EPA chief moving fast to clean up Superfund locations

Stance is departure from industry-friendly script Pruitt has embraced on pollution

WASHINGTON — Not long after Hurricane Harvey battered Houston last summer, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt stood on the banks of the San Jacinto River and surveyed a decades-old toxic waste site as divers checked whether the storm had unearthed dangerous chemicals.

Days later, he ordered two corporations to spend $115 million to excavate the contamination rather than leaving it covered. His dramatic decision put Pruitt in unfamiliar territory: Environmental activists cheered, while the targeted firms protested that the directive was not backed by science and could expose more people to health risks.

Pruitt’s approach to the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, as well as to several other Superfund sites around the country, stands in stark contrast to the industry-friendly moves on everything from pesticide exposure to power plant pollution that have defined his first year at EPA.

In pressing for aggressive, accelerated cleanups, he is butting heads with companies while siding at times with local environmental groups. His supporters, and Pruitt himself, say it is evidence he is reinvigorating a core function of the agency. His critics see it as a political move, an effort to protect himself against charges that he constantly favors corporate interests.

Yet Pruitt’s attention is shifting the conversation in some beleaguered communities. Residents say they don’t care what his motivations are — if those bring the results they’ve long sought. “Scott Pruitt is probably the most important person right now in the lives of the people in this community,” said Dawn Chapman, who lives with her family near a site northwest of St. Louis.

The landfill there, known as West Lake, contains thousands of tons of radioactive waste from the World War II-era Manhattan Project. Chapman and other activists are pushing for significant excavation. Pruitt has promised them he will issue a decision within days.

There are signs he might seek more extensive — and expensive — removal than EPA staff have recommended in the past.

As is the case in Texas, the companies on the hook for the cleanup contend that years of scientific evidence show capping the waste in place would be safer, cheaper and completed sooner.

If he continues to propose aggressive actions around the country — his office last month published a list of 21 places in need of “immediate and intense attention” — it would represent one of the rare areas in which he has pushed to apply a cautionary approach when calculating the risk of exposure to environmental hazards.