How clean is clean: A review of Superfund cleanups
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or ''Superfund'') and its reauthorization, the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA), have instituted a national program to clean up sites contaminated by hazardous chemical wastes. During the first six years under CERCLA, 14 sites on the National Priorities List (NPL) have been cleaned up, and remedial actions have been initiated at 143 NPL sites. Under SARA, efforts are underway to clean up the 888 sites currently on the NPL and to identify the potential 60,000 remaining abandoned hazardous waste dump sites in the US. The issue is: How clean is clean. That is, when is remedial action completed and what levels of cleanup must be achieved for a site to be released for unrestricted use. The SARA statute provides a framework for how cleanups are to be performed and specifies levels of cleanup that Congress and the President said must be achieved. This paper presents a brief overview and interpretation of the cleanup process as laid out under SARA and discusses the results of our analysis of RODs. 5 refs.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 5770038
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-871075-21; ON: DE88001744
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
290300 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety
510200* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CHEMICAL WASTES
CLEANING
DECONTAMINATION
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
GROUND WATER
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
LAWS
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION LAWS
REMEDIAL ACTION
SOILS
STANDARDS
SUPERFUND
US EPA
US ORGANIZATIONS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES
WATER