For instance, seven years ago Harvard introduced an on-line training program to make sure researchers and lab staff knew how to comply with federal hazardous waste regulations. Last year nearly 1,200 Harvard affiliates took the on-line training course, Griffin says.

Several years ago, biotech companies began springing up in Cambridge and along Route 128, a major highway that circles Boston. Many of the firms maintain with close ties to researchers at educational institutions in the Boston area. As ties between universities and biotech companies grew closer, the EPA “singled out” academic institutions and began cracking down on their hazardous waste violations, Barkley says.

In 1999, for example, the EPA fined Boston University $753,000 for spilling fuel and other violations.

According to EPA officials, the agency is carefully studying the HHMI report and doing its own research on whether its hazardous waste rules are appropriate for academic settings.

“We’re looking at it seriously, and we’re running our own concurrent experiment here,” says Joshua Secunda, a senior official in the EPA’s northeast regional office.

The EPA’s own research project, called Project XL, involves implementing new hazardous waste management standards on an experimental basis at three New England schools: Boston College, the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and the University of Vermont.

Generally, the EPA does not take part in research projects, so Secunda says this experiment is an unusual step for the agency.

The EPA hopes to use the research to revise its hazardous waste rules so they “harmonize with the practical considerations of academic research,” he says.