Old and in the Way: Managing Long Standing Superfund Sites
On March 6, 2025, Leslie Nellermoe served as a presenter during “Old and in the Way: Managing Long Standing Superfund Sites,” a webinar hosted by the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Environment, Energy and Resources.
Many of the nation's original superfund sites are still active. For most of these sites, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected a remedy and the PRPs completed the remedy, but the site continues to be regulated by EPA. In many of these cases, contamination remained on site, albeit controlled and limited so that it no longer presented any risk to health or the environment. Yet EPA still believes site risks still justifies continued regulation either because it must maintain a structure to manage the controls and limits on existing contamination or because it believes that there are still potential unknown risks. As a result, individual PRPs or PRP groups remain responsible for managing these sites and paying for EPA's five-year reviews.
Leslie and her fellow panelists evaluated the issues associated with managing long term sites. These issues include maintaining a PRP group, maintaining funding mechanisms and financial assurance, continuing compliance with long term consent or administrative orders, keeping clients engaged, managing PRP transactions and bankruptcies and maintaining documents. The speakers focused on practical issues associated with these sites and possible approaches to future resolution.
