Hazardous waste disposal to ensure that hazardous wastes are safely disposed of in the future are even larger; the American Petroleum lnstitute projects a $34 billion capital cost and $3.4 billion annual operating cost for industry to meet the standards.
“Among the many pressing environmental problems currently facing EPA and the nation, I consider hazardous waste to be the most serious.” There is much to substantiate this recent statement by U S . Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Douglas Costle. The volume of hazardous waste generated annually in the U S . is enormous. According to EPA estimates, it exceeds 77.1 billion pounds, of which “only 10% is disposed in an environmentally safe manner.” The remaining 90% is disposed of haphazardly, such as in an illegal 23-acre site in Kentucky, “The Valley of the Drums”, where thousands of barrels of hazardous wastes have been stacked. Many barrels have burst, spilling their contents on the ground, thereby polluting local surface waters. The health problems associated with hazardous waste were first dramatized by the Love Canal tragedy which unfolded 16 months ago. Since then, many other problems of similar magnitude have come to light, with untold more “ticking time bombs” remaining throughout the country. This aspect of the problem is magnified by the fact that one-half of the American population relies on groundwater for its drinking water supply. The projected cleanup costs are staggering. EPA estimates that to control hazardous waste, which poses a “danger to public health and the environment”, will cost between $1 3.1-22.1 billion. The estimated costs 0013-936X/79/0913-1459$01.00/0
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Statutory scheme In the fall of 1976, Congress enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ( R C R A ) , which was intended to establish a comprehensive program for the management of solid waste. The heart of the law is “Subtitle C , Hazardous Waste Management”, which requires “cradle to grave” tracking of hazardous wastes from the time of generation, through storage and transportation, to their ultimate disposal. Most of the other federal environmental statutes are either directly or peripherally involved, further complicating the regulatory scheme. In the three years since the passage of R C R A , it has become evident that “the problem is far larger than the Act anticipated.” (Report of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, September 1979.) Regulatory delay RCRA requires EPA to promulgate a series of regulations, many within 18 months of enactment. When it became evident that EPA would miss these deadlines, suits were filed resulting in a court order requiring EPA to file quarterly reports on the status of the regulations and setting a deadline of December 31, 1979 for EPA to promulgate final regulations. In its effort to meet this deadline, EPA published proposed rules in December 1978 covering classification of hazardous wastes and standards for generators, transporters, and disposal facility operators. I n its latest quarterly report to the courts (October 12, 1979), EPA stated that the Agency would miss the deadline and that the key regulations would
1979 American Chemical Society
not be issued until April 1980 or later. Costle noted that EPA had received over 1200 sets of comments, “which, when placed together, constitute a stack of text over seven feet high.” EPA must respond in detail to each comment, including difficult issues such as the criteria for defining a waste as hazardous and strictness of facility design standards adequate to protect health and the environment. Many of the key regulations will have to be changed so significantly that EPA must “repropose” them, thereby providing opportunity for still more public comment. Environmentalists have characterized EPA delay as “inexcusable” and estimate it will add another two years to the implementation of a program to address “the most significant environmental problems currently facing us”. The Environmental Defense Fund has filed a request with the court for a hearing on EPA’s failure to meet the deadline. Interim actions While regulatory controls remain mired in technical debate, EPA has enlisted the enthusiastic cooperation of the Justice Department to use RCRA’s emergency powers to initiate court action to stop illegal dumping and order cleanup in those cases where “an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment” can be shown. The Justice Department has established a new hazardous waste section, headed by a long-time public interest advocate. “Everyone wants these wastes managed, but not in their backyard and our entire nation is someone’s backyard,” is how Costle summarizes the heart of the problem. Actions during the next several months by EPA, industry, environmental groups, Congress, and the courts, will shape the manner in which hazardous waste, the environmental problem of the 198O’s, is managed, and we all hope, control led. Volume 13, Number 12, December 1979
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