Superfunds. What are they?

By Heather Mattsongrosso

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a Superfund site is an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located and has the potential of affecting it's local ecosystems and inhabitants.  In 1980, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act was designed in efforts to clean up the sites that are a hazardous threat to the environment and it's people. 

A Superfund itself is in some way a "trust fund" collected from tax-payers, and that money is put towards the clean-up of those sites.  The authority responsible for finding these sites is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who before declaring the hazardous site as one in need of super-funding, will seek out the parties responsible for the waste.  Upon their refusal to clean up their own mess, the "super trust fund" will be implemented.

A short film by National Geographic titled "Do you live near a Superfund site?"  posted this past November, shows a handful of sites in a minute and a half affected by hazardous waste.  The time-lapse photographs in the film are accompanied by a piano piece that sounds like it could be featured in the opening credits of a horror film.  One could say that ironically we are living in our own horror film, seeing that one in six Americans live within three miles of a Superfund site.  With that being said, the film has much more of an impact because the sites that are featured stretch across the nation focusing on places like Gowanus Canal in New York, Tar Creek in Picher Oklahoma, and Silver Bow Creek/ Berkeley Pitt in Butte Montana.  

Featuring sites that pop up nation wide make it much more believable to the viewer that there are over 1700 Superfund sites, but unfortunately less that 350 of these sites have been cleaned up.  This film, although only containing a few short statements about Superfunds, leaves a chilling feeling for the viewer on the terrifying topic of essentially living in a toxic waste dump.  

In a recent article from National Geographic Magazine titled, "Wasteland," Paul Voosen opens up the topic of hazardous sites with stating how nobody talks of Superfund sites like they use to, however there are just under 50 million Americans who are living near one of them.  

In his piece, Voosen interviewed a retired accountant Jun Apostol, who back in the 70's willingly purchased a home for he and his family on an active landfill.  Apostol payed no mind to the landfill because the real estate agent claimed that the waste would soon be up-cycled into a park or a golf course.  Within a few years of their residency on the landfill, many of Apostol's neighbors complained of nausea from gas intrusion in their homes.  After the plummet of property values, the EPA came in and recognized the landfill as a Superfund site and raised $600 million for the recuperation of the area.  After the clean up, Apostol seemed to find that everything was straight again.  Voosen pointed out that during the interview, Apostol had his dog in a "Romney 2012" sweater. This may have been an inclination that he had more conservative values, and makes the reader take notice of different perspectives and what is important to different types of people.  

Apostol stated that "People have forgotten about it" referring to the site, and that house prices increased along with the resident's spirits.  Although Apostol's wife had developed cancer, he did not believe that the landfill had anything to do with her health.  Apostol then went on to say that he has no regrets making the choice to remain living on the landfill, simply because his commute to work was at a high level of convenience for him.  Voosen's reaction was to say that living on a landfill may not be ideal, but neither is bad traffic.  I believe that Voosen was being very sarcastic with this statement simply because it was blatantly clear that some people would put the health of their loved ones as well as themselves at risk in order to live a convenient lifestyle.

In an Environmental Health News article from Science America titled "Government Officials May Have Mishandled DDT Superfund Site," Brian Bienkowski covers the questionable delays by the EPA and state officials in Michigan regarding the cleanup of a Superfund site that is killing the neighborhood songbirds.  Bienkowski states that it has been a battle for years by the residents of St. Louis, Michigan to fix the aftermath of an old chemical plant that is poisoning the local birds with DDT, a chemical used as an insecticide.  

The birds that were tested at Michigan State University had "some of the highest levels of DDT every recorded in wild birds," and were being poisoned because they would eat the worm in the neighborhood soil that was contaminated with the insecticide.  

The residents of St. Louis find it hard to believe that the DDT could harm birds but not humans, but the EPA will not buy into it.  Bienkowski states, "EPA and state officials are not conducting any testing to determine how highly exposed the residents are, or whether they are experiencing any health effects." Here Bienkowski shows that the EPA although their motives are usually for the best interest of the people, they seem to totally disregard the people of St. Louis' concerns.  

Epidemiologist John Chevrier of McGill University claimed that from suggested research, fetuses and young children are at the highest risk of being affected by DDT, which most of the risk being focused on the development of the brain. For many people, we seem to understand things based on comparisons.  If something could harm a living creature, there is a chance that it could also harm a human.  

Chevrier explains how DDT kills insects is by entering their nervous systems, rapidly firing their neurons to the point of exhaustion and eventually killing them.  Chevrier then states "It's very plausible that it would attack human's nervous systems in the same way."  This comparison helps the reader understand that these chemicals that are used to kill "bothersome" pests such as insects could also be killing the person behind the spray bottle.  

Superfund sites are literally everywhere and are so important for people to be aware of where they are as well as the harm that they can pose on the people living around them.  However, we live in world where not everyone will open a newspaper or turn on the news to become educated on this topic.  Thankfully there are alternative aspects of the media that can educate or at least inform people about hazardous waste sites.  

In the cartoon sitcom, The Simpsons, the Town of Springfield's main source of power is the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, which is where the main character Homer works.  Around this power plant you'll find creatures affected by radioactivity, such as a three eyed fish named Blinky.  At the Springfield Toxic Waste Dump is where the radioactive waste is disposed of but their methods of dumping the waste is very unstructured, which is why you will see radioactive green liquid leaking from drums marked with radioactive seals scattered around the town.  Although this show is a comedy and brings humor to the topic of hazardous waste, it is still exposing a negative issue to people who otherwise may not be aware of it. 

It is scary knowing that Superfund sites are everywhere, and that one in six people live within three miles of one.  That is why it is so important for the media to portray the issue in all ways possible, in order to appeal to every type of person.