Using Superfund resources, EPA cleans up Corinna

Corinna, with a population of 2,100, was a mill town. For nearly a century, the Eastland Woolen Mill was the town’s economic and social mainstay, occupying property that ran the entire length of Main Street. Eastland used chemicals containing chlorinated benzene compounds in its production process to swell fabric to accept dyes.

Not an uncommon practice at the time, wastewater containing chemical residue was discharged to a small stream that flowed under the mill, in this case the East Branch of the Sebasticook River. These and other chemical compounds accumulated in the river sediments and eventually also migrated through the soil beneath the mill to contaminate groundwater in downtown Corinna.

In 1983, a state Department of Environmental Protection employee who was lunching at a local eatery noticed an offensive odor and taste in a glass of water. State environmental staff worked first with the mill owners and then with their own resources to address the contamination. The mill site was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List (commonly known as NPL or Superfund) in 1999.

With federal Superfund resources, EPA has aggressively worked with town officials to clean up contamination. The mill complex and most of the downtown area of Corinna was razed to allow excavation of the contaminated soil. Next will be plans for cleaning up the groundwater contamination.

But for a team of town officials and residents, the cleanup was viewed as an opportunity to recreate downtown Corinna. Using resources from the Eastern Maine Development Corp. and EPA they have developed a road map for the town’s future, which includes affordable elderly housing to be constructed next year on the heals of the cleanup.

Only five years after NPL listing, the cleanup of the soil and buildings at the former Eastland Woolen Mill complex will be complete, and the revitalization of downtown Corinna will begin.

The nation’s Superfund program, created in 1980, funds the cleanup of the most highly contaminated toxic waste sites and which also pose the highest risk to people’s health. Although the cleanups nationwide and this one and others in Maine have been complicated and time-consuming, our successes have been clear:

. While the total number of sites needing cleanup is decreasing, the EPA is now addressing bigger, more complex sites, involving more contamination and longer cleanup times.

. Forty percent of the national Superfund budget is being spent to clean up just eight of the largest and most complex sites in the country; still more than half of all the sites on the Superfund have been cleaned up. Progress is being made at the others.

. Almost 70 percent of the cleanups are being paid for by those parties responsible for the contamination; that amounts to about $21 billion since the start of the program.

Where does the money come from? Each year Congress appropriates nearly $1.3 billion nationally to address Superfund contamination. And, the administration has requested an additional $150 million for the next year.

Maine has 14 toxic waste sites on the federal Superfund list and EPA has spent more than $114 million to clean them up. At nine of these sites, EPA has already built the cleanup infrastructure needed to restore contaminated groundwater, and treat and/or remove contaminated soils or sediment, and construction is under way at another. The remaining sites are being studied to better understand contamination and to design effective cleanup plans.

EPA spent an additional $28 million at another 36 Maine properties to protect residents from exposure to hazardous materials left behind when companies have either gone out of business, have abandoned their properties or that may have been destroyed by fire.

The Superfund law requires those responsible for polluted sites pay to clean them up. This “polluter pays” principle has resulted in 70 percent of Superfund sites being paid for and cleaned up by private parties. Other sites are cleaned up by EPA, with costs recovered from private parties after the cleanup. EPA’s Superfund budget, therefore, is spent on sites where there are no viable responsible parties.

Thanks to investments by EPA and private parties, the benefits of cleanup have far exceeded what Congress envisioned when it created the Superfund program two decades ago. Some of the most toxic waste sites in the nation’s history have been cleaned up and restored for community use – the famous Times Beach Superfund site in Missouri is now a 500-acre state park; the 245-acre Industri-Plex Superfund site in Woburn, Mass., is now home to a Target store and a commuter transportation center; and the Raymark Industries site in Stratford, Conn., is now a bustling shopping center anchored by The Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Shaw’s supermarket.

Redevelopment of these and other similar properties has brought new jobs and increased economic vitality in communities. EPA is working with local planners, and other community, state and federal partners are investing in America, community by community.

Robert W. Varney is regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.