Quick sidebar for those of your not familiar with the Superfund program: Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. This law was enacted in the wake of the discovery of toxic waste dumps such as Love Canal and Times Beach in the 1970s. It allows the EPA to clean up such sites and to compel responsible parties to perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-lead cleanups. *source: www.epa.gov.
Really, getting Federal funding to clean up a long-time polluted area should make any city and its inhabitants really happy. But this is New York and the Gowanus canal happens to run through some of Brooklyn's most notable gentrify-tastic neighborhoods (Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Red Hook) so instead, the Mayor is pissed. Why is he not pleased with this? Because first and foremost, he wants to get new developments going along the canal and in nearby neighborhoods and second, because he doesn't want the Superfund label tacked onto a neighborhood in his city in such close proximity to many voters and taxpayers.
Here's the backstory: Built in the 19th century, the Gowanus evolved into a busy industrial waterway for oil refineries, chemical plants, tanneries, manufactured gas plants and other heavy industry operating along its banks. It was a repository for raw sewage and runoff for over a century. Most of that flow has been halted, and the 100-foot-wide canal is now used for both commercial and recreational purposes by the neighborhoods bordering it. In a preliminary assessment, the agency found that the contamination traversed the length of the 1.8-mile canal and included a variety of pollutants, including pesticides, metals and the cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs. *source: www.nytimes.com
Wondering about the cost to taxpayers? This project is tentatively scheduled to last 10-12 years and cost between $300 and $500 million dollars.
One additional recommendation: Read about some of the other Superfund sites. In many cases the backstory is a staggering account of corporate negligence and 80s cover-ups.
Below is a map of all of the Superfund sites in the US. Red means that the site is on the priority clean-up list. Yellow means that the site is being considered for clean-up and Green means the site is no longer listed as a Superfund site - in most cases meaning it was cleaned up.
Did you see that the Brunswick Naval Station is on the list of Superfund sites. Not sure if its already been cleaned or not but pretty crazy
ReplyDeleteyou can't even see jersey
ReplyDeleteHaha! Great call from anonymous, Jersey is NOT visible. Totally living up to reputation.
ReplyDeletePretty gross, but thank God for the Superfund program. Everyone of those dots represents potential public health or environmental disasters that would not be addressed if not for this statute. That's something to think about the next time you hear someone exclaim what an abomination Jimmy Carter was as president (he proposed and signed the legislation).
ReplyDeleteI have one question about this post. I wonder why you suggest that the taxpayers will foot the entire bill for this cleanup? The Superfund program has mechanisms in place that hold any potentially responsible party (PRP) strictly liable for any contribution of harmful waste to the site. In other words any public or private party who owned/operated the site, generated waste that went to the site, or transported waste to the site throughout the site's history can be held liable for cleanup costs regardless of their intent or level of negligence. Generally what happens is the EPA will identify a Superfund site and single out one or more PRPs to conduct the cleanup. Those PRPs or the EPA can then bring actions against any other PRPs to recover cleanup costs.
Taxpayers may have to pay for some of this for several reason. First of all, local, state, or federal governments may be PRPs because of government activity that contributed to the harm. Nevertheless, courts tend to allocate more cost to private parties so as not to pass cleanup costs on to the public. Secondly, costs may be passed on to federal taxpayers because the federal government will pay the cost if other PRPs can't possibly pay. This is a last resort. However, it's possible in this case since it sounds like a lot of the pollution took place over a hundred years ago, and many of the PRPs may be dissolved or insolvent.
So it could be the case that taxpayers are footing the entire bill, but that would be rare given the structure of the statute. Just wondering if your source had more about what's going on in this case; whether taxpayers may actually have to pay the entire cost; and whether we're talking local, state, or federal taxpayers. Don't mean to be pedantic, just interested by this.
Benjamin, thanks for the comment and you raise a great point. To be fair, my comment on taxpayers was pure speculation as the pollution in the canal cannot be attributed to one company and as you note occurred over 150 years or so.
ReplyDeleteAs you note, other Superfund sites aren't paid for just by taxpayers. If you read about the Love Canal in upstate New York, that's a Superfund site that can absolutely be attributed to one company who can then be held responsible.
I'm definitely being cynical here, but I can't imagine that for the Gowanus canal they're going to find and hold responsible the family who used to run a tannery that helped pollute the canal (or some other wicked old manufacturer example you can think of).
Nevertheless, I was careless with my point and I appreciate your comment.
Thanks for your response Phil. I thought that might have been the case seeing as most of that waste seems to have come from the industrial revolution era. Could be an interesting test of the statute's scope of liability. The statute contemplates successor liability (i.e. holding companies liable that have acquired the offending party), but courts differ in how they apply it. Would be interesting to see the EPA try to reconstruct a chain of acquisitions leading from a ma and pop tannery 150 years ago to a company like Nike or something. Or maybe it's more just that we all just bear the cost collectively...?
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