GAO-01-57 Hazardous Waste: Effect of Proposed Rule's Extra Cleanup Requirements Is Uncertain

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976, as amended, established three key requirements governing the treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. First, under the land disposal requirements, this waste usually must be treated to minimize threats to human health and the environment before it is disposed of on land. Second, under the minimum technology requirements, certain facilities (such as landfills) that treat, store, or dispose of this waste must meet certain design standards, such as installing a double liner under the landfill to protect soil and water from contamination. Finally, facilities that treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste must typically obtain a permit to do so. In general, a facility that has an ongoing industrial activity and is requesting a permit to treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste is required to clean up all parts of its property that were contaminated by its past industrial operations. Under its " corrective action " program, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeks to ensure that the operating facilities that pose a potential risk to human health or the environment are cleaned up. We previously reported that these three requirements of RCRA were successful at ensuring that process waste—that is, waste newly generated by currently operating industrial facilities—was being managed safely. 1 However, these requirements also had the unintended consequence of deterring the cleanup of sites whose property was contaminated with old, previously generated waste. Such sites included not only operating facilities conducting cleanups under the corrective action program but also abandoned sites posing high risks that are subject to EPA's Superfund program. RCRA's requirements also deterred the cleanup of other sites, frequently less risky, that states are addressing under their own cleanup programs. This deterrent effect occurred because the parties planning to treat, store, or dispose of remediation waste—that is, waste generated during the cleanup of a site—had to comply with RCRA's requirements designed for process waste. These requirements are frequently more stringent and costly than necessary for cleaning up some hazardous waste, especially waste that poses less risk. Thus, even if treating or permanently removing the waste was the preferred option, parties sometimes decided not to clean up certain sites or sought to leave the waste in place at others. EPA has undertaken a number of initiatives to try to address the barriers that these three RCRA requirements have posed to managing remediation waste. For example, in …