Soil materials are often used in hazardous-waste disposal facilities to provide a physical barrier to leachate movement. Both existing soils and recompacted soil materials have been used in barrier construction. Solute transport experiments and measurements of saturated hydraulic conductivity were used to characterize the solute transport properties of three Iowa soil materials. Experiments were carried out by using undisturbed soil samples as well as recompacted samples. The experimental results show that recompaction greatly altered the solute transport properties of the three soil materials. It is concluded that recompaction is necessary for any of these materials to satisfy Environmental Protection Agency standards for barriers in hazardous-waste landfills and surface impoundments.