NEWARK, NJ – U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) today will visit the Syncon Resins Superfund Site in Kearny, New Jersey. While at the site, the Senators will tour the on-location groundwater treatment facility currently in operation and will hold a press event highlighting the importance of the EPA’s Superfund program and to announce intent to introduce legislation reinstating the “Polluter Pays” measure. The two Senators will be joined by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator Judith Enck and Kearny Mayor Alberto G. Santos. The visit is in advance of a Tuesday, June 10 hearing of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Oversight hearing entitled “Protecting Taxpayers and Ensuring Accountability: Faster Superfund Cleanups for Healthier Communities” that Senator Booker will chair. Garfield Mayor Joe Delaney and Robert Spiegel, Executive Director, Edison Wetlands Association will testify before Booker’s panel.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has found that the EPA’s Superfund program, which cleans up extremely contaminated properties across the United States, does not have adequate resources to clean up the more than 1,300 sites on the EPA’s list of most polluted sites, including 89 sites which have been designated as having “unacceptable risk of human exposure” to hazardous substances. New Jersey has the most Superfund sites of any state, with a total of 114. Toxic waste sites threaten public health and can degrade a community’s economic and social fabric. Delaying toxic waste site cleanup leaves communities bearing the burden of cumulative health and economic impacts. Cleaning up these sites helps to protect public health and restore and revitalize communities.

* Time is approximate and for press planning purposes only.

WHO: U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck Kearny Mayor Alberto G. Santos

WHEN: Monday, June 9, 2014 12:00PM

WHERE: Syncon Resins Superfund Site 77 Jacobus Avenue, Kearny, NJ 07032