WASHINGTON — A federal government watchdog agency will investigate the threats from flooding and other natural disasters to the nation’s most polluted places.
The Government Accountability Office says it assigned investigators to study the risks to human health and the environment posed by natural disasters at the more than 1,300 sites in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program.
The GAO’s probe came after 10 senators in December requested a study of risk to the sites by natural disasters intensified by climate change.
Reporting by The Associated Press in September found more than a dozen Superfund sites flooded by Hurricane Harvey in the Houston area. A subsequent AP data review revealed that more than 2 million Americans live within a mile of 327 Superfund sites in zones at risk from flooding.
