A Superfund site is an area of land that has become extremely polluted over time and requires cleanup. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describes a Superfund site as one of thousands of sites contaminated by “hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed.”

There are over 1,300 Superfund sites in the EPA’s National Priorities List (NPL). As of January 2026, 459 sites have been cleaned up, are no longer considered a health or environmental threat, and have been deleted from the NPL. In Michigan, for example, there have been at least 60 Superfund sites, and the cause of waste has come from a variety of sources, including manufacturing and industrial sites in steel, oil, chemical storage, tar, aircraft, iron and leather.

Environmental Policy and Superfund Sites

In response to growing concerns about the management of these extremely polluted sites, Congress established the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in 1980, which put new policies into place for officially identifying and cleaning sites like these.

CERCLA was nicknamed ‘Superfund’ because of the $1.6 billion fund for the rapid cleanup of these sites. This then transformed into calling these locations ‘Superfund sites.’ This fund can only be used by the government on Superfund site cleanup, with the EPA administering the funds. There are four primary goals of CERCLA/Superfund:

1. Protect human health and the environment by cleaning up contaminated sites
2. Make responsible parties pay for cleanup work
3. Involve communities in the Superfund process
4. Return Superfund sites to productive use

The Role of Risk Assessment

To decide if a site qualifies for Superfund cleanup funds, the EPA conducts iterative risk assessments to determine how threatening the contaminants are to human health and the environment. 

The key components of the EPA’s Superfund risk assessment are to: 

• Analyze the contamination
• Estimate the highest level of human exposure likely to occur based on current and future land use
• Determine the potential dangers to health of the contaminants
• Combine exposure and toxicity data to characterize overall risk

Environmental Justice Concerns

Superfund sites are disproportionately found in communities of color and disadvantaged communities. One study found that “Superfund sites in predominantly Black neighborhoods were less likely to receive NPL designation.” There are many other similar concerns, including funding going to communities most likely to benefit the economy, rather than those who need it most. To combat this, the EPA began using tools such as EJSCREEN, most of which have since been removed by the Trump Administration, but according to a recent report by SEAS Professor Paul Mohai, tools that support environmental justice analysis to develop equitable strategies continue to be developed and used.

This doesn’t mean that Superfund sites cannot be found in more affluent and predominantly white communities. One example is Ann Arbor, Michigan, where efforts to get Superfund designation were underway for decades due to groundwater contamination caused by the Gelman Sciences manufacturing facility starting in the 1960s. For years, the contamination has migrated, threatening the city’s drinking water, but it wasn’t until March 12, 2026, that the Gelman Sciences site was officially designated. 

In an opinion piece, Paul Fleming, an associate professor in the U-M School of Public Health, discusses opportunities to invest in preventative damages, rather than spend millions cleaning it up after the fact. For the Gelman site, Fleming points to the reality that the pollution was technically legal when it occurred, adding, “...harming the environment was perfectly legal under the rules we had.”

Jalonne White-Newsome, an associate professor in SEAS who specializes in environmental justice and who previously served as the first Federal Chief Environmental Justice Officer, leading the White House’s Office of Environmental Justice, says that while Superfund sites might be anywhere, other community factors and characteristics can make site placement worse for some communities than others. 

“Superfund sites are bad, in general. But adding a Superfund site to a community that is already dealing with other environmental injustices sends a strong message that public health and a lack of consideration for the cumulative impacts of these exposures matter in some places and not in others,” says White-Newsome. 

There were a variety of Executive Orders by the Biden administration that emphasized the importance of incorporating environmental justice actions alongside Superfund cleanup efforts, like EO 14008, establishing the EPA’s Environmental Justice Action Plan, and following the 2021 National Environmental Justice Advisory Council report. Many of these efforts have been removed through Executive Orders by the Trump administration. 

Environmental Restoration Efforts 

There are two types of Superfund site actions based on the required response to the pollution: remedial and removal. Removal actions are those that pose an immediate threat, like chemical spills and factory fires. Remedial actions are the longer-term clean-ups, like landfills and abandoned factories, and make up the majority of Superfund sites. 

All remedial sites go on the NPL, while most removal sites do not. As sites began to finalize the cleanup efforts, the EPA continues to monitor the successful removal of waste to determine if there are any leakages or gaps that could reintroduce pollution into the site through the air, soil and water. 

Once the EPA and the state agree that there is no threat to human or environmental health, it is removed from the NPL, and the state and city can begin to determine what restoration efforts or life after Superfund looks like. They can be turned into restored wetlands, like the Schlepp project at the Bunker Hill Superfund site; recreation facilities, like the Wildcat Creek Soccer Complex and solar energy facility at the Continental Steel Corp. Superfund site; or community centers, like the YMCA at the Havertown PCP Superfund site. 

For sites that do not make it onto the NPL, they may be referred to the Superfund alternative approach, to brownfield remediation, to local cleanup programs or treated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. 

Community Involvement

Tens of millions of Americans live within a few miles of a Superfund site, increasing the need for community involvement and awareness of what is happening in their own backyard. Residents can voice their concerns and local knowledge expertise through comment periods, and citizen voices are extremely important in the selection process for Superfund sites. Residents may be consulted through a number of federal tools, like the Technical Assistance Needs Assessment (TANA) tool, the Technical Assistance Services for Communities (TASC) program, and the Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) program. 

Citizens can and should voice their opinions at the state and city levels. One way for communities to become more involved in the actions taking place in their area is to implement a Community Advisory Group (CAG), which the EPA says “is designed to serve as the focal point for the exchange of information among the local community and the EPA, the state regulatory agency and other pertinent Federal agencies involved in the cleanup of the Superfund site.

There have been several successful community-led initiatives at restored Superfund sites, such as the Duwamish Valley Community Coalition. Communities pushed for what would better their neighborhoods, and the site was transformed as a result. This includes places like the Milltown Reservoir/Clark Fork River Superfund site, now a state park and recreation site; and the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant Superfund site, now a community nature site with walking trails, picnic areas and educational opportunities.