11/27/2007

Washington, DC - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continued to achieve cleanup progress at the nation's most complex hazardous waste sites during the past year. Superfund, the federal government program that cleans up these sites, completed work at 24 sites during fiscal year 2007 for a cumulative 1,030 sites with construction work completed. Sixty-four sites were made ready for redevelopment by local communities.

"The Superfund program continues to build on its successful record of cleaning up contaminated sites to protect human health and the environment," said Susan Bodine, EPA's assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. "We are working with communities to bring these sites back into productive use."

Eighty-six percent of the sites on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL) have construction completed or underway. The program also prepared for future cleanup efforts by listing 12 new sites and proposing 17 sites to the NPL.

In 2007, EPA conducted or provided oversight at 631 ongoing cleanup projects at 409 sites and conducted or oversaw 351 emergency response and removal actions to address immediate threats to communities. EPA also provided more than $82M to start cleanup construction work at 19 projects across the country. These 19 projects represent all of the projects ready to receive funding to initiate cleanup activities.

EPA secured private party funding commitments of more than $1B in fiscal year 2007. Of this amount, potentially responsible parties agreed to conduct $688M in future response work and reimburse EPA for $252M in past costs.

SOURCE: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency