When the abandoned factory grounds of the defunct Atlas Tack Company was named a 'national priority' site on the federal Superfund cleanup list, the residents of Fairhaven might have thought their environmental problems were going to be solved. Thirteen years later, the cleanup has yet to begin. And, with the Bush administration cutting the number of new Superfund cleanup starts to only 10, the residents of Fairhaven have again been told they must wait.
Atlas Tack came to this small town on Buzzard's Bay at the start of the last century, providing the town with a lot of new jobs. It also provided the town with a toxic legacy. According to published reports, the company, which produced tacks, shoe eyelets, and other small metal fixtures, began dumping wastewater into a nearby lagoon in the '40s. It wasn't until the 70s that state officials formally took notice of the pollution. Even then, thanks to continued stonewalling by Atlas Tack and its parent company, Great Northern Industries, initial monitoring and clean-up efforts at the site didn't begin for another 15 years.
Because the pollution has been present for so long, and because it is increasingly likely it will contaminate groundwater, the Sierra Club has named Fairhaven one of its top "communities at risk." Among the contaminants found at the site: arsenic, cyanide, heavy metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). If the pollution does leach into the local water table, it could pose an immediate risk to at least 15,000 local residents relying on wells for drinking water. State fisheries officials have long since established a moratorium on the consumption of shellfish caught nearby, and fishing and swimming in the nearby marshes.
Local and national activists say they have no idea why the Fairhaven site has been overlooked time and again. It was on the 2002 new start list, but no action was taken, because funds were never allocated. Jessica Frohman, a National Conservation Organizer for the Sierra Club, says the site's consistent abandonment is a mystery.
"This is a major transparency issue. This is a site that's kind of falling underneath the radar. Even the EPA Project Managers don't seem to know a lot about the funding issues."
When the Atlas Tack site was first added to the Superfund list, the program was funded through fees paid by polluting industries. But that so-called 'polluters pay' tax expired in 1995, and the Republican-led Congress let it die. Since then, the dedicated money available for Superfund cleanup has essentially dried up. Frohman says it's not surprising that Bush has allowed the program to wither. The philosophy behind the Superfund -- making polluters pay for cleaning up contaminated sites -- simply isn't welcome in George W. Bush's Washignton, she says.
"[The administration] is not pushing the program and they're not making it a priority... they have shown no interest in insuring the health and safety of the environment and human health around these massive toxic waste sites. Atlas Tack is one of the sites that's being marginalized because of the lack of administration emphasis. They're the only administration who's come out and said, 'We don't want polluters to pay for the clean-up of their sites -- we want taxpayers to.'"
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