Seven Final, Five Proposed Superfund Sites Announced

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EPA is continuing to make progress in protecting public health, cleaning up the nation's hazardous waste and encouraging economic revitalization and land reuse by adding seven sites and proposing five additional sites to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites.

EPA is continuing to make progress in protecting public health, cleaningup the nation's hazardous waste and encouraging economic revitalizationand land reuse by adding seven sites and proposing five additional sitesto the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites. The siteswere selected because of their degree of risk to human health and tosensitive environments.


A former chlorine manufacturer, a hard rock mine, a commercial grainelevator and an electroplating facility are among the seven new sitesthat will be added to the final list. With the addition of these sevensites, there are now 1,245 final sites on the NPL. With the addition ofthe five newly proposed sites, 62 proposed sites await final Agencyaction: 56 in the general Superfund section of the NPL and 6 in thefederal facilities section. Altogether, there are 1,307 final andproposed sites on the list.


With all Superfund sites, EPA tries to identify and locate the partiespotentially responsible for the contamination. Historically, onaverage, "Potentially Responsible Parties" (PRPs) held responsible forthe contamination agree to initiate or pay for 70 percent of cleanupsstarted each year. For these newly listed sites without viable PRPs,EPA will investigate the full extent of the contamination beforestarting significant clean-up at the site. While it may be several yearsbefore significant clean-up funding is required for these sites,designating these sites now helps ensure the public's safety.


Sites may be placed on the NPL through various mechanisms:


--Numeric ranking established by EPA's Hazard Ranking System;
--Designation by states or territories of one top-priority siteregardless of score;
or,
--Meeting all three following requirements:


1) The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the U.S. Public Health Service has issued a health advisory that recommends removing people from the site;
2) EPA determines the site poses a significant threat to public health; and
3) EPA anticipates it will be more cost-effective to use its remedial authority (available only at NPL sites) than to use its emergency removal authority to respond to the site.


For Federal Register notices and supporting documents for these finaland proposed sites, go to:http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/current.htm


Source: EPA