Arecent report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is certain to catch the attention of environ mental engineers and consultants on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. The report, Cleaning Up the Nation's Waste Sites: Markets and Technology Trends (2004), suggests that private entities and taxpayers in the U.S. could face a stag-gering 250 billion dollars price tag to clean up more than 350,000 contaminated sites between now and 2039. The sites range from former military bases, to Brownfields industrial areas, to something as ubiquitous as dry-cleaning operations. In the latter case, the improper disposal of chlorinated solvents used in dry-cleaning outlets has given rise to groundwater contamination concerns that are only slowly coming to the attention of policymakers and the public.
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