Federal regulators this month agreed to delay until April 1994 new landfill safety regulations likely to result in the forced closure Of many small landfills.
The Environmental Protection Agency regulations, known as "subtitle D," were set to take effect Oct. 9. They would have required landfills not in compliance with new standards of safety and monitoring to stop accepting waste by that date. But the EPA earlier this month formally approved requests for an extension to April 9, 1994 for most states.
The standards require state-of-the-art liners and special monitoring and collecting equipment for toxins. Most new landfills already use Such equipment, but many older, smaller ones do not.
Nancy Feldman, vice president Of research for Asch-Dwyer Municipal Securities in Peapack, N.J., said the coming landfill closures will probably help stabilize erratic tipping fees at the landfills that remain open.
"Come April, the more, landfill space that gets shut down, the more balanced the supply and demand become," said Feldman, who studies waste management issues for Asch-Dwyer.
