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MINDING THE END
By Lenny Siegel, Michael Kavanaugh, and William Walsh June, 2012
Today, most people engaged in hazardous waste cleanup in the U.S., from all perspectives, recognize that it is essential to “begin with the end in mind”—that is, to make decisions about characterization and remediation based upon the desired or likely end state of the affected properties. Unfortunately, when we collectively began the task of cleaning up contaminated soil and groundwater in America roughly three decades ago, none of us knew what the end would look like.
Despite our best efforts and intentions as a nation, residual contamination will remain in place, at levels that do not allow for unrestricted use and unlimited exposure, at perhaps tens of thousands of sites throughout the nation. Many of these sites include plumes of groundwater contamination where it is infeasible to restore the resource to drinking water standards throughout the aquifer. Others are landfills or disposal sites where remedial actions would simply move contaminated media from one location to another. We may argue about when, but most sites will reach the point where active remediation is no longer effective. The end, at these sites, is not pristine soil and groundwater, but a state at which significant risk reduction has been achieved and the public and the environment are protected, but where residual contamination poses a continuing potential risk of exposure that demands “long-term management” (LTM).
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Lenny Siegel Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight a project of the Pacific Studies Center 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041 Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545 Fax: 650/961-8918
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