Although Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has vowed to speed cleanup at the nation’s more than 1,300 Superfund sites, documents indicate the agency may slow down an estimated $1-billion cleanup at the Portland, Ore., harbor.
An effort to put Superfund cleanup work in what Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt says is the program’s “rightful place at the center of [EPA’s] core mission,” could help speed the approval process necessary to clean up the nation’s 1,300 most critical hazardous waste sites.
A new report from an environmental advocacy group criticizes the slow pace of environmental cleanups under the chronically underfunded Superfund program, which turned 35 on Dec. 11.
Approximately 10% of the 126,000 sites in the United States that currently contain contaminated groundwater are unlikely to be completely restored for decades, a new report from the National Research Council concludes.
In a settlement with federal agencies, AVX Corp. has agreed to pay more than $366 million, an infusion that officials say will dramatically speed up the long-running cleanup of the PCB-contaminated New Bedford, Mass., harbor.
