National Priorities List
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The National Priorities List ("NPL") is the list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial action financed under the federal Superfund program. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") regulations outline a formal process for assessing hazardous waste sites and placing them on the NPL. The NPL is intended primarily to guide the EPA in determining which sites warrant further investigation.
Sites are listed on the NPL upon completion of Hazard Ranking System (HRS) screening, public solicitation of comments about the proposed site, and after all comments have been addressed. EPA may delete a final NPL site if it determines that no further response is required to protect human health or the environment. Sites where a remediation was completed through the Superfund program are typically deleted from the NPL.
As of January 2006, there were 62 Proposed, 1238 Final, and 309 Deleted sites on the NPL in the United States (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands).