Formed in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government, tasked with protecting human health and the environment.
The EPA works to embed environmental stewardship in the US policy landscape while, among other things, ensuring that laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced, that all parts of society have access to accurate information relating to human health and environmental risks, and that contaminated lands and toxic sites are cleaned up and revitalized.
All of this depends on EPA access to the very best scientific information…
"…and that's where we come in," says Chris Hall, Serco Lead for our Environmental & Life Sciences business.
Our Environmental Service Assistance Team (ESAT) supports EPA field service, laboratory and quality assurance departments in three regions.
"These are skilled, experienced chemists and field analysts, specializing in comprehensive data review and the analysis of environmental samples, including air, water, soil, dust, biota and hazardous waste."
Operating out of EPA laboratories in Athens (Georgia), Kansas City (Kansas) and Houston (Texas), our Environmental Chemists, Field Scientists and Air Audit Specialists work closely with EPA representatives in support of major EPA programmes.
"One of the main areas of EPA activity is superfund[1] clean-up and enforcement," says Chris. "When an emergency or hazardous waste site is identified, it needs to be decontaminated as quickly and effectively as possible, while responsible parties are found and held to account for the cost, if not the execution, of the clean-up."
Assessing a contaminated site and working out how best to manage and restore it using taxpayer money is no small matter in itself:
"These are million-dollar decisions," says Chris. "Lives and livelihoods are at stake in all directions, sometimes on a catastrophic scale. We provide the EPA with the critical intelligence they need to make prudent, informed decisions about how to tackle some of the nation's most polluted sites. The quality of the data we generate or validate enables them to optimize every effort to fulfil their mission, all of which comes down to the quality of our personnel and reporting."
Our ESAT colleagues supported the EPA in the assessment and clean-up of more than 250 emergency and hazardous waste sites, including 130 superfund sites, during 2023. The team's outputs also help the EPA in their work to prevent repeat offences:
[1] 'Superfund' is the name given to the US Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). Superfund is also the EPA-administered trust fund set up by US Congress to handle emergency and hazardous waste sites needing long-term clean-up.
In addition to their superfund responsibilities, the team supports the EPA in other ways:
"We do some field analytical services. Some of the regions we cover are home to fossil fuel refineries and legacy mine sites. Every couple of years, the EPA conducts field analysis in the Florida Everglades and we accompany them. We have provided data support for environmental emergencies outside our regions as well, such as the forest fires on the West Coast. We also manage a warehouse of equipment for EPA field personnel, validate data from commercial laboratories, and support methodology development and modelling."
Another area of focus is air quality monitoring:
"The EPA regulates emissions of air pollution under the US Clean Air Act," explains Chris. "Each state runs its own 'air quality program' and we audit their data. All-in-all, we're very proud to play such an important role at this level, helping to keep the land we live on and the air we breathe safe, clean and protected."
