Why Address Hazardous Materials in Project Development?

Hazardous materials/waste sites can pose a myriad of legal, regulatory, financial, and technical problems to the department. TxDOT becomes exposed to substantial liability when it purchases a contaminated parcel of lands or if it owned property when wastes were placed there (either by past agency practices, by third-party illegal disposal practices, or by the activities of tenants). Under a number of federal and state statutes, claims can be made against the department for a variety of cleanup costs, as well as for personal or property damages. In addition to these costs, the additional time delay that results from cleaning up a contaminated site can add significantly to overall project costs. Department personal – unfamiliar with the signs and property of hazardous waste – can expose themselves to considerable safety and health risks.
For the above reason, and to address compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
42 USC 4321
et seq. and the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA)
1988 Interim Guidance
, issues related to hazardous materials must be considered throughout project development.
If unavoidable, NEPA requires mitigation of adverse impacts to the environment. FHWA provides the following directives to meet the NEPA requirements:
  • Identify hazardous material concerns early in the planning process
  • Evaluate and document the feasibility of avoidance and minimization of hazardous materials involvement
  • Facilitate cost recovery from responsible parties
TxDOT’s interests include actions to:
  • Avoid or minimize liability for environmental remedial action
  • Avoid or minimize unnecessary costs, such as field changes and contractor downtime due to unanticipated encounters of hazardous materials
  • Protect the health and safety of the public, contractors, and TxDOT staff
The best engineering solutions are developed when issues are identified early. These solutions avoid or minimize concerns to meet communities’ transportation needs as effectively and efficiently as possible.
In the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 351, “Hazardous Wastes in Highway Rights of Way,” the Committee on Hazardous Wastes in Highway Rights-of-Way of the Transportation Research Board, state that an effective way to deal with hazardous waste is early discovery and assessment. The report states:
Some of the alternatives that might flow from such a strategy of early discovery and assessment in descending order of the level of avoidance include:
  • Realignment to avoid the site completely
  • Realignment to minimize the contaminated property taken
  • Redesign to avoid disturbing the contaminated portion of the property
  • Redesign to minimize the disturbance of the hazardous waste
  • If disturbance is unavoidable, securing cleanup by the property owner prior to acquisition
  • If prior cleanup is unattainable, use of low-cost, but often time-consuming, remediation techniques
  • Use of fast, but often expensive, techniques to clean up the site
  • A decision not to build if the costs of all the alternatives exceed the project’s benefits
The earlier in the project development phase the problem is discovered, the more of these choices may be available.