Long-Term Stewardship:
Ensuring Environmental Site Cleanups Remain
Protective Over Time
Introduction
The One Cleanup Program (OCR), an initiative promoting cross-program coordination in EPA's Land Revi-
talization Office, is generating momentum to return contaminated land to safe and beneficial uses. In Sep-
tember 2005, the Long-Term Stewardship (LTS) Task Force, one of three created under the OCR, completed
its report and recommendations, Long-Term Stewardship: Ensuring Environmental Site Cleanups Remain
Protective Over Time (available atwww.epa.gov/landrevitalization/publications.htm). The Task Force exam-
ined the wide spectrum of LTS issues and recommended potential activities for EPA to consider in its plan-
ning to ensure long-term protectiveness after revitalization. The Task Force recommendations will serve as
a starting point for developing long-term safety policy mechanisms for all cleanup sites.
LTS activities typically include physical and legal controls to prevent
inappropriate exposure to contamination left in place at a site. The
function of institutional controls, engineering controls and other tools
is to protect human health and the environment and to preserve the
integrity of the selected remedy.
Engineering Controls
Physical or "engineered" controls are the engineered physical barriers or structures
designed to monitor and prevent exposure to the contamination. Certain engineered
cleanups will involve ongoing operation and maintenance (O&M), monitoring, evalua-
tion, periodic repairs, and sometimes replacement of remedy components.
Institutional Controls
Legal or "institutional" controls are administrative and legal controls such as orders or
permits intended to minimize the potential for human exposure to contamination by
limiting land or resource use. Institutional controls may be used to supplement engi-
neering controls and also must be operated, monitored, and evaluated for as long as
the risks at a site are present. Informational devices such as signs, state registries and
deed notices are commonly used informational, non-enforceable tools.
LAND REVITALIZATION
restoring land for America's communities
Examples of
Engineering Controls
Landfill soil caps
Impermeable liners
Other containment covers
Underground slurry walls
Fences
Bioremediation
Ground water pump-and-treat and
monitoring systems
Examples of
Institutional Controls
Zoning
Notices and warnings
Easements
Restrictive covenants
Other land or resource use
restrictions
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What is Long-Term Stewardship?
Many sites cleaned up under Federal and State programs have contamination remaining on the site that restricts or limits their use. Long-
term stewardship (ITS) applies to sites and properties where long-term management of contaminated environmental media is necessary
to protect human health and the environment. The EPA and its regulatory partners rely on LTS at these sites to ensure that current and
future site users are protected long after the construction phase of response actions have been completed. LTS must operate effectively
for the life of the remedy, which can be years, decades, or even longer.
Who is Responsible for ITS?
Long- term cleanup requirements and any subsequent restrictions at these sites must be monitored, maintained and enforced to ensure
the integrity of the remedy and protection of people and the environment. LTS typically involves numerous public and private stakeholders
responsible for implementing, monitoring, and enforcing the engineering and institutional controls.
These stakeholders may include government agencies at the Federal, State, Tribal, and local levels; private parties who either own the
land or otherwise have an interest in the property; communities and local groups living near or affected by the site; and/or other parties
such as land developers, financial institutions, insurance companies, and other third party trusts. Each stakeholder involved at a site has
a particular role and certain responsibilities for carrying out stewardship activities.
LTS at Work
Riverside Park, Oshkosh, Wl
Long-Term Stewardship principles played a key role in helping transform the seven-acre former
Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) Manufacturing Gas Plant property in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, into
Riverside Park, a waterfront park with a public amphitheater. WPS cleaned up a significant por-
tion of the property in 2002 using thermal treatment and capping, an engineered control. The
City of Oshkosh later purchased the property in December 2003. With assistance from an EPA
Brownfields Cleanup Grant, the City was able to continue the remedial action by re-grading the
property, reconstructing the environmental cap, and paving the parking lot as an engineered
control. WPS retains responsibility for implementing long-term stewardship of the remedial sys-
tems and further cleanup of the site.
Old Works Golf Course:
Long-Term Stewardship activities were also central to the redevelopment and reuse of the Old Works Golf Course.Beginning in 1884,
the Old Works smelter began production to treat tons of ore daily from the Butte mine. Later the higher capacity Washoe Smelter was
constructed resulting in the dismantling and closure of the Old Works. The location lay idle until 1983 when it became a Superfund site. In
1989, the site was identified as the future location of the Old Works Golf Course. Construction of the golf course began in June 1994. The
construction of the golf course uses both institutional and engineering controls to achieve four remedial action objectives: waste materials
management, storm water management, site management, and historic preservation.
The waste materials management guidelines provided safe soil concentrations of undesirable wastes that existed on the site, thereby
minimizing any potential recreational or occupational exposure. Storm water management goals focused on protecting Warm Springs
Creek by way of controlling runoff from the golf course and surrounding areas. Site management objectives used institutional controls
for the operation of the golf course, long term monitoring guidelines and appropriate planning and management of future development.
The final objective of the remedial action was to preserve, to the extent practicable, historic features in the Old Works Historic District.
The golf course opened in Spring 1997.
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Long-Term Stewardship:
Ensuring Environmental Site Cleanups
Remain Protective Over Time
Long-Term Stewardship Task Force
EPA formed the Long-Term Stewardship Task Force in 2004 to evaluate the current state of
long-term stewardship across its various waste cleanup programs. The Task Force includes
representatives from each of EPA's cleanup programs, including the Superfund, Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act, Underground Storage Tanks, Brownfields, Federal facili-
ties, and enforcement programs, and from several State cleanup programs.
The Task Force identified and addressed a variety of challenges facing EPA and its partners
responsible for ensuring the implementation, oversight, and enforcement of ITS. These
challenges generally fall into the following six categories:
1 Roles and responsibilities
2 Institutional controls
3 Engineering controls
4 ITS costs
5 ITS funding and resources
6 Information management
Within these categories, the Task Force identified recommendations to address the challeng-
es most seriously affecting Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments at ITS sites. The
results of the Task Force's effort are documented in its report Long-Term Stewardship: En-
suring Environmental Site Cleanups Remain Protective Over Time (available at http://www.
epa.gov/oswer/landrevitalization/publications.htm). The information provided in the report
and its respective recommendations are intended to inform EPA managment and staff but
do not constitute official agency policy or an agency-wide position and are not binding on
EPA or any other party. While these recommendations are focused on EPA activities, many
of the recommendations may be beneficial to other Federal, State, Tribal, and local program
activities.
The Superfund program
estimates approximately
80% of sites entering the
construction completion
universe will require LTS.
The BRAC program
anticipates requiring
LTS at an increasing
number of sites; almost
400,000 acres have been
transferred and put back
into use by others, only
30% is estimated to be
uncontaminated.
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ITS Challenges and Task Force Recommendations
The following presents a summary of the ITS challenges and recommendations for consideration by EPA's cleanup programs.
Roles and Responsibilities
Challenge: Ensuring that Stakeholder Roles
and Responsibilities Are Clearly Understood
Although EPA cleanup programs frequently select remedies
that rely on ITS activities, the responsibility for implementa-
tion, monitoring, and enforcement is often under the juris-
diction of other levels of government and private parties. As
such, there are a variety of public and private stakeholders
that may be involved in selecting, implementing, monitoring,
and enforcing ITS activities at a site. Each stakeholder has
specific responsibilities for carrying out those activities. To
be effective, each stakeholder needs to have a clear under-
standing of their current and future responsibilities as well as
those of any other stakeholder. The roles and responsibili-
ties need to be clearly articulated and accepted by all parties
and well documented through legal and other means.
Recommendations:
• EPA should continue to review its decision documents,
agreements, and other tools as appropriate, to ensure site-
specific ITS roles and responsibilities are clearly delineated.
• EPA should continue to develop guidance addressing ITS
implementation and assurance across its cleanup programs
as appropriate.
• EPA, State, and Tribal cleanup programs and other Federal
agencies should invest more time working with and building
stronger relationships with local governments, and conduct
more training and outreach, to help them better define
and understand their potential specific ITS roles and
responsibilities.
• EPA should partner with other Federal agencies and State,
Tribal, and local government organizations to sponsor one or
more "summits" in which representatives from Federal, State,
Tribal, and local agencies can share their perspectives and
insights on ITS.
Information Management
Challenge: Ensuring that ITS Information Is
Managed and Shared Effectively
Without effective information management, it is difficult for
stakeholders to understand and implement their ITS respon-
sibilities effectively. Information is best managed and coordi-
nated across different levels of government, and should be
widely distributed and accessible to all stakeholders, includ-
ing the public, to communicate risks and safeguards, sup-
port accountability mechanisms, and augment institutional
memory.
Recommendations:
• EPA should continue to facilitate the maintenance and
exchange of ITS information through existing grants and
other resources, and by establishing and promoting data
standards (e.g., data element registries and XML schema
and tags).
• EPA should continue to support the development of
mechanisms for sharing information to prevent breaches of
institutional and engineering controls.
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Long-Term Stewardship:
Ensuring Environmental Site Cleanups
Remain Protective Over Time
ITS Costs
Challenge: Understanding and Considering the Full,
Life-cycle Costs of Long-Term Stewardship When
Making Cleanup Decisions
The cost of ITS activities has long been a key factor when making clean-
up decisions. Risk-based approaches relying on ITS activities often
appear as less expensive alternatives with their relatively low up-front,
short-term costs. However, leaving waste onsite may require long-term
management for decades, centuries, or possibly in perpetuity. There
may be significant costs associated with the ITS of these sites, includ-
ing implementing and maintaining institutional and engineering controls,
oversight and enforcement by governmental or other entities, and other
monitoring and administrative activities. These costs need to be calcu-
lated and fully considered when making remedial decisions at a site. It is
also important to identify ITS costs to non-governmental entities such as
Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) and future users.
Recommendation:
• EPA should evaluate current ITS costing
guidance and, if appropriate, either revise it or
develop new guidance to improve the Agency's
ability to produce more consistent and reliable
cost estimates. As appropriate, EPA should draw
on existing governmental and non-governmental
studies and information for estimating ITS costs.
Institutional Controls (ICs)
Challenge: Ensuring the Effective Implementation of
Institutional Controls
Effective implementation of long-term stewardship activities should:
Ensure that the institutional controls at a site remain in effect
for as long as the contamination poses a risk to human health
and the environment.
Ensure that the restrictions on the land or resources are
effectively communicated to anyone who may come into
contact with the site.
Allow for re-evaluation of ITS needs to determine
effectiveness and need for changes.
Enhance the overall protectiveness of institutional controls by
using them in layers and/or in series.
Recommendations:
• EPA should develop mechanisms and criteria
across its cleanup programs for evaluating the
effectiveness of ICs at sites.
• EPA should support the development of an
analysis of ICs to determine the reliance on (and
burden to) State, Tribal, and local governments.
• To enhance the availability and reliability of ICs,
EPA should encourage States to review the
Uniform Environmental Covenants Act or similar
legal provisions for potential state applicability.
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Engineering Controls (ECs)
Challenge: Ensuring the Effective Implementation and Evaluation of
Engineering Controls
Engineering controls at a site may require ITS activities to ensure that the remedy func-
tions properly and remains protective. To maintain the effectiveness and operational in-
tegrity of the engineering component of a remedy, ITS activities typically involve ongoing
O&M, performance monitoring, and periodic reviews and inspections. In addition, ITS
activities may include reviews of the engineering controls to improve their performance
and/or reduce the annual operating cost without compromising protectiveness.
Recommendation:
• EPA should adopt a flexible
approach for re-evaluating the
effectiveness of ECs and, if
appropriate, modifying ECs
to optimize remedial system
performance and minimize ITS
costs.
ITS Funding and Resources
Challenge: Ensuring that Funding and Other Resource Needs Are
Adequate and Sustainable
A reliable funding source or mechanism is needed to ensure that the long-term responsi-
bilities are fulfilled. For responsible parties, operating facilities, and new landowners, this
may involve securing funding or other financial mechanisms. For government agencies
with oversight and enforcement responsibilities, this may involve obtaining adequate fund-
ing through an annual appropriations process. With a true understanding of the life cycle
ITS costs and a reliable source and mechanism for funding, sound decision-making will
lead to cleanup actions that are both effective and fiscally responsible.
Recommendations:
• EPA should work with outside
organizations to explore
adequate and sustainable
funding sources and
mechanisms at the Federal,
State, and local level to monitor,
oversee, and enforce ITS
activities.
• EPA should continue to explore
the role of the private sector
in supporting the ITS of sites
and foster their involvement, as
appropriate.
Contact Information
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Land Revitalization Staff Office
(202) 566-0201
www. epa. gov/landrevitalization
.ong-Term Steward
Fact Sheet
ce of So//d Was
nd Emergency
Response (5101T)
EPA 500-F-05-017
October 2006
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