Hazardous Waste-Rules and Love Canal-Environmental

BEM 3701, Hazardous Waste Management 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Discuss the history and the legal framework surrounding hazardous waste issues.

2. Characterize the hazardous waste problem in America.

3. Describe various types of hazardous wastes, their impact on the environment, and respective environmental control and public health remedies.

Reading Assignment Chapter 1: Introduction, pp. 3-13 Chapter 3: Regulatory Development, pp. 49-59

Unit Lesson History of Hazardous Waste

Almost everyone has heard about Love Canal, but not many people know what it is all about. The Love Canal story is about a thousand families who lived near the site of an abandoned toxic chemical waste dump. More important, it is a warning of what could happen in any American community. We have very little protection against the toxic chemical wastes that threaten to poison our water, our air, and our food. The federal and state governments have agreed to move away everyone who wants to

move—but they didn’t at first. We had to work to achieve that goal. Love Canal is the story of how government tends to approach a problem, and of how we, ordinary citizens of the United States, can take control of our own lives by insisting that we be heard. (Gibbs, 2010, p. 19)

Love Canal In the 1940s and 1950s, Hooker Chemical Company disposed of approximately 100,000 tons of hazardous waste into an abandoned canal in Niagara Falls, NY, as well as in other sites around the city. The waste contained at least 12 known carcinogens, including benzene and dioxin (Gibbs, 2010). When Lois Gibbs, a Love Canal resident, read about the toxic chemicals beneath her son’s school, she formed the Love Canal Homeowners Association (LCHA). Ms. Gibbs and the LCHA fought to bring attention to the situation and find justice for the affected families. Ultimately, 900 families were moved out of the area (Greene, 2013). Times Beach In 1982, the residents of Times Beach, Missouri were evacuated because of dioxin contamination in their community. The contamination occurred when waste oil containing dioxin was sprayed on the roads as a dust control measure. The waste oil contained dioxin, and a nearby river flooded, spreading the dioxin contamination throughout the area. The area was evacuated and remediated. It is now a state park (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010). How did the dioxin get into the waste oil? A waste hauler, who was paid to dispose of waste from a pharmaceutical company, had mixed the pharmaceutical waste with the waste oil before he sprayed it on the streets of Times Beach. The hauler claimed that he did not know about the dioxin content of the waste (Wheeler, 1996).

UNIT I STUDY GUIDE

History of Hazardous Waste Management

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The contamination at Love Canal and several other sites made the American public aware that hazardous waste did not just go away when it was poured down drains, dumped into waterways, or buried. People wanted protection from toxic chemicals, and in 1976, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was passed. Companies could no longer dispose of their waste in open dumps, and a “cradle-to-grave” approach was adopted to track hazardous waste from its origin, through its transportation, and finally to its safe disposal. In 1984, the Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) required that land disposal of hazardous waste be gradually stopped and instituted strict standards for hazardous waste management (Environmental Protection Agency, 2013). In 1980, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) was passed. CERCLA regulations oversee abandoned hazardous waste sites. RCRA Subtitle C of RCRA regulates hazardous waste. A hazardous waste is a subset of solid waste. To be regulated under RCRA, a waste must first be considered a solid waste. The EPA defined a solid waste as:

Garbage, refuse, sludge, and other discarded material resulting from industrial and commercial operations and from community activities. It does not include solids or dissolved material in domestic sewage or other significant pollutants in water resources, such as silt, dissolved or suspended solids in industrial wastewater effluents, dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or other common water pollutants. (Pichtel, 2014, p. 5)

Once categorized as a solid waste, a waste is further categorized as a hazardous waste if it meets the following definition:

Any waste or combination of wastes which pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or living organisms because such wastes are non-degradable or persistent in nature or because they can be biologically magnified, or because they can be lethal, or because they may otherwise cause or tend to cause detrimental cumulative effects. (Pichtel, 2014, p. 8)

The definitions above provide a general idea of how waste is categorized as hazardous or non-hazardous, but there are many additional layers of characterization that must be considered before a determination can be made regarding whether or not a waste is categorized as hazardous under RCRA. Once it is determined that a waste is indeed a solid waste, we have to determine if it is considered hazardous under RCRA. The first step is to determine if the waste is a listed waste or exhibits a characteristic of hazardous waste. There are four lists of hazardous waste types. These are the F-list, the K-list, the P-list, and the U-list. You can view these lists through the following link: http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/hazard/wastetypes/listed.htm Even if the waste is not listed, it is still hazardous if it is ignitable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic. There are also special regulatory conventions covering mixtures of waste, residues from hazardous waste treatment, environmental media and debris contaminated with hazardous waste, and mixed wastes. CERCLA CERCLA was passed in 1980, and it taxed chemical and petroleum industries to cover cleanup costs of hazardous waste sites. This legislation, commonly known as Superfund, also established liability criteria for those responsible for releases of hazardous waste at abandoned sites. Abandoned waste sites must go through a procedure to be added to the National Priorities List (NPL). They are then subject to two kinds of response actions: which are short-term removals or long-term remedial response actions. Short-term removals are for releases that require a prompt response, whereas long-term remedial responses are made at sites where the hazardous waste contamination is not immediately life-threatening (Pichtel, 2014). The EPA stated that the main objective of the Superfund program is the protection of human health and the environment (Haggerty & Welcomer, 2003). A 2011 study showed that children born to parents living near a Superfund site before remediation experienced a 20-25% increase in the risk of birth defects (Currie, Greenstone, & Moretti, 2011). This statistic is an example of the importance of proper cleanup of hazardous waste sites. However, Haggerty and Welcomer (2003) state that political changes have caused cleanup

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processes to focus more heavily on cost-benefit analyses. This has shifted the focus of Superfund listings and cleanups to economic benefit rather than human health. As you read through the regulatory details in Chapter 3, keep in mind that these regulations are being actively applied and interpreted in ways that can have a profound effect on human health. It is easy to get lost in the myriad of regulations and definitions of hazardous waste. However, as the Love Canal incident reminds us, managing hazardous waste is about protecting real people. History shows that, when managed improperly, hazardous waste has the potential to cause illness, disease, and suffering. Proper management of hazardous waste can protect both public health and the environment.

References

Currie J., Greebstone, M., & Moretti, E. (2011). Superfund cleanups and infant health. National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w16844.pdf

Environmental Protection Agency. (2010). Times Beach site. Retrieved from

http://www.epa.gov/region07/cleanup/npl_files/mod980685226.pdf Environmental Protection Agency. (2013). History of RCRA. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/wastes/laws-

regs/rcrahistory.htm Gibbs, L. M. (2010). Love Canal: And the birth of the environmental health movement. Washington, DC:

Island Press. Greene, R. (2013). From homemaker to hell-raiser in Love Canal. Retrieved from

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/04/16/12465/homemaker-hell-raiser-love-canal Haggerty, M., & Welcomer, S. A. (2003). Superfund: The ascendance of enabling myths. Journal of Economic

Issues, 37(2), 451+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA103416627&v=2.1&u=oran95108&it=r&p=AONE&sw =w&asid=3fef725c0512519976bdc040f3a36908

Pichtel, J. (2014). Waste management practices: Municipal, hazardous, and industrial (2nd ed.). Boca Raton,

FL: CRC Press. Wheeler, T. (1996, November 13). The little river town dioxin killed erased: Times Beach has been

bulldozed, its residents paid off. It’s been 14 years since the toxic chemical compound dioxin closed the town. Now Missouri wants to turn the area into a park. Sun Journal. Retrieved from http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-11-13/news/1996318008_1_dioxin-times-beach-eastern- missouri