United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Affairs!A-107)
Washington DC 20460
December 198/
OPA-87-007
Superfund:
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Reprinted from EPA Journal
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The Birth of A
'am
The Problem
The dimensions of the hazardous waste
problem are so vast they are almost
impossible to comprehend.
There are 240,000,000 people in the
United States. Try to imagine a ton of
hazardous waste piled next to each of
them, with another ton added each and
every year.
Hazardous waste is produced in this
country at the rate of 700,000 tons per
day. That's 250 million tons per
year—enough to fill the Superdome in
New Orleans 1500 times over.
Yet vast though it is, hazardous waste
is only a small fraction of all waste
generated in the United States. More
than six billion tons of waste are
produced in this country every year.
Industrial waste, the type most likely to
include hazardous substances subject to
EPA regulation, represents only 6.4
percent of total waste volume.
The other 93.6 percent (see graph)
consists mainly of agricultural and
mining waste, with a small share left
over for municipal and utility waste.
It should be emphasized that one
extremely hazardous form of waste
excluded from this graph—high-level
radioactive waste—is regulated not by
EPA, but by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and the Department of
Energy.
The wastes at Superfund sites consist
primarily of industrial chemicals, each
posing different threats to the
environment and to human health. In
most cases, these chemicals wound up
at the sites as a result of slipshod
disposal practices. For example, as
recently as a decade ago, dumping was
widespread, even among reputable
companies. Little thought was given to
the long-term consequences of such
behavior.
Today we are paying the price for
years of thoughtless neglect. Thousands
of abandoned or inactive sites
containing hazardous waste have been
identified nationwide. Many of these
sites are located in environmentally
sensitive areas, such as floodplains or
wetlands. Rain and melting snow seep
through the sites, carrying chemicals
that contaminate underground waters
and nearby streams and lakes.
At some sites, the air is also
contaminated as toxic vapors rise from
evaporating liquid wastes or from
uncontrolled chemical reactions. And
some pollutants, such as metals and
organic solvents, are known to damage
vegetation, endanger wildlife, and
threaten the health of people who
unknowingly drink contaminated
waters.
Most Superfund sites were created by
the chemical and petroleum industries.
Others were once municipal landfills
that may have become hazardous simply
as a result of accumulated pesticides,
cleaning solvents, and other chemical
products discarded in the household
trash. Many sites are the result of
transportation spills or other accidents,
and others are the final resting place of
persistent toxic pollutants contained in
industrial wastewater discharges or air
pollution emissions.
Whatever their source, it is the
responsibility of Superfund to ensure
that the hazardous substances
abandoned at the worst of these sites do
not imperil human health or the
environment. It is a truly massive
undertaking, and one of great
importance to the future of the United
States.
Growing Awareness
Hazardous waste is one of those
problems that "snowballs." It started off
a minimal concern on the extreme
periphery of public consciousness. In
the space of only a decade, however,
hazardous waste rapidly became a
central concern of citizens in every part
of the United States.
A series of headline-grabbing stories
in the late 1970s gave Americans a
crash course in the perils of ignoring
hazardous waste. First there was Love
Canal, the community in Niagara, NY,
that had to be evacuated after hazardous
waste buried over a 25-year period
contaminated ground water.
Then the Valley of the Drums toM
center stage. This noxious deposit S|
leaking storage barrels quickly became
one of the most notorious places not
just in Kentucky but in the United
States.
The little community of Times Beach,
MO, became the next national
hazardous waste story. Oil contaminated
with highly toxic dioxin tainted the soil
and the water in this eastern Missouri
community.
In all these instances, lives were
disrupted, property values were ruined:
Suddenly Americans began to wonder
who would be next . . . and who would
be there to pick up the pieces.
EPA JOURNAL
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did and Hazardous Waste in the United States
Industrial 6.4%
Municipal 3.1%
Utility 1.2%
Mining/milling 39.0%
(includes uranium mill tailings]
The Program
It was felt that a federal law was needed
to protect U.S. citizens against the
dangers posed by hazardous waste
abandoned at sites throughout the
nation: both the short-term threat that
became all too apparent during
emergencies and the long-term
threat, often requiring years of cleanup
action.
The Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability
Act of 1980 (CERCLA) was the first
major response to the problem on a
national level. CERCLA had several key
«'
develop a comprehensive program
priorities for cleaning up the
worst existing hazardous waste sites.
• To make responsible parties pay for
those cleanups wherever possible.
• To set up a $1.6 billion Hazardous
Waste Trust Fund — popularly known as
"Superfund" — for the twofold purpose
of performing remedial cleanups in
cases where responsible parties could
not be held accountable, and responding
to emergency situations involving
hazardous substances.
• To advance scientific and
technological capabilities in all aspects
of hazardous waste management.
treatment, and disposal.
Superfund was to be funded with
taxes on crude oil and 42 different
commercial chemicals. State
governments were to pay 10 percent of
the cost of Superfund work at privately
owned sites and 50 percent at those that
were publicly owned.
.gnculture 50.3%
The United States seemed ill-prepared
to deal with the problem of hazardous
waste prior to the creation of
Superfund. Nevertheless, CERCLA did
not develop out of a complete vacuum.
In the Clean Water Act of 1972,
Congress had provided for the
regulation of hazardous waste
discharged into all navigable waters of
the United States. A $35 million trust
fund—an ancestor of Superfund—was
set up to deal with problems stemming
from such discharges. However, no
provision was made to deal with
damage to land resources resulting from
contamination by hazardous waste.
One important offshoot of the 1972
Clean Water Act was the formulation of
a National Contingency Plan for dealing
with emergencies involving hazardous
waste. This plan has undergone many
refinements through the years, and it is
still the guiding principle behind the
implementation of Superfund.
Passage of the Toxic Substances
Control Act (TSCA) and the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
marked two more milestones in the
evolution of an active governmental
response to the hazardous waste crisis.
Both these statutes brought important
changes to the day-to-day operations of
the U.S. chemical industry.
TSCA gave EPA the task of
identifying and controlling chemical
products that pose an unreasonable risk
Source: EPA's Office of Solid Waste
[Excludes high-level radioactive waste]
to human health or the environment
through their manufacture, processing,
commercial distribution, use, or
disposal.
While the mission of Superfund was
to clean up the mistakes of the past and
cope with the emergencies of the
present, RCRA was designed to create
guidelines for prudent hazardous waste
management and disposal in the present
and the future. It was to provide the
United States with its first tracking
system for regulation of hazardous
waste from generation to disposal. If
fully successful, RCRA should someday
eliminate the need for a Superfund
program, a
"Superfund: Looking Back, Looking
Ahead" first appeared as a special
section in the January/February 1987
issue of the EPA Journal. Jack Lewis of
EPA's Office of Public A/fairs edited the
section. Special thanks are owed to
Susan BulJard of the Office of Solid
Waste and Emergency Response, as well
as these other EPA employees who
made valuable contributions to the
section: At headquarters/ Sylvia Malm;
Debbie Wood; Don White: June Taylor;
Rita Calvan. In Region 3/Nanci Sinclair;
In Region 5/Margaret McCue and John
Tanaka. The Journal also thanks Robert
Costa of Geo-Resource Consultants and
Jack Macy of Massachusetts'
Department of Environmental QuaJity
Engineering.
JANUARY'FEBRUARY 1987
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Superfiind's First Six Years:
A Progress Report
completed in
What did Superfund accomplish
during the first six years?
The following had taken place by the
end of fiscal year 1986:
• More than 25,000 potentially
dangerous hazardous waste sites had
been reported to EPA. Of these, in
excess of 20,000 had been given a
preliminary assessment by EPA or state
agencies. In only one case out of three
has further action been necessary.
• Site investigations had been
completed at 6,484 sites identified as
potential threats to human health or the
environment. Information from these
investigations is used to set national
priorities for site cleanups.
• 888 sites had been listed or proposed
for listing on the National Priorities List
(NPL). These sites, presenting the most
serious potential threats to health and
the environment, are eligible for
cleanup using the federal Superfund.
(The number of NPL sites increased in
January 1987 to a new level of 952.)
• Detailed investigation and planning
for remedial action had begun at 473
NPL sites.
• Design of remedial cleanups
scheduled for implementation had been
funded at 110 NPL sites and 12
non-NPL sites.
• Fourteen sites had been removed
from the National Priorities List as a
result of actions completed by EPA, the
states, and responsible parties.
(Completion of cleanups has proved
more difficult and more time-consuming
than anyone at first imagined; this has
been particularly true of NPL sites,
which rank as the worst in the nation. It
has been estimated that EPA-managed
cleanups under the Superfund program
require an average of 5.54 calendar
years from start to finish. Completions
will be more frequent in years to come
as work proceeds at sites where
preliminary cleanup stages have already
been completed.)
• Another 156 cleanups are currently in
progress. Implementation of cleanup
remedies has been funded at 137 NPL
sites and 19 non-NPL sites. These sites
are in what is known as the
"construction phase" of cleanup. This
expression derives from the fact that
remedial actions involve various
engineering activities, such as pumping
and treating ground water, capping with
waterproof clay, and installing drains or
liners.
• In addition to remedial cleanups,
Superfund provides for emergency
actions to deal with short-term threats
to human health and the environment.
As of September 30, 1986, emergency
removal actions had been completed at
716 sites by EPA or the U.S. Coast
Guard, which enforces CERCLA in
coastal waters and inland waterways.
(By January 1987, that number had risen
to 728.)
CERCLA's enforcement provisions call
for the identification and notification,
wherever possible, of the parties
responsible for creating hazardous waste
sites that require removal or remedial
action. As of September 30, 1986:
• EPA had reached settlement
agreements with responsible parties at
372 sites, resulting in the payment of
$619 million in actual cleanup
expenditures by responsible parties. In
addition, EPA had recovered $37
million in compensation to Superfund
for cleanups performed by EPA. This
$656 million in enforcement-recovered
assets expanded Superfund resources by
40 percent during its first six years of
operation.
• EPA and the Department of Justice
had taken civil action at 91 sites to
prompt remedial action by potentially
responsible parties.
• EPA had issued 408 administrative
orders against potentially responsible
parties compelling them to take various
forms of action to deal with problem^
hazardous waste sites.
Other, less readily quantifiable
achievements of Superfund's first six
years include:
• Development of a national
infrastructure capable of dealing with
scientific and technological problems
related to hazardous waste.
• Development of improved scientific
and engineering techniques for treating
and disposing of hazardous waste.
• Improved understanding of the health
effects associated with various levels of
exposure to different hazardous
substances.
• Expanded and improved laboratory
capacity nationwide for handling the
vast number of samples that need to be
analyzed as part of Superfund site
assessments and investigations.
• Development of a streamlined
management system within EPA for
dealing with the demands of the
increasingly complex and heavily
funded Superfund program.
• Establishment of an aggressive
Community Relations Program, whi|
has not only kept the public inforr
activity at Superfund sites, but
community input into the formulation
of decisions and plans for remedial
action, D
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Steps In Cleaning Up
A Superftind Site
Mum
\'atio,':
1. The Initial Warning
Individuals report concerns about
abandoned hazardous waste sites or
incidents of illegal dumping to EPA's
National Response Center
(800/424-8802) or to a local, state, or
federal government official.
What circumstances could prompt a
report? It could be a citizen phoning to
report the presence of half-buried
barrels of hazardous waste in his
neighborhood. Or it could be a local law
enforcement official who had spotted a
midnight dumper. Or it could simply be
a facility manager making a formal
report to EPA.
In 1980, it was estimated that the
United States had roughly 9000 problem
hazardous waste sites. A mere six years
later, over 25,000 suspected sites had
been entered into CERCLIS—EPA's
computerized data base. In 1986 alone,
EPA and the Coast Guard received 2700
notifications of releases from a variety
different sources. It is currently
Icted that as many as 2500 of these
pwill require cleanup under the
3ral Superfund program.
2. Identification and Preliminary
Assessment
Once EPA learns of a possible
hazardous site, it collects all available
background information not only from
its own files but also from state and
local records and U.S. Geological
Survey maps. This information is used
to identify the site and perform a
preliminary assessment of its potential
hazards. EPA tries to determine the size
of the site, the identity of the parties
most likely to have disposed wastes
there, the types and quantities of wastes
most likely to have been disposed, local
hydrological and meteorological
conditions, and the impact of these on
the environment.
3. Site Inspection
If a preliminary assessment turns up
evidence that the site may pose a threat
to human health or the environment,
inspectors actually go to the site to
sufficient information to rank its
potential.
Site inspectors look first for obvious
signs of danger: leaking storage drums,
dead or discolored vegetation, etc. They
may, if circumstances warrant, take
samples of nearby soil or water. They
also analyze ways hazardous materials
from the site could be polluting
environmental resources (for example,
through run-off into nearby streams) and
check to see if children have access to
the site.
4. Ranking Sites for the National
Priorities List
The National Priorities List (NPL)
identifies the targets for long-term
remedial action under Superfund.
Updated at least once a year, the NPL
identifies the worst abandoned or
uncontrolled hazardous waste sites in
the United States according to a variety
of factors, including the type, quantities,
and toxicity of the wastes involved; the
number of people potentially exposed;
the likely pathways of exposure; and the
importance and vulnerability of the
underlying supply of ground water.
As of January 1987, 951 sites had
either been listed (703) on the NPL or
proposed for listing (248).
5. Remedial Investigation
The ultimate objective for hazardous
waste sites on the NPL is a permanent,
long-term cleanup. NPL sites are
subjected to a "remedial investigation"
in order to select the cleanup strategy
best suited to the traits of each site.
A remedial investigation can best be
described as a carefully designed field
study. Conducting a remedial
investigation entails extensive sampling
and laboratory analyses. These generate
more precise data on the types and
quantities of wastes at the site, the soil
type and water drainage patterns, and
resulting environmental or health
threats.
6. Feasibility Study and Cleanup
Cleanup actions have to be tailored
exactly to the needs of each individual
site. The feasibility study analyzes those
needs, and evaluates alternative cleanup
approaches on the basis of their relative
effectiveness and cost. A Record of
Decision is issued setting forth the
selected remedy based on these factors.
7. Removal Actions
EPA may initiate short-term removal
actions any time a site is found to
present an imminent hazard as a result
of its potential for fire or explosion or
its contamination of a drinking water
supply. Removal actions range from
installing security fencing to actually
digging up and removing wastes for safe
disposal. Such actions may be taken at
any site, not just those on the NPL. Q
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Anatomy of a Seperfiimd
«/ 11
In a Superfund remedial action, EPA
undertakes a long-term effort to provide
a permanent remedy to an
environmental problem that poses a
serious, but not immediate, danger to
the public. Remedial cleanup at a
hazardous waste site can go on for
many years. It takes complex
engineering analysis and design work to
produce solutions that work and that
also meet legal requirements. EPA
Administrator Lee Thomas has said that
"the majority of sites on the National
Priorities List will not come off for five
to 10 years. There are many sites on the
list that will never come off because we
will monitor them in perpetuity to make
sure that cleanup is permanently
effective."
The following article describes how
events have unfolded at one of the sites
currently listed on EPA's National
Priorities List for remedial action: the
Verona Well Field in Battle Creek, MI.
The Verona Well Field presents
problems too complex for any quick
fix solutions. For four years, EPA has
been working to clean up contaminated
ground water at this site in Battle Creek,
MI, but persistent problems remain.
The problems began in 1981. In the
process of conducting routine tests, the
Calhoun County Health Department
discovered slight contamination of
drinking water by volatile organic
compounds, or VOCs. The water was
coming from the 100-acre Verona Well
Field, where a total of 30 city wells
supplied water to 35,000 Battle Creek
residents and many businesses.
Follow-up testing by both the county
and state health departments showed
that 10 of the 30 wells, as well as 80
nearby private wells, contained
detectable levels of VOCs. Some of the
VOCs detected—trichloroethylene;
tetrachloroethylene; 1,2 dichloroethane;
1,1,1 trichloroethane; and 1,1
dichloroethylene—were suspected
human carcinogens.
Could the contaminated wells be
cleaned? Could the non-contaminated
wells be preserved? Where was the
contamination coming from? Could it be
controlled? Each question led to
another, as EPA's work at the Verona
Well Field site became a combination of
detective work, laboratory study,
engineering feats, and construction
innovations.
In July 1982, the Verona Well Field
was included on the National Priorities
List, making it eligible under Superfund
for long-term remedial investigation and
cleanup money. EPA took its first action
at the site in October 1983, at the
request of Michigan's state government.
To meet the immediate threat to
drinking water quality, EPA used
Superfund emergency response money
to provide bottled water to residents
with contaminated wells. At the same
time, an EPA Technical Assistance
Team began a preliminary ground-water
survey to pinpoint the extent and
sources of the contamination. Any
number of facilities in the
commercial/industrial area could have
been potential sources.
In November 1983, building on the
results of the preliminary survey, EPA
launched an in-depth investigation,
installing monitoring wells in and
around the well field to measure the
types and concentrations of
contaminants in the ground water. It
took many months to drill the dozens of
wells that were required for adequate
measurements. And, since ground-water
flow fluctuates throughout the year, it
took more months to collect samples in
different seasons, and then analyze each
for almost 200 different contaminants.
In December 1983, the State of
Michigan finished constructing a system
to supply city water to all homes in the
area. Residents who had been
depending on private wells, and then on
bottled water, were now hooked up to
city wells. But by January 1984, 24 of
the city's 30 wells had become
contaminated, and it was apparent that
the city would not have enough clean
water to meet peak demand in the
coming summer.
To resolve the city's water supply
problem, EPA began using certain
existing wells as barrier wells, to stem
the flow of contamination to still-clean
wells further north. Water from the
barrier wells was pumped and purged.
Since the barrier wells were started up
in May 1984, the spread of
contamination has been halted.
Next the Agency set up an air
stripping and carbon adsorption system
to clean well water that had already
been contaminated. In this system,
contaminated water is pumped from the
wells to the top of the air stripping
tower. Then the water cascades down
through a large tube, while a
high-powered fan actually blows the
contaminants out of the water and into
the air. The fan then sucks the
contaminated air out of the tower and
forces it through tanks containing
activated carbon. The contaminants
cling to the carbon. The system
discharges clean, treated air into the
atmosphere, and clean, treated water
into the Battle Creek River. Since the
system became fully operational in
August 1984, 16 of the city's
contaminated wells have been restored.
In the summer of 1984, EPA also
installed three new water supply wells.
These new wells, coupled with the air
stripping and carbon adsorption system
and the barrier wells, effectively
Battle Creek's water supply proble
But another problem remained:
identifying and cleaning up the sources
of contamination.
By July 1984, EPA had progressed far
enough in its investigation to be able to
pinpoint one major source: a Thomas
Solvent Co. facility on Raymond Road,
one mile from the Verona Well Field.
Concentrations of VOCs in ground water
under and around the facility were 100
times higher than in the rest of the
ground-water plume, and the soil
around the facility was also heavily
contaminated. The Agency installed
monitoring wells at Thomas Solvent to
determine the extent of contamination.
The cost of a hazardous waste
cleanup should, whenever possible, be
paid by the parties responsible for the
contamination. But in the Verona Well
Field case, Thomas Solvent had
declared bankruptcy and ceased
operations in April 1984. EPA, one of
four major claimants against the
company's assets, decided not to wait
for the resolution of the bankruptcy
case. In August 1985, relying on input
garnered from an engineering evaluation
and public comments, the Agency "^
decided on a cleanup alternative at
Raymond Road facility, site of the i
serious contamination.
EPA JOURNAL
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Pumps for air stripping system to <
at the \
Iry iveJl
ound.
The best method for cleaning up
contaminated ground water at the site,
EPA decided, was to extract it via wells,
and then pipe it one mile to the well
field for treatment in the air
stripping/carbon adsorption system.
Engineering blueprints and construction
details were ironed out. With a dearth
of Superfund money in 1986, the State
of Michigan advanced EPA some $2.5
million so construction could begin.
The system should be ready to go on
line by June 1987. It will take about
three to five years to remove most of the
contaminants from the ground water.
Since the soil contains contaminants
which can eventually enter ground
water, soil cleanup at the site will also
be necessary. Several extraction wells
will be placed in the soil, and
connected by a vacuum pump. The
vacuum will pull VOCs out of the soil
and send them to a carbon adsorption
system for treatment. Because of the
innovative nature of this treatment
system, much of the design detail awaits
finalization by the contractor who will
win the bidding process. Once in place,
the vacuum process is expected to take
from six months to a year to reduce
contaminants in the soil down to the
established cleanup level.
Meantime, EPA continues its
investigations into other sources of
contamination at the Verona Well Field.
It has installed more monitoring wells at
a Thomas Solvent annex and at a
railroad yard east of the well field
which was identified as another
possible source of VOC contamination.
The work at Verona Well Field has
turned out to be more complicated than
first expected. In late 1986, the
bankruptcy case was settled, and EPA
will get a portion of the "bankruptcy
estate." That amount, however, is far
less than the amount of money EPA has
spent, so the Agency must continue its
cost recovery actions against other
parties. A quick fix to the problem of
the contaminated wells — bottled water
— was not enough. New remedies had
to be devised, and new remedies for
other sources still have to be designed,
constructed, and operated until cleanup
levels are achieved. EPA repeatedly has
had to expand its work, dig some more,
and seek new solutions to unique
problems, o
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Amtomy of a
v
Emeraency R
O •/
esponse
ii
EPA has emergency response authorities
under the Comprehensive Emergency
Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act of 1980. CERCLA authorizes EPA to
intervene when hazardous wastes
present an imminent hazard of
explosion, air or water pollution, etc.,
that would pose an immediate
short-term threat to human health.
In many cases, emergency responses
involve removing contaminants from
the problem site and transporting them
to waste disposal sites in compliance
with the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act. Hence, they are usually
called "removal actions." Whatever
actions are taken, their purpose is to
"remove" the threat in whatever way
possible.
The cast of characters in a Superfund
removal action can include local, state,
and federal officials; private
contractors; owners or former owners of
a site; concerned citizens who live
nearby. No matter how many people are
involved, the goal is simple: identify
and eliminate the hazard as quickly
and as thoroughly as possible.
Until recently, the time limit on a
removal action was six months; the
Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986 extended
the limit to one year. A total of 728
Superfund removal actions had been
completed through January 1987.
This is how one response action
worked in the town of Lancaster, PA:
Row after row of modest brick homes
line North Mary Street in North
Lancaster, PA. Several years ago, an
abandoned brick warehouse stood
virtually unnoticed in the midst of this
quiet neighborhood. For 60 years, it had
been the site of an electroplating facility
owned by C. E. Brubaker, Inc.
Electroplating is an industrial process
that uses electrical current to plate one
kind of metal with another. It produces
hazardous wastes such as cyanide and
cadmium as well as acidic and basic
solutions.
Brubaker stored these wastes in large
open-top vats inside the warehouse.
Fumes from the vats mingled with air
circulating inside the building. The
polluted air was pumped into the
neighborhood outside the plant, putting
its unsuspecting residents at risk.
After a year of conflict with
Pennsylvania's Department of
Environmental Resources (PADER) over
unsafe handling of hazardous materials,
the Brubaker company declared
bankruptcy in September 1984 and shut
down its old North Mary Street site.
PADER officials then inspected the
closed facility and discovered over
14,000 gallons of liquid cyanide as well
as acidic and basic solutions. State
health experts determined that these
leaking vats posed a potential threat to
the health of nearby residents.
From December 1984 to the summer
of 1985, both PADER and the City of
Lancaster negotiated with Brubaker in
an effort to get the company to accept
responsibility for its abandoned facility.
Negotiations failed, however, and it
became obvious that any action at
Brubaker's Lancaster warehouse would
have to be publicly funded. Neither the
City of Lancaster nor the State of
Pennsylvania had the resources to
handle such large quantities of
hazardous waste, so in March 1985,
PADER and Lancaster City officials
made a formal request to EPA for help.
In July, EPA collected samples from
seven vats and three drums. Analysis of
the samples confirmed Pennsylvania's
findings about their contents. EPA
further concluded that through
vandalism or corrosion, the acids and
bases at the Brubaker site could mingle
with the liquid cyanide and release
deadly cyanide gas.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
recommended that the problem
substances be removed from the
building. To protect residents of the
area during the tricky removal perid
the CDC further, recommended that^
residents within 200 yards of the
Brubaker facility be evacuated during
the cyanide pumping.
On September 10, 1985, EPA
announced the impending removal
action. The Agency also announced that
people in 46 homes and businesses
would be approached with a
recommendation to evacuate during
periods of cyanide pumping. The action,
scheduled to begin on October 2, called
for the pumping of cyanide liquids out
of containers at the site and into drums
destined for transfer to a Michigan
facility where the cyanide liquids would
be detoxified. Acidic solutions would be
sent to a waste conversion facility,
while floorboards and sludges would go
a hazardous waste acceptance facility.
EPA's Region 3, headquartered in
Philadelphia, would spearhead the
Lancaster operation. The Region 3 team
would include an On-Scene Coordinator
(OSC) to manage the project and a
Community Relations Specialist to
handle press and citizen inquiries as
well as coordinate with the City of
Lancaster. Technical experts from
Region 3's Environmental Respons*
Team (ERT) would advise the On-3|
Coordinator on matters related to
community health and worker
EPA JOURNAL
-------
nicians sample open
>de solution at Brubaker site in
PA.
protection. The U.S. Coast Guard would
develop and implement a safety plan for
the site.
Many people assume that EPA
officials actually perform Superfund
removals and cleanups. This is seldom
the case. Federal officials devise the
plans for these actions; private
contractors execute them. In the case of
the Brubaker site, one contractor
handled removal and cleanup
operations, while another documented
site activity and provided technical
support.
Once the regional team had
assembled, EPA and the CDC turned to
Pennsylvania and Lancaster officials for
advice and assistance. PADER promised
to provide further help during the
removal action. City officials offered
help in transporting residents to
evacuation centers on the three days
cyanide pumping would be taking
place. They also offered to provide
police manpower to patrol the
evacuated streets. The local hospital and
fire companies were placed on standby
in the event that a problem occurred
during the removal.
EPA held a press conference to
announce the site cleanup, and a public
meeting to answer residents' questions
concerning the evacuation and the
waste removal. To allay remaining fears
and confusion, an EPA Community
Relations Specialist and representatives
of the CDC and the Lancaster
Emergency Management Agency went
door-to-door down North Mary Street,
distributing flyers about the impending
operation and fielding questions about
its impact on their lives. On October 1,
1985—the day before cyanide pumping
began—more flyers were distributed.
The pumping began 8:30 a.m.,
Wednesday, October 2. Most of the
residents were at work by 8:30; others
stayed with friends or relatives during
the pumping, which was over each day
by 1:30 P.M. Local residents were free
to occupy their homes or businesses
both before and after the actual hours of
pumping. Only one family refused to
vacate its home during pumping hours,
which came to an end on Friday.
October 4.
The following weeks involved the
removal of acidic bases and solutions,
disposal of an underground storage
tank, and removal of floorboards and
sludges remaining in the building. On
December 6, EPA held a final tour of the
building for city officials and, five days
later, a closeout public meeting.
The removal operation had taken
about two months. At a total cost of
$472,450, 14,165 gallons of liquid
cyanide, acids, and bases, as well as 60
cubic yards of contaminated floor
boards and other solid waste, had been
removed from the North Mary Street
site—and with them, the health and
environmental threat posed by the
wastes that had been abandoned there.
Lancaster police escorted the final
truckload of wastes out of the city on
December 20, 1985. Once again. North
Mary Street was just another quiet road
in Lancaster, PA. a
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Key Aspects of the Superfimd
Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986
99th
amendments last foil.
On October 17, 1986, President
Reagan signed into law a major bill
reauthorizing the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980.
This reauthorization lays down the
framework for CERCLA's Superfund
hazardous waste cleanup program
during the next five years.
A major feature of the reauthorization
is its scope. From 1980 to 1985, EPA's
Superfund program drew its resources
from a $1.6 billion Hazardous Response
Trust Fund. EPA will have more than
five times that amount of money to
spend on Superfund from 1986 to 1991:
the size of the new Hazardous Response
Trust Fund is $8.5 billion.
But the 1986 Superfund Amendments
and Reauthorization Act—now
commonly referred to as
"SARA"—introduces many other
improvements to the Superfund
program. These changes, largely the
result of lessons learned during the
program's initial years, are certain to
strengthen Superfund in the years
ahead.
Impact on Removal Actions
The 1986 reauthorization:
• Raises the limits on removal actions
from six months to one year and from
$1 million to $2 million; these changes
were adopted in view of the actual time
and cost constraints encountered during
the first six years of Superfund
emergency removals.
• Authorizes a waiver to the new time
and cost limits if an added
expenditure of time or money would be
consistent with the long-term goals of a
planned remedial action.
• Introduces a provision that all
short-term removal actions must be
designed to contribute to efficient
performance of any long-term remedial
action.
Impact on Remedial Actions
The 1986 reauthorization:
• Sets goals for the completion of
preliminary assessments of sites on
EPA's inventory of potentially
hazardous sites, which lists sites that
may one day qualify for ranking on
Superfund's National Priorities List.
• Sets mandatory deadlines for the
completion of two important types of
work at National Priorities List sites:
275 remedial investigations and
feasibility studies must be finished by
1989, and, even more importantly, 175
remedial actions must reach the final
cleanup stage by 1989, with 200 more to
follow by 1991.
• Requires that permanent remedial
cleanups produce environmental results
consistent with state and federal laws as
well as with EPA's National
Contingency Plan.
• Stipulates that EPA must consider
cost-effective cleanup alternatives that
foster the recycling or treatment of
waste rather than land disposal.
• Mandates that hazardous waste
targeted for removal to a new site
should go only to sites in compliance
with strict Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act standards. "
-------
apparatu uityl
Hazardon
mati,
Ohio cinmbe,'
cumbersome j>
le an
emph'
mps.
Strengthened Enforcement
Authorities
One of the major goals of Superfund
enforcement has been to encourage the
parties responsible for generating the
problem to pay for the cleanup. SARA
enhances EPA's enforcement powers by:
• Giving statutory authority to the use
of settlement agreements and
establishing specific procedures for
reaching them. These agreements, which
spell out what is required of private
responsible parties to meet their legal
obligations under the Superfund statute,
were used extensively during the first
^ears of the program's operation, but as
latter of Agency policy, not of law.
Authorizing increased criminal
penalties for failure to report releases of
hazardous waste, and making the
providing of false or misleading
information a criminal offense.
• Improving EPA access to hazardous
waste sites for the completion of
investigations and cleanups.
• Requiring enforcement authorities to
keep an administrative record of
enforcement actions at National
Priorities List sites.
Increased State Involvement
The first years of the Superfund
program involved state governments in
many decisions, but not as
systematically as many officials in the
states would have wished. SARA
requires EPA to develop and implement
regulations to assure involvement of
states, including their:
• Participation in identifying National
Priorities List sites.
Review of all preliminary documents
lated to Superfund remedial actions,
well as final plans for the actions.
>
Participation in all enforcement
negotiations and concurrence in
settlement agreements that EPA makes
with responsible parties.
• Concurrence in the deletion of sites
from the National Priorities List; that is,
agreement with EPA and responsible
parties that a Superfund cleanup is. in
fact, complete.
Emergency Planning
Under the 1986 reauthorization:
• Each governor must appoint
commissions to formulate plans for
dealing with hazardous waste
emergencies; mandated local planning
committees must develop local
emergency plans by November 1988.
• EPA must publish a list of extremely
hazardous substances and write
regulations establishing what quantity of
each substance would have to be
released before an emergency should be
declared.
• Facilities that produce, use, or store
extremely hazardous substances must
notify the state emergency planning
commission and local planning
committees of their practices; they must
also provide immediate notification of
releases in excess of EPA-determined
thresholds.
Expanded Research,
Development, and Training
The 1980 Superfund law made no
specific provisions for research and
development or for training. SARA:
• Establishes a comprehensive and
coordinated research and development
program, including demonstration
programs for technologies that offer
alternatives to conventional methods of
handling hazardous waste removals or
site cleanups, especially methods that
lead to the destruction or recycling of
wastes.
• Calls for the establishment of training
programs for hazardous substance
response and research.
Stronger Citizen Rights
The Superfund program takes pride in
its extremely active Community
Relations Program, which was begun in
1983. There was only limited statutory
provision for the program in the original
1980 Superfund law. That law also did
not define citizen rights to sue for
failure to meet statutory requirements.
The 1986 Superfund reauthorization:
• Establishes requirements ensuring
that the public can participate in the
formulation of plans for Superfund
actions.
• Authorizes technical assistance grants
so citizens can hire experts to explain
the complexities of hazardous waste
problems and the Superfund program.
• Permits citizens to sue any person or
any governmental entity for alleged
violation of a provision of the
Superfund law. a
-------
New Enforcement Powers
«rT~1he polluter should pay." This is
J. the guiding principle behind
Superfund enforcement. It means that
those parties responsible for the
presence of hazardous substances at a
Superfund site must either clean the site
up themselves or pay for the cost of an
EPA cleanup. The goal of Superfund
enforcement is to encourage responsible
party cleanups through settlement.
Since 1980, responsible parties have
entered into 372 settlements with EPA
worth $619 million in actual cleanup
expenditures or cash. In addition, EPA
has recovered $37 million in
compensation for cleanups performed
by EPA. This added 40 percent in
buying power to the $1.6 billion
Superfund during its first five years of
operation, and represents a net return in
cash or cleanup of $4 for every $1 of
enforcement money expended.
The Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA)
further encourage prompt settlements.
They also reaffirm and strengthen the
principle of responsible party liability.
Principles
of Liability
Parties liable for payment of Superfund
cleanup costs include companies that
generated any hazardous substances
found at a site, present and former
owners and operators of a site, and
certain transporters who disposed of
hazardous substances at a site.
SARA affirms the federal
government's right to use two important
principles of liability, both of which
will make it much easier for EPA to win
enforcement cases:
• Joint and several liability means that
parties responsible at a Superfund waste
site can all be sued together or any one
may be sued alone for 100 percent of
cleanup costs. This liability principle
gives EPA a great deal of legal leverage
with violators.
• Strict liability is liability without a
showing of fault. EPA has only to show
that some of a generator's hazardous
substances came to be located at the
site; it does not have to establish that
willful or inadvertent negligence was
involved.
As for harm to the site, EPA only has
to show that the harm was caused by
substances similar to those of the
generator. In other words, it is up to the
alleged violator to prove either that its
specific wastes had nothing to do with
the harm, or that they caused only a
discrete portion of it. In most cases, the
responsible party cannot present
evidence adequate to substantiate either
argument.
The value of these strong liability
principles is that they often force
responsible parties to aggressively
pursue settlement agreements as a
substitute for costly and
time-consuming litigation.
Innovative
Enforcement Tools
Whether EPA will settle with
responsible parties, rather than pursue
litigation, is governed by the terms of
the Interim CERCLA Settlement Policy
(50 Federal Register 5034). This policy
states that EPA prefers settlement but
will file suit where necessary to protect
public health and the environment. The
policy also provides guidance on issues
vital to settlement. SARA codifies much
of the policy.
The new Superfund amendments
endorse two particularly controversial
procedures that figure in the Interim
Settlement Policy: mixed funding and
de minimis settlements.
• Mixed Funding occurs when monies
from both Superfund and responsible
parties are used at the same site. Use of
mixed funding is most likely to be
approved where the parties willing to
settle are also willing to conduct the
cleanup, and where there are financially
viable nonsettlers that EPA may pursue.
However, Superfund's money is not
forthcoming until the cleanup is
complete. Responsible parties who settle
in a mixed funding agreement mustj
"upfront" 100 percent of the cost oil
cleanup.
-------
Western Processing. Inc.. a hazardous
liandling and disposal firm in
ft, shoi
in 1982. with storage tanks, liquid
an up
potentially responsible parties. Last
year, responsible parties signed a
second consent clr [uct a
sub-surface cleanup of
'ruction -
,iient plant.
Once the cleanup is finished and
certified as properly done, EPA will
reimburse the settling parties for that
portion of the costs specified in the
settlement agreement. The Agency, in
the meantime, sues the parties that
would not settle to recover for
Superfund its share of the cleanup
costs.
Mixed funding permits cleanups to
proceed even in cases where some
responsible parties, out of a whole
group, refuse to settle out of court.
• De Minimis Settlements involve
parties that contributed very small
amounts of hazardous waste at a site. At
some Superfund sites, responsible
parties number in the hundreds. To
reduce the number of parties involved,
EPA can settle with the small, or de
Simis, contributors as a single group.
this way, the government achieves
ore manageable case, and the de
imis parties end their involvement
in the case more quickly. This saves
money and manpower that might
otherwise be wasted on lengthy
negotiations.
• Nonbinding Preliminary Allocations
of Responsibility, known as NBARs, are
an altogether new enforcement tool.
unlike mixed funding and de minimis
settlements. The NBAR is an allocation
by EPA of total response costs among
responsible parties at a site. Congress
wrote NBARs into the 1986 Superfund
amendments as a discretionary tool to
hasten settlement in appropriate cases.
Under current Superfund policy,
responsible parties are expected to work
out among themselves the exact
allocation of the total cost of cleanup
each must bear. In some cases this
results in serious conflicts and delays.
Now EPA can step in, as needed, to
provide an NBAR to expedite a
settlement. EPA is preparing interim
guidelines for Nonbinding Preliminary
Allocations of Responsibility, expected
to appear for comment this spring in the
Federal Register.
Pilot studies are now underway for
mixed funding and de minimis
settlements, with more expected to
begin in the near future. Several pilot
projects will also be conducted before
NBAR procedures assume final form.
A conciliatory resolution of
enforcement problems is, in the
experience of Superfund, a far better
strategy than the tug-of-war of
never-ending litigation. EPA's quest for
out-of-court settlements will be
enhanced by enforcement tools that are
stronger than ever. It must be
emphasized, however, that settlements
will never be sought where they would
compromise Superfund's goals of
protecting public health and the
environment, o
-------
The Quest For Alternative
When Superfund was launched
seven years ago, land disposal was
the most common method of handling
hazardous waste. Land disposal entailed
immobilizing hazardous waste in a
specially prepared pit, landfill, or
surface impoundment. Though
cost-effective in the short run, it often
led through leaks and other defects to
extremely expensive long-term
environmental problems.
By the time the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act was
reauthorized in 1984, the climate of
opinion had shifted dramatically in the
direction of more permanent methods of
handling hazardous waste. The
Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA)
continues the pendulum swing in that
direction.
SARA requires EPA, to the maximum
extent practicable, to select remedial
actions that create permanent solutions
and, in doing so, to make use of
alternative or resource recovery
technologies. The least preferred
remedial method is to transport
untreated Superfund wastes to landfills.
Even before the passage of SARA,
Superfund was making use of
alternatives to land disposal. Thermal
destruction technology has been
used in approximately 13 percent
of all Superfund removal actions. It is
currently planned for use in
approximately 10 percent of all
Superfund remedial actions. Various
forms of chemical and physical
treatment are included in current plans
for approximately nine percent of
remedial actions.
Let's take a quick look at the leading
technologies under consideration as
alternatives to land disposal. A good
way to categorize them is according to
whether they destroy, immobilize,
or separate the waste.
Waste Destruction
Technology
"Destroying" hazardous waste means
getting rid of most of it. Some harmful
residues may still be left behind,
however, and these must be properly
disposed of.
Thermal Treatment
The most common type of thermal
treatment heats waste over a
flame-powered incinerator. Currently, if
waste at a Superfund site is to be
burned, it is usually removed from the
site and taken to the incinerator. In the
future, EPA will make greater use of
mobile incinerators, which can be
moved from one site to another as
needed.
Various types of flame-free thermal
treatments are now being developed to
destroy hazardous waste, including
fluidized bed treatment, infrared
treatment, plasma arc, and pyrolysis.
Neutralization
Certain types of hazardous waste can be
"neutralized." For example, an acid can
be added to an excessively alkaline
waste, or a base to an overly acidic
waste.
Waste Immobilization
Technology
Immobilizing a waste puts it into a solid
form that is easier to handle and less
likely to enter the surrounding
environment. It is useful for dealing
with wastes, such as certain metals, that
cannot be destroyed. Once a waste has
been immobilized, the material resulting
from the immobilization process still
must be properly disposed of.
Fixation and Solidification
Two popular methods of immobilizing
waste are fixation and solidification.
Engineers and scientists mix materials
such as fly ash or cement into
hazardous waste. This either "fixes"
hazardous particles, in the sense of
immobilizing them or making them
chemically inert, or "solidifies" them
into a solid mass. Solidified waste is
sometimes made into solid blocks that
can be stored more easily than a liquid.
Waste Separation
Technology
Waste separation entails either
separating one hazardous waste from
another, or separating hazardous waste
from a non-hazardous material that it
has contaminated. Sometimes this
separation is achieved by changing the
waste from one form (solid, liquid, gjf
to another. Regardless of the way it
achieved, separation results in
end-products that can be adaptable to
recycling.
Air Stripping and Steam Stripping
Air stripping is sometimes used to
remove volatile chemicals from water.
Volatile chemicals, which have a
tendency to vaporize easily, can be
forced out of liquid when air passes
through it. Steam stripping works on the
same general principle, except that it
uses heated air to raise the temperature
of the liquid and force out volatile
chemicals ordinary air would not.
It should be noted that the mixture of
air and chemicals that results from air
and steam stripping is still hazardous
and must be further treated before
release.
An interesting variation on this
technology is now being used at the
Verona Well Field site in Michigan to
remove volatile organic chemicals from
the soil above an aquifer. Another
promising variant is landfill gas
extraction, in which vacuum wells
are used to remove gases from soil.
-------
Carbon Adsorption
Carbon adsorption tanks contain
particles of carbon that have been
specially activated to treat hazardous
chemicals in gaseous and liquid
hazardous waste. The carbon chemically
combines with the waste or catches
hazardous particles just as a fine wire
mesh catches grains of sand.
Contaminated carbon must then be
disposed of, or cleaned and reused.
Precipitation
Precipitation involves adding special
materials to a liquid waste. These bind
to hazardous chemicals and cause them
to precipitate out of the liquid and form
large particles called "floe." Floe that
settles can be separated as sludge; floe
that remains suspended can be filtered.
Soil Washing and Flushing
Soil containing easily dissolved
chemicals can sometimes be cleaned by
soil washing. Cleaning liquid, added at
the top of a tank of contaminated soil,
. ,'"« up waste as it passes through the
!w 'The contaminant-laden cleaning
lid must be further treated or
properly disposed of.
Soil flushing works on the same
principle, except that it occurs in the
ground rather than in a tank. Soil is
purified when cleaning liquid is passed
through it; each time the liquid passes
through, it is collected by pipes or wells
located at the base of the contaminated
area.
Removing Obstacles
to Innovation
While alternative technologies may be
currently available, there are often
serious impediments to their use at
Superfund sites. These include certain
factors that EPA cannot control, such as
economic and marketplace
uncertainties. One major uncertainty is
the degree to which the public will
accept a particular means of handling
hazardous waste; this has been a special
problem in the case of incineration.
But there are other steps EPA can take
to create a climate more receptive to
alternative technologies, and the Agency
is moving ahead with those.
For example, EPA is setting up a
quicker and more flexible method for
selecting contractors to clean up
Superfund sites and to determine how
A nioduJu'
flatb- I io
mtibilt- inci.'iei
Superfund wastes may be treated. The
Agency's Office of Solid Waste is also
working to streamline the Superfund
permitting process to give high priority
to issuing permits for alternative
treatment technologies.
A new provision of SARA also fosters
the use of alternative technologies by
giving EPA the authority, under certain
circumstances, to assume liability for
contractor efforts to test or demonstrate
alternative technologies.
In addition, a Superfund Innovative
Technology Evaluation (SITE) program
has been established to demonstrate
new and innovative technologies.
Starting in the summer of 1987, such
technologies will be tested on real
wastes in full-scale situations at
Superfund sites.
The results of these tests will generate
vital cost and performance data, making
it easier for new technologies to
compete in the real world. EPA has also
developed a program to communicate
SITE data to appropriate offices within
Superfund.
What Lies
Ahead
Congress, EPA, and the U.S. public are
all seeking reliable long-term solutions
to the problem of managing Superfund
sites. Land disposal is no longer a
preferred remedy, but it will take some
time for alternative technologies to
develop sufficient capacity to fill the
gap.
During the years ahead, we can expect
to see alternative technologies
substituting for landfilling at an
increasing number of Superfund sites.
EPA is doing everything possible to
hasten the day when enough safe and
reliable remedies exist to ensure that
Superfund cleanups are permanent. Q
-------
l committees and facilities should
focus their planning activities around a
list of 402 extremely hazardous
substances identified by EPA. The list
includes the threshold planning
quantities for each substance. Any
facility that produces, uses, or stores
more of a listed chemical than this
threshold planning quantity must meet
all emergency planning requirements.
Also, after public comment, the state
commission or the governor can
designate additional facilities as subject
to those requirements.
Facilities are required to notify the
state commissions that they are covered
by Title III emergency planning
requirements. If a facility begins to
produce, use, or store any of the
extremely hazardous substances in
threshold quantity amounts, it must
notify the state commission within 60
days.
Each state commission must notify
EPA of all covered facilities and
facilities designated by the state
commission or the governor. The state
commission is also responsible for
K\firvising the activities of the local
'mittees.
Emergency Notification
Facilities where a listed hazardous
substance is produced, used, or stored
must immediately notify the local
emergency planning committee and the
state emergency response commission if
there is a release of these substances.
The substances include the 402
extremely hazardous substances on the
list prepared by the Chemical
Emergency Preparedness Program and
substances subject to the reportable
quantities requirements of the original
Superfund.
The initial notification can be by
telephone, radio, or in person.
Emergency notification requirements
involving transportation incidents can
be satisfied by dialing 911, or calling
the operator.
Notification of an emergency must
include:
• The name of the chemical.
• Whether it is known to be acutely
toxic.
• An estimate of the quantity released
into the environment.
• The time and duration of the release.
• Where the chemical was released (air.
water, land).
• Known health risks and necessary
medical attention.
• Proper precautions, such as
evacuation.
• The name and telephone number of
the contact person at the facility where
the release occurred.
A follow-up written emergency notice
is required as soon as practicable after
the release. This notice should:
• Update initial information.
• Provide additional information on
response actions already taken, known
or anticipated health risks, and advice
on medical attention.
The requirement to notify went into
effect when the Title III legislation was
signed in October of 1986. Until state
commissions and local committees are
formed, releases should be reported to
appropriate state and local officials.
Community Right-to-Know
Reporting Requirements
In order to provide communities with
information about chemicals and the
potential hazards they pose, Congress
included two community right-to-know
reporting requirements in Title III.
First, facilities required to prepare
or have available Material Safety Data
Sheets (MSDS) under the regulations of
the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration must now submit copies
of the MSDS or a list of MSDS
chemicals to the local emergency
planning committee, the state
emergency response commission, and
the local fire department.
If a list is submitted, the facility must
submit the MSDS for any chemical on
the list upon the request of the local
planning committee. For this
requirement, EPA may establish
threshold quantities for hazardous
chemicals below which no facility must
report.
The second community right-to-know
reporting requirement under Title III
stipulates that facilities must submit an
emergency and hazardous chemical
-------
inventory form to the local emergency
planning committee, the state
emergency response commission, and
the local fire department. The hazardous
chemicals are the same as those for
which facilities are required to submit
MSDS or a list of MSDS chemicals
under the first reporting requirement.
Again, EPA may establish threshold
quantities for hazardous chemicals
below which no facility must be subject
to this requirement.
• The form must present:
• An estimate (in ranges) of the
maximum amount of covered chemicals
present at the facility at any time during
the preceding calendar year.
• An estimate (in ranges) of the average
daily amount of covered chemicals
present.
• The general location of covered
hazardous chemicals.
In addition to the information listed
above, a local committee, state
commission, or local fire department
can also request a facility to provide the
following information for each covered
substance:
• An estimate (in ranges) of the
maximum amount of the chemical
present at any time during the
preceding calendar year.
• A brief description of the manner of
storage of the chemical.
• The specific location of the chemical
at the facility.
• An indication of whether the owner
will withhold location information from
the public.
Toxic Chemical Release
Reporting
Another section of Title III requires EPA
to develop an inventory of toxic
chemical releases from certain facilities.
Facilities subject to this reporting
requirement must complete a toxic
chemical release form for specified
chemicals, which must be submitted to
EPA as well as to state officials
designated by each governor.
This reporting requirement will
inform government officials and the
public about releases of toxic chemicals
in the environment. It will also assist in
research and the development of
regulations, guidelines, and standards.
The reporting requirement applies to
owners and operators of facilities that
have 10 or more full-time employees,
that are in Standard Industries
Classification Codes 20 through 39, and
that manufactured, processed, or
otherwise used a listed toxic chemical
in excess of specified threshold
quantities. The Standard Industrial
Classification Codes mentioned cover
basically all manufacturing industries.
The list of toxic chemicals subject to
reporting consists initially of more than
300 chemicals and categories listed for
similar reporting purposes by the States
of New Jersey and Maryland, but EPA
can modify the list.
EPA is required to publish a
"format" for the Toxic Chemical Release
form, which must include the following
information:
• Name, location, and type of business.
• A certification by a senior official that
the report is complete and accurate.
• Whether the chemical is
manufactured, processed, or otherwise
used, and its general categories of use.
• Estimate (in ranges) of the maximum
amounts of the toxic chemical present at
the facility at any time during the
preceding year.
• Waste treatment and disposal
methods for dealing with the chemical,
and the efficiency of the methods for
each waste stream.
• The quantity of the chemical entering
the environment annually.
EPA will use these data to maintain a
national toxic chemical inventory. The
public will be provided access to the
inventory by means of computer
tele-communications.
Other Title m Provisions
Title III also addresses business
concerns about trade secrets as these are
affected by the community
right-to-know and toxic chemical release
reporting requirements of the statute.
Facilities (or individuals) may, for
certain reasons, withhold the specific
chemical identity of an extremely
hazardous substance or toxic chemical.
Even if the chemical identity is
withheld, however, the generic class or
category of the chemical must be
provided.
Title III is strict about verifying that
real trade secrets do exist. The
withholder must verify each of the
following:
• The information has not been
disclosed to any person other than a
member of the local planning
committee, a government official, an
employee of such person, or someone
bound by a confidentiality agreement,
and measures have been taken to
its confidentiality,
• The information is not required
disclosed to the public under any other
federal or state law,
• The information is likely to cause
substantial harm to the competitive
position of the person, and
• The chemical identity could not
reasonably be discovered by anyone in
the absence of disclosure.
However, even if information is
legally withheld from the public, Title
III states that it cannot be withheld from
health professionals or officials who
need it. In these cases, the person
receiving the information must be
willing to sign a confidentiality
agreement with the firm.
EPA must publish regulations
governing trade secret claims. The
regulations will cover how to submit
claims, petitions for disclosure, and a
review process for these petitions.
All federal emergency training
programs must now emphasize hazardous
chemicals. Under Title III, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency is
authorized to provide training grants t^
support state and local governments.
These training grants are designed to
improve emergency planning,
preparedness, mitigation, response, and
recovery capabilities.
Under Title III, EPA has begun a
review of emergency systems for
monitoring, detecting, and preventing
releases of extremely hazardous
substances at representative facilities
that produce, use, or store these
substances. Representative substances to
be used in the review will be selected
from the same list of extremely
hazardous substances used in the
emergency planning provision.
Working Together
Title III constitutes a comprehensive
mandate for emergency planning and
ensures that citizens will have the
information they need to understand
and deal with chemicals in their
communities. It is the responsibility of
all sectors of society, public and private,
to work together to prevent, prepare for,
and respond to the potential hazards
that chemicals pose to society. It is this
cooperative spirit that can effectively
assist communities in meeting their
responsibilities to protect the safety oL
their citizens. Only through cooperation
can the spirit and intent of this
legislation be achieved, o
EPA JOURNAL
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Other Statutory Authorities:
She Leaking Underground
torage Tank Trust Fund
A gas station explodes in Council
Bluffs, Iowa: a shopping center is
shut down for more than a week in
Durham, NC; more than a thousand
people are evacuated in the pre-dawn
hours from their homes in Claymont,
DE; and throughout the country,
hundreds of drinking water wells are
contaminated.
These pollution episodes have not
received the national attention of Love
Canal, Times Beach, the Stringfellow
Acid Pits, and other Superfund sites
around the United States. They are not
the result of careless disposal of
hazardous chemicals. Their source is
much more commonplace and
widespread: it is gasoline from leaking
underground storage tanks. LUST, one
of the funniest acronyms in the
ivironmental business, is no joke.
i.ast fall when Congress amended and
Authorized the Superfund law, it also
langed part of the federal law dealing
with underground tanks. It amended
Subtitle I of the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act, or RCRA, to provide
a $500 million Leaking Underground
Storage Tank Trust Fund over the next
five years to clean up leaks from
underground petroleum storage tanks.
These funds will come from a 1/10 of a
cent federal tax on certain petroleum
products, primarily motor fuels.
Congress passed this law because the
Superfund statute excludes petroleum
releases from its jurisdiction. Thus, EPA
is essentially precluded from using
Superfund to clean up leaks of
petroleum products. With these new
amendments to RCRA, however,
Congress not only gives EPA and the
states the authority to respond to such
releases, but also provides funds to
clean up the environment.
What prompted Congress to take the
action it did to institute such a fund?
Concern was growing over the
increasing number of incidents where
gasoline vapors were detected in houses
jd where drinking water was
j,taminated by leaking petroleum
KS. Late in 1984, Congress created a
fogram to regulate underground storage
orroded storage tank shows
sources of leaks. Superfund
amendments a/locate ir
lid" up damage cauii king
underground storage tanks.
tanks. The program requires improved
design standards for tanks, leak
detection devices, and cleanup
standards.
The estimated number of
underground storage tanks that will be
regulated by the federal government is
at least one million. Based on an EPA
study, the Agency estimates that 20
percent of them may be leaking; that's
200,000 leaking tanks. If only five
percent of them are leaking, which EPA
considers a conservative estimate, that's
still 50,000 leaking tanks.
Since half the population of the
United States depends on ground water
as a source of drinking water, Congress
chose to take positive steps to provide
EPA with both the authority and the
money to protect the public from
releases from underground tanks.
As noted above, this new Leaking
Underground Storage Tank, or LUST,
Trust Fund is to be used by EPA and
the states in responding to and cleaning
up releases from underground tanks
storing petroleum. This includes
products such as gasoline, diesel fuel,
and jet fuel. Releases of hazardous
chemicals will continue to be addressed
under Superfund, as they have been in
the past.
The new law gives EPA, and states
that enter into cooperative agreements
with EPA, the authority to issue orders
requiring owners and operators of
underground storage tanks to undertake
corrective action where a leak is
suspected. This corrective action could
include testing tanks to confirm the
presence of a leak, excavating the site to
determine the exact nature and extent of
contamination, and cleaning
contaminated soil and water. It may also
include providing an alternative water
supply to affected residences, or
temporary or permanent relocation of
residents.
The Congressional philosophy is that
this authority to issue corrective action
orders should be used as the primary
-------
tool to encourage tank owners and
operators to clean up releases from their
tanks. Recognizing, however, that many
leaking tanks will be discovered where
there is no owner or operator who can
afford to pay for the cleanup, or where
the owner or operator lacks the
willingness or ability to undertake such
a project, Congress provided that
monies from the Fund could be used by
EPA and the states to conduct cleanups
where immediate action is necessary.
The Fund is not a bailout for tank
owners. Where Fund monies are used,
owners and operators of underground
storage tanks, as well as any other
responsible parties, are still liable to
EPA or the state for the costs incurred.
They will be pursued in court to recover
cost. And if a government agency
undertakes a cleanup at a site, it's
probably going to cost a lot more than if
the owner had agreed to sponsor it.
Ideally, Congress believes that
payment of cleanup costs can be
satisfied by pollution liability insurance
maintained by tank owners and
operators. Reflecting this attitude,
Congress has directed EPA to publish
regulations requiring all tank owners
and operators, including those owning
chemical tanks, to maintain the
financial capability to clean up leaks.
For petroleum production, refining, and
marketing facilities, Congress has set
minimum coverage levels at $1 million
per occurrence. EPA is authorized to set
lower limits for facilities that don't
handle large quantities of petroleum.
States may enter into cooperative
agreements with EPA under this
program. Doing so will not only allow
states to exercise the enforcement
authority granted by Congress under the
statute, but most importantly, it will
allow the states access to the Trust
Fund to pay for site cleanups as well as
certain administrative expenses related
to cleanups.
EPA sees this provision of the new
law as being most critical. It is the states
and local governments, not EPA, that
are currently in the best position to
respond to releases from leaking
underground petroleum storage tanks.
Most states and local governments have
been responding to such releases for
many years.
The sheer number of underground
storage tanks that are leaking or will
leak in coming years demands that we
avoid the typical EPA approach where
the Agency develops a strong federal
program, runs it for a period of time,
and then turns-it over to the states. Past
experience demonstrates that such an
approach is not necessarily the most
effective way to get the job done.
Instead, EPA plans to delegate this
program to the states as soon as
possible, using cooperative agreements,
even before full EPA approval of a
state's regulatory program for
underground tanks under Subtitle I of
RCRA. States are the key to successful
LUST Trust Fund implementation.
Since October 1986, when Congress
amended Subtitle I, EPA has been
putting a program in place to conduct
emergency cleanups with Trust Fund
monies and to give states access to the
Fund. The Agency asked governors to
designate a state agency for
implementing and administering the
program. Most have done so. EPA also
provided guidelines to its 10 regional
offices on how to negotiate cooperative
agreements. EPA hopes to have the first
agreements in place by the spring of
1987.
The aim is to use the LUST Trust
Fund to clean up dangerous sites
quickly. EPA envisions states using the
Fund in many ways: to enforce
cleanups, establish priorities for sites,
determine appropriate technologies,and,
most importantly, to conduct cleanups
and pursue cost recovery from
responsible parties.
In true emergencies, of course, the
regional staff of EPA is also prepared to
respond. For the most part, however,
EPA expects its role to be as backup to
the states. EPA's Trust Fund staff will
be small, and will concentrate on setting
program direction, making sure
information on the best technology is
available to those who need it,
allocating funds efficiently, and
evaluating the program's effectiveness..
A comprehensive program for dealing
with the problems of underground tanks
can only be accomplished through
rigorous action by the states, with
equally rigorous support from EPA. The
LUST Trust Fund is an important tool
in this country's effort to solve the
health and environmental problems
caused by leaking tanks, n
Taikmg Up
ftfae Slack:
m
The national Superfund program can
only deal with the tip of the
hazardous waste iceberg. By January
1987, 952 of the worst sites in the
United States had either been listed on
EPA's National Priorities List or
proposed for listing. These comprise
just over 10 percent of the 7900 sites
where, in a recent survey of 45 states,
there was known to have been a release
of oil or hazardous substances.
Clearly, there is a major role for the
states to play in the war on hazardous
waste. How well have state governments
responded to the challenge?
A recent survey conducted by the
Association of State and Territorial
Solid Waste Management Officials
(ASTSWMO) reveals substantial
progress at the state level of
government. Ninety percent of the 50
states responded to the survey. The
non-respondents—Alaska, Hawaii,
Nevada, Idaho, and Louisiana—have a
smaller number of National Priorities
List sites than the national average per
state.
Thirty-six out of the 45 states
responding to the ASTSWMO survey
(82 percent) have passed laws that
authorize the state to conduct
assessments and cleanups at hazardous
waste sites that threaten public health
or the environment. But other numbers
belie the notion that a strong state
presence is already a reality.
Eleven states reported that they had
no money available to fund contractors
to perform site assessments and
remedial actions. Nine of the other 34
states responding to the survey had
funding only in the $75,000 to $500,000
range, and six of those indicated that
funds for contractors were only
available for emergency removals. The
same was true of two other states with
funds in excess of $500,000.
These data indicate that nearly half of
the 45 states responding to ASTSWM^
survey need to expand a great deal
before they can be said to have
full-fledged hazardous waste cleanup
programs.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Even those states that have more
funds available for cleanup still have a
long way to go before they catch up
with EPA's Superfund, which had $1.6
billion in authorized spending during
its first five years, and has $8.5 billion
projected for its second. In contrast, the
20 states that reported expenditures for
cleanup programs had average operating
budgets, subject to cost recovery from
responsible parties, of only $1,652,000 a
year.
At present, the average state
responding to the ASTSWMO survey
has 18 sites on EPVs National Priorities
List (NPL), 165 coafirmed problem sites
that do not appear on the NPL, as well
an additional 572 suspected sites.
can help with cleanups at NPL
i, as do the states themselves, in
Iny cases. But only the states can
ensure that sites not severe enough to
merit NPL ranking receive the attention
they deserve.
A problem of massive scale is taking
shape, and its dimensions grow more
formidable all the time. The ASTSWMO
survey estimates that an average of eight
new confirmed or suspected sites are
reported every month. Roughly 10
percent of the total number of
confirmed sites currently prove serious
enough to qualify for the National
Priorities List.
Rapid expansions in state hiring will
be needed for the remainder of the
1980s to keep pace with the growing
dimensions of the hazardous waste
problem. Staffing levels are expected to
rise an average of almost 100 percent by
1990, but even an increase that hefty
will leave the ratio of staff to confirmed
sites virtually unchanged.
This could present problems because
the present ratio is already seriously
deficient in some states. For example.
six of the 45 survey respondents
Irrently have no full-time equivalent
,"f to deal with hazardous waste
anups or emergency actions. The
erage state has the equivalent of 26
full-time employees.
fc
'
Despite funding and manpower
constraints, levels of efficiency in state
mini-Superfunds are quite respectable.
One yardstick widely used to measure
performance is the length of time a site
cleanup requires. The states have
estimated that state-funded cleanups
require an average of 4.73 calendar
years from start to finish. This compares
with 3.67 years for cleanups paid for by
responsible parties, and 5.54 years for
EPA-managed cleanups under the
national Superfund program.
Why are state cleanups faster than
federal cleanups? EPA's Superfund
program must deal with the worst sites
in the United States: sites that present
massive and intractable problems even
to the well-funded manager, scientist,
and engineer. Bill Child, Director of the
Division of Land Pollution Control at
Illinois' environmental agency, also
credits some of the states' speed to
simpler paperwork requirements.
But even with simpler sites to deal
with, and less complicated bureaucratic
procedures, the states have found, as
EPA had already, that it is extremely
difficult to complete a cleanup at a
hazardous waste site. To date, only 5.5
-------
percent of remedial actions have been
completed at confirmed sites in the 45
states surveyed, and that figure includes
cleanups funded and managed by EPA.
The difficulty and the expense of
cleaning hazardous waste sites are
readily apparent to state government
officials and taxpayers. Fundamental
principles of fairness dictate that the
party responsible for creating the waste
in the first place should also bear the
burden of cleaning it up.
As a result, most state laws that have
set up mini-Superfunds follow the
basic principle behind EPA's
Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act (CERCLA). CERCLA insists that
wherever a solvent private party can be
proved responsible for a hazardous
waste problem, that party should both
fund and complete the site cleanup
required.
State governments are taking the same
route: 74 percent of the respondents to
the ASTSWMO survey have statutes
that can require responsible parties to
clean up the damage they have inflicted
on the environment.
A new enforcement tool is becoming a
useful weapon in a growing number of
states. Several states have recently
passed laws prohibiting the sale of real
estate contaminated with hazardous
waste. New Jersey's Environmental
Cleanup Responsibility Act, the
best-known of these laws, requires the
complete restoration of a contaminated
site prior to its transfer to another party.
Businesses eager to turn a profit on
valuable pieces of property now have
every incentive to invest in a cleanup:
the penalty for not doing so is to
experience a freeze-out on the
real-estate market. Legislative analysts
predict that legal restrictions of this
kind will become even more popular as
a state enforcement tool in the next few
years.
The emergence of mini-Superfunds in
the states is an extremely promising
development. EPA's Superfund program
can only deal with the very worst
hazardous waste sites. But sites
presenting an intermediate level of
hazard also demand attention, and
responsible private parties are not
always willing or able to assume the
burden. Thus, a large part of the
cleanup burden falls on the shoulders of
state governments, many of which
clearly have a great need for more
resources if they are to succeed. States
that have not yet begun gearing up to
fight the war against hazardous waste
need to emulate those that have. 3
Challenges for the Future
f:PA action to impJen
The next five years present EPA and
the nation with a complex set of
challenges:
Speeded-Up Pace of Superfund
Cleanups
The Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA)
gave EPA some very difficult deadlines.
The Agency has until 1989 to complete
275 remedial investigations and
feasibility studies. By the same year.
EPA must have 175 remedial actions in
the final cleanup stage. Two hundred
more must have reached that stage by
1991.
Even with the quintupling of
Superfund from $1.6 to $8.5 billion, the
managerial and technical challenge will
be intense. Fortunately, the Agency has
already completed a great deal of the
preliminary work that will put an
accelerated pace of cleanup completions
within reach.
More Permanent Cleanup
Remedies
"More permanent" remedies are not
necessarily slower or more expensive
remedies. But some major readjustments
in thinking will be necessary. It is no
longer possible to fall back on some of
the "solutions" of the past, for example
excessive reliance on landfills.
Intensified Research and
Development
There are bound to be frustrations and
delays until alternative technologies uin
handle all the waste no longer
earmarked for land disposal. That is
why EPA regards research and
development geared to alternative
technologies as an important
in the years ahead.
-------
Improved Management
Without streamlined management, EPA
will be unable to meet its statutory
deadlines, or to make those deadlines
stick by implementing permanent
cleanup remedies. The vastly increased
scale of the new Superfund—five times
larger than in the first five years—will
impose managerial burdens of its own.
To ensure that the money goes for
cleanups, not for overhead, Superfund
plans to introduce a project
management approach to cleanups. This
will centralize managerial control for
each individual cleanup under the
authority of a single management
organization. Centralized control will
minimize transition time and expedite
- 'k on Superfund projects, while at
£ame time improving its quality.
nother managerial goal for
Superfund is improved coordination
with EPA programs authorized by the
mm
t;
the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act. Both Superfund and RCRA are
managed by EPA's Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response.
Strong Enforcement
Enforcement has always been a major
challenge of Superfund because of the
unique nature of the CERCLA statute. In
1980, Congress decreed that responsible
parties should, wherever possible, be
identified and held responsible for
cleanups at Superfund sites.
Currently, settlement agreements and
cost-recovery lawsuits have netted S657
million for Superfund. The next five
years promise to yield even better
results.
Greater Involvement by State
Governments
SARA also involves state governments
in Superfund decision-making to a
greater extent than ever before. The
states must now be involved in the
entire process from site identification to
cleanup, including negotiations, and
EPA must develop regulations to assure
this involvement.
Continued Emphasis on
Community Involvement
EPA established an aggressive
community relations program for
Superfund in 1983. Congress has now
mandated an even more active role for
the public in the Superfund
decision-making process.
Two other initiatives will also be
major challenges of EPA's Office of
Solid Waste and Emergency Response in
the years ahead:
Improved Emergency Planning
Title III legislation appended to SARA
will lead to better preparation at the
state and local levels of government for
emergencies related to hazardous waste.
The community right-to-know
provisions of this statute reinforce
Superfund's commitment to citizen
rights by allowing the public to obtain
information on the hazardous chemicals
in its communities.
The Leaking Underground
Storage Tank Trust Fund
The establishment of a Leaking
Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund
gives EPA's Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act program funds to address
the problem of petroleum pollution
resulting from defective storage tanks.
The LUST Trust Fund will provide $500
million over the next five years to clean
up eligible sites contaminated by leaks
from underground storage tanks.
The future of hazardous waste
management and cleanup is a challenge
that can and will be met. EPA's
Superfund program has built up a
sizable reservoir of knowledge in its
first six years. And a great deal of
preliminary work was completed during
those years that can now be brought to
bear as we finish cleanups. These
factors should help make it possible for
the Superfund program to successfully
meet the complex range of new
challenges that loom ahead, n
US GOVERNMENT :- ' 1988 - 516-002 -
-------
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