Waste sites, abandoned hazardous

Tlie Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 was tire first major response to tire problem of abandoned hazardous waste sites throughout the nation. CERCLA was the begiiming of tlie remediation of hazardous waste sites. This program was designed to ... 

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. 

In 1980, the U.S. Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the first comprehensive federal law addressing the protection of the environment from the threat of hazardous substances. The primary goal of CERCLA is to establish an organized cost-effective mechanism for response to abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites that pose a serious threat to human health and the environment.8 9 To accomplish this goal, two types of response capabilities are mandated by CERCLA13 ... 

In addition, cover systems are also used in the remediation of hazardous waste sites. For example, cover systems may be applied to source areas contaminated at or near the ground surface or at abandoned dumps. In such cases, the cover system may be used alone or in conjunction with other technologies to contain the waste (e.g., slurry walls and groundwater pump and treat systems). 

The design and construction requirements, as defined in the RCRA regulations, may also be applied under cleanup programs, such as Superfund31 or state cleanup programs, as part of a remedy for hazardous waste sites such as abandoned dumps. In these instances, the RCRA regulations for conventional covers are usually identified as applicable or relevant and appropriate requirements for the site. 

Despite the difficulties of evaluating the true extent of contamination, the latest estimations in Europe in 2006 set a number of 3.5 million potentially contaminated sites [23]. Of these, approximately 0.5 million were expected to require urgent treatment. The National Priorities List of the 2012 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified 1,305 superfund sites, which are defined as abandoned hazardous waste sites [24]. 

Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) and the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) provide the basic legal framework for the federal "Superfund" program to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites. 

The EPA makes decisions about clean-up of abandoned hazardous waste sites under the so-called Superfund law. Risk assessment outcomes are one guide to the decision process. The agency has declared that, for carcinogenic contaminants, clean-up must reach lifetime risks somewhere in the range of one in 10 000 to one-in-one million most decisions seem to aim at risks of one in 100 000 or lower. Hazard index values for non-carcinogens are not expected to exceed one. Costs and technical feasibility figure heavily in these decisions. 

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, was enacted by the U.S. Congress on 11 December 1980. CERCLA created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment. Over 5 years, 1.6 billion was collected and the tax went to a tmst fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (US-EPA 2007c). 

CERCLA established prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites provided for liabUity of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these sites and established a trust fund to provide for cleanup when no responsible party could be identified. 

The State has listed seven sites in the state for possible Superfund action At one, several thousand drums of waste were stacked above ground, and then abandoned. Another represents a case of good intentions gone bad a commercial waste site that lacked tight regulatory controls to set its operating conditions, and consequently got into trouble. Another started out as a municipal solid waste site, and somehow ended up as an uncontrolled dump for hazardous wastes. Still another was an old waste oil recovery plant that was operated very poorly, in a poor site area. 

The step-wise evaluation and decision process can also be used in assessing the environmental risks posed by abandoned hazardous waste disposal sites. I will also briefly describe our experience with a site in a southern California community. 

This system is designed to deal with a large number of abandoned sites where information is scarce or difficult to locate. It is not meant to replace the elaborate systems for,., ranking known hazardous waste sites such as those by LeGrand and Kufs et al. The Monroe County study is intended to broadly prioritize sites, rapidly identify potentially high risk sites and allow the most efficient use of funds available for later testing or subsurface investigations. 

NPL National Priorities List—the U.S. EPA s list of the most serious uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the United States, updated on a regular basis... 

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Recovery Act (CERCLA), commonly called the Snperfund Law, requires the cleanup of releases of hazardous substances in air, water, groundwater, and on land. Both new spills and leaking or abandoned waste sites are covered. 

The Superfund Act addressed hazardous waste from abandoned operations and historic production sites. The act created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries to pay for remediation of uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites. Prohibitions and other requirements were established for abandoned sites, including liability for anyone responsible for a release of hazardous material at such a site. 

Superfund to clean up uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous-waste sites... 

As a source of nitrobenzene exposure of humans, soil appears to rank a distant third in terms of its contribution. Nelson and Hites (1980) reported 8 ppm in the soil of a former dye manufacturing site along the Buffalo River, but failed to detect nitrobenzene in river sediments, as noted above. The presence of nitrobenzene in the soils of abandoned hazardous waste sites is inferred by its presence in the atmosphere above several sites (Harkov et al. 1985 LaRegina et al. 1986). Nitrobenzene was detected in soil/sediment samples at 4 of 862 hazardous waste sites at a geometric mean concentration of 1,000 pg/kg (CLPSD 1988). No further data on nitrobenzene levels released to soils were located. 

Individuals living in the vicinity of hazardous waste sites and abandoned wood-treatment plants contaminated with coal tar creosote may experience higher levels of exposure than the rest of the general population. These environmental exposures generally are at a lower dose but of longer duration than the occupational exposures. 

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