r/EPA
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Solid Waste and
Emergency Response
(5305W)
EPA530-F-98-029
November 1998
www.epa.gov/osw
Office of Solid Waste
Environmental
Fact Sheet
Final HWIR-MEDIA Rule
What is the HWIR-media rule?
The HWIR-media rule is a final regulation
that is part of President Clinton's March 1994
environmental regulatory reform initiative.
The rule sets new requirements under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA) for hazardous remediation wastes
that are treated, stored, or disposed of during
cleanup actions. Specifically, the rule
Makes permits for treating, storing, and
disposing of hazardous remediation
wastes faster and easier to obtain
Provides that obtaining these permits will
not subject the owner and/or operator to
facility-wide corrective action
Creates a new kind of unit called a
"staging pile" that allows more flexibility
in temporarily storing remediation waste
during cleanup
Excludes dredged materials from RCRA
Subtitle C if they are managed under an
appropriate permit under the Marine
Protection, Research and Protection Act
or the Clean Water Act.
Makes it faster and easier for States to
receive authorization when they update
their RCRA programs to incorporate revi-
sions to the Federal RCRA regulations.
What is the background for this
rule?
On April 29, 1996, EPA proposed new regu-
latory provisions entitled "Requirements for
Management of Hazardous Contaminated
Media" (61 FR 18780). That proposal, also
known as the "Hazardous Waste Identifica-
tion Rule for Contaminated Media" (or
HWIR-media), included a broad range of po-
tential reforms. Among those reforms, EPA
proposed options for excluding contaminated
media and other remediation wastes from
Subtitle C. For the reasons described in the
following paragraph, EPA is not finalizing
those broad reforms in the HWIR-media final
rule, but instead is finalizing only the reforms
listed at left. EPA has already finalized the
1996 proposed provisions for standards for
hazardous soils. These provisions were in the
May 26, 1998, Phase IV final rule (63 FR
28556).
Although EPA conducted a lengthy
outreach process before developing the
HWIR-media proposal and tried to balance
the concerns and interests of various stake-
holder groups, it is clear after reviewing pub-
lic comment on the proposal that stakeholders
have fundamental disagreements on many
remediation waste management issues. EPA
has concluded that pursuing comprehensive
regulatory reform would be time- and
re source-intensive and would most likely re-
sult in a rule that would provoke additional
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years of litigation and associated uncertainty.
This uncertainty would be detrimental to the
program and would have a negative effect on
ongoing and future cleanups. Therefore, EPA
is withdrawing the proposed options for broad
reforms—such as those that exempted
remediation wastes from Subtitle C—and is,
instead, finalizing only those reforms listed.
One of the 1996 HWIR-media options pro-
posed was the withdrawal of the Corrective
Action Management Unit (CAMU) rule be-
cause its flexibility would be replaced with
the proposed broad reforms. However,
because EPA is not finalizing those broad
reforms, the CAMU rule will be retained as it
currently exists in 40 CFR Section 264.552
Does the HWIR-media rule apply
new mandatory requirements?
No. Adoption of the requirements of this
rule is optional for authorized state RCRA
programs because these requirements are less
stringent then the existing requirements.
Even after these new regulations are adopted
and authorized for state programs, facilities
may choose not to take advantage of them
and may choose, instead, to comply with the
traditional requirements for hazardous waste
management.
Is EPA changing policies that
currently provide flexibility for
remediation waste management?
No. Existing areas of flexibility for the
management of hazardous remediation waste
such as the "contained-in" and "area of con-
tamination" policies and site-specific land
disposal restrictions treatability variances
continue to be available.
Make site cleanup faster and easier
and thus
Provide increased protection to human
health and the environment.
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. The notice is available
http://www.epa.gov/rules, regulations, and
legislation. This fact sheet and other docu-
ments related to this rule are available under
"EPA Offices and Regions." For additional
information or to order paper copies of any
documents, call the RCRA Hotline. Callers
within the Washington Metropolitan Area
must dial 703-412-9810 or TDD 703-412-3323
(hearing impaired). Long-distance callers
may call 1-800-424-9346 or TDD 1-800-553-
7672. The RCRA Hotline operates weekdays,
9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Write to the RCRA In-
formation Center (5305W), US EPA, 401 M
Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460.
What impacts does EPA expect the
HWIR-media rule to have?
EPA anticipates that the HWIR-media
rule will
Eliminate existing regulatory disin-
centives to remediation
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