United States Environmental Protection Agency Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory Cincinnati OH 45268 Research and Development EPA/600/S2-87/087 Jan. 1988 SER& Project Summary Compendium of Costs of Remedial Technologies at Hazardous Waste Sites Edward C. Yang, Dirk Bauma, Linda Schwartz, and James D. Werner Accurate estimates of hazardous waste site remedial responses are important in order to: (1) budget the Superfund Response Fund, (2) esti- mate costs at specific sites, (3) cost- effectively select remedial actions, and (4) effectively negotiate with private response parties for private action or cost recovery. Unfortunately, standard engineering costing methodologies have been relatively inaccurate in estimating actual response costs. This is primarily due to the uniqueness of the site problems and the uncertainties in eventual effectiveness of the responses. The purpose of the full document is to record and analyze the actual expenses incurred during the remedial responses for seven major types of engineering technologies. The cost documented are the "bottomline" numbers showing the ultimate cost of the responses. The data supporting the compendium is derived for a series of 31 case studies of actual hazardous waste remedial responses. The full report also investigates the divergence between actual remedial costs and estimates from existing engineering cost methodologies. In addition, the compendium lists the major factors that cause the costs' movements. Because of the scope of the report coverage and the small sample size, the data provided are to be viewed as ' 'bench marks" for estimating future reponse costs. Users are urged to examine the specific site conditions underlying the reported costs by con- sulting the case studies from which these estimates are derived. This Project Summary was devel- oped by EPA'3 Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory. Cin- cinnati, OH, to announce key findings of the research project that is fully documented in a separate report of the same title (see Project Report ordering information at back}. Introduction Response cost information is critical to several aspects of implementation of the Comprehensive Environmental Re- sponse, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), known as Superfund. These aspects include: • Selecting cost-effective response alternatives • Documenting reasonable costs for cost recovery • Budgeting for fund balancing The purpose of the Cost Compendium is to summarize existing information for these uses. Actual expenditures and estimated costs are both given to assem- ble data from all available sources into one data base. The immediate use of this centralized source of cost information is to provide consistency in various site- specific costing tasks such as: remedial alternative costing as required in the Feasibility Study Guidance Document (FSGD), and budgeting or immediate and planned removals. The full compendium should be viewed as the first installment ------- of an outgoing data base, which will be updated periodically as more cost infor- mation becomes available from com- pleted Superfund responses. Cost data in the compendium are organized accord- ing to related technologies, such as "Surface Water Controls," and "Ground Water Controls." The costs given are for technologies that have been most com- monly used at uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, although some rarely used technologies are given because of the paucity of data. Typically, however, the number of estimates and the depth of background information are often pro- portional to the frequency of use of the technology. In addition to the organiza- tion of cost data according to technol- ogies, several other features of this cost compendium merit highlighting. Discussion Actual Expenditures Versus Estimates Most available cost information is from engineering estimates. Few such esti- mates have been field tested, however. Preliminary comparison of these esti- mates with actual expenditures has shown significant differences in many cases. Since merging these two types of data would be misleading to the reader, the compendium separates, ex ante, engineering estimates from actually observed expenditures. Although actual expenditure data, which has been "ground truthed," are generally more reliable than estimated cost data, esti- mates are useful because they broaden the range of site charcteristics and technical circumstances for which costs are available. The factors that were included in deriving the cost estimates may reflect a situation that more closely parallels the intended use of the cost data than any of the situations for which actual expenditure data are available. Focus on Unit-Cost Data are given in a unit-cost form, in terms of dollars per unit operation, such as cost per square foot of slurry wall, or cost per gallon of treated water. Since the units used are important, consider- ation was given to the selection to ensure that they were useful and/or standard- ized throughout the industry. English measure only is used for simplicity. These unit costs typically include all related costs such as material, labor, and equipment and other capital costs. Operation and labor costs are given when they are applicable and available. Inclusion of Summary and Raw Data The full compendium organizes cost data into two levels: (1) summary data, and (2) raw data. The first level gives summary data such as range, and when possible, mean and standard error. This summation of the raw data should be used only for very general cost screening and budgeting, since the wide ranges of the data presented, and the lack of background explanation on this level render it unsuitable for more specific costing purposes. Such specific cost estimation should use raw data, on the second level, which provides more detail on the data compilation. This detail can be used for matching to the circumstan- ces at the site for which it is to be used. The user should compare the site circum- stances to the factors given in the raw data to estimate the effect of these factors on the estimated cost. Factors Found to Affect Costs A fundamental concept of estimating costs of technology is that a variety of factors influence these costs. The com- pendium discusses these factors for each technology. This brief discussion of the effects of these factors reflects the descriptive detail given for each data source in the table of raw data. The essential site characteristics for actual expenditure data are typically described. These site characteristics are drawn from a hypothetical site scenario that is usually established for making necessary assumptions for estimating costs. The level of detail available for actual site characteristics and hypothetical site scenarios varied widely. Constant 1982 Dollars Since the source data, on which the compendium is based, originated in different years between 1975 and 1982, all costs were indexed to constant 1982 dollars using the Engineering News Record (ENR) construction cost index. This index reflects the weighted cost trend of common labor (74%), structural steel (15%), lumber (9%), and portland cement (2%). Data from 1983 documents were not deflated to 1982 dollars for two reasons. First, most of the costs for 1983 were actually incurred in 1982 or esti- mated for 1982 dollars. Second, the change in the ENR index between 1982 and 1983 is expected to be very small. Cost of Health and Safety Protection One of the key factors affecting the costs of responses at uncontrolled sites is the level of protection for health and safety of on-site workers. The level of hazard determines the type of protective measures the workers must take, which ultimately affects the cost of the response. Many of the data sources used in the compendium, however, did not explicitly note health and safety con- cerns. The cost data for actual expen- ditures include whatever protective measures were taken at the site. Often, however, the available information on the response action did not fully describe the protective measures. This defect may be corrected by further research. Health and safety assumptions for estimates are usually less clear than expenditures. In only one case did the estimator explicitly consider the cost effect of various protective measures. SCS Engineers recently completed a study on the cost of health and safety protection for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development. Six cleanup firms were asked to bid on six hypothetical uncontrolled site scenarios with five levels of personal protection for the study. First the results, presented in the full compendium, are from a final draft version of the SCS report. Additional changes may be made to the results. Second, the validity of the results depends on how seriously the bidders took the hypothetical scenarios and whether the bidders were neutral in providing the estimates (i.e., free from motives that may misrepresent the costs). ------- Edward C. Yang. Dirk Bauma. Linda Schwartz, and James D. Werner are with the Environmental Law Institute, Washington, DC 20036. Douglas Ammon is the EPA Project Officer (see below). The complete report, entitled "Compendium of Costs of Remedial Technologies at Hazardous Waste Sites," (Order No. PB 88-113 477/AS; Cost: $25.95, subject to change) will be available only from: National Technical Information Service 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161 Telephone: 703-487-4650 For information Donald Satining can be contacted at: Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Cincinnati, OH 45268 United States Environmental Protection Agency Center for Environmental Research Information Cincinnati OH 45268 Official Business Penalty for Private Use S300 EPA/600/S2-87/087 - C' M c T f 01 »c50iQ9 I 0000329 PS ------- |