Laserfiche WebLink
25179.2. The Legislature finds and declares as follows: <br /> (a) Most of the hazardous waste generated in California continues to <br /> be deposited using landfills, land treatment, and other land applications. <br /> (b) State permitted land disposal facilities, once considered <br /> secure, are increasingly found to have problems containing the waste <br /> deposited therein, making it impossible to guarantee long-term security. <br /> Hazardous wastes have been shown to migrate from land disposal facilities <br /> and contaminate the environment through leakage and runoff in landfills, <br /> seepage, runoff, and air emissions from ponds, percolation from improper <br /> land applications, leaks in the equipment used for injection wells, and <br /> leaks from buried drums and tanks. <br /> (c) The disposal of untreated hazardous waste in or onto land <br /> without adequate technical safeguards threatens not only the quality of <br /> the state' s land, air, and water resources, but poses a direct hazard to <br /> health and safety by exposing the public to substances that have been <br /> found to cause cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, nervous disorders, <br /> blood diseases, and damage to vital organs and genes. <br /> (d) The number of contaminated hazardous waste sites in the_ state <br /> continues to grow. Cleaning up the contamination and eliminating the <br /> threat to public health and the environment will be very costly. <br /> (e) It is, therefore, in the public interest to establish a program <br /> to limit the use of land disposal practices which do not meet certain <br /> prescribed standards and promote alternatives for hazardous waste <br /> management. <br /> (f) It is the intent of the Legislature to guide hazardous waste <br /> management toward more efficient and secure methods by establishing <br /> management priorities for future legislative and administrative action. <br /> (g) It is also the intent of the Legislature to adopt reasonable and <br /> realistic methods for addressing the environmental risks associated with <br /> land disposal of hazardous waste. However, it is not the Legislature' s <br /> intent to impose hazardous waste management requirements upon hazardous <br /> waste generators and hazardous waste storage, treatment, and disposal <br /> facilities located within the state which could, if so imposed, encourage <br /> illegal disposal practices or force California generators to seek <br /> hazardous waste disposal solutions in other states or countries, thereby <br /> shifting the state' s hazardous waste treatment and disposal burdens to <br /> other jurisdictions. <br /> (h) Nothing in this article affects the authority of the department <br /> to regulate facilities used for the management of nonhazardous <br /> agricultural drainage water. <br /> (Added by Stats. 1986, Ch. 1509. ) <br /> 25179.3. For the purposes of this article, the following definitions <br /> apply: <br /> (a) "Agricultural drainage water" means subsurface water or perched <br /> groundwater which is drained from beneath agricultural lands and which <br /> results from agricultural irrigation. <br /> (b) "Board" means the State Water Resources Control Board. <br /> (c) "Free liquids" mean liquids which readily separate from the <br /> solid portion of a hazardous waste under ambient temperature and pressure. <br /> (d) "Hazardous constituent" has the meaning specified in the <br /> regulations adopted by the department. <br /> -88- <br />