Groups Sue EPA for Letting Polluters Pass The Bill for Their Spills to The Public

Thirty years of delay and exorbitant costs borne by public are unacceptable

2014-08-14

Earthjustice on behalf of Idaho Conservation League, Earthworks, Sierra Club, Amigos Bravos, Great Basin Resource Watch, and Communities for a Better Environment filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to issue key rules mandated by the Superfund Act (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA).

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The devastating coal ash spill at Kingston, TN in 2008.

The rules that EPA has failed to issue would help prevent major spills of hazardous substances. For example, the Freedom Industries chemical spill in West Virginia that left hundreds of thousands of people without safe drinking water due to leaks from aging, corroded tanks could have been avoided if EPA had put these rules in place long ago, as the law requires.

These rules would also make sure polluters pay to clean up their own messes, instead of skipping town and leaving the cost to the public. For example, cleanup efforts at the Bunker Hill Superfund site in Idaho have been ongoing for decades, and the cleanup has been repeatedly delayed because of lack of funding. The primary responsible party for the site, the Asarco mining company, declared bankruptcy and left the taxpayers to foot most of the cleanup bill, which is estimated to be around $2 billion. The delayed cleanup means that nearby communities are exposed to high levels of lead and other pollutants, and the Center for Disease Control has measured lead blood levels in children that are above the acceptable maximum.

The groups’ lawsuit charges that a 30-year delay in issuing legally required rules to ensure that parties responsible for hazardous substance pollution bear the cost of cleanup is an unreasonable delay.

Said Amanda Goodin, Earthjustice attorney: “The Superfund Act was written to protect the public from hazardous spills and pollution and to hold violators accountable. Thirty years later we see polluters gaming the system, declaring bankruptcy, opting out of their financial obligations, and skipping town on their messes. Residents are left with poisoned soil and water; taxpayers are stuck with a hefty cleanup bill. The EPA has neglected to act on a key part of the Superfund law for 30 years, and this lawsuit holds that it’s past time for the accountability that we all were promised."

Said Rachel Conn, Projects Director, Amigos Bravos: "If financial assurance requirements had been established when required by law, we would not now be faced with an $800 million liability at the CMI Questa mine. It time for industries to be accountable for their own toxic mess. The public and the environment have paid the price for too long."

Said Alan Septoff, communications director of Earthworks: "It’s profoundly unfair that the American public must live with a growing number of severely contaminated mine sites, and bear the brunt of the industry’s unfunded clean-up costs. A pile of GAO reports has made it clear that the EPA needs to develop regulations to hold these mining corporations accountable. They need to get it done.”

Said Andres Soto, Communities for a Better Environment: “My community in Richmond, California is already suffering from inadequate clean-up of a toxic chemical manufacturing site. We also have the Chevron refinery, which sent over 15,000 people to the hospital from a single event. Right next door to Chevron is General Chemical, and the list goes on. This community needs rules requiring facilities that handle hazardous materials to have money at all times to address their impacts on the human beings and environment they put at risk.”

Said John Robison, Public Lands Director of the Idaho Conservation League: “Pollution from abandoned mines can affect the water quality of the groundwater, springs, streams and rivers we all depend on. Many of these long-term problems and the exorbitant cleanup costs could have been avoided had companies been required to post a bond to pay for the full cleanup of mine waste and potential spills."

Said Lisa Evans, senior administrative counsel, Earthjustice: “Across the nation, utilities close to bankruptcy operate toxic coal ash ponds that threaten catastrophic collapse and water contamination. The Superfund law intended that polluters pay the cost of coal ash cleanups. But EPA, by its inaction, has laid that intolerable burden on the nation’s most vulnerable communities.”

Source: Earthjustice