I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The Railroad Avenue Superfund site in Española. Photo courtesy EPA.
A proposed federal tax on the oil and chemical industries would help New Mexico kick-start languishing clean-ups at some of its most dangerous toxic waste sites, according to the state Superfund Oversight Bureau‘s program manager.
Congress appropriated $1.3 billion in 2009 to clean up Superfund toxic waste sites across the U.S., but that was less than half of what is needed to clean up the 1,200 hazardous waste sites on the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s national priorities list, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
That finding bolsters a push by the Obama administration and U.S. senators to revive a “polluters pay” tax that had imposed a 9.7 cents-per-barrel tax on oil and some chemicals. Senators are considering a similar tax to hasten the clean-up of Superfund sites nationwide.
That would help the state Environment Department’s Superfund Oversight Bureau’s efforts, according to program manager Dana Bahar.
“The proposed polluter-pays Superfund tax would positively affect work on any New Mexico Superfund sites,” Bahar wrote in an e-mail Monday. “…Remedial investigations sites that have been delayed because of lack of sufficient fund would occur more expeditiously. Similarly aggressive remedial strategies would also be implemented without delay because of competing sites across the nation.”
New Mexico has 20 designated Superfund sites, many involving cancer-causing chemicals likeasbestos and benzene, according to the EPA website. Only four sites have been cleaned up and removed from Superfund status, according to the state Superfund Oversight Bureau website.
A plume of solvents in the groundwater beneath a former dry cleaning shop in Española extends intoSanta Clara Pueblo land. Environment Department contractors have been pumping vegetable oil into the plume over the past year to hasten the growth of bacteria known to break down these solvents.
“Many of the most egregious Superfund sites are ‘orphan’ sites” where the polluting corporations no longer exist, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, said at Environment and Public Works committee hearings earlier this month.
Taxpayers are left footing the bill, Lautenberg said. But reviving a Superfund tax on polluting industries that lapsed in 1995 would change that, Lautenberg claimed.
The number of Superfund site designations may increase in the future, as regulators begin to consider hazardous vapor in the air above chemical dumps, the GAO reported. The EPA is currently evaluating whether or not to include vapor and air quality above toxic waste when designating Superfund sites, according to the GAO report.
Industry groups oppose the proposed tax. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., objected to the proposal because the EPA has not made responsible parties pay for clean-ups even when the polluting companies were able to do so, he said.
