EPA Deletes All or Part of 27 Superfund Sites from the National Priorities List, Continuing Recent Trend of Historic High Deletions

Under the Trump Administration, EPA has deleted 82 sites from the NPL in four years equaling the number of deletions between 2008-2016

October 5, 2020

WASHINGTON (October 5, 2020) — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 the Agency deleted all or part of 27 sites from the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). This marks the third year in a row that EPA has deleted a historically high number of Superfund sites, sending a clear message that human health and the environment are protected and paving the way for redeveloping these properties into community assets.

“Cleaning up these Superfund sites brings real environmental benefits to places that have suffered environmental degradation while also helping move them forward,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “Once the land has been cleaned up of historical pollutants, the sites can be repurposed and reused in ways that create jobs and enhance the health of entire communities. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and there is still more work to do.” 

EPA deletes sites or parts of sites from the NPL when no further cleanup is required to protect human health or the environment. Years, and sometimes decades, of complex investigation and cleanup work have gone into getting these sites to where they are today.

While EPA encourages site reuse throughout the cleanup process, deletions from the NPL can help revitalize communities and promote economic growth by signaling to potential developers and financial institutions that cleanup is complete. Over the past several years, the EPA has placed special emphasis on deleting sites and portions of sites to demonstrate to communities that cleanup is complete.

During the first term of the Trump Administration, EPA has deleted all or part of 82 sites from the NPL matching the site year total over two terms of the previous administration. In FY 2017, EPA doubled the number of full and partial sites deleted over the previous fiscal year with a total of six sites. In FY 2018, the Agency increased the total number of deletions to 22, and in FY 2019, increased it to 27. This past year, in FY 2020, EPA continued to achieve a historically high rate of deletions with 14 full sites and parts of 13 additional sites, for a total of 27 deletion activities.

In FY 2020, EPA employees initiated a project to evaluate and improve the deletion process and as a result consolidated the rulemaking process to streamline the administrative steps involved in deleting sites from the NPL. Going forward, this improvement is expected to reduce workloads, shorten process lead-times and lower program costs.

The 14 sites EPA fully deleted from the NPL are:

1. FMC Corp. (Dublin Road Landfill), Town of Shelby, NY
2. Hormigas Ground Water Plume, Caguas, PR
3. First Piedmont Corp. Rock Quarry (Route 719), Pittsylvania County, VA
4. Fairfax St. Wood Treaters, Jacksonville, FL
5. Red Panther Chemical Company, Clarksdale, MS
6. Dupage County Landfill/Blackwell Forest, Warrenville, IL
7. Fridley Commons Park Well Field, Fridley, MN
8. Scrap Processing Co., Inc., Medford, WI
9. Cimarron Mining Corp., Carrizozo, NM
10. Tulsa Fuel and Manufacturing, Collinsville, OK
11. Annapolis Lead Mine, Annapolis, MO
12. JASCO Chemical Corp., Mountain View, CA
13. American Crossarm & Conduit Co., Chehalis, WA
14. Northside Landfill, Spokane, WA

The 13 sites EPA partially deleted are:

1. Industri-Plex, Woburn, MA
2. Maccalloy Corp., Charleston, SC
3. Redstone Arsenal U.S. Army/NASA, Huntsville, AL
4. Allied Chemical & Ironton Coke, Ironton, Ohio
5. Douglass Road/Uniroyal Inc., Landfill Mishawaka, IN
6. Fort Wayne Reduction Dump, Fort Wayne, IN
7. Southeast Rockford Ground Water Contamination, Rockford, IL
8. U.S. Smelter and Lead Refinery, Inc., East Chicago, IN
9. Omaha Lead, Omaha, NE
10. Anaconda Co. Smelter, Anaconda, MT
11. Idaho Pole, Co., Bozeman, MT
12. Libby Asbestos Site, Libby, MT
13. Queen City Farms, Maple Valley, WA

Additional information about EPA’s NPL deletions can be viewed at https://www.epa.gov/superfund/deleted-national-priorities-list-npl-sites-state

The Superfund Task Force Accomplishments can be viewed at https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-task-force-recommendations-and-accomplishments

To search for information about these and other NPL sites, please visit https://www.epa.gov/superfund/search-superfund-sites-where-you-live