Superfund

03/04/2010 -- WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released today the annual summary of the Superfund program’s fiscal year (FY) 2009 progress. The report shows that the program continues to make significant progress in achieving its mission of cleaning up the country’s most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites and protecting the health of nearby communities and ecosystems from harmful contaminants.    » read more »

$30 Million in Recovery Act Funding Will Improve Safety

December 11, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, DC - Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Chairman of the Superfund, Toxics and the Environmental Health Subcommittee today applauded progress at the Cornell Dubilier Superfund Site in South Plainfield where $30 million in Recovery Act funding is being invested to clean up contaminated soil and debris.

The Recovery Act, which Lautenberg helped author as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was signed into law by President Obama in February.    » read more »

December 8, 2009 -- (Washington, D.C.) – Montana’s senior U.S. Senator Max Baucus this week urged the Environmental Protection Agency to list the former Anaconda Company metals refinery in Black Eagle, Montana as a federal Superfund site.

In a letter sent to EPA head Lisa Jackson, Baucus stressed the potential dangers that the lead and arsenic contamination caused by the refinery pose to the Montana town, located just north of Great Falls. Superfund is the principal federal program for cleaning up hazardous waste sites to protect public health and the environment from releases of hazardous substances.

“What is happening in Black Eagle is unacceptable,” Baucus wrote. “Every Montanan deserves clean air, clean water and soil free of contamination.”    » read more »

11/04/2009 -- LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a Unilateral Administrative Order to Texaco Inc. that requires the company to assess soil and groundwater contamination and evaluate additional cleanup options, for the Pacific Coast Pipeline Superfund Site (commonly known as the “Texaco site”) in Fillmore, Calif.

“With this UAO, EPA looks forward to moving the Site cleanup into its final phase, so the property can be returned to productive reuse by the community,” said Keith Takata, Director of the Superfund program in EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region. “This cooperative effort builds on prior cleanup work and will result in a protective cleanup for the community.”    » read more »

11/03/2009 -- WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is adding three new hazardous waste sites that pose risks to human health and the environment to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites. Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

To date, there have been 1,610 sites listed on the NPL. Of these sites, 340 sites have been deleted resulting in 1,270 sites currently on the NPL (including the three new sites added in today’s rulemaking). There are 63 proposed sites awaiting final agency action: 58 in the general Superfund section and five in the federal facilities section. There are a total of 1,333 final and proposed sites.    » read more »

Listing makes cleanup of Tooele County facility a high priority

(Denver, Colo. -- November 2, 2009) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with support from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ), today announced it has added U.S. Magnesium, LLC, in Tooele County, Utah, to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites.

Listing U.S. Magnesium on the NPL makes the cleanup of the site a high priority nationally. It also enables EPA and UDEQ to use Superfund authority under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act to initiate and oversee the cleanup of the site. Sites listed on the NPL are among the nation’s most contaminated places.    » read more »

$25 million to $35 million will speed restoration of the Commonwealth’s largest Superfund site

NEW BEDFORD – Wednesday, April 15, 2009 – As part of his Massachusetts Recovery Plan to secure the state’s economic future, Governor Patrick joined environmental officials and members of the Congressional delegation to announce Massachusetts will receive $25 to $35 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to speed the cleanup of New Bedford Harbor
– one of the state’s largest Superfund sites – and to assist with cleanup activities at two other Massachusetts sites.    » read more »

April 15, 2009 -- Colorado Governor Bill Ritter today thanked the Obama administration for dedicating $10 million to $25 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for cleaning up the Summitville Mine Superfund site, an investment Ritter had sought to help clean up one of Colorado's worst environmental disasters.

"These funds will serve the dual purpose of accelerating the cleanup of a hazardous waste site in Colorado while also creating jobs and strengthening the southwest Colorado economy," Gov. Ritter said. "The funds should be made available within a matter of weeks and construction could begin as early as this summer."    » read more »

March 4, 2009 -- WASHINGTON — A Middlesex, N.J., industrial pipes, valves and fittings supply company and its co-owner pleaded guilty today to participating in a fraud conspiracy at two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-designated Superfund sites in New Jersey, the Department of Justice announced today. The sites are Federal Creosote, located in Manville, N.J., and Diamond Alkali, located in Newark, N.J.    » read more »

Shell, Army to pay $35 million for area projects in Colorado’s largest environmental settlement to date

05/29/2008 -- (DENVER) – Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and Governor Bill Ritter today announced the settlement of Colorado’s quarter-century-old claim for natural resource damages at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Superfund site.

Rocky Mountain Arsenal: Photo by Patrick Michael McLeod (CC)    » read more »

SAN FRANCISCO, 05/19/2008 – Motorola, Inc., Siemens Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline will collectively pay a $500,000 civil penalty for system failures that led to the release of trichloroethylene (TCE) into the public drinking water system in Scottsdale, Ariz., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice announced today.

The settlement resolves violations of the North Indian Bend Wash consent decree, filed in 2003, which occurred when TCE above contamination limits was released from the Miller Road Treatment Facility on two separate occasions, in October 2007 and January 2008.    » read more »

10/31/2007 -- A settlement pending approval before a federal bankruptcy court will direct almost $65 million to agencies involved in restoration efforts at the Tar Creek Superfund Site, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson and Oklahoma Secretary of the Environment Miles Tolbert announced today.    » read more »

June 11, 2007 -- OLYMPIA - Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna today hailed the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow individuals and corporations who voluntarily clean up hazardous waste sites to recover costs from other liable parties as a victory for the state and the environment.

In a unanimous decision in U.S. v. Atlantic Research Corporation, the Court affirmed that the federal Superfund law authorizes individuals and companies who voluntarily incur costs to clean up hazardous waste contamination to recover costs from other persons who share liability.    » read more »

Bank to institute landmark training program after abandonment of Orange County chemical company

ALBANY, NY (May 30, 2007) – In one of the nation’s first Superfund cases against a bank, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo and HSBC Bank USA, N.A. have reached a settlement with the bank paying penalties and reimbursing the state for costs incurred while responding to an abandoned chemical manufacturing facility in Wallkill.    » read more »