'Do The Damn Cleanup': Jeff Merkley Laments 'Eternal Process Of Planning' In Superfund Program

2 days ago

During a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) questioned witnesses about the Superfund Program, and holdups to cleanup activity.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Madam Chairman. Back when I was first elected to the Senate,

00:05Congressman Blumenauer took me out on the Columbia, excuse me, the Willamette River

00:11for a 10-mile stretch, Portland Super, Portland Harbor Superfund site, and he

00:17said, this has been going on for 10 years, this has to be resolved before I

00:21retire. Well, he retired last January, and I've watched this with enormous

00:29frustration. Essentially, the projects involves testing the soils along this

00:3610-mile stretch, deciding what to excavate, what to cap, and then doing that, doing

00:43those two things, and what to leave to natural erosion and natural process. So

00:48finally, 17 years after it was listed, there was a record of decision about what

00:52to do. Still, basically nothing has happened for cleanup. And it appears to me

00:59that the process is stalled, waiting for resolution about who among the potentially

01:06responsible partners will pay what, which means all kinds of lawyer lien, lawyers

01:12being hired every which direction, all sorts of subgroups being formed to challenge

01:18the EPA's decision in court. I think it's gone now through three rounds of testing the

01:23river, because every, you know, seven or eight years, it's like, oh, well, maybe the

01:27river's changed. Maybe we need to reexamine where the contaminants are. How do we stop this

01:33eternal process of planning and actually do the dam cleanup? Do we need to dive into the

01:40cleanup after the record of decision and not wait for the responsible, potentially responsible

01:45partners to sort out who will pay for it? How do we avoid this now that we're 25 years

01:51now into this project? And I think this is emblematic of what has happened to many

01:56Superfund sites. Whoever feels like they have the best insight on how to fix this.

02:05So, you know, I'm involved in a lot of that litigation that you talked about, so I'll speak

02:09against interest here. But that should never, those transaction costs should never slow down

02:14the cleanup. EPA has many tools. I mentioned a couple, but they have other enforcement

02:20tools to bring the parties forward to do the work. They have to create the incentives for

02:26those parties to do it, so that you can't go to the same companies, deep pocketed companies,

02:31every time and say you have to pay a hundred percent of the cost and you figure out how to

02:36sue the other hundred parties and spend ten years in litigation doing that. That is inefficient.

02:41And so, I agree with you. I know the Portland Harbor site, contaminated sediment sites are

02:48more complex than your typical site, but there are examples where they have been a remedy selected

02:54in two or three years and the work started and partially completed. And so, that remedy selection

03:01process is the obstacle. It's not private parties suing. That can happen separately, completely

03:07separately from the actual remedy selection and the cleanup.

03:11So, the remedy in this case was, the recorded decision was made. Should the work, should the

03:17federal government be paying for the work until the responsible, potentially responsible partners

03:21sort out who pays for it? There, there's many options that they have. One is, they could

03:26do the work themselves and seek to recover it later. Two, they could have the private parties

03:31come forward and do that. But in order to incentivize the private parties to do that, those private

03:36parties want to know that they're not going to be in years and years of litigation to recover.

03:41And if there's a hundred parties at the site and the federal government says, you four do it, and then

03:46spend the rest of your time going against those other 96, that is inefficient.

03:51Okay. Well, it's massively complex and I've watched as personnel have changed in terms of trying to drive the

03:59process forward. I think there's probably several dozen very well-intentioned employees of EPA

04:06who have burned out over the process of trying to drive this forward in the context of the lawsuits

04:12and resistance and reexamining. I would like to see the work done and get on with other challenges as opposed to

04:24spending endless years and endless amounts of money planning, replanning, replanning,

04:29trying to figure this out. And if, if, if it requires major changes in how the law is designed,

04:34I want to understand those and see if we can make this process work more effectively.

04:38I am extremely concerned now about the cuts to EPA staff and how that may reverberate in terms of

04:45people continuing to drive the process forward. My whole impression has been that the potentially

04:52responsible parties understand every strategy for delay and our intent are pursuing those

04:58because they don't want to pay out. And this is going to be a billion-dollar cleanup.

05:02They don't want to pay for a billion-dollar cleanup. And so they're, they've been very effective at,

05:07at, at working that, that angle. And, and having EPA competent staff, uh, are essential to keep the project

05:14moving forward. I'm afraid with, uh, reductions in those staff, we may see, uh, the problem just get worse.

05:22You know what?

05:23You know, I need to keep a, uh, on the way, uh, the problem.

05:26I'll try to, uh, do one, go back.

05:31And, uh, to, uh, um, uh, to, uh, to keep the project application, uh, to, uh, to be a team

05:33in response, uh, uh, to continue to work through the project.

05:37And I'll, uh, to try to, uh, to come from, uh, toassociate, um, uh, to spend some time

05:39to invest innovation in the budget on the budget.

05:41But I'll try to, uh, to go home.

05:42Uh, to, uh, to be the biggest part of the project that we saw

05:44I'll try to make on the budget.

05:46But I'll try to...

'Do The Damn Cleanup': Jeff Merkley Laments 'Eternal Process Of Planning' In Superfund Program

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