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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

A new direction for prioritizing federal agency cleanups

Conference ·
OSTI ID:205327
 [1]; ; ;  [2]
  1. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC (United States). Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office
  2. DynCorp/Environmental, Energy and National Security Programs, Alexandria, VA (United States)

Departments and agencies of the federal government manage a vast array of activities at 27,000 facilities. Due to the nature of such activities, federal facilities could be contaminated with hazardous substances. It is estimated that the federal government ultimately will be responsible for or have a significant role in the cleanup of up to 500,000 sites. Although federal facilities comprise only a small percentage of the community regulated under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), federal facilities owned or operated by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) are usually larger and more complex than their private industrial counterparts. Federal facilities routinely have a larger number of sites on their facilities with varying degrees of risk. At present, the approaches for allocating resources for environmental restoration of federal facilities, for incorporating stakeholder concerns in the allocation, and for obtaining funding from Congress vary greatly from one agency to another. In light of these concerns, the federal government recognizes the need to evaluate the current resource allocation system for funding remediation projects and to establish a broader-based publicly supported priority-setting method. This paper outlines a possible new direction and summarizes the conclusions reached in a handful of forums created to address the issue of priority setting.

OSTI ID:
205327
Report Number(s):
CONF-951139--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English