EPA awards $1B to clean up 22 toxic waste sites nationwide

Projects to clean up 22 toxic waste sites across the country will receive $1 billion from the federal Superfund program to help clear a backlog of hazardous sites such as landfills, mines and manufacturing facilities, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday.

The money is the second installment in $3.5 billion appropriated under the 2021 infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden. Sites targeted for cleanup include a lead-contaminated neighborhood on Atlanta’s Westside and a former dry cleaning solvents distributor in Tampa, Florida.

The money also will be used to speed cleanup of 100 ongoing Superfund projects across the United States, the EPA said. The agency has vowed to clear a longtime backlog in the Superfund program, which was established in 1980 to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. The program has languished for years because of a lack of funding.

The EPA announced an initial $1 billion in funding from the infrastructure law in December 2021.

While the agency is moving faster to clean up contaminated sites in communities across the country, “our work is not yet finished,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement Friday. “We’re continuing to build on this momentum to ensure that communities living near many of the most serious uncontrolled or abandoned releases of contamination finally get the investments and protections they deserve.”

Of the new cleanup sites announced on Friday, 60% are in low-income or minority communities that are chronically over-polluted, Regan said.

Thousands of contaminated sites exist across the country as a result of hazardous waste being…