Although Rhode Island is a very small place geographically, we have many contaminated properties. This contamination is the legacy of the industrial revolution, which began along the Blackstone River. We have 13 National Priorities List Superfund sites, including the newest NPL site-Centredale Manor, as well as 538 other investigation and cleanup projects currently active in our state program. As you can see from this accounting, the state is responsible for insuring the investigation and proper cleanup and control of the vast majority of the contaminated properties we have discovered.
Historically, Rhode Island relied on the Superfund program to address the worst cases of chemical contamination. Our first site, the Picillo Farm, was a contemporary of Love Canal and was listed on the National Priorities List in 1981, three years after the site exploded. Seven other chemical disposal sites in Rhode Island were listed on the National Priorities List prior to the Superfund amendments in 1986. After those amendments, we pursued the listing of two federal facilities and two other municipal landfills. In addition to the sites that eventually were listed on the national priorities list, Rhode Island also nominated over 300 sites as potential Superfund sites that were included on CERCLIS.
Prior to 1991, Rhode Island had relied exclusively on the Superfund program and our RCRA hazardous waste management program to address sites contaminated with chemicals and petroleum. Unfortunately, we were discovering sites at a rate faster than those programs could address them. After evaluating the pace of discovery of new sites and the backlog of sites that existed at that time, we decided to follow the lead of several other States and establish our own state program. Through a collaborative stakeholder effort, Rhode Island promulgated its site remediation regulations in 1993 and the pace of cleanup throughout the state quickly accelerated. Those regulations lay out a process for notification, investigation, and remediation of contaminated properties. It is a flexible process designed to be adapted to the many types of contaminated sites that we have encountered. While these new regulations and the alternative regulatory framework that they provide to responsible parties clearly increased the amount of clean up in the State, we believe that it is the continuing threat of listing in the Superfund program, coupled with our own enforcement actions, that provide the impetus for cooperation.
In 1995, Governor Lincoln Almond proposed the Industrial Property Remediation and Reuse Act, or the Rhode Island Brownfields bill, to build on the early successes of our State program and provide more tools to facilitate the clean up of contaminated sites and support their return to beneficial use in the community. This bill was passed into law with overwhelming support by the legislature and provides DEM with the ability to enter into Settlement Agreements, which include Covenants Not to Sue, with performing parties. While the law provides specific relief from liability to bona fide perspective purchasers and secured creditors, it also allows other performing parties, including cooperative responsible parties, to enter Settlement Agreements. These new tools prompted the clean up and redevelopment of 48 sites, restoring 532 acres of contaminated property and creating or retaining 1010 jobs and $76.9 million dollars in property and income tax annually. The key aspect of this program improvement was the certainty and finality that the law and the Settlement Agreements provided to performing parties.
Further program improvements came in 1997 with the amendment of the site remediation regulations to include a series of clean up standards proportionate to the future use of properties. These amendments added three options for a performing party to use to determine the end goal of their clean up. The first option, or tier, involves a series of tables for performing parties to use to look up the appropriate clean up goals corresponding to the groundwater classification and future use of the site. The second tier provides an accepted model where performing parties could input unique, site specific information to come up with a site-specific goal Finally, the third tier preserved the traditional risk assessment option. The selection of the method is left to the performing party.
The end result of these efforts is our existing program, which provides us with all the regulatory tools needed to respond to proposed projects, compel the investigation and remediation of sites, and support redevelopment efforts involving Brownfields. These regulations, however, strictly address the Department's reaction to issues presented to us through either notification of contamination or other proposed projects.
The need to support economic redevelopment in Rhode Island's urban, and historically industrial, communities and initiate clean up activities in these areas prompted Rhode Island's effort to seek a Brownfields Demonstration Pilot grant from EPA in 1996. The pilot was focused on a proactive approach, undertaken with many municipal and economic development partners, to identify Brownfields sites, assess their condition, estimate the costs of clean up, and support the marketing of the sites for reuse. The project was an ecosystem based approach to identifying vacant or underutilized sites along the Blackstone and Woonasquatucket Rivers. Rhode Island was awarded a two hundred thousand dollar grant in 1997, which the State matched with an additional two hundred and ten thousand dollars. To date 54 baseline site assessments and 8 Remedial Evaluation Reports (which include cost estimates for clean up) have been completed at Brownfields sites in the pilot area, but perhaps more importantly, a healthy dialogue and productive working relationship has been established between the economic development agencies, the Department of Environmental Management and the municipalities.
In 1998, our proactive Brownfields efforts were supplemented by the designation of Providence as a Brownfields Showcase Community. This designation provided a higher level of involvement by EPA and several other federal agencies, most notably Housing and Urban Development, in supporting the reuse of contaminated sites in Providence.
Recent efforts under the Brownfields Pilot and Showcase Community projects have primarily been focused on supporting the investigation and clean up of properties along the proposed route of the Woonasquatucket River Greenway and bike path. The investigation and remedial design activities have largely been completed but securing funding for the remediation has proved to be a major problem. The funding problem mainly is due to the fact that the properties of concern, the former Lincoln Lace and Braid and the former Riverside Mills properties, are designated for use as open space, bike path areas, and other recreational fields and do not have a future income stream to support a loan to fund remediation costs. The fact that projects designated for future use for non-profit public purposes have no current funding support for clean up costs has slowed progress on this very important project.
We have leveraged our success and relationships developed under the pilot and Showcase Community to approach other municipalities and support their Brownfields redevelopment efforts across the State. Recently, we have applied for funding to establish a statewide revolving loan program to assist in the funding of remediation costs.
The evolution of our State program is in many ways similar to the process other States have followed. Each State has adjusted their approach somewhat to meet the needs and desires of their constituencies and to strive for the most efficient and effective models based on their individual circumstances. This has led to many innovative approaches supporting the clean up of thousands of sites of all shapes and sizes nationally.
Overall, we feel strongly that the Superfund program has evolved from a strict, authoritarian and inflexible approach to clean up to a more responsive and streamlined program. The emphasis on strictly dealing with the "worst of the worst" sites has evolved into a program focused on serious sites that have a multitude of logistical challenges standing in the way of clean up. The program has also evolved away from the duplication of effort and heavy handed federal supervision into a more cooperative joint approach between EPA and the States that typically features complementary roles for each agency working together towards a mutually determined clean up goal.
In summary, Superfund, the State Cleanup Programs, Brownfields programs and Voluntary Cleanup programs all provide valuable tools to achieve the flexibility needed to efficiently facilitate the clean up of many types of contaminated properties. Flexibility will be critical in responding to the next generation of sites that we are now just beginning to see through new investigations and innovations supporting Smart Growth, exploring the challenges and issues unique to our urban environments, and broadening our perspective to look at issues in the context of watershed planning and the assessments and decision making related to the Total Maximum Daily Load limits of pollutants that can flow to our water bodies.
Program innovation has been occurring at the State level and should not be dampened or discouraged.
The backbone of virtually all clean up programs is the Superfund liability system and any adjustments to that core framework should be very carefully evaluated to see the full effects of change, including the changes on State programs that rely on that federal framework. Nonetheless, some parties merit relief including de minimus/de micromus parties, prospective purchasers, municipalities, and downgradient receptors. Furthermore, recognizing the finality of State decisions and decoupling federal involvement in Brownfields cases from the strict requirements of the NCP should strengthen the Brownfields and VCP programs. In considering the options for Superfund reauthorization and statutory improvements, please consider the following points:
The backbone of virtually all clean up programs is the Superfund liability system and any adjustments to that core framework should be very carefully evaluated to see the full effects of change, including the impacts on State programs that rely on that federal framework.
Superfund, the State Cleanup Programs, Brownfields programs and Voluntary Cleanup programs all provide valuable tools to achieve the flexibility needed to efficiently facilitate the clean up of many types of contaminated properties
Program innovation has been occurring at the State level and should not be dampened or discouraged through the establishment of federal standards for "acceptable" State programs.
Some parties merit liability relief including de minimus/de micromus parties, prospective purchasers, municipalities, and downgradient receptors.
The finality of State clean up decisions should be recognized.
Brownfields cases should be decoupled from the strict requirements of the NCP, which we believe will strengthen the Brownfields and VCP programs.
Projects designated for future use for non-profit public purposes should be provided with funding support for clean up costs.
In closing, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the Superfund program and the opportunity to provide the Rhode Island perspective on the program.