Superfund

Since 1980, nearly 37,000 nonfederal sites have been reported to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) hazardous waste site inventory. The number of sites reported each year has declined steadily since 1985, reaching 1,159 nonfederal sites in fiscal year 1993. However, the proportion of sites judged upon inspection to have serious potential contamination in fiscal year 1993 was the same (43 percent) that it averaged in the past. EPA officials attributed the decline in the number of reported sites to the fact that states believe that they can handle cleanups more efficiently and prefer to deal with sites in their own cleanup programs. Recent estimates of the number of reported sites that will eventually be included in the National Priorities List--the register of Superfund sites--vary widely. EPA has estimated that 1,700 new sites could be added to the list through the year 2020. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that 3,300 new nonfederal sites could be added to the priorities list through the year 2027. GAO believes that between 2,500 and 2,800 nonfederal sites could be added to the list just from the inventory of sites undergoing or awaiting evaluation.

GAO found that: (1) the number of sites reported each year has steadily declined since 1985, primarily because the states believe that they can handle cleanups more efficiently and prefer to do the cleanups themselves; (2) states generally report sites that present challenging enforcement or cleanup problems; (3) the percentage of seriously contaminated sites among those reported has remained constant at 43 percent over the past 10 years; (4) EPA officials believe that contamination at newly discovered sites is not less severe, just less obvious; (5) EPA believes 1,700 new federal and nonfederal sites could be added to the National Priorities List through the year 2020; (6) the Congressional Budget Office believes that 3,300 new nonfederal sites could be added to the list through the year 2027; (7) the future Superfund workload could be higher than EPA estimated; and (8) any additions to the Superfund program will be difficult for EPA to manage.