Hazardous Waste Cleanup 1994 USEPA

On December 11, 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA , more commonly known as Superfund).
This important legislation was enacted to fill a major gap in environmental protection. The events at Love Canal, New York, and other sites around the country had shown that wastes buried long ago -- and mostly forgotten -- could prove to be a serious threat to the community. Working together with States, Tribes, communities, local governments, and many other stakeholders, Superfund has produced impressive results. On its 20th anniversary, Superfund can point to many accomplishments, including: over 6,400 actions to immediately reduce threats to public health and environment; 757 Superfund sites with all cleanup construction completed; cleanup work done by responsible parties at over 70 percent of the sites placed on the list of national priorities; and private parties settlements at a value of over $18 billion. While Superfund's accomplishments are impressive, challenges remain. Abandoned waste sites are still being discovered. EPA continues to work with its partners to address immediate, or long-term, dangers -- and ensure that the remedies selected remain effective for years to come. For information on innovative remediation methods, go to the EPA Technology Innovation Program (TIP), which advocates for more effective, less costly approaches (i.e. "smarter solutions") by government and industry to assess and clean up contaminated waste sites, soil, and groundwater. The website is http://www.clu-in.org/ . This is clipped from the 1994 USEPA film, Bioremediation, available on the Internet Archive.