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Currently, there are 83 industrial facilities with hazardous waste land disposal units subject to groundwater
detection monitoring programs and some 180 facilities which must report groundwater monitoring to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality *. Between 1989 and 2002, industrial
hazardous-waste disposal facilities, or industrial unauthorized discharges of wastewater, were responsible for 538 cases of groundwater contamination -- including 26 new cases in 2002 -- that
have yet to be cleaned up.*
In addition to these existing industrial facilities with groundwater contamination issues, abandoned industrial
facilities have led to hundreds of groundwater contamination cases. Abandoned hazardous waste sites are regulated through the state and federal Superfund program, which designates abandoned
hazardous waste sites for cleanup by placing them on a National Priorities List. States may also designate hazardous waste sites on a state Superfund list. As of 2002, Texas had 40 federally
designated Superfund sites on the National Priorities List and 50 sites proposed or listed on the state Superfund registry (see Industrial Waste chapter for more detail).*. All of these sites are subject to groundwater monitoring by the TCEQ. Some 59 of these sites have been identified as contaminating
groundwater while another 19 cases of groundwater contamination have occured at sites being considered for the Superfund list.* Superfund sites in Texas have led to groundwater contamination from such constituents as arsenic, lead, chromium, and PCBs.*
In addition to these Superfund sites, under the state's new Voluntary Cleanup Program, created by an amendment
to the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act in 1995, other abandoned sites are also investigated to see if groundwater impacts have occurred. A further amendment in 1997 created the Voluntary
Cleanup
Innocent Owner/Operator Program for sites that were contaminated by an adjacent landowner. Both abandoned sites and Innocent Owner/Operator Program sites are eligible for state clean-up funds and liability protection so they can be put back into productive use provided certain conditions are met. Under this program, over 907 cases of groundwater contamination have been discovered. Another 10 cases of groundwater contamination have been reported under the Federal Brownfields Site Assessment (BSA) program to identify abandoned industrial sites for redevelopment.*
Municipal solid-waste facilities have been linked with hundreds of cases of contamination over the years. Since
Subtitle D regulations went into effect in 1993 under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, municipal solid waste facilities which receive more than 20 tons of household waste per day
must install groundwater monitoring systems and monitor groundwater quality.* Of approximately 230 active landfills and 365 closed landfills, some 160 active and 40 closed sites are subject to groundwater monitoring. Currently, there are 19 municipal solid waste facilities with confirmed groundwater contamination problems.* These sources of groundwater contamination are more fully discussed in the Industrial Waste and Municipal Waste chapters.
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