Twenty-five toxic waste sites in 15 states are to be cleaned up, and ongoing work at dozens of others will get a funding boost, as the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced a $1 billion infusion to the federal Superfund program.
The money is the third and last installment in the $3.5 billion allocated under the 2021 infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden. It will help clear a backlog of hazardous sites such as old landfills, mines and manufacturing facilities targeted by the 44-year-old Superfund program.
Long-contaminated sites slated for cleanup include a former smelting plant in East Helena, Montana; an old textile mill in Greenville, South Carolina, and a New Jersey beach area blighted by lead battery casings and other toxic material used to build a seawall and jetty nearly 60 years ago.
The Raritan Bay Superfund site in Old Bridge, New Jersey, is one of three Superfund sites in the state that will receive new funding. New Jersey is one of several states with more than one project included in the latest round of federal spending. Four sites in Pennsylvania, including the former Valmont Industrial Park in West Hazleton, will receive funding, as will three sites in California and two in New York.
We kind-of do have that, but it’s woefully inadequate.
They’re called reclamation bonds, and they’re required to be paid before permits are issued for certain activities, most often mining. When a mine closes, the company is supposed to remediate the area and make sure the mine doesn’t post any human or environmental dangers. Upon completion, they get their bond money back. Think of it like a security deposit on a rental apartment.
In practice, remediation is expensive, so the mine owners often just abandon ship and forfeit the bonds since the bond amounts are less than the reclamation costs. This is like having a $500 security deposit on an apartment but doing $5,000 worth of damage before moving out. You don’t get your $500 back, but you also don’t have to pay $4,500 to repair the damage you’ve caused.
This leaves the state environmental agency (read: taxpayers) responsible to clean up the difference. If the damage is bad enough, that’s where Superfund often comes in.
Why not increase the bond amounts or do X or Y? Well, those are all good ideas, but when your state is run by coal barons, there’s little incentive for them to fix things 😠