Two recent studies by the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General are sounding the alarm about the risks Superfund sites face from several factors related to climate change: inland flooding and wildfires. A similar report, released last September, highlighted the risks associated with rising sea levels.
Reports released last month examine threats related to natural disasters at federal Superfund facility sites across the country. The OIG report concluded that the release of pollutants affected by these extreme weather events could adversely affect the health of millions of Americans and the environment.
“We issued these reports to draw attention to the potential threats these sites and their surrounding communities pose and to urge the EPA to ensure that all Superfund sites at federal facilities are assessed for potential impacts from natural disasters as part of their five-year reviews,” Kim Wheeler, spokeswoman for the EPA’s OIG office, told ENR.
Collectively, the three reports found that 49 of the 157 federal Superfund sites (many near densely populated areas) could be at risk from sea level rise and storm surge. In addition, 47 of the 148 federal Superfund sites reviewed could be at risk of inland flooding, and 31 of the 155 sites could be at risk of wildfires.
Failure to plan for the impacts that extreme weather events could have on current Superfund sites could lead to the release of contaminants from the sites, potentially negating the effects of remediation already completed so far and, as a result, wasting taxpayer dollars, Wheeler said. Millions of Americans could suffer health and environmental damage.
The studies build on analysis by other organizations, including the US Government Accountability Office, which in 2019 said up to 60% of non-federal sites could be at risk from extreme weather.
EPA response
The OIG’s most recent reports did not include formal comments from the EPA, but in an email, the EPA said it is reviewing its findings, adding, “More generally, EPA’s Superfund program implements an approach that increases awareness of the impacts of extreme weather events and other hazards as standard operating practice in the development and implementation of cleanup projects.” The approach involves detecting areas of vulnerability, and then identifying and implementing measures to ensure the resilience of solutions at Superfund sites.
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For example, in 2018, EPA reviewed the status of existing remedies at 251 Superfund sites in three EPA regions that were exposed to tropical-force winds or flooding that occurred during the intense hurricane season in 2017 with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
The analysis suggested that redundancies built into the solutions implemented at the sites were critical to preventing contamination from extreme weather, even when work was temporarily suspended during and directly after the hurricanes.
But the 2019 GAO report noted that while the EPA has taken a number of significant actions to address the risks associated with potential pollution after natural disasters, the agency had not at that time aligned its processes for managing the risk with agency-wide goals and objectives, which do not mention climate change. “Without clarifying this alignment, EPA cannot ensure that senior officials have an active role in strategic planning and accountability for managing these risks,” the GAO report concluded.
