Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act: the Environment and Human Health - Research Paper Example

For quite some years ago in US, a lot of wastes were dumped in rivers, on the ground or left in the open. As a result many uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites were formed. The most common waste sites include abandoned processing plants, warehouses, land fills and manufacturing facilities. The hazardous waste sites posed a lot of risks to the environment and health of the people. As a result, there were a lot of concerns to clean up these sites. In response to these concerns, the US congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly referred to as the Superfund, on December 11, 1980 to clean up these sites. The main objective of CERCLA was to provide regulatory mechanisms in response to the environment and human health from abandoned hazardous waste dump sites (Bradstreet 34). This Act created taxes on petroleum and chemical industries and provided the federal government with the authority to respond directly to releases of hazardous wastes that could threaten the environment or public heath. The law also created a hazardous substance response trust fund of about 1.6 billion US Dollars for cleaning up the abandoned hazardous waste sites. The taxes collected from the chemical and petroleum industries (which came to be known as the superfund) are deposited in the trust fund to support the clean up process. CERCLA also gave Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funds and the authority to identify those who were responsible for contaminating these sites and force them to clean them up. However, where the responsible persons could not be found, the Agency was authorized to use the special trust fund to clean up the waste sites (Bradstreet 46). In general, the Act created requirements and prohibitions regarding abandoned and closed hazardous waste sites, established a trust fund which was to provide for clean up in cases where the responsible parties could not be identified and provided for liability of persons who were responsible for the release of hazardous wastes at these sites. Provisions The two types of response actions that were authorized by the law include the removal and remedial actions. The Removal actions These are short term response actions taken to tackle releases or threatened releases that require prompt responses. Removal actions are categorized as emergency, non time critical and time critical. Removal responses are used to tackle local risks such as abandoned drums that contain hazardous wastes and contaminated surface soils that pose dangerous risks to the human health and environment. Remedial actions These are long term remedial response actions that are taken to permanently and significantly reduce the risk posed by the releases of hazardous substances that are serious but do not immediately threaten the life of people. Remedial responses include such measures as neutralization of toxic materials and preventing migration of pollutants. However, remedial actions can only be conducted at sites listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s national Priorities List (NPL). The NPL is a list which guides the environmental protection agency in determining sites that warrant further investigation. It gives a list of all known releases or threatened releases of hazardous materials, contaminants or pollutants in the US and its territories in terms of priorities for investigation by the EPA (LaGrega 36). In 1986, CERCLA was amended by the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act (SARA) to provide an additional 8.5 billion USD for cleaning up hazardous waste sites and to emphasize the need for faster cleanups and remediation facilities. Also, SARA gave EPA the authority of enforcing hazardous waste regulations at many government facilities operated by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense (Bradstreet 46). Response Efforts The response effort of CERCLA is guided by the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan commonly known as the National Contingency Plan (NCP). The NCP explains the steps to be followed by responsible parties in reporting and responding to cases in which hazardous materials have been released to the environment. It establishes the procedures, criteria methods to be used by EPA in determining priority releases for long term response and evaluation. As amended by NCP and SARA, CERCLA provides authority the following kinds of response actions: first it created a program to report spills of hazardous materials, second it formed an emergency response program responsible for cleaning up releases of hazardous materials and finally it created a remedial program to permanently clean up uncontrolled releases from abandoned hazardous sites. Any hazardous substance released to the environment is to be reported to the National Response Center within twenty four hours if its release exceeds its reportable quantity (RQ). The EPA then publishes a list of these hazardous releases and their reportable quantities. The investigations are then carried and the remedial actions taken to clean up the sites (The United States Environmental Protection Agency para 5). The United States government usually holds companies financially liable and responsible for cleaning up hazardous spills or materials. Companies which fail to comply with this order are usually assessed heavy fines for the delay in cleaning up the releases. However, if a company does not have sufficient resources to clean up a spill, the government is usually forced to do it herself so as to protect the people and animals from further exposure. For instance, the clean up of BP oil spill. In the BP oil spill clean up, the EPA provided full support to the US Coast Guard following the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico on 22nd April, 2010. Its role was to work with the local, state and federal response partners in monitoring the water, air and sediments along the Gulf Coast to protect human health and environment. The Environmental Protection Agency collected, analyzed and evaluated over five thousand water, sediment, waste and air samples. The EPA and the Coast Guard gave BP a directive to reduce its overall dispersant by 75% and avoid the use of dispersant on the water surface altogether unless provided with a written authorization from the Coast Guard (The United States Coast Guard para 6). During the spill, EPA provided management expertise to properly manage the waste generated by the oil spill and the clean up process. They also visited most of the management facilities to ensure that the waste was handled properly. The Agency also reviewed over one thousand potential clean up solutions that were solicited through the EPA web site. The Agency’s Emergency Operation Centers were also activated 24/7 until the release was under control. In addition, during the oil spill the Agency made it a priority to clearly engage and inform the stakeholders and the communities on the progress of the clean up process. Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) also provided important input in the response actions to restore the Gulf Coast (The United States Environmental Protection Agency para 4). The EPA finally worked with representatives from Interior Department, Coast Guard and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to form a non governmental interaction unit to raise the engagement level and strengthen the partnership of the numerous local NGOs that were essential to the response effort around the Gulf region. During the celebrations of CERCLA’s twentieth anniversary, the Environmental Protection Agency gave a summarized report on its progress in hazardous waste clean up. It noted that it had taken more than 6,500 emergency actions, gotten potentially responsible parties (PRPs) to conduct cleanups at 70% of all NPL sites, secured about $19 billion from PRPs to fund cleanups secured and had removed close to 220 sites from their list. Nevertheless, since new sites often arise or are discovered and cleanups need a lot of time to complete, CERCLA like any other legislation will be needed for a foreseeable future (The United States Environmental Protection Agency para 3). Work Cited Bradstreet Jeffrey. Hazardous air pollutants: assessment, liabilities, and regulatory compliance. William Andrew. 1995. LaGrega, Michael, Buckingham, Phillip and Evans, Jeffrey, Hazardous Waste Management, (2nd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill. 2001. The United States Coast Guard (2010) CERCLA & Coast Guard Superfund Use. Viewed 17th March, 2011 http://www.uscg.mil/npfc/cercla.asp The United States Environmental Protection Agency (2011) Superfund . Viewed 17th March, 2011 http://www.epa.gov/superfund/about Read More