According to the US Public Research Group (PIRG), one out of four Americans live within four miles of a Superfund site. Superfund is a government funded program that cleans up hazardous waste. Since 1980, at a cost of more than $1 billion a year, the program has cleaned up 886 sites by 2003, which leaves 1,203 more sites on the “National Priorities List” that still need to be addressed. Marianne Lamont Horinko, an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states that 699 construction projects in 436 site remain, but funding for the Superfund program has significantly diminished since excise taxes on chemical and oil industries expired in 1995. The portion of the program funded by individual taxpayers has increased from 18 percent to 53 percent. Julie Wolk, environmental health advocate for PIRG, states, “taxpayers are paying more...the number of Superfund sites getting cleaned up [each year] has dropped by more than half.” Many criticize Superfund for its litigious methods of tracking down companies to pay for the cleaning because by the end of the process (in some cases) most of the money is used for lawyers, private investigators, consultants and other administrative overhead. Superfund can also discourage investing in new development when land buyers begin to fear liability for pollution. With all of these criticisms of Superfund, it remains politically infeasible to eliminate it, but administrators must find a way to pay for it. In the end, taxpayers continue to fund a majority of an increasingly inefficient Superfund program. (Knickerbocker)
Knickerbocker, Brad. "Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag." The Christian Science Monitor 14 Nov. 2003. 2 Oct. 2007 [http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1114/p02s01-usgn.html?related].
Additional Link:
Onondaga Lake Restoration: What Has Been Done So Far from the Onondaga Lake Partnership website.
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