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...With the EPA's clout slackening, private attorneys are moving in. At Tar Creek, lawyers are suing seven mining companies on behalf of scores of lead-exposed children. A separate suit demanding a cleanup was filed by the Quapaw Indians, whose land was leased for the mines. And environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has joined a class action to force companies to relocate the population of two polluted towns, Picher and Cardin. Court papers suggest that mining executives knew as early as the 1930s that the contaminated dust was dangerous but sought to, in their words, "dissuade" the government from...
...reports that the program's budget fell 35% in inflation-adjusted dollars over the past decade. And environmentalists say that Bush appointees are slowing the pace of cleanups and failing to list potential new sites. According to the EPA's inspector general, 29 projects in 17 states were underfunded last year. The Administration, charges New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat, has "allowed--deliberately--these sites to rot where they...
...very first Superfund priority list, the 40-sq.-mi. site is worse off than ever. Early on, the government confined its effort to the polluted creek, without looking at chat piles, soil, air quality or the danger of subsidence. Was it a lack of knowledge of the danger, as EPA claims? Or industry influence, as environmentalists charge? Whatever the reason, federal attorneys settled with mining companies for pennies on the dollar. Now, after fruitless efforts to contain 28 billion gal. of acid mine water, contamination is spreading across a vast watershed. And although the EPA trucked out toxic dirt from...
...them. In protest, the Sierra Club aired "Make Polluters Pay" TV ads in Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan--all swing states. And on April 15, tax day, activists in 25 states picketed post offices to object. "We went from polluters paying to citizens paying," says Oklahoma environmentalist Earl Hatley. "Now EPA doesn't have the money for megasites like Tar Creek...
...Creek, many residents have given up hope. Even the EPA, which has spent $107 million at the site, isn't sure if it can ever be repaired. "We don't have an off-the-shelf remedy," says EPA Superfund official Randy Deitz. "What do you do with the enormous chat piles? When does cleanup become impracticable? We have limited resources." In a show of no-confidence, the Oklahoma legislature last week passed a $5 million buyout for all families with children under 6. John Sparkman, who heads the Tar Creek Steering Committee, a group of buyout supporters, veers between cynicism...