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SUPERFUND: FOCUSING ON THE NATION AT LARGE
Citation:
U.S. EPA. SUPERFUND: FOCUSING ON THE NATION AT LARGE. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/540/8-90/009, 1990.
Impact/Purpose:
to inform the public
Description:
In 1986 Congress enacted sweeping amendments to the nation's law to cleanup abandoned hazardous waste sites. Two years later Administrator Reilly set a course for the Superfund program designed to improve the program's performance and to increase the role of the private sector in paying for cleanup. As a result of these actions, Superfund has dramatically increased its success. Cleanup has been initiated at nearly half,the sites that are a national priority. Thousands of emergency actions have been taken around the country to make sites safe. In the past two years, the Federal effort has been augmented by more than $2 billion in cleanup by responsible parties. Responsible parties are now actively engaged at 60% of the national priority sites. After a decade of work, the program can report substantial environmental progress in cleaning up sites. The following six goals provide the direction for the Superfund program: 1. Making sites safer: Control the imminent threats immediately and address the worst problems at sites first. 2. Make sites cleaner: Accelerate and improve long-term cleanup action at sites. 3. Strengthen enforcement and maximize responsible party work at sites. 4. Bring innovative technologies to bear when cleaning up Superfund sites. 5. Implement an aggressive program of community involvement. 6. Communicate progress to the public. It is in the spirit of presenting a realistic picture of progress at Superfund sites that this publication was developed. Superfund: Focusing on the Nation at Large, explains the progress and the challenges facing both those of us who clean up hazardous waste sites and those of you who live near one. This publication describes those sites that are deemed to be of national priority and have been placed on the National Priorities List (NPL). It provides information on the types of sites on the NPL, and portrays the progress of each site as it approaches construction of long-term cleanup remedies. It also provides, for the first time, evidence of environmental improvement at 422 NPL sites nationwide. This national summary publication is supplemented by individual State books that provide information on the cleanup status and environmental progress on each of 1,236 sites on the National Priorities List. EPA intends to update both the site information sheets and the national status information each year.