Environmental Issues

Government Study Shows Hazardous Waste Law is too Costly

Costs for cleaning up hazardous waste sites are unnecessarily increased and cleanups are delayed by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the federal law governing hazardous waste management, says a General Accounting Office report.

Key RCRA mandates on the treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes from past industrial sites are responsible. Land disposal restrictions and minimum technological requirements force parties to try to reduce contamination to levels lower than necessary to protect human health or to use inappropriate cleanup technologies. And permitting requirements add months or even years to some cleanups. As a result of these mandates:

  • A temporary waste pile must meet the same technological requirements as a pile where hazardous waste will be treated or stored for many years.

  • The treatment standard for some waste can only be reached by incineration, which costs up to $1,200 per ton; but other technologies can achieve a safe but lower standard, reducing the cost to no more than about $300 per ton.

  • Today, property owners whose sites are not under a federal or state cleanup order may choose to let the waste remain in place without treatment and purchase land elsewhere for their needs.

Generally, hazardous waste cannot be treated, stored, or disposed of without a permit.

  • Administrative costs to obtain a RCRA permit can range from $80,000 for an on-site treatment unit, such as a tank, to $400,000 for an on-site incinerator, and up to $1 million for a landfill.

  • Getting a permit can take 7 to 9 months for a simple treatment unit, such as a tank, and an additional 5 to 6 years for a more complicated unit, such as a landfill.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that exempting contaminated soil from these requirements could cut treatment costs by nearly 80 percent, from an average of about $341 per ton to about $73 per ton. Exempting all low-risk contaminated material could reduce the amount by about 80 percent -- from 8.1 million tons per year to about 1.8 million -- and cut cleanup costs nationwide by 50 percent, or about $1.2 billion per year.

Source: "Hazardous Waste: Remediation Waste Requirements Can Increase the Time and Cost of Cleanups," GAO Letter Report, October 6, 1997, United States General Accounting Office, Washington, D.C. 20548.

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