"EPA Chief Trumpeting ‘Misleading’ Superfund Metrics, Critics Say"

"The EPA is touting the number of contaminated Superfund sites removed from its priority list—even as newly proposed sites and sites awaiting funding continue to pile up.

In public remarks in recent months, Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has touted the number of deleted or delisted sites, many of which will be finalized in the Federal Register on Wednesday. In the Superfund process, sites that need cleanup are added to the National Priorities List, then removed from the list once the construction of the remedy is completed.

Critics of the EPA’s measures of success for toxic cleanups say Wheeler is claiming the efforts of other administrations as his own because Superfund cleanups take decades to bring to fruition. That’s happening even as there are more potentially toxic sites, and sites that need federal funding to start cleanup, they say."

Sylvia Carignan reports for Bloomberg Environment September 30, 2020.

Source: Bloomberg Environment, 09/30/2020