EPA Expected To Propose Rare Federal Facility Site For Superfund Listing

摘要

In a rare move, EPA plans to propose next month to add a contaminated federal facility to Superfund's National Priorities List (NPL), signaling officials may be willing to take a tougher line with such sites just as EPA prepares to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which could open the door to many more federal sites being listed.Under pressure from lawmakers, environmentalists and the states of Oregon and Washington and others, EPA plans to propose placing the Army Corps of Engineers' Bradford Island facility in Multnomah County, OR, on the NPL, an EPA source says.The facility is owned and managed by the Corps as part of the federal Bonneville Dam complex on the Columbia River.The EPA source says the move is highly unusual for the agency over the past decade or so. "Usually we get stopped by" the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB), which reviews such plans and oversees inter-agency discussions on regulations affecting federal agencies, the source says.This source notes that EPA "teed a lot of [federal facility sites] up" over the past 10-plus years, but just a few have been added to the NPL.