Superfund Sites Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Superfund Sites are areas of land in the United States that are identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as contaminated by abandoned hazardous waste. As of 2006, there were over 12,000 Superfund sites listed in EPA’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS). Just over 1,200 of these sites were also included on EPA’s 2006 Final National Priorities List (NPL), which consists of the CERCLIS sites deemed the most dangerous to human health and the environment. Sites on the National Priorities List are eligible for long-term remediation under the federal Superfund Program, created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 and renewed by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) of 1986.

Definitions and Procedures

There are some common confusions and ambiguities surrounding the usage of the term Superfund site. First, the term is often used to refer only to sites on the NPL, but NPL sites are simply the Superfund sites that EPA has designated as having highest priority for cleanup. Second, many U.S. states have their own hazardous waste remediation programs, some of which are also called Superfund programs. State Superfund lists include thousands of sites, many of which are not in EPA’s database. In addition, Superfund sites do not include all hazardous waste sites; the total number of contaminated sites that remain officially unidentified is unknown.

Anyone from EPA’s own inspectors to local officials and ordinary citizens can report hazardous waste sites or releases of chemicals as potential Superfund sites. After entering an identified site in the CERCLIS database, EPA uses existing information about the site to conduct a Preliminary Assessment (PA) designed to determine if it warrants further investigation. At a site that potentially poses serious threats to human health or the environment, EPA carries out a more extensive Site Inspection (SI). This inspection typically includes sampling and analysis to detect and measure contamination in soil, groundwater, surface water, and air. Based on this inspection, sites that present potential risks receive a Hazard Ranking System (HRS) score between zero and 100, with higher scores indicating higher risks. Sites that receive scores above 28.5 become eligible for inclusion on the NPL.

Superfund sites are eligible for two kinds of cleanup. The first is the removal action or emergency response, which addresses immediate, short-term threats to human health or the environment. The second is the remedial action, which addresses longterm threats at sites on the NPL. At a site designated to receive remediation, contractors for EPA, the state, or the organization deemed responsible for the contamination (called the potentially responsible party, or PRP) carry out an extensive Remedial Investigation (RI) to generate a more complete scientific characterization of the site and a more precise estimate of potential exposures and risks from the site. This investigation is usually combined with a Feasibility Study (FS), which identifies and evaluates different alternatives for cleaning up the site. If these studies suggest that remedial action is necessary, EPA selects one of the alternatives in a Record of Decision (ROD) and subsequently oversees its design, construction, operations, and maintenance. This series of steps typically takes years-or even decades-to complete.

Contaminants and Cleanup Options

Superfund sites are contaminated by a wide variety of chemicals, and in many cases we still know little about how much risk they pose to human health or ecosystems. Among the more common contaminants found at Superfund sites are commercial solvents like benzene and toluene, pesticides like DDT and aldrin, chlorinated compounds like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins, and metals or transition metals like chromium and mercury. In the face of uncertainties about the health and environmental effects of many of the chemicals found at Superfund sites, some argue that EPA should take a precautionary approach and insist on the most stringent cleanups possible, while others contend that expensive remedial actions are often unwarranted.

In the early years of the Superfund program, there were few technological options for cleaning up hazardous waste sites. EPA often selected relatively impermanent alternatives, such as excavating waste and placing it in lined and covered (or “capped”) on-site landfills. However, the SARA of 1986 established a preference for selecting more permanent solutions and for treating contaminated media instead of leaving the chemicals in toxic forms. In the past two decades a number of new technologies have emerged or are emerging to meet this need. For example, bioremediation uses bacteria or other microorganisms to break down petrochemical contamination at Superfund sites, and nanotechnology uses microscopic particles to neutralize toxic wastes.

Cleanup Pace and Site Distribution

Although only a small number of sites were cleaned in the first decade of the Superfund program, the pace of cleanup has increased considerably in the past 15 years. In the first four years of the program, EPA cleaned only six sites, and it had completed remediation at only 41 sites by the end of the 1980s. But by the end of the 1990s, EPA reported 676 “construction completions” at sites on the NPL, and by the end of 2005 the number had risen to 970.

The dramatic increase in cleanups during the 1990s reflects several factors, including the length of time it takes to remediate complex sites, the growth and maturation of the hazardous waste remediation industry, and administrative reforms initiated in the Superfund program under the Bill Clinton administration. Since most sites are cleaned up by potentially responsible parties themselves, cleanup activities continue at many sites despite the recent bankruptcy of the federal Superfund trust fund. However, many argue that the expiration of the special tax that supported this fund threatens the continued remediation of sites in the future.

All but one state (North Dakota) currently have at least one Superfund site on the NPL, but Superfund sites are concentrated in regions of the country with long histories of industrial activity. As of 2006, over 30 percent of the sites on the Final NPL were located in four states: New Jersey (113 sites), California (94), Pennsylvania (94), and New York (86). The most famous Superfund site is undoubtedly the Love Canal site in Niagara Falls, New York, which first brought national attention to the problem of abandoned hazardous waste in the late 1970s. Other well-known Superfund sites include the Woburn Wells G & H site in Massachusetts, which was the subject of the book and movie A Civil Action; the Times Beach site in Missouri, which caused the relocation of an entire town in the mid-1980s; and the General Electric Hudson River PCBs site in New York, which covers approximately 200 miles (322 kilometers) of the river extending north from New York City.

Bibliography:

Harold Barnett, Toxic Debts and the Superfund Dilemma (University of North Carolina Press, 1994);
Thomas W. Church and Robert T. Nakamura, Cleaning Up the Mess: Implementation Strategies in Superfund (Brookings Institution, 1993);
James T. Hamilton and W. Kip Viscusi, Calculating Risks: The Spatial and Political Dimensions of Hazardous Waste Policy (MIT Press, 1999);
John A. Hird, Superfund: The Political Economy of Environmental Risk (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994);
Richard L. Revesz and Richard Stewart, eds., Analyzing Superfund: Economics, Science, and Law (Resources for the Future, 1995);
S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Superfund,” www.epa.gov/superfund.