Bill Nelson: “It is my pleasure, of course. This is what sharpens ideas, when you can throw ideas out and have them discussed in the…”

“It is my pleasure, of course. This is what sharpens ideas, when you can throw ideas out and have them discussed in the marketplace of public discussion. I respond to my friend by saying, of course, he has heard of the sites that are known as orphan sites. These are toxic waste sites that do not have a financially responsible party that you can go to in order to get the money to clean it up. Therefore, the whole idea of the 1980 Superfund law was to provide a source of funding for these orphan sites so that you can get them cleaned up, so that the community as a whole can be protected from a health standpoint. I cited just one site in Florida which was west of Orlando. I can cite another. For example, in Pensacola we have what is known as 'Mount Dioxin.' It is a former wood-treating plant. The site of that old plant is so toxic that an entire neighborhood subdivision located next to it had to be evacuated. It is deserted; it is fenced off. Only now are we having to go back and appropriate additional moneys to get to the health department as they do an outreach to try to find the people who used to live in that neighborhood, to get them to come in for their health checks. Believe it or not, in the flatlands of Florida--in this case, Pensacola--this turgid, infested soil called Mount Dioxin is exactly that. They have it piled up to the tune of about 40 feet high, with a tarpaulin strung over it, trying to contain all of this toxic waste.”