EPA watchdog finds nation’s most contaminated sites are vulnerable to flooding, wildfires

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 100 of the nation’s most contaminated toxic waste sites are in areas prone to flooding and wildfires, a potential public health threat to millions of Americans in surrounding communities, the internal watchdog at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found.

The EPA’s Office of Inspector General issued two new reports last week that are part of a series assessing the weather-related vulnerabilities of the 157 federal Superfund sites prioritized for cleanup due to the serious risk they pose to public health and the environment. About 3 million Americans live within a mile of a Superfund site, while 13 million people live within 3 miles (4.8 kilometers).

Some of the Superfund sites were found to be at risk from multiple natural-disaster threats. The studies found 49 in coastal areas are at risk from sea-level rise or storm surge from hurricanes, with many located near highly populated areas and important ecological locales like Chesapeake Bay. Another 47 are in low-lying sites prone specifically to inland flooding from heavy rain. The review also found 31 sites in areas at high risk for wildfires.

Despite these risks, the five-year plans governing the expensive and time-consuming cleanups at the sites often failed to account for damage posed by flooding from sea-level rise and more frequent storms and wildfire, the IG’s review found.

“That is a big problem because it means the site managers are not planning mitigation measures,” said Betsy Southerland, a former director of the agency’s water protection division who spent over 30 years at the EPA.

“The communities living near those sites should be made aware of this planning failure and should insist on robust plans,” she said.

At locations with little or no planning for floods, contaminants could be released into surrounding communities and taxpayer dollars already invested in remediation could be wasted, the review found.

The EPA said it is reviewing the IG’s findings and that the Superfund program does factor “the impacts of extreme weather events and other hazards as a standard operating practice in the development and implementation of cleanup projects.”

Last year, President Donald Trump fired EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell at the beginning of Trump's second term, and the office’s new review makes no mention of climate change, a term the Republican administration has scrubbed from federal websites. But the new reports issued by the IG’s remaining staff still lay out the risks posed by a warming planet to the nation’s most dangerous toxic waste sites.

Lara J. Cushing, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who has studied the effects of a changing climate on the nation’s toxic waste sites, petrochemical plants and other hazardous areas, called the new reports “noteworthy and important.”

“Although President Trump may wish to ignore it, the fact is the climate is changing and we need to be proactive in responding to rising seas and more extreme weather or face the consequences of increasingly frequent cascading natural-technological disasters that poison communities and local ecosystems,” said Cushing.

The inspector general’s findings echo a 2017 investigation by The Associated Press that found 327 Superfund sites vulnerable to flooding driven by climate change. The AP’s review was launched following Hurricane Harvey, which caused extensive flooding in parts of Houston that included seven Superfund sites and triggered spills from tanks holding cancer-causing toxic waste.

The EPA’s new report said that during Harvey, dioxin chemicals were carried by flooding into neighboring streets, yards and homes close to the San Jacinto River, an area highlighted by AP’s reporting.

At the time, the EPA under the first Trump administration criticized AP’s reporting as fear-mongering “yellow journalism.” Trump has called climate change a hoax, blocked renewable energy projects and sought to boost the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.

“This series shines a light on potential threats to federal facility Superfund sites and the critical role of five-year reviews in addressing them,” said Kim Wheeler, the spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office. “By identifying sites at risk from these weather-related events, we aimed to raise awareness and encourage forward looking planning.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - Dwight Chandler walks through his devastated home from Hurricane Harvey not too far from old acid pits that were designated as a U.S. EPA Superfund in Highlands, Texas, Aug. 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Jason Dearen, File)

FILE - Work continues at San Jacinto River Waste Pits, a Superfund site, near the Interstate 10 bridge over the river in Channelview, Texas on Sept. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

FILE - A man walks past a notice for the Martin Aaron Inc. Superfund site in Camden, N.J., Dec. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - A barbed-wire fence encircles the Highlands Acid Pit that was flooded by water from the nearby San Jacinto River in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Highlands, Texas on Aug. 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Jason Dearen)

FILE - People in protective clothing work at the Martin Aaron Inc. Superfund site in Camden, N.J, Dec. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks fell again as oil prices keep climbing because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran could end. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% Monday and deepened its losses to pull 9.1% below its record set early this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.7%. Caution was prevalent throughout markets. After jumping to an initial gain of 0.9%, the S&P 500 quickly erased nearly all of it before seesawing lower. Indexes rose in Europe but fell sharply in some Asian markets, while the price of U.S. oil topped $100 per barrel.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are sinking again Monday as oil prices keep climbing because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran could end.

The S&P 500 fell 0.7% and deepened its losses since the war began to pull 9.3% below its record set early this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 50 points, or 0.1%, as of 3:15 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% lower.

Caution was prevalent throughout financial markets. After jumping to an initial gain of 0.9%, the S&P 500 quickly erased nearly all of it before seesawing lower. Stock indexes rose in Europe but fell sharply in some Asian markets, while the price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 3.3% to settle at $102.88

The mixed movements followed a whirlwind of action in the war over the weekend, including an entry into the fighting by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The main issue for investors is whether oil and natural gas can resume their full flow from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide and prevent a brutal blast of inflation.

Shortly before the U.S. stock market opened for trading Monday, President Donald Trump said on his social media network that “great progress has been made” with “A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”

But he also threatened the possibility of “blowing up and completely obliterating” Iranian power plants if a deal is not reached shortly and if the Strait of Hormuz, an integral waterway for the flow of oil, is not opened immediately.

The statement fit and condensed last week’s pattern, where Trump would tout progress being made in talks and offer some optimism for the market, only for doubts to rise quickly afterward about whether the war can end soon.

All the back and forth has some investors saying they’re giving Trump’s pronouncements less weight than before. But stock prices are nevertheless cheaper than they were before the war, which has some investors waiting for an opportune time to buy.

The S&P 500 is roughly 9% below its all-time high, which was set in January. The Dow and Nasdaq both finished last week more than 10% below their records, a steep-enough fall that professional investors call it a “correction.”

Taking into account how much profits are expected to grow in the coming year for companies in the S&P 500, the index looks roughly 17% cheaper than before the war, by one measure. That’s in a similar range as where prior growth scares for the market ended, as long as they didn’t result in a recession or the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates, according to strategists at Morgan Stanley.

That’s one of the signs that the strategists led by Michael Wilson point to as “growing evidence the S&P 500 correction is getting closer to its ending stages.”

Of course, the Federal Reserve could upset that if it decides oil prices are threatening to stay high for long enough that it needs to raise interest rates. Higher interest rates would help keep a lid on inflation, but they would also slow the economy and push down on prices for all kinds of investments.

Treasury yields have been leaping in the bond market since the war began because of such worries, but they eased somewhat on Monday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.34% from 4.44% late Friday. That’s a significant move for the bond market and offers some breathing room for Wall Street. But it remains far above its 3.97% level from before the war.

On Wall Street, Sysco fell 15.5% to help lead the market lower after it said it was buying Jetro Restaurant Depot for $21.6 billion in cash and enough Sysco shares to value the company at about $29.1 billion.

Alcoa rose 6.5% for one of the market’s biggest gains on speculation it could get more business after attacks damaged rival aluminum facilities in the Middle East over the weekend.

In stock markets abroad, the FTSE 100 in London climbed 1.6%, and the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.9%. That followed drops of 3% for Seoul’s Kospi, 2.8% for Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 and 0.8% for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott and AP journalist Ayaka McGill contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that the S&P 500 finished last week 8.7% below its record.

Christopher Lagana, left, and Dilip Patel work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Bobby Charmak works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, March 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A general view shows the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, March 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Workers walk in an area at a degassing station in Zubair oil field, whose operations have being reduced due to the Mideast war triggered by the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, near Basra, Iraq, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A person walks by an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index in Tokyo Monday, March 30, 2026. (Yusuke Hashizume/Kyodo News via AP)

A dealer walks near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Dealers work near the screens showing the foreign exchange rates at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Dealers work near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)