Risk-based Disposal Option

Any persons wishing to sample, cleanup, or dispose of PCB remediation waste in a manner other than pursuant to the self-implementation procedure or the performance-based option must apply in writing to the EPA Regional Administrator in the region where the cleanup activities will take place, or to the Director of the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, should the application involve more than one site in multiple regions. EPA will issue a written decision on each application, approving the application if it finds that the proposed method will not pose an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.  

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NCRP believes that subclassification of the basic waste classes would be appropriate as long as it is based on properties of waste that are related to health risks from disposal or considerations of the cost-benefit of different options for waste management and disposal. Other factors that have influenced waste classification in the past should not be used as a basis for waste subclassification. For example, the present distinction between radioactive waste that arises from operations of the nuclear fuel cycle and NARM waste should not be maintained in subclassifying waste, because this distinction is based solely on the source of the waste rather than significant differences in health risks from waste disposal or considerations of cost-benefit in waste management and disposal. 

Depending on the date of the release and nature of contaminated media, EPA provides several cleanup and disposal options. Any party may proceed to clean up any PCB remediation waste based on the concentration of PCBs found, and may do so either (i) as a self-implementing on-site cleanup and disposal (ii) consistent with performance-based disposal standards or (iii) pursuant to a risk-based cleanup and disposal approval received from the Administration. In addition, and with regard to a more limited class of PCB spills and releases, a party may proceed with cleanup and disposal under the EPA s PCB Spill Cleanup Policy. ... 

Optimum design solutions in the creation of multi-barrier systems for longterm storage and final disposal of radioactive materials should be chosen based on probabilistic safety analysis for each viable option, supplementing the latter with the cost estimates for the implementation of the option, i.e., using the complex criterion risk-benefit. ... 

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