An important part of the hazardous waste program requires hazardous waste facilities to investigate and clean up significant contamination across the entire site and on adjacent property if the contamination has migrated off-site. This is called the corrective action program. Here you will find the answers to the following questions:
- What is corrective action, and who has to do it?
- Who is not subject to corrective action?
- What are solid waste management units?
- What is the difference between a SWMU and a "Regulated Unit"?
- What are the steps in the corrective action process?
- What technical standards apply to corrective action?
- When does a hazardous waste facility have to start corrective action?
- How are cleanup requirements determined?
- What are typical cleanup options?
- What types of cleanup options are available?
- How can the public get involved in the corrective action process?
- Are there other specific requirements for hazardous waste corrective action in the existing regulations?
The purpose of this publication is to explain briefly how the corrective action program works. This Web page is for informational purposes only. The pertinent statutes and regulations must be consulted to determine compliance.
Corrective action is the term used in the hazardous waste program for investigation and cleanup of environmental contamination. Under both the state and federal hazardous waste laws, all facilities that treat, store or dispose of hazardous waste must investigate and clean up all known or likely releases (spills) of hazardous wastes or materials with hazardous constituents.
These requirements were established under the federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (HSWA).
HSWA was an expansion of and amendment to the original federal hazardous waste law known as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, or RCRA. Kentucky was granted final authorization to implement the corrective action program on June 25, 1996, from EPA.
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The hazardous waste corrective action requirements normally do not apply to hazardous waste generators or transporters who do not and did not treat, store or dispose of hazardous waste. However, generators and transporters are required to respond immediately to clean up any releases to the environment.
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Solid Waste Management Units, or SWMUs, are areas at hazardous waste treatment, storage or disposal facilities that have, or may have had, spills or releases, regardless of when wastes were managed in the units. Areas that are less well defined, but may need investigation or cleanup are called Areas of Concern, or AOCs.
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A "regulated unit" differs from a SWMU in that it is a land based hazardous waste management unit, such as a landfill, surface impoundment, land treatment unit or waste pile, that is specifically covered under the formal permitting and closure requirements of the hazardous waste program. Regulated units have been used to store, treat or dispose of hazardous waste since July 26, 1982. Corrective action for regulated units is covered under separate regulatory requirements than those for SWMUs. This publication deals mostly with corrective action for SWMUs, but the technical issues are similar to those for regulated units.
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Corrective action consists of four main steps: assessment, investigation, remedy selection, and remedy implementation. (It should be noted that if an imminent threat is found at any time during the process, the state can require the facility to promptly conduct interim corrective measures.) The corrective action steps are described below:
1. RCRA Facility Assessment (RFA)
The process for identifying all of the known SWMUs and Areas of Concern
at a facility is called the RCRA Facility Assessment, or RFA. The RFA
report is prepared by the state or EPA, or by a contractor to these
agencies.
In addition to identifying all SWMUs by descriptions, maps and
photographs, the RFA report also describes the facility operations, history
and previous groundwater and soil investigations. The RFA makes one of
the following recommendations for each unit:
a. No Further Action: This means that: (1) there is no evidence to
indicate that there has been a release from the unit; or (2) that the unit is
being addressed under the permit or under a closure plan, both of which
have specific requirements for corrective action.
b. RCRA Facility Investigation Required: This means that the unit has
had a confirmed release to the environment. The facility must determine
the full extent of the contamination at this unit. This often requires soil
and groundwater sampling. Note: If at any time there is an imminent
threat to human health or the environment, the facility may be required to
perform interim corrective measures, which is an expedited temporary
remedy for the worst problem areas.
c. Confirmatory Sampling Required: This means that the unit is
suspected of having significant releases to the environment, but it has
not been confirmed. If the confirmatory sampling proves that there have
been significant releases, then a full investigation of the unit would be
required.
2. RCRA Facility Investigation (RFI)
The facility prepares and submits work plans to investigate the SWMUs that
require further action. Upon approval of the investigation and sampling
plans by the state, the sampling is conducted by the facility or its consultant,
and the results are submitted in a report. Based upon the findings, the state
then determines which units require actual cleanup.
3. Corrective Measures Study (CMS)
The state sends the facility a letter that requires the facility to submit a
report called a Corrective Measures Study or CMS. The CMS will list
specific proposed cleanup options for those units that have been
determined to require actual cleanup.
Upon review of the CMS, a remedy or series of remedies is selected to
clean up the problem units. After a tentative decision is reached on how to
clean up the units, the state and EPA require a public notice to solicit
comments on the proposed remedy.
4. Corrective Measure Implementation (CMI)
After public comments are considered, the Corrective Measures Study is
given final approval. At this point the facility submits the final detailed
design for the cleanup, called the Corrective Measures Implementation
(CMI) plan, and then implements it.
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The requirements in the existing regulations and statutes are fairly broad in nature. Most of the technical requirements are provided in federal guidance documents. Please refer to the list of references at the end of this publication for further information.
The EPA proposed a regulation detailing the corrective action requirements on July 27, 1990, titled Corrective Action for Solid Waste Management Units (SWMUs) at Hazardous Waste Management Facilities. This document included step by-step procedures and proposed action levels for contaminants in the soil, water and air that would trigger cleanup. However, little of this proposal has been finalized into regulations. As a result, Kentucky does not rely upon this proposed rule.
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Although a facility may initiate corrective action at any time, there are four mechanisms (or combinations of these) under which corrective action is usually conducted or imposed:
1. Voluntary Corrective Action
When the facility receives the final assessment (RFA), it may choose to
quickly begin investigation and cleanup. Generally, the facility will submit a
plan and then start the work after receiving approval from the state.
2. Permit Requirements for Corrective Action
When and if a facility is issued a hazardous waste permit, the permit
contains requirements for conducting corrective action. These requirements
include listings of units (SWMUs) that require further action as identified in
the RFA, timetables for each step in the process and outlines of technical
requirements for conducting the investigations and selecting proposed
remedies.
3. Corrective Action Agreed Order
If a facility will not be pursuing a hazardous waste permit, and if the facility
wants to ensure that the requirements and timetables for corrective action
are clearly stated up front, the facility and the state will negotiate an Agreed
Order which spells out these requirements. This process usually takes
place after the RFA is finalized. The Agreed Order takes effect when it is
signed by the facility and the Secretary of the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet.
4. Unilateral Corrective Action Order
As a last resort, if a hazardous waste facility is unwilling to implement the
required corrective action requirements, the state can issue a unilateral
order to require the facility to comply.
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Because each site has site-specific contaminants, waste management practices, soils, geology, hydrology and surrounding land use, cleanup standards are generally established on a case-by-case basis with certain general requirements. These general requirements include protection of human health and the environment based upon a risk assessment using the latest information from toxicological studies. If the unit contains contaminants at levels that pose a potential risk to human health or the environment, cleanup is required.
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The facility can propose cleanup by methods such as removing contaminated soils, treating the soils (using methods such as bioremediation or by extracting vapors of volatile contaminants), pumping and treating the groundwater and other methods. If the risk is so low that it can be easily managed by restricting access and use of the land (such as by deed restrictions), this may be allowed in certain cases. A combination of the above options and/or other methods also may be used.
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The types of suitable remediation options depend mostly upon the type of contaminant(s), the type and size of the unit or activity that caused the release or spill and the soils and geology of the site. Few of the options are easy and effective. It is far easier to prevent the release than to clean it up. Surface water and air are not specifically addressed here, because both are relatively short-term problems: once the release or spill stops, the contamination usually dissipates fairly quickly.
Contaminants can be grouped into two main types:
1. Organic compounds that contain carbon and are often produced from
petroleum. Many organic hazardous wastes are man-made compounds.
Organic compounds can be grouped into two main categories, volatile
(compounds that evaporate easily, such as constituents in gasoline and
many solvents) and semi-volatile (compounds that do not evaporate as
readily, such as compounds in diesel fuel).
2. Inorganic elements and compounds that include metals (such as from
electroplating operations) and cyanide. Since most of these constituents
occur in nature, sampling for these contaminants also includes background
sampling, to determine whether the amount of inorganic compounds is
naturally occurring or is the result of spills and releases from a waste unit.
The cleanup options can be grouped by the environmental medium affected:
Soils: Typical cleanup options are:
• Removal of the contaminated soil and treatment or disposal at a
suitable off-site permitted facility.
• Soil vapor extraction, which pulls contaminants from the shallow
soil using vent pipes to add air to the soil zone. The contaminated
soil vapors are then drawn out of the soil using a vacuum and are
usually treated to remove contaminants before being released to
air. This process is used only with volatile organic compounds
(described above).
• Bioremediation, which uses naturally occurring bacteria to break
down the contaminants into harmless compounds. Usually, extra air
is added through vent pipes or by mixing or tilling. This process
works best with volatile organics, but can be successful with some
semi-volatile compounds. It is not effective with metals.
Groundwater: Removing contaminants from groundwater is
more difficult than for soils. Cleanup options include:
• Pump-and-treat the contaminated groundwater by putting in
extraction wells, pumping out the contaminated water and treating it to
remove the contaminants. This process works best on organic
compounds, but is a lengthy process, and total cleanup may not be
achieved. Some pump-and-treat operations are used mainly to
contain the contamination (keep it from spreading).
• Innovative technologies such as air sparging (similar to soil
vapor extraction), slurry/grout walls or curtains (to cut off migration of
contaminated groundwater) and reaction walls (using materials such
as iron filings to remove contaminants as the groundwater flows
through them). Unfortunately, these methods can be used only under
certain conditions, and their success rates have been inconsistent.
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If the hazardous waste facility is seeking a permit, the public is invited to review and comment on the corrective action requirements in the draft permit or at the time of permit renewal. Public comments also are solicited when a final cleanup remedy has been tentatively selected. For further information on opportunities for public involvement in hazardous waste permitting, please refer to the publication titled Hazardous Waste Permitting-How you can get involved, available through the Division of Waste Management at the address listed at the end of this publication.
If the facility is conducting corrective action either voluntarily or under a corrective action agreed order or unilateral order, the public is invited to comment at the time of public notice of the proposed final cleanup remedy or remedies. Additional requirements can be imposed on the facility by the state if necessary. In addition, documents and letters sent to or from the facility also are available upon request for review at the Division of Waste Management's central office in Frankfort.
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One additional requirement is that each hazardous waste facility is required to post financial assurance to cover the cost of the corrective action. This generally does not occur, however, until the final remedy or remedies have been selected, because of the difficulty of making an accurate cost estimate until the nature, extent, and cleanup options for the contamination are known.
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1. Kentucky Revised Statute KRS 224.46-530 This is the Kentucky statute that requires corrective action.
2. Kentucky Administrative Regulation 401 KAR 34:060, Section 12. This is the Kentucky regulation that further expands on the requirements of the above statute.
3. RCRA Facility Assessment Guidance Document; October, 1986. U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste. NTIS Document No. PB 87-107769.
4. RCRA Facility Investigation Guidance Document, Interim Final; May, 1989.
U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste. EPA Document No. EPA 530/SW-89431. Four Volumes.
On request, this publication is available in alternative formats to persons with disabilities by contacting Bill Schneider, Division of Waste Management, 14 Reilly Rd., Frankfort, KY 40601, (502) 564-6716.
