|
|
THE PAPER TRAIL OF THE
UNIFORM HAZARDOUS WASTE MANIFEST
|
|
|
|
A one-page manifest must accompany every waste shipment. The resulting paper trail
documents the waste's progress through treatment, storage and disposal. A missing form alerts the generator to investigate, which may mean calling in the state
agency or EPA.
|
|
Source: Environmental Protection Agency, Solving the Hazardous
Waste Problem: EPA's RCRA Program (Washington,D.C., September 1986), 11.
|
|
Hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous waste pass along Texas highways, rivers, coastal waters, and
railways, potentially exposing Texas residents to accidental spills and releases. For example in 1999, the EPA reports that 883 shippers transported 726,670
tons of hazardous waste from one location to another (either within or outside of the state). In fact, Texas surpassed all other states in the volume of waste
transported, and ranked seventh overall in the number of shippers.* Transportation of these hazardous
wastes is highly regulated. Any transporter shipping hazardous or Class 1 industrial nonhazardous waste must carry what is known as a Uniform Hazardous
Waste Manifest. This manifest lists both the generator and the waste disposal facility, and provides an EPA identification number.* Only facilities that have a
permit from the TCEQ and an EPA identification number are authorized to manage or transport hazardous wastes.* An analysis of Texas-generated
waste shipped off-site to commercial facilities revealed that more than 60 percent of the hazardous waste shipped in 1999 traveled less than 250 miles, and
some 9 percent was shipped more than a thousand miles (Footnote: TCEQ, Needs Assessment for Commercial Management Capacity in Texas: 2002 Update (2002), Figure 3).
In Texas, regulation of oil and hazardous waste spills is divided among a myriad of state and federal agencies. The
TCEQ is the state's lead agency for responding to inland oil spills, all hazardous substance spills, and all other spills
under the state's Hazardous Substances Spill Prevention and Control Act.* The Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act,
passed by the Texas legislature in 1991, designated the GLO the state's lead agency for response to oil spills that threaten or enter coastal waters.* Finally, the Railroad Commission of Texas is charged with regulating spills or
discharges from exploration, development, or production of oil, gas, and geothermal resources.* The Texas Parks and
Wildlife Department has a role in all three programs in assessing damages to natural resources.
By law, transporters and generators must report any spills or accidents either on-site or in route. In an average year,
there are about 20,000 spills or releases into the air reported in Texas of hazardous, industrial or oil waste, and TCEQ
receives about 3,000 "hot line" emergency calls from residents, companies or fire departments complaining of an
accidental hazardous waste spill. Because the agency does not have the resources to respond to every "emergency"
and because many of the spills are actually under the jurisdiction of another agency, typically agency staff responds to about 150 of them.
* In addition to responding to "human-made" transportation and accidental spills, the agency has a
specialized "Strike Team" to respond to larger spills or situations -- such as the recent space shuttle disaster which
blew up over Texas skies -- or even natural disasters like the 2001 flood in Houston caused by Tropical Storm Allison.
In that case, the Strike Team and personell from the regional Houston office worked with public water supply systems
as well as refineries and chemical plants along the Houston Ship Channel as they dealt with spills and unauthorized air releases due to the large volume of flood waters and to power outages.* Still, the vast majority of spills are dealt with
and paid for by the responsible parties. Each year, about one percent of spills are cleaned up are paid for with state
funds out of the Texas Spill Response Fund. If the state needs to hire a contractor quickly and the responsible party can
not be found or shirks its duty, the state has the right to use these funds. Later, the monies can be recovered from the
responsible party, including charging the firm twice the costs incurred by the state in cleaning up the spill.* Most spills
occur on highways.*
In addition to these spills, millions of gallons of oil and gas and other chemical products are spilled from oil and gas
production facilities, barges, pipelines, and platforms. For example, the Railroad Commission received reports of 554
spills in Calender Year 2002, resulting in 34,380 barrels of crude oil, gas well liquid or associated products spilling into
the environment, about half of which was ultimately recovered. Among the reasons for the accidents? Human error,
rust, vandalism, theft, equipment failure, Acts of God, tree roots, and even three instances of cows either rubbing against or kicking off valves.* Between FY 2002 and 2003, there were more than 1,650 responses by the GLO to
individual oil spills in coastal waters, more than a third of which were classified as mystery or unknown spills.* While
responsible parties—the oil and gas facilities as well as the pipelines, barges, and other vessels used to transport oil
and gas—paid for the majority of the clean up of these spills, more than $400,000 was spent on state-funded
cleanups. Funds generated from a fee assessed on all crude oil loaded or unloaded in Texas ports were to pay for these "mystery" oil spill cleanups.*
|
