Superfund sites across the country are languishing due to Environmental Protection Agency staff shortages and mismanagement, according to an article from Yahoo! News. That’s the determination of the EPA’s Office of Inspector General, an independent arm of the agency, whose report on the status of the country’s toxic waste sites this week notes that “human exposure is not under control" at four or more Superfund sites where work has stalled. Work has also reportedly slowed or stopped on 49 sites in EPA’s region 10, which includes Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
The report comes on the heels of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s statements that cleanup is a priority at more than 1,300 U.S. Superfund sites. Federal money allocated for Superfund cleanup is approximately half what it was in the 1990s and Trump is proposing an additional 30% cut to the 2018 budget, according to the article, The inspector general review was reportedly conducted from February 2016 to July 2017 – the tail end of Obama’s term and the early months of Trump’s.
Read the entire article here.
