EGLE officials warn hazardous waste program faces shortfall without fee increases or federal grant

LANSING — Tracy Cascametti, acting director of the Materials Management Division at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), told the Michigan House Appropriations Subcommittee on Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy on Monday that the division’s hazardous waste program would face funding and staffing shortfalls if user fees and a federal EPA grant are not sustained or increased.

Cascametti and Travis Boleskull, deputy director at EGLE, briefed the subcommittee on the division’s three broad program areas — regulatory waste management, sustainability (including recycling and pollution prevention) and radiological protection — and highlighted several budget risks. “The point of the hazardous waste program is to not have contaminated sites in Michigan,” Cascametti said, describing the program as “preventative” and resource-intensive.

The nut of the presentation: the hazardous waste program is funded roughly half by program fees and half by an EPA grant. Cascametti said fees that support the program are tied to waste volumes and that several fees will sunset on Oct. 1; the executive budget proposes increasing user fees, in some cases roughly doubling longstanding amounts, to generate about $5 million and to finance additional staff. Boleskull warned that if the EPA categorical grant were eliminated next year — roughly $2.5 million annually, by his account — “we won’t be able to make payroll” for hazardous waste staff and the state would struggle to meet federally delegated obligations.

Subcommittee members pressed officials on how user-fee changes and other revenue sources would be used. Cascametti described the fee structure in broad terms: many small generators pay modest annual amounts (examples cited in testimony included $100 and $400 per year), larger treatment, storage and disposal (TSD) facilities pay higher renewal fees and some fees have not been updated in many years. The division oversees roughly 20,000 hazardous-waste-generating sites in Michigan — about 500 large generators and roughly 2,000 in a mid-sized category — and 14 active treatment, storage and disposal facilities that require intensive permitting, inspection and public engagement.

Officials said inspection frequency is concentrated on large facilities (quarterly for TSDs) but that many small and very small generators receive much less frequent oversight — Cascametti noted some very small generators are inspected only on a complaint basis. Boleskull argued the program needs more resources to expand inspections of smaller generators, which can present disproportionate local risk when compliance lapses.

The presentation also covered solid waste and recycling policy changes. Cascametti said Michigan landfilled about 24 million tons of solid waste last year across 67 permitted landfills, with roughly an 80/20 split between in-state and out-of-state waste. The 2022 Part 115 amendments (Michigan’s solid waste law) create a framework to shift from a disposal model toward “utilization” — recycling, composting and other material recovery — and counties must update materials management plans; counties receive $60,000 per year plus formula adjustments for collaborative regional planning. Cascametti reported Michigan’s measured municipal curbside recycling rate at about 25% in 2024, with a state goal of 30% by 2029.

EGLE highlighted grant programs to develop recycled-material markets, including the NextCycle Michigan incubator with about $2 million in programming, and the Renew Michigan Fund as a major funding source for recycling and materials programs. Boleskull said the Senate supplemental appropriations the House received included funding to support the federal Renewables Ready Communities grant (a fully federal award he referenced as about $129.9 million) and that the state pilot had obligated roughly $25–30 million for community resilience and infrastructure projects.

On pollution prevention, Cascametti said EGLE is prioritizing food-waste reduction with a goal to cut food waste by 50%, emphasizing rescue and redistribution before composting and anaerobic digestion. She cited Southfield’s 0 food-waste roadmap as an example and said EGLE is programming both bottle-deposit-derived pollution prevention funds and some Renew Michigan dollars toward organics reduction and diversion, with two staff focused on food-waste prevention and organics processing.

The division’s radiological protection program also drew discussion. Cascametti described three strands: emergency preparedness around nuclear plants, radiological materials including technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (T-NORM), and an indoor radon program. She explained that NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and federal agencies regulate most nuclear matters, but the state performs ambient monitoring and emergency preparedness support and manages lower-category radiological materials and response. EGLE is piloting a radon mitigation assistance program in the Western Upper Peninsula with $50,000 set aside to subsidize mitigation systems for low-income households and said staffing for radon work is limited (one radon specialist in Lansing doing UP outreach).

Committee members also asked about the voter-initiated bottle deposit law and unclaimed deposits. Boleskull said an estimated $80 million flowed to the agency in a year with about a 73% redemption rate; by statute 75% of unclaimed deposits flows to EGLE, and of that, Cascametti said 80% is allocated to the Cleanup and Redevelopment Fund, 10% to the Community Pollution Prevention Fund (statute allows spending only of interest on that fund) and 10% to the Cleanup and Redevelopment Trust Fund (principal not spendable until the trust balance reaches $200 million, per statute).

The subcommittee approved the meeting minutes without objection before the presentation began; no other formal votes were recorded at the hearing.

Officials said the division is a roughly 154-full-time-employee operation with a fiscal year 2025 budget near $47 million (FY24 about $42 million), and that about half of that budget is passed through as grants to communities and businesses. They urged the subcommittee to consider fee adjustments and modest staffing increases in the executive budget to maintain federally delegated hazardous-waste responsibilities and to continue expanding materials-utilization work.

The hearing closed with members thanking the EGLE officials and an invitation for follow-up data requests; Cascametti offered to provide the subcommittee with the quarterly legislative report showing contaminated-site expenditures from the Cleanup and Redevelopment Fund.