a. What arguments can you make that CERCLA should be reformed?
b. What arguments can you make that CERCLA should not be amended (or at least not weakened)?
Congress passed Superfund legislation, at least partly, in response to Love Canal. Fittingly, Love Canal now serves as an illustration of what CERCLA can accomplish. In 1978, Love Canal was a major environmental disaster. In the early 1980s, the federal government bought 788 houses near Love Canal. It immediately tore down 238 of them. In 1988, it declared 360 of them to be habitable and, at the beginning of 1993, put them on the market at prices between $48,000 and $52,000. This was 15 percent below market price for equivalent houses in the area. To avoid speculation, purchasers were required to live in their houses for three years. Although the government had expected that it would take between 10 and 15 years to sell the houses, all but four sold within three and a half years. Ken Denman, the real estate agent at Love Canal (now called Black Creek Village), said that, despite the capped canal in the middle of the neighborhood, "You can't find a Love Canal resident worried about toxins."