RE: [CPEO-MEF] Administrative Record example sought

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

[The following response was posted by Saul Bloom
<saulbloom@mindspring.com>]

Arc Ecology has copies of some administrative record bibilographoies on
file, and atleast one actual copy of one in our office but: Admin
Records can be very large collections, some running into over a dozen
file boxes.

The bibliographies of some can run to hundreds of pages. The local EPA
library should have some collections and indexes available for review.
If you haven't tried that already, you might want to check it out to get
a feel for it.

As far as I understand it: It is important to keep in mind that the
Administrative Record is often what the lead agency chooses it to be,
with occassional guidance from regulators.  It is for example at the
lead agency's option whether to include public comments on Preliminary
Assessments/ Site Inspections, Feasibility Studies, etc in the
Administrative Record - even if someone notes on their commentary that
they wish them included in the Admin Record. Often times one will hear
of references to separate Public and Administrative Records. The Public
Records being the entire corpus of commentary on a cleanup, the Admin
Record being that subset of documents the lead agency has chosen to base
its decision on. The Admin Record is the only Record with the force of
law - that means it is the only set of official records pertinant in
litigation focused on an
Administrative complaint around CERCLA compliance. If one's comments or
pertinant documents have not been included in the Admin Record, they
will not be admissable in an Administrative Action (although one can
challenge the completness of the Administrative Record). The only time a
lead agency in a CERCLA process is required to incoporate public comment
into the
Admin Record is under the Proposed Plan phase prior to the development
of the Record of Decision.  It is therefore important for folks to make
sure that they re-submit any and all comments they feel relevant within
their Proposed Plan commentary if they want to ensure they actually go
into the Admin Record. Keep in mind that the Administrative Record may
not have even
been compiled until the Proposed Plan phase and so public records
requests may require some oomph to get them compiled prior. Also, if a
site has multiple operative units than there will most likely be
multiple admin records specific to the units.

Hope this is helpful

Saul Bloom
Arc Ecology

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~