Solid and Hazardous Waste Law 343The EPA guidelines spell out the operational and performance requirements to mitigate
or eliminate these seven types of impact from solid waste disposal.
Under operational standards, technologies, designs, or operating methods are
specified to a degree that theoretically ensures the protection of public health and the
environment. Any or all of a long list of operational considerations could go into a plan
to build and operate a disposal facility: the type of waste to be handled, the facility
location, facility design, operating parameters, and monitoring and testing procedures.
The advantage of operational standards is that the best practical technologies can be
used for solid waste disposal, and the state agency mandated with environmental
protection can determine compliance with a specified operating standard. The major
drawback is that compliance is generally not measured by monitoring actual effects on
the environment, but rather as an either/or situation in which the facility either does or
does not meet the required operational requirement.
On the other hand, performance standards are developed to provide given lev-
els of protection to the land and the air and water quality around the disposal site.
Determining compliance with performance standards is not easy because the actual
monitoring and testing of groundwater, surface water, and land and air quality are
costly, complex undertakings. Because solid wastes are heterogeneous and because
site-specific considerations are important in their adequate disposal, the federal regu-
latory effort realized the necessity of allowing state and local discretion in protecting
the environmental quality and public health. Therefore, the EPA developed both oper-
ational and performance standards to minimize the effect of each of the eight potential
impacts of solid waste disposal.
Floodplains. The protection for floodplain focuses on limiting disposal facilities
in such areas unless the local area has been protected against being washed out by the
base flood. A base flood (sometimes called a “100-year flood”) is defined as a flood
that has a 1% or greater chance of occurring in any year, or a flood equaled or exceeded
only once in every 100 years on the average.
Endangered and Threatened Species. Solid waste disposal facilities must be
constructed and operated so they will not contribute to the taking of endangered and
threatened species. Taking means the harming, pursuing, hunting, wounding, killing,
trapping, or capturing of species so listed by the US. Department of the Interior.
Operators of a solid waste disposal facility may be required to modify operation to
comply with these rules if nearby areas are designated as critical habitats.
Surface Water. Solid waste disposal leads to the pollution of surface waters
whenever rainwater percolates through the refuse and runoff occurs, or whenever spills
take place during solid waste shipments. Point source discharges from disposal sites
are regulated by the NPDES permit system discussed in Chap. 10. Nonpoint source, or
diffused water, movement is regulated by the requirements implementing an area-wide
or statewide water quality management plan approved by the EPA. Generally, these
plans regulate the degradation of surface water quality by facility design, operation, and
maintenance. Artificial and natural runoff barriers such as liners, levees, and dikes are
often required by states. If runoff waters are collected, the site becomes, by definition,
a point source of pollution, and the facility must have an NPDES permit if this new
point source discharges into surface watercourses.