News Releases from Region 05

EPA to Add Spring Park Municipal Well Field Site in Minnesota to the Superfund National Priorities List

For Immediate Release: No. 18-OPA015

CHICAGO (May 15, 2018) — Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its commitment to clean up the Spring Park Municipal Well Field site in Spring Park, Minn. by adding it to the Superfund program’s National Priorities List (NPL).

“EPA is making tremendous progress accelerating sites through the entire Superfund remediation process and returning them to safe and productive reuse,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “Adding these sites to the proposed and final National Priorities List is the next step toward cleaning up these sites and creating a healthier environment for the affected communities.”

“I’m strongly committed to working with states and local communities to identify, clean up and return Superfund sites to productive reuse,” said EPA Regional Administrator Cathy Stepp. “Enabling responsible redevelopment of sites can transform underutilized sites that have long been considered eyesores or wastelands to become engines of revitalization.”

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a groundwater plume have contaminated two of Spring Park’s three municipal wells. The city and the state addressed the immediate threat to the drinking water with a new, interim treatment system. The third well draws water from a deep aquifer but will be unable to supply Spring Park with enough water on a long-term basis. The Minnesota Department of Health first identified VOCs, primarily trichloroethylene (TCE) from the Spring Park Treatment Plant in 2004. In addition to TCE, cis-1,2-dichloroethylene (DCE) and vinyl chloride are also present.

“The City of Spring Park is supportive of the addition of the Spring Park Municipal Well Field Site to the EPA’s National Priorities List," said Spring Park City Manager Dan Tolsma. "The City is eagerly following the progress of the groundwater investigation and is excited about the opportunity to work with the EPA to conduct substantial remediation activities in the near future.”

Academic research has shown that Superfund cleanups reduce birth defects within approximately 1 mile of a site as much as 25 percent. Cleanups also increase tax revenue and create jobs during and after cleanup. According to EPA data, 487 of the 888 Superfund sites cleaned up for reuse supported approximately 6,6000 businesses in 2017. And these businesses’ ongoing operations generate annual sales of $43.6 billion and employ more than 156,000 people who earned a combined income of $11.2 billion.

Background

Superfund, which Congress established in 1980, investigates and cleans up hazardous waste sites. The Superfund law directs EPA to update the NPL annually. Only sites added to the NPL are eligible to receive federal funding for long-term cleanup. Administrator Pruitt has set the expectation that there will be a renewed focus on accelerating work and progress at all Superfund sites across the country.

EPA adds sites to the NPL when contamination threatens human health and the environment. EPA deletes sites from the NPL once all response actions are complete and all cleanup goals have been achieved. EPA typically initiates Superfund involvement because states, tribes or citizens ask for the Agency’s help. The Agency may also find contamination during its own investigations.

The Spring Park Municipal Well Field site is one of six sites to be added to the NPL today, and were included in the most recent proposed rule in January 2018, evidence of the EPA’s commitment to expediting the Superfund process.

The NPL is one focus area of the Superfund Task Force Recommendations that were announced in July 2017 to improve and revitalize the Superfund program.

For information on the Spring Park Municipal Well Field site: https://www.epa.gov/superfund/springparkwellfield

The Superfund Task Force Recommendations can be viewed at https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-task-force-recommendations

For Federal Register notices and supporting documents for the final and proposed sites: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/current-npl-updates-new-proposed-npl-sites-and-new-npl-sites

For information about Superfund and the NPL: http://www.epa.gov/superfund

###