My Take On Superfund and the Remediation of Price's Pit

While the $16 million provided for site remediation is substantial, that these costs were not able to be covered under the Superfund pool or from those responsible for the contamination is suspect. In 1988 those deemed responsible for the contamination on site, including Price, A.G.A., and generators of the waste, such as DuPont, Proctor & Gamble, and Union Carbide settled for $17.5 million to be paid out for the cost of site remediation (Janson, 1981) (Harper, 2010). The long duration between the settlement in 1988 and the final construction certainly increased cost for the construction of the system, and due to its high profile at the time of the discovery of the sites toxicity and the recent passage of Superfund, Price’s Pit should have been ideal to receive funding from the taxes collected under Superfund, to provide the remainder of the costs of remediation not covered through litigation with responsible parties.

The Superfund program was designed specifically with sites such as Price’s Pit in mind. The site directly impacted neighboring residents through contamination of their drinking water wells and posed an immediate threat to nearby well fields of Atlantic City. In addition to the threats posed by Price’s Pit, the site also demonstrated the preexisting sources that appear to have motivated Superfund program. The site was a former solid waste dump, prior to regulation, which also accepted chemical wastes. While the site was operating as a landfill, the effects of solid waste and industrial chemicals buried under the ground was largely unknown, making directly culpability of the impacts much less clear than modern cases in which those who generate or illegally dump the waste are held responsible (N. Goldfine, personal communication, April 16, 2011).

While the Superfund program seems able to identify sites that need remediation, develop remediation methods, and secure funding for the efforts, the case of Price’s Pit is an illustration that all programs have flaws. Based on EPA records, press on the site, and interviews with various parties involved in the cleanup (including Perry Katz, the EPA project manager for the site, Richard Dovey, President of the ACUA, Neil Goldfine, Executive Director of the ACMUA, and Joseph Donohue, former writer for the Atlantic City Press) it is apparent that the lengthy period from the listing of the site until present day, with remediation still yet to be completed, is a result of numerous internal and external problems impacting Superfund.

Initially the project appeared to receive very high priority and national attention in the media. Due to this one would have assume action on the site would have been swift. To some extent this is correct, as from the time the project was listed in 1983, access to public drinking water for neighboring residents and relocation of ACMUA well fields occurred by 1985. While this was in many ways the key aspect of the site remediation in that eliminated the most immediate threat posed by the site, it did not actually clean up the site by any means. Perhaps this was a significant cause for the delays in remediation, as once the serious threats were averted the priority for the site in the minds of the public, regulatory officials, and elected officials faded. Additionally, the site remains unique as the EPA and Superfund do not typically use relocation as a means of site remediation, but prefer treatment options. As a unique case, this could have contributed to the site dropping out of the priorities of the various parties concerned.

In addition to the notion that Price’s Pit became less relevant due to lack of immediate threats, it is also bureaucratic and public malaise that have contributed to the lack of completion of site remediation. While the environmental movement in the United States has been reinvigorated in the early part of the 21^st century, toxic sites do not draw the level of outrage they did in the 1970s when the impacts of these sites were just being discovered. When remediation of a site drags on for over 15 years, and clear and present dangers are no longer in the public consciousness, apathy can set in. While once the public outcry was the motivating factor for the cleanup of these sites in the wake of Love Canal, now they seem to be of little consequence, and do not merit front page or national attention.

Lastly, in addition to systematic problems that may have stemmed from the initial remediation of the site, and public apathy towards the cleanup efforts, the inability for the government programs and regulators overseeing the remediation efforts must also be held accountable. The lengthy period of review, reevaluation, and apparent indecision at the NJDEP as remediation design occurred on the project is inexcusable. Fortunately, it appears that there have not significant impacts to the environment or the public health after the initial abandonment of the local groundwater, despite the delays. This site and its long delayed remediation can hopefully serve as an example for other sites in their remediation efforts. That a site with such national recognition as Price’s Pit had can fall into obscurity is a dubious distinction for the Superfund program. While the program components of Superfund, such as the ranking system and methods of funding remediation appear to be adequate, like many programs, the problems appear to be in the execution, bureaucratic and public disconnect from the actual problems on, or in this case, under the ground.