EPA Adds Five and Proposes Five Sites to Superfund's National Priorities List

A bird's-eye view of the Halaco Engineering Company in Oxnard, California - one of the sites being proposed to the National Priorities List (NPL)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is adding five new hazardous waste sites that pose risks to human health and the environment to the National Priorities List of Superfund sites. To date, there have been 1,562 sites listed to the NPL. Of these sites, 317 sites have been deleted, resulting in 1,245 sites currently on the NPL. EPA is also proposing to add five other sites to the list.

Contaminants found at these final and proposed sites include arsenic, barium, benzene, butyltins, cadmium, cesium-137, chromium, cis-1,2-dichloroethene (cis-1,2-DCE), copper, dibenzofuran compounds, dioxin, lead, lindane, mercury, pentachlorophenol (PCP), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), silver, tetrachloroethene (PCE), thorium-230, trichloroethene (TCE), zinc, and other metals.

With the proposal of the five new sites, there are 61 proposed sites awaiting final agency action: 56 in the general Superfund section and 5 in the federal facilities section. Altogether, there are 1,306 final and proposed sites.

With all Superfund sites, EPA tries to identify and locate the parties potentially responsible for the contamination. For the newly listed sites without viable potentially responsible parties, EPA will investigate the full extent of the contamination before starting significant cleanup at the site. Therefore, it may be several years before significant cleanup funding is required for these sites.

Sites may be placed on the list through various mechanisms:

Numeric ranking established by EPA's Hazard Ranking System.
Designation by states or territories of one top-priority site.
Meeting all three of the following requirements:
- The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the U.S. Public Health Service has issued a health advisory that recommends removing people from the site;
- EPA determines the site poses a significant threat to public health; and
- EPA anticipates it will be more cost-effective to use its remedial authority than to use its emergency removal authority to respond to the site.

For Federal Register notices and supporting documents for these final and proposed sites, please visit the Current NPL Updates: New Proposed and New Final NPL Sites Web page.

The following sites have been added to the National Priorities List:
Elm Street Ground Water Contamination, Terre Haute, IN
Sonford Products, Flowood, MS
Bandera Road Ground Water Plume, Leon Valley, TX
East 67th Street Ground Water Plume, Odessa, TX
Lockheed West Seattle, Seattle, WA

The following sites have been proposed to the National Priorities List:
Halaco Engineering Company, Oxnard, CA
Eagle Zinc Co Div T L Diamond, Hillsboro, IL
Eagle Picher Carefree Battery, Socorro, NM
Formosa Mine, Douglas County, OR
Five Points PCE Plume, Woods Cross/Bountiful, UT

Superfund Help: Acronyms | Topics | Frequent Questions | Publications | Sitemap

OSWER Home | Superfund Home | Innovative Technologies Home

EPA Adds Five and Proposes Five Sites to Superfund's National Priorities List

Local Navigation