transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste, and require
states to develop programs to ensure the safe disposal of solid waste in sanitary landÑlls.
Subtitle D of RCRA establishes a framework for regulating the disposal of municipal solid waste.
Regulations under Subtitle D currently include minimum comprehensive solid waste management
criteria and guidelines, including location restrictions, facility design and operating criteria, closure and
post-closure requirements, Ñnancial assurance standards, groundwater monitoring requirements and
corrective action standards, many of which had not commonly been in eÅect or enforced in the past in
connection with municipal solid waste landÑlls. Each state was required to submit to the U.S. EPA a
permit program designed to implement Subtitle D regulations by April 9, 1993. All of the states in which
we operate have implemented permit programs pursuant to RCRA and Subtitle D. These state permit
programs may include landÑll requirements which are more stringent than those of Subtitle D.
All of our planned landÑll expansions or new landÑll development projects have been engineered to
meet or exceed Subtitle D requirements. Operating and design criteria for existing operations have been
modiÑed to comply with these new regulations. Compliance with Subtitle D regulations has resulted in
increased costs and may in the future require substantial additional expenditures in addition to other costs
normally associated with our waste management activities.
(2) The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as
amended. CERCLA, among other things, provides for the cleanup of sites from which there is a release
or threatened release of a hazardous substance into the environment. CERCLA may impose strict joint
and several liability for the costs of cleanup and for damages to natural resources upon current owners and
operators of the site, parties who were owners or operators of the site at the time the hazardous substances
were disposed of, parties who transported the hazardous substances to the site and parties who arranged
for the disposal of the hazardous substances at the site. Under the authority of CERCLA and its
implementing regulations, detailed requirements apply to the manner and degree of investigation and
remediation of facilities and sites where hazardous substances have been or are threatened to be released
into the environment. Liability under CERCLA is not dependent upon the existence or disposal of only
""hazardous wastes'' but can also be based upon the existence of small quantities of more than 700
""substances'' characterized by the U.S. EPA as ""hazardous,'' many of which may be found in common
household waste.
Among other things, CERCLA authorizes the federal government to investigate and remediate sites
at which hazardous substances have been or are threatened to be released into the environment or to
order (or oÅer an opportunity to) persons potentially liable for the cleanup of the hazardous substances to
do so. In addition, the U.S. EPA has established a National Priorities List of sites at which hazardous
substances have been or are threatened to be released and which require investigation or cleanup.
Liability under CERCLA is not dependent upon the intentional disposal of hazardous waste or
hazardous substances. It can be founded upon the release or threatened release, even as a result of
unintentional, non-negligent or lawful action, of thousands of hazardous substances, including very small
quantities of such substances. Thus, even if our landÑlls have never knowingly received hazardous waste
as such, it is possible that one or more hazardous substances may have been deposited or ""released'' at
our landÑlls or at other properties which we currently own or operate or may have owned or operated.
Therefore, we could be liable under CERCLA for the cost of cleaning up such hazardous substances at