Details about this story

• Source: Center for Public Integrity
• Date: April 26, 2007
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Helena Bengtsson , Kevin Bogardus , Alex Knott , Richard Mullins , Anupama Narayanswamy , Ben Welsh
• Topics: Environment , Federal Government
• Data Types: FOIA , Federal Data , Mapping
• Description/Excerpt: Initiated in 1980, Superfund is desperately short of money to clean up abandoned waste sites, which has created a backlog of sites that continue to menace the environment and, quite often, the health of nearby residents. Nearly half of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of one of the 1,304 active and proposed Superfund sites listed by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the Center's analysis of these sites and U.S. Census data of the 2000 population. Cleanup work was started at about 145 sites in the past six years, while the startup rate was nearly three times as high for the previous six years. During the last six years, an average of 42 sites a year reached what the EPA calls "construction complete," compared with an average of 79 sites a year in the previous six years. Construction complete is reached when all the cleanup remedies have been installed at a site.
• Methodology: See explainer
• Database or Graphic: Go to site (aspx)