Bristol County is receiving the largest infusion of total federal dollars ($162.4 million) outside Suffolk County ($323.2 million) according to a county-by-county breakdown of federal stimulus funds flowing to the Bay State compiled by ProPublica, the national investigative reporting organization. That’s $14.2 million more than Middlesex County, the state’s largest ($148.2 million).
Why is the state’s sixth most populous county the beneficiary of such federal largesse? Up to $55 million of those funds are going for the cleanup of two Superfund hazardous waste sites in the region. New Bedford Harbor will see $25 million to $35 million from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Heavy metals and polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) pollute harbor waters.
With a total cleanup cost estimated at $750 million, the New Bedford Harbor project is the largest EPA-funded Superfund cleanup undertaking in the state.
Another $10 million to $25 million goes to clean up the 40-acre former Hatheway and Patterson property in Mansfield and Foxborough. Contamination from the wood-processing plant, which closed in 1993, has affected soils, wetlands, and fish populations, and threatened municipal and private drinking water sources.
Both sites are on the EPA’s National Priorities List, making them eligible for long-term, federally funded investigation and cleanup.
