Congress
May Undercut Toxic Clean-ups
by Rebecca Leighton Katers,
Clean Water Action Council
Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation which
would seriously weaken the federal Superfund and Natural Resource Damage
Assessment (NRDA) programs for cleaning up toxic contamination sites across
the country.
This could have a direct impact on the Fox River, Green Bay and Lake
Michigan, by pulling the rug out from under us. The only reason we're
seeing some action on Fox River clean-up is because the federal government
has finally stepped in with the threat to impose Superfund and the NRDA
unless the state and the polluters can come up with an adequate clean-up
plan and assured funding by January of next year. The state has tried
the "voluntary approach" for 11 years without success.
The congressional action would:
-
reduce protection for wildlife and eco-system health,
-
reduce protections for groundwater drinking supplies,
-
remove preference for cleaning up hotspots, makes cost-effectiveness as
important as health considerations (whereas health protection is now considered
more important than cost, as it should be),
-
require the use of questionable risk assessments before requiring clean-ups
even where known health standards are violated,
-
require the federal government to "work cooperatively with states" (this
is dangerous given Gov. Thompson's unwillingness to get tough with polluters),
-
allow polluters to re-open the legal Record of Decision which decides the
clean-up plans, which opens the way to extended years of legal wrangling,
primarily over cost objections. Citizens will have no rights to challenge
the Record of Decision.
The legislation stalled in the Fall of 1997, but is expected to resurface
again soon.
What
You Can Do
Please write to your U.S. Congress members, and tell them what you think.