
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993                   TAG: 9305060218
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CITY LIABILITY CAP LIKELY TO BE PART OF WASTE LAW

Legislation capping cities' liability in Superfund cleanups is likely to be included in a rewrite of federal law on hazardous-waste disposal, a House subcommittee chairman said Wednesday.

Rep. Al Swift, D-Wash., head of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on transportation and hazardous materials, told Rep. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J., that his liability bill "could be a major part of that overall solution."

The measure, also introduced in the Senate by Superfund Subcommittee Chairman Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., is aimed at keeping polluters from shifting onto communities the costs of cleaning up landfills that accepted both household trash and toxic industrial waste.

"What began largely as a problem in California and New Jersey now has become national," Torricelli said.

Richard Guimond, deputy assistant administrator in the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said 238 of the nation's most serious Superfund sites are municipal landfills, and 214 of them accepted household garbage as well as industrial waste.

by CNB