The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), as amended by the Super-fund Amendments Reauthorization Act (SARA), require that information on environmental restoration and waste management activities be made available to interested parties so they may participate in decisions that affect their lives. Two important tools for providing public information are Administrative Records and lnformation Repositories.

An administrative record is a collection of documents that form the basis for selecting a remedy for site cleanup. The administrative record file includes reports prepared by USACE, as well as other technical and site-specific information, comments submitted by the public and government agencies, and transcripts of public meetings.

Relevant documents are included in the administrative record if they were considered or relied on during the decision-making process, even if a particular document does not support the final decision on the remedy. Judicial review of issues related to adequacy of site cleanup is generally limited to documents included in the administrative record for the site.

The administrative record includes:

• a collection of individually bound site documents identified with inventory numbers on the spine or binding
• a loose-leaf binder containing introductory information about the site and the cleanup process and an index listing the individually bound documents

Site information repositories also are maintained at USACE public information centers and local public libraries. Documents in the information repository are kept in one or more loose-leaf binders. They generally include the following categories:

• Introduction
• Fact Sheets (like this one)
• Laws and Regulations
• Public Notices/Press Releases
• News Articles