The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:

(a)  Specific state laws and regulations have been enacted to prevent leaks and hazardous waste discharges to land, such as those from underground storage tanks, surface impoundments, pits, ponds, or lagoons.

(b)  The present federal law which regulates the discharge of hazardous waste to land in injection wells is inadequate to fully protect California’s water supplies from contamination. As a result, underground injection of hazardous waste presents a serious short-term and long-term threat to the quality of waters in the state.

(c)  State-of-the-art design and operation safeguards of injection wells without adequate groundwater monitoring, specific geological information, and other system safeguards cannot guarantee that migration of hazardous wastes into underground sources of drinking water will not occur.

(d)  Monitoring requirements specified in federal law are not adequate to detect all leaks from injection wells and there are no requirements in federal law for monitoring the movement of wastes in the substrata to ensure that wastes have not escaped the injection zone or are not reacting with, or have not breached the confining strata.

(e)  Injecting wastes into wells deep in the geological substrata is an unproven method for the containment of wastes because, among other things, hazardous wastes can react with geological substrata, rendering these containment barriers ineffective, pressure of the injected wastes can breach containment layers, and active or abandoned wells in the vicinity of waste injection can serve as a conduit for the wastes to migrate to drinking water supplies.

(f)  Restoring contaminated groundwater to its original state after the fact and removal or cleanup of wastes once injected to these depths are formidable tasks which are not typically economically feasible.

(g)  It is in the public interest to establish a continuing program for the purpose of preventing contamination from underground injection of waste. It is the intent of the Legislature to prohibit any injection of hazardous wastes into or above drinking water in the state, and to prohibit any injection of hazardous waste below drinking water in the state which is not properly permitted and monitored so as to prevent hazardous wastes from migrating to drinking water or otherwise endangering the environment of the state.

(h)  It is the intent of the Legislature that the Legislature will provide a process for the public and industry to appeal the actions or inactions of the department under this article. However, the specific process cannot be developed until the Legislature determines the general organization of the department with regard to administration of hazardous waste management programs.

(Added by Stats. 1985, Ch. 1591, Sec. 1.)