Cleanup Enforcement Program FY 2015 Accomplishments
In fiscal year (FY) 2015, EPA continued to ensure that responsible parties perform and pay for the cleanup of our nation's most contaminated sites. In doing so, the Agency continues to protect the public resources and health of numerous communities, including those in economical disadvantaged areas. In 2015, responsible parties cleaned up millions of cubic yards of contaminated soil and water, committed to pay record-setting amounts to clean up contaminated sites, and agreed to pay back the Agency for its past cleanup work.
Today, EPA's most often used and most powerful cleanup enforcement mechanism is Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly referred to as Superfund. EPA also uses the authorities provided in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), including the Underground Storage Tank (UST) program, to address non-Superfund cleanups. RCRA's cleanup authority is the RCRA Corrective Action program, which addresses cleanup activities at RCRA regulated facilities.
Through the cleanup enforcement program, the Agency continues to pursue two strategies: “Enforcement First” and cost recovery, which provide commitments and money to clean up sites and conserve funds. EPA takes enforcement actions at sites where viable, potentially responsible parties (PRPs) exist, requiring them to pay for or perform site cleanups. Enforcement enables the Agency to focus appropriated funds on sites where PRPs either do not exist or lack the funds or capability to conduct site cleanups.
In FY 2015, EPA’s cleanup enforcement program accomplished the following:
- Record-setting year for Superfund enforcement program commitments for cost recovery and oversight and cleanup responses
- Largest Superfund bankruptcy-related settlement in the history of the cleanup enforcement program
- New guidance on financial assurance for Superfund settlement and orders
- Innovative Next Generation cleanup practices a Superfund sites
- Significant Environmental Benefits Realized at Federal Facility Superfund sites
Record-setting year for Superfund enforcement program commitments for cost recovery and oversight and cleanup responses
FY 2015 was a record setting year for the Superfund enforcement program in cost recovery and oversight cost management. Through negotiations and settlements, responsible parties agreed to reimburse $512.2 million of EPA’s past costs from cleanup work at Superfund sites. Additionally, EPA billed $106.4 million to PRPs for oversight costs associated with cleanup work at sites; the highest amount in the program’s history.
EPA obtained $2 billion in commitments from responsible parties to spend on site cleanup at sites across the country. The fourth largest amount in private party commitments in a fiscal year.
December 2015 marks 35 years since the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund) was enacted. Congress passed the Superfund statute to fill in a major gap in environmental protection that came to light in the mid-1970s. Over the past 35 years, EPA has attained over $39 billion in commitments from responsible parties. Of this amount, more than $35.1 billion has been committed to investigate and clean up Superfund sites, and more than $6.9 billion represents reimbursements to EPA for its past costs. Learn more about the past 35 years of the Superfund enforcement program.
Largest Superfund bankruptcy-related settlement in the history of the cleanup enforcement program
On November 10, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) approved an historic settlement agreement resolving fraudulent conveyance claims against Kerr-McGee Corporation and related subsidiaries of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation discovered during the Tronox Corporation bankruptcy proceedings. Under the settlement, Anadarko paid $5.15 billion plus interest to a litigation trust so that the settlement proceeds can be distributed to the trust’s environmental and tort beneficiaries.
Of the environmental recovery in this settlement, $1.9 billion will pay for cleanup work associated with numerous EPA-lead sites, resulting in the largest bankruptcy-related award that EPA has ever received for environmental claims and liabilities. With more than 2,700 sites in 47 states at issue in the case, the settlement addresses Kerr-McGee’s enormous legacy environmental and tort liabilities.
New guidance on financial assurance for Superfund settlement and orders
On April 6, 2015, EPA issued its first guidance on financial assurance for Superfund settlements and unilateral orders. The guidance is a compilation and clarification of current practices and seeks to promote national consistency and timeliness in achieving adequate financial assurance to ensure the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. The guidance includes new and updated sample financial assurance instruments for Superfund settlement and orders. The sample instruments include the following: corporate guarantees, financial tests, letters of credit, payment bonds, performance bonds, and trust agreements.
The “Guidance on Financial Assurance in Superfund Settlement Agreements and Unilateral Administrative Orders” is available from the Superfund enforcement policy and guidance database. The sample FA mechanisms for use in connection with CERCLA settlement agreements and UAOs are available to download in Word format from the Financial Assurance-Orders and Financial Assurance-Settlements categories on the Cleanup Enforcement Model Language and Sample Documents Database.
Innovative Next Generation cleanup practices at Superfund sites
EPA’s cleanup enforcement staff is working closely with OECA’s Next Generation team to identify and integrate Next Generation concepts into the cleanup enforcement program. The Superfund program has always been on the cutting edge of using advanced technologies, model settlement documents, transparency, and other Next Generation-like concepts. Examples of Next Generation cleanup practices at Superfund sites include:
- Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, New York – Community groups used digital camera balloons to create seasonal maps to assist in planning the appropriate cleanup.
- Redeveloped brownfield sites in Massachusetts – The state and property owners are using automatic alarms to provide notification alerts and mitigate contaminant exposure.
- Honeywell Inner Harbor Corrective Action site, Baltimore, Maryland – Construction for phase 1 of the RCRA redevelopment project included 24/7 air monitoring. The monitoring provided an alarm for tracking particulate matter (PM) levels and the data was sent to a public website.
Significant Environmental Benefits Realized at Federal Facility Superfund Sites
2015 was a record-setting year for the amount of contaminated material removed from federal facility Superfund sites. In particular, Anniston Army Depot in Alabama addressed over 19 million cubic yards of contaminated ground water, making it the largest removal of contaminated material from ground water for any Superfund site in 2015. Other federal facility sites with significant removal actions in 2015 were the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and Otis Air Force Base/Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod, which account for another 5.2 million cubic yards of contaminated material removed from ground water. Together, these three sites account for over 89 percent of all contamination removed from ground water at Superfund sites in 2015. This represents significant environmental benefit and protection of ground water drinking supplies this past year.
EPA also took several significant enforcement actions at Superfund sites in order to protect drinking water supplies. At Horsham Air Guard Station, formerly known as Willow Grove Air Reserve Station, in Pennsylvania, EPA issued a Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) imminent and substantial endangerment order to address drinking water contamination from perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) threatening 79 public and private wells in the vicinity. Under the order, the Air Force and Pennsylvania National Air Guard are required, among other activities, to develop short- and long-term plans to address the contamination, and to provide an alternate water supply in the interim. EPA issued another SDWA imminent and substantial endangerment order to Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire to address contamination from PFCs in drinking water at the base. The PFC contamination there had resulted in the shutdown of one public water supply well for the City of Portsmouth, and two others were in danger of being contaminated as well if action wasn’t taken to control PFC migration. As a result of EPA’s order, the Air Force is taking appropriate steps to control, monitor and clean up the PFC contamination and ensure the community has safe water to drink.