Superfund`s environmental indicators: Measuring and communicating environmental progress

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:69791

Ziomkoski, E J ^[1]; Bala, S K ^[2]

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1. Environmental Protection Agency, Arlington, VA (United States). Office of Emergency and Remedial Response
2. Marasco Newton Group, Ltd., Arlington, VA (United States)

During its early days, the Superfund program collected site-remediation data under a framework that assumed quick cleanup of a few critical hazardous waste sites nationwide. However, by engineering and administrative milestones. the mid-1980s, it was clear that EPA needed a way to document and communicate the incremental environmental progress it was making at Superfund sites. Site cleanup activities were achieving substantial progress toward the ultimate goal of addressing risks to human health and threats to the environment. Yet the nation was only focusing on total site cleanup and ``deletion`` from the National Priorities List (NPL) as the measure of the program`s success. Consequently, there was a need to communicate ecological information to the public to a much greater extent than before. In 1989, EPA`s Administrator directed all EPA programs, including Superfund, to develop Environmental Indicators of program progress. This paper details the development and implementation of Superfund`s Environmental Indicators (or EIs). These EIs are designed to communicate that the true measure of Superfund`s success is tangible progress in protecting human health and the environment through incremental site cleanup activities. The paper begins with some background on Superfund`s EIs and their use. It then profiles the current first generation Superfund EIs and describes EPA`s efforts to develop a new generation of EIs that focus on risk reduction.

• OSTI ID: 69791
• Report Number(s): CONF-941189--; ISBN 1-56590-016-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
IMPLEMENTATION
REMEDIAL ACTION
US SUPERFUND