Contaminated sites in the Great Lakes are all over the news this week. And it’s a grab bag of good news/bad news.
According to the Detroit News, there are more than 4,000 contaminated orphan sites in Michigan and hardly any money left to clean them up. (Orphan sites are abandoned by industry and left to the tender mercies of state coffers.)
And then the newswires started buzzing with reports that the EPA has added 10 sites to its Superfund list. Nearly half of those sites are in Great Lakes states.
Next came the news that the EPA also made a list of eight sites to add to the National Priorities List. Three more sites for the Great Lakes states.
Check out EPA’s news release for a list of the superfund and priority sites.
So while state money dwindles, we’ve got some federal money zooming our way. Of course, how long it taes to see the cleanup in action is another matter entirely.
Read more:
St. Louis site makes top 10 for EPA cleanup: The EPA listed the burn pit used by Velsicol Chemical as one of ten sites that “pose risks to human health and the environment to the National Priorities List of Superfund sites.”
St. Clair Shores on list for possible Superfund help in PCB cleanup: An area of St. Clair Shores that has been plagued by PCB contamination for years is officially under consideration for Superfund designation.
EPA adds 2 Ill. sites to Superfund priorities list: The Environmental Protection Agency has added a cluster of waste-disposal sites in Chicago and a former copper smelter in southern Illinois to its list of Superfund locations, allowing the government to go after polluters and force them to pay up for cleanup.
Gowanus Canal Gets Superfund Status: The Environmental Protection Agency designated the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn a Superfund site on Tuesday and announced plans to clean up more than a century’s worth of noxious pollutants there.