Lost momentum

Report says many Superfund sites not being cleaned
By AMANDA BENSEN
Published in The Post-Star (A1) 5/15/07

A new report by the Center for Public Integrity depicts the federal Superfund program as underfunded and sluggish, failing to clean up many of the hazardous waste sites that threaten communities nationwide.

CPI, a Washington-based, nonpartisan, nonprofit group that investigates public policy issues, used data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and interviews with government officials to study the effectiveness of the federal Superfund program.

In a report titled "Wasting Away," researchers concluded that the program has "lost both momentum and funding" since its inception in 1980, especially under the administration of President George W. Bush.

"Nearly half of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of one of the 1,304 active and proposed Superfund sites listed by the EPA," the study stated.

There are four federal Superfund sites in our area: the General Electric-Hudson River PCB site, a former GE plant in Malta where rocket fuels and weapons were tested and made, the Niagara Mohawk coal gasification plant in Saratoga Springs, and the former GE plant in Moreau. There are also numerous state Superfund sites in the region.

The study notes that cleanup work was started at about 145 sites in the past six years, but the startup rate was nearly three times as high in the previous six years.

Similarly, an average of 42 sites a year have reached what the EPA calls the "construction complete" phase of cleanup under the Bush administration, with twice as many sites reaching completion in the previous six years.

Joel Singerman, the EPA's chief remediation officer in central New York, suggested that the slowing rate of cleanups is actually a sign of the program's strength.

"The worst sites were probably captured in the beginning," he said.

New York has the third-most Superfund sites of all U.S. states, with 110 listed and only 23 of those completely cleaned up. Seventy percent of the state's sites contain at least one of what the government ranks as the top five most hazardous chemicals found on Superfund sites: arsenic, lead, mercury, vinyl chloride and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Singerman's division oversees the four sites in Warren, Washington and Saratoga counties that fall under federal Superfund jurisdiction on what is called the National Priorities List. The other 41 hazardous waste sites in this region are supervised by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Superfund program, rather than the EPA.

Taking the 'fund' out of Superfund

The budget for the state Superfund program has risen 25 percent in the last four years, with two-thirds of that funding drawn from "responsible parties," the companies responsible for pollution at specific sites.

But at the federal level, Superfund seems to be drying up. In fact, the fund itself is largely a figure of speech.

It contained $3.8 billion at its peak 11 years ago, but lost its source of revenue in 1995 with the expiration of a law that levied fees and taxes on corporate polluters.

Now, the EPA has only general tax dollars to channel toward the nearly 400 "orphan sites" where no one else has taken responsibility for cleanup work, and those dollars are dwindling.

The EPA's budget for the Superfund program was $1.47 million in 1993, and shrank slightly in nearly every year since then, falling to $1.24 million in fiscal year 2006. That represents a 15 percent decline -- closer to 35 percent when adjusted for inflation.

Elizabeth Sutherland, director of the EPA's Superfund assessment and remediation division, said she disagrees with the CPI's claim that the program is underfunded.

"If you look at the statistics, our budget has stayed constant, relatively speaking, over the years," she said. "Of course, like any big public works project, we could absorb more money."

Singerman agreed that federal funding for the program has diminished, but said that hasn't affected sites in this region so far. He said that's because most of the funding at these sites comes from the polluters, not the government.

"We've been fairly successful in getting responsible parties to do most of the work," he said. "We haven't had to pinch any pennies at these sites, although I can't guarantee it in the future."

Even when the companies responsible for pollution agree to fund cleanups, however, the EPA has to "front the money" for certain oversight costs, Singerman said.

"So if we can't afford to send a contractor to the work, go to meetings, etc., that would be a problem," he said.

On the local level

The most publicized Superfund cleanup in this region is the Hudson River, which had been on the National Priorities List for 23 years before construction began this spring on a facility to process PCB-containing sediment dredged from the riverbottom.

General Electric Co., the company that released the PCBs into the river, is one of the top 12 "potentially responsible parties" linked to the highest number of Superfund sites nationally, according to the Center for Public Integrity's recent study. The study identified 98 sites at which General Electric may be at least partially responsible for pollution, plus 18 which have been cleaned up and de-listed.

Locally, General Electric is linked to three of the four federal Superfund sites, including its plant in Moreau, the Hudson River, and a 165-acre Malta site once used to test and produce rocket fuels and weapons.

Remedies are in the "construction complete" phase in both Moreau and Malta, but treating contaminated groundwater at the sites could take many more years, said Singerman.

"We can't delete a site from the National Priorities List until everything's cleaned up, including the groundwater, and that's not easy," he said. "There are very few sites where we are able to identify and dig up the contamination and be done in a short amount of time."

The Malta site is within the proposed Luther Forest Technology Campus, where Advanced Micro Devices is considering building a major facility.

The EPA's most recent five-year review of remediation efforts at the site recommends that any changes in the land's use should be carefully evaluated, "especially if a facility such as a day-care center is included in the redevelopment plans."

It also notes that developers may need to find off-site potable water supply sources, because new wells are prohibited near a major plume of contaminated groundwater on the site.

The fourth local site is a former Niagara Mohawk coal gasification plant in Saratoga Springs, where the soil was highly contaminated with coal tar and toxic chemicals like benzene and napthalene. It was placed on the National Priorities List in 1990, and construction of a permanent containment wall and groundwater treatment system began in 2001.

Looking forward

If any other hazardous waste sites in the region are added to the list, they are not guaranteed to receive federal funding, said Pat Carr, a regional EPA press officer.

"It's the new cleanups that compete for the dollars," she said, explaining that the EPA's regional offices must compete with each other for federal dollars left over after all ongoing cleanups have been funded for a given year. "So it's possible that there could be a site somewhere that doesn't get funded."

The CPI study asserts that many Superfund cleanups have been completed more slowly than necessary because existing funds are spread too thin among other sites, and sometimes delayed intentionally.

Carr argued that it just isn't realistic to expect each site to be fully funded simultaneously.

"You cannot fund 100 percent of the sites all at once," she said.

Singerman said he would like to see the Superfund program keep shrinking, but not because of budget cuts.

"Hopefully, there's an end," he said. "When you have identified and investigated all the sites, and you're out of work -- then you've been successful."

LOGGING ON:
Center for Public Integrity report: www.publicintegrity.org/superfund
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's listing of federal Superfund sites, searchable by county: http://www.epa.gov/region2/cleanup/sites/
New York Department of Environmental Conservation's listing of state Superfund sites, searchable by county:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/derfoil/index.cfm