United States
Environmental Protection
Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response
EPA530-F-95-017
August 1995
Office of Solid Waste
&EPA Environmental
Fact Sheet
EPA Proposes Hazardous Waste
Regulations Associated
with Clean Water Act Treatment
Equivalency, Treatment Standards
for Wood Preserving Wastes, and
Toxicity Characteristic Metal Wastes
This proposal presents an integrated approach to the problem of
potential cross-media transfers of contaminants. It also proposes
innovative approaches for regulating certain wastes and for speeding
the state authorization process.
Background
In the 1984 Hazardous and Solid
Waste Amendments (HSWA) of the
Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA), Congress
specified that land disposal of
hazardous waste is prohibited
unless the waste meets treatment
standards established by EPA.
HSWA requires that treatment
standards must substantially
diminish the toxicity or mobility of
hazardous waste, so that short
and long term threats to human
health and the environment are
minimized. Furthermore, HSWA
defined land disposal to include,
among other things, placement of
wastes in surface impoundments.
In a final rule issued or* May 8,
1990, EPA allowed certain
hazardous wastes, namely
characteristic wastes, to be diluted
rather than treated to meet the
Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR)
treatment standard when they
were managed in surface
impoundments regulated by thfe
Clean Water Act (CWA). This
approach was taken in order to
harmonize the requirements of
RCRA and CWA.
EPA was sued on the rule. In
1992, the court held that these
diluted wastes may be placed in a
surface impoundment only if the
underlying hazardous constituents
in the waste are treated to the
same extent as they would be
under RCRA. As a result of the
court decision, EPA entered into a
settlement agreement which
requires EPA to examine whether
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treatment in a CWA (or CWA-
equivalent) wastewater treatment
surface impoundment is
equivalent to treatment under
RCRA LDR requirements. In
March 1995, EPA proposed the
Phase III rule which addressed
part of the equivalency question
by proposing treatment standards
for constituents that may exit the
surface impoundments into
surface waters. Today's proposed
rule (Phase IV) further addresses
the equivalency issue. It presents
options to control constituent
releases from the surface
impoundments through air
emissions, leaks, and sludges.
The proposal includes an option to
foreg;o any new regulations.
Phase IV is also subject to a
proposed consent decree that
requires EPA to set treatment
standards for a different set of
hazardous wastes, known as
newly listed and identified wastes.
Action Being Taken
As required by the settlement
agreement, EPA's proposal
describes in detail regulations to
limit potential releases from CWA
surface impoundments of
constituents contained in diluted
characteristic wastes. These
releases might be to ground water
through leakage or from disposal
of impoundment sludges, or to the
air through emissions. If releases
are excessive, E/PA is concerned
that the surface impoundments
are not conducting bona fide
treatment, but instead are
permanently disposing untreated
wastes. The proposal presents
three options for addressing these
potential cross-media transfers.
Option 1 would rely on existing
and future federal and state
regulations. There may, however,
be gaps in this approach in that
these programs may not cover all
the facilities or waste constituents
at issue. Option 2, likewise, would
defer to existing programs, but
also establish new risk-based LDR
regulations to fill the gaps. Option
3 would require that facilities
comply with LDR treatment
standards before placing their
wastes in the wastewater
treatment surface impoundments.
In a separate section of the rule,
EPA proposes treatment standards
for the newly listed and identified
wastes. These include wastes from
wood preserving operations and
wastes that are characteristicly
hazardous because of toxic metals
in them. The treatment standards
are proposed at the Universal
Treatment Standard (UTS) levels
for a number of organic and metal
constituents.
In addition, Phase IV addresses an
issue which was raised in the
Phase III proposed rule. Phase III
discussed approaches for
identifying underlying hazardous
constituents that are not amenable
to biological treatment and
banning them from wastewater
treatment systems. Phase IV
proposes not to ban such wastes,
deeming it unnecessary and
technically difficult.
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The Phase IV rule proposes several
improvements to existing RCRA
regulations in different areas. EPA
considers an industry-wide,
generic variance from the
definition of solid waste for certain
wood preserving wastewaters.
Additionally, Phase IV proposes to
clean up LDR regulatory language
that is outdated, confusing, or
unnecessary. And finally, the
proposal contains a streamlined
process for state authorization for
some provisions of the rule.
For More Information
The Federal Register Notice and
this Fact Sheet are available in
electronic format on the Internet
through the EPA Public Access
Server at gopher.epa.gov. For the
text: of the FR Notice, choose:
Rules, Regulations, and
Legislation; then Waste Programs/
EPA Waste Information-GPO;
finally, Year/Month/Day. This
fact sheet is available under: EPA
Offices and Regions/Office of Solid
Waste and Emergency Response/
Office of Solid Waste/Hazardous
Waste.
For additional information, or to
order paper or disk copies of the
Federal Register Notice, call the
RCRA Hotline at (800) 424-9346,
or TDD (800) 553-7672 for the
hearing impaired. The RCRA
Hotline is open Monday-Friday,
8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Eastern
Standard Time.
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