Arkansas receives EPA grant to help manage hazardous waste

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $167,888 to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) for programs that oversee the handling of solid and hazardous waste. Under EPA’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), this grant will help ADEQ develop programs to protect public health and the environment from facilities that contain or contained hazardous waste.

“We are committed, as is the state of Arkansas, to making sure hazardous waste is properly stored, managed and disposed of,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator David Gray. “It is important these systems are in place to protect communities and citizens across the state of Arkansas.”

EPA’s RCRA program addresses continuing challenges such as highly toxic waste, wastes from increasingly efficient air and water pollution control devices, increasing demands on natural resources, and long-term stewardship of facilities that closed with waste in place.

This grant is part of a total of $776,794 from EPA that will support ADEQ’s hazardous waste facility inspections, enforcement actions, corrective actions, permitting, state authorization, and program management during the state’s 2019 fiscal year. The RCRA program continues to fulfill its mission by preventing contamination from harming communities, promoting community well-being, reducing and eliminating contamination, and advocating sustainable lifecycle wastes and material management approaches.