In response to a 2005 report issued by the Government Accountability Office that criticized existing U.S. EPA policies concerning the implementation, monitoring and enforcement of institutional controls at contaminated properties, U.S. EPA is expected to release a draft guidance for public comment. The 2005 GAO report noted that approved institutional controls were often not implemented and that no established procedure existed for verifying that approved institutional controls, once implemented, remained in place.
According to Elliott Gilberg, the director of U.S. EPA's Office of Site Remediation Enforcement, the draft guidance is intended to provide clarification on the roles and responsibilities of government agencies and private parties in implementing and maintaining institutional controls at contaminated properties. The draft guidance will also provide recommendations for evaluating the capacity of private parties to implement and manage the institutional control as well as establishing procedures for the verification that these institutional controls remain in place over the life of the project. We will provide a summary of the draft guidance once it is published in the Federal Register.