RALEIGH–-North Carolina taxpayers
will pay more than $35.5 million to clean up after polluters at Superfund toxic
waste sites in 2006, according to a new Environment North Carolina
analysis. The report comes on the heels
of a new fish consumption advisory for Lake Crabtree, one of North
Carolina’s 31 Superfund sites.
The Superfund program originally
charged major sources of toxic contamination, such as oil and chemical
companies, a nominal annual fee to help clean up hazardous waste sites. But
since Congress eliminated these fees in 1995, the cost to taxpayers to clean up
toxic waste sites has more than quadrupled.
“On April 17th, we North
Carolinians will pay our taxes, but polluters will be once again
excused from paying theirs,” said Breanna Peterson, Field Organizer at Environment
North Carolina. “By refusing to reinstate the polluter fees, the federal
government has opted to charge regular taxpayers, instead of polluters, for the
costs of toxic waste cleanups,” said Peterson.
Lake Crabtree
is a perfect example of how polluters have gotten off the hook for creating
contamination. Late last month, the
North Carolina Division of Public Health urged people not to eat carp, catfish
or large-mouth bass caught from Lake Crabtree, since the lake is contaminated
with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a toxic chemical banned by Congress in
1979. But as of September of last year,
Ward Transformer and Progress Energy have agreed to pay for only part of the
clean up of their pollution. The
original Superfund law was designed to ensure that the nation’s most polluting
industries would foot the rest of the bill.
But today, ordinary taxpayers are doing that work instead.
“If these companies don’t pick up the tab for the
pollution they have caused, the federal government will have to decide between
leaving Lake Crabtree toxic or passing the bill for corporate pollution onto
taxpayers,” said Peterson.
Environment North
Carolina’s data reveals that North
Carolina taxpayers will pay $35,683,997 in 2006 to clean up after
polluters. Despite this heavy reliance on taxpayer funding, without the income
provided by the polluter pays fees, the Superfund program does not receive
enough money to adequately protect public health from toxic waste sites.
While Superfund cleanup needs
grow, program financing remains stagnant, creating funding shortfalls that
delay critical toxic cleanups and jeopardize public health. In 2005, the EPA
cleaned only 40 sites, a significant departure from the average of 77 cleaned
sites each year between 1992 and 2000. If funding shortfalls persist, the
number of cleaned toxic sites will continue to drop. Reinstating the polluter
fees will provide a dedicated source of money and shift the costs of toxic
cleanups back to polluters. maybe cut
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“At a time of record budget
deficits, using scarce taxpayer dollars to pay a cost that
should be borne by polluters is fiscally reckless,” said Peterson. “Congress and the Bush Administration’s
refusal to shift cleanup costs back to polluting industries amounts to nothing more than polluter welfare.”
