The number of sites, the costs and the need grow, as Bush guts Superfund

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.

EPA Administrator Christine Whitman recently explained to a House Appropriations Subcommittee that Bush's concerns were for industry.

"One of the concerns I know the president has had about the way the Superfund tax is imposed is that it's not all on the polluters," says Whitman. "It is on everyone in an industry, so that even those that have the best of environmental records are also paying."

Hmmm. While we all scratch our heads over the idea that shifting industrial cleanup costs from industry to the taxpayer is somehow more equitable, the funding deficit is rapidly being felt across the country. A recent report by U.S. PIRG demonstrates that the pace of Superfund cleanups has dropped by almost half under the Bush administration. This year, U.S. PIRG estimates that 255 of the 671 Superfund sites analyzed by the organization could experience cleanup delays due to funding cuts.

On the ground, these delays translate to very real public health concerns and increased environmental degradation. At the Midnite uranium mine in Washington, designated a Superfund site in 2000, acid mine drainage contaminates ground-water resources and uranium provides a constant source of low-grade radiation to the Spokane Indians whose reservation encompasses the mine.

'Every day of delay is another day in which some community members suffer additional asbestos exposure. Every day is another day our community struggles with the overwhelming costs of medical expenses.'

No one yet knows what the health impacts are to this subsistence-based community. Yet, the EPA recently informed the tribe that the human health risk assessment planned this year will not be completed due to funding limitations.

At the Bunker Hill Superfund site and Coeur d'Alene Basin in north Idaho, cleanup costs are estimated at anywhere from $300 million to a staggering $3 billion, and the EPA has determined that 16 percent of preschool children assessed in the Coeur d'Alene Basin have excess blood lead levels.

ASARCO and Hecla Mining, two of the primary companies responsible for the mining waste at this site, have both threatened bankruptcy. Soon, the American taxpayer will be faced with a mountain of cleanup costs that Congress will be in no hurry to fund.

To make matters worse, the EPA's Whitman recently announced the formation of an internal panel to consider alternatives to listing contaminated mining sites as Superfund sites, given the program's funding woes and the huge cost to taxpayers.

Instead, she claims that the agency will "explore a variety of creative funding approaches." The administration will have to be creative indeed to find funding that doesn't originate from taxpayers or industry. In the end, this reeks of yet another attempt to prolong cleanup and relieve polluters of their responsibilities.

Even local citizens' ability to question or challenge Superfund cleanup decisions has been undermined. In April, EPA Ombudsman Robert Martin resigned after Whitman transferred his once-independent position to the EPA Inspector General's Office.

Martin wrote, "By obliterating the independent ombudsman function, you have deprived the American people and the Congress of a valuable means ... to keep the EPA true to its mission of protecting human health and the environment and to be accountable to American communities."

Bush's backward Superfund policy is fundamentally wrong. Following his philosophy, the taxpayers pay more. Polluters pay less. Affected citizens have less voice in the process. And American families, often many of the poorest in the country, remain exposed to toxic substances.

Ironically, at a time when homeland security is the latest political buzzword, families in Libby and other toxic Superfund sites are less secure in their homes than they've ever been.

The Superfund Citizens Advisory Group in Libby, a bipartisan group of local politicians, businesspeople, school administrators and public health care advocates, sees the writing on the wall. The group recently wrote a letter to Montana's congressional delegation urging the delegation and the Bush administration to reauthorize the Superfund tax.

Their letter said, "The asbestos contamination resulting from W.R. Grace's mine and related milling and refining operations has resulted in devastating loss of life in Libby and pervasive lung illnesses among hundreds of Montana citizens. Every day of delay is another day in which some community members suffer additional asbestos exposure. Every day is another day our community struggles with the overwhelming costs of medical expenses. It is unconscionable that we, as taxpayers, be burdened with cleanup costs. It is clear that a consistent funding source, based on the "polluter pays" principle is needed and appropriate."

I couldn't agree more. Superfund provides a safety net for American communities and the environment. It is needed now more than ever.

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