| WASHINGTON
- September 30 - America's federal Superfund toxic waste cleanup program, aptly named for the polluter-funded trust, runs out of polluter contributed funds this Wednesday, October 1, according to a recent General Accounting Office report, leaving taxpayers to shoulder the financial burden and leaving communities across the country at risk. President Bush has refused to push for the renewal of polluter-pays tax that expired in 1995, the first president not to support the principle that polluters should pay to clean up the messes they create since President Reagan signed the Superfund reauthorization into law in 1986. With more than 1,000 toxic waste sites still in need of cleanup, the ramifications of a dwindling Superfund trust fund to cleanup toxic waste places our communities and environment at risk. Already, 1 in 4 Americans lives within a short bicycle ride of a toxic waste site that is considered a Superfund cleanup priority.
"We teach our children that they are responsible for cleaning up the messes that they make; the Bush administration should demand no less of corporate polluters," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director. "They are letting polluters off the hook while strapping taxpayers with the burden of cleanups."
***Senators Boxer, Jeffords, Corzine and Rep. Solis will hold a press
conference on Wednesday, October 1 at the Senate Swamp to discuss
Superfund. Also invited are Senators Lautenberg and Clinton and
Reps. Dingell and Pallone. For more information, please call:
(202)224-8120
***To learn more about some specific Superfund sites, please take a look at Sierra Club's "Communities at Risk" report at http://www.sierraclub.org/communities/.
***For photos of the following Superfund sites, please call (202) 675-2384: Couer d'Alene (ID); Herculaneum (MO); Mohawk Tannery (NH); Tar Creek (OK); Jasper Creasoting (TX); Jennison Wright (IL); and the completed cleanup of Times Beach (MO).
***Sierra Club staff and volunteers are on hand in each of the following sites to arrange media tours and speak with reporters:
. Lake Coeur d'Alene and Spokane River. Idaho and Washington.
Contact: Chase Davis, (509) 456-8802
Silver, lead and zinc mines in Idaho and Washington have left a legacy
of pollution and health problems. Toxic pollution from mining in
northern Idaho has spread far to the west to Spokane, Washington,
contaminating lakes and rivers in the Coeur d'Alene River basin. The
Bunker Hill Superfund Site inadequately addresses the widespread effects
of the toxic waste. Expanding the cleanup to the entire 1,500
square-mile Basin will require commitment to a cleanup plan with
integrity, funding and monitoring to ensure accountability. The EPA
estimates that $359 million will be required to implement an interim
cleanup plan for the watershed. For more information, visit:
http://www.sierraclub.org/communities/idaho/
. Tar Creek. Ottawa County, Oklahoma.
Contact: Rebecca Jim, (918) 256-5269 or (918) 520-6720 (cell)
It's been 19 years since the EPA placed Tar Creek on the Superfund
priority cleanup list, but lack of funding will mean continued delays in
protecting these communities. The Tar Creek Superfund site covers the
entire northeast corner of Oklahoma, the southeast corner of Kansas and the southwest corner of Missouri where an estimated 50 percent of the
lead and zinc ore used in World War I was mined. Children in Ottawa
Country are at least the third generation to grow up with lead, cadmium,
arsenic and a cocktail of other poisons contaminating their lungs,
hindering their development, and shortening their lives. Although the
EPA regional office requested $5 million dollars in 2002, no money was
allocated .For more information, visit:
http://www.sierraclub.org/communities/oklahoma/
. Mohawk Tannery. Nashua, New Hampshire.
Contact: Cathy Corkery, (603) 224-8222
The 30-acre tract on which the leather tannery once stood is now a
proposed Superfund site, and the EPA has alerted residents not to come
into contact with the contaminated soil. Though the tannery has been
inactive for nearly 20 years, the site still poses a significant threat
to the health of the community due to the accumulation of toxins such as
chromium, zinc and phenol. The EPA projects that it would take a year toclean up the site, but exactly when the cleanup would start and where
the money will come from is unknown. For more information, visit: http://www.sierraclub.org/communities/new_hampshire/
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