United States
                 Environmental Protection
                 Agency
       Solid Waste and
       Emergency Response
       (OS-305)
EPA530-F-92-027
January 1993
                 Office of Solid Waste
                 Environmental
                 Fact Sheet
                 The National Corrective Action
                 Prioritization System
Corrective Action: A Background

      In 1984, Congress amended the
Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act (RCRA), and provided EPA with
broad new authorities to require clean-
up, or "corrective action", at hazardous
waste management facilities. Correc-
tive action can involve a wide variety of
activities, including cleanup of con-
taminated environmental media such
as soils and ground water, treatment
of the sources of contamination, and
actions to control or prevent exposure
to contamination.  EPA can require
corrective action at facilities that have
RCRA permits as well as at facilities
that are operating under "interim
status."

Setting Priorities

      Currently, there are approxi-
mately 4,300 facilities that treat, store,
or dispose of hazardous wastes, which
can be compelled to take corrective
action when necessary. Some facilities
are very large and have extensive con-
tamination problems which rival the
largest Superfund sites. Other facili-
ties have relatively minor environmen-
tal problems. Still others will not need
remedial action at all. Given this
diversity, the large number of RCRA
facilities, and the technical complexi-
ties of remediation, EPA and the States
must set priorities in deciding which
facilities should receive attention, and
when.

What is NCAPS?

     It is EPA's policy to compel cor-
rective action at the "worst sites first."
As a result, the Agency has developed
a system for assessing the relative
environmental cleanup priority of
RCRA facilities, called the National
Corrective Action Prioritization System
(NCAPS). This system is Intended to
provide a nationally consistent ap-
proach to assessing site factors that
drive cleanup priority decisions.

     NCAPS is a computer-based
system that considers a variety of
environmental factors in assessing the
priority of sites, such as the types and
volumes of wastes present, contami-
nant release pathways, and the poten-
tial for exposure to contaminants by
humans and ecosystems. In this
sense, the system is similar to the
Hazard Ranking System (HRS) used by
the Superfund program.  However,
NCAPS is designed to be a less re-
source intensive system to use, and
provides priority rankings with less
site data than is normally required for
HRS  scoring.

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NCAPS Ranking

     NCAPS generates a High, Medium
or Low ranking for each facility. The
ranking is based on an evaluation of four
pathways of actual or potential contami-
nation (ground water, surface water, air
and soils) and  nationally-established
criteria for determining High/Medium/
Low. The information needed for running
the system is usually obtained from ini-
tial assessments of facilities conducted by
EPA or authorized States. EPA expects
that such assessments (commonly called
RCRA Facility Assessments, or RFAs) will
have been completed, and NCAPS rank-
ings determined, for nearly all RCRA
facilities by the end of 1993.

      A facility's ranking may change
based on new  or additional information
or as a result of a remedial action at the
site. Consequently, the rankings generat-
ed by the NCAPS system may also
change.  In addition, the Agency expects
to make refinements to NCAPS based on
the operating experience of EPA and the
authorized States.  Such changes could
also affect the scores of some sites.

How NCAPS Rankings Are Used

      EPA and the authorized States
use the High/Medium/Low rankings to
identify the  general priority for initiating
cleanup  of facilities through either per-
mits or enforcement orders.  However, a
facility's  NCAPS ranking is not the only
factor in determining when corrective
action will be initiated.  Other factors,
such as the enforcement history of the
facility, the  need to address the facility
in the context of a regional environmental
initiative (e.g., EPA's Great Lakes Initia-
tive), or other special conditions at the
site, can also play a role in determining
which facilities are a high priority for
corrective action.
RCRA: Beyond Corrective Action

     In addition to corrective action,
the RCRA program is responsible for
ensuring that hazardous waste manage-
ment facilities comply with a wide range
of "prevention" requirements designed to
minimize the risk of future contamination
problems. To this end, issuing operating
permits and enforcing RCRA regulatory
requirements are also important program
priorities. Balancing and integrating the
cleanup and prevention goals of the
RCRA program is a continuing challenge
for EPA and the States. Further informa-
tion on EPA's overall strategy for imple-
menting the RCRA program is provided in
the EPA RCRA Implementation Plan,
which is updated annually and is avail-
able from EPA Regional Offices or the
RCRA Hotline (see below).
For Further Information

      Further information on the
NCAPS system may be obtained by
contacting RCRA program staff in EPA's
Regional Offices. Inquiries may be
directed to:
Region i
Region II
Region ID
Region IV
Region V
Region VI
Region VII
Region VIII
Region DC
Region X
(617) 573-5700
(212) 264-2301
(215) 597-8131
(404) 347-3454
(312) 886-7579
(214) 655-6700
(913) 551-7050
(303) 293-1720
(415) 744-1730
(206) 553-2808
      For additional information on the
 general RCRA program, or for additional
 copies of this Fact Sheet, call the RCRA
 He-line at (800) 424-9346, or TDD (800)
 55  7672 for the hearing impaired. In
 the  Washington, D.C. metro area, the
 numbers are (703) 920-9810 or TDD
 (703) 486-3323.

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