I worked at various Superfund “remediation” sites for the FedGov in the late 80s. It was the biggest scam up to that time. We were at remote sites in the arctic pulling up materials from WWII . Spent uncounted millions on nothing.
I’ll never forget when we got the call at a particular job—we had just sampled and containerized around 30K barrels. As soon as we were done, they came back and said our containers no longer met the new Federal standard and we would have to repack the entire site. I always wondered which Senator’s brother owned the container contract.
We had several Superfund sites around my hometown. Basically every factory, etc. that used to employ thousands, now only employ government contractors.
The cleanups have extended for decades, almost as long as the original industries were there.
If it was in any other country there would be a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation... bribes of government officials are only legal int he U.S.