Solid and Hazardous Waste Law 345provide that the Food and Drug Administration levels for PCB in milk and animal feed
will not be exceeded.
Air Quality. A solid waste disposal facility must comply with the Clean Air
Act and the relevant state Air Quality Implementation Plans developed by state
and local air emission control boards. Open burning of residential, commercial,
institutional, and industrial solid waste is generally prohibited. However, several spe-
cial wastes are excluded from this prohibition: diseased trees, land-clearing debris,
debris from emergency cleanup operations, and wastes from silviculture and agricul-
ture operations. Open burning is defined as the combustion of solid waste without:
(1) control of combustion in the air to maintain adequate temperatures for efficient
combustion, (2) containment of the combustion reaction in an enclosed device to pro-
vide adequate residence time, or (3) control of the emissions from the combustion
process.
Health. The federal rules require that the operation of a solid waste disposal
facility protect the public health from disease vectors. Disease vectors are any routes
by which disease is transmitted to humans (birds, rodents, flies, and mosquitoes are
good examples). This protection must be achieved by minimizing the availability of
food for the vectors. At landfills, an effective means to control vectors, especially
rodents, is the application of cover material at the end of each day of operation. Other
techniques include poisons, repellents, and natural controls such as the supply of
predators. Treating sewage sludge with pathogen reduction processes serves to control
the spread of disease from landscaping activities.
Safety. Fires at solid waste disposal facilities are a constant threat to public safety.
Death, injury, and vast property damage have resulted in the past from fires breaking
out in open dumps. The ban on open burning also reduces the chance of accidental
fires. In terms of aircraft safety, facilities should not be located between airports and
bird feeding, roosting, or watering sites. Flocks of birds continually fly around the
working faces of even properly operated sanitary landfills, and pose a severe hazard
to nearby aircraft flying landing/takeoff patterns.
HAZARDOUS WASTECommon law, in particular, is not well developed in the hazardous waste area. The
issues discussed in Chap. 15 are newly recognized by society, and little case law has had
a chance to develop. Since the public health impacts of solid waste disposal in general
and hazardous waste disposal in particular were so poorly understood, few plaintiffs
ever bothered to take a defendant into the common law courtroom to seek payment
for damages or injunctions against such activities. Hazardous waste law is therefore
discussed here as statutory law, specifically in terms of the compensation for victims
of improper hazardous waste disposal and efforts to regulate the generation, transport,
and disposal of hazardous waste. Historically, federal statutory law was generally
lacking in describing how victims should be compensated for improper hazardous
waste disposal. A complex, repetitious, confusing list of federal statutes was the only
recourse for victims.