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December 8, 2005
When the EPA designates a Superfund site as "human exposure not under control," it means that contamination has been detected at a site at an unsafe level, and the possibility exits that humans may come into contact with the contamination, and the contamination has not been treated, stabilized, or contained well enough to prevent human exposure to contamination. The report, based on Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) most recent data, finds that human exposure to health-threatening chemicals is not under control at 149 Superfund sites. Further, migration of groundwater pollution is not under control at 226 Superfund sites. See the Sierra Club's report Superfund's 25th Anniversary: Hundreds of Toxic Waste Sites Continue to Threaten Health and Water Supplies
September 30, 2004 Today marks the one-year anniversary of the bankruptcy of the Superfund Trust Fund. One year ago, the Superfund Trust Fund ran out of polluter-contributed funds, and American taxpayers are now shouldering the costs of the entire program. In 1995, Congress failed to renew the taxes which funded the trust fund, shifting the burden of financing cleanups to taxpayers and away from polluters. The Bush administration is the first since the Superfund program began not to support the polluter-pays principle. Once the Bush administration refused to honor that principle, they stopped holding big oil and chemical companies accountable for the messes they made. While polluters may no longer have to pay to clean up the messes they leave in communities, the price tag on clean-ups has jumped dramatically: from $300 million in 1995 to more than a billion dollars this year -- a jump of more than 300 percent. And without sufficient funding, site cleanups are slowing down. This year an estimated 46 sites in 27 states will not be funded or will be inadequately funded. Across the country, important cleanups will not be funded, and the health risks persist for our families and communities. The polluting companies who left this toxic mess in our backyard should be cleaning it up, not taxpayers. The Bush administration needs to realize that it’s time to stop putting polluters before the public. To find out how much taxpayers in your state are paying for the Superfund program, please see our factsheet. July 27, 2004 HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
In Fiscal Year 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed new indicators to gauge progress in the Superfund program. EPA cleanup officials at Superfund sites must report annually and more frequently if warranted, on the potential for human exposure to Superfund site contamination and on whether groundwater pollution at the site is under control. The EPA's own data show that hundreds of Superfund sites pose threats to people's health and the safety of groundwater supplies.