Transcript RCRA Overview - Control Panel

RCRA and EJ Overview
Environmental Law
2008
RCRA Overview
Brief chronology of RCRA:
• Mid-’70s--RCRA enacted; mainly solid
waste management (trash and garbage)
• Starts out as a kind of EPA “backwater”
• 1978: Love Canal inspires a media “feeding
frenzy”
RCRA Overview
The Love Canal dilemma
• FEMA can help
only the victims of
natural disasters
• This is a manmade
disaster
• So, go bring a tort
action
RCRA Overview
Love Canal’s Lessons Learned
• There needs to be a program for dealing
with hazwaste—an unknown (but large)
number of “ticking time bombs”
• RCRA imminent hazard provision pressed
into service
• Superfund (CERCLA) enacted in 1980,
states follow suit with parallel programs
RCRA Overview
Hazwaste Politics
• Jan. 1980—lame-duck administration
approves Superfund; incoming Reagan
team says “No son of Superfund!”
• Sweetheart settlements, scandals
• RCRA landfill regs approved despite
admitted concerns over leakage of dumps,
because it was cost-effective
RCRA Overview
RCRA’s General Approach:
• Command-and-control
(to the point of
micromanagement)
• Permitting of parts of
waste disposal
industry
• Post-closure liability
(CERCLA and PCLFs)
• Hierarchy of preferred
options for hazwaste
RCRA Overview
Features of HASWA ‘84:
• Land bans
• Increased
regulation of
TSDFs
• “Hammer”
provisions
• Tighter small
generator
exemptions
• “Nondelegation run
riot”
RCRA Overview
What is hazwaste?
• Listed Wastes
• (Rulemaking but we
won’t go there)
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Characteristic wastes
Ignitable
Corrosive
Reactive
(old) Extraction
Potential Toxicity (EP
tox)
• (current) TCLP (toxic
constituent leachate
potential)
RCRA Overview
What can be done with hazwaste?
• Incineration
• Deep-well injection
• Chemical alteration
(e.g., neutralization)-sometimes
• Landfilling
• Re-use or recycle (or
incorporate in product)
• Avoid generating
(toxics use reduction)
• Which of these
alternatives should we
prefer?
• What incentives should
we create so better
alternatives will be
used?
RCRA Overview
RCRA and the MSW Incineration Problem
• Incineration (“energy recovery”) emerges as
the solution to solid waste--1980s
• Dioxins and furans, other complex
chemicals are produced by incineration of
plastics and other wastes
• Some materials (e.g., mercury) volatize
• Toxins rain down and enter food webs
• Ash left after incineration concentrates
metals
• Materials that are burned can’t be otherwise
recycled
RCRA Overview
Environmental Justice in New York (CP-29)
• Environmental
justice means the
fair treatment and
meaningful
involvement of all
people regardless
of race, color, or
income with respect
to …
environmental laws,
regulations, and
policies
• Fair treatment
means that no
group of people,
including a racial,
ethnic, or
socioeconomic
group, should bear
a disproportionate
share of the
negative
environmental
consequences ….
RCRA Overview
EJ in NY:
• ECL 27-1102.2.f requires that the
Hazwaste Siting plan include “a
determination of the number, size, type, and
location by area of the state of new or
expanded industrial hazardous waste
treatment, storage, and disposal facilities
which will be needed for the proper longterm management of hazardous waste
consistent with . . . an equitable geographic
distribution of facilities.”
RCRA Overview
• How should New York State decide what
distribution of hazwaste facilities is
equitable?