[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 167 (Tuesday, August 30, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-21369]


[[Page Unknown]]

[Federal Register: August 30, 1994]


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Part VI





Environmental Protection Agency





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Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy; Notice
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[OW-FRL-5062-2]

 
Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice of availability and request for comment on contaminated 
sediment management strategy

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed 
and is requesting public comments on a comprehensive, multimedia 
Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy. The proposed Strategy 
describes specific actions that EPA will take to reduce environmental 
and human health risks associated with contaminated sediment. The 
Strategy does not propose new regulation. EPA is acting, under existing 
statutory and regulatory authority, to implement policies to 
consistently assess, prevent, and remediate contaminated sediment. 
Because the proposed Strategy is a unique plan of action developed to 
address a significant national environmental problem, and to streamline 
decision-making within and among EPA programs, the Agency is taking the 
unusual step of requesting public comment on this internal EPA work 
plan.

DATES: Written comments must be postmarked or submitted by hand on or 
before October 31, 1994.

ADDRESSES: Requests for copies of EPA's Contaminated Sediment 
Management Strategy (EPA document number EPA 823-R-94-001) should be 
sent to: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Center for 
Environmental Publications and Information, 11029 Kenwood Road, 
Building 5, Cincinnati, Ohio 45242; telephone: 513-891-6561, fax: 513-
891-6685. The proposed Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy and 
the administrative record for its development are available for public 
inspection and copying during normal business hours at the Water 
Docket, Room L-102 (basement) Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M 
Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460. Docket materials include: the 
proposed Strategy, all public comments received on the Strategy as well 
as those received on an earlier proposal for discussion, and the 
proceedings of three national public forums held to discuss development 
of the Strategy. For an appointment to see Docket materials, call 202-
260-3027 between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. As provided in 40 CFR Part 2, a 
reasonable fee may be charged for copying services.
    Comments may be mailed or delivered to: Contaminated Sediment 
Management Strategy Comment Clerk, Water Docket MC-4101, Room L102, 
Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 
20460. Commenters are requested to submit an original and 3 copies of 
their written comments and enclosures. Commenters who want receipt of 
their comments acknowledged should include a self addressed, stamped 
envelope. No facsimiles (faxes) will be accepted.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Thomas M. Armitage, Risk Assessment 
and Management Branch, Office of Science and Technology, Mail Code 
4305, 401 M Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460, Telephone: 202-260-
7049.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
EPA's Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy--Reinventing 
Government to Streamline Decision-Making 
    Contaminated sediment poses ecological and human health risks in 
many watersheds throughout the United States. In these watersheds, 
sediment serves as a contaminant reservoir from which fish and bottom 
dwelling organisms can accumulate toxic compounds and pass them up the 
food chain. Sediment contaminants can be passed to larger fish, birds, 
and mammals until they accumulate to levels that may be toxic to 
humans. Toxic chemicals in sediment come from discharges of industrial 
waste and sewage; stormwater runoff from waste dumps, city streets and 
farms, and air pollutants contained in rainwater. The magnitude of the 
toxics problem in the United States is evidenced in more than 1,200 
State advisories that have been issued against consuming fish that have 
accumulated toxic bioaccumulative contaminants from sediment and other 
sources.
    More than ten Federal statutes provide authority to many EPA 
program offices to address the problem of contaminated sediment. This 
has resulted in fragmented, and in some cases duplicative, efforts to 
complete the necessary research, technology development, and pollution 
control activities required to effectively manage contaminated 
sediment. Often it has been difficult for EPA programs to agree upon 
the fundamental question of whether sediment at a particular site poses 
ecological or human health risks. EPA's proposed Contaminated Sediment 
Management Strategy was developed to streamline decision-making within 
and among the Agency's program offices by promoting and ensuring: the 
use of consistent sediment assessment practices, consistent 
consideration of risks posed by contaminated sediment, the use of 
consistent approaches to management of contaminated sediment risks, and 
the wise use of scarce resources for research and technology 
development.

Goals of the Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy

    EPA's proposed Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy describes 
actions that the Agency will take to accomplish the following four 
strategic goals: (1) Prevent further sediment contamination that may 
cause unacceptable ecological or human health risks; (2) When 
practical, clean up existing sediment contamination that adversely 
affects the Nation's waterbodies or their uses, or that causes other 
significant effects on human health or the environment; (3) Ensure that 
sediment dredging and dredged material disposal continue to be managed 
in an environmentally sound manner; (4) develop and consistently apply 
methodologies for analyzing contaminated sediments.

What the Strategy Does

    The proposed Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy is comprised 
of six component sections: assessment, prevention, remediation, dredged 
material management, research, and outreach. In each section, EPA 
describes actions that the Agency will take to accomplish the four 
broad strategic goals.
    In the assessment section of the Strategy EPA proposes that Agency 
program offices all use standard sediment toxicity test methods and 
chemical-specific sediment quality criteria to determine whether 
sediments are contaminated. Actions that EPA will take to develop a 
national inventory of sites and sources of sediment contamination (the 
National Sediment Inventory) are described in the assessment section of 
the proposed Strategy. The National Sediment Inventory will be used by 
EPA to target sites for contaminated sediment assessment, prevention, 
and remediation. These assessment actions will enable EPA to focus on 
cleaning up the most contaminated waterbodies, and ensuring that 
further sediment contamination is prevented.
    EPA's plan to stop sediment contaminants from reaching the 
environment is described in the prevention section of the proposed 
Strategy. In order to regulate the use of pesticides and toxic 
substances that accumulate in sediment, EPA proposes the use of acute 
sediment toxicity tests to support registration of chemicals under the 
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Toxic 
Substances Control Act. In the prevention section of the Strategy EPA 
also proposes: developing effluent guidelines for industries that 
discharge sediment contaminants in significant amounts; using pollution 
prevention policies to reduce or eliminate sediment contamination 
resulting from noncompliance with permits; preparing guidelines for 
design of new chemicals to reduce bioavailability and partitioning of 
toxic chemicals to sediment; and implementing point and nonpoint source 
controls that will protect sediment quality. EPA's prevention actions 
will stop further contamination of sediment and reduce ecological and 
human health risks.
    In the remediation section of the Strategy EPA proposes using 
multiple statutes to require contaminated sediment remediation by 
parties responsible for pollution. These statutes include the 
Comprehensive Emergency Response, Compensation, and Liability Act 
(CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean 
Water Act (CWA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Rivers 
and Harbors Act, and the Oil Pollution Act. EPA states in the proposed 
Strategy, however, that the Agency will not proceed with a clean-up if 
a combination of pollution prevention and source controls will allow 
the sediments to recover naturally in an acceptable period of time. 
EPA's remediation actions will clean up existing sediment contamination 
that adversely affects the Nation's waterbodies.
    In the dredged material management section of the proposed 
Strategy, EPA discusses the development of technical guidance regarding 
dredged material testing, dredged material disposal site selection, and 
disposal alternatives. EPA actions described in the proposed Strategy 
will ensure continued disposal of dredged material in an 
environmentally sound manner.
    In the research section of the Strategy, EPA proposes a program of 
investigative research that is needed to: develop and validate new 
chemical-specific sediment criteria and other sediment assessment 
methods; improve EPA's understanding of the transfer of sediment 
contaminants through the food chain; and develop and evaluate a range 
of technologies for remediating contaminated sediments. EPA's proposed 
research program will support improved assessment, prevention, and 
remediation of contaminated sediment.
    The outreach section of the proposed Strategy describes actions 
that EPA will take to demonstrate, through public involvement, the 
Agency's commitment to, and accountability for, sediment management 
efforts. EPA will produce, and make available to the public, regular 
status reports on sediment management activities.

Next Steps Toward Implementation of a Federal Agency Contaminated 
Sediment Management Strategy

    EPA will begin to track activities of the Agency's program offices 
as they implement the Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy. 
However, EPA envisions that this internal strategy will also be the 
keystone of a much larger Federal Government strategy for the 
management of contaminated sediment. The Water Resources Development 
Act of 1992 (WRDA 92) requires a National Contaminated Sediment Task 
Force to advise the Federal Government on the extent and severity of 
sediment contamination; sediment restoration methods and technologies; 
prevention and source control measures; and long-term disposal sites 
for contaminated dredged material. The EPA Administrator and the 
Secretary of the Army will convene the Task Force and submit the 
Agency's Strategy to the Task Force for use in developing a Federal 
agency contaminated sediment management strategy. The Task Force can 
build upon EPA's coordinated research program, the research of the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other Federal 
agencies to improve methodologies for measuring ecological and human 
health risks from contaminated sediment.
    EPA's National Sediment Inventory is a repository of sediment 
monitoring data generated by Federal agencies to identify contaminated 
sediment sites. This data base can be used by Federal, State, and local 
agencies to focus their pollution prevention and remediation efforts on 
the worst sites of sediment contamination.
    EPA's Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy addresses 
coordination of EPA Regional and Headquarters roles in the management 
of dredged material, and describes ongoing regulatory development 
activities related to dredged material management.
    The Strategy will help facilitate the coordination of dredged 
material management activities among Federal agencies and 
nongovernmental organizations. Coordination of dredged material 
management activities has been called for in the May 1994 options paper 
drafted by the Federal Interagency Working Group on the Dredging 
Process. The Working Group was convened by the Secretary of 
Transportation in the Fall of 1993. The Group has held a series of 
outreach sessions throughout the country to solicit ideas on improving 
the dredging process. The Working Group identified a number of options 
to improve the dredging process. Some of these options include: 
enhanced research and monitoring to improve dredged material disposal 
decisionmaking, identification of opportunities to control sources of 
sediment contaminants, and effective education and communication with 
the public on the risks and impacts associated with dredged material 
disposal. The proposed Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy 
addresses all of these issues. It describes a plan for research on 
interpretation of bioaccumulation and chronic toxicity tests and 
dredged material disposal site assessment. It provides a plan for 
identification and control of sources of sediment contaminants. It also 
proposes effective ways of interacting with the public.

Listing of Actions Identified in EPA's Contaminated Sediment 
Management Strategy

    EPA's Contaminated Sediment Management Strategy proposes that 
Agency program offices take the following actions.

Assessment

    All EPA program offices will use standard sediment testing methods 
to determine whether sediments are contaminated. The Office of Water 
will use standard sediment toxicity and bioaccumulation test methods 
for monitoring, interpretation of narrative water quality standards, 
and dredged material disposal testing. The Office of Pesticide Programs 
and the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics will use standard 
sediment toxicity tests to assess the toxicity of pesticides and 
chemicals when registering or reregistering these chemicals for 
manufacture and use. The Office of Emergency and Remedial Response will 
use standard sediment toxicity and bioaccumulation test methods for 
Superfund Remedial Investigation/Feasibility studies. The Office of 
Solid Waste will use biological sediment toxicity test methods for 
assessing and monitoring hazardous waste facilities.
    To date, EPA program offices have not yet detailed how they will 
use sediment quality criteria. This information will be documented in a 
Sediment Quality Criteria User's Guide which is currently under 
development. The general decisions on how criteria will be used are 
described in the Strategy. All EPA programs conducting sediment 
monitoring can use the criteria to interpret sediment chemistry data. 
Upon promulgation, the criteria can be adopted as State water quality 
standards and used to set National Pollution Discharge Elimination 
System (NPDES) permit limits. The criteria can also be used with other 
information to make site-specific decisions concerning corrective 
action at hazardous waste facilities, and to assess Superfund sites. 
The criteria can also be used to evaluate dredged material suitability 
for disposal in open water. As soon as EPA's Sediment Quality Criteria 
User's Manual is drafted, it will be noticed in the Federal Register 
for public review and comment. In the interim, the Contaminated 
Sediment Management Strategy will be implemented using the standardized 
biological assessment methods already available for the program 
offices.
    The National Sediment Inventory will be used by EPA program offices 
as an assessment tool. The inventory will be used to: identify 
contaminated sediment sites for consideration for remedial action; 
target facilities for possible injunctive relief or supplemental 
enforcement projects; identify problem pesticides and toxic substances 
that may require further regulation or be targeted for enforcement 
action; identify impaired waters for National Water Quality Inventory 
reports or development of Total Maximum Daily Loads; target watersheds 
for nonpoint source management practices; and to help select industries 
for effluent guidelines development.

Prevention

    In order to regulate the use of pesticides that may accumulate to 
toxic levels in sediment, EPA intends to propose that acute sediment 
toxicity tests be included in procedures required to support 
registration, reregistration, and special review of pesticides likely 
to sorb to sediment. In fiscal year 1995, EPA will propose 
incorporating acute toxicity bioassays and spiking protocols into the 
Agency's pesticide assessment guidelines (40 CFR Part 158). To prevent 
other toxic substances from accumulating in sediment, EPA will also 
propose incorporating acute sediment toxicity tests and sediment 
bioaccumulation tests into routine chemical review processes required 
under the Toxic Substances Control Act. In addition, EPA intends to 
call for the development of EPA guidelines for design of new chemicals 
to reduce bioavailability and partitioning of toxic chemicals to 
sediment.
    EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance will take 
action to prevent sediment contamination by negotiating, in cases of 
noncompliance with permits, enforceable settlement agreements to 
require source recycling and source reduction activities. The Office of 
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance will also monitor the progress of 
Federal facilities toward the goal of halving toxic emissions by the 
year 1999, and will monitor the reporting of toxic releases to the 
public.
    EPA's Office of Water, and other EPA program offices, will work 
with nongovernmental organizations and the States to prevent point and 
nonpoint source contaminants from accumulating in sediments. EPA will: 
(1) promulgate new and revised best available technology effluent 
guidelines for industries that discharge sediment contaminants in 
significant amounts; (2) encourage the States to use biological 
sediment test methods to interpret water quality standards, and to 
adopt sediment quality criteria as water quality standards; (3) 
encourage the States to develop Total Maximum Daily Loads for impaired 
watersheds specifying point and nonpoint source load reductions 
necessary to protect sediment quality; (4) use the National Sediment 
Inventory to target active point sources of sediment contaminants for 
permit compliance tracking, (5) ensure that discharges from CERCLA 
sites and RCRA facilities subject to NPDES permits comply with permit 
requirements that protect sediment quality; (6) use the National 
Sediment Inventory to target watersheds where technical assistance and 
grants would effectively be used to reduce nonpoint source loads of 
sediment contaminants.

Remediation

    The National Sediment Inventory will be used by EPA's Office of 
Water, Office of Emergency and Remedial Response, Office of Solid 
Waste, and Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance to help 
target sites for enforcement action requiring contaminated sediment 
remediation. EPA's standard sediment toxicity and bioaccumulation tests 
will be used to identify sites for remediation, assist in determining 
clean-up goals for contaminated sites, and to monitor the effectiveness 
of remedial actions.

Dredged Material Management

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that a small percentage 
of the total volume of sediment dredged for navigational channel 
maintenance requires special handling due to the presence of toxics. 
The National Sediment Inventory will be used to identify sites where 
dredged material may be contaminated. EPA standard sediment toxicity 
and bioaccumulation tests are now used in dredged material testing.

Research

    EPA's Office of Research and Development, through its Environmental 
Monitoring and Assessment Program, will continue to collect new 
chemical and biological data on sediment quality. These data will be 
included in the Agency's National Sediment Inventory. EPA's Office of 
Research and Development will also develop: new biological methods to 
assess the ecological and human health effects of sediment 
contaminants, chemical-specific sediment quality criteria, methods to 
conduct sediment toxicity identification evaluations, dredged material 
disposal fate and transport models, sediment wasteload allocation 
models, and technologies for remediation of contaminated sediment.

Outreach

    EPA will undertake a program of outreach and technology transfer to 
educate target audiences about contaminated sediment risk management. 
Target audiences will include: other Federal agencies, State and Local 
agencies, the regulated community, the scientific community, 
environmental advocacy groups, the news media, and the general public. 
Technical and nontechnical information will be provided to these 
audiences by developing a range of outreach products. The National 
Contaminated Sediment Task Force will develop Federal recommendations 
on contaminated sediment that will also be included in outreach 
materials.

    Dated: August 22, 1994.
Carol M. Browner,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 94-21369 Filed 8-29-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P