About 11 percent of all hazardous wastes are presently disposed of by injection wells into deep subsurface environments. There are approximately 250 of these Class I wells in the United States and to date their record of performance has been good. Provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) require that by 1988 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must show that the disposal of specified hazardous wastes is safe to the environment and human health, or deepwell injection practices must be discontinued. As a result, knowing the long-term fate of these wastes in the injection zone becomes important. The literature survey conducted in this work shows that some information is available on nearly all of the potential chemical and biological transformation processes of hazardous wastes. This survey indicates that many factors affect the ultimate fate of injected wastes and that additional research is needed in all areas of abiotic and biotic waste interactions before definitive explanations can be given on their long-term fate.

"Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by National Institute for Petroleum and Energy Research. "February 1987." "Interagency Agreement No. DW89931947-01-0."