Region 1: EPA New England
Superfund Program Brings Environmental and Economic Benefits to New Hampshire
Note: EPA no longer updates this information, but it may be useful as a reference or resource.
By Robert W. Varney
August 29, 2003
There’s a new Home Depot in Londonderry, NH. Soon 180 new homes will be going up, too. The land that's being developed is on the Tinkham's Garage Superfund site. Residents at the time, some 25 years ago, complained of floating foam on a small brook and horrible odors coming from the 375-acre wooded and open space property, prompting EPA to investigate. By the 1980s, drinking water to hundreds of neighbors was contaminated, compelling EPA to develop a safe municipal water system to replace the contaminated wells. Through its enforcement efforts, EPA successfully required a group of private parties to clean up contaminated soils and restore the aquifer. All told, EPA spent about $2 million restoring this site. Private parties spent millions more and continue to work on restoring the groundwater.
The nation's Superfund program, created in 1980, funds the cleanup of the most highly contaminated toxic waste sites which pose the highest risk to the people’s health. Although cleanups in New Hampshire and across the country 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 list have been cleaned up and progress is being made at other sites.
- Almost 70 percent of the cleanups are being paid for by parties responsible for 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 Bush Administration has requested an additional $150 million for the next year.
New Hampshire has 20 toxic waste sites on the federal Superfund list and EPA already has spent more than $153.6 million to clean them up. At 11 of these sites, EPA has installed the cleanup infrastructure needed to restore contaminated groundwater and to treat and/or remove contaminated soils or sediment. Cleanup activities are underway at five additional sites. The remaining sites are being studied to better understand contamination and to design effective cleanup plans.
EPA spent an additional $31 million at another 99 New Hampshire properties to protect residents from exposure to hazardous materials left behind when companies have either gone out of business, abandoned their properties or been destroyed by fire.
The Superfund law requires those parties responsible for polluted sites pay to clean them up. This ‘polluter pays’ principle has resulted in 70 percent of Superfund work being paid for and cleaned up by private parties. When responsible parties do not cooperate, EPA will clean up sites and then recover the costs from private parties after the cleanup. EPA's Superfund budget, therefore, is spent on sites where 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 sites in the nation's history have been cleaned up and restored for community use. Among those: the famous Times Beach Superfund site in Missouri is now a 500-acre state park; the 245-acre Industri-Plex Superfund site in Woburn, MA. is now home to a Target store and commuter transportation center; the Raymark Industries site in Stratford, CT is now a bustling shopping center anchored by Home Depot, Walmart and Shaw's Supermarket.
Redevelopment of these and other similar properties has brought thousands of new jobs and millions of dollars of increased economic vitality to communities. EPA, working with local planners, neighborhood groups and other community, state and federal partners, is investing in America, community-by-community.
Robert W. Varney is regional administrator of EPA's New England Office.