Wilkinson, Belinda L. "The Problem of Managing Hazardous Industrial Residuals in the United States"

While the problems associated with the discharge of hazardous residuals may be attributable to inadequate disposal, the problem of formulating policy for hazardous residuals management is not one of having failed to recognize the inadequacy of land disposal methods or resulting environmental contamination. Implicit in alternative conceptualizations of the "problem" are different notions of its "solution." Here the distinction is important because if pollution is the main concern, then, there are definite implications for exerting control of putative hazardous residuals that entail risks which cannot be estimated or evaluated.

As part of a general effort to understand the appropriateness of how governmental institutions are managing hazardous residuals, it is the purpose of this thesis to examine what the United States Congress has done in formulating policy, focusing on the role of government, as legislator, in terms of the legitimacy of its purpose. Three major issues were researched including: (1) the nature of the problem of hazards associated with the improper disposal of hazardous residuals from the perspective of scientists; (2) the historical development of the United States federal government's regulatory approach to hazardous residuals management to determine how the problem was viewed by Congress; and (3) whether it is reasonable to anticipate a solution through policy that sees the problem as pollution without being able to determine whether any given residual is hazardous before release to the land, or to produce verifiable evidence of unaccepted risks.

If the pollution-control perspective "seeks the abatement of dangers and irritants inasmuch as direct human health or use is threatened," then the perceived consequences of the uncontrolled release of chemical residuals into the environment are the standards by which past and present disposal outcomes are judged, and this in turn determines the regulatory agencies' responsibilities for evaluation and control. It has been shown that there are no irrefutable standards for determining whether a waste will cause adverse health effects before release to the land. The conclusions suggest that the conceptualization of the problem from a pollution control perspective is inappropriate given the nature of the hazard.

Atlantic Planners Institute

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This document was last modified on February 14, 2001.