Environmentalists Sue to Block Toxics-Disposal Rules : Waste: Plaintiffs charge new EPA regulations let industry avoid permanent treatment. They predict a new generation of Superfund dumps.

Accusing the Bush Administration of a “Reagan-esque” retreat from aggressive control of toxic wastes, environmental groups and waste treatment specialists went to court Thursday in an effort to block the government from implementing new disposal regulations.

A lawsuit seeking to set aside 30 pages of regulations backed by nearly 900 pages of supporting documents was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia just two days after the new disposal rules were issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The plaintiffs charged that the regulations, instead of complying with a congressional mandate for treatment of toxic industrial waste, would encourage massive use of deep-well injection of liquid wastes, endanger ground water supplies and produce a new generation of Superfund toxic dumps.

The regulations, the third of five sets of anti-pollution measures required by the 1984 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, amount to “a massive end run” around the law, charged Jane Bloom, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The council was joined in the lawsuit by the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Hazardous Waste Defense Council, representing high-technology companies specializing in toxic waste treatment.

Sylvia Lowrance, director of the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste Management, said the allegations were “a gross distortion of what is in the regulations.”

Lowrance specifically disputed the charges that the new rules ignore the law’s requirement that toxic wastes approved for land disposal first must be treated with the “best demonstrated available technology.”

The environmentalists based much of their criticism of the regulations on provisions that they said would permit industries to avoid permanent treatment or recycling of their wastes by simply diluting them with water or sand.

“It gives the green light to continue dumping billions of gallons of untreated hazardous waste down deep wells,” said Bloom, because under the new regulations, deep-well injection is exempt from dilution restrictions.

“Dilution has replaced treatment as the solution for the hazardous pollution problem,” Bloom said.

The environmentalists argued that the regulations will permit 90% of the toxic wastes they cover to be disposed of on land after dilution sufficient to remove toxic characteristics.

Moreover, they said, the controls fail to require high-technology treatment of wastes containing toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury, allow continued disposal of hazardous waste water in unlined and leaking lagoons and permit disposal of residues in leaky landfills rather than monitored containment facilities.

Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D-Minn.) and Rep. Dennis E. Eckart (D-Ohio) appeared at a news conference with representatives of the organizations to voice their support for the suit. If efforts to set the regulations aside are unsuccessful, they said, they will attempt to deal with the flaws in legislation.

Critics charged that after issuing the regulations in draft form last November, the EPA backed down in the face of industry pressure. When the proposed regulations were published for comment, Eckart said, they were consistent with the 1984 law and with earlier regulations.

Most of the provisions are scheduled to take effect in three months, Lowrance said.