Hazardous Waste: EPA Has Removed Some Barriers to Cleanups (Letter
Report, 08/31/2000, GAO/RCED-00-224).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to remove barriers to
hazardous waste cleanup, focusing on: (1) cleanups of remediation waste
at sites subject to the three Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA) requirements; and (2) the management factors that had slowed the
pace of cleanups under the corrective action program in particular.
GAO noted that: (1) several actions EPA has taken to revise its
regulatory requirements for handling remediation waste have removed some
barriers to cleanups; (2) in response to GAO's 1997 recommendation that
EPA better inform cleanup managers of the existing options that could
exempt remediation waste from the RCRA requirements, EPA, in October
1998, issued a memorandum on these options; (3) state cleanup program
managers reported that their staff are now using these options to
accomplish more site cleanups; (4) EPA issued new regulations governing
the management of remediation waste that provided some relief from the
barriers the three RCRA requirements posed, especially more flexible
treatment requirements for soil; (5) the state and industry cleanup
program managers believed that some portions of the new rules would help
promote cleanups; (6) in February 2000, EPA settled a lawsuit in which
groups had charged that a proposed 1993 rule providing flexibility under
the RCRA requirements for certain on-site storage and disposal units for
remediation waste did not sufficiently protect human health; (7) EPA
agreed to amend the 1993 rule so that certain wastes would still be
subject to somewhat more stringent requirements; (8) according to state
and industry officials, EPA's agreement will reduce the flexibility that
the 1993 rule allowed for cost-effective cleanups and will thus deter
some cleanups; (9) on the other hand, EPA officials believe that these
cleanups may increase now that the legal uncertainty surrounding on-site
storage units has been removed; (10) the state, industry, and
environmental officials differed as to whether any legislative changes
were necessary to address any remaining cleanup barriers that EPA was
unable to address through its regulatory actions; (11) EPA does not have
a position on whether legislative changes are warranted; (12) in 1999,
EPA implemented a set of administrative reforms that address several of
the management factors GAO previously identified as slowing the pace of
corrective action cleanups; and (13) the reforms include: (a) issuing
new guidance on a more flexible process for selecting and implementing
cleanup method and providing cleanup managers training on this guidance,
an action GAO had recommended in GAO's 1997 report; and (b) establishing
new goals under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to
control human exposure to contamination and the migration of
contaminated groundwater at "high-priority" facilities by 2005.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: RCED-00-224
TITLE: Hazardous Waste: EPA Has Removed Some Barriers to Cleanups
DATE: 08/31/2000
SUBJECT: Environmental law
Waste management
Environmental policies
Industrial wastes
Pollution control
Federal/state relations
Hazardous substances
Waste disposal
IDENTIFIER: EPA RCRA Corrective Action Program
Superfund Program
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GAO/RCED-00-224
A Report to Congressional Requesters
August 2000 HAZARDOUS WASTE EPA Has Removed Some Barriers to Cleanups
GAO/ RCED- 00- 224
Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division
Lett er
B- 285511 August 31, 2000 The Honorable Robert C. Smith Chairman, Committee
on Environment
and Public Works United States Senate The Honorable Lincoln Chafee Chairman,
Subcommittee on Superfund,
Waste Control and Risk Assessment Committee on Environment and Public Works
United States Senate
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, as amended, (RCRA)
establishes three key requirements governing the treatment, storage, and
disposal of hazardous waste. First, under what is referred to as the land
disposal requirements, hazardous waste generally must be treated to minimize
threats to human health and the environment before it is disposed of on
land. Second, under so- called minimum technology requirements, facilities
that treat or dispose of waste, such as landfills, must meet certain design
standards, such as installing a double liner under the landfill to protect
soil and water from contamination. Finally, facilities that treat, store, or
dispose of hazardous waste, including carrying out cleanup activities, must
generally obtain a permit to do so. In general, a facility that has ongoing
industrial activity and is requesting a permit to clean up a portion of the
site must agree to clean up all parts of its property that are contaminated
from past industrial operations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
manages the cleanups at those operating facilities posing a high potential
health or environmental risk under its “corrective action”
program.
In 1997, we reported that, although these three RCRA requirements were
successful at ensuring that process waste- that is, waste newly generated by
currently operating industrial operations- is managed safely, the
requirements had the unintended consequence of deterring the cleanup of
sites contaminated with old, previously generated waste. 1 Such sites
include not only operating facilities conducting cleanups under EPA's
1 Hazardous Waste: Remediation Waste Requirements Can Increase the Time and
Cost of Cleanups( GAO/ RCED- 98- 4, Oct. 6, 1997).
corrective action program but also abandoned sites posing high risks that
are subject to EPA's Superfund program and less risky sites that states are
addressing under their own programs. More specifically, RCRA did not
distinguish process waste from waste that results from site cleanups, known
as remediation waste, even though remediation waste was often more lightly
contaminated and posed less risk than process waste. As a result, parties
planning to move, excavate, or temporarily store hazardous waste on land in
connection with a site cleanup faced the three RCRA requirements. Because
complying could mean taking actions considered more stringent and costly
than necessary for the less risky remediation waste, some parties simply did
not clean up certain sites or decided to leave waste in place when they
would have preferred to treat or permanently remove it. We recommended that
the agency take steps to address this cleanup disincentive.
Also in 1997, we separately evaluated the corrective action program and
reported that facilities had made limited progress in conducting cleanups. 2
Specifically, only about one- quarter of the 3, 698 nonfederal facilities in
the program were implementing final cleanup actions or had completed
cleanup. We identified four management factors that limited the progress of
cleanups under this program, including (1) a burdensome cleanup process that
required multiple reporting and review steps and (2) resource shortfalls
that prevented EPA from taking more aggressive enforcement actions to
accomplish cleanups. We also made several recommendations to the agency to
help it address these barriers.
Because of your continuing concern about the pace of hazardous waste
cleanups, you asked us to review the actions EPA has taken since our two
1997 reports and assess their effects on (l) cleanups of remediation waste
at sites subject to the three RCRA requirements and (2) the management
factors that had slowed the pace of cleanups under the corrective action
program in particular. To identify EPA's actions since our last reports, we
compared relevant EPA regulations and guidance from 1997 with their
subsequent revisions and interviewed the EPA headquarters officials
responsible for revising the remediation waste regulations and for managing
the corrective action program. To assess the effects of these actions on
cleanups, we interviewed the key officials responsible for cleanup policies
and program management within EPA, in state programs,
2 Hazardous Waste: Progress Under the Corrective Action Program Is Limited,
but New Initiatives May Accelerate Cleanups( GAO/ RCED- 98- 3, Oct. 21,
1997).
in industry, and in the environmental community. State officials included
the managers in charge of cleanup programs in eight states that we selected
because they had a large inventory of sites or were geographically
dispersed. We also interviewed the directors for cleanup policies at the two
national associations for state cleanup programs. Industry officials
included the directors for cleanup policies at three national associations
representing industries involved in cleanups, as well as directors at a
number of Fortune 500 companies conducting cleanups. We also interviewed the
directors for cleanup policies at the two national environmental
associations most involved with these issues. To determine the progress of
corrective action cleanups, we compared EPA program data for fiscal years
1997 and 2000. Our detailed scope and methodology are in appendix I.
Results in Brief Several actions EPA has taken to revise its regulatory
requirements for handling remediation waste have removed some barriers to
cleanups. First,
in response to our 1997 recommendation that EPA better inform cleanup
managers of the existing options that could exempt remediation waste from
the RCRA requirements, EPA, in October 1998, issued a memorandum on these
options. State cleanup program managers reported that their staff are now
using these options to accomplish more site cleanups. Second, EPA issued new
regulations governing the management of remediation waste that provided some
relief from the barriers the three RCRA requirements posed, especially more
flexible treatment requirements for soil. The state and industry cleanup
program managers believed that some portions of the new rules, such as the
soil standards, would help promote cleanups. Third, in February 2000, EPA
settled a lawsuit in which groups had charged that a proposed 1993 rule
providing flexibility under the RCRA requirements for certain on- site
storage and disposal units for remediation waste 3 did not sufficiently
protect human health. EPA agreed to amend the 1993 rule so that certain
wastes would still be subject to somewhat more stringent requirements.
According to state and industry officials, EPA's agreement will reduce the
flexibility that the 1993 rule allowed for costeffective cleanups and will
thus deter some cleanups. On the other hand, EPA officials believe that
these cleanups may increase now that the legal uncertainty surrounding on-
site storage units has been removed. The state, industry, and environmental
officials differed as to whether any legislative
3 The on- site storage and disposal units for remediation waste that are
referred to here and throughout the report are also known as CAMUs
(Corrective Action Management Units).
changes were necessary to address any remaining cleanup barriers that EPA
was unable to address through its regulatory actions. EPA does not currently
have a position on whether legislative changes are warranted.
In 1999, EPA implemented a set of administrative reforms that address
several of the management factors we previously identified as slowing the
pace of corrective action cleanups. The reforms include (1) issuing new
guidance on a more flexible process for selecting and implementing cleanup
methods and providing cleanup managers training on this guidance, an action
we had recommended in our 1997 report, and (2) establishing new goals under
the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act) 4 to
control human exposure to contamination and the migration of contaminated
groundwater at “high- priority” facilities by 2005. In addition
to the administrative reforms, EPA noted that a new rule issued in 1998
should increase the pace of cleanups by allowing parties to close portions
of a facility as part of a corrective action cleanup rather than go through
the separate closure program. These reforms have helped to increase the
number of facilities that have at least begun the initial steps of the
cleanup process, such as site investigations, and the number of facilities
with documented control of contamination. However, industry officials
expressed a concern- acknowledged also by EPA headquarters program managers-
that some EPA regional and state staff who are responsible for managing
individual site cleanups will resist using the more flexible options the
reforms provide. EPA is taking action to try to monitor reform
implementation. It has also just begun to address the resource shortfall
that we cited as one factor preventing the agency from achieving more
cleanups. We are making a recommendation that the agency take additional
steps to focus more attention on achieving final cleanups under the
corrective action program.
Background In our 1997 report on the management of remediation waste under
RCRA, we identified three RCRA requirements- land disposal, minimum
technology, and permitting requirements- that, while effective at
controlling contamination from newly generated waste, posed barriers to the
management of remediation waste, thereby discouraging some cleanups. The
land disposal restrictions pose barriers because they can lead to complex
and costly cleanups that involve large volumes of relatively
4 This act requires that agencies, among other actions, prepare annual
performance plans that establish goals and measures to assess the results of
individual programs.
lightly contaminated cleanup waste. The RCRA cleanup standards are such that
for some hazardous waste, the only way to meet the standards is by
incineration, one of the most costly cleanup methods. Furthermore, the
standards do not consider the fact that new technologies developed since the
RCRA requirements were established, such as using organisms to decompose
waste in place, can result in cleanups that are as protective at much lower
costs. Cleanup managers from EPA, industry, and the states believed that the
RCRA requirements increased the time and cost of some remediation waste
cleanups and caused parties to select cleanup methods that can be too
stringent, given the health and environmental risks posed by the waste.
In addition, the minimum technology requirements posed barriers, according
to the managers, because it was unnecessary and too costly to require that
certain waste, which did not pose a health or environmental risk, be taken
to a disposal facility meeting the RCRA design requirements, rather than to
less costly facilities. Finally, because the permitting process required
large volumes of information and could take several years, the process
slowed cleanups, thereby jeopardizing the redevelopment and reuse of some
properties. To avoid triggering any of these RCRA requirements, parties did
not conduct some cleanups or chose to leave the waste in place rather than
permanently remove it, which is the preferred option in some cases.
Ultimately, these requirements can discourage the cleanup of some sites,
particularly those that states manage under their own programs.
In our prior report on the corrective action program, we stated that the
limited cleanup progress under the program was due to in part to program
management factors, including a burdensome cleanup process. This process
required parties to follow a set of sequential steps, with multiple
reporting and review requirements between each step that were timeconsuming
and costly and therefore a barrier to some cleanups. Figure 1 shows the
steps parties generally follow to clean up an operating facility.
Figure 1: Steps Generally Undertaken in a Corrective Action Cleanup
Initial facility assessment Interim measures Detailed investigation
to control contamination
Remedy study and design Remedy implementation
Note: At any point in this process, the facility may be required to take
interim measures to address contamination that poses an immediate threat to
human health or the environment.
Source: EPA.
These key steps include the following activities: Initial facility
assessment. EPA, or the state authorized to implement
the program for EPA, assesses the facility to characterize the risks posed.
Detailed investigation. The company that owns the facility, with EPA
or state oversight, conducts a more detailed investigation to establish the
nature and extent of the contamination present. Remedy study. The company
conducts this study to describe the
advantages, disadvantages, and costs of various cleanup options, and EPA or
an authorized state approves the final method selected. Remedy
implementation. The company designs, constructs, operates,
maintains, and monitors the selected method. This is the most costly step in
the process.
We found in 1997 that few facilities were implementing final remedies
because of this burdensome process, frequent disagreements on the extent of
cleanup required, a lack of EPA resources to fully implement the program,
and industry reluctance to initiate cleanups without an economic incentive.
EPA Actions on EPA has undertaken several actions that address the three
RCRA
Remediation Waste requirements applicable to remediation waste- land
disposal, minimum
technology, and permitting requirements- although the actions did not
Requirements Have
comprehensively reform the requirements and remove all cleanup barriers,
Addressed Some
as EPA had originally intended. First, states found that EPA's consolidated
Disincentives to
guidance explaining the tools available to help them better manage
remediation waste subject to the RCRA requirements helped them
Cleanups accomplish more cleanups. Second, EPA's new rules for managing
remediation waste provided some relief from the barriers posed by the RCRA
requirements. Third, a recent legal settlement that EPA negotiated will
reinstate some of the RCRA requirements for the on- site storage and
disposal of waste that were relaxed in a 1993 rule, and state and industry
program managers predicted these requirements will be a disincentive to some
cleanups. State, industry, and environmental managers differed in their
opinions on the need for legislative changes to address any remaining
barriers that the RCRA requirements for remediation waste pose.
EPA's Consolidated In our prior review, we found that EPA had several
policies in place that,
Guidance on Remediation under certain circumstances, would allow parties to
manage remediation
Waste Management Is waste without triggering the three RCRA requirements.
However, the state
Helpful for Removing Some cleanup program managers we contacted were not
aware of these options
and did not understand them. Therefore, we recommended that EPA Cleanup
Barriers
consolidate all of these options into a single guidance document and provide
cleanup managers training on the options. In 1998, EPA took both of these
actions. Since then, states reported that the guidance has been very
helpful, their staff have been able to take more advantage of these options,
and they are proceeding with significantly more cleanups under their own
programs. Under one option, when the party conducting the cleanup makes a
good- faith effort to determine if waste present at the site is a
“listed” hazardous waste, but documentation is unavailable or
inconclusive, the party may assume the waste is not hazardous, as long as it
does not exhibit any hazardous characteristics. 5 Another option allows
parties to consolidate and treat on site any remediation waste that lies
within contiguous areas of contamination without triggering the RCRA
requirements. A third option provides that certain remediation waste can
5 EPA classifies hazardous wastes as either “listed” wastes,
meaning they were generated during specific industrial processes that are
listed in EPA's regulations, or as “characteristic” wastes,
meaning that they display at least one of the following characteristics:
ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity.
be excluded from the RCRA requirements if it does not pose risks to human
health. Several state program managers acknowledged, however, that when
these options and more flexible approaches cannot be applied, some
facilities continue to refrain from conducting cleanups or use less
preferred cleanup methods.
EPA's New Remediation Prior to our 1997 review, EPA had proposed a rule that
would have relaxed
Waste Rules Have Removed RCRA requirements for certain higher- risk
remediation wastes and
Some Cleanup Barriers excluded lower- risk wastes from the requirements
entirely. EPA could not
obtain a consensus on the proposed rule, however. Industry asserted that
certain provisions requiring testing and sampling remediation waste would
have been cost- prohibitive. Environmental groups stated that some
remediation waste was just as hazardous as process waste and should not be
managed any less stringently. As a result, the final rule EPA issued in 1998
did not achieve the comprehensive reform intended, but it did provide
several changes. 6 These included provisions intended to make permits for
managing remediation waste easier to obtain and to allow for more flexible
ways to store remediation waste over the short term in “staging
piles” while conducting a cleanup. EPA noted that in addition to these
provisions, the rule removed the requirement that facilities not needing a
RCRA operating permit but conducting cleanup actions had to address the
entire facility at once; instead, it now allows these facilities to manage
the cleanup in stages. EPA also noted that it issued a related rule in 1998
establishing less stringent treatment standards for hazardous contaminated
soils. Under the previously applicable treatment standards, contaminated
soils generally had to be treated by incineration, a costly process.
However, parties may now use a variety of treatment technologies to achieve
the new standards.
The industry and state managers we contacted acknowledged that these rules
provided some relief from the three RCRA requirements when managing
remediation waste. For example, several managers expected that eliminating a
requirement for facilitywide corrective action would be a cleanup incentive.
In addition, many of the managers thought that the less stringent soil
treatment requirements would provide significant relief and more cleanup
methods that could be implemented. Most industry representatives did not
think the rules went far enough to remove the three requirements as barriers
to some cleanups, however. Most state managers
6 “The Hazardous Remediation Waste Management Requirements (HWIR-
Media); Final Rule,” November 30, 1998 (40 C. F. R. part 260).
did not think that the rule provided them significantly more flexibility
than they have been able to build into their own cleanup programs using the
existing management options described in EPA's consolidated memorandum. EPA
acknowledged that the new remediation waste rule is more limited than the
agency intended but maintains that states do find it helpful for their
cleanups. EPA pointed out that 16 states had already adopted the rule and 15
more were in the process of doing so.
Amendments to the 1993 RCRA generally prohibits the storage of hazardous
waste, except to
Rule Governing On- site accumulate sufficient quantities to make treatment
or disposal costeffective.
Waste Storage and Disposal However, using an existing portion of a site,
such as an old
Units Will Limit Cleanup landfill, to store or dispose of remediation waste,
especially over the long
term, could be a very cost- effective alternative, according to EPA, state,
Flexibility, but
and industry representatives. In 1993, EPA issued a rule authorizing the
onsite Environmental Groups
storage and treatment of remediation waste in units tailored to design
Believe the Changes Better
and operating standards appropriate to a specific site rather than under
Ensure That Cleanups
RCRA's prescriptive land disposal and minimum technology requirements.
Remain Safe
Therefore, parties could use an area of a facility, such as an old landfill,
to manage remediation waste, including storage and disposal.
However, two environmental organizations and a hazardous waste treatment
industry association disagreed with this 1993 action. They sued EPA,
contending that it did not have the authority to issue a rule that allowed
for the disposal of hazardous waste in a manner that was inconsistent with
RCRA's land disposal and minimum technology requirements. According to the
litigants, the new rule provided too much discretion in managing remediation
waste and did not ensure that the onsite storage and disposal would remain
intact and safe over the years. Therefore, they argued, some of the
remediation waste should be subject to minimum treatment requirements and
the units should be subject to minimum design standards. This is especially
important, the litigants further stated, because they did not believe EPA
and the states had sufficient resources to monitor the continued
effectiveness of the potentially high number of units that facilities might
request.
In settling the lawsuit in February 2000, EPA agreed to propose amendments
to the rule that would impose minimum treatment standards for certain
contaminants found in remediation waste intended for on- site storage and
disposal, and minimum design standards for the units. EPA officials and
representatives for the litigants we contacted believed the proposed rule
would provide parties with greater flexibility to better
manage remediation waste than RCRA's land disposal and minimum technology
requirements while also protecting public health and the environment. For
example, EPA predicted that as a result of the settlement, parties would
typically only have to treat 3 or 4 contaminants at a site rather than about
30, as they would have under the original RCRA requirements, and would not
have to treat them as extensively, thereby saving time and money. EPA
officials did acknowledge that the proposed rule would provide less
flexibility than parties had had under the 1993 rule, in part because the
1993 rule did not specifically require any treatment activities. EPA and the
litigants also pointed out that the proposed rule would provide options for
parties to seek waivers or exemptions from some of the design and treatment
requirements if site- specific conditions and risks warrant it. They
acknowledged, however, that the proposed rule would cost parties extra time
and money to seek these waivers or exemptions. However, they did not expect
the costs or burden to be high enough to discourage parties from requesting
approval for new on- site storage and disposal units. EPA anticipated that
by settling the lawsuit, it had removed the legal uncertainties that
discouraged parties from requesting to use such units and that their use
could even increase in the future.
The representatives of industries subject to cleanup disagreed. While they
gave EPA credit for soliciting their views during settlement negotiations,
they believed the agency gave up a significant amount of the flexibility
that would have been provided under the 1993 rule when it negotiated the
settlement. They believed the proposed rule would reimpose redundant and
unnecessarily costly requirements that will discourage some cleanups. These
officials further argued that a 1998 EPA review of the existing units
demonstrated that they are protective, proving that the 1993 rule was
working and did not warrant changes. 7 Finally, these officials pointed out
that because EPA and state regulators had to approve all requests for these
units, they could ensure that units built under the 1993 rule would remain
effective and safe.
State reaction to the settlement was mixed. Few of the state managers we
contacted were familiar with the details of the settlement, but several said
they did not expect that it would have a significant effect on their
cleanups. These managers believed that their state cleanup programs provided
enough flexibility and other options to manage remediation waste and
7 CAMU Survey Results Final Report, prepared for EPA by ICF, Incorporated,
May 27, 1998.
proceed with cleanups. On the other hand, officials from the two
associations representing state cleanup agencies expressed concerns. They
asserted that the resulting proposed rule, if consistent with the terms of
the settlement, would provide for more stringent restrictions on cleanups
using units than were in the provisions of many state programs. These
representatives feared that such a revision could force the state cleanup
programs to adopt similar restrictions, thus limiting the efficiency of the
programs and discouraging cleanups. Because of these concerns, the
associations jointly issued a resolution calling on EPA to work with them to
design a more effective alternative and obtain any needed statutory changes
to RCRA to implement it. The representatives said that states would, at a
minimum, like EPA to include language in the preamble to the new rule to
ensure that their cleanups will not be negatively affected. EPA managers
drafting the proposed rule said that the preamble to the rule will clarify
that the rule only affects the way hazardous cleanup wastes are managed in
on- site storage and disposal units.
Views Differ on the Need to Because EPA was not as successful as it had
originally hoped in achieving
Initiate Legislation to the comprehensive regulatory reform of RCRA
requirements for the
Further Remove Cleanup management of remediation waste, the agency does not
plan to pursue
Barriers such broad regulatory changes in the future, according to RCRA
program
managers. The managers also said the agency is not pursuing any
comprehensive statutory changes at this time. Stakeholders had mixed views
on trying to achieve further reform through new legislation. Representatives
of industries managing remediation waste cleanups and several state cleanup
agencies said that two types of legislative change could be helpful:
amending RCRA, which was designed to control process waste, to clearly
exempt remediation waste, or amending RCRA to specifically authorize EPA to
issue regulations, such
as the proposed 1993 CAMU rule, to relax some of the RCRA requirements that
stakeholders have found are impediments to cleanups, especially cleanups
conducted under state programs.
These groups did not want the Congress to simply codify one of the CAMU
rules because they feared that it would be harder to change a law rather
than a regulation in the future if, for example, better cleanup technologies
became available that made the rule somewhat obsolete. The environmental and
waste industry association representatives were satisfied with the status of
remediation waste management rules and did
not see a need for legislation. EPA said that it will continue to pursue
reforms on a limited scale but did not take a position on the need for
legislative changes.
EPA's Reforms of the EPA's administrative reforms of the correction action
program, including
Corrective Action new guidance on a more flexible cleanup process and
related training, have
moved more facilities into the cleanup process but may continue to face
Program Are Promising
management challenges. One of EPA's reforms, new 2005 performance goals for
the program, has brought focus to the program, but some stakeholders
question its impact on cleanups. Beginning in fiscal year 2001, EPA
requested more program funds to address the resource shortfalls that have
continued to impair cleanup progress.
EPA's Corrective Action In 1990, EPA announced that it intended to establish
a detailed process and
Guidance and Training substantive rules for conducting cleanup steps under
the corrective action
Initiatives Could Address program. EPA did not issue these rules. Instead,
the agency decided to
Some of the Management administratively reform the program as much as it
could within its existing
statutory authority. For the most part, EPA chose administrative rather
Factors Impeding Cleanups
than regulatory changes because that route was the least disruptive to the
33 state programs already authorized to carry out the corrective action
program. In 1996, EPA proposed a new corrective action initiative designed
to make cleanup actions more protective, faster, and more efficient by
focusing on achieving results rather than following procedural steps. That
is, EPA intended to hold facilities accountable for achieving cleanup
results but to give them flexibility in determining the best ways to achieve
these results. For example, under the initiative, EPA or state cleanup
managers could consider whether the site would be used for residential or
industrial purposes in the future when deciding on the cleanup actions to
conduct. In general, cleanups having to meet standards for residential use
are more stringent, and therefore more costly, than those for industrial
use. The initiative also urged parties and states to pursue cleanup actions
under other available programs and authorities when possible, such as clean
water and state hazardous waste cleanup programs, in order to achieve more
results. The provisions under the initiative became the primary guidance for
cleanup actions under the program.
Also as part of its administrative reforms, EPA developed, or has plans to
develop, among other things, more streamlined processes for authorizing
cleanup actions and ways to have more community involvement in cleanup
decisions and better information on cleanup progress. To ensure that the
state and EPA staff overseeing individual cleanups understood the new
guidance and reforms and could use them properly, the agency began a series
of 3- day workshops in 1999 and is making such training available over the
Internet. State and industry cleanup managers found the training very
helpful. In our 1997 report, we had recommended that EPA undertake such
training.
In addition to the administrative reforms, EPA initiated a regulatory reform
for the corrective action program. Prior to the reform, if parties wanted to
close down a portion of a facility subject to corrective action, such as an
old landfill, they would have to conduct the cleanup under one rule and
conduct the closure under a separate and less flexible process. Determining
that this was inefficient, EPA issued a rule in 1998 to allow certain
facilities to conduct both cleanups and closure activities as part of the
same corrective action process. EPA believes that this rule will increase
the pace of cleanups by reducing the potential for confusion and
inefficiency created by the application of two different regulatory
requirements.
Several EPA regions have also initiated reforms. For example, Region V
worked with General Motors (GM) to devise a new “model order”
that GM can use to get EPA approval on cleanup requirements and activities
at the company's facilities throughout the region. GM managers said that, as
a result, they could get a cleanup plan approved within several months
rather than several years, as was their experience in the past. Similarly,
Region III has developed a letter of commitment that it signs with a
facility to conduct a cleanup in lieu of the more rigid permitting process.
The letter more simply specifies the amount of cleanup to be achieved, the
proposed schedule, and plans for public participation in the cleanup
decisions. Regional cleanup managers said that using the letter provides for
faster action at a site and less money spent on process steps, such as
sequentially submitting, reviewing, and approving numerous documents. Region
VI is working on a number of innovations that would allow parties to better
consider site- specific risks when designing a cleanup. Cleanup managers in
this region explained that under the draft cleanup guidance the region has
proposed, it would be easier for facilities to assume that their properties
will continue to be used for industrial rather than residential purposes in
the future and consider more realistic, less extensive, but protective
cleanup measures. EPA program managers in headquarters have continued to
work with the region on the guidance and believe it has potential. EPA noted
another initiative in Region IX: If a party conducts a cleanup under a state
program that is analogous to the corrective action program, the
region recognizes the state cleanup as fulfilling the requirements of the
federal corrective action program.
In general, the stakeholders we contacted gave EPA credit for the
significant investment it made in the administrative reforms and training
and believed that, overall, the agency is committed to the reforms. Cleanup
managers in the regions also hoped that by using the reforms, they can cut
cleanup times. For example, a cleanup manager in Region V estimated that
managers could cut the time needed for a final cleanup from an average of 12
years to about 6 years. However, given their experience to date, industry
representatives in general were less optimistic about how quickly some EPA
regional and state cleanup managers directly responsible for overseeing
cleanup at a specific site will adopt the flexibility provided by the
administrative reforms. EPA program managers acknowledged this concern. They
stated that it will take time to change the prior cleanup culture and that
they have used the workshops to begin this change. EPA noted that in
response to our 1997 recommendation to monitor the use of more flexible
cleanup approaches, the agency has used meetings with regions, states, and
industry representatives to identify problems or obstacles to implementation
and monitor progress and will continue to do so. While the managers said
they did not have the resources to continue to provide the workshops, they
planned to conduct some limited follow- up work to assess the training's
impact on promoting the reforms. The managers also reported that private
sector groups have agreed to sponsor additional training sessions because of
their value and success.
EPA's Performance Goals As part of the administrative reforms to the
corrective action program, EPA
Have Brought Focus to the emphasized attaining by 2005 two performance goals
set for the program-
Program, but Some to control both (1) human exposure to contamination at 95
percent of high
Stakeholders Question the priority facilities and (2) the migration of
contaminated groundwater at 70
percent of these facilities. EPA stated that it had decided as early as 1990
to Extent of Their Impact
use its limited resources to first focus on stabilizing contamination at
facilities and recognized it could not also afford to concurrently focus on
pushing for final cleanups. EPA subsequently set these two goals in response
to the Results Act and considers this action a part of its administrative
reforms because it gave the program a new focus. According to RCRA managers,
the agency considers achieving these goals to be more important at this
point than diverting resources to implement final cleanup actions. With
these goals, EPA is not just counting the number of activities completed,
such as facility investigations under way, but is also measuring to some
extent the impact of these activities on protecting public health. In
addition, the stakeholders we contacted agreed the goals have brought a
consistent focus to the program and have caused regions, states, and
industry to at least begin assessing facilities that had not undertaken even
the initial cleanup steps.
As figure 2 shows, the goals may be having an effect on the program. In
February 2000, in contrast to April 1997, more nonfederal facilities were in
the initial cleanup step of investigating the contamination present, were
taking interim steps to stabilize contamination, or had already met the 2005
goals of controlling contamination. 8 The number of facilities implementing
final cleanup actions increased from 142 to 231, a rate of about 30
facilities per year. EPA program managers pointed out that the goals were
not designed to focus on implementing final cleanups, only controlling
contamination.
8 In 1997, EPA had 1, 304 nonfederal, high- priority facilities in its
workload; and in 2000, it had 1, 309 such facilities. We compared the list
of individual facilities in these two groups and determined that 1,112
facilities were on both lists and conducted our analyses on this subset. The
two lists differed primarily because EPA updated the corrective action
information system and made adjustments for sites whose priority levels were
inaccurate. We do note, however, that using 1, 112 as our analytical
baseline did not limit our results. The percentage of sites in each step of
the cleanup process did not differ significantly whether we used 1, 112 or
the total fiscal year 2000 workload as our baseline.
Figure 2: Status of Nonfederal, High- Priority Facilities in the Corrective
Action Process by Cleanup Step, 1997 and 2000.
1997 2000
Cleanup not started (325) Cleanup not started (114)
10.3% 17.8% Investigating contamination (198)
19.2% Investigating
contamination (213)
29.2% 20.8%
27.7% Implementing stabilization
26.3% Implementing stabilization actions (308)
actions (293)
12.8%
7.4% 17%
Contamination under control (82) Implementing final remedies (142)
Contamination under
5.1%
control (189) Cleaned up (57)
Implementing final remedies (231)
6.5%
Cleaned up (72) Cleanup not started Interim cleanup actions underway Final
cleanup actions begun or completed
Source: EPA data as of April 7, 1997, and February 16, 2000.
As figure 3 shows, federal facilities subject to corrective action had made
more progress than the nonfederal facilities. For example, about 16 percent
more federal facilities were implementing final cleanup remedies in February
2000 than in April 1997.
Figure 3: Status of Federal, High- Priority Facilities in the Corrective
Action Process by Cleanup Step, 1997 and 2000.
1997 2000
Cleanup not started (65) Cleanup not started (27)
20.6% Investigating contamination (40)
13.9% 21.6% Investigating contamination (42)
33.5%
23.2%
Implementing stabilization
25.3% 21.1% Implementing stabilization
actions (45)
actions (41)
9.3%
9.8%
Contamination under control (18) Contamination under control (19)
8.8%
Implementing final remedies (49) Implementing final remedies (17)
4.6% 8.2%
Cleaned up (9) Cleaned up (16)
Cleanup not started Interim cleanup actions underway Final cleanup actions
begun or completed
Source: EPA data as of April 7, 1997, and February 16, 2000.
A number of stakeholders observed that the goals have been successful in
pushing EPA and states to begin investigating more sites and ensuring that
contamination has been controlled. However, they also believed that the
emphasis on meeting the goals to date may have been more of a paperwork
exercise to document that the facilities are meeting the goals rather than
an effort to bring about additional cleanup actions. For example, the
industry representatives said that they would not jeopardize public health
and would have already controlled any human exposure to contamination prior
to EPA's establishing its goals. Therefore their facilities will easily meet
the 2005 goal for controlling human exposure without the need for additional
work. Several state managers questioned the usefulness of the goals in
achieving cleanup progress and also considered them to be more of a
paperwork exercise for the agency. In 1997, we reported that parties tended
not to initiate final cleanup actions unless they had an economic incentive
to do so. Therefore, by focusing only on controlling contamination and not
on implementing final cleanup actions, cleanups could continue to be
postponed well into the future. At the current rate of 30 facilities
implementing final cleanups per year, it will take about 27years for the
remaining 809 facilities that we analyzed to at least begin to implement
final cleanups, and years more before they are completed. EPA managers
predicted that for some facilities, these interim actions to control
contamination may be sufficient and the facility may not need to pursue any
additional final cleanup actions. Expeditiously identifying and removing
these facilities from the corrective action program helps to minimize
federal expenditures and encourages the productive reuse of the property.
EPA program managers stated that documenting whether a facility had
controlled contamination, not just relying on industry assertions of this,
was necessary to ensure that a facility had taken adequate actions. The
managers acknowledged that some facilities had already controlled
contamination, but they said a number of facilities still needed to take
some measures to control it. These actions could include, for example,
installing a fence and using security personnel to restrict access to the
site. The managers also predicted that as the agency approaches 2005, it may
become more of a challenge to meet the goals because the remaining
facilities that had not yet controlled contamination will be the larger,
more complex, and, therefore, more difficult sites.
EPA Is Just Beginning to In 1997, we reported that a lack of resources for
the corrective action
Address Its RCRA Funding program was a major barrier to cleanups.
Subsequently, in September 1999,
Shortfall we identified insufficient funding for the corrective action
program as a
material weakness for EPA. In fiscal year 1997, EPA requested about $45
million for the program. Over the next 3 years, the agency actually
decreased the amount of funds it requested, from about $42 million in fiscal
year 1998 to about $39 million in fiscal year 2000. Also in fiscal year
1999, the agency took about $10 million from the program, in part to help
pay for unanticipated projects that the Congress had authorized that year.
The following year, the Congress restricted EPA from using fiscal year 2000
corrective action funds for these unanticipated projects. Finally, in fiscal
year 2001, the agency increased its budget request for the program to $50
million.
Similarly, states reported that they did not have sufficient funding to
implement the corrective action program. EPA provides those states
authorized to implement the program with grants to help pay for this
activity. However, the states had not received an increase in funding for
several years but had to pay increasing salary and labor costs. States
reported that each of their cleanup managers already had too many facilities
to manage, but EPA was asking states to increase their activities in order
to achieve the 2005 goals. The agency requested $8 million more for states
for fiscal year 2001. The program managers said that the agency requested
the $50 million increase specifically so that it could achieve, at a
minimum, its annual goals for controlling contamination. The managers said
even this increase, however, will not provide them the resources they would
need to try to concurrently focus on increasing the number of facilities
that have selected and are implementing their final cleanup actions. Also,
EPA expects that as it approaches 2005 it will be harder to achieve the
goals because the facilities that had not yet controlled contamination will
be the larger and more complex facilities and the program will continue to
need more resources.
Conclusions EPA actions have helped to remove some of the cleanup barriers
posed by the RCRA remediation waste requirements that we reported in 1997.
However, these actions' collective effects on cleanups are uncertain. State
and industry cleanup program officials expect that the revised regulations
governing the management of remediation waste will not have as significant
an effect on cleanups as possible and that EPA's settlement of litigation
concerning the use of on- site storage and disposal units for remediation
waste will reduce flexibility and thus deter some cleanups. Because EPA does
not plan to pursue any future comprehensive regulatory or statutory reforms,
agency, industry, state, and environmental managers we contacted did not
expect more comprehensive reforms unless the Congress legislates them.
Stakeholders did not agree on the need for, or content of, legislative
reforms.
EPA actions to encourage more corrective action cleanups have achieved some
progress, but three management factors may continue to hamper this progress.
These factors include individual cleanup managers' reluctance to adopt the
more flexible approaches that EPA has provided through its administrative
reforms; a focus on achieving EPA's 2005 goals without a similar focus on
implementing final cleanup actions; and continuing resource shortfalls.
EPA's continued actions to address our prior recommendation that it monitor
cleanup managers' implementation of the reforms and provide training may
help to address the first factor. The agency's fiscal year 2001 budget
request also represents an effort to address
the resource shortfalls that were impeding cleanup progress, although the
amount of increase may not be enough to allow the agency to accomplish more
final cleanups, especially in the longer term.
Recommendations To achieve more cleanup progress in the corrective action
program, we recommend that the Administrator of EPA direct the Assistant
Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response to (1) establish long-
term and annual goals that delineate the number or portion of facilities
that are implementing final cleanup actions and (2) identify the additional
funding the program would need to achieve these goals and consider these
needs during annual budget deliberations.
Agency Comments We provided a draft copy of this report to EPA for its
review and comment. EPA appreciated the recognition we gave the agency for
its efforts to
remove cleanup barriers and acknowledged the remaining issues we identified.
It also acknowledged that at some point in the future, as more of the
facilities achieve the short- term goals, it will need to shift more
resources toward achieving final cleanup goals. In general, EPA had two
concerns with the report.
First, while the agency agreed that implementing final remedies under the
corrective action program is critical, it maintained that in 1990 it had
decided to use its limited available resources to focus on controlling
contamination at the worst sites. The agency subsequently set GPRA goals to
achieve this for most sites by 2005 and designed its administrative reforms
to support these goals. EPA further stated that the program did not have
sufficient resources to concurrently focus on implementing final cleanup
actions. EPA maintained that this is the best strategy for the program and
that the focus on controlling contamination has had the indirect effect of
encouraging facilities to implement final cleanups. The agency pointed out
that between 1997 and 2000, the number of facilities implementing final
cleanups increased from 142 to 231, the largest rate of increase in the
history of the program. We made changes to the report to more clearly
present EPA's position on this issue. The gains equate to about one- quarter
of the corrective action facilities progressing into final cleanup.
Therefore we continue to encourage the agency to seek additional resources
for the program in order to focus more attention on moving the remaining
three- quarters of the corrective action facilities into final cleanup.
Second, in terms of its regulatory reforms, EPA pointed out that although
its remediation waste rule did not achieve as extensive a reform as all
stakeholders would have liked, a number of states have adopted the rule, and
EPA expects many more to do so in the near future. In addition, EPA pointed
to other regulatory changes it made that the agency believes are important
reforms. We have added this information to the report, where appropriate. In
addition to these overall comments, EPA provided technical and clarifying
comments, which we incorporated into the report as appropriate. EPA's
comments are included as appendix II.
Unless you announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of
this report until 10 days after the date of this letter. At that time, we
will send copies of the report to appropriate congressional committees and
interested Members of Congress. We will also send copies of this report to
the Honorable Carol M. Browner, Administrator, EPA; and the Honorable Jacob
J. Lew, Director, Office of Management and Budget. In addition, we will make
copies available to others on request.
We conducted this review from March through July 2000 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards. Key contributors to this
report were Rich Johnson, Karen Kemper, Eileen Larence, and Karla Springer.
Please contact me at (202) 512- 6111 if you or your staff have any questions
about this report.
David G. Wood Associate Director, Environmental Protection Issues
Appendi Appendi xes xI
Objectives, Scope, and Methodology Our overall objectives were to identify
and assess the extent to which initiatives the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) implemented since our 1997 reviews of issues regarding
remediation waste management and the corrective action cleanup program have
(1) improved the management of such wastes and (2) helped cleanups to
progress. We reviewed applicable statutory excerpts and proposals,
regulations, policies, and other documents related to these issues. We also
interviewed representatives from EPA and all major stakeholder groups that
have been actively involved in negotiating new policy and regulatory
initiatives for remediation waste and corrective action issues, implementing
the RCRA rules and corrective action program, and overseeing cleanups. These
groups include the following:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Managers within the Office of
Solid Waste and Emergency Response and
the Superfund cleanup program. Cleanup managers in Regions III, V, and VI.
State Environmental Agencies Policy directors from the Association of State
and Territorial Solid
Waste Management Officials and the Environmental Council of States, and
officials from associations representing state cleanup managers. Managers in
eight states responsible for overseeing cleanups under the
corrective action program or their own state cleanup programs. We selected
five of the states- California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania- because they collectively generate about 35 percent of the
nation's contaminated media. The remaining three states- Texas, Washington,
and Wisconsin- were selected for geographic diversity. All states, except
Wisconsin, were also included in our 1997 review.
Industry Groups Attorneys and cleanup managers representing major
corporations who
are members of three national associations representing industries involved
in conducting cleanups. The three associations were the RCRA Corrective
Action Project, the Technical Group, and the Risk- Based Corrective Action
Leadership Council. Executive officers of the Environmental Technology
Council, which
represents private waste companies.
Environmental Groups A principal attorney from Environmental Defense, a
nonprofit
environmental advocacy organization. The former and current principal
attorneys from the Natural Resources
Defense Council. To assess the impacts of EPA's initiatives to accelerate
corrective action cleanups, we first determined the cleanup status of each
of the facilities EPA considers to be among the most in need of cleanup-
high- priority facilities. We collected and analyzed information from EPA's
national program management and inventory system of hazardous waste
handlers, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Information System (RCRIS).
RCRIS captures identification and location data on facilities that treat,
store, and dispose of hazardous materials, as well as information on cleanup
activities. We compared the current cleanup status of these facilities with
their status as of our 1997 report. However, since our report, EPA went
through a major effort to improve the quality of the data in RCRIS and to
comply with requirements to measure performance under the Results Act. As a
result of this data cleanup activity, the universe of highpriority sites
changed modestly between 1997 and 2000. Consequently, we limited our
comparison of cleanup progress to those facilities that were in both sets of
data. However, we also determined the cleanup progress of all facilities in
EPA's universe of high- priority facilities for 2000 and determined that the
results- the percentage of facilities in each phase of the cleanup process-
did not change because of the additional sites.
We did not independently verify the overall accuracy of the data in the
RCRIS database. However, for our 1997 report, we had determined that the
RCRIS data elements we were using for our analysis had small error rates and
concluded that the data were suitable for the aggregate analyses we
presented in our report. Because of EPA's recent efforts to update RCRIS, we
expect that the data we used for our fiscal year 2000 analysis are more
accurate.
To determine facilities' cleanup progress, we categorized the facilities
using event codes in RCRIS. Table 1 shows the cleanup categories and the
event codes included in each category.
Table 1: Cleanup Categories and Event Codes Used Category Event codes
Cleaned up CA999 Implementing final
CA550, CA500, CA450, or CA400 but not CA999 remedies Contamination under
CA725 or CA750, but not any of the codes above control Implementing
stabilization CA650 or CA600 but not any of the codes above
Investigating CA200 or CA100 but not any of the codes above contamination
Cleanup not started Any remaining facilities without dates in any of the
codes
above
We conducted our review from March through July 2000 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Comments From the Environmental
Appendi xII Protection Agency
(160522) Lett er
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Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
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Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
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Appendix II
Appendix II Comments From the Environmental Protection Agency
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Appendix II Comments From the Environmental Protection Agency
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