Signed August 27, 2001
U.S EPA Headquarters Library
Mail code 3404T
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20460
202-566-0556
OSWER 9355.7-07
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
FROHt
TO:
Purpose;
Five-Year Review Program Initiatives
Larry G. Reed, Acting Director Signed Larry G. Reed
Office of Emergency and Remedial Response
Superfund National Policy Managers
Regions 1-10
Now that the "Comprehensive Five-Year Review Guidance" has
been issued, we need to focus our attention on implementing the
guidance and other related Five-Year Review program issues.
Several areas need to be addressed and processes implemented that
will allow us to better categorize and track the progress of
Five-Year Review activities.
Background:
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and more recently
Resources for the Future (RFF) in a recently published report
titled "Superfund's Future, What Will It Cost?," have made a
series of recommendations to improve the Five-Year Review
process. Some of the recommendations include:
- Ensure that the "Statement of Protectiveness" in the Five-
Year Review reports are adequately supported and that the
Agency follows its own guidance when evaluating the
protectiveness of remedies. RFF raised concerns about the
protectiveness statements in 48 Five-Year Reviews completed
during FY99/00.
- Include milestone dates for implementing report
recommendations, and identify parties responsible for
performing required corrective actions as well as the
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organization responsible for overseeing performance of
corrective actions in the Five-Year Review reports.
- Create and maintain a system that compiles the
recommendations made in Five-Year Review reports and
establish a mechanism to make certain that the
recommendations are, in fact, implemented.
- Ensure that communities are informed in a timely manner of
the results of Five-Year Reviews, and improve public access
to Five-Year Review reports by increasing their clarity and
posting them on the EPA website.
- Eliminate the backlog of overdue Five-Year Reviews, and
complete Five-Year Reviews on-time.
Required Actioni
In response to the recommendations identified above, the
Agency has developed a series of initiatives to improve the
management of the Five-Year Review program and the quality of the
reports:
1) Improve the quality and consistency of Five-Year Review
reports.
- Completion and issuance of the "Comprehensive Five-Year
Review Guidance." The guidance is designed to provide an
approach for conducting Five-Year Reviews; facilitate
consistency across the ten Regions; clarify current policy;
and discuss roles and responsibilities of various entities
in conducting or supporting Five-Year Reviews. The guidance
is now available on the Superfund web page and copies are
being printed for distribution.
- Develop and offer Five-Year Review training to Regional
staff and others involved with Five-Year Reviews. A 4-hour
long training package has been developed, highlighting the
components of the new "Comprehensive Five-Year Review
Guidance," as well as the process of conducting Five-Year
Reviews. The training was presented during the July 2001
meeting of the National Association of Remedial Project
Managers. We plan to present the training in all ten
Regions during FY2002.
- Starting in FY2002 conduct quality reviews of selected
Five-Year Review reports prepared by each Region. In an
effort to improve the consistency and quality of the Five-
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Year Review reports, as well as to ensure effective
implementation of the "Comprehensive Five-Year Review
Guidance," OERR Regional Center staff will review a sample
of draft Five-Year Review reports from each Region. OERR
will review the draft reports and provide comments back to
the Regions within two weeks. Please direct your staff
conducting Five-Year reviews to send the draft reports to
their designated OERR Regional Center Five-Year Review
Coordinator (see attachment).
- Complete review of sites where the Five-Year Review report
protectiveness statement was questioned by RFF. We recently
made available to the Regions a list of 48 Five-Year Review
reports identified by RFF as not having clearly supported
protectiveness statements. By September 30, 2001, please
confirm in writing to this office that you have reviewed the
identified reports prepared by your Region, and briefly
summarize the actions taken or planned to clarify and
reaffirm the protectiveness statement. We suggest that a
brief addendum to each of the 48 Five-Year Review reports be
prepared (signed by a regional manager) providing the
necessary clarification. For reviews where the remedy is
not complete, or where institutional controls required to
ensure protectiveness are not in place, use of the
protectiveness statement options in the "Comprehensive Five-
Year Review Guidance" may be appropriate. All actions to
clarify these reviews should be completed by December 31,
2001, to the extent possible. A copy of the Five-Year
Review report addendums should be forwarded to this office.
- Track corrective actions and recommendations in Five-Year
Review reports. The new guidance indicates that each EPA
Region should report annually to EPA Headquarters on the
progress of the Five-Year Reviews for each of their sites.
The report should include a status of follow-up actions
identified in Five-Year Review reports from previous fiscal
years. Also, for each completed Five-Year Review, a summary
of the protectiveness determination(s), issues that impact
protectiveness, follow-up actions, and the schedule and
entity responsible for implementing such actions should be
provided. This requirement becomes effective in FY2002, and
the first report is due to Headquarters 30 days after the
end of FY2002.
2} Provide public access to Five-Year Review Reports.
- Provide public access to Five-Year Review reports prepared
during and after FY2Q02 via the internet. Through this
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initiative, we are responding to concerns regarding
notifying communities about the findings and recommendations
in Five-Year Review reports. Starting in FY2002 and beyond,
we request that within 10 days of completion (EPA Region
signature/concurrence) of a Five-Year Review the complete
report be made available to the general public through the
regional internet web page.
3) Eliminate backlog and ensure timely completion of overdue
Five-Year Review reports.
- The OIG recommended that the Assistant Administrator for
Solid Waste and Emergency Response include the backlog of
Five-Year Review reports as a weakness under the Federal
Managers' Financial Integrity Act. The backlog of overdue
reports has been included as a material weakness and a
commitment was made to clear the backlog in three years.
FY2001 is the second year of this effort. Although progress
has been made in reducing the backlog we must ensure that we
do not continue to add to the backlog and are able to clear
the backlog by the end of FY2002. We expect as many as 175
reviews will be required during FY2002, including the
reports scheduled for FY2002 as well as the remainder of the
backlog. This will require a concerted effort by regional
managers and staff to ensure successful completion.
Conclusiont
We want to thank you for your continued support and
attention to the Five-Year Review process. The "Comprehensive
Five-Year Review Guidance" is available on the Internet at
http://epa.gov/superfund/pubs.htm. We will be in contact with
your staff in the near future to arrange a schedule for training.
If you have any questions, please contact your Headquarters
Regional Accelerated Response Center.
Attachment
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Attachment
OERR Five-Year Review Coordinators
Karen Bankert
Edward Cayous
Karen Tomimatsu
Jim Konz
Tracy Hopkins
Silvina Fonseca
Mike Bellot
Regions 1 & 9
Regions 1 & 9
Regions 2 & 6
Regions 2 & 6
Regions 3 & 8
Regions 4 & 10
Regions 5 & 7
(703) 603-
(703) 603-
(703) 603-
(703) 603-
(703) 603-
(703) 603-
(703) 603-
9046 bankert.karen@epa.gov
8807 cayoua.edward@epa.gov
8738 tomimatsu.karen@epa.gov
8841 konz.james@epa.gov
8788 hopkins.tracy@epa.gov
8799 fonseca.silvina@epa.gov
8905 bellot.mike@epa.gov
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cc: Jeff Josephson, Superfund Lead Region Coordinator, Region 2
NARPM Co-Chairs
Michael H. Shapiro, OSWER
Stephen D. Luftig, OSWER
James E. Woolford, FFRRO
Earl C. Salo, OGC
Elaine Davies, OERR
Paul Nadeau, OERR
Regional Center Directors, OERR
Ed Cayous, OERR, Rl/9 Center FYR Coordinator
Karen Bankert, OERR, Rl/9 Center FYR Coordinator
Jim Konz, OERR, R2/6 Center FYR Coordinator
Karen Totnimatsu, OERR, R2/6 Center FYR Coordinator
Tracy Hopkins, OERR, R3/8 Center FYR Coordinator
Silvina Fonseca, OERR, R4/10 Center FYR Coordinator
Mike Bellot, OERR, R5/7 Center FYR Coordinator
Patti Ludwig, Region 1
Dan Forger, Region 2
Walter Graham, Region 3
Ken Lucas, Region 4
Rosita Clarke, Region 5
Don William, Region 6
Pamela Samek, Region 7
Rebecca Thomas, Region 8
Tom Kremer, Region 9
Beverly Gaines, Region 10
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