EPA Deletes Tennessee Products Superfund Site From National Priorities List

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced that in Fiscal Year 2019 the agency deleted all or part of 27 sites from Superfund’s National Priorities List including the Tennessee Products Superfund Site in Chattanooga.

Officials said, "This marks the largest number of deletions in a single year since FY 2001. This also represents the third year in a row that EPA has significantly increased the number of sites deleted from the NPL, helping communities move forward in reusing and redeveloping the land by making it clear that cleanup is complete."

“Our renewed focus on the Superfund program is reaching directly into the heart of communities that are looking to EPA for leadership and action,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “I am proud of the work we have done to deliver on the Trump Administration’s commitment to protect the people we serve and support community revitalization by allowing land to be rediscovered and repurposed for productive use.”

“We celebrate this significant milestone that EPA and our partners are making to clean up contaminated property and return the land to productive use,” EPA Region 4 Administrator Mary S. Walker. "A successful cleanup is a win-win that supports economic growth and a more sustainable community."

EPA deletes sites or parts of sites from the NPL when no further cleanup is required to protect human health or the environment. Years, and sometimes decades, of complex investigation and cleanup work has gone into getting these sites to where they are today. This important milestone indicates to communities that cleanup is complete and that sites are protective of human health and the environment.

While EPA encourages site reuse throughout the cleanup process, deletions from the NPL can help revitalize communities and promote economic growth by signaling to potential developers and financial institutions that cleanup is complete. Over the past several years, the agency has focused on streamlining the deletion process and increasing the number of opportunities to demonstrate to communities that cleanup is complete.

For example, in FY 2017 EPA doubled the number of full and partial sites deleted over the previous fiscal year with a total of six sites and then significantly increased the total number of deletions to 22 in FY 2018 and 27 in FY 2019.

The agency’s FY 2019 deletions include 12 full sites and parts of 15 more sites.

The 12 sites EPA completely deleted from the NPL are: