3.2. Meeting Established Clearance Goals

As noted in KPF 1, “Prime the Pump” Pre-Event Planning, clearance goals drive recovery costs and timelines to achieving recovery outcomes. Appropriate and reasonable clearance goals should be developed based on pre-incident planning goals and actual incident- and site-specific information. Clearance goals should balance local political and social priorities and public health protection, including the health and safety of responders, against time and cost constraints and concerns for economic recovery and revitalization. For example, clearance goals set to eliminate all risk to public health may result in timelines and costs that are untenable for the community.

Meeting clearance goals may be challenging. For example, as discussed in KPF 2, Recognize and Characterize the Incident, some chemicals penetrate materials more deeply than others, and some persist in the environment longer than others. The recovery process and the time needed to reach “full” recovery – that is, meet clearance goals – may therefore be vastly different for different chemical types. In addition, the availability of containment and remediation resources (materials and equipment) is often limited, as are the specially trained personnel required to operate/use them. Lack of needed resources could affect recovery timelines, especially for large-scale or highly toxic releases. Moreover, challenges associated with contaminated waste management (see below) and contaminated remains handling (see KPF 6, Augment Provision of Health and Medical Services to Affected Populations) may affect remediation timelines. Finally, documentation of meeting clearance goals relies on environmental sampling to verify that the area has indeed been remediated; there may be situational issues that affect the efficiency or availability of the sampling and analysis methods used to monitor containment and treatment performance.