How many npl sites

The contamination at many of these sites was created years ago when environmental regulations were virtually nonexistent and companies dumped or emitted hazardous materials freely into the environment. Years later the threat to humans and the ecosystems remains so great that the sites need to be cleaned up. Unfortunately, since much of this contamination was caused so many years ago, it can be hard to find the parties responsible, or the parties responsible may be unwilling or unable to pay for the cleanup.

In these cases, the Superfund trust fund can be used to pay for most of the cleanup process. States must pay for a portion of such cleanups. The CERCLA law also provides the EPA with enforcement tools to compel those responsible for causing the contamination to pay for the cleanup, including the issuance of administrative orders. If the trust fund is used, then the EPA and the state may go to court to recover their expenditures from those who are responsible.

The following are former Superfund sites in Wisconsin that are now deleted, i. In , it was believed that relatively few sites in the nation were contaminated with hazardous substances.

Superfund was supposed to be a short-lived program involving at most a few hundred sites requiring relatively few resources. However, as EPA began discovering sites and evaluating their potential harm, the inventory of hazardous substance sites grew rapidly. Since , the states have assumed more and more responsibility for the implementation of the Superfund program.

One of the primary functions of the Superfund program in the Hazardous Waste Office is to perform site assessment activities for placement of properties on the NPL.

The site assessment process is multi-phased. After site discovery, a Preliminary Assessment PA is performed for initial data gathering. At first the Superfund was flush from taxes on oil and chemicals, but Congress let those expire in Leaky barrels can be removed, but contaminated land and groundwater remain. Most Superfund sites have been on the list for decades. Deleted Three out of four of the currently deleted sites spent more than ten years on the list.

Construction completed On almost half of these sites, construction was completed more than 15 years ago. Active 65 of these sites have been active since September Proposed Of the 52 currently proposed sites, almost half were listed in the s.