Tuesday, March 09, 2004
By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Old lead and copper mines, drinking water wells, and
swampland threatened by contamination are among 11 sites the Environmental
Protection Agency proposed adding to the Superfund program for removing
the nation's worst toxic waste on Monday.
Located in nine states and the territory of Puerto Rico, the sites
exemplify the current trends in what cleanup managers face, EPA
officials said in interviews.
"They're bigger, they're more costly, they're more complex,"
said Thomas Dunne, associate assistant administrator of the EPA's
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, which oversees the
Superfund program.
Since it began in 1980, the Superfund program has addressed 1,518
sites nationwide, Dunne and other EPA officials said. Of those,
278 have been cleaned up and deleted from the list. The other 1,240
remain on the Superfund program's active list.
Among those on the active list, 614 have been cleaned up but not
yet removed from the list because of the need to continue monitoring
of pollution, mostly groundwater contamination. The remaining 626
sites are considered the main, ongoing cleanups, the officials said.
EPA officials usually say cleanups have been completed at 892 sites,
combining those deleted from the list and those where pollution
monitoring continues. The latest figures are from Feb. 1.
The latest proposed sites bring to 65 the number that are considered
as possible additions to the active list, Dunne said.
"They are the worst of the worst, the real turkeys that the
states don't want to touch," Randolph Deitz, an attorney adviser
for Dunne's office, said of the new proposed listings.
But critics said EPA should be adding more sites to the list, not
just proposing their addition, and finishing existing cleanups more
quickly.
"Communities with toxic waste sites know that getting a site
on the list is the first step in getting it cleaned up," said
Julie Wolk, an environmental health advocate for U.S. Public Interest
Research Group, an advocacy organization.
The new sites are:
* Jacobsville Neighborhood Soil Contamination in Evansville, Indiana
* Devil's Swamp in Scotlandville, Louisiana
* Annapolis Lead Mine in Annapolis, Missouri
* Picayune Wood Treating in Picayune, Mississippi
* Grants Chlorinated Solvents Plume in Grants, New Mexico
* Diaz Chemical Corp. in Holley, New York
* Peninsula Boulevard Groundwater Plume in Hewlett, New York
* Ryeland Road Arsenic in Heidelberg Township, Pennsylvania
* Cidra Ground Water Contamination in Cidra, Puerto Rico
* Pike Hill Copper Mine in Corinth, Vermont
* Ravenswood PCE Ground Water Plume in Ravenswood, West Virginia.
Source: Associated Press
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