• B \ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General At a Glance 18-P-0074 January 24, 2018 Why We Did This Review We assessed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) actions to address recommendations in two Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports: • No. 2007-P-00002. EPA Needs to Plan and Complete a Toxicity Assessment for the Libby Asbestos Cleanup, issued December 5, 2006. • No. 13-P-0221. Better Planning, Execution and Communication Could Have Reduced the Delays in Completing a Toxicity Assessment of the Libby, Montana, Superfund Site, issued April 17, 2013. The Deputy Administrator, Assistant Administrator for Land and Emergency Management, Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, and Region 8 Regional Administrator were responsible for completing the recommendations in these reports. This report addresses the following: • Cleaning up and revitalizing land. Send all inquiries to our public affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or visit www.epa.gov/oia. Follow-Up Review: EPA Completed OIG Recommendations for Superfund Site in Libby, Montana What We Found The EPA took corrective actions that enabled the Libby toxicity assessment to be completed with transparency and that provided stakeholders with important human exposure information. In 2006, we reported that the EPA had not completed a toxicity assessment of amphibole asbestos in Libby, Montana, to determine a safe level for human exposure. In 2013, we conducted a follow-up review to determine why the EPA did not meet its planned milestones for completing the toxicity assessment. We concluded that the EPA could have made better progress in completing its work through improved communication, planning and execution of actions. The OIG's 2006 report contained two recommendations. The EPA completed Recommendation 2 before we issued our 2006 report, but Recommendation 1, which called for the funding and execution of the toxicity assessment, still remained incomplete when we published our 2013 follow-up report. During this current review, we verified that the EPA completed the agreed-upon corrective actions for Recommendation 1 in December 2014 by releasing the toxicity assessment report. The OIG's 2013 report contained nine recommendations. The EPA completed five of these recommendations shortly after we issued our 2013 report. During this current review, we concluded that the EPA completed the agreed-upon corrective actions for the remaining four recommendations, which called for updating stakeholders on significant risks to milestones, establishing a charter, ensuring that interagency agreement contracts are within the scope of the interagency agreement, and developing a priority list for research work. By completing these outstanding recommendations, the agency was able to issue the toxicity assessment, make determinations on the effectiveness of the EPA's cleanup, and assess whether additional remedial actions were required. Furthermore, the EPA achieved these actions with transparency to stakeholders. There are no recommendations in this report. Agency Response and OIG Evaluation The agency did not have any comments. The OIG has no additional comment. Listing of OIG reports. ------- |