Under the former program, since there was no regional plan, corrective actions were pursed for a variety of reasons, not all of which related to the risk posed by the site. The result has been a greater number of improved corrective actions, many of which have been voluntary or self-directed. The program now takes advantage of opportunities where facility owners want to move quickly. We meet, provide guidance, outline goals and set performance standards. Instead of using only tried and true enforceable remediation methods, the program aggressively seeks out areas of flexibility that will save time and money without sacrificing quality.
Experimentation is encouraged.
And, importantly, when necessary, we will use our traditional enforcement tools including deferring sites to the federal Superfund program when appropriate. In 1994 Sequa agreed to remediate two unlined lagoons on the property and continue performing site investigations that had been initiated a year earlier. The current owner of the site was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the arrangement we had with Sequa would have only allowed further studies of the contamination. Realizing that a cleanup had to be initiated soon, we sat down with Sequa, the Rhode Island DEM and others to devise a comprehensive plan to clean up the site and return the site to productive use. Thanks to this cooperative approach, a site whose unlined lagoons once oozed a reddish sludge devoid of life now is home to frogs, snakes, raccoons and a variety of other life.