Patrick Schlesinger (he/him)

Environmental Law Review Staffer – Fordham Law 2026

Superfund sites have become synonymous with hazardous waste disposal zones that pose a threat to human health.  The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), known as Superfund, established liability for polluters and empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to seek injunctions under the Act to compel polluters to remediate their waste. 

Due to redlining, people living near Superfund Sites are disproportionately low-income and people of color. Compounding matters, research indicates that Superfund site cleanups have neglected communities of color as compared to white communities. 

Now, climate change threatens to further damage Superfund sites through increased risks of flooding and other disasters. Flooding can damage concrete “capping,” a process by which toxic waste buried in the soil is covered by plastic and concrete. In 2017, flooding from Hurricane Harvey destroyed a concrete cap at a Superfund site and spread cancerous substances into the San Jacinto River. 

However, Superfund sites can be damaged by climate change even without acute disasters such as hurricanes. Sea level rise will cause groundwater levels to rise.  This rising groundwater will inundate coastal Superfund sites, breach concrete caps, and spread pollutants. 2020 study has found that even a moderate rate of sea level rise would threaten 918 superfund sites within the next 20 years. 

These issues are exemplified in the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a Superfund site located in a historically Black community in San Francisco. This shipyard was used by the US Navy to decontaminate ships after atomic bomb testing in the Pacific during World War II, which led to radioactive isotopes and other hazardous chemicals being spread throughout the site. The shipyard was designated as a Superfund site in 1989. The Navy then contracted with Tetra Tech to remediate the site, which committed fraud in falsifying soil samples in order to avoid fully remediating the site. This fraud resulted in two criminal convictions in 2018, and numerous lawsuits filed against Tetra Tech. The Navy first learned of the fraud in 2012, yet defended Tetra Tech’s data until the EPA’s 2018 Draft Work Plan found “widespread signs of potential falsification and data quality concerns in all parcels where Tetra Tech EC Inc. conducted radiological work.” The fraud perpetuated in the cleanup of Hunters Point may have affected local residents: the Hunters Point Community Biomonitoring Program has found high levels of contaminants the urine of residents in the surrounding community. 

The toxic exposure from the site is expected to worsen, as rising groundwater due to sea level rise could spread the toxins that the Navy plans to leave buried in the soil. A 2023 draft report published by the Navy conceded that existing protections will be insufficient. A 2024 lawsuit by Greenaction is seeking to enjoin the EPA and the Navy to finally clean up the site and to account for the impact of sea level and groundwater rise on the remediation efforts taken thus far.  

The EPA needs to account for the impacts of climate change in developing remediation plans for coastal Superfund sites like the Hunters Point Navy Shipyard. In particular, concrete capping should not be used in coastal areas prone to flooding and groundwater rise. Environmental lawyers should take heed of the example set by Greenaction in holding the EPA and polluters accountable under CERCLA. As the climate crisis worsens, concerted action by both the government and private citizens is needed in order to implement Executive Orders 12898 and 14096, in order to fulfil “our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All.”