This activity helps students understand how Superfund sites are created. They discuss what activities produce hazardous waste, and how contaminants are released and spread into the air, water, soil, and groundwater. Students learn what types of pollution can be cleaned up using Superfund authority and what types are addressed through other laws.
Students construct a model to observe how contaminants move in groundwater.
This law is commonly called Superfund . Other types of pollution are handled by other environmental laws. The Superfund program has a process for reporting and keeping track of potentially contaminated sites. Since the early 1980s when the law took effect, more than 37,000 hazardous waste sites have been reported. EPA must investigate each of the sites to determine the seriousness of the contamination .