FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AG
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1997                            (202) 514-2008
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888
                                 
           STATEMENT OF ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO ON
                    SUPERFUND REAUTHORIZATION

     Every American family is entitled to the kind of clean,
wholesome environment that will let them live full lives and
raise healthy children.  In a modern society, that often means
cleaning up pollution after the fact.  And in 1980, in the wake
of the Love Canal disaster, Congress passed the Superfund law to
make cleanups work better and faster.  By calling on responsible
parties to pay for cleanups, Superfund today saves taxpayers
money, cleans up polluted sites quickly, and spares everyone from
costly, time-consuming lawsuits.  And this year, the Superfund
statute is up for reauthorization.  

     Make no mistake, the stakes are very, very high -- 70
million Americans, including 10 million children, live within
four miles of a Superfund site.   

     We have been working closely with the Environmental
Protection Agency to make Superfund work for everyone.  And
thanks in part to reforms implemented under President Clinton'a
admin, more Superfund sites have been cleaned up in the last four
years than in all the previous years combined.

     Today, we are releasing a report that shows that 1996 was
one of Superfund's best years ever.   The men and women of the
Environmental protection Agency and the Environment Division at
the Department of Juctice produced a record number of judgements
and settlement agreements last year, generating $790 million
worth of cleanup work at contaminated sites across the country.   
     Let me describe specific examples that put a human face on
one of these stories. 

     During the 1970s and 1980s, commercial and industrial
companies dumped drums and tank trucks full of hazardous wastes
into the ground near Smithfield, Rhode Island.   For as many as
100 families living nearby, their drinking water became a toxic
mess.  Even now, they are living, drinking, cleaning and bathing
their children in water pumped from a nearby town.

     Because of Superfund, and our enforcement of it, we are
restoring the lives of these families. The site is being cleaned
up, an alternative water supply is being constructed, and $32
million in cleanup costs are being paid by the people who
produced the toxic waste, and not the families that have
suffered.  

     Just a few years ago, the families living in a mobile home
park in Norfolk, Nebraska watched in horror as their water supply
turned toxic because of a leak from a nearby medical facility. 
EPA acted quickly to provide bottled water to the residents and
to install a carbon filtration system.  Thanks to Superfund, and
our enforcement of it, Sherwood agreed last year to provide an
alternate water supply to the mobile home residents and to pay
100 percent of the cleanup costs at the site.  Now these families
have water to drink, clean and bathe their children in.

     Today's report includes dozens of success stories from all
across the country, and I am happy to report that we are moving
forward to meet the President's goal of completing 900 site
clean-ups by the year 2000.

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97-096