The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently awarded $331,811 to the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) for several Superfund cleanup sites around the state and general Superfund activities.
“Superfund cleanups are vital to ensuring communities don’t have to bear the burden of legacy contamination,” said Acting Regional Administrator Sam Coleman. “This grant will help the state find and look at properties that might need assistance.”
Funding will support NMED’s Superfund Core Program, as well as work on site assessments and management assistance. The grant will also support work at the United Nuclear Corporation site in McKinley County, the South Valley site in Albuquerque, and the Prewitt Abandoned Refinery site in Prewitt.
The federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act established what is commonly known as EPA’s Superfund program in 1980. Since then, Superfund has helped protect human health and the environment by managing the cleanup of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites and responding to local and national environmental emergencies.
Information from EPA