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A Series of Firsts (continued)

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The Challenge of Superfund in 1980

  • Determining the number of sites where potentially significant contamination existed;

  • Assessing who was responsible for the waste;

  • Developing a structure to enforce CERCLA;

  • Determining the contaminants and the quantities dumped;

  • Researching whether the contaminants were migrating away from the dump sites (and in what concentrations, in what directions and how far);

  • Calculating the actual human exposure to contaminants and the potential health risks of such exposure; and

  • Creating technologies to remove or control contaminants.

ASSESSING THE HAZARDS

When EPA's head of waste management, Thomas C. Jorling, testified before Congress in the wake of Love Canal, he admitted that his testimony was based on "very rough data." A lack of definitive data was a theme reiterated in both the House and Senate reports that accompanied the passage of CERCLA. There was enough information available to know that releases of hazardous substances were a serious problem that needed to be addressed, but beyond that, there were major gaps in understanding.

Chemical fire requiring emergency response
Chemical fire requiring emergency response

At the inception of EPA's Superfund program, there was much to be learned about industrial wastes and their potential for causing public health problems. Before this problem could be addressed on the program level, the types of wastes most often found at sites needed to be determined, and their health effects studied. Identifying and quantifying risks to health and the environment for the extremely broad range of conditions, chemicals, and threats at uncontrolled hazardous waste sites posed formidable problems. Many of these problems stemmed from the lack of information concerning the toxicities of the over 65,000 different industrial chemicals listed as having been in commercial production since 1945. This lack of knowledge challenged program development and slowed site cleanup.

Assessing the health effects of chemicals became the responsibility of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which was established by CERCLA. ATSDR's mission was to provide emergency care and testing of persons exposed to toxic chemicals, maintain registries (or long-term health records) of these exposed persons, and establish a data bank of the hundreds of known toxic materials.

DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGIES

In addition to developing a better understanding of chemical hazards, the Nation had to develop new technical capabilities for assessing, and then treating or containing wastes. EPA had little experience with complex cleanups at large toxic waste sites prior to Superfund. Very little was known about exactly how to proceed in preventing the spread of these contaminants into the environment. Technologies had to be created to:



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20 Years of Protecting Human Health and the Environment

 

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