Alaska's overall environmental cleanup may take 100 years: millions of dollars are being pumped into the economy as part of extensive cleanup efforts.

• Author: McCorkle, Vern C.

Millions upon millions of dollars have been pumped into the Alaska economy as the result of trying to make it right with the environment.

Once government, business and private enterprise, non-governmental organizations and special interest groups focused on the problem, things began to happen. Not fast enough for some, and too fast for others, but probably all to the good for the environment and for those who furnish supplies, services, materials and labor for the effort

Dozens of new businesses sprang up. Old, established companies added new departments, all to take entrepreneurial advantage of the nearly unfathomable amount of work there was (and still is) to do. And for a good many professional, scientific entities and practitioners, here was the chance to employ their earth science vocations and engineering skills in the service of a battered environment And it has worked rather well, according to many objective observers.

CAUGHT IN THE ACT

Business has been in the crosshairs of environmental activism since the very beginning.

The beginning was Dec. 11, 1980, when the federal government created the Superfund. The Congressional Act was titled the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, CERCLA for short, known ever after as the Superfund.

One can easily see by the title of the act, that compensation and liability (blame) were primary motivators, as well as responding to the environmental accidents and transgressions against nature that had taken place.

Industry, initially thought to be the prime desecraters, was penalized mightily. First came the chemical industry (DDT), called to account by Rachel Carson's bellwether book "Silent Spring" in 1962. Next the petroleum industry was spotlighted after Ohio's Cuyahoga River (tributary to Lake Erie), choked with petroleum waste, caught fire in 1969. Over five year's time, $1.5 billion was collected and the tax on industry became a trust (Super) fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.

First, perpetrators had to be located, if any cleanup and accountability (liability) was to be addressed. That didn't take too long to do. Responsible parties would be required to pay for cleaning up any sites evidencing problems they had created. Site assessments began immediately and the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List, also known as NPL, was created. When no responsible party could be found, the Superfund paid for cleanup. Many...