1988-02-08 Public Hearing, Citizens Participation Meeting, and Regular Meeting

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When You Put It That Way, They May Have a Point EVEN Essex County, New Jersey municipalities S intend to sue the county and the state for over $30 million for "unnecessary" disposal costs, accord- ing to the National Solid Wastes Management As- sociation. Disposal fees in Essex communities rose 305 percent in August 1987 when waste was shipped out of state. The municipalities contend that Essex County and the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection failed to plan adequately for the County's solid waste disposal. A spokesman for the group contends that the mu- nicipalities would not have had to incur the enor- mous costs if the county and state had met their obliga- tions for waste disposal detailed in the Solid Waste Management Act. This act bars individual munici- palities from seeking their own solutions, thus rely- ing on county and state planning, according to the spokesman. Some believe that this case will be the first of many by local officials upset by the high cost of waste disposal. Thumbs Down on Hazardous Waste Handler Inspections NDER the Resource Conservation and Recov- U ery Act (RCRA), EPA has established a regu- latory framework for controlling and managing the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. Waste handler inspec- tions are the primary means by which EPA and states authorized by EPA to administer the RCRA program assure themselves that regulatory re- quirements are being met. However, "State, EPA regional, and EPA con- tract inspectors are not detecting a substantial number of regulatory violations during inspections (of hazardous waste handlers) -many of which are considered by EPA to warrant immediate attention because of the severe environmental threats they pose." So states a report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) entitled "Hazardous Waste: Facility Inspections Are Not Thorough and Complete t GAO /RCED-88-20)," which was requested by the Chairman, Subcommittee on Transportation, Tourism, and Hazardous Materials, House Commit- tee on Energy and Commerce. It should come as no surprise that "A lack of in- spector training and limited experience were cited v as primary causes for inspection deficiencies by EPA headquarters inspection experts who witnessed and critiqued 26 RCRA inspections for GAO." The report continues: "Guidance for conducting RCRA inspec- tions is incomplete. In addition, EPA has not estab- lished specific qualification standards for RCRA in- spectors, which has resulted in an inspector corps with a variety of backgrounds." States Mull Barriers to Solid Waste Imports A LARMED by escalating shipments ofout-of-state wastes across their borders, officials in Pennsyl- vania, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia are seek- ing ways to limit these unwanted imports and pre- serve landfill capacity for their own future use. The shipments cannot be totally prohibited - a U.S. Supreme Court decision has declared refuse hauling to be constitutionally protected interstate commerce -but steps are being taken to place caps on the quantities of imported waste that may be accepted by private landfills. These actions spell new worries for several New Jersey counties where landfill space has been exhausted and alternative disposal facilities are still in the planning stage. In the northeast corner of the state, Passaic County has shipped all refuse out-of- state since December 1, while Morris and Bergen counties expect such transfer operations to com- mencenext March. If other states succeed in limiting the tonnage of waste that can be transported across their borders, a troublesome situation will become even more precarious. AAA Study Links Drunk Driving with Beer Ads T HE AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has re- leased astudy by university media communica- tion specialists that suggests TV beer commercials play a significant role in the over-involvement of males in drunk driving. The report, "Myths, Men and Beer: An Analysis of Beer Commercials on Broadcast Television, 1987," was made by a team of university researchers who call for review of public policies related to beer TV advertising because, they claim, beer is represented in TV commercials as an essential element in masculinity. Beer commercials, say the researchers, promote an association be- tweendrinking and driving. Copies of the report may be obtained by writing to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 2990 Telestar Court, Suite 100, Falls Church, Virginia 22042. PUBLIC WORKS for February, 1988