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EPA Adds and Proposes Three Sites to Superfund’s National Priorities List in the Southeast

Release Date: 03/03/2010
Contact Information: Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, [email protected]

(Atlanta, Ga. – Mar. 3, 2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has added three and proposed three new hazardous waste sites in the southeast that pose risks to human health and the environment to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites. The NPL is a listing of priority sites that EPA investigates to determine if actions are needed to clean up the waste. Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country – protecting the health of nearby communities and ecosystems from harmful contaminants.

The JJ Seifert Machine (Ruskin, Fla.), Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp - Jacksonville (Jacksonville, Fla.), and Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp – Navassa (Navassa, N.C.) sites have been added to the National Priorities List. Sanford Dry Cleaners (Sanford, Fla.), The Wright Chemical Corporation (Riegelwood, N.C.), and Smokey Mountain Smelters (Knox County, Tenn.) sites have been proposed for inclusion on the National Priorities List.

To date, there are 1,279 sites on the NPL (including the 10 new sites added today). With the proposal of the eight new sites, there are 61 proposed sites awaiting final agency action. There are a total of 1,340 final and proposed sites.

Contaminants of concern found at the final and proposed sites include arsenic, benzene, chromium, copper, creosote, cyanide, dichloroethene (DCE), lead, mercury, perchloroethene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and selenium, among others.

With all Superfund sites, EPA tries to identify and locate the parties potentially responsible for the contamination. For the newly listed sites without viable potentially responsible parties, EPA will investigate the full extent of the contamination before starting significant cleanup at the site. Therefore, it may be several years before significant cleanup funding is required for these sites.

Sites may be placed on the NPL through various mechanisms:

· Numeric ranking established by EPA’s Hazard Ranking System.
· Designation by states or territories of one top-priority site.
· Meeting all three of the following requirements:
· The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the U.S. Public Health Service has issued a health advisory that recommends removing people from the site;
· EPA determines the site poses a significant threat to public health; and
· EPA anticipates it will be more cost-effective to use its remedial authority than to use its emergency removal authority to respond to the site.