Clayton Mutert

PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

Superfund Project Annotated Bibliography

Site Documents
Army, DoD, Illinois, IL (1989).
Federal Facility

Joliet Army Ammunition Plant:

Agreement under CERCLA Section 120. Elwood, Illinois:

United States Environmental Protection Agency Region V and
The State of Illinois and The United States Army.
This document is a Federal Facility Agreement between the
EPA, the state of Illinois, and the U.S. Army regarding the
superfund site of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant. Within
this document are details of terms of the agreement in
regards to the jurisdiction of the site, the EPAs
determinations and conclusions of law, finding of facts, and
the parties involved. It goes on to describe the site and
purpose of the agreement. The document then goes into
detail of actions that need to be taken at the site, in terms of
remedial action and implementation, consultation with the
EPA, and record keeping.
There are also sections of
enforcement, penalties, public participation and comment
and funding.
This document reflects the initial agreement between the
three parties regarding this superfund site. It recognizes the
Joliet Army Ammunitions Plant as a site of environmental
contamination. This document proves interesting because,
although it is a site of contamination, it has not been
officially labeled a Superfund site.
This will provide
intriguing contrasts to some of the later documents, when it
is described as a Superfund site. In the document, the EPA
states that it holds the Army accountable for the damages
done to this site. It is a reliable document for research due
to its nature as an official federal document. This document
was made in the early stages of research on this site, and
gives specific context as to where the three parties stood

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

initially in regards to this site. This will prove helpful in

understanding the history of the Superfund site.

Carney, Neil (2004, April). Five-Year Review Report: First FiveYear Review
Report for Joliet Army Ammunition Plant (JOAAP) Soils
Operable Unit. Will County, IL: MWH Americas, Inc.
This is a mandated five-year review of the progress of the
remediation of the JOAAP. It should be noted this review
covers only the manufacturing area of the Superfund site
and deals with the Soils Operable Unit. Its purpose is to
ensure that all remedial action to correct the contamination
at this site is being done in an effective and responsible
manner and without any public or environmental hazards.
This document covers some of the sites background and
history, as well as the remedial actions that have been taken
in the five years since the original Record of Decision. It
then explains the process of conducting this review. Also
included is a technical assessment of the remedies being
implemented. The review goes on to identify some of the
issues they encountered, as well as recommendations and
follow-up actions to improve the efficiency and safety of the
site. Furthermore, the document includes protectiveness
statements in regards to issues like bioremediation,
excavation and disposal.
Having this five-year review at our disposal is advantageous
for this research because it is a third partys report on how
remediation of the Superfund Site is progressing. It is a
great source to compliment the records of decision, because
it shows how the implementation of the specified
remediations are being carried out. Consequently, the report

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

was published around the same time as the final ROD, so

this review may have had an impact on the way that final
document was composed.
Environmental Protection Agency (1998). EPA Superfund Record
of
Decision: Joliet Army Ammunition Plant (Load-AssemblyPacking Area) and Joliet Army Ammunition Plant
(Manufacturing Area). Joliet, IL: EPA.
This is the original document that officially labeled the Joliet
Army Ammunition Plant, a Superfund site. The document
gives a detailed description and history of the site, goes over
the community participation, and covers the scope and role
of operable units or response actions. It then goes over the
characteristics causing the contamination of the soil and the
risks associated with the contamination. Additionally, the
remedial action objectives and a description of alternatives
are laid out. The alternatives are analyzed and the selected
remedies are described, as well as the statutory
determinations. Both final and interim remedies are
presented to deal with the soil contamination at this site.
The actions and objectives described here are a more
developed and refined version of those presented in the
Federal Facility Agreement under CERCLA. These two
documents complement each other well because they reflect
some of the changes that occurred between when the JOAAP
was named a site of environmental contamination and when
it was named a Superfund site.
This is a very useful document for this Superfund study, as it
provides a thorough analysis of the site and what the EPA
plans to do to remediate the site. It is essentially an outline
of the entire project. Since it is an official document
published by the EPA, it is a very reliable source. This
document is well laid out in the sense that each section is
specifically labelled and gives a clear description of what is
covered. The material is presented in a straightforward

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

manner in which the goals and planned actions for the site
are presented very clearly. Since the Superfund project
requires background history, information on contamination
problems and involved parties, it proves an important
document in terms of becoming informed on the site in
question.

Environmental Protection Agency (2004). EPA Superfund Record

of
Decision: Joliet Army Ammunition Plant (Load-AssemblyPacking Area). Joliet, IL: EPA.
This is the final document for the Joliet Army Ammunition
Plant Record of Decision for the Soil Operable Unit Interim
Sites. The purpose of this document is to follow up on the
original Record of Decision from 1998. In the 1998
document, it specifies 14 Soil Operable Unit sites that only
had interim remedies. This document provides the final
remedies for these interim sites. By putting the final
remedies in place, this document conveys that all actions the
EPA deems necessary for this site have been specified and
will be addressed appropriately. The content of this
document is very similar to the 1998 ROD in terms of what is
covered. It goes over site history, community participation,
scope and role of response actions, site characteristics,
alternatives, selected remedies, and statutory
determinations. Finally, there is documentation of significant
changes in the site. These changes proposed in 2004 are
described as, preferred alternatives for each of four SRUs
with respect to soil at the JOAAP. (pg. 12-1)
As stated above, the layout is essentially identical to the
1998 ROD; therefore, it shares the same benefits described
for that document. Similarly, the content gives us the same
type of information from the original ROD, but this time it
only describes the sites where a final remedy was needed. It

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

is also helpful in the sense that it shows the length of the

process to remediate these sites. There is 15 years
separating the initial CERCLA agreement and this final
Record of Decision. This document marks the finalization of
all action needed for the JOAAP, giving us plenty of
information to draw from in terms of presenting on this site.
MWH Americas, Inc. (2004, April). Final Five-Year Review Report:
First
Five-Year Review Report for Joliet Army Ammunition Plant
(JOAAP) Groundwater Operable Unit. Will County, Illinois:
MWH Americas, Inc.
This document is another five-year review, very similar to
document by Carney above. However, this one deals with
the Load-Assembly-Packing Area and the Groundwater
Operable Unit, instead of the Manufacturing area and the
Soils Operable Unit. Like the previous five-year review, this
document includes information on background, remedial
actions, the review process, technical assessments, issues,
recommendations and follow-up actions, and protectiveness
statements. Additionally, the beginning of the document
includes comments by EPA and IEPA, addressing, clarifying,
and questioning some of the contents of the document. The
authors then go on to respond to these comments.
Being of the same document type and format as the fiveyear review of the manufacturing area, the reasons that the
information in this document is valuable parallel that of the
other review. With the additional comments and response
section at the beginning, this document proves helpful in
terms of what the third-party authors were looking for in the
progress of the site, but also the concerns and interests of
the EPA and IEPA.
Scholarly Articles

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

Hird, John A. (1991, August). Congressional voting on Superfund:

Selfinterest or ideology? Amherst, MA: Department of Political
Science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
This article argues the Superfund program reflects policymakers ideologies more than is recognized. The authors
claim that Superfund has not consistently been a typical
pork-barrel program, and that its rapid expansion and
legislative support must be explained by other factors,
including its symbolic environmental appeal. (p. 333) To
begin, the steps required for a site to be labeled as a
Superfund are explained, and it goes over some of the
criticisms about the EPAs slow pace and of the effectiveness
of the program. It is argued, that despite many theoretical
opportunities for Superfund to be a pork-barrel program,
there is little evidence to back-up these allegations. The
author acknowledges that there is significant evidence
supporting legislators prioritizing their own self-interest over
ideology in many voting decisions. However, he claims the
study of this article shows that a legislators ideological
stance is given just as much, if not more, emphasis as selfinterest.
A model for examining the relationship between
congressional self-interest and ideology is given. The author
provides a formula for this model as well. He claims that due
to its particularly unusual combination of public works,
targeted taxation, and environmental components (p. 340),
Superfund enables self-interest and ideology to balance each
other out. The article then goes on to explain how to
measure ideology. An analysis of voting data and estimation
results is provided as well. This analysis suggests that there
is no evidence to prove either self-interest or ideology have
more political sway than the other in the case of Superfund.

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

ONeil, Sandra G. (2007, July). Superfund: Evaluation of the

Impact of
Executive Order 12898. Environmental Health Perspectives:
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
This article examines the impacts of the 1994 Executive
Order 12898. The goal is to see if this executive order,
which required federal agencies to implement policies on
environmental justice, enhanced the equitability of the
Superfund program. Prior to Executive Order 12898, it was
found that low-income and minority populations received the
benefits of environmental cleanups significantly less than
other populations. The goal of this order was to remedy that
problem by monitoring and enforcing environmental justice.
The author argues that Superfund should be looked at
differently when it comes to environmental justice because it
deals with cleanup and distribution of resources. She points
to evidence that, the poor, and in some cases minorities,
are underrepresented in the Superfund program and may not
be benefitting equally from environmental cleanups. (p.
1088) It is noted that despite the wide-spread criticisms and
depletion of funds to the Superfund program, it is still a
positive tool in terms of remedying sites that need a large
amount of cleanup and/or lack sufficient funding from the
state/local level or other sources. The article looks at
demographic data to see what kind of populations are
represented in areas of Superfund cleanups. Generally,
inclusion on the Superfund list does not appear as likely for
sites in areas with high minority and poor populations. (p.
1090) The results of this study find that environmental
injustices continue to persist, despite Executive Order
12898. The author claims that in order for this executive
order to be fulfilled properly, it needs increased support
financially as well as in terms of implementation and
enforcement.

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

United States General Accounting Office (1999, May). Superfund:

EPA Can
Improve Its Monitoring of Superfund Expenditures.
Washington, D.C.: GAO Resources, Community, and
Economic Development Division.
Research for this report was, at the request of Congress,
conducted in order to analyze the expenditures by
Superfunds. In this particular investigation, the GAO set out
to determine (1) the relative shares of Superfund
expenditures for contractor cleanup work, site-specific
support, and non-site-specific support; (2) the activities
carried out with EPAs cleanup support spending, particularly
its non-site-specific spending; and (3) EPAs efforts to
monitor and analyze how its regions and headquarters units
spend Superfund resources, particularly the distribution of
expenditures among contractor cleanup work, site-specific
support, and non-site-specific support. (p. 1) The data from
this report covers the years 1996, 1997, and 1998.
From the information gathered in this report, the GAO found
that most of the spending that is done by the Superfund
program is for support activities. These types of activities
can be grouped into general support and management,
general enforcement support, and remedial support and
management. (p.2) It was also concluded that a majority of
the support spending by the EPA is towards administrative
activities. Another thing the GAO points out is that the EPA
could be more precise in terms of analyzing and monitoring
Superfund expenditures.
The main criticism drawn on the EPA from this report is that
they do not examine their information and data in a way that
maximizes this datas usefulness. There is a large disparity
in spending shares for contractor cleanup work, site-specific
support, and non-site-specific support among EPAs regional
and headquarters units (p.12). The GAO suggests that the
EPA increase their monitoring of these criteria, in order to
maximize spending efficiency for Superfunds.

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

United States General Accounting Office (2000, January).

Superfund:
Analysis of Costs at Five Superfund Sites. Washington, D.C.:
GAO Resources, Community, and Economic Development
Division.
This report from the GAO to Congress is an analysis of the
costs and efficiency of 5 separate Superfund sites around the
country. The main goal was to examine the amount of the
EPAs funding that goes into remedial action, particularly in
terms of hiring contractors and how those contractors utilize
these funds. The second point of emphasis was to focus on
how accurate the estimated costs were for the site. The five
Superfund sites analyzed were: the Raymark site in Stratford
Connecticut, the Sharon Steel site in Midvale, Utah, the
United Creosoting site in Conroe, Texas, the NL Industries
site in Granite City, Illinois, and the Newmark site in San
Bernardino, California. The first two sites on the list were the
two most expensive Superfund sites, and the other three
were randomly selected.
The document then goes on to describe a background of
Superfund sites, and how the EPA goes about implementing
remedial actions at the sites. Following is a data report that
concluded that EPA Funds Were Used Primarily for Remedial
Actions at All Five Sites (p. 7). When they analyze the
relationship between actual and estimated costs, it was
found that this relationship varied across the board. 3 sites,
ranged from less than 1-15 percent over the estimate, 1 was
almost 10 percent under, and in one a legitimate comparison
could not be made.
Descriptive and detailed analysis of each site is given;
including background information on the site, the EPAs
remedy strategies, clean-up cost and major components,
significant cost changes, current status of cleanup,
enforcement, and cost recovery issues. This report gives
educating insight into the dispersion of costs in Superfund

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography

sites. It also shows that these costs are often times hard to
estimate.
Viscusi, Kip W. & Hamilton, James T. (1996). Cleaning Up
Superfund. The Public Interest, (124), p. 52.
This is a critical assessment of Superfund and the spending
of their funds. The authors claim that much of the resources
spent on Superfund sites are unnecessary and in some
instances are purposely intended to achieve incremental
progress. The authors then state three principles that they
suggest the EPA should implement: assess risks accurately,
determine the extent of the population exposed to the risk,
and strive for an appropriate balance between benefits and
costs. (p. 53)
When it comes to assessing the risk a site, the authors
criticize the EPA for using worst-case scenarios when
deciding if a site requires cleanup. The authors claim that,
once adjusted for bias, the actual probability for health risks
is actually very low in many cases where the EPA deems it
necessary that action to be taken. They also suggest that
more emphasis should be placed on the number of people
who are actually at risk from the contamination of Superfund
sites. The authors state that, The Superfund risk estimates
are for a hypothetical individual who might be exposed to
the risk. (p. 55) They argue that the risk should be assessed
not in hypothetical scenarios, but in terms of the number of
members of the population who are at serious risk to their
health. By including population exposures into their
assessment of Superfund sites, the authors believe it will
create a more effective system. The issue of benefits and
costs is also addressed. It is stated that expenditures are
placed inappropriately to maximize efficiency of the
Superfund program. Prioritizing areas with greater risk to
the population, rather than uniformly across all sites, would
yield the most benefits out of the program, according to the
authors.

Clayton Mutert
PPS 202
Annotated Bibliography