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Environmental and Health
availability of licensed hazardous waste disposal facilities. Financially,
states pay a 10 percent share of remedial action costs not forthcoming
from responsible parties, including all future maintenance, at sites where
the federal Superfund pays for cleanup; states pay 50 per-cent or more
of such costs if the facility in question was operated by the state, either
directly or through a contractual relationship, at the time of disposal.
What Are Removal and Remedial Actions?
There are two types of response actions for cleanup. Removal actions
are short-term actions of limited scope and are carried out by the EPA
or the Coast Guard when there is a reported release of a hazardous
substance. Other cleanups are categorized as remedial actions.
When a release occurs the lead agency may
remove or arrange for
removal of the contamination. Under SARA, removal actions are gener-
ally limited to those which take no more than one year and cost no more
than $2 million. However, there are exceptions that allow the lead
agency to continue removal actions or roll removal actions into ongoing
site remediation. Also, when EPA or the Coast Guard determines that
an actual or threatened release may present "imminent and substantial
endangerment" to the public health and welfare or the environment, EPA
or the Coast Guard may request that the Attorney General secure an
abatement order in federal district court to force the property owner to
stop the release and/or prevent future releases. The Courts have
considered various factors in determining
whether there has been
imminent and substantial endangerment, including evidence of amounts
of, and hazards associated with, the substances released, as well as the
potential for exposure.
SARA also establishes a mechanism for reimbursement by the
Superfund of costs incurred by a person who receives and complies with
an abatement order. To obtain reimbursement, however, a party must
show that it is not liable for response costs, and that the reimbursable
costs are reasonable as measured by the terms of the EPA order.
What is Remedial Action?
Superfund establishes priorities for cleanup of sites severely contaminated
through releases and past hazardous waste disposal practices based on a
Hazard Ranking System (HRS). A part of NCP, EPA has established the
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