State Response Action Program

The State Response Action Program of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) cleans up hazardous substances at sites that threaten human health and the environment imminently and substantially and that other federal or state cleanup programs may not reach. It provides money and administrative resources for responses to releases or threatened releases. It also provides for recovering what the state spends and for punitive damages, which Illinois EPA says push responsible parties to take part in cleanups and save state funds. The sites are the responsibility of the agency's State Sites Unit.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 names state equivalents of the federal Superfund lists as a standard source. The pages read do not call this program a state Superfund program; pairing it with that record type is the handbook's reading. The general reading of a state Superfund listing is on the state Superfund equivalent page.

What Illinois EPA says about the program helps place a listing.

• The kinds of site. The agency names former manufacturing plants and waste oil recyclers, abandoned landfills and contaminated agrichemical facilities, along with other places where soil, groundwater, surface water or air may be contaminated with hazardous substances.
• Its history. The program began in 1984 as the Clean Illinois Program, created with a $20 million appropriation from the General Revenue Fund, and was later renamed. After the renaming it was funded mainly by cost recovery from past responses and by the Hazardous Waste Fund.
• Two programs within it. In 1999 it set up a program for 33 abandoned landfills, which was to receive $10 million a year from 2001 to 2005. The agency's page says that to date final response actions are in place at 19 of the 33, covering about 800 acres. It has also run an Abandoned Schools Program dealing with asbestos, and the page says it has made response actions at 6 schools to date. The page, last modified January 24, 2025, does not date either count.

Illinois EPA's Landfill Locations Map also shows landfills in the databases of what it calls the State Sites Program, which this handbook reads as this program. See Landfills.

Where to look a site up

• The program's Database Search Page. The Bureau of Land Databases page says it gives the status of every site the State Sites Unit is responsible for. This handbook did not open it.
• The IEPA Document Explorer, which holds technical documents for State Response Action Program sites.
• Illinois EPA's Site Fact Sheets, which its Office of Community Relations writes to explain agency activities, programs and other environmental issues. That page says fact sheets and other documents can be had through a FOIA request or the Document Explorer.
• The State Sites Unit's address is 2520 W Iles Ave, Springfield, Illinois 62794-9276. The Bureau of Land's switchboard is (217) 524-3300.

Getting the file

Illinois EPA takes requests under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act through its online FOIA Request Web Form, which needs an account, or by fax, U.S. mail or special carrier. Give the site name, address and any Agency or Bureau ID number. Fees, reply times and the options for large files are on the FOIA requests page.

Sources

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency pages, read October 13, 2026:

• State Response Action, last modified January 24, 2025.
• Bureau of Land Databases, last modified December 13, 2023.
• Landfill Locations Map, last modified March 9, 2023.
• Site Fact Sheets, last modified September 16, 2026.
• Bureau of Land Contacts, last modified September 29, 2025.
• Freedom of Information Act, last modified May 2, 2024.