The EPA came to numerous towns in the mining west armed with a computer program that they were certain was more accurate than any testing method for determining blood lead that was currently known to man. The EPA accepted the computer output as near sacred, while they mocked real-life, raw data. This resulted in declaring a phony health hazard, followed by the labeling of properties with the death kiss of Superfund. Complaints ensued, with the most legitimate protests coming from innocent victims. Congress had created this legal mutant but could not or would not fix it. Meanwhile, the courts were of little remedy since judges jumped from their lonely, intellectual orientation onto the chummy, buffoonery, chessboard of Democrats and Republicans. That platform that has lost its own moral up and down, all the while the courts get to dissect laws so far beyond sunlight that the consideration of common sense is beyond the pale. This is the story of several communities' battle with an immoral, misguided law.

One in four Americans lives within 3 miles of a hazardous waste site (HWS). To clean up the highly contaminated sites, the Congress established the Superfund program in 1980. EPA has identified more than 47,000 HWS potentially requiring cleanup actions and has placed more than 1,500 of the most seriously contaminated sites on its National Priorities List (NPL). Cleanup efforts at NPL sites are expensive and can take many years. To fund program activities, a trust fund was financed by taxes on crude oil and certain chemicals, as well as an environ. tax assessed on corp. This report examines the: (1) sources of funding for the Superfund trust fund; and (2) allocation of these resources to Superfund program activities. Illustrations.

This volume presents the results of a study commissioned by Congress estimating the future costs of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, commonly known as the Superfund program. The study projects the cost of activities such as cleaning up sites on the EPA's National Priorities List, conducting emergency response and removal actions, performing five-year reviews, and administering the program. c. Book News Inc.

The Superfund program of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in the 1980s to address human-health and environmental risks posed by abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous-waste sites. Identification of Superfund sites and their remediation is an expensive multistep process. As part of this process, EPA attempts to identify parties that are responsible for the contamination and thus financially responsible for remediation. Identification of potentially responsible parties is complicated because Superfund sites can have a long history of use and involve contaminants that can have many sources. Such is often the case for mining sites that involve metal contamination; metals occur naturally in the environment, they can be contaminants in the wastes generated at or released from the sites, and they can be used in consumer products, which can degrade and release the metals back to the environment. This report examines the extent to which various sources contribute to environmental lead contamination at Superfund sites that are near lead-mining areas and focuses on sources that contribute to lead contamination at sites near the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District. It recommends potential improvements in approaches used for assessing sources of lead contamination at or near Superfund sites.

GAO reviewed operations and maintenance (O&M) activities at former or current National Priorities List (NPL) Superfund sites where remediation construction has been completed, focusing on the: (1) extent to which O&M activities are necessary at Superfund sites; (2) costs to the federal government, states, and responsible parties to perform these activities now and in the future; and (3) Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) actions to help ensure that O&M activities continue to protect human health and the environment. GAO found that: (1) the federal government, states, and responsible parties must perform long-term O&M activities at almost two-thirds of the 275 NPL sites reviewed; (2) these O&M activities include controlling erosion of landfill covers, treating contaminated groundwater, and implementing and enforcing land and water use restrictions; (3) the nationwide cost of current and future O&M activities will be about $32 billion through fiscal year 2040, much of which will be borne by the states and responsible parties; (4) the cost of a given site remedy will depend mainly on what remedy type EPA selects and the duration of the O&M activities; (5) until recently, EPA has focused on the evaluation and cleanup of Superfund sites, but EPA monitoring of O&M activities is crucial because states and responsible parties do not always follow their O&M plans and site conditions can deteriorate; (6) EPA is just now developing guidance for site project managers on monitoring O&M activities to ensure that O&M plans are followed; and (7) EPA has a significant backlog of 5-year reviews and may not be aware of deteriorating conditions at some sites.