Neglect, underfunding cause Superfund cleanups to dwindle
Twenty-seven years ago, Love Canal prompted the feds to invest resources in cleaning up America’s most toxic sites and start shaking down the polluters responsible for creating them. But a new study from the Center for Public Integrity finds that underfunding of Superfund in recent years has severely disabled the program, and government inaction has slowed cleanup efforts to a near stop. This leaves the estimated one in five Americans who live within 10 miles of the 1,000-plus Superfund sites to deal with the health and environmental consequences of living downstream and downwind of major polluted sites — and lets many polluters off the hook. Get the dirt in Gristmill.
