HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC RES 91-040 RESOLUTION URGING CONGRESSIONAL RELIEF FROM APPLICATION OF SUPERFUND STATUTE Meeting Sheet
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103635
Box: 26
Folder: RES 1991
Document: CC RES 91-040 RESOLUTION URGING CONGRESSIONAL
RELIEF FROM APPLICATION OF SUPERFUND STATUTE
• CITY OF ST. ANTHONY
RESOLUTION 91-040
A RESOLUTION URGING CONGRESSIONAL RELIEF
FROM APPLICATION OF SUPERFUND STATUTE
WHEREAS, the City of St. Anthony, Minnesota, strongly supports the general concept of
the Superfund statute (Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act) which makes parties who have created,
transported, managed or disposed of hazardous waste liable for the cost of
hazardous waste cleanup; and
WHEREAS, under the Superfund statute, hazardous waste site polluters acquire the right
to sue fellow polluters to share the cleanup expense; and
WHEREAS, polluters have discovered a means of attempting to shift the costs of
hazardous waste site cleanup to taxpayers of the nation by suing city
governments for their volume of municipal solid waste placed in landfills,
thereby causing enormous legal costs and potentially unfair economic effects
• on city governments throughout the nation; and
WHEREAS, the Superfund statute does not and should not focus on municipal solid waste;
and
WHEREAS, the Environmental Protection Policy recently adopted an Interim Municipal
Settlement Policy that it would not routinely pursue local governments under
Superfund, acknowledging that only a tiny fraction of municipal solid waste
may be toxic; and
WHEREAS, that policy does nothing to stop polluters from launching expensive and often
frivolous lawsuits against city governments, many of whom have only arranged
for or licensed the pickup and hauling of municipal solid waste from within
their respective borders; and
WHEREAS, such lawsuits are beginning to yield results whereby the nation's cities, school
districts, very small businesses, and potentially its citizens are prospects to be
sued by polluters; and
WHEREAS, the City of St. Anthony has recently been targeted by polluters under the
Superfund statute as a potentially responsible party; and
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WHEREAS, the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and its amendments, along
with EPA's regulations thereunder, treat household wastes according to non-
hazardous solid waste standards.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of St. Anthony,
Minnesota, to urge its congressional representatives to support:
1. Amending the Superfund statute to clearly provide that municipal solid waste
is not a hazardous substance in the same fashion as provided under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
2. Empowering only the Federal Government to sue local governments for cost-
sharing under the Superfund statute if such local governments may have
handled any truly hazardous waste.
3. Clearly defining that the degree of toxicity, not the volume of waste, should
be the prime factor in assessing any liabilities under the Superfund statute.
Adopted this day of �s t , 1991.
•
I e3k
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Mayor
ATTEST:
City Clerk
Reviewed for administration:
City anager
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