[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 128 (Thursday, August 3, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11336-S11338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______


                   RELEASE OF GAO REPORT ON SUPERFUND

 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to draw my colleagues 
attention to a report just released by the General Accounting Office 
that I requested on May 24, 1995. The report is entitled ``Superfund: 
Information on Current Health Risks,'' and it examines the actual, 
current health risks at Superfund sites. I believe the results of this 
study are very surprising, and may have very important implications for 
the Superfund budget and possibly for Superfund reauthorization.
  At the recent White House Conference on Small Business, Superfund 
reform was voted the No. 5 issue out of literally hundreds of topics of 
concern to small business. As these small businesses representatives 
know all too well Superfund liability is literally killing many small 
businesses. As chairman of the Small Business Committee in addition to 
being a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and 
chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for the EPA, I asked GAO to 
prepare this report because I wanted to get a better understanding of 
the reduction in health risks and other benefits of the money spent on 
Superfund.
  The GAO report looked at EPA's own data from 225 recent records of 
decision signed between 1991 and mid-1993. These are the sites that 
will soon be moving into the expensive construction phase and will be 
driving a big portion of the Superfund budget in the next few years.
  The report found that less than one third of the sites posed health 
risks serious enough to warrant a cleanup under current land uses. Some 
of the sites in this category have no current exposure and hence no 
current risk. However, under current land uses, there could be a risk 
in the future if, for example, a ground water plume migrated to a 
currently used drinking water source. So this category is over-
inclusive if anything. In addition, about one-half of the other sites 
in this category used to pose a health risk but a removal action has 
already been completed to address any immediate risks.
  Over one-half of the 225 sites do not pose any risk warranting a 
cleanup under existing conditions, although they might pose a risk in 
the future if current land use patterns change. The remaining 15 
percent of the sites do not pose risks serious enough to warrant 
cleanup under existing conditions or under foreseeable future 
conditions. They are already in EPA's target risk range for completed 
cleanups.
  The implications of these findings are profound. Superfund sites 
clearly do not threaten the health of millions of Americans. As is 
often stated in fact, if we stopped conducting Superfund remedial 
actions altogether there are only a few sites that would have any 
impact on human health today. However, I do not think we can conclude 
from this report that Superfund should be abolished entirely, this 
report shows that some sites do indeed pose a risk to health, and other 
sites may pose environmental risks sufficient to warrant cleanup, but 
dramatic reform is clearly needed.
  I believe this report can help us to use our increasingly scarce 
Federal dollars more wisely, without putting anyone's health at risk. 
In fact, I think we can use this report to protect people's health by 
better prioritizing EPA's efforts on sites posing current health risks. 
This doesn't mean we should ignore environmental risks or future risks, 
but current health risks should be our first priority.
  The decline in overall discretionary spending in forcing us to make 
significant changes in the EPA's budget. As chairman of the VA, HUD, 
and Independent Agencies Subcommittee, I must make reductions totaling 
more than $9 billion in budget authority from the fiscal year 1995 VA-
HUD bill. This is a reduction of about 12 percent, and will impact 
virtually all of the agencies under my subcommittee's jurisdiction, 
including the Department of Veterans Affairs, HUD, NASA, EPA, and the 
National Science Foundation, to name a few. This reduction in 
discretionary spending will mean that increases for any program will be 
nearly impossible.
  Clearly, in coming years, the Agency will simply have to get used to 
doing more with less. The Superfund Program will not be exempt from 
these changes. With decreasing resources available to EPA, Superfund 
can be expected to take its share of cuts. In this tight budgetary 
climate, it is only prudent to plan for smaller budgets by focusing on 
prioritizing among Superfund NPL sites.
  The taxes funding the Superfund trust fund are set to expire on 
December 31, 1995.
  Legislation to reauthorize Superfund is currently moving through 
Congress that will bring much needed reform to the program. Fiscal year 
1996 will likely be a transition year for the Superfund Program. I want 
to ensure that the transition is an orderly one and the Agency can 
avoid the problems encountered by the program during the last 
transition in 1985 and 1986.
  In my opinion, the highest priority of the Superfund Program should 
be to protect current risks to human health and to ensure that sites on 
the national priorities list are not currently causing illness. It is 
inappropriate to expend significant resources on remedial action at 
sites that will only pose a risk in the future, and only under changed 
circumstances, while sites that pose a health risk today--that are 
making people sick today--go unaddressed.
  Currently, the Agency is not doing a sufficient job or prioritizing 
its resources to address the worst sites first, in part because it does 
not distinguish between current risks, future risks under current land 
uses and future risks that will only exist under changed circumstances. 
In response to a question by the Appropriations Subcommittee on how the 
Agency prioritizes its Superfund resources, EPA responded, ``Once sites 
are listed on the NPL, Ban effort is made to maintain a stable pipeline 
of projects in the remedial process through resource allocation 
decisions.'' I am very concerned that by its own admission, EPA is 
placing a greater emphasis on bureaucratic convenience than on ongoing 
impacts to human health.
  Our first obligation must be to protect the health of people who live 
around Superfund sites to stop people from getting sick due to real, 
ongoing exposures. It seems wrong to divert funds from these sites to 
sites that might only pose a risk warranting cleanup under changed 
circumstances simply ``to maintain a stable pipeline of projects.''
  This GAO Report shows that Superfund is even more broken than we 
realized. I urge all my colleagues to read this report and consider its 
findings as we move forward to fund the program in fiscal year 1996 and 
to reauthorize the Superfund Program. I ask that the GAO Report be 
printed in the Record.
  The report follows:
             SUPERFUND--Information on Current Health Risks

         U.S. General Accounting Office, Resources, Community, and 
           Economic Development Division,
                                    Washington, DC, July 19, 1995.
     Hon. Christopher S. Bond,
     Chairman, Committee on Small Business, U.S. Senate.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Superfund cost estimates are growing at 
     a substantial rate. The Superfund program was authorized 
     through 1994 at $15.2 billion, covering over 1,100 nonfederal 
     sites on the National Priorities List (NPL).\1\ These figures 
     could grow to $75 billion (in 1994 dollars) and 4,500 
     nonfederal sites, according to the Congressional Budget 
     Office (CBO).\2\ Because of these escalating costs, 
     congressional decision makers want to know more about the 
     human health risks addressed by the program. Although the 
     Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
     recently testified to the Congress that approximately 73 
     million people live fewer than 4 miles from at least one 
     Superfund site, much debate has occurred about the extent to 
     which these sites pose health risks for cancer or other 
     conditions, such as birth defects or nerve or liver damage.
     Footnotes at end of article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       To help measure the health risks from Superfund sites, you 
     asked us to provide the best available information on (1) the 
     extent to which sites may pose health risks under 

[[Page S 11337]]
     current land uses, as opposed to the risks that may develop if land 
     uses change in the future; the nature of the current risks; 
     and the types of environmental media (e.g., groundwater, 
     soil, or air) that pose these risks and (2) whether EPA's 
     short-term response actions to mitigate the health risks from 
     Superfund sites have reduced the risks under current land 
     uses. This report presents our findings on these issues as 
     they relate to the 225 nonfederal NPL sites contained in 
     EPA's data base on health risks from Superfund sites--the 
     most comprehensive automated information available as of 
     early 1995. These sites constitute most of the sites where 
     EPA made cleanup decisions between 1991 and mid-1993. As 
     agreed with your office, in our ongoing work for you we will 
     examine other related issues, such as the nature of health 
     risks from the Superfund sites under future changes in land 
     use.
                            Results in Brief

       About one-third (or 71) of the 225 sites contained in EPA's 
     data base posed health risks serious enough to warrant 
     cleanup, given current land uses.\3\ About another one-half 
     (or 119) of the 225 sites did not pose serious health risks 
     under current land uses but posed such health risks under 
     EPA's projections about future changes in land use. The 
     remainder of the sites did not pose health risks serious 
     enough to warrant cleanup action under either current or 
     future land uses. However, EPA may decide to clean up these 
     remaining sites to comply with other federal or state 
     regulations or because of a threat to the environment, such 
     as contamination endangering a wetland. The current health 
     risks at the 71 sites usually occurred through a single 
     environmental medium, most commonly groundwater or soil. Of 
     these 71 sites, 28 percent posed cancer risks; 30 percent 
     posed risks for noncancer conditions, such as birth defects 
     or nerve or liver damage; and the remainder posed risks for 
     both cancer and other, noncancer conditions.
       According to officials from EPA's Office of Emergency and 
     Remedial Response, EPA's short-term response actions have 
     temporarily mitigated the health risks that could immediately 
     endanger the population surrounding the 71 sites that posed 
     serious health risks under current land uses. Under EPA's 
     policy, whenever a Superfund site poses such a health risk, a 
     short-term response, known as a ``removal action,'' will be 
     undertaken. EPA's data indicate that various removal actions 
     have occurred at 31 of the 71 sites. EPA officials caution 
     that while removal actions clearly reduce health risks, 
     information is not readily available to determine the extent 
     to which the removal actions taken at these 31 sites affected 
     the risks reported in the data base. The remaining 40 sites 
     did not pose immediate risks substantial enough to warrant 
     removal actions, according to the officials, although the 
     sites still pose longer-term health risks under current land 
     uses. For example, at some sites contaminated groundwater 
     that does not immediately endanger surrounding populations 
     may eventually reach the drinking water supplies used by 
     current residents, thereby posing an eventual health risk.


                               Background

       With the enactment of CERCLA in 1980, the Congress created 
     the Superfund program authorizing EPA, among other things, to 
     clean up contamination at hazardous waste sites. CERCLA also 
     created a trust fund available for various cleanup activities 
     and authorized EPA to compel the parties responsible for 
     these sites to help conduct or pay for the cleanup. The 
     Superfund program was extended in 1986 and in 1990 and is now 
     being considered for reauthorization. Under CERCLA, EPA 
     assesses contaminated areas and then places the sites it 
     considers to be the most highly contaminated on the NPL for 
     further investigation and cleanup.
       EPA responds to hazardous substances at Superfund sites 
     through ``removal'' and ``remedial'' actions. Removal actions 
     are generally short-term (less than 1 year), low-cost (under 
     $2 million) measures intended to address actual or potential 
     releases of hazardous substances that pose a threat to human 
     health or the environment. Although many removal actions are 
     temporary measures to prevent exposure by stabilizing 
     conditions at a site or limiting access to the site, some 
     removal actions may permanently clean up contamination.\4\ 
     Typical removal actions include installing security measures 
     at a site, removing tanks or drums of hazardous substances 
     from a site, or excavating contaminated soil. By contrast, 
     remedial actions are long-term measures intended to 
     permanently mitigate the risks from a site. Typical remedial 
     actions include treating or containing contaminated soil, 
     constructing underground walls to control the movement of 
     groundwater, and incinerating hazardous wastes.
       Once a site is on the NPL, EPA conducts a ``remedial 
     investigation'' to determine whether the nature and extent of 
     the contamination at the site warrant remedial action. One 
     component of this investigation is a baseline risk assessment 
     to evaluate the health risks the site would pose if no 
     cleanup occurred.\5\ For the baseline risk assessment, EPA 
     evaluates health risks under both ``current land-use 
     conditions'' and ``alternate future land-use conditions.'' As 
     an example, a site would pose health risks under current 
     land-use conditions if local residents used groundwater 
     containing a hazardous level of contaminants from the site as 
     drinking water or if contaminated groundwater could 
     eventually reach the wells of distant residents. By contrast, 
     a site would pose health risks under alternate future land-
     use conditions if future land development would expose people 
     to health risks from the site's contaminants, even if the 
     site may not pose risks under current land uses.
       At each site, EPA assesses the cancer risk, as well as the 
     risk for other ill health conditions (noncancer risk), posed 
     by the contaminants in groundwater, soil, surface water, 
     sediment, air, and other environmental media to determine if 
     these risks warrant cleanup. In the case of cancer, EPA 
     considers the risk serious enough to warrant cleanup if the 
     risk assessment indicates more than a 1 in 10,000 probability 
     that exposure to the site's contaminants may cause an 
     individual to develop cancer. In the case of noncancer health 
     effects, such as birth defects or nerve or liver damage, EPA 
     considers the risk serious enough to warrant cleanup if the 
     risk assessment indicates that exposure to the site's 
     contaminants might exceed the level that the human body can 
     tolerate without developing ill health effects.
       EPA's Responsive Electronic Link and Access Interface 
     (RELAI) data base, from which we drew information for this 
     report, is the most comprehensive and current automated 
     source of EPA's data on the health risks of Superfund sites. 
     Created in 1993, this data base contains information about 
     health risks from EPA's risk assessments and other documents 
     related to 225 nonfederal sites, which constitute most of the 
     sites where EPA made cleanup decisions between 1991 and mid-
     1993.


         One-Third of Sites Posed Risks Under Current Land Uses

       About 32 percent (71) of the 225 sites in EPA's data base 
     posed serious health risks under the land uses current at the 
     time of the risk assessment. About 53 percent (119) of the 
     225 sites did not pose risks warranting cleanup under current 
     land uses, but posed such risks under EPA's projections about 
     future changes in land use.\6\ The remaining 15 percent (35) 
     of the sites did not pose health risks serious enough to 
     warrant cleanup action under either current or future land 
     uses. As we noted earlier, EPA may still decide to clean up 
     these remaining sites because of federal or state regulations 
     or because of a threat to the environment, such as 
     contamination endangering a wetland.
       Our analysis of EPA's data on the 71 sites posing health 
     risks under current land uses indicates the following: At 77 
     percent (55) of the sites, a single environmental medium, 
     usually groundwater or contaminated soil, posed the health 
     risks, and at the remaining 23 percent (16) of the sites, 
     multiple environmental media posed the health risks.
       EPA's data for the 71 sites also indicate that 28 percent 
     posed cancer risks, 30 percent posed noncancer risks, and 42 
     percent posed both cancer and noncancer risks. EPA's 
     noncancer risk category includes such conditions as birth 
     defects or nerve or liver damage.


          removal actions have reduced immediate health risks

       According to officials from the Office of Emergency and 
     Remedial Response (OERR), EPA's removal program has mitigated 
     the immediate health risks from Superfund sites, at least 
     temporarily. EPA's policy requires a short-term response 
     whenever a Superfund site poses a health risk that 
     immediately endangers the surrounding populations. According 
     to the OERR officials, under the removal program EPA has 
     periodically evaluated the NPL sites and has taken 
     intervening steps at those sites determined to pose immediate 
     threats to health. EPA's data indicate that removal actions 
     have occurred at 31 of the 71 sites that posed risk under 
     current land uses.
       OERR officials caution that while removal actions have 
     mitigated the immediate health risks at these sites, 
     information is not readily available to determine the extent 
     to which removal actions have affected the health risks 
     reported in the data base. According to these officials, the 
     available information does not indicate whether the removal 
     actions removed or treated only enough contaminants to 
     mitigate the risks that immediately endangered a site's 
     surrounding population. For example, a small pile of highly 
     contaminated soil might have been removed, mitigating the 
     immediate risks to children playing nearby but having little 
     effect on the site's more extensive soil contamination.
       OERR officials also caution that the available information 
     does not indicate the extent to which the health risks 
     reported in the data base may already reflect the effect of 
     the removal actions. In some cases, a removal action may have 
     taken place before the risk assessment. OERR officials are 
     uncertain about whether, in such cases, risk assessors might 
     have considered the effect of the removal in reporting the 
     site's health risks.
       Of the 71 sites posing risks under current land uses, 40 
     sites did not pose immediate threats substantial enough to 
     warrant removal actions, according to OERR officials. These 
     officials explained that although these sites did not pose 
     risks that immediately endanger nearby populations, they 
     still pose risks under current land-use conditions. For 
     example, according to these officials, at some sites 
     contaminated groundwater has not yet reached drinking water. 
     However, under current land uses, the groundwater could 
     eventually reach a drinking water supply, thereby posing a 
     health risk. Table 1 categorizes these 40 sites by the 
     environmental media posing the current health risk.

[[Page S 11338]]


 Table 1--Forty sites posing health risks under current land uses that 
                   have not warranted removal action

Environmental medium that posed health risks                     Number
Groundwater..........................................................18
Soil.................................................................13
Sediment..............................................................2
Air...................................................................1
Surface water.........................................................0
Multiple media........................................................6
                                                               ________

      Total..........................................................40

Source: GAO's analysis of data from EPA's RELAI data base.
                            agency comments

       We requested that EPA provide comments on a draft of this 
     report. On June 19, 1995, we met with officials from EPA's 
     OERR, including the Chief, Response Operations Branch, to 
     obtain the agency's comments on the draft report. The 
     officials told us that they were generally satisfied that the 
     information presented in the report is accurate. The 
     officials provided additional perspectives on several issues 
     discussed in the report and also suggested technical 
     corrections on a few matters. We revised the draft report to 
     incorporate these comments.
                         scope and methodology

       To provide information on the extent to which Superfund 
     sites may pose serious health risks under current land uses 
     and on the nature of those risks, we analyzed pertinent 
     information from EPA's most comprehensive data base on the 
     health risks from Superfund sites. While we did not 
     independently verify the accuracy of EPA's data, we reviewed 
     the agency's data collection and verification guidelines and 
     internal quality assurance procedures, and determined these 
     internal controls to be adequate. We worked closely with EPA 
     officials to ensure a proper interpretation and analysis of 
     the data. Although the Agency for Toxic Substances and 
     Disease Registry--the Public Health Service agency 
     responsible for identifying health problems in the 
     communities around Superfund sites--also assesses sites' 
     health risks, we did not analyze the agency's evaluation data 
     on Superfund sites for this report because of time 
     constraints.
       To provide information on whether EPA's short-term response 
     actions have reduced the health risks from Superfund sites, 
     we obtained EPA's data on the removal actions that have 
     occurred at the 71 sites where current health risks existed. 
     Although we did not verify this information, we discussed the 
     information and EPA's removal policy and actions with 
     officials from OERR's Response Standards and Criteria and 
     Response Operations branches.
       We performed our work between April and June 1995 in 
     accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
     standards.
       As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce 
     this report's contents earlier, we plan no further 
     distribution until 10 days after the date of this letter. At 
     that time, we will send copies to the Administrator, EPA; the 
     Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other 
     interested parties. We will also make copies available to 
     others on request.
       The major contributors to this report are listed in 
     appendix I. If you or your staff have any questions about 
     this report, please call me at (202) 512-6111.
           Sincerely yours,
                                                Peter F. Guerrero,
                        Director, Environmental Protection Issues.


             appendix I--major contributors to this report

       Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division, 
     Washington, D.C.: Eileen R. Larence, Assistant Director, 
     Patricia J. Manthe, Evaluator-in-Charge, Karen A. Simpson, 
     Evaluator, Barbara A. Johnson, Program Analyst, Jeanine M. 
     Brady, Reports Analyst.
       Chicago Regional Office: Sharon E. Butler, Senior 
     Evaluator.


                               footnotes

     \1\ The Congress created the Superfund program under the 
     Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and 
     Liability Act (CERCLA), which authorized the Environmental 
     Protection Agency (EPA), among other things, to clean up 
     contamination at the nation's hazardous waste sites. EPA 
     places the sites it considers to be the most severely 
     contaminated on the NPL for cleanup.
     \2\ The Total Costs of Cleaning Up Nonfederal Superfund 
     Sites, CBO (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 1994).
     \3\ EPA considers the risk serious enough to warrant cleanup 
     if (1) an individual has more than a 1 in 10,000 chance of 
     developing cancer from exposure to the site's contaminants or 
     (2) if exposure to the site's contaminants might exceed the 
     level humans can tolerate without developing other ill health 
     effects, such as birth defects or nerve or liver damage.
     \4\ According to officials in EPA's Office of Emergency and 
     Remedial Response, while permanent removal actions are 
     preferred over temporary measures, EPA must consider several 
     factors, including competing needs at other sites, in 
     determining the appropriate removal action for a site.
     \5\ At some sites, EPA may take removal actions before the 
     risk assessment occurs, which could reduce somewhat the risk 
     estimated in the baseline assessment of the site.
     \6\ According to EPA officials, the Superfund program is 
     supposed to address significant health risks under both 
     current and future land uses. About 85 percent of sites in 
     the RELAI data base meet EPA's criteria for serious health 
     risk under either current or future land uses.
     

                          ____________________