Urban land use and superfund cleanups

The federal Superfund program to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances has been long criticized for the high costs that it imposes on urban governments and other parties responsible for site cleanups. To addre ss this and other perceived shortcomings of the program, legislators in Con gress have proposed changes to the Superfund statute that would tie cleanup at a Superfund site to the site's expected future land use. Such changes c ould lead to more efficient cleanups, promote economic development, and imp rove local public involvement in cleanup activities. Based on a case study of a Superfund site in the Boston metropolitan area and other work, we argu e in this article that such laudable goals are complicated by the difficult y of combining cleanup and redevelopment objectives, the problem of ensurin g representative public involvement, and the ambiguous legal and regulatory responsibilities of institutions charged with long-term management of haza rdous substances left on site.