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Superfund turns 25 in California
As the Superfund law celebrates its 25th anniversary this week, it is a good time to reflect on the program’s history and in particular look at some of the success stories we have right here in California. The law was created in 1980 to address the thousands of abandoned, uncontrolled hazardous waste sites across the country that were contaminating our land and soil. Since then, the EPA has cleaned up – or overseen the cleanup of – hundreds of sites nationwide. In 2004 we removed Love Canal in upstate New York, the site that many believe led to the creation of Superfund, from the national priorities list of sites.
In California, many of the industries that have driven the state economy all the way back to the Gold Rush have also left us with our biggest cleanup challenges. There are 103 Superfund sites throughout the state, ranging from abandoned mines to former semiconductor manufacturing plants in Silicon Valley to closed military installations. We have removed immediate health threats at every site in the state, and currently have soil and/or groundwater cleanup systems in place or planned for the remaining contamination. In Silicon Valley, for example, we have cleaned up soil at all of the 15 sites, but groundwater cleanup systems will continue for years in the future.
At the Iron Mountain Mine outside of Redding, we have reduced the amount of heavy metals and acid mine drainage flowing into the headwaters of the Sacramento River by nearly one ton a day, nearly a 95 percent reduction. Complementing our long-term cleanup program is an emergency response unit that mobilizes on a moment’s notice to address everything from oil spills to tire fires to national emergencies.
Earlier this year, staff from our offices in San Francisco removed more than one million radium dials from a facility in North Hollywood, and also dispatched nearly 100 people to the Gulf Coast to assist in the hurricane aftermath.
In California, in particular, we maintain an extraordinarily high success rate in making the polluters pay for the cleanup instead of having to dip into the federal “Superfund.” Responsible parties are funding the cleanups of nearly 80 percent of our sites, compared to the national average of 66 percent. And in the cases where we have used federal funding to get progress started rather than waiting for lawsuits to be settled, we have recouped most of the money we spent. In the past year we have reached settlements with polluters that have secured $78.5 million for the Newmark Site in San Bernardino and $44 million for a crucial groundwater cleanup in the San Gabriel Valley.
In those cases where the “little guy” may get caught up in the liability scheme, we have offered settlements that fairly account for an entity’s contribution and its ability to pay. We have offered hundreds of “de minimis” and “de micromis” settlements to small businesses over the past decade in order to let small contributors cash out early rather than getting entangled in future lawsuits. These smaller settlements have helped continue cleanups at the Casmalia Site in Central California and the Stringfellow Site in Southern California.
We have progressed far enough in our cleanups to now start focusing on redevelopment opportunities for many properties that were once seemingly written off for good. We are working closely with the Department of Defense and local communities to free up portions of former military bases that, while listed as Superfund sites, have plenty of clean property to shave off and reuse. And we maintain a robust brownfields program for the hundreds of sites in California alone that have sat idle due to real or even perceived contamination. Brownfields funding has helped revitalize downtown areas in cities such as Emeryville, West Hollywood and Stockton, where the city built a beautiful plaza atop an old stagnant canal.
(R) Weber Block in downtown Stockton after completion of redevelopment.
Today we celebrate a milestone for a law that has helped improve public health and the environment in California and across the country. We still have many challenges ahead of us, including large groundwater contamination cleanups and perchlorate contamination. But our successes in eliminating health risks, getting polluters to pay for their damages and our early redevelopment projects bode well for the future.
For more information on Superfund in California, see Region 9's Superfund site.