Skip to main content

Superfund: EPA's Community Relations Efforts Could Be More Effective

RCED-94-156 Published: Apr 08, 1994. Publicly Released: Apr 14, 1994.
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to involve communities in decisionmaking about local Superfund sites, focusing on: (1) the Superfund program's requirements for community relations activities; (2) the extent to which EPA is fulfilling these requirements; and (3) community residents' feelings about the adequacy of EPA efforts.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should direct EPA to include the community in cleanup decisions from the time of EPA earliest active involvement in a site through completion of the cleanup by requiring public meetings, the creation and updating of mailing lists, and opportunities for public comment.
Closed – Implemented
EPA added early community participation proposals to the 1995 Superfund reform proposal submitted to Congress. In addition, EPA has such initiatives as community-based remedy selection, community involvement in reasonable risk assessment, and the OMSBUDSMAN program, which allows community participation at any point in the process.
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should direct EPA to explore ways to ensure that the information repositories are more useful and accessible to the public and maintained in a way so that documents are publicly available.
Closed – Implemented
The Office of Emergency and Remedial Response is working with EPA regions to address repository issues. The Community Involvement and Outreach Center (CIOC) contacted 45 randomly selected repositories and polled EPA's regional community involvement coordinators (CIC) to get their perspectives and suggestions. The issues raised primarily concerned local resources and space; standard procedures to manage repositories; and technical assistance. CIOC will next resolve some impediments and issues affecting repositories. Along with paper copies, electronic versions of most repository materials will become available as the regions move toward electronic recordkeeping and improve EPA's capability to share materials with the public. EPA regions will use the Internet, as much as possible, to minimize the amount of space needed to store repository information and allow the public more access to site information. Regions plan to use this technology primarily as a source for new repositories.
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should direct EPA to make public notices available to a broader segment of the public by redesigning them to make them more visible in newspapers and printing them in local newspapers where available.
Closed – Implemented
CIOC developed a fact sheet entitled "Publishing Effective Public Notices" (February 1997; EPA 540-K-97-001; PB97-963202) that provides guidance on improving public notices and provides examples of graphic and design formats. In addition, electronic templates have been distributed among regional community involvement coordinators to provide easy access to the graphics.
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should direct EPA to assess the benefits of routinely performing readability assessments of fact sheets and other documents intended for the general public to make these documents less technical and accessible to a broader segment of the public.
Closed – Implemented
EPA has installed the Grammatik program on its LAN to improve writing technique and document readability. EPA also provides writing training to help staff improve the readability of documents.
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should direct EPA to assess the current and future workloads of community relations staff to ensure that the workloads are reasonable and develop a plan to help minimize turnover.
Closed – Implemented
CIOC conducted a multi-faceted workforce analysis of EPA regional CICs. The study was designed to define CICs' existing workload, the skills and abilities they needed, and the type of training they needed to more effectively meet their responsibilities. CIOC is using information from this study to improve retention and enhance job performance of CICs. As a direct result of the survey, CICs were given training to help site teams think proactively about the most effective ways to involve the public in the Superfund effort. Also, CIOC continues efforts to reduce staff turnover by raising the status of CICs (e.g., CIC of the Year award, promotion potential to GS-13). A final milestone to address this recommendation was to cost out Superfund reauthorization proposals to determine their resource implications for community involvement. These provisions were costed out for the 1994 and 1995 reauthorization proposals, and EPA plans to continue to cost out this information in future proposals.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Environment evaluationEnvironmental impact statementsEnvironmental legislationEnvironmental monitoringHazardous substancesPublic landsPublic relationsSafety standardsHazardous waste sitesAsbestos