With the pandemic in full swing, the EPA is stopping work at toxic waste cleanup sites all over the country. Today on Parts Pervillion, we asked the question, what does that mean if a toxic waste cleanup site is your neighbor. Hello, and welcome back once again to Parts Pervilion, the environmental podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm your host, David Schultz. So, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, there's a lot of work across the country that's just not getting done.
Hair salons are closed, department stores are closed, and ba arenas closed. And these rolling shutdowns are starting to have an impact on the environment, particularly at toxic waste cleanups known as super fun sites. The EPA has issued guidance instructing cleanup efforts at these sites to slow or shut down entirely. Today we're talking with reporter Sylvia Caragdan about the impact this is having on the people who live near these sites. Sylvia, Hello, how are you? I'm good
and thanks for having me on. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about. Indeed, So speaking of that, before we get into what's happening at these sites, what is a superfund site. I think I know what it is, but I'm honestly embarrassed to say that I'm not one hundred percent sure what exactly is it. That's okay, So superfund sites are hands down the most contaminated sites in the country. This is not just use spilling a bottle of clorox on your bathroom floor. This is not just
you know, a fire at the local gas station. This is federal level, federal scale contamination like the worst of the worst, the worst of the worst. This is hazardous waste that's probably been sitting around for decades and decades that's leaching into people's drinking water maybe or maybe it's getting released out into their air. Maybe it's in the soil. So these are cleanup projects that are so big that your city, your state, your county can't really afford the
resources or the funding to clean up up. They have to go to the EPA, bring in the big guns, and get federal resources to deal with them. And let's talk briefly about where this this pollution came from. I mean, I guess it could come from anywhere. But you know, when I think of sites like this, I think of like a chemical plant, that closed down, or a factory that you know, polluted an area for a long time. But it sounds like it could be even much more than that. Sure, So in a lot of cases it
is an abandoned factory. Maybe they didn't have adequate waste clean up practices in place when they closed down, because maybe that was back in the thirties or the fifties or you know, a long time ago. But there's also
things like massive spills that turn into superfund sites. So like accidents accidents for example, Yeah, if you remember the Gold King mind spill a few years ago, that site was actually already a super fun site, but now it's even more complicated because all of the acidic mind waste that's billed out in to the watershed. It's a super super super fund. It's very complicated. Yes, it sounds like some of these sites are former commercial sites, but it could also be like a military site or like the
government owned land that could be a superfund site. Right. Sure, So there are lots of former government facilities like air force bases for example. Or maybe they used a lot of chemicals, maybe they used firefighting foam, maybe they brought in pesticides, you know, there's all kinds of different things that the military has needed over the years, and depending on disposal practices at the time, maybe it was dealt with in an environmentally safe way or maybe not. And
then really quickly, why exactly is it called super fund? Again? I really should know this, and I'm embarrassed to say that I don't. I wish people ask this question more because a lot of people don't know, and they're just like, why is it a fund? I honestly, I was pretending like I knew, But it is literally a trust fund. So there is a big pot of money that the
federal government has. This used to be filled by a tax on the petroleum and the chemical manufacturing industries, because the thought was these industries are more more likely to pollute in the first place, and if you tax the polluters, then eventually that tax money go that run revenue goes into the cleanup eventually. So through the early nineteen nineties that worked out. There was eventually four billion dollars in the superfund, but the tax expired and by the early
two thousands we spent it all. So so is is there actually a fund or is it there is actually a fund? It's it relies on Congress to allocate funding. Now it's usually at about a billion dollars, but there is an actual fund. It's pretty super depending on who you ask. So that's where the name comes from. Got it. Okay, So let's talk about where these sites are because that's actually sort of gets at the issue that we're really
focusing on. You had previously reported that more than two thirds of these sites are within a mile of federally subsidized or federally run public housing projects. That's a pretty stark number. What's going on here? Why? Why does it seem like these sites are clustered around public housing projects or is it the reverse? Is it that the housing projects are clustered around super fun sites. Well, it's different
in every case. So when the federal government wants to build public housing, they're not looking for the most expensive land that they can find. We're looking for something affordable. And sometimes real estate is more affordable because there's something undesirable about it, like maybe it's next to train tracks, or maybe it's next to an abandoned warehouse or an
abandoned chemical manufacturing facility or something like that. So the government's more likely to choose those kinds of sites rather than like Palm Beach, Florida, for example. So that's why some public housing ends up near superfund sites, because later they'll find out that there was some underlying contamination that they didn't think to look for, you know, maybe forty or fifty years ago when they were initially citing the project. But now they're starting to find that there's things in
the soil. Like in East Chicago, there was lead in the soil that became an issue for them, and that's also a public housing development. And ultimately this is like a classic textbook environmental justice issue because you have people who by definition have low incomes who are living next to the most polluted sites in the country. I mean, that's you know, I think that's when they invented the
term environmental justice. They were thinking of this, right, yeah, absolutely, All right, Well, let's take a quick break now and we're going to come into the present and talk about what's happening at these superfund sites, or rather what's not happening. Stay with us, and we're back with reporter Sylvia Karragnan, and we're talking about super fun sites and the work that is or isn't going on at these sites during
the coronavirus pandemic. Let's get right into it. The EPA issued some guidance about what should go on during these
quarantine times. So what did it say. Basically, the EPA is saying they're going to look at each site individually and if there is work that needs to happen on the site itself, like if they're sampling or if there's some kind of installation work that's happening, they're going to work with whoever's conducting in the cleanup to figure out if it's still safe to go out there during the pandemic and continue that work. So it's less of a nationwide stop and more of just you know, allowing work
to continue where it's possible. And how I mean is there a criteria for determining if something is safe or if it's possible to continue working at a given site. So the EPA put out some guidance recently that just said, here are the factors that we're considering when we decide whether it's okay to keep working, and that includes things like can social distancing still continue? Is there appropriate ppe or personal protective equipment for people to continue work in
the field? That stuff is that stuff's pretty hard to come by nowadays, right, And usually when you're doing an investigation of a site and you're not really sure what hazardous substances might be out there, the first thing you do is you put on a type X suit and then you go out and take samples just to protect yourself. So that's usual even outside of pandemic times. So if
that is not available, then at work can't continue. So there's just sort of a list of things that you PA considers, but there's no specific steps or specific you know, guidelines or barriers to whether work can continue. So it sounds like it's not a nationwide stop or even a nationwide slow down. It's just a guidance that says like, you know, here's here are the conditions that would allow you to maybe stop cleaning up that old factory. Do
we know when that will be lifted? Has EPA said like this is we're issuing this you know, slow down guidance, and it will last for three months or two months or six months. I mean, the whole thing about this pandemic is that we're not really sure when it's going to be okay to go back to normal life. So I think they're just kind of taking it a couple
of weeks at a time. There may be a point where they the EPA feels that it's safe for the majority of people to go back in and start doing remediation, and maybe they'll make an announcement then, but for right now,
it's pretty unclear. Yeah, and it's that was one of the things that really struck me about your story that you that you wrote on is is that it's not just unclear when this will be lifted, it's unclear even what criteria the EPA will use to determine when things are safe right definitely remains to be seen at this point. So finally, let's talk about the people who this is affecting. You know, there are a lot of people who live
near these sites. As you mentioned, they're often in urban areas and tend to be clustered around in low income communities. You know, what does this mean for them? Are they going to be exposed to like toxic substances at higher levels than before or is this just another delay in resolving this like really long standing problem in their neighborhood. So certainly EPA doesn't want to expose people to more
toxic waste by stock and cleanup. So where the pollution is actively affecting people, they're going to keep working on remediation as best as it can. But it is possible that emergency services and first responders that are already burdened by the pandemic that it might take them longer to react to something like a fire or an explosion or flood or hurricane that might spread hazards substances out into
that nearby community. Yeah, so it seems like it's not something that where you know, work shuts down and then all of a sudden, like radiation you know, explodes from this site. But it does sound like it creates a much riskier environment for the people living near there. And at best, it sounds like it's just a problem that you thought was going to be solved by the end of this year. Maybe you won't get solved until the end of next year or the end of twenty twenty
two or even later. Right, especially as we get into hurricane season this year. That'll be something to keep an eye out for. All Right, that's it for today's episode of Parts per Billion. If you want more on how the pandemic is affecting the environment, check out our website news Doop Bloomberg Environment dot com. That website once again is news Doop Bloomberg Environment dot Com. Today's episode of Parts Pavilion was produced by myself along with Josh Block
and Mrisa Horn. Parts Pavilion was created by Jessica Combs and Rachel Daegel. The music for today's episode is a message by Jizar and Upstate by Henning Schmidts that were used under Creative Comments License. Thanks for listening everyone, Those nine justices in Washington that can be pretty hard to keep track up. That's where we come in. I'm Jordan
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