Superfund Synopsis

As our nation has industrialized, the price of it has been hazardous waste polluting our environment. The government started a federal program dubbed Superfund in 1980, to combat the threat to human life. However the fund used to clean up hazardous waste sites is almost bankrupt. The EPA announced that 40 waste sites had been cleaned up during the fiscal year. The total sites cleaned since Superfund began is up to 886, but there are still 1203 sites left. According to the US Public Interest Group, 1 out of 4 Americans live within 4 miles of a Superfund Site(Knickerbocker para. 5). Superfund’s basis for payment of the cleanup was to make the polluter pay. Orphan sites have popped up however where no one could be made to pay. These sites were paid for by excise taxes. This is the major issue now with Superfund how to pay for it. With anyone and everyone who was ever associated with the site responsible companies linked to the site by the EPA go after someone else who was a part of the pollution, and legal battles ensue. The critics say that this is the incorrect way to go about payment as much of the money goes to payment of lawyers and the like. The author states that “Eliminating Superfund is by all means politically infeasible, so the main question remains: how to pay for it.” (Knickerbocker para. 16). Eliminating Superfund is a possibility if another environmental bill that would viably replace Superfund were enacted. I do agree though that right now the question to focus on is how to pay for Superfund. Using taxes on both companies and consumers seems to be a solid idea, as some of the pollution can be attributed to the companies and consumers, as the writer states “And if one considers consumers to be ultimately responsible for the products associated with hazardous waste, then it may be that the ‘polluter pays’ in the end.” (Knickerbocker para. 21). The consumers are partly responsible but they aren’t completely responsible. The responsibility of cleaning up the pollution lies with everyone.
Knickerbocker, Brad. Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag. Nov. 14 2003. Oct 2 2007.


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