The US smelting industry is a villain throughout Murderland. Smelting is the process of heating and chemically reducing ore to extract pure metals. In the US, the industry has historically focused on copper, lead, zinc, and aluminum. These products have important consumer applications: Copper is essential for electrical wiring and electronics, and zinc is used to galvanize steel for homes and other buildings. As Fraser shows in Murderland, lead and aluminum had industrial uses, especially in national defense.

Regardless of the product being produced, smelting begins with concentrating ore either by crushing rocks or by floating them to extract important particles. The next process is to roast, or directly smelt, the ore in furnaces. Lead ores are typically reduced in blast furnaces, requiring massive heat, while zinc is reduced by roasting it with carbon-based substances like charcoal. During the smelting process, smelters can collect secondary products like sulfuric acid or precious metals. In Murderland, Fraser focuses primarily on the effects of smelting on workers, who were often exposed to dangerous conditions and toxic chemicals that threatened their health.

In addition, Fraser criticizes the significant environmental harm caused by large-scale smelting. Before the establishment of the EPA, smelters released large quantities of toxic chemicals (such as lead, arsenic, and cadmium) into the atmosphere, contributing to acid rain and air pollution. These chemicals also contaminated soil and water through the emission of slag, a rocky waste by-product of smelting that was often dumped into nearby harbors or rivers. Fraser argues that the leaching of toxic chemicals into the air, soil, and groundwater as a result of smelting was partially responsible for the violent murder sprees of the 1970s.

Congress established the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, informally known as the Superfund program, in 1980 in response to growing concerns about hazardous waste contamination in the US. High-profile environmental disasters, such as the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in 1979, revealed the dangers of abandoned or poorly managed waste sites. The program was designed to identify, prioritize, and remediate the nation’s most hazardous contaminated locations, among them the former site of the ASARCO Ruston smelter near Tacoma, Washington. The Superfund program remains in existence.

Sites are chosen through the Hazard Ranking System, which assesses potential risks to humans and the environment. Factors considered include the toxicity of contaminants, the likelihood of exposure through air, soil, or groundwater, and proximity to local communities. Sites that score above a certain threshold are placed on the National Priorities List, making them eligible for long-term remedial action under the Superfund program.

Funding for these restoration projects was originally provided by a dedicated trust, hence the name. This trust was financed through taxes on smelters and petroleum refiners, reflecting a widely held belief that polluting industries should bear the costs of managing hazardous wastes. The law also empowered the EPA to pursue corporations and landowners connected to the disaster, labeling them Potentially Responsible Parties and holding them financially accountable for cleanup. In the case of the Ruston smelter described in Murderland, ASARCO initially committed to clearing toxic waste but later reneged on this promise. In cases like this, where Potentially Responsible Parties could not or would not pay, the Superfund trust provided the money. When the industry tax expired in 1995, the Superfund was forced to rely entirely on government appropriations.