Superfund push
Scott Pruitt, EPA chief, said his task force on the nation’s Superfund program finally can provide clarity and accountability to Tar Creek.
WASHINGTON — Administrator Scott Pruitt of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said his new push on the nation’s Superfund program finally can provide clarity and accountability to Tar Creek, for decades one of the oldest, largest and most complex toxic sites in the nation.
“It is really unacceptable,” Pruitt said as he recalled the history of the Tar Creek, whose Superfund legacy dates back to 1983, as well as the amount of money and time deployed there. “You don’t list a site in the mid-1980s and you don’t take the kind of steps we have taken historically and still have issues today in 2018.”
He blamed inconsistency, even within EPA’s 10 regions, as well as a lack of attention and focus for slowing outcomes.
“It is one of the things that seemed to be languishing as we arrived,” Pruitt said, making it clear the lack of urgency was something he found “palpable” at Superfund sites across the country.
“When it takes you 27, 28 years to make a decision — make a decision, not clean it up, not remediate, but make a decision on how you are going to remediate — that is unacceptable.”
His comments came during one of several reporter roundtables he has been holding at EPA’s headquarters to mark his first year as administrator during which he also became a leading voice in the Trump administration’s major push on regulation reform.
Those efforts have prompted applause from his supporters and alarm from his critics.
Recently Pruitt is rarely out of the headlines with stories ranging from travel expenses to speculation over whether his political future might include bids for a U.S. Senate seat or even the White House.
When given the chance to comment on yet another story this week about his political options, he took a pass.
Pruitt also declined to comment when asked about a recent decision by an Oklahoma judge to allow a lawsuit filed by Campaign for Accountability to force the release of a 2014 audit of the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Trust, which was created as part of an effort to help move residents out of communities impacted by the Tar Creek contamination.
“That is during my time as attorney general,” he said. “I think it is better that I just keep it focused on the EPA matters.”
Pruitt, who was Oklahoma’s attorney general before being tapped by President Donald Trump to lead his EPA, had declined to file charges based on the audit by state Auditor Gary Jones and also had taken steps to bar its release to the public.
According to reporting by The Oklahoman, legal action in the case continues and eventually could include an appeal to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Superfund Task Force
Pruitt’s emphasis on Tar Creek and the other Superfund sites across the country grew out of a task force he created in 2017, just months after being sworn in as administrator.
Members of the Superfund Task Force came back with a list of specific recommendations under major goals ranging from expediting cleanup and remediation to promoting redevelopment and community revitalization.
As part of that process, Tar Creek landed on a list Pruitt says he will use going forward to keep the emphasis on the program. “To me there are some very fundamental, significant things we can do to provide clarity to citizens there. I think it has started to take root over the last several months,” he said, adding that some of those steps could come “in the near term.”
Still, that appears to be a work in progress.
“We are assessing those right now,” Pruitt said when asked for examples.
In 2012, the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma and EPA signed an agreement to perform remedial action at Tar Creek, making the tribe the first to lead and manage cleanup of a federal superfund site.
Currently, the EPA says, the tribe and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality handle much of the oversight and cleanup. In May, 2017, the agency announced it had awarded $4.8 million in financial assistance to the tribe to continue remediating contaminated soils from tribal lands.
Key EPA officials, including Albert “Kell” Kelley, senior adviser to Pruitt, and Sam Coleman, EPA’s acting regional administrator, toured the Tar Creek site last year as part of the Tribal Lands Forum conference in Tulsa.
Kelley described the Tar Creek cleanup as an “excellent example of how the program should work,” citing the local, state, tribal and federal partnership.
During the roundtable, Pruitt also spoke to reporters about his agency’s effort during his first year to rescind and replace the contentious Waters of the United States rule put in place by the Obama administration and repeal of its Clean Power Plan, both of which should move toward culmination later this year, as well as his hope to address the “clear and present danger” posed by lead in drinking water.