'Speed This Up': John Husted Urges Congress To Ensure Cleanup Action At Superfund Sites

2 days ago

During a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, Sen. John Husted (R-OH) questioned witnesses about the Superfund Program, and cleanup delays.

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Transcript

00:00Go to Senator Husted from Ohio since I'm just getting back into the

00:05committee. Thank You Chairwoman Capito. Welcome thanks for joining us today. Ohio

00:12is a state that has traditionally been part of our nation's manufacturing

00:16heritage and over time has had the legacy of some of the challenges of those

00:24industrial sites. We have had 38 Superfund sites 31 of them have been addressed but

00:31we have some that have been pending since 1993 one that's been pending since 1993

00:40many of these that have been pending over 15 years or over major aquifers which

00:47citizens in our communities get their water and whether it be a storm or a

00:57hurricane or just the constant fact that we get rain a lot and there's drainage and

01:01there's all kinds of things that that happened to these sites over time and how

01:07it can affect people's quality of life health. What can we do to speed this up?

01:16I'm interested in learning from from all of you today what action can we take? What

01:24action can the government take? What action can states take? And I want your

01:28best thoughts on on how these state like Ohio can do a better job on cleaning up

01:34these last seven that are hanging out there. We'll start with you Mr. Fox. Sure.

01:38First of all I've worked on the Paynesville Superfund site so I'm aware

01:42of what's going on in Ohio. I really think that the Superfund remedy selection

01:47process is completely broken and I'll tell you why. I've done work under Superfund

01:54cleanups record cleanups state voluntary cleanups and there's really three issues

01:58it really goes to what Mr. Riddell said it's who's exposed meaning who are the

02:03receptors what contaminants are they exposed to and how do we cut off those

02:08exposure pathways. Those are the three things we've gotten bogged down in making

02:14the perfect the enemy of the good and the good is for the remedy to be

02:18protective. It's always that to make the remedy protective but the process is so

02:24burdensome and cumbersome and takes so long and is so costly that we don't serve

02:30the cleanups. Is that a law or a regulator problem? That is the way that the National

02:35Contingency Plan which is the process for selecting the remedy is actually

02:39implemented. It's not the law it's the way it's being implemented and we can't

02:45have these be a science project we want them to be technically sound that's

02:48everybody's goal but you can't have a process where you don't get a remedy

02:53selected as you said for 20 years and so that has to change. Also just to give you

03:00one example of this I mentioned I worked at the Gowanus Canal when a remedy was

03:06selected and they looked at the cost of implementing two CSO tanks they thought

03:13that the remedy for that was going to cost seventy seven million dollars for the

03:17City of New York. The current estimate for that is over two billion dollars and so

03:23that has to change too. A realistic cost of what the remedy is to achieve the

03:28cleanup goals has to be incorporated into this process. Mr. O'Dell? Well I think

03:36Robert hit the key points we've talked about them in our summaries but I would

03:40say you know not knowing anything about these seven sites but the fact that

03:45they've been looked at and in the Superfund process for 20 plus years my

03:50recommendation would be bring in a new team and audit all seven and and just see

03:56where they're at and how we can get to the I'll use a football analogy now how we

03:59can get to the end zone there's got to be so much data on these sites that that

04:03you can almost you know come up with you know what what what's the hurdles here

04:07what are we waiting on and I think sometimes there's issues on the community

04:10side where maybe there's hesitancy to move things forward but the flip side of

04:14that is the community has been waiting for 20 plus years for something to

04:18happen so that's why they're upset and who can blame them so I think a fresh set of

04:22eyes to look and audit these these projects and and hopefully could clear

04:27the way that you know this isn't a 30-year project as Rob said you know

04:30there's there's there's a you know let's get to the end chapter let's get to that

04:33end zone and let's look at it and I my inclination would be that there's so much

04:38data out there that if there is some data gaps or if there are data gaps that

04:42have to be completed they're minor and and there's things that should be able to be

04:45done in relatively short order just in my opinion just because of the fact that

04:50these sites have been you know ping-ponged around for 30 some years so

04:53mr. I think a new set of eyes would help audit that process so senator I would say

04:59because it's at the EPA regions where the work is taking place so that you want to

05:04make sure that for Ohio in region 5 that they have the people they need to do the

05:09work so I do agree that the remedy selection process takes a long time it

05:14takes a long time sometimes to list sites on the NPL but then also to get them

05:19cleaned up but you want to make sure that you've got the staff the regional staff

05:23who are doing the work like the the remedial project manager for example for

05:28each of those sites thank you from Capito thank I think

'Speed This Up': John Husted Urges Congress To Ensure Cleanup Action At Superfund Sites

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