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EPA adds Ten-Mile Drain site to Superfund's National Priorities List

Release Date: 09/27/2010
Contact Information: Jayna Legg, 312-353-0562, legg.jayna@epa.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 10-OPA115

Chicago (Sept. 27, 2010) - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today is adding the Ten-Mile Drain site in St. Clair, Mich., to the National Priorities List of Superfund sites. Ten-Mile Drain is one of seven new hazardous waste sites to be added to the NPL.

NPL sites pose risks to human health and the environment. Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

In the case of Ten-Mile Drain, soil and sediment in and around a storm sewer system in St. Clair Shores are contaminated with PCBs. There are PCBs also in the canals where the storm sewer discharges into Lake St. Clair. EPA and other agencies have been involved in several removal projects at the Ten-Mile Drain site since PCBs were discovered in 2002. However the area has been re-contaminated and the source of the contamination has not been found.

To date, there have been 1,627 sites listed on the NPL. Of these sites, 345 have been deleted resulting in 1,282 sites currently on the NPL (including the seven new sites added in today's rulemaking). There are 61 proposed sites awaiting final agency action: 56 in the general Superfund section and five in the federal facilities section. There are a total of 1,343 final and proposed sites.

With all Superfund sites, EPA tries to identify and locate the parties potentially responsible for the contamination to either fund the cleanup or conduct the cleanup with EPA oversight. For newly listed sites without viable potentially responsible parties, EPA will fund the cleanup.

Sites may be placed on the list through various mechanisms:

• Numeric ranking established by EPA's Hazard Ranking System
• Designation by states or territories of one top-priority site
• Meeting all three of the following requirements:
  • The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a health advisory that recommends removing people from the site.
  • EPA determines the site poses a significant threat to public health.
  • EPA anticipates it will be more cost-effective to use its remedial authority than to use its emergency removal authority to respond to the site.