Santa Monica Bay Fails to Make Superfund List
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to designate Santa Monica Bay as a federal Superfund cleanup site.
The decision came nine months after EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas ordered a preliminary assessment of the extent of pollution in the bay at the request of three California congressmen who said the bay posed “extremely serious . . . environmental and health hazards.”
But in an Aug. 18 letter to the state Senate that was made public on Tuesday, Deputy EPA Regional Administrator John Wise said that Santa Monica Bay did not qualify as a Superfund cleanup site, chiefly because drinking water was not involved.
Wise also said that the EPA was developing a “strategy document” that would outline the bay’s environmental problems and suggest other laws in addition to the Superfund law that might be invoked to begin cleanup efforts. He mentioned the Clean Water Act and the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuary Act as examples.
The three congressmen who asked a year ago that the bay be designated a Superfund site were Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson, Henry A. Waxman and Mel Levine, all Los Angeles-area Democrats.
Normally, Superfund money--which may run out by the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes the Superfund program--is used to clean up abandoned landfills and land-based toxic dump sites.
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