Environmental Cleanup Responsibility

A key factor in reducing indoor air pollution is an improvement in public information. To increase public awareness of how individual activities and consumer choices affect the environment could make cleanup efforts more successful. More pubhc information is also helpful to keep the public interested in current environmental issues and to foster their sense of responsibility to work for a better and greener world. It would also increase public pressure for pollution reforms, which would in turn leverage more money from the government for emission controls and environmental cleanups. 

Make a decision, based on the action level, with regard to treatment, disposal, site remediation and/or removal of pollutants, health risk or environmental impact, responsible party identification, enforcement actions, cleanup verification. 

The Secretary of Defense delegated cleanup responsibility to the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Cleanup actions are usually accomplished under contract with private firms, which are monitored by the services. Most cleanup actions are funded through the Defense Environmental Restoration Account (DERA) and the Base Realignment and Closure Account. Defense Department organizations involved with explosives remediation are indicated below. Those involved with unexploded ordnance (UXO) are listed in Chapter 12. 

This section reviews some of the legal drivers for munitions cleanup. The actual statutes and regulations are not included but should be read in detail by officials charged with the responsibility for the cleanup. As with most environmental cleanups, science and technology control the process. However, there may also be legal requirements, so the best scientists and engineers may fail if they do not pursue knowledge in other disciplines. 

These documents also suggest formats that might be helpful in presenting requests or information to a responsible party, citizens or other regulators. Environmental cleanups of the type contemplated by this book (i.e., ranges)... 

Overall, I think I ve had a better experience than Rich with the Army Corps, the entity with primary cleanup responsibility at Formerly Used Defense Sites. I ve found many Army Corps personnel and their contractors to be diligent and competent, though the constraints of funding and bureaucracy often get in the way. Still, one only needs to look at former U.S. facilities overseas, in places like Panama and the Philippines, to recognize the essential role played by environmental regulatory agencies such as the DC Health Department. 

HAZWOPER Acronym for the OSHA standard entitled Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response. Codified as 29 CFR 1910.120. Designed to protect the health and safety of individuals treating hazardous wastes, or performing environmental cleanups or emergency response actions. 

This chapter addresses the potential for hazardous air emissions from environmental remediation sites. These emissions can occur at hazardous spill locations, at undisturbed remediation sites, and during cleanup of remediation sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) or the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA). Air emissions may pose a potential health risk at these sites. 

This section provides an overview of the engineering technologies and applications that are currently applicable to the study and remediation of releases of hazardous wastes and constituents from RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) facilities and those sites which parallel Superfund sites. Activities which would be termed removal actions or expedited response actions under CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Recovery-Cleanup and Liability Act) are also covered in this section. Information presented in this section represent excerpts from document EPA/625/4-89/020 (September 1989). 

In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Commonly known as Superfund, the program under this law is focused on the remediation of abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Since 1980, Superfund has assessed nearly 44,400 sites. To date, 33,100 sites have been removed from the Superfund inventory to aid their economic redevelopment, and 11,300 sites remain active with the site assessment program or are included in the National Priorities List (NPL) for the implementation of remedial actions. By September 2000, 1509 sites were included in the NPL with ongoing or completed cleanup activities. 

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)1-3 and the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA)1 2 4 protect the public from the risks created by past and recent chemical disposal practices. Cleanup of contaminated sites is needed in order to protect human and natural resources, as defined by the Clean Air Act,5 the Clean Water Act,6 the Safe Drinking Water Act,7 and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)89... 

CERCLA Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. Known as CERCLA, or the SUPERFUND amendment, this federal law deals with hazardous substances releases to the environment and the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. 

Where LNAPL is present, its recovery is an essential and typically immediate part of the cleanup effort. Removal of the floating LNAPL layer is almost always required prior to the initiation of other restoration- and remediation-related activities (enhanced bioactivity, vapor extraction, etc.) and response to other environmental issues (i.e., hydrocarbon-affected soils, vapors, or dissolved hydrocarbon in groundwater). 

The U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 required careful analysis of the consequences of any federally funded project. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 established guidelines for handling, transport, and hauling of hazardous materials, such as required in cleanup of soil contaminants. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 established, for the hrst time, strict mles on legal liability for soil contamination. CERCLA stimulated identihcation and cleanup of thousands of contaminated land sites, and consequently raised awareness of property buyers and sellers to make soil contamination a focal issue of land use and management practices (US-EPA 2007c). 

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) requires the EPA to "clean up" chemical disposal sites. The cleanup funds are raised through a combination of tort suits against companies that have had some connection with either the disposal site or the chemicals (joint-and-several strict liability) and taxes on petroleum production, hazardous-waste facilities, and chemical products. When judgments go against landowners, trucking firms, container corporations, or other firms less directly connected with the site, the defendants ask their insurance companies to pay these judgments. Courts, then, must decide whether liability insurance contracts cover such claims. 

EPA. 1986g. Method 3600. Cleanup. In Test methods for evaluating solid waste. Vol IB, Laboratory manual, Physical/chemical methods. SW846. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Washington DC, 3rd ed. 

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