RCRA

Dec 1, 2016

Solid Waste Law Helps Keep Water Clean

landfills, RCRA, superfund, trash free waters 2 Comments

by Mike Giuranna

The Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act deservedly get much of the credit for protecting the water you drink, but there’s another law you made not have heard of that’s no slouch either when it comes to keeping your water clean – the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, often referred to as RCRA.

How so? At EPA my specialty is landfills, so let’s start there. Before RCRA, which marks its 40^th Anniversary this year, open dumps were a common method of waste disposal. It sounds hard to believe now, but back then we did not have widely-recognized systems in place for managing landfills, making it easy for leaks to occur, and our water and land to become contaminated. Many dumps were responsible for polluting water sources and soils, causing potential harm to public health. As a result, numerous landfills and dumps became Superfund sites needing cleanup.

In 1991, Congress passed Subtitle D of RCRA, establishing a protective, practical system for disposing of trash in municipal solid waste landfills. These federal standards had major benefits including a decline in the total number of landfills nationwide from an EPA estimate of 20,000 in the 1970s to less than 2,000 in 2014.

Under RCRA, states have stepped up to the plate in taking the primary responsibility for enforcing landfill regulations. My job is to make sure the states understand the requirements, providing support and sharing experiences from other states along the way. Here are some of the water-related protections we review:

Making sure that landfills are operating away from seismic fault lines, flood plains or other restricted areas.
Using multiple liners like compacted clay and flexible membranes to protect groundwater and underlying soil from any liquid releases from the landfill (known as leachate).
Providing guidance on the installation of groundwater monitoring wells to determine whether waste materials have escaped from the landfill.
Developing corrective action processes for controlling and cleaning up if landfill releases occur.
Monitoring groundwater once a landfill is properly closed after reaching capacity.

RCRA ensures that landfills are contained and operating with public health in mind. Next time you throw something away, think about all of the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure your trash is handled properly and your water is kept clean. But better yet, always remember to reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever you can!

About the Author: Mike has been with EPA since 1983. He has worked in various EPA programs including Air and Superfund. For the last 20 years he has worked in solid waste, recycling, landfill regulation and composting

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone. EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog, nor does EPA endorse the opinions or positions expressed. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content. If you do make changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

Nov 2, 2016

How RCRA Has Transformed America: A Photo Blog

hazardous waste, RCRA, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, solid waste 0 Comments

By Liz Sundin

When I began working at EPA earlier this year, I’ll admit I knew little about the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Solid waste and hazardous waste were huge terms with very specific parameters that I had trouble wrapping my brain around. However, as my time in the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery grew, I started to see how RCRA’s various programs permeate so many parts of my everyday life. We’ve ensured our country handles, disposes of and recycles waste properly. This includes making sure hazardous waste is safely handled and managed both here in America and when imported from or exported abroad. We’re also leading the collaborative effort to halve food loss and waste in the U.S. by 2030 and making sure communities have a voice in the permitting process of hazardous waste facilities.

Now I see RCRA everywhere I go. I see it when I walk by our local dry cleaner and realize that my neighborhood is safer because RCRA requires strict handling of waste chemicals. When I pass our community garden’s compost barrel and the recycling cans lined up outside every house on trash day, I think of the program’s focus on sustainably managing materials. My life is affected by RCRA every day, I just never knew it until now.

As we celebrate 40 years of RCRA this month, I want to take us on a walk down memory lane to remind everyone what our country looked like before RCRA. In the 1970s, EPA hired photographers to capture images of environmental challenges around our country; the series was called the Documerica Project. Below are some of the amazing photos from the Documerica Project which show snapshots of our country before the passage of RCRA.

America has always been a nation full of beauty and natural wonders worth protecting.

Utah – Canyonlands National Park, May 1972

Rangeley Lake in the Mountains of Western Maine, Seen from Route 4 June 1973

In the years leading up to the passage of RCRA, Americans began to realize the need for better standards for landfills and pollution to keep our environment safe and clean.

Solid Waste Is Dumped Into Trenches at This Sanitary Landfill April 1972

Litter on Gulf Coast Beach, May 1972

Landfill Operation Is Conducted by the City of New York on the Marshlands of Jamaica Bay. Pollution Hazards and Ecological Damage Have Called Out Strong Opposition May 1973

Dimensions of the Littering Problem Are Suggested by This Heap of Cold Drink Cans, Salvaged by Girl Scouts at Islamorada in the Central Florida Keys. (circa 1975)

Seagulls Scavenge at Croton Landfill Operation along the Hudson River August 1973

Dumping Garbage at the Croton Landfill Operation, August 1973

Open Garbage Dump on Highway 112, North of San Sebastian February 1973

The conditions in the images above motivated concerned citizens, forward thinkers, and business leaders to push for regulations and fight for the passage of RCRA.

Along Route 580, near San Francisco. October 1972

Dumping Prohibition Is Ignored on This Hunter’s Point Creek Adjacent to the John F. Kennedy Airport, May 1973

Cleaning Up the Roadside in Onsetm May 1973

Stacked Cars In City Junkyard Will Be Used For Scrap, August 1973

Young People Filling Bags with Litter, May 1972

Children in Fort Smith Are Learning That Protecting the Environment Will Take More Than Awareness, June 1972

On October 21, 1976, President Ford signed RCRA, ushering in a new era of stricter environmental protections in the handling, management and disposal of waste. From that day forward, we worked to protect human health and the environment.

This is the first part in a three part blog series. Be on the lookout for the next blog discussing what RCRA has achieved in the last 40 years.

For more information on RCRA, visit www.epa.gov/rcra

Follow our RCRA 40th Campaign on social media: #ProtectPreventPreserve

About the author: Liz Sundin is a Public Affairs Specialist in EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery.

May 13, 2015

Making Significant Progress in Land Cleanup, Prevention and Emergency Management

@EPAland, Emergency Response, RCRA, solid waste, superfund 1 Comment

Recently, we’ve had two exciting accomplishments – we’ve released our annual Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response 2014 Accomplishments Report and launched a new Twitter account, @EPAland.

First, the report. With 51 percent of America’s population living within three miles of a Superfund, brownfield, or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action site, our cleanup activities are an important part of people’s lives. Our annual interactive accomplishments report helps those affected by our programs understand how we clean up contaminated sites, ensure communities are prepared in the event of an oil spill or chemical accident, and responsibly manage and control hazardous and non-hazardous materials. In fiscal year 2014, we:

Conducted 466 inspections at industrial facilities across the country handling extremely hazardous chemicals.
Made 11,161 Superfund, RCRA corrective action, brownfields and leaking underground storage sites ready for anticipated use by communities.
Completed or oversaw 304 Superfund removal actions to contain and remove contaminants and eliminate dangers to the public.
Increased the number of sites where human exposure to harmful chemicals is under control to 82 percent of Superfund sites and 87 percent of RCRA corrective action sites.
Leveraged more than $418 million in community investments with brownfields area-wide planning grants.
Worked with federal agencies and Navajo Nation to assess 520 miles, 800 homes and 240 drinking water wells potentially contaminated by abandoned uranium mines.

Mathy Stanislaus speaks with a chemical facility representative.

The report also provides an update on the sustainable materials management (SMM) program’s efforts to reduce the amount of materials people and businesses consume and integrate SMM into business practices to conserve natural resources and stay competitive globally. In fiscal year 2014, we worked with our partners to:

Divert 375,000 tons of food from landfills.
Collect more than 220,000 tons of used electronics.
Save $42 million for U.S. taxpayers by reducing the federal government’s waste, water, and electricity usage.

Addressing the complex environmental challenges facing us today is a shared responsibility. The activities highlighted in the report would not be possible without partnerships with state and tribal co-regulators, local governments, and the regulated community. I want to thank all of our stakeholders and partners for their commitment to our mission.

Finally, we’ve launched the @EPAland Twitter account to help you stay up to date on local site cleanups, learn about renewable energy technologies on contaminated sites, understand how we respond to hazardous material emergencies and more. We encourage you to stay engaged in our programs and your feedback is important to us. Join the conversation today, I’ll see you there.

Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA’s identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

Jul 9, 2014

Switch Flipped On at Largest Solar Farm on a Superfund Site

Air, Brownfields, contaminated lands, emissions, energy, landfills, mine sites, RCRA, RE-Powering America’s Land, renewable energy, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, superfund 0 Comments

The DuPont Newport Solar Project was recently completed in December 2013 and has an installed capacity of 548 kW (Photo courtesy of DuPont USA)

By Charlie Howland

I work on an EPA initiative called RE-Powering America’s Land, which encourages renewable energy development on contaminated lands, landfills, and mine sites. I was excited to learn that the switch was recently flipped at the 10 megawatt Maywood Solar Farm on 45 acres in Indianapolis and it began pumping electricity into the grid, becoming the nation’s largest solar farm on a Superfund site. The developer estimates that the project will reduce CO2e emissions by 13,235 metric tons per year, which is equal to the amount of carbon produced for energy use in more than 1,800 residential homes or the carbon output of 2,757 passenger vehicles. But to some folks, especially long-time EPA attorneys like me, it’s the site’s original name – Reilly Tar and Chemical – that might ring a bell. A 1982 court decision about another Reilly Tar site was one of the first to interpret Superfund’s liability provisions. The court helped determine the party responsible for paying to cleanup contamination.

The Maywood solar farm and others, such as the DuPont Newport solar farm project in Delaware, on which I recently worked, stand as examples of our efforts to help renewable energy developers. At the Newport site, a 548 kilowatt, five-acre solar installation now generates approximately 729,000 kilowatt hours of power per year — enough electricity to power about 60 homes.

There is an increasing buzz about the environmental, civic, financial and grid benefits of siting renewable energy projects on environmentally impaired lands, be they Superfund, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) or Brownfield sites. We recognize that such projects are often the best use for contaminated lands, while helping to preserve existing green open spaces. Today, we’re aware of over 100 renewable energy projects that have been developed on such sites, with over 700 MW of installed capacity. Thus far, the majority of these projects sell power back to the grid in wholesale electricity markets, and sell the accompanying Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to utilities and interested institutions and other consumers. The remaining projects generally provide energy for onsite use. Systems range from utility-scale systems, like the 35 MW wind farm at the former Bethlehem steel mill on the shore of Lake Erie in Lackawanna, New York, to smaller scale projects that serve green remediation systems, like the 280-kilowatt Paulsboro Terminal Landfill in New Jersey.

The Reilly Tar & Chemical site in Indianapolis—now home to the Maywood Solar Farm—produced refined chemicals and treated wood products from the 1950s to 1972 (Photo courtesy of Hanwha Q CELLS and Vertellus Specialties, Inc.)

In my RE-Powering work, I am often reminded of an experience I had while serving as general counsel for a renewable energy developer. The firm had learned that the township in which it had optioned a parcel of farmland for a solar project had amended its zoning ordinance, restricting solar projects such as ours to areas zoned industrial. My arguments to convince the town council to change their zoning back were unsuccessful. At the end of the evening, the mayor came to me and said, “You know, we really do like your project. But we’d rather see it on the old landfill we own, instead of on farmland. What do you think?”

This is the question that the Maywood Solar Farm helps answer for the Reilly Tar site; and it’s the same one we’re asking at other contaminated properties across the country.

About the Author: Since 1990, Charlie Howland has been a Senior Assistant Regional Counsel in Region III, specializing in cleanups under CERCLA and RCRA at private sites and federal facilities. He serves on EPA’s RE-Powering America Rapid Response Team. Outside of EPA he took a leave of absence in 2008 and 2009 to work for a renewable energy development firm, and he currently teaches energy law and policy at Villanova Law School.

May 7, 2013

Renewable Energy – An Energizing Reuse of Contaminated Lands

earth day, energy, hazardous waste, RCRA, RE Powering America's Land Initiative, renewable energy, renewable energy systems, renewable power, Solar Power 1 Comment

Photo Credit: Volkswagen Group of America

By Sara Rasmussen

As I turn the calendar page on another Earth Day, it’s nice to pause and take note of how far we’ve progressed. When I started working on the reuse of RCRA hazardous waste sites in the early 2000s, there was little focus on renewable power. In 2008, to encourage the reuse of contaminated properties for renewable energy production, EPA launched its RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative. Since then, scores of exciting renewable energy projects have been installed around the country on contaminated land, ranging from ground-mounted utility-scale systems to roof-top systems to smaller systems. Some provide energy for activities on the property, while others sell power back to the grid. Information on over 70 such projects is posted on EPA’s RE-Powering website.

What I like about these projects is that they are “win-win.” Renewable energy systems tend to be cleaner which helps protect our environment. At the same time, they productively reuse contaminated properties which brings economic development to a community, makes good use of existing infrastructure, and helps reduce pressure to develop nearby open space.

Photo Credit: Volkswagen Group of America

An impressive example is Volkswagen’s recent revitalization of the former “Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant” property. After the contamination was addressed through the RCRA corrective action program, Volkswagen built a state-of-the-art assembly plant. To help power the plant, a 33,000 solar panel array –Tennessee’s second largest—was installed, increasing the sustainability of the facility and helping it become the only automotive manufacturing plant with Platinum LEED certification.

These projects require vision and extensive collaboration between many different regulators and stakeholders, but are worth the effort. Volkswagen had the vision and willingness to install renewable energy at its facility. Likewise, the City of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, the U.S. Army, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and EPA all came together to help make this happen. Appropriately, there was much to celebrate at the ribbon cutting ceremony this past February.

Others can develop successful projects too. EPA has many tools to help determine if renewable energy is viable for specific locations. These include interactive maps which identify sites with potential for various renewable energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass), site screening tools, and several other resources.

With all we’ve learned about how to make renewable energy projects successful, we can look forward to many more exiting projects in the future.

About the author: Sara Rasmussen has served as an analyst and as a manager in EPA’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) program for over 20 years, focusing on the areas of solid and hazardous waste and contaminated land reuse. In 2001, shortly after it was created, she became team leader for the RCRA Reuse and Brownfields Prevention Initiative. She has been working to facilitate the cleanup and beneficial reuse of contaminated RCRA Corrective Action sites ever since.

Apr 20, 2012

Power to the People

Brownfields, community, contaminated land, energy, land revitalization, landfills, local government, PV, RCRA, RE-Powering America’s Land program, renewable energy, Solar, superfund, Wind 0 Comments

Over the last few weeks, I have toured sites that hold an exciting potential for the next chapter in America’s energy future. Most people don’t look at landfills, contaminated industrial sites, or parking lots with a twinkle in their eyes, but I do. I hope you will too.

Solar PV array at Brockton Brightfields installation in MA

As a solar person, I am always on the look-out for prime sites for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. In addition to solar resources, I look for a few simple things: clear southern exposures, flat or gentle grades, and close proximity to power lines. In general, I am looking for space, whether it is an open rooftop or an abandoned rail yard.

With over 13,000 sites and nearly 22 million acres of EPA-tracked potentially contaminated and underutilized properties nationwide, I see an untapped potential for large-scale deployment of renewable energy. That acreage receives a whole lot of sunshine and, in some cases, gets its fair share of wind. For communities interested in renewables, these sites offer a unique value proposition.

In many cases, these properties have blighted the community for years. From the perspective of a renewable energy developer, these sites are attractive due to their proximity to existing distribution or transmission lines, favorable zoning, and potentially lower land costs. With this redevelopment approach, I see the potential to turn these liabilities into community assets by remediating the site and deploying pollution-free energy facilities.

Wind-Turbines-at-Steel-Winds-facility-in-NY

Partnering with DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and remediation experts here at EPA, the RE-Powering team converted our collective knowledge into new tools to guide state and local governments, site owners, clean-up project managers, and other stakeholders through a process for screening potentially contaminated sites and landfills for their suitability for future redevelopment with PV or wind energy.

This knowledge is now bundled in a simple decision-tree format to enable communities to screen sites without needing renewable energy expertise. We built the screening tools to provide quick feedback on whether or not a site could be viable based on technical or economic criteria. The tools provide a thorough check than my quick check during a site walk. Throughout the process, we provide context for each of the criteria and point to additional tools and references to work through the evaluation process. Our goal is to empower communities to bring their vision of a solar array or wind farm one step closer.

While site walks at brownfields and landfills don’t always offer inspiring views, they are the next step in an inspired approach to expanding our American-made, renewable energy generation. Screen your sites. Take a walk. RE-Power America’s Land.

About the author: Katie Brown is the AAAS Science & Technology fellow hosted in the Center for Program Analysis in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. Prior to her fellowship, Katie worked in the solar industry in product development and at NREL on device design and government-industry partnerships.