On September 4th, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added Afterthought Mine in Bella Vista, California (Shasta County) to the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL), and proposed to add additional sites as well. The NPL is a list of known sites throughout the United States and its territories where historic releases of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants pose significant threats to human health and the environment.
Past activities at the sites added to the list today include copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold mining; pottery manufacturing; dry cleaning; lead acid battery refining and recycling; and wood treating. Site contaminants are numerous and include hazardous substances such as lead, zinc, and other heavy metals; chlorinated solvents; dioxins; and arsenic. Contamination affects surface water, groundwater, soil (residential and industrial), and subsurface soil (vapor intrusion).
The goal of the EPA’s work to clean up NPL sites is to return those sites to communities for productive use. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $3.5 billion investment in the Superfund remedial program and the Inflation Reduction Act’s reinstatement of the Superfund “polluter pays” chemical excise taxes to help clean up such sites, the Administration has made one of the largest investments in American history to address legacy pollution. Due to this historic funding, EPA was able to clear the pre-existing backlog of unfunded Superfund sites and has provided as much cleanup funding in the past two years as it did in the previous five years.