The on-scene coordinator is the federal official responsible for monitoring or directing responses to all threats or oil spills and hazardous substance releases reported to the federal government.
The EPA has many avenues of response authority under the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, commonly referred to as the NCP.
It is the federal government’s strategy for responding to both oil spills and hazardous substance releases.
These requirements outline the steps the EPA must take when responding to situations in which oil is discharged into or upon the waters of the United States, or when hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants are released into the environment.
The NCP is the primary regulation of the Superfund program.
In addition, they also have enforcement authority on agencies that are responsible for generation and managing toxic and hazardous substances.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act is a central part of the legislative framework for environmental protection.
On the other hand, enforcement actions may be implemented on any agency or firm in compliance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act which primarily governs the management of hazardous wastes. In some cases a specific location or site may also be included in the Superfund National Priorities List.
CUC’s project coordinator Venugopal Prabhakara had approached the Division of Environmental Quality for assistance from the EPA for the cleanup.
PCBs are managed under the Toxic Substances Control Act and the PCB regulations, 40 CFR 761.
In his communication to the DEQ director, he had noted that “As you are aware, we also have active water wells in close proximity to the Isley Field and the fact that PCBs are known human carcinogens and could persist without breaking down for many years if accidently released to the environment, makes the clean up a priority.”
Frank Rabauliman, the DEQ director, forwarded the official request to U. S. EPA Region 9 on behalf of the CNMI government, which was promptly approved.
CUC is under a federal court consent decree since March 11, 2009, with stipulations under the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Under the court order, CUC is required to undertake all necessary steps to remove the discharge or threat of discharge of oil and hazardous substances into the soil, groundwater and navigable waters.
Prabhakara noted that there is no facility for safe disposal of PCBs on Saipan or Guam and so the contaminated oil must be sent to an EPA-approved disposal facility on the U.S. mainland.
The source of PCBs within CUC is from old transformers some of which date back to the Trust Territory period.
They have been stored in Isley Field reportedly for over 10 years and this is the first time such a cleanup action was initiated for a CUC facility.
The presence of PCB can only be determined through sampling and analyzing in modern laboratory and such facilities are unfortunately not available in Saipan or Guam.
Rogow, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, had supervised several sampling at various CUC facilities including the Isley Field site and sent samples to their laboratory facility for detailed analysis which allowed the separation of the toxic and hazardous wastes from those that are non-hazardous.
CUC Executive Director Antonio S. Muna thanked the U.S. EPA and CNMI DEQ for their assistance and is extremely grateful for the federal support in the cleanup.
This federal action of removing the PCB oil, transformer carcasses and contaminated soil with PCB oil would have cost CUC over $120,000 in addition to the time that would be spent in the various regulatory approvals for the cleanup action.
The EPA and DEQ were assisted by their mainland contractors, Environmental Quality Management Inc. and Ecology and Environment Inc. CUC provided some logistic support in the cleanup action.
