Posted on December 9, 2013 by Charles Efflandt
EPA is seeking stakeholder input on its draft Groundwater Remedy Completion Strategy. Released on October 29, 2013, the strategy is advertised as a guide for evaluating remedy performance and improving decision-making to more effectively and expeditiously move groundwater sites to completion. Having experienced the problems associated with the “set it and forget it” approach to groundwater remedial action, my interest was piqued by the prospect of a new EPA strategy incorporating more flexibility in evaluating remedial action objectives, remedy performance and systematic risk assessment.
The potential impact of EPA’s remedy completion strategy is arguably diminished, however, by a lack of clarity as to its scope and purpose. The stated objective of documenting a uniform approach to efficiently completing groundwater remedial actions is qualified by an ambiguous disclaimer that the strategy does not change other guidance or policy, is not intended to alter the way the agency develops remedial objectives and cleanup goals and is not intended to interfere with the federal or state site decision-making process. So, what exactly does EPA hope to accomplish in proposing this new strategy?
The elements of the strategy consist of understanding site conditions, designing a site-specific remedy evaluation process, developing performance metrics, conducting remedy evaluations and making appropriate site management decisions. The focus of EPA’s strategy as presented is largely procedural. The strategy does not address common site impediments to achieving an effective and expeditious groundwater exit strategy. To that extent, it is primarily a restatement of a remedy evaluation process that has been the subject of numerous articles and that, in fact, has historically been implemented at many sites.
But perhaps my initial reading is too narrow. The strategy hints at more substantive remedy completion issues, such as addressing site remedial action objectives that become impracticable and unnecessary for the protection of health and the environment, as well as the need to more consistently evaluate remedy change at mature groundwater sites.
From the perspective of focusing on site groundwater scenarios that often delay remedy completion, I suggest that the draft strategy falls short of the goal line. Rather than simply allude to the remedy completion obstacles that presumably inspired the agency’s effort, EPA might better achieve its stated purpose if it revises its strategy to include more discussion of how the strategy may apply to common groundwater completion impediments. For example, it would be useful for the strategy to address the cost and inefficiencies of continuing to operate and maintain asymptotic pump and treat systems at low-threat sites, how to better incorporate plume stability trend information in the evaluation of remedy change, changes in exposure pathway risks and the impact of natural attenuation mechanisms, institutional controls and land use on remedy modification and remedy completion decision-making.
What I had hoped to see in the draft strategy was EPA’s blessing of a more flexible and common sense approach to specific groundwater remedy completion obstacles. My first reading of the draft strategy suggested to me that it was essentially a redundant procedural roadmap for remedy evaluation. But upon reflection, I think it could be more. Indeed, it could also be – and I hope, after consideration of stakeholder comments, will be – a tool for encouraging more consistent regulatory acceptance of remedy change and evolving risk assessments to overcome the inertia of inflexible remedial action objectives and remedy selection impacting many groundwater sites.
Tags: groundwater, remedies, remedy completion, strategy, CERCLA, EPA