Regional Public Meetings
on the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976
February 15 and 16, 1977
Kansas City, Missouri
EPA Region VII
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REGIONAL PUBLIC MEETINGS ON RCRA
Meeting
Date
Feb 15,16
Feb 17,18
Feb 23
Feb 23,24
Feb 25
Feb 26
Feb 28,
March 1
March 3
March 4
Mar 8,9
Mar 10,11
Mar 17,18
Mar 21,22
Meeting
Place
Kansas City,
Missouri
Richmond,
New York,
City
Atlanta,
Georgia
Worcester,
Massachusetts
Concord,
New Hampshire
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania
Denver,
Colorado
Salt Lake City,
Utah
Dallas, Texas
San Francisco,
California
Seattle,
Washington
Chicago,
Illinois
Facility
Hilton Inn Plaza
45th & Main
Colony House
American City
Squire,
52nd & 7th Av
Sheraton-Biltmore
Hotel, 817 W.
Peachtree N.E.
Sheraton-
Lincoln Inn
Ramada Inn
William Penn
Hotel
Main Library
1357 Broadway
Hilton Hotel
150 W. South
Fifth Street
First Int'l Bldg
(29th Floor)
1201 Elm St
Holiday Inn
Union Square
480 Sutter
Seattle Center
O'Hare Holiday
Inn (Kennedy
Expressway)
Time
Evening Feb 15,
morning Feb 16
Evening Feb 17,
Day, 9 am-3 pm
evening 4-7 pm
Evening Feb 23,
8:30 am Feb 24
1 pm
1 pm
Evening Feb 28,
morning Mar 1
8:30 am-
12:30 noon
8:30 am-
12:30 noon
Evening Mar 8,
morning Mar 9
Evening Mar 10,
8 am Mar 11,
Evening Mar 17,
All day Mar 18
Evening Mar 21,
all day Mar 22
Sponsoring
EPA Office
Region VII
(Kansas City)
Region III
Region II
(New York City)
Region IV
(Atlanta)
Region I
(Boston)
Region I
(Boston)
Region HI
(Philadelphia)
Region VIII
(Denver)
Region VIII
(Denver)
Region VI
(Dallas)
Region IX
(San Francisco)
Region X
(Seattle)
Region V
(Chicago)
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TRANSCRIPT
REGIONAL PUBLIC MEETINGS ON THE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT of 1976
February 15 and 16, 1977, Kansas City, Mo.
These meetings were sponsored by EPA Region VII,
and the proceedings (SW-llp) are reproduced entirely as transcribed
by the official reporter, with handwritten corrections
by the Office of Solid Waste
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1977
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An environmental protection publication (SW-llp) in the solid waste management series.
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PUBLIC DISCUSSION SESSION
ON THE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION
&
RECOVERY ACT
*Public Law 94-580*
Evening Session
February 15, 1977
Hilton Plaza Inn
45th & Main Street
Kansas City, Missouri
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,2 PUBLIC QUESTIONERS:
13
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PANEL MEMBERS: PAGE
Morri s G. Tucker 3
Charles V. Wright 5
Donald A. Townley 10
H. Lanier Hickman 13
Walter W. Kovalick 28
H. Lanier Hickman 51
Stephen A. Lingle 66
H. Lanier Hickman 85
Esther Woodward 23
-TJ..,., „,
^J*V/Mr
Dee Jotrieir- 25
J. C. Wright 38
Bill Shteitte 44
Joe Elsen 46
Woodrow 6«HH« 62
i> jj,
Woodrow el*2e 78
J. C. Wright 79
Elsie Rose 83
Dee -Joiner 96
Esther Woodward 99
Woodrow Curse. 102
Be«i Rochester 106
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2A
1 I N D JE X (cont'd.)
2 PUBLIC QUESTIONERS: PAGE
3 J. C. Wright 110
4 Debbie Smith Ill
5 Gene Fairchild 117
6 Elsie Rose 122
7 Mrs. Edward Shialeyv. <. 128
Woo drow-&&?*«• 133
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1 PROCEEDINGS,
2 MR. TUCKER: I would like to call this
3 public discussion meeting on Resource Conservation
4 and Recovery Act to order.
5 My name is Morris Tucker. I head up
6 the Waste Management Section for EPA Region VII.
7 I would first like to introduce the
8 speakers on our program tonight. To my far left is
' Lannie Hickman. He is Director of our Management and
1° Information Staff, Office Solid Waste, Washington,
'1 D.C. Next to him is Walt Kovalick who is Chief of our
faWlr&Hj
12 Guidelines Branch, Hood of thio Waste Division,
13 Washington, D.C., Office of Solid Waste.
14 To my immediate right is Don Townley,
15 and Don is our Acting Deputy Regional Administrator
16 for EPA Region VII. Next to Don is Chuck Wright our
17 Acting Regional Administrator, EPA Region VII. On my
'8 far right is Steve Lingle. Steve is Chief of the
1' Technology and Marketing Branch, Resource Recovery
20 Division, Office of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C.
21 We have some state personnel in the
22 audience tonight that I would like to introduce if we
23 can find them. Bill .Jhieldj is here from the State
24 of Nebraska. Bill. From the State of Missouri is
&Mli
" Joe Schilling. Joe is over there. Are there any more
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1 state people here tonight?
2 (No response.)
3 MR. TUCKER: O.K. There will be some
4 additional people coming for the meeting tomorrow
5 morning.
6 Back at our registration desk, the
7 lovely ladies that helped us out is our Division
8 Secretary Jean Lee and Grace Ancona. If you need any
9 help on anything, please let them know.
10 I hope that everyone has either pre-
11 submitted or filled out a registration card when you
12 came in. This tells us who would like to make a
13 statement at the meeting or submit a written statement
14 for the official transcript. Also, this will comprise
15 our mailing list for those to receive copies of the
16 transcript.
17 Now we have a court reporter and the
18 proceedings are being recorded verbatim. To assist us
19 in this effort, I ask that anyone with a question to
20 ask please step to the floor microphone and clearly
2i give your name and your organization or affiliation.
22 Now we will permit questions during the
23 individual presentations that are pertinent to that
24 very subject, but if you will--if you do have prepared
25 comments or a statement that you would like to make,
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1 please hold that to the end session, which was on the
2 program as open discussion.
3 With those few housekeeping remarks,
4 I would like to turn the program over to Charles
5 Wright, our Acting Regional Administrator who will
6 give us a welcome amongst other things. Chuck.
7 MR. WRIGHT: Thanks, Morris. Good
8 evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to
9 welcome you. They said that you can be suspicious of
10 a person when they say one of three things; either
11 the check is in the mail, or your car will be ready
12 tomorrow or I am here from the Government to help you.
13 When I walked up in front of the
14 building like many of you, I saw a sign out there that
15 said. "Welcome ESPA." I came down here and walked
16 over to the registration desk and there was ESPA, sure
17 enough, and I said, "What does ESPA mean?" I was
18 thinking, you know, that they would catch on that they
19 had made a mistake. They said, "That is the Exhaust
20 Systems Professional Association."
21 I walked over here like you did and
22 then Morris introduced me as Acting RA and Don as
23 Acting Deputy, and I am sure you are thoroughly
24 confused about where you are and who you are talking
25 to.
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1 We didn't have that as our purpose,
2 though, this evening, believe me. We had two: The
3 first will be to try to explain at least the high-
4 lights of the Resource Conservation Recovery Act.
5 And Don and the others will explain this, at Least
6 the major points tonight.
1 I only want to say that this is the
8 first comprehensive Federal legislation for residual
9 waste management that we have had. Technically, this
10 is an amendment to the 1965 Act; but, in fact, it is
11 a complete replacement of the provision of the Act
12 and it does include hazardous waste management, a
13 badly needed authority, and it does have enforcement
14 authority.
15 The second purpose that we have, though,
16 and perhaps the most important one to us, is that we
17 are actively soliciting public participation in the
18 rule making process. The Act actually requires this
19 in Section 7004. So do most other environmental acts
20 at this time.
21 In brief what this means is that those
22 who pay for it are those who, in fact, have a right
23 to have something to say about how the rule making is
24 carried on and what rules are to be prepared. All
25 comers are welcome on this.
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1 We have depended increasingly on this
2 public participation in our rule making process as
3 we have matured into an agency,and we find that it has
4 paid off. It has helped us a great deal to sort out
5 many of the conflicts and we believe it has helped
6 us to get support which we badly need in the environ-
7 mental programs and will continue to need.
8 All environmental law is controversial,
9 by its very nature; but it impacts nearly every person,
10 every group and every business interest in the country.
11 As taxpayers you pay the bills and you also gain
12 protection from these regulations that result from
13 environmental protection. It is your right to express
14 yourself of any concerns you may have and any
15 recommendations you have as to what should be covered
16 and how it should be covered in drafting and perfecting
17 these regulations and guidelines.
18 Some of you have indicated that you
19 wanted to make statements and/or you wanted to submit
20 written papers. We will welcome these and they will
21 be entered into the transcript of this meeting.
22 Perhaps after our quick and dirty
23 review here this afternoon of the major provisions of
24 the Act, more of you will feel like making statements
25 and we hope that you do this.
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1 This will not be your only opportunity
2 to have an input into the rule making under this law.
3 It is just the first. There will be many others as
4 all of the regulatory starts are mandated by this
5 act, and there are quite a number with the exception
6 of some of the minor and technical amendments, and
7 we will solicit comment through the public participat-
8 ion process.
9 These will include things like
10 regulations, criteria, guidelines, standards, things
'l of this sort, with some few exceptions of a minor
12 nature.
13 Most, if not all of these, will be
14 published in the Federal Register and there will be
15 a request for comment through the Federal Register and
16 there will be a comment period of 30 to 60 days or
17 longer under very controversial provisions.
19 I assure you that these comments are
19 reviewed and they are seriously considered. The public
20 comments have been responsible for some substantial
21 revisions of regulatory preparation in the recent past
22 in other laws. The process may seem burdensome, but
23 it does offer the best way that we have to consider
24 all aspects, good and bad, of proposals that affect
25 so many different segments of the American society.
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1 This is really one of the principal
2 reasons why we are having one of our meetings in the
3 evening and one in the daytime; so that people do have
4 an opportunity to attend regardless of their working
5 hours.
6 We are looking forward with a great
7 deal of interest to your responses during the open
8 discussion period and I hope that we will have a
9 chance to talk to you personally, also, after the
10 meeting. Thank you.
11 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Chuck. I
12 notice one additional state person just entered the
E%f*ff
13 room, Dr. Joe^Agficr, State of Missouri. Will you
14 stand, Joe?
15 Next on the program is we have asked
16 for an overview of our new Resource Conservation and
17 Recovery Act. And we thought it only appropriate to
18 present this overview that we call on a person that
19 for many years was the Chief Garbage Man for EPA
20 Region VII. Don Townley has not always had an exalted
21 title of Acting Deputy RA. Prior to that he was our
22 Division Director for the program that included our
23 solid waste program. And even prior to that, dating
24 back a number of years, he was the Regional Solid
25 Waste Representative. So he has a long history in this
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1 area, and we will ask him for a few words now. Don.
2 MR. TOWNLEY: I don't know whether to
3 thank you or not, Morris.
4 It is certainly good, though, to be
5 back in the garbage and trash business after being
6 gone a number of years.
7 If I could go off the record, I would
8 like to say hello to a lot of old garbage buddies
9 that I have run into this evening for the first time
10 in quite a while. Bud and Marie and Jack, Paul, Ed,
11 feels good to be back with you again.
12 As has been previously mentioned, the
13 first serious Federal attempt to get into the solid
14 waste business was by the Act passed in 1965. Early
15 in 1966, the Public Health Service and the state
16 departments of health began implementing that Act.
17 Of course, in 1970, the Federal part went to EPA, and
18 subsequently the state health departments were reorgan-
19 ized, but the implementation of this Solid Waste Act
20 went along real rapidly until, at the present time,
21 the four states of Region VII, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas
22 and Missouri, have very fine solid waste programs.
23 But early in this implementation period
24 we learned that the Act had a big gap in it, as every-
25 body knows. Many of the serious solid waste problems
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1 were not covered by the Act. Let me give you three
2 or four examples.
3 A guy called me one day and he said,
4 "Hey, Don, I know where there are 2,000 gallons of
5 -. inetic liquid waste being disposed of along the river
6 banks. Something ought to be done about that." In
7 this metropolitan area—another example--a private
8 individual developed an approved hazardous waste
9 material disposal facility, properly designed,
10 engineered. The plan was approved. The construction
11 was approved. The guy said, "Well, I am ready for
12 that hazardous material." About a month or so later
13 he called us and he said, "Hey, where is the hazardous
14 material that is produced in this metro area?" It
15 wasn't getting to that facility.
'* Another example—one of the major
17 industries in the eastern part of the Region contracted
18 with a company to dispose of its liquid waste, an
19 out-of-town company. That company came in faithfully
20 each week with a tank truck, picked up the material,
21 hauled it a few miles out of town, pulled off the main
22 road onto a side road and unceremoniously dumped this
23 stuff right there on the ground. Why didn't somebody
24 do something about it? I am very happy to tell you
25 that this new act, the Resource Conservation and
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1 Recovery Act, Public Law 94-580, closes the gap.
2 This ts the Act that we have been
3 waiting for, you and me. A word of caution of here,
4 though; a few years ago one of our state agencies
5 was working hard to pass the Air Pollution Act.
6 A representative of a number of home owner associations
7 was working very hard to get this Act passed. The
8 day the Governor signed the Act, he called me~-I was
9 working with him. He called me and said, "Hey, Don,
10 we got this Air Pollution Act passed and the air
11 pollution problems solved."
12 I said, "What do you mean?" He said,
13 "The Act is passed." I said, "Brother, the work has
14 just begun." The easy part was over. Now we have
15 a new Act which I believe will do what we know should
16 be done. I hope that by the end of this evening's
17 discussion that you people are as enthusiastic about
18 this new Act as I am.
19 But don't forget, the big job is before
20 you. If this law is to be properly implemented, you
21 must participate in developing feasible, reasonable,
22 workable regulations. You must provide the support
23 necessary for your state agencies to develop a program.
24 I say the challenge lies before us.
25 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Don. I can't
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1 believe that both Don Townley and Chuck Wright have
2 kept us on schedule. I think this should be in the
3 transcript.
4 Well, as I indicated, Don is the
5 father of garbage in Region VII, but our next speaker
6 is probably one of the godfathers of the overall
7 Federal program in solid waste management. He was
8 involved from its—the first day of implementation,
9 back in 1965, and was responsible for hiring the
10 first staff members--five people, 10 people, whatever
11 it was--that started the program in that year.
^2 So we had him with us on the program
13 as it turns out three times tonight. We are all
14 going to get tired of him, but let's ask Lannie Hickman
'5 to give his first presentation, which is on training,
16 public information and the public participation
17 aspects of the law. Lannie?
18 MR. HICKMAN: Ibis law, RCRA, as we
19 refer to it in Washington--there are all sorts of
20 acronyms and letters and it is a trademark of being
21 a bureaucrat, being able to use those letters.
22 RCRA, as Don said, does offer this
23 opportunity for those of us who are concerned with
24 solid waste management to start to attack some of the
25 major problems that we have to deal with.
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1 This law has two basic purposes; one,
2 to help the environment and two, to reserve as many
3 natural resources as we can through Resource Conservat-
4 ion and Recovery Measures. The law has some unique
5 characteristics. As we go through them tonight we
6 are going to give you an awful lot of information in
7 a very short period of time. We have provided some
8 handouts and seme materials for you. There is no way
9 that you are going to get all of this tonight.
10 Everytime we do this we learn some-
11 thing. Everytime I talk about the law I learn some-
12 thing new.
13 Now, how is this going to be achieved?
'4 Well, it provides a variety of mechanisms within the
15 law to help meet the objectives of helping environmenta
16 protection and resource conservation. Technical and
17 financial assistance, manpower—it prohibits future
18 open dumping. It sets a frontier of October, 1983,
19 when the practice of open dumping of solid waste will
20 cease.
21 Now this is a unique characteristic of
22 this law. One of the key provisions is written into
23 parts of the law. Now it doesn't mean the Feds will
24 do this. A contraire. It is exactly the opposite.
25 It is designed to help state and local governments put
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1 together programs that will be directed toward meeting
2 their needs of solid waste management through three
3 major thrusts: improper land disposal, improper
4 hazardous waste management, and a lack of aggressive
5 resource conservation through Resource Recovery Pro-
6 grams.
7 This is the major thrust of this law.
8 It provides many ways for us to develop guidelines
9 which can be used by state and local governments to
10 improve their practices. It provides us in Resource
11 and Development Authorities to assist in developing
12 new systems, new technology for state and local
13 governments and industry to use. It provides Federal,
14 state, local and industry partnership in the materials
15 needed for recovery.
16 Probably this area more than any other
17 area is where industry has to be intimately involved
18 because of the complexities of the institutional
19 and financial arrangements necessary to build these
20 blind boxes to make garbage go away.
21 It has provisions to educate the
22 public, and part of what we are doing tonight is to
23 educate the public so that you can help us implement
24 your law. This is the whole thrust of this public
25 participation thing, a big neutral ground to overcome
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1 some of the criticisms of the past environmental
2 laws which has enacted and implemented little or no
3 consideration as to the impact at the state and local
4 level.
5 This law is designed to serve you and
6 it is mandated to have you involved in its implementa-
7 tion.
8 Now let's talk about public participat-
9 ion and some of the provisions related to this. Why
10 is there such a big deal on the intent of providing
11 information and disseminating information to the
12 public? It is very simple. Only through an under-
13 standing of the problems to promote the understanding
14 of the public can you support those things that are
15 necessary for your state law or government to solve
16 their problems.
17 You ultimately have to vote the bond
18 issues. You ultimately have to support the enforcement
19 of regulations. Unless the public understands the
20 problems and the alternatives available to solve the
21 problems—until then, decisions will not be made.
22 You will be the loser through your own pocketbooks.
23 We as taxpayers will be losers. So be informed is
24 the first step in order to support new and improved
25 solid waste management.
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1 The law provides for mechanisms for
2 us to involve you through a variety of procedures.
3 It provides a way for us to coordinate with the
4 states in the dissemination of the information and
5 data. It allows us to develop a data base by which
6 we can measure change and measure environmental health
7 effects from improper practices and from improved
8 practices.
9 It provides a mechanism for us to
10 disseminate information in a rapid manner. To these
11 issues, state and local government and individuals,
12 in the Public Participation Provisions 8003, we have
13 identified major categories which represent the public.
14 What is the public? We don't really know what the
15 public is.
16 In Washington, the public is represented
17 by a variety of organized interest groups, public
18 interest groups referred to in the Washington vernaculai
19 as pigs. Public Interest, they don't mind being
20 called that, either, as long as we smile when we say
21 it.
22 As in a consumer environmental and
23 neighborhood groups, these represent the public; trade,
24 manufacturing and labor residents—Washington is floodec
25 with representatives from the various manufacturing
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1 organizations, public health, scientific and profession
2 al societies and other governmental and university
3 associations. All these are represented usually in
4 some sort of a formal way through organizations, but
5 the public itself is not. That is why we are meeting
6 at night rather than in the middle of the day, so the
7 private citizen can come. We want you to communicate
8 with us on the implementation of this law.
9 Section 7004 provides a mechanism for
10 public participation to petition for change in any
11 rules and regulations. Our procedure that the agency
12 has promulgated or is developing and allows the public
13 to file, and we have to write our set of regulations
14 for you to do this. It tells you how you cart come
15 into the system and say, "I don't like your regulations
16 on some particular aspect of hazardous waste. I think
17 it ought to be changed." Then we have to meet and
18 show cause why we should or should not change it,
19 you know, before judicial review procedures.
20 It provides for participation, as Chuck
21 has mentioned, in writing the regulations and guide-
22 lines; but more significant, perhaps, it also requires
23 us to sit with you before we develop our plans to
24 carry on the programs.that the law requires. How
25 this will be done we don't know yet.
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1 The regulatory setting procedure Is
2 relatively simple to get Involvement of the public
3 sector. How we get you involved in the planning
4 sector to develop where we are going to go we don't
5 quite understand yet, but we are going to find a way
6 to do it.
7 It provides in the law for us to get
8 you involved in various ways. O.K.
9 Section 7004 provides for a variety
10 of other provisions for the public to be involved,
11 published guidelines for how you can participate with
12 us. We will tell you how you can get involved in
13 planning and implementation of the law. These will
14 be coming out. To have any real value they have got
IS to come out in the next six or nine months, and we
16 are going to hold public hearings on these guidelines
17 and get feedback and find out the best way that the
18 public can get involved.
19 To be involved is going to cost you time
20 and money. There is no way you can avoid that because
21 there is no mechanism by which we can provide meaning-
22 ful dialogue unless it is sometimes eyeball to eyeball,
23 such as this. It took your time tonight. It also
24 took your money because we all flew out here from
25 Washington and we rented this room. It is not cheap.
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1 Protecting the environment is not
2 cheap. It is going to cost money. It is going to
3 cost time. It is going to cost committment on the
4 parts of everybody that is involved. But the law is
5 designed to give you an avenue to the agency, both
5 in the regional offices and at headquarters, to see
7 that the law is implemented the way you want it.
8 Now we are going to use meetings such
9 as this, which is sort of a briefing. We are going
10 to have formal public hearings on our regulations and
11 guidelines. The law requires it--to hold public
12 hearings. We will have a variety of workshops with
13 emphasis on ways to try to communicate with the public.
14 We will have review groups, formal
15 review groups, that will sit with us all during the
16 development of our regulations and guidelines to give
17 us advice and guidance on the nature on how those
18 regulations should be written. We will have a variety
19 of public education programs.
20 Our office since the beginning in
2i 1965 has been strongly committed towards the dissemina-
22 tion of information through the media. We have
23 probably the last 10 years published some 800 publicat-
24 ions on a variety of different solid waste management
25 problems. To some degree it is sort of self-supporting
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1 You know, you can generate a. lot of reports. Some
2 of it gets used. Some of It gets thrown away. And
3 that is solid waste, you know. It is self-supporting,
4 and that is all right.
5 I threw something every day away to
6 protect my job, so it is O.K. I used to be in the
7 water pollution business and it was a lot more easy
8 to do it then.
9 We also have a variety of interest
10 group programs with organizations on—they represent
11 various interest groups—to provide a variety of
training grants. I am tired tonight.
13 It goes on. International City
Managers Association has programs with us. American
Public Works Associations has programs with us. This
16 is just some. The American Society of Civil Engineers
17 has programs with us. Some universities. We can
communicate and get feedback from those various
19 interests and groups.
20 Now we have a manpower development
provision in this law which tells us to do two things,
22 essentially: One to go out and assess the needs of
23 manpower for solid waste management to meet the
24 requirements of the law; and two, to develop training
25 programs through the grant mechanism to help develop
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1 that manpower at the state and local level. These
2 are the basic provisions of the manpower development.
3 This portion of the law is probably
4 the one that has received the least attention by our
5 office up until this time. The 1970 amendments
6 required the same sort of manpower study except the
7 1970 amendments did not place great stress on local
8 and state government to respond. This law does
9 because on some of the mandated provisions it is going
10 to take more man--that is probably the key, the key
11 ingredient in implementing this law, the human
12 resources to do it. I don't know where they are going
13 to come from.
14 Because of the current policies on
15 manpower development at the Federal level, the program
1$ to develop human resources is not up to what it used
17 to be 10 years ago, four or five years ago, when there
18 was a great amount of money being invested in develop-
19 ing professional manpower for environmental programs.
20 Where the human resources are going to come from,
21 I just don't know at this point in time.
22 Now that covers the public participation
23 very quickly, the information and manpower divisions.
24 I would entertain some questions at this time; because
25 we are going to get so much tonight, I think: it is good
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1 for us to cut it into segments and handle a few
2 questions as we go along. We are probably going to
3 finish well up on time. The other guy's got a lot
4 longer presentation than this, so if you have any
5 questions on this particular portion—do you have
6 questions? There is a woman. Yes? You might come
7 up and state your name, rank and serial number so
8 that we will have it for the public records.
9 MS. WOODWARD: You just mentioned--
10 oh, I am Esther Woodward and I am the water person
11 on the Environmental Quality Committee of the League
12 of Women Voters, State of Kansas. I also administered
13 EPA funds for the Water Pollution Public Participation
14 Program here in the metropolitan area.
15 I wanted to ask you about the human
16 resources problem that you just mentioned. I under-
17 stand President Carter has reduced funding for the
18 EPA, and at the same time there is a great move toward
19 employment. Do you--are there any appropriations on
20 the books now or are you asking for appropriations
21 for this training program that you sought as necessary?
22 Does it have to come through the state, Federal, or a
23 combination of both?
24 MR. HICKMAN: First of all, I am not
25 aware that the EPA's budget has been reduced by the
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24
l President. I am not aware of that number. I know
2 our particular budget on the solid waste program at
3 the headquarters and regional level has not been
4 reduced. Now other portions of the agency's budget
5 may have. I am not aware of that. We did request
6 funds to implement all sections of the law.
7 The law authorizes about 180 million
dollars in fiscal year 1978. If you add up all those
9 numbers in all those different sections, that is about
10 what it adds up to. We requested appropriations at
11 the authorization level. It will not be our budget
12 at the present time.
13 The President's budget request now--
14 former President Ford's budget request, because we
don't have President Carter's budget request yet--
did not provide for that level of funding. It does
provide for an increase in the solid waste program
IB budget level, but not to the level we asked, far less
than what we asked.
20 Included in our request was dollars
21 for doing the study. We can't provide manpower
22 development grant programs until we know what our
23 manpower development needs are, and that can only be
24 done based on some measure of what is needed to
implement the law.
-------
25
1 The funds that will flow from the
2 Federal government to the state government to help
3 states respond to the law will be used to hire and
4 develop more human resources at the state level,
5 regardless of any sort of manpower development program
6 we may develop In the long term to fill other needs.
7 Did that answer your question?
8 Or was that sort of random, off the wall?
9 Basically, the bottom line Is there
10 is very little we are going to do In 1978 in manpower
11 development. That Is the bottom line, because we
12 don't have the money to do It. And If we had the
13 money, we would do the study first. We do have
'4 somebody working on it right now, though, to sort of
15 see what we really have to do.
16 As I mentioned, we have not focused
17 on this section as much as some of the others, but
18 there are training programs now available to do a lot
19 of training of human resources for solid waste
20 management. There are a variety of training programs
21 offered through these various interest groups that
22 we have supported. APWA has a training program.
23 ICMA has some seminars at times to communicate
24 information to solid waste managers. And the states
25 carry on some training at the local level.
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26
j We have several package training
2 courses that can be used to Improve safety and collect-
3 ion practices and land disposal operations practices.
4 These are available canned training programs, but we
5 would do very little in 1978 in manpower development
6 just because of a limited amount of money.
7 Any other questions? Yes, please?
JToydBK. JS/>icr
8 MS. JOlfafl: My name is Dee -Jofri«y and
9 I am with the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council
]0 from St. Louis.
n You mentioned in your presentation
12 that really the state and local governments are going
13 to have the responsibility for implementing the act,
14 however, as we all know, money has not been appropria-
15 ted yet and you have no idea as to how much will be
1$ appropriated.
17 What responsibilities are the state
13 and local governments going to have if, in fact, the
19 appropriations are much less than you anticipate or
20 if Congress doesn't appropriate money period? Are
2i they still going to be responsible for carrying out
22 the provisions of the act and to what extent?
23 MR. TUCKER: Lannle, if I might inter-
24 ject: Dee, there is a separate presentation with
25 focus specifically on the state program of development.
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27
1 Would you like to hold that?
oaywae.
2 MS. jeSNBR: O.K.
3 MR. HICKMAN: Would you mind? We could
4 cover it then.
ToyMe^
5 MS. jeSBR: That is fine.
6 MR. HICKMAN: That is one we will turn
7 off the tape recorder and talk about.
8 MR. TUCKER: But it will be covered
9 specifically a little later.
10 MR. HICKMAN: Am I done? Have I used
11 up all my time?
12 MR. TUCKER: Any more questions?
13 (No response.)
14 MR. TUCKER: All right. Was there
15 any more questions on the section just completed?
16 (No response.)
17 MR. TUCKER: I would like to ask—is
18 the audience having difficulty hearing from a speaker
19 on the floor because of background rumble or whatever?
20 Is there any problem? How about the court reporter?
21 Are you able to pick up with your mikes?
22 COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir.
23 MR. TUCKER: O.K. We will then proceed
24 with the next item on the program. And now we will
25 get into the topic that everyone has been waiting for,
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28
1 a very substantial part of the new act. That is
2 dealing with hazardous waste.
3 To discuss this with us tonight we
4 have Walt Kovalick, who is with our Hazardous Waste
5 Division, Solid Waste Program, Washington. Walt.
6 MR. KOVALICK: Lannie has been telling
7 you about how you can participate in the process and
8 my job is to tell you one of the major topics that
9 we need jour help in the most, which is the subject
10 of writing rules and regulations. I am talking
11 specifically about Subtitle C in the Resource Conser-
12 vation and Recovery Act, the Hazardous Waste
13 Regulatory Provisions. I would like to talk about a
l4 few philosophical points first and then I have about
15 eight lines covering one each on the sections in the
16 law to try and give you a little more background.
17 I hope you will stop me as we go along
18 as I find the subjects that I cover usually generate
19 some interest. It is hard to hold a question to the
20 last line.
21 First of all, the key to the whole
22 Subtitle C that I am going to be discussing is the
23 first section, which is defining what a hazardous
24 waste is. In all of the other sections that I am
25 going to be talking about, they set up a structure for
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29
1 managing and controlling those wastes once they are
2 defined in Section 3001. So you can see that that
3 is a very crucial linchpin in the whole process of
4 regulating hazardous waste, and it is a process that
5 will ultimately see that the waste that Don Townley
6 was discussing do in fact get carried by that trans-
7 porter to the ultimate destination that the generator
8 intended; and secondly, to make sure that the ultimate
9 destination is indeed a permanent disposal facility.
10 So that is what we are calling in the
" vernacular of the trade cradle to grave management
12 of hazardous waste, from their generation to their
13 ultimate disposal. So you can see that by what we
14 define as a hazardous waste how big that net is or
15 how small it is, it very critically affects those
16 wastes that will be in the total system.
17 The second major overview point I
18 wanted to make is that in the sections that I am
19 discussing we speak about national standards; national
20 standards that affect the transporters of wastes;
21 national standards that affect those that generate
22 wastes?-largely in our case we are talking about
23 industrial wastes, but some others; and national
24 standards that affect storage and treatment and
25 disposal of those wastes.
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30
1 So in that sense we are talking about
2 the provisional kind of environmental regulations
3 that those who are regulated view as a negative
4 incentive for the requirements they have to meet to
5 be in the business of transporting, storing, treating
6 and disposing.
7 But the law also has in it in this
8 Subtitle C a permit system, which we like to view as
9 a positive kind of incentive as an insurance to the
10 community where a building might be located that if
11 the state or local government gives a permit to that
12 facility, that the nearby residents can be assured
13 and the user, the manufacturer who uses that inciner-
14 ator or land disposal facility, that it is, in fact,
15 protecting the environment generally, and more
16 specifically, if you live near it it is providing
17 positive protection for you there.
18 So we like to think that the national
19 standards are in one sense negatives—that is they
20 are like speed limit signs that they put up for all
21 of us. At the same time, the permit system that
22 enforces them gives us all assurance that the facilitiei
23 are, in fact, well founded.
24 One point I mentioned in that discussion
25 of national standards, which is also critical, and why
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31
it is important that you meet and are aware of who
the state officials are in your half of the state
3
is that not only the testimony and the Congressional
4
reports that are behind the law, but also our
philospphy has been stated in the law, and what we
are trying to implement is to have states take this
program so that they are, in fact, the ones who are
8
regulatory that you deal with.
9
The law is structured in such & way
10
that it is a Federal program unless the states choose
11
to request it. And we are working—as a matter of
12
fact, one of the gentlemen you met earlier from the
13
state is working with us on how we are going to
14
design the state takeover of this program so, in
is
fact, EPA is not regulating transporters or treaters,
16
generators of any hazardous waste, but Jefferson
17
City is, or Lincoln, or other state capitols are.
18
The last point I want to make in the
19
overview was that this law is not retroactive. You
20
have a special place in your hearts for some special
21
site that you know of that may be causing a problem
22
because of wastes that were dumped there two months
23
ago or 10 years ago. Hie law does not specifically
24
give us--or the state hopefully when it takes the
25
progranr-the authority to go back at that problem.
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32
1 It has an imminent hazard provision in it, which is
2 a very common provision in the Air Pollution and
3 Water Pollution Acts so that you can get at urgent
environmental problems.
5 But we are talking about regulations
6 to be developed over the next 18 months. We need
7 help from you and others across the country where we
are having these meetings, and then implementing
9 them in the subsequent 18 months.
10 So with that as an overview, let me
11 show you the seven or eight slides I have. I have
12 one on each section, and hopefully, we can get into
13 some of the meat of what we are talking about.
As I mentioned earlier, the keystone
15 of what we are doing is defining a hazardous waste.
Congress tells us that we should have this definition
worked out, proposed in the Federal Register, which
18 is the daily newspaper of the Federal Government
19 where we have to speak officially, anyway, so that
20 you know what is going on. And that basically the
21 section, if you look at the law in your packet
22 afterwards, it calls for several things. One is for
23 us to pick criteria by which waste should be defined
as hazardous. Some are suggested in there. Congress
25 has put in there, things like flammability and
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33
! explosivity, corrosivity, toxicity of the wastes.
2 Those are kinds of criteria that we can choose among
3 to define the hazardous wastes.
4 And then we use those criteria in the
5 number two phase to identify them. And just to pick
6 an example, flanmability is something you measure by
7 standard tests for flash point. So we would be
8 choosing a degree Fahrenheit in which we put a waste
9 to a certain kind of test and that waste would flash.
10 And that would give us a flanmability level for that
n particular waste.
]2 So the criteria that we would be
13 choosing--promulgate criteria--would be the temperature
14 at which that waste would flash, and then those
]5 wastes that fail the test could become a hazardous
16 waste.
17 An example I have picked is an easy
]8 one. There is a general consensus among industry
19 and fire officials and others how you define flammabi-
20 lity. It gets progressively harder.when you talk
2i about toxicity; that is, the toxicity of the things
22 we breathe, things that affect fish immediately.
23 And then it is even more difficult for things we
24 call chronic. Toxicity is normally associated with
2s those things that cause cancer or causing eugenic
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34
1 changes. So our job gets--all those factors are to
2 be considered over the 18 month period In developing
3 the regulations.
4 And finally, we are Instructed to Issue
5 a list of hazardous wastes, but that does not neces-
6 sarily mean that the list is completely inclusive of
7 all the wastes that would, if you will, flunk the
8 test. We have—well, we don't know which way we are
9 going to go with the listing input. And we will be
10 asking for it informally in the Federal Register
11 shortly and we will be happy to talk to you about
12 it here.
13 The list can be used for a variety of
14 reasons. It can be used to list the things for which
15 we can't think of a test or don*t have sufficient
16 time in the 18 months to develop a test. So there are
17 some critical things we might want to put on the list.
18 I think as there is a general consensus worldwide,
19 if not in this country, that PCB's are a problem and
20 that waste containing PCB's might conceivably be
21 something that we are concerned about.
22 But PCB's as a compound are ones that
23 are not puberullc toxic, probably because they
24 accumulate. So there might be an occasion to put
25 things on this list for which we don't have a. test,
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35
1 but about which there is general consensus or need
2 for putting these things down as being hazardous.
3 So you see, if you draw a very large
4 net around those things that might be hazardous
5 wastes, many people—one point has been brought up
6 in a similar meeting to this, or some of our discuss-
7 ions. It is that we might indeed be—there is no
8 such thing as an empty pesticide container. That is,
9 there is always something left inside a container
10 used, whether it is a five-gallon pail on up to &
11 55-gallon drum containing pesticides.
12 So unless that container is appropriate-
13 ly rinsed, drained and the rinse is disposed of, you
u can conceivably have a problem with those containers.
15 And I see one state official nodding his head in
16 recognition that it is indeed a problem in many states
17 where there is much agriculture.
18 So, as I said, I am trying to picture
19 for you things that might end up or might not end up
20 in this definition and how we draw the line. It
21 becomes very important to those of our generators.
22 If there are no specific questions
23 on that, I will move on to the other topics. In
24 context, what that means now that we have some wastes
25 via these regulations which are conceeded to be
-------
36
1 hazardous, it leads us to a set of regulations for
2 generators. And Congress has very specifically given
3 us three topics, three subject areas where the,
4 usually the manufacturer produces the waste that will
5 be affected.
6 In these regulations there are things--
7 these are the only three things about which we can
8 write regulations, and those do not have anything to
9 do with the manufacturing process itself. These
10 generator standards, these initial standards, will
11 not affect the process, per se. Perhaps the cost of
12 disposal now will affect the manufacturer indirectly,
13 but neither the Environmental Protection Agency nor
14 the states are going to be affecting the way products
15 are produced.
16 We are talking about promulgating
'7 regulations in 18 months for record keeping and
18 reporting relating to the hazardous wastes that are
19 produced, and for appropriate labeling of containers
20 of these wastes, and for the so-called manifest
21 system.
22 Let me take a moment to discuss that.
25 To use Don Townley's example, the reason we donft
24 know the wastes that are shipped from a manufacturer,
25 say to an acceptable disposal site, is that there is
-------
37
1 no way to track wastes from their generation point
2 to ultimate disposal point. So Congress has included
3 what they call a manifest system in the law so the
4 generator signs off, if you will, that he has delivered
5 the waste to the transporter. The transporter takes
6 it to the site designated on the manifest. And the
disposer or the incinerator operator or the landfill
8 operator signs off that he received it. And then we
9 have to work out the mechanism to--for the states to
10 be aware that that transaction did take place.
So these regulations really are revolv-
ing primarily around what is that manifest going to
13 be like. How does it relate to current requirements
14 that the Department of Transportation has. Anyone
15 who ships materials in commerce these days has
requirements to fill out a shipping paper or bill of
17 lading, whether it is by rail car or by truck. So
that is one of our major issues is to make sure that
" we don't make it any more difficult than possible to
20 do this.
21 The generator of waste, when he ships
22 waste, that he doesn't have any more additional burden
23 that he has to have for environmental reasons. And
24 we are meeting with Department of Transportation
25 officials. We are getting quite a bit of input. In
-------
38
1 fact, the smaller the trucking firm, the more input
2 we seem to be getting, which makes sense to me because
3 they are the ones who are going to be primarily
4 affected by this kind of regulation.
5 Yes,,sir?
6 MR. WRIGHT: Just a general question
in relation to the one you had up there previously,
8 the last slide. You have a listing and then you had
9 the other one. I think where are you going to make
'0 your listing, by chemical compound or by brand name?
11 Let me give you an example.
12 MR. KOVALICK: Could you state your
13 name?
MR. WRIGHT: J. C. Wright, Southeastern
Nebraska Council of Governments. According to your
reference, pesticide--O.K., now we know we can list
17 the chemical compound for the pesticide, what makes
18 it up, by taking your criteria. It might not meet
the list as hazardous material. Next year make one
20 additive in that particular substance and then it
21 meets the criteria.
22 O.K. The general public here might
23 not understand chemistry. The makeup, the manufacturer
24 probably puts it on a label, but you can give me a
name here that has 33 letters in it. By the time I
-------
39
1 decipher it I am lost. Could you give me a general
2 brand name that I go and buy on the market, be it as
3 a farmer or anybody else. In this particular case a
4 pesticide or a herbicide, will you immediately identify
5 with that brand and say, you know, it does the job or
6 doesn't. Is all I am asking is consideration in
7 putting the brand on--the brand name on there along
8 with the compound.
9 MR. KOVALICK: I am glad you asked
10 that because what I was trying--the answer to your
11 question is we are wide open on what the list is
12 going to be. And that was the reason I was trying to
13 explain the right of ways, the list--the way it will
14 be constructed. It will be possible for a list to
15 be--to have the name of a manufacturing category.
16 And any waste coming from that manufacturing category
17 could be called a hazardous waste. That is one kind
18 of llst--a list of, say, asbestos brake lining
19 manufacturing wastes. That would be one kind of list.
20 Another kind of list would be waste
21 contaminated with chemicals. So we have not. And
22 one of the reasons is we are just getting started
23 trying to decide what might be the best way we can
24 find this list of hazardous waste. As I said, I am
25 quite sure it won't be comprehensive. We won't get
-------
40
1 them all on a list. That Is why we are trying to
2 have criteria that primarily industrial generators
3 can use to decide on an equitable basis, whether they
4 are in the paint industry or the steel industry or
whatever, what is a hazardous waste.
6
Now, on the farmer. At the sane time
7 I am saying that about a list, I think you are raising
8 the issue which we hope to hear more about, about
o
whether there should be some exemptions, say, from
10 this manifest requirement that I mentioned here. I
11 mean, it is not logical to someone like me that some-
12 one who has went through a five-gallon pail every
13 growing season alone, one five-pound bag, should be
filling out a manifest to send back to a special
portion of the landfill.
16 So we are both trying to find a list
17 that makes sense, and also how far down it should go
18 in terms of coverage. Most of the waste 1 am talking
19 about, I think, fall in the area of those that are
20 in substantial quantities that are industrially based.
21 However, the law does talk about radioactive waste.
22 To some extent it talks about—it opens up the door
23 for ideological waste. The hospital clinic, the
24 veterinarian clinic kinds of waste could well be
25 hazardous, as well.
-------
41
1 It is possible the cut-off will be a
2 generation rate rather than an amount, because once
3 you start taking an amount of waste, then you discuss
4 the concentration. If I put, you know, one pound of
5 arsenic on this plot of ground here and bury it, that
6 might not be so bad. And then I put another 9,996,
7 it could very well affect the ground water underneath
8 this spot. So then I am affecting the environment.
9 So we are trying to work out some of
10 the standard tests that I mentioned before. It might
11 be able to give us an indication of leeching of waste,
12 how they might give off these hazardous materials.
13 Morris says I have 10 minutes left.
14 I mentioned national standards for transporters.
15 That is the second link in this chain after the
16 generator. 18 months, again, we have to write
17 regulations. Again, they will be similar regulations
18 for record keeping, labeling, and the fact that the
19 transporter will also sign off on that manifest when
20 it passes through his hands with waste and he delivers
21 it to the designated disposer.
22 Now the DOT regulations are down there
23 to let you know that we know you have regulations that
24 affect shipping papers, and we want to make sure ours
25 mesh with theirs. As a matter of fact, our law says
-------
our regulations should be consistent with their
2 regulations.
3 These are the regulations, the national
standards that affect owners and operators of treat-
5 ment, storage and disposal facilities. That: is
6 incinerators, land disposal sites, chemical treat-
ment facilities, perhaps even landspray facilities
P
that take hazardous waste--the ones that are in this
category that we defined in the first section--and
10 provide requirements that assure us that those
11 facilities are run properly. Those requirements
12
21
range from record keeping authority—and, in fact,
13 they fill out this manifest system that I am talking
14 about—to the fact that they have to monitor their
15 facility, the ground, the air, the other environment
16 around it.
17 We have inspection requirements, or
18
the state will; location of construction requirements
will be prescribed; maintenance and operation will
20 be possibly covered. Here is a list of things that
are in the law that the Congress said we should look
at in designing these regulations.
23 These are the permits for the facilities
that I just mentioned. Those that are involved in
storing, treating or disposing will have to get a
-------
43
1 permit, hopefully from the state government, to
2 operate those facilities. And so this is a set of
3 regulations to set up the procedural side, not the
4 environmental side of those, what kind of administra-
5 tive procedures you go through to get that permit;
6 how will it be issued; what is the term on it; what
7 is the fixed term. Will it go on indefinitely; what
8 kind of public hearings are required, and so forth.
9 There is a provision in the law that
10 for interim permits that this is a way a business can
11 stay in business while the government, both state and
12 Federal, are examining permits. This says basically
13 that if a business was in business when the law was
14 passed, which is the 21st of October of last year,
15 and if they sent a notification, which is their
16 application to EPA or the state or whoever is running
17 the program at that time--I am sorry. They have
18 applied for a permit and also notified us, then they
19 have a permit. In other words, they can continue
20 operating while the facts of their permanent permit
21 are being examined.
22 The work goes smoothly for the state
23 and for us and it lets business continue in business
24 while they are being responsive by applying for a
25 permit, for those who are in the business of storing,
-------
44
1 treating or disposing of hazardous wastes. This
2 basically Is the section where we have put out the
3 guidelines to let the state know what the rules of
4 the game are. Yes, sir?
SjtglL. Ste/J
5 MR. OHlMiiDa; I am Bill ShieleU-f rom
6 the State of Nebraska—
7 MR. TUCKER: Bill, once again, would
8 you please come to the mike. You and all subsequent
9 people please come to the mike so we can get it on
10 the record properly. Once again, if each person
11 would please give their name and affiliation or
12 organization.
SHEtt- Ster'l
13 MR. SHIELDO; Bill Shields from the
14 State of Nebraska. How can you apply for this permit
15 when you don't even have a definition for a hazardous
16 waste and know what you are applying for on this
17 interim permit bit?
18 MR. KOVALICK: Now this is after what--
19 after all the regs up to this point are promulgated.
20 You see, it is 18 months for each one of them. In
21 other words, the regs of the law hopefully will be
22 out by 18 months. Actually, they will be proposed
23 before then and they will be taken into effect. They
24 will be final at 18 months. And then the law also
25 says six more months we are supposed to wait until
-------
45
1 they are actually affected. So there Is a time from
2 about three months to about 1-15 to 1-24 when you can
3 apply.
MR. SHIBIiDE; Sometime in about 1979
5 is when you would make that first application then,
6 18 months from the 21st of October?
7 MR. KOVALICK: 18 months in 1978. That
is when the final reg will be in effect. Then six
' more months would be 10-78 the regs would be effective.
10 So, during that period those who are in business and
have notified us get a permit.
12 These are primarily for the benefit
of the states. We are going to spend some time with
them tomorrow, but this basically tells us how to
write the guidelines for an authorized state program,
the fact that they should be equivalent with the
17 Federal program.
18 You may be aware wastes of this kind
are shipped interstate. At least, the survey in Ohio
20 indicates that wastes are shipped to 13 states from
21 Ohio for disposal. And so the consistency between
22 and among the programs is rather important. And
23 finally that there be adequate enforcement for these
24 hazardous waste divisions.
25 Let me just finish with the notification
-------
46
1 section, which is the one I mentioned just a minute
ago. The generators, transporters, treaters, disposers
and storers of hazardous wastes should notify EPA
and/or the state the fact that they are in this
business. That puts us all on notice that they are
potential candidates for a permit. And this takes
6
place within three months after we define what a
hazardous waste is. So it will be sometime in about
o
„ July of 1978 when there will be notification process,
between April, July and August of 1978.
I think my time is up. Are there
other questions?
13 MR. TUCKER: We do have a few additional
minutes. We can use it on this session if you have
14
t0'
MR. KOVALICK: All right, my time is
16
not up. Joe?
17 £/**££.
... MR. BIOEtT; My name is Joseph
lo
Missouri Department of Natural Resources. My assign-
ment is to establish a state hazardous waste program
for Missouri. As you all know at the head table, we
have been working since last May with a very large
citizen's group drafting a piece of enabling
legislation which will allow us to begin this type
25 of program.
-------
47
1 This btll is House Bill 318 and it
2 is now in the legislature. But we started developing
3 this before your bill was passed and we—being from
4 Missouri, we took some peculiar approaches. We think
5 our program adds up to something that is basically
6 equivalent in almost every way with what you have.
7 There are however some important
8 differences. Regarding storage and the size of our
9 civil penalties and a few other details like this,
10 for example, there are differences. But the real
11 intent, and we have good backing in the legislature,
12 is we don't want to go through the experience that
13 has been occuring with the water programs and some
14 of the other Federally mandated programs in which
is there is, first, implementation by the Federal govern-
16 ment, and then it is transferred to the state and
17 everybody affected has to go through the painful
13 process of learning a new set of faces and a new set
19 of rules and regulations.
20 We thought we could avoid that by the
21 timely action we have taken, but there are some
22 provisions in black and white in this bill--particular-
23 ly the last one you are talking about, 3010—'which I
24 think are going to make it very, very difficult for
25 us to pick up the show from the beginning at the state
-------
1 level using whatever resources we can get, which most
2 people have to come from the Federal government, and
3 achieve primary contact with people affected by the
4 bill from the very beginning, instead of a program
5 that concentrates on the worst problems first and
6 to the extent of our staff capability dealing with
7 secondary problems later.
8 And 3010 is one that we are particularly
9 concerned about because what it says is that 21
10 months, which is only three months after the promulgat-
11 ion of the guidelines for states, everyone who
12 generates, transports, treats or stores or disposes
13 must notify EPA of that activity. And if they don't
14 do that, they are subjected to severe penalty and
is they can't generate, transport, treat or store or
16 dispose.
17 Now the problem is that we can't
18 possibly get our program authorized by you before
19 that date because your guidelines aren't coming out
20 for 18 months and you have three--another three months
21 before you give us any indication whether we will
22 get authorization. So we see this as a tremendous
23 problem that our industry is going to be, first,
24 contacted by you, and they are going to be very confuse
25 and are not going to know really what a hazardous waste
-------
49
1 really is. And I don't think you are going to have
2 the staff or we will have the staff at that point to
3 really work with them and explain it.
4 I think we are just really going to
5 get off on the wrong foot and I am very concerned about
6 it. Is there any possible way you can delay that
7 date or speed up the state authorizations so that we
8 can handle it. We would certainly appreciate it.
9 We see this as a very severe issue because that 3010
10 is going to affect more people and stir up more
11 opposition within Missouri to the implementation of
12 this bill.
13 Our main problem dealing with our
14 legislature is just a bad experience with other
15 programs that have gone in too fast with premature
16 implementation dates, inadequate funding so the things
17 can be done on time. And if there is any way we can
18 avoid it, please do.
19 I think getting the state guidelines
20 out substantially earlier than 18 months would help.
21 If you could speed up the process by which we could
22 get authorized so we could get to carrying out 3010,
23 that would help. And I am also very concerned that
24 when we do different details—for example, we don't
25 think that most storage should require a permit. We
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50
1 don't--we think we will be burled In paperwork if
2 we define storage too narrowly. Every generator has
3 to store his waste for a period of time before he has
4 enough to justify calling the truck to pick, it up.
5 If we define storage too narrowly,
6 almost every generator will require a permit. We will
7 be buried in paperwork. We have taken a different
8 approach in Missouri and we say on site storage. We
9 are not talking about long term indefinite storage,
10 which is really disposal. It does not require a
11 permit. It just has to meet safety rules and
12 regulations. We think we can enforce that and save
13 ourselves a lot of paperwork for everybody concerned.
14 So I hope that that kind of difference
15 with the Federal bill will not cause us grief and
16 prevent us from become an authorized state program.
17 Thank you.
18 MR. KOVALICK: Thank you, Joseph,
19 for your comments on the record. He and I have dis-
20 cussed that before and I guess that is somewhat a
21 testimonial to public process by virtue of having
22 the State of Missouri involved in the writing of the
23 state program guidelines. We surfaced these very
24 problems in the last two weeks or so. Hopefully we
25 can work out a way.
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51
1 As a matter of fact, the state guide-
2 lines are to be out to the best of our ability way
3 ahead of the April, 1978 schedule, which might
4 alleviate some of the problems. And so I at this
5 point can assure you that—as we did Joe last week
6 in Washington--that we are aware of this possible
7 penalty, which is states who are taking leave. That
8 certainly is not within the purview of the Act.
9 The Act calls on us to have the states
10 take up the--so we have to, with this kind of
11 opportunity, figure out a way to accomodate that if
12 we can, possibly can.
13 Are there any more questions?
14 (No response.)
15 MR. TUCKER: Any more questions for
16 Walt on this section?
17 (No response.)
18 MR. TUCKER: O.K. If not, we will
" proceed to the next item on the program and this
2" subject is indicated on the program as the broad
21 topic of Land Disposal. I don't know what all that
22 is supposed to entail for purposes of this meeting,
23 but Lanny Hickman is going to tell us.
24 MR. HICKMAN: 3011 provides program
25 grants for states having this waste program. It
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52
1 authorizes for 1978 and 1979 25 million per year
2 authorized locally. We have covered one of the key--
3 as I mentioned at the beginning of this meeting--key
4 thrusts of RECRA, and that is dealing with the
5 environmental health threats of improper hazardous
6 waste management.
7 We are going to talk about a second
3 major thrust now, and this is dealing with the
9 elimination of improper land disposal practices of
10 solid waste. We will then talk about the Resource
11 Conservation and then we will talk about the institu-
12 tional structures that the law has provided to allow
13 the opportunity to meet these three major thrusts of
14 the law; and that is the insitutional building at
15 the state and local level.
16 O.K. I think in order for us to under-
17 stand what this law means now--what it means in the
18 hazardous, resource conservation and land disposal--
19 we ought to look at four key definitions in the law.
20 I am going to try to read them, sort of scan them, to
2i make sure 1 hit some of the key ones, the key points
22 in the definitions because this law changes from the
23 old law the definition of disposal which is more or
24 less generic in the case of solid waste management
25 collection through ultimate disposal.
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53
1 It now focuses, the definition of
2 disposal, indeed on the placing of the solid waste on
3 the land. In turn, disposal means that discharge,
4 deposit, ejection, dumping, spilling or leaking or
5 placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into
6 or on any land or water, so that such solid waste or
7 hazardous waste or any constituent thereof in any
8 byproduct that might result from that waste being
9 in the disposal site, so that any constituent thereof
10 may enter the environment or be admitted to the air
11 or discharged in any water, including ground water.
12 Now this is the first time the Federal
13 Government has entered into some sort of a policy
14 position on the issue of ground water protection in
15 a big way. The Safe Drinking Water Act addresses
16 the issue of ground water, also. But this law address-
17 es the issue of impact on ground water with improper
18 waste management practices.
19 O.K. Now I am going to give you.
20 The next two definitions are sort of mumbo-jumbo
21 bureaucratic Congressional language, but it ties in
22 with the section I am talking about, the procedure
23 for development of the state and local plan.
24 The term open dump means a site for
25 the disposal of solid waste which is not a sanitary
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54
1 landfill within the meaning of Section 4004, which is
2 part of Subtitle B. Now that implies that there is
3 nothing in between. It is either sanitary landfill
4 or it is an open dump.
5 The term sanitary landfill means the
6 facility for the disposal of solid waste, which
7 meets the criteria published in Section 4004. We
8 are going to talk about what is required in that
' section.
'" And now the key definition under the
" law, the definition for solid waste. Congress has
12 now said that a solid can be solid or liquid or
13 anything in between. And only Congress can make those
14 sorts of judgements. The term solid waste means any
'5 garbage, refuse, sludge--now this is the key new
16 addition to the definition--sludge from a waste water
17 treatment plant, water supply treatment plant or air
18 pollution control facility.
19 O.K. Now for the first time there is
20 a law addressing itself to those wastes that have
21 lain in limbo between liquid and solid. You know,
22 the super goos. Super goos now includes solid hazard-
23 ous waste. This is a special constituent of the total
24 waste treatment we are worrying about now. Air
25 pollution control or any other discarded material,
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55
1 including solid, liquid, semi-solid or containing
2 gaseous material, whatever that means, resulting
3 from Industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural
4 operations or from community activities. It does
5 include dissolved materials and irrigation returns
6 and dissolved solids and domestic sewage, and those
7 things that are permitted under the Federal Water Law.
8 Then it says the term solid waste means
9 all these things. So this is a very key definition,
10 and these definitions establish the full umbrella
11 of what this law is supposed to achieve through state
12 and local program action.
13 Now let's talk about the land disposal
14 provision, Subtitle D. The law requires in Section
15 4004 that within 12 months from the enactment of the
16 law, which was October 21, 1976, that the administrator
17 shall issue criteria for classifying sanitary land-
18 fills and open dumps. And in this process of issuing
19 such criteria, he should consider a reasonable possi-
20 bility of adverse affects from these land disposal
21 operations to make his judgement whether it is a
22 sanitary landfill or an open dump.
23 And then the law requires disposal of
24 solid wastes in sanitary landfills through the planning
25 process of state governments to develop on the state
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56
1 plan. We are going to talk about state plans later
2 on.
3 So just remember now somewhere down
4 the pike we are going to talk about what this means
5 as far as building state and local government institu-
6 t ions.
7 So within a year of October 21, 1976,
8 October 21, 1977--we have got eight months left to
9 get something out on the books. The key is that this
10 is done in some timely manner because other actions
11 begin when this criteria is promulgated.
12 Section 4005 requires the administrator
13 as far as EPA to conduct an inventory of all the
14 disposal sites deemed to be open dumps based upon the
15 criteria he promulgates in 4004 within 12 months after
16 he has established the criteria for these disposal
17 sites. So that is two years from the initial enact-
18 ment of the law, or October 21, 1978.
19 Then the states must provide for the
20 upgrading and the closing of all those sites that are
21 published on a list. The administrator must publish
22 a list of all those sites that he finds that meet the
23 criteria of open dumps. Now the hooker is that that
24 site, once it is on the list, is in violation of
25 Federal law because the law says open dumps will not
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57
1 be tolerated after this period of time. They will be
2 eliminated and the—from solid waste management
3 practice.
4 The state must provide a schedule for
5 the conversion and elimination of these open dumps
6 by five years after the inventory is published, or
7 seven years after the law is passed, October 21, 1983.
8 That is seven years. So that site is in violation of
9 Federal law unless there is a planning process pro-
10 ceeding for the development of a state plan that
11 provides the mechanism for that site to be converted
12 or closed.
13 So these are the two real key steps
U in the issue of criteria and inventories conducted.
15 The site goes on the list and the state must be in a
16 planning process to see that that site is converted
17 or closed.
18 Now, Section 1008--if you read this
19 law, this law represents a variety of pieces of
20 legislation agreed upon in the absence of conference
21 committees, meetings between the two houses of the
22 Congress. The Senate passed one version and the House
23 was trailing behind them. They passed on another
24 version. Before they passed a contingent agreement
25 that they would not go to conference. Now what the
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58
1 House finally kicked out will go back to the Senate
2 and see if they can go out without going through
3 conference.
4 So you see some ambiguities in the
5 language. And there seems to be some redundancy.
6 Section 1008, which is the guideline section, requires
7 the EPA to issue guidelines for solid waste manage-
8 ment within 12 months and from time to time thereafter.
9 And the ones that come out in 12 months you are
1° going to consider technically and economically
11 descriptive at the level of performance necessary to
12 achieve public health detection and environmental
13 quality.
14 Now within 24 months these guidelines
IS have to improve level of performance and level of
16 control of protection of ground and surface waters.
17 It must consider such things as the Clean Air Act,
18 the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and other
19 acts as well.
20 Now within this section it is required
21 that we issue criteria for open dumping, criteria for
22 sanitary landfill within this section of the law so
23 that these two sections, 1008 and the Land Disposal
24 Provision under Subtitle D before we get basically
25 into one thrust of the Act. That is to write criteria
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59
1 for open dumps and sanitary landfills. The guidelines
2 issued under 1008 will support the criteria established
3 under Subtitle D and guide us in the best way and
4 the need to have a sanitary landfill.
5 We also plan--the guideline provision
6 is a particular discretion on the part of the
7 administrator on what he should do in arriving at the
8 guidelines. The guidelines we have in the plan are
9 the sanitary landfill guidelines to support the
10 criteria on the inventory. There is one on sludge
11 control which is moving into the inbetween portion of
12 solid waste that we have not dealt with before, which
13 by definition now is a solid waste.
14 I think that is the last one. O.K.
15 I just want to review again basically what the law
16 says. The law says an open dump is going to cease
17 in seven years. The law says that an open dump is
18 that which is not a sanitary landfill. There is no
19 indication that there is something in between, although
20 the law does talk about various types of sanitary
21 landfills. There are some states that have various
22 plans for sanitary landfills that are allowed to
23 receive certain types of wastes. California is a
24 Class 1 Site and is basically a closed system that
25 carries even hazardous wastes, liquid wastes as well
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60
1 as other types of wastes. Class 2 and Class 3—there
2 are those sorts of classifications present in the
3 country.
4 The law implies that we can write
5 criteria that might consider various types of sanitary
6 landfills. We don't quite know what they mean and
7 how we would go about doing that. The problem in
8 writing these criteria is supposed to be nationally
9 scoped. Now what is good for Maine is not necessarily
10 good for Omaha or Southern California, because of all
11 the geological, soil, precipitation, different condi-
12 tions that exist.
13 So we rest on the horns of a dilemma
14 in how to write criteria that will meet the intent
15 of trying to upgrade landfill and disposal practices
16 and at the same time recognize regional differences
17 that exist in the country, as well as the different
18 types of waste that go into the sites.
19 The writing of the sanitary landfill
20 guidelines and criteria must be closely linked with
21 the establishment of the criteria for hazardous
22 wastes and the standards and regulations for storage,
23 treatment and disposal facilities of hazardous wastes.
24 The law is basically intended to get all those wastes
25 into one or two places, into a hazardous waste facility
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61
1 or Into a sanitary landfill. So we have to make sure
2 that the net we cast over hazardous waste is such
3 we get those wastes that offer major threats and at
4 the same time we have got to write criteria for
5 sanitary landfills that would take those wastes that
^ do not fit closely regulated provisions of the
7 hazardous waste law and put them in some sort of
8 satisfactory land disposal site.
9 And all this has to be done with the
10 whole concept of the state program accepting the
11 responsibility. So the law is very carefully—there
12 are a lot of nuances between these two positions of
13 the law. We have to issue this criteria. The strategy
14 is to have the state conduct the inventory. That is
15 our concept now.
16 It makes a lot of logic to have the
17 state do the inventory. They are the ones, in
18 effect, that had to pick up the law and administrate
19 it. They are the ones who know where the disposal
20 sites are. They are the ones that can best judge
2| the quality of those sites. And they are the ones
22 who will have to be working with those sites in the
23 future for either converting them or planning to close
24 them. So the strategy is to have the state do the
25 inventory within Federal criterion guidelines.
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1 O.K. Now I will entertain questions
2 on this. Yes, sir?
X««rH- &r-fc
3 MR. jCWBgi My name is Woodrow CWNMK
4 I am a peon. I am beginning to feel more and more as
5 though I don't belong here. I am the mayor of the
6 City of Concordia.
7 I gather that this is an exercise in
8 bureaucracy defending itself because the speaker
9 before from Missouri apparently has indicated that
10 we are so far ahead of you that we don't know where
11 you are at. We have a little town out here and they
12 told us to close the dump five years ago. We closed
13 the dump.
14 Two years ago somebody came along--
15 I don*t know who it was—and said we had to do some-
16 thing about our water treatment plant. Well, we had
17 a settlement basin, but it was not adequate so we
18 built another one, $15,000, all that stuff. Now we
19 got another deal going and the Step 1 Project, they
20 tell us that the lagoon we built a couple of years
21 ago isn't adequate. So now we have another $350,000
22 looking at us in the face and nobody tells us where
23 the money comes from because we are limited by state
24 what we can do.
25 So we have all kinds of weird things
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63
1 that keep coining at us and I am about to go stark
2 raving mad, together with the rest of the citizens
3 of Concordia, with various things that tell us what
4 to do, how to clean up the place—which we think is
5 clean in the first place--at a cost that is way beyond
6 anything that a city—merely the extension of state
7 government--can do.
8 What can you do with $1 a 100? Oh,
9 the state tells us we can pass sales tax if we would
10 like. Try it sometime. So I am real disturbed. I
11 wonder whether all these are professionals that are
12 here or whether I am just a fish out of water. I am
13 beginning to wonder why I am here because you are
14 talking about something that--well, these whole
15 public hearings are a laugh anyway.
16 We have to have public hearings on
17 revenue sharing and everything else, the only ones
18 that show there are the people that have to be there,
19 like me. I get paid all of 50 cents every day, you
20 know. And I am working for the city so I am so well-
21 paid. But I am real upset about so many of these
22 nice directives that come from Washington or elsewhere,
23 and nobody ever tells us what point there is. Why
24 have a public hearing on revenue sharing? Who cares
25 what we do with it?
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1 The people In Concordia don't care.
2 They elected us and they say if you haven't got sense
3 enough to handle it, let somebody else do it.
4 MR. HICKMAN: Well, I guess the reason
5 we are here is to try to first inform you about this
6 new law. Secondly, we are trying to get some guidance.
7 Secondly, I guess, to try to give you some insight
8 into some of the problems we see with implementing
9 the law and try to do something about the problems
10 you have just discussed for your community of
11 Concordia.
12 Thirdly, to try to get some feedback
13 through some mechanism, whatever it might be, as to
14 what you think we should do about some of these pro-
15 visions of the law which was passed by Congress and
16 signed by the President. We can develop it in such
17 a way to be most beneficial without impacting in a
18 way to take away the rights of local government to
19 deal with the problems as it sees fit.
20 l think we all recognize that there are
21 many, many laws that are passed that come down through
22 state and local government that seem to have little
23 or no relevance as to what the local problem is.
24 I mentioned the fact we are on the horns of a dilemma
25 trying to writer criteria for disposal sites for
I
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65
1 sanitary landfills that can accomodate the problems
2 of Concordia as well as Augusta, Maine, and San Jose,
3 California, all dealing with different wastes and
4 different climates and geological aspects, soils and
5 everything else.
6 And what we want to know from you all
7 is what can we do. We can't ignore the law. One has
8 to assume that the law was passed because it is
9 reflective of some sense of need on the part of
10 Congress. I guarantee you the law was passed without
!' any support from EPA, although we would have loved
'2 to have done something.
'3 You know, 1 think—this law represents
14 four years of Congressional study, a series of hear-
'5 ings, not only in Washington but in a variety of
16 sites around the country. It represents the compromise
17 on the part of both houses of Congress. It is
18 attempting to deal with an extremely complex issue,
" which is reflected in the affluent society of our
20 country now, although the energy crisis and other
21 things come into. this. Our assets are less desirable.
22 Our intent was to try. There are
23 professionals here and non-professionals and citizens,
24 and we are trying to explain this in the problem that
25 we ses in trying to make it work for you. I am glad
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66
1 that you are ahead of us. Maybe you will not. have
2 to deal with this law. There are other communities,
3 let me assure you, sir, that are not. And they will
4 in time in concert with their states have to deal
5 with some of the provisions of this law.
6 Other questions?
7 (No response.)
8 MR. HICKMAN: Thank you.
9 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Lannie.
10 How about a 10-minute break? It will
11 give our reporter a rest, also.
12 (Short recess.)
13 MR. TUCKER: Back on the record. Let's
14 proceed with the program. Next on the program is
15 a discussion on the Resource Conservation and Recovery
16 and what we classify and—as Technical Assistance,
17 meaning that in the broadest sense. And to present
18 this to us we have Steve Lingle with our Washington
19 office. Steve?
20 MR. LINGLE: Thank you, Morris.
21 I am going to talk about the Resource
22 Conservation and Recovery provisions of the Act. I
23 might just remind you that the name of the Act is
24 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and actuall
25 resource, recovery and conservation type activities are
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67
1 really appropriately directed as both being the major
2 objectives of the Act. That is, the conservation of
3 resources and the protection of the environment and
4 of health.
5 The first of those two objectives is
6 usually fairly easily recognized. I think sometimes
7 you forget that resource recovery is an activity which
8 provides an alternative to land disposal. And therefore
9 in essence, that is the meaning of meeting the
10 Environmental Protection's objective of the Act.
11 And I think it is important that we
12 realize the integrated nature of all the activities
13 of the Act; that the research, recovery and conservat-
'4 ion provisions are really very intimately tied in
15 with land disposal and other provisions of the Act
16 that are directed toward environmental protection.
'7 But I think that despite the fact that
18 this is called the Research Conservation and Recovery
19 Act, the provisions in the Act for resource recovery
20 and conservation are not as easy to sink your teeth
21 into. They are not as easy to identify as some of
22 the provisions for land disposal. There are no
23 specific regulations to be written. There is no one
24 specific identifiable section related to resource,
25 recovery and conservation.
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68
1 Rather, the provisions tend to be
2 spread out through a number of different authorities
3 and provisions of the Act. Well, let me begin here
4 by briefly reviewing some of the sections of the Act
5 that resource, recovery and conservation are included
6 in but which are not specifically directed only at
7 resource, recovery and conservation. After that I
8 will talk about some of the provisions which are
9 specifically resource recovery and conservation only.
10 First is the guidelines, and Lannie
11 Hickman just discussed the guidelines. The point 1
12 want to make here is that one of the reasons that the
13 guidelines provisions is significant is in another
14 section of the Act, Section 6004, which requires
15 Federal agencies to comply with guidelines written
16 under 1008. Now in the resource recovery area we
17 have already written guidelines under the existing
18 Act and are implementing them and Federal agencies
19 are required to comply with those guidelines as the
20 authority is continued in this Act.
21 And those are guidelines on separation
22 of paper, on utilization of full-scale resource
23 recovery facilities, and on placing deposits on
24 beverage containers at Federal facilities so they
25 will be returned for disposal.
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So the implementation of those gulde-
2 lines is actually an important provision which we are
continuing to carry out.
The next area is resource, recovery
and conservation panels. And the title is Resource,
6 Recovery and Conservation and this is a specific
7 provision for resource recovery. But in essence,
8 these panels are broad-based. They are technical
assistance panels and this is the Technical Assistance
Authority. But they include not only resource recovery
11 and conservation, but Technical Assistance on other
12 kinds of solid waste management as well.
13 I will be discussing the resource
recovery provisions of these panels in a few minutes.
15
The next section is the development
16 of state and local programs, Subtitle D. There will
17 be more discussion on that, and we have already heard
about some of the provisions of that.
19 I think the important thing to realize
20 here is that there is a particular technical assistance
21 authority given there, and it is the--it is related
22 back to these panels. The Act basically says you
23 should assist the state in developing and implementing
24 the plan through these resource recovery and conser-
vation panels.
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Information disseminated in develop-
2 ment is an activity that is just basic and important
to everything under the Act, all types of activities.
4 And it is very important for resource recovery because
5 disseminating information is one of the things we
6 want to try to do.
Finally, demonstrations; there is a
broad demonstration authority under 8004 of the Act.
o
There is also a specific demonstration authority for
resource recovery facilities which I will mention in
11 a few minutes.
12 There is one authority under Section
13 8004 which is the evaluation authority, authority
14 to evaluate the existing facilities. And this comes
15 inr-we feel it is a very significant role for resource
recovery, because we feel that we can evaluate existing
commercial resource recovery facilities and disseminate
information on those. In essence, there is an alter-
19 native to actually spending money to build or
20
construct those facilities. So we view this as an
21 important authority under the Act.
22 Now let me talk about some of the very
23 specific authorities of resource recovery and
24 conservation. First is the Federal Procurement
Authority. And in essence, the Act directs Federal aid
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71
1 to do certain things regarding procurement. In
2 essence, it says that within two years Federal agencies
3 are required to procure items containing the highest
4 percentage of recoverable material as practicable.
5 And then it goes on with several words about when is
6 practicable and when it isn't.
7 And basically it relates to cost,
8 availability and performance. But it is very vaguely
9 stated in terms of those requirements.
10 It also states the same sort of thing
11 regarding the use of solid waste as an energy resource.
12 In essence, it says Federal agencies that use fossil
13 fuels must use solid waste as an energy resource to
14 the extent practicable.
15 The Act says that vendors must certify
16 the percentage of recycled material in the product
17 sold to the Federal government. Within 18 months of
18 the passage of the Act, it says the Federal government
19 must examine the recovered specifications and, in
20 essence, remove any determination against recycled
21 material.
22 And then there is another provision
23 that deals with solid waste management services,
24 maximizing energy and resource recovery. That is
25 difficult to interpret as a provision.
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72
1 And then finally there is a requirement
2
that EPA promulgate guidelines. And the purpose of
3 the guidelines is to assist Federal agencies in
4 implementing these requirements regarding procurement.
5 The guidelines themselves are not mandatory. They
6 are recommended procedure, but they are probably very
7 important given the words in the Act about things
8 being practical or not practical.
9 And the guidelines in essence help
10 define what is practical and not practical for Federal
11 agencies to procure by just testing availability of
12 products made from recovered materials and that sort
13 of thing.
14 I think that this Federal procurement
15 section is something that—it has always been a pet
16 peeve of a lot of people that the Federal government
17 couldn't get its house in order in terms of procuring
18 products containing recycled materials. And this
19 provision is one which I think a lot of us have been
20 waiting for. Probably it is most significant in the
21 aspect that it is not Federal procurement itself, but
22 it is state and local adoption of similar procurement
23 practices.
24 Federal procurement alone does not
25 really account for very much in the way of products.
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73
1 In fact, it is less than 2 per cent for almost any
2 product that you can think of. So this is something
3 that is very important for the state and local govern-
4 ments to consider, adopting this same sort of activity.
5 O.K. Another specific section of the
6 Act on Resource Recovery and Conservation is another
7 special study. I am not really going to dwell on
8 these because in essence most of these are studies
' which are—issues which have been studied in the past
10 to a greater or lesser extent. So these are not major
11 new studies. However, I do want to point out that
12 a few of these studies—one is a study on small scale
13 low technology systems and another one on front end
separation.
in essence, the study says look at
the impact of separation on the economic large scale
recovery system. I think it is important to point out
18 that I believe Congress recognized in this Act the
importance of research recovery for small and rural
20 communities, and not just larger communities. And
21 these two studies reflect that concern. There are
22 other provisions in the Act where separation and
23 small scale systems are mentioned. I think it is
24 very important.
25 The next area I want to talk about is
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74
l special committee on resource recovery and conservat-
2 ion. And this is a Cabinet level committee and the
3 purpose of the committee is to study a variety of
4 incentives and disincentives for encouraging markets
5 for secondary materials and energy.
6 It also requires a study of an important
7 new concept or new incentives, which is called a
8 product charge. And that is a charge on the materials
9 levied at the time of manufacture with a subsequent
10 credit for materials that are manufactured from
11 recycled resources. And the charge--the concept of
12 the charge is that it reflects the cost of disposal
13 of the product in the product.
14 This is a very important committee
15 because its members are Cabinet level members of the
16 Federal government; Secretaries of Treasury, Commerce,
17 Labor and other departments within the Federal govern-
18 ment. And it is chaired by EPA.
19 I think that this provision reflects
20 the interest of Congress in incentives for resource
21 recovery and conservation. A report to Congress with
22 recommendations is required within two years, and
23 there are intermediate reports required every six months
24 This is a major opportunity, I think, for the Federal
25 government to present to Congress specific recommendat-
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l Ions that will correct some of the marked inequities
2 that have long been recognized as major barriers to
3 resource recovery.
4 O.K. Another specific provision is
5 contained in Section 8005. Actually, Section 8005
6 restates authorities on research recovery and
7 conservation that are also mentioned in other parts
8 of the Act. For example, it maintains in there
9 authority to study incentives on public policies and
10 disposal charges. These are the same kinds of
11 authorities that are required of the resource
12 conservation committee that I just discussed.
13 Other kinds of study authority are
14 generally allowed in other parts of the Act, but this
15 sort of sums it all up for resource recovery and
16 conservation.
17 Now there is one section which we
18 don't have listed here on this slide and that is
19 Section 8006. 8006 is the Demonstration Authority.
20 It in essence provides authority to provide
21 demonstration grants for resource—for full scale
22 resource recovery at a maximum 75 per cent funding.
23 Those of you who are familiar with
24 the previous law, this is a similar authority to
25 what was there listed under Section 208.
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1 O.K. In the final provision which I
2 WD uld like to discuss Is the resource recovery and
3 conservation panel. Now this Is In essence a
4 technical assistance authority. Why are they called
5 panels? Well, they are probably called panels because
6 Congress wanted to emphasize the need for Federal
7 technical assistance of solid waste.
8 And to do that, they gave it a special
' name, panel, and then they gave It a special funding
10 authority. It is required that a minimum of 20 per
11 cent of the general authorizations be utilized for
12 these panels. The panels are broad in their coverage,
I3 even though they are called resource recovery and
14 conservation panels. They are broad in covering other
15 kinds of solid waste management activities. Their
16 purposes are broad as stated here on this slide.
17 The teams are supposed to be sort of
18 Inter-disclpllnary. They include technical expertise,
19 marketing, financial, institutional. Again, It
20 doesn't necessarily mean that there is a team of
2' people sitting there with one guy of each type on
22 it who suddenly goes out; but It does mean the
23 technical assistance Is to be provided on this broad
24 range of areas of expertise.
25 The team can be composed of EPA or
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77
1 Federal government personnel, state and local
2 personnel. Here is In essence a way of saying take
3 people who have experiences in solid waste management
4 and let them go tell other people about it. And let
^ them contract to consultants to provide technical
6 assistance.
7 I think I should flip this slide.
8 The last point on the panels is that these panels
9 relate to the authorities on Subtitle D concerning
10 state plans. Subtitle D in essence authorizes EPA
11 to provide technical assistance to states for
12 implementation on development and implementation of
13 plans through these technical assistance panels.
14 O.K. That is in essence a brief
15 summary of the Research Recovery and Conservation
'* provisions. We are very interested in getting feed-
17 back from the states and from the cities in terms of
18 how you feel about the need for the kinds of activities
19 outlined in the Act. There aren't any specific dead-
20 lines in most cases. In most cases there aren't.
21 There are no regulations to write
22 because this is a different type of activity from the
23 other type of activity. There are probably good
24 opportunities here for activities at the state and
25 local level, and we are interested in knowing about
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1 the kinds of things along these lines that you are
2 doing, how you feel about Federal level activities
3 in these areas.
4 So with that I will open it up for
5 questions.
&«ew- &&
6 MR. .jCBMBB: 1 am Woodrow AHM«-again.
7 I don't want to condemn you or be negative this time.
8 I think this is the reason I am here because when I
9 saw this recovery deal 1 was very much interested.
10 I have been following some of the things that have
11 been happening in Oregon and I was especially delighted
12 when I read about what happened in the National Park.
13 And that thing actually paid for itself.
14 And if it will pay for itself there,
15 I think we can make it pay on a community level. We
16 can solve a lot of our solid waste programs and at
17 the same time recover some of these materials which
18 are going to go out of date.
19 1 would like to see some other things
20 being done. I don't know whether I have the answers.
21 I understand that plastic is a petroleum based product.
22 Why do we make everything out of plastic now? If
23 sand is plentiful on the seashore, let's make it out
24 of glass and pay a high enough price so we can bring
25 it back and reuse it. Why throw it away?
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1 And the same thing with cans. Those
2 things can be recovered, apparently successfully.
3 At least the National Park Service has made it pay.
4 And I don't know why we can't make it pay on a national
5 level. And then, finally, we pay for the recovery of
6 an automobile when we buy it now. Let's recover what
7 is in it.
8 If you pay eight or nine thousand for
9 an automobile, you certainly ought to be able to
10 recover some of that material later on instead of
11 scattering it all over the landscape. That is one of
12 the most hideous things in our country. And it seems
13 to me we ought to be able to recover some of those
14 materials.
15 But 1 would hope that this program
16 really becomes significant because that is really why
17 I came here. I didn't realize this other crud was
18 on it. Thank you.
" MR. WRIGHT: I am J. C. Wright with
20 the Southeast Nebraska Council of Governments and I
21 cover four counties of which we have 28 incorporated
22 communities. With the exception of six of those
23 communities, they are all under 1,000 in population
24 so I can sympathize with the good man back here and
25 his problems.
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1 What my people are interested in out
2 there is hardware. Is there a provision in this
3 Act for crawlers, compactors, buying some land for
4 the sites, test boring, fencing, shelter belts,
roads from the county roads or the state highway
6
8
15
back to the landfill site, because these people out
7 here are operating units of government on $25,000 to
$30,000 a year. And that is for everything; road
o
repair, sewer systems, water systems, city employees,
10 right down the line, the recreation program and
11 everything.
12 And as the mayor mentioned, we are
13 now looking at a new product out here; in this case,
open dumps that have to be closed primarily in the
rural areas. I went out to one of my landfill sites
16 just last week. It was cold, 15 below zero. That
17 landfill is open two-and-a-half days a week. It
serves three communities.
19 I went out with the guy that runs the
20 bulldozer and it was 27 inches of frost on his cover
21 material. That is a little deep for a cat. He
22 couldn't even hardly break the cover material. Now
23 this is the kinds of problems that we are facing in
24 a rural area with small dumps that you want to close.
We could go to a larger operation--and I have material
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1 on my desk--I can tell you how many housing units
2 in every community, how many business establishments
3 and how many tons of solid waste is generated.
4 We can pick a potential site and say
5 how far it is from town x to that site. And if we
6 take tests or can't meet the criteria to prevent
7 ground water pollution, something like that, we have
8 to haul it farther. And the transportation cost
9 goes up.
10 So when I go back out, the people are
11 going to say, "Well, we can write a plan." Well I
12 worked in another state where I covered 10 counties
13 and we wrote nine plans. And they are real good. And
14 I think Bill will agree with me. We can write a lot
15 of plans, but what we have got to do is implement
16 these plans. And when we get ready to implement them,
17 we need the hardware, we need the landfill sites, we
18 need some way of fencing it, we need an all-weather
19 road to get back to the sites, and we need some method
20 to control these sites, such as shoulder belts, some
21 type of landscaping, or something like that.
22 And this is just one more item that
23 we are concerned with out there. And this is what our
24 people want to know, is there money in there for
25 hardware, land fencing, this type of thing.
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1 I think we can get some plans written.
2 Our problem is getting them implemented after the
3 plan is written. Now we can say we have got a plan
4 for six months or a year from now, depending on the
5 area covered or the size of the community. And in the
6 meantime we can create ground water pollution problems
7 or bills in some state legislatures on the recovery
8 of bottles, cans or paper or whatever. This has
9 come down the line. It is not new. It is being
10 implemented a lot of places.
11 We have a lot of the documents on
12 there. We have copies made. But it is not economical-
13 ly feasible to do this in a rural area, even if you
14 have got 20 towns out there with populations under
15 1,000. And there when you are talking some areas
16 that are maybe 2,500 square miles, and you have got
17 eight or 10 towns with population under 1,000, you
18 have got an economic problem. But you have still
19 got to dispose of that solid waste. So this is what
20 we are faced with, gentlemen.
21 And I think if we can find some method
22 of hardware out there and some landfill sites and
23 the money to acquire them, we can solve a lot of
24 those problems, especially in the rural areas. I
25 know that the larger communities are faced with the
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1 problem of just finding a site. Most of the time
2 out there, we can find a site, but the problem is
3 after we get the site we don't have the equipment to
4 operate it. Thank you.
5 MR. LINGLE: I think that Congress
6 recognizes the problems of rural communities in
7 complying with the elimination of open dumping, and
8 therefore they did put a provision in the Act for
9 financial assistance to rural communities. Whether
10 or not there will be very much funding available
11 under that section is another matter, but there is the
'2 authority in the Act.
13 Anybody have any other comments or
14 questions?
15 MS. ROSE: I am Elsie Rose and I am
" here representing the Kansas City League,of Women
17 Voters and Nature Conservancy.
18 I may not have a question at all, if
19 my initial question gets a certain answer. Is the
20 Interstate Commerce Commission still responsible for
21 higher shipping costs for recyclable materials, as
22 compared to virgin materials? Has that regulation
23 changed at all in the last three or four or five years?
24 MR. LINGLE: Well, the Interstate
25 Commerce Commission, as a result of some railroad
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84
legislation that was passed a year or so ago, is
2 required to review its rate structure and to eliminate
any discrimination against recycled material. Now,
that sounds very noble, but in effect the method by
which transportation rates are established is very
6 complex and it is very difficult to sort out in many
cases whether there really is discrimination or not.
8 And so the actual effect that the
study will have is, I would say, uncertain. In
other words, whether there will be any major changes
11 in transportation rates for recycled versus virgin
12 materials or not is uncertain.
13
I would say, however, that the. issue
14 of inequitable freight rates has been misunderstood
by a lot of people. We conducted a study about three
years ago on freight rates and found that for many
17 materials, while the rates were different for secondary
materials such as virgin materials, they didn't
19 necessarily discriminate. In other words, it actually
20 did cost more to ship secondary materials in certain
21 cases because they were shipped to more diverse
22 locations. They were in smaller quantities. They
23 had different characteristics than virgin, and that
24 sort of thing. There was some discrimination in
25 certain cases. Hopefully, the ICC review will
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85
1 eliminate that, but the problem Is not nearly as
2 widespread nor as significant as most people think.
3 MS. ROSE: O.K. That probably pretty
4 well settles the question, because in relation to
5 Section 6002 the procurement, they are going to have
6 a difficult time procuring secondary recycled materials
7 if they are going to be more costly because of ICC
8 regulations.
9 So the one thing is kind of a domino
10 effect, dependent upon other things.
11 MR. LINGLE: That would impact on that
12 to some degree, but--
13 MS. ROSE: O.K. I just wondered where
14 that ICC regulation was at. Thank you.
15 MR. LINGLE: Anything else?
16 (No response.)
17 MR. TUCKER: Any additional questions
18 for Steve Lingle on this topic?
19 (No response.)
20 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Steve. O.K.
21 The last formal section of the program tonight before
22 we get into open discussion is on the overall topic
23 of state program development. And once again to
24 present this we have Lannie Hickman.
25 MR. HICKMAN: Actually we are going to
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1 talk about state and local program development,
2 rather than just state program development because
3 the law is designed in a unique way to provide
4 assistance, both technical and financial, for partner-
5 ship between state and local government to develop
6 and implement state solid waste management plans.
7 O.K. Two subtitles of the law provide
8 for some authorities related to state solid waste
9 management programs. Subtitle C is a hazardous waste
10 provision of the law. Subtitle D is called state and
11 local plans.
12 RCRA provides a mechanism for the
13 states to assume a dominant role in assuring proper
14 solid waste management. There is no doubt about it,
15 but the law recognizes the state to be the keystone
16 to effective solid waste management programs as far
17 as establishing and obtaining acceptable levels of
18 environmental protection and resource and conservation.
19 RCRA provides a mechanism for local
20 government to meet planning and implementation needs
21 through a variety of planning, financial and technical
22 assistance efforts. The law requires EPA issue within
23 six months of the enactment of the law, which would
24 be April of 1977, guidelines for what are regional
25 planning areas.
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1 In this section of the law It discusses
2 the interrelationships between solid waste regional
3 planning areas and a 208 regional planning area that
4 is provided for under the Federal Water Pollution
5 Control Act.
6 There are some concerns here by many
7 about solid waste management that regional solid
8 waste planning practices of the past for the future
9 are going to be forced into the 208 planning mold.
10 That Is not the case. While the law says' wherever
11 practicable, utilize what is provided for under 208,
12 there is no requirement that regional planning areas
13 of solid waste management be the same.
'4 There has been a good deal of concern
15 about all the planning that has been done in the past
16 being thrown out the window. I would hope not. I
17 would hope that--we would hope that the amount of
18 planning that has been done for the provisions under
I9 the law would be minimal; that in order to get states
20 and local government ready to meet the requirements
21 of the law and to receive money--what money is
22 available—to deal with the requirements of the law.
23 Once the regional guidelines are
24 prepared, then within a year from the enactment of
25 the law we have to issue guidelines for the state solid
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88
1 waste management program. This wtll establish the
2 mechanism by which approval of state solid waste
3 management plans will occur under the law and a flow
4 of money for implementation of those plans.
5 Now In the law, the law lays out
6 minimum requirements for what is acceptable as a state
7 program. First it requires that state and local
8 government, local elected officials, must get together
9 and agree on the relative roles of state and local
10 government in the development and implementation of
11 the state plan.
12 Now what that is saying is that a
13 state plan does not necessarily have to be developed
14 by state government. It can be developed mutually,
15 cooperatively or in other arrangements that the
16 state government and local elected officials represent-
17 Ing local government can agree on. Now the law does
'8 not say what constitutes agreement between state and
19 local government. We think there Is going to be very
20 Interesting interplay in some areas to see how that
21 comes about.
22 What if state and local government
23 cannot agree on how a state plan will be developed
24 and implemented? Then the Governor will designate
25 how it will be done. So the first requirement will
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I be for the state and local government to come to some
2 agreement on planning and implementation.
3 The plan must provide for the eliminat-
4 ion of open dumps, the banning of future open dumps,
5 conversion and closing of existing open dumps, and
6 the establishment of only sanitary landfills in the
7 future. It must provide for the regulatory authorities
3 necessary to carry out the objectives of the state
9 plan.
10 It must provide for freedom of local
11 government to make contractural arrangements with
12 resource recovery facilities for the provision of
13 solid waste. In other words, they are saying that
14 Congress recognizes that some states and local govern-
15 ments cannot make long term contractural commitments
16 of or beyond a certain period of time. This hinders
17 financing of large capital projects, such as resource
18 recovery facilities because of the high cost and the
19 long amortization pay offs of these facilities.
20 Therefore, this was used by Congress as a hindrance
2i to implementation of resource recovery plans.
22 But they are saying if you have got
23 these sort of restrictions in your constitution or in
24 your local municipal legislation, then you must provide
25 a mechanism through the normal procedures of your state
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90
1 legislature to eventually remove those restrictions
2 so the opportunity for resource recovery can be better.
3 The final minimum requirement of the
4 state plan is that all the solid waste must be
5 included in the plan and must either go to sanitary
6 landfills or be recovered—reduced through resource
7 conservation recovery procedures.
8 Now those are the minimum requirements
9 of the state plan. Now we have been in the state plan-
10 ning business. We meaning states and several solid
11 waste programs since 1966. The first planning grants
12 to state governments were awarded in 1966. Most states
13 developed and have published a plan which was accepted
14 by the Governor--approved by the Governor and accepted
15 by EPA sometime in the 1970, 1971, 1972 period.
16 About two years ago financial assistance
17 for planning areas to states were directed toward
18 developing three strategies; basically they were to
19 implement their plan. One of those strategies was
20 get a handle on hazardous waste and prepare to establish
21 an adequate waste program which will see to the
22 guaranteeing having it handled from cradle to grave.
23 You notice how nice that request to
24 the states two or three years ago fits in with the
25 new hazardous waste provisions of RCRA.
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1 The second strategy was establish a
2 strategy to deal with Improper land disposal and
3 proper land disposal of solid waste. Now notice how
4 that fits in very nicely with the land disposal
5 provisions of .RCRA.
6 And the third strategy was establish
7 trying to deal with the resource conservation needs
8 of your state. Again, it fits very nicely into the
9 provisions of RCRA.
10 So all those laws that have already
11 been passed gave us a taste of what were going to be
12 major needs to deal with solid waste management. So
13 we don't see a big tooling up period of time and a lot
14 of new plans and a lot of exercises that are going to
15 have to go on before much of this law can proceed.
16 Now this section of the law has a lot
'7 of financial assistance with it. We have already
18 talked about Section 3011, which provides money to
19 the states for the support of state hazardous waste
20 programs authorized for fiscal years 1978 and 1979,
21 25 million dollars each year.
22 Now this money is based on problems.
23 In other words, the money is supposed to go where the
24 big hazardous waste problems are or the big hazardous
25 waste generation areas are. It is 25 million dollars.
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1 And that is specifically for state hazardous waste
2 programs.
3 The current funding of state solid
4 waste management programs is about 25 million dollars
5 nationally. That is not much money. Three million
6 dollars of that is Federal money. The rest is state
7 money. So 25 million dollars represents 100 per cent
8 increase as to the funding at the state level.
9 We recognize there has been a lot of
10 work done to get ready to be at the point where we are
11 today.
12 In Section 4008, it provides for funding
13 for the development and implementation of the state
14 plan. I have talked about the state plan. We recognize
15 that this plan is to cover all solid waste, including
16 solid wastes which are liquid and those solid wastes
17 which are sludges and those solid wastes which are
18 hazardous. So it provides funding in 1978. It
19 authorizes 30 million dollars for the fiscal year of
20 1978; and in 1979, 40 million.dollars.
21 Now this is based on a population
22 formula basis and it goes to the states to be allocated
23 between state government and local government for
24 the purposes of developing and implementing the state
25 plan.
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1 It is strictly on a population basis
2 but it says no state shall receive less than one-half
3 of 1 per cent of any funds appropriated under this
4 section of the law.
5 Now Section 4008(a)(2) provides for
6 implementation of solid waste management programs
7 effectively at the local level. This section of the
8 law recognizes the bridging of the gap between
9 development of plan and actual construction of a
10 facility or the awarding of the contract or the--
11 to allow the bridging of the gap to allow the selling
12 of a plan that has been developed by a community or
13 a region.
14 That authorizes 50 million dollars each
15 year for the fiscal years 1978 and 1979 for such
16 work as plan and feasibility studies, counsultation
17 of a consulting service, surveys, market studies,
18 economic analysis investigations, technology assistance
19 It is principally to assist communities to meet the
20 land disposal requirements and they must meet them
21 according to the guidelines issued by the agency.
22 This has no formula. It will be
23 awarded to local governments on a. direct basis for
24 specific problem oriented needs. Section 4008(e) is
25 a real strange little section of the law which is
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1 dealing with special communities and authorizes
2 two-and-a-half million dollars each for the fiscal
3 years 1978 and 1979 for communities with populations
4 less than 25,000 with 75 per cent of the solid waste
5 coming into the community for disposal and treatment
6 from the outside and that these represent serious
7 environmental problems.
8 This section of the law obviously was
' written for one or two communities that have particular
10 interest by some party in the Congressional delegation.
11 Again, this is on no formula.
12 Section 4009, rural community
13 assistance, authorizes that for each year, the fiscal
14 years 1978 and 1979, 25 million dollars. These are
15 grants to states to assist communities, rural communi-
16 ties and rural counties which have populations of
17 less than 5,000; county populations of 10,000 or less;
18 or less than 20 persons per square mile; and another
19 factor built in on whether or not they are within
20 125 per cent of the poverty level--established poverty
21 level of income.
22 This is targeted at rural communities
23 such as has been discussed, trying to meet some of
24 the requirements of the law or trying to do this to
25 improve practices of solid waste management. It is
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95
l primarily to meet the open dumping requirements of
2 HCBft,,, clean air amendments that might be required
3 such as the elimination of open burning for a disposal
4 site, any requirements of FWPCA where there is a
5 problem getting rid of the sludge from a sewage
6 treatment plant, or such inferior irrigation.
7 This money is only available to a
8 rural community if no regional system is available,
9 and there is no existing or planned system available
10 to tie it to on a regional basis. Now here again
11 it has an allotment on the limit as to states based
12 on rural population formula with 75 per cent of the
13 cost to be--of any particular project can be funded
14 under this authority. You cannot buy land. It
15 excludes the purchase of land. I am not quite sure
16 why.
17 In effect there are several financial
18 assistance programs to help state and local governments
19 plan and implement plans. There is 25 million dollars
20 for hazardous waste state programs. There is 30
21 million dollars to develop and implement plans. There
22 is another 15 million dollars on implementation of
23 plans to local government that bridges the gap between
24 planning and implementation. There is 25 million dollars
25 to the rural communities to respond to the principle
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1 of the open dumping provisions of the law. All this
2 adds up to about 100 million dollars for the fiscal
3 year starting in 1978. Our fiscal year starts October
4 1 of this year for 1978.
5 Now that is basically covering the--
6 sorry about that. Now we had some questions. Someone
7 asked--are we at the place now where we can talk
8 about that question? Do you want to restate it or
9 did I answer it somewhere in this presentation?
J"«V-V«. JSw*»"
1° MS. jegffBK: Dee Jatner- with East
H West Gateway in St. Louis. The question is: Will
12 the Act be implemented as you have outlined it here
13 tonight, whether or not Congress appropriates money
14 to fund these various provisions, or, you know,
15 depending on the level at which the appropriation
16 might be?
17 MR. HICKMAN: The Act will be tmplemente
18 maybe not all of it. The budget for 1978, as it is
19 now in the President's budget, is 24.8 million dollars.
20 In addition to the 24.8 million dollars, there is
21 12 million dollars in financial assistance to state
22 and local governments. Two mechanisms--seven million
23 dollars for states for development of plans and
24 implementation of plans, and five million dollars of
25 the 208 budget is designated for the purposes of
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97
1 local and regional planning. So you have a combination
2 of 36.8 million dollars.
3 Compare this to 1977 budget level for
4 solid waste management of some 16.5 million dollars.
5 Compare that with the authorized level of. 1978 of
6 about 181 million dollars. So there is somewhat of
7 a gap between what has been requested and what has
8 been authorized.
9 Naturally with that level of funding,
10 certain programs are not going to get under way very
11 well. Some of the things that will just not really
12 get under way is the manpower. That is low priority
13 compared to other things. It is not mandated on a
14 calendar basis.
15 Things that will occur is the hazardous
16 waste regs will be written. The guidelines that are
17 required for state and local planning will be written.
18 The criteria for the sanitary landfills and open dumps
" will be written. The inventory will be started.
2" Now whether or not the entire inventory can be done
21 is questionable, because the way the law is now
22 written and the way the law defines disposal and
23 sanitary landfills and solid waste, any waste going
24 on the land to some sort of disposal facility must
25 be sometime be inventoried.
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1 Now one Immediately starts to raise
2 all sorts of questions over whether or not the agency
3 has a flexibility to phase the inventory. So while
we are experienced in dealing with municipal solid
5 waste, the state and local government are experienced
6 in dealing with municipal solid waste. And we have
7 begun to move the last several years into the problems
of hazardous waste.
9 We have not really attacked the issue
10 of disposal sites such as ponds and lagoons that
receive liquid and goo and things like this. So
12 whether or not the inventory can be phased for
13 several years to--a legal interpretation of the law
would say probably not, but the money that is there
now is not enough to do the inventory.
16 There is no implementation grants.
17 There is no rural community assistance grants in that
18 present law. There is no special community, which
is really not a very large section of the law. There
20 is no hazardous waste state program for 1978, So--
21 but there is money there to begin the implementation
22 of the law. And much of the foundation for future
23 years will be done through the hazardous waste
24 regulatory guidelines that we have under way, and we
25 will continue to work and fund at the levels we can.
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1 And we will always share as much as
2 we can of what we have with state government as we
3 have in the past. If you take out--look at our
4 budget. If you would analyze our budget and take
5 out a lot of stuff, you know--you are looking at a
6 15 million dollar budget. If you take out payrolls,
7 paper clips, pencils, erasers, paper, xerox machines
8 and whatever and other commitments that you have,
9 and if you take what goes to research, basically what
10 our office has to share with the state is about seven
11 million dollars in a 15 million dollar budget. That
12 is about what we have to share.
13 MS. WOODWARD: Esther Woodward again
14 from the League of Women Voters, Kansas. You just
15 were telling us about the funds for rural assistance
16 and you just said--and I need to be straightened out,
17 I am sorry. You just said that there were no funds
18 in 1978 or were you talking about 1977?
19 MR. HICKMAN: All right. The authori-
20 zation for the fiscal year 1978, that is when the
21 real funding authorizations of the law begin. The
22 fiscal year 1977 only had general authorizations under
23 the—you know.
24 MS. WOODWARD: The 15 million you just
25 were talking about?
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1 MRo HICKMAN: That is fiscal year 1977,
general authorization. That is this year's money.
3
Now through the end of September.
4 MS. WOODWARD: Now there is an author-
ization but you don't have the appropriation from
'Congress—for all these things that you have been
mentioning, these special comnunities, and the rural--
8 MR. HICKMAN: That is fiscal year 1978.
9
We are only now starting into the budget cycle for
1978. Hearings will start next week. They will carry
over for a couple of months. And then the Congress
about May or June should give us a line on what the
13 Federal budget will be.
14
What we have now, of course, is the
past administration's budget. The incoming administra-
tion has about until the first, the early part of
March to make any changes under the budgeting law
18
that the country now functions under. And if you have
19
been reading the paper the last few days, you will
2 see where all of Carter's Cabinet members are telling
him, "Boy, we don't have enough money to get out
22
pro grams done."
And so there is a lot of consideration,
looking at the current budget requests that are before
25
this Congress. But I am talking about 1978 authorized
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1 levels as opposed to what has been asked to Implement
2 the law. -
mt»\.W/y
3 MS. WOODWARD: Mrs. WilejrVas just
4 saying with our experience with the Water Pollution
5 Law that if the appropriations could just be put to
6 funding your panels or a group of technicians and
7 professionals who could go around in this state and
8 help the local communities get organized instead of
9 having it simply bureaucrats in the state office,
10 and not bother with criteria, which as you have said
11 can't be the same for Maine as they are for Kansas
12 or Nebraska.
13 Just get those people out into the
14 different communities to solve their problems--
15 MR. HICKMAN: We will do both. The
TT/t
!« -Wtd-will be funded in 1978. They will be funded.
17 They will receive their 20 per cent of the budget,
18 whatever that budget is. That 24.8 million, they will
19 'receive their 20 per cent.
20 We recognize that every regulation
21 guideline and criteria we have to do because there
22 is a time in the law that says you shall promulgate
23 by such a date. And otherwise we spend all of our
24 time trying to rationalize why we have not done what
25 the law says we have to. Yes, sir?
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1 MR. -6WWE: **6-4«- panels?
2 MR. HICKMAN: Yes, sir.
&L*nf ftrtt
3 MR. CUUCB: Woodwrow Guggg again.
4 MR. HICKMAN: I am glad you came.
5 MR. OUR3B. I may be sorry before I
6 am through.
7 Well, I am trying to separate all these
8 figures. I believe out of the 15 million you said
9 three million came from the Federal government.
10 MR. HICKMAN: To the states. You see,
11 out of our current budget of 15 million dollars, the
12 states get three million.
13 MR. obllCB; And you indicated that was
14 negligible. I agree, because on Sunday the 535
15 Congressmen pick up seven million dollars out of our
14 budget. That is also negligible as far as they are
17 concerned, not as far as I am concerned because they
18 get an increase in excess of the median income of the
19 United States people. But that is neither here nor
20 there.
2i You said that 95 million was authorized.
22 Now there is no assurance that 95 million will be
23 funded?
24 MR. HICKMAN: That is correct.
25 Authorization levels have not--
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1 MR. 6UROB; Doesn't mean a thing.
2 MR. HICKMAN: It merely places a ceiling
3 for the purposes of the Congress calculating cash
4 flow. That is what they tell me.
5 MR. eWft&E: And so we probably aren't
6 going to get anywhere near the 95 million for your
7 program in 1978 and 1979?
8 MR. HICKMAN: Well the budget request
9 for 1978 is 25 million.
10 MR. OimOH: Well you have it in here
11 25 for this, 30 for another and 15 —
12 MR. HICKMAN: That is authorizations.
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1 MR. HICKMAN: While the Congress may
2 indeed increase the request that the administration
3 has asked for, it is not uncommon--
M*7tf
4 MR. awfiQB; Well I have some difficulty
5 with their figures, but that is neither here nor there.
d They don't have to balance their budget. I do.
7 I don't come from New York City, and
8 the Federal government isn't going to bail me out.
9 So--well, this funding bit bothers me a little. You
10 mentioned some other things that also troubled me.
11 One was in regard to the definition of
12 these various wastes. And that brings me very closely
13 to home here. We have a lake that was funded with
14 Federal money--thank goodness for that. The good
15 Democrats got something for us Republicans. But,
16 you know, I am really troubled with some of these
17 regulations.
18 Now anybody who swims in that lake,
19 they just crucify them. But, you know, the water
20 shed has all kinds of crud running into it, and I
21 have tried to see whether we can do anything about it.
22 No, you can't do anything about that. I mean, if the
23 farmer wants to drive his cattle through and run all
24 the manure through our city lake, and somebody wants
25 to dump their trash into the water shed, that is all
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^ fine. But we are supposed to keep human betngs out.
2 Now, see there is a little difference.
3 In one case it is pollution and in the
4 other case it is fertilizer, I guess. I don't know.
5 MR. HICKMAN: Is that a Federal or a
6 state requirement?
fyKTH
7 MR. OuMC: I don't know. See, I got
8 all kinds of problems with these things because they
' keep on telling me that something is wrong with the
10 lake. I have to do this. I have to put some kind of
11 a poison in there to kill this. In the lagoon I have
12 to do the other thing. I am so confused with all the
13 regulations and all the tests that we perform. So
14 I really have some trouble.
15 But I was real interested in this when
16 you talked about some of the rural things, too, because
17 that really does concern us. We haven't give a lot
18 of attention to that. And so I suppose we ought to--
19 I think you have got 25 million in here, but that is
20 going to go to the hardware in Nebraska. Thank you.
21 MR. TUCKER: Lannie, what section are
22 we on?
23 MR. HICKMAN: I don't know. You want
24 me to sit down, is that what you are saying?
25 MR. TUCKER: No. I just wondered if we
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1 had moved into the next section.
2 MR. HICKMAN: Go ahead, sir.
3 MR. ROCHESTER: I am Jloel' Rochester.
4 I am from Nebraska. I represent the Nebraska Associat-
5 ion of Regional Councils.
6 We have discussed this every since
7 the Act was first signed into law, and we feel that
8 there are several important issues here that should
9 be addressed. For one, we represent local government.
10 I am real happy to see the mayor who is here tonight
11 from Concordia. I wish that, in fact, some of our
12 elected officials felt that strongly about this Act
13 to come down here and do this presentation instead of
14 me.
15 We have worked very diligently and
16 very hard and have received the same kind of cooperation
17 from our Department of Environmental Control that we
18 would hope that they receive from you, that is the
19 State of Nebraska. And we are very happy to see that
20 the 208 Water Quality Planning distttcts are not going
21 to get this particular program.
22 MR. HICKMAN: They may get some of it.
23 MR. ROCHESTER: They may get some of
24 it, but we hope they don't get any of it. If they
25 make the farce out of the1solid waste plan that they
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1 have already made out of the 208, I can only wish us
2 luck.
3 COGS In Nebraska at the present time
4 represent approximately 80 per cent of the population.
5 We have 26 planning regions in the state and we feel
6 that we are quite responsive to our local officials.
1 And, in fact, we are very happy to see this program
8 being turned to local government. We hope that in
' Nebraska that this will go on to our county governments,
10 regardless of the fact of whether they have COGS in
11 their particular counties or not.
'2 i know that you discussed the rules
13 and regulations. One of the questions that I have
14 is how would you hope to implement these rules and
!5 regulations if there are no funds? It is a question
'6 that I have a hope that Mr. gUiaida will find out the
17 answers to.
18 Again, I point to your citizen input
19 Into the program; and, again, I would point out that
20 COGS are probably your very best input into this type
21 of thing, in as much as we represent the small rural
22 communities all the way from 47 in population on up and
23 in the state of Nebraska, we on a person to person
24 basis with these people. We have already discussed
25 the new law with them and our people are very responsive
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DSC.
1 to us, and I think that should our state -BHB€ take
2 this over, that they will get all the input as is
3 absolutely necessary from just meeting with COGS if
4 not the local and elected officials.
5 And I could go on to state that I think
6 this is possibly true nationwide. Our Council of
7 Governments movement has been filtered down through
8 each one of the states. Fortunately Nebraska is one
9 of those where it is not mandated. So we can feel
10 free to discuss with our state departments those things
11 that are near and dear to us and also tell them off
12 when they have it coming to them.
13 Thank you.
14 MR.TUCKER: I believe the time has come
15 to move into the last session indicated on the program.
16 As a matter of fact, I think we have already moved into
17 it, we just don't know when. So we will start the
18 open discussion session indicated on the program and
19 this will be for just anything remaining that you would
20 like to discuss.
3»Vh*r
21 I would like to ask Dee Jaine* if she
22 got a responsive answer out of Lannie Hickman while
23 I was out of the room. Did you, Dee?
24 MS. jonnar- Yes.
25 MR. HICKMAN: Please.
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1 MR. TUCKER: We did have some people
2 indicate that they would like to make a short state-
3 merit at the meeting, and they may have already
4 inserted and I didn't catch the name. Is William
5 Riffle with us tonight from Overland Park?
6 MR. RIFFLE: I have no statement.
7 MR. TUCKER: No statement to make
8 tonight. O.K., sir.
9 Dave Makings from Colby, Kansas?
10 Is he with us?
11 (No response.)
'2 MR. TUCKER: I guess he is not here.
AWt«l
13 And Norman Jaipotiid? I haven't seen
14 Norman tonight. So I assume he's not planning to
15 make a statement tonight since he is not here. He
16 will probably be here tomorrow morning.
17 With that, once again, I would like
18 to open the meeting wide up, wide open, anything that
19 you would like to ask of any of the panel members
20 up here, or as far as that goes, the state people
21 in the audience. Since we have started, Robbie Robin-
22 son, the Director of the Missouri State Solid Waste
23 Program, has joined us. Robbie, raise your hand.
24 And I don't believe any other state
25 people have come in since we started. So any questions
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110
1 Yes, sir. Can you come to the mike, please, so the
2 other people can hear.
3 MR. WRIGHT: This question is addressed
4 to Lannie. You mentioned that 75 per cent--are we
5 to assume that 25 per cent has to be made up locally,
6 city, county or state. Can that be matched by another
7 program, i.e., a Federal program? Is there a
8 restriction on that?
' You know, I will give you an example.
10 When general revenue sharing first come out you could
11 not mesh general revenue sharing money with other
12 Federal programs. Under the new--
13 MR. TUCKER: You can now.
14 MR. WRIGHT: You can? So this is
'5 a similar type question. In other words, the metro-
16 politan areas through, say, the community block
17 grant program may say, "Look, we are under criteria
18 to establish our solid waste program." They may run
19 it through there. Or the rural areas may go to some
20 organization like Farmer's Home Administration or
21 something like this for the other 25 per cent?
22 Primarily, because like the mayor says,
23 they don't have it in their local budget and they
24 can't put out GO Bonds. They are to their limit on
25 revenue bonds. Their mill levy is at its maximum,
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Ill
1 this type of thing.
2 MR. HICKMAN: I don't know. But
3 there is nothing in this section that says yes or no.
4 It is a good question. That is one we will have to
5 look up.
6 MR. WRIGHT: I imagine we are going to
7 get that question out in the field.
8 MR. TUCKER: All right. We just don't
9 have a definition on that point as yet. And that is
10 one of many, many things to be developed over the
11 next few months. Any additional questions?
12 (No response.)
13 MR. TUCKER: Is the lady back in the
14 room with AP? Yes, did you find out if someone was
15 to make a statement about the situation with Wichita?
16 MS. SMITH: I am Debbie Smith and I
17 am from Associated Press. I am interested in knowing
18 how the proposed regulations will affect the proposed
19 dump outside Wichita? And I want to know whether or
20 not the state permit that has been granted to the
21 site will be taken back, or forced to be brought up
22 to new standards because of the new law?
23 MR. TUCKER: I will attempt to answer
24 that. I spoke with you out in the hall briefly a
25 while ago. I don't believe anyone is here from the
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112
1 state agency of Kansas as yet. I know they will be
2 here tomorrow.
3 But this is a new industrial waste
landfill site close to Wichita, or if you want to
5 call it a hazardous landfill site. It has had the
6 engineering plans completed, both for design and
7 operation, and obtained a permit from the Kansas
Department of Health and Environment.
9 Since then, within the last, I guess,
10 week to two weeks, this has been challenged in the
11 courts because of some technicality in the material
'2 submitted to the state. As to the effect our law,
13 this new law will have on this state action, I believe
it was pointed out in the program earlier that our law
15 would not be retroactive. And in that sense I don't
see that we would have any way where we would inter-
fere with the current' situation where Kansas has
18 given this permit.
19 Now, when the guidelines, rules and
20 regulations are developed under this section of our
21 law on hazardous waste, I think if there is something
22 in there of significant difference in these requirement
23 versus the present state requirements, there may be
a point of requiring some factor to be upgraded in
25 connection with this faeility.
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l Walt, would you assist me on this?
2 MR. KOVALICK: You are right. What
3 I said was there was no retroactive coverage of
4 waste. In other words, what I meant is if there is
5 a stockpile of waste existing now on some manufacturer
6 property, that would not necessarily be covered until
7 he goes to move it. And if he would move that waste,
8 and if it were hazardous, then it would require
9 manifest, and so forth. But if it were not moved,
10 it may not.
11 Now with regard to the site, let's
12 assume that in 18 to 24 months the State of Kansas
13 wants to take over the hazardous waste program. So
14 they would apply for it, and they would have to have
15 a permit program for facilities that was—actually,
16 there are three words that I used in the slide that
17 I showed you. The state program would have to be
18 equivalent to the Federal program, and that is the
19 word we are trying to define right now, and not--
20 it would have to also be consistent with programs in
21 neighboring states.
22 So it is hard to say at this point,
23 not knowing what the Federal permit guidelines or
24 regs would be for land disposal facilities, to know
25 whether or not it would meet them.
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1 MS. SMITH: O.K. Excuse my ignorance.
2 Does this mean that these plants are now under the
3 operation of the state but the new law makes them
4 under the operation of the Federal government?
5 MR. KOVALICK: Unless the State of
6 Kansas--
1 MS. SMITH: Applies its standards to
8 match your—in other words, once the law was signed
9 into action in 1976, despite the fact that these
10 regulations have not been set forth specifically,
11 it is now your responsibility to take care of this
12 site? No, it still belongs to the State of Kansas?
13 MR. KOVALICK: Right. 18 months--
14 you missed the--each slide said 18 months from now
IS we are going to write regs. So in 18 months, unless
16 the state wants to take over the program, then and
17 only then would Federal requirements be applicable.
18 MS. SMITH: O.K. 18 months from October
19 of 1976?
20 MR. KOVALICK: Right. That is when
21 the regs were published and in six months it would
22 take effect. So before anything could happen, it
23 would be a minimum of 24 months, assuming everything
24 was on time from October of 1976.
25 MS. SMITH: O.K. So the point is that
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1 in two years or 24 months this is going to become
2 the Federal responsibility for taking care of this
3 site?
4 MR. KOVAL1CK: I don't know that.
5 I don't know what the State of Kansas is--
6 MS. SMITH: Oh, I see. In other words,
7 the State of Kansas could maintain control?
8 MR. KOVALICK: Yes.
9 MR. TUCKER: I think maybe the point
10 here that needs a little bit of clarification is
11 that we will develop these regs, but the states will
12 then have the option of having their own regs that
13 are essentially comparable to the Federal regs, and
14 so forth.
15 And indicate the desire to maintain
16 this program at the state level. This is a permit
17 and enforcement program. And only if they should
18 choose not to maintain this program do we do it at
19 the Federal level.
20 MR. HICKMAN: Now the intent is not
21 to prempt state law.
22 MR. TUCKER: Right.
23 MR. HICKMAN: But to provide a mechanism
24 to maximize state involvement in the function of these
25 programs.
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1 MS. SMITH: Let me ask you a general
2 question. Suppose as a state I were going broke.
3 I am real poor and 1 didn't want to take care of my
4 landfill responsibilities anymore. In two years can
5 I just advocate and you can do it?
6 MR. HICKMAN: Well you got to sort
7 out between the hazardous waste provisions of the law
8 and the rest. It is only in the hazardous waste
9 provision that the Feds would come in and exercise
10 regulatory authority. And the rest of it, although
11 we write a criteria for disposal sites, and if that
12 site is an open dump under that criteria, it is in
13 violation of Federal law. It is not enforceable by
14 Federal programs.
15 But the site is subject to suit by
16 any individual out there in the Federal court system
17 for being in violation; but it is not a Federal
18 regulatory program. And even in a hazardous waste
" site, it is only when the state refuses to or is unable
20 to or cannot assume the program that the Feds have to
21 pick up the responsibility for permitting and then
22 enforcement on a case by case basis.
23 Only the hazardous waste site is
24 there Federal regulatory stroke.
25 MS. SMITH: Thank you.
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1 MR. KOVALICK: I wanted to point out
2 also that all industrial wastes will not be hazardous
3 wastes. There Is about 260 or so million tons dry
4 waste as industrial waste, processed waste, sludges
5 and so forth. And only about 10 per cent of those are
$ hazardous. So I am blissfully Ignorant of this site
7 at the moment, but the fact that it is industrial
8 waste does not mean it is going to fall into the
9 hazardous waste category.
10 MS. SMITH: Thank you.
11 MR. TUCKER: I was trying to tell her
12 a little bit earlier that even though this site may
13 have been called a hazardous waste disposal site, the
14 great bulk of the material that will actually be
IS handled will be from Industry in the area; and much
16 of this waste is very common waste acids, waste caustic
17 and waste solvents that may go there. I don't know.
18 I haven't reviewed the plan.
19 But it depends on what—how broad a
20 definition of hazardous we are going to be using here.
21 Any further questions?. Yes, sir?
22 MR. FAIRCHILD: I am Gene Fairchild,
23 Pittsburg, Kansas. One question I have, and I guess
24 it would be this gentleman on the end, Steven Lingle;
25 this is a public discussion of resource conservation
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1 and recovery, and it seems Itke we buried a lot of
2 stuff and we didn't recycle or recover much. And I
3 ain wondering if there could be more of the Federal
4 agency's insights into how are we going to recover.
5 How are we going to recycle in light of the fact that,
6 what, 50 per cent of our municipal solid waste is
7 paper and paper products?
8 We have a ratio of tires in this country
9 of 110 million cars and, what, four times the 110 is
10 a bunch of tires. We have a lot of plastics, which
11 are basically non-biodegradeable. And it would seem
12 to me that if we could get into the recovery and the
13 recycling more, we would cut down the volume. We
14 would get into energy savings, resource savings, and
15 so forth.
16 So I would perhaps ask Mr. Lingle to
17 address that. And then I have another question when
18 he finishes.
19 MR. UNGLE: O.K. Let me just say
20 that this is a public discussion of the Resource
21 Recovery and Conservation Act, and that Act does
22 contain a number of other provisions that don't relate
23 directly to resource recovery and conservation.
24 Specifically, many of the regulatory provisions and
25 state planning provisions have been discussed here.
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119
1 Resource recovery and conservation is a part of that
2 whole activity
3 It is, as we said, not only a means of
4 conserving resources but it provides an alternative
5 to disposal for at least a significant portion of
6 the waste, and that is very good. There are authori-
7 ties in the Act for addressing these problems.
8 Basically those authorities are technical assistance
9 type of authorities, research and development,
10 demonstration authorities, and some type of guideline
11 authority.
12 So, well—and one other major authority
13 which is a Cabinet level panel to study and recommend
'4 incentives for increasing the demand for recovery
15 of energy materials and incentives for conservation
16 of resources. These kinds of provisions simply have
17 to be integrated into the overall context of the Act,
18 which is an overall solid waste management Act, not
1' resource recovery and conservation.
20 MR. KOVALICK: Let me make one addition
21 to that. I think that even though I spent all my time
22 reciting about sections related to regulations, the
23 net effect of a lot of those regulations has shut off
24 a lot of disposal practices which are cheap; that is,
25 they are inexpensive to people right now. And when you
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120
1 do that, you change the economics, which is the
2 essence of getting more recycling recovery for, in
3 my case, largely industrial wastes.
4 And you have a very good example here
5 in Missouri. You may know about the St. Louis
6 Industrial Waste Exchange. It has operated now quite
7 successfully for almost a year. And they are finding
8 ways to exchange wastes; that is, one man's waste
9 becomes another person's raw material, in lieu of
10 having to dump it somewhere or dispose of it properly
11 somewhere.
12 So we like to think these more responsi-
13 ble and obviously more expensive disposal practices
14 for these tough wastes, hazardous wastes, will cause
15 more recycling just by the very nature of making it
16 more attractive to look at these other what are right
17 now more expensive alternatives. So we like to think
18 the regulations are helping from that point of view,
19 too.
20 MR. LINGLE: And I would like to make
21 one more comment. I think it is important to get
22 the kind of feedback from the public that you are
23 giving, because, to put it bluntly, you have an Act
24 that sets up specific mandates and dates for regulations
25 to be met. And if there is furthermore limited resources
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121
1 available, It may be that the emphasis is placed on
2 writing those regulations rather than in doing some
3 of the other kinds of activities that you were discus-
4 sing, which do not have specific mandates; you shall
5 do this by this date.
6 And so it is important to get feedback
7 on the public's feelings about the relative importance
8 of the various provisions of the Act.
9 MR. FAIRCHILD: I am glad I am here,
10 too. The other question that I have has to do with
11 the redefinition or new definition of solid waste,
'2 which include super goos and sludges, so forth. It
13 seems to me that there is going to be some competition
14 between the solid waste people and the water pollution
15 people because they are fighting over the same thing.
'* Or has this been worked out, or is there a provision
17 that this might ultimately be worked out?
18 MR. HICKMAN: I don't think in a word
19 in the area of liquid waste that we have any problem
20 at all. You know, if they are having to meet the
2! requirements of non-point sources and point sources
22 of permitting and the extreme standard requirements,
23 it is not a problem at all. You know, they are going
24 to be handled under FWPCA. And then if you take it
25 out of the water and start looking for some place to
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122
1 put it down, then the state solid waste guides and
2 the Fed solid waste guides are going to be a lot more
3 interested than they were in the past.
4 See, that was a part of the loop that
5 was not closed. And so--but there was some of that
6 who is responsible for sludges. And there still is
7 going to have to be something negotiated and worked
8 out between us and the water program because some
9 places they are going to take care of it and some
10 places somebody else will take care of it.
11 But basically once they take it out
12 of the water and the air and start to find a place
'3 to put it down, now the solid waste program has a
14 stronger voice in how that is done.
15 MR. TUCKER: Any further questions?
16 It is open season.
17 MS. ROSE: I am Elsie Rose, and 1 think
18 rather than speak for the Nature Conservancy of the
19 League of Women Voters, I will speak for myself.
20 I would like to agree with the gentle-
21 man from Pittsburg, Kansas, and the man from Concordia,
22 Missouri, and that is that 1 guess I am disappointed
23 with some of this because I am worried about the phrase
24 solid waste management. I conjure up huge machines
25 in which we can Just continue to dump all of our garbage
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123
1 and tt will divide up all of our garbage and do every-
2 thing for us.
3 And not enough of these rules and
4 regulations make individuals responsible for doing
5 something about their trash, which is part of what
6 it comes down to, perhaps not in the industrial area
7 but certainly in the household area. I would like to
8 see a continuation of the experiment in the national
9 parks. I would like to see more obvious support of
10 state and national bottle bills. I would like to
11 project to the gentleman from Nebraska that maybe one
12 way to solve some of their solid waste problems would
13 be to set up local recycling programs.
14 There just doesn't seem to me to have
15 been enough emphasis on what local people really can
16 do. Having been instrumental in setting up the program
17 and being active with it for four years in Nebraska,
18 I know a lot can be done that way. But when we needed
19 support for a bottle bill in the state, I didn't hear
20 from the Council of Governments, and I didn't hear
21 from anybody else. I just heard from the people that
22 said you can't do it.
23 And, you know, is technology going to
24 be the answer here, or are we going to get it back down
25 to the nitty-gritty people in the street with all the
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124
1 litter about them trying to do something about it.
2 And there is just that feeling of frustration about--
3 a disappointment to a certain extent. You know, are
4 you all going to take care of it, or is the state
5 going to take care of it, rather than the individual
6 human beings who are responsible for creating the
7 mess in the first place. They should help to take
8 care of it.
9 Cardboard hasn't been brought up.
10 I have been working parttime in a department store
11 and I hadn't realized until then how much cardboard
12 is created and dumped. And, you know, will this
13 particular resource recovery law even be able to get
14 down to some of those things, or will it take amend-
15 ments to the law to try to get more at the actual
16 source of some of the waste that is created in the
17 first place?
18 So it is both a statement and a question
19 as far as reducing at the source.
20 MR. HICKMAN: Congress stayed away--
21 very carefully stayed away from regulating the issues
22 related to waste reduction. Congress stayed away.
23 Earlier provisions, earlier forms of amendments to
24 the law,were perhaps more specific in view of your
25 question, but they very carefully stayed away from it.
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125
They went through others, I guess,
2 through the Resource Conservation Committee, as a
3 mechanism. The committees are to give them insights
4 into the sort of laws that might have to be written
5 later on to deal with that sort of thing.
6 You know, that is a pretty dramatic
7 thing that you are talking about, because you are
asking the Congress--you are asking for legislation
to change the American way of life. And, you know,
it is. Contrary to what you may do in your neighbor-
hood, it is the nature of the American people to
12 throw things away.
13 MS. ROSE: But people in Oregon have
learned differently.
15 MR. HICKMAN: Yes.
16 MS. ROSE: At least some of them respond
]7 differently.
18 MR. HICKMAN: But apparently the
19 Congress did not feel that it was time yet for national
20 legislation.
2] MS. ROSE: It is just a matter of being
22 patient for a while longer?
23 MR. HICKMAN: The law has to be amended.
24 There is no regulatory function in the Resource Recovery
25 and Conservation law now. They very carefully stayed
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1 away from it.
2 MS. ROSE: And the last question would
3 be to whom would we address written statements, if
4 we don't have them ready for tonight and we would
5 like to have them be part of the public record?
6 MR. TUCKER: I was going to cover that
7 in just a minute. 1 would like to add one further
8 point to the experiment that you mentioned that has
9 been carried out at Yosemite National Park on the
10 recycling program for bottles and cans.
n There are currently guidelines that
12 make this mandatory for Federal facilities, so we
13 are going to be moving into some of the largest Federal
14 facilities with this very same program in the very
15 near future, in just the next few months. So that
15 is an expansion of that.
17 And if that works reasonably well,
18 then it will be expanded to the entire Federal system
19 and from there, who knows.
20 Steve, do you have a comment on that
2i same point?
22 MR. LINGLE: Yes, I would like to
23 follow up on that same subject. The Act does not
24 provide for regulatory kinds of activities regarding
25 either deposit systems, such as the one you mentioned,
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1 or for citizen Involvement In activities like—for
2 separation of wastes. In the latter it is particularly
3 difficult. How do you regulate that?
4 But the Act does provide clearly for
5 activities in source separation. There is recognition
6 throughout the Act that is important to this activity.
7 EPA is already carrying out activities in this area.
8 A lot of them are technical assistance in nature.
Some of them are demonstrations. You have a demonstrat
10 ion of multi-materials separation going on now. Some
11 of them are guidelines, and you have Federal guide-
12 lines that require all Federal agencies to separate
13 their papers, newspapers, office papers, corrugated
14 containers for recycling.
15 We are working now to try to implement
16 those guidelines, but it is somewhat of a problem
17 when you have an Act that says we are now going to
18 regulate hazardous waste and land disposal it is very
19 easy for people to get the exact impression you got,
20 that we are not going after these other things any
21 more. It becomes an issue of where the emphasis is
22 placed.
23 That is the reason we are holding
24 these public discussions. We need to hear from you.
25 We need to know how you feel about those authorities
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1 In the Act.
2 MR. HICKMAN: I started out and I said,
3 really, this law has got three points to it. It is
4 got the hazardous waste regulations, the land disposal
5 regulations, and then the framework for resource
6 conservation practices and initiatives for the future.
7 This is the way the Congress viewed where we were in
8 the various stages of development of improving solid
9 waste management practices.
10 MR. TUCKER: The lady, yes?
Hmtwu*
11 MRS. OTHLDTf. ' I am Mrs. Edward
12 from the Kansas League of Women Voters. All the way
13 through on your outlines and your plans, you list
14 public participation. We have found in working with
15 208 that although you write guidelines and yovi say
16 what is minimum for public participation, we have no
17 way because we have no funds to really get public
18 participation.
19 Let me give you an example: In 208
20 you have marvelous regulations that state that at a
21 minimum, a public information center should have
22 Xerox machines, should record what public input was,
23 should write basin plans which can be viewed by the
24 public. When the League members go to these information
25 centers, there is no Xerox machine, there is no record
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1 of public comment In any of the Information centers,
1 there are no basin plans, except for one copy. So
3 we are unable to do any of this.
4 And I would strongly suggest that
5 in any of these plans that list public information,
6 you think of ways in which to get funds to the public
7 and not through state agencies. If you think that
8 public information groups are called PIGS, I wish you
9 could hear what some of our state officials call
10 Federal regulatory agencies.
11 They do not want to participate in
12 these programs. They present them in a- negative way,
13 and when we try to indicate what we are supposed to
14 get through the regs, we are told that they were
15 used up, the funds. This is what happened with the
16 basin plan. Look what tt cost us to print just one
17 basin plan for each of these information centers.
18 We can't give you any.
19 There was one copy for the whole state
20 on what public information had been--the input of
21 public information at all the different informational
22 hearings. The gentleman said I could have his copy
23 for two minutes. Then it had to go back in the folder.
24 Well, when you ask if they can't make copies they
25 say they are sorry but they have used up their public
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1 Information funds. Now we don't know whether they
2 have or they haven't. There is no way for us to check
3 on it.
4 I really wish you would think of ways
5 in which to let public groups at least pay their
6 transportation if they are going to testify, because
7 these meetings are almost empty. And the public
8 officials who do come usually have an expense account.
' If the mayor comes, the city is paying for the mayor's
10 hotel room, his meals, his car expenses. And that
11 is why these meetings are empty.
12 And I really do make a plea that you
13 think of some other way if you want public participat-
14 ion. Let us have some funds.
15 MR. TUCKER: Lannie, do you care to
16 respond to that?
17 MR. HICKMAN: No. You know, I sympathiz
18 with what you are saying. I think there are ways
19 that we can deliver to you, you know, copies of what
20 we have in various stages where you don't have to come
21 to an information center. I don't even know what that
22 ts.
23 You know, we have had a grant with the
24 League, funded the League now for about the last four
25 years to try to build better lines of communication
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1 between us and the membership of the League. Now
2 we may be able to funnel to local League chapters
3 and state League chapters through your national
4 headquarters more information and better ways to
5 communicate with you.
6 But, you know, we are going to hold—
7 you know, between now and the end of this year we are
8 going to have 79 meetings on the hazardous waste regs.
9 They are going to be held all over the country.
10 There is going to be somebody in that city where it
11 is held that doesn't have to come a long way. I just
12 don't know what we can do about giving you travel funds.
13 We don't have enough travel funds to do our own
14 traveling.
15 MR. WRIGHT: There is that proposal,
16 as you possibly know. At the present time there is
17 a proposal that public interest groups who are
18 identified as such--and they have some very, very
19 undefinable regs--be provided funds for travel expenses.
20 And it is under active consideration. As far as 1
21 know there is no negative response to it, not in EPA.
22 This would be primarily out of 208.
23 Morris asked if I might respond to you,
Moi*uJ/y
24 Mrs. .Hmileyif I know what you are talking about. We
25 have corresponded on this. My answer to this is that
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1 on documents produced with Federal funds, as these
2 are, they do come to our office, as you know, for
3 review. When it is convenient, and this is rather
4 specific to you because you are convenient to us, to
5 our offices, there are mechanisms, of course, to do
6 this through our office.
7 Freedom of Information requests, of
8 course, are one. It really doesn't have to go this
9 formal route in every instance. You are always
10 welcome to come and review the Kansas statewide 208
11 plan in our office, or the Water Quality Basin Plans.
12 And if you need copies up to some kind of a limit,
13 because our budget is limited, we will provide you
14 copies.
15 If you will contact me on any of these,
16 we will see that you at least get an opportunity to
17 review these. We are serious about this public
18 participation in this review process. It is provided
19 in law and you can, in fact, at least our office,
20 demand it. Now you don't have to demand it, but it
21 is your right.
22 So I will hear from you on these, per-
23 haps? O.K.
24 MR. TUCKER: Any additional questions?
25 Yes, sir?
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KURTH
l MR. -eUROE: Gentlemen, I really expected
2 to be ruled out of order but I will give it one more
3 go. I was a little bit perturbed about what the
4 young lady from the Associated Press said a while ago.
5 You know, we touched on this local state cooperation
6 but we got a runaround.
7 I think we have to recognize that we
8 have got only two levels of government, and I am not
9 sure that everybody is conscious of that, certainly
10 not the people in Washington or in the great state of
11 Missouri, either, for that matter.
12 See, we don't have city governments,
13 county governments, fire districts, school districts,
14 townships, all the rest of the crud, you know, counties
15 and such. We are only extensions of state government
16 and we can only do what they permit us to do.
17 For example, in the state of Missouri we are allowed
18 to levy one dollar per 100 property evaluation for
19 a property tax. That is really the only tax the city
20 has.
21 In the great city of Concordia there
22 is a total of $33,000. That is for our police depart-
23 ment. Where do you get the rest? Real nice questions,
24 and the State of Missouri consn't answer all those
25 questions. If they were real nice and polite they
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1 would not say you may levy a sales tax. They would
2 say we because it is our responsibility we will levy
3 a four cent sales tax, or four-and-a-half tax, or
4 whatever is necessary, and we will give you a penny
5 of it. See?
6 Because it is their responsibility.
7 I get hung up with these things. Now we do have the
8 tight to float bond issues, both general obligation
9 bonds, revenue bonds, and the like. And we do.
10 And 1 also found out just recently that we get revenue
11 sharing funds on the basis of what we do ourselves.
12 And so if we don't vote ourselves a whole pile of
13 taxes, why then New York City gets our revenue sharing
14 funds to use.
15 But I think that we need to rethink
16 these things. You know, she opened that whole can
17 of worms. Now if you don't do it, then we will step
18 in. Well, I realize that it is a state obligation.
19 I am all for state government, but I don't know where
20 the responsibility of local government is because we
21 can't really put in a whole lot. 1 write more letters
22 than anybody, Randall, Skelton, Eagleton, Danforth,
23 and the whole bag. They get lots of letters from me
24 because I have something to say and I figure those
25 are the guys to tell.
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1 I didn't know you people. You will
2 hear from me, too. But I think these are some things
3 that need to be thought about. I was interested in
4 this because the last speaker here, Mr. Hickman,
5 again mentioned this local state cooperation. Well,
$ it just isn't possible. There is no way that we
7 can really get significant input.
8 1 have gone down to Jeff City and
9 visited with those boys. Well, they are real polite
10 to you. They show you the way around the Capitol,
11 but, you know, they sit around and they don't do any-
12 thing, not while I am there at least. I think probably
13 they start on Tuesdays, though, and they adjourn on
14 Thursday noon, back home again and make their money,
15 I guess. I don't know. I have never been there.
16 But we really need to rethink this
17 whole thing when we are talking about state and local
18 cooperation. And you people always put the onus on
19 us. And I don't know how to handle it. And maybe
20 that is because I am stupid, but that is no problem
21 for my students, either. They know it and you might
22 as well know it, too.
23 But I think these are some real issues
24 that we have to handle when we talk about state and
25 local cooperation. And so when she mentions this thing
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1 In Wichita, she is opening a whole new bag of worms
2 that we are going to have to deal with.
3 MR. TUCKER: Right. As far as the
4 Wichita situation, we didn't attempt to address that
5 specifically until—well, number one, we weren't
6 prepared to and number two, it wasn't our position
7 to do so since we weren't the permitting agency.
8 She was requested as a local representative of the
9 Associated Press to be here to see if this subject
10 did come up by someone from the Wichita area.
'1 And I didn't know if they would be
12 here or not, but they did not show up. So we didn't
13 give a definitive answer on that situation because
14 we don't have one.
15 Any further questions?
16 (No response.)
17 MR. TUCKER: The lady who asked where
18 she could submit additional written statements concern-
19 ing this subject, if you like just refer it to me
20 and I am on the top of the program. And all you need
21 to go with that after my name, Morris Tucker, is our
22 address, 1735 Baltimore, Kansas City, Missouri, 64108.
23 And we will make certain that it gets into the record.
24 i would like the record to indicate
25 that there were 49 people in attendance by actual
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1 head count tonight. This is the first session. And
2 if there are no further questions or business, this
3 session is adjourned.
4 (Whereupon, at 10:27 o'clock p.m.,
5 February 15, 1977, the hearing in the above-entitled
6 matter was adjourned until February 16, 1977, at
7 8:30 o'clock a.m.)
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CERTIFICATE
9
I, DAVID L. ARGIE, do certify that I appear-
10
ed at the time and place first hereinbefore set forth,
11
that I took down in stenomask the entire proceedings
12
had at said time and place, and that the foregoing
13
one hundred thirty-seven pages constitute a true,
u
correct and complete transcript of my said stenomask
15
notes.
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>:
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REPORTER
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139
PUBLIC DISCUSSION SESSION
ON THE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION
&
RECOVERY ACT
*Public Law 94-580*
Morning Session
February 16, 1977
Hilton Plaza Inn
45th & Main Street
Kansas City, Missouri
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140
PANEL MEMBERS : PAGE
Morris G . Tucker ...................................... 141
Charles V. Wright ..................................... 143
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 147
Donald A . Townley ..................................... 148
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 151
H. Lanier Hickman ..................................... 152
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 167
Walter W. Kovalick .................................... 168
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 191
H. Lanier Hickman ..................................... 192
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 211
H. Lanier Hickman ..................................... 212
Efftd1* fe&£ 214
H. Lanier Hickman ..................................... 214
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 215
Stephen A. Lingle ..................................... 215
H. Lanier Hickman ..................................... 229
My yifr+lM'
Bouald A. -TuiiLiUiy ..................................... 231
Stephen A . Lingle ..................................... 232
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 232
H. Lanier Hickman ..................................... 232
Morris G. Tucker ...................................... 246
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INDEX (confd.)
PANEL MEMBERS (cont'd.): PAGE
H. Lanier Hickman 248
248
Morris G. Tucker 250
fl.< Lauitu IIlEKmmi. 252
Morris G. Tucker 253
256
H. Lanier Hickman 258
Morris G. Tucker 258
Stephen A. Lingle 271
H. Lanier Hickman 275
Morris G. Tucker 277
277
Morris G. Tucker 277
PUBLIC QUESTIONERS: PAGE
Eileen Chase 184
Norman Hjersted 186
Joseph jJig«W 188
Jerry Copeland 205
Nick £*fe< f}™r 206
Diane Gardner 210
Chuck Welch 211
Walt Studjfcaker 213
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I N D E. X (cont'd.)
PUBLIC QUESTIONERS (cont'd.): PAGE
Betty Wilson 242
Kay Roberts 247
Tom CleVenger 247
n
Betty Wilson 251
Victor Gray 253
Norman Hjersted 258
Steve Iteifife.?..- 260
Kay Roberti? 266
A
Robert Robinson 268
Joe Jig^frT^r. 274
Richard Perkins 277
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IE2CEED.INGS
MR. TUCKER: I will call the meeting
to order.
4
This is the second public discussion
session on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,
6 Public Law 94-580. I am Morris Tucker, Chief of
Waste Management Section for EPA, Region VII.
8
I would like to introduce the speakers
9
currently up here with me. To my far left is H.
10
Lanier Hickman, better known as Lannie Hickman. •*«*•
Lannie is the Director of the Management and Informa-
12 tion Staff, Office of Solid Waste, EPA, Washington,
D.C.
14
To my immediate left is Walt Kovalick.
Walt is Chief of the Guidelines Branch for the
Hazardous Materials Division, Office of Solid Waste,
EPA, Washington, D.C.
18
To my immediate right is Steve Lingle.
19
Steve is Chief of our Technology and Marketing Branch,
in our Resource Recovery Division, Office of Solid
21 Waste, EPA, Washington, D.C.
22
The next person to his right is Don
Townley. Don is our Acting Deputy Regional Administra-
24
tor for EPA. That is Region VII, Kansas City,
Missouri.
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1 To my far right Is Charles Wright,
2 who is our Acting Regional Administrator, Region
3 VII, EPA.
4 I would also like to introduce the
5 state program directors that are in the room. I
6 don't know if I caught them all here this morning,
7 but I do see Robbie Robinson, head of the Missouri
8 Solid Waste Program. Robbie, would you stand? Is
9 Bill Shield in the room as yet, director of the
10 Nebraska program? Bill will be here a little bit
11 later.
12 And as well the representatives from
13 Kansas and Iowa. I don't believe they are in the
14 room as yet.
15 Helping us with registration at the
16 table by the front door are two of our very Eine
17 secretaries, Jean Lee and Grace Ancona. And if you
18 need any help this morning, please get in touch with
19 them and they will do what they can for you.
20 I failed to mention one of our staff
21 that is here from Washington; Bill Aids. Bill, where
22 are you? Back over here. Bill is also with our
23 Resource Recovery Division.
24 we need to insure that we jSef* a
25 complete registration for this meeting, so if you did
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1 not submit a pre-registration card by mail, this
2 little green card, or fill one out at the door, please
3 do so. This will be the only official record we have
4 of the attendees, and will be our mailing list for
5 sending out copies of the transcript of this meeting.
6 Now we do have a court reporter present
7 for this session^yfind the proceedings are being
8 recorded verbatim. Now to assist the reporter and
' the rest of us in this effort, I request that anyone
1° wishing to speak use the floor microphone and clearly
11 give your name and your organization or affiliation.
12 We hope that those of you making verbal
'3 statements will keep them relatively short because
'4 we are on a fairly strict time schedule here; but,
15 additionally, if you have written comments that you
1* would like submitted to become part of the official
17 transcript, those will be welcome.
18 With those few housekeeping chores out
19 of the way, I would like to call on our first speaker
20 this morning. That is Charles Wright, our Acting
21 Regional Administrator. Chuck?
22 MR. WRIGHT: Thank you, Morris. I
23 will be brief because w e do want to hear back from
24 many of you. It is a pleasure to welcome you,
25 particularly since I have met so many of you in the
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1 past and have worked with you and I know we have a
2 high quality attendance with this group. We did last
3 night, also, and I guess we continued the discussion
4 until close to 11 o'clock. I think we will find a
5 lot of interest to talk about, many questions, many
$ observations from your point of view.
7 We started out on an odd note. I
8 don't know what the odds would be to get an organiza-
9 tion with the initials ESPA and one with EPA across
10 the hall from each other on the same day in the same
l] hotel. I thought ESP might be helpful in our
12 communications at times. But their registration fee
13 is a lot more than ours, anyway, but so was their
14 social hour a lot better last night, too.
15 But at any rate it is quite coincidental
16 and did result in a little confusion last night. And
17 1 hope it didn't to you this morning.
13 We have said many times that you want
19 to immediately distrust anybody who says they put the
20 check in the mailjor they will have your car ready
2i by the time you go home from work^or they are from
22 the Federal government and they are here to help you.
23 We are a little bit in that position, but we are doing
24 more than that. We have two purposes here. We are
2s asking for your help, too.
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1 We are here to in very quick and very
2 good form to go over this new piece of legislation,
3 and this will be done in the next hour or so by
4 the speakers that follow. This is a very comprehensive
5 piece of Federal environmental legislation and the
6 first in its field, although it is technically an
7 amendment to the 1965 Act. It pretty effectively
8 gutted the old Act and replaced it.
9 It included hazardous waste* which
10 are a national problem. It included an enforcement
11 authority, which was never in force before in this
12 type of Federal legislation. So it is brand new.
'3 It impacts everybody. And because of this, our second
14 purpose is that we are soliciting publi.- participation
'5 in what is called the rule making process, which
16 includes all of the rules including criteria, standards,
17 regulations.
18 Many of the regulations will include
" technology. These will follow later and they will
20 be out in somewhat of a similar manner by publication
21 in the Federal Register, in many cases hearings. And
22 we will actively solicit input from those people who
23 are impacted by these regulations, or who are protected
24 by them. EPA is depending increasingly on the public
2^ participation process, as we have matured into an agency
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1 We believe that It pays off. This
2 environmental program and environmental law Is
3 extremely controversial by the nature of the laws,
4 and what we are trying to protect. It Impacts
5 business and It Impacts private lives In many cases,
6 and just about every segment of American economy and
7 society.
8 You are protected by It. You also
9 pay for It. So you have a right to express your
^ concerns and to submit your observations and your
11 recommendations In how to form rules and how to deal
12 with this In a programatlc way. That Is generally
13 the purpose of doing this.
14 This is not your last opportunity to
'5 submit your input on the rule making that will progress
16 particularly over the next 18 months. You will see
17 as we go through the bill, we will be actively engaged
18 constantly in obtaining the deadlines set by the law.
19 Many of these, the most important
20 perhaps, all seem to come together about 18 months
21 after October of 1976, with some implementation periods
22 we generally expect to be In the implementation period
23 by October of 1978. So you can see this is a short tim
24 to really prepare for such a new, all encompassing
25
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1 type of program.
2 The process may seem quite burdensome,
3 and it is to the Agency. But it does offer the best
4 way that we know to consider all of the aspects, both
^ the good and the bad, of the proposals that are being
6 made to administer and implement this type of an Act.
7 So I am not going to take any more
8 time with this. I do want to tell you that we are
' sincerely interested in receiving your comments. We
10 have a number of you that have already indicated that
11 you either have written comments or you want to make
12 a verbal statement. If you have not done this, this
13 should not ffiintatrr you if you find some of the
14 presentations do stimulate either recommendations or
'5 observations as to the impact of this particular law
16 as we go through this.
17 I want to assure you that these
18 comments are reviewed.in their entirety. In many
19 cases in the not too distant past there has been some
20 fairly substantial revision to propose rule making
21 as a result of public comment. So they are taken
22 seriously and we are looking forward to hearing from
23 you later on this morning. Thank you.
24 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Chuck. The
next item on our agenda this morning is the discussion
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1 of the overview of the Resource Conservation and
2 Recovery Act. We think we have an excellent person
3 to do this. This person is now filling the exalted
4 capacity in what we call the green carpet area; however
5 many of you know him as the former director of our
6 division that contained the Solid Waste Management
7 Program, and even prior to that, dating back 10 years
8 or so, as being the original Mr. Garbage for EPA
' Region VII.
10 So I will call on Don Townley to give
11 us a few remarks on this.
12 MR. TOWNLEY: Thanks, Morris. It is
13 real good to have an opportunity to get back and
I4 work a little bit in the garbage business and meet
15 several of the people with whom I have worked in the
16 past, and who I last saw at a garbage meeting. I see
17 Bill, Betty, Carl, and there are several others.
18 You know, several of my colleagues
" are here from the regional office and they will verify
20 the statement I am about to make. This Acting Deputy
21 business doesn't get you much these days.
22 The first serious Federal solid waste
23 legislation was passed in 1965, and the Public Health
24 Service and the state health departments began to
25 implement that Act early in 1966. Then with the
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1 formation of EPA in 1970, EPA took the Federal law,
2 and subseqent reorganizations of the state health
3 departments continued the implementation of this
4 first Solid Waste Act.
5 By this time, today, we have in our
6 four states of Region VII, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas
7 and Missouri, very good solid waste programs. But
8 early in this implementation phase, we learned that
9 there were big areas of solid waste that couldn't be
10 touched.
11 A few examples of this type of problem:
12 A friend of mine called me one time and he said, "Hey,
**i£vi*t*
13 I know where there are two thousand gallons of e*a*fce
14 liquid wastes being disposed of along the river banks.
15 Somebody should do something about that." Well, you
16 couldn't disagree with that.
17 In this metropolitan area, a private
18 individual developed a hazardous disposal facility.
19 It was properly designed, engineered, the plans were
20 approved, and the final construction was approved by
21 the stage agency and our office. Well, we had a
22 dedication of this facility. We had here a facility
23 that could properly dispose of the jjcottr wastes that
24 couldn't go to the normal sanitary landfills. About
25 a month later the guy called and he said, "I am not
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1 getting anything to dispose of. What is happening
2 here?"
3 Another example of the problems we
<*f-*f«&_
4 ran into: In the inetrme part of our region, a large
5 industry contracted with an out-of-state disposal
6 company to come in and pick up and properly dispose
"XS/oc,
7 of their mini If liquid wastes. This hauler picked
8 up the stuff faithfully each week, hauled it a short
9 distance out of the city, turned off on a side road
10 and dumped it. This went on for months.
n Somebody should do something about
12 it. The passage of this new Act, the Resource
13 Conservation and Recovery Act, Public Law 94-580,
14 closes this gap. It does contain the provisions for
15 handling the type of wastes that I have been mention-
16 ing. And I think it effectively covers most of the
17 remaining environmental problems.
18 But a word of caution at this point;
19 a few years ago one of our state agencies was hard
20 at work passing Air Pollution Control legislation.
2i I was working closely with the representatives of
22 home owner associations, helping to pass this law.
23 The guy called me very excited one evening and said,
24 "We got the air pollution problem whipped." I said,
25 "What do you mean?" He said, "The Governor signed the
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1 law today. Now we can go back to our normal work.
2 Air pollution is taken care of." I said, ''Friend,
3 the problem, the work has just begun." The problem
4 of implementing an act is a lot tougher than getting
5 one passed.
6 I am very enthusiastic about this new
7 waste disposal act, the RCRA. I hope that by the
8 end of this meeting you share this enthusiasm. But
9 I tell you that your state agency and our agency must
10 have your support. We must have public participation
11 in developing reasonable, implementable regulations.
12 And above all, the state agencies have
13 got to have legislative support to obtain the
14 resources to implement the Act. And to pass their
15 own legislation, also. I hope that you take up this
16 task when you leave here, and I say that the challenge
17 lies before us.
18 MR,, TUCKER: Thank you, Don. We now
19 enter into the portion of the agenda on the technical
20 presentation of sections of the new law. One thing I
21 should mention is that we will entertain questions as
22 we go along during each discussion, if it is pertinent
23 to that topic being discussed. However, if you do
24 have a statement that you wish to present of a general
25 nature, I request that you hold those statements
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1 until the last segment of the program, the open
2 discussion.
3 Our first presentation will be on the
4 portion of the new law dealing with Training, Public
5 Information and Public Participation. To present
6 this, we have Lannie Hickman. And Lannie, I think,
7 has probably the greatest history of anyone in the
8 country in being with the Federal Solid Waste Program.
9 The initial legislation, as indicated
10 by Don Townley, was passed in 1965. And that is when
11 Lannie went with the Solid Waste Program and started
12 immediately building up his vast staff of professionals
13 in Cincinnatti, which I think included six people,
14 something of that nature. But anyway, he has seen
15 it all and is up to date on our new legislation, so
16 he is on the program about three times this morning.
17 He is going to give us this first speech right now.
18 Lannie?
19 MR. HICKMAN: Thank you, Morris.
20 MR. TUCKER: By the way, Lannie hopes
21 to work from the floor and if there is trouble hearing
22 him toward the back of the room, please let us know
23 and we will make some adjustments on the mike system.
24 MR. HICKMAN: Yes, we feel that the
25 podium arrangement is nice for you folks down here in
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1 Kansas City but we are not used to such fancy arrange-
2 ments in Washington, so we feel more comfortable down
3 here on the floor. We will let the regional people
4 work from there.
5 If you can't hear me we will make some
6 accomodations because I think working off of a slide
7 projector, it is more effective to be down here.
8 We are going to cover an awful lot
9 of information, a considerable amount of information
10 this morning. We have a series of slides that goes
11 through a lot of the nitty-gritty of the law. I just
12 don't think that—no matter how hard we work at it,
'3 we will^^wrbe able to cover all of it.
'4 There are copies of the Act back there
15 for your use. We suggest you read that at your own
'6 leisure after we have sort of^J^ertf you through some
17 of the key provisions. And then if you have additional
'8 questions, certainly put those questions in to the
19 regional office and the agency will answer them as
20 best as we can.
21 Sometimes we may have to tell you we
22 don't know, because there is much of this law still
23 open to interpretation. There is much in this law
24 that still remains to be determined what the policy
25 directions are. Our intent today is to familiarzie
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1 you with the Act. It is a new major piece of
2 legislation directed at a reasonably severe environ-
3 mental problem, the problem of solid waste management.
4 Now this law is not like some of the
5 other laws that EPA administers in that this does not
6 establish a Federal regulatory program over solid
7 waste management. You are going to hear us talk about
8 regulations and guidelines today, but don't view this
9 discussion and those documents that we are developing
10 as a new Federal program for the regulation of solid
11 waste management.
12 The law is designed to establish state
13 and local governments in the head roles for planning
14 and implementing solid waste management programs,
15 including the regulation and enforcement of the solid
16 waste management standards.
17 Now, in one provision of the law that
18 Walt Kovalick will discuss, the Hazardous Waste
19 Provision, that should state governments so choose
20 not to assume that responsibility, it indeed becomes
21 the Federal responsibility. All the other portions
22 of the law, the guidelines, the functions, the land
23 disposal functions, they rest with the state and
24 local governments. Our desire and our intent in this
25 law is to maximize state and local functions for the
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1 responsibility of this law. There is not a Federal
2 regulatory program.
3 We had this confusion last night and
4 only in the last few minutes of the discussion last
5 night did it dawn on us that people were not clear
6 enough on the difference in this law so we could make
7 sure the audience went away with a better under-
8 standing of the partnership between the Feds, state
9 and local, and industry that this law is designed to
1° build.
11 And if you want to stop me anywhere
12 along, just feel free to do so. We are going to try
13 to keep to the schedule, but I think there is plenty
14 of time allotted. All of the presentations are shorter
15 than the time allotted, so we do have time. And there
" is a period at the end of the day for a more generalize!
17 discussion on any subject.
18 If we don't get to you, write down
19 your ideas and your questions and then let's talk about
20 it at the end of the session.
21 A11 right. RCRA, as we are called now,
22 is designed to achieve some of the objectives. These
23 objectives sound nice: protect environmental quality;
24 protect public health; conserve valuable material
25 resources; and conserve valuable energy resources.
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1 Now this will be achieved basically
2 through somewhat of a trinity or triangular approach
3 to the major areas of concern In solid waste manage-
4 ment: Improper land disposal, Improper management
5 of hazardous wastes and the lack of Institutional
6 arrangements necessary to achieve resource conservat-
7 Ion objectives.
8 These are the three major thrusts of
9 RCRA. These—when these problems are dealt with,
10 these objectives can be met. And the law provides
11 a variety of tools for us to meet these objectives.
12 It provides a mechanism for the law to deliver
13 technical and financial assistance to the state and
'4 local governments.
15 It provides a mechanism for the agency
16 to assist in the development of manpower to meet the
17 requirements of this law. This Is probably the
18 biggest single problem In state and local government,
19 acquiring manpower to do the job they have to do with
20 the budget constrains we all face and all the demands
\
21 for the limited budget that local and state govern-
22 ments have. And the Federal government--we also
23 have limitations on our budget, even with our 50
24 billion dollar deficit.
25 it provides for the provision of closing
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1 of existing dumps and the prohibitton of future open
2 dumps. The law says that by October, 1983, the practic
3 of open dumping In this country will cease. And it
4 provides mechanisms to do that.
5 It provides for the regulation of
6 hazardous wastes, that fraction of the total solid
7 waste stream which presents a unique environmental
8 and health threat. It provides a mechanism for
9 state or Federal regulations of this portion of the
10 waste stream.
11 It provides a mechanism for the agency
12 to develop solid waste management guidelines on all
13 aspects of solid waste and it provides guidance and
14 assistance to state and local governments to improve
15 practices of solid waste management.
16 A guideline is merely a statement of
17 policy which establishes the direction you have to go
18 to solve a problem. It is not like a regulation,
19 except when it relates to the Federal government.
20 The guidelines that we issue are regulations that the
21 Federal government must follow. That authority from
22 the old law was recommended by RCRA.
23 It provides for research and develop-
24 ment to develop a variety of systems of technology
25 to deal with solid waste management. This, of course,
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1 was in the old law and has continued. It provides
2 for the demonstrations of new and improved technology
3 systems to eliminate the risk, or try to eliminate,
4 some of the risk taking that local government and
5 state government is faced with. The technology is
6 there, but it has not been proven at the operating
7 level. It provides for that authority.
8 It provides for a mechanism to set
9 up Federal, state and local-industrial partnership
10 in materials and in recovery. It recognizes the
11 increased complexities of trying to go into this
12 advanced technology given financial, institutional
13 and contractural arragements that are necessary.
14 It provides a mechanism for long term
15 for us to overcome some of these institutional
16 constraints. And it provides a variety of ways for
17 us to educate the public. Who is the public and
18 what is education? This is a very difficult question
19 to deal with, and how we go about doing this provides,
20 hopefully, in meetings such as this a way for us to
21 communicate with the program.
22 We have a lot of opportunity to talk
23 with interest groups because they are usually repre-
24 sented in Washington by some organization. But the
25 individual citizen has a difficult time talking with
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1 and to the Federal government. This meeting and
2 a series of meetings we will be having around the
3 country--which I am going to talk about now in our
4 public participation program—what we will accomplish
5 with these meetings.
6 Let's talk about the information
7 program a little bit. Our agency, particularly the
8 Solid Waste Program, has the historic tradition of
9 collection and dissemination of information on solid
10 waste management. In the 10 or 11 years of our
11 existence as a Federal program, we have probably
12 prepared and distributed some 1,800 publications in
13 multi-million dollars of individual copies.
'4 Now some of that information in some
15 of the publications is good, some is just solid waste
'6 like a lot of other stuff that is printed. But the
'7 whole intent was to provide information to the public
18 and the technical and lay communities to help deal
19 with the problems of solid waste management.
20 Why is it important for this law to
21 focus on public information, technical information?
22 Well, it promotes a better public interest and under-
23 standing of what the Solid Waste Program problems are.
24 And when they have a better understanding of what the
25 problems are, they can be more supportive of solutions
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1 that state and local governments present. And when
2 It comes time to vote on a bond issue or vote on an
3 increased budget for the solid waste system, or what-
4 ever, it provides a way of making intelligent
5 decisions on key programs that have to be carried out.
6 To get the public involved in making
^ these decisions, we have to have an availability of
8 information. It allows a. mechanism for us to
9 cooperate with the state, to build up their expertise
10 and their knowledge of problems, and provides them
11 with tools that they can in turn deliver to local
12 government as they deal with solid waste management
13 issues.
14 It allows us to describe the slgnifi-
!5 cance of the data base of solid waste management,
16 what the problems are and the impact of these problems,
17 and the various options that are open to us as a
18 community or as a solid waste management field to
" deal with these problems.
20 Another provision provides the mechanism
21 for us to disseminate this information as rapidly as
22 possible, both through the library system—we have a
23 library system now that is tied in with the Inter-
24 Library Loan System throughout the country. And you
25 can probably go to almost any public library to get
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1 a publication, and if you know the publication on
2 solid waste management that you want, we probably
3 have it in our library in Washington. You can borrow
4 that through your own library, or at least through
5 the university system that is tied in with the National
6 Inter-Library Loan System.
7 O.K. Now the law says find out who
8 the people are who represent the public and, you know,
9 start to work with them so that they can participate
10 in implementing this law, long term and short term.
11 Well, as I mentioned, there is a variety of public
12 groups that represent all of us who make up the public.
13 You have consumer, environmental and neighborhood groups
14 of all types.
15 So your consumer, environmental and
16 neighborhood groups are the groups that are probably
17 least represented in Washington, because they have
18 not—they don't really represent a single driving
19 force like other sectors of the public. You have
20 trade, labor and manufacturing representatives that
21 we deal with and communicate with all the time in
22 Washington through a variety of mediums. Industry is
23 very well represented in Washington.
24 You have public health, scientific and
25 professional societies. These groups are really well
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1 represented in Washington all the time. You have
2 governmental organizations that—from the state
3 government and local government. Those organizations
4 represent various segments of public government,
5 ICMA, National Association of Counties, National
6 Governor's Conference.
7 All of these organizations have a
8 window in Washington that we are able to work with.
9 Also university associations, although they are less
10 of a force in Washington than soms of the others in
11 this solid waste management program.
12 All right. So the whole framework
13 of the law, information and public participation, is
14 provided to get you information and then it says you
^
IS have .gjS* structure it so the citizen has a chance to
16 wire into the system and have some impact on what you
17 are doing.
18 Section 7004 requires the administrator
19 of EPA to issue regulations which will allow any
20 individual citizen to petition for change in any
21 regulation or guideline that we have prepared. It
22 allows the citizen to file for a new regulation or
23 guideline that we have not yet prepared. These
24 regulations will be developed in time and it will
25 provide you a mechanism by which you can impact an
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1 official legal way on what the agency is doing in
2 solid waste management.
3 Now the law 7004 also requires us to
4 provide for public participation in the planning,
5 development and in the implementation of the law.
6 And this is in our regulations, in our guideline
7 set of procedures. The law requires public hearings
8 to be held on these various proposed regulations.
9 It provides us with a kind of way to
10 have you tell us what kind of information you are
11 looking for. What are the questions that you have
12 that you need answers for, so that we can try to gqjrf
13 out in some way and develop that information for you.
14 And in the whole development of our
15 program, from the very beginning, planning—and this
16 is what these recent hearings will help us with,
17 planning our program over the next few fiscal years.
18 Now we have to publish guidelines to tell the public
19 how to participate with us, and a mechanism by which--
20 how you can get into the system to participate in
21 these various activities we have. Those will be
22 published sometime in the next four to six months.
23 And then we have to provide a mechanism
24 for you to sue us. And other regulations and guideline
25 and regulations have provisions for citizen suits. Thi
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1 ts reasonably consistent language with other
2 environmental laws of the agency.
3 Now—but the way we are going to have
4 people be involved in our public participation is
5 primarily through a series of different sort of
6 interactions with you. As I mentioned, public hear-
7 ings are very formalized, a mechanism to allow input
8 on a regular basis. This is not a public hearing,
9 although we are taking the record.
10 Someone last night was talking about
11 the fact this was our first public hearing. This is
12 not a public hearing. This is--you know, we do this
13 more in the context of a workshop or a conference,
14 a meeting where we are communicating and exchanging
15 information and getting feedback from you.
16 But the formalized public hearing
17 procedure is where you have a hearing judge and all
18 this, and it involves formal statements on a particular
19 regulation or guideline,
20 We will also have review groups, which
21 are smaller groups of people representing the sector
22 or the public that is out there. They sit with us
23 and help us develop and write our various regulations
24 and guidelines and reports. These will be met in
25 Washington as well as around the country. We will go
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out and sit with various members of the government,
2 local and state, and talk about the work that we
3 are doing.
4 Another way is as much feedback as
5 possible from the people most affected by the
law when it is implemented. And then a variety of
public education programs that will be allowed or
will be provided to help you become more involved.
9 Publication^ as I mentioned; slide shows; packaged
A
10 slide shows that can be made available to local
groups to use to educate themselves on the issues of
12 solid waste management; films which we make avail-
13 able.
We exhibited a good number of conference
15 around the country from the headquarters and from the
16 regional offices to make you better informed about
17
what is going on. We are very active in the various
media programs; newspapers, technical journals, lay
19 journals. If you take Reader's Digest, there is a
series of articles about the beverage container issue
21 here within the last year. All those articles are
22 based on material from our office and on interviews
with people in our office about solid waste management.
And then we have a variety of grant
programs we introduced, such asT"the League of Women
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1 which has had a grant with us nationally for some
2 years to educate the public; the Missouri League
3 has a small grant to the hazardous waste conference
4 in Missouri; the National Association of Counties
5 has had a grant; the American Public Works Association.
6 A variety of public interest groups have received
7 support from us as a mechanism to better communicate
8 with the constituents that they represent and to
9 give us feedback.
10 That basically covers the public
11 information provisions of the Act.
12 The last section I want to cover is
13 the manpower development provisions of RCRA. The
14 law authorizes the administrator to give grants to
15 contract to train personnel to develop manpower
16 development programs for the purposes of developing
17 manpower to meet the demands of RCRA. And it requires
18 the administrator in preparation to make these grants
19 to conduct a national manpower study with a report
20 to the President and the Congress on what additional
2i personnel RCRA will need to meet the demands of the
22 law.
23 What do we have now that can do this
24 and what else is needed to provide this sort of man-
25 power? When this law is implemented fully, it will
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1 require quite an Increase in manpower, particularly
2 at the state level. And certain segments of the local
3 level and industry will need to provide the necessary
4 technology and plans to deal with the aspects of the
5 law.
6 All right. That covers the first part
7 of the show, and I think we have time for questions.
8 MR. TUCKER: Questions from the floor?
9 (No response.)
10 MR. TUCKER: I can't believe you
11 explained it that clearly.
12 MR. HICKMAN: Right.
13 MR. TUCKER: O.K. If not, we will
14 proceed, and if you think of any questions you would
15 like to bring up on this, we would like to do it
16 later in the program.
17 The next item on the program is a
18 discussion on hazardous wastes. Hazardous waste is
19 a very substantial part of this new legislation. As
20 a matter of fact, the title of the Act itself, Resource
2i Conservation and Recovery Act, may be somewhat mis-
22 leading lirrnnr jTn'*i • TIMTJ—fhr Act is very broad
23 in scope. For the first time in Federal legislation,
24 a strong emphasis is on hazardous waste management.
25 To present this this morning we have Walt Kovalick
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1 from our Hazardous Waste Division in Washington.
2 Walt?
3 MR. KOVALICK: My job this morning is
4 to talk with you briefly about the Subtitle C portion
5 of the new law which is the 3000 Series in your packet.
6 I am going to be dealing with the first substantive
7 and regulatory part of the law.
8 Lannie has discussed with you the
9 way you can participate in the process and my job is
10 to tell you one of the major topics that we need your
11 help in the most, which is the subject of writing
12 the rules and regulations.
13 I would like to take a couple of minutes
14 to run through some slides on this section of the law.
15 We had a question last night on what is a hazardous
16 waste. And I would like to point out that that
17 definition is the keystone to the rest of the section,
18 Subtitle C. Once we decide how big or how small the
19 net is that describes the hazardous wastes, then the
20 other systems that are in the law are functioning to
21 carry out the control of those wastes.
22 So that section is particularly
23 important. And the question we had last night
24 related to how these wastes relate to a larger set,
25 say, industrial wastes. And our current figures are
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1
there are about 260 million tons dry waste of
2
Industrial wastes, industrial process wastes and
3
sludges. About 10 per cent of those, depending on
4
how you count, are said to be hazardous.
5
But what I am talking about this
6
morning is a regulatory program, hopefully operated
7
by the states, that will control the storage,
8
treatment, disposal and to some extent the trans-
9
portation of this 10 per cent of this larger amount
10
of waste.
The sections that follow the definition
of hazardous waste set up a structure for their
control. Basically, there are sets of national
14
standards that affect the generators of wastes,
people who transport those wastes, and then national
16
standards that affect those who operate storage
17
facilities, tanks and so forth, treatment facilities
18
like incinerators, chemical fixations kinds of
19
processes, and more traditional disposal facilities
20
that we normally know of in the terminology of a
21
chemical waste landfill.
22
So these national standards are in
23
the traditional sense regulatory or negative incentives
24
so that those facilities have some requirements and
25
on those operators on the way they do business.
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1 On the other hand, the law also has
2 a permit program in it which takes those standards
3 and uses them in the design of permits and hopefully
4 we can give you those anyway as a more positive state-
5 ment than a negative regulation.
6 If I can make an analogy, the national
7 standards are not unlike speed limit signs that we
8 set out around to control the general speeds at which
9 we travel on the road. But the permitting program
10 is a more positive statement and can assure members
11 of a community that live near a facility or--and the
12 state that is handling the permit, hopefully, that
13 this facility is operated in accordance with the
14 best environmental principles that we know at the time.
IS So we think the law has both aspects
16 in it in the sections that are contained there.
17 The third major point which you will
18 hear over and over is--especially in this section--
19 is that the Congressional intent, as stated in the
20 law, the testimony that was given in the course of
21 this law over the last four years that it has been
22 developing, calls for the state to operate this program
23 As a matter of fact, you have one
24 state that is on the leading edge among five or six
25 or 10 in the country that are wanting to take up the
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1 hazardous waste program, even tn advance of our
2 having written our regulations, which we are trying
3 to encourage.
4 So this is, as Lannie.mentioned, our
5 intent, that states take up the program. And if they
6 do not, then the Federal government must, in terms
7 of controlling these subsets of a larger set of what
8 I am calling industrial wastes.
9 The final point I want to make is
10 that this law does not have retroactive authority.
11 That is, when we do publish the regulations we are
12 not able to g> back at wastes that were generated
13 during this time that we are developing regulations,
14 or before that, we or the state. It would only be
IS if those wastes entered commerce, that is, they were
16 suddenly shipped from where they were to a point of
17 disposal that the principles of the Act would get
18 involved.
19 We have had the question of someone
20 who had waste stored now, they would not be controljed
2i by the law. But if they moved them out of storage
22 after the regulations were published and transported
23 them for disposal, then some of the provisions would
24 take effect.
2s Let me run through section by section
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1 for you briefly and then we can discuss one at a
2 time or at the end of the presentation.
3 Section 3001--in all of these sections
4 it gets rather monotonous. They all require us to
5 write regulations within 18 months. So that is a
6 charter date S«Mma*p*»K>-from October, 1976. Our
7 target date is April of 1978 to have a final regulation
8 that has used the public involvement that Lannie
9 mentioned over this period that we are in now.
10 So we are at the beginning point in
11 these February and March meetings, and will have much
12 more intensive discussions over the next few months.
13 This section calls for three things,
14 basically. One is to--for us to pick some criteria
IS for defining what a hazardous waste is. And then
16 using those criteria to identify hazardous waste,
17 which we interpret to mean after we fix the criteria
18 we have to name some tests, some standardized tests
19 which will be available, hopefully inexpensive, that
20 can be used by waste generators to see that their
2i wastes do meet these criteria.
22 And then finally we are also instructed
23 in the law to issue a list of wastes. And that list
24 does not necessarily--at this point we have not--we
25 have no preconceptions. This could be a variety of
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1 lists. This question came up last night. And I
2 will turn to that in a moment.
3 Let me give you an example of what we
4 mean. In the law it suggests some criteria that we
5 must look at, like flammability, corrosivity,
6 explosivity, toxicity. Those are kinds of criteria
7 that we should look at. Now, taking flammability
8 for a moment, in order to test for flammability you
9 have to pick a flash point for materials to see whether
10 or not they are indeed flammable, that is they flash
11 at a certain number of degrees Fahrenheit or not.
12 In picking the criteria, we would
13 be picking the degrees Fahrenheit for flammability
14 about which we were concerned. And then the identifi-
15 cation of the waste would be performing that flamma-
16 bility test using that degree Fahrenheit on wastes,
17 and specifying the standardized test you would use.
18 So that is one way--I have given you an easy example
19 because of the general--not only industrial but
20 governmental—consensus about the kinds of tests there
21 are for flammability.
22 As I move beyond that into toxicity
23 and so forth, then the area gets much more murky,
24 even though those subjects like toxicity and the others
25 are to be addressed in the law; that is, we are to be
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1 concerned about acute effects, both toxic effects
2 like Inhalation type of toxicity as well as prime
3 effects.
4 So this—as I mentioned earlier, this
5 is one of the hardest parts of designing the regulat-
6 ions so that they do have the--call it the size of
7 the net is appropriately large to take in the wastes
8 that we are concerned about, and yet not so small that
9 it ignores the principal concerns.
10 Turning a moment to the issue of
11 listing, usually when I put that up there those of
12 you who have some experience with our agency think
13 immediately of the lists of 311 substances that
14 people, that are on the spill*Blist that EPA has
15 published. That is a list of substances—and, as you
16 know, we are talking about wastes, which tend to be
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1 PCBs. So my list might well say waste containing
2 PCBs, rather than listing PCBs. And then you get
3 into obvious discussion, and you would, about what
4 kind of list we are going to have, about how much
5 PCBs, and what kind. That is one way of making a
6 list.
7 Another way of making a list is to
8 make a list of things for which you don't have tests
9 but about which we are concerned. In other words, I
10 could--! am sure we could come to immediate agreement
11 on tests for flammability and--perhaps not so
12 immediate, but fairly soon on corrosivity. But a
13 test for things like PCBs which are not harmful on
14 an acute basis. If you drank them--if you are exposed
15 to them on an acute basis — if you had chronic exposure
16 and we didn't have a way to test that, we may want
17 to put things on the list for which we don't have
18 tests.
19 So this section might have a set of
20 tests for flammability and corrosivity, and then it
21 may have a list of things for which we did not have
22 tests but about which there was consensus on the
23 problem. In other words, another way to look at the
24 list is a list of categories of industrial wastes, or
25 wastes--! don't mean to exclude hospital wastes from
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176
1 this discussion, clinical wastes, and so forth. For
2 example, if there were general agreement as there is
3 in some European countries that wastes containing
4 asbestos are indeed In this category that we are
5 calling hazardous wastes, then we might list asbestos
6 brake lining manufacturing wastes on our list, as a
7 general category.
8 So all I am trying to do Is talk out
' ideas about the way the list should be, rather than
1° have you focus in immediately as 45&M9>n0^>a*i your
'I past experience of a list of substances under other
12 EPA authorities.
I3 So I will let you mull on that a minute
14 and show you what that means once we have defined those
15 things that are hazardous. You will probably want to
16 discuss that a little bit more then.
I7 The next section--two sections, 3002
I8 and 3003 relate to, again, writing regulations on
'9 a national basis for the generator of waste. And when
20 you look at the law there are only three things about
21 which we can write regulations affecting the generator:
22 HOW he keeps records and reports of hazardous wastes,
23 once we have defined what they are; the labeling of
24 the containers that he is going to ship them in; and
25 his use of a manifest system, which Is the name that
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l the Act gives to a system of paperwork that allows us
2 to solve the problem downtown of waste being picked
3 up regularly once a week from the manufacturer, and
4 regularly once a week ending up down the road in a
5 ditch.
6 The way we prevent that is having a
7 mechanism to track the waste, meaning the state
8 tracking the waste, from the generator. He signs off
9 that he has given the waste to a transporter who
10 signs off that he has given the waste to a licensed
11 disposal facility who signs off that he disposed of
12 it. Probably there would be .^rmonitoring to see that
13 waste leaving point a did indeed reach point c.
14 That is generally what is meant by the term manifest
15 system, although obviously the details of it are much
16 more difficult.
17 As I mentioned last night, our research
18 in Ohio indicates that they ship wastes—manufacturers
19 in Ohio ship wastes to 13 other states. So, obviously,
20 filling out a manifest to send it to another state
21 means some kind of coordination between and among those
22 states to determine whether the waste actually arrived,
23 or they arrived dowi the street again.
24 One point I want to make for those of
25 you who represent companies here is that this list of
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1 three things about which we can write regulations
2 is limited. You can't write regulations affecting
3 the way you manufacture your products, or the process
4 that creates the waste. After they are created,
5 these regulations take effect. This is the only
6 section worded that way. The other sections I will
7 run through describe—have words like including but
y
8 not limited to. And then it lists some items that
9 we should regulate.
10 These are the second people in the
11 chain, people who transport wastes. There are a
12 number of waste haulers in the country, the ones who
13 do this exclusively as well as a number of firms who
14 are in the business as an adjunct to their normal
15 business of hauling hazardous materials. Transporters,
16 again, the standards have to promulgate within 18
17 months.
18 There are some record keeping and
19 labeling requirements and compliance with the manifest
20 system that I mentioned earlier in the previous section.
21 He would be part of that chain of events leading to
22 environmentally acceptable disposal.
23 For those of you who are here in this
24 business, the law is careful to point out that we should
25 consult with and make our regulations consistent with
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1 those that already apply in the Department of Trans-
2 portation. We have already started discussions with
3 them. They are very eager for us to jointly make
4 sense to those who are regulated, so that hazardous
5 wastes, if at all possible, can fall within their
6 current structure of hazardous materials regulations.
7 However, they do not currently, and that is a problem
8 that we will have to solve over the next 18 months.
9 We can follow that with finding out
'0 what the hazardous wastes are. The generator has sent
11 them to the manifest. The transporter has delivered
'2 them responsibly to the people who are going to
'3 dispose of them. So the owners, operators and treaters
14 at the disposal facilities will have some standards
'5 for the operation of those facilities. This is a more
16 normal kind of section in EPA environmental legislation;
17 for those of you who are familiar with some of the air
18 and water statutes, we are talking about controls on
19 the incinerator or the land disposal facility or on
20 the chemical fixation facility.
21 And these are some of the subjects that
22 are listed in the Act about which we could draft
23 regulations. Our record keeping, reporting, and,
24 again, the manifest system throughout the disposer
25 complies with the spirit and the intent of the manifest
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1 system, monitoring inspection capabilities; that is,
2 he does his own monitoring as well as state inspections
3 on this; location, design and construction kinds of
4 criteria of such facilities; maintenance and operation;
5 contingency plans and ownership is listed to respond
6 to the problem of accumulations of these kinds of
7 wastes.
8 As a matter of fact, we are aware of
' at least one incident where wastes were accumulated
'° in the receiving area of a disposal facility, and then
11 for a variety of reasons they were forced to declare
12 bankruptcy. And all those wastes were out in the yard
13 ready to be processed and so these are the kinds of
14 provisions that will make walking away from accumulat-
15 ions of waste after you have collected all the funds
16 for receiving them hard to do. And we are going to
'7 have to delve into that subject along with several
18 of the others.
19 Maintenance and operation is also a
20 problem in terms of the care, the long term care for
21 facilities. Presuming someone that runs one of these
22 facilities, a land disposal facility, in a responsible
23 way, wastes are buried over a period of 10 to 15 years,
24 that is the kind of disposal you have, what provisions
2^ are we making to make sure there are no leaks to the
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1 environment and there is monitoring over the longer
2 term? Some states have dealt successfully with this,
3 more than just one, and there are mechanisms in terms
4 of bonding or fees as provisions for the long term
5 care.
6 So now we followed the waste through
7 generation, transport and disposal. Now we move
8 into the two sections, Section 3005 and—that is the
9 mechanism by which the state or if necessary EPA will
10 assure that the receiving facilities are defined with
11 the national standards. There is a permit program.
12 The regulations require that you have a permit to be
13 in the storage, treatment or disposal departments.
14 You do not have to have a permit to be in the trans-
15 porting business. You do not have to have a permit
16 to be a generator. These are the receivers of the
17 waste that have to have a permit.
18 The requirements of the permit regulat-
19 ion relate to the data you have to provide and the
20 site that is receiving the waste must—this is a very
21 important provision that I think is carefully drafted
22 to get us around the problem--our problem and the
23 bureaucracy of a peak loading of permit applications.
24 We write the regulations. Responsible businesses
25 apply. We have to be able to provide.
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1 There is a provision for an interim
2 permit. It basically says that those firms who are
3 in business when the law passed last October who have
4 notified the state or the EPA via the next section
5 that I will discuss of their interest, and if they
' have applied for a permit, they are deemed to have a
7 permit.
8 So from our point of view this is a
workload smoother nationally for those places where
10 we do have to run the program. We don't have to have
11 an onerous time requirement of 90 days to respond, and
12 that puts us into conflict with the person applying
13 because he can't operate while we are doing the
14 application, or reviewing and issuing the application.
15 The idea is if you have applied for a
16 permit and you were in business at the time of the
17 passage of the law, then there is time to analyze
18 the permit and there is also time for the operator's
19 continuance of business.
20 The last—next to the last section--
21 relating largely to what Lannie will discuss later, is
22 a program--there is a section of guidelines which we
23 have several states on the working group helping us
to devise these. We have 18 months to provide guide-
25 lines on the structure of state programs.
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1 There are three requirements for us
2 to authorize the programs of the state, and the whole
3 discussion of these guidelines development is what is
4 the meanings of the words; that is the program shall
5 be equivalent to the Federal program; it shall be
6 consistent with other state programs, if you recall
7 my program on interstate shipment of wastes; and
8 that there should be adequate enforcement authority,
9 which is a traditional requirement, you know, for
10 these kinds of state authorizations.
11 There is also a provision for interim
12 authorization for the time that it may take to get
13 up the speed to meet the criteria equivalency and
14 consistency and still give them the opportunity to
15 operate the program.
16 The last section I am going to discuss,
17 because it was somewhat of a surprise to us when it
18 was included and we understand the reason for it, but
19 it is surely the source of some discussion, and that
20 is Section 3010, the notification section. If you
21 remember I mentioned we could smooth our workload
22 without analyzing permits. This is the section that
23 allows us to do it.
24 This says notification by generators,
25 transporters, treaters, storers and disposers must
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1 be made to EPA--and should say or the state because
2 the law says that—that they are in the business of
3 handling or generating or transporting hazardous
4 waste, and the kinds that are generated and transported
5 and so forth. So this is a notification that would
6 either come to EPA or to the state, depending on the
7 stage of development, that they are in this business
8 and it is required fairly soon after the regulations
9 are final.
'0 And the reason, again, for this section,
11 as we understand it, was to try to give us the
12 opportunity to try to analyze permits in a more work-
13 load consistent way rather than trying to race through
14 a number of them that might not make sense.
15 That completes my slide discussion.
16 I have time to try and answer questions, if you have
17 any, about this hazardous waste section. Yes, come
18 to the microphone.
19 MS. CHASE: My name is Eileen Chase.
20 I am a geologist forJfl^conservation Chemical company.
21 I want to ask you if there is anything in the definition
22 of toxicity or in the guidelines that will protect
23 the infant in the uterus in the early stages of
24 pregnancy from congenital-damage caused by chemicals.
25 This is the most vulnerable stage of human life.
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1 MR. KOVALICK: Well, our--first of
2 all, we havenJt written them yet. We are just
3 starting, so I don't have an answer for what they will
4 be. As Lannie mentioned, the intent of the law is
5 to protect public health and the environment, and some
6 of the factors that we have to take into account are
7 those segments, eugenic *nfl
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1 National Institute of Environmental Health Statistics,
2 which are people who are concerned about the
3 epidemiology of such a problem. And plus
4 EPA, but not in our office, we have a toxocology
5 count and we are going to be us ing--
6 MS. CHASE: How many women are on the
7 panel?
8 MR. KOVALICK: How many women? There
9 isn't a panel. It is a working group. There is one
10 from our office that I know of, but I don't know who
11 the other groups have.
12 MS. CHASE: O.K. Thank you.
13 MR. KOVALICK: Any other questions?
14 Yes.
15 MR. TUCKER: Please step to the
16 microphone and give your full name and if it is
17 somewhat difficult to spell, please spell it for us.
18 Also give us your organization.
19 MR. HJERSTED: I am Norman Hjersted,
20 H-j-e-r-s-t-e-d, with Conservation Chemical.
21 I wonder if there is anything in the
22 law or you are developing regulations which will allow
23 the states or encourage the states or even force the
24 states for free trade in--that there will not be
25 barriers on the transfer of wastes between states.
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1 This is for recycling or ultimate disposal.
2 MR. KOVALICK: That is a very important
3 question because--and it relates to my statement about
4 defining consistent with other state programs and
5 equivalent to Federal programs.
6 The law per se does not contain a
7 requirement, a statutory requirement that there be
8 no inhibitions to interstate shipment of wastes. And
9 as you may know there is a Supreme Court case pending
10 on that very subject. It doesn't have to be hazardous
11 waste; it has to be municipal wastes. But I think
12 we are going to look very hard in any state's
13 application with regard to that question, because
14 the idea of building a wall between states—which are
IS not economic, I might add, as you probably know--to
16 the movement of wastes just doesn't make good sense.
17 And so I hope--I am sure, because we
18 have several state people on the development of those
19 guidelines for state programs, plus ourselves, that
20 we are going to get into that question.
21 And as an office we have a view on that
22 as a policy matter and we will see whether we can't
23 do that. The problem you are referring to is that
24 there have been cases when states either by statute
25 or by executives administrative edicts within the state
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1 bureaucracy have prevented the movement of wastes
2 interstate. As a matter of fact, there are wastes
3 sitting in Missouri right now which, for lack of
4 being able to get across the state line to what we
5 believe is adequate disposal, can't move.
6 So that is a very serious problem,
1 and I am sure the state officials here realize it.
8 And the open boundaries are--would appear to be a
9 necessity within the context of the new program and
10 equivalent to the Federal program.
]j Anyone else?
fassPf
12 MR. glSER: My name is Joseph
!3 Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the Solid
j4 Waste Management Program. I am in charge of the
15 development of a Missouri program to implement the
16 hazardous waste provisions of the Federal Law.
17 In Missouri we have been working since
18 May with a very large citizen's committee, some of
19 whom are in this room, to develop a state implementatio
20 law. And we have very good support from EPA in
2] developing this. With EPA funding we carried out a
22 statewide survey, so we think we know where most of
23 the problems are in our state.
24 The problem we have in trying to obtain
25 passage of this bill in the legislature--House Bill
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1 318—is basically the following: There is quite a
2 bit of hostility in the Missouri Legislature to
3 new Federally amended programs for several reasons.
4 One is that the extent of the program is often
5 extremely broad and the feeling is that many
6 communities, industries and individuals are affected,
1 unnecessarily so, and that the state agency which is
8 usually underfunded is tied up in paperwork even with
' minor problems.
1° Now secondly they pretty much resent
11 the situation where one agency—we will say EPA or
12 the Corps of Engineers—begins to administer a
'3 regulatory program and then later on it is taken over
'4 by the state or some other organization and a great
15 deal of unnecessary confusion of paperwork results.
1* So we have drafted our bill somewhat--
17 we were in the process before the Federal bill was
18 passed, so we do have some significant differences .
" in detail, though we think our program adds up to a
20 very good regulatory program. But we are concerned
21 with on this bill, particularly 301 or other provisions
22 that you referred to, are we going to be forced to
23 deal with minor problems at the very beginning, rather
24 than later on as we develop the staff and acquire the
25 budget to deal with them.
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1 If we are tied up in dealing with
2 those, we are not going to be able to deal with
3 the major problems at the very beginning. And I would
4 just like to make a plea that as you implement this,
5 can you develop some way in which we are not faced
6 with that kind of a problem, because our legislature
7 doesn't want it to be repeated.
8 I don't think there is any reason
9 there should be. 1 think this is an extremely good
10 bill, and we are very concerned, of course, with our
11 funds. If we don't get some substantial funding,
12 where will we be, really. And in that case, maybe
13 we are better off to turn it over to you, but I don't
14 think you are going to get that funding early on
15 either.
16 So what I am pleading for is to give
17 us, as we assume--receive authorization to implement
18 this bill, that you give us the flexibility to deal
19 with the major problems first with whatever resources
20 we have, and not bury us in paperwork dealing with
21 minor problems. We want to deal with the elephants
22 and not with the gnats. Thank you.
23 MR. KOVALICK: I appreciate Joe making
24 that statement on the record, as he did last night.
25 The State of Missouri is both a supplicant, in the
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1 sense you made a plea, but it is also a partner. In
2 fact, Joe is helping us develop the regulations and
3 guidelines under the state programs, which I discussed
4 briefly. Joe was at a meeting in Washington last
5 week where we surfaced these early problems of oossible
6 timing conflicts, as well as emphasis conflict between
7 our schedule as mandated in the law and what the
8 Missouri House Bill contains.
9 So I think that has been a testimonial
10 at this point, the fact that you have already started
'I on the problem and he wanted you to know about the
12 problem. Missouri is not the only state that is going
'3 to have this problem, as some of you know. There are
'4 four or five or six other states that already have--
15 operating hazardous waste facilities and programs that
'* are funded.
'7 We also are going to have to deal with
18 those states' differences, both major and minor,
19 between what they are doing now as being a cutting
20 edge in the program, and what they—what the Federal
21 law calls for.
22 Any other questions or comments?
23 (No response.)
24 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Walt. I am
25 sure there are some other thoughts floating around
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1 the room, but maybe they will formalize their thoughts
2 or statements and we will pick them at the latter
3 session.
4 The next item on the agenda is a
5 presentation dealing with the very broad subject of
6 land disposal, and as you, of course, are aware that
7 is the third sink. And when you eliminate the air
8 sink, the water sink, you only have one left. That
9 is the land. So once again, Lannie Hickman will give
10 us this presentation.
11 MR. HICKMAN: I mentioned when we first
12 started talking about the fact that the law has three
13 major thrusts, Walt discussed one of them which is
14 the hazardous waste problem. The second major focus
15 of the law relates to land disposal. Before we talk
16 about what the law says we have to do, I think we
17 ought to review a few definitions because Congress
18 is writing this new law and there are some dramatic
19 changes in definitions from what solid waste management
20 is normally involved with.
21 The old law disposal was more a genetic
22 terms for management which covered the management of
23 solid waste from generation to ultimate treatment and
24 disposal. And there was some confusion over that.
25 Well Congress is rewriting the law and amending the
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' law and trying to focus on some of the major
2 environmental health and resource problems, one of
3 which is land disposal.
4 Redefine disposal and all those deadly
5 to read things, I want to make sure that you under-
6 stand the definition. The term disposal means a
7 discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling or
8 leaking or placing of any solid waste or any hazardous
9 waste into or on any land or water so that such
10 solid waste or hazardous waste or any constituent
11 thereof—that means any by-product from the degredation
'2 or the change in character of that waste—may—
13 thereof may enter the environment or be admitted into
14 the air or discharged into any waters, including
15 ground waters.
16 Now up until this time the Federal
17 government's interest in ground water problems was
18 a little bit superficial, although FWPCA, the Federal
" Water Program Control Act, and the Safe Drinking
20 Water Act both are concerned with water quality of
21 both surface and ground water. They have not been
22 really legitimate mechanisms to deal with the impact
23 of ground water practices, other than those related
24 directly to point sources. So this law broadens their
25 definition of disposal from the water management and
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focuses its impact on air and water quality regardless
of what--in other words, if it goes on the land then
you have got a problem.
4
O.K. Now the next two definitions, and-
I will read them and once we move into the discussion
of the land disposal provisions and we talk about the
state and local government implementation of the law,
you will see how these tie together as a package.
The term open dump means a site for
the disposal of solid waste which is not a sanitary
" landfill within the meaning of one of the sections of
12 the law where we have to define what a sanitary land-
fill is. But what we are saying is that it is either
an open dump or a sanitary landfill, some gradation
15 of a sanitary landfill. And there is nothing in
between, effectively, is what the law is saying.
17 And it defines sanitary landfill as
1 ft
meaning a facility for the disposal of the solid
19 wastes as defined in Section 4004 of the law. And
20
we will talk about that on the next slide.
ft 1
Now, the final two terms for the
definition of solid waste—now Congress by law defines
f\r\
a solid to be liquid or solid or anything in between
24 including gas. So today when we talk about solid
25
waste, as this law addresses the issue of solid waste,
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1 we are talking about liquid, solid, semi-solid,
2 sludges, super goos, wastes in air that represent
3 environmental health threat, and hazardous wastes
4 included in the definition of solid waste.
5 It means any normal municipal type
d garbage or refuse, sludge from waste water treatment
7 plants, sludge from oil supply treatment plants,
8 sludge from air pollution control facilities, any
9 discarded materials including solid, liquid, semi-
10 solid or containing gaseous material from industrial,
11 commercial, agriculture, mining, municipal and
12 individual activity.
13 So the term solid waste now is a long
14 broadly defined term. If you tie it in with the
15 hazardous waste provisions and the land disposal
16 provisions of the law, you start to see the linkage
17 between the hazardous waste control at the state level
18 and the land disposal control at tihe state level.
19 Section 4004 requires the administrator
20 within 12 months of the passage of the Act to issue
21 criteria for classifying sanitary landfills and
22 classifying open dumps. And in establishing that
23 criteria, he must determine whether there is reasonable
24 probability of adverse effects from these various
25 practices in order to lay this criteria out.
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1 Now the law does not define what Is a
2 reasonable probability of adverse effects. This will
3 be one of the key decisions that has to be made in
4 the next few months in order to set up the criteria.
5 And then it requires the state plans
6 focus on developing procedures for all of these
7 disposals and sanitary landfills. We will talk more
8 about that when we get into the last section of the
9 presentation.
10 Now the problems here include that
11 fact that this criteria must be national in scope.
12 All states are supposed to embrace and work into the
13 parts, the requirements of the criteria. We have the
14 problem of writing criteria that satisfies Maine,
15 Iowa and Southern California, which has different
16 soil conditions, different rainfall conditions,
17 different geological conditions. And it is a real
18 problem to try to write such a criteria.
19 Here again is one of the major problems
20 that we will be addressing and discussing in various
21 parts of the country. We will hold public meetings
22 and public hearings on this; after the criteria is
23 established, allowing flexibility for state and local
24 governments to recognize their regional differences.
25 This is the way it has to be done.
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1 Now within 12 months of the passage
2 of the law, the administrator must Issue criteria
3 for sanitary landfills and open dumps. He then must
4 conduct an inventory within 12 months after that on
5 all those facilities and sites that fall within the
6 classification of the criteria of an open dump.
7 And he must publish that list.
8 Now the minute that list is published,
9 and it will be a national list—whatever it is, 35,000
10 or 200,000, whatever the number of sites are out there-
11 and we are not talking only about municipal solid
12 waste disposal sites, we are talking about industrial
13 waste sites, pits, ponds, and lagoons. I mean, by
14 definition, it covers all these land disposal practices
15 I guess dogpiles are out there, mining practices.
16 It can cover all of them.
17 The question becomes immediate: Must
18 we do it all--can we do it all. Is there enough
19 manpower resources in the country to do it all? Do
20 we have enough smart people to go out and look at
21 a site and determine whether it is a dump or a
22 sanitary landfill? It is a little difficult to walk
23 across land and tell that. It can become a real
24 problem.
25 That pit, pond or lagoon can reach in
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1 to the ground water and change its character. And
2 if so, does it do it to such a degree that it goes
3 outside the perameter, the framework of our criteria.
4 Now it is a significant fact that the
5 Feds don't have any control--regulatory control over
6 this. The law does not allow that. What happens is
7 that this list becomes, in effect, a list that any
8 citizen, any organization, anyone interested in land
9 disposal practices can use in the Federal court system
10 to sue for violation of a Federal law.
11 A dump, by definition, will be in
12 violation of a Federal law, subject to suit in a
'3 Federal court system by anyone who wishes to do so.
14 And if found in the plaintiff's behalf, he can recover
15 the costs for that court case.
16 Now what this means, of course, is
17 that there are a whole lot of lawyers busy. And one
18 way that can be protected and be kept out of the court
" system is for the state to establish umbrella protect-
20 ion through their planning procedure, which we will
21 talk about under Subtitle D, the last section of the
22 law. Yes, sir?
23 QUESTION: Did you say mining?
24 MR. H1CKMAN: Mining wastes are included
25 in this definition of solid waste.
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1 QUESTION: What about from, say, your
2 shaft, where you pile overburden?
3 MR. HICKMAN: If that disposal, if
4 that waste material--! am not really sure it is waste--
^ one might pursue it as far as saying you dug it up
6 out of the mine. You stack it up there on the side
7 of the hill. Now I have watched it and there is a
8 leak, there is something going into the ground surface
' waters that may be polluting that water, sedimentation,
10 a runoff.
11 That in principle would have to come
12 under this law, under this definition of an open dump.
13 It would be included by definition.
14 QUESTION: Would that same reasoning
15 apply to, say, any contractor who is building a high-
16 way who is going through a hill?
17 MR. HICKMAN: Here again, I think we
18 run into the problem of deciding whether that material
" is waste material or not. If we can determine that
20 it is not a waste material, then I think we are all
21 right. We will stay away from it, which is really
22 what we want to do. It is silly to be dealing with
23 that kind of material.
24 So I think perhaps we have to have some
2^ flexibility in allowing state and local governments
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1 to m^ke a judgement on whether that Is waste or not.
2 When you reach the definition of solid waste and a
3 definition of disposal, you can see—you know, I am
4 from Maryland. You don't make any excavation there
5 unless you put some sort of a catch basin in to make
6 sure that you don't get sedimentation in the streams
7 and water.
8 Now I am sure there are other places
9 in the country that follow the same practice. So I
10 think we would have to guard against trying to make
11 everything that is turned over out there a waste. We
12 have got to be careful on how we write the criteria.
13 We can't prevent some operations, nothing prevents
14 them. We are going to be challenged in the courts
15 no matter what we do.
16 If we exempt it, the environmental
17 people are going to challenge us. If we include it,
18 the industrial people are going to challenge us.
19 So 1 guess, you know, a lot of the decisions on this
20 law will probably be made in the courts over the next
21 few years. We don't want to include that in the law,
22 you know, in the definition.
23 Now, Section 4005 requires the closing
24 of all open dumps or the upgrading of open dumps.
25 The state plan has to provide for that. They have got
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1 to set a schedule for these open dumps to have been
2 identified. No new sites can be initiated that would
3 have fallen into the classification of open dumps.
4 And five years after the list of open dumps, all those
5 dumps must be either closed or upgraded--converted to
6 the requirements for sanitary landfills.
7 That is seven years from the enactment
8 of the law, October, 1983.
9 Now Section 1008 provides for authority
10 for the administrator to issue two types of guidelines.
11 This says within 12 months after the enactment of
12 the law, he must issue--and from time to time there-
13 after—issue guidelines that basically provide a
14 technical description and an economic description and
15 a level of performance that might be expected to
16 protect public health and environment from solid
17 waste management practices.
18 That gives the agency flexibility to
19 write a variety of guidelines, and it carries over
20 the old authorities from the old act, but amends them.
21 We have, in effect, now about nine guidelines—eight
22 or nine guidelines written under the old law, including
23 the ones for sanitary landfills.
24 Now we view this section of the law
25 as a mechanism to help and support any criteria or
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1 regulation that we might write that is supposed to be
2 adopted by state government. You know, the regulation
3 in the criteria says here is what you have to do,
4 and the guideline can be used as a mechanism that says
5 here is how you can do it, meet the requirements of
6 the regulation.
7 Now within 24 months, we have to issue
8 guidelines that include the basic levels of performance
9 and the technical and economical description. We
10 also have to include in it levels of control which
11 will achieve the protection of ground and surface
12 waters, take into account the variety of factors
13 that have to be taken. You have to say what level
14 of health benefits can be achieved by this level of
15 operation and this aspect of solid waste management?
16 You have to consider disease factors,
17 safety factors, and other Federal laws, and how this
18 guideline might interact with that portion of the law.
19 Now there is some redundancy in this
20 section. When RCRA was passed, the first piece of
21 it was passed in the Senate, S-2150. And they were
22 running up against adjournment last fall and they
23 were all going off to their homes to get ready for
24 the November elections. They knew they did not have
25 time to go to conference with the bill, if the bills
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1 were dramatically different. Both sides were
2 coiranited to getting a bill out. Now they had had
3 It for five years. This bill represents five years
of Congressional study.
Most of the proceedings from the
6 different changes in the bill could fill this room.
7 And in order not to have to go through conference,
8 they negotiated the final form of the bill. And
because of the haste of the adjournment of the last--
10 of the 94th Congress, pieces were left in that should
technically have been scrubbed out. And some of the
redundancy is here in this where they ask us to write
13 criteria again for open dumping. Well they also asked
us to do that over in 4004. Although there is
15 redundancy, there is no conflict between these two
provisions.
Now we plan to write two guidelines
18 at the present time, one for land disposal, which will
19 help support the criteria for open dumping and
20 sanitary landfills. And then we plan to write one
21 on sludge disposal.
22 The one for land disposal of other
23 wastes will be ready this fiscal year, 1978, in time
24 for the inventory and for the planning process. The
25 one on sludge will not be ready until fiscal year 1979.
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1 But that covers the basic land disposal
2 provisions of the law. Recognizing the intent of
3 this provision of the law is to move solid waste into
4 acceptable land disposal practices, the term santtary
5 landfill as you think of it in the profession may not
6 be the same as what we are talking about in the future.
7 There are some languages--there is
8 language in different pieces of this law that talks
9 about types of sanitary landfills. For those of you
10 who are familiar with the California law, they have
11 classes of sanitary landfills based on the types of
12 waste that those sites receive. There is every reason
13 to believe that our criteria and our guidelines can
14 accomodate that kind of flexibility, which may give
15 us a way to deal with the regional differences that
16 we are facing and the various wastes that are going
17 to be coming into these various disposal sites.
18 But basically what the Congress wants
19 is land disposal sites that you--within a reasonable
20 expectation of environmental protection will not
21 degredate land, air or surface or ground waters. That
22 is the intent of the law, making the land disposal
23 practices reasonable but to protect those three mediums
24 Now I can entertain questions and answer
25 you if I can. Yes, sir.
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1 MR. COPELAND: I am Jerry Copeland,
2 Director of Public Works for North Kansas City.
3 My concern, as I am sure yours is, is
4 with the administration within the intent of the law.
And as we are talking about criteria, I think that
6 regulations, definitions and standards and limitations
7 should be adopted very carefully. Minutae of technical
8 requirements administered rigidly can delay the
' implementation of these items indefinitely and can
10 increase the cost tremendously.
11 My experience, and I am sure the
12 experience of a number of other people here, is that
13 you can take an intelligent, industrious, dedicated
14 individual administering regulations to a minute
15 detail and you can make compliance a nightmare. If
the dedication to detail and to the law exceeds the
dedication to the intent, then we have got problems.
18 I know in my own business I can take
1' a building inspector or any type of inspector and
20 with the combination of codes and laws that we have
21 available, I can make any almost 18 year old building
22 in town illegal.
23 And 1 feel many times that this is
what we are faced with when we try to comply with the
25 various laws that we are all having to deal with now.
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1 Individually I don't think it would be a great problem.
2 But in the last few years we have come to where we
3 are dealing with the Clean Water Law, Safe Drinking
4 Water, Flood Control, and Solid Waste.
5 And as we become involved and will
6 become involved with more and more controls of this
7 sort, I think the problem of the way the laws are
8 administered is increasing the work. Thank you.
AKfe- Arffc,
9 MR. £!*?: I am Nick A^Kswith Mid-
10 America Regional Council. I had a couple of questions,
11 one of which you may have partially answered already.
12 How do you anticipate the criteria
13 for determining what is and what isn't a sanitary
14 landfill will vary from previously published sanitary
15 landfill guidelines? Secondly, af,ter these criteria
1* have been developed, who do you anticipate will conduct
17 the inventories to determine what are and what aren't
^ open dumps?
19 MR. HICKMAN: The existing land disposal
20 guidelines that have been published almost three years
21 now effectively look at the criteria that I think are
22 important when you start to define good and bad land
23 disposal practices. And they are designed in a way
24 to allow great deal of flexibility for making judge-
25 ments on the adversity of that site.
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1 The gentleman who just spoke before
2 talked about the fact that if you really want to
3 enforce the law, you can put anybody out there.
Coming from Oklahoma, I remember when I was in college
5 the state was dry; only by the law, not by any
6 practice. And we could have booze delivered into our
7 room at school because the bootleggers were mighty
accomodating to the people who liked to drink.
9 Then we had a governor who came in
10 and said by god, if you are going to have a dry state,
11 you are going to have a dry state. And he continued
12 to enforce the law until the next referendum they
13 voted wet.
U And so you can put a law—if we put
IS too much interpretation on any law, you know, first
people are going to revolt and then Congress is going
17 to revoke the law. Somehow it will destroy all the
good work that we have been doing over the last year.
19 So we have to be lenient.
20 The guidelines cover the criteria
21 such as, you know, does it or does it not pollute
22 the surface or ground water. I think the criteria
23 that are in that guideline will be the foundation for
24 the criteria that we will write. And that will allow
25 for flexibility of the Omahas and the Alburquerques
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1 to make judgements on whether or not that site is
2 ruining their environment, because the environment
3 is different here than somewhere else.
4 So that covers factors for dust
5 control, a lot of those sort of things that are health
6 related and environment related. So I think we will
7 follow very much that sort of procedure.
8 Now as far as how this inventory is
9 going to be done, our concept is that the state govern-
10 ment can do the inventory. We will try to provide
11 financial assistance for them to do it, back up support
12 on both technical aspects and processing of the data.
13 We visualize a common data system,
14 similar to what we did in 1966 to 1970 when we did
15 a community survey on solid waste management practices,
16 where the data is collected on a standard form and
17 we process the data and provide feedback to the states
18 on the survey so that it stays uniform. This allows
19 the states to compare notes and allows us to compare
20 notes between states and between regions.
21 Now we visualize the states doing it.
22 First of all, they know where most of the sites are.
23 Second, they have a working relationship with most
24 local and county governments and operators of the
25 disposal facilities. Third, they are best able to
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1 make the judgement on whether that site within a
2 criteria is acceptable. Fourth, they are the ones
3 who are going to have to write the plans and eventually
4 carry out the enforcement of the plans necessary to
5 convert a disposal site to compliance.
6 So our thinking is that the states
7 can do the inventory with our support both financially
8 and technically. And I think most states that I have
9 talked with agree that this makes a lot of common
10 sense in doing it that way, because they are the ones
11 who are going to have to--here again, the law is
12 designed for maximum assumptions of the functions of
13 that law by state and local governments. So that
14 logic just prevails there.
15 It would be dumb for us to try to do
16 it when the state can do a far better job than we
17 could ever hope to do.
18 Now if a state chooses not to play,
19 we are going to have to do it. That presents a real
20 problem for us, because we don't know where the sites
21 are. The Federal people are not going to be received
22 too warmly by a lot of places. And I think we will
23 have difficulty meeting the intent of the law if we
24 have to do it. The states can do this far better than
25 we can.
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1 Now there is a legal question: If
2 the state does it, we have to publish a list. Then
3 who is responsible for arguing the accuracy of that
4 list if it is challenged. If a site operator challenge
5 that list, and his site is on the list and he
6 challenges that he is not really an open dump. That
7 he is really a sanitary landfill and he has read the
8 criteria en d he can interpret it just as well as we
9 can.
10 Who has to defend that? Do the Feds
11 or does the state defend it? That is a real interesting
12 legal question that we MMpose now for our attorneys
13 to set up where we stand on that. It is a very
14 interesting problem.
15 Yes?
16 MS. GARDNER: I am Diane Gardner with
17 the Missouri Municipal League.
18 You just said that there is going to
19 be financial and technical assistance available to
20 states. My concern is the cities. They have to bear
21 the burden of both the preparing, operating, developing
22 manpower and equipment and et cetera. They have to
23 come up with this funding. We did a recent survey
24 and we find that most sanitary landfills in the State
25 of Missouri are losing quite a bit of money.
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' And I was wondering if there were
2 going to be some funds available for them?
3 MR. H1CKMAN: I would like to defer
4 answering that until the last presentation of this
^ meeting. In that we talk about state and local
6 program development, and we talk about the financial
7 assistance programs that are available. Will it be
8 all right if I wait until then?
9 MS. GARDNER: Yes.
10 MR. HICKMAN: O.K.
11 MR. TUCKER: Any further questions,
12 please?
13 MR. WELCH: My name is Chuck Welch.
14 1 am the Controller of Conservation Chemicals.
15 And reading several state laws and
16 listening to the comments here, we have talked about
17 site protection in the event of closure; we have
18 also talked about--! have also read about minimum
" insurance requirements with regards to the liability.
2" To paraphrase a comment, our insurance
21 agent, over two years ago, he said that product and
22 contractor's liability was going to make malpractice
23 look like peanuts. And I want to address the state
24 and Federal government in indicating that the industry
25
may need some assistance in—with insurance. And there
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1 may be a need for minimum insurability, something
2 similar to the assigned risk with Workmen's Compensat-
3 ion because as landfill and other operators in this
4 room, I am sure, are having the same types of problems,
5 the cost of insurance. It Is skyrocketing If you can
6 obtain it.
7 MR. HICKMAN: Well, that is a real
8 problem. And it is a problem whether you are a private
9 operator or a public operator. Long term liability
10 is high, not only during this operating time, but once
11 it is closed and abandoned and some environmental
12 effect occurs later on after the site Is closed up
13 and everybody walked away from It.
14 The hazardous waste force has looked
15 at this from a hazardous waste standpoint, the
16 liability and the long term insurability. We have
17 had a lot of discussions with insurance companies
18 about it. And the gentleman is quite right in the
19 fact that they don't want to touch it. And the cost
20 is really prohibitive in many instances.
21 So some creative schemes are going to
22 have to be developed to assure long term liability
23 protection for sites that have been closed up. One
24 approach that has been considered in some places, and
25 I think It is being pursued to some degree In New
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1 Jersey, is the fact that sites, In effect, provides
a surcharge. And that surcharge goes into a trust
for the strict purpose of providing corrective
4
measures or assurance for the long term for those
sites that may at some later time for some reason
cause an environmental health problem.
This may be one approach. This will
8
take legislative changes in state governments if
9
it occurs that way. It is a problem and it is some-
10
thing we are going to have to deal with in the next
11
seven years.
MR. TUCKER: Please identify yourself
13
for the official record.
MR. STUDKfeAKER: I am Walt Studebaker,
Environmental Engineer for the Eastern Lines of
16
the Sante Fe Railroad.
And to further that question, this
18
law that you have got now, 94-580, does not have a
19
provision in it for the long term affect of landfilling
20
and the legal obligation for the individual and/or
owner, or the state or the Federal government to take
22
over.
23
MR. HICKMAN: It has no provision
24
whatsoever in that area. That does not say, hey, you
25
know, we are going to permit lots of these sites becaus«
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214
1 we are the permitting agency, be it federal, state
2 or whatever. And that site at some later time
3 causes an environmental threat, that does not mean
that we are going to see that it is corrected, that
we are financially going to see that the problem is
handled. That provision is not included.
/r«l^c/C
MR. JOlOTLCrr If I may elaborate,
though, with regard to hazardous wastes, I mentioned
9 that there has to be some--we have to examine that
10 point of maintenance of operation so permits for
hazardous waste facilities will have to address that
12 subject. And as the gentleman from Conservation
13 pointed out, it is a very knotty one.
14 MR. HICKMAN: No matter how we identify,
15 we have no mechanism to provide financial insurance
that some later time if a problem occurs we will--it
17 is not in the law.
13 MR. STUDJEBAKER: O.K.
19 MR. TUCKER: Any further questions at
this time?
(No response.)
22 MR. TUCKER: If not, this seems like
23 an excellent opportunity to call a 10-minute break,
24 one reason being that our next speaker went to take
25 a phone call, plus some people would like to get up
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215
' and move around, I am sure. So let's take 10 minutes,
2 please.
3 (Short recess.)
4 MR. TUCKER: Let's reconvene. Walt,
5 will you shut that door, please?
6 I would Itke to move along to the next
section of the program. This section deals with
resource conservation and recovery and what we call
9 overall technical assistance programs.
10 To present this, we have Steve Lingle
11 with our Resource Recovery Division in our Washington
'2 office. So, Steve, if you would, please.
13 MR. LINGLE: Thank you, Morris.
14 Apparently some people weren't hearing too well, so
I am going to speak into this lousy thing here.
MR. TUCKER: Steve, you can still
float around, but if you would just kind of stay in
the neighborhood, I think they would appreciate it.
" MR. LINGLE: O.K. Before I get into
20 the slides, I want to make a couple of observations,
2' overall observations about the Resource Recovery and
22 Conservation Provisions of the Act.
23 Obviously, the name of the Act is
24 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; yet, as
25 you have seen here today, the provisions of the Act
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216
1 clearly go well beyond resource recovery and conser-
2 vatlon provisions. And, in fact, I think that some
3 people feel that perhaps the major emphasis of this
4 Act is really on regulation and control of waste
5 disposal, particularly waste disposal sites.
6 I think that we should realize that
7 resource recovery can be thought of as an environmental
8 control technique as well as a conservation technique.
9 And that resource recovery provides an alternative to
10 waste disposal.
11 Similarly, regulation of land disposal
12 provides a major incentive for resource recovery and
13 conservation. In fact, one of the best incentives
14 that you can devise because it eliminates the chief
15 environmentally unacceptable disposal alternatives;
16 therefore, it makes resource recovery a more viable
17 alternative.
18 So in essence resource recovery and
19 waste reduction do address both of the major objectives
20 of the Act. that is, protection of public health
21 and the environment and conservation of resources.
22 Yet, the provisions in the Act for resource recovery
23 and conservation are somewhat more difficult to iden-
24 tify and sink your teeth into. For example, in
25 hazardous waste areas, there is a very discreet section
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1 of the Act, Subtitle C, which clearly lays out all
2 of the requirements for hazardous wastes, sets dates
3 and deadlines by which certain regulations have to be
4 promulgated.
5 In contrast, the Resource Recovery and
6 Conservation Provisions tend to be somewhat spread
7 throughout the Act. There seem to be portions of the
8 resource recovery and conservation in a whole number
9 of different sections of the Act. There are then a
10 few other sections which do relate specifically to
11 resource recovery, but the authorities tend to be
12 not mandates with specific dates tied in, but rather
13 authorities the administrator is authorized to. So
14 they seem to be not as much of a squeaky wheel, in
15 essence.
16 O.K. Let me begin by just briefly
17 reviewing some of the provisions and sections of the
18 Act that contain resource recovery and conservation
19 provisions, but which are not exclusively directed
20 toward resource recovery and conservation.
21 I am just going to make a couple of
22 points about these. Some of them have already been
23 discussed. The second item there, the resource recover;
24 and conservation panels, I am going to discuss later
25 because this is viewed, actually, as one of the major
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new authorities in the Act for resource recovery and
conservation, but it is listed here because in essence
o
these technical assistance panels are broad in nature.
They apply to technical assistance for a wide range
of waste management issues, not only resource recovery
and conservation.
7 The guidelines section of the Act,
I think it is significant because of the fact that
Federal agencies are required to comply with these
guidelines that are promulgated under this section.
And approximately one year ago, under our previous
19
Act, which had a similar authority in it, we promulgate
guidelines on three major areas of resource recovery
and conservation.
15
One of the areas is separation of
paper by Federal agencies; newspaper, corrugated
containers and high-grade office paper. Another of
1 ft
the guidelines requires Federal agencies to utilize
19 large scale resource recovery facilities for recovery
of materials and energy from waste when they have a
91
sufficient quantity of waste. And the third one of
the guidelines requires Federal agencies to establish
91
deposits on all containers solely within Fed agencies.
Now these guidelines have already been
25
promulgated and we don't anticipate any new promulgatio
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219
1 activities. However, we will be working with Federal
2 agencies on implementation of these guidelines; sort
of an encouragement, hand-holding type of exercise
4 to see that they are implemented fully. And this is
a pretty important activity for us under the new
6 Act.
' The development of state and local
" programs, Subtitle D, which you have already heard
about to some extent and will hear more about later,
10 is a good example of the section that is really not
11 thought about at all as resource recovery and
2 conservation section. It is thought of in terms of
13 the criteria for open dumps and sanitary landfills,
14 and it is thought of in terms of the state plans that
^ have to be approved and the financial assistance to
16 the states.
17 But, in fact, when you read the object-
18 ive of this section, it says it is to assist in
developing and encouraging methods for disposal of
20 solid wastes, which are environmentally sound and
which maximize utilization of valuable resources and
22 encourage resource conservation.
23 And in another section of the Act the
requirements for approval of state plans under
Subtitle D, in essence, boil down to it either goes
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220
into an approved sanitary landfill or it is recovered.
And so throughout the section it suggests that states
should look at resource recovery and conservation
4
provisions as alternatives to land disposal.
So it is an example of how the resource
recovery ethic is sort of woven in there, but without
any really hard provisions to the administrator saying
g
do this or do that.
9 O.K. With that, I think I will move
on and talk about some of the sections of the Act
which are somewhat more specific than general resource
12
recovery.
Federal procurement; in essence, the
14
Act requires Federal agencies within two years to
purchase materials containing the highest percentage
of recyclable materials practicable. And the same
is true for energy. Utilize solid waste as an energy
18
source to the extent practicable.
19
Furthermore, within 18 months it says
on
they must eliminate any discrimination in specification
21
which prohibit and include secondary materials and
22
products which they purchase. These are provisions
23
which I think have been long desired for Federal
24
agencies, to act as sort of an example and try to
create a market for recycled materials.
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221
1 Now EPA is required to write guidelines
2 under Section 6002. The guidelines are not mandatory.
3 In fact, the stated purpose is for them to assist
4 Federal agencies in complying with the requirements
5 of this section. In essence, the guidelines are
6 supposed to identify supply—issues concerning
7 supply products containing recyclable materials when
8 it is practical or not practical to do so. So they
9 should have a significant influence on how this
10 section of the Act is implemented.
11 But I think the biggest—the major
12 significance of this Federal procurement section is
13 not in the Federal government at all. I think the
14 significance will come in the adoption of similar
15 practices by state and local governments and private
16 industries.
17 Federal government procurement alone
18 is not going to have that much of an impact on over-
19 all demand, because the total demand for—the total
20 consumption of products in this country, the Federal
21 government does not purchase more than about 2 per
22 cent of any particular product. And most manufacturers
23 aren't going to drastically alter their inputs for
24 that. So 1 am basically offering you a challenge.
25 I think this is a major opportunity for states and
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222
1 local governments and some--some have done this
2 already. They are ahead of the Federal government
and have adopted a similar type of practice,,
4 O.K. There are a number of special
5 studies in Section 8002 of the Act that relate
6 specifically to resource recovery and conservation.
I am not going to dwell on these. We have done a lot
of studies in the past and some of these are, frankly,
9 a little bit redundant.
10 They do require recommendations be
reported to Congress, but I think that we are well
12
15
19
20
21
along in our understanding, you know, on most of
these issues.
I do want to call your attention to
two of the studies; one on small scale and low
technology systems and the other one on finance source
17 separation. I bring these to your attention to high-
18 light the fact that I believe the Act reflects a
growing recognition by Congress of the needs of smaller
communities and rural communities in the area of resource
recovery and conservation. It is not just a big
systems approach. They are trying to focus attention
23 on che needs of small communities and we think it
24 is very appropriate and think that these are signifi-
25 cant authorities within the Act.
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223
Now the last item listed up there on
2 the resource conservation committee is very different
3 from any of the other studies. It is much more
4 significant and we will talk about that a little more
5 specifically.
6 I think for a long time a lot of
7 people have said that the real hangup in terms of
recovery of wastes and conservation is markets. And
9 also the overall Federal policy issues, the fact that
10
there are subsidies and encouragement for use of
11 virgin resources, but not for use of recycled resources.
12 And EPA has done studies on this in
13 the past, bills have been approached to Congress, and
so forth. Congress fell short of putting any specific
subsidy or incentive or disincentive types of provisions
16 in this Act, but they did create a Cabinet-level
committee called the Resource Conservation Committee.
in
And it is composed of Secretaries of agencies, like
19 Treasury, Commerce, Labor, shared by EPA.
20 And they are required to do very
21 comprehensive studies of incentives and disincentives,
22 looking at existing public policies, such as existing
23 subsidies. They are asked to look at the issue of
24 the possible regulations on the manufacture or use
of certain kinds of materials in products. You know,
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224
should a container be made out of plastic, versus
steel and so forth.
They are asked to look at a new concept
called a product charge. Product charge is a concept
where a charge is placed on a product at the time of
6 manufacture, which is the charge being equal to the
charge of disposal of that product. And that inter-
nalizes the cost of waste management right into the
9
product, and also provides encouragement for resource
recovery because you provide credits if the product
contains recycled materials.
I think this is an important committee.
A report to Congress is required within two years,
recommendations. I think Congress will look seriously
15 ' at these recommendations and in terms of passing
specific legislation, it would provide many major
encouragements for resource recovery and conservation
18
through incentives or disincentives.
19 O.K. 8005 of the Act is sort of a
20
summation of some of the authorities that are provided
2' for resource recovery. Many of the authorities given
in this section are mentioned elsewhere. For example,
you can see Federal procurement incentives and public
policies and disposal charges are listed here. As we
25 said, they are already covered in that other committee.
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225
1 So 8005 sort of sums things up,
2 but frankly, most of the authorities are given else-
where.
I do want to call attention to Section
8006, which isn't mentioned anywhere on these slides.
This gives authority to carry out full-scale resource
7 recovery demonstrations. And this is similar to the
g old 208 authority in the previous Act. And the
authority is for 75 per cent funding of full-scale
)0 resource recovery systems.
Also I want to call your attention to
12 provisions of Section 8004 which allows EPA to
evaluate existing resource recovery systems. And this,
we feel, is a major opportunity to provide information
on the performance of resource recovery systems that
are being implemented to the public, and thereby
advance the status, technology and understanding of
18
The final area that I would like to
2Q discuss is the resource recovery and conservation
2] panels. I think this may be the most important new
22 provision of the Act, perhaps along with the resource
23 recovery and conservation committee; the most important
24 provision relevant to resource recovery. This is a
25 technical assistance provision. That is what the
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226
1 authority amounts to, in essence. I think the rational
2 for this provision and the reason it was called into
3 the Act is that Congress wanted to emphasize the need
4 for Federal technical assistance and did it by giving
5 it a special name and by requiring that 20 per cent of
6 the authorizations--the general authorizations under
7 the Act be allocated to this particular provision.
8 This is a provision that EPA had
9 wanted in the act and in the Congressional testimony
10 many of the people who testified said that they thought
11 it was important. What it reflects is given the
12 intent and the need to encourage and promote resource
13 recovery and the implementation of it, what is the
14 best way for the Federal government to do it?
15 I think a lot of people felt that the
16 best way was not a subsidy program, but with a
17 technical assistance program. The idea is that
18 resource recovery systems and approaches are in many
19 cases technically and economically advisable, but
20 they are complicated. They are not well-understood
21 and therefore there are often many delays in getting
22 them implemented.
23 By providing technical assistance,
24 this problem can be overcome. The TA can be provided
25 for a number of purposes and to solve a number of
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227
1 problems, as indicated here. The terms include a
2 variety of types of expertise, technical marketing,
3 financial,institutional. They can be composed of EPA
4 personnel at either headquarters or the regions; by
5 consultants simply contracting with private consultants
6 to provide expert assistance at no charge to local
7 governments; and something called peer matching, which
8 is actually state or local officials who have had
9 experiences with resource recovery who go out and tell
10 somebody else about it.
11 So this is viewed as a major new
12 provision. Now this relates to Subtitle D, as shown
13 here, which states that the panels may be used to
14 help states in implementing this state plan required
IS under Subtitle D. So there is an inter-relationship
'6 between these two provisions.
17 Let me just summarize briefly. I think
18 the major new programs under this act for resource
19 recovery and conservation are; one, technical assistance
20 panels program; two, the resource conservation
21 committees to look at incentives and disincentives;
22 three, the broad research development in the evaluation
23 provisions or authorities provided; four, possibly
24 the procurement provision, depending on the reaction
25 of state and local governments.
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228
1 And any questions? I would be glad to
2 try to answer them. Yes?
3 MR. STUD1BAKER: Walt Studebaker, with
4 same thing. Is this technical assistance program going
5 to be available for industry?
6 MR. LINGLE: Yes, probably.
A
7 MR. STUD1BAKER: And do you have a
8 methodology available as to how we will get--
9 MR. LINGLE: Well, the scope of the
'° technical assistance program is just now being
'I developed. The panels program is being developed, and
12 one of the purposes of these meetings is to get public
13 input on how that program can be developed.
14 I think at the present time the needs
15 to give this to industry is recognized.
16 MR. STUD1BAKER: Do you have a time-
17 table that you have got in mind to get this panel
18 program together where it could begin to be utilized?
'9 MR. LINGLE: Yes. The program will
20 probably start functioning fully in fiscal 1978,
21 because that is when the financial appropriations for
22 tt are for. We are hearing of some technical
23 assistance activities now which are similar in nature
24 to this panel program; probably not nearly as
25 extensive.
-------
229
MR. STUMJBAKER: Well then to find
2 additional information on this, would we come--
3 contact the Regional Administrator?
4 MR. tOWiMHf"; " If I may answer you,
5 if we are talking about industrial, particularly
6 hazardous wastes, we have some capability now. We
7 are going to make it more elaborate and have more
8 resources for it.
If you have a problem, you call Morris
10 and he decides whether his staff can deal with it
11 or if he has to call in other of our people who are
12 experts on the subject. So feel free to call now.
13 MR. STUDIBAKER: That is one problem
14 I can see as an industrial representative, that we
15 get into with limited engineering staffs. And I think
you will find it even more on small industries, that
17 the only alternative that we have got to just going
in
ahead and disposing of wastes through a contract form
19 and having somebody just come in and haul it off and
20 then dispose of it would be to look at our own
21 processes and what we might reuse.
22 But then we talking about consulting
fees, and we begin to look at quite a large budget.
24 MR_ HICKMAH: Let me deal with that.
25
Our technical assistance program is not in competition
-------
230
1 with the product consulting industry. We are; not
2 going to supplant what is normally consultation
3 services provided by the consulting industry.
4 MR. STUDEBAKER: Can you elaborate
^ then on just what this technical assistance in detail
6 will be?
7 MR. HICKMAN: Basically the work that
8 we are involved in is--technical assistance is not
' new to us. We have been doing it since 1966. And it
10 is within this law provisions for four or five
11 different places for the provision of assistance.
12 It is basically to sit with an
13 organization or city or local government or state
14 government or an industry and discuss what their
15 problems are and try to guide them in the direction
16 in which they should go to make intelligent decisions,
17 which leads ultimately probably to the use of a
18 consultant to make use of--to do this.
19 There is real analytical work necessary
20 to make capital investments and make use of the
21 information received from these sittings to make
22 product and/or project changes. In the resource
23 recovery area we work with cities, helping them
24 prepare to go out and solicit for resource recovery
25 facilities. We provide consultations frequently to
what the problems are and give them a window on what
-------
231
1 the best way is to go and to give them the kind of
2 advice they need.
3 We are not in competition with the
4 consulting engineering field. And we don't intend
5 to provide assistance just because somebody wants to
6 avoid paying the fee for legitimate consulting purposes
7 MR. STUDEBAKER: Do you anticipate,
8 though, the development of such things as the
9 technology transfer documents--
10 MR. HICKMAN: You know, we are up to
11 our ears in publication of literature.
Kowt/c/c
12 tflti (MHfHtay; For example, we are just
13 finishing an incinerator evaluation program for
14 hazardous wastes where we have elected about three
15 dozen different kinds of classes of hazardous wastes
16 and carefully and painstakingly incinerated them--
17 using that term very broadly—in about eight or nine
18 different kinds of incineration facilities.
19 So you will be able, meeting with our
20 staff and/or Morris's staff, depending on the problem--
21 to sit down and discuss the kind of waste you have,
22 assuming we are talking about an organic when we are
23 talking about incineration, and we would be able to
24 discuss with you the results and dates of those kinds
25 of operations. And you would then have some more
-------
232
1 direction about the kind of help you wanted to get.
2 You know, we have directories of facilities around
3 the country. There are about 100 or so firms that
4 are in the business of treating and disposing of
5 hazardous wastes.
6 Some of them are better than others.
7 State officials can tell you about them. So that Is
8 the kind of--
9 MR. STUDEBAKER: That Is the idea that
10 this section has on the technical assistance panel?
11 MR. HICKMAN: That is right. We do
12 that every day. Say right now we are talking about
13 having more resources recovered.
14 MR. STUDEBAKER: All right.
IS MR. LINGLE: Any other questions?
16 (No response.)
17 MR. TUCKER: Speaking of literature
18 I have just discovered--we missed it last night—that
19 we brought great piles of a new little flyer on current
20 views on solid waste management. And this is a listing
21 of selected publications from the 800 or so that we
22 have total. And we meant to get these in the folders,
23 but we didn't do it. So I will try to get people to
24 pass these out to you so you can add them to your
25 folders.
-------
233
1 O.K. The next and final formal
2 session on the program was indicated as state program
3 development. Now that more properly should have been
4 called state and local program development. And once
5 again, we will ask Lannie Hickman to present this to
6 us.
7 MR. HICKMAN: We have been talking
8 about hazardous waste control, land disposal, resource
9 conservation as the major thrusts of the law. Now
10 we are going to talk about institution building.
11 Steve talked about part of it within the framework
12 of providing technical assistance, which helps build
13 the institutions necessary to deliver solid waste
14 management practices.
15 All right. Within the law, Subtitle
16 C and Subtitle D--Subtitle C being the hazardous
17 waste enforcement of the law—Subtitle D is a portion
18 called state and local programs--these are mechanisms
19 by which we are able to provide the kind of assistance
20 which will allow the states to assume a dominant role
21 in assuring proper solid waste management.
22 This is the intent of the law. The
23 intent of the law is to put the major thrust of
24 carrying out the umbrella of regulations control into
25 the state government's hands. And then it provides a
-------
1 mechanism so that local governments can meet the
2 planning and implementation needs required under the
3 law.
4 Within Subtitle D within six months
5 of the enactment of the law, we are supposed to issue
6 guidelines for what are regional planning areas for
7 purposes of solid waste management. This law says
8 you have got to recognize 208, which is the regional
' planning mechanism set up by the Federal Water
10 Pollution Control Law.
11 And wherever possible, 208 planning
12 mechanisms should be used—the areas of regional
13 planning established by 208 should be used, but not
'4 to the extent that it would obviate intelligent,
15 normal, reasonable planning areas for solid waste
16 management because water runs by gravity and solid
17 waste travels by man. And so they do not necessarily
18 always go in the same direction.
!' The law recognizes that and allows
20 a flexibility for us to establish regional solid
21 waste planning areas.
22 it also requires us to issue guidelines
23 for state solid waste management programs. And it
24 requires us to do that primarily for the purpose
25 of allowing a state or local government to develop a
-------
1 state plan. Now what are the minimum requirements of
2 an acceptable state program. The law says the follow-
3 ing: first, you have to develop a plan, a state plan.
4 A state plan does not necessarily have to be developed
5 strictly by state government.
6 It requires the fact that state
7 government and local elected officials shall get
8 together and come to an agreement on the relative
9 roles and responsibilities in the development and
10 implementation of a state solid waste management plan.
11 That says effectively that state plans can be developed
'2 by local government and tied together in a bundle when
13 it says state plan on it, and that can be the state
14 plan; or the state can develop it; or it can be a
IS mutual sharing of regional areas.
" But it requires the state government
17 and local elected officials to come together and reach
'8 an agreement on responsibilities and roles with the
19 various actions of the solid waste management plan.
20 The law does not say what constitutes agreement between
21 state government and local elected officials. And
22 that is going to be an interesting exercise in the
23 next year or so to try to find out how state government
24 and local elected officials are going to agree on solid
waste management.
-------
«**•
15
Now in the absence of that agreement,
2 the governor must designate the relative responsibili-
ties and roles as far as the implementation of the
plan. So they have to come to a shared agreement on
5 what they are going to do.
6 It says that plans must consider all
dumps and all sanitary landfills, the purposes of
Q
eliminating or converting all those dumps into
9 sanitary landfills, and that all new sites that
10 would be started would meet the criteria of sanitary
11 landfill.
12
The state programs must have necessary
regulatory authority to carry out the purposes of the
law for purposes of their program. They have got to
be able to regulate the disposal practices. Now this
planning covers all solid waste including hazardous
waste. We will talk about the funding of the program
18
once the plan is developed.
We have been in the planning business
20 for a long time. We started in 1966, May of 1966.
21 That is when the first few states got planning grants
22 from the Federal solid waste program. The states have
been doing this for a long time. For the last couple
of years since most of them completed their plans,
25 they have been working on three basic thrusts.
-------
JHf
1 They have been developing a strategy
2 to develop hazardous wastes cradle to grave. You
3 notice how close that strategy fits what the law now
4 says. They have also been working on a strategy to
5 regulate land disposal practices. That fits very
6 nicely into the law. They have been working on ways
7 to provide a catylization for resource recovery at
8 the state level within the state. That fits very
9 nicely into the law.
10 So we don't anticipate a great big
11 exercise going on at the state level to do this new
12 planning. We don't anticipate a great deal of new
13 work at the local and regional level, because there
14 has been a lot of planning done and there is no reason
15 to start all over again. The law is not designed to
16 reinvent the wheel.
17 Now we would rather get on with solving
18 the problems rather than planning, and I think we all
1' know what the problem is.
20 Now it also provides that the state
21 must eliminate any provision or provide a mechanism
22 to do away with' those provisions in their constitution
23 or in their laws that prohibits communities from making
24 long term contractural arrangements for the provision
25 of waste to a resource recovery facility.
-------
1 Now some states have permissive
2 legislation that limits the contractural time that
3 a city can make arrangements for, five years. They
cannot contract for, say, beyond five years. Well,
this is prohibitive when you start to regionalize and
6 do a large scale resource recovery facility which are
7 capital intensive. You are just not going to finance
8 them on a five year contract.
9 So the state plan has to find a
10 mechanism if that sort of constraint exists to get
11 rid of it.
12 Finally, it says the plan must: deal
13 with all the solid waste in that state and they must
14 either go to sanitary landfills or must be recovered.
One of the basic provisions of the plan is this one.
O.K. So financial assistance, therefore
is that there are a variety of financial assistance
I8 packages in the law. First, Section 3011, which is
a hazardous waste section of the law, provides for
20 financial assistance to fund state hazardous waste
21 programs. The funding level for each year is: 1978
22 and 1979 fiscal years is 25 million dollars. That
23 money flows to the states based upon the problems
24 related to hazardous waste. It is not a formula
25 grant
-------
**?
1 The agency is to issue regulations on
2 how this money will be allocated to the states based
3 upon a variety of conditions for the hazardous wastes
4 that are generated or the current practices, and a lot
5 of other factors that would help it determine where
6 the problem is. So it is not a formula grant.
7 Now Section 4008(a)(1), there is
8 authorization for financial assistance to states and
9 local government to develop and implement the state
10 plan. As you remember, earlier I said the state and
11 locals have to get together and figure out a way to
12 develop and implement the plan. The money flows to
13 the states then on a formula basis and it gets divided
14 based upon the responsibilities that the state and
15 local government have come to an agreement on.
16 According to some financial plans that
17 the state has submitted to the agency, there are many
18 to be approved. The funding levels for that in 1978
19 are authorized levels of 30 million dollars; and in
20 1979 it is 40 million dollars.
21 Now the current funding level, funding
22 expenditures for state government solid waste management
23 is approximately 20 plus million dollars. Three million
24 dollars of that is currently Federal money coming from
25 our office to the regions and the state governments.
-------
1 We contribute about 20 per cent, 15
2 to 20 per cent of the total investment by state
3 government. Compare that to some of the other environ-
4 mental programs at the state level. A small program
5 now. You know, that doesn't look like a lot of money,
6 but when there is only 20 plus million being spent,
7 30 million is a hell of a count.
8 This is the level that is authorized.
9 That doesn't mean appropriated. It is authorized.
10 O.K. It is also provided that — in
11 Section 4008, implementation grants for solid waste
12 management programs. These grants are directed to
13 local governments for the purposes of bridging that
14 gap between planning development and the actual
15 construction or the actual award of a contract for
16 a project. It provides for plan and feasibility
17 studies, marketing studies, technology assessments
18 when a city has planned that they want to go to
19 resource recovery and they need to go look at black
20 boxes or they need to talk to people about how the
21 different black boxes work. This provides a mechanism
22 for them to bridge that gap.
23 It has no formula. And any of those
24 projects that would be funded would have to meet
25 guidelines that we issue as well as the land disposal
-------
-*«>•
1 requirements in Subtitle D. This is 15 million dollars
2 each year for fiscal years 1978 and 1979.
3 Here is a special little kinky provision
4 in the law called special communities, which authorizes
5 two-and-a-half million dollars each in the years 1978
6 and 1979 for communities who have a population of
7 less than 25,000, if 75 per cent of the waste they
8 are disposing of comes in from the outside and it
' presents a serious environmental problem. We don't
10 know the genesis of this section of the law, but it
11 was obviously written for special interests somewhere
12 that some member of the Congressional delegation had
13 a problem on.
14 We have a couple more provisions like
15 that in the law. There is one for a site in Delaware
16 that has had a lot of problems . There is one for
17 doing a survey in Alaska on what the Federal govern-
l8 ment is doing with their solid waste. And really
19 they are little kinky sections in the midnight hours
20 of the law. This is really not a very significant
21 section of the law.
22 Now there is a provision for assistance
23 to rural communities. And by definition the law
24 defines what a rural community is; populations of
25 5,000 or less; county populations of 10,000 or less;
-------
1 or less than 20,000 per square mile. The purpose of
2 the assistance is to help rural communities and rural
3 counties meet the open dumping restrictions of the
4 new law and the impacts of the Clean Air Act and
5 the Federal Water Pollution Control Act as it relates
6 basically to sludges and residuals.
7 It is only available if no regional
8 system is presently an option for a rural community
9 to get into and there is no existing or planned
10 system available that they can make the long term
11 arrangements with. It is 25 million per year for
12 fiscal years 1978 and 1979.
13 Now this is an allotment limit. It
14 is allocated on the basis, the formula basis of these
15 population--rural populations and it will flow through
16 the state to the rural communities. It is not a
17 direct grant from the Feds, but it goes through the
18 states. You cannot buy land under the provisions of
19 this law. This specifically restricts the purchase
20 of land.
21 So in effect you have then four parts
22 of a financial assistance program that when you total
23 them up they come in round numbers to around 90 to
24 100 million dollars for the fiscal years 1978 and
25 1979 for the purposes of developing and implementing
-------
1 state plans and for funding hazardous waste programs
2 and providing assistance to rural communities and
3 providing assistance to communities in implementing
4 their plans.
5 And that is basically the financial
6 assistance portion of the law that is directed toward
7 state and local government. That is the authorized
8 level, around 100 million dollars.
9 Now I will answer questions. Who asked
10 the deal about the financing? Did she leave before
11 she got her answer?
12 (No response.)
13 MR. HICKMAN: Yes?
14 MS. WILSON: I am Betty Wilson of the
'5 League of Women Voters of Missouri.
16 I want to comment on the financing
17 because we are now, as you know, in the midst of
'" passing, hopefully passing, the solid waste law in
19 Missouri. And they find continuously the objection
20 particularly on the Senate side to financial help
2' from the Federal government starting large programs
22 and then cutting them off. So I noticed this
23 authorization is for two years.
24 Also, we have been working in the
25 Clean Water program to prolong the term of authorizations
-------
l so that the state and local communities can know for
2 some time at least in the future what they can really
3 count on. Now I don't know whether this is the proper
4 group to make this plea to, but I know there are
5 citizens here as well as officials. And it seems to
6 me that this is a real problem that we should address
7 ourselves to which would make the total Federal program
8 more acceptable to the state and local communities.
9 MR. HICKMAN: I agree with you
10 completely. There are a lot of things that the
11 Federal law comes down on such as if you have got a
12 permit program and now it looks like maybe another
13 permit program. You start to think about one-stop
14 permitting.
15 You start to think about how many
16 grant applications the state agency has to fill out
17 in order to get Federal money. If I were setting the
'8 budget hearings for the state legislative areas and
19 I was told, "Gee, we want money now for this solid
20 waste program, but the Feds are only going to fund it
21 for two years and..." If I were looking at the
22 bottom line of the state financial capabilities, I
23 wouldn't play either.
24 we asked this specific question to the
25 staff of the Congress as to—raised this same problem,
-------
1 where basically you had funding for two years. The
2 law goes on further saying that you cannot drop below--
3 the state Investment can't drop below what you are
4 spending in 1976, you know. And to take that money
5 and move it over somewhere else and use Federal money,
^ it says that you can't make use of this money for
7 salaries after December of 1979, somewhere in there.
8 You know, you wonder why. So we asked
9 the Congressional staff why. Well, of course, there
4>AB
10 was strong opposition to this law, you know, in .0W
11 for a variety of reasons. A lot of it is basically
12 you look at the Federal budget and you look at the
13 deficit that we are working with and what that is
14 costing the taxpayer.
15 So a mechanism that the Congress
15 developed to accomodate this concern was to place a
17 limit on the length of the funding authorizations.
18 The staff tells us that there is no intention on their
19 part to ignore that and not try to do something about
20 it in the 95th Congress, but that does not guarantee
2i it. And you still have the problem of state legislature
22 looking at this and trying to make a decision.
23 We are trying, again, to get the
24 problem of how much money is going to be available
25 in any year and trying to make some commitment to state
-------
1 government on a long term basis. And it is very
2 difficult to do within our own budgeting cycle because
3 each year the money sort of floats up and down.
And I think only through considered
5 action by state government and local government can
* these sorts of programs be designed in an intelligent
7 way so that you guarantee some bottom line dollar for
8 as long as it is necessary for you to get state
9 programs under way.
10 I don't think that it is particularly
11 desirable to continue to seek Federal funding forever.
12 I think a state program is far better off if it can
13 be self-supporting. And if we write the guidelines
14 and structure the program in such a way that it
15 recognizes the flexibility of state government to
16 deal with their problems within some national frame-
17 work so that there is some consistency between
18 neighboring states, I think it is far better for the
19 states to eventually over a period of time to fund
20 their program as much as they can on their own.
21 That has always been our position on
22 the funding of state programs is to gradually with-
23 draw Federal dollars as the state funding capabilities
24 grow, and only pay for those things that we are
placing demands on the state to do.
-------
1 MS. WILSON: I agree with that but the
2 state does have to worry about the funds eventually
3 being withdrawn.
4 MR, HICKMAN: Well, you know, if we
5 could sit down and negotiate a funding program for
6 states over an eight-year period or a five-year
7 period and say that this is what we think is needed
8 over five years for them to carry out this program--
9 here is what we can give each year and our curve will
10 go down and your curve goes up, and our demands
11 become less strong and your needs and demands become
'2 stronger, eventually we would have a baseline where
'3 we may be funding and you have grown in your own
14 funding capabilities to take it over.
!5 That is an intelligent way to do that.
16 But I think only through state and local action is
17 that sort of change going to occur in the grant
1" programs that the Federal program has.
19 MR. TUCKER: Any more questions on
20 that particular presentation?
21 (No response,)
22 MR. TUCKER: If not, we will move into
23 the final session indicated on the program which we
24 have listed as open discussion, but let's just call
25 it open season. We have a number of people with us
-------
1 on the panel here that have been working with this
2 new law daily and working it within great detail. So
3 let's take every opportunity we can to question them
4 while they are here.
5 I would like to go through the
6 registration cards that I have of people that indicated
7 that they would like to make a statement, and/or
8 submit a written statement for the transcript. Is
9 Kay Roberts with us this morning, University of
10 Missouri?
11 MS. ROBERTS: Yes.
12 MR. TUCKER: Did you have a further
13 statement or--
14 MS. ROBERTS: I do have a question.
15 Are you ready for it now?
16 MR. TUCKER: Yes.
17 MR. CLEVENGER: My name is Tom
A
Ot»
18 Cle-venger with the University of Missouri.
19 We are presently doing some work
20 looking at the possibility of the effects of the land
21 application municipal wastewater sludges. And we are
22 wondering what affect this act will have on the current
23 work being done in that area. Will this whole research
24 area now being done come under this act, or what will
25 be the status of that?
-------
1 MR. HICKMAN: Probably not. There is
2 a discussion now in the agency on whether or not if
3 waste put on the land for beneficial purposes is
4 disposal. And if it isn't disposal, then it would not
5 fall under the umbrella of the disposal requirements
6 of RCRA.
7 As far as any work that you are doing
8 on land spreading of wastes, that is going to continue
9 to be done under the care and feeding of water programs
10 of EPA. And within whatever state program is currently
11 concerned with that, also. We see no shift of that
12 because of this new law.
A
13 MR. CLEVENGER: O.K. Along the same
A
14 line, will these wastes then be covered under possible
15 hazardous materials?
tofAMeJC
16 MR. JOHULDy. As I mentioned during
17 the break, we don't know yet, but we are aware of
18 communities where upwards of 90 per cent of the waste
19 entering municipal wastewater treatment plants come
20 from industrial sources. And when you perform what-
21 ever tests we decide collectively to use to find and
22 define hazardous wastes, it is quite possible that
23 some of what we all call sewage sludges will flunk the
24 test. Therefore, they will be subject to the require-
25 ments in terms of tracking where they go, as we
-------
1 discussed for the more traditional hazardous wastes.
2 So it is possible is the answer we arrived at in the
3 break and it is the same answer now.
A
4 MR. CLE^NGER: Well, certain indications
5 we have had in our research is that there may be a
6 possibility that there can be hazardous effects. And
7 you are probably aware of the effect — like you were
8 saying, that certain municipalities can have very
9 large levels of trace metals in this.
KMMCK
10 MR. SaMBK: Could I have an elaboration
11 on that? Does that mean that you are finding some
12 plant or crop uptake as a result of those--
13 MR. CLEVENGER: Right. Basically we
n
14 have been looking at vegetables. And the work we
IS have done so far has collaborated with the work done
16 by Dowdy and Larsen up in Minnesota. And the one
17 that we have found--we have been working with
18 Columbia's sewage--and--whic h happens to be about
19 four times what you want to call a small town sewage
20 level. And the major thing we are having right now
C«jdv»l»W
21 is with oabJLum.
22 And we are finding agreement with
23 tests previously done, that in certain vegetables
24 or in gardens treated with this sludge, that we are
««c/)»l'H>^.
25 seeing an increase of a factor of four in the aahluffi
levels. And now we are not talking about any kind of
-------
-250-
1 acute problem, but we may be talking about a chronic
2 problem. And this is what our major concern right now
3 is.
4 MR. TUCKER: We are seeing this same
5 factor in some other limited studies that have been
6 done that we are aware of on sludges. A recent
7 example is a town in Missouri which wanted to work
8 a deal with the nearby wildlife refuge to put their
9 sludge on that land, which is grazing land both for
10 livestock and for water fowl.
11 But we found some levels of pesticides,
12 chloradine, in this sewage sludge that we couldn't
13 hardly believe, and we are doing some follow-up
14 testing. But this is an example of a material that
15 when applied to the land can be taken up by the crops
16 and by the animals on that land.
17 A cow, it passes on through the milk
18 to people. So this is one big question where I don't
19 think we have nearly enough information on it, the
20 contaminants in the sludge. And it needs to have a
21 great deal more study.
22 O.K. I also had a card from Chuck
23 Welch. Chuck had one question earlier. Is he still
24 in the room or does he have a further question? He
25 is gone? O.K.
-------
Another card from Lowell Rochester
2
of the Region 18 Council of Governments In Nebraska.
3
Did he pose his question or does he have a further
4
question?
5
(No response.)
6
_ .. MR. TUCKER: Apparently not. George
7 &»*•""
B-QgfH-, did you hare a further statement?
8 JACfrfiTT
MR. MQaOf. No statement.
9
MR. TUCKER: No further statement? O.K.
10
Betty Wilson, we heard from you once.
11
Do you have any further statement that you would like
12
to make?
13
MS. WILSON: I think I have already
14
said the main thing I wanted to say, but a correlary
15
to this is the fact that citizens are supposed to
16
participate in this total program which, to the League
17
of Women Voters Is a very acceptable idea, as you know.
18
But I would like to point out that
19
citizens are not always able to bring themselves to
20
Kansas City for such an excellent program as this is.
21
And I am wondering if It is possible that you could
22
have the same type of program in some of the other
23
metropolitan areas or else provide some citizen help
24
in bringing them to another central spot. Because I
25
do believe if we want more sensible authorization of
-------
1 funds and a continuing program is extremely important
2 it is necessary that citizens can understand it and
3 get behind it. Thank you.
4 MR. HICKMAN: We have every intention
5 to hold meetings a lot of places outside the regional
6 office locations. I think Walt has 79 meetings planned
7 between now and the end of the calendar year just on
8 the hazardous waste portion of the law. Those will be
9 held in a lot of cities.
10 Can you--you know, this same issue
11 about getting people to a meeting came up last night.
^2 Have you conceptualized any other way that we might
13 communicate with the citizens, if at least not
14 personally, but where he can be instrumental with
15 what is in the proposed various regulations so he
can somehow react back to us, at least by mail if no
17 other way. Have you all thought any way about how
18 that might be done?
19 MS. WILSON: Only by the ordinary
20 League procedure of discussion groups and carrying it
2' out with the community. But League members themselves
22 have to be pretty well-educated before they can do
23 that. So it is necessary, I think, for the League
members as well as other community and civic organizat-
ions members to be pretty well informed on the program
-------
1 before they can go speak in the community or show
2 slides or go to the media or something of this sort,
3 to encourage more public participation.
4 MR. HICKMAN: Well how much information,
5 to your knowledge, has the, let's say the Missouri
6 League received from EPA about this law up until now?
7 Little if any, or a reasonable amount or what?
8 MS. WILSON: It happens that we have
' received quite a bit. Now it may be because we have
'" had a conference recently which this law relates to,
" so I do think that we have had quite an amount of
12 information. But I think that people don't read it
13 unless they have somebody to discuss it with or
14 some real viable reason, because--well, we all know
15 how overwhelmed we are with reading material anyway.
16 Somehow the EPA and their guidelines
17 and standards isn't very exciting reading unless you
18 really need to know about that.
19 MR. HICKMAN: It is not very exciting
20 when you write it, either.
21 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Betty.
22 Let's see, we also had a card indicating
23 he would like to make a statement, Victor Gray,
24 Missouri Farm Bureau Federation.
25 MR. GRAY: I would like to comment on
-------
1 two areas and then make a little statement later.
2 As I look through the bill, particularly that that
3 relates to dumps and the definition of dumps—under
4 our solid waste law in Missouri we have an exemption
for those people who live on farms, which says that
6 they can put their solid waste on their own premises
as long as it doesn't affect somebody else.
Now what that simply means is that if
the guy that owns the farm has got a gulley or place
10 back on the farm that he wants to take his tin cans
and material back there to, why he can do that. There
12 is very little garbage waste on a farm. They have got
some garbage disposal units around to take care of
14 that, so there is no real problem there.
15 Nor under our burning laws are farmers
prohibited from burning some trash and material on
their own premises, as long as it located so far from
18 another premises and so forth.
19 And I was wondering if a statement on
20 dumps—and it says all dumps, I believe--if that
statement would affect Missouri law from that aspect?
22 Would anybody care to comment to that? Now I might
23 say that there is.about 137,000 farms in the state of
Missouri and who is going to go out and look at them
25 if it does?
-------
1 MR. HICKMAN: No one I think is probably
2 the answer.
3 MR. GRAY: O.K.
4 MR. HICKMAN: I don't think the law
5 precludes us when we write the criteria, whether it
' is an open dump or a sanitary landfill. Here again,
7 I talked about the subject of common sense about all
8 of this, you know.
9 MR. GRAY: Well, we had hoped that was
10 the thinking of it.
11 MR. HICKMAN: We do show common sense
12 a lot of times, don't we?
13 MR. GRAY: Now, the other area and it
14 has been alluded to here before is the fact that
15 Missouri now has in the legislature under consideration
16 the Hazardous Waste Act. And yet, this bill says, this
17 law says that you will come up with rules and regulation|s
within 18 months. And it has been our experience in
" the state in past measures that where we pass laws
20 prior to final conclusive acts, and so forth, that
21 we get the agency—and this has come from EPA as much
22 as any other place, too--we get the agency coming
23 back and saying the laws that we have got will not
24 be acceptable. We have got to change it. Right now
25 we are in the third revision of our pesticide act, which
-------
1 we passed early hoping that by passing that law we
2 could get some inputs into the Federal law, which
3 didn't work.
4 We run into the Massachusetts Mafia,
5 as I call it. And it just didn't work. And so should
6 we go on with our hazardous waste act or should we
7 just let it linger until we see the rules and
8 regulations and then comply accordingly? I doubt if
9 you want to comment on that.
AiWLlUC
10 MR.-awniLE'iT I do want to comment on
11 that. Despite the comment earlier that there are
12 some discrepancies, as Lannie points out there aren't
13 enough resources to go around and the Federal govern-
14 ment is not going to be able to do this program on
15 hazardous wastes nationally. And so the reason we
16 have people like a representative from Missouri on
17 the guideline writing committee, or the work group
18 for this regulation is to make sure that we try and
19 learn from some of those mistakes on water and air
20 and pesticides in the past.
21 Now, so that is where we are at the
22 moment. We are just getting started, of course. But
23 we are trying to have as many states as possible take
24 this program from the beginning. Some are way out
25 ' ahead. As I mentioned, California has an operating
-------
1 program. They address the pesticide container problem
2 in their program. They address industrial wastes,
3 and so there is a spectrum of states—Missouri isn't
4 all alone here. We don't have to accomodate a single
state. We have to accomodate half a dozen who are
on the cutting edge, and we intend to accomodate them.
MR. GRAY: I would make this comment
on the pesticide containers. It is our feeling that
that is probably our number one problem in the
10 agriculture area, some—developing some procedure
11 for the disposal of those containers.
12 Now, the final comment that I mentioned
13 at first. This is a provision that is made in other
14 acts of EPA--well, yeah, administered by EPA. This
15 is a provision of funds for people to—all people,
I guess, to participate in this kind of an educational
17 procedure and so forth. Even in some instances--and
18 I don't think this is EPA—where the Federal govern-
19 ment through grants and so forth supplies funds which
20 will pay attorneys to file suits against the Federal
government, which we think this is kind of screwy.
22 We also think that if we need to be
23 educated on this EPA act that our people will be there.
24 We represent, oh, 62,000 farmers in the state of
Missouri and we get the educational material to them.
-------
1 They pay their dues and they think it is our
2 responsibility to get this information back to them.
3 I don't think we will be asking the
4 Federal government for a bus system to transport us
5 to meetings or anything of that nature. And we don't
6 really appreciate it being dished out to other people.
7 MR. HICKMAN: That is really carrying
8 bussing to the extreme, isn't it?
9 MR. GRAY: Well, it would be. I got
10 the impression just a moment ago that that might be
11 a good way to get all the people in here, have EPA
12 set up a statewide bus system that would transport
13 them all in.
14 MR. HICKMAN: What about the individual
IS citizen who doesn't have an organization like the
'6 Farm Bureau to represent them? How do they get--
17 MR. GRAY: Then he ought to join.
'8 MR. TUCKER: Do you sign up non-farmers?
19 Do garden people qualify?
20 MR. GRAY: Who needs the help worse?
2! MR. TUCKER: O.K. I have one more
22 person who indicated they would like to make a short
23 statement, and submit a prepared statement for the
24 transcript. Norman Hjersted.
25 MR. HJERSTED: 1 will submit a prepared
-------
1 statement by mall this week. Due to the shortness
2 of time I will make my comments brief.
3 Our company has been 17 years in this
4 area and it is my opinion that this law has been
sorely needed and will be a great advance in the
regulation and control of these wastes.
I might--perhaps you know about it,
but I will impress it upon you--there will be aspects
9 of this law that require administration similar to,
10 perhaps, liquor laws or laws on drugs, where wherever
11 there is a profit to get rid of these wastes and--in
12 an inappropriate manner, you almost have to use
13 strongarm methods to discourage it.
This is still going on in certain
15 areas of the country. The encouragement of recycling,
of course, is very valid. It is interesting to note
17 that probably in the whole Midwest there aren't any
18 significant recyclers in service in the oil industry.
1' Nor are there any significant incineration of organics,
20 which leaves one to conclude that it is still going
21 into unregulated landfills.
22 So in substance the law is needed and
23 i think it is a big advance. Thank you.
24 MR. TUCKER: Thank you, Norman. If you
25 would--let me follow up on this point. Norman, if you
-------
1 would, try to have the written document to me within
2 10 days to be included in the transcript. And that
3 goes for anyone else in the audience, also, that would
4 like to present follow-up written statements to be
5 included in the transcript. You can just address
6 that to me. If you have your copy of the program
7 handy, my name and title is there. Just send it to
8 1735 Baltimore, Kansas City, Missouri, 64108. Yes?
UULTS
9 MR. MaiiTH-! My name is Steve Holtz.
10 I am an Environmental Review Officer for the City of
11 Kansas City, Kansas.
12 I would like to make a comment referring
13 to the interest that cities have in this sort of
14 legislation. Seemingly the way their coordination
15 and their participation in later pieces of EPA
16 legislation have been overlooked. I think there is
17 lip service in this legislation for coordination and
18 participation of cities, but I think that is probably
19 merely that.
20 We have various state plans that my
21 city coordinated with. BOR has one. Water Management
22 has a state plan. But the participation that local
23 cities have in those state plans is minimal at best.
24 The chronic problem that I think HUD has recognized
25 is that in problems dealing with poverty and racial
-------
1 discrimination, you have to encourage cities and you
2 have to give them the means to anticipate their
3 problems and study them.
4 EPA has blessed us with legislation
5 and programs that identify the problems that cities
6 have, but seemingly fail to give the cities the means
7 to cope with them. HUD is an example that I gave and
8 they have provided for a long time the 701 Planning
9 Assistance Program. It helps the city meet the needs
10 of poverty, racial discrimination and unemployment and
11 it helps us look at these problems and try to service
12 them.
13 It is now under EPA a mixture of
14 environmental programs, but there is no similar 701
IS Planning Assistance program by which the cities can
16 invest themselves with trained personnel to come and
17 talk with state officials about state management
18 plans that are capable of talking to the Federal level.
19 If the people that are involved in
20 the disposal and the transport of solid waste don't
21 tell the state that they exist, then my observation
22 is that the state won't know. And at that same point,
23 cities and counties won't have the expertise to tell
24 the states that there are grave dangers being created
25 by disposal or treaters of wastes.
-------
1 Unless you come up with some sort of
2 a 701 Program that helps cities investigate their
3 problems and plan for those problems, no one is going
4 to be there to ring the bell when there is a dump
made, a burial of noxious materials, and you are going
6 to be sitting there finding out that your waters are
7 polluted, no grass will grow on various sites where
8 disposals have been, and that the cities will merely
stand by and wonder why nothing has happened.
10 You see, on our level we take what is
11 known as political heat. You guys do from up above,
12 but we take it from the citizen who either has the
waste, wants to transport it, or wants to dispose of
14 it. And when that situation arises, we set there with
15 the meager capabilities we have poring through your
literature that is very technical and still doesn't
17 give us satisfactory answers to a man who comes in
1ft
and knows much more than we do and is seeking to pull
the wool over our eyes, or whatever.
2" Unless you give cities and counties
21 real participation in the creation of your state plans,
22 give them some assistance in developing the expertise
23 at the local level to blow the whistle, most of this
24 sort of legislation is going to have no effect at all,
believe me.
-------
1 MR. TUCKER: Do you feel that Kansas
2 City, Kansas, itself, has been slighted on this type
*j
of assistance?
15
4 MR. -HOLTE: I really can't speak for
the city administration, but I can say that it has
been my experience in the five years I have been with
the city that the various state plans really haven't
8 had an impact at the local level. And that we really
haven't been given the opportunity to respond to our
10 real needs.
11 MR. TUCKER: O.K. Well, one thing I
12 was thinking about, Kansas City, Kansas, that is also
13 Wyandotte County, is part of MARC, the Mid-America
Regional Council here, which is a recognized regional
planning agency headed up by elected officials. Now,
16 to my knowledge, MARC and their people they serve have
been involved in planning efforts in solid waste
1R
management, and more currently in resource recovery
and hazardous waste management.
And this dates back approximately six
21 years or so to the earlier efforts. So if there has
not been consideration and representation on the part
23 of Kansas City, Kansas, I don't quite understand it.
24 And further, a MARC mechanism, in addition to the
25 direct mechanism of the city and the county, I don't
-------
1 see why you didn't have full input into the Kansas
2 plan that was developed.
\S
3 MR. XQIOS: I guess my response in that
regard would deal with the local level and the kinds
of things that respective agencies in my city have
6 on a day-to-day basis.
7 First of all, if we have problems of
8 a nature—and we will speak directly to solid waste--
Q
if we have problems with a particular individual or
a particular site or someone with trucks capable of
11 hauling from hither to thither, we are not going to
12 go to MARC and discuss our own dirty wash. Nor are
13 we going to embarrass any private individual or
commercial firm in our area. Nor are we going to ask
the people that are very proficient at MARC what we
should do about this, because our public officials--
17 MR. TUCKER: That is what they are
8 there for. That is what we are here for in the
19 regional office.
20 MR. libLTgf Oh, well, we understand
21 that Federal agencies are available to us when we
22 talk about--
23 MR. TUCKER: Technical assistance and
24 so forth.
IS
waor
MR. IWfeW: Right. But the enforcement
-------
1 capacities of EPA with regard to solid waste are very
2 minimal, even with this legislation, to enforcement,
3 I mean. And what I am speaking to is the--for instance,
4 when we are talking about a gentleman coming into our
5 city and he wants to obtain a permit for a solid
6 waste disposal site or a sanitary landfill or whatever,
7 and we sit there wondering what in the devil that sort
8 of facility is.
' And we wonder how long it will be before
10 we can get a state rep down from the Kansas Departments
11 to take a look at the site. And we wonder, you know,
12 in that situation how it is that the cities and the
13 counties are supposed to take the political heat from
14 that individual who wants it, the permit, and wants
15 it right now and who tells us we don't want to wait.
16 We are here and tomorrow we want to start dumping.
17 MR. TUCKER: Well, I am afraid that
18 individual is not being very realistic, and this does
19 take time and we all recognize that everyone has limite
20 staff. Chuck Lynn is here this morning who heads up
21 the Kansas Solid Waste Program. And he does have
22 staff that works on this, but very naturally it takes
23 time.
24 I don't know. We are chasing this
25 around in circles.
-------
^Wo
1 MR. JMLTE.' Right. Well, what I was
doing was essentially making a bid for a type of
701 Program or whatever, where cities really get a
chance to do some planning on their own specific area,
not the abstraction of a state management plan where
everybody gets together and says this is how the
generalities will be or how the permit system should
Q
operate in the state.
9
What I am saying is when we are talking
about the needs down at our levels, survey work for
a disposal site or whatever, we simply don't have it.
Yet the legislation and eventually the regulations
are going to imply that there is a substantive amount
of coordination between the Federal, state and local
level when, in fact, what I am trying to say, Morris,
is that we simply don't have the expertise to be a
party to that coordination. And it is laughable to
18 think that we do.
19 MR. TUCKER: Point well taken. Yes?
MS. ROBERTS: My name is Kay Roberts
21
and I will try to be brief. I am sure we all are
22
hungry and this statement, in fact, relates to that
23 fact.
As you know, Mr. Clevenger has already
25
indicated that he and I are involved in research
-------
1 relating to sludge application to the land. Now
2 this land does not necessarily mean just garden
3 vegetables. As you are probably well aware, the
4 acceptance of the policy that a farmer can, In fact,
5 go to the sewage treatment facility and pick up a
6 load of sludge and therefore apply It to his farm is
7 an accepted policy which is not just here in the Mid-
8 west but is being practiced In other areas.
' Our research has shown that this Is,
10 indeed, a misconception. You did mention that: the
11 Industry sludge presents a problem. And I would like
12 to tell you that we have seen sludges that do not
13 actually have "industry" in that area, however, they
14 are showing some 1,000 parts per million-of nickel
15 and chromium. Yet, luckily, the farmers in that area
16 have said if you want me to use this sludge, you tell
17 me what is In it.
18 And the municipalities, individuals
19 had to come get this sludge, test it, and you can
20 see the obvious problem. He now has tons and tons
21 of sludge which the farmers will not accept, thank
22 God. And this is going to be a very definite problem
23 for the State of Missouri because now we have in law
24 the fact that all municipalities are going to have
25 to have a second treatment facility which will produce
-------
1 sludge. So as our brothers from Kansas will, I am
2 sure, agree, Missouri is going to be full of sludge
3 and we are going to have a problem.
4 I don't want it to be put on Missouri
5 farmlands, if you will. Thank you.
6 MR. TUCKER: Thank you. I think there
7 is still the possibility of some types of land
8 application or land farming for some of these sludges.
9 But here again, we still have to know what we are
10 dealing with. Robbie?
11 MR. ROBINSON: My name is Robert
12 Robinson and I am Director of the Missouri Solid
13 Waste Program.
14 First, I want to express my appreciation
15 for all the people here from the state of Missouri
16 that have come and participated in this meeting. I
17 think relatively speaking we have a fine turn out from
18 the State of Missouri and 1 want to express my
19 appreciation for that.
20 The Missouri Solid Waste Management
21 Program sees no basic conflict between RCRA and the
22 existing state solid waste management law or the
23 proposed hazardous waste legislation now being consider
24 ed by the Missouri legislators. However, of course,
25 being from the Show Me State, we are naturally
-------
1 concerned about the ability of the guidelines to be
2 flexible enough to recognize the differences in the
3 state. I think that EPA is making an honest attempt
4 to recognize that as they have indicated here today.
^ The--our state is attempting to gear
6 up to have an impact upon these regulations, to review
7 them as they are being made. We, as EPA, are very
8 much interested in seeing that there is adequate
9 public participation and our program hopes to carry
10 this further throughout our state and we hope to hold
11 several meetings in the State of Missouri during this
12 calendar year to further carry the information about
13 this Act and the guidelines that are being directed
14 to help the people of the state determine whether the
'5 State of Missouri wants to play the game.
16 I do have a--that is basically my
17 comment. I do have--! wasn't in the room when Steve
^8 was talking about resource conservation, and I heard
19 his presentation last night. I do know that my basic
20 concept is we are really not going to make a real
2^ impact upon resource recovery and conservation of our
22 resources until we do something about the markets.
23 And I don't think that EPA basically
24 disagrees with that. Unfortunately, this legislation
2' does not go very far in that area. We had some
-------
-27TT
1 implications that it will move with the Cabinet level
1 committee. I hope that committee does do something.
3 I have the feeling, though, that that is a long time
4 coming.
5 There is the Federal procurement, of
6 course, which will have somewhat of an impact and
7 possibly some domino effect if the states and local
8 governments will also utilize those types of guide-
9 lines. But yet--and, of course, I think Steve
10 mentioned that the Congress did not respond when they
11 were considering changing our tax structure and
12 elimination of the depletion of allowances and things
13 like this. They backed off from that this past year.
14 And I think we need to make it clear
IS to them that we have got to be- -we can't compete
16 against somebody that is getting a tax break. Waste
17 materials must be able to compete with the raw materials
18 and so I think that this may not be directly germane
19 to this discussion here today, but I think that is an
20 area that we need to relay to EPA and to Congress that
21 something needs to be done in that area.
22 I frankly do not quite understand why
23 EPA --and maybe you are not pushing the product charge --
24 but I don't really understand how that is going to be
25 of a great benefit in generating markets. It may
-------
' conserve some--and keep us from generating some waste,
2 but it is not going to help the markets as I evaluate
3 it.
4 I will let you answer that question in
5 just a minute. I have one other comment. It has
6 already been made. Of course, that is that we are
7 quite concerned about the inadequacy of the funding
8 level if the Federal government expects us, the state
9 and local governments, to carry out the intent and
10 purpose of this Act, which is certainly clearly
11 mandated in the legislation, that we are expected to
12 play the game. So, Steve, I don't know whether you
13 fully understood my question about the markets, but
14 I would appreciate your comments on that.
15 MR. LINGLE: Fine, thank you. I will
16 comment briefly on that. First of all, I would just
17 like to say I appreciate having that comment on the
18 record. And we very much agree with you and recognize
19 the problem of the overall economic framework in which
20 resource recovery has had to compete over the last
21 several years. And it is because of that that
22 recycling waste materials has declined.
23 There have been a lot of proposals
24 before Congress for various ways of correcting this.
25 But there is a dilemma and the dilemma is that some
-------
1 of the solutions aren't so good, either. We are all
2 taxpayers and we have to realize that we don't want
3 to come up with a solution that doesn't really increase
4 the recycling rather significantly for a lot of
5 materials but which costs us a lot of money.
6 We don't want a give away program.
7 Frankly, it has been very difficult for
8 anybody to design a really good incentive program.
9 And on the other side of the coin, it has been very
10 difficult for Congress to be convinced that they ought
11 to remove some of the incentives that exist for
12 utilization of virgin material.
13 So there has been a dilemma. I think
14 that the resource conservation committee is a pretty
IS good response to that, the fact that it sets a high
16 level and has such a broad charter and it should be
17 a committee that Congress will take its recommendations
18 very seriously and hopefully will lead to some
19 legislation in this very important area.
20 Regarding the product charge, 1 will
21 just make--it is.a very complicated concept and I will
22 make only one brief comment about it. The reason that
23 it provides a market incentive is that any material
24 which is made from--any product which is made from
25 recycled material would not have a charge placed on it.
-------
1 Well if that charge were, say, $25 a
2 ton, which might be roughly equal to some national
' average for disposal costs, you in essence have an
4 incentive differential of $25 a ton between a virgin
raw material and a secondary type material. And
6 that should be very influential in manufacturing.
7 That is the concept and the reason that it influences
8 the choice of input.
9 MR. ROBINSON: I would like to respond
10 very briefly. Of course, I think I agree with you
" very much that what we do, of course, creates another
12 bureaucracy. And that would certainly do that.
13 And there is sort of a carrot there that some of this
14 money may get back to local governments, but it would
15 be a heck of a lot better if we never sent it to
16 Washington and tried to get it back.
'7 Where--and Congress can't be all things
18 to all people. And they try to generate the, you know,
" in the past the use of our natural resources and get
2" the people to spend money to develop them. And I
21 think it is high time that they did away with that.
22 It is affecting our economy and it is putting it out
23 of balance in so many other areas. And here we are
24 going to have to come along with a product charge
2^ and create a completely new bureaucracy to manage that.
-------
1 The Treasury would, I suppdse, be
2 handling that. It Is just boggling my mind to think
3 that that is a solution.
4 MR. LINGLE: Well I will say only
5 that the product charge is not the only kind of
6 incentive that is going to be looked at. It is one
7 of several that will be looked at.
£/&*/«. &^r
8 MD t-T/Mr^ Joe Kjftai*, state of
' Missouri, Department of Natural Resources.
'" I want to follow up on one comment Mr.
11 Robinson just made. Last night in the discussion
12 there was considerable talk about the actual funding
13 levels that are in the administrative budget now.
14 And as I recall Mr. Hickman saying, there was no money
'5 for the state hazardous waste programs in that budget
16 and the prospect of the new administration changing
17 that didn't look terribly good.
18 I know that EPA is legally in a position
19 where they cannot lobby to raise their own budget.
20 I think we here can. I think there are many excellent
21 provisions in this new law that will become dead
22 letters unless the funding level is substantially
23 better than what we seem to be heading towards. So
24 I would like to urge everyone in this room to contact
25 the administration or their Congressional representative
-------
1 to impress upon them that this is a good bill. We
2 need it. We intend to do as much as we can in Missouri
3 to implement it, but without Federal funding there
4 is very little we can do. Thank you.
5 MR. HICKMAN: Well, let me clarify
6 the budget. The budget request has been submitted
7 to the Congress which is the only budget request of
8 record right now, the Ford's administration budget
9 request. It is 24.8 million dollars for the solid
10 waste program in EPA, to carry it out.
11 In addition to that 24.8, there is
12 seven million dollars for state programs. And there
'3 is five million dollars identified in the 208 budget
14 for purposes of local and regional planning. Now
'5 the seven million dollars for state government is
16 principally for the development of state plans, which
17 as I mentioned earlier, covers all solid waste.
18 Where a state might be beyond the
19 planning stage and their plans have been found to be
20 acceptable to the regional administrator, and where--
21 when the hazardous waste guidelines come out for
22 the hazardous waste program, you recognize that is
23 18 months down the pike. There is a period of time
24 beyond that for some adjustments. You know, what one
25 might call program grants to state solid waste agencies,
-------
1 probably are not very realistic In fiscal year 1978,
2 when one of the major purposes of the money that we
3 are going to give to the states is for doing the
4 inventory.
5 Now we estimate that the inventory
6 may cost in excess of six million dollars to do. So
7 if you look at a seven million dollar funding level,
8 and you divide that by population, which is the
' forumla population basis, and no state can receive
10 less than 1/2 of 1 per cent, there are 20 states that
11 fall within that category. You can see that there is
'2 not a lot of money there to do very much.
13 And so there could be money for a
14 hazardous waste program if a program could be "found
15 to be equivalent--consistent with other states within
16 some guidelines which have not yet been issued." And
17 so I guess we are conceptualizing that in fiscal year
18 1978 what financial support will be made available to
" the states will be primarily to finish up their plans.
2" So in 1979 we can begin to fund the
2' programs and the implementation of the plans below
22 the state level and at the state level. That is
23 unless the budget picture changes. But there is an
24 authorized level of about 180 million dollars for
25 1978 in the law. The budget request is 24.8 million
-------
1 dollars, plus another 12 million dollars from other
2 grant programs that EPA has the responsibility for.
3 MR. TUCKER: Any additional questions?
4 Yes, sir?
5 MR. PERKINS: I am Richard Perkins
6 from the University of Kansas.
7 I would like to know if radioactive
8 wastes are specifically exempt from the Act?
o frMMc/c.
¥ MR. JeHHHflrt Some yes and some no is
'° the answer. Those wastes, when you read the definition
11 of hazardous wastes in the front of the law, they
'2 exempt wastes that are defined in the Atomic Energy
13 Act of 1954, and those highlevel wastes are to be
14 continued to be managed by ERDA and the Nuclear
!5 Regulatory Commission. But there are some radioactive
16 wastes, those that are manufactured artifically, the
17 lowlevel ones, isotopes that are used for medical
'" purposes which are not controled by those two agencies.
19 Therefore, those are certainly possible candidates
20 for this Act, the listing or criteria system that I
21 discussed earlier. So yes and no.
22 MR. TUCKER: Any additional questions?
23 (No response.)
24 MR. TUCKER: Last call.
25 (No response.)
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1 MR. TUCKER: If not, I would like to
2 add on to Robbie's statement whereby he thanked the
3 Missouri people for coming here. I think we have had
good representation from the four states. Of course,
5 those with a greater distance to travel had more trouble
6 getting here.
7 For the record I would like to indicate
8 that the head count at this morning's session was 112
' people. And if there are no further questions or
'0 comments, this session is closed.
(Whereupon, at /£fJO o'clock p.m.,
12 February 16, 1977, the hearing in the above-entitled
13 matter was closed.)
14
CERTIFICATE
16
17 I, KAY~L. ARGIE, do certify that I appeared
18 at the time and place first hereinbefore set forth;
19 that I took down in stenomask the entire proceedings
had at said time and place, and that the foregoing
2] Pages 139 through 278 constitute a true, correct
22 and complete transcript of my said stenomask notes.
23
24
-ir
/l
^REPORTER 7
25
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CONSERVATION CHEMICAL COMPANY
215 W. PERSHING RD., SUITE 703
KANSAS CITY, MO. 64108
MarCh 7> 1977 Area Code 816-421-8494
Mr. Morris G. Tucker
Chief, Waste Management Section
Environmental Protection Agency
1735 Baltimore
Kansas City, Missouri 64108
Dear Mr. Tucker:
like to comment on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act as a citizen
and then as a aeologist. As a citizen, I am concerned that Americans be protected
from harm caused by drinking, breathing or ingesting harmful substances in any
way. Public Law 94-580 requires that the Administrator of the EPA shall:
1. List hazardous wastes (Sec 3001) and
2. Investigate adverse health effects of their
release into the environment (Sec 8001).
Everyone must keep in mind that the most vulnerable stage in human life is the
early months of development in the womb, during which the foetus is susceptible
to damage caused by exposure to chemicals. The thalidomide and DES tragedies
are heart-breaking examples of this fact, and no one knows how many less dramatic
instances of harm to human beings have been caused by other chemicals in this
fashion. The problem of genetic damage is related, but I have read less about it.
Therefore, (and this is the rub) the list of hazardous materials and the study
of adverse effects mentioned above ought to cover all chemicals capable of damaging
a foetus and ought to determine safe concentration levels in water for each chemical.
Now, a 1966 book I read recently mentioned that some 4,000,000 organic chemicals
were known at that time, and that most were virtually untraceable. When I consider
that (1) perhaps all of these substances plus some inorganic substances might damage
a foetus and (2) nobody much is working on the problem, I am forced to conclude that
Congress has set a task which cannot be solved with the time and money allotted.
There are two ways of coping with this problem:
(1) Control of production and distribution of hazardous
substances before they reach the disposal stage. I
understand that this is the intent of the Toxic
Substances Control Act.
(2) Disposal of waste in sites where chemicals will not
reach drinking water. This alternative leads to
the comments below, which I offer as a geologist
who has tried to do research on the best locations
for land disposal of waste.
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2/17/77
There are at least two kinds of information which ought to be made more
widely available if land disposal is to be carried out with minimum damage
to health and the environment. The first is piezometric maps; the other is
information on soil-leachate interactions.
Piezometric maps show the height of the water table or height to which
water will rise in an artesian system. They are necessary for predicting .
the direction of flow of water into and away from a proposed landfill.
Unfortunately many areas of the nation have never been mapped piezometrically,
while maps that have been made are in scattered sources and are hard
to obtain, particularly in non-urban areas. The work of Canadian hydrologists
such as J. Toth and others demonstrates that the flow of water underground,
especially near rivers, is more complex and unpredictable than had been
thought. There is no point in saying that this work is unnecessary because
the Environmental Protection Agency is going to issue a regulation
banning pollution of qroundwater. Leaks, breaks, earthquakes, mass movement,
dishonesty, incompetence, and the activities of the future generations will
provide many opportunities for movement of leachate of water. Furthermore,
anyone planning to develop a land disposal site ought to know where the
water beneath his site comes from and who, if anyone, is polluting it
already.
What is needed is the preparation of more maps, the establishment of a
hydrologic map index, and the acquisition of the maps by many libraries.*
Instructions for use of the maps should also be provided for non-geologists.
A second area that needs investigation is soil-leachate interactions. It
seems that many engineers and technicians know little or nothing about the
soil they build on. The tern "clay" is tossed around carelessly and may
cover anything from bentonite to quartz. The importance of grain size and
packing may be overlooked. It is assumed that a few passes with a roller
will approximate 20,000 years of settling and that permeability won't
change as grains readjust. Are these assumptions safe?
The chemical reactions between leachate and minerals in the soil require
study. Which ions and molecules will be adsorbed by clay minerals in
different chemical environements? What will be the concentrations of
the leachate before and after adsorption? How do these chemical changes
affect the physical behavior of the soil — will it flocculate, yield,
swell or crack? What will happen to one soil-leachate system if a new
and different material is added to the site? These are important questions,
but my recent request for a SHIRS search on this topic yielded only one
pertinent abstract.
I realize that people are working on these questions, but the information
is needed now. I suggest that some of the funding for technical assistance
be used to prepare piezometric maps and to study soild-leachate interactions
then the results should be clearly explained and widely disseminated.
* On a visit to Kansas City, Missouri's main library, I was informed that
the library was "...getting out of the map business." This antipathy
to maps is not uncommon, and is no help to geologists and other planners.
Orders for purchase may take weeks to arrive, another>eal problem.
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Some people might think that these are bizarre and trivial activities,
they are not. If Americans of all ages are to be protected from
hazardous wastes, we must know these things -- where our water is and
where it is going and what will happen to soil when hazardous waste
interacts with it.
Very truly yours,
Eileen Chase
Geologist
EC/dg
Shelf No. 5B8
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