Hey, Pete!

You are correct.  There is a federal environmental remediation program known as the Superfund, which was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601, et seq.  In 1980, Congress enacted a tax on the big oil and chemical companies to be put into a trust fund for cleaning up abandoned industrial waste sites.

The current owner of the property would be one of four "potential responsible parties" as defined by the law, as would the party who owned the property the time the contamination occurred.  I worked in litigation support for Westinghouse when they were defending all those PCB lawsuits, and they owned several Superfund sites.

Regards,
Scott Perry