ENVIRONMENTAL

HAZARDS
 ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS

• Natural phenomena
• Human Activities
• Controlling environmental hazards: goal of
reducing risk to human life and health
• Is zero risk attainable?
FIVE MAJOR AREAS OF
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN RE.
HEALTH
• Waste management
• Air pollution
• Outdoor air
• Indoor air
• Water pollution
• Radiation
WASTES AND WASTE
MANAGEMENT
WASTES AND ENVIRONMENTAL
HAZARDS
• Four contributing factors
• Urbanization
• Industrialization
• Population growth
• Introduction of disposable products and containers
SOLID WASTE AND ITS
MANAGEMENT
• Solid waste as part of modern life
• Four major sources
• Agricultural
• Mining Together, about 90-
91%
• Industry 5%
• Municipalities/Domestic Sources 5%
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• Aimed primarily at municipal and industrial wastes

• Formation of Environmental Protection Agengy
(1970)
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1975
(RCRA)
• Integrated waste management approach
• Approx. 80% of money spent on municipal waste
management spend on collection process
 DISPOSAL OF SOLID WASTES
• Sanitary Landfills
• Incineration
• Resource Recovery (Recycling)
• Source Reduction
• Waste Management in Pennsylvania (1996)
• Act 101 requires all counties to have detailed plans for
managing their own wastes; currently, all have
municipally ratified, state-approved plans
• At beginning of 1996, Pennsylvania had 51 permitted
municipal waste landfills and 7 waste-to-energy
facilities, with a combined capacity for 10-13 years
HAZARDOUS WASTE
MANAGEMENT
• Definition of hazardous waste
• Prior to RCRA, hazardous waste was generally
disposed of in a dump or landfill, along with other
solid wastes
• Four characteristics making a waste hazardous:
• Ignitability
• Corrosiveness
• Reactivity
• Toxicity
• Dual problems faced today:
• Appropriately disposing of new hazardous waste
• Correcting mishandling errors of the past
• Five Approaches to Hazardous Waste Management
• Secured Landfill
• Deep Well Injection
• Incineration
• Recycling
• Source Reduction
HAZARDOUS WASTE CLEANUP
• Federal government as primary participant
• 1980 -- Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) -- the
“Superfund”
• 1985 -- Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act
(SARA)
• Progress as of 1999
• 1,204 uncontrolled hazardous waste sites on NPL
• 585 sites has reached the construction
completion stage
WATER POLLUTION
Sources of Water Pollution

• Point Source Pollution

• Non-point Source Pollution

Types of Water Pollution

• Biological pollutants
• Toxic pollutants
• Other/Miscellaneous pollutants
Strategies to Insure Safe Water

• Clean Water Act (1972)

• Focus of EPA regulations
• Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) (1974)
• Waste water treatment --
municipal/governmental
• Septic systems
• Conservation
AIR POLLUTION
 OUTDOOR AIR POLLUTION
• Most Prevalent Sources
• Transportation
• Electric power plans
• Industry, primarily mills and refineries
• Criteria pollutants -- most pervasive air pollutants
• Pollutant Standard Index (PSI)
• Special Concerns with Outdoor Air
• Acid rain
• Smog
• Reduction of the ozone layer
• Global warning (controversial)
• Regulation of Outdoor Air
• Clean Air Act (1963) -- plus subsequent
amendments
• 1970 Amendments
• 1990 Amendments
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
• Numerous sources resulting from human actions
• Aeroallegens
• Radon
• Protection of Indoor Air
• Modification of individuals’ behavior
• Legislation
RADIATION
• Naturally Occurring Radiation
• Human-made Radiation
• Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1982)
>Development of site capable of safely receiving
high-level nuclear wastes
>Ensure that low-level wastes (from medicine,
universities, and research labs) are also handled
properly
• Currently, no public waste facility exists in the U.S.
capable of handling high- level wastes
> NWPA provision for a planned facility in
Yucca Mountain, NV, but controversy has
slowed its development
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL
LEGISLATION/POLICIES
• Political systems respond to the public demands of the
moment. In environmental health, this has resulted in
a pattern of legislative and policy developments
dictated by problems or crises seen as particularly
important at different points in time
• The early 1970s was a critical turning point in
expanding government’s role in environmental
regulation, shifting authority from local town halls to
state capitals and to Washington, DC
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was
created in 1970 and given responsibility for all
environmental media (air, water, land) and most of
the major pollution control programs. However, the
federal departments of Interior, Health and Human
Services, Agriculture, and Defense (and, later,
Energy) retained considerable control over specific
environmental agency regulatory functions
• After EPA’s formation, many states consolidated
environmental regulatory responsibilities into new
agencies -- little “EPAs” modeled on the national
agency
• One result was that state health departments
ceased to be the dominant environmental
regulatory agency in the majority of states
• Another result was the various state agencies
retained some degree of environmental control
often at cross-purposes with the state
environmental agency
• The federal EPA (and its state counterparts) became
an amalgamation of programs and divisions, rather
than a carefully integrated agency
• In sum, environmental regulation at the national level
is fragmented along media lines -- partly in response
to the variety of influences in the executive branch
that have some role in environmental policy
• Federal legislation also illustrates the fragmentation of
environmental laws -- e.,g., some 25 separate federal
laws address some aspect of toxic substances control
and hazardous waste management; 8 separate laws
give EPA authority in toxic substance control
• At the state level, permits are a basic tool of
environmental management in all states --i.e.,
proposed development projects cannot begin until
issued a formal permit
• Often, multiple permits must be acquired -- e.g., air
and water pollution, protection of wetlands, wildlife
protection
• No two states have devised identical regulatory
systems, despite federal pressures and monetary
incentives to do so
• Federal-state relations in environmental regulatory
programs can be characterized in three patterns:
• Federal role as extremely deferential to state
government preferences -- “cooperative
federalism” -- with federal attempts to stimulate
action through funding incentives
• Federal role as dominant -- “national federalism” --
including auto emission policies and the Superfund
• Balance of federal and state levels -- with federal
role of forcing state action and providing
regulatory control in the absence of state action,
but typically a delegation of authority to state
agencies with funding to ease state costs of
implementation