NEWS OF THE WEEK
HAZARDOUS WASTE SITES: National priority list expanded Last week's announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency of the addition of 128 new dumps to its national priority list of hazardous waste sites was expected but disappointing to some. The listing is the first step for qualifying sites for remedial, that is, long-term, cleanup under the $1.6 billion Superfund law. The law mandates that EPA add new sites to the national priority list (NPL) every year. These 128 sites actually were proposed last year. Since then, EPA has determined that they "represent a potential chronic health threat," says assistant EPA administrator for solid waste and emergency response Lee M. Thomas. This brings to 538 the total number of sites now "fully eligible for long-term cleanup funding under Superfund," Thomas adds. Another 250 sites are expected to be proposed by mid-October, he says. Herein lies the disappointment. Several members of Congress and many environmental groups expected the proposed sites to be announced along with the 128 additions to the list. That last week's announcement came when it did and not a week earlier, and came with just the hint that new sites will be proposed later, is taken by the National Wildlife Federation, among others, as "EPA's failure to meet the statutory deadline—and its own deadline—for making public a revised list of high-hazard Superfund sites by early September." Thomas, however, believes that with its latest announcement EPA is meeting its "statutory obligation." Rep. James J. Florio (D.-N.J.), a major architect of Superfund and sparkplug behind current efforts to reauthorize the law a year early, terms EPA's latest actions "blatantly political." The politics he refers to 6
September 17, 1984 C&EN
Thomas: 538 sites now eligible are the same implied in a letter to EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus last month from 10 members of environmental and religious groups and unions. They wrote: "There are suspicions in certain quarters that there may be a conscious strategy on the part of the Administration to stall any NPL update as long as possible (perhaps even until after the November elections) in order to minimize any stimulatory impact on Superfund amendments now pending in Senate committee." The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee is marking up a bill introduced by Sen. Robert T. Stafford (R.-Vt.). The House already has passed a bill that extends the law five years and increases the fund to clean up abandoned hazardous wastes sites to $10.2 billion. Thomas denies any efforts to stall either the cleanup program or
reauthorization efforts. He explains the delay in proposing new sites this way: "We are looking at more sites than we anticipated [we would have to], and for the first time we are looking at proposing federal facilities." Of the 250 sites likely to be proposed in October, "30 to 50 will be federal facilities, mainly Department of Defense," Thomas says. After assessing all known hazardous waste sites over the next two to three years, Thomas expects the NPL "to grow as high as 1400 to 2200 sites." "Definitely," he says, "Superfund needs to be reauthorized and the money needs to be expanded over what was authorized" four years ago. "We have recommended that markup of Superfund be concluded next year," Thomas adds. Then, Congress will have had the time to consider soon-to-be completed studies mandated by the law, he explains. These examine some thorny fiscal issues such as just how much money can be usefully spent; what it should be spent on; and how it should be raised. "We have enough funds to continue the program until then at the accelerated pace [now in place] until it is reauthorized," Thomas says. EPA expects the $1.6 billion authorized under Superfund to be fully obligated by the end of fiscal 1985 when the current law runs its course. Thomas says there are "major problems" with the House bill. "We don't think the schedules can be met; they are too ambitious. The cleanup standards are too rigid and inflexible. And there are a number of mandatory provisions that are inappropriate." Basically, he is referring to the accelerated mandatory cleanup schedules in the bill, and provisions that make EPA a legal target for citizens' suits if these schedules slip. G
