OVERVIEW

State Site Investigation and Clean-up Program

This program was established under State authorities and is State-funded. The goal of the program is to provide fair, comprehensive and consistent regulation of the investigation and remediation of hazardous waste and hazardous material releases consistent with federal program, yet implemented in a more timely and cost-effective manner. The State program is designed to determine if a site poses a threat to human health and the environment and efficiently determine a remedy which is effective but not overly burdensome to the parties involved.

This program also supports the redevelopment and reuse of contaminated sites through the Brownfields program. Sites are identified, evaluated, and cleaned up, both in a reactive and proactive manner, and brought back to beneficial reuse in Rhode Island communities.

This program is more cost effective, less of a burden and quicker than the federal program.

Program Purpose

To regulate and provide technical oversight for the investigation and remediation of releases of hazardous waste or hazardous material to the environment; to ensure that those investigations and remedial activities are conducted in a consistent manner that adequately protects human health and the environment; and to enforce regulations regarding the proper disposal of abandoned hazardous waste.

Program Objectives

The Superfund program is administered under CERCLA as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) of 1991. The purpose of the program is to assess and cleanup sites of federal interest to uses desired by the surrounding community in a manner protective of human health and the environment. EPA is authorized to use a trust fund to pay for this work and to pursue recovery of EPA expenditures from parties potentially responsible for the contamination.

By law, the Superfund program cannot currently be delegated to the states. Rhode Island, under state law, administers its own assessments and cleanup program at contaminated sites of state interest. In addition, states provide assistance to EPA to cleanup high priority sites on the National Priority List (NPL) and to undertake site assessments for sites not yet on the NPL.

As part of the EPA-New England initiative, the region is working jointly with states to develop their voluntary cleanup programs.

There are currently 200 sites in Rhode Island that are suspected hazardous waste disposal sites and are listed on the federal inventory known as CERCLA. Additional sites continue to be added as warranted. Approximately ten sites per year are investigated and evaluated under this program.

This Superfund Pre-Remedial program is currently the only avenue by which a possible hazardous waste site can undergo a comprehensive investigation by an independent authority (the State funded hazardous waste site investigation program relies predominantly on responsible parties to conduct investigations). Although the initial listing of sites on the federal inventory is based on a suspicion of disposal activities, property owners and representatives from industries have repeatedly expressed concern that this listing creates a stigma on the title to the property that makes financing and further development virtually impossible.

The Office has adopted the internal position that these property owners and industry representatives will be given the opportunity to take good faith actions under the State program to avoid inclusion on the federal inventory. Sites where the private parties are unwilling or unable to conduct the necessary investigations and clean-ups will be referred to this program.

Program Purpose

To conduct an increasingly complex series of evaluations of federally-listed suspected hazardous waste sites in order to determine if those sites pose sufficient threats to human health and the environment to be listed on the National Priorities List and become eligible for federally funded investigation and clean-up under Superfund.

Program Objectives

This section is responsible for fulfilling the Department's obligations relating to Superfund National Priority List sites, which are the sites posing the greatest threats to human health and the environment as ranked through a national process. There are currently 12 NPL sites in Rhode Island.

This section is also responsible for fulfilling the Department's obligations and objectives under programs addressing DOD-lead investigations and remedial actions at two federal-facility Superfund sites, which are comprised of approximately fifteen distinct individual sites, and approximately fifty federal-lead FUD site investigations at which the State has sole enforcement oversight. Recent decisions by the federal government to down-size the military has resulted in the creation of a third DOD program known as the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Program.

The Naval Construction and Battalion Center (NCBC) in Davisville, Rhode Island is subject to this program. The program mandates that hazardous waste contamination must be addressed before the DOD property is transferred to the local communities for reuse. An essential component of this plan is the establishment of a BRAC cleanup team made up of environmental experts from the State, the EPA, and the DOD. The goal of this team will be to fast-track cleanup of the contaminated parcels and identifying clean parcels for early use. These excess parcels are prime industrial locations with extremely high economic development value. The entire Davisville area has been designated as a priority area by the RI Department of Economic Development.

Program Purpose

The nature and extent of contamination at Department of Defense (DOD) sites, both currently active Federal Facilities and formally used defense sites (FUDs), by conducting Remedial Investigations; to evaluate alternative methods of clean-up documented in a Feasibility Study to determine the most feasible remedial alternative for the site. At the active Federal Facility sites, the Department has entered into a three party agreement with the Navy and the EPA to facilitate cooperation towards achieving remediation.

Program Objectives

The program's purpose is to build strong state and local release prevention programs to ensure that regulated underground storage tanks no longer present health or environmental problems.

The DEM has been designated by the Governor as the state agency to receive UST notifications under Subtitle I, Section 9002 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). As the designated Agency, DEM has received federal funding under RCRA, which assists the agency in developing and implementing the State's UST regulations. In addition, the funding facilitated the performance of certain activities to bring the State's program into conformance with federal requirements under RCRA Subtitle I and EPA regulations. In FY 92, DEM prepared revised regulations as part of the process of obtaining state program approval from EPA. This approval was granted in 1993.

The UST program has been part of the Office of Waste Management along with the RCRA programs subtitles C and H since 1993. The Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) program was part of the former Division of Site Remediation. Through the DEM reorganization, the former Division of Waste Management and the Division of Site Remediation have been merged. This combines the direction and supervision of the UST and LUST programs. This will lead to better communication and coordination in early identification of leaking underground storage tanks and responses that are more expeditious.

The program's purpose is to build and maintain a strong corrective action program so that leaking underground storage tanks are addressed to the point where they no longer present a threat to human health or to the environment.

DEM has been designated as the lead agency to direct and oversee the investigation and clean-up of leaking underground storage tanks under the authority of Subtitle I of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). As the designated agency, DEM has received federal funding from the federal trust fund to develop and implement the program.

Program Objectives

This is a new program created from the licensing and permitting components of the hazardous and solid/medical waste management programs. License and permit applications will be reviewed by program staff, decisions will be rendered on such applications, and inspections of licensed and permitted facilities will be conducted to ensure compliance with permit conditions and applicable laws and regulations. All of these activities will be conducted in a manner consistent with the Program's mission to:

* protect human health and the environment

* reduce waste and conserve energy and natural resources

* reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous waste

Program Objectives

* to assure compliance with wastes management regulations

* to review and respond timely to license and permit applications

* to perform compliance inspections at licensed and permitted facilities

* to design and implement programs that are consistent with new waste management technologies

* to reduce the risks to exposure to communicable diseases through the proper management of medical waste

* to assure the proper tracking of hazardous waste