompass site climatic, hydrological, or biological conditions. Nor do they address materials handling

problems found in the field. Pilot studies are

essential for evaluating in situ techniques such as

soil washing or flushing, biological treatment, chemical stabilization, vitrification, and extraction of

volatile chemicals. It is unlikely that a treatability

study would provide a sufficient technical database

for full-scale use of an in situ treatment technology,

and this deficiency is often true for relatively

conventional above-ground technologies that treat

contaminated groundwater, for example. Another

technical problem is highly variable concentrations

of contaminants which are not likely to be properly

assessed in offsite treatability studies.

Often the issue of scale-up is also pertinent; that

is, either an onsite or offsite pilot study (which may

also be called a treatability study) is needed to

examine feasibility on a larger scale than can be

done in laboratory tests. Trying to determine the

relationship between scale of use (e.g., volume) of

waste and cost is, however, difficult and expensive.

Some pilot studies, however, could probably be

extensive enough to accomplish smaller cleanups,

because the concept of scale-up does not have its

traditional engineering significance for cleanups.

There is no standard size or type of cleanup. For

example, quantities of contaminated soil to be

cleaned can range from hundreds of tons to hundreds

of thousands of tons at a site, and volumes of

contaminated surface and ground waters vary greatly.

Sometimes, a small unit or several small modular

units or combinations of smaller units of different

technologies may be quite feasible for a cleanup.

Moreover, there is some flexibility for cleanup

duration because imminent dangers rarely exist by

the time a remedial cleanup is done. Many recent

pilot studies have been nearly complete cleanups of

relatively small sites. For example, a 3-month pilot

study of in situ bioreclamation, based on supplying

nutrients and oxygen to the aquifer to promote

degradation of gasoline by indigenous organisms,

cleaned up 90 percent of the groundwater contamination. The study noted that it would have taken

conventional pump and treat 7 years to achieve such

a result.lo1

Site Demonstrations-There is probably nothing

more convincing to skeptics than the successful

IolEdww(j A. Radedi et d., “Enhanced Natural Degrada~on of a Shallow Hydrocarbon Contammati Aquifer, ’ m proceedings of Haztech

Interna&Ional Conference, St. Louis, MO, August 1987.
186 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

results of a technology demonstration that successfully cleans up part or all of an actual site. This

reaction is especially true for in situ techniques. Still,

there are many uncertainties yet to address. Site

contaminants and conditions vary substantially, and

one or more successful demonstrations may not be

adequate to select the technology at a significantly

different site. Who has conducted the demonstration

and the accuracy and reliability of the data are also

important factors. Many times technology developers speak of their successful demonstrations at

cleanup sites, often without EPA or any government

agency being formally revolved. EPA and others

may not recognize those tests as acceptable demonstrations, for good reason. In a great many cases, the

technology company and the site owner make very

little technical data available to substantiate their

claims.

General Comments-Frustration on the part of

technology developers and controversy about the

selection of cost-effective permanent technologies

are explained by insufficient rules for the burden of

proof that EPA requires before newer technologies

can be selected. Equally important is the poor

dissemination of information to an increasingly

large number of people and organizations implementing Superfund and other cleanup programs.

Moreover, there is evidence of inconsistency

about remedy selection in the history of the Superfund program (see OTA’s 1988 case study report)

which sends confusing signals to technology companies and raises the issue of fairness. While some

technology companies are being made to jump

numerous high hurdles, others are being treated

quite deferentially. Other than government personnel, people in the engineering consulting firms that

work for government and industry as well as for

responsible parties can help technology companies

substantially if they choose to do so. An enthusiastic

supporter of a technology can get treatability or

other tests done and can even build a case for ROD

selection without test data. Conversely, consultants

can also easily kill a cleanup alternative without any

detailed data.

Although the frequently heard complaint is that

new technologies cannot get tested or used at

Superfund sites, in fact many treatment technologies

are being selected without any significant technical

data to support the decision. For example, an

extensive study by EPA’s Inspector General for two

removal actions said:

Region 4 funded commercial testing and development of two hazardous waste treatment prototypes:

SHIRCO’s infrared incinerator and Resources Conservation Company’s Basic Extraction Sludge Treatment (BEST) unit. To fund the tests, the Region

sidestepped several internal controls; such as permitting, delisting, and contracting regulations. Region

4’s selection of the two technologies was speculative

and unsupported by scientific or engineering fact.

Nevertheless, both prototypes were used to conduct

full-scale operations at removal sites prior to evidence that the manufacturer’s performance claims

were true.102

Several examples were also given in OTA’s 1988

case studies, including the Chemical Control site in

New Jersey and the Sand Springs site in Oklahoma.

We have two other examples to add.

At the Lipari Landfill site in New Jersey, for

example, a positive treatability study for biotreatment was ignored, but a cleanup approach based on

soil flushing was adopted for the site cleanup even

though the technique had never been documented to

be successful at a similar site. The long duration of

soil flushing was a major point noted by a number of

parties unhappy with the selection of soil flushing at

Lipari. A major factor of concern was the diverse

types of contaminants at Lipari, some of which were

shown to be difficult to remove by water flushing.

For several PCB-contaminated sites in Indiana a

novel incineration approach based on burning both

municipal solid waste and site-contaminated materials was selected. But it had not been tested or used

elsewhere. In both cases, there has been considerable

community opposition to the selected remedy because of the lack of convincing data on technology

feasibility.

Finally, the situation is made even more complex

and ambiguous because there is no evidence that

information from various types of testing done by

many different parties involved in the national

cleanup effort, inside and outside of the Superfund

program, comes together in some central way for

l~~wwr General, op. cit., f~~ote 92.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 187

analysis and transfer. Testing protocols are absent

and there may be redundancy and technical inconsistencies among treatability testing, pilot studies, and demonstrations on the same technologies.

While EPA has made progress in addressing this

problem, there is now no effective Federal effort to

provide independent professional review and expeditious distribution of validated information nationwide.

Issue 9: Is poor information affecting the use of

better cleanup technologies?

The latest technical information on generic and

specific cleanup technologies, their costs, and their

performance and implementation at sites does not

travel far. Similarly, the considerable experience

from private, State, RCRA corrective action, and

non-EPA Federal agency studies and cleanups may

go untapped, along with the expanding reservoir of

cleanup-related R&D, including university work.

Theoretically, much of this activity could have a

positive impact on Superfund, including making it

more efficient and effective.

A particularly striking example of poor communication about cleanup technology with EPA happened for the Crystal City site in Texas (one of the

case studies in OTA’s 1988 report and a cleanup

decision that has been criticized by the local

community, State and national environmental

groups, and Members of Congress). In defense of

EPA’s selected remedy which was based on land

disposal, the Region 6 Administrator testified that

“No technology was found that could effectively

remove (arsenic) from the soils. . . . Arsenic, a

principle pollutant of concern at this site, cannot be

effectively removed from the solids by alternate

treatment technologies. ’’103 In a ROD that was

signed at the same time that the Crystal City ROD

was signed in September 1987, “on-site flushing of

soil with an acidic water solution to remove arsenic

was selected for the Palmetto Wood Preserving Site

in South Carolina. A month before the Crystal City

ROD, EPA had formally acknowledged in regulations for the RCRA program that chemical fixation

was proven, available technology for waste with

arsenic; and the ROD for the French Limited site in

the same State and region (and signed by the

Regional Administrator a month before the testimony on Crystal City) also acknowledged the

applicability of chemical fixation for arsenic.

Some poor information transfer is unavoidable

because of the rapid rate of growth and in change.

But most of the problem is probably due to

insufficiently focused EPA activities, arising from

the highly decentralized, fragmented nature of the

Superfund program and-just as importantly-the

whole national cleanup effort. OTA has examined a

number of documents that EPA uses in its technology transfer activities. Often only a superficial level

of information is being reported. A person would

still have to expend considerable time and energy to

obtain the detail necessary for a good technology

evaluation. A remedial project manager with little

experience and a heavy workload is not likely to be

able to do this research. In other cases, highly

detailed voluminous studies are prepared at considerable expense, but hardly anyone seems to be using

these documents (from EPA’s Office of Research

and Development) because it would take so much

time to use them effectively. They are meant for

researchers and experts, not practitioners at the

frontline of Superfund.

Some part of the problem of poor information may

also result from insufficient attention to the problem

by contractors. OTA agrees with the perspective of

a technology developer: “The REMS and ARCS

contractors (types of contracts for the remedial

program) are at best six months behind on individual

technology development programs, and more frequently 18-to-30 months. ” The developer, therefore, believes that bringing technology developers

into the RIFS process through the conduct of

treatability studies ‘‘is a way for EPA to effectively

help the technology transfer from the developers to

their contractors. ’ 104

Another problem is the generally inexperienced

and, therefore, cautious workforce. There is a

preponderance of civil engineers and hydrologists

working in the cleanup, but these people are likely

lmR~~fi E, Lay~n, m~~ony at he~g~ ~fore tie How su~omln= on Envir~ent, Energy, and Natural Resourees, Apr. 11, 1988.

104Jme~ A. Hel~ et ~., “Remediation and Treatment of RCRA Hazardous Wastes by Freeze Crystallization, ” presented at EPA’s Forum on

Innovative Hazardous Waste Treatment Tlxhnologies: Domestic and International, June 1989.

20-011 0 - 89 - 5 : QL 3
188 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

to lack the expertise and experience necessary to

understand many new forms of cleanup technologies

based, for example, on complex chemical engineering or biological treatment. Moreover, the rapid

expansion of cleanup technologies has resulted in

increasingly exotic and sophisticated technologies

which only a few people implementing Superfund

understand. A judgment that a newer technology is

proven, reliable, and applicable-or unproven, unreliable, and inapplicable-may depend on the limited

and recent experiences of the contractor company

(or really, individuals within the company) instead

of the accumulated experiences of all parties within

the national cleanup system, within and outside of

Superfund.

Technology loyalty, instead of an open mind, can

also be a problem when organizations other than

technology developers exercise it. First, as Superfund contractors have diversified, some of them

have a stake in the adoption of a particular technology that they own. For example, at least one

contractor owns an incinerator, several have developed techniques to physically remove volatile organic chemicals from contaminated soil, and one’s

parent company sells raw materials to a technology

vendor. This problem is compounded by the fact that

sometimes the identity of the company performing

a Superfund study is not revealed. The more one

looks carefully, the more one finds Superfund

contractors, their parent companies, or their subsidiaries involved with the ownership of cleanup equipment and technology.

Technology companies themselves are a problem

because of the limited information they provide.

They sometimes may not make necessary information available because they cannot afford to get it or

do not want to get it. The waste treatment industry

has long been frustrated with the slow adoption of

treatment technologies. While the treatment industry

fosters the appropriate use of newer treatment

technologies, it sometimes contributes to premature

selections and inappropriate use as discussed in

OTA’s 1988 case studies. It is just as unwise to

select an untested and unproven technology as it is

to reject a risky, innovative one with real promise to

solve a difficult problem. Both actions can lead to an

ineffective cleanup that wastes money, increases

environmental risks, and creates a worse cleanup

problem for the future.

Limited information from technology companies

is an especially important problem for emerging

biotechnologies. People knowledgeable about this

area said,

Past attempts at bioremediation have failed to

establish conclusively biodegradation of chlorinated

aromatic compounds in large-scale systems and have

not yielded information useful for other systems,

even those similarly designed. . . . Failure to consider testing and evaluation of bioremedial processes

can lead to a credibility crisis. Left on its own, the

race to market environmental biotechnology within

the entrepreneurial private sector may not only

prevent the effective technical development of this

technology, but may also lead to market failure. The

inability to analyze and correct failures and to

enhance successes leads to a perception of unreliability and a major erosion of confidence. 105

Technology companies may sometimes want to

keep information confidential or may have to, in the

case of cleanups on sites unknown to government

officials. Technology companies may also be worried about giving information to RIFS contractors

which may compete against them for field work or

which may have a competing technology.

The overselling of a technology is a real problem.

Providing detailed available data often is in conflict

with marketing efforts because the data reveals the

limits of the testing or application to date. Oversell

is especially prevalent because usually few contaminants have been worked on successfully relative to

the enormous variety of contaminants found at

Superfund sites. Too many technology developers

extrapolate successful test results to other chemicals

or site conditions without a valid theoretical basis for

doing so. They ignore or underestimate the importance of technology specificity. For example,

biological treatment which works for one chemical

may not work for others present at a site; site

conditions such as the soil chemistry and porosity

may require significant changes in the design of a

bioreactor or the materials that are added to assure

effective microbial destruction.

la~mes= ~ley Authority, Center for Environmental Biotechnical Applications (University of Tkmnessee); and EPA, “A propOSd for the

Development and Application of PCB Bioremediation Twhnology for the Tkxas Eastern Sites,” September 1988.
Chapter 3--Cleanups and Cleanup Technology ● 189

One more factor is the often confused need for

Federal and State regulatory permits for onsite

cleanup activities (there is no uncertainty about the

need for using permitted offsite waste treatment or

disposal facilities, although their regulatory compliance status remains an issue). A need for permits

increases information requirements significantly.

Debate persists on the need for permits for onsite

work—by law, none are needed for work on

Superfund sites—but sometimes States have exercised their prerogative to require State environmental permits under their existing regulatory programs. The problem is that many cleanup technologies are not now regulated by existing programs,

especially hazardous waste programs. If no specific

regulatory standards exist, it can be difficult to get

agencies to issue permits. Another issue is the need

to get permits for mobile equipment, with technology companies and other parties wanting to reduce

the complexity, costs, and delays associated with

permitting.

Issue 10: Is experience leading to easier, faster,

and less expensive analyses and decisions on

cleanup technologies?

Just the opposite appears the case. Even though

some individuals may be moving up a learning

curve, the program does not appear to be gaining

substantial efficiency. There are three key problems,

First, not many people see past the conventional

wisdom that every cleanup site is unique, with the

implication that every site decision must be on a

case-by-case basis. Although there is as much truth

to this as there is that every person is unique, sites

can be grouped by important commonalities of site

conditions and problems. Overly stressing the uniqueness of every site does not necessarily make the

system worse as it expands, but it does hinder a

global view. It also promotes unnecessary site

studies, which add more cost and delay than

providing truly useful information. Belief in site

uniqueness stands in the way of using cleanup

objectives and technologies selected at similar sites,

because site differences currently obscure site similarities.

Another part of this problem is that there has been

reluctance by EPA staff to admit and openly

communicate the failures of cleanups at sites, even

though this could substantially affect other decisions. OTA’s examination of RODS indicates that

most failures are for containment and land disposal

approaches and, less frequently, simple forms of

treatment such as chemical stabilization. There often

seems to be an attitude that maybe the technology

can be made to work at other sites or that other EPA

regions have the right to make their own decisions

and mistakes. Moreover, public criticism of Superfund makes it difficult for EPA officials to acknowledge cleanup failures.

Each site study and decision has the potential for

being made in isolation. To the extent this is true,

then the more sites and cleanup technology options,

the worse the situation. Indeed, there are so few

central management controls imposed on the program that it is difficult to see Superfund as learning

and maturing from its own experiences, and less so

from other cleanup programs. Instead, disparate

working elements of the program act independently,

too free of central oversight and control which would

help the elements learn from each other’s positive

and negative experiences.

Second, the increasing numbers of generic and

specific cleanup technologies outpace the transformation of information into wisdom, They increase the amount of information ideally obtained in

the RIFS and place difficult demands on the

workforce. Considerable information on exact site

and contaminant conditions is necessary to rule out

or to defend the selection of particular technologies.

There are fundamentally different constraints to

different generic technologies, such as thermal v.

biological treatment. Increasing numbers of technologies also means that increasing combinations of

them can be assembled, at least theoretically, to

clean up complex sites.

Technology specificity, where effectiveness varies for different hazardous substances, takes on more

importance as the range of cleanup technologies

expands, because for many of them no theoretical or

scientific case can be made for non-specificity.

Although specificity has been a problem even for

containment techniques (e.g., effect of some chemicals on slurry wall permeability), it is less relevant

for older incineration techniques. Generally, technology specificity has not been adequately dealt with.

In fact, the frequent practice of using short lists of
190 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

indicator contaminants, instead of the full array of

chemicals present at a site, to reduce the RIFS

workload conflicts with evaluating and using diverse permanent cleanup technologies. Indicator

contaminants might make sense for simplifying risk

assessment. But physical and chemical properties

that affect cleanup technology feasibility may vary

substantially from health effects.

Specificity can be a problem with treatability

studies because they too may rely on indicator

chemicals to evaluate a technology’s performance.

The ultimate risk is the use of cleanup technology

thought to be generally proven effective and found

to be applicable through a site treatability study but

that, nevertheless, does not work effectively on the

full range and often wildly fluctuating concentrations of contaminants at a complex site.

Moreover, analyses and decisions themselves are

coming under more scrutiny. The increasing numbers of technology companies mean that more

parties want their technologies fairly and carefully

considered in cleanup decisions. Technical assistance grants to communities are supposed to help

the affected public make sure that the best technologies are used. Grants may also provide another

opportunity for technology developers to enter the

system. Responsible parties want to free themselves

of future liabilities and to cut unnecessary costs.

They can introduce new cleanup alternatives into the

process. All of these concerns mean that the time and

cost of “defensible’ RIFSs and RODs are likely to

escalate--competing with full-scale cleanups themselves-and thus the introduction and adoption of

newer technologies may suffer. Increased overhead

costs due to more extensive studies--often several

hundred thousand dollars-at a large number of sites

might offset cost savings from using improved

technologies at a much smaller number of sites.

Delays alone can be sufficient to stymie technology

companies at a critical point in their development. A

way to address this problem is to use the most

experienced and expert people, with certain types of

sites or technologies, to screen alternatives and

reduce the number of alternatives studied.

Third, the general level of inexperience in technical and management areas of the national cleanup

workforce in government and industry is a major

problem on its own. The rapid expansion of activity

coupled with a steady stream of new technologies

requires major efforts to prevent delays and poor

work. As the role of contractors has grown, it uses

government programs as breeding grounds for its

workforce. The constant shift of people from government to the private sector, because of substantially higher salaries and probably better working

conditions and potential for promotion, keeps the

government workforce inexperienced. This makes

effective government oversight and management of

contractor activities difficult, if not impossible. One

observer recently summed up the current contractor

system as being ‘‘wasteful, disorganized and inefficient."106 On top of this, there is also a high

degree of mobility of the most experienced people

among contractors as contractors compete to maintain or increase market share or business volume.

Some of those with the most technical expertise go

into management.

The result is a national cleanup workforce

which is expanding rapidly, which is in constant

motion, with few people having institutional

memories or loyalties, for whom information

transfer and education through working with

experienced people is minimal, with no substantial improvement in average level of experience,

and where labor costs are increasing. These

problems will not cease without effective organization and management controls and clear and explicit

policies.

1~Roger J. MarzuJla, ‘‘Superfund 1991: How Insurance Companies Can Help Clean Up The Nation’s Hazardous Waste,’ paper presented to Insurance

Information Institute, WaaMngton, DC, June 13, 1989. Also see U.S. Congress, Office of ‘lkdmology Assessment, Assessing Constructor Use in

Supe@d, OTA-BP-ITE-51 (Wash@on, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 1989).
Chapter 4

Other Cleanup Programs

and Superfund
CONTENT S

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A PYRAMID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SHRINKING SUPERFUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Limiting Through the NPL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Limiting Through Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Deferring Cleanups Elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SUPERFUND STANDS ALONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Contracting Links All Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Programs Proliferate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ARE OTHER PROGRAMS THE SOLUTION? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The National Costs of Cleanup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Comparative Costs, Availability of Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Limited Technical Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Confusion Among Overlapping Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Different Programs, Different Cleanups

● *.......

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Other Programs Are Also Slow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Not Enough Public Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Information Tough ~ Get . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page

193

193

195

195

1%

196

198

199

199

200

2(X)

201

202

203

206

214

215

216

217

Boxes

Box Page

4-A. From RCRA to the State to Superfund: Vertac Site, Arkansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4-B. CERCLA v. RCRA: Basin Fat Rocky Mountain Arsenal . . .

4-C Superfund to the State: The Colorado Tailings 0 From AML to

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

207

208

213

Figure

4-1. The

Table

Figure

Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Page

Table

Page

4-1. Other Cleanup Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Chapter 4

Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund

INTRODUCTION

To most observers, the Federal Superfund program is the Nation’s environmental cleanup program. In reality it is but one—the most visible—part

of a complex, not necessarily comprehensive, fragmented and generally uncoordinated national effort

to clean up chemically contaminated sites.

Besides the Superfund program, the national

effort consists of separate programs for hazardous

waste facilities and underground storage tanks;

programs to remediate sites with mine wastes and

mill tailings and to close old mine shafts and pits;

programs that clean up specific materials, such as

PCBs and asbestos; and individual Federal agency

and State cleanup programs. When the national cost

of this system is added up, the current annual

Superfund budget of about $1.5 billion is matched

by an estimated $1.7 billion spent by the other

programs. Spending by private parties increases this

cost by perhaps $1 billion.

Actions, or inaction, by these other cleanup

programs affect how the Superfund program works,

what the Superfund program accomplishes, future

demands on the program, and, just as importantly,

people’s perceptions of the program. Depending on

the goals of the Superfund program, it may be

important for Congress to consider ways to limit

some interactions and enhance others. A particular,

important long-term issue for Superfund is whether

impermanent or incomplete cleanups from other

programs might someday become Superfund sites.

In a broader context, Congress may wish to consider

whether a set of separate, overlapping and parallel

programs is the wisest way to clean up the environment.

OTA’s review of other programs shows that they

suggest ways to improve Superfund; many examples

are used throughout this report. Overall, however,

many effects of other programs are less positive.

This chapter discusses those impacts, which lead to:

. underestimates of Superfund needs, because: 1 )

the movement of sites among programs may

delay effective cleanups under Superfund, and

2) cleanups in other programs, rather than

preventing the growth in numbers of Superfund

sites, can create future Superfund sites as a

result of incomplete, or less stringent cleanups

in other programs;]

overestimates of the needs of Superfund when

sites that qualify for and at one time might have

been placed in the Superfund program are

shifted to other programs; and

implementation problems because Superfund

must share the available national workforce and

supply of technology with other programs.

Some details on the national cleanup effort

surrounding Superfund are provided in table 4-1.

OTA has not done a comprehensive assessment of

every Federal cleanup program and has not been able

to obtain details on all State programs. In all cases,

OTA sought only the kind of information that could

shed light on the interaction of the programs with

Superfund. Federal programs were chosen because

of their obvious connection to Superfund. Included

were Federal agency cleanups, which are partially

covered by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and are overseen by EPA, and Federal cleanup

programs that EPA has designated as current or

future homes for sites deferred from Superfund. To

reduce the analytical burden of 50 State cleanup

programs, OTA has chosen to focus on programs,

such as California, Illinois, New York, and Minnesota, that are highly regarded by most people.

California and Illinois, for instance, have reputations

for advancing treatment technology; Minnesota is

always used as an example of the benefits of using

enforcement to clean up sites.

A PYRAMID

The national cleanup effort may best be likened to

a dynamic pyramid with the Superfund program

occupying the pinnacle, the most visible portion of

the pyramid. The height of the pyramid is growing

as most cleanups occur and new sites are added

below the pinnacle. The bottom of the pyramid

] If ~ Suwrfid ~rogm hw t. ~wc ju~[ ]0 ~rcen[ of tie ~le~up~ [low Me responsibility of o~cr progrms, it could dd $24 to $61 billion

to the cost of the Superfund program (see table 4-1).

–193–
194 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

Table 4-1--Other Cleanup Programs

Estimated Estimated Estimated national

annual Federal number of oost of cleanup

Federal Federal budget funding sites needing ($ billion)

Program statute agency ($ millions) methoda

cleanup Agency OTAb

RCRA corrective action . . . . . . . RCRA EPA 14 9 2,000-5,000 12 to 100

Leaking underground storage

tanks (LUST) . . . . . . . . . . . . . RCRA EPA 50 t 350,000-400,000 32

(tanks)

Federal facilitiesc . . . . . . . . . . . . CERCLA d800 9 5,000-10,000 75 to 250

and RCRA

States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . na 500 e 6,000-12,000+ 3 to 120+

Asbestos in schools . . . . . . . . . . AHERA EPA 50t 9 40,000 3

(schools)

na na na na 31 7,000+ 51

(buildings)

Inactive uranium mill tailings . . . UMTCRA DOE 111 y 24 1.3

Abandoned mine lands . . . . . . . SMCRA DOl 193 22,300 55

Marine sediments . . . . . . . . . . . na na na na ? > 10

Total $1.7 billion $242 to $612 billion

na. not applicable

+genwd revenues, t-tadtrustfund.

%ased on min/max numbers of sites and min/max estimated eat per site.

CDOE data Indtis onty cleanup of h=dous Mfutes.

dslxt~n F~r~ agencies have sites to cle~ uP.

e~ates futi own prWra8 su~iementect by about $2OO million annually from Superfund.

f~nor pat of -t; @q State’ and Ioeal government fu~.

SOURCE: Office of Technology lbaessment, 10S9.

already covers thousands of sites more than Superfund.

It did not start out this way. Over time the

Superfund program has been constricted, while the

national cleanup effort has grown. These two trends

are continuing. Two new cleanup programs are on

the horizon: one to clean up toxic sediments found

in many marine environments, another for cleaning

up oil spills. And, while the major narrowing of

Superfund occurred in 1982 with the writing of the

first National Contingency Plan (NCP), EPA management practices continue to shrink the applicability of CERCLA. The longtime but growing efforts of

EPA and others to defer cleanups away from the

Superfund program was formalized in a comprehensive policy statement in the December 1988 proposed revisions to the NCP.2

The net effect of the narrowing of Superfund and

the growth of other cleanup programs is that

CERCLA and some of its unique provisions (i.e.,

public participation, cleanup standards, and permanency) are increasingly covering the fewest cleanups

in the country. The bulk of the cleanups (those that

conceivably affect the most people) at some lesser

degree of cleanup might, over time, produce new

generations of sites qualifying for cleanup under

Superfund.

Other effects are highlighted in the two following

statements. The first refers directly to the growth of

other cleanup programs and their relationship to

Superfund and was made by officials of ICF, one of

the Superfund program’s major contractor. The

problems identified were called a “special challenge” to the Superfund program.

These new programs will place additional burdens

on the same infrastructure already shouldering the

expanded Superfund program. They will create

increased demands for environmental engineering

talent and for analytical laboratory services. They

will also place demands for program implementation

on the States, many of whom are already strained to

accommodate the current Superfund and RCRA

programs. Moreover, unless the jurisdictions of

these programs are carefully defined, there is a

possibility of overlap, duplication, and inefficiency,

Ws will not be part of the final NCP scheduled for 1990. The EPA administrator told Congress in June 1989 that the proposed deferral plicy has

been deferred for reconsideration during reauthorization of the Superfund program.
Chapter 4-Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund . 195

with deleterious consequences for the objectives

these programs are intended to serve.3

The second statement refers to complications of a

multitude of programs within one State-New

Jersey:

Thus ‘‘major’ cleanups are being conducted by

different programs through different statutes presenting the problems of inconsistency on every

topic, from public to private remediation, from

regulated units to whole site, from in-house guidance

on soils to ground water standards . . . overlap was

presumed to be high. In a Department with limited

resources and an enormous number of sites to

address, overlap could not be afforded.4

As a result of these kinds of findings, New Jersey is

implementing a new strategy to assure that sites of

similar complexity be cleaned up using “the same

technical standards and approaches . . . By developing a cohesive strategy, duplicate and inefficient

actions will be minimized in achieving comprehensive and consistent management actions.

SHRINKING SUPERFUND

As a statute, CERCLA conveys broad coverage.5

It begins with the statement:

To provide for liability, compensation, cleanup,

and emergency response for hazardous substances

released into the environment and the cleanup of

inactive hazardous waste disposal sites.

The definitions of “hazardous substance” and

‘‘release’ and the restrictions on the use of the trust

fund provide some limits. For instance, petroleum

and various forms of natural gas used as fuel have

been excluded from the definition of hazardous

substance. A release has been defined very broadly

but specifically excludes: workplace exposures,

engine exhaust emissions, nuclear materials covered

by other statutes, and the normal application of

fertilizer. In general, the fund is to be used for

government response costs taken for removal and

remedial actions and the investigations that proceed

them. It cannot be used for response actions at

Federal agency facilities.

Limiting Through the NPL

The major restrictions on CERCLA coverage

have been accomplished through the NCP, and the

National Priorities List (NPL) is the device through

which EPA first restricted coverage. While the NCP

restrictions have been written by EPA and been

approved by the administration, Congress has not

totally accepted them. For instance, the Superfund

Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA)

requires EPA to revise the Hazardous Ranking

System (HRS) and reconsider the cutoff score (see

ch. 2).

In 1980, under CERCLA, Congress asked for a

“criteria for determining priorities among releases

. , . “ and for EPA to use the criteria to create a list

of ‘‘national priorities."6 EPA developed the HRS

and proposed an initial 418 NPL sites in response to

Congress asking for at least 400 sites initially. EPA

implied program restrictions in the first NCP and

then clearly stated in a revised version in 1985:

‘‘Fund-financed remedial action is available only for

sites on the NPL.

One way to interpret the original request by

Congress for criteria and a priorities list is that it set

up some way for a new program to determine which

sites to start cleaning up frost. Reliable information

was scarce in 1980. There were thousands of

suspected sites in the country and there was a danger

that the program could be quickly overwhelmed.

The 1980 conference report on CERCLA says that

the NPL was to serve “primarily informational

purposes identifying for the States and the public

3Jamcs R. Janis and Edwin Berk, ICF hC., “Superfund: Significant Accomplishments, ” proceedings of Anutomy of Supe@ui, 8th Nationat Ground

Water Quality Symposium, September 1986, Kansas City, MO.

dNew Jer~y, Division of Wakr Reso~ces and Hazardous Waste Programs, ‘‘Case Management s~ategy Manualt’ draft! May 19~9

5~ere Wm discussion d~ng tie deba~ over C~CLA in 19~ about placing limits on the program. h amendment by Congressman Dave Stockman

would have restricted cleanup under CERCLA to only those sites posing only ‘‘a significant threat to human health. It was reyxted by the House

committee. During the floor vote in the House, another amendment was submitted to restrict EPA from cleaning up ‘‘any dump site m the country ‘‘

It, too, was rej~ted. [1980 Congressional Quurterly AkUIMC, p. 588, ]

WERCLA, Section lo and (B )

750 F~r~ Register 5862, Feb. 12, 1985, P. 5867.

20-011 0 - 89 - 6 : QL 3
196 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

those. . . sites . . . which appear to warrant remedial

actions.

EPA made the HRS and the NPL a way to limit

Federal responsibility under CERCLA. EPA

decided that a‘ ‘national priority’ was not just a site

that might require early attention but the only

category of site requiting CERCLA attention. From

the language in the NCP, the decision was clearly

taken to conserve the trust fund, which was seen at

that time as a finite, one-time allocation. Explaining

the agency’s 1982 decision, EPA said:

The purpose of this restriction was to ensure that

the limited Fund monies were only used for remedial

action at NPL sites.9

And, by labeling NPL sites as those “posing the

greatest potential threats to human health and the

environment, ’ EPA fostered the concept of the

Superfund program as one to remediate the worst

sites. 10

Limiting Through Management

Limiting the size and duration of the program has

been an overriding objective of the managers of the

Superfund program. The attempt to hold the size of

the NPL to the original 418 sites is well known now

as the “there will be no Son of Superfund” strategy.

Since 1983, when congressional action prompted

wholesale changes in Superfund managers, program

cost has still been the driving force. For example, the

evolution of the preremedial part of the Superfund

program (discussed inch. 2) and its effect on the size

of the program may be as effective as the original

strategy but more subtle.

Limiting program size (and, therefore, cost) has

been carried out primarily by holding down the

number of Superfund sites: by not going out and

actively looking for potential sites, by not placing all

known potential sites in the official inventory, by

eliminating sites at high rates as they proceed

through evaluation stages, and by deferring sites out

of the program. The program is also constricted by

delaying actions, by reducing the extent of cleanups,

and by using low-cost remedies. All of these tactics

and their effect on the environmental mission of the

Superfund program, which EPA does not explicitly

address when using them, are discussed elsewhere in

this report.

Deferring Cleanups Elsewhere

Deferral moves sites qualifying for the NPL out of

the Superfund program. EPA offered for consideration a deferral policy in the December 1988

proposed NCP. Even though near-term implementation of that comprehensive policy has been halted by

public opposition, deferral has been occurring since

1982. Then, EPA stated that active RCRA facilities

would not be placed on the NPL and asked for

comments about its policy, at that time, of including

mining sites.11

Less well known are deferrals practiced by the

removal program. According to a 1988 paper, it is

EPA policy that when time permits the regional

office must “aggressively pursue cleanup’ by a

Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) or State or local

government before initiating Superfund cleanups.12

EPA has justified deferral, not on an environmental basis, but on the basis that, because another

cleanup authority exists, it is appropriate to defer to

that authority. EPA does not determine a site will

receive a quicker, better, or even comparable

SU.S. Congess, Semte Rep No. %848, 198(I, p. 60. Pos!-CERCLA and with the development of the NPL, the term ‘remdi~ ~tion’ has ~~

on a legal definition. It is no longer just a reference to an environmentally needed cleanup but is a cleanup that qualifies for the Superfimd program under

CERCLA.

950 F&r~ Regis~r 5862, Feb. 12, 1985, p. 5867.

IOwo~ S1- is ~ ~upt ~mly &fi~. To some ~le it mc~ ~mplex si@s; ~ o~~s, Sites t.ha( we Cxpnsivc to Ckxm up. Wors Cm also imply

greater risks although when applied to NPL sites makes unfounded a.munptions about the accuracy of HRS scoring. The worst sites can also be sites

that pose cument risks v. sites that pose future, speculative risks.

1147 ~r~Re@~r 58476, M. 30, 1982, p. 58478.

lzK=n BWg~ ad B~ce figel~fl, U.S. Envlronment~ fio~tion Agency, ad Vema Montgome~, BOOZ, Mien & Hamilton, hlC., ‘ ‘Setting

Removal Program Priorities,’ proceedings but Superfutui ’88, 9th National Conference and Exhibition, Washington, DC, November 1988, pp. 32-34,
Chapter 4--Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 197

cleanup if the cleanup is deferred to another program. According to several public interest groups:

. . . the [deferral] proposal is also devoid of any

analysis of the likely environmental effects of

deferral. 13

Individual proponents of deferral do often assume

that by scattering cleanups among more authorities

and by avoiding the CERCLA process and procedures, the pace of cleanups will quicken. 14 That

conclusion, however, ignores the limited national

supply of technical resources and assumes that the

process and procedures do not contribute to the

desired CERCLA outcome and that other programs

have the people and funding to handle additional

work.

The real significance of avoiding CERCLA may

be to encourage deferrals. EPA has reasoned that

requiring States to “strictly conform to NCP requirements might result in fewer States choosing to

undertake a site remediation that could be deferred. 15 As part of EPA’s discussions with the

Department of the Interior (DOI) to gain acceptance

for the deferral of mine sites to DOI’s Abandoned

Mine Lands Reclamation (AMLR) program, a Superfund official said:

EPA’s position is that States choosing to use

AMLR funds to clean up non-coal sites would not be

subject to the standards and procedures prescribed in

the National Continence Plan (NCP) [emphasis

added] .16

In the December 1988 proposed deferral policy,

EPA reasoned that expanding deferral of sites should

be done because it ‘‘may be appropriate’ and

because it will conserve CERCLA effort and funds

for sites where “remedial action cannot be achieved

by other means. ”17 Logically, this implies that, to

the extent that other cleanup programs offer less

stringent cleanups than Superfund, sites moving to

other programs (or their communities) are penalized.

EPA proposed to

. . . view the non-Federal [agency] section of the

NPL merely as a list for informing the public of

hazardous waste sites that appear to warrant CERCLA funding for remedial action through CERCLA funding alone [emphasis added].l8

This shrinks the CERCLA program (and, perhaps,

applicability) down to only those sites that cannot be

deferred to other programs. It also appears to

eliminate the listing of CERCLA enforcement sites

(EPA suggests formally deferring those to responsible parties) since they would not be paid for with

CERCLA funding.

The comprehensive deferral policy would turn the

Superfund program into the “court of last Federal

resort, ’ which is not the same as saying that

Superfund handles the worst sites. That is, a worst

site (i.e., one with an HRS score of 28.50 or more)

would be moved to another program if it qualifies

under another program. Once there, however, it may

receive a less stringent cleanup than if it were in

Superfund, the public may get less of an opportunity

to participate and could not obtain Technical Assistance Grants (TAGs), the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry health assessments

would not be done, and cost recovery on sites that

13$ c~mats of Nat~~ Rc~ces ~fen~ Council, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and National Audubon Society on L’.S. Enwrmmental

Protm.icm Agency’s Proposed Rule for NationaJ Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, ” Mar. 23, 1989, p. 5.

Mh Ietkm t. OTA supp~ng clemup ~fem~s tO s~es, both tie National Governor’s Asmciation and the Association of State and Territorial Sohd

Waste Management Officials say that foregoing the procedural requirements of the NCP will hasten cleanup actions but not Jeopardize the mtegrhy of

ti cleanup itself.

1553 F~r~ Register, Dec. 21, 1988, p.5 1418.

i6u, s. Envuoment~ ~o~tlonAgency, offiW of Solid Waste ~d Emergency RespnW, letter from J. Winston porter to Jcd O. Christensen,

dirtxtor, Office of Surface Mining, Department of the Interior, Jan. 20, 1988.

1753 F~r~ Re@~er 51394, ~. 21, 1988, p, 51415. s= ‘ ‘Cements of Nalm~ R~urces Defense Council, U.S. Publlc htteres[ Research Group,

and National Audubon Society on U.S. EnvironrnentaJ Protection Agency Proposed Rule for National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollutlon

Contingency Plan,” op. cit., foomote 13, for counter arguments to EPA’s use of the “appropriate factors” clause of CERCLA to support the proposed

deferral policy. These organizations say that EPA’s interpretation ‘‘ignores the clear thrust of the legislative history, and subverts CERCLA carefully

stncturexl program to expeditiously identify, list, and remedy the worst sites in the country according to natiomdly uniform, protective standards’ [p.

13].

ls5’j F&r~ Regtster 5 13%, Dec. 21, 1988, p. 51416.
198 ● Coming Clean: Super-fund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

return to the Superfund program could be compromised. l9

SUPERFUND STANDS ALONE

National programs to clean up the environment

and protect the public have been a growth area ever

since the 1970s. The Clean Water Act was enacted

in 1972. Its premise was that, by slowing the rate at

which contaminants were added to the Nation’s

surface waters, natural attenuation would eventually

produce clean water. The same perspective was the

basis of the Clean Air Act in 1970. The Clean Water

Act also contains a provision allowing the Federal

Government to act in emergency situations when

petroleum products are spilled in waterways.

Superfund is unique because it is the first-and

only—program designed expressly for environmental cleanup and for all media. Amendments

under SARA in 1986 added sections on cleanup

standards, which included a call for permanent

remedies, and public participation, which provides

for technical assistance grants. These are features

that no other cleanup program has.

Other cleanup programs are not as stringently

guided by statute or by current regulations.20 Most

other statutes have the kind of flexibility of the

original Superfund statute (later rejected by Congress in SARA) that allow site-by-site decisions on

the meaning of protection of human health and the

environment. Public participation is mentioned in

other statutes but not to the extent that it is in

CERCLA.

Programmatically, most other programs-again,

unlike Superfund-have dual roles. They set and

enforce management regulations for active facilities

while at the same time setting and enforcing cleanup

regulations and procedures. Examples are the RCRA

and Underground Storage Tank (UST) programs and

those implemented by DOI under the Surface

Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) and

the Department of Energy (DOE) under the Uranium

Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA).21

For dual programs, cleanup goals may clash with

other program goals. For example, the RCRA

program has identified the preservation of adequate

waste management capacity as a critical item of

Concern. 22 Thus, at active RCRA sites EPA (and

States) must balance their regulatory responsibilities

to compel cleanup with their goal to keep sufficient

treatment and disposal facilities open. Additional

pressure arises from the congressional requirement

in SARA that States provide assurance that capacity

will exist to manage hazardous wastes or face the

loss of Superfund cleanup funding.23

One stated mission of the management side of

many dual programs is to ‘‘prevent Superfund

sites. ” The phrase implies either preventing uncontrolled sites from being abandoned or from becoming expensive, complicated sites, or both, Future

Superfund sites are also prevented by proper management practices and, more fundamentally by not

generating hazardous substances that need to be

managed. 24 Thus, a major contribution to the national cleanup effort each regulatory system could

provide is to encourage pollution prevention and to

provide early warning and site discovery. The latter

entails having both effective inspection and enforcement, which is often lacking,25 Under the Leaking

Underground Storage Tank (LUST) regulations,

EPA rejected, as too costly, a requirement that

implementing agencies actively seek out tanks that

have been abandoned.

19EpA ~w~ in tie prow~ ~licy tit Provisions could be made to retain these features but they Wotdd tid to the costs of cle~ups.

~Alone ~ong tie F&r~ pro~~s OTA reviewed, RCRA corrective action~ eventufd~ have regulations or guidance that is Similw to su~tid.

However, the program has been undenvay for 4 years without regulations and very minor guidance, allowing for maximum flexibility. Meanwhile, sites

are being studied, remedies are being selected, and cleanups are occurring.

ZIBo~ tie ~1 ad DOE pro~ms de~ wl~ mine w~~ problems. Most of tie info~ation in tis chapter on the DOE ~d DOI programs relat~

to the cleanup of muctive sites. Under SMCRA, the DOI’S Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) program remediates both coal and noncoal mine areas. The

DOE program is narrow; it only has authority over uranium mill tailings that are a consequence of processing uranium mine ores,

22U.S. EnvUonment~ Protection Agency, The Hazardow Waste Management SYstem, 1987.

%3ARA, Section 104(k).

24s= OTA*5 SerlouRe&tion of HU~dO~ w~tes ~d From p~i[~ion tO Prevention: An Update on Waste Reductwn.

~Sw, for instmW, Gener~ ~cout~g office, Hu2~&w Waste Facility lmpectiom Are Not Thorough and complete, GAQRCED-~8-20.

November 1987,
Chapter 4---Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 199

Cleanup programs differ among themselves in

other ways. For example, the UMTRCA inactive

uranium mill tailings and AML mine cleanup

programs are like Superfund in that the government

is responsible for evaluating sites, making remedy

decisions, and doing the actual cleanups. Others are

purely enforcement programs in which the government role is to coerce others, through administrative

or court orders or negotiation, to evaluate and clean

up sites. Usually, in the latter case, the government

holds an oversight role but, as OTA’s work on the

Superfund program has shown, oversight is dependent on having sufficient resources and expertise,

Like Superfund, “but unlike other programs, the

LUST program does have a trust fund to handle

cleanups it cannot get done through enforcement,

The AML program is a hybrid. It has no enforcement

provisions and is funded by taxes collected from the

coal industry. AML funds cannot be used for a

cleanup if a responsible party is known. Thus, once

a PRP search is successful under Superfund, a

mining site becomes ineligible for the AML program.

Contracting Links All Programs

In all of the programs, including Superfund,

consultants and contractors are heavily relied on to

do some or all of the study and field work. The South

Carolina State program, for instance, has three major

contracts that consume most of the available resources: 1) a remedial activities (physical cleanup

work) contract, 2) an RIFS study contract, and 3) an

emergency response contract.26

By and large the contractors hired for other

programs are the same firms that Superfund hires.

For instance, NUS has a contract to survey DOE’s

facilities; Ebasco Services, Inc., won NASA’s site

evaluation contract; and Roy F. Weston has a DOE

and several U.S. Army contracts. The UMTCRA

program at DOE is contracted out to a joint venture

of Jacobs Engineering and Roy F. Weston. In

California, of seven State remedial contracts, five

with a total value of $23.5 million were held in 1988

by Superfund contractors.27 As discussed later, this

expanding but largely inexperienced workforce adds

stresses to Superfund, as well as the other programs,

Programs Proliferate

Despite its unique role, Superfund has not been

used to incorporate new cleanup efforts. Three other

cleanup programs were created prior to 1980 when

CERCLA was enacted; the other programs were

created since then. Instead of building a comprehensive cleanup effort by adding newly recognized

problems to existing programs, Congress has filled

the gaps by building new, separate programs.

The growth of cleanup programs has followed the

Nation’s traditional structure of single media environmental programs and the existing authority for

mining issues. That is, as knowledge about a new

cleanup problem has become available, its solution

has been crafted within the confines of existing

structure. As each separate program is developed, its

authority excludes that given to existing programs.

Thus, CERCLA prevents the Superfund program

from handling certain uranium mill tailing cleanups

already handled under UMTCRA and the LUST

program cannot clean up hazardous wastes released

by underground storage tanks regulated by RCRA.

The Superfund program has spawned new programs.

Most State programs were created or existing ones

enhanced to handle sites excluded by Superfund

policy decisions. Widely held views that Superfund

requirements are too stringent or costly and that its

implementation is too burdensome and slow has

supported political pressures to exclude certain

types of facilities or substances from CERCLA.

Two cleanup problems—marine sediments and

oil spills—not adequately covered by Superfund or

other existing authority are being discussed; either

could end up as separate programs or be closely

linked to or subsumed into Superfund. The Superfund trust fund is excluded by statute from being

used to clean up petroleum products, whether

released on land or discharged into the Nation’s

waters. Under the NCP, however, the Superfund

removal program or the Coast Guard responds to oil

spill emergencies covered by section 311 of the

~SOuti Carolina Dep~en( of Health and Environmental Control, ‘ ‘Report to the South Carolina General Assembly, Hazardous Waste Cent.mgency

Fund Activities, July 1, 1986- June 30, 1987, p. 14. ASTSWMO found m 1987 that 33 out of44 States had a total of $258 million available for contractors.

2WC1UM were Metcalf and Eddy, CH2MHill, Dames and Moore, Tetra Tech, and Ecology and Envkonment.
200 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Clean Water Act. Incidents such as the March 1989

spill in Valdez, Alaska, and the Ashland Oil spill in

January 1988 have pointed out deficiencies. For

instance, critical time delays can occur because of a

presumption that, even in an emergency, the Federal

Government should allow the responsible party to

take initial action. Low funding has also limited

Federal response capabilities. Congress is now

considering legislation that would broaden Federal

powers.

28

Toxic marine sediments can be cleaned up under

Superfund but, because few of the potential hundreds of sites are, a comprehensive, separate program is being advanced by advocates of an Aquafund. The majority of known sites are not in the

Superfund program because current HRS scoring

does not account for sediments as a unique media or

for their biological impacts .29 Thus, an alternative to

creating a separate program is to make relatively

simple adjustments in Superfund. This would greatly

increase the size and cost of the Superfund program

but bring technically similar problems under the

same authority. A National Academy of Science

report says that contaminated marine sediments are

widespread throughout U.S. coastal waters, Preliminary estimated costs of cleaning up just 10 of 30

known contaminated areas in the Great Lakes range

from $2.9 to $3.4 billion.30

ARE OTHER PROGRAMS THE

SOLUTION?

All of the actions taken and being taken to limit

the Superfund program can be rationalized. They do

not, however, necessarily assure that Superfund’s

environmental or public health benefits will remain

intact. Limiting the Superfund program’s scope and

workload, however, might allow the Superfund

program to improve its public image, Or, as some

public interest groups say, “. . . maintain an illusion

of progress on the NPL. ’ ’31 Indeed, that objective

seems to have overridden concerns about the potential for a reduction in environmental protection

because of less stringent cleanups outside of Superfund.

The National Costs of Cleanup

The policy of reducing Superfund’s work does not

limit national costs. It just shifts costs around and in

the process might even increase overall costs. If

cleanups are necessary, someone pays and not

always under the Superfund principle of “polluter

pays. ” Superfund monies come mostly from industry with a relatively small contribution from general

revenues. All of the Federal programs-even those

that rely on enforcement for cleanup-receive some

funding from general revenues to pay for developing

program rules and regulations and for oversight,

monitoring, and enforcement costs.

Table 4-1 shows that the annual budgets of the

programs, excluding Superfund, add up to at least

$1.7 billion per year. Estimates for future national

costs are very uncertain but may be greater than $600

billion. Comprehensive data on the current cost of all

the State cleanup programs is not readily available.

The Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste

Officials (ASTSWMO) reported data on State funding mechanisms in 1988. Out of 50 States, 39

collected an average total of almost $300 million per

fiscal year to pay for cleanups. Based on available,

current budget data, OTA has estimated that States

are spending about $500 million of their own funds

for cleanups.32

The real issue is how well these other programs are

funded and how good our knowledge is about future

resource needs. If the other programs are underfunded they will have difficulties handling their own

213ForcXmple, tie Senae pds.bstj in AUgUS( 1989 mat would create a $1 billion cleanup fund and provide for timely F~er~ emergencY resPonse,

This bill would not necessarily set up a separate response capability but could, instead, enhance the existing structure.

29EXWP1= of Sites tit ~ve ~o~ hi@ enou@ to get on he NpL we waukeg~ Harbor (Outbowd Marine), Sheboygan H~bor, ad Ashtabula

(Fields Brook) in Region 5.

3~tie ~ger, Northeast. Midwest ktitute! ‘‘Cleaning up Great Lakes Toxics Hotspots: How Much Will It Cost; How Can h Be Paid For?’ September

1989.

31* ‘coment~ of Natu~Resources ~feme co~cll, us ~b]lc ~terest Rese~ch Group, and National Audubon Society on U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency’s Proposed Rule for National Oil and Hazardous Subsmnces Pollution Contingency Plan, ” op. cit., footnote 13, p. 6.

32~ySmtcs Supplement ~eureWWces wl~F~er~ Suprfud momes. EPA su~rf~d budget includes about $200 million each yew for States,

which are granted through Cooperative Agreements and CORE funding. Kansas, for instance, has been getting $300,tXKl pr year; New Jersey, about

$2 million. Minnesota pays for 31 staff with Federal funds.
Chapter 4---0ther Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 201

problems. This would create two problems for

Superfund. First, other programs may be unable to

take deferrals from Superfund. And, if resource

needs for Superfund are based on deferrals that will

not occur, then Superfund has underestimated its

needs. Second, underfunded programs may be under

pressure to compromise extent of cleanup. Sites with

incomplete cleanups could eventually become Superfund problems. This ultimate outcome can also

occur as the result of programs that are structured

and funded as enforcement programs, for which

current government costs are relatively low. As

OTA has shown in chapter 3, enforcement cleanups

that are the result of negotiated settlements tend to

compromise cleanup goals.

If estimates about the future are based on poor

information that causes underestimates, then the

Superfund system will be in periodic, perpetual

crisis. It appears that the Superfund program, although it frequently doesn’t use it, has some of the

best information available with which to predict the

future need for cleanups. All cleanup programs tend

to collect, with varying degrees of effort, their own

list of potential or known sites needing cleanup.

There is no coordination among lists, no common

definitions, no understanding of possible duplications. These multiple, noncomparable lists severely

complicate the Nation’s ability to understand the full

nature and extent of its cleanup needs (see ch. 2).

Comparative Costs, Availability of Funding

There is no evidence to suggest that programs

other than Superfund are more efficient, i.e., provide

quality cleanups at lower cost to the public. As

discussed below, many cleanups outside of Superfund are less stringent than ones inside it, Nor is

there evidence that other programs have the funding

available to support deferred cleanups from the

Superfund program. In some cases the programs do

not have the resources to handle their own problems.

State programs that emphasize enforcement do not

do so because of the quality of site cleanup received

but because it means that more sites can get

attention. In other words, States rely on enforcement

to expand their constrained resource base.33

Some States do assert that their programs, unencumbered by the “cumbersome bureaucratic/

administrative practices under CERCLA are more

efficient, but there are no statistics to show whether

State transaction costs are higher or lower than those

of Superfund.34 Available data on State average

costs per site are considerably less than Superfund’s

(at $30 million per site) .35 California, among State

programs, may have the highest average cost per site

at $2.7 million; most States appear (o pay between

$200,000 and $500,000 per site. These average costs

are much lower than Superfund's because low cost

containment and disposal options are often chosen

by State programs and because States have a higher

proportion of smaller sites to clean up than does

Superfund. In fact, State cleanup spending is more

comparable to the Superfund removal program.

The RCRA corrective action program relies

totally on enforcement to get sites cleaned up. Even

then, it has a budget that seems unrealistic, especially since that it may rival Superfund in number of

sites needing remediation. For fiscal year 1989, EPA

requested $14 million for this national program, an

amount equal to 1 percent of the annual Superfund

budget. The effect of low budgets is that Regions,

which implement the program, either have to delay

issuing orders to owners to clean up sites or to

provide less oversight than necessary, or both. Either

way, public health and the environment can suffer.36

The Federal UMTCRA program appears to be less

efficient than Superfund. It has spent $474 million in

its 10 years, through fiscal year 1988, and claims to

have remediated 2 of the 24 sites in the program. The

program projections are that another $500 million

will be spent to finish remediation of all the sites,

excluding contaminated groundwater. Funds for

cleaning up groundwater, estimated at $800 million,

JJ@er 80 ~rcent of all Stak Clemum Me enforcement, Wcording to a 1988 statement made by J. Winston Porter, then EPA a-wistant administrator

in charge of Superfund.

sd~mem~ ~nds 65 ~ment of its ~u~ budget on administrative costs, half of which is to stxure commitments from responsible parues. OTA

has found (WZ ch. 1) that EPA spends 44 percent of the Superfund budget on administration and management activities.

qs~ord~g t. F~cr~ Regl~@r notices, ~wenl su~fimd tot~ c]e~up cos~ are about $2f) million, mcluting capl~~ and ]ong-term operalmg ~d

maintenance costs. EPA’s June 1989 ‘‘Management Rewew of the Supcrfund Program report stales that COSLS are higher, about $30 rndhon per s]te.

36~w finding ~d tie= kinds of consequences are discussed in an EPA document, ‘ ‘Draft Corrccuve Aclion Outyear Strategy, ’ that reflects the

views of EPA headquarters and regional staff expressed during workshops held in early 1989,
202 ● Coming Clean: Superfund: Problems Can Be Solved . . .

are not yet budgeted. At $1.8 billion for 24 sites, the

program is projected to cost over twice as much per

site ($74 million) than the Superfund program.

Although UMTCRA sites are large, they are all

similar to one another (i.e., uranium mill tailings)

and do not each present radically different engineering challenges. The standard remedy in the

UMTCRA program is the relatively cheap option of

earthen containment, which, even for large sites, is

relatively low cost.

While a few States have managed to stretch their

available Federal AML funds to cover needed mine

cleanups, nationally the program has long been

recognized as one that is underfunded. Given the

program’s tax rate (its source of funding) and the

short time that is left under its authorization, DOI

estimates-based on the numbers of projects remaining that qualify for AML funds—show that

there may beat least a $2 billion shortfall. The future

viability of the program will be determined by

whether or not and how Congress extends SMCRA

taxing authority beyond 1992.

Limited Technical Expertise

When EPA defers cleanups from the Superfund

program, the agency does not consider whether the

programs to which the sites are deferred have

adequate resources. All the cleanup programs are, in

fact, linked together by the national pool of technical

expertise and technology. Cleanups, whether they be

asbestos from schools or mine wastes or toxic

wastes, all require the same basic technical expertise

and often the same technologies. People are needed

to collect relevant site information, analyze the data,

develop remedial alternatives, perform tests, and

carry out remedial action. Similarly, the same

commercial treatment and disposal facilities are the

ultimate receivers of wastes from Superfund, Federal agency, and State cleanup sites.

Private contractors aggressively compete for expertise among themselves and with Federal and

State agencies. A real possibility is that the expansion of other cleanup programs will only exacerbate

the workforce and contractor problems felt by

Superfund. The burgeoning growth of cleanup

programs is causing the supply of expertise to be

outstripped by the demand. For all programs, this

will drive up the cost of cleanup (i.e., as wages are

pushed up) but lower the quality of the work (as the

pool of expertise is stretched thin).

The evidence of talent constraints is compelling.

Staff in the RCRA corrective program say that EPA

is at a disadvantage in negotiating cleanups with

owners and operators of RCRA facilities. Not only

do industrial representatives have better technical

backgrounds and experience, they also have greater

knowledge of EPA and its operations. As soon as

EPA’s people gain experience and skills, they are

recruited by private industry and contractors and

move to the other side of the table.

State programs always seem to be the most

disadvantaged. Arizona, according to the assistant

director of Arizona’s waste programs, has a 36

percent personnel turnover rate; most leave for

“better-paying jobs in industry. ”37 The New York

program has identified “shortage of experienced

staff’ as one its major issues. The consequences are

a slowdown in progress at State sites and reduction

in the oversight of PRP field work. The latter will

‘‘increase the risk that responsible party and other

cleanups will be improperly performed and will

require additional work in the future. ’ ’38 New York

claims that it is having to compete for qualified

personnel with the Federal Government, other

States, and consulting fins.

For two of the Federal cleanup programs—

Superfund and asbestos in schools—the problems

caused by the mismatch between supply and demand

have been detailed. OTA’s report, Assessing Contractor Use in Super-fund (and work by the General

Accounting Office, EPA’s Inspector General, and

environmental groups), concluded that poor technical performance has been a problem in the Superfund program, not all of the time, but all too

frequent.ly. As OTA said:

Much of this results from the rapid initiation and

expansion of the program and the enormous pressures imposed by the public and Congress to perform

3TN_ wel~~, ~sitiml d~~t~ for wm~ pro~~s, fizona ~p~~en( of EnvUonment~ @~i~, a.s quot~ in tie Phoenix New Times, Mu. 15,

1989.

38Ncw York state, Department of Environmental Conservation, ‘‘New York State Inactive Hazardous Waste Site Remedial Plan Update and Status

Report,” Oct. 30, 1987, p. vii.
Chapter 4--Other Cleanup Programs and Super-red . 203

quickly. The limited number, limited experience,

and high turnover of EPA’s staff has made it very

difficult for EPA to assure the environmental performance and economic efficiency of Superfund’s

contractors all of the time. And the problem is

compounded by the inexperience and high turnover

of workers for contractors, resulting from the explosive growth of that industry .39

The asbestos in schools program [under the

Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA)]

has also shown the negative effect of expansive

growth. Not only has demand for contractors increased but it appears that the expertise does not

exist to properly oversee their work. Various business analysts have estimated that the demand for

asbestos evaluation and cleanup has caused the

creation of some 2,000 new firms in the past few

years. The market is expected to grow from a current

$2 billion per year to $6 or $7 billion in a few years

and to $100 billion in 20 years.@ During congressional hearings in 1988, a member of a school board

in New York State told Congress:

. . . a serious problem exists concerning the quality

of work being performed by consulting and contracting companies . . . AHERA has set up a situation

where the group that is calling the shots is the newly

created group of asbestos consultants and removal

contractors. These people are, by and large, not at all

driven by health and safety considerations, but by

economic considerations. And it is their economic

self-interest, not the school districts’, which concerns them most.41

The EPA Inspector General reported at the same

hearings that proper asbestos work practices were

expensive thus the incentive to circumvent them was

great and results in large profits for contractors,42

Additionally, EPA, which is responsible for

training and certifying asbestos abatement fins,

doubts that the supply of trained asbestos professionals will be sufficient to meet the time frames set

out in AHERA. The agency has used this inadequate

infrastructure of accredited personnel and enforcement staff’ as one of its major arguments against

extending asbestos regulations to public and commercial buildings.43

On the plus side, the set of national cleanup

programs offers an opportunity for sharing of

technical expertise and knowledge that could improve the performance of all programs. This kind of

technical transfer is difficult because each program

has its own regulations and procedures that can

cause individuals in one program to view the work

or knowledge gained in other programs as irrelevant

or inappropriate. Even within the Superfund program, OTA has found examples of poor technology

transfer among regions, headquarters, and EPA’s

own Office of Research and Development. Although

certain individuals may seek outside information,

mechanisms have to be created to facilitate the

sharing of information for the benefit to accrue

systemwide.

Confusion Among Overlapping Programs

As the venn diagram in figure 4-1 shows, while

some programs pick up where another leaves off,

many have overlapping jurisdictions. At the same

time, there are sites that remain outside the existing

structure, such as marine sediments. While the

problem of sites without cleanup authority is obvious, overlapping jurisdictions don’t just double the

coverage but cause competition for control of a site

44 It is overlapping and can increase expenditures.

jurisdictions that makes the deferral of Superfund

sites possible.

Overlapping jurisdictions are not necessarily intentional but are often caused by differing bases for

programs, For instance, Superfund coverage is based

on the presence of a hazardous substance. (Hazardous substances are a collection of pollutants defined

WU.S. Con=ess, (jfficc of TwhnoIo~ Asxssment, Assessing Contractor Use in Supe@.nd, OTA-BP-lTE-51 (Washington, DC’: U.S. Govcmmcm

Printing Office, January 1989).

~See, for instance, “Why Throw Money at Asbestos, ” Fortune, June 6, 1988, and “Cleanup Dollar Flow Like Water Bu( industry Is Awash In

Problems,” ENR Special Report, Mar. 9, 1989.

41B111 ~~hen, mem~r of tie Joh~to~, N, Y., ~h~l bo~d, he~ngs &fore (& Envtionment, Energy, and Natural Resources Subcommlttw of the

Committee on Government @rations, House of Representatives, June 1, 1988.

qz~n~d E. K~kdend~], &puty ~~tor General, U.S. Environmental protection Agency, June 1. 1988.

4354 F~r~ Register 13632, Apr. 4, 1989. p. 13636.

.t4Sttiup costs ~cre= natlon~ ~os~, ~ tie first z yews of tie LL’ST program, 50 percent of tie f~d money dls~ibut~ LO States was spent for

administrative costs to develop programs.
204 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . 

Figure 4-l-The National Cleanup Effort

/

\

—

SOURCE: Offica of Technology Assessment, 1969.
Chapter 4--Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 20..

by other environmental statutes or regulations, less

those substances that Congress has explicitly excluded from program authority.) The discovery of a

hazardous substance, which has been released and is

uncontrolled, any where in the Nation, can be remediated by the Superfund program.

RCRA and LUST corrective action programs, on

the other hand, are based on a community of

regulated facilities. In the case of RCRA, Subtitle C

regulations cover the management of hazardous

wastes by treatment, storage, and disposal facilities

(TSDFs). Because all hazardous wastes are hazardous substances, all RCRA corrective actions could,

theoretically, be included under Superfund. Only

some are because EPA has decided-through its

NPL policy—to keep cleanups in the RCRA fold to

the maximum extent possible.45

Included in the LUST program are regulated

underground storage tanks (USTs) that contain

either petroleum products or hazardous substances

(except those hazardous substances that are at the

same time hazardous wastes). Because the Superfund statute excludes petroleum products from the

definition of hazardous substances and most USTs

store petroleum products, the Superfund program

can only handle a minor portion of the problems

caused by USTs. And, because of the exemption of

hazardous wastes in the LUST statute, USTs with

hazardous wastes fall into the RCRA program. Thus,

cleanups resulting from leaking underground storage tanks can be (and are) handled by Superfund,

RCRA, or LUST programs.

EPA’s deferrals map the overlaps between Superfund and other programs. EPA has and is deferring

cleanups to RCRA (Subtitle C facilities) and

UMTRCA programs and would have been to the

AML program except that restrictions on that

program have prevented deferrals. But, one AML

site--Colorado Tailings-has moved into the Superfund program. Pending deferrals are to the

Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act

(FIFRA), RCRA (operating Subtitle D landfills),

LUST, and States.4b (EPA has also proposed deferring cleanups to PRPs, which would move cleanups

outside of the government and into the private

sector, )

Early in Superfund’s history, EPA made open

attempts to exclude mine site cleanups from the

program. Those attempts were thwarted by court

rulings and congressional action. Current policy is to

defer mine waste cleanups to the AML and

UMTRCA programs in the cases where those

programs are broad enough to have authority.

UMTRCA cleanup of tailing sites belonging to

inac[ive mills is restricted to 22 sites identified

specifically by statute, plus 2 sites added by DOE;

CERCLA excludes these sites from Superfund.

Superfund deferrals are made to the active mills

cleanup program. The AML program for noncoal

sites is restricted by the fact that any State has to

cleanup its coal sites before it can proceed with

noncoal problems, unless the Governor declares an

emergency. So far, only Wyoming is reaching the

end of its coal cleanups and is the only State that may

in the near future be able to use AML funds for

cleanups deferred from Superfund.

Except for those to the RCRA Subtitle C corrective action program, relatively few official deferrals

have occurred from Superfund. It is the future that

EPA may be most concerned about. For instance,

OTA estimated in 1985 that 5,000 municipal

landfills may require cleanup. EPA data indicates

that, as of July 1988, only 220 landfills were on the

NPL. While this is only 4 percent of a large universe,

it is a significant fraction of the NPL (almost 20

percent) and represents a growth rate of about 10

percent per year since 1986.

Overlaps in program authority cause situations in

which a particular site is simultaneously or sequentially handled by different programs. The decision of

which authority prevails is sometimes made by the

Superfund deferral policy but not always. For

Federal agency NPL sites a negotiated agreement

between EPA, the agency, and the State determine

the cleanup authority. Under the UST regulations,

EPA has made the UST implementing agency

45EpA ~llcy on ~lemmg up RCRA Subutle C sl[es under Superfund is b~ on criteria outlined in the Federal Rcg]stcr on June 24, 1988, pp.

23978-23986. Basically, a finding must be made that site owners are bankrupt or otherwise lack fmartcial capability or have shown unwllmgess to

pr- with a RCRA comznve z~on.

46~FRA hm n. ~omwtlve ~tion Provlslons, ~d he pro~~ Subtllle D ~~rr~tlve ~tlon IU]CS address ~oundwatcr ord)I with no attention tO

contaxmnated soil, surface water, or au.
206 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

(which can be a State or local agency) the determinator of whether it or CERCLA will govern a cleanup

qualifying for either program. And, States can

effectively defer cleanups to themselves by not

entering sites in EPA’s CERCLIS inventory database.

Complying with a varying set of rules can be

frustrating. At an Air Force installation where EPA

and the State were pushing for an Interagency

Agreement (IAG), a RCRA permit, and a State

action, the base commander was quoted by a

congressional report as saying:

, . . the use of these three separate procedural

frameworks to address the same problem places the

AF in an untenable if not impossible situation,

questions of efficiency aside. Compliance with one

set of procedures may or may not satisfy the

requirements of the other’s procedures. It is entirely

conceivable that compliance with one set may

violate another’s, especially in the area of scheduling

of activities and prioritization of sites.47

Two of the many sites with overlapping authorities are detailed in boxes 4-A and 4-B. The first

covers a private sector site in Arkansas; the second,

a controversy over Basin F, a part of the huge Rocky

Mountain Arsenal site in Colorado.

There have been a few attempts to officially

coordinate or integrate the various cleanup programs

or the flows of sites between them. One recent

example is EPA’s “Environmental Priorities Initiative. ” This plan routes potential RCRA corrective

action sites through the existing Superfund program’s preremedial site evaluation process. EPA

argued that this initiative will ‘‘enable the Agency

and the States to identify and cleanup first those sites

that present the greatest threat to human health and

the environment. ’ Since the system being used to

evaluate RCRA sites is the system currently in use

in the Superfund program and since, as OTA has

shown in chapter 2, it does not necessarily accomplish that goal for Superfund sites very well, it

should not be expected to do so for RCRA sites.

Nevertheless, there may be gains from this initiative

through the reduction in RCRA program costs by

using art existing system, rather than developing a

new one exclusively for RCRA, and because of the

time saved by not having to wait for the development

of a separate evaluation system. However, delays

have occurred in implementation; the high priority

sites that were to get preliminary assessments in

fiscal year 1989 had not, as of July 1989, been

entered into the CERCLIS inventory, a step that

precedes evaluation.

Different Programs, Different Cleanups

If cleanups conducted by other programs are as

permanent as Superfund cleanups are supposed to

be, there should be no future impact on the Superfund program. Unfortunately, most evidence shows

that other programs tend to choose containment

onsite or removal of contaminants to commercial or

especially designed land disposal sites. The Superfund program had the same focus before SARA was

passed in 1986; its enforcement side still has.

Superfund is the only Federal cleanup program

that has a statutory basis for cleanup standards

(’‘applicable or relevant and appropriate’ standards,

called ARARs) and has been pushed by Congress

toward permanent remedies through the use of

treatment technology. Both the basis for standards

and the cleanup preference came with the 1986

reauthorization of, and were reactions to deficiencies in, the Superfund program. All of the other

Federal cleanup programs-by statute and regulationsleave the definition of protection of health and the

environment pretty much up to individual site

decisions. While this, by itself, does not necessarily

mean that site cleanups will be inconsistent around

the country, it does mean that there is no guarantee

that they will be consistent with Superfund cleanups.

49 As for State cleanup programs, J. Winston

Porter, then EPA’s assistant administrator responsible for the Superfund program, said in 1988: “There

is some concern about cleanup standards-whether

47U.S. Congress, “A Report to the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives, on the Department of Defense Environmental

Restoration Fund,” August 1987, p. 23.

4SU.S. ~vlroma~ protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency R~wxt “Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1988, ” EPA/68-01-7259,

November 1989.

@~ng ~ Senw ~ba~ on tie SARA amendments, Senator Chafee stressed hat the Superfund standards were the minimum allowable for

Superfund cleanups and that ‘compliance with standards promulgated under the authority of other laws will not necessarily assure compliance with this

generat standard. ” [132 Congressional Record S14925, Oct. 3, 1986. ]
Chapter 4-Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 207

Box 4-A—From RCRA to the State to Superfund: Vertac Site, Arkansas

The Vertac site is an example of a RCRA enforcement site that turned into a State site and a Superfund site.

A cleanup delay of almost 2 years, so far, has occurred because enforcement failed and the State did not have

sufficient funds to contract for the necessary work. Now, Superfund is involved in supporting the State cleanup

action and has taken on the responsibility to finish the extensive cleanup remaining for the site. And, if an

impermanent initial action done by the responsible party fails, Superfund may have to redo that work.

Vertac Inc., was still operating a chemical plant on the property when it became a Superfund site in 1983 with

an HRS score of 65.46. Also in 1983 a RCRA consent order was signed; Vertac agreed to set aside $10.7 million

(a trust fund plus a letter of credit) for necessary cleanup and to handle an initial cleanup that consisted of onsite

disposal of contaminated liquids and solids. Although both the State and EPA objected to the way Vertac proceeded

with the work, the judge on the case ruled that Vertac was complying with the order.

In January 1987, Vertac abandoned the property and subsequently filed for bankruptcy. That left the State with

the job of finding a treatment company to incinerate over 27,000 drums of materials contaminated with dioxins and

chlorinated phenols that had been found onsite. Meanwhile, the trust fund had become caught up in litigation by

the shareholders of Vertac, and questions were raised as to whether there were sufficient funds to cover incineration.

Negotiations with the first company selected by the State for the incineration job failed because IT COrp. asked for

$15 million, which the State could not afford. As of June 1989, the State has found one company-MRK-who

has agreed to incinerate the drums and material for the available $10 million.

But, more cleanup remains. The Region 6 Superfund program tried in early 1988 to obtain approval for funds

to supplement the incineration project (including an air monitoring plan, ash disposal, and a delisting petition) and

to proceed with an RIFS to cover the remaining contamination onsite, which includes the plant, buildings, tanks,

and surrounding areas. The funds were denied in fiscal year 1988. Region 6 has now completed a plan for an interim

action, costing $2 million, to support the incineration job, and those funds are available. The region is also in

negotiation with Hercules Corp., who owned the plant prior to Vertac, to do an RIFS for the additional work needed

onsite. There are also offsite problems involving contaminated creeks, a sewage treatment plant with contaminated

sewer lines, and a stream with contaminated sediment yet to be studied.

Although site cleanup appears to be finally underway, there is future uncertainty about the initial onsite

disposal facility completed under RCRA in 1986. It is leaking and a more permanent solution-a second

cleanup may be necessary for “Mt. Vertac” as the initial cleanup is known locally.

cleanup levels are equivalent [to Superfund], and so reason to assume that any program will follow rules

forth. ’ ’50

Federal Programs and Their Regulations

EPA has acknowledged a difference between

Superfund and other Federal program cleanups.

Under the proposed deferral policy, EPA said other

Federal programs”. . . do not necessarily present the

same level of assurance of remediation that meet the

environmental protection standards of CERCLA’ ’51

A partial review of the basis for some programs’

cleanups provides insight into the varieties of

cleanups that are to be expected, since there is no

other than its own:

● For the LUST program, EPA decided to allow

a site-specific approach to standards that it says

will “adequately protect human health and the

environment. ’52 Earlier EPA suggested three

options: 1) national standards, 2) site-specific

standards, or 3) a combination of both dependent on groundwater classification schemes.

Site-specific standards were chosen not for

their environmental strengths but because they

would accommodate existing State programs,

minimize the overall regulatory impact on

wJ. Wkston po~er, s~h at S~er@d ’88, 9th National Conference and Exhibition, NOV. 28, 1988.

5153 F~r~ Ftegimer 51394, De.c. 21, 1988, p. 51418.

5253 F~r~ Register 37082, Sept. 23, 1988. p. 37174.
208 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Box 4-B-CERCLA v. RCRA: Basin F at Rocky Mountain Arsenal

Federal agencies often find themselves caught between EPA and CERCLA and States and RCRA. CERCLA

gives States only a consultant role in Federal agency cleanups. States view this role as inadequate and the

enforcement relationship of EPA, the Department of Justice, and Federal agencies as one with a high potential for

conflict of interest. Thus, States with RCRA authority generally prefer that Federal agency cleanups be conducted

under RCRA giving States greater leverage. Portions of Federal agency NPL site cleanups are officially placed

under RCRA corrective action through an interagency agreement drawn up on sites.

The cleanup of Basin F, part of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal site in Colorado, has been caught up in this

CERCLA/RCRA issue. The dispute between the State and the Army involves which authority takes precedence and

ultimately what kind of cleanup will occur and how fast. Basin F has also been affected by changing EPA deferral

policy.

Basin F was added to the existing Rocky Mountain Arsenal NPL site in March 1989. It had been originally

excluded when Rocky Mountain was proposed for the NPL because EPA believed that Basin F would be subject

to RCRA corrective action and thus, under the agency’s RCRA deferral policy of September 1983, might be

appropriate for deferral. Subsequently, EPA decided that Federal agency facilities that qualify for RCRA corrective

action will not be deferred from listing (as is done for non-Federal sites).1 That changed policy meant that Basin

F should be included instead of excluded.

The U.S. Army constructed Basin Fin 1956 to store and dispose of contaminated liquid wastes; Shell Oil also

contributed wastes. Approximately 240 million gallons of hazardous liquids and an estimated half a million cubic

yards of contaminated soils resulted. The Army has projected the cost of cleaning up Basin F to be about $42 million;

a ROD is scheduled for 1993.

The Army implemented a two-part strategy; an interim action has been taken to reduce existing migration

pending the decision on a final, permanent remedy. The liquids were moved to holding tanks and surface

impoundments and the soil was excavated and placed in a double-lined waste pile. The State and local citizens have

been against the Army taking the interim action, preferring that the contaminated materials be removed from Basin

F and disposed of elsewhere. They have subsequently criticized the effectiveness of the interim solutions. The case

of Basin F went to court over whether or not CERCLA can preempt the State’s ability to enforce its own regulations

and RCRA corrective action. The judge issued a memorandum of opinion that the State of Colorado has authority

over the Basin. Thus, the legal answer here seems to be that CERCLA does not preempt RCRA. According to the

ruling:

It i snot inappropriate that the present and future victims of this poison legacy, left in their midst by the Army and Shell,

should have a meaningful voice in its cleanup. In RCRA, Congress has plainly provided them that voice through

representation by the State. I hold that RCRA enforcement by the State is not precluded by CERCLA in the circumstances

here presented.2

11~ ~~~ 13296, M#r. 31, 19s9.

2“~@inkm ad -,”iucoiordo v. the U.S Army, U.S. District Court, ~, CO, Feb. W, 19s9.

small businesses, and reduce the cost of compliance for all owners.53

. When cleanups of PCBs occur under the Toxic

Substance Control Act (TSCA), the cleanup

levels are based on the standards in the regulations but can vary, as occured in the Texas

Eastern Pipeline case (see later).

. Cleanup rules for uranium mill tailings differ

depending on whether the cleanup is of an

active or inactive mill. For active sites, RCRA

corrective action regulations apply and cover

both radioactive substances and hazardous

wastes; for tailings at inactive sites only

radioactive substances are covered. EPA stated

in proposed groundwater standards that inorganic and organic hazardous constituents

should be assessed rather than stating they must

despite the conclusion that the “concentrations

5352 ~r~Re@~r 12662, Apr. 17, 1988, p. 12681. EPA asserted that national standards would not necessarily assure national consistency.
Chapter 4-Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund . 209

of (nonradioactive) materials vary from pile to

pile, ranging from 2 to more than 100 times

applicable standards. ’ ’54

For the AML program, neither SMCRA nor the

resultant regulations require the use of any

specific methods or application of specific

cleanup standards. Implementing agencies are

directed, instead, to a guidance document

written in 1980, which suggests that containment methods be used for toxic materials.55 A

National Academy of Sciences report that

reviewed the program in 1986 supports that

approach and suggests covering the materials

with ‘‘impermeable clay or capping them with

synthetic materials. ”56 There is no requirement for groundwater cleanup.

For the RCRA corrective action program, no

cleanup regulations have yet been issued. EPA has

made a number of statements that the RCRA rules.

when published, will be similar to Superfund’s. In

testimony before Congress in 1987, the head of

EPA’s Superfund program claimed that ‘the level of

environmental protection provided by a cleanup

proceeding under RCRA authority should be the

same as that under CERCLA. ’ ’57 Meanwhile, cleanups underway are based on existing regulations (that

only cover groundwater contamination) and a guidance document, ‘‘National RCRA Corrective Action

Strategy,’ issued in 1986. The only advice in that

document about cleanup standards is: ‘‘. . . final

remedies will . . . be required to meet applicable

health and environmental standards promulgated

under RCRA and other laws’ [emphasis added] .5x

There is no statement about preference for permanent cleanups.

Currently, differences do exist between Superfund and RCRA as a report released by the House

Committee on Appropriations on DOD’s Environmental Restoration Fund pointed out. The report

says that ‘‘generally RCRA remedial actions tend to

favor containment as a technical solution, while

SARA remedial actions are mandated to favor

permanence of remedy for treatment technologies. ”59 In an example covering one potential

cleanup, the report said an EPA RCRA program

manager stated that he would approve a remedy that

consisted of containment with monitoring for metalcontaminated soils. The CERCLA program manager

stated that he would not approve of containment and

that perhaps soil washing combined with other

emerging technologies would be required.

How closely RCRA cleanups eventually resemble

Superfund cleanups and avoid being Superfund

problems some day may await the outcome of

negotiations between EPA, who has drafted proposed rules, and the office of Management and

Budget (OMB) who has taken over 7 months so far

to review them. OMB apparently does not agree with

EPA’s rules for permanence, for not allowing

facilities to postpone cleanup until groundwater

outside its property is contaminated, and for setting

cleanup targets in the same range as Superfund’s,

OMB also wants only direct contact by the public to

trigger a RCRA cleanup. Conversely, the HRS that

identifies Superfund sites uses various indirect

pathways, and direct contact will be an added

Superfund pathway if the new HRS is approved.

RCRA corrective action is an enforcement program and whatever the rules, RCRA cleanups may

eventually be similar to and have the same problems

as Superfund enforcement cleanups. One difference

will persist, however. EPA has no backup funding

under RCRA corrective action as it does with the

Superfund trust fund. Thus, when an owner or

operator of a RCRA facility is intransigent, a

cleanup waits resolution. In some instances, clean up

will await transfer of sites to the Superfund program

for attention,

5452 F&r~ Register, “Standards for Remedial Actions at Inactive Uramum processing Sites, ” Sept. 24, 1987, p. 36001.

55A GAO rew~ in 1988 (Su~~e Ml~’~g. l~o~tion on the LJp&t~~ Abandoned Mine hnd Inventory) quoted one State official as comp]a.ming

because the Office of Surface Mining had never provided any policy gwdance on acceptable reclamation methods.

56N~on~ Re~~~h Comcll, Aba~onedJfine~nds. A M~-course Review of the National Reclamation prografnfor Cixd, November 1986, p. 26,

JTJ. w~~ton poner, fomer ~l~mt fillfis~ator, U.S. Envkonmental Protwtion Agency, statement before the Envwonmcntal Rcs[oration Panel

of the Readiness Subeommittm of the Committee on Armed Sewices, No\. 19, 1987.

58 LI.s. ~vironmen~ Protection Agency, “National RCRA Correctlvc Action Strategy, ’ p, 13.

59U.S. Congress, ‘‘A Report to the Committee on Appropnamms, U S. House of Rcprcscnta[lves, on the Department of Defense Enwronmental

Restoration Fund, ” August 1987, p. 26.
210 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Actual Cleanups Differ

Another, better way to assess the difference

between Superfund and other program cleanups is to

obtain information on what has actually happened.

Unfortunately, little of this information is available

at the national level and some not even at the State

level.

Federal Agency Programs—For Federal agency

cleanups CERCLA provisions only apply to NPL

sites. Out of the thousands of potential cleanups,

only 115 so far are on the NPL. Thus, most agency

cleanups will take place under States laws or other

Federal corrective action programs, such as RCRA

or LUST Even some NPL sites or portions of NPL

sites will be cleaned up under RCRA corrective

action rather than CERCLA.60 Still, it may be too

early to make comparisons based on actions. Agency

programs are, in general, behind most other programs. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)

program indicates in its fiscal year 1988 report that

all NPL sites are still in the site evaluation stage; the

report has no information on non-NPL sites.6l

DOD seems to be furthest along, but little

permanency has been achieved. Its annual report for

fiscal year 1989 says that 36 NPL sites have had

some kind of interim action and one has a final

remedy completed.62 Although the report claims

some action underway at over 1,000 sites, it only

provides details on types of remedies selected for the

interim actions. Forty-one percent were waste removals (i.e., contaminated soils or liquids were

transported off site for disposal) and 28 percent were

classified as site treatment/remediation. (The latter

category might more properly be titled ‘ ‘miscellaneous. According to information DOD supplied OTA

on the individual remedies, none used treatment

technology.) The balance of the interim actions

involved providing alternative water supplies (13

percent), groundwater treatment (6 percent), longterm monitoring (9 percent), or decontamination of

munitions (3 percent). At one site, explosive contaminated soil is being incinerated.

State Programs—For State cleanup programs,

information on actual remedy selection varies from

nonexistent to comprehensive:

●

●

●

●

The Illinois State program has a reputation for

choosing incineration, and officials told OTA

that mobile incineration has been used at four

sites of the 45 sites cleaned up so far. Details

about what remedies were selected for the other

41 sites are unknown by the State office.63

Little specific information is available at the

State level in Florida; the program is independently implemented by six districts. The State

does produce an annual “The Sites List” that

gives the status of hundreds of Florida sites

under various kinds of cleanup programs, but

information on remedy selection is not included.

A Kansas State report for 1988 provides many

statistics on site cleanups including the status

of sites. The only information in the report on

remedies is a statement that remediation may

involve removal, onsite detoxification, or containment. No weight or preference is given to

the three options.64

New York State included a breakdown of

remedies in a 1986 report but has not done the

same in successive annual reports. The 1986

data shows that (for 129 projects) 62 percent of

the actions taken were onsite containment, 15

percent were removals of soils for offsite

disposal, and 33 percent involved treatment of

WA has left this determination to be made on a site-be-site basis in the interagency agreement signed between an agency, EPA, and the State.

61u.s. Department of Energy, “Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 1988, ’ December 1988. Under CERCLA Section 120, all Federal agencies

are required to report annually to Congress on the status of their cleanup programs. Of the 16 agencies with sites in the Federal Docket, OTA could only

locate reports from 6 agencies.

szof tie ~~ 8,139 sites identifi~ by tie agency, more than half (4,435 sites) are expected to need an RIFS and 96 percent of those have a completed

RIFS or one underway. For the 2,486 sites expected to need a remedial design or action, 60 percent (1 ,482 sites) have had or are undergoing a removal

or an interim remedial action or longt.emn monitoring.

GJ1llinois’ annual report .S+’S: ‘‘The Agency now requests the use of alternative treatment technologies such as incineration, and is less dependent on

landfill disposal of hazardous wastes generated from cleanup operations. [Illinois Environmental protection Agency, ‘Cleaning Illinois, ’ Spring 1988,

p. 8] For sites discussed in the report for which sufficient detail was given, OTA found that onsite containment was used at five sites, contaminated soils

from six were sent to offsite landfills. incineration was chosen at one site, and soil flushing wa.. used at one site.

~Kansas Department of Health and Environment, “ 1988 Summary of Bureau of Environmental Remediation Sites in Kansas, ” January 1989, p, 3.
Chapter 4--Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 211

groundwater,65 The 1987 report stated that New

York was inconsistent with the Federal Superfund program, and the 1988 report listed a goal

to establish policies and regulations to increase

consistency in site cleanups.

. In South Carolina, 5 remedial actions were

conducted between July 1986 and June 1987.

All contaminated soils were taken to commercial landfills; liquids were incinerated.66

. A 1988 report on the Tennessee State Superfund program says that many of the 24 cleanups

accomplished are of “dubious effectiveness”

because of inadequate attention to groundwater, use of clay caps over buried wastes, and no

long-term monitoring.67

OTA was able to obtain more comprehensive,

up-to-date information from California, Minnesota,

and New Jersey. California’s report for 1988 says:

‘‘State law and (agency) policy . . . support the use

of cleanup solutions other than excavation and

redisposai of untreated waste. “68 And, the State

does have an extensive program to test alternative

technologies. Still, California data show that 80

percent of actions in 1987 and 79 percent in 1988

involved moving soil offsite to landfills. Incineration was used for one action in 1988 and in each year

one action consisted of soil bioremediation.

In New Jersey, there are four separate State

programs that have cleaned up or overseen the

cleanup of almost 40 sites. Ten cleanups in one

program consisted primarily of groundwater pumping and treating or monitoring. OTA was told that

when contaminated soil was involved it was usually

land disposed (in some other State). In one case,

PCBs were incinerated. Three cleanups in another

program involved sending most contaminated soils

and materials to landfills, liquids were usually

incinerated or, in one instance, sent through a

municipal water treatment plant. The enforcement

program under the State’s Environmental Cleanup

Responsibility Act is credited with the most completed cleanups (about 20), New Jersey was unable

to supply OTA with information on remedy selections, however.

The Minnesota Superfund program has completed

38 NPL and non-NPL cleanups since 1983 and “is

recognized nationally as being very effective at

insuring the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. ”69

Out of 27 completions for which information was

provided to OTA, soil treatment (of some unknown

kind) occurred at two sites. The balance of remedies

were: containment onsite, excavation and transport

to landfills offsite, monitoring of wells, and providing alternate water supplies. Extensive groundwater

pumping and treating is done in Minnesota.70 Box

1-B (ch. 1) discusses in detail one recent cleanup

decision made by Minnesota authorities. Given the

statistics available on the program, that decision

seems to be representative of the overall trend of

cleanups in Minnesota.

Federal Programs-OTA contacted several

States that have used the Federal AML program to

clean up mine wastes. A Montana State official said

that cleanup standards are chosen on a site-by-site

basis; they rely on their consulting engineers for

advice. 71 In Wyoming, State disposal standards ‘n

materials similar to those found in mine wastes are

the guide to cleanup levels. The usual option is to

move contaminated materials to a land disposal cell

where natural materials are used to protect against

future migration. Copper tailings, for instance, have

been moved from a river bed site and disposed in a

fiNew York State, ~p~ent of Environrnenm Conservation, Divisions of Solid and H=ardous Wask, ‘ ‘New York State inactive Hazardous Waste

Site Remulial Plan,” Oct. 15, 1986, p. V-5.

%e South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, ‘ ‘Report to the South Carolina General Assembly-Hazardous Waste

Contingency Fund Activu.ies-July 1, 1986 to June 30, 1987, op. cit., footnote 27.

67 Kirsten Dow et al., “lkrmessee Superfund After Four Years: A Critical Appraisal, ” May 6, 1988. The report was sponsorti by the Legal

Environmental Assistance Foundation and the lknnessee Environmental Council.

~c~lfomia Dep-ent of Health Services, “Expenditure P1an for the Hazardous Substance Cleanup Bond Act of 1984, ’ revised Januay 1988, p.

13.

~“Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Report on the Use of tbe Envmonmental Response, Compensation and Comphance Fund During Fi~at

Year 1988,” November 1988, p. 15.

70~ ~ 1988 repfi, he ~meWta po]]utlon Conmol Agency s~d ~a[ site-sWific g-o~dwater cleanup goaJs were king established. Meanwhile,

‘‘targets for soil contamination will be developed later. ’ [“Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Report on the Use of the Environrnentat Response,

Compensation and Compliance Fund During Fiscal Year 1988, ” November 1988, p. 14.]

71 Ben Mundie, Montana AML program, ~rsonal conversation, APT1l 1989.
212 ● Corning Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . .

cell above the water table. Monitoring is ongoing to

evaluate any leachate. Tailings from a gold mining

site contaminated with mercury and arsenic will be

similarly disposed. Clay materials are used to

stabilize metals in mine pits, and contamination in

groundwater is left to naturally attenuate after

sources have been cleaned up.

In some programs, especially those covering mine

wastes, the use of containment can often be justified

because of the huge volumes of contaminated

material. Still there is fiction between Superfund

and other programs regarding the appropriate kind of

containment to use and whether the materials should

be treated frost. One case, the Colorado Tailings

mining site in Montana, has been caught between the

AML program and Superfund (see box 4-C).

In the UMTCRA program, most cleanup plans

call for containing the tailings in place or somewhere

onsite or offsite, using natural materials and no

leachate collection systems. The UMTCRA choice

is driven by a requirement in the regulations that a

remedy be effective up to 1,000 years and at least

200 years.72 No one can, of course, assure that a

remedy that does not destroy contaminants will last

200, much less 1,000 years. The DOE program has

decided that-since radioactive materials cannot be

destroyed-the best way to approach that requirement is to construct simple earthen containment

systems that have no mechanical components to

avoid the need for human intervention over 200

years.

An EPA publication for the Superfund program

on radioactive sites, Technological Approaches to

the Cleanup of Radiologically Contaminated Superfund Sites, offers many treatment alternatives to

containment. 73 The publication says that excavation

and containment in ‘‘either permanent or temporary

above-ground containment facilities” has been the

choice in most remedial decisions and that the 1,000

year requirement is applicable to uranium mill

tailings only and thus is not necessarily “applicable

or relevant and appropriate” (a SARA phrase) for

Superfund site cleanups. It also points out that

‘‘some Superfund (radioactive) sites contain various

types of hazardous wastes, and the radioactive

portion may pose a relatively minor problem, ”

This difference between UMTCRA and Superfund suggests that better interactions between the

programs on a technical level might change the ways

both are doing their job, if regulations allowed

changes. From one perspective, the kind of containment remedies the UMTCRA program is selecting

have been abandoned as inappropriate for hazardous

substances. However, the 1,000 year requirement is

based on the UMTCRA perspective that it is the

radioactive emissions from the materials that harm

human health and that over a period of time those

emissions will decay, resolving the problem. Metals

that are hazardous substances, however, have intrinsic toxicity that does not decay and are toxic forever.

Thus, the RCRA requirement-used in Superfund—

for containment with a 30-year lifetime for materials

that never decay may not be an improvement.74

However, the simpler UMTRCA solution may not

retain its integrity longer than 30 years, much less

200 to 1,000 years.

Classifications Create Problems

Cleanups can also differ because of the ways

substances are classified. When they do differ,

especially when they are inconsistent with CERCLA, future Superfund cleanup costs and problems

may be increased.

RCRA hazardous wastes area subset of CERCLA

hazardous substances so that a cleanup under RCRA

covers fewer substances. However, the differences

may not be profound. Mine wastes and radionuclides, for instance, are not hazardous wastes, but

they are only infrequently found in the TSDFs that

RCRA corrective actions cover. And, while mine

wastes are not classified as hazardous wastes, some

of their constituents, such as heavy metals, are.

Asbestos is an example of a hazardous substance,

the cleanup of which under AHERA, State, and

Superfund programs may lead to future Superfund

sites. Under current law and regulations, asbestos

can be considered dangerous enough to be removed

from schools—and from Superfund sites—but safe

7240 Code of Federal Regtdafions 192.02(a)(1).

73u.s, Enviro~ent~ Wotwtim Agency, Office of Re~~ch ~d Development, Techn&gl’caJ Approac&s to the Cleanup of Radiologically

Contanunated Supe@uui Sites, EPA/540t2-88rW2, August 1988.

T.tR~A ~y~tems, doub]e-l~~ ~1~ s~~etic matefi~s, have le~ha~e co]]ection ~wems for which periodic monitoring is necessary.
Chapter 4--Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 213

Box 4-C-From AML to Superfund to the State: The Colorado Tailings Site

Colorado Tailings in Butte, Montana is part of the Silverbow Creek site, which was placed on NPL in 1982.

As early as 1979, however, the Montana AML program was involved in the Colorado Tailings site. Now, despite

its NPL status, State negotiations may settle on the basis of State, rather than CERCLA, cleanup provisions.

The initial AML cleanup plan for the tailings contaminated with heavy metals was estimated to cost $1 million,

but Montana was denied the funding by DOI's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. In fiscal

year 1984 Congress appropriated the money as a special line item in the budget for the AML program. Because the

site was by that time on the NPL, the State AML office worked with EPA on the cleanup plan. Both agencies agreed

on a land disposal option for the tailings but disagreed on its extent. EPA’s version was estimated at $3 million and

included multiple liners and a monitoring system; the AML program wanted a lesser $1 million cleanup. The State

was told by EPA that if it did the Colorado Tailings cleanup it could become liable (a PRP) if the cleanup adversely

affected the Silverbow Creek site. According to a current Montana AML official, this liability issue, more so than

the disagreement over the cleanup method led to the State declining to handle the cleanup.1 However, a former State

official told OTA that the project was rejected because of the $3 million cost and the belief that the imposition of

EPA performance standards were unnecessary, as well as the question of liability.2

The project reverted to the Superfund program in 1984. Colorado Tailings is now part of one operable unit of

the Silverbow Creek NPL site. The feasibility study was completed in October 1986. As of early 1989, no cleanup

decision had been made. Meanwhile, the State-which has the lead on the site-was under negotiation with the

PRPs for settlement. A State official told OTA that they would not necessarily settle under provisions of Superfund

even though the site is on the NPL because CERCLA does not take precedence over State laws.

1~ M@G, M~ AML prq p6maasl Cummtion, April 19s9.

2~~Ju~,f~ Bumxu chief, Malt8us AML program, persoast cmversadom October 19ss.

enough to end up in a municipal solid waste landfill. been that RCRA rules are meant to protect groundUnder EPA’s offsite policy there is now some

protection against hazardous substances ending up

in an out-of-compliance landfill at a subtitle C

facility. That policy does not cover subtitle D

facilities. Thus, it is possible to move asbestos from

a Superfund site (or a school under AHERA) to any

municipal landfill, including ones that are already

contaminating groundwater and may have to be

cleaned up.75 The Sup-fund removal program has

taken asbestos from over 30 sites. OTA was told that

only when State laws require it is this material sent

to a hazardous waste landfill.

This movement is legal because asbestos, although a hazardous substance under CERCLA, is

not a hazardous waste under RCRA. Air emissions

of asbestos are considered the primary source of

harm to public health and the environment. The

reasoning for not listing asbestos under RCRA has

water and, since asbestos tends to bind to soils, it

will not leach from landfills into groundwater. (Data

from one Superfund site—Asbestos Dump, where

asbestos has been found in groundwater—may

refute this theory, but it is being ignored at that site,

and it is doubtful that the information is being

transferred elsewhere. ) Although asbestos can be

treated and the fibers that cause harm destroyed,

treatment is rarely the option of choice in the

Superfund or AHERA program.76

The way asbestos waste is managed suggests that

once placed in a landfill it may cause or help a

landfill to qualify for the Superfund program and

thus have to be moved again. The general management practice for asbestos is to wet the materials and

place them in plastic bags prior to disposal. Once at

a landfill, they may be segregated from other wastes

(although no Federal regulation requires segrega7S~c ~omt of ~~.to~ ha may & deposit~ ~ landfills ~au~ of tie A HERA program is not trivial. One rural county in Ca.lifomia has esumated

that it must resctve landfill space for 50 tons of asbestos. A conservauve csfimate is that about 5MMKN tons of asbestos will be placed m the Natmn’s

Landfills.

~s~ tie ROD fm k AS~Sm ~p--Mil]in@n SIIC in New Jersey treatability studies are included in the post-ROD remdial design ph~.

However, EPA and the PRPs are negotiating over whether or not the conclusions from the treatability Studies will change the ultimate cleanup, scheduled

to be onsite containment.
214 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved. . 

tion), placed in a specially dug trench, and covered

with soil. These practices can vary if State or county

regulations differ from Federal regulations. They

also vary because of poor enforcement. According to

an EPA IG report and EPA’s own statement, “many

asbestos removals and the subsequent waste disposal operations are performed out of compliance

with [the existing regulations]. ’ ’77 The IG also

reported that inspections and enforcement are weak

and penalties for violations are inadequate.78 As

EPA administrator William K. Reilly has said:

I still fear where it goes [when asbestos is removed

from buildings], whether it really is disposed of in a

place where we can trust that it’s been put to rest and

it won’t come back again in the future.79

Sites containing PCBs are cleaned up under

Superfund and TSCA. When PCBs are cleaned up

under TSCA only the PCB contamination is considered even though a site may contain other hazardous

substances as well. This occurred when Texas

Eastern Pipeline Co. agreed to pay a $15 million fine

and cleanup costs (estimated at $400 million) for

areas contaminated by PCBs (89 sites in 14 States)

along its 10,000-mile natural gas pipeline. The

cleanup agreement did not cover any substances

other than PCBs and Superfund cleanup standards

were not invoked. The agreement also did not

require offsite or groundwater cleanup nor does it set

any compliance schedule for the company to meet.

PCB levels of cleanup were based on Federal PCB

standards and varied depending on the area being

cleaned up (. . . pits, surrounding soil, etc.) and three

rankings of sites. The agreement requires the company to test for other hazardous substances but does

not set any cleanup requirements for them if found.

While it does not foreclose EPA or States from

moving under Superfund to handle such eventualities, doing so will require that new cases are brought

against the company. For Superfund to use trust

funds to clean up any of these 89 sites, they would

first have to be individually taken through the NPL

listing process.

OTA was unable to obtain details on actual LUST

cleanups, which mostly deal with petroleum liquids

and contaminated soils. Although petroleum products are relatively easily destroyed by incineration

and are amenable to microbial biodegradation, an

OUST handbook, Cleanup of Releases From Petroleum USTs: Selected Technologies, says that excavation and disposal of contaminated soil is the

“most widely used corrective action. ”8

° Soil contaminated with petroleum is not a RCRA hazardous

waste, but some States regulate it as hazardous. In

States that do not regulate it, contaminated soils

removed from petroleum tank sites can be put in

low-cost municipal landfills. In some cases, it is

cheaper to pay shipping costs and transport excavated soils from a State that considers them hazardous to a State that does not.81 Once petroleum wastes

are put in a landfill, they can--depending on the

actual substance--qualify as hazardous substances

and secondary cleanup under Superfund.

Other Programs Are Also Slow

Assessing the pace of cleanup is, to most observers, the relevant way to determine program effectiveness. Thus, many argue that a benefit of using other

cleanup programs is that cleanups can be done

quicker because they are not encumbered with the

inflexible process and procedures of CERCLA and

the NCP. But, some other cleanup programs are

experiencing delays in getting down to cleanup.

Meanwhile, the cleanups assigned to them wait.

Some State data does show that State enforcement

cleanups are quicker than State-funded cleanups.82

But, State-funded cleanups appear to take the same

time as CERCLA-funded cleanups. Conclusions

from a 1987 ASTSWO survey show that, on

7754F~~ Register 912. Jan 10, 1989, P. 915.

78U.S. Envi ronrnentd Protection Agency, Office of the Inspector General, ‘‘Consolidated Report on EPA’s Administration of the Asbestos National

Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants, ” Mar. 24, 1988.

79A8 quottxi in “Good Riddance?” Nacional Jourtual, July 29, 1989, p. 1930.

~.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Underground Storage Tanks, Cleanup of Releases From Petroleum USTS: Selected Technologies,

EP~53~ST-88/001, April 1988, p. ix.

gl~e OUST hmdbook, cit~ ~ve, cites a ‘ ‘reasonable $12 per square yard’ for soils senl [0 nonhazardous landfills and ‘‘up to $160 per Wwe

yard if the soit is considered hazardous” [p. ix].

820TA ~omp~ ~1 Sumd si~s which g~n~ a ROD in fisc~ yew 1988. There was no difference between enforcement and find sites in the

average time it took the program to move them from placement on the NPL to ROD completion.
Chapter 4-Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund ● 215

average, State staff have to work a little harder on

NPL sites than non-NPL sites but that the elapsed

time is about the same.83 Data from California shows

that an RIFS on a State-funded site takes from 11 to

42 months compared to EPA’s 21 to 38 months for

an RIFS.84 That is, an RIFS in California can

consume less or more time than a Superfund one. In

New York State the average time for an RIFS is 24

months v. EPA’s average 32 months, as determined

by OTA in Are We Cleaning Up? In another example

of pace, New York State said in a 1987 report that

only 2 of the 15 planned starts ( 13 percent) for the

State program actually were initiated while 12 of the

22 planned starts (54 percent) under the Superfund

program in the State were initiated. The identified

causes of the difference were: 1 ) resources shifted to

oversee work by responsible parties, 2) lengthy

contract procurement procedures, 3) a shortage of

experienced staff, and 4) a liability insurance problem.85 This performance measure improved the

following year. The reason may have been that staff

had been added to the State program.

Under RCRA, some cleanup regulations have

been in place since 1983, but EPA’s authority was

greatly expanded in 1984. Five years later, several

thousand sites are just beginning the initial assessment process, the new regulations covering cleanup

have not been proposed, and OTA was only able to

identify 12 sites with completed Corrective Measures Studies (CMSs).86 Although some cleanups

may have been completed as part of permits in the

RCRA program, information on progress is not

available. Out of some 5,000 RCRA facilities in the

country, initial site evaluations have been done at

1,372 facilities. Of the 1,122 of those facilities

determined to need further evaluations, EPA regions

have formally required owners to proceed with 499

of them, either through orders or as part of permits.

For other Federal programs, the pace varies. The

UMTRCA inactive mills program has been authorized for 10 years and by the end of fiscal year 1988

had only claimed to have completed the cleanup of

2 out of 24 sites.87 On the other hand, the LUST

program, whose statutory authority dates from 1984

and 1986, appears to be moving briskly. A recent

annual report claims that responsible parties are

beginning cleanups at “thousands of sites’ and that

more than 155 corrective actions have begun using

fund monies.88 But over 300,000 tanks may need

attention, so the program’s pace is an unknown. The

AML program has moved fairly aggressively on coal

mine cleanups, but substantial work is left to be done

at noncoal mines because they are the third priority

of the program.

Not Enough Public Participation

Congress has not, for other cleanup programs,

given nearly as much attention to public participation as it has under CERCLA, where an entire

section outlines the scope of public participation.

Lack of statutory direction does not necessarily

mean that public participation will not be as broad

under other programs. But the level of complaint

about how public participation slows the process in

Superfund suggests otherwise. However, Superfund’s public participation has been a significant

factor in moving Superfund implementation toward

more compliance with statutory requirements. When

other cleanup programs have less public participation, the prospect for less stringent cleanup (and

potential for creating future Superfund sites) increases.

Not everyone agrees that EPA allows the public to

adequately participate in the Superfund program and

certainly not to the extent that PRPs do, But

CERCLA does encourage public participation at an

early stage and throughout the cleanup process, and .

83~~work effon rw~r~ of Stae st~f is 4.5 work yews on a State-lead NPL site and 3.4 years On a non-mL si~. me average time elaPs~ Wr

site is 5.5 years on an EPA-lead NPL site, 5.6 years on a State-lead NPL site, and 4.7 years on a non-NPL site. [Association of State and Ta_ritorial Solid

Waste Management Ofi3cials, “State Programs for Hazardous Waste Silc Assessments and Remedial Actions, ’ June 1987. ]

gdc~ifo~a data from ‘ ‘Expenditure plm for tie Hazardous Substance Cleanup Bond Act of 1984, Revised January 1988, ’ op. cit. footnote 69. Data

on EPA from OTA’S Are We Cleaning Up?

SSNewYork Dep~ent of Environmental Conservation, ‘‘New York Mate inactive Hazardous Waste Site Remedial Plan Update and Status Report, ”

Oct. 30, 1987.

86A R~A ~m=tlve ~tim CMS is comp~able to a superf~d RIFS, bu( it includes tie f~ili~ owner’s suggested remedy.

870TA did not review active mill cleanups.

811J.s. mvironment~ I%mxtion Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Responw, ‘ ‘Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1988, ” op. cit., footnote

48.
216 . Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

participation is set up to be active, rather than

passive. For remedial actions, the regional community relations program is supposed to establish

contact with local citizens before any action is

planned or undertaken and follow up with notice of

proposed and final remedial actions. Once a preliminary decision has been made on the selected site

remedy, the public has an opportunity to comment

and EPA must respond to those comments. For

removal actions, an onsite public coordinator is

assigned to answer any questions the public may

have. In addition, under CERCLA the public has

been given the right to sue to enforce the law.

Unique to Superfund is the provision for awarding

technical assistance grants to public citizen groups.

TAGs were meant to assist the affected community

at sites at understanding and evaluating the problems

posed and to help assure that cleanups were chosen

in accordance with SARA. However, the concept

has not necessarily been well implemented by EPA.

Criticism has been raised by Congress and public

interest groups about the way EPA translated

statutory language into practice. For instance, one

congressional survey found the system so complex

and cumbersome that it tended to discourage groups

to participate.89 Still, groups who have obtained

TAGs have been helped (see box 3-F in chapter 3).

Despite the implementation flaws, public participation with the Superfund program is supposed to be

very broad. TSCA has no provisions for public

participation and since cleanups under TSCA are

enforcement cases, the public may have no knowledge of how their interests are being protected until

a court settlement has been completed and avenues

for changes are essentially closed. The same kind of

public closeout occurs in the Superfund program at

enforcement sites. When EPA wrote the regulations

for the UST program, provisions for public participation were included only for the last of six possible

phases prior to actual cleanup. When a confirmed

release requires a cleanup plan, the implementing

agency must notify the public and release information but has the option to decide whether or not to

hold a public meeting to discuss the plan.

Under RCRA the public must be notified when

EPA intends to issue a permit (which may include

cleanup requirements) and hold a hearing. Under an

enforcement order, citizens only become involved

after a facility has completed its investigation and

recommended a cleanup plan. As in the LUST

program, a public hearing is only held if the

authorities decide there is enough interest to merit

one.

Information Tough To Get

Most other programs receive less public scrutiny

than Superfund and even Federal ones are largely

implemented at the State level. This can make

gathering information to understand what is happening in these programs difficult and time-consuming.

For those programs that rely on enforcement,

information is even less available because of its

negotiation value.

It is possible to track progress at most Superfund

sites by examining a copy of the Superfund Comprehensive Assessments Plan. No such national database exists for any of the other programs, although

the RCRA program is attempting to put one together.

So far, not all information originally designed for the

system is maintained and regions have been inconsistent in entering data. Thus, to make sure how

many CMSs have been finished under RCRA, OTA

had to call 10 EPA regional offices. For the LUST

program, most relevant information resides at the

State or local level. OTA was not able to, for

instance, obtain from the EPA headquarters office

any specific information about sites that have been

cleaned up under the LUST program. If one wants to

know about a LUST site, it is necessary to first find

the relevant agency in charge. Because of the

flexibility that EPA has built into the UST programs,

the mix of responsible agencies is broad. According

to a 1987 report, five were in ‘‘the State Fire

Marshall’s Office, one in the State Corporation

Commission, about eight in the water program and

the remainder in the hazardous waste program. ”90

Specific sites deferred from the Superfund program are discussed in the Federal Register when

s~.s. How of Re~sen~ives, ltepre~nlatives Edwwd J. Markey (D-MA) and James J. Flono (D-NJ), ‘ ‘EPA’s Superfund TAG Game, A Report

on the Implementation of the Superfund Tkchnical Asslwtnce Grant Program by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ’ Mar. 2, 1989.

%J.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Erncrgency Response, ‘ ‘Solid and Hazardous Waste Report for Fuscal Year

1987,” November 1987, p. 3-2.
Chapter 4--Other Cleanup Programs and Superfund . 217

EPA makes a decision. For instance, in 1988 EPA

announced and listed the names and location of 30

sites on the NPL to be moved from Superfund to

RCRA and 15 to be retained. For those gone from

Superfund, the public tracking system disappears.

EPA’s proposed policy in December 1988 discusses

the relevance of the NPL as a source of public

information but claims that reducing the numbers of

sites qualifying for the NPL will “. . . provide more

meaningful information to the public and the

States” [emphasis added].91 What EPA may mean is

that with an NPL confined to sites actually being

cleaned up by the Superfund program, the public

will not get confused about who is responsible. To

keep the public informed about sites that have been

deferred, EPA discusses various alternatives, such as

notices in local newspapers or letting States handle

notification.

The way information about non-Superfund

cleanups is diffused throughout the Nation makes

it all the more difficult to ascertain the extent to

which cleanups in other programs may eventually produce new work for Superfund.

CONCLUSIONS

The job of cleaning up past mismanaged hazardous wastes has only just begun. While it is clear that

the Superfund program needs to get its own house in

order, there are compelling reasons to worry that

cleanups occurring outside of Superfund may

one day provide it with a whole new class of

sites-sites for which cleanup has been mismanaged. This is not occurring-like past mistakes

did—because we do not understand the consequences or do not have enough information to do

things better. It is happening because we have

created one premier cleanup program that gets all the

attention, while the others operate in the shadows.

Given the large estimates for numbers of potential

sites for each program, it is impractical to suggest

that there ought to be ONE cleanup program. But,

there are ways to coordinate actions among the

cleanup programs so as to minimize failures and

their impacts. As discussed in chapter 1, a set of

national cleanup standards is one option. With

cleanups so widely dispersed, better program cleanup

tracking systems (and ones that are compatible with

each other) would help Congress and the public

know what is happening so that when cleanup

failures occur they could be corrected early. The

programs could be partially integrated and long-term

savings accrue to all through a national site discovery program (see ch. 2). Solutions for the technical

resource stresses of the Superfund program, if not

viewed from the perspective of the ongoing national

cleanup effort, might be only a partial or patchwork

affair. And, mechanisms could be constructed to

encourage sharing of technical knowledge.

91s3 F~r~ Re@ster 51394, k. 21, 1988, p. 51416.
Index
Index

Abandoned Mine Lands, AML, 198, 199, 205, 209, 211-213,

215

air stripping, 44, 140, 145, 147, 148, 176

Alabama, 16, 164

Alaska, 200

aquifer, 4,44,47,48, 147, 151-153, 155, 157-159, 161, 166, 168.

185

Arizona, 202

Arkansas, 206

asbestos, 51, 66, 101, 141, 193, 202, 203, 212, 213, 214

Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, AHERA, 203,212,

213

biological

destruction, 47, 146

treatment, 17, 28, 45, 46, 47, 140, 142, 143, 147, 150, 157,

164-169, 181, 185, 188, 189

bioremediation, 188, 211

biotreatment, 166, 186

burial, 14, 23.25, 146, 155

California, 13,23,71,94, 95,99, 114, 117, 128, 167, 193, 199,

202, 211, 213, 215

cancer, 22, 24, 26, 33, 130, 157, 164. 165, 166, 167, 168, 180

Cap(s), 42, 45, 75, 141, 167, 170, 171, 211

CERCLIS inventory, 1 I, 85, 85, 86, 88, 91, 96, 97, 98, 99,

100-102, 104, 107, 108, 111, 114, 117, 125-128, 131, 196,

206

chemical

fixation, 36,45,49,71,79,81, 140, 142, 143, 145, 146, 149,

167, 168, 169, 172, 182

stabilization, 45, 71, 140, 145, 146, 168, 170, 185, 189

solidification, 45, 140, 145

cleanup

criteria, 40

goals, 3, 15,38,40,41,62,63,66, 67,74, 139, 163, 177, 178,

198, 201

levels, 38, 168, 207, 211

objectives. 3, 10, 16, 18, 20, 21, 31, 40, 45, 54, 58, 66, 77, 79,

139, 143, 148, 155, 158, 159, 160, 161, 170, 171, 173, 174,

184, 189

standards, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 38.39, 40, 41, 48.51.54, 60, 62,

66, 67, 77, 81, 161, 162, 164, 165, 169, 170, 174, 177, 193,

I98 206, 209,211, 214, 217

Colorado, 165, 206, 208

community (ies), 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27,

31,34,36,39,48,49,53, 55,67,68,69,71.77,82, 117, 151,

155, 157, 161, 162, 167, 175, 179, 186, 187, 197, 216

conflict(s) of interest, 5, 17, 18, 50, 53, 54, 80, 81

containment, 13, 16, 17, 32, 36, 41, 42, 44, 47, 52, 67, 71, 72,

139, 141, 142, 145, 146, 148, 157, 161, 162, 163, 164, 167,

168, 171, 172, 175, 177, 179, 180, 189,201, 206,209-212

contractor(s), 4.7, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 27, 30, 43, 44, 48-52

54, 55,62,63, 64,66,69,70, 71, 72, 76, 78, 81, 105, 106,

107, 108, 109, 111-114, 123, 135, 142, 150, 159, 160.166,

171, 175, 182, 187, 188, 190, 194, 199, 203

corrective action, 174, 205, 214, 215

cost, 3-8, 10, 16, 17, 19, 21,25, 26, 30, 40, 50, 51,54, 56, 57, 59,

62,63,67,68,70-74,78, 79,81,85,86,94,95,97, 102,104,

109, 112, 115, 122, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 155, 159, 164,

166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 178, 179, 185, 189,

193, 195, 196, 197,200, 202,214

cost-benefit, 8, 16, 17, 21, 25, 64, 65, 66, 67, 163, 175, 176

cost-effectiveness, 5, 16,21, 31, 34,40, 53, 65,66, 67, 87, 139,

154, 175, 176, 179

creosote, 40, 153, 164, 165, 166, 169

deed restrictions, 42, 141

deferral, 33, 106, 172, 196, 197, 201, 205

of cleanup(s), 11, 126

of site(s), 40, 125, 203

policy, 60, 76, 194, 207

Delaware, 24

Department of Defense, DOD, 64, 100, 127, 209, 210

Department of Energy, DOE, 100, 198, 199, 205, 210, 212

Department of the Interior, DOI, 100, 173, 197, 198

destruction technology, 34,44,46,47, 140, 143, 148, 163, 164,

178

dioxin, 98, 165

enforcement, 6,9, 17, 19, 21, 27, 30, 40, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59,

68, 80, 117, 128, 161, 162, 163, 163, 164, 165, 167, 169,

170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 193, 197, 198, 199,201,203,206,

209, 211, 213,214, 216

engineering controls, 44, 45, 47, 79, 141, 143

environmental

mission, 3, 10, 27, 38, 125, 196

performance, 13, 15, 18, 57, 60, 72, 73, 77, 79, 80, 203

Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center, EPIC, 88,

89, 90, 94, 95, 96,97, 98

EPA

region 1, 56, 90

region 2, 56, 88, 90, 95, 97, 98, 145

region 3, 56, 66, 90, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 166

region 4, 56, 90, 95, 97, 98, 113, 186

region 5, 56, 106, 108, 112, 113, 145, 163, 171, 172, 200

region 6, 56, 107, 145, 187, 207

region 7, 56, 117, 145

region 8, 56, 114

region 9, 113, 114

region 10, 56, 107, 145

epidemiologic, 22, 23

excessive flexibility, 3, 16, 18, 20,21.29, 37, 38, 40, 42, 51, 60,

67, 163

excessive program

flexibility, 20,21,45

false negative(s), 10, 37, 86, 96, 102, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115,

119, 120, 121, 124, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136

false positive(s), 37, 95, 96, 102, 106, 111, 112. 119, 120, 121.

124, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136

Florida, 16, 17, 62, 79, 81, 99, 164, 165, 169, 176, 210

–LL1–
222 ● Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved . . .

Georgia, 176

groundwater, 4,8, 12, 13, 14, 18,22,23,24,26,28,32, 33,34,

41,44,45,47,48,49,59, 67,71,72,74,75,79, 117, 123,

127, 140, 145-148, 151-161, 163-166, 168, 170-173, 176,

180, 181, 185, 195,201,205,207-214

Hazard Ranking System (HRS), HRS score, 7,11,12, 14,26,34,

63, 64,73,99, 101-109, 111-126, 128, 130-132, 134, 135,

195, 196, 197, 200,207,209

health, health effects, 3,4,5,9, 10, 13,18-23,25,27,28,31, 32,

34,37,38,39,40,42,48, 53,54,64-69,75,78,86, 87,88,

97, 102, 104, 111, 115, 122, 123, 133, 142, 155, 160, 162,

163, 169, 170, 172, 174, 175, 184, 195, 196, 197, 198,201,

206,207,209,212,213

heavy metals, 51, 182

hierarchy of cleanup remedies or technologies, 40, 59

historical aerial photography, HAP, HAP analysis, 85, 89, 90,

91,93,94,95,96,97, 100, 133

Illinois, 114, 123, 172, 193, 210

impermanent cleanup, 13, 41

impermanent remedy, 4, 13, 16,28,35,41,44,75, 140, 160, 177,

179

impermanent technology, 161

incineration, 14, 17, 18,28,46,49, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146,

147, 148,149, 150, 163, 165, 166, 167,168, 169, 171, 172,

173, 175, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 186,210,214

Indiana, 81, 186

indicator chemical(s), 64, 65

information transfer, 79, 151, 187

innovation, 51, 178, 183

innovative technology, 6, 77, 183, 184, 185

institutional controls, 42, 44, 75, 79, 143, 167, 170

inventory (ies) (of sites), 10, 11, 61, 86, 87, 89, 91, 94, 96, 100,

124

Iowa, 55, 109

Kansas, 33, 117,200, 210

land disposal, 4,6, 13, 14, 16,21,32,39,41,42,43, 44,46,71,

78, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 162,

163, 165, 166, 167, 171, 175, 177, 187, 189,206,216

landfill(s), 8, 14,41,42,45,48,51,62, 71,72,75,76,95,96,98,

100, 101, 123, 128, 139, 140, 143, 145, 146, 148, 157, 161,

163,164, 165, 167, 168, 169,170,171,172, 173, 175, 180,

205,210,211,213,214

lead, 40,48, 51,70,71, 163, 170

leaking underground storage tanks, LUST, 99, 101, 128, 129,

174, 198, 199,205,207,210,214, 215,216

liability (ies), 3,20,27,52,57,58, 150, 159, 160, 178, 195,215

Louisiana, 34, 105, 115, 117, 169, 180

marine sediment(s), 123, 199, 200, 203

Maryland, 17,90, 164, 165, 166

Massachusetts, 23,24,90, 106, 184

Michigan, 18,22, 170

Minnesota 13, 14, 107, 117, 123, 172, 173, 193,200,201,211

Missouri, 34, 145, 184

Montana, 211, 212,213

National Contingency Plan, NCP, 42,66,82, 103, 104,109, 115,

163, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199,214

National priorities List, NPL, 4,6, 7,9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 26,

31,32,33,34,35,37,43, 51,53,56,61,62,63,64, 71,76,

81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 96,99, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107,

112-120, 123-129, 133, 142, 143, 195, 196,200,205,208,

210,214,215,216

New Hampshire, 24, 180

New Jersey, 23,24,99, 101, 115, 117, 145, 186, 195,200, 211,

213

New York, 13, 23,90,95,96,97, 181, 193, 202,203,211, 215

new technology, 79, 81, 139, 142, 150, 178, 184

Ohio, 24, 71,99, 145, 169, 172, 173, 175

Oklahoma, 145, 151, 162, 186

operable unit(s), 31, 74, 76, 143, 150

Oregon, 169

oversight, 15, 18, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60, 66, 69, 70, 75, 77, 80,

162, 171, 177, 189, 190, 199, 202

Polychlorinated biphenyls, PCB(S), 22,24,40,48,51,79,81, 94,

142, 147, 153, 163, 167, 168, 169, 180, 182, 183, 188, 193,

214

Pennsylvania, 96, 171, 177, 178

permanent cleanup, 6,8,9,12, 16,21,26,31,32,41,42, 48,60,

141, 148, 162,209

permanent remedy, 5,6, 15, 16,17,27,40,41,42,43, 44,48,49,

57,67,70,71,76, 141, 142, 148, 163, 168, 169, 170, 178,

179, 180

permanent technology, 15, 16,32, 140, 141, 142, 143, 147, 150,

161, 163, 176, 186

potentially responsible party (ies), PRP(s), 17, 19,20,21,22,29,

52, 53, 58, 66, 68,99, 118, 150, 161, 168, 169, 172, 173,

181, 196, 199,202,205,215

preliminary assessment, PA, 7,11,73,88,94,95,96,97, 99, 101,

102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114,

115, 118, 130, 132, 133, 134,206, 213

preremedial, site screening, 9, 10, 11, 13, 85, 101

Public

confidence, 6, 8, 9, 30, 38, 42, 43, 53, 54, 55, 61, 62, 68, 76,

77,79

outrage, 19

participation, 13, 19,40,49,54, 160, 161, 194, 198,215,216

pump-and-treat, 4,47,48, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157

recontrol, 23, 31, 32, 34, 35, 44,47,48, 61, 66, 74, 75, 76, 142,

159, 161

Record of Decision(s), ROD(s), 6,7, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18,28,29,

31,33,34,42,47,49,50, 53,54,55,56,58,59,60, 64,66,

68,76,77,78,79,80,81, 119,120,130, 132, 133,141, 143,

145, 146, 155, 160-172, 174-179, 184, 189,213,214

recovery, 28,41.42,43,44,45,46, 56, 57,58,71, 140, 141, 142,

148, 152, 169, 170, 177, 197

recycling, 28, 71, 94, 169

Remedial Investigation Feasibility Study, RIFS(s), RI/FS(s), 7,

13, 14, 28, 29, 48, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 101, 102, 113,

117-120, 130, 132, 133, 153, 162, 164-166, 169, 171-173,

177, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 199,210, 215

remedial program managers, 69, 71
Index ● 223

remedy selection, nine criteria, 8, 12, 15, 43, 44, 58, 59, 60, 65,

66, 67, 74, 76, 77, 81, 143, 147, 159, 171, 174, 175, 210,

211,216

removal, 13, 16,31,64,75,76, 103, 143, 158, 165, 186, 195, 196,

199, 201, 206, 210, 213

removal action, 7, 11, 13, 16, 27,28, 34,51,59,74,75,76, 103,

123, 128, 142, 143, 164, 216

removal emergency, 64, 74, 76

research and development, R&D, 45, 47-49, 60, 66, 71, 72, 73,

147, 150, 157, 180, 181, 183, 184, 187

responsible party (ies), 3, 5, 6, 7,9, 12, 18,27, 28,29, 34, 36, 37,

38,49,50,52,53,54,55, 56,57,58,62,69,70,72, 78,79,

81,82,88, 133, 145, 160, 162,163,164, 165,166,167, 168,

170-172, 174, 176, 178, 179, 184, 186, 199, 200, 207

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, RCRA, 41, 87, 88,

94,95,96, 100, 102, 104, 106, 114, 128,128, 129, 149, 150,

165, 174, 178, 194, 196, 198,202,204,206,207, 208,209,

210, 212, 213, 214,215, 216, 217

RCRA corrective action, 61, 99, 100, 127, 129, 187, 198, 201,

205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 212,213, 215

Risk(s), 3,4, 12, 16, 17, 19,20,21,22,23,24,25, 26,27,28,30,

31, 33,34,35, 36, 38,39,43,44,50,58,61, 65,67,74,75,

77, 101, 120, 123, 124, 125, 130, 146, 148, 150, 155, 157,

165, 166, 170, 176, 184, 188, 190, 202

current risk, 4, 12, 14, 22, 24, 28, 30-35,42, 47, 59, 80, 101,

161, 170

future risk, 4,22, 23, 24,28,29, 30-36, 59,66,80, 101, 150,

161, 170

risk assessment(s), 8, 52,53,63,64, 121, 162, 167, 168, 172, 177

risk communication, 19

Science Advisory Board, SAB, 50,64,70,72,80, 120, 121, 123

separation technologies, 140, 146, 148, 178

settlement(s), 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 26, 31, 34, 52, 54,

56, 57,59, 62, 68, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168,

170, 171, 174, 176, 201, 216

site classification, 29, 35, 51, 52

site discovery, 4,9, 10, 11, 13, 31, 85, 86, 88, 89,90,91,92,95,

96,97, 98, 99, 102, 124, 126, 127, 217

site inspection, SI, 7, 12,28,72,73,88,96,97,99, 102, 103, 104,

105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111-116, 118, 124, 130, 131, 132,

134

site managers, 69, 77, 78, 81

soil, 8, 12, 14, 15, 18, 28, 32, 34, 38-42, 45-47, 67, 70, 71, 73,

74,75,76,98, 140, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155, 156, 158,

159, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 179, 180, 181, 185, 187,

188, 195, 205, 209,210, 211, 213, 214

soil cover(s), 45

South Carolina, 199,210

South Dakota, 90

spending, Superfund spending, 3, 6, 12, 15, 21. 25, 26, 28, 29,

33,36,48-51,56,57,60, 67,68,70,72,73,81,85, 181, 193,

200,201

strategy, 6,26,30,40,55,57,62, 86,88, 101, 102, 133, 134, 157,

159, 195, 196

Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation, SITE, 50-51, 183

technical assistance, 4, 14, 29, 48, 50, 59, 70, 71, 77

technical assistance grants, 16,35,54,68.69, 157, 197, 198.216

technology demonstration, 43, 77, 171, 186

Tennessee, 23,90, 95, 211

Texas, 24, 145, 168, 187, 188

thermal destruction, 45, 140, 146, 150, 168, 178, 181, 183

toxic metals, 46, 70, 71, 140, 142, 145, 148, 149, 169

Toxic Substances Control Act, TSCA 167, 182, 208, 214, 216

training, 3, 27, 69, 104, 114, 203

treatability study (ies), 60, 77, 163, 184, 185, 187, 190

underground storage tanks, UST, 23, 101, 129, 1981204, 205,

214, 216

Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act, UMTRCA, 198,

199, 205,212, 215

Utah, 71, 117

vacuum extraction, 49, 148, 171

Virginia, 164, 165, 166, 168

volatile organic chemicals, VOC(s), 18, 44, 148, 170, 178, 179,

188

Washington (State), 145

West Virginia, 24,90,96,98,99

Wisconsin, 99, 145

wood preserving, 17, 51, 65, 129, 163, 164

workforce, 4,7, 10, 13, 14, 15,43, 44, 54, 55,60,70,73,79,96,

107, 143, 147, 151, 156, 187, 190, 193, 199

Wyoming, 205, 211
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NOTE: Reports are available through the U.S. Government

Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents,

Washington, DC 20401-9325, (202) 783-3238; and/or

the’ National Technical Information Service, 5285

Port Royal Road, Springfield. VA 22161-0001, (703)

487-4650.