Superfund Fact Book
Mark Reisch & David Michael Bearden

Table of Contents for this Section

National Priorities List

Construction Completions and Deletions
Federal Facilities
Number of Superfund Sites by State

Liability
Endnotes
Glossary of Superfund Terms [External]

List of Tables

Table 4. Number of Superfund Sites by State

List of Figures

Figure 3. Status of the National Priorities List as of December 23, 1996

National Priorities List

CERCLA requires the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan to include a National Priorities List (NPL) of sites that pose the highest potential threat to human health and the environment in the United States. CERCLA requires EPA to revise the NPL at least annually. The NPL identifies sites that warrant further evaluation but does not assign liability for a release of hazardous substances.⁸

There are three mechanisms for placing a site on the NPL:

1) The Hazard Ranking System (HRS) evaluates the potential threat of a contaminated site to human health and the environment. Sites scoring higher than 28.5 on the HRS scale are eligible for the NPL.

2) Regardless of a site's HRS score, a state may designate a site as its highest priority for cleanup, making it eligible for the NPL.

3) A site can be placed on the NPL regardless of its HRS score if the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has issued a health advisory for a site, EPA determines a site to pose a significant threat to public health, or EPA expects that using long-term remedial authority will be more cost-effective than short-term removal authority to clean up a site.⁹

· The NPL includes two sections. EPA has the authority to evaluate and clean up non-federal sites listed in the general section, and other federal agencies with sites in their jurisdictions have the authority to evaluate and clean up sites listed in the federal facilities section. EPA is not the lead agency for sites listed in the federal facilities section but is responsible for preparing the HRS score for these sites.¹⁰

· As of the most recent listing on December 23, 1996, there are 1,210 sites on the NPL, of which 151 are federal facilities and 1,059 are non-federal sites.¹¹

· EPA has proposed to add 49 sites to the NPL, of which 7 are federal facilities and 42 are non-federal sites.¹²

· Final and proposed NPL sites total 1,259, of which 158 are federal facilities and 1,101 are non-federal sites.¹³

· The first listing in the Federal Register occurred on September 8, 1983, and placed 406 sites on the NPL.¹⁴ Since the beginning of the Superfund program, EPA has placed a total of 1,335 sites on the NPL and deleted 125 of them (9.4%) because cleanup is complete. (See figure 3.)

· GAO estimates that between 2,500 and 2,800 non-federal sites could be added to the NPL from the current inventory of CERCLIS sites being assessed or awaiting evaluation, while EPA estimates that 1,700 new sites could be added to the NPL through the year 2020. The Congressional Budget Office's projection extends to the year 2027, estimating a total of 3,300 new non-federal sites.¹⁵

· A 1992 study indicated that 403 NPL sites involved local governments, either as site owners, or as operators or transporters of waste to the site. The study categorized 216 of these sites as landfills.¹⁶

Figure 3

Status of the National Priorities List as of December 23, 1996

Total Sites Listed Since September 6, 1963 1,335

Prepared by CR5 with data from EPA. Fudami Regisler. Oscember 23.1996. p. 67B57.

Construction Completions and Deletions

Construction completion at a site refers to the point in the cleanup process at which physical construction is complete for all remedial and removal work anticipated at the entire site.

· As of December 23, 1996, there were a total of 412 sites on the Construction Completion List. Of these 412 sites, 283 are currently on the NPL. EPA has deleted the remaining sites from the NPL because cleanup is complete. Excluding federal facilities, construction is complete at 410 sites, representing 34.8% of the total 1,178 non-federal sites that EPA has placed on the NPL since the program's beginning. ¹⁷

· EPA has estimated that construction will be completed at 63 sites per year, and projected a total of 665 sites by the end of the year 2000. However, site managers have projected a total of 965 sites during this same period.¹⁸

Federal Facilities

Federal agencies are responsible for cleaning up hazardous releases at sites located on their facilities. EPA maintains the Federal Facilities Docket to track facilities that federal agencies have reported as warranting evaluation. Once a facility is placed on the docket, the responsible agency must assess the site within 6 months to characterize the contamination. If this assessment indicates potentially hazardous levels of contamination, EPA evaluates the facility using the HRS to determine whether to list the facility on the NPL. The responsible federal agency must develop and implement a plan to clean up the facilities on the NPL and fund the necessary remedial actions. EPA oversees both the development of the remedial plan and the cleanup activities.¹⁹

· As of the most recent listing on April 11, 1995, there are 2,070 facilities on the federal facilities docket.²⁰ Each facility typically has multiple sites that warrant evaluation. As of December 23, 1996, EPA had placed 151 of the most potentially hazardous federal facilities on the NPL.²¹ GAO reports that federal agencies have begun to evaluate roughly 50% of the 2,070 facilities on the docket.²²

· As of February 1996, the Department of Defense had completed risk assessments at roughly 75% of the 10,000 sites on its facilities, according to GAO. Of these sites, the department rated 54% of them as high risk and planned to commit 83% of its FY1996 environmental restoration budget to clean up these sites.²³

· The Departments of Defense and Energy have the largest budgets for cleaning up federal facilities. The Department of the Interior's environmental restoration budget is comparatively small but likely will increase as the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service complete inventories of contaminated sites in the future.²⁴

· The Federal Facilities Policy Group (FFPG), an interagency committee, estimates that the total future costs to complete cleanup actions at federal facilities under the jurisdictions of the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Interior could be between $235 and $389 billion. Of this total estimated cost, Defense's share would be $31 billion, Energy's would be between $200 and $350 billion, and Interior's would be between $4 and $8 billion. The FFPG estimates that the potential number of sites could total 51,000 for the three departments. Of this estimated total, Defense would have 15,000 sites, Energy would have 10,000 sites, and Interior would have 26,000 sites.²⁵

· Federal agencies have not yet completed an inventory of potentially contaminated sites. The Departments of Defense and Energy have completed substantial amounts of their inventory, but the Department of the Interior has just begun. As of April 11, 1995, the Department of the Interior had 432 sites on the federal facilities docket, but the FFPG estimates that the Department of the Interior may have as many as 26,000 sites warranting cleanup. However, the department reports that only 1 to 2% of these sites may require major or significant cleanup actions ²⁶

Number of Superfund Sites by State

As of the most recent listing on December 23, 1996, there are 107 Superfund sites located in New Jersey, the most sites listed in one state. Mississippi, Nevada, and North Dakota each have one site listed, the least among the states. Table 4 lists the number of Superfund sites located within each state. For information on a specific Superfund site, visit EPA's Superfund Homepage on the internet at http://www.epa.gov/superfund or contact the Superfund Hotline at 703-412-9810 in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area or at 1-800-424-9346 outside of Washington.

Table 4. Number of Superfund Sites by State

Table 4. (cont.) Number of Superfund Sites by State

Table 4. (cont.) Number of Superfund Sites by State

Source: Prepared by CRS using EPA data announced in the Federal Register, December 23,1996, pp. 67660-67677.

Liability

A Potentially Responsible Patty (PRP) is any individual or company that may have contributed to contamination at a Superfund site. Examples of PRPs include waste generators, waste transporters, current or former landowners, and site operators. Courts have interpreted liability provisions for Superfund remediations under CERCLA to be strict, joint and several, and retroactive.

· Strict liability means the government needs to prove only involvement at a waste site, not negligence. Under CERCLA, proof of strict causation is not necessary.

· Joint and several liability indicates that any involved party can have the legal responsibility for cleaning up the entire site, regardless of its degree of involvement, unless there is a reasonable basis for apportioning liability.

· Retroactive liability means that parties can be held liable for releases resulting from actions prior to when Congress enacted CERCLA in 1980.

· The Asset Conservation, Lender Liability, and Deposit Insurance Protection Act of 1996, P.L. 104-208, addressed lender liability. It protects lenders and fiduciaries from CERCLA liability as long as they do not participate in the management of a facility contaminated with hazardous substances. Lenders at times have incurred liability after foreclosing on a contaminated property. This law describes what actions a lender may take, which include activities related to its financial interest, and appropriate response to a hazardous substance release.

Endnotes

8 EPA. Federal Register. December 23, 1996. p.67656.

9 Ibid,. p. 67656-67657.

10 Ibid., p.67657.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 GA0. Superfund: Estimates of Number of Future Sites May Vary. GAO/RCED 95-18. December 1994. p.2.

16 Clean Sites, Inc. Main Street Meets Superfund: Local Government Involvement at Superfund Hazardous Waste Sites, January 1992, p.16.

17 EPA. Federal Register. December 23,1996. p.67657.

18 EPA. Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER). Survey of NPL Site Managers. January 28, 1994. EPA conducted this survey in response to 21 questions submitted by Representatives Al Swift and John Dingell on July 19,1998.

19 42 U.S.C. 9620. "Federal Facilities."

20 EPA. Federal Register. April 11,1995. p. 18474.

21 Ibid., December 23,1996. p. 67657.

22 GAO. Federal Facilitie8: Consistent Relative Risk Evaluations Needed for Pn'on'tizing Cleanups. GAO/RCED-96-150. June 1996, p.28.

23 Ibid., p.14.

24 Ibid, p. 7

25 Ibid., p.29.

26 Ibid., p.9.