Cleanup Enforcement

Response costs involved with Superfund cleanup include several types of costs, each of which is accounted for differently.

Direct Costs
Contractors' Annual Allocation Costs
Indirect Costs

Direct Costs

Direct costs are those expenses directly traced to a particular activity, such as a cleanup action. These costs can include the following expenses incurred by EPA and the cleanup contractor:

• time spent on a cleanup-related activity,
• travel to and from the site,
• contractor costs at the site, and
• equipment used at the site, etc.

Contractors' Annual Allocation Costs

Contractors' annual allocation costs include money spent by government contractors doing site-related work not traceable to a particular site. For example, training in handling hazardous materials is an allocation cost. This training is essential to Superfund cleanup site work, but the training received may be used at several sites.

On an annual basis, government contractors allocate these costs across the sites that they have worked on during the past year. The contractor provides EPA with a site specific allocation of the cost and EPA treats them as direct costs.

Indirect Costs

Indirect costs are EPA's expenses for managing the Agency. These costs are not directly traceable to any particular cleanup activity and include the following activities:

• administrative matters,
• personnel issues,
• guidance development,
• office, utility, and supply costs, etc.

EPA developed a complex methodology for allocating these costs among all of the activities accomplished during a year.

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