Superfund: Response or Neglect

According to an article by Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor, Superfund, the governmental clean-up project of hazardous waste sites, is practically bankrupt. Its restoration program started in 1980 to fix the pollution caused by industrialization, and today it has managed to repair 886 sites. Yet this leaves 1,203 places that still need attention, and Superfund is hard pressed to renew all of these. However, there is one weapon that Superfund wields in the form of its government-backed power to force culprits to clean up their own mess. This seems like a straightforward approach, but in many cases responsibility is divided, and more squabbling occurs than restoration. Under other circumstances, the perpetrator is unknown or the corporation responsible becomes bankrupt. For these it is up to federal tax-dollars to compensate for the residue from faulty production, which is why Superfund is broke (Knickerbocker 1-6). Environmental restoration can be fairly complicated, however, much could have and should have been done decades ago for many Superfund sites. Due to the bureaucratic method of governmental operations, much money is spent and little is accomplished.
Marianne Lamont Horinko, an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said, “many of these sites tend to be large, expensive, and complex” (Knickerbocker 2). The main complexity here is how to go about solving the problem. This could not be truer than the example of Onondaga Lake, which has been described as the most polluted lake in the country. With increasing industrialization, the past century has been deleterious to waterways near many production centers. Onondaga was hit harder because of the large amount of waste being dumped into it. AlliedSignal, a chemical company, pumped approximately 1.5 million tons of chemical waste per year into Onondaga Lake at its peak. The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (Metro) has also been dumping large amounts of effluent into the lake. According to Steve Effler, Onondaga Lake “receives more of its water on a percentage basis as domestic effluent than any other lake in the United States.” During times when water from tributaries declines, the effluent being pumped from Metro can be the biggest contributor of water to the lake (Landers 1-4). There were a few other culprits, and in all there are eight subsites to the Onondaga Lake National Priorities List (NPL) site (Proposed Plan of Onondaga Lake Superfund Site).
Cleaning up a waterway does not simply consist of filtering the water. Much has to be done to restore the body of water to the condition it was in before being contaminated. For example, Onondaga Lake started its renewal programs in the 1970s with the institution of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Bans were placed on the production of harmful chemicals, a lawsuit was created against AlliedSignal, upgrades were made to Metro, and studies of pollution effects were undertaken. In the 1980s, the sewage treatment plant was again upgraded and several other industries that contributed to the damage were closed. This continued into the 1990s and today with many more legislative advancements and modifications (Addressing the Problem).
Despite of all of these bureaucratic decisions, the most significant part of the restoration is the actual remedying of the lake. To do this, 2.65 million cubic yards will be dredged, and a thin cap will be placed over 154 acres of lake bottom. This will cost an estimated $451 million (Landers 66-67). According to the article by Brad Knickerbocker, “Superfund no doubt will continue in some form,” and, “Eliminating Superfund is by all accounts politically infeasible, so the main question remains: how to pay for [hazardous waste clean up]” (Knickerbocker 4-5). The real emphasis here could really be the opposite; Superfund is just a small entity in a hierarchy of responsibility appointers, while the clean-up could be easily funded. Beginning with Superfund, the program is simply a subdivision of a subdivision. Whenever an issue arises, the first governmental response is to create or find a committee or program to deal with the problem. Congress created Superfund under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) as a section of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (CERCLA Overview). Superfund works with the Onondaga Lake Partnership (OLP), which initiated the Onondaga Lake Watershed Management Plan (OLWMP) project and intends to create a Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) (Intent To Prepare…). Under OLWMP, CERCLA will cooperate with the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), which is a process conducted by the Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP), a subdivision of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Natural Resource Damage…). Confused? This is just part of the process taken to clean up Onondaga Lake and other hazardous waste sites. In a review by the National Remedy Review Board to the Emergency and Remedial Response Division (more subdivisions of the EPA), twelve recommendations were outlined in response to the Onondaga Lake clean-up effort. Of these suggestions, most asked for increases in communication among groups involved, changes to policy, or creation of more programs and subdivisions. Remedial awareness began in the 1970s, yet Onondaga Lake has yet to be dredged (Landers 66-67). It has been three decades and physical restoration has yet to commence. It sounds as if Superfund and many of the organizations involved are anything but indispensable.
On the other hand, hazardous waste sites are considered a huge dilemma when in reality they are fairly easy to solve. Many companies first built their corporations in areas that had good access to markets and transportation. Those that produced in a non-environmentally safe way have been closed down or bought up, like AlliedSignal. All the federal government needs to do is offer the land and tax breaks to a large company in turn for them funding the clean up. Recognizing the benefit a location may have and the great advantage of several years of tax breaks, companies would flock to these hazardous areas and be only too glad to restore them. The government doesn’t have to spend thirty years and billions of dollars deciding on the best course of action; it can simply do what is does best: pass on responsibility.