Ranking Hazardous-Waste Sites for Remedial Action (1994) / Chapter Skim
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pages 1-22
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. CERCLA initially establishecI the $1.6 billion Superfund program to assess hazardous~waste sites, determine re sponsible parties, and provide expedi tious financing for cleanups when responsible parties clic!
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Me closing of DOD bases and the decommissioning of DOE plants pose a number of additional so cial, economic, and political issues. Site remediation is also proving to be far more expensive than originally anticipated.
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the environment. CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE The National Research Council's Committee on Remedial Ac lion Priorities for Hazardous Waste Sites was formed to assess the principal methods that federal and state agencies are using or de veloping to rank sites for remectiation priority.
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The committee examined the hazardous waste site ranking and priority setting models clevelopecl or used by EPA, DOD, DOE, and some state governments to help them rank sites for remedia tion from among the tens of thousands of abancloned hazardous waste sites. The committee also attempter!
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In this study, the committee found that less information was available about the overall priority setting processes of the agencies than the ranking moclels used in that process. For much of the priority setting processes, concrete procedural descriptions were typically unavailable, so that most of the committee's information tract to be sought by exploratory questioning of agency officials and experts who met with the committee.
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the results of a compare live assessment of the three major federal ranking models using a common set of input data from five contaminated waste sites. PRIORITY SETTING AT EPA EPA is involved in remedial decisions at many hazardous waste sites and must clear with the whole gamut of interested parties ant!
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The procedures for determin ing and combining HRS scores provide relative rankings of sites; it is consequently inappropriate to interpret the resulting HRS score in an absolute sense. Results of the HRS model have been compared to the results of more detailed site assessments based on risk analysis and expert panels.
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PRIORITY SETTING AT DOD In the past, DOD (and DOES were not under great external pressure as they are to clay to clean up hazardous waste sites. Many of their sites are in relatively remote or inaccessible areas, and national security considerations inhibited public scrutiny.
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The DPM is user friendly and its structure is clear, but it con tains portions that have not been validated, and there has been no attempt to validate the overall model. Further, the DPM's linear scale produces a very tight range of site scores relative to the limits of 0 to 100; in 1991, 65 percent of the 284 sites evaluated with DPM had scores between 13 ant!
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To manage its complicated remedial effort, DOE has developed an Environmental Restoration Priority System (ERPS) , the goals of which are to document and support DOE's buciget requests and to allocate funds among its programs ancI installations.
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MEPAS focuses only on adverse health impacts, not on environmental or other effects; but it includes radioactive, chemical, and mixed wastes, multiple path ways, and both direct and indirect exposures. The ERPS procedure for addressing health risks suffers from a lack of data as a basis for most of the estimates involved.
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Sites placed on the NPL will be cleaned up with federal money only if the state agrees to pay 10 percent of the capital cost ant! all future operating and mainten ance costs.
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, and MEPAS (DOE) to compare the outcomes- they would yield from a common set of input data developed from a common set of five actual waste sites.
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environmental pathways, and not differences in model structure. OVERALL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Current Ranking Moclels The committee believes that formal mathematical ranking mod els play less of a role than they can and should in determining remedial priorities for hazardous waste sites.
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Current Priority Setting Processes The site ranking models are only one part of the overall priority setting process for hazardous waste site remecliation. By comparison, the agencies' current priority setting processes them selves are not well defined, and appear to lack adequate evalua lion, consistency, and effective oversight.
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The committee therefore recommends that the government consider the development of a unified national process of scientific hazardous waste site analysis to replace the current multiple approaches. Specifically, the com mittee recommends a new system designed to achieve three main goals: · Greater consultation and colia/'oration among the agencies.
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be basest on limited information about potential risks to human health and the environment. EPA's HRS model and DOD's Defense Priority Model were devel opect, in part, with such a purpose in mincI.
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The committee does not recommenct a particular framework for doing this, but clearly one is needed. A unified national approach would have the advantage of being compatible with current agency practices.
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A single consistent national process that explicitly includes cal culation of economic costs ant! benefits of remediation woulc!
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This approach would provable a more rational basis for decisions about priority setting and levels of remediation at hazardous waste sites. Vast resources will be allocated for hazardous waste site remecti ation throughout the l990s and beyond.
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