According to its shutdown contingency plan, the EPA and its contractors will continue to monitor and clean up abandoned Superfund sites that “pose an imminent threat to human life," such as a site that could contaminate a town’s drinking water. (The EPA employees doing so, like other “essential” federal employees, are not getting paid.) The Philadelphia region is home to dozens of Superfund sites, including four that were on a “national priorities” list as of December 2017. The EPA did not respond to questions about which ones had been deemed imminent threats.