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INSIDE THE DECADES-LONG FIGHT OVER AN OHIO SUPERFUND SITE

Thirty acres of desolate land stretch across the heart of Uniontown, Ohio, a vast expanse of grass, trees, and scruffy vegetation no one can use because a toxic stew of nearly one hundred deadly contaminants festers beneath its surface. Enclosed by chain-link fencing and warning signs, the Industrial Excess Landfill (IEL) is one of more than thirteen hundred hazardous Superfund sites on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List.
While open, IEL’s broad swath of customers ranged from Akron City Hospital to the National Guard, but, according to the EPA, the waste came primarily from the rubber industry: Firestone, General Tire, Goodrich, and Goodyear in nearby Akron, the Rubber Capital of the World.
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Photo Credit: John Harper/cleveland.com

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Infrastructure Summer: Polluters Don’t Pay in New ‘Polluter Pay’ Tax

When the Superfund program first passed Congress in 1980, there was one word that marked the moment: justice. Finally, polluters were on the hook for cleaning up neighborhoods, waterfronts, and schoolyards. Many Americans living near toxic waste sites were already mired with health complications, including epilepsy, miscarriages, nephrosis, and even fatal illnesses. For once, the afflicted would benefit from those doing the afflicting.

But today, the Superfund program is languishing. Only a small fraction of identified sites have been successfully remediated during the 40 years of the program. This is mainly due to a lack of funds, after a critical polluter tax expired over 25 years ago.
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Photo Credit: Chris Stephens/The Plain Dealer via AP Photo

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Here’s what’s in the bipartisan infrastructure bill

(CNN)A bipartisan group of senators unveiled the legislative text of the infrastructure bill on Sunday night after months of negotiations.

In total, the deal includes $550 billion in new federal investments in America’s infrastructure over five years.
However, it is far short of the $2.25 trillion proposal that President Joe Biden unveiled in March. That measure, known as the American Jobs Plan, included money for roads, bridges and public transportation, but it drew criticism from many Republicans for also making investments in areas not traditionally considered infrastructure, such as caregiving for aging Americans and workforce training.
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Photo Credit: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images
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Residential zoning at former Monsanto site dangerous for future homebuyers

Rezoning any of the Monsanto Plant Property From M-2 Heavy Industrial District to A-2 Rural Residential is Dangerous to the Public Health & Safety for Maury County residents and future generations of the community.

More than 1,300 Superfund sites are littered across the U.S. These are the places that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has deemed so contaminated with hazardous waste that they need long-term response plans. These sites are inconspicuous and their whereabouts aren’t always obvious to the unsuspecting public. There are thousands of Superfund sites across the United States and they include manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills and mines where hazardous wastes were dumped, left out in the open or poorly managed, posing a risk to the environment and human health.

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Photo Credit: Mike Christen/The Daily Herald

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Solving pollution from solvents requires solvent Superfund | Editorial

Shhh! Don’t tell the Republicans, but there’s a tax increase in the bipartisan federal infrastructure legislation that some in their party have endorsed.

The “deal” reinstates the tax, or fee, that feedstock chemical producers used to pay that ensure that “orphaned” Superfund contaminated sites will be cleaned up. The GOPers who signed off on the package must be OK with that, and that’s a good thing.

Photo Credit: Kimberly Chandler/AP Photo
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Neighbors worried that recreation is exposing kids to toxins on the Coeur d’Alene River form a nonprofit to address issues

Last Saturday, just as a historic heat wave hit the Northwest, thousands of people took to the north fork of the Coeur d’Alene River in Shoshone County, Idaho.

Groups on inner tubes and unicorn floaties and kayaks and rafts floated the crystal-clear waters after parking wherever they could find space along stretches of road lining either side of the river.
Some park their RVs for weekend getaways throughout the summer on private property rented along the river in this county of about 12,600 people. Others set up canopies and barbecues on any beach or rocky “sand bar” they can find. Locals say litter and trespassing can be common problems.
Meanwhile, kids splash each other as they run up and down the shores playing in the shallows — shallows that, in many places, are highly contaminated with toxic levels of lead, arsenic, mercury and more.
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Photo Credit: Samantha Wohlfeil/Inlander

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Superfund Tax Revival Renewing ‘Polluter Pays’ Debate

One of the bipartisan infrastructure deal’s pay-fors is reviving longstanding questions over who should pay to clean up some of the nation’s most contaminated land.
The White House released a framework on Thursday for its $579 billion bipartisan infrastructure deal. Included within the pay-fors of that plan is a line item to “reinstate Superfund fees for chemicals,” a potential restoration of excise taxes that expired in the mid-nineties.
Lawmakers in favor of bringing back the “polluters pay” tax model, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), applauded the provision. But industry representatives said that with few details to go on, questions remain on whether the revenue scheme should apply more broadly so that companies aren’t financially responsible for sites that they otherwise wouldn’t be liable for under the Superfund law.
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Photo Credit: Stephen Hilger/Bloomberg News

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North Birmingham coke plant violating air regulations as superfund cleanup continues

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Amid a large-scale EPA superfund cleanup of contaminated soil in north Birmingham, residents are also worried about what’s being emitted into the air from local plants.
After complaints from neighbors about different smells and air that’s difficult to breathe, a CBS 42 investigation revealed that not all nearby industries are compliant with EPA guidelines. Jefferson County Department of Health Director of Environmental Health Jonathan Stanton told us Bluestone Coke was issued a notice of violation of local and federal air regulations.
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Photo Credit: Jonece Starr Dunigan

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Brunswick Residents Living Next To A Superfund Site Worry About Cleanup 40 Years Later

Jasmin Buggs reeled in her line and looked with dismay at the bare metal hook.
The shrimp bait was gone — again.
Likely it was yanked off by a stealthy stingray or nabbed by a passing whiting.
Buggs and her boyfriend regularly fish in Mackay River off the edge of an old bridge that once connected Brunswick and St. Simons Island. Though both live locally, neither were aware of any pollution or fish advisory notices on the Back River, the next bridge over, due to suspected pollution from the old Hercules industrial plant. The 152-acre industrial site, marked by the white smoke billowing from a tall smokestack, is visible from the bridge across the marsh.
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Photo Credit: Laura Corley/The Current

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Can Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Save the Superfund Program?

As Biden deliberated where to unveil the American Jobs Plan in late March, Pittsburgh was an obvious choice. A former manufacturing mainstay, it was where Biden launched his presidential campaign two years ago, in a sign that he wanted to revitalize the Rust Belt. Now, he returned to reaffirm his commitment to the region by making it the spot to announce over $2 trillion in infrastructure spending.
Yet Pittsburgh was an apt choice for another reason. The surrounding county is home to four of Pennsylvania’s most toxic Superfund sites. (The state is saddled with 91 sites in total.) Although Biden didn’t mention it in his speech that day, the American Jobs Plan, if passed, would pump money into the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund program, which has been in a dire financial state for the last two decades.
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Photo Credit: Matt Rourke/AP Photo