The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it has proposed adding nine "Superfund" hazardous waste sites to the National Priorities List.

The proposed sites are located in Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and two in Puerto Rico, the EPA said in a release.

Contaminants found at the nine proposed sites include arsenic, asbestos, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, dichloroethene (DCE), lead, mercury, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), tetrachloroethene (PCE), trichloroethane (TCA), trichloroethene (TCE), vinyl chloride, and zinc, the EPA said.

Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country. Currently, there are 1,343 final and proposed sites on the list.

With all Superfund sites, EPA tries to identify and locate parties potentially responsible for the contamination.

For sites without potentially responsible parties, the EPA says, it will investigate the full extent of the contamination before beginning significant cleanup.

earlier related report

Protesters burn bus in Naples garbage protest
Naples, Italy (AFP) Oct 20, 2010 –

Local residents skirmished with riot police and set a bus alight in a town near Naples on Wednesday in a second day of protests over the region's waste disposal crisis.

The situation "is still very heated," police chief Santi Giuffre said, as protesters tried to block trucks from unloading at a tip near the town of Terzigno, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of Naples.

"This is a very serious situation," Stefano Caldoro, governor of the Campania province where Naples is located, said on SkyTG24 television.

Caldoro called for citizens to stop the "illegal blockage of a functioning garbage tip" and said the government would offer "economic subsidies" to local councils that agree to host dumps on their territory.

But local officials have demanded the immediate closure of the Sari tip as public anger mounts.

"The Sari tip is a source of serious environmental pollution," Gennaro Cirillo, mayor of the nearby town of Trecase, said.

Residents say the tip is already full and have said they will put a stop to plans to set up a second tip in the area.

Cirillo said opening a second tip would be "an intolerable calamity."

The inhabitants of Terzigno and several other municipalities in the area are planning to bring their case to Rome on Friday, where they are to hold a rally.

Tensions have been rising in the Naples region on this flashpoint issue, which helped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to his election victory in 2008 after he promised to stamp out the waste disposal problem in the area.

The European Court of Justice earlier this year criticised Italy, saying it did not have an adequate system for waste disposal in the Naples region and warning that the problem was a risk to human health and the environment.

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