Four: Evaluating Reforms in the Implementation of Hazardous Waste Policies in California

EVALUATING REFORMS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF HAZARDOUS WASTE POLICIES IN CALIFORNIA W. Bowman Cutter, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, and Assistant Cooperative Water Resource Management Specialist, University of California, Riverside J.R. DeShazo, Associate Professor of Public Policy, UCLA School of Public Affairs California has experienced a variety of crises resulting from the release of hazardous waste and toxic substances. The mishandling of hazardous waste by industry has created the State’s 93 current superfund sites. Leaks from underground storage tanks, owned primarily by gas stations, have contaminated important sources of drinking water from groundwater. Soil contamination has led to difficult problems with urban redevelopment and school placement. These problems are particularly important because they degrade water and land resources that are critical for the state’s health and economic growth. In response, it has taken several major steps over the past decade to restructure its hazardous waste regulation system. Recent Reforms California has instituted three major reforms in recent years to restructure its regulatory approach to try to deal more effectively with these hazardous waste releases. SB 1082 (1993) consolidated the major hazardous waste regulatory programs in one agency for each responsible local government. The same bill also required a second reform, that the local agencies replace the various fees used in the major programs with a single fee that is only expected to cover the costs of the program and must satisfy several fee accountability provisions. The third reform was to raise inspection frequency requirements for the underground storage tank section of the program. These three reforms go in somewhat contradictory directions, with the state both attempting to raise local enforcement effort, but also constraining localities ability to raise revenue. This is a fairly common situation for local environmental programs. For example, the state requires localities to undertake stormwater pollution abatement efforts but propositions 13 and 218 tightly limit the ability to raise revenues for stormwater programs. We explore the effectiveness of these reforms by characterizing changes in local inspection and enforcement efforts of local governments. The hazardous waste generator and underground storage tank programs comprise the majority of enforcement effort. Although we show that hazardous waste releases and underground storage tank leakages are declining, we document areas of inadequate rates of inspections, enforcement actions and compliance strategies. We recommend specific changes in the 1) targeting of oversight efforts towards counties rather than cities, 2) setting fees more adequately to support local staffing needs, 3) the creation of monitoring system to track progress towards compliance once a violation is detected, and 4) strengthening local legal capacity for enforcement. We also discuss how the experience with hazardous waste regulatory