A cost-benefit model for evaluating remediation alternatives at superfund sites incorporating the value of ecosystem services

In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in response to a particularly unfortunate incident in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York, in which numerous schoolchildren were exposed to toxic chemicals from an abandoned waste disposal site. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with establishing, administering, and enforcing policies and procedures through which the nation's worst hazardous waste sites (i.e., those posing the greatest risks to human health) might be identified, remediated, and returned to productive use. Further, the Act established an endowment, nicknamed Superfund, to assist with cleanup costs and imposed substantial liability on owners, transporters, and generators of hazardous waste materials.