MANAGEMENT OF TEXAS-GENERATED INDUSTRIAL HAZARDOUS WASTE in TEXAS, 1999 CATEGORY ON-SITE OFF-SITE FACILITIES Deep-well injection 14,144,900 137,616 Incineration (Liquids and Solids) 484,000 77,743 Energy or Thermal Recovery, Including Cement Kiln Incineration 617,900 88,272 Landfill 40,200 3,398 Land Treatment 1,000   Solvent Recovery   16,195 Fuel Blending (followed by energy recovery out-of-state)   79,690 Zinc Recovery   0 Other Metals Recovery   2,488 Stabilization   28,993 Storage   20,517 Others   15,977 Treatment and Other Recovery 234,100   On-site Wastewater Treatment 35,432,000   Pretreatment and Discharge to Public Sewer Treatment 3,497,400 375,100 Discharge to POTW with no prior treatment 7,751,700   Out-of-state Commercial Facilities   216,907 In-state Captive Facilities   128,100 Out-of-state Captive Facilities   41,200 Total 62,173,100 857,898 63,010,600 Note: To avoid double-counting wastes sent to commercial storage facilities are not added in total since they represent an interim processes and not final management. Source: Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, Trends in Texas Hazardous Waste Management: 1999 Update (June 2001), 8 and 23

Before substantial state and federal regulation of waste began in the late 1970s, most industrial waste was disposed of in landfills, stored in surface impoundments such as lagoons or pits, discharged into surface waters with little or no treatment, or burned. Mismanagement of these wastes has resulted in polluted groundwater, streams, lakes, and  rivers, as well as damage to wildlife and vegetation.^* High levels of toxic contaminants have been found in animals and humans who have been continually exposed to such waste streams.^*

Today, three major federal laws – the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Emergency Response, Compensation and Liability Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act -- and one state law – the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act -- guide management of hazardous and other industrial waste in Texas. Other federal laws that relate to hazardous waste include the Federal Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Toxics Control and Safety Act.

Between 1986 and 1999, Texans and their Texas-based industries produced at least 60 million tons of hazardous waste every year, significantly more than any other state.^* Although there are places to place these wastes, both on-site and off, none of the management or disposal alternatives is fail-safe. Among state officials and the public, serious concerns about both commercial management of industrial waste and on-site industrial management of wastes remain:

• Hazardous and many "nonhazardous" industrial wastes are inherently dangerous to human health and the environment no matter how they are managed.
• Between 1989 and 2002, leaks and accidents at 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.^*
• There are some 158,000 underground and 21,000 above-ground storage tanks registered with the TCEQ, and between 1989 and 2002, TCEQ has documented approximately 12,010 groundwater contamination incidents, of which 6,690 (about 56 percent) have been successfully cleaned up.^*
• Abandoned oil, gas, and water wells located near hazardous waste injection wells could be possible avenues for the underground-injected hazardous waste to seep up to the surface or into underground drinking water supplies.^*
• The continued disposal of "nonhazardous" industrial waste at both municipal solid waste landfills and industrial solid waste facilities and at oil and gas exploration and production sites is not as highly regulated as hazardous waste disposal. In fact, municipal solid waste landfills are for the most part more highly regulated than nonhazardous industrial solid waste disposal sites, which often do not require permits, groundwater monitoring, liners, or leachate collection systems despite the dangerous wastes they may contain.
• Thousands of abandoned industrial waste sites in Texas -- both those in the Superfund program and those not -- will require public management and cleanup well into the twenty-first century. Many of these will also require public money.
• The specific health effects of many toxic substances are not well understood, including their impact on birth defects.

Industrial solid waste can be managed either on site—at the facility where it is generated—or transported off site to commercial facilities. Whether on-site or off-site, industrial solid waste can be disposed of through the use of municipal and industrial wastewater facilities; land disposal facilities such as landfills, waste pits—principally for petroleum exploration waste—and deep underground injection wells; and incineration or waste-to-energy incineration facilities like cement kilns. A variety of treatment, recycling, and other management options -- such as stabilization and solidification -- also exist for many types of industrial wastes. Nearly 99 percent of hazardous wastes are managed on site at the facility itself or treated and discharged through a wastewater treatment facility. About 74 percent of all hazardous wastes are managed through wastewater treatment facilities.^* In some cases, the industrial wastewater is simply sent directly to a municipal wastewater treatment plant, while in others  the level of hazardous waste is decreased to a certain level by treatment, and then discharged, either through a publicly owned (wastewater) treatment works or from the industrial facility itself. Most of the other waste managed on site is injected underground into deep wells.^*

MANAGEMENT OF TEXAS-GENERATED NON-HAZARDOUS CLASS I WASTE, 1997 DISPOSAL TECHNOLOGY TONS Landfill 417,620 Landfarm 6,130 Deep Well Injection 22,820 On-Site and Waste Water Treatment 82,684,820 Note: About 90 percent of the Class I waste sent to commercial Deep-Well Injection facilities went out of the state, and about 10 percent of the waste sent to landfills went out-of-state. Source: TCEQ, Waste Planning and Assessment Division, Needs Assessment for Industrial Class I Non-hazardous Waste Commercial Disposal Capacity in Texas (2000 Update), Table 2.

About 90 percent of Class I nonhazardous wastes are inorganic or organic liquids contained in aqueous solutions—primarily wastewaters—which are then treated at on-site or off-site wastewater treatment facilities. Inorganic and organic sludge, ash thermal residue from cement kilns and incinerators, and organic and inorganic solids make up most of the rest of this waste stream. In addition to on-site management of Class 1 wastes, in 1997 Texas facilities sent 446,030 tons of Class 1 nonhazardous wastes—out of 83 million tons generated—to commercial facilities.^* Only a few facilities in the state manage only nonhazardous industrial waste commercially, and most of these facilities are landfills. Other management options include hazardous commercial facilities and, in some cases, municipal solid waste facilities.

Industrial Choices: Hierarchies of Industrial Solid Waste Management

As in the case of municipal solid waste, the State of Texas and the EPA have created a hierarchy or a set of priorities for how best to manage industrial solid waste, whether nonhazardous or hazardous.^* In decreasing order of preference, these priorities are:

1. Source reduction;
2. Reuse or recycling of waste;
3. Treatment to neutralize hazardous characteristics;
4. Treatment to reduce hazardous characteristics (incineration);
5. Underground injection; and
6. Land disposal

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