This map features displays the locations of facilities regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Essentially, the points represent businesses that produce, transport, recycle or otherwise handle some sort of chemical/material that is hazardous to human health or the environment. Generally speaking, all generators, transporters, treaters, storers and disposers of hazardous waste are required to provide information about their activities to their state environmental agencies. From there, the state agencies pass their information up to the regional and national EPA offices, which is how businesses/organizations end up on the list from which this map feature is built.
Under the RCRA, hazardous waste has a complex and frustratingly convoluted definition; however, we'll do our best to simplify it here. The RCRA classifies all hazardous waste by putting it into one of two categories - the first is called "listed waste" and the second is called "characteristic waste".
Listed wastes are wastes the government has specifically recognized as hazardous because they pose a risk to human health or the environment; they are specifically named in the Code of Federal Regulations. The second category is comprised of wastes judged to be hazardous because of their characteristics. Characteristic wastes are categorized separately out of sheer necessity. Because there are over 50,000 chemicals now used in manufacturing and commerce, the EPA cannot possibly create a list of all the hazardous wastes that are produced by our modern economy, thus it has to create the "characteristic waste" category. If a waste is ignitable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic (set at levels 100 times more protective than the Safe Drinking Water Act) then it is treated as hazardous waste. While listed wastes are identified by the EPA, characteristic wastes are identified by the waste generators. Once the waste generators have identified their waste as ignitable, corrosive, reactive, or toxic, they are supposed to notify the EPA. Unfortunately, waste generators have an incentive not to notify the EPA (since disposing of hazardous waste is quite expensive), which necessitates rigorous compliance monitoring by the government. Most waste generators are honest and law abiding, nevertheless some do not report their activities and are therefore absent from this map feature.
The RCRA dictates that hazardous waste be tracked from "the cradle to the grave". Thus businesses that produce hazardous waste appear here, as do those who transport it and those who dispose of it; anyone who has a hand in the hazardous waste life cycle is shown in this map feature. However, the points do not convey information concerning how long the waste stays at each facility, why it's there, or what it is. They merely tell you that a business handles hazardous waste from time to time. Seeing a facility does not mean that the area around it is contaminated with hazardous substances, it only means that the business depicted is involved with waste processing in some way. It's also important to point out that this map feature does not indicate the level or type of health risks posed by each facility. As you might imagine, the types of risks associated with the facilities shown differ depending on the kinds of waste present at each location. For example, the risks posed by a business that transports tanks of flammable liquid are quite different from those posed a facility storing a drum full of dioxin. In short, the type of hazard each facility poses is not depicted; and the points depicted do not all represent the same level of risk to you as a homeowner. The unique types of materials present at each facility, coupled with its activities might mean that one point on this map poses almost no risk to you even though it handles wastes classified as hazardous. On the other hand a pesticide byproduct disposal facility might be worth worrying about.
If you want more information on the facilities in your neighborhood we recommend you go to:
http://www.epa.gov/enviro/facts/rcrainfo/search.html
Here you can find out more information about the types of activities conducted at each facility.
Please note that a business's or organization's presence on this map does not imply that have done anything wrong or that they have violated the law in some way. Though these unfortunate events could have occurred, a business/organization's presence on this map only indicates that they are handlers of hazardous waste regulated by the RCRA.
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