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Show The Future of the Superfund: Where is it Headed and How Will it Get There? Bryon Prince thousands of Love Canals, Pittstons and Youngsvilles all over America (EPA, p.2). Even though the problem was severe by 1980, the country had no real experience or means of dealing with the growing chemical cancer. Some years before, Congress had enacted a number of laws to prevent hazardous waste contamination. The laws served as stepping stones to move the federal agency towards finding a long-term solution to prevent sites like Love Canal. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), was adopted to establish more restrictive standards on hazardous waste, ensuring close management from creation to disposal (Lee). Legislation like RCRA and The Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) played a part in tackling a small piece of the problem. These Acts did not, however, address the problem of cleaning up existing contamination (Lee). Senator Robert Stafford (R-Vermont) bluntly stated the issue: If these hearings were to deal only with Love Canal or Toone, Tennessee, we would be neglecting the radium sites in Denver. And if we were to deal with the Denver sites as well, we would still be neglecting PCBs in the Hudson River and PBBs in Michigan. If we restrict ourselves to just waste, we will leave a large gap because in the chemical business one man's meat is literally another man's poison. Waste from one company is feedstock to another. What we must explore is the entirety of how and why toxics are entering the environment, whether they are injuring people, and if so, how. Then we must decide whether there should be a scheme to compensate victims, and if so, for what injuries (EPA, n.d., p.2). The Superfund Act Senate and House committee hearings were held in the later half of 1979 and into 1980 to address the magnitude of the situation the nation was facing, and to begin formulating a solution (Lee, 1993). On September 19, 1980, the House passed a bill proposing the creation of a "Superfund" to focus mainly on chemical emergencies. The Senate proposed a similar bill later that year that was revised and eventually enacted. On December 11, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the new Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), better known as Superfund (Lee, 1993). President Carter said it was "a landmark in its scope and in its impact on preserving the environmental quality of our country." (EPA, 2004, p.5). Love Canal was the perfect example of what could happen if chemical waste was not carefully managed. CERCLA was designed to address much more than just the problems faced at Love Canal. The new Act was adopted to provide comprehensive authority for the federal government to take action in all situations involving contamination (Lee, 1993). The EPA could now respond to any release or any real threat of a release of a hazardous substance, pollutant, and or contaminant into the environment. This gave the EPA the authority to act on mere suspicion or risk of contamination, such as corroding tanks or abandoned drums of any kind (Lee, 1993). In 1980 the focus of industry was upon the Superfund Trust Fund Act, which was designed to provide the funds for the EPA's cleanup efforts (Lee, 1993). The Trust Fund collected money from multiple taxes and court awards. The fed' eral assessment included taxes generated from crude oil, petroleum products imported into the U.S., and specific chemicals. The rationale for this was to raise the bulk of the funds for the new program from the set of companies most likely to have generated the hazardous chemicals creating the risks to human health and the environment in the first place. Court awards came from the "parties" found responsible for substance contamination, or individuals or companies that had any participation or connection to the contamination process (Lee). The original act of 1980 authorized a trust fund of $1.6 billion, while 1986 amendments to CERCLA increased the fund amount to $8.5 billion (Lee). The Superfund Trust Fund can be used to respond to both emergencies and long-term cleanups of contaminated areas or "sites". Trust Funds can pay for actual cleanup costs, as well as for the EPA's enforcement actions taken against responsible parties (Loehr, 2004). The Trust Fund was also designed to pay for certain natural resource damages, reim' bursements to local governments, and claims by private parr ties (EPA, 2004). In many cases the trust fund has provided funds to enable the EPA to address a hazardous substance con' tamination immediately, rather than having to wait for a court to decide who was responsible for causing the damage. Later, when the court has identified the responsible parties, the EPA is repaid the cost of responding to the incident, and the Trust Fund is reimbursed (EPA, 2004). This provision was one of the more drastic improvements that came with CERCLA. Before its enactment, the law required that liability for any contamination be determined before any action could be taken (EPA, 2004). The Superfund Program An important distinction must be made about the creation of Superfund. Congress first passed the Superfund statute, but it was left up to the EPA to create the Superfund program. Due to all the attention placed on sites like Love Canal and the valley of drums in Bullitt County, Kentucky, quick and effec' tive remedial action was expected from the EPA (Probst, 2003). It was soon realized that scientifically complex sites take an enormous amount of time, money, technology! resources, and understanding to cleanup. Quick clean up o* spills and short-term solutions were not enough. The EPA needed to carry out long-term remediation on contaminated sites to ensure that they would stay clean indefinitely (Probst). To be able to categorize the large list of sites that existed, the EPA created the Hazard Ranking System (HRS) to deter-mine which sites needed more immediate cleanup. The HRS 44 |
