Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

To make cement, manufacturers use large amounts of fuel to heat raw materials, including limestone and clay. In the 1970s, these manufacturers realized that they could cut their fuel costs by supplementing the coal, oil, and natural gas that they typically burned with fuels derived from hazardous waste. The manufacturers could lower their costs because, instead of paying suppliers for fuels, they were themselves paid by fuel blenders to burn hazardous waste fuels. Members of Congress have raised concern about whether the facilities that blend hazardous waste fuel and the cement production facilities that burn these fuels are operating in a manner that protects human health and the environment. GAO provides information on its recent inspections of facilities in five states: Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. These inspections assessed the facilities' compliance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's (1) treatment, storage, and disposal regulations for processing hazardous waste fuels by fuel blenders and (2) boiler and industrial furnace regulations for burning of these fuels by cement producers.

GAO found that: (1) there was at least one minor violation of treatment, storage, and disposal regulations at 23 of the cement production facilities reviewed; (2) these violations included the inadequate labeling of hazardous waste storage containers, incomplete records of training and equipment inspections, and failure to submit cost estimates for facility maintenance and operation; (3) these violations were generally corrected at the time of inspection or shortly thereafter; (4) significant violations occurred at 11 hazardous waste fuel burning facilities; (5) these facilities had storage containers in poor condition, stored waste in excess of allowed capacity, and used inadequate backup systems for hazardous waste leaks; (6) one of the facilities reviewed had violated boiler and industrial furnace regulations; and (7) the results of these inspections are incomplete, since the Environmental Protection Agency is still reviewing relevant data from the most recent inspections.