WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 About 100 of the nation\u2019s most contaminated toxic waste sites are in areas prone to flooding and wildfires, a potential public health threat to millions of Americans in surrounding communities, the internal watchdog at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found.<\/p>\n
The EPA\u2019s Office of Inspector General issued a trio of reports last week assessing the weather-related vulnerabilities of the 157 federal Superfund sites prioritized for cleanup due to the serious risk they pose to public health and the environment. About 3 million Americans live within a mile of a Superfund site, while 13 million people live within 3 miles (4.8 kilometers).<\/p>\n
Some of the Superfund sites were found to be at risk from multiple natural-disaster threats. The studies found 49 in coastal areas are at risk from sea-level rise or storm surge from hurricanes, with many located near highly populated areas and important ecological locales like Chesapeake Bay. Another 47 are in low-lying sites prone specifically to inland flooding from heavy rain. The review also found 31 sites in areas at high risk for wildfires.<\/p>\n
Despite these risks, the five-year plans governing the expensive and time-consuming cleanups at the sites often failed to account for damage posed by flooding from sea-level rise and more frequent storms and wildfire, the IG\u2019s review found.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a big problem because it means the site managers are not planning mitigation measures,\u201d said Betsy Southerland, a former director of the agency\u2019s water protection division who spent over 30 years at the EPA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe communities living near those sites should be made aware of this planning failure and should insist on robust plans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
At locations with little or no planning for floods, contaminants could be released into surrounding communities and taxpayer dollars already invested in remediation could be wasted, the review found.<\/p>\n
The EPA said it is reviewing the IG\u2019s findings and that the Superfund program does factor \u201cthe impacts of extreme weather events and other hazards as a standard operating practice in the development and implementation of cleanup projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, President Donald Trump fired EPA Inspector General Sean O\u2019Donnell at the beginning of Trump\u2019s second term, and the office\u2019s new review makes no mention of climate change, a term the Republican administration has scrubbed from federal websites. But the new reports issued by the IG\u2019s remaining staff still lay out the risks posed by a warming planet to the nation\u2019s most dangerous toxic waste sites.<\/p>\n
Lara J. Cushing, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who has studied the effects of a changing climate on the nation\u2019s toxic waste sites, petrochemical plants and other hazardous areas, called the new reports \u201cnoteworthy and important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough President Trump may wish to ignore it, the fact is the climate is changing and we need to be proactive in responding to rising seas and more extreme weather or face the consequences of increasingly frequent cascading natural-technological disasters that poison communities and local?ecosystems,\u201d said Cushing.<\/p>\n
The inspector general\u2019s findings echo a 2017 investigation by The Associated Press that found 327 Superfund sites vulnerable to flooding driven by climate change. The AP\u2019s review was launched following Hurricane Harvey, which caused extensive flooding in parts of Houston that included seven Superfund sites and triggered spills from tanks holding cancer-causing toxic waste.<\/p>\n
The EPA\u2019s new report said that during Harvey, dioxin chemicals were carried by flooding into neighboring streets, yards and homes close to the San Jacinto River, an area highlighted by AP\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n
At the time, the EPA under the first Trump administration criticized AP\u2019s reporting as fear-mongering \u201cyellow journalism.\u201d Trump has called climate change a hoax, blocked renewable energy projects and sought to boost the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis series shines a light on potential threats to federal facility Superfund sites and the critical role of five-year reviews in addressing them,\u201d said Kim Wheeler, the spokesperson for the Inspector General\u2019s office. \u201cBy identifying sites at risk from these weather-related events, we aimed to raise awareness and encourage forward looking planning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 About 100 of the nation\u2019s most contaminated toxic waste sites are in areas prone to flooding and wildfires, a potential public health threat to millions of Americans in surrounding communities, the internal watchdog at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found. The EPA\u2019s Office of Inspector General issued a trio of reports … Continue reading EPA watchdog finds nation\u2019s most contaminated sites are vulnerable to flooding, wildfires<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1492600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 20:29:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1492600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492601,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492600\/revisions\/1492601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1492600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1492600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1492600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}