Keeping Better Score of Superfund Cleanups: A New and Much Needed Approach
(WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 2004) - America’s Superfund program – intended to clean up contaminated sites across the U.S. – is being hampered by a lack of up-to-date and reliable data and measures of success, according to a new report by Resources for the Future.
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To correct the situation, the study authors recommend that the Environmental Protection Agency create standardized sets of data and information that will help policymakers gauge progress in Superfund sites and inform the public about whether cleanup goals are being met.
“People living near a site, those who have financial responsibility at a site, journalists, local officials, and Members of Congress – among others – all want reliable and readily accessible site-specific information,” says Katherine N. Probst, an RFF senior fellow and one of the authors of the just-published Success for Superfund: A New Approach for Keeping Score. “As of now, that information is difficult if not impossible to find.”
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Success for Superfund:
A New Approach for Keeping Score
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Today, more than 1,200 sites remain on the EPA’s National Priorities List (NPL) including hazardous waste sites, mining sites, chemical facilities, wood preservers, and contaminated landfills.
A Standardized Scorecard for Success
To correct the lag in accurate and timely information, Probst and Research Assistant Diane Sherman recommend the implementation of three separate tools – open and available to the public via the Internet – to facilitate monitoring of progress at Superfund sites. They include:
- A standardized Scorecard for each NPL site that contains concise, up-to-date information on site progress and key attributes. This Scorecard should be updated at least quarterly.
- A one-page NPL Report Card that includes a subset of information from the NPL Scorecard containing the most important measures of site progress, plus basic background information.
- A web-based Superfund Annual Report that summarizes information on progress for all NPL sites and contains other indicators of program performance.
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Mockup of a
Standardized
Report Card
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The authors believe that costs of implementing and maintaining the NPL Scorecard “would be small compared to Superfund’s current annual data management costs.” And, because the information to be included is relatively straightforward, “it should not take more than a year at most to implement this approach for the entire NPL if it is done with senior management support, and in an efficient fashion.”
Defining Success in Superfund Cleanups
Superfund cleanup efforts have been among the nation’s most controversial and most visible environmental initiatives since the program began in the early 1980s. Defining success for the Superfund program also has been a vexing problem for those responsible for cleanups.
“Now in its third decade, the Superfund program appears less frequently on the front pages,” says Probst. “Yet it continues to elicit deeply felt and diverse beliefs among its various stakeholders.”
Moreover, she says, it is unlikely that there will ever be complete agreement about the key Superfund questions: What do we mean by risk? What kind of cleanup is right? How much money should be spent on contaminated sites, and how much of the program should be publicly funded?
“However, if EPA provided more reliable, consistent, accessible, and transparent information about many aspects of the Superfund program, it might then be possible to create more realistic expectations about what we can and cannot achieve, and assure that the debate takes place in the context of facts, not a war of anecdotes,” Probst and Sherman conclude.
Support for this project was provided by the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.
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Founded in 1952, Resources for the Future seeks to improve environmental and natural resource policymaking through independent social science research of the highest caliber.
Contacts:
RFF Office of Communications, 202-328-5188
Katherine N. Probst, Senior Fellow, 202-328-5061
