CERCLA

Objectives:
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as CERCLA or the Superfund, came about in response to the discovery of a large amount of hazardous waste dumps that were threatening human health and contaminating the environment. It orders the clean-up of all areas where hazardous substances have been released and present a threat to public health and the environment. Many of these dumps have been abandoned and slowly been discovered after years of contamination to the surrounding land. One example of this is the Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, where a chemical company had buried large amounts of hazardous waste in a canal, which was originally designed to transport water. The canal was capped off and eventually an elementary school and later a town was built in this area. After some time, a large amount of people in the community began to complain about fumes in the air and chemicals coming out of the ground. Many people al...