“More
Money For Superfund?”
by Dr. J. Winston Porter
(As published in The Rocky Mountain News, 10/14/96)
President Clinton came to Colorado to tout his leadership on environmental issues. Unfortunately, his campaign initiatives largely involve throwing good money after bad. Exhibit A is his plan to double funding for the federal Superfund toxic waste cleanup program for the next two years.
President Clinton himself said in the 1994 State of the Union message that “ most Superfund money goes to lawyers.” But in his recent Kalamazoo, Mich., speech the president proposed $2.6 billion more for the EPA, and thus more work for his trial lawyer supporters.
The president’s speech also aimed for more federal involvement with “brown fields”—the lightly contaminated urban sites which have the federal environmental bureaucracy salivating. Finally, he proposed a major expansion of the federal right-to-know laws for chemical emissions.
Let’s start with Superfund. The president brags that his administration has cleaned up more Superfund sites in 3 years than the others did in the previous 12. Sounds impressive until you realize that federal Superfund cleanups take over 10 years, so many sites are just now completing their long bureaucratic journey.
The most relevant statistic is after 15 years and over $50 billion, less than one-third of Superfund sites have been cleaned up. Progress has been particularly slow at federal facilities. In Colorado, for example, both the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Rocky Flats have many years to go.
If the president were really interested in cleanup, not sound bites, he would propose that the states take over Superfund.
With
over 40 Superfund-type programs, the states are already working on more sites
than the federal government, and remediating them at much less time and cost.
For example, just three states—New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin—have
completed a total of over 600 sites, many more than the entire federal program.
Or contrast the EPA’s $30 million and 10 years per site to Minnesota’s
$5 million and 2-3 years per site.
The states do well because the sites are local problems, usually affecting a few dozen to a hundred acres. Solutions should be based on local environmental issues, land use, and economic and community and concerns. Instead, the president is proposing more federal bureaucracy.
Clinton would also create now federal EPA and HUD programs for brownfield sites in our urban areas. There are several hundred thousand of these—from trashed vacant lots to old warehouses to abandoned manufacturing facilities.
Brownfields are being dealt with aggressively by many states and probably need less, not more, federal attention. Indeed one key impediment to brownfields redevelopment is fear among investors that the site might get caught up in the 10-year embargo of the federal Superfund program.
The states have taken a variety of innovative approaches to dealing with brownfields. California developed a streamlined, voluntary program to get contaminated properties back to productive use. Pennsylvania provides liability protection upon completion of certain cleanups and low interest loans for voluntary efforts. Ohio introduced the novel (to the feds) concept that land to be restored to industrial purposes need not be as pristine as that for planned residences.
Finally, the president waxes eloquently about the need to expand the federal community right-to-know laws so localities are protected from toxic chemical emission.
The truth is that the EPA already receives 80,000 reports a year on releases of chemicals into the environment. Unfortunately, these reports deal in pounds per year of emissions, not actual health or environmental risks. The current system also involves a two-year information detour to Washington D.C., before communities got the final data.
The game should again shift more to the local scene where industries releasing chemicals to the air, water, or land should discuss actual risks to their nearby communities in something approaching real time. By dealing with risks, not simply pounds per year, we can get an idea of where emission reductions really make sense.
Clinton showed little interest in the environment during his first three years. When the campaign required something, he simply added more levels of federal involvement.
©J. Winston Porter 2001