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
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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.
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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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