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~~°5 Asphalt: good citizen in landfills As fill, it is not dangerous; as liner or cap, it contributes. By Susan Parker radle to grave liability-leave i[ [o the Envi- ronmental Protection Agency <EPA) to come up with such a concept. Among other things, [his may mean that an asphalt contractor who hauled chunks of an old asphalt road to a mixed landfill, even as far back as the 1960s or 70s, is still responsible for it today- and will be responsible for it until the sun blows up. As the pressure on U.S. landfills expands to burst- ing, more and more landfill operators are using EPA liability regulations to go' back to any client who ever used the landfill to try to spread finandal liability for cleanups and remediaoon. 7tos ran mean high dollar trouble for a contractor. landfill cleanup liability can run into thousands of dollars. EPA fines can reach 525,000 per day. The bottom line is: asphalt has the same leaching characteristics az, say, the Rock of Gibraltar. Neither is melting or dissolving or rinsing off or leaching into sur- rounding waters. According to the Asphalt Institute Handbook, "asphalt is waterproof." Indeed, as far back as 6,000 B.C., shipbuilders used it to caulk and waterproo( [heir boats. Asphalt composition roofing keeps [he rain out. Un(onunately, many regulatory people, especially on the local level, tend to approach asphalt on the same basis as other petroleum products when it comes to spills and leaching. It is important to understand [he distinctions in behavior of the different petroleum fractions. Asphalt is the heaviest base constituent of crude oil. It does not volatilize or boll off in the crude oil distillation process like the lighter kerosene. Asphalt is being used to line water storage reservoirs in southern California-drinking water reser- voirs-lxcause it does not leach out. The liner (or the Etiwanda Reservoir, near Los Angeles, is made up o(100,000 tons of hot mix asphalt. And, the Chinook salmon, one of the most delicate manne creawres, thrive in hatcheries lined with asphalt in Washington state. So, what kind of system makes a contractor pay fines to one govern- ment agency to protect the environ- ment from the "hazard' of as- phalt-while the next government agency is lining our drinking water basins with i[? Who is right here? And, who is caught in the middle? One contractor was recently caught in the middle of these two schools of thought. Two years ago, an emulsion tank overflowed and caused a significant spill on the ground at his plant compound... liquid asphalt mixed into the dirt. Now, two years later (cradle to grave, remember) local regulatory people are screaming 'contamination, risk assessment, health hazard, remediate, fines, big " bucks!' While at the same time, the local government transportation people are seeking to buy liquid azphalt mixed with clot to pave lotxl roads. What is wrong with this picture? They can't have i[ both ways. Terry Sciarrotta, environ- mental engineer for Southern California Edison Co., conducted a research study to evaluate the hazardous characterisocs of cold mix asphalt pavement that con- tained petroleum contaminated sand as a portion of the aggregate gradation. •. The structure of the research was to compare asphalt mixed with petroleum contaminated sand to asphalt mixed with clean sand. The result of extensive [esting under continues on page 82-+ (racoons, such as gasoline or