Superfund

Superfund Enforcement Topics How Sites are Discovered Finding Those Responsible Getting the Clean-Up Done Recovering EPA's Costs Getting Involved (OERR/Regions) Superfund Cleanup Policy & Guidance documents

In the late 1970s, sites like Love Canal in New York and Valley of the Drums in Kentucky came to the Nation's attention. To respond to the growing concern over health and environmental risks posed by hazardous waste sites, Congress passed a law called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as "Superfund") in 1980 to clean up these sites.

The Superfund program is administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in cooperation with individual States and Tribal Governments. The law created a revolving Trust Fund which is also known as the Superfund. This large pot of money is used by EPA and other agencies to clean up hazardous waste sites.

The Trust Fund is used primarily when those companies or people responsible for the contamination at Superfund sites cannot be found or cannot perform the cleanup or pay for the cleanup work. To make sure that those responsible clean up or pay for the cleanup as much as possible, EPA's Superfund Enforcement program identifies the companies or people responsible for contamination at a site and negotiates with them to do the cleanup. If EPA pays for some or all of the cleanup at a site and then finds the people responsible, EPA can recover from them the money it spent.

Visit EPA's Superfund program if you are looking for information on how sites are actually cleaned up or other technical aspects of administering the Superfund program.