The Superfund process ultimately works because it can help answer the question of “who is going to pay for the cleanup?” and this is often the most important question when dealing with contaminated sites. The biggest problem under the current system, in my opinion, is the lack of funding given to it by the government and that would be my main tweak. The Environmental Protection Agency currently relies on the finding of PRPs (potentially responsible parties) in order to charge them with the cleanup because the “Superfund” has essentially been empty for years now.
Often times it becomes difficult to find PRPs at a site or things get tied up in litigation, meanwhile sites continue to degrade and pollution and contaminants continue to remain in an environment longer than they should have to. If the Superfund was restored to where it had been previously the EPA would be able to begin cleanup at sites such as this and then go after potentially responsible parties to seek reimbursement, rather than to seek initial funding of cleanup. This would help make the process more successful in the future when dealing with Superfund contamination sites.
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