News Releases from Region 01
EPA Reviews Three New Hampshire Superfund Site Cleanups This Year
BOSTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun comprehensive "Five-Year Reviews" of two previously-completed cleanup National Priorities List (NPL) Superfund sites in New Hampshire. The two sites are Troy Mills Landfill, in Troy, N.H., and Somersworth Sanitary Landfill, in Somersworth, N.H. EPA will complete these reviews later in 2020 and will publicly share the results of the assessments.
EPA also last month completed the Five-Year Review for New Hampshire Plating Co., in Merrimack, N.H. The periodic assessments of previously completed site cleanups for NPL sites are legally required to ensure that previous remediation efforts at the site continue to protect public health and the environment.
"It is a major EPA priority to make continued progress cleaning up Superfund sites across New England. Once cleanup work at all or a portion of a site is completed, EPA conducts regular periodic reviews of our previous work to ensure that it is continuing to protect human health and the environment," said EPA New England Regional Administrator Dennis Deziel.
Background
The Superfund program, a federal program established by Congress in 1980, investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country and works to facilitate activities to return them to productive use. Under the Trump Administration, the Superfund program has reemerged as a priority to fulfill EPA's core mission of protecting human health and the environment.
EPA is actively involved in Superfund studies and cleanups at 22 sites in New Hampshire, including one federal facility. There are many phases of the Superfund cleanup process including considering future use and redevelopment and conducting post-cleanup monitoring of sites. EPA must ensure completed remedies continue to be protective of public health and the environment. The NPL Superfund sites where EPA will begin work on Five-Year Reviews in 2020 are listed below, and the web links provide detailed information on site status and past assessment and cleanup activity. Once the Five-Year Review is complete, its findings will be posted to the website in a final report.
Five-Year Reviews of Superfund sites in New Hampshire to be completed in 2020
Troy Mills Landfill, Troy, N.H. www.epa.gov/superfund/troymills
Somersworth Sanitary Landfill, Somersworth, N.H. www.epa.gov/superfund/somersworth
New Hampshire Plating Co., Merrimack, N.H. (Five-Year Review completed on Feb. 13, 2020 and final report available at: www.epa.gov/superfund/nhplating)
More information on Superfund and other cleanup sites in New England: https://19january2021snapshot.epa.gov/cleanups/cleaning-new-england