U.S. Urges Tough Garbage Dump Rules

In the federal government’s first major attempt to limit health hazards from garbage dumps, the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday proposed a sweeping regulation imposing new standards on the location, design and operating practices of local landfills.

If put into effect, the regulation would require most of the nation’s estimated 6,000 municipal dumps, at an annual average cost of about $45,000 each, to take steps to prevent the seepage of hazardous chemicals into ground water and the air.

In addition, it would prohibit new landfills from being built in environmentally vulnerable areas such as in wetlands, along fault lines and in regions subject to the effects of earthquakes.

The regulation is not expected to have a substantial impact on California cities because the state already has relatively strict disposal standards that are quite similar to the new EPA rules, California officials said.

However, many states with weaker or no landfill standards face more difficulty in complying. Arizona, for example, does not require ground-water testing, and landfills there could face steep costs in implementing it, said Bruce Henning, spokesman for the Phoenix Department of Public Works.

Added Personnel

In Wyoming, many dumps may be forced to add personnel to check incoming loads for hazardous materials, as required by the EPA regulation, said Jim Harker, chief of the Cheyenne landfill.

EPA officials said that the tougher precautions are necessary because many cities are expanding their landfills and opening new ones to handle the enormous volume of trash produced by growing populations. Although no comprehensive studies have been done on related health hazards, they said, the prospects for serious water and air pollution are great.

Los Angeles officials said that the city’s garbage disposal system is already so heavily burdened that if the regulations had the effect of closing any of the city’s existing dumps or discouraging the construction of additional ones, the resulting shortage could cause a “crisis.

“In solving the (health) problem, we have to be sure we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot by reducing the number of landfills,” said Chuck Ellis, spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, who declined specific comment on the proposals because he had not seen them.

However, Ray Delacourt, an engineer for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, said: “This will probably not change the operation in our state at all. California tends to be light years ahead on regulation of landfills.”

Environmentalists generally praised the measure, although some said it did not go far enough in ensuring strict enforcement.

“In the past, part of the problem has been an absence of regulations but an even bigger problem has been the absence of enforcement of regulations,” said Jill Ratner, a lawyer for Citizens for a Better Environment, a California organization that promotes recycling.

Under the proposed regulation, states would have authority to enforce the measure and to issue permits for new landfills. If the EPA determined that a state was not adequately enforcing the regulation, it would take over those roles, J. Winston Porter, assistant EPA administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said at a press conference called to announce the new measure.

The regulation could be officially enacted within a year, following a public comment period and a final official review by the EPA. After it is enacted, states will be given 18 months to plan enforcement strategies. Currently, there are no federal standards for landfills.

Local Funding

The EPA will provide states with technical advice, but funds for landfill improvements must be generated locally, Porter said.

The regulations would require that municipal dumps:

--Monitor ground water to ensure that chemicals are not escaping in quantities large enough to cause a person living within 150 yards of the dump site to run a greater than one in 10,000 chance of developing cancer during a 70-year lifetime;

--Take immediate action to clean up any dangerous chemicals found to be polluting the air or water;

--Accept financial responsibility for monitoring and cleaning up waste sites for at least 30 years after they are closed;

--Enforce day-to-day management requirements including preventing the dumping of hazardous waste, covering landfills at night to reduce fly and rat populations, monitoring air quality to ensure compliance with federal air quality laws and keeping accurate records showing compliance.

Few of the nation’s city landfills are in compliance with the proposed standards. Only 15% of landfills have liners to prevent leakage of hazardous chemicals into ground water, and less than one-third have a system for monitoring ground-water contaminants, according to the EPA.

About 80% of municipal landfills are owned by local governments, with the rest owned by private entities, state governments and the federal government. More than 80% of the 160 million tons of solid waste produced nationally every year is dumped in landfills.