(
ATLANTA - December 11, 2013) The E.P.A. (EPA) has added 2 and suggested one new hazardous waste location in the southeast that pose risks to human health and the environment to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites. Superfund is the federal plan that investigates and cleans up the most complex uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the law establishing the Superfund program, requires E.P.A. to update the NPL at least annually and clean up hazardous waste sites to protect human health with the goal of returning them to communities for productive use. A site's listing neither imposes a financial obligation on E.P.A. nor assigns liability to any party. Updates to the NPL do, however, provide policymakers with a list of high priority sites, serving to identify the size and nature of the nation's cleanup challenges.
The Superfund plan has provided important benefits for people and the environment since Congress established the plan in 1980.Those benefits are both direct and indirect, and include reduction of threats to human health and ecological systems in the vicinity of Superfund sites, improvement of the economic conditions and quality of life in communities affected by hazardous waste sites, prevention of future delivers of hazardous substances, and advances in science and technology.
By eliminating or reducing real and perceived health risks and environmental contamination associated with hazardous waste sites, Superfund actions frequently convert contaminated land into productive local resources and increase local property values. A recent study conducted by researchers at Duke and Pittsburgh Universities concluded that, while a site's suggestion to the NPL reduces property values slightly, making a location final on the NPL begins to increase property values surrounding Superfund sites. Furthermore, the study found that, once a location has all cleanup remedies in place, surrounding properties have a significant increase in property values as compared to pre-NPL suggestion values.
Since 1983, E.P.A. has listed 1,694 sites on the NPL. At 1,147 or 68 percent of NPL sites, all cleanup remedies are in place. Approximately 645 or 38 percent of NPL sites have all necessary long-term protections in place, which means E.P.A. considers the sites protective for redevelopment or reuse.
The following sites in the Southeast have been added to the National Priorities List:
• Cristex Drum (former fabric mill) in Oxford, N.C.;
• Hemphill Road TCE (former chemical drum recycling) in Gastonia, N.C.;
The following location in the Southeast has been suggested to the National Priorities List:
• Walker Machine Products, Incorporated (former machine screw products manufacturer) in Collierville, Tenn.;
With all NPL sites, E.P.A. 1st work to identify companies or people responsible for the contamination at a site, and requires them to conduct or pay for the cleanup. For the newly listed sites without viable potentially responsible parties, E.P.A. will investigate the full extent of the contamination before starting significant cleanup at the site. Therefore, it may be several years before significant E.P.A. clean up backing is required for these sites.
Federal Register notices and supporting documents for the final and suggested sites:
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/current.htm
Information about how a location is listed on the NPL:
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/npl_hrs.htm
Superfund sites in local communities:
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/index.htm
More information about the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the law establishing the Superfund program, can be found at:
http://epa.gov/superfund/policy/cercla.htm
Connect with E.P.A. Region four on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/eparegion4
And on Twitter: @USEPASoutheast
