We are responsible for the health, safety and vitality of our communities and, at the same time, for fulfilling the governmental duty to provide for municipal garbage and municipal sewage collection and disposal. First and foremost, we thank you, Senator Chafee, for your leadership and your commitment to addressing the issue of municipal liability in Superfund legislation. We also commend Senator Lautenberg for championing Superfund relief for local governments for many long years. Indeed, as you know, there has been broad, bipartisan, multi-stakeholder consensus on this municipal Superfund relief issue for many years. We hope that the parties will continue to work to get this municipal Superfund issue resolved, this year, no matter what other issues may stand in the way.
Local governments have a very serious problem.
We have been saddled with years of delay, and millions of dollars of liability and legal costs under the Superfund law simply because we owned or operated municipal landfills or sent municipal solid waste or sewage sludge to landfills that also received industrial and hazardous wastes. We estimate that as many as 750 local governments at 250 sites nationwide are affected by the co-disposal landfill issue. The costs that our citizens bear as a result are unfair and unnecessary. Local governments are in a unique situation at these co-disposal sites. First, municipal solid waste and sewage sludge collection and disposal is a governmental duty.