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52 Waste Management Practices: Municipal, Hazardous, and Industrial
The law under CERCLA authorizes two kinds of response actions at uncontrolled hazardous
waste sites:
● Short-term removals, where actions are taken to address releases or threatened releases
that require a prompt response.
● Long-term remedial response actions that permanently and significantly reduce the dan-
gers associated with releases of hazardous substances that are serious, but not immedi-
ately life-threatening. These actions can be conducted only at sites listed on EPA’s
National Priorities List (NPL).
CERCLA also allowed for the revision of the National Contingency Plan (NCP), which pro-
vides the guidelines and procedures needed to respond to releases and threatened releases of haz-
ardous substances. CERCLA was amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act
(SARA) on October 17, 1986 (U.S. EPA, 2003a).

3.2.7.3 The Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984
The most significant set of amendments to the RCRA were the Hazardous and Solid Waste
Amendments of 1984 (HSWA), a complex law with many detailed technical requirements. Some of
its major provisions were:

● Restrictions on the land disposal of hazardous waste.
● The inclusion of small-quantity hazardous waste generators (those producing between
100 and 1000 kg of waste per month) in the hazardous waste regulatory program.
● A new regulatory program for underground storage tanks (described above).
● The U.S. EPA was mandated to issue regulations governing those facilities that produce,
distribute, and use fuels produced from hazardous waste, including used oil.
● Hazardous waste facilities owned or operated by federal, state, or local government agen-
cies must be inspected annually, and privately owned facilities must be inspected at least
every 2 years.
● Each federal agency was required to submit to the EPA an inventory of hazardous waste
facilities it ever owned or operated.

The 1984 law also required that the EPA establish a timetable for issuing or denying permits for
treatment, storage, and disposal facilities; required permits to be set for fixed terms not exceeding
10 years; required permit applications to contain information regarding the potential for public
exposure to hazardous substances from facility operations; and authorized the EPA to issue exper-
imental permits for facilities demonstrating new technologies. The EPA’s enforcement powers were
increased, the list of prohibited actions constituting crimes was expanded, penalties were increased,
and citizen suit provisions were expanded.
Other provisions of the 1984 amendments prohibited the export of hazardous waste unless the
government of the receiving country formally consented to accept it; created an ombudsman’s office
in the EPA to handle RCRA-associated complaints and requests for information; and reauthorized
RCRA through fiscal year 1988 at a level of about $250 million per year. HSWA called for a
National Ground Water Commission to assess and report to Congress on groundwater issues and
contamination from hazardous wastes. However, the commission was never funded or established
(McCarthy and Tiemann, no date).

3.2.7.4 The Medical Waste Tracking Act

RCRA has focused on waste concerns beyond MSW and hazardous waste. It established a med-
ical waste tracking program to ensure that such waste is properly handled from the moment it is