What is Long-Term Stewardship?

The Task Force established the following definition of LTS:

Long-term stewardship applies to sites where long-term management of contaminated environmental media is necessary to protect human health and the environment. Long-term stewardship generally includes the establishment and maintenance of physical and legal controls, implementation entities, authorities, accountability mechanisms, information and data management systems, and resources that are necessary to ensure that these sites remain protective of human health and the environment.¹

LTS activities typically center on physical and legal controls to prevent inappropriate exposure to contamination left in place at a site. Physical or "engineered" controls are the engineered physical barriers or structures designed to monitor and prevent or limit exposure to the contamination. Certain engineered cleanups will involve ongoing O&M, monitoring, evaluation, periodic repairs, and sometimes replacement of remedy components. Legal or "institutional" controls are non-engineered instruments, such as administrative and/or legal controls intended to minimize the potential for human exposure to contamination by limiting land or resource use. Institutional controls may be used to supplement engineering controls and also must be operated, monitored, and evaluated for effectiveness as long as the risks at a site are present. Informational devices, such as signs, state registries and deed notices, are commonly used informational, non-enforceable tools.

Examples of Engineering Controls

Landfill soil caps
Impermeable liners
Other containment covers
Underground slurry walls
Fences
Bioremediation
Groundwater pump-and-treat and monitoring systems

Examples of Institutional Controls

Zoning
Notices and warnings
Easements
Restrictive covenants
Other land or resource use restrictions
Permits/Governmental Controls
Administrative Orders

The functions of institutional controls, engineering controls, and other tools are to protect human health and the environment and to preserve the integrity of the selected remedy.

LTS helps ensure the ability of people to reuse those sites in a safe and protective manner. While reuse of a site is beneficial to the affected community, site reuse can also help ensure the protection of the remedy itself. For example, sites with active users can help ensure that LTS requirements or activities are occurring, as well as ensure that inappropriate uses of the site are not occurring (i.e., vacant sites that can be targets for trespass, vandalism, or inappropriate uses that may damage the remedies). In addition, because the use or condition of a site can change over time, it is important that LTS activities adapt to those changes and that adjustments to LTS activities are made.

LTS typically involves numerous public and private stakeholders who are responsible for implementing, monitoring, and enforcing the engineering and institutional controls. These stakeholders may include government agencies at the Federal, State, Tribal, and local levels; private parties who either own the land or otherwise have an interest in the property; communities and local groups living near or affected by the site; as well as a potential range of other parties, such as land developers, financial institutions, insurance companies, and land or other third party trusts. Each stakeholder involved at a site plays a particular role and has certain responsibilities for carrying out stewardship activities.

Even though the various cleanup programs have different authorities and mechanisms for addressing LTS, there are common elements inherent to all LTS efforts. As part of its research, the Task Force has compiled a set of themes/ideas that may be of interest to other LTS programs (see Appendix A).

Under the Superfund program, LTS activities are performed as part of the operation and maintenance (O&M) of a remedy. Responsibility for O&M is contingent upon whether the cleanup was conducted by a potentially responsible party (PRP), including Federal facilities, or whether EPA funded the cleanup. For PRP-lead remedies, the PRP continues to operate and maintain the remedy during O&M, and EPA provides oversight to ensure that it is being performed adequately. At federal facilities, LTS may be transferred to another entity, such as another Federal agency, State, or Tribe. For fund-financed remedies, States are required to pay for or assure that O&M is completed; EPA can only fund the oversight of O&M. EPA retains responsibility for determining when O&M is complete and for conducting a review and evaluation of the remedy at least every five years. For fund-lead, long-term response actions involving treatment or other measures to restore groundwater or surface-water quality, EPA funds the operation of those activities for a period up to ten years after the remedy becomes operational and functional. After ten years, responsibility for O&M is transferred to the State. EPA requires five-year review at sites that cannot support unlimited use and unrestricted exposure. In some cases, even sites deleted from Superfund's National Priorities List include an LTS component.
Under the RCRA program, cleanups are conducted in connection with the closure of regulated units and in facility-wide corrective action either under a permit, imminent hazard, or other order or agreement. While not all facilities are subject to the post-closure requirements-only land disposal facilities and any facility that cannot "clean close" are subject to the post-closure care requirements-LTS is particularly important at those sites during post-closure. For instance, information submission requirements for post-closure permits specify a performance monitoring program to include, among others: information regarding protection of groundwater monitoring data, groundwater monitoring system design, etc. If the institutional control is being imposed through a RCRA corrective action permit, remedy performance monitoring (often long-term) is necessary to measure progress towards remedial goals and ensure that remedial objectives are met, especially when waste is left in place and institutional and engineering controls are employed to guarantee the integrity of the final remedy. Responsibility for overseeing corrective action and post-closure activities belong to the authorized States. EPA maintains responsibility for monitoring and enforcing corrective action and post-closure activities in non-authorized States, on Tribal lands, and where corrective actions are carried out under Agency enforcement authority. In terms of monitoring, all RCRA permits allow authorized representatives to inspect the facility upon presentation of credentials. They also require the facility to report any non-compliance that may endanger health or the environment within 24 hours and to maintain and report all records and monitoring information necessary for compliance.
Under the Brownfields program, EPA provides cleanup grants to State and local governments and non-profit organizations to carry out cleanup activities, including monitoring and enforcement of institutional controls. Specifically, a local government that receives a grant for site remediation can use up to ten percent of that grant to monitor and enforce any institutional control used to prevent human exposure to any hazardous substance from a brownfield site. States can use grant funds to establish or enhance their response program, including O&M or long-term monitoring activities. However, EPA does not have direct responsibility for LTS activities at brownfield sites and its authority to oversee cleanups and collect information is subject to the terms and operating period of the grant mechanism.
Pursuant to the Underground Storage Tanks (UST) program, when a release has been detected or discovered at a UST, the UST owner/operator must perform a corrective action to clean up any contamination caused by the release from the UST. Under cooperative agreements between EPA and States, States are largely responsible for overseeing corrective actions in connection with these USTs. EPA is generally responsible for overseeing the corrective actions, including LTS activities on Tribal lands. Typically, UST owners/operators prepare a corrective action plan that the State reviews and modifies and/or approves. In some cases, the corrective action approved for a release at a UST may not achieve complete cleanup (i.e., a risk-based corrective action is undertaken). Depending on known or anticipated risks to human health and the environment, appropriate action may include site closure, monitoring and data collection, active or passive remediation, or institutional controls. In these cases, residual contamination may remain in the environment and must be monitored and/or contained to prevent further migration of the contamination.
Under EPA's Removal program, it is estimated that over 7,000 removals have occurred. Because the overarching premise of the removal program is stabilization, it is likely that on-site contamination remains and that LTS is key to the proper management of these sites.

¹This definition should not in any way infringe upon or limit the authority of any party to carry out its responsibilities under various Federal and State laws.

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