CERCLA  authorizes EPA to compel the parties responsible for the contaminated  sites to clean them up. States accomplish cleanups under three types of programs: (1) voluntary  cleanup programs that allow parties, who are often interested in increasing  sites’ economic value, to clean them up without state enforcement actions;  (2) brownfields programs that encourage the voluntary cleanup of sites in  urban industrial areas to enable their reuse; and (3) enforcement programs  that oversee the cleanup of the most serious sites and force uncooperative  responsible parties to clean up their sites. Superfund Has Made Progress Cleaning Up Sites

Even though cleanups have taken a long time to accomplish, if it maintains  its current pace, the Superfund program will complete the construction of  cleanup remedies at the great majority of current NPL sites within the next  several years. Now, however, most NPL sites have been in the cleanup process for a long  time and have moved beyond the remedy selection phase. Groundwater cleanups  will continue at many of these sites after the completion of remedy  construction. About 89 percent of the NPL sites  were placed on the list between 1982 and 1990. Uncorrected Problems Make Superfund A High-Risk Program

For several years, GAO has included the Superfund program on its list of  federal programs that pose significant financial risk to the government and  the potential for waste and abuse. EPA has partially corrected  this problem. EPA classified these sites as “awaiting an NPL decision.”   Information about the nature and the extent of the threat that these sites  pose to human health and the environment, the extent of states' or EPA's  cleanup actions at the sites, and the states' or EPA's cleanup plans for the  sites is important to determining the future size of the Superfund program. We surveyed EPA regions, other federal agencies, and the states to (1)  determine how many of the over 3,000 sites remain potentially eligible for  the NPL; (2) identify the characteristics of these sites, including their health  and environmental risks; (3) determine the status of any actions to clean up  these sites; and (4) collect the opinions of EPA and other federal and state  officials on the likely final disposition of these sites, including the number  of sites that are expected to be placed on the NPL. Because  few sites have been admitted to the program in recent years, the NPL  pipeline is clearing out. On the other hand, there are many sites in EPA’s  inventory of potential NPL sites that still need attention and possible  cleanup, but EPA and the states have postponed decisions, sometimes for  up to 10 years or longer, on how to address them. We have recommended that EPA work  with the states to assign responsibility among themselves for these sites. The Superfund reauthorization process gives the Congress an opportunity  to help guide EPA and the states in allocating responsibility for addressing  these sites.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the status and management of the Superfund program and the outlook for the program's future, focusing on: (1) progress made toward cleaning up sites in the program; (2) continuing management problems; and (3) factors affecting Superfund's future workload.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) in the past GAO has called attention to the slow pace of cleanups in the Superfund program; (2) however, 17 years after sites were first placed on the Superfund list, many of the sites have progressed a considerable distance through the cleanup process; (3) decisions about how to clean up the great majority of these sites have been made, and the construction and cleanup remedies have been completed at over 40 percent of the sites; (4) the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) goal is to complete the construction of remedies at 1,200 sites by 2005; (5) work to clean up groundwater will continue at many sites after remedies are constructed; (6) despite the progress that Superfund has made toward site cleanups, certain management problems persist; (7) these problems include the: (a) difficulty in controlling contract costs; (b) failure to recover certain federal cleanup costs from the parties who are responsible for the contaminated sites; and (c) selection of sites for cleanup without assurance that they are the most dangerous sites to human health and the environment; (8) these problems have caused GAO to include the program on its list of federal programs vulnerable to waste and abuse; (9) furthermore, GAO's analysis indicates that the costs of on-site work by cleanup contractors represent less than half of the spending in the program; (10) there is considerable uncertainty about the future workload of the Superfund program; (11) resolving this uncertainty depends largely on deciding how to divide responsibility for the cleanup of sites between EPA and the states; (12) the number of sites that have entered the Superfund program in recent years has decreased as EPA has focused its resources on completing work at existing sites and the states have developed their own programs for cleaning up sites; (13) according to EPA and state officials who responded to the survey, a large number of sites in EPA's inventory of potential Superfund sites are contaminating groundwater and drinking water sources and causing other problems and may need cleanup; (14) GAO recommended that EPA work with the states to assign responsibility for these sites among themselves; and (15) the Superfund reauthorization process gives Congress an opportunity to help guide EPA and the states in allocating responsibility for addressing these sites.