EPA Exempts Refineries From Hazardous Waste Control Requirements

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today tentatively denied a plea from citizens groups to reconsider a Bush-era loophole that allows petroleum refineries to burn more than 300,000 tons of hazardous waste every year without meeting the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's (RCRA) protective standards for storing and transporting hazardous waste and without meeting the Clean Air Act's requirements for burning it.

Because hazardous waste has the potential to cause serious harm to public health if it is released into the environment, RCRA specifies protective "cradle-to-grave" requirements for storing, handling and disposing of it. Additionally, the Clean Air Act requires protective emission standards for the air pollution generated by facilities that burn hazardous waste.

The Bush administration created the loophole in 2008. Based on the Obama administration's stated commitment to protect public health and respect the law, Earthjustice petitioned the EPA on behalf of Sierra Club and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and asked the agency to reconsider the loophole. But nearly two years after that request was made, the EPA has now proposed to reissue the Bush-era exemption word for word.

The loophole allows refineries to burn their hazardous wastes as fuel in incinerators that EPA euphemistically refers to as "gasification units." These units do not have to meet the protective Clean Air Act emission standards otherwise required for all facilities that burn hazardous wastes. As a result, the fenceline communities that are already overburdened by refineries' toxic pollution are also subjected to additional toxic emissions from the unregulated combustion of hazardous waste.

"Burning hazardous waste generates toxic pollution that is incredibly dangerous to those who breathe it," said Jane Williams of the Sierra Club. "Calling hazardous waste 'fuel' doesn't in any way change those toxic emissions, but it does mean that petroleum refineries don't have to comply with laws that were designed to protect people from such pollution. This is a favor to petroleum refiners, plain and simple, at the expense of communities who live near refineries."

"Communities in the Gulf region already suffer enough from refineries' toxic pollution," said Wilma Subra of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. "The last thing we need is uncontrolled burning of their hazardous wastes."

Notwithstanding the text of RCRA, which makes clear that hazardous waste does not cease to be waste just because it is processed to produce a fuel, the loophole also allows refineries to avoid safe storage and transportation requirements under RCRA for the waste they plan to burn in gasification units.

"The EPA's decision to side with the Bush administration and polluting refineries is shocking," said Earthjustice's Khushi Desai. "The agency does not dispute that the exempted 300,000 tons of toxic material are, in fact, hazardous waste. And yet it is somehow willing to let refiners store and transport this harmful waste without taking safety measures that Congress enacted to protect people from just such a danger. It's unbelievable."

"This troubling decision could cause major environmental damage in California, which ranks third in the nation for refining capacity," said Denny Larson, Executive Director of Global Community Monitor, a group that works with refinery neighbors nationally. "This is extremely disappointing news coming from this EPA, which has promised so much."

"It's sad that the communities which need the most help, the most protection and the most attention from environmental agencies instead continue to shoulder an increasing burden on their health and quality of life," said Matthew Tejada, Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston. "The well-being of folks in areas like the Houston Ship Channel, which has a number of refineries, should be a priority for the EPA. This exemption must be eliminated."

"The EPA has a duty and an obligation, and that is to protect the health and well-being of people and the environment by upholding laws such as the Clean Air Act," said Hilton Kelley, Executive Director of Community In-power and Development, based in Port Arthur, TX. "This exemption does exactly the opposite. Children, the elderly, and other vulnerable members of our communities need the EPA to do everything that it can to protect those who have no other means of protection."

EPA will accept public comments on its tentative determination to deny the petition, 76 Fed. Reg. 5107 (January 28, 2011), until March 14, 2011.

Update for Hazwaste Regs

DNREC is in the process of updating the state’s hazardous waste regulations to maintain equivalency with the federal RCRA program and retain state primacy for the program.
The proposed amendments would:

• Adopt federal requirements for the export of batteries to OECD countries
• Adopt federal corrections to the Uniform Manifest rules
• Add clarification regarding subsequent notifications for generators concerning EPA ID numbers
• Strike a confusing date regarding recordkeeping deadline regarding generator Annual and Exception Reports
• Allow use of amended SPCC plan as a contingency plan for TSDFs
• Clarify TSDF submittal of manifest copies to the generator state
• Strengthen secondary containment by adding requirement for coating and water stops for tanks in TSDF containment requirements
• Add requirement that generators must keep records on-site for 3 years regarding written records of shipments of used oil

Serious flaws found in EPA's coal ash rule cost-benefit analysis

By Sue Sturgis

When the federal Environmental Protection Agency prepared a cost-benefit analysis for the two coal ash regulatory options it released last year for public comment, it overestimated the benefits of recycling coal ash and underestimated the benefits of safe disposal -- thus hurting the chances for an adequately protective rule

That's the finding of a review of the analysis [pdf] by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and the Stockholm Environment Institute's U.S. Center at Tufts University. The groups charge that the EPA's haphazard and unsupported assumptions slant the playing field against the stricter version of the proposed regulations.

"The agency is assuming many times more benefits from recycling than it can support with data," said EIP Director Eric Schaeffer during a press conference held last week to publicize the groups' findings, which were also submitted to the EPA during last year's comment period on the two coal ash regulatory proposals.

The agency is currently considering whether to regulate coal ash as a special hazardous waste under Subtitle C of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or whether to oversee it more loosely as nonhazardous waste under RCRA Subtitle D.

The electric utility and coal-ash recycling industries are fighting the stricter rule by arguing that regulating the material as hazardous waste would create a stigma that would discourage recycling. But environmental advocates dispute that claim. In fact, they say that tough coal ash disposal rules would create greater incentives to recycle the material in order to keep it out of unsafe surface impoundments like the one that collapsed two years ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal plant in eastern Tennessee.

In its cost-benefit analysis, the EPA claimed that recycling coal ash into wallboard and other products is worth more than $23 billion a year, based on the annual life-cycle benefits of avoiding pollution and reducing energy costs. However, that estimate is more than 20 times higher than the $1.15 billion that the federal government's own data shows as a more realistic figure.

Among the problems with EPA's calculation is that it overstated emissions from cement kilns, double-counted pollution reductions under Clean Air Act rules, mistakenly applied a formula designed to measure fine particle health costs to the reduction of larger particles from gypsum manufacturers, and assumed savings from reducing energy consumption at cement kilns and gypsum plants that contradict federal data.

At the same time, the agency neglected to consider the full range of public health benefits from strict regulation of coal ash disposal. For example, while it considered the cost benefits of avoiding lung and bladder cancers associated with arsenic from coal ash groundwater contamination, it did not consider the benefits of avoiding other cancers and illnesses associated with heavy metal exposure such as heart disease, birth defects and nervous system disorders.

"It should come as no surprise that requiring safe landfills for coal ash is less costly than allowing ash dumps to contaminate water in hundreds of communities around the country," said Earthjustice Attorney Abigail Dillen. "What is surprising, in the face of this major public health threat, is that the books are being cooked to accommodate the coal industry."

U.S. EPA Removes Saccharin From List Of Hazardous Substances

December 21, 2010

Saccharin, an artificial sweetener in the form of a white crystalline powder, is 300 times sweeter than sucrose or sugar. It is typically an ingredient in diet soft drinks, juices, sweets, and chewing gum. Saccharin can also be found in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

In December, 2010, EPA amended its regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to remove saccharin and its salts from the lists of hazardous constituents and commercial chemical products which are hazardous wastes when discarded or intended to be discarded.

EPA also amended the regulations under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to remove saccharin and its salts from the list of hazardous substances.

In response to a petition submitted to EPA by the Calorie Control Council (CCC) to remove saccharin and its salts from RCRA and CERCLA, EPA will no longer list these substances as hazardous on the above mentioned lists.

EPA granted CCC's petition based on a review of the evaluations conducted by key public health agencies concerning the carcinogenic and other potential toxicological effects of saccharin and its salts. In addition, EPA assessed the waste generation and management information for saccharin and its salts, concluding that the wastes do not meet the criteria for hazardous waste regulations.