Hazardous Waste

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) corrective action program manages the cleanups at operating facilities that pose significant risks to human health or the environment. In 1997, GAO reported that three key requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) were successful at ensuring that waste processing is managed safely. GAO evaluated the corrective action program and reported that facilities had made limited progress in conducting cleanups. Because of Congress's continuing concerns about the pace of hazardous waste cleanups, GAO reviewed the steps that EPA has taken since 1997 and assessed its effects on cleanups of remediation waste at sites subject to the three RCRA requirements and the management factors that had slowed the pace of cleanups. Several steps EPA has taken to revise its regulatory requirements for handling remediation waste have removed some barriers to cleanups. In February 2000, EPA agreed to amend its 1993 rule providing flexibility under the RCRA requirements for certain on-site storage and disposal units for remediation waste. EPA is trying to monitor the implementation of reforms and is addressing the resource shortfall that prevented it from completing more cleanups. GAO recommends that EPA focus more attention on achieving final cleanups under the its corrective action program.

GAO noted that: (1) several actions EPA has taken to revise its regulatory requirements for handling remediation waste have removed some barriers to cleanups; (2) in response to GAO's 1997 recommendation that EPA better inform cleanup managers of the existing options that could exempt remediation waste from the RCRA requirements, EPA, in October 1998, issued a memorandum on these options; (3) state cleanup program managers reported that their staff are now using these options to accomplish more site cleanups; (4) EPA issued new regulations governing the management of remediation waste that provided some relief from the barriers the three RCRA requirements posed, especially more flexible treatment requirements for soil; (5) the state and industry cleanup program managers believed that some portions of the new rules would help promote cleanups; (6) in February 2000, EPA settled a lawsuit in which groups had charged that a proposed 1993 rule providing flexibility under the RCRA requirements for certain on-site storage and disposal units for remediation waste did not sufficiently protect human health; (7) EPA agreed to amend the 1993 rule so that certain wastes would still be subject to somewhat more stringent requirements; (8) according to state and industry officials, EPA's agreement will reduce the flexibility that the 1993 rule allowed for cost-effective cleanups and will thus deter some cleanups; (9) on the other hand, EPA officials believe that these cleanups may increase now that the legal uncertainty surrounding on-site storage units has been removed; (10) the state, industry, and environmental officials differed as to whether any legislative changes were necessary to address any remaining cleanup barriers that EPA was unable to address through its regulatory actions; (11) EPA does not have a position on whether legislative changes are warranted; (12) in 1999, EPA implemented a set of administrative reforms that address several of the management factors GAO previously identified as slowing the pace of corrective action cleanups; and (13) the reforms include: (a) issuing new guidance on a more flexible process for selecting and implementing cleanup method and providing cleanup managers training on this guidance, an action GAO had recommended in GAO's 1997 report; and (b) establishing new goals under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 to control human exposure to contamination and the migration of contaminated groundwater at "high-priority" facilities by 2005.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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