"How Costly Is ‘Clean’? An Analysis of the Benefits and Costs of Superfund Site Remediations" by James T. Hamilton and W. Kip Viscusi, in Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (Winter 1999), Univ. of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, 3620 Locust Walk, Ste. 3100, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104–6372.

It’s no secret that cleaning up a Superfund hazardous waste site is a very expensive proposition. Is it worth it? Hamilton, a professor of public policy at Duke University, and Viscusi, a professor of law and economics at Harvard Law School, add their voices to those who say that in many cases the answer is no.

Examining a representative sample of 150 out of the 1,388 Superfund sites, and using Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) risk assessments and 1990 census data about the populations in the surrounding areas, the two researchers calculate that at most of the sites, the number of expected cancer cases resulting from contamination is relatively low. Overall, at the 150 sites, $2.2 billion is being spent to avert 731 cancer cases—an average of $3 million per case. But even that figure is misleading, say the authors. At half the locations, the risk amounts to less than one-tenth of a cancer case per site. And at 101 of the 145 sites with any averted cancer cases, the cleanup costs would be more than $100 million per averted case.

Why are the cleanups so inefficient? In part, say the authors, because the EPA has focused on the cancer risk to an individual who becomes contaminated at the site (even though there were residents on only 14 of the 150 sites), rather than on the number of cancer cases expected to arise in the area’s population. The inefficiency also is due, Hamilton and Viscusi say, to the fact that Congress, wanting to prevent the Reagan administration from favoring polluters, as it allegedly had been doing, directed the EPA in 1986 legislation to require permanent cleanups, not mere containment of hazardous wastes.

The law also set stringent cleanup standards. agency, in selecting a remedy for a particular Congress should allow the EPA more dis-site, should not always insist on restoring sites cretion, the authors conclude, and the to pristine condition.