EPA Releases Annual Superfund Report

Typography
EPA's Superfund program has released its Fiscal Year 2004 Annual Report; outlining the current progress of the Superfund program.

Washington — EPA's Superfund program has released its Fiscal Year 2004 Annual Report.The report outlines the current progress of the Superfund program as theEPA works to increase community participation, strengthen public andprivate partnerships, enhance cleanup effectiveness and consistency inprogram implementation, streamline the enforcement process and optimizethe use of fairness initiatives, encourage beneficial reuse andrevitalization of sites following cleanup and ensure that remediescontinue to protect human health.


Report highlights:
--The Superfund program spent $507 million to perform constructionand post-construction activities and to conduct and oversee emergencyresponse actions.
--EPA obligated $104 million of appropriated funds, state costshare, and responsible party settlement resources for 27 newconstruction projects.


Superfund accomplishments include:
--Completing construction at 40 sites across the country for a totalof 926 sites or 61 percent of the sites on the National Priorities List
--Conducting 678 long-term, ongoing cleanup projects at 428 sites
--Securing $680 million in cleanup commitments and cost recoveriesfrom the private parties responsible for toxic waste sites
--Listing 11 new sites on the National Priorities List, andproposing 26 sites to be listed
--Spending $228 million to conduct and oversee site assessments andinvestigations, selection and design of cleanup plans, support forstate, tribal, community involvement activities, and other activities
--Selecting final cleanup plans at 30 sites, bringing the cumulativetotal of sites with final cleanup plans to approximately 66 percent ofthe 1,529 NPL sites


As the Superfund program matures, the size, complexity and cost of sitesthat are under or ready to begin construction continue to grow. Infiscal year 2004, more than 52 percent of the Superfund obligations forlong-term, ongoing cleanup work were committed to nine sites. Thereport can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/superfund.


Source: EPA