Superfund National Accomplishments Summary Fiscal Year 2003

In Fiscal Year 2003, the Superfund program applied its resources to address cleanup priorities that would protect human health and the environment, including responding to environmental emergencies across the nation. Superfund leveraged additional resources and worked with partners and communities to maximize cleanup efforts.

Superfund spent $434 million to construct remedies and conduct emergency response actions, including:

$219 million to support 67 ongoing construction projects
$43 million to start 9 new construction projects
$28 million to support 43 long-term response actions
$2 million to conduct196 reviews to determine whether remedies remained protective of human health and the environment (including federal facilities)
$142 million to conduct or oversee 381 emergency response and removal actions to address imminent and substantial threats to communities

Superfund accomplishments included:

Completed work at 40 sites across the country for a total of 886 or 58% of the NPL
Conducted 699 on-going cleanup projects at 436 sites
Increased by 28 the number of National Priorities List (NPL) sites where controls are in place to prevent unacceptable human exposure to site contaminants.
Controls are now in place to prevent unacceptable human exposure at 82% of NPL sites
Increased by 54 the number of NPL sites where controls are in place to prevent the spread of contaminants via groundwater.
Controls are now in place at over 65% of NPL sites with contaminated groundwater

Superfund prepared for future cleanup efforts:

Listed 20 new sites on the NPL, and proposed 14 sites for listing
Obligated $28.9 million to conduct 1,374 site assessments
Obligated an additional $203 million for various pre-construction and support activities, including investigating and assessing the extent of contamination, selecting and designing cleanup approaches, overseeing work done by responsible parties, and support provided to States, Tribes, and Communities

Superfund responded to a variety of environmental emergencies, including the space shuttle Columbia disaster. With 130 Federal, State, and local partners, Superfund:

Recovered more than 82,500 pieces of shuttle debris, or almost 40 percent of the total dry weight of the shuttle
Removed shuttle material from all Texas and Louisiana schools within the first four days of the disaster
Covered more than 2.28 million acres in ground, water and air searches

Superfund supported community site reuse efforts:

Superfund awarded the first Ready for Reuse Determination (RfR) to the Tex Tin site, bringing increased environmental and economic benefits to the Texas City, TX, community.

Superfund supported the "polluter pays" principle:

Although the Fiscal Year 2003 Enforcement numbers are currently undergoing quality control and quality assurance, data collected over the past seven years indicate, on average, 70 percent long term cleanups are paid for or performed each year by parties held responsible for the contamination. We have every reason to believe the Fiscal Year 2003 enforcement numbers will be consistent with this.

Disclaimer: These data represent a "snapshot in time" and future numbers may change based on data quality reviews, updates, corrections and changes to report select logic.

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Superfund National Accomplishments Summary Fiscal Year 2003

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