Clarification of Answer by
kyrie26-ga
on
03 Sep 2002 22:19 PDT
Hi again pierre5-ga,
I worked on your question again the whole day today, trying creative
approaches and different angles to what you're asking for.
Unfortunately, I haven't found anything new that we can use. It seems
that the specific information you're looking for is nowhere to be
found. Here is what I've done, for the record :
Scouring the Web once again, all my searches keep pointing back to the
Superfund Advanced Query Form at
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/advquery.htm as the most
comprehensive and up-to-date source of information on Superfund sites.
When I first answered your question, I had used the Hazard Ranking
System (HRS) score as an indicator of "magnitude" because this score
is affected by the quantity of hazardous waste present. Here is the
excerpt that mentions this :
+-----------------+
CRS Report RL30022 Summaries of Environmental Laws Administered by the
EPA
http://www.cnie.org/nle/crsreports/briefingbooks/laws/j.cfm
"To ensure that the most serious sites are addressed, the law calls
for a National Priority List (NPL) to be assembled. EPA developed a
Hazard Ranking System (HRS) to construct the NPL, which scores such
factors as the quantity and nature of hazardous wastes present; the
likelihood of contamination of ground water, surface water, and air;
and the proximity of the site to population and sensitive natural
environments."
+-----------------+
However, you are correct in that the HRS score is not truly the most
precise measurement of "quantity of material remaining to be
processed". It is merely a rough indicator because other factors
(other than quantity) determine this score.
Turning to other sources of information, I discovered several
Superfund databases :
Databases, Superfund, US EPA
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/resources/database/index.htm
... however, none of these were as detailed as the Advanced Query Form
mentioned earlier.
Coming back to the Advanced Query Form, I tried using the "Site
Assessment and Cleanup Activities" section of the form to see if I got
anything relevant. Since your question asks "REMAINING to be
processed", I hit upon an idea :
First, looking at Activity Type : Removal :
+-----------------+
Activity Type Definitions
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/actdefs.htm#RV
"Response action that requires expeditious attention to reduce
imminent and substantial dangers to human health, welfare, or the
environment or an emergency response required within hours or days to
address acute situations involving actual or potential threat to human
health, the environment, or real or personal property due to the
release of a hazardous substance. Characterization of a removal action
as removal, not immediate removal or planned removal, started at the
beginning of FY 1987. This code now takes the place of immediate
removal (IR) and planned removal (PR)."
+-----------------+
I realized that, as digsalot-ga had requested clarification on, it
would be next to impossible to compare measurements (tonnage, gallons,
pounds, cylinders, etc) of quantity across different Superfund sites
in the database - and the only consistent way of measuring quantity
across different situations would have to be in dollar values.
Therefore the "quantity of material remaining to be processed" can be
closely related to "dollar value of committment to material removal".
I then plugged in the relevant values :
Activity Type : "Removal"
Actual Completion Date : "09/01/2002"
Financial Transaction Type : "Committment"
Financial Amount : check "display" box, set value to filter records
... only to discover that any Actual Completion Date values beyond
today (ie. beginning of September 2002) will return no results. I then
realized that this is ACTUAL completion date, so it only applies to
completed Removals.
... the ideal field for us would have been Projected Completion Date,
for which we could have selected a value beyond today, to indicate
that we were looking for as yet uncompleted Removal Committments. This
would have given us the relevant listing.
It looks like I've exhausted my avenues for research on this topic at
this point. Going with what we currently have, I would say that the
HRS Score would still be the closest to what you're looking for.
However, I know that you are looking for something even more specific
than this, so I'm opening this to the other researchers - perhaps they
might have better ideas on where to look. Meanwhile, feel free to
request a refund on this answer, and go ahead and repost the question.
Do let me know if you have any ideas on how else you would like me to
continue researching this question. In any case, I hope you find the
answer you are looking for.
Warmest regards,
kyrie26-ga
,
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