Waste Disposal - The National Priorities List—the Superfund

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA; PL 96-510) established the Superfund to pay for cleaning up abandoned disposal sites. The Superfund—initially a $1.6 billion, five-year program—was intended to clean up leaking dumps that jeopardized groundwater and posed public health risks. During the act's original mandate, only six sites were cleaned up, and when it expired in 1985, many observers viewed the program as a billion-dollar fiasco rampant with scandal and mismanagement. The negative publicity surrounding the program increased public awareness of the magnitude of the cleanup job required in America to reduce the risk to public health. Consequently, the Superfund has been reauthorized several times since its establishment.

A Huge Project

CERCLA requires the government to maintain a National Priorities List (NPL) of sites that pose the highest potential threat to human health and the environment. The NPL is constantly changing as new sites are officially FIGURE 4.11
Waste combustion plant with pollution control system added (finalized) and other sites are deleted. During the early 1980s hundreds of sites were added to the NPL each year. By 1992 a total of more than 1,200 sites had been added. Over the years sites were deleted as clean-ups were accomplished. Table 4.4 shows NPL site listings and clean-up milestones achieved by fiscal year (October through September) for 1992 through 2004. These data were reported in April 2004, meaning that only data for October 2003 through April 2004 are included under fiscal year 2004.

As of April 2004 the NPL, which is maintained by the EPA, includes 1,238 sites (158 federal sites and 1080 non-federal sites). The states containing the most NPL sites are New Jersey (113), California (96), Pennsylvania (92), New York (90), Michigan (67), and Florida (51). These six states account for just over 40 percent of all NPL final sites.

In 2003 the EPA proposed 14 new sites be added to the NPL based on preliminary investigations. Officials estimate that about one-fourth of these sites will actually be added to the NPL. As shown in Table 4.4, in general, the number of sites proposed for the NPL each year is out-pacing the number deleted each year.

According to the EPA, more than three times as many Superfund sites were cleaned up between 1993 and 2000 than in all of the prior years of the program combined. However, many NPL sites are still years away from being cleaned up. The EPA estimates that 85 percent of the NPL sites will be cleaned up by 2008. Completion for the remaining 15 percent of the sites may take well beyond 2008.

When the Superfund was created, the program was expected to deal with a limited number of sites over a relatively short time. It eventually became clear that the number of sites needing attention was much larger than

TABLE 4.4
Number of sites associated with the National Priorities List, 1992–2004
by Fiscal year

Action	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Sites proposed to the NPL	30	52	36	9	27	20	34	37	40	45	9	14	11
Sites finalized on the NPL	0	33	43	31	13	18	17	43	39	29	19	20	0
Sites deleted from the NPL	2	12	13	25	34	32	20	23	19	30	17	9	6
Milestone
Partial deletions*	–	–	–	–	0	6	7	3	5	4	7	7	6
Construction completions	88	68	61	68	64	88	87	85	87	47	42	40	10
A fiscal year is October 1 through September 30.
Fiscal year 2004 includes actions and milestones achieved from October 1, 2003 to the present.
Partial deletion totals are not applicable until fiscal year 1996, when the policy was first implemented.
*These totals represent the total number of partial deletions by fiscal year and may include multiple partial deletions at a site. Currently, there are 45 partial deletions at 37 sites.
SOURCE: "Number of NPL Site Actions and Milestones," in National Priorities List, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, April 27, 2004 [Online] http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/queryhtm/nplfy.htm [accessed May 5, 2004]

originally believed and that the program could run several more decades. The number of sites reported has declined steadily since 1985. The percentage of sites that the EPA believes warrant further consideration after initial investigation has remained relatively constant since 1984, with about 40 percent of the recommended sites needing further action. The average site cleanup takes approximately 12 years to complete.

What Is the Cost and Who Pays the Bill for Superfund?

FUNDING FOR SUPERFUND.

Funding for the Super-fund program is derived through two major sources: the Superfund Trust Fund and monies appropriated from the federal government's general fund.

The Superfund Trust Fund was set up as part of the original Superfund legislation of 1980. It was designed to help the EPA pay for cleanups and related program activities. Table 4.5 shows the revenue going into the Superfund Trust Fund each year from 1993 through 2002. Until 1995 the Superfund Trust Fund was financed primarily by dedicated taxes collected from companies in the chemical and crude oil industries. The system was extremely unpopular with many corporations arguing that environmentally responsible companies should not have to pay for the mistakes of others. In 1995 the tax was eliminated.

The Superfund Trust Fund is also financed through cost recoveries—money the EPA recovers through legal settlements with responsible parties. The EPA is authorized to compel parties responsible for creating hazardous pollution, such as waste generators, waste haulers, site owners, or site operators, to clean up the sites. If these parties cannot be found, or if a settlement cannot be reached, the Superfund program finances the cleanup. After completing a cleanup, the EPA can take action against the responsible parties to recover costs and replenish the fund. The average cost of cleanup is about $30 million, large enough to make it worthwhile for parties to pursue legal means to spread the costs among large numbers of responsible parties. Many cleanups involve dozens of parties.

Disputes have arisen between industries and cities over who is responsible for a cleanup, and numerous lawsuits have been filed by industries against cities over responsibility for what is usually a huge expense. Many businesses and municipalities may be unable to assume such expense. The EPA reports that the government currently collects only one-fifth of the cleanup costs that could be recovered from polluters under the Superfund law. According to the EPA, in many cases, the polluters have disappeared or are unable to pay. In other cases, the agency lacks the staff or evidence to proceed with lawsuits.

All of these factors have resulted in only modest amounts of money being collected for the Superfund Trust Fund through cost recoveries. Total revenue into the Fund dropped from 2.4 billion dollars in 1993 to $368 million in 2002 as shown in Table 4.5. However, the EPA has continued to add sites to the NPL that require cleanup. According to a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) analysis conducted in 2003, the EPA consistently spent between $1.3 and $1.7 billion each year from 1993 to 2002 to operate the Superfund Program. The GAO reports that the unexpended balance of the Superfund Trust Fund stood at only $3.4 billion at the end of fiscal year 2002. At current rates of spending the Fund is expected to be depleted in a short amount of time.

In recent years the EPA has increasingly relied on money appropriated from the federal government's general fund to pay for NPL cleanups. During the early 2000s the general fund accounted for roughly half of all appropriations to the Superfund Program as shown in Figure 4.12. This means that all American taxpayers are increasingly paying to clean up hazardous waste sites under the Superfund Program. The GAO estimates that the general fund will supply about 80 percent of the

TABLE 4.5
Revenue into the Superfund trust fund, fiscal years 1993–2002
Constant 2002 dollars in millions

	Fiscal year
Revenue source	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Taxes	$2,019	$1,685	$1,672	$705	$82	$85	$22	$5	$6	$7
Cost recoveries	214	231	285	276	341	343	338	239	205	248
Interest on unexpended balance	165	202	359	388	359	313	233	245	223	111
Fines and penalties	4	3	3	4	3	5	4	1	2	1
Total	$2,403	$2,121	$2,318	$1,372	$785	$745	$597	$490	$437	$368
SOURCE: "Table 1: Revenue into the Superfund Trust Fund, Fiscal Years 1993 Through 2002," in Superfund Program: Current Status and Future Fiscal Challenges, GAO-03-850, U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington, DC, July 31, 2003

monies needed for the Superfund Program in EPA's fiscal year 2004 budget.

Some critics have called for the federal government to reinstate dedicated taxes against petroleum and chemical corporations to fund the Superfund Program, instead of burdening taxpayers. The GAO notes that Congress is reluctant to appropriate more general fund monies to the Superfund Program and fears that costs will continue to escalate as the EPA adds more sites to the NPL. A major complaint is that the Superfund Program lacks an effective system for indicating the progress that it is making toward cleaning up the nation's hazardous waste sites. Congress has asked the EPA to develop performance indicators that could help them make better funding decisions for the Superfund Program. An EPA advisory council is expected to make its recommendations during 2004.