Taxpayers pay billions for industrial contamination cleanup

PHOENIX – Over the last 20 years, American taxpayers have spent more than $21 billion in cleanup and oversight costs for properties polluted by dangerous wastes, known as Superfund sites, while hundreds of companies responsible for contaminating water paid little to nothing, a News21 analysis of congressional budget data shows.

The Superfund program, established in 1980, was meant to hold industries and businesses accountable – such as landfill operators, chemical companies and manufacturers – for polluting communities across the country. For years, petroleum, chemical and corporate taxes imposed by Congress funded the vast majority of the Superfund program, including expensive cleanups.

But since the Superfund taxes expired in 1995, the burden of paying the costs shifted dramatically. Today, most of the program’s funding comes through taxpayer dollars. When companies that polluted groundwater sources cannot be identified, no longer exist or can’t afford cleanup costs, the Environmental Protection Agency often assumes responsibility.

“It would be good to get the Superfund tax back because the industries were able to absorb that a whole lot more easily than the individual … or a taxpayer in a local community,” said Christine Whitman, a former New Jersey governor and EPA administrator.

News21 spent months examining more than 1,700 Superfund sites and found companies dealing with dumping, mining, dry-cleaning and wood treatment are among the nation’s biggest polluters. Lead, arsenic and mercury are the most common contaminants found at Superfund sites.

At the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Department of Energy produced enriched uranium for nuclear bombs during World War II and the Cold War. Mercury contamination has prevented residents from fishing and swimming along a nearby creek, and residents near the Superfund site remain concerned about the safety of their drinking water.

“If I'm thirsty enough, I'll drink,” said Dynasti Kirk, an Oak Ridge resident. “But I don't trust it.”

The EPA has linked hazardous substances to a variety of human health problems, including birth defects, cancer, nervous system damage and infertility. Using Census data, a 2015 EPA report found that 53 million people live within 3 miles of a Superfund remedial site.

Congressional funding has gradually decreased, making it more difficult to oversee and enforce the program. From 1999 through 2013, appropriations to the EPA’s Superfund program were cut from about $2 billion to about $1.1 billion, according to a 2015 Government Accountability Office report.

At most Superfund sites, the EPA is able to identify potentially responsible parties. Even so, those companies are under no legal obligation to maintain or disclose their cleanup costs, according to the GAO. Companies generally keep cost information confidential.

Less money has meant slower cleanups. It takes years for a typical Superfund site to be removed from the National Priorities List. Through a complex assessment process, the EPA evaluates sites for contamination. Places the EPA considers particularly egregious get added onto the NPL and receive Superfund status.

More than half of the original 406 sites added onto the NPL in 1983 remain on the list today.

Whitman, who served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, pushed for a reauthorization of the Superfund taxes so the agency could pay for more enforcement and cleanup. “We kept pointing out this money is running out, we need to do this,” Whitman said.

The Bush administration determined it was not a political battle worth fighting, she added. “It was something for which Congress had no appetite,” she said. “They just were not willing to consider anything that had the word ‘tax’ in it.”

Mathy Stanislaus, who oversaw the Superfund program from 2009-2017 under President Barack Obama, said cleanups were “competing with the multitude of other activities and obligations of the federal government.”

He added, “There was a reason why the Superfund tax was put in place. … Where you don't have a liable responsible party, let's at least have the business activities that are most associated with contaminants found at Superfund sites pay for those sites versus the general taxpayer."

Efforts to reauthorize the taxes continue to this day. In March, Congressman Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, introduced the Superfund Polluter Pays Act. Similar bills have been introduced multiple times over the past decade. All have failed.

Despite repeated reauthorization attempts, bipartisan inaction has prevailed. Whitman said Republican legislators would not support new taxes. Democrats failed to renew the taxes when they controlled the House and Senate at the start of Obama’s first term.

Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, said the issue has not gotten much attention from lawmakers over the past several years. “If everyone in Washington lived within a mile of a Superfund site, I have a feeling there’d be a lot more urgency,” Booker said. “But because it’s not affecting our families or our children, it doesn’t seem that we have that kind of urgency. That’s just not right, and I’m very angry about it.”

Former Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio authored the original Superfund bill, which was signed into law in 1980. His state remains home to 114 active Superfund sites, the most in the country. He lost his 1993 re-election campaign to Whitman.

“These aren't Republican and Democrat issues,” Whitman said. “These are people issues. These are about human health and the environment. Mother Nature could care less whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or which state you live in."

President Donald Trump’s budget proposed a 30 percent cut to the Superfund program, including investigations, enforcement and cleanup.

“Every federal agency is having to tighten its belt right now,” said Marianne Horinko, who served as EPA administrator under George W. Bush. “But I think EPA’s core mission and its values are too important to the American people to have drastic cuts. I think, eventually, the EPA, and Superfund in particular, will continue to assume an important role.”

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt recently formed a Superfund Task Force to suggest changes to the program. The task force report recommended offering financial incentives – through reduced oversight – to companies that perform timely and quality cleanup. The report also suggested the EPA revamp how it pays for site cleanups.

Pruitt wrote in a May memo that “Superfund and the EPA’s land and water cleanup efforts will be restored to their rightful place at the center of the agency’s core mission.” Pruitt and other EPA officials declined to comment.

"It's hard at this moment to see how the Superfund program will work during this administration,” Stanislaus said.