WasteManagement1 x
Waste Management
Read Kubasek & Silverman, Chapter 8: “Waste Management and Hazardous Releases,” to learn about the major legislation related to toxic waste.
An often repeated phrase in the environmental management business is that industry used to dump waste “in the back 40” before environmental laws were on the books. The phrase refers, essentially, to the rear of a property (the back 40 acres). In the United States, at least, that practice is no more. Today, solid waste (basically, garbage), and its more dangerous subset, hazardous waste, are closely managed and regulated thanks to the enactment of federal laws such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976.
While RCRA really addressed currently operating facilities, a comprehensive law was not in place to address properties that had been contaminated and whose owners had long since disappeared or gone out of business. Abandoned and polluted sites are being cleaned up under the oversight of government authorities thanks to the 1980 passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, which is also known as the Superfund law. Residents of communities where potentially hazardous substances are used, stored, or generated are kept informed about what is going on in their neighborhoods and emergency preparedness of communities has improved since the 1986 passage of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
In this unit, you will discuss the engineering, monitoring, and closure of landfills, cradle-to-grave management of hazardous waste, the EPA’s waste permitting program, the enactment of the Superfund law following the discovery of polluted sites, and emergency planning for chemical disasters.
The question presents itself as to the current status of Superfund. Read the
attached study
by the GAO that looks at the current state of Superfund. Are the original goals of Superfund still being met? Why or why not? What changes are proposed by the GAO?
U.S. Government Accountability Office. What GAO Found. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-109
ID: EM101-07-06-R