IMPACTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS ON HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE

Officials with highway maintenance departments across the country are developing a variety of innovative ways to comply economically with an increasing number of environmental regulations being enacted at federal, state, and local levels. This finding is from a study of the effects of environmental regulations on highway maintenance and how state departments are dealing with these directives, which was commissioned by the Transportation Research Board and conducted by the Highway Research Center, Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University. Auburn researchers evaluated questionnaires submitted by maintenance personnel throughout the United States, closely examined several maintenance programs tailored to confront specific maintenance problems, and conducted numerous interviews with highway employees to pinpoint 17 crucial areas of concern to highway maintenance personnel. The economic and practical dilemmas faced by highway maintenance departments in dealing with some of these 17 areas, along with innovative methods used to address the problems involved, are described in this article. Areas addressed include herbicides, deicing chemicals, wetlands, underground storage tanks, storm water runoff, lead paint, hazardous materials and wastes, and waste management.