What is a Superfund Site?
About 11 million people in the United States, including 3-4 million children, live within 1 mile of a federal Superfund site. About half of those sites present a hazard to human health.
The first superfund site was Love Canal. In 1980, Lois Gibbs organized the Love Canal community, near Niagara Falls, New York, to let the world know that 20,000 tons of hazardous chemicals were buried in their neighborhood. In response, President Jimmy Carter ordered payment for 900 families to be relocated from Love Canal and started a superfund to clean up hazardous sites across the country.
Today, the Superfund program investigates and cleans up the most complex contaminated waste sites in the country. There are about 1,300 sites on the National Priorities List. These sites are considered some of the nation’s worst toxic waste sites and are eligible for long-term remediation.
Contamination at Superfund sites results from improper handling of waste. Some are old waste disposal facilities, some are the result of chemical spills and other are caused by illegal dumping of hazardous waste. Human exposure to hazardous waste from these sites is usually through contaminated ground water or the soil. Risks associated with the sites include liver, kidney or reproductive system damage. Birth defects can be caused by some of these chemicals and some of them can cause cancer.
The law that created the Superfund program, calls for the EPA to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites and force responsible parties to carry out cleanups or pay for EPA-led cleanups.