Ranking Hazardous-Waste Sites for Remedial Action (1994) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 HAZARDOUS-WASTE SITE PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES
1 HAZARDOUS-WASTE SITE PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES
Pages 23-56
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 23... ...
, and some state governments to choose sites for remediation among the tens of thousands of hazardous waste sites. As complex components of the priority setting approaches, the ranking methods combine available information about waste sources; air, water, ant]
|
From page 24... ...
The committee was asked to make recommendations regarding information and research needed to establish standarcis of perfor mance and consistency for nationally applicable ranking methods for hazardous waste sites and to provide a basis for refining exist ing methods to improve the decision process for hazardous waste site management and remecliation in the future. As background before acic3ressing the scientific content of the 24
|
From page 25... ...
Their mandates, program sizes, and cleanup costs are ad ciressec3. Priority setting is then cliscussecI.
|
From page 26... ...
Other EPA responsibilities are briefly reviewed elsewhere in the chapter. Initial Mandate and Funding In 1980, Congress manciated EPA to cleanup abandoned hazhazardous ardous waste sites.
|
From page 27... ...
that MITRE clevelopecI has had a major impact on priority setting approaches used by other government agencies, a brief review of the original HRS (Chang et al., 1981) follows; a cletailed presentation of the revised HRS is provider!
|
From page 28... ...
surface water pollution at 40%. Fires and explosions were reported at 4% One year later, after the identification of contamination at Love 28
|
From page 29... ...
In 1979, Fred C Hart Associates, under contract to EPA, used a more systematic method to esti mate the number of hazardous waste sites at 50,664, of which 2,027 might pose a significant threat (Greenberg and Anderson, 1984)
|
From page 30... ...
(1991) is that $151 billion will be spent from 1990 to 2020 to remecliate 3,000 non federal NPL sites, at an average site cleanup cost of $5 to 15 mil lion.
|
From page 31... ...
The Setting of Cleanup Goals Another aspect of the Superfund program that bears upon pri ority setting is the slow pace of cleanups. This is relates!
|
From page 32... ...
EPA reported that remedial actions tract been initiated at over 2,000 sites, with cleanup in progress at 400 NPL sites. Yet, EPA has been severely criticized (e.g., Mazmanian and Morell, 1992)
|
From page 33... ...
and 1.7 times as much as the current policy option. Technical Limitations The Superfund program is unquestionably larger, more compli catect, and much more expensive than was envisioned in 1980.
|
From page 34... ...
DOE's models used in priority setting cliffer in many ways. Nevertheless, this chapter considers the two moclels together because the contexts of their mandates to manage hazardous waste sites are similar and because both mandates are markedly different from EPA's Superfunc3 re sponsibitity.
|
From page 35... ...
However, they also allowed EPA to place DOD and DOE sites on the NPL list, and required the two federal departments to consult with states and tribal governments. Section 120 of CERCLA provicled the legal basis for DOE to negotiate three party interagency agreements with EPA ant]
|
From page 36... ...
DOD's and DOE's remedial actions and priorities are also in Huenceci by their internal efforts to meet a legacy of other legisla live mandates. For example, the Radiation Control Act of 1978 lee!
|
From page 37... ...
a remedial investigation and feasibility study schecluted, completed, or performed. Remedial actions tract been completes!
|
From page 38... ...
Their best guess estimates were $92, $240, and $360 billion for the less stringent, current policy, and more stringent scenarios, respectively. In other worsts, total DOE costs are estimated to be 5 to 8 times DOD costs.
|
From page 39... ...
OTHER FEDERAL AND STATE PROGRAMS Profiles of several other hazardous waste site remediation pro" grams, some of which include priority setting processes, are pre sentect below. These descriptions are not as cletailec]
|
From page 40... ...
Leaking Underground Storage Tanks EPA administers a program to remediate an estimates! 300,000 to 400,000 potentially leaking unclerground storage tanks (OTA, 1989~.
|
From page 41... ...
State Programs States have important responsibilities to manage hazardous waste sites. If Superfund money is to be used to pay for site 41
|
From page 42... ...
The state bias toward permanent remedies, OTA asserts, contributes to higher site cleanup costs because containment and land disposal solutions cost less in the short run but require relatively high operation and maintenance expenditures. States are also responsible for sites not on the NPL list.
|
From page 43... ...
writing in the Times Picayune about Louisiana, "we used to say there weren't any hazardous waste sites in this state, so when Superfunct came along New Jer sey got all the money." This example illustrates a general finding: states that did not make hazardous waste remectiation a priority, irrespective of the extent of their problem, tended to get relatively few sites on the initial NPL (Greenberg ant! Anderson, 1984~.
|
From page 44... ...
By 1985, the effort tract grown ant! was re named the Toxic Substances Control Division; funding through fees and fines for hazardous waste site cleanup was supplemented by a $100 million 5 year State Revenue Anticipation Bond.
|
From page 45... ...
Companies and other responsible par ties can conduct their own cleanups, and California's Department of Toxic Substances provides oversight for a fee. For example, fees for oversight of a remedial investigation and feasibility study range from $21,500 for a "small site" to $200,000 for an "extra large one" (State of California, 1990~.
|
From page 46... ...
SETTING PRIORITIES Do DOD, DOE, EPA, and other agencies need scientifically based priority setting systems7 The purpose of such systems is to provide a consistent ant! scientifically based framework to catalog and compare potential risks to ail!
|
From page 47... ...
When funding shortfalls result from insuffl cient appropriations from Congress to meet existing cleanup obli gations, the FFER Dialogue Committee recommends a flexible strategy for applying "fair share" principles to allocating funding shortfalls. That is, all federal waste sites subject to outside super vision should share equally in the total amount of the funding shortfall.
|
From page 48... ...
Furthermore, by the time these de partments were ready to use a formal mathematical model to set priorities for cleanup of sites, a good deal of their funds were al ready tied up by legal agreements (Whelan et al., 1987~. DOD's stated goals for setting priorities are to remove immi nent health threats, to acictress the worst sites first, to meet SARA requirements at NPL sites, and to use resources effectively and efficiently (DOD communication with committee, April 10, 1991~.
|
From page 49... ...
Like the HRS, the DPM assigns a relative numerical score based on combining and normalizing separate scores for grounc3water, surface water, air, and soil pathways. Incleec3, both models are also similar insofar as a single contaminant ant!
|
From page 50... ...
note that results of the DOE modeling approach to setting priorities would not supersede these prior agreements. Cotton also incli catect that the numerical results can be used when no agreement is in place and that they can be used to provide a uniform baseline against which all installation requests can be measured.
|
From page 51... ...
In acIdition, the growing awareness of the great limitations of available technology to meet the cleanup goals originally envisioned by Congress, ant! now anticipated by the public, raises serious questions about what actually would be achieved even if this enormous estimated pool of funds were spent for environmental restoration.
|
From page 52... ...
Second, the agencies might turn more emphatically to priority setting approaches ant! formal moclels to help choose which sites deserve greater or lesser resources.
|
From page 53... ...
A bias on the part of some toward cleaning up contaminated sites to a level of zero risk complicates the priority setting process. Baron et al.
|
From page 54... ...
SCOPE OF THE REPORT The committee examined ranking ant! priority setting models clevelopect by EPA, DOD, DOE, and some state governments to help choose sites for remecliation from among the tens of thou sancis of abandoned hazardous waste sites.
|
From page 55... ...
Conclusions and recommendations for the priority set tiny processes and ranking models of specific agencies are pre sensed in Chapters 4 8.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.