Birmingham, Ala (WIAT) Lifelong residents of North Birmingham knew they had a problem. Decades of industrial pollution were taking a toll on their families. But despite what they were seeing around them, it was tough to get official answers and even harder to get official action. Demands for a health impact study by someone...the feds, the Jefferson County Health Department, anyone ...went unanswered.
CBS42's investigative series and documentary
Deadly Deception chronicles the year long effort to address pollution and it's impact on those who live in the Collegeville, Fairmont and Harrison Park neighborhoods.
This week's announcement that the EPA is declaring the area a Superfund site is being hailed as a major step forward. But even with that designation it's just a beginning toward solving the health issues of the area. And in the meantime, what does designation as a superfund site mean in the short run?
Two Superfund sites in New York provide a few clues. Love Canal is one of the original Superfund cleanups...an area near Niagara Falls so heavily polluted by the Hooker Chemical Company that nearly a thousand families living nearby were removed and houses boarded up.
More than twenty years later, the
EPA had declared victory and removed Love Canal from its Superfund list.
"Today, the area known as Love Canal is once again a flourishing community. Forty acres are covered by a synthetic liner and clay cap and surrounded by a barrier drainage system. Contamination from the site is also controlled by a leachate collection and treatment facility. Neighborhoods to the west and north of the canal have been revitalized, with more than 200 formerly boarded-up homes renovated and sold to new owners, and 10 newly-constructed apartment buildings. The area east of the canal has also been sold for light industrial and commercial redevelopment.
The Love Canal site will continue to be monitored and remain eligible for cleanup work in the unlikely event that a change in site conditions should warrant such an action."
A more recent example is in New York City where an area scheduled for re-gentrification has been designated a Superfund site. The Gowanus Canal Superfund designation in May 2010 was met with mixed reactions. Some hailed it as a long overdue solution for a festering health issue...others were obviously worried about the negative effect on economic development and lingering perception of the area as unsafe. The EPA has an announced ten year schedule for cleanup of that area.
The EPA is still in very preliminary stages of the Superfund designation in North Birmingham, but all of the same questions will certainly arise.
