EPA Declines to Regulate Mine Waste as Hazardous

After intense lobbying by the mining industry, the Environmental Protection Agency decided Monday that mining wastes should not be regulated as hazardous materials and said it will develop a new program to regulate their disposal.

The EPA action is a major victory for the mining industry. However, agency officials said they would seek to regulate mining wastes as landfills and dumps and would call for enforcement authority through federal legislation.

“People in the mining industry should not be totally euphoric,” Assistant EPA Administrator J. Winston Porter said, noting that some regulations will eventually be imposed.

Years of Delays Feared

Environmentalists said the agency’s decision will postpone for several years regulation of the industry’s disposal practices, which have caused severe pollution at 39 sites around the nation that are now being cleaned under the federal Superfund program.

Industry representatives praised the decision, noting that classifying mining wastes as hazardous would have cost the industry up to $850 million a year and put many mines out of business.

The EPA decision follows a seven-year study of how to regulate mining wastes, except coal, which is overseen by the Interior Department. In 1976, Congress passed a law requiring the EPA to regulate hazardous waste disposal and to study whether mining wastes should be regulated.

In 1980, Congress gave the agency a two-year deadline to complete the study. After the agency missed its deadline, an environmental group sued to force compliance. A court ordered the agency to make its final determination by June 30.

Millions Spent in Cleanups

The law regulating disposal of wastes is intended to prevent creation of dumps that might pollute water supplies and threaten public health in the future. The EPA, while not regulating mining waste disposal, has been spending millions of dollars to clean up pollution caused by previous improper disposal of such wastes.

Indeed, some of the nation’s most notorious Superfund sites are former mining sites: Mountain View, Ariz., a community so polluted by an asbestos mill that its residents were permanently relocated, and Tar Creek, Okla., where old mining wastes caused streams to turn blood red.

But EPA officials say that many of the industry practices that turned such communities into Superfund sites have been discontinued.

See Need for New Tests

The agency also contended that it was impractical to regulate mining wastes as hazardous materials. The regulations that cover hazardous chemicals do not apply to the large volumes of wastes generated by mines, agency officials said, noting that they must develop new tests to rank the hazards of mining wastes.

“We do think there are some problems with mining wastes,” Porter said. “But the problems related to the mining industry are quite different than those relating to chemical plants.”

He noted that Congress required the agency to consider the cost impact on the industry in making a regulatory decision.

Mosts of the mines are in the West. California has 14 active mines, including seven gold, one iron, one copper and two asbestos mines. The state also has four former mining sites earmarked for Superfund cleanup.

Says EPA Was ‘Pushed Around’

Linda Greer, a scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the decision shows “the mining industry has pushed the EPA around.”

“They are really deciding not to regulate in the short run,” Greer said. “If they want to address the problem, they should use their existing authority. It’s going to take them years to get the additional authority. It’s a punt.”

Agency officials acknowledge that lack of enforcement authority would cripple the program. Porter said he believes that there is a “good shot” that Congress will give the agency the authority it seeks. He said the agency will propose new standards for mining wastes in 18 months, which probably would become effective a year or two later.