United States            solid Waste and
                                                             EPA/530-SW-90-070A

                    Office of Solid Waste             "         '          '	•	
v°/EPA        Environmental
                    Fact Sheet
                    AGENCY RELEASES REPORT TO
                    CONGRESS ON SPECIAL WASTES
                    FROM MINERAL PROCESSING

       BACKGROUND
       Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), mining
       wastes from the extraction, beneficiation, and processing of ores and
       minerals are solid wastes. RCRA Section 3001(b)(3), the "Bevill
       Amendment," temporarily excludes these wastes from regulation as
       RCRA hazardous wastes under Subtitle C until the Environmental
       Protection Agency (EPA) completes a Report to Congress assessing the
       wastes, followed by a regulatory determination within six months.

       In 1985, EPA completed a report to Congress on extraction and
       beneficiation wastes and determined in 1986 that regulation as
       hazardous waste was not warranted. The Agency committed to
       developing a mining waste management program under Subtitle D. As
       part of this program development effort, the Agency recently released
       for comment a Strawinan II draft approach to a mining waste
       management program.

       Under a 1988 Court Order, the Agency was directed to narrow the
       scope of mineral processing wastes covered by the Bevill exclusion
       before completing a Report to Congress on processing wastes. As a
       result, final rules published in September 1989 and January 1990
       defined "high volume" and "low hazard" criteria and applied these
       criteria to processing wastes to determine which wastes remained
       within the Bevill exclusion. In particular, for high volume wastes the
       criteria used volumetric cutoffs of 45,000 metric tons per year per
       facility for nonliquid wastes and 1,000,000 metric tons per year per
       facility for liquid wastes.  For low hazard wastes, the criteria used pH
       levels between 1 and 13.5 and the synthetic precipitation leaching
       procedure. Out of more than a hundred possible mineral processing
      waste streams, 20 specific waste streams have been retained within the
      Bevill exclusion. These 20 wastes are the subject of this Report to
      Congress, and are listed in Attachment A.

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  ACTION
  EPA is releasing a Report to Congress on 20 mineral processing
  wastes generated by 91 facilities in 29 States, representing 12 mineral
  commodity sectors. The Report characterizes and presents flndincs for
  each waste; and solicits comments on the findings        nnaings tor
    st   Boh              0 decision-m*king approaches for these
 wastes. Both approaches have a series of three questions in common:

   0 What are the risks and damages associated with the waste?
    Is additional regulation needed?
   0 What are the costs and impacts of more stringent regulatory
    controls (comparing regulation under Subtitle D, full regulation
    under Subtitle C, or a flexible Subtitle C regulation using the
    authority of RCRA Section 3004(x))?

 Under the first approach, the Agency found that 16 of these wastes
 would be regulated under Subtitle D. For the remaining four wastes
 n n ^T7 f°Td ^ re^ulation under Subtitle C or D would depend
 on whether full or flexible Subtitle C requirements were considered:

  ° Process wastewater from hydrofluoric acid production-
    Calcium sulfate wastewater treatment plant sludge from primary
    copper processing;                                   *      y
  0 Slag from primary lead processing; and
  0 Chloride process waste solids from titanium tetrachloride
   production.

Tlie second approach adds consideration of impacts on development
of State programs for mining and mineral processing wastes
Regulating special wastes from mineral processing under the Subtitle
        ^aStG Pr0gram may facmtate devel°P™nt and maintenance
         State programs.
Under this second approach, all 20 wastes would be considered for
[h!? tt  £T Cr SubUtle D" However- this approach would require
that the States, with support from EPA, act in the short-term to
address the most immediate problems posed by these wastes. If these
steps are not taken and/or State actions do not result in adequate
^ the AgCnCy WOUld rec°nslder
      S buti          e  CnCy WOU  rec°nslder reg"lating them
                              -2-

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Under both approaches, the Agency is proposing to ban the use of
elemental phosphorus slag in construction and/or land reclamation
due to radioactivity levels in the slag. The Agency is soliciting
comment on the appropriate regulatory language and on the
implementation of such a ban.

CONTACT
For more information or to receive a copy of the Federal Register
notice, please contact the RCRA Hotline, Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to
7:30 p.m., EST. The national toll-free number is (800) 424-9346; for
the hearing impaired, it is TDD (800) 553-7672. In Washington, DC
the number is (202) 382-3000 or TDD (202) 475-9652.

Copies of documents applicable to this proposal may be obtained by
writing: RCRA Information Center (RIC), U.S.  Environmental
Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste (OS-305), 401 M Street SW
Washington, DC 20460.
                             -3-

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                   ATTACHMENT A

      COMMODITY SECTORS AND WASTES
  COVERED IN THE REPORT TO CONGRESS ON
SPECIAL WASTES FROM MINERAL PROCESSING
r	,—	
        Alumina
        Red and brown muds from bauxite

        Chromium (sodium chromate/dichromate)
        Treated residue from roasting/leaching of chrome ore

        Coal Gas
        Gasifer ash from coal gasification
        Process wastewater from coal gasification

        Copper
        Slag from primary processing
        Calcium sulfate wastewater treatment plant
         sludge from primary processing
        Slag tailings from primary processing

        Elemental Phosphorus
        Slag from primary production

        Ferrous Metals (iron and carbon steel)
        Iron blast furnace air pollution control dust/sludge
        Iron blast furnace slag
        Basic oxygen furnace and open hearth furnace
         air pollution control dust/sludge
        Basic oxygen furnace and open hearth furnace slag

        Hydrofluoric Acid
        Fluorogypsum
        Process wastewater

        Lead
        Slag from primary processing

        Magnesium
       Process wastewater from primary magnesium
         processing by the anhydrous process

       Phosphoric Acid
       Phosphogypsum
       Process Wastewater

       Titanium Tetrachloride
       Chi  ide process waste solids

       Zinc
       Slag from primary processing

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