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Superfund: Extent of Nation's Potential Hazardous Waste Problem Still Unknown

RCED-88-44 Published: Dec 17, 1987. Publicly Released: Jan 19, 1988.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO studied the extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) increased its hazardous waste site discovery efforts to determine the: (1) total possible number and types of sites that required investigation; (2) status of 837 sites EPA did not include in its 1985 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS) inventory; (3) reasons why EPA did not place the sites on its National Priorities List (NPL); and (4) states' efforts to develop comprehensive inventories of their hazardous waste sites.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should develop guidelines and criteria for assessing state hazardous waste site programs under section 3012 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and evaluate the state programs according to these criteria. As part of these evaluations, EPA should examine the states' need for federal funding or other forms of assistance.
Closed – Not Implemented
EPA believes it has taken sufficient action to encourage states to identify hazardous waste sites.
Environmental Protection Agency To ensure that the public, Congress, and EPA have a more accurate view of the nation's hazardous waste problem, the Administrator, EPA, should issue a formal CERCLIS reporting policy to be followed by the regions and the states. The Administrator should: (1) develop a statement of the EPA position on the need for full reporting of sites identified by states as potential hazardous waste sites; (2) issue instructions to EPA regions on the types of sites that should be added to CERCLIS and when they should be added, and periodically assess how well each EPA region is following these instructions; and (3) advise each state of these reporting criteria and the importance of complying with them, and direct each region to work with the states to implement these criteria.
Closed – Implemented
EPA has taken some limited action to improve CERCLIS reporting, but the action is not fully responsive.

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Topics

Environmental lawEnvironmental monitoringstate relationsHazardous substancesInformation systemsInspectionSite selectionWaste disposalWaste managementHazardous wastes