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Alaska is now in charge of hazardous waste regulation in the state, a task that can be made more challenging by geographic remoteness.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday officially transferred authority for hazardous waste regulation to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. That makes Alaska the 49th state to be granted hazardous waste primacy — the term for primary responsibility for management and enforcement — over the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA.
The applicable federal law is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA.
Before Wednesday, the last state to be granted RCRA primacy was Hawaii in 2001, according to EPA records. Now the only state without RCRA primacy is Iowa, according to the EPA.
The transfer of authority, completed with a signature ceremony, was several years in the making, said Emma Pokon, EPA’s Pacific Northwest regional administrator and a former DEC commissioner.
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DEC has assembled a hazardous waste program and team and has created state regulations that became effective a year ago. The Alaska Legislature has made regular appropriations in budgets for the hazardous waste program, which is part of DEC’s Division of Environmental Health.
“The good news is that the state has been implementing the program hand-in-hand with the EPA for the last several years,” Pokon said in a brief interview. “This moment isn’t a new imposition of costs. . . They are up and running. They’re staffed up. They’re trained up.”
Lori Aldrich, the DEC staffer managing the program, is “a gem of a public servant,” Pokon added.
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