StrangeLove-FYI

Approximately 70% of Superfund cleanup activities historically have been paid for by parties responsible (PRPs) for the cleanup of contamination. The exceptions occur when the responsible party either cannot be found or is unable to pay for the cleanup. Until the mid-1990s, most of the funding came from a tax on the petroleum and chemical industries, reflecting the polluter pays principle, but since 2001, most of the funding for cleanups of hazardous waste sites has come from taxpayers. Despite the name, the program has suffered from under-funding, and Superfund cleanups have decreased to a mere 8 in 2014, out of over 1,200. = less than 7/10’s of 1%, .00666

Hazard Ranking System (HRS) 0-100/ 28.5 places site on
National Priorities List, eligible for long-term remedial action (i.e., cleanup) under the Superfund program. As of 9 August 2016, there were 1,328 sites listed; an additional 391 had been delisted, and 55 new sites have been proposed.

CERCLA was enacted by Congress in 1980 in response to the threat of hazardous waste sites, typified by the Love Canal disaster in New York, and the Valley of the Drums in Kentucky.[2] The initial trust fund to clean up a site where a polluter could not be identified, could not or would not pay (bankruptcy or refusal) consisted of about $1.6 billion.[3]

The EPA published the first Hazard Ranking System (HRS) in 1981, and the first National Priorities List (NPL) in 1983.[4] Implementation during early years, the two terms of the Reagan administration was ineffective, as only 16 of the 799 Superfund sites were cleaned up, and only $40 million of $700 million in recoverable funds from responsible parties were collected. Reagan's policies were described as laissez-faire.[5]:5
The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) added minimum cleanup requirements in Section 121, and required that most cleanup agreements with polluters be entered in federal court as a consent decree subject to public comment (section 122). [6] This was to address sweetheart deals between industry and the Reagan-era EPA, that Congress had discovered.[citation needed]

In 1994, President Bill Clinton proposed a new Superfund reform bill, Executive Order (E.O) 12898, which called for federal agencies to make achieving environmental justice a requirement by addressing low income populations and minority populations that have experienced disproportionate adverse health and environmental effects as a result of their programs, policies, and activities.[7]
^ Konisky, David M. (2015). Failed Promises: The Federal Government's Response to Environmental Inequality. MIT Press. pp. 29, 56. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262028837.001.0001. ISBN 9780262028837.

The regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency now had to apply required guidelines for its managers to take into consideration data analysis, managed public participation, and economic opportunity when considering the geography of toxic waste site remediation.[8] Some environmentalists and industry lobbyists saw the Clinton administration’s environmental justice policy as an improvement, but the bill did not get bipartisan support. The newly elected Republican Congress made numerous unsuccessful efforts to significantly weaken the law. The Clinton Administration then adopted some industry favored reforms as policy and blocked most major changes.[9]

Until the mid-1990s, most of the funding came from a tax on the petroleum and chemical industries, reflecting the polluter pays principle.[10] Even though by 1995 nearly $4 billion in fees were in the superfund, Congress did not reauthorize to collect these and by 2003 the superfund was empty.[11]:1
According to a 2015 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, since 2001, most of the funding for cleanups of hazardous waste sites has come from taxpayers; a state pays 10 percent of cleanup costs in general and at least 50 percent of it operated the facility responsible for contamination. By 2013 funding had decreased from $2 billion in 1999 to less than $1.1 billion (in constant dollars).[10]:11
From 2000-2015, Congress allocated about $1.26 billion of general revenue to the Superfund program each year. Consequently, less than half the number of sites were cleaned up from 2001 to 2008, compared to before. The decrease continued during the Obama Administration, and since under the direction of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Superfund cleanups decreased even more from 20 in 2009 to a mere 8 in 2014.[3]:8
The preliminary 2018 Trump Administration Superfund budget would cut the program by $330 million out of its nearly $1.1 billion budget, a 30% reduction to the Environmental Protection Agency program.[12]

CERCLA authorizes two kinds of response actions:
1. Removal actions. These are typically short-term response actions, where actions may be taken to address releases or threatened releases requiring prompt response. Removal actions are classified as: (1) emergency; (2) time-critical; and (3) non-time critical. Removal responses are generally used to address localized risks such as abandoned drums containing hazardous substances, and contaminated surface soils posing acute risks to human health or the environment.[13]
2. Remedial actions. These are usually long-term response actions. Remedial actions seek to permanently and significantly reduce the risks associated with releases or threats of releases of hazardous substances, and are generally larger more expensive actions. They can include measures such as using containment to prevent pollutants from migrating, and combinations of removing, treating, or neutralizing toxic substances. These actions can be conducted with federal funding only at sites listed on the EPA National Priorities List (NPL) in the United States and the territories. Remedial action by responsible parties under consent decrees or unilateral administrative orders with EPA oversight may be performed at both NPL and non-NPL sites, commonly called Superfund Alternative Sites in published EPA guidance and policy documents.[14]

Despite the name, the Superfund trust fund lacks sufficient funds to clean up even a small number of the sites on the NPL. As a result, the EPA typically negotiates consent orders with PRPs to study sites and develop cleanup alternatives, subject to EPA oversight and approval of all such activities. The EPA then issues a Proposed Plans for remedial action for a site on which it takes public comment, after which it makes a cleanup decision in a Record of Decision (ROD). RODs are typically implemented under consent decrees by PRPs or under unilateral orders if consent cannot be reached.[20] If a party fails to comply with such an order, it may be fined up to $37,500 for each day that non-compliance continues.

Implementation:
As of 9 August 2016, there were 1,328 sites listed on the National Priority List; an additional 391 had been delisted, and 55 new sites were proposed.[28]

Historically about 70 percent of Superfund cleanup activities have been paid for by potentially responsible party (PRPs). when the party either cannot be found or is unable to pay for the cleanup, the Superfund law originally paid for toxic waste cleanups through a tax on petroleum and chemical industries. The chemical and petroleum fees were intended to provide incentives to use less toxic substances.[citation needed] Over five years, $1.6 billion was collected, and the tax went to a trust fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.[citation needed]
The last full fiscal year (FY) in which the Department of the Treasury collected the tax was 1995.[11]:1 At the end of FY 1996, the invested trust fund balance was $6.0 billion. This fund was exhausted by the end of FY 2003;[11]:3 Since that time superfund sites for which the potentially responsible parties could not pay, have been paid for from the general fund appropriated by Congress.[11]:1

TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from the Division of Specialized Information Services[41] of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund programs. TOXMAP is a resource funded by the US Federal Government. TOXMAP's chemical and environmental health information is taken from NLM's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET),[42] PubMed, and other authoritative sources.

https://toxmap-classic.nlm.nih.gov/toxmap/combo/select.do

Toxic Substances and Disease Registry National Priorities List (NPL), which lists all chemical contaminants present at these sites.
There are two versions of TOXMAP available from its home page: the classic version of TOXMAP released in 2004 and, a newer version released in 2014 that is based on Adobe Flash/Apache Flex technology. In addition to many of the features of TOXMAP classic, the new version provides an improved map appearance and interactive capabilities as well as a more current GIS look-and-feel. This includes seamless panning, immediate update of search results when zooming to a location, two collapsible side panels to maximize map size, and automatic size adjustment after a window resize. The new TOXMAP also has improved U.S. Census layers and availability by Census Tract (2000 and 2010), Canadian National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) data, U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, as well as improved and updated congressional district boundaries.
TOXMAP classic users may search the system by location (such as city, state, or ZIP code), chemical name, chemical name fragment, release medium, release amount, facility name and ID, and can filter results to those residing within a pre-defined or custom geographic region.
Search results may be brought up in Google Maps or Google Earth, or saved for use in other tools. TOXMAP also overlays map data such as U.S. Census population information, income figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and health data from the National Cancer Institute and the National Center for Health Statistics.[4]

Main article: List of Superfund sites in the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites
Map [filed under images] of Superfund sites as of October 2013. Red indicates currently on final National Priority List, yellow is proposed, green is deleted (usually meaning having been cleaned up).
This is a list of Superfund sites in the United States, designated under the Comprehensive Environmental

Superfund sites have been shown to impact minority communities the most.[31]
Crawford, Collin (1994). "Strategies for Environmental Justice: Rethinking CERCLA Medical Monitoring Lawsuits". Faculty Publications at Reading Room. 74 B.U. L. Rev. 267.
Despite legislation specifically designed to ensure equity in Superfund listing, marginalized populations still experience a lesser chance of successful listing and cleanup than areas with higher income levels.[32]
O’Neil, Sandra George (5 April 2007). "Superfund: Evaluating the Impact of Executive Order 12898". Environmental Health Perspectives. 115 (7): 1087–1093. doi:10.1289/ehp.9903. ISSN 0091-6765. PMC 1913562? . PMID 17637927

https://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/toxmap/app/

EPA Basic Information about Your Drinking Water

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