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US May Slow Cleanup Pace on 522 Toxic Sites - Study |
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| USA: August 11, 2003 | ||
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may slow cleanup or relax cleanup oversight at 522 sites contaminated by industrial waste because of inadequate funding, a public advocacy group said.
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A report released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said the 10 states with the most sites that could be affected by reduced money from the "Superfund" cleanup account were New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts and Washington. But the EPA said it had enough money this year to start 10 new projects and no slowdown was planned for ongoing work. "We're committed to doing as much as we can with the money Congress gives us," EPA spokesman Dave Ryan said. The 522 sites were identified in part based on sites that an Inspector General's report found received no funding or less than requested levels in 2002, said report author Julie Wolk. That lack of funding coincided with a decrease in the pace of cleanups by nearly 50 percent over the past two years from 87 sites annually during the late 1990s, Wolk's report said. Superfund was launched in 1980 to tackle some of the nation's most serious and difficult cases of toxic waste and industrial contamination. Wolk said Democratic members of Congress had ordered a second Inspector General report for 2003 on the same subject, but it was unlikely to be ready before the end of the year. "There were sites underfunded last year and the appropriations haven't changed, so it's a reasonable guess that there won't be enough money this year," Wolk told Reuters. EPA's Ryan said Superfund money had been increased to $1.27 billion this year from $1.18 billion in 2002, while Wolk's report argued that, after adjusting for inflation, those sums were actually less than Superfund spending in 1988.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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