A call for EPA action on climate risks to hazardous waste facilities

By Dana Drugmand

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be doing more to help address potential climate change-related risks to hundreds of hazardous waste facilities across the country, according to a recent government watchdog report.

The Nov. 14 report, issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), examined the risks to hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) from flooding, storm surge, sea level rise, and wildfires, events  expected to intensify and/or become more frequent with climate change.

More than 700 out of  1,091 federally regulated facilities, or about 68%, are located in areas vulnerable to these weather-related events, the report found. Roughly half of these facilities could be at risk of flooding and more than one-third are in areas vulnerable to wildfire, while almost 200, or 17%, , are in coastal areas at risk of inundation from storm surge.

Chemical waste drums, petroleum storage tanks, toxic landfills and other facilities that treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste are regulated by EPA under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976. While EPA sets national standards, states implement the regulations and provide enforcement. But, according to the GAO, states currently lack clear direction from EPA on how to assess or manage climate-related risks to hazardous waste facilities, particularly during inspections.

“People at EPA know about the risks, but there has not been real forward-leadership on this,” said Judith Enck, who served as a regional administrator for EPA during the Obama administration. “I can’t tell you how many times I would flag something and was told, ‘well we don’t have the resources and we really can’t do that until headquarters tells us to do something.’”

The EPA has started to take steps to address climate change risks at hazardous waste facilities. In June, for example, it issued guidance on how states can require management of these risks when facilities are permitted. But the GAO said the agency should take additional actions to clarify requirements for climate risk management and to improve and help states implement the guidance.

GAO made nine recommendations to the EPA, including offering training and technical assistance to states to help them understand and manage climate-related risks at hazardous waste facilities.

But as the agency prepares to transition to new leadership under the incoming Trump administration, there are questions around whether it will ultimately act upon the GAO recommendations, or if it will even have the resources to do so. The GAO report identified resource constraints as one of several challenges for addressing climate change risks to hazardous waste facilities.

“The enforcement program overall at EPA has suffered pretty significant budget cuts over the last ten years,” said Walter Mugdan, a former EPA deputy regional administrator. He said he expects the new Trump administration “would be seeking to cut the budget pretty significantly for EPA,” but whether these anticipated budget cuts actually happen remains to be seen.

Mugdan and other former EPA regional officials, said they think it is unlikely that Trump’s EPA will prioritize addressing climate change risks at hazardous waste facilities.

“I doubt the new EPA is going to do that,” Enck said about the agency following through with the GAO’s recommendations.

Jessica Baxter, a spokesperson for GAO, said it “cannot speculate on potential shifts in policy or approach regarding the incoming administration.” But, she said, the government oversight entity stands by its work and recommendations to EPA and does follow up with agencies on recommendations it makes.

If the new EPA administration does not take actions to help states address climate change risks to hazardous waste facilities, it will be left to states to proactively address these risks, experts say.

“The states can and should be doing it on their own,” Mugdan said.

Even if Trump’s EPA downplays associations with climate change, as some expect, the EPA still should be working to address the impacts of severe weather events on hazardous waste facilities, said Patrick Parenteau, professor of law emeritus at Vermont Law and Graduate School who worked as an EPA regional counsel many years ago.

“You don’t have to accept climate change to be concerned about the impacts of flooding on hazardous waste facilities regulated under RCRA,” he said. That strikes me… as a reasonable and prudent thing to do to safeguard the communities living near these facilities.”

(Featured photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.)