No matter the state, the town in which you live, you and your neighbors all have a story of the place closest to you that you talk about with disgust, the place that is an eyesore to you and your neighbors, the abandoned place that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the picturesque landscape. The place you tell children and tourists to stay away from. The place with a nauseating smell that fills you with worry as you breathe in the air around you or the place that has made you and your family sick, reduced your home to a wasteland, or even reduced your town to a deserted shell of what it once was. Whether or not you know these nuisances by your home to be Superfund sites or brownfields, estimates suggest that there are over 500,000 brownfield sites, and over 1,800 sites designated as Superfund Sites. Suddenly, the place that you viewed as just an eyesore has transformed into something much more dangerous.
A Superfund site, as defined by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in which it was coined, is a site where hazardous materials threaten the environment and/or public health. While under CERCLA, the goal of listing Superfund sites is to remediate and clean up extensively damaged areas and hold the responsible parties legally accountable. Brownfields differ from Superfund sites in the degree of contamination. While brownfields may be a nuisance, they are perceived as less contaminated than Superfund sites and there is no legal mechanism in place to assure that they are cleaned up. In tandem with CERCLA, The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is a law that creates the framework for the proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste while also creating and defining RCRA sites as sites that are “Not in full use, where there is redevelopment potential, and where reuse or redevelopment of that site is slowed due to real or perceived concerns about actual or potential contamination.” Brownfield sites and RCRA areas are not held to the same standards of cleanup and accountability as Superfund sites and are rarely if ever, cleaned up much less reused. In 2018 alone, the Environmental Protection Agency has deleted or partially deleted 22 sites from the National Priorities List, which is the largest number of deletions in more than a decade. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, independent research found that “Residential property values within three miles of Superfund sites increased 19 to 24 percent when sites are cleaned up and deleted from Superfund’s National Priorities List.” Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund Redevelopment Initiative claims that over their data on 450 sites currently in reuse, these sites “Supported more than 6,600 businesses that employed more than 155,000 people earning in excess of $11 billion in annual employment income.” The Environmental Protection Agency claims that not only are former Superfund sites being reused, but the communities on these sites are thriving. The 22 sites partially or fully delisted this year span across 16 states, but several of the delisted sites have been listed for 10 years or less, so despite their apparent success and regrowth, Does delisting these sites mean that they are truly clean and safe for reuse?
The above map is a representation of Superfund sites, brownfields, and RCRA sites that are listed by the Environmental Protection Agency as of 2013. Not only is there not one state that lacks a contaminated site but for many states and communities, living within a close radius to a Superfund site, a brownfield, or RCRA site is commonplace whether or not you know these sites are there. Moreover, Among the Environmental Protection Agency’s two-year priority goals that are listed the 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, The Environmental Protection Agency intends to make an additional 102 Superfund sites and 1,368 brownfields sites available for reuse by September of 2019. As the amount of Superfund sites, brownfields, and RCRA sites increase yearly, and pollution begins to infest the last clean landscapes and communities, Where, if anywhere, can you be safe from pollution? And How can you protect your community from becoming a Superfund site or a brownfield? Many panicked residents turn to the government and its agencies to hold companies accountable for the damage they’ve done. But, What can communities do when they can’t rely on the government or its agencies to protect them from environmental harm? To date, the Trump administration has sought to reverse and reduce more than 70 environmental rules and regulations including the Superfund Act, which acts as one of the only legally binding mechanisms available to fix the communities riddled by environmental hazard. Additionally, according to a recent study from Harvard University, the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks could lead to “At least 80,000 extra deaths per decade and cause respiratory problems for more than one million people.” This year, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed cutting one-third of its $8 billion budget, including cutting the budget for the Superfund program by $327 million, or about 30 percent. Moreover, as part of that reduction, it proposed cutting enforcement efforts by $67 million. Not only, will this reduce the mixed success of the Superfund program thus far, but it will further stall the progress on clean up efforts at already existing sites, while simultaneously disincentivizing the listing of new potential sites.
While the Trump administration’s emphasis on expeditious cleanup and delisting locations off the program's National Priorities List appears beneficial and progressive, it could more than likely lead to inadequate and incomplete cleanups that continue to expose communities to long-term harm.
As pollution closes in on the last clean landscapes and communities, the only thing standing between whether or not your community maintains its distance from hazardous sites for another day or becomes another dot on the map is the Superfund Act. Although there are 1,800 Superfund sites where remediation efforts are longstanding and stagnant, there are over 500,000 brownfields and RCRA areas where accountability by those who tainted the community are not required. If you are lucky enough to be farther away from a Superfund site, a brownfield, or an RCRA site, the eyesore in your town may be just that. But if you are a resident within the 1,800 Superfund sites, or the 500,000 brownfields and RCRA sites, that eyesore may have made you and your family sick or caused your family, neighbors, and friends to forcibly migrate from a place they called home. While the Superfund Act mandates long-term remediation of the 1,800 sites, what about the other 500,000 sites that are polluted, but not polluted enough to require action by the Environmental Protection Agency? Not only does the Trump Administration’s environmental rollbacks ensure that those most affected by environmental hazard will not receive the help that they desperately need, but it also jeopardizes the future of less affected or unaffected communities.