An Inclusive Litany

11/3/97

The General Accounting Office found that less than 45 percent, or $614 million, of the $1.4 billion spend on Superfund in 1996 went to cleaning up hazardous waste. Another $82 million was spent on planning and assessment of sites, but the remaining $703 million was spent on EPA overhead ($294 million), lawyers ($210 million), travel expenses and salaries of employees overseeing cleanups ($154 million) and developing new techniques for cleaning up hazardous waste (just $56 million). The GAO also noted that the amount of time it takes to clean up the average Superfund site has more than quadrupled over the last decade, from 2.3 years in 1986 to 10.5 years today. And in an audit of several laboratories assessing hazardous chemicals for nine Superfund sites, The EPA's Inspector General found that slipshod lab work had resulted in $11 million misspent on rejected analyses and delayed cleanups by up to two years.