EPA’s Waste Cleanups Called ‘Stop-Gap’

The government plans cheap, inadequate cleanups of some of the nation’s worst hazardous-waste sites that will leave large quantities of toxic materials in the ground, an environmental group charged in a report released Saturday.

A survey of more than 100 Superfund cleanup sites, conducted by the National Campaign Against Toxic Hazards, found that 80% of such cleanup programs call for contaminated soils to remain at the original sites or to be transferred to landfills. Under 60% of the plans studied, the report added, drums full of hazardous wastes were to be moved to landfills.

“The report shows that EPA is choosing cheap, stop-gap cleanups and ignoring safer, permanent alternatives,” said John O’Connor, coordinator of the campaign. “Citizens who believe the promise of Superfund cleanup should get ready for a lifetime of cancer-causing chemicals and poisoned water.”

The report, written by the group’s science director, Henry Cole, added: “Whether the waste is left at the site or brought to a second site, toxics will sooner or later seep into the environment. Communities will be vulnerable to chemicals which cause cancer, birth defects and other diseases for generations to come.”

The agency defended its Superfund record in a statement:

“The remedies selected at these sites are fully protective of public health and the environment.

“We have a very strong program in place to consider alternatives to landfilling wastes where possible,” it added. “Where land disposal is the selected remedy, wastes are placed in facilities meeting the stringent requirements of the (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act).”

At many sites, the EPA said, it plans to evaluate ground water contamination and take further action if it is needed.

Of the cleanup plans surveyed, only 25% are based on treatment methods that destroy the wastes, the group said.

It also complained that the EPA has made “no commitment to restoring ground water” at half the sites surveyed, where well fields and potential water supplies are contaminated.

About 850 sites are named on the EPA’s priority list for cleaning under the Superfund program.

The agency has declared six sites clean, but one, the Butler Tunnel in Pittston, Pa., was put back on the list after nearly 200,000 gallons of toxic waste leaked into the Susquehanna River.