Region 1: EPA New England
Superfund Program Brings Environmental and Economic Benefits to Connecticut
Note: EPA no longer updates this information, but it may be useful as a reference or resource.
By Robert W. Varney
September 4, 2003
Stratford Square Shopping Center in Stratford, Connecticut is a bustling shopping center anchored by Walmart, Home Depot and Shaw’s Supermarket. While that may not sound like big news in a densely populated area of the state, it is because these businesses are thriving in an area that once was a polluted industrial wasteland.
For nearly 70 years Raymark Industries occupied the 38-acre parcel manufacturing automotive brakes, clutch parts, and other friction components and when the company left, environmental investigators found heavy asbestos solvents, and lead contamination B byproducts of the industry. The site was capped in a way that allowed for the mall to be safely developed on it.
Today, children are playing on the fields at the Wooster Junior High School and dozens of homes have new landscaping that marks the completion of waste cleanup from properties where fill was found to be contaminated.
While cleanup is far from over in many of the other areas where contamination has been identified in Stratford, the redevelopment of the mall parcel and these other sites set a tone for what can be achieved when federal, state and local people get together to make a vision for the future a reality.
The nation’s Superfund program, created in 1980, funds the cleanup of the most highly contaminated toxic waste sites and which also pose the highest risk to people’s health. Although the cleanups nationwide and this one in Connecticut have been complicated and time-consuming, our successes have been clear:
- While the total number of sites needing cleanup is decreasing, the EPA is now addressing bigger, more complex sites, involving more contamination and longer cleanup times.
- Forty percent of the national Superfund budget is being spent to clean up just eight of the largest and most complex sites in the country; still more than half of all the sites on the Superfund have been cleaned up. Progress is being made at the others.
- Almost 70 percent of the cleanups are being paid for by those parties responsible for the contamination; that amounts to about $21 billion since the start of the program.
Where does the money come from? Each year Congress appropriates nearly $1.3 billion nationally to address Superfund contamination. And, the Administration has requested an additional $150 million for the next year.
Connecticut has 18 toxic waste sites on the federal Superfund list and EPA has spent nearly $191 million to clean them up. At eight of these sites, EPA has already built the cleanup infrastructure needed to restore contaminated groundwater, and treat and/or remove contaminated soils or sediment, and construction is underway at another five sites. Two sites have been deleted from the Superfund list because they are now clean and the remaining sites are being studied to better understand contamination and to design effective cleanup plans.
EPA spent an additional $67 million at another 84 Connecticut properties to protect residents from exposure to hazardous materials left behind when companies have either gone out of business, have abandoned their properties or that may have been destroyed by fire.
The Superfund law requires those responsible for polluted sites pay to clean them up. This "polluter pays" principle has resulted in 70 percent of Superfund sites being paid for and cleaned up by private parties. Other sites are cleaned up by EPA, with costs recovered from private parties after the cleanup. EPA's Superfund budget, therefore, is spent on sites where there are no viable responsible parties.
Thanks to investments by EPA and private parties, the benefits of cleanup have far exceeded what Congress envisioned when it created the Superfund program two decades ago. Some of the most toxic waste sites in the nation=s history have been cleaned up and restored for community use B the famous Times Beach Superfund site in Missouri is now a 500-acre state park; and the 245-acre Industri-Plex Superfund site in Woburn, Mass. is now home to a Target store and a commuter transportation center.
Redevelopment of these and other similar properties has meant new jobs and increased economic vitality in communities. EPA, working with local planners, and other community, state and federal partners are investing in America, community-by-community.
Robert W. Varney is regional administrator of EPA's New England Office.