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waste is not required to protect human health and the environment. Furthermore, the amendments establish a set of specific deadlines for banning groups of hazardous wastes from land disposal . EPA can extend these deadlines for up to 2 years only if an alternative treatment capacity is not available to handle those wastes. The State of California has led the nation in acting to protect public health and the environment by restricting the land disposal of hazard- ous wastes. Begun in 1981 , the program to ban land disposal served as a national model for the 1984 federal HSWA. For example, the HSWA incorporate the so-called "California List" of hazardous wastes to be banned from land disposal . These wastes are restricted from land disposal under California law that predated HSWA. Many California statutes have restricted the ability of generators to rely on land disposal . The Toxic Pits Cleanup Act (Katz, 1984) requires the Regional Water Quality Control Boards to inspect surface impoundments and other pits, ponds, and lagoons used for hazardous waste disposal , and significantly limits their continued operation. In 1986, California accelerated this program through the Hazardous Waste Management Act (SB 1500, Roberti ) , which calls for California to promote reduction in hazardous waste generation, increase recycling and treatment of hazardous wastes, and allow land disposal only for treatment residuals. The phase-out relative to land disposal is more restrictive than that under RCRA. In enacting this law, the legisla- ture declared: The disposal of hazardous waste in, or onto, the land threatens not only the quality of the state' s land, air, and water resources, but poses a direct hazard to health and safety by exposing the public to chemicals that have been found to cause cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, nervous disorders, blood diseases, and damage to vital organs and genes. . . It is, therefore, in the public interest to establish a program to limit the use of land disposal PJ9 9390502D.00D 1-5 Rev. 1 11/08/88