Jackie's Garden :]

header Jackie's Garden header

Superfund Sites

The EPA has a list of toxic waste sites in the U.S. including all the mainland states, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Some of these sites have been cleaned and deemed "safe", some are still posing a threat to nearby communities (on the NPL, national priorities list), and some are currently in the proposal stage to be added to the NPL. Thousands of these contaminated sites exist. "Superfund" aka the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) was established in 1980 and its goal is to allow the EPA to respond and clean up these toxic sites and holds the parties responsible for the toxic waste accountable financially. I am very interested and horrified by the list of these active toxic waste sites and the fact that after some light browsing of nearby sites (you can see if you live near any here) I noticed just how many years or decades some of these cases have been open and not resolved.

Roebling Steel Co. Florence, New Jersey, active NPL site since DEC 1982. Hazard Ranking - 41.02. Steel production plant near the Delaware river with two lagoons (3 feet deep) containing heavy metals. These lagoons are unlined which can allow contaminants to seep into the nearby ground. This site was declared on of the 38 most hazardous waste sites in New Jersey. The water table in this area is 10 feet deep and many homes in the nearby area rely on this ground water for drinking. Additionally, run-off from this site may have seeped into the Delaware and the EPA suspects that drums of toxic material may be buried in the earth (they were also later found above ground). Despite this being an active NPL site, cleanup began in 1987 and by 2011, the EPA had removed the sources of contamination. It is now home to a light commuter rail and a small historic museum. A detailed report of the cleanup can be found here.