Superfund

May 16, 2024

New hope for long-polluted communities, but skepticism of Superfund success remains

By Barbara Reina and Carey Gillam

Jackie Medcalf was a teenager when she moved with her family to a small farm near the San Jacinto River in Harris County, Texas. It felt like a good life, playing in the river and “eating off the land,” as Medcalf describes it.

But the animals quickly grew ill, as did Medcalf, suffering a range of health problems. Her father developed multiple myeloma at the age of 51. Tests of the family’s well water would later reveal contamination with several toxic metals. Testing of the eggs collected from the family’s chickens also found an array of heavy metals. The family was not alone, as others in the area reported similar problems.

There was little doubt about the source of the contamination: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designated the San Jacinto River Waste Pits as a Superfund site due to dumping in the 1960s of waste from a paper mill containing carcinogens and other types of toxins. The site has been on the EPA’s “National Priorities List” for cleanup since 2008. But 14 years later, those efforts have yet to be completed.

“For decades my fellow community members have unknowingly recreated around dioxin laden pits,” said Medcalf, now a 37-year-oldmother and the founder of a nonprofit that advocates for the cleanup of area’s contamination. “How many more decades must pass before this disaster is remedied?”

The suffering of the Medcalf family is but one story among far too many that are emblematic of the struggles behind America’s Superfund program, which aims to clean up sites around the country contaminated with a range of dangerous industrial toxins.

In February, the Biden administration said it was earmarking more than $1 billion to help clean up those long-standing hazardous waste sites that are jeopardizing the health of communities around the country. The money is to go to new and continuing projects, and is part of roughly $3.5 billion allocated in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for work at Superfund sites.

Vermont Guard responds to flooding in Vermont

April 2, 2024

Vermont advances bill targeting oil and gas companies for climate cleanup

By Dana Drugmand

In the aftermath of costly flooding that swept the US Northeast last year, lawmakers in Vermont on Tuesday advanced a proposed new law that aims to make fossil fuel companies liable for the costs of cleaning up communities battered by climate change-related events.

In a 26-3 vote, the state senate passed what state lawmakers are calling the “Climate Superfund Act.” If the bill becomes law, it would be the first of its kind in the country, imposing strict liability for carbon pollution on large oil and gas companies that produce carbon-based fuels. Like the federal Superfund program that holds polluters liable for hazardous waste contamination, the “climate superfund” concept proposes to replicate this polluter pays program for climate pollution.

“I’m proud to vote yes today to respond to the greatest overarching existential threat of our time,” Vermont Sen. Becca White said following the vote.

The measure now moves on to the Vermont House of Representatives, where support appears strong.

“This is a bill that had a lot of support going into the session,” said Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director at Vermont Public Interest Research Group. “We’re pretty optimistic that the House is going to take it up and move it before the end of the session.”

Last July, exceedingly heavy rainfall led to damaging flooding in the US Northeast, submerging streets in Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier, as well as thousands of acres of farmland across the state. One hard-hit farming operation, the Intervale Community Farm in Burlington, Vermont, lost an estimated $200,000 of its vegetable crops when 99% of the farm flooded.

Vermont’s bill would assess a one-time fee on fossil fuel companies responsible for more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the last 30 years. The bill leaves the task of determining which companies would pay, and how much each would owe, to the state’s Agency of Natural Resources and the state treasurer, as well as the task of calculating Vermont’s costs of recovering from and adapting to climate impacts.

February 27, 2024

Citing “dangerous health risks,” US adds $1 billion to Superfund cleanup efforts

By Carey Gillam

The US is earmarking more than $1 billion to help clean up long-standing hazardous waste sites jeopardizing the health of communities around the country, a move that will impact 110 sites around the country, officials said on Tuesday.

The money for new and continuing projects marks the “final wave” of a total of roughly $3.5 billion allocated in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for Superfund work, and addresses an administrative initiative aimed at directing funds to projects that benefit disadvantaged communities, Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said in a press conference held to announce the funding.

Communities around the country have been “long-overburdened by pollution” that poses “dangerous health risks,” McCabe said. Minority populations have been particularly impacted with more than one in four Black and Hispanic Americans living within three miles of a Superfund site.

Of 25 sites set to receive funding for new projects, 75% are in historically underserved communities, according to McCabe.

“This funding will help improve people’s lives, especially those who’ve long been on the front lines of pollution,” she said.

In addition to the 25 sites receiving new project funding, another 85 sites are receiving money to continue ongoing cleanup projects.

January 9, 2024

Climate change bringing challenges for Superfund site cleanup

By Barbara Reina

US efforts to clean up toxins and protect communities from some of the nation’s most contaminated sites are getting more difficult as climate change brings increasingly abnormal weather events that make containing chemical waste more challenging, experts warn.

Fast and heavy rainfall, sea level rise, sinking land and the loss of natural coastal barriers are among the factors that open the way for repeated flooding that can create havoc on US efforts to contain hazardous waste at many Superfund sites.

“There are hundreds of contaminated Superfund sites across the country that are at risk of extreme coastal flooding” and becoming “compromised,” said Jacob Carter, a scientist at the Partnership for Policy Integrity, who previously worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “I expect that we will continue to see more sites compromised as climate change progresses.”

Carter co-authored a 2020 report projecting at least 800 Superfund sites would be at risk of extreme flooding by 2040, even under a low sea level rise scenario.

Since then, the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation has been on the rise, according to the 2023 US Government Fifth National Climate Assessment. In 2022 alone, the US experienced 18 weather and climate disasters with damages exceeding $1 billion.

A 2023 report published by the American Chemical Society adds to concerns, projecting more than 400 potential sites in California that deal with hazardous waste – though not necessarily Superfund sites – will be threatened by a 1-in-100 year flood event due to sea level rise by the end of the century if climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.

Washed away
One ongoing example of the challenges is seen in the Dewey Loeffel Landfill Superfund site in Rensselaer County, New York, where the EPA has been working for years to deal with hazardous waste that includes cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBS). Regulators estimate more than 46,000 tons of waste were dumped at the 19-acre site decades ago, triggering fish and animal deaths and uncontrolled fires. Contamination spread to groundwater, soil, sediment and surface waters, according to the EPA.

“The impacts of climate change and extreme weather events are an important consideration in the Superfund process,” said Joe Battipaglia, remedial project manager for the Dewey Loeffel Superfund site.

August 11, 2023

“Polluter pays” debate heats up over toxic PFAS chemical cleanup plan

By Carey Gillam
As US regulators work to tackle the toxic threat posed by a class of widely used chemicals known as PFAS, debate is heating up over who could – and should – get hit with the cleanup costs.

Over the last several weeks, federal officials have received an onslaught of conflicting calls for action regarding a proposal to designate certain types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as “hazardous substances” under the nation’s so-called “Superfund” law. The designation would provide a pathway for the remediation of dangerously contaminated sites around the United States, including assigning liability for the hazardous waste cleanup.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is specifically proposing that PFOA and PFOS and seven other types of PFAS be designated for action under the Superfund law, known formally as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

The public comment period on the EPA’s proposal ended Friday, drawing fevered pleas from individuals, industries and agencies across the country.

It is the issue of potential liability for PFAS contamination under CERCLA that is sparking fierce debate, as an array of parties, including water providers, landfill operators and even farmers, say they worry they could be saddled with millions of dollars in costs to try to rid their operations of widespread PFAS contamination that they had no hand in creating. They want the EPA and members of Congress to carve out exemptions to protect them.