| OCR Text |
Show The Future of the Superfund: Where is it Headed and How Will it Get There? Bryon Prince Assumptions About Superfund The NPL Sites have all been cleaned up The first assumption often made in evaluating Superfund's future is that there is little work left to be done at those sites already on the NPL. Data from 2006 in Table 1 shows 1,238 sites on the NPL, with 62 proposed sites. Table 1. February 2006 Superfund NPL Site Totals NPL Site Totals by Status and Milestone as of February 24,2006 Status Partial Deletions Construction Completions Non-Federal (General) 56 1080 295 Non-Federal (General) 34 923 > of the thrs* NPL statui 6 158 14 Federal 10 47 Total Sites 62 1238 309 Total Sites 44* 970 Source: the EPA website: www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/queryhtm/npltotal.htm Since Superfund's inception, 309 sites have been deleted. In the "Milestone" section of the table, 1,014 sites are listed as either Partial Deletions (44) or Construction Completion (970). For Utah the comparable figures are (4) proposed sites, (14) listed on the NPL, and (4) deleted (EPA, 2006). Yet these statistics are very misleading, given the EPA's definition of terms. For example, in the Federal Register, the first definition for the term "Construction Completion" is that "any necessary physical construction is complete, whether or not final clean up levels or other requirements have been achieved" (Federal Register, 2005). In theory then, a fence built around a contaminated site could qualify as a "Construction Completion". Moreover, in 2002 the total number of "Construction Completions" with all remedies was 47, a small percentage of the yearly "milestone" total (Stevens, 2004)- Further, this small number suggests that the pace at which sites are being taken off the NPL has slowed down, given that the average in previous years was 87. In regard to cost, in 2000 with 1,245, the remaining cost of actions to be paid for was between $4 and $5.1 billion over 10 years (Stevens). Cleanup usually takes more than a decade; some sites take several decades to complete the process. Yet the president's budget continues to provide fewer funds, sug' gesting the completions will continue to decline. EPA'S ONLY FINANCIAL OBLIGATION IS TO NPL SITES A second assumption arises from using the NPL as an indicator of the program's obligations. Looking at EPA funded actions at sites that are already on the NPL is only one piece of the total cost of the program. If you add up all EPA funded actions for NPL listed sites, EPA's short term removal program, site enforcement activities needed to get responsible parties to pay the majority of cleanup costs, and the cost of the day-to-day administration and management of the superfund program- and then add in the cost of new NPL sites- our best estimate is that total annu-al costs in the years from FY 2000 through FY 2009 will range between $1.5- $1.9 billion, which totals to $14 billion over the same 10-year period (Stavins, 2003, p. 33). Unless there is a major change made to the pace of site completion, or to the number of new sites added to the NPL, the cost of the Superfund program will not be "ramping down" in the near future. All NPL sites have been identified A third assumption made is that, after more than twenty years, there are few unidentified sites remaining. This assump-tion comes from the idea that all the really "bad" sites must have been found by now and that new ones are not being cre-ated because of Superfund's strict regulation on responsible parties and requirements for the correct management of haz-ardous waste (EPA, 2004). This is an understandable assump-tion when looking at all the effort expended in enforcing the strict environmental laws passed by Congress over the years, such as CERCLA and RCRA (Lee, 1993). In fact "old" sites needing cleanup attention continue to be identified. In spite of the stringent regulation that comes from newer preventa-tive environmental programs, recent studies have found that several sites that were added to the NPL between 1999 and 2001 appear to have been contaminated before the enactment of CERCLA (Probst, 2003). As to new sites still be created, Scorpio Recycling in Puerto Rico is an example. In 1991, EPA found that the com' pany was illegally discharging acids into a sinkhole area. The contamination is one-third of a mile from 21 wells that provide drinking water to approximately 75,000 people. Like Anniston, Scorpio Recycling is probably not an isolated case (Probst, 2003, p. 38). State programs will supplant Superfund A fourth assumption suggests that the number of sites added to the NPL should decline in the near future because of the increased number of states that have their own "mini Superfund programs. If state programs can now take over the responsibility of cleaning up their own contaminated sites, there is no reason why they should be put on the NPL (Stavins, 2003). This assumption is not valid; the reality of the situation is much more complex. It is true that the majority of states now have their own cleanup programs. Some states such as California, New Jersey, New York, have devel' oped mature programs with adequate funding (Stavins, 2003)-The number of sites that are addressed by state-operated programs is much larger than the number of sites on the NPL1 But the majority of state cleanups parallel EPA short-term removal actions. In these situations the major hazards are 46 |
