Did you know that one in six Americans lives within three miles of a toxic waste site that is so dangerous it’s been proposed or approved for cleanup under the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund program?
While the United States created the Superfund program to cleanup decontaminated sites in 1980, only about 25 percent of the more than 1,700 sites that have been added to the Superfund program’s National Priorities List have been removed.
In this blog, we’ll discuss what a Superfund site is and what you need about these areas as a landowner.
1. What is Superfund?
Superfund is the informal name for CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act).
Congress established CERCLA in 1980 to cleanup thousands of contaminated sites identified across the country.
These sites are located near manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills, and mining sites.
Love Canal and Valley of the Drums brought national attention to such areas when the public learned about the risk to human health posed by heavily contaminated lots.
The act forces the parties responsible for the contamination to either perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led remediation work.
If there isn’t a viable responsible party, then Superfund gives the EPA both the funding and authority to cleanup contaminated sites.
2. What are Superfund’s goals?
Superfund’s goals are…
Protecting human health and the environment by cleaning up contaminated sites
Making responsible parties pay for cleanup work
Involving communities in the Superfund process
Returning Superfund sites to productive use
3. Where can I find a list of Superfund sites?
You can find a complete list of Superfund sites in the following U.S. states and federal districts here.
4. How many Superfund sites are there in the U.S.?
As of May 2023, there were 1,336 sites on the National Priorities List split between 50 states.
We’ll list the number of Superfund sites in each state and territory below.
Alabama: 12
Alaska: 6
Arizona: 9
Arkansas: 9
California: 96
Colorado: 20
Connecticut: 13
Delaware: 17
District of Columbia: 1
Florida: 52
Georgia: 17
Guam: 2
Hawaii: 3
Idaho: 6
Illinois: 45
Indiana: 39
Iowa: 12
Kansas: 14
Kentucky: 11
Louisiana: 13
Maine: 11
Maryland: 21
Massachusetts: 32
Michigan: 65
Minnesota: 25
Mississippi: 9
Missouri: 33
Montana: 18
Nebraska: 18
Nevada: 1
New Hampshire: 20
New Jersey: 115
New Mexico: 15
New York: 86
North Carolina: 38
Ohio: 37
Oklahoma: 8
Oregon: 14
Pennsylvania: 90
Puerto Rico: 19
Rhode Island: 12
South Carolina: 28
South Dakota: 2
Tennessee: 19
Texas: 55
Utah: 12
Vermont: 12
Virgin Island: 1
Virginia: 29
Washington: 46
West Virginia: 11
Wisconsin: 36
Wyoming: 1
As you can see on this list, New Jersey has the most Superfund sites at 115 sites.
North Dakota has the least at 0.
5. What are contaminants of concern at Superfund sites?
The toxic waste sites on Superfund’s National Priorities List (NPL) include arsenic, lead, mercury, benzene, dioxin, and other hazardous chemicals that may increase the risk of cancer, reproductive problems, birth defects, and other serious illnesses.
Often, these contaminants leach into a site because of mismanaged waste.
In many areas, industrial activity ignored the accruing human, health, environmental, and financial cost of using toxic chemicals for decades.
The Superfund program remediates these issues and implements safety features to ensure no future hard is done.
6. How does the Superfund cleanup process work?
The Superfund cleanup process is complicated and involves numerous steps.
These steps include assessing the sites, placing them on the National Priorities List, and establishing and implementing appropriate cleanup plans.
It’s important to remember that the cleanup process itself takes years to accomplish.
During this time, the EPA has the responsibility to conduct the following steps:
Handle removal actions where immediate action is needed to protect public health and the environment
Enforce cleanup against potentially responsible parties
Ensure community involvement
7. What two categories do waste sites fall into?
Superfund waste sites can fall into two categories: remedial and removal.
The categories are decided based on the Hazard Ranking System (HRS).
The system takes into account the size of the site, the toxic materials found there, and the site’s hazard to human health.
After considering all of these factors, it assigns the site a score from 0 to 100.
Most sites that score above 28.5 are considered remedial sites, which go on the National Priorities (NPL).
These sites are scheduled for long-term cleanup.
Some examples of remedial sites include landfills, dumps, or abandoned chemical plants.
Removal sites are not on the NPL.
Rather, they are sudden environmental emergencies like mercury spills, oil tanker spills, and factory fires.
8. Who is responsible for Superfund site cleanup?
When a Superfund site is discovered, the EPA will attempt to identify the generators and transporters of the hazardous waste as well as the owners and operators of a site.
These individuals, companies, and municipalities are considered the potentially responsible parties (PRP) under Superfund.
They are asked to conduct and finance the cleanup studies and activities.
In some cases, the PRP will refuse to participate, and when this occurs, the EPA will cleanup the site and sue the party or parties to recover costs.
Government (state and tribal) involvement has also grown over the years.
They participate in nearly every phase of cleanups.
Superfund requires the EPA to coordinate with states and tribes when the federal government spearheads cleanup operations.
It also allows states, tribes, and local governments to lead cleanup efforts with Superfund money if they have the necessary technical and management expertise.
9. What occurs during the EPA’s initial cleanup of a Superfund site?
When a Superfund site is identified, an initial analysis is performed to determine what type of hazardous waste is on the site as well as what risk it poses to the environment.
Next, the EPA decides how to cleanup the site, which generally involves human labor, chemical treatment, or some construction.
Following construction, the site is monitored to ensure no waste is leaked into the air, soil, surface water, or groundwater.
Finally, once the state and the EPA have determined that the site poses no significant environmental or health risk, it’s deleted from the National Priorities List.
10. What are the health effects of living near superfund sites?
Living near open toxic waste comes with both irreversible and long-lasting health effects.
Unfortunately, these health effects impact children more than they do adults.
This is because children take in proportionally larger amounts of water, food, and air than adults do in relation to their body weight.
When children live near Superfund sites, they are more prone to birth defects, childhood cancer, decreased cognitive functioning, and various behavioral problems.
Pregnant women in close proximity to Superfund sites are also more susceptible to miscarriages, illnesses, and children with congenital birth defects.
In addition, the elderly are at a higher risk of developing health problems related to the toxic chemicals in the environment.
Sadly, due to all these undesirable elements, Superfund sites negatively impact the local economy and result in lower funding for a nearby community.
A recent study from the University of Houston showed that living near a Superfund site lowered life expectancy by at least 2 months.
11. What are the most toxic and polluted U.S. towns?
Are you wondering if you’re living near a toxic or polluted area?
It’s more common than you think.
For years, people disposed of hazardous waste indiscriminately, and that’s how Superfund sites were created.
In this list, we’ll discuss the most toxic and polluted towns in the U.S.
Love Canal, Niagara Falls, NY
William T. Love wanted to build a large, modern city powered by hydroelectric technology.
His plan also involved a new shipping lane that would channel commerce through Love Canal and away from Niagara Falls.
Yet, he only finished one pit of the envisioned canal before the economy (and project) collapsed.
In 1920, the city purchased this pit and used it as a chemical waste dumping ground.
20 years after that, a chemical manufacturing company bought the land and dropped around 22,000 tons of dangerous materials into the canal.
Once they filled the canal, the company lined the pit with clay, covered it with dirt, and declared it fit for construction.
Houses and schools were built on this “construction-ready” land, and residents soon fell ill due to the contamination under the ground.
Kotzebue, AK
This town is the most toxic place in American as it produces at least 756 million pounds of toxic chemicals annually (based on 2016 data).
The Red Dog Mine (82 miles north of the town) is likely responsible for the waste.
One of the big problems is that lichens absorb the contaminants, caribou consume the infected vegetation, and humans then eat their meat.
The caribou meat transports the contaminants into the bodies of those who eat it, causing all different kinds of health issues.
Centralia, PA
This town was a thriving mining community in the late 1800s.
However, the mines closed in the 1960s and in 1962 a fire started in an abandoned strip mine pit.
Residents were vaguely aware of the issue, yet the extent of the danger didn’t become apparent until 1979.
At that time, fuel in a gas station’s underground tanks heated to 172 degrees.
In 1982, a local 12-year-old boy fell eight feet deep into a sinkhole in his backyard.
This sinkhole contained deadly amounts of carbon monoxide.
While the boy survived, the government had to step in and relocate residents for their own safety.
Since then, lethal gasses and sinkholes have begun to fill the area.
The town has since been abandoned by all but five residents.
Picher, OK
Picher drew miners to the area due to its zinc and lead deposits.
By the 1970s, the mines shut down due to a downturn in the industry.
However, numerous abandoned underground tunnels were left behind.
These filled with water, and minerals from the tunnels contaminating millions of tons of water in the surrounding area.
A study revealed that one-third of Picher’s children had enough lead in their bloodstreams to cause brain damage in 1993.
Hinkley, CA
You may have heard of Hinkley in the movie Erin Brockovich.
In this town, the residents of Hinkley sued Pacific Gas and Electric for contaminating their water.
The company had used chromium 6 to keep their pipelines free of rust and algae and then dumped the carcinogenic chemical into the local water supplies.
The result was hundreds of residents falling ill.
Property values also suffered as residents chose to relocate.
In the end, PG&E simply didn’t handle the cleanup correctly, and today the town no longer has a school or post office.
Camden, NJ
Camden NJ has over 1000 contaminated areas and two Superfund sites.
The EPA found more than 350 facilities using various pollutants in this industrial city.
One example is 1542 South Broadway, which was previously an animal tannery and leather glazer.
The EPA investigated the site in 1999 and found contaminated wastewater in the sewer and buried containers of hazardous materials in the ground.
When a soil test was conducted, dangerous levels of lead, chromium, mercury, arsenic, and more were found.
Whittier, CA
In Wittier, CA, the Omega Chemical Corporation recycled refrigerant and other solvents through treatment or reformulation.
Unfortunately, the company allowed volatile organic compounds like Freon to contaminate the groundwater and soil.
This caused wells in several other nearby cities to shut down while the EPA removed contaminated soil, empty chemical drums, and around 3,000 drums of hazardous waste from the site in 1995.
Since March 2018, over 12,500 pounds of pollutants have been removed.
12. What are the problems with the Superfund program?
While the Superfund program sounds positive in theory, it hasn’t lived up to its potential.
Overall, it was intended to be a short and swift program that helped to clean the nation of dangerous hazardous waste sites.
It wasn’t supposed to cost a lot of money because the cleanup was to be paid for by those who caused the pollution in the first place.
Unfortunately, the cleanup has been slow, and high costs and litigation plague the program.
Only a few hundred sites have been cleaned while over a thousand remain.
Still, billions have been spent by the EPA on the program with legal and other transaction costs accounting for 32 percent of total expenditures (according to a 1999 report).
In general, the strongest complaints against Superfund have been that too few sites have been cleaned up, too much money is spent on lawyers and administrative costs, and cleanups are too expensive.
While these are valid complaints, it is also true that the program has successfully removed or remediated toxins from hundreds of contaminated sites.
13. What resources can homeowners use to learn about Superfund sites?
Search for NPL Sites Where You Live– lists NPL sites near your zip code of interest
Cleanups in My Community– shows NPL sites and more in map format
Community Involvement Tools and Resources
To report oil or chemical spills, or other environmental emergencies, call the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802, or visit this help page to learn more.
Final Thoughts
Understanding the implications of Superfund sites is incredibly important.
As noted above, one in six Americans lives within three miles of a toxic waste site, and these pollutants can negatively affect your ability to live a healthy life.
If you’re concerned about your land or nearby Superfund site, visit the resources above for more information.
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Disclaimer: we are not lawyers, accountants or financial advisors and the information in this article is for informational purposes only. This article is based on our own research and experience and we do our best to keep it accurate and up-to-date, but it may contain errors. Please be sure to consult a legal or financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Prior to starting Gokce Capital, Erika received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Southern California and a graduate degree in Urban Policy from Columbia University. She worked as both an architectural designer and engineer in New York before joining the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Erika currently lives in the New York Metropolitan area with her spouse, daughter and cat. She is originally from Chicago and still considers herself a midwesterner at heart.
Erika also loves to read, write and travel (fun fact, she has visited all 50 states and more than 30 countries!). Her new book, Land Investing Mistakes: 11 True Stories You Need To Know Before Buying Land, is now available on Amazon.