Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

Correctly identify what a Superfund site is with 80% accuracy.

Correctly identify the characteristics of hazardous wastes with 80% accuracy.

Correctly identify who is responsible for the clean up and cost of a Superfund site with 80% accuracy.

Intended audience: Grade 12 - Adults

Superfund requires EPA to deal with abandoned, accidentally spilled, or illegally dumped hazardous substances from the past, primarily from businesses and industry.

The U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in response to growing concern about health and environmental threats from hazardous waste sites. This law is commonly called Superfund.

What is Superfund?

​What is hazardous waste?

1. By-products of society that can pose a substantial or potential threat to human health or the environment when improperly managed.

2. A waste product with one or more of the following characteristics: ignitable (it can catch fire easily), corrosive (it can eat away material), reactive (it reacts violently or harmfully), or toxic (it is poisonous).

An early action is used at a site posing a threat in the near future by preventing human contact with contaminants such as providing clean drinking water to a neighborhood, removing hazardous materials from the site, or preventing contaminants from spreading. Early actions may last a few days or up to five years.

An emergency response is used at a site that requires immediate action to eliminate serious risks to human health and the environment (for example, cleaning up chemicals spilled from an overturned truck on the highway).

EPA Response Actions

A long-term action is used at a site where cleanup may take many years or decades (groundwater cleanups are frequently in this category). Often both early and long-term actions are performed at the same time. For example, leaking storage drums may be removed in an early action while contaminated soil is cleaned up under a long-term action.

Reports by citizens, a reported accident, or planned searchs to discover sites.

EPA first reviews a site to decide what needs to be done. EPA collects information, inspects the area, and talks to people in the community to find out how the site affects them and the environment. Some sites don't require any action.

How does the EPA determine risk?

The Hazard Ranking System (HRS)

EPA uses the information it collected to score a site according to the risk it poses to people's health and the environment. To give an HRS score to a site, EPA looks at migration pathways - how contamination moves in the environment. EPA examines four migration pathways:

• Groundwater that may be used for drinking water

• Surface water used for drinking water, as well as for plant and animal habitats

• Soil that people may come in contact with or that can be absorbed lower in the food chain

• Air that carries contaminants.

​Why is clean up so difficult?

Different substances interact with groundwater, surface water, soil and air in different ways.

Let's experiment!

​The NPL

Sites that get a high score on the HRS can be put on the National Priorities List (NPL). The NPL is a list of the nation's worst hazardous waste sites that qualify for extensive, long-term cleanup action under Superfund. Once a site is placed on the NPL, a more detailed study further pinpoints the cause and extent of contamination, as well as the risks posed to people and the environment nearby. This information helps identify different ways to clean up the site.

Who pays for cleanup?

The law says EPA can make the people responsible for contamination pay for site studies and cleanup work. EPA negotiates with these Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) to reach an agreement. Sometimes EPA pays for the cleanup out of a pool of money called the Superfund and then tries to make PRPs pay back the costs. Superfund money comes mainly from taxes on chemical and petroleum industries.

$43,000,000

North Carolina Superfund Sites