United States Off ice of Solid Waste
Environmental Protection and Emergency Response EPA/530-SW-89-046
AOencV Washington, DC 20460 June 1989
Office of Solid Waste '
SEPA Environmental
Fact Sheet
LAND DISPOSAL RESTRICTIONS -
SECOND THIRD
BACKGROUND
The 1984 Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) to the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) prohibit the continued
land disposal of untreated hazardous waste beyond specified dates,
unless a petitioner demonstrates that the hazardous constituents will
not migrate from the land disposal unit for as long as the waste
remains hazardous. The amendments require the Environmental
Protection Agency to: (1) rank all listed hazardous wastes so that
wastes with high intrinsic hazard and volume would be restricted from
land disposal first, and wastes with low intrinsic hazard and volume
would be dealt with last; (2) separate the list of wastes into a schedule
of thirds; and (3) set treatment standards for all hazardous wastes
that will diminish the toxicity of the wastes or reduce the likelihood of
the migration of their hazardous constituents.
EPA met the August 8, 1988, deadline for promulgation of treatment
standards for the First Third of the listed hazardous wastes. The
deadline for the Second Third of the listed hazardous wastes is June 8
1989.
ACTION
This rulemaking presents EPA's final approach to implementing the
land disposal restrictions for the Second Third hazardous wastes.
Specifically, for 34 Second Third hazardous wastes, this rule
establishes treatment standards based on treatment performance of
the Best Demonstrated Available Technology (BDAT) and specifies
when those standards will be effective.
Most of the treatment standards in this rule are expressed as
concentrations measured in the treatment residues. As such, any
technology not: otherwise prohibited (e.g., impermissable dilution) may
be used to meet the treatment standards. In some cases, due to
difficulties with analytical methods, a treatment method
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(incineration or carbon absorption) has been specified as the treatment
standard.
EPA's approach to waste analysis requires using both total constituent
concentration and extract from the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching
Procedure measures of the performance achievable by BDAT.
EPA is delaying the effective date of the following cyanide-containing
wastes until July 8, 1989: F006, F007. F008, and F009 (electroplating
wastes), and F011 and F012 (heat treating wastes). In addition, the
Agency is, in effect, establishing a bifurcated treatment standard for
F011 and F012 wastes: between July 8 and December 8, 1989, the
treatment standard is 590 mg/kg for total cyanide and 30 mg/kg for
amenable cyanide: after December 8, 1989, it is 110 mg/kg for total cya-
nide and 9.1 mg/kg for amenable cyanide. EPA is delaying these effec-
tive dates to allow time for facilities to adjust existing cyanide treatment
processes to operate more efficiently.
Second Third wastes for which standards are not proposed will be sub-
ject to the "soft hammer" provisions of RCRA, which will allow continued
land disposal until May 8, 1990, if certain conditions are met. In
addition, this rule determines the treatment standards for 19 First Third
wastes that are currently subject to the "soft hammer" provisions, 14
Third TTiird wastes, and 4 "Newly Listed" wastes. EPA is also promulga-
ting prohibitions and effective dates for wastes that are currently being
disposed of by means of underground injection.
CONTACT
For further information or to order a copy of the Federal Register notice,
please contact the RCRA Hotline Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to
7:30 p.m. EST. Tlie national toll-free number is (800) 424-9346: in
Washington, D.C., the number is (202) 382-3000.
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