Superfund Sites and Climate Change
GAO-20-73, October 18, 2019
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped an unprecedented amount of rainfall over the greater Houston area. Among other things, the flooding damaged several Superfund sites—some of the nation's most contaminated hazardous waste sites, according to the National Priorities List. At one site on the San Jacinto River, floodwater eroded part of a containment structure for dioxin-laden waste. This left many uneasy about the threat of a dioxin release, which could damage the environment and human health.
Amid concerns about increasing probability and intensity of natural disasters and other potential climate change effects, we used available data to identify Superfund sites in areas that may be impacted by wildfires and different types of flooding. Those natural hazards—which already pose imminent threats to some sites—may be exacerbated by climate change.
Approximately 90% of Superfund sites are located on nonfederal land. This interactive map shows nonfederal Superfund sites—sites that are not federal facilities or on federal land. Click on a dot to see the name of a site, some basic information about it, and a list of natural hazards that may impact the site's location. You can also select a category of hazards below to highlight all potentially impacted Superfund sites. The colors correspond to the specific hazards.
Natural Hazards That May Impact Nonfederal Superfund Sites
Note: For the purpose of this analysis, each site is represented by a 0.2-mile radius around the primary coordinate of the site, regardless of the actual area of the site. Sites for which data are not available are included in the "no hazard identified" categories. For example, wildfire data are not available outside the contiguous United States, storm surge data are not available for the West Coast of the United States, Alaska, or Pacific islands other than Hawaii, and sea level rise data are not available for Alaska. This map does not identify facilities and contamination on the sites that would be impacted by the natural hazards or provide information necessary for assessing risks to human health or the environment at these sites.
Sources: GAO analysis of Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and U.S. Forest Service data.
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