By Liz McBreen
The letter requests that all of the money that had originally been allocated to the Superfund environmental cleanup program be distributed. During the last session of congress, the money that was supposed to go to the project was cut in half.
The Genzale Plating Company on New Hyde Park Road was a family owned metal plating company that started in the 1920's. The residential town of Franklin Square grew up around the factory. For years, the company was not disposing of volatile organic waste products properly. As a result, the water and soil surrounding the site are now contaminated, and the health of Franklin Square residents is at risk.
The Superfund program had began the cleanup and it was near completion when additional chromium was found in the soil near the Genzale site two years ago. Now more funding is needed to finish the cleanup, but this fiscal year, money allocated for Superfund was drastically cut.
Without money from the federal government, the burden of the cleanup projects falls on the taxpayers, and will slow the process considerably.
Schumer and McCarthy were joined at the press conference by Sarah Meyland, the Executive Director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. In addition to requesting that Bush re-allocate the needed money for these cleanup projects, the three Superfund advocates also asked that he re-instate the "Polluter Pays" Act.
This bill would require the companies or organizations that create to toxic waste to turn over a portion of their profits, in the form of taxes, for cleanup efforts. If this bill is again put into effect, sites like the one at Genzale in Franklin Square will be properly cleaned up in a short amount of time.
"If the rate of cleanups continue at the drastically reduced level favored by your Administration, cleanup efforts at New York's Superfund sites may be compromised," wrote Schumer in the letter. "There is an easy solution to funding the program and cleaning the sites - the same solution we've used successfully for years: making the polluters pay."
In 1995, the polluter taxes expired, and the balance of the fund has decreased from $3 billion in 1996 to an estimated $28 million by the end of 2003. When this money is gone, the cost of cleanups will fall on the taxpayer.
"Under President Bush's plan, the corporate polluters won't pay for the environmental damage they caused, and now Bush won't allocate the funds to clean up these sites at all," said McCarthy. "I call upon the President to reinstate these funds and see to it that our communities are safe for our children."
"We're here to say that if the government and polluters do their part, we can keep Superfund going. People who live here should not have to pay," said Schumer.
McCarthy explained that there are at least ten Superfund sites that desperately need cleanup on Long Island, and the individual towns do not have the money to fund the projects to make the sites safer. "The ones that pollute the environment should be the ones to clean it up."
Meyland lent her voice to the conference because she wants to raise awareness in communities such as Franklin Square, "these sites are very innocuous and people rarely know they live or work near a dangerous site. We need to let residents know, and have President Bush hold polluters responsible."
The bill that would reinstate the polluter taxes for the next ten years is S. 2596. It was introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on June 6, and it is called "Toxic Clean-up Polluter Pays Renewal Act."
If passed, the bill would run through 2012, and reinstate the Hazardous Substance Superfund financing rate that formally taxed companies producing chemical waste. The bill would also reinstate the Corporate Environmental Income Tax, a tax of 0.12 per cent on corporate income surpassing of $2 million a year. This tax would apply to a large number of companies that may be disposing of dangerous waste products.
Before these taxes expired in 1995, they provided an average of $1.4 billion a year to the Superfund program.
