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The
number of sites, the costs and the need grow, as Bush guts the program
By
Bonnie Gestring
for Headwaters News
The situation is grim. Nearly 200 people have died, and hundreds
more have been diagnosed with fatal illnesses due to asbestos exposure
from the W.R. Grace mine.
The place is Libby, Mont., America's newest Superfund site.
Established in 1980, Superfund was created for sites like this --
sites that present an imminent threat to public health and the environment.
Libby joins the ranks of 1,222 other Superfund sites in the nation
desperately in need of cleanup. In fact, the Natural Resources Defense
Council estimates that one in four people in the United States lives
near a Superfund site.
And the list is growing. A study financed by Congress estimates
that over the next 10 years, 230 to 490 new Superfund sites could
be added, contributing upwards of $14 billion to Superfund costs.
The need for Superfund couldn't be clearer. Yet, the Bush administration,
in its blind allegiance to industry, is rapidly pulling the legs
out from under this vital program.
Since its inception, Superfund was funded by a tax on industry under
the "polluter pays" principle. It operated this way through
the business-friendly Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.
In 1995, however, Congress let the tax expire due to pressure from
the oil and chemical industries. Since that time, the Superfund
balance has dropped precipitously, from $3.8 billion in 1996 to
a projected $23 million in 2003.
By 2004, all reserves will be gone, and the cost of cleaning up
the country's most toxic waste sites will shift over to the American
taxpayer.
Despite this funding crisis, President Bush chose not to reauthorize
the tax last year, and his 2003 proposed budget states that he won't
reauthorize the tax next year either.
The president's concerns? Not the environment. Not the American
taxpayer. Not public health. Not even the children who are daily
exposed to toxic substances.
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Administration
encourages Superfund critics
By
Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
May 29, 2002
The Bush administration didn't invent opposition to
Superfund cleanups, but its attitude toward industrial pollutants,
particularly mining waste, arguably catalyzed the reaction across
the West.
In New Mexico, critics say Phelps-Dodge was emboldened enough by
the prevailing sentiment to ask New Mexico state officials to ease
a tax that ensures cleanup and reclamation at mine sites, with company
officials promising the firm wouldn't neglect its public duties.
In Arizona, the state
Superfund program spent 16 years and $33 million wading through
a legal tangle of identifying responsible companies, without ever
cleaning one site. This year, when advocates say the legal battles
were nearly over and work was ready to begin, state lawmakers cut
$10 million from the budget and are eyeing a $15 million cut next
year.
Gov. Jane Hull has proposed adding $10 million back next year, and
supporters are summoning up the specter of calling in the EPA, if
lawmakers balk.
Federal Superfund cleanups have been halved under the Bush administration,
according to a report by Montana Public Interest Research Group,
which said Christine Whitman's EPA asked for $1.4 billion less than
estimates say the agency will need to clean up the nation's worst
sites.
The study didn't include asbestos cleanup in Libby, since it had
yet to be formally added to the Superfund list, but it said the
Libby project could be particularly vulnerable to funding cuts because
of the enormity of the effort and expense.
The report said nine of 13 Superfund sites in Montana could expect
delayed or curtailed cleanup under administration plans.
Meanwhile, the EPA again noted that Nevada, Utah and Arizona were
the top
three states in the nation for the release of toxic pollutants
in 2000, a distinction the agency attributed to hardrock mining.
They have topped the list each year since 1998, when the EPA started
counting mining wastes in the annual report.
A Nevada environmental group asked the state Division of Environmental
Protection to add at
least 40 streams and rivers across the state to its Clean Water
Act list of impaired waters, all polluted by mining activity, the
group said. The list included, as one example, Steamboat Creek near
Reno, allegedly contaminated with mercury used at gold and silver
mills in the late 1800s.
But nowhere has the reaction
been as intense as in north Idaho, where the EPA wants to extend
the 21-square mile Bunker Hill Superfund site to include the entire
Coeur d'Alene basin to the Washington border, and where the Bush
administration fanned opposition by transferring an ombudsman critical
of the agency.
Area businesses and local officials are trying to rebuild an economy
that depended on now-closed mines, and they say a budding high-tech
sector will wilt under a Superfund label.
And company loyalty is still potent among residents, who see no
need to clean up tailings piles and contaminated lawns, although
local kids once had the highest levels of lead in their blood ever
recorded.
In January, a handful of residents filed
suit against mining companies for poisoning the air and water.
By February, both supporters and detractors of an expanded Superfund
project had launched antagonistic
public relations campaigns.
A week later, Idaho's
congressional delegation weighed in, with members saying they
were suspicious of the EPA's studies that justified a broader cleanup
and calling for a review by the National Academy of Sciences.
Most of the towns in the Silver Valley filed suit against the EPA
to stop designation of a bigger Superfund site.
Laced through the events were the EPA ombudsman's charges that he
and his investigator were being placed under the thumb of administration
officials to
quell their criticism of the cleanup at Bunker Hill and other
sites across the country.
Ombudsman Robert Martin's complaints were loud and public, and found
sympathetic ears among north Idaho residents and politicians.
Martin has since resigned, the cities have dropped their suit against
the EPA for lack of money and support, and the agency still has
yet to announce its final decision.
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