• Managing Superfund involves the EPA, states and Indian tribes, PRPs, federal facilities, and the public and local community.
• The NCP ensures that the public is provided with accurate and timely information about response plans and progress, and that their concerns are heard by the lead agency.

Managing Superfund takes a team effort involving several entities—Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states and Indian tribes, potentially responsible parties (PRPs), federal facilities, and the public and local community.

Federal EPA

EPA has the primary responsibility for managing the cleanup and enforcement activities under Superfund. EPA officials with primary responsibility for directing response efforts and coordinating all activities at the scene of a discharge or release include on-scene coordinators (OSCs) and remedial project managers (RPMs).

The OSC is the federal official designated to coordinate and direct Superfund removal actions. The RPM is the official designated to manage remedial and/or other response actions at priority listed sites. To ensure the effectiveness of response actions, both OSCs and RPMs are responsible for coordinating with EPA regional staff (e.g., regional administrator, office of regional counsel, etc.), EPA headquarters staff, and other federal, state, and local agencies.

In addition to OSCs and RPMs, EPA’s Environmental Response Team (ERT) participates in the Superfund process. The ERT provides technical support to the regional Superfund removal and remedial programs, and coordinates and conducts safety program activities. Major activities include on-site technical support, administrative support, information transfer, and safety program activities.

States and Indian tribes

States have always been encouraged to participate in the Superfund process. Under current Superfund law, Indian tribes are generally treated the same as states. States are now formally involved in virtually every phase of Superfund decision-making. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) requires EPA to coordinate with states when the federal government leads or oversees the site response. CERCLA also authorizes EPA to allow states and political subdivisions, such as county governments, with sufficient technical and management expertise, to act as the lead agency, and carry out most of the cleanup efforts. In these cases, EPA is still the federal agency responsible for ensuring that the site cleaned up.

Potentially responsible parties (PRPs)

The involvement and participation of PRPs is central to the Superfund program. This participation may result from a willingness on the part of the PRP to take the initiative to clean up their sites and from negotiations with EPA under which the company undertakes the work. However, private party participation may also be compelled by judicial action by EPA and the Department of Justice. In either case, PRPs follow the same process EPA follows. At each stage of the process, PRP decision and construction of the remedy are subject to EPA’s oversight and approval.

Federal facilities

It should be noted that federal, state, and local agencies are not exempt from CERCLA, and therefore their facilities may be identified as PRPs.

Public and community

EPA promotes two-way communication between the public, including PRPs, and the lead government agency in charge of response actions. The National Contingency Plan (NCP) provides interested persons opportunity to comment on, and provide input to, decisions about response actions. The NCP ensures that the public is provided with accurate and timely information about response plans and progress, and that their concerns about planned actions are heard by the lead agency. Site-specific and well-planned community relations activity is an integral part of every Superfund response. Such activities include the following:

• Publish a notice and brief analysis of the response action, describing proposed action;
• Give the public an opportunity to comment on the response action;
• Provide an opportunity for a public meeting to permit two-way communication on the response action;
• Make a transcript of the public meeting available to the public as a part of the response action decision document; and
• Prepare a response to each significant public comment on the proposed response action plan.

Public participation requirements may vary between the “remedial process” and “removal actions” because of the urgency of removal actions.