Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Senators Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has agreed to provide $3.1 million in additional funds to continue cleanup of the Chemical Insecticide Corporation (CIC) Superfund site in Edison. The funds will allow cleanup at the site to continue through the end of September.
The funding comes in response to a letter the three New Jersey lawmakers sent to EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt in June, requesting additional funds and voicing concern that cleanup operations at the site had been delayed because of a lack of funding. In response to their request, the lawmakers received a letter from EPA Acting Assistant Administrator Thomas P. Dune approving the additional $3.1 million.
"I have recently approved an additional $3.1 million for this year and am committed to fully support the site funding needs next year," Dune wrote in his letter to the lawmakers. "These decisions will assure no delay in cleanup activity."
"Because New Jersey has the most Superfund sites of any state in the union, it is absolutely critical that the federal government be a good faith partner in funding the clean-up of these polluted sites,
"I appreciate EPA's response to our request for additional funds. We must continue the vital cleanup of CIC, a highly contaminated Superfund site. Unfortunately, such responsiveness has become the exception, rather than the rule. Across the country, Superfund cleanups have been slowed to a crawl, even where human health is imminently endangered by exposure to toxics. If the administration would stop opposing the reinstatement of the Superfund Trust Fund, other sites desperate for cleanup funds would also receive the help they need," said Senator Lautenberg.
"I'm pleased that the EPA is keeping their promise to the people of Edison and has found the necessary funding to continue cleanup at CIC through the end of the month," Pallone said. "However, I believe that we must continue to press the Bush Administration to reauthorize the Superfund tax so that dangerous toxic sites, like CIC, are not faced with this constant struggle for funding."
Between 1954 and 1970, CIC polluted the site with arsenic, pesticides, herbicides, and other hazardous substances. To date, approximately 50 percent of the contaminated soil has been removed, but chemical drums and contaminated lagoons remain at the site.
Last year, Pallone introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives reinstating a Superfund tax that would ensure polluters pay for all Superfund cleanups rather than taxpayers. Corzine and Lautenberg are cosponsors of a similar measure in the Senate. The Hazardous Substances Superfund Trust Fund tax, which required chemical corporations to pay a tax used by the federal government to clean up sites, like CIC, where either a responsible polluter could not be determined or had gone bankrupt, was allowed to expire in 1995 when a Republican controlled Congress refused to extend it.
