ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, to satisfy the need to start corrective action programs quickly, many regulatory agencies decided to uniformly apply, at underground storage tank (UST) cleanup sites, regulatory cleanup standards developed for other purposes. It became increasingly apparent that applying such standards without consideration of the extent of actual or potential human and environmental exposure was an inefficient means of providing adequate protection against the risks associated with UST releases. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now believes that risk-based correctiveaction processes are tools that can facilitate efforts to clean up sites expeditiously, as necessary, while still assuring protection of human health and the environment [1].
