Remediation of PAH-Contaminated Soils and Sediments: A ...

Regulatory Framework
Dredged material has been commonly found to have elevated levels of PAHs as
well as metals and other organics (National Research Council, 2007). Because
of the nature of and risk associated with dredged material, upland placement is
heavily regulated either through standards specific to dredge material or solid
waste. The following section includes a summary of federal, state and regional
regulations as well as a general summary on the development of the regulations.
Federal, State and Regional Acts and Agencies
Handling, utilization and acceptable contaminant limits of dredge materials are
regulated by federal, state and occasionally regional agencies. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is separated by region (Figure 11) to
federally regulate the handling, monitoring and final use of dredge material
through several acts including, but not limited to, the Clean Water Act (CWA),
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). The purpose of each act is
summarized in Table 9 at the end of this section.
Figure 11. EPA regions for regulation of contaminated materials.
http://www.epa.gov/osw/regions.htm
The span of federal acts controlling dredged material creates issues with overlap
between the acts and general confusion. For example, the Hazardous
Remediation Waste Management Requirements Final Rule in 1998 was written
to help with the overlap between RCRA and the CWA regulations on dredge
material. However, this rule only added to the confusion by further breaking
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