How long does it take to clean up a Superfund site?

This stage involves an evaluation of the nature and extent of contamination at a site and assessing potential threats to human health and the environment. This stage of the process also includes evaluation of the potential performance and cost of the treatment options identified for a site.

The cost of cleaning up hazardous sites is increasing even as Superfund dollars are running out. … In the past decade, EPA allocated $243 million per year for Superfund cleanup. It estimates $335 million to $681 million per year will be needed for future cleanup.

The major negatives are the excessive time and cost related to federal Superfund remedial studies and actions. The overall program has emphasized process over cost-effective cleanup activities, with the result that the average site cleanup costs approximately $25 to $30 million.

The law says EPA can make the people responsible for contamination pay for site studies and cleanup work. EPA negotiates with these Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) to reach an agreement. Sometimes EPA pays for the cleanup out of a pool of money called the Superfund and then tries to make PRPs pay back the costs.

The spill also led to the Bonita Peak Mining District in Colorado, where the Gold King Mine is located, to be listed as a Superfund site.

By cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites, the program tackles threats to public health and our natural environment, supports local economies and enhances quality of life, prevents future releases of hazardous substances, and leads to new advances in science and technology.

Even the Clinton Administration admits the program does not work. One reason for is that, despite expenditures of between $20 billion and $30 billion, Superfund has failed to clean up more than a small fraction of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites.

EPA receives annual appropriations from the trust fund for program activities; since 1981, Superfund appropriations have totaled over $32 billion in nominal dollars, or about $1.2 billion annually.

More than $8.2 billion has been made available in special accounts through the deposit of funds from PRP settlements and interest earned. Approximately $4.7 billion of that amount has been spent on Superfund site cleanups. The balance of $3.5 billion is planned to be used for ongoing or future Superfund cleanup work.

Superfund sites by state The states with the most Superfund sites were New Jersey (113 sites), California (97 sites) and Pennsylvania (95 sites). The states with the fewest Superfund sites were North Dakota (no sites), Nevada (one site) and South Dakota (two sites).

As of June 12, 2019, there were 1344 Superfund sites on the National Priorities List in the United States. Forty-eight additional sites have been proposed for entry on the list. As of June 12, 2019, 413 sites have been cleaned up and removed from the list.

Over 40% of EPA’s total budget is passed through to state, local and tribal governments as grants and low cost loans.

The Superfund trust fund receives money from three major sources annually: • $553 million from petroleum excise taxes; • $273 million from chemical feedstock excise taxes; and • $504 million from environmental income taxes.

About the Hanford (USDOE) Site The 586 square mile Hanford Site is home to one of the largest Superfund cleanups in the nation. Hanford is divided into four National Priorities List (NPL) sites.

In response, Congress established the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) in 1980. CERCLA is informally called Superfund. It allows EPA to clean up contaminated sites.

The Gold King disaster was caused by a contract EPA crew that was checking out the mine for future cleanup work. As they used heavy machinery to peel back a layer of rock and dirt covering the opening — or adit — orange-colored water began spilling out. And then it began gushing out.

Anywhere near the headwaters of the Animas River is worth exploring including the Animas Forks, Cement Creek, and Mineral Creek. There was a lot of gold mined here back in the day, but mostly from hard rock mines. Smaller quantities were sluiced from the river.

The water was a cloudy brown color with bits of suspended, charred debris. Sediment and ash from the 416 Fire piles up along the banks of Hermosa Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. The Animas began the summer with record low water because of drought and a warm winter. … Many western rivers are stressed.

The strongest complaints about Superfund have been that few sites have been cleaned up, too much is spent on lawyers and administrative costs, and cleanups are too costly. These are legitimate complaints, but problems of this sort with government programs are not unusual.

Sixty percent of the nation’s heavily polluted Superfund sites—nearly 950 of them—are at risk from the impacts of climate change, including hurricane storm surges and flooding that could spread their toxic legacies into waterways, communities and farmland, a new federal report warns.

How might superfund sites that have been cleaned up be used in the future? -Camp Pendleton still serves as a military base after its cleanup, and many other superfund sites can be repurposed and made into factories, landfills, and parks.

Proximity to Superfund Sites is the proportion of a neighborhood located within one kilometer or 0.62 miles of a superfund site that was active in 2014. A superfund site is an abandoned hazardous waste site.

Under the Superfund program, the EPA and state agencies use the HRS to calculate a site score (ranging from 0 to 100) based on the actual or potential release of hazardous substances from a site through air, surface water or groundwater.

The federal Superfund program was created in December 1980 in response to serious threats across the country posed by toxic waste sites such as the infamous Love Canal landfill in Niagara Falls, NY.

Super is a way of saving for retirement. Your employer must pay a percentage of your earnings into your super account, and your super fund invests the money until you retire. There are lots of different super funds out there, and different types of accounts.

A SuperSite is an intensive ecosystem observatory set up to examine the status and processes of one of Australia’s many ecosystems. … A SuperSite uses existing and recently deployed environmental monitoring installations to collect comprehensive sets of long-term ecosystem data of high temporal and spatial resolution.

The taxes expired at the end of 1995, however, and the amount of unobligated money in the fund gradually dwindled.

Often collectively referred to as the superfund taxes, Congress imposed excise taxes on domestic crude oil, imported petroleum products and identified chemicals, as well as imported substances comprised of such chemicals.

How many federal contaminated sites are there in Canada? There are 23,078 federal sites listed in the FCSI maintained by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, including 5,337 active contaminated sites and 2,355 suspected sites.

This vapor intrusion then poses further risk to nearby residents, inside of their homes where they would otherwise be inclined to feel safe. Obviously, proximity to a Superfund site is critical; four miles’ distance poses a decreased health risk as compared to a mere forty feet.

Are all Superfund sites dangerous? Yes, and no. The EPA deems many areas as “safe” after cleanup goals are met, such as removing all contaminated earth or pollutants. The EPA’s risk assessment guide says that many areas that have been cleaned up pose “little” risk.

The NPL is intended primarily to guide EPA in determining which sites are so contaminated as to warrant further investigation and significant cleanup. As of 2021, 1322 sites are on the list, and 51 sites have been proposed for listing. 447 sites have been deleted from the list.

The National Priorities List (NPL) is the list of sites of national priority among the known releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants throughout the United States and its territories.

Listed on the NPL: A site that has been proposed to the National Priorities List is “final” when it has been formally added to the National Priorities List.

Highlights of EPA’s FY 2020 enforcement and compliance achievements include: Commitments to reduce, treat, or eliminate over 426 million pounds of pollution, the most in a single year since 2015.

Fiscal YearEnacted BudgetWorkforceFY 2019$8,849,488,00014,172FY 2018$8,824,488,00014,172FY 2017$8,058,488,00015,408FY 2016$8,139,887,00014,779

The following sponsors are parts of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: National Center for Environmental Economics. Office of Air and Radiation. Gulf of Mexico Program.

Chapter 103. Also known as “Superfund,” CERCLA is aimed at cleaning up sites contaminated with hazardous waste, as well as preventing contamination of future sites by assigning liability to parties involved. The liability requires the parties to pay damages for the clean up of the sites.