| Chapter 2: | Superfund Sites and Neighborhood Change |
|
|
and military activities. Locations designated as posing the greatest risk to the health of the environment or general public are placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) and thus qualify for Superfund consideration. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are 1,255 final sites on the NPL in the United States, with an additional 60 locations still in the proposal stages to becoming potential Superfund sites (EPA, 2006a). Once on the NPL, a contaminated location is formally regarded as a Superfund site and, therefore, eligible for federal clean-up money.
Over the last 20 years, there has been considerable debate about the limitations of the Superfund program. A common criticism of the program is related to the speed with which contaminated sites are cleaned up. According to a Congressional Budget Office study, it takes an average of 13 to 15 years for a contaminated site to advance from the NPL proposal stage to a “construction complete” designation (DeLong, 1995). Supporters of the Superfund program contest this estimation as inaccurate and insist that it diverts attention from the potential long-term benefits produced by the program. Other criticisms regarding the Superfund program revolve around: (1) bureaucratic inefficiencies involving the collection of funds for site clean-ups; (2) the excessive initial review period required before a contaminated site is even added to the NPL; and (3) the criteria used to determine which sites are to be remediated first (Daley & Layton, 2004; DeLong, 1995).
Despite these criticisms, Superfund has facilitated the clean-up of numerous contaminated sites since its inception in 1980. As of 2006, 316 contaminated sites have been cleaned up and removed from the NPL under the Superfund program. However, with these environmental successes come new unanswered questions, including: (1) To what land uses will a Superfund site