Superfund Under Trump 2.0 — Quick … and Dirty?

A tank removal at the Industriplex Federal Superfund Site in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 2009. Photo: Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).

TipSheet: Superfund Under Trump 2.0 — Quick … and Dirty?

By Joseph A. Davis

The quickest and easiest way to clean dirt off your floor? Sweep it under the rug.

That seems to be the Superfund toxic waste cleanup strategy under Trump 2.0’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With emphasis on quick.

There are currently about 1,342 contaminated sites on the EPA’s Superfund National Priority List. These are the worst of the worst. There’s at least one in almost every state. 

The EPA estimates that some 78 million people live within three miles of a Superfund site. That’s almost a quarter of the U.S. population. There are many more not on the list. 

Bottom line: Superfund is crucial to the community of many environmental journalists.

 

Why it matters

Superfund sites contain a wide variety of hazardous materials — not only toxic, but sometimes corrosive or flammable. 

All of them can hurt people, more so when they seep into drinking water. 

Historically, there were few to no state or federal laws forbidding the disposal of those hazardous materials in places where they could poison or harm people. 

They might have been buried in unstable terrain, or left in 55-gallon drums that would rust and leak. This happened for decades.

 

The backstory

The Superfund story began with Love Canal. Starting in the 1940s, the Hooker Chemical Company had used the upstate New York site as a dump for harmful chemical wastes. Then it was covered over, and a housing development was built on top of it. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, people living there got sick with diseases like leukemia. Eventually, the health harms were traced to the toxic wastes mobilized by shallow groundwater. Neighbors organized and demanded help.

 

Superfund law held hazardous

waste dumpers strictly liable

for the damages they had caused.

 

Finally, in 1980, Congress passed the Superfund law to deal with similar problems all over the U.S. That law held hazardous waste dumpers strictly liable for the damages they had caused. Once those “responsible parties” were identified, victims and governments could go after them in court to recover cleanup costs. 

In cases where danger was immediate, the EPA could step in and do immediate stabilization of the site. This was called “removal,” although it was rarely so simple as merely trucking away some drums. This was paid for by the multibillion-dollar Superfund, which was originally paid for by a tax on petrochemical companies. What followed was a complex array of lawsuits against (and between) companies.

Although normally the cleanups have been slow, the EPA under Trump 1.0 and 2.0 has made a big deal over efforts to speed the process up. One worry that has arisen is that faster cleanups will be superficial, temporary and less clean.

 

Story ideas

• Using the EPA’s National Priorities List, find sites of interest in your area. How have they affected people? When did cleanup start and how long is it taking?
• How are Superfund sites near you affecting people? Do they feel it’s making them sick? What do doctors and scientists say about that?
• What has happened to the cleanup schedule at your sites under the two Trump administrations (or the Biden administration, in between)?
• Is your Superfund site in a coastal area or an area prone to flooding? How have recent floods affected it? Have toxic substances gotten into the water?
• How has the inclusion of your site on the NPL affected property values? Has this caused people to be hesitant about including it?
• Will your cleaned-up Superfund site require ongoing maintenance? (That could include groundwater monitoring.) How will this be ensured and paid for?
• What have the responsible parties at your site done to help or hinder the cleanup?

 

Reporting resources

• EPA: The agency runs the Superfund program and may be good for some statistics. But expect spin from the press office. You may have better luck with your regional office.
• North American Hazardous Materials Management Association: Essentially, a professional association composed of professionals who manage and clean up hazardous waste sites.
• State agencies: Every state has an agency to handle hazardous waste administration. See a list here.
• Center for Health, Environment & Justice: The group founded by Lois Gibbs, who organized neighbors at the original Love Canal site that inspired the Superfund law. It was renamed, but still supports community groups confronting hazardous waste issues.
• Community advisory groups: The law requires many Superfund sites to have a community advisory group. If you can talk to members or go to meetings, you can learn a lot. Start with the list here (click down for your region, although it does not link directly to the groups themselves). Find more info here.

[Editor’s Note: For more, see Toolboxes on toxic “brownfields” and on using cancer registries when reporting on toxic hot spots. Also check out stories on using data sources to track climate-driven mayhem at Superfund sites, on how extreme weather amplifies hazardous waste threats and on whether there is a post-flood “toxic stew” near you. Plus, see Superfund-related stories from the first Trump administration here, here and here, along with a look at the connection with environmental justice. EJToday also has the latest headlines on Superfund and hazardous waste.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 11, No. 5. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.