The recent facility abandonment identified by DEQ demonstrates the importance of maintaining adequate and accessible financial assurance. At the same time, regulatory amendments should be targeted to the deficiencies that caused or contributed to that circumstance and should not impose unnecessarily conservative or duplicative requirements on compliant facilities.

Where DEQ is concerned about abandonment risk, enhanced requirements should focus on indicators such as repeated noncompliance, failure to update financial assurance, deteriorating financial condition, loss of a treatment outlet, inactive or abandoned status, or failure to perform required closure work. Compliant operating facilities should not automatically be subjected to assumptions or requirements developed for distressed or abandoned facilities.

The revised cost-estimate process should be site-specific, risk-based, and consistent with conventional construction estimating practices. DEQ should identify the cost categories that must be evaluated while allowing owners and operators to use documented quantities, recent bids, actual contracts, local market data, published cost information, and professional engineering judgment. A rigid statewide worksheet or mandatory unit-cost schedule could produce estimates that do not reflect actual facility conditions. Site-specific estimates should therefore control because closure costs vary based on final-cover design, material availability, haul distance, topography, existing infrastructure, previously closed acreage, and regional construction conditions.

For leachate management, cost estimates should be based on the management method authorized by the facility’s permit. Leachate quantities should be estimated using representative site-specific data, including actual flow records, acreage and cover conditions, precipitation, operational history, and the expected effects of final closure. Statewide default values may be appropriate where adequate site-specific data are unavailable, but facilities should be permitted to demonstrate alternative quantities through documented engineering analyses. Peak active-life leachate generation should not automatically be assumed for every year of the post-closure period.

DEQ should also avoid unnecessarily narrowing the mechanisms available to demonstrate financial assurance. Financially sound options such as bonds, letters of credit, insurance, trust funds, and applicable financial tests should be retained, subject to reasonable safeguards. The regulations should preserve an appropriate range of financial-assurance mechanisms while focusing enhanced requirements on facilities presenting demonstrated financial, operational, or compliance risks.

More broadly, DEQ should consider directing regulatory resources toward field inspection, construction compliance, operational oversight, and enforcement, where environmental impacts are more likely to occur, rather than expanding regulatory requirements for compliant facilities.