Feds Target New Toxic Sites

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed adding another 11 sites to its Superfund program for cleaning up the nation's worst toxic waste contamination.

The sites range from lead mine wastes threatening downstream fisheries to an unknown source of drinking well contamination for thousands of people.

They are located in nine states — Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia — and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

EPA officials said the problems found at these sites exemplify a recent trend in the program handling bigger, costlier and more complex cleanups.

"They are the worst of the worst, the real turkeys that the states don't want to touch," said Randolph Dietz, an attorney adviser for EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, which oversees the Superfund program.

The new sites are listed by EPA as: Jacobsville Neighborhood Soil Contamination in Evansville; Devil's Swamp in Scotlandville, La.; Annapolis Lead Mine in Annapolis, Mo.; Picayune Wood Treating in Picayune, Miss.; Grants Chlorinated Solvents Plume in Grants, N.M.; Diaz Chemical Corp. in Holley, N.Y.; Peninsula Boulevard Groundwater Plume in Hewlett, N.Y.; Ryeland Road Arsenic in Heidelberg Township, Pa.; Cidra Ground Water Contamination in Cidra, Puerto Rico; Pike Hill Copper Mine in Corinth, Vt.; and Ravenswood PCE Ground Water Plume in Ravenswood, W.Va.

Since the Superfund program began in 1980, the EPA has completed cleanups at almost 900 sites but has 1,240 on its uncompleted list. Adding the 11 new sites and others that have been proposed, would bring the total to more than 1,300, said Thomas Dunne, the office's associate assistant administrator.

According to the General Accounting Office, a majority of those sites are in the final phase or clean-up work. But that phase can drag through several years.

The EPA knows of 44,000 potentially polluted sites and discovers about 500 new ones a year, according to the GAO — so many that one in four Americans lives within four miles of such a site.

The GAO reported in September that taxpayers may be on the hook for environmental cleanup costs as Superfund's traditional funding stream shrinks.

Superfund was originally funded in part by revenue from a tax on crude oil, chemicals and corporations — reflecting the "polluter pays" principle behind the fund. The tax revenue was saved in a trust fund. The program was also funded by fines and payments by companies blamed for pollution at a particular site.

But the tax expired in 1995 and Congress did not renew it. Since then, the growing clean-up chores of the EPA-administered program have been financed increasingly by money from general tax revenues, and not by companies that tend to pollute.

From fiscal 1995 to 2002, Superfund's income from dedicated taxes, fines, penalties, and direct polluter payments shrank from $2.4 billion to $370 million — a fall-off of more than 80 percent.

The taxes on oil, chemicals, and companies have plummeted most dramatically — from $2.019 billion in 1993 to $7 million in 2002, a plunge of more than 99 percent. Fines and penalties shrunk by 75 percent, from $4 million to $1 million.

Over the same period, the contribution from taxpayers more than doubled, increasing from $283 million to $676 million.

"The Superfund program's need for federal cleanup funds to address sites that lack alternative sources of cleanup funds may grow in the future, while the program's funding from sources other than general fund appropriations dwindles," the report found. "According to EPA, the balance of the Superfund trust fund available for future appropriations will be depleted at the end of fiscal year 2003."

Adding to the fiscal pressure, GAO reports, is the likelihood that fewer Superfund sites will have responsible parties who can pay for their cleanup, because of increased bankruptcies. Also, state governments — which sometimes share the clean-up costs — face budgetary constraints in the slow economy.

With the trust fund emptying, the EPA has asked an advisory board to consider options for funding the program, which is estimated to cost $15 billion over the ten years ending in 2009.

In July, the Bush administration added 10 new sites to the list of big-money Superfund toxic waste cleanup projects and delayed work on 10 others, factoring in the potential for economic development as well as possible health risks in choosing the locations.

Five other sites were to get reduced funding to free up money for the new starts, EPA officials said.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency said there isn't enough money to begin all the projects now, prompting environmentalists to complain that not enough emphasis is being put on the cleanups.