Air pollution assessment of toxic emissions from hazardous waste lagoons and landfills

The air quality impacts of hazardous waste disposal sites can be assessed on the basis of their contribution to each of the toxic contaminants. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the available methods of air quality assessment and their drawbacks. The need of air quality assessment is to assure that ambient concentrations of specific contaminants resulting from emissions will not exceed the acceptable levels for protection of public health and the ecosystem. Ambient concentrations of toxic contaminants are generally obtained by field measurements or air monitoring. However, field measurements and air monitoring of low-level toxic contaminants are costly and time consuming. As a result, most hazardous waste land disposal sites have not been adequately assessed. This paper describes current regulatory requirements in the United States for air quality assessment of hazardous waste land disposal sites. Emphasis is directed toward air quality assessment methodology. The paper also discusses emission predicting models based on the waste quantity and composition, scientific analysis of the waste conversion process together with meteorological conditions. The emission models are especially useful where emission cannot be reliably monitored or where a new disposal site is proposed.