U.S. EPA today added 10 new hazardous waste sites to its Superfund National Priorities List and proposed adding 15 more.
The sites, which range from New York to Texas to Puerto Rico, have been contaminated by substances such as asbestos, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and trichloroethene (TCE), among others.
Now that these 10 sites are on the list, EPA will try to identify the parties potentially responsible for the contamination. For sites where a responsible party is not found, EPA will assess the full extent of the contamination before beginning its cleanup. In those cases, it may take years before funding is needed and the cleanup begins.
With these additions, there are 1,290 Superfund sites currently on the list, according to an EPA release. There are 66 proposed sites awaiting final agency action.
The sites added to the list are a groundwater plume in Elkton, Md.; a lead mining area in Caledonia, Mo.; a silver and copper mining site in Cascade County, Mont.; a trail dump site near the Mansfield Trail in Byram Township, N.J.; a landfill in Nassau, N.Y.; a former fertilizer manufacturing site in Riegelwood, N.C.; a contaminated aquifer in Milford, Ohio; groundwater contamination sites in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico; a contaminated groundwater plume in Caguas, Puerto Rico; and a contaminated groundwater site in Midland, Texas.
