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Superfund Management Board

Our Position: support
Bill Number: A1810
Sponsor: Assembly Member Brodsky (MS)
Legislative Session: 2006

Status

Action Needed

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Background

May 2, 2005

Memorandum of Support

In Assembly 1810 by Assemblyman Brodsky

Title: An Act to amend the environmental conservation law and the state finance law, in relation to re-establishing the existence of the state superfund management board as the state remedial program oversight board and repealing section 27-1319 of the environmental conservation law relating to the state superfund management board.

Provisions:

A.1810 repeals section 27-1319 of the environmental conservation law (ECL). This section of law established the State Superfund Management Board (Board), a body of state agency personnel and private citizens that reviewed the state’s program to remediate hazardous waste sites. ECL section 27-1913 provides that the authorization for the Board expired in 1999. A.1810 proposes to reestablish the Board on a permanent basis. The new ECL section 27-1319 proposed in A.1810 adds review of the state brownfields and oil spill programs to the charges of the Board. All other provisions in the proposed new ECL section 27-1319 are the same as those in the current law.

Statement of Support:

The State Superfund Management Board was charged with reviewing the state remedial plan and recommending changes to the plan. The Board also served as a public forum within which issues pertinent to the cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the state superfund program could be evaluated and discussed. In the performance of this duty the Board was the first body to publicly identify the fact that the state superfund was running out of money. It took nearly ten years for the state legislature and the Governor to arrive at legislation to refinance this program. Even with a decade of warning, the state superfund program was forced to operate for 18 months without a source of money to fund remedial activities before a refinancing solution could be arrived at.

Without the early warning that the Board provided the period of time that the program was without funding would have undoubtedly been much longer. The new State Superfund Management Board would provide oversight of the state’s brownfields program, oil spill program in addition to the inactive hazardous waste sites remedial program.

The Sierra Club believes that it makes good sense to include these programs under the oversight of the Board. Since the brownfields program is in the early phases of implementation the reauthorized Board will provide an invaluable forum to evaluate the success of the program and any revisions to the state law that may be necessary to insure its success. The Board will also serve an important role in overseeing the state response to new threats from spills of hazardous substances that have come to light in recent years. For example, in several communities in New York, we have discovered that volatile chemicals from underground plumes of hazardous substances have contaminated large numbers of homes. The Board can provide a forum in which various response actions to these new threats can be weighed. The Board proved its worth in the effort to refinance the state superfund program. As New York State implements its new brownfields program and works to address new threats from contaminated sites, it would be well served by a reauthorized State Superfund Management Board.