There have been few environmental problems that have posed the same level of
concern as that of the hazardous waste issue. Similarly, few environmental laws
have caused the level of frustration as that felt towards Superfund, the main
legislative tool that was designed to address the public fears in regards to
hazardous waste. Superfund is a law that was passed in 1980. It is formally
known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act, or CERCLA. It established a special fund called the Superfund Trust Fund as
a pot of money, 1.6 billion over 5 years, which was originally planned to
finance the clean up of some 400 sites. Today, Superfund has grown into one of
the nations largest environmental projects with over 30 billion being spent on
over 1200 sites. The EPA, with the aid of state and tribal governments, is the
agency charged with implementing and enforcing the Superfund Program. Since the
Superfund was designed to be used for abandoned sites where the responsible
parties are unknown or bankrupt, the EPA makes every effort to identify the
parties responsible for the contamination so they can be held liable for the
costs of the cleanup. Superfund sites are discovered by local and state agencies
performing inspections, businesses, the EPA, the Coast Guard or anybody else who
takes the initiative to report a potentially hazardous waste site to the
National Hotline Number. When sites are identified the EPA must decide if it
requires an emergency response, an early action, or a long-term action. EPA
Overview/Analysis of Superfund uses a scorecard method called the Hazard Ranking
System (HRS) to determine the level of danger in a hazardous waste site. If the
site requires immediate action to eliminate serious risk to human health or the
environment, it will be dealt with as an emergency response. If a site poses a
threat in the near future, an early action will be enacted to contain the risk.
Typically, Early Action goals are to; prevent direct human contact with
contaminants from the site; remove hazardous materials from the site; prevent
contaminants from spreading off the site; provide water to residents whose
drinking water has been contaminated by the site; or temporarily or permanently
evacuate and, if necessary, relocate nearby residents. Early actions can last
from a few days up to 5 years. If a site has been polluted for many years, it
may take a few years to decades to cleanup. For sites such as these, Long-Term
Actions are taken which include restoring ground water and taking measures to
protect wetlands, estuaries, and other ecological resources. The people
responsible for contamination areas are referred to as Potentially Responsible
Parties (PRPs). The EPA has many ways of identifying PRPs. EPA investigators
review site files kept by Federal, state and local agencies, review land deeds
and titles at the local courthouse, look for names on drums or other hazardous
materials at the site, and interview employees, former employees or neighbors of
the site. When a responsible party is found, they can be used to find other
responsible parties. Once the parties are identified, the EPA generates
information request letters to get further information concerning the PRPs
ability to pay for the cleanup action. Overview/Analysis of Superfund Analysis
The Superfund program is without question a necessity that, even if having met
none of its intended goals, has managed to enhance the awareness of the
responsible parties of hazardous waste sites. For that alone it as been of great
value in reducing the occurrence of hazardous waste sites which would have
previously developed as a result of environmental ignorance But, as an effective
tool for cleanup, it's not as successful as had been hoped. The two major
complaints of Superfund are the enormous costs and the long delays in processing
a site for cleanup. As of 1996, only about 200 of the 1200 sites listed on the
National Priority List had been completely cleaned up and with a cost average of
$30 million and 12 years per site. One of the chief reasons for Superfund's
exploding costs is the free-for-all pursuit of responsible parties allowed by
the act. Superfund calls for retroactive liability, meaning that corporate
practices that might have been perfectly legal, fully permitted and safe under
the law years ago can now be punished retroactively. Potentially Responsible
Parties are defined under the law as, (1) those who own or operate a site; (2)
owned or operated a site at the time of the disposal of wastes; (3) arranged for
disposal, treatment, or transportation of waste; or (4) accepted waste for
transport. As a result of the law, the courts have interpreted Superfund as
meaning that any party that ever touched the waste, no matter how slight their
involvement or minor the amount, can be held liable for the full cost of
remediation. As a result, lawyers, consultants, private investigators, and
administrative overhead has consumed enormous quantities Overview/Analysis of
Superfund of Superfund dollars. It is estimated that these administrative costs
eat up as much as 35% of the corporate Superfund expenditures, 88% of insurance
company Superfund expenditures and 50% of public Superfund expenditures. In the
last 15 years attorneys who specialized in environmental litigation nationwide
have grown from 2,000 to 18,000. Another problem with Superfund is the Hazard
Ranking System. With preliminary assessments and associated investigations
taking an average of 4 years to complete, it's no surprise that thousands of
sites are still pending determination as to health risk. In addition to the
excessive lag-time involving site assessment, when sites are assessed through
the HRS system, the single most hazardous substance located at a sites used to
score the toxicity for all the contaminants at the entire site. For example, in
South Carolina, the EPA took two surface and more than 20 subsurface soil
samples of a site. The most contaminated sample of the approximately 30 which
were taken was used to calculate the soil exposure pathway in the HRS. Dr.
Richard Goodwin, who is a private environmental engineer in New Jersey and who
has been involved in over 20 cleanup operations was quoted as saying:"Does
it make sense to spend millions of dollars cleaning up a site that only has a
tenth of an ounce of contamination? I say no. All we're doing in most cases is
throwing money at a problem without improving public health or the environment.
Overview/Analysis of Superfund The need for the Superfund will never go away as
long as the means exists for man to create hazardous wastes. But, as important
as having a program designed to enhance our health and environment, is the need
to ensure its effectiveness.