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

Release date: 09/03/2008

Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov

(Atlanta, Ga. – September 3, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is adding two and proposing 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. Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

The Flash Cleaners Site (Pompano Beach, Fla.) and the Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water Site (Aberdeen, N.C.) have been added to the National Priorities List. The Raleigh Street Dump Site (Tampa, Fla.), Arkla Terry Property (Thonotosassa, Fla.), and Barite Hill/Nevada Goldfields Site (McCormick, S.C.) have been proposed to the National Priorities List.

To date, there have been 1,587 sites listed on the NPL. Of these sites, 329 sites have been deleted, resulting in 1,258 sites currently on the NPL. There are a total of 1,322 final and proposed sites.

Contaminants found at the final and proposed sites include arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, chromium, copper, cyanide, lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), selenium, silver, sulfuric acid, tetrachloroethene (PCE), trichloroethane (TCA), trichloroethene (TCE), vinyl chloride, and zinc.

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 list 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.