The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that cleanup remedies at two Superfund sites are not protective of human health and the environment, according to a report flagged by eponline.com.

The "not protective" finding places both sites into an active remedy-revision track under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the 1980 federal statute governing the Superfund program. Sites receiving such determinations typically face remedial investigations, feasibility studies, or expanded response actions before EPA upgrades or replaces existing remedies.

What does "not protective" actually mean under CERCLA?

EPA's five-year review process evaluates whether remedies continue to function as originally designed. The review document uses three classifications: protective, protective with contingencies, or not protective. The last category is binary and forces action.

A "not protective" outcome typically signals one of four conditions:

• Cleanup levels specified in the Record of Decision are not being met at compliance points
• Newly identified contaminants of concern exceed risk-based thresholds
• Remedy components — pump-and-treat networks, caps, slurry walls — have degraded mechanically
• Land-use assumptions have changed, altering exposure pathways

EPA regional offices issue the final determination after site teams draft the five-year review. Each site reviewed under the statutory clock goes on the public docket.

Which sites are at issue?

The eponline.com report identifies the count — two — but withholds site names, EPA regions, contaminants of concern, and the original remedy completion dates. Those data points normally appear in the registry of recently finalized five-year reviews that EPA's Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation publishes.

The contaminants driving the determination will dictate the work scope. Sites dominated by chlorinated solvents in groundwater typically require expanded in-situ bioremediation or thermal treatment. Heavy-metal-contaminated soils lean toward capping, excavation, or stabilization. Coal-tar or PAH-impacted sites re-enter groundwater modeling cycles to recalculate plume capture.

What procurement signals does this generate?

Remedy expansions flow through the same contract vehicles that built the original actions. EPA's Superfund Remedial Program budget sits at roughly $1.16 billion for the current fiscal cycle, with allocations distributed across remedial-action completion, post-construction completion, and physical completion phases.

For remediation contractors, the procurement window opens early. Bid packages for focused site delineation typically start at $2 million. Full remedy redesign and construction ranges from $20 million to more than $50 million for sites with complex hydrogeology or expanding contaminant footprints.

Potentially responsible parties (PRPs) absorb some of that cost depending on the original consent decree structure. Sites with viable PRP groups see negotiated amendments to existing agreements rather than new federal outlays.

What milestone decides what comes next?

The five-year review report itself is the gating document. EPA sign-off triggers either a memorandum identifying specific deficiencies and a path forward, or initiation of a formal remedial investigation/feasibility study to evaluate replacement remedies. Either pathway has a 12-to-24-month horizon before field activity scales.

The public milestone to watch is the EPA regional summary posting. Once site names, contaminants, and remedy status appear in the public docket, remediation contractors, PRP counsel, and state environmental agencies gain the specifics needed to scope work packages and risk allocation. For now, the agency's determination signals that the contamination profile at both sites has shifted away from the assumptions baked into the original Records of Decision — or that remedy performance has degraded below the protection threshold.