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*. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	12-P-0362
-	\ Office of Inspector General	March 21,2012
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Why We Did This Review
The purpose of this evaluation
was to determine whether
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) Region 4
implemented agreed to actions
in response to our May 2010
report concerning
improvements needed at the
CTS Superfund site located in
Asheville, North Carolina.
Background
In response to a congressional
request, the Office of
Inspector General (OIG)
issued in May 2010 a final
report to EPA Region 4 with
10 recommendations to
improve aspects of
environmental sampling and
community involvement at the
site. Region 4 agreed to take
action on all the final report
recommendations and certified
in November 2010 that the
recommendations were
complete.
EPA Has Implemented Corrective Actions to
Improve Conditions at Asheville, North Carolina
Superfund Site
What We Found
Region 4 took actions to implement all recommendations made in EPA OIG
Report No. 10-P-0130, EPA Activities Provide Limited Assurance of the Extent of
Contamination and Risk at a North Carolina Hazardous Waste Site,
May 17, 2010. The region completed 8 of the 10 recommendations. Further
actions are needed to complete 2 OIG recommendations. Specifically:
•	The region modified letters to residents communicating well water
sampling results by including a supplemental fact sheet in the letters.
However, the sheet does not conform to Region 4 standard operating
procedures created in October 2010.
•	The region revised the site's Community Involvement Plan in April 2010.
However, the plan did not include a specific communication strategy.
Additionally, the plan does not reflect the site's current National Priorities
List status and recent site activities.
Three additional issues came to our attention during this review:
•	The region did not have controls in place to ensure the site's public
informational repository is being kept up to date and maintained.
•	The region did not complete a report on a removal action pilot study, nor
provide a fact sheet to the community on the results as planned.
•	The region did not timely bill responsible parties approximately $175,000
in federal government costs incurred at the site. The billing lapse was an
oversight, which has since been corrected.
For further information,
contact our Office of
Congressional and Public
Affairs at (202) 566-2391.
The full report is at:
www.epa.gov/oiq/reports/2012/
20120321-12-P-0362.pdf
What We Recommend
We recommend that the Region 4 Administrator implement the following actions:
•	Revise an information sheet on the results of private well sampling.
•	Revise the Community Involvement Plan.
•	Create and maintain an index for the site informational repository.
•	Complete the final report on the removal action pilot study and fact sheet
for the community on the results of the study.
Region 4 provided a corrective action plan with milestone dates to address all of
the report recommendations.

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