TRANSCRIPTS
REGIONAL PUBLIC MEETING ON THE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT of 1976
and
AN APPENDIX: CONFERENCE ON THE
MANAGEMENT OF NON-NUCLEAR HAZARDOUS WASTES
February 23, 1977, New York City
The Public Meeting was sponsored by EPA Region II,
and the proceedings (SW-14p) are reproduced entirely as transcribed
by the official reporter, with handwritten corrections
by the Office of Solid Waste.
The Conference was funded by EPA and sponsored by
The Scientists' Committee for Public Information, Inc.
and is appended for the benefit
of those who attended both meetings
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1977
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An environmental pratecttoir trob treat ion (SW-14p) in the solid waste management series.
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RESOURCE CONSERVATION & RECOVERY ACT OF 1976
PUBLIC MEETING
EPA REGION II
New York, New York
American City Squire Inn
New York, New York
February 23, 1977
4:00 to 7:00 P.M.
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1
2 SPEAKERS (In order of appearance) :
3 MICHAEL DE BONIS, Chief
Solid Waste Branch
4 EPA Region II
5 VAL GREY, Chief
Program Management & Support Services Branch
6 Office of Solid Waste
Environmental Protection Agency
7 Washington, D.C.
8 ALFRED LINDSEY, Chief
Implementation Branch
9 Hazardous Waste Management Division
Office of Solid Waste
10 EPA Headquarters
11 JOHN SKINNER, Director
Systems Management Division
12 OSW, EPA, Headquarters
13 ROBERT LOWE, Chief
Technical Assistance Branch
14 Resource Recovery Division
OSW, EPA, Headquarters
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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2 MR. CUTWATER: .You know, it is interestin]
3 we always tend to underestimate the public's
4 interest in solid waste, and this is another
5 example of where we begin underestimating the
6 space and the public interest in what we are
7 going to talk about this afternoon.
8 Let me start by thanking those of you who
9 were with us this morning for that inspiring
contribution that so many of you made. It is
extremely valuable.
12 We want to do the right thing. We want
13 to rdELect public opinion, and it is so important
14 that we have your input.
I am the Deputy Regional Administrator
for Region II of the United States Environmental
Protection Agency. I am here to introduce our
first speaker, Michael DeBonis.
19 He is Chief of our Solid Waste Branch at
Federal Plaza, New York City.
MR. DE BONIS: Good afternoon, and thank
22 y°u all for coming.
23 I think, as Eric indicated, that if any-
one says there is no interest in garbage, we
25 have disproved it, if nothing else, this
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1 4
2 afternoon.
3 I would like to give you a brief over-
4 view of what we are trying to do this afternoon,
5 and I will also act as moderator for the
6 remainder of the program, and at least right
7 now set up the ground rules which we will
8 operate under.
9 The Resource Conservation & Recovery Act
10 of 1976, that is Public Law 94-580, was signed
11 by President Ford on October 21, 1976.
12 This significant new environmental legis-
13 lation provides the opportunity for EPA, the
14 states and local governments to develop a com-
15 prehensive solid waste management program, which
16 will control hazardous waste, eliminate the open
17 dump as a principle disposal practice,and
18 increase the opportunity for resource conserva-
19 tion.
20 The Act provides for public participation
2i in the planning and implementation, and in the
22 enforcement of any regulations or guidelines or
23 programs carried out under the Act.
24 As a first step, public inolvement for
25 Region II, New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and
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1 5
2 Che Virgin Islands, EPA's primary purpose at
3 this meeting is to give representatives of en-
4 vironmental groups, industry, and governmental
5 groups, and individuals who are potentially
6 affected by the new Act, to offer their prelim-
7 inary views, attitudes and suggestions for EPA's
8 guidance.
9 The Resource Conservation & Recovery Act
10 recognizes the in tec -relation of resources and
11 public health issues associated with the land
12 disposal of waste. It mandates regulatory
13 actions for hazardous waste, as well as a series
14 of other actions that also provides new oppor-
15 tunity for all levels of government, industry
16 and the general public to protect the health
17 and environment by upgrading sanitary landfills,
lg to protect the ground waters, and by eliminating
19 open dumps and expanding the concept of recov-
2o ering resources.
2i The main recognition is that such goals
22 will be achieved only if there are significant
23 cooperative efforts among persons in government,
24 industry and the public. To help such persons
25 develop a meaningful understanding of solid
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1 6
2 waste management, the Act has an unusual array
of provisions that call for broader public
information and public education programs.
5 It requires public participation in all
6 the major activities mandated by the Act. EPA
intends to take the public information and public
participation requirements of this legislation
very seriously indeed.
We will weigh all public comments receivec
as they relate to the planning and implementatior
of the Act. We have prepared an agenda for
this afternoon's meeting, and it is our intentior
to adhere to it as closely as possible, not-
15 withstanding the fact that we are beginning 25
,.- minutes late.
J.O
Let me remind you that we are here pri-
marily to listen to what you have to say rather
than lecture extensively on the provisions of
the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act.
We have, none the less, prepared brief
presentations on each major subtitle or section
22
of the Act, and these will serve as a preview
and introduction to our discussions in each of
__ these areas. To the extent that time permits,
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2 we will answer questions regarding each section
3 of the Act as it is presented.
4 Often, it will be evident that a defini-
5 tive course of action has not firmly been
6 chosen by EPA at this poitt, and partly that is
7 because of our commitment to seek your input
8 before progressing too fer in implementation of
9 the Act. In any case, we are willing to give
you our current thinking on the questions at
11 hand, and if we cannot answer a question that you
12 give us, then we will think of an answer to
13 another question that we are more comfortable
14 with.
Following the detailed discussion of the
various sections, and that will be hopefully
about 6:30, or 7:00 o'clock, we will altow time
lg for public comments and statements from the
19 floor, which we will limit to five minutes each.
Any written material which you would like
to submit will be made a part of the official
22 transcript record of this public meeting.
Any questions or other informat ionjwhich
you desire will be furnished if it is not answered
25 today, in due course, if you submit the questions
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1 8
2 to us, we will respond In writing.
3 I might just mention one thing that you
4 will see a lot of charts and slides projected
5 here today. If you are interested in receiving
6 a copy of these charts and slides, you can do so
7 by writing to EPA in Washington, to the attentioi
8 of Geraldine Wyer, she is with the Regional
9 State and Local Affairs staff, and again the
10 address is EPA, Office of Solid Waste, Washing-
11 ton, D.C. 20460.
12 Here in New York you may write to either
13 myself or to the Public Affairs Division, if
14 you have any additional questions or desire
information.
I must apologize on our hand-out material
we have a list of issues for discussion which
should prove helpful, and a very brief fact sheet
19 on the legislation. I am afraid we do not have
20 copies of the legislation itself. We had five
or six hundred of them shipped here and they
just have not arrived today.
I'm sure that most of you will probably
want copies of it, but in the interest of con-
serving our supplies, I would ask that if you d>
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1 9
2 want a copy, see one of the EPA representatives
3 here or leave your name at the front desk, ard
4 we will definitely mail you a copy, certainly
5 it should be within the next two or three days,
6 since we plan to have them here, and I am sure
7 their arrival is imminent.
8 If you are looking for more information,
9 I would encourage you to please write to EPA
10 at the Regional Office, rather than calling.
11 We are getting a very large volume of telephone
12 calls since the passage of the Act, and having
13 your request on paper allows us to analyze and
14 answer your questions or provide you with informa
15 tion more thoroughly and efficiently.
15 The final thought- which I will leave with
17 you, I already said the Resource Conservation &
lg Recovery Act several times, and you can see that
19 it is a mouthful, if you say it out, so we have
20 an acronym for/at, we are calling it RCRA, it is
2i only two syllables, and it takes much less time
22 to 8aY fc» and it sounds officially cryptic to
23 give it a universal bureaucratic appeal, but you
24 should not mind too much since we brought you
25 NEPA and OSHA and NIOSH and all the others, so
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1 10
2 RCRA should not be too hard t6 live with.
3 The first presentation by our Washington
4 Office of Solid Waste is on training, public
5 information and public participation, and it is
6 going to ba presented by Mr. Val Grey, who is the
7 Chief of the Program Management and Support
8 Services Branch of the Office of Solid Waste in
9 Washington.
10 MR. GREY: Well, my part of the presenta-
11 tion deals with public participation, but after
12 looking at this audience, I am wondering what I
13 am doing here.
14 You already know about public participatio
15 you are here, and you are ready to participate,
16 but let's see what the Act has about public
17 participation.
18 The Resource Conservation ^Recovery Act
19 of 1976, or RCRA, contains an unusually complete
20 array of provisions which could bring about a
21 high degree of public understanding and partici-
22 pation. Taken together, these various provision^
23 make it clear that the Congress understood that
24 it is impossible for the public to participate
25 meaningfully unless the Government first produce
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1 11
2 valid scientific and technical data, and then
3 processes and publishes this information in such
4 a way thareveryone may have access to it.
5 Only in this way can you, the public, hav<
pS
6 a reasonable chance of influencing the social,
7 economic and political changes whfc h the Law is
8 designed to bring about.
9 In Section 8003, the administrator of
10 EPA is required to develop, to collect, to
H evaluate and coordinate information on nine key
12 elements, which are .crucial to the Act's purpose:
13 The Administrator is not only to implement
14 a program for the rapid dissemination of this
15 information, he is also to develop and implement
16 educational programs to promote citizen under-
17 standing. This makes it quite clear that the
18 information called for is not to be developed
19 for the exclusive use of those who for one reasor
20 or another may be considered experts in the fielc
2i but for everybody.
22 Moreover, the Administrator is asked to
23 coordinate his actions and to cooperate to the
24 maximum extent possible with State and Local
25 authorities, and to establish and maintain a
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1 12
2 central reference library for Virtually all
3 kinds of information involved in solid waste
4 management, for the use of state and local
^
5 governments, industry and the public.
6 Now, who is the public?
7 To insure that the public participation
8 process does not become lopsided, we felt it was
9 necessary to identify major categories of inter-
10 est groups who would represent the public at
H large. Under RCRA we regard these to include
12 consumer, environmental and neighborhood groups,
13 trade, manufacturing and labor representatives,
14 public health, scientific and professional
15 societies and governmental and university
15 associations.
17 This spectrum of categories of represen-
18 tative groups will be altered and supplemented
19 as necessary if in the course of implementing
20 the Act it appears purposeful to do so.
2i Now, what does the law say about public
22 participation?
23 Section 7004 of the Act states that any
24 person may petition the Administrator for the
25 promulgation, amendment or repeal of any
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2 regulation under t:his Act.
3 Section 7004(b) deals with public parti-
4 cipation. It states that public participation
5 in the development,revision and enforcement of
6 any regulation, guideline, information or pro-
7 gratn under this Act, shall be provided for,
8 encouraged, and assisted by the Administrator
9 and the states, and further, that the Administra
10 tor, -- next slide in cooperation with the
11 states shall develop and publish minimum guide-
12 lines for public participation in such processes
13 Section 7002(a) states that any person
14 may commence a civil action on his own behalf
15 against any other person -- and "person" is
!6 defined to include the United States who is
17 alleged to be in violation of the Act, or
18 against the Administrator, if there is an allege*
19 failure by him to perform any act or duty
20 required in the Act.
2i What are some of the available public
22 participation techniques?
23 The many techniques which can be used to
24 involve the public in government actions fall
25 into three major categories.
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2 One, the use of appropriate public
3 meetings, hearings, conferences, workshops and
4 the like, much like this one, throughout the
5 country, which EPA intends to plan and hold in
6 countenance with the unfolding of the Act's pro-
7 visions.
8 Two, the use of advisory committees and
9 review groups, which may meet periodically, but
10 which will also be called upon to review any
11 comment upon major programs,regulations and
12 plans, no matter when they occur, and no matter
13 whether a specific meeting is convened or not.
14 Three, the development of educational
15 programs so that the public has an opportunity
16 to become aware of the significance of the
17 technical data base, and the issues which emerge
18 from it.
19 Effective public education programs deperx
20 on the use of all appropriate communications
21 tools, techniques and media. These include
22 publications, slides, films, exhibits and other
23 graphics, media programs, including public
24 service television and radio announcements, and
25 releases to the daily and professional press,
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1 15
2 and public education projects carried out by
3 service and civic organizations with EPA
4 technical and financial assistance.
5 What does the law say about manpower
6 development?
i
7 Sections 7007(a) and 7007(b) authorize
8 the Administrator of EPA to make grants or offer
9 contracts with any eligible organization for
10 training persons of occupations involving the
11 managment, supervision, design, operation or
12 maintenance of solid waste disposal, and resource
13 recovery equipment and facilities, or to train
14 instructors.
15 Eligible organizations is defined to
16 mean a spate or any state agency, a municipality
17 or educational institution capable of defectively
lg carrying out such a program.
19 Section 7007(c) provides that the
20 Administrator shall make a complete investigatior
2i and study to determine the need for additional
e£
22 training.j.tate and local personnel, to carry
23 out plans assisted under this Act, and to
24 determine the means of using existing training
25 programs to train such personnel and to determine
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2 the extent and nature of obstacles to employment
3 and occupational advancement in the solid waste
4 disposal and resource recovery field.
5 The Administrator is required to report
6 the results of such investigation and study to
7 the President and to Congress.
8 MR. DE BONIS: Let's see if we have any
9 questions on these provisions of the Act at this
10 time.
11 Does anyone have a question?
12 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Under the training
13 program, would this mean that, let us say, a
14 municipality which was building a resource
15 recovery plant might be eligible for a grant to
16 train the personnel to operate it?
17 MR. DE BONIS: Let me interrupt for one
lg second.
19 MR. GREY: Would you repeat the qiestion
20 again, please.
21 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Would a raunici-
22 pality which has constructed a plant for the
23 purpose of operating a resource recovery program
~A be eligible for a training grant to train the
25 personnel which would be involved in running it?
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1 17
2 MR. GREY: Yes, it could be part of that
3 resource recovery project, that is correct.
4 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I applaud the
5 portions of the bill that address resource
6 recovery, but what I would like to know is, is
7 there money to back up this program? I mean,
8 how much money has actually been appropriated to
9 the educational and participatory parts of the
10 Act?
H MR. GREY: Funny you should ask that
12 question.
13 I really expected it to be the first
14 question.
15 Did everyone hear the question?
16 Basically, the question is, will there be
17 sufficient funds to implement the training and
18 manpower portions of tie Act public participa-
19 tion, excuse me.
20 Yes and no. We are having this conference
21 today, and obviously we have some funds avail-
22 able for this sort of thing. The whole program
23 is that we have -- what we have in mind is quite
2* ambitious, and to answer your question directly,
25 no, we do not have sufficient finds for all that
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2 we would like to do.
3 The area that will probably suffer most
4 is manpower training or manpower evaluations
5 and training.
6 Public participation in connection with
7 the various regulations and guidelines will
8 include public hearings. We will have funds for
9 that.
10 We are programming alongside each regula-
H tion, funds not just for the development of the
12 regulation, but for the public hearing that
13 goes with it. So it is hard to say at this
14 point how much funds will be available for which
15 programs, but I think that there will be some
15 initial funds available, but not enough to do
1^ all that we would like to do.
18 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I wonder if you
19 guys could get together with people in other
2o departments, and agencies who have public par-
2i ticipation programs, because in many cases the
22 particular department cannot hire qualified
23 personnel, in fact, they don't know how to write
2> the job descriptions for that person, and I have
25 been working very hard trying to get information
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2 into our library, trying to tell the librarians
3 how to classify it, and it seems to me someone
4 up there should try to do that, get the HUD
5 people and the 208p3op]eari allof the public parti-
6 cipation programs in some way catalogued, and
7 easily available.
8 MR. GREY: I cannot comment on how much
9 coordination goes on. I don't see too much
10 coordination within the agency amongst the
11 various media programs.
12 I doubt there is very much coordination
13 between EPA and HUD or Transportation, but I
14 will certainly make note of that and carry that
15 message forward. It is on the record as a
16 matter of fact, and thank you.
17 MR. DE BONIS: Next question.
18 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Since 208 has
19 built into it an elaborate and rather sophisti-
20 cated public participation process, which is on
21 line, has any thought been given to the inte-
22 gration of this on-going apparatus inasmuch
23 as this program is addressed in a very major
24 sense to the water quality management planning
25 effort that 208 is concerned with?
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2 MR. DE BONIS: The question relates to
3 our consideration of using existing Water
4 Pollution Control Act Section 208 public par-
5 ticipation mechanisms in implementing the public
6 participation mechanism under this Act.
7 MR. GREY: Yes, there has been some
thought, as a matter of fact, in fiscal '78,
we have five million dollars identified in the
208 program, specifically, for solid waste
11 management programs. However, the problem is,
12 as you know, in administering 208, they go to
13 state agencies not connected with solid waste
-t^-
necessarily, and we are trying to develop the
15 mechanisms, the rules with in-house as to how
we can continue to track in five million as it
filters down to the_state levels, so that it wil
be spent on those types of projects which 208
19 will authorize.
MR. DE BONIS: Next question.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I have two
,, questions.
22
Can you explain in a little more detail
the role the Citizen's Advisory Council will
25 play, and secondly, being involved with the
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2 implementation of a number of Federal programs,
3 there has been a lot of dissatisfaction with
4 the^sjtate's role in getting public participation
5 moving. Is there any possibility of having publi<
6 participation
7 MR. DE BONIS: The first question was
8 asking for a little bit more detailed informatioiji
9 on the role of the Citizens Advisory Council in
10 the implementation of our legislation.
11 MR. GREY: The Citizen's Advisory Council
12 as you call them and we call them the advisory
13 committee, the Federal Government has a procedure
14 or regulation concerning them.
I can tell you they are not too popular
in the bureaucracy. However, we have proceeded
to do two things.
We are planning an ad hoc group, I think,
19 in the next two or three months, if I remember
correctly, I think it is in May, roughly, when
the first ad hoc group will meet.
Ms. Wyer, the lady's name you heard
23 earlier, is the one that is coordinating this.
The membership on that, as I have heard
something, is around 35 or 45 representatives,
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2 who are already listed, and are being invited.
3 However, that can only be held at one time.
4 That is why it is called an ad hoc group, and
5 we must go into a permanent advisory group.
6 I am initiating the necessary bureau-
7 era tic paperwork to get this approved by the
8 Office of Management and Budget. It is still
9 within our agency. It has not gone over to
10 OMB for approval, but we are requesting a
11 committee of about 15 persons. We are going to
12 utilize this first meeting of the ad hoc group
13 to get the initial reaction of the citizens in
this area, and then to narrow down the member-
ship to what advisory groups normally should
16 have, which is around 15, which is the workable
number we have been given.
Does that answer your question on the
19 advisory
2o AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Not really. I
am interested more in the role of the committee.
>
. SKINNER: One of the problems «£h an
23 advisory committee is that it is a very select
-. group of 15 people which some of them might
25 represent some very special interests ard might
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2 deal directly with an advisory committee, and
., excluding the general public at large gives
the advisory committee a tremendous amount of
5 influence over the direction of the program.
6 We are thinking of using the adisory committee
7 basically to review our program directions
g occasionally, like once a year or once every
six months, or use them for a special analysis
of special topics, but the overall public
participation to include everybody will be done
through a broader mechanism, through the states
13 and through the local governments.
MR. GREY: Does that answer the first
15 question?
16 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: The second one
._ is, can public participation money go directly to
citizens instead of being funneled through the
19
20 MR. GREY: They can, andfchey have been
in the past.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thank you.
23 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Are you prepared
to work with all levels of local government?
25 MR. DE BONlS; The question is, are we
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1 24
2 prepared to work with all levels of local
3 government.
4 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Does/the law make
5 any distinction.
6 MR. GREY: The question is are we preparei
7 to work with all levels of local government, or
8 does the law have any distinction.
9 MR. GREY: The answer is yes, we are
10 prepared to work with all levels of local govern
II merit and the law does not make any distinctions.
12 MR. DE BONIS: I might just clarify some-
13 thing a little bit here.
14 Let's keep our topics specifically to thi
15 particular section of the Act.
16 Now, that question could be construed in
17 a different way, where there might be distinctio
18 in subtitle (d) where the state and local planni
19 sections of the Act are located, so we are
20 taM.ng strictly about training, public informa-
2i tion and public participation.
22 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I meant it in tha
23 sense.
2* MR. GREY: I answered it in that sense.
25 MR. DE BONIS: Any other questions?
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1 25
2 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Does RCRA public
3 participation tie directly into a specific
4 project?
5 Let's just say in a community that does
6 not have a solid waste program and is beginning
7 to plan one, or resource, will Federal or state
g funds be held back or be continued upon the
9 development of a public participation program
10 as in 208 where we are generating an area
jj whereby hazardous waste managan ent treatment
12 program, and in that we have a public partici-
13 pation program which is mandated under the law,
14 and I am wondering if the public participation
15 in this Act will be specifically tied to a
16 particular project as a prerequisite, or require
17 ment.
18 MR. DE BONIS: Are you speaking specifi-
19 cally of the 208 program as a project in itself?
20 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No, this particu-
2i lar Act itself defines a resource recovery
facility and I want to know, will there be a
Z2
23 mechanism developed prior to the development of
_ . a program, a resource recovery program.
MR. DE BONIS: The question as I
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1 26
2 understand it is, will it be required to have
a public participation program established before
4 a specific is underway.
5 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That is correct.
6 MR. GREY: You stated that one of the
requirements of RCRA is that we would write
Q guidelines on public participation programs.
9 Those guidelines have not yet been written or
10 even started.
I would imagine that the answer in your
12 question would lie in those guidelines when they
13 are published, and you will have a chance to
comment even on that.
My best guess would be that it will not
be geared to a specific project, unless that
project has a real requirement for special
training in a special area for our special
19 purpose, that our public participation guidelire
20 will be a broader shot, working through ftie state
governments to try andreach as many groups as
possible, at various levels of s,tate and local
governments, to do whatever may be necessary
-, within that state.
Z4 -?
Now, in some states we may have to educat
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1 27
2 legislators, and in other cases we may have to
3 educate the housewife in the local communities
4 to allow that landfill or the trucks to go
5 through there, or whatever, so I cannot answer
6 your question directly because I do believe it
7 will be in the guidelines, but it will be broad
8 in my opinion.
9 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Under the section
10 for granting programs, will a municipality be
H able to conduct an engineering program to see
12 whether it is feasible or not to have a resource
13 recovery program, in other words, a survey of
14 quantity and quality of garbage to see whether
15 or not it is economically feasible for Item to
16 start a program?
17 MR. DE BONIS: Are you referring to the
18 public participation provision? It is kind of
19 our opinion that you are really --
20 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It says to train
2i personnel or develop programs.
22 Now, before we develop a program, we have
23 to know whether or not we have the enough
24 MR. DE BONIS: I think I understand the
25 question.
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1 28
2 I think it is whe ther or not we will
3 fund a feasibility study as a prerequisite to
4 an actual training program.
5 MR. SKINNER: At the end of this session,
6 we are going to talk about tie grant provisions
7 under the Act, and there are grant provisions fo
g feasibility studies under one of the sections of
9 the Act, not directly related to public partici-
pation, but you are talking about early con-
struction studies, and site feasibility studies,
and if so, yes, there are authorities for that
13 purpose
14, MR. DE BONIS: The next qiestion.
15 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I don't quite under-
stand how your provision on manpower training and
public participation hang together.
Are you training people for public
19 participation?
MR. GREY: No, my apologies. Really, we
are talking about the question is, what is
the connection between public participation
-, and manpower training.
_ . Are we training manpower for public
-- participation?
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1 29
1 The answer is no. These are two complete1
3 not completely, but nearly completely different
4 areas that we are talking about.
5 Public participation is indeed created
6 to train or to educate, which is maybe a better
7 term, to educate the public and to educate the
8 authorities or various elements of our society
9 on solid waste management, to $t public support,
10 really.
11 The manpower training is more centered on
12 the personnel that are involved in solid waste
13 management, from the^tate governmental or^jtate
14 regulatory levels down to the lower routing
15 levels, if you will, of the local municipalities
16 First, there will be a manpower study
17 done throughout the country to determine what
18 the manpower needs are, and what the training
19 needs are, and then there would hopefully, when
20 we 8et some funds, be some funds available to
2i help train people in various areas of waste
22 management, including resource recovery and
23 model laws and that sort of thing.
24 Does that answer your question?
25 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well, I realize you
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did not write the legislation, but it seems
to me to be one provision; is that right?
4 MR. GREY: No, they are different pro-
5 visions.
MR. DE BONIS: The next question, all the
way down in the back.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I am interested in--
I have not seen the Act, so I will confine my
questions to EPA.
To what extent does the agency intend to
encourage private actions and have you actually
thought about this, or would this be included in
the guidelines?
15 MR. DE BONIS: What do you specifically
mean by private actions, citizen suits? The
._ question is, do we intend to encourage citizen
suits,and I will definitely let the Washington
office handle that question.
2Q MR. GREY: If you remember, the citizens
are not encouraged, but may sue any person or
persons involved in what they may consider a
_, violation of the Act, and any person can be the
United States Government.
__ Now, certainly, I will not tell you we
-------
1 31
2 will encourage you to sue the United States
3 Government. If -- let me say this about the
citizen suits, although I don't think that is
5 my area, but I don't think anyone else is coverino
6 it, but I will be happy to discuss it because I
7 do have a feel for this.
8 We will have some discussion later on
9 on jsfate programs, and how we hope to get the
10 state involved, because we consider that is a
,« very valuable and crucial element in getting the
12 Act successfully implemented, but we have no
13 stick in this legislation. We cannot force
anybody to do anything except in the hazardous
waste area, and we will cover that later.
So really, the only weapon we have is
citizen suits. Now, we would hope that the use
lg of the citizen suits would be beneficial to
19 implementing the Act in/the name of environmental
protection, and health protection and better
solid waste management.
We can go just so far with state and
zz -
_- local governments, with guidelines and plans
and programs and grants, but if the practices
remain bad, or environmentally poor, there ispo
-------
1 32
2 way that the Federal Government can step in and
3 force anybody to correct those actions, except
4 through citizen suits and therefore, we would
5 hope that citizen suits would serve that fmction
6 Now, we hope we aie not on the receiving
end of your suits, that we have done our part,
and that if you are going to sue anybody, sue
the other guy.
10 MR. DE BONIS: Me will take one or two
more questions on this section of the Act, way
down in the back there.
13 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: On the same question
I know that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
l_ now is considering funding intervenors in their
proceeding.
Do you see any provision or any possibiliiy
to appropriate funds to citizen suits in some
19 way?
20 MR. DE BONIS: There is only so much
2l EPA can do under this legislation, I think. The
question is whether or not we intend to fund
22
_ citizen suits or fund intervenors under this
24
MR. GREY: No.
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1 33
2 MR. DE BONIS: There are some definitive
3 answers that we can give you.
4 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I would like to know
5 if the manpower ip^going to be funded suffi-
6 ciently, where all the training monies will come
7 from? Will it come from industry? Will it
8 come from other sources of government, such as
9 ^tate government? Where do you expect these
jO monies to come from?
H MR. DE BONIS: The question is, if the
12 manpower provisions of the Act are not funded
13 sufficiently, where will the trained manpower
14 come from?
15 MR. GREY: Well, of course, our philo-
16 sophy for many years has been that thevhole
17 business should be self-sufficient. Theoretical
18 we should never have to have any federal funds
19 to do local solid waste management jobs.
20 In fact, that has not worked out, and
2i there are reasons for it, and there is a role
22 f0*1 the Federal Government, so that is why we
23 have RCRA, and why we have grants, and why we
24 have a role for the Federal Government.
25 But the Federal Government cannot
-------
1 34
2 obviously support all the training needs, nor
3 all the other needs in waste management in this
4 country.
5 We hoped that the system set up at the
6 local level would include not only the physical
7 deletion aA removal of waste and disposal in
g an environmentally sound manner, but also in
9 all the management costs involved, which would
include local planning and local trailing and
other aspects of the thing.
12 Now, different communities, I guess,
13 raise their funds in different ways. I am not
a financier, but you can do it through tax
revenues or bond issues or whatever other
mechanism you choose to use, which is avail-
able, so we will have -- you, the community
will have to rely on many sources of funds to
19 do the whole job throughout the country.
20 MR. DE BONIS: One morequestion.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It seems to me you
are working on changing social habits and the
_, requirements would be to mandate certain legis-
lation for local and state governments.
*?
__ How are you recommending any enforcement
-------
1 35
2 procedures for these.
3 MR. DE BONIS: Could you told that
4 question. That is really under the state pro-
l^r'
5 gram devebpment and land disposal area, so we
6 will get to that question if you relate it
7 again a little later.
8 Are there any more questions? One more
9 question, perhaps, on training or public
10 participation.
11 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: This is in Ksponse
12 to the response you just gave. My name is
13 Nancy Meyer, and I would like to know, have you
14 people who have been involved in this, and this
15 really directly relates to the last thing you
16 said, talk to people in the small local cotmnuni-
17 ties who are going to have to deal with these
18 issues? And if you have talked to them, would
19 you say what you just said?
2O MR. DE BONIS: The question is whether or
21 not we have talked to people in the small local
22 communities, and Val, would you like to answer
23 that? That is part of the reason we are here.
24 MR. GREY: Yes, that is part of my answer
25 that we are here
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1 36
2 A VOICE: You are not answering the
3 question. Answer the question.
4 Have you been in communication with peopli
5 who are trying to do anything about solid waste
6 practices in the smaller communities such as --
7 and I say Rochester, Syracuse and Ithaca,
g for example, I want to know have you had any
communications with them?
10 MR. GREY: Yes, we have.
Now, there are about 15,000 counties,
12 I think, in the country. Obviously, we have not
13 we are only about 100 strong of professionals.
We obviously have not talked to all the counties
But remember we have -- we have had for
several years an on-going cooperation in communi
cation with many associations who represent
these governments that you are talking about,
such as NACO, and the Conference of Mayors and
2Q so on.
Am 1 getting your question?
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: What I hear you
., saying is that you talked to some people who are
involved in solid waste, and I guess what I am
25 asking you is, as I read over the bill, that --
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1 37
2 I would like to speak to this later, but I don't
want to take away what I am going to say later,
but what I am saying is maybe you have talked
5 to the engineers in the industry and maybe you
6 have talked to some national associations, and I
7 am asking you whether or not as you are imposing
g these guidelines, you have spoken to the public
9 officials about what you will be implementing,
10 and "
MR. GREY: Yes, we have talked to these
officials you are talking about, but obviously
13 we have not talked enough, and RCRA gives us
greater authority, aid greater encouragement, and
hopefully greater funds to do this with.
I don't know how else to answer your
question. There has been communication, but not
everywhere, necessarily, nor obviously.
19 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thank you.
20 MR. DE BONIS: I think we are going to
move on to the next section in a few minutes,
but if you will just give me a moment, I would
22
like to do some advance planning.
Could I see a show of hands on anyone
25 wno plans to make a statement when we get to that
-------
1 38
2 portion of the program, whether or not you have
3 handedln a card, let me see a show of hands,
4 please?
5 Okay, is there anyone who plans to make
6 a statement who has not submitted one of these
7 cards?
8 Fine, excellent.
9 The next portion of RCRA which we are
1O going to discuss is subtitle (c), or the
~^^ ^
11 hazardous waste regulatory portion, and to give
12 us the initial presentation, we have Mr. Alfred
13 Lindsey, who is Chief of the Implementation Branc
14 in the Hazardous Waste Division.
15 MR. LINDSEY: Thank you.
16 May I say at the outset that we appre-
17 ciate the fine turnout that we have had here,
lg and we are looking forward to, I guess, as all
19 of the other people said, your comments and your
2o participation as we go along here.
2i For those of you who were in the earlier
22 session, the workshop on hazardous waste, I am
23 sure you came away filled with at least some
24 appreciation of the issues, and of the questions
which we face in dealing with hazardous waste,
-------
1 39
2 and if you are expecting'me to give all the
answers to all those issues and questions tonight
4 why that is not going to happen.
5 As a matter of fact, I am looking forward
to hearing from you, hopefully, to gather your
7 input into these at least your thinking on
g these issues and questions.
9 What I am going to do here tonight is
follow through giving a brief outline of the
requirements of jubtitle (c), as we interpret
it, and at the same time, to give some -- to
identify some of the problems which we face in
trying to come up with a regulatory procedure,
regulations under this section
^
.g As I said subtitle (c) mandates a regula-
tory program which is to control hazardous
waste from their point of generation, which is
usually an industrial source, to ultimate dis-
20 posal at a permitted facility.
_., This is a very clear mandate.
There is a lot of latitude as how we carry
_- that out in the Act, but the Act is clear in what
. we are supposed to do.
24
, Can I have the first slide, please?
-------
40
2 The first thing we have to do, and many
3 feel that it is the most difficult thing, is
to come up with criteria for identifying what
5 is and what is not a hazardous waste.
5 Congress has mandated -- the first thing
7 we have to do under Section 3001, is come up
with criteria for what is and what is not a
hazardous waste.
Now, Congress has mandated that we includi
... in our consideration here toxicity, persistence
12 in the environment, degradability, bio-cumulatioi
13 in tissue, flammability and corrosiveness.
When we are done identifying the criteria
._ we have to come up with a list of typical
examples of hazardous waste.
As with most of the regulatory provisions
of Section 3001, we are granted 18 months in
which to do this, and that is from October 21,
1976 which brings us to April 1, 1978.
We plan to give you an idea as to some
of the issues wefece, perhaps to spur your
22
thinking on these things, and a typical question
should be precisely how should hazardous waste
24
__ be defined;
-------
1 41
2 What toxic and non-toxic parameters
3 should be used in defining a hazardous waste,
4 and as I say, 1 mentioned a few that are
5 written right into the Act.
6 Now, wastes are mixtures of many differen
7 materials. To what extent can criterion tests
8 be applied to waste, and to what extent are
9 suspected hazardous components in those wastes?
10 These are some of the questions which we
11 are wrestling with as we begin to try and work
12 on these issues.
13 Section 3002 requires us to promulgate
14 regulations for the generators of hazardous
15 wastes which will include record keeping and
15 reporting provisions, including keep ing track of
17 quantities, constituents of wastes, disposition
18 of wastes, to put together regulations on the
19 labeling of containers, and perhaps on the
20 characteristics of containers, and probably
2i most importantly, to set up a manifest system,
22 a manifest system to track wastes, that is to keej
23 track of them from point of generation to point
24 of disposal, so-called cradle to grave control.
25 A manifest system will include informatiot
-------
1 42
2 pertinent information for/the transporter and
3 disposer.
4 As you may know, some states already have
5 provisions, and have already set up manifest
6 systems, and in those particular states they tak<
7 the form of a trip ticket, which accompanies
g the transportation. Issues surrounding this
9 particular area include how can record keeping
10 and reporting burdens be minimized,and yet --
11 so that we still have adequate cognizance of
12 hazardous waste management problems, and their
13 solutions?
1^ Should transport manifests be uniform
IE nationwide is another questions
16 The next slide.
1« Under Section 3003, we have the mandate
lg to come up with somewhat similar requirements
19 for transporters of hazardous material, includin
20 record-keeping requirements, sources of waste,
2i delivery points of waste, labeling requirements,
__ compliance with a manifest system, and in the
23 Act, Congress has mandated whatever we come up
with here must be consistent with the Departmen
of Transportation regulations.
-------
1 43
2 Section 3004 of the Act is one of the
3 most important ones, because it is -- it mandate;
4 that EPA develop standards for treatment, storagr
5 aid disposal facilities, and it is by these
6 standards that improper disposal will be made
7 illegal, and as such, this is a very important
8 section.
9 The Act requires that we, EPA, develop
10 regulations for these standards covering record
11 keeping and reporting, and the manifest system,
12 how much material is received, and how it is
13 disposed of, and it requires that we set up
14 standards for monitoring and inspection, minimum
l^ standards for monitoring and inspection, which
16 will allow us to determine if the site is, in
17 fact, polluting, and there will be location
18 design and construction standards, including
19 parhaps requirements for where facilities can and
2o cannot be placed, and what design options may
2i be restricted, and in what cases.
22 It requires maintenance and operating
23 standards, contingency plans, plans which will
24, identify what is to be done if something is
25 wrong, and then a broad category of ownership
-------
1 44
2 standards which might include 'provisions for
3 performance bonds, long-term car funds,
U KB
4 training requirements , site ebaure plans and
5 the like.
6 Then when it gets all due, there is a
7 provision in there, actual ly it is at the start
8 of this list, which says, in effect, that such
9 other standards as may be necessary to protect
10 the public health in the environment, so it is
a very broad mandate.
12 ^ome of the problem issues which we have
13 here include liability insurance. Should
14 liability insurance be required? What are the
15 main problems associated with integrating
16 hazardous waste facility standards with the
present air, water and OSHA standards?
18 Should performance standards for hazardou
19 waste storage and treatement provide only a
20 defense line?
Should hazardous waste facilities
22 standards be uniform nationally, or should it
23 allow for variations from region to region,
state to state?
-^ ^
25 One of the major problems we have, and I
-------
1 45
2 think we heard quite a bit about it this
3 morning many citizens automatically oppose
4 the siting of disposal sites intheir communities
5 What can the Federal Government do to
6 impact this?
What stringent standards have any influetuje-
8 on this issue?
9 Should the regulations published by EPA
10 require certification of employees working in
hazardous waste facilities?
12 We certify boiler operators, what about
13 operators of hazardous waste facilities?
Should EPA require bonding for these
15 facilities?
What routine monitoring should be
required at a facility?
18 Who should do it?
19 These are some of the questions which
20 we are facing, and on which we would like your
opinion and input and your thoughts.
2_ Section 3005 of the Act sets up a permit
23 system for treatment, storage and disposal
facilities and this is the mechanism under which
25 we will determine whether or not a facility is
-------
1 46
2 meeting the standards developed under Section
3 3004 that we just discussed.
4 If a facility is meeting and complying
5 with those 3004 regulations, then they will be
6 granted the permit.
7 Within six months after the identification
8 of the Section 3004 standards, it will be illega
9 to dispose of a hazardous waste as identified
10 without a permit.
H Now, the requirements of a permit system
12 are -- some of the requirements are briefly
13 outlined in the Act itself, including when an
14 application is made it vi 11 have to include
15 information on the waste itself, including the
16 manner of disposal, which is to be carried out,
17 the times and amounts of waste which are to be
18 received, the frequency of treatment, or the
19 rate of disposal, and there will be information
20 required on the site, there is also a provision
2i for interim permits.
22 For those facilities which are in
23 business as of the date the Act passed, the
24 21st of October, and who have notified the
25 state or EPA under Section 3010, which we will go
-------
1 47
2 into briefly in a minute, and who have applied
3 for a permit, will be granted an interim permit
4 to continue operations until the EPA paperwork
5 clears.
6 Now, under 3006, the Congress has autho-
7 rized the states to take over the permitting and
8 enforcement parts of this Act, and they are
9 very clear in their interests here that the
10 ^tates do that.
11 A state authorized program, to be autho-
12 rized to do this, must be equivalent to the
13 Federal program, consistent with other
14 programs, and must contain adequate enforcement
15 provisions.
Now, Congress, however, did not identify
wht is meant by equivalent^"consistent;"and "ade-
quate" so that is some of the definitions which
19 we will be working with, and working onjfor the
next period of months, and anybody who has any
thoughts on those matters, we would be glad to
_- have those also.
23 EPA on its part will be setting up guide-
lines or developing guidelines which will
identify those particular points, and help the
-------
48
2 states in setting up an acceptable program.
3 There is also authority for interim
4 authorization for up to two years for those
5 _sjtates who have had waste programs in effect
6 21 months after the Act is passed.
7 Section 3010 is the notification section
g of the Act.
9 What Congress has done here is require
10 that within three months after EPA has promul-
11 gated standards of Section 3001, for what is
12 and what is not a hazardous waste, then each
13 generator, transporter, treater, or storer or
disposer of hazardous waste must notify EPA or
an appropriate ^tate agency of their of the
16 fact that they do, in fact, handle wastes, which
they expect are covered under the Act.
One of the problems we have here is how
19 do we reach these people.
20 How will they a 11 know that they have to
notify us, and how do we distribute the forms,
et cetera, so this is an issue which we have to
23
Section 3011 provides assistance to the
states to help them upgrade to take over the
-------
! 49
2 permitting and enforcement parts of the Act,
3 and it has authorized twenty-five million
4 dollars to accomplish this for each of two years
5 fiscal years 1978 and 1979, I believe.
6 However, on the other hand, that money
7 has not been appropriated yet, and how much of
8 it will, in fat:, be appropriated by Congress is
9 quite a question.
10 In any event, we will be developing a
jj formula, devising a formula which is to be based
12 on the amount of hazardous waste, and on the
13 extent of public exposure to those hazardous
14 wastes inorder to determine how these funds
15 will be split up.
16 Well, in seven or eight minutes, that is
17 pretty much_subtitle (c) requirements and as you
18 can see, we have quitea lot of work ahead of us,
19 and we have been on the road talking with people
20 for the last month and a half, we are going to
2i be continuing to do it for the next period of timt
22 in meetings like this, and in smaller meetings,
23 and I am here to hear your thoughts on somejof
24 these issues.
25 I m:git point out that if you haven't
-------
50
2 already picked it up, we did bring up with us
, a whole parcel full of papers here which list
issues for discussion, and these contain some
of the more important issues which we have to
face, and on which we would like some of your
inpu t.
So with that, I will take some questions,
MR. DE BONIS: This is such a non-
controversial portion of the Act, I am sure we
-.. won't have any questions.
Down there, in the bade, please.
13 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I would like to
chat about when is a waste a waste.
-_ It is a common practice in my business
to store certainlthings in 55 galloii drums in
._ the backyard. Now, IVave been to Id that you
are going to look at these drums that we have
sitting out in the yard, and we don t consider
them to be products, they are intermediates,
they are in our lots. I have been warned that
this may be the most dangerous part of the Act.
You are going to come in to our closed sites
and look in our drums and I don't want: your
inspector to tell me that we have this waste on
-------
1 51
2 our property. The question is, when is a waste
3 a x^aste?
4 MR. DE BONIS: Let me make sure we under-
5 stand you.
6 Are you saying when does this product
7 when it is considered a waste by EPA, or are
8 you talking about concentrations and definitions
9 of what is a waste.
10 AN UNIDENTIFIED WASTE: If I have a yard
11 full of 55-gallon drums, which most chemical
12 plants have, are they products in work, in
13 intermediate storage, or is your inspector going
14 to come and knock on our door and say
15 MR. DE BONIS: The question is not so
16 much what specifics we are going to consider
17 as hazardous as when a potentially hazardous
18 waste will be considered a waste under the
19 definition of the Act, and not an intermediate
20 in some chemical process or raw material, or
21 something else.
22 MR- LINDSEY: Do you want to give me your
23 address and I will send you some forms for the
24 notification part.
25 To be serious on this, the materials whicV
-------
1 52
2 are in process, are intermediates as you point
3 out, in that they are somewhere between the
4 stage of being manufactured, and are not wastes.
5 I mean, I don't think that we could come
6 up with a definintion that would make them
7 wastes.
8 On the other hand, if a material is being
9 stored, and it is a waste material, that is the
10 intention is ultimately to dispose of it in some
jl fashion, other than making a product of it, then
12 my inclination is to say that that would be a
13 waste, subject to the storage provisions under
14 Section 3004, but that is a definition that we
ji- will have to come up with, and if you have any
16 thoughts on how that should be stated, le t us
17 have them.
lg MR. DE BON1S: I might add that I used to
19 work in the headquarters program in the Office of
2o Solid Waste, and I am in the region, and it is
2, much more fun to repeat the questions than to
have to answer them.
Z2
23 Next question.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I have a sugges-
24
__ tion on how to handle the situation.
-------
1 53
2 Anything that is in process or inw>rk,
3 normallyjttates have regulations governing
4 pollution incident prevention, and, therefore,
5 that would that type of legislation or law
6 would prevent mishandling of material that is
7 being stored on site, whether it is a waste or
8 an intermediate product is immaterial.
9 You have to have a pollution incident
10 prevention system.
11 MR. LINDSEY: I think the point of your
12 statement is that there are OSHA standards and
13 other standards, state standards in many cases,
14 that apply to the handling of hazardous products
15 or hazardous materials, but we are dealing here
15 now with waste materials, and not with products.
17 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: He brought up a
lg very good point that somebody could call a waste
19 an intermediate product, and there is always a
20 potential market fb r a waste.
2i We were talking this morning about waste
22 trading, and all of that stuff, and you could
23 always say well, someday somebody is go?ng to
,4 buy this and that may be true, but
25 MR. LINDSEY: I follow your point. I am
-------
1 54
2 not quite sure we wilL handle that. For example,
3 I can tbink of an issue whereby in the past
4 certain hazardous chemicals which might come
5 under the category of being hazardous, depending
6 on what criteria we come up with, have sold for
7 some nominal price, for example, for wetting dowr
g dusty roads, or something of that nature.
9 Now, the question becomes, is that a
10 product or is that a waste?
Now, I think something will have to depenc
12 there on well, we x*ill have to try to face tha
13 in the definition section.
14 MR. DE BONIS: If any of you in the back
15 did not hear the gist of the question, you shoulc
understand it by now, but basically it is a
question of whether or not you have something
stored and w5 consider it a waste, but the
19 industry perhaps considers it a consumer product
20 before its time.
21 MR. LINDSEY: In the end, the courts will
decide those kinds of questions, if there is a
disagreement.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You mentioned
generating a list by April of 1978.
-------
1 55
2 MR. DE BONIS: Th/e question is how do we
3 intend to generate a list of hazardous wastes
4 within 18 months of the enactment of RCRA.
5 MR. LINDSEY: The -- what we have to come
6 up with first is a set of criteria, and this
7 set of criteria will be will include, as I
g said, consideration of things like toxicity,
and things like that, and we have work going on
to try and do that now. At some point, we will
... be setting levels within those criteria, and we
12 will have to come up with standardized testing
13 techniques so that everyone can -- so that we
14 are not comparing apples and oranges, for
example, aid then we expect to test a variety of
different types of materials, and frankly --
.« and according to those test methods, basically,
that is how it will be done.
Does that answer your qiestion?
20 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thank you, sir,
hit it is only a year away.
22 MR. LINDSEY: Isn't that tough?
23 We are really up against it.
MR. DE BONIS: We are worried.
MR. LINDSEY: We are worried a lot about
-------
56
that.
3 We are working on it, and we have time
4 frames set up where we expect to be able to
5 meet these time limits, but we hope to, we are
6 working to it, it is too soon to be able to say
7 we won't do it, let's put it that way.
8 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I assume you a re
9 going to be using a lot of other data, but
10 toxicity studies can take quite long periods
of time, and are you going to update that list
12 frequently, or is this going to be what does
13 the law say about that?
MR. DE BONIS: The question relates to
what our list of hazardous waste is going to lool
like and how often will it be updated, based on
the information we will receive.
lg MR. LINDSEY: I think we are getting off
19 the track here. The Act requires that it is up
20 to the generator to determine whether or not he
has a hazardous waste by comparing it against
the criteria.
,, Now, the list will be samples of material
which we know and have found and have tested and
24
so forth that meet the criteria, and so the list
-------
1 57
2 is important in that sense
, There are also provisions in the_act,
I might point out, relative to updating that
5 criteria that we update all regulatory provis-
6 ions every three years.
7 It says that we are supposed to do that,
and we will be complying with that part of it.
MR. DE BONIS: I will take this gentle-
man's question.
.- Before that, 1 would just like to mention
one no re thing. I don't want to accuse anyone
13 here of confusing the Toxic Substances ConttiL Act
with our Act, but frankly it is not difficult to do
. at some point, and I would encourage you to
attend the Toxic Substances briefing tomorrow,
._ you know, if it is at all possible, because
there are a lot of gray areas where, you know,
you might possibly be confused.
20 Frankly, we think there is a fairly clear
distinction of what the Toxic Substances Control
Act is meant to do and what our Act is meant to
-_ dg but I think it is too long for us to go into
24
25
-------
1 58
2 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Would you address
3 the question of pre-emption with refernce to
4 state regulatory authority, particularly since
z^~
5 you are getting into the enforcement end of it?
6 What is the status, is this similar to 92-500,
7 in water, or what is the posture that is going
8 to be taken?
9 MR. DE BONIS: The question is from New
10 Jersey DEP, and it relates to the pre-emption
H provisions of jubtitle (c:) of RCRA, of j^tate
12 hazardous waste programs versus Federal programs
13 whin take precedence, and how we might authorize
14 jjtate programs, I guess.
15 MR. LINDSEY: Okay, if a ^_tate you
15 may recall that I said there were three basic
17 provis ions which we have tcyaevelop, what is
18 equivalent,' what is consistent and what is
iv "rT^ 'i
19 adquate enforcement.
20 Provided that we come to an agreement
21 that the jjtate program is, in fact, equivalent,
22 consistent and has adequate enforcement, then
23 the whole system will IE turned over to the
-,,, state.
24 ^
25 Now, there is another issue which exists,
-------
1 59
2 and which we have to come to grips with, and
that is, once it has been turned over to the
state, what oversight authority should EPA have?
5 In other words, how closely should we oversee
6 what the states do?
7 For example, should we review every
8 permit? Is there a need to do that?
9 On the other hand, should we simply spot
10 check, or what?
But once this program has been turned
12 over to the State, basically the permitting and
13 enforcement parts of the Act are the jij;ates
prerogative to carry out at that point.
15 MR. DE BONIS: Next question over hsre,
16 please.
17 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: If a firm now has
hazardous waste hauled out by a scavenger, whose
responsibility is it if an incident happens
20 during transportation, or during disposal, and
how will this change the implementation of the
22 prcg ram?
MR. DE BONIS: If a firm has a scavenger
waste or a transporter of hazardous waste pick
25 up the waste from his facility, whose responsibij
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1 60
2 is it after that point during transport , and
3 let's say at the disposal site?
4 What requirements remain binding on the
5 generator versus the transporter, versus the
6 disposer.
7 MR. LINDSEY: Okay, let me preface my
8 answer by saying I am not a lawyer, but let me
9 say how this vri.ll work.
10 As I said before, it is up to the generat^r
11 wht'°ier that particular load of waste is, in
12 fact, hazardous under the Act.
13 If he so determines, then that waste
14 tnters the management system, that is, it
15 requires a manifest ticket, and it is up to the
16 generator to identify then a permitted disposal
l^ site to which that can be taken. He then fills
lg out, if the manifest system were to follow the
19 system which is used in several other states,
20 and I cannot say for sure that it will, but
2i suppose it does, he will typically fill out his
22 part of the manifest ticket, which identifies
23 what is in the waste, and where it is supposed
_> to be taken, and then the transporter takes
&T
over from there.
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61
2 Relative to liability, if them is a
3 crash or a spill or something happens, I am
4 not sure that I am qualified to answer that
5 question, quite frankly. However; in the past,
6 the generator has had some residual responsib-
7 ility, and I suspect that he probably would
8 here, too, although maybe not to the same degree
9 since he would have identified a permit to a
disposal site, and unless there is something
he should have told somebody, or something along
12 those lines, I suspect his liability would be
13 somewhat less.
But I am not a lawyer, so I am a little
out of my realm there.
16 MR. DE BONIS: Let's take about two more
questions on hazardous wastes.
lg AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: We know there is ;i
19 Federal law, but we have to have some competence
20 in using that law in order to get results.
21 MR. DE BONIS: The question is, is EPA
__ going to write an environmental impact statement
23 on "
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You have a uit
that is a citizen's group --
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1 62
2 MR. DE BONIS: Do we have a group within
3 EPA that assists citizens in the preparation of
4 environmental impact statements?
5 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yes, in the use
6 of an environmental impact statement.
7 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: There is a law on
8 environmental impact, hi if we don't know how
9 to employ the law, it is ineffective, we would
10 like s>me guidance in the use of that law.
11 MR. DE BONIS: The question relates to
12 the use of NEPA.
13 MR. GREY: The National Environmental
14 Policy Act did three things. It set the natiora 1
15 policy for environmental quality in all govern-
16 ment acts, and two , it set up the Council of
17 Environmental Policy to manage the law, and to
18 implement the policy, and three, it provided fb r
19 the writing of impact statemert s on major^jiederal
20 acts, with significant impact on the environment.
2i Now, there is nothing in that law that
22 says we help anybody write anything.
&
23 #EQ has written guidelines on how impact
24 statements are to be written, which are guideline
7e to federal agencies. Only federal agencies write
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1 63
2 impact statements.
3 The various^federal agencies have addi-
4 tional guidelines which deal specifically with
5 the programs that are managed by that agency.
6 Now, the entire environmental impact
7 statement process has been used by the public
8 to stop certain actions on a technical basis.
9 When theycpposed a particular action, they fre-
10 quently used the non-compliance with NEPA,
the National Environmental Policy Act, as a
mechanism for stopping that federal action, but
=^^-
13 we don't muster resources to help citizens
14 business. We write impact statements either
with in-house resources, if we have them, if
16 we have the expertise, or we contract the impact
statement out to a contractor, through a con-
tract mechanism.
19 I am not sure that the lady back there
20 whether I have answered your question, but I hop<
I put the prospective as to the use of NEPA
properly where it belongs.
23 We do not do, I think, what you are
_ . implying, Madam, if I understood your quest ion
correctly.
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1 64
2 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well, we would
3 like to have some guidance in the use of NEPA
4 in the interest of the public.
5 MR. GREY: The guidance in the use of
6 NEPA is to federal agencies. The highest
7 guidance from the Council of Environmental
8 Quality, SEQ, and we have additional guidance
9 and we, in the Solid Waste Office, have addi-
10 tional guidance on our programs. So the gui-
11 dance is directed towards us, and not towards
12 you.
13 MR. DE BONIS: We seem to have a plethora
14 of questions on hazardous waste. I am go: ng to
15 take two more now, and we will be able to come
16 back to this section,but if we spend anymore
17 time on it after this, we will not get to the
18 rest of the program.
19 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: This is a quick
20 one.
2i Will your regulations require an environ-
22 mental impact statement?
23 MS. DE BONIS: Will our regulations re-
24 quire an environmental impact statement.
25 MR. LINDSEY: They will require that we -
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1 65
2 well, we will be doing voluntarily an environ-
3 mental assessment, and take a look at it and
4 decide whether it is a major action under tire
5 requirements of NEPA and then we will decide
6 whether to do an environmental impact statement,
7 or not.
8 MR. DE BONIS: Over here.
9 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Under Section 300;
10 the hazardous waste generator standard, you will
II be promulgating in the future regulations per-
12 taining to the labeling of containers which will
13 contain hazardous waste, for example, a 55-gallor
14 drum.
jg Noxf, will this labeling, the requirement
lg for labeling be compatible with the existing
17 DOT requirements?
18 MR. DE BONIS: The question relates to
19 our requirements under Section 3002 for generatoi
2o and labelling lequirements, which we will promul-
2i gate under that section, and how they will be
consistent or conflict with Department of
23 Transportation or other existing regulations,
_4 which I hope they won't.
25 MR. LINDSEY: The answer to that question
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66
is yes, the Act squires they b,e consistent
and, may I say, to give you a little background,
developing regulations with NEPA, we formulate
5 a lot of auxiliary groups, one of which is the
6 work group.
7 The work group is made up of people from
Q other parts of the agency, in order to insure
9 coordination with other acts, and to be sure
that various regulations are consistent, and in
., this particular case, under Section 3002, we hav<;
the Department of Transportation, and I think it
13 is the Hazardous Material Control Division, or
something of that nature, I cannot remember
exactly the terminology used, which is sitting
in on that, so in order to insure that this w
be the case.
lg AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You a re coordina-
ting then?
20 MR. LINDSEY: Yes, very closely.
MR. DE BONIS: I will not take anynore
questions on hazardous waste right now.
_, We will continue with the program.
I hope we will have time for more
24
hazardous waste questions towards the end.
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1 67
2 The next section of the program regards
3 the land disposal activities mandated by RCRA,
4 and if you look on your program, you will see
5 that we have John Skinner, who has been named
6 the Director of the System Management Division,
7 and we said it twice for emphasis, Systems
Q Management Division, Systems Management Division,
9 with the Office of Solid Waste, and I give you
10 John Skinner.
MR. SKINNER: Thank you.
12 You just heaid a presentation on the
13 hazardous waste provisions of the Act, and these
provisions are going to apply '-- the presenta-
15 tion that proceeds mine was oriented towards
., the hazardous waste provisions of fie Act, and
these provisions apply to a hopefully narrow
band of wastes, fa: vtrich there will be federal
regulatory and enforcement programs to manage.
2Q I am going to talk to JDU about all of the
other wastes, and the land disposal provisions
apply to all of the other wastes, and when you
-, see some of the definitions, you will realize
what I mean when I say all of the other wastes.
But I would like to point out that this
-------
1 68
2 is a very different approach to waste manage-
3 ment for this section of the Act than for the
4 hazardous waste section of the Act.
5 There is no Federal regulation.
6 There are some federal standards but ther
7 is no Jcederal enforcement.
8 The entire enforcement is carried out
9 through ^sj:ate and local programs.
10 There is a citizen suit provision, as we
H mentioned previously, and tliejprimary EPA role is
12 to write the guidelines, to provide information,
13 and to provide funding, so it is not a ^federal
14 regulatory program fcr non-hazardous wastes.
15 Can 1 have the first slide, please?
16 Now, the Act contains some important new
17 definitions that are going to change the meaning
18 °f waste management, as it is known
19 today.
20 Let roe point out a couple of tern to you.
2i The first is a definition of disposal, and
22 disposal in the Act means the discharge, the
23 deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking
24 or placing of any solid waste or hazardous
25 waste into or on any land or water so that s"ch
-------
1 69
2 solid waste or hazardousvaste or any constituent
3 thereof may enter the environment or be emitted
4 into the air or discharged into any waters,
5 including ground waters.
6 So it covers the placement of waste on
7 the land in practically any way at all.
8 Jumping down to the bottom definition,
9 solid waste means any garbage, refuse, sludge
10 from a waste treatment plant, or water supply
11 treatment plant, or air pollution control
12 facility ati other discarded material, including
13 solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous
material resulting from industrial, commercial,
mining and agricultural operations, and from
community activities, but does not include
solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage,
or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation
19 return flows or industrial discharges which
are point sources subject to permits under
Section 402 of the Federal Water Pollution
22 Control Act, as amended, or source, special
23 nuclear or byproduct material as defined by the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended.
25 What it means in essence is that waste
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1 70
2 from industrial operations, commercial operation;
3 mining or agricultural operations, excluding
4 nuclear materials and waste from sewage itself.
5 But you can see that the re is a very
6 broad definition of solid waste.
7 It is not just municipal trash and
8 municipal garbage. It is practically any dis-
9 carded materials.
Under this provision of the Act, the
Administrator of EPA is required to come up with
definitions of sanitary landfills and definitions
13 of open dumps.
But you can see with the broad coverage
15 of the Act that we are talking about a totally
16 different type of disposal, than just a munici-
,7 pal solid waste sanitary landfill.
We could be talking about industrial pits
19 and ponds and lagoons, and waste piles and
20 in industrial operations, we could be talking
about sludge, we could be talking about sludge
application on an agricultural land, as being
__ a disposal operation.
So the breath of the law provides some
__ problems, because the key problem, as we see it,
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1 71
2 is to limit what is current initially so that
3 it is manageable, so that we can manage it, so
4 that spate and local programs can adopt regula-
5 tions, and efforts in order to meet these
\
6 requirements of the Act, and yet still provide
7 the broad environmental protection as called for
8 by the law.
9 So it is a very, very broad coverage.
Now, as I mentioned previously, the
11 Administrator of EPA is required to promulgate
12 criteria for identifying which facilities shall
13 be classified as open dumps and which facilities
14 shall be classified as sanitary landfills.
15 Can I have the next slide, please?
These criteria for open dumps and sani tary
landfills are required to be issued in one
lg year from last October, so this coming October
19 the criteria are nquired by law.
The law says that a facility may be
classified as a sanitary land fill, and not as
22 an open dump, only if there is no reasonable
23 probability of adverse affects on health or
environment from the disposal of wastes in that
25 facility.
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1 72
2 Now, this provides some question as to
what is meant by unreasonable probability, and
4 what constitutes adverse effects on health and
5 environment.
6 Our current thinking right now is to
7 concentrate on the open dump criteria, and to
g write criteria for the practices that are to be
prohibited rather than concentrating on operatin;
or design criteria for sanitary landfills.
On the Congressional history and from
discussiore that we have had with people who
wrote this legislation, they made it very clear
that they do not see this as being a Federal,
national permit system for sanitary landfills.
We are to provide minimum protective
criteria, but not day-to-day operating criteria,
or design criteria for disposal sites.
Now, one of the other problems with these
20 criteria, is that they are going to have to be
applicable nationwide, so they are going to have
to be very flexible, and there is going to have
,, to be provisions in them for local adoption of
the criteria, and local modification.
44
As I indicated, this regulation or this
-------
1 73
2 standard is due in October of this year, and
upon publication of this standard, open dumps
4 are prohibited, except for sites under a cotn-
5 pliance schedule, under an approved state plan.
6 The only enforcement of this prohibition
7 is through the citizen suit provisions of the
8 Act.
9 Can I have the next slide, please?
10 One year after we promulgate the criteria
for sanitary landfills, which would be October
12 of 1978, if we maintain our schedule, the
13 Administrator is required to publish an inven-
tory of all disposal facilities which are
classified as open dumps, which do not meet the
16 sanitary landfill criteria previously promul-
gated, and to give you an example of the mammoutl
task we are talking about, if we just included
municipal solid waste operations, we would have
20 to inventory some 20,000 sites, and if we inclu-
ded industrial impoundments, as well, this could
__ add easily another 50,000 sites, so this is a
23 very large task, and it is our hope that we will
get state cooperation, and that most of this
inventory could be carried out through existing
-------
1 74
2 state programs, and records that they have.
3 I will talk more about the slate plannin g
4 provisions later, and the funding provisions
5 later, but let me say for now that in order to
6 receive an approval and become eligible for
7 grants under the Act, a jjtate plan which is
8 required to establish a timetable for achieving
9 the open dumping prohibition within the State,
10 within a five-year period is required.
11 This is one of the requirements for
12 reoiving grants under the Act. If the re is not
13 an approved jj£ate plan, within the ^tate, then
14 the open dumping prohibition takes place upon
15 publication of the criteria in October.
16 So there is an incentive for the _sf ate to
17 get imolved and to develop plans that would be
18 approved, because that would provide a five-year
19 leaway for instituting programs for closing
20 open dumps.
2i Otherwise, those open dumps would be
22 prohibited from the time of the publication of
23 the criteria. Someone has called this inventory
-. a hit list for citizen suits because it is going
25 to indicate which sites are open dumps.
-------
2 May I have the next slide, please.
, The final provision of the Act that deals
with land disposal is a provision which requires
the administrator to publish guidiines and these
are non-mandatory, and we envision these to be
technical in nature, and to provide information
on the technologies and on the cost of achieving
various levels of performance from different
solid waste management practices.
.... The Act indicates that these guidelines
shall address the methods and degrees of the
controls that provide for protection of public
health, and the welfare, protection of the
quality of the ground waters, protection of
surface waters from leachates, and a whole
series of other specific things that the guide-
lines should address.
But again, these are our technical guide-
2Q lines, they are not mandatory and these would
2] suggest ways in which the open dumping criteria
and sanitary landfill criteria, could be met.
_ But the actual compliance with that criteria
is left to local government and state discre-
24
25
-------
1 76
2 Our intention right now for the first
3 set of guidelines is to write guidelines on
4 sludge disposal and utilization, and to update
5 our sanitary landfill guidiines for municipal
6 solid wastes.
7 We issued these guideline s several years
8 ago, and they will be updated and improved.
9 Later guidelines could include indus-
10 trial impoundment and mining wastes and pro-
H visions for control of those wastes will be
12 available.
13 I will come back to the^sjtate planning
14 provisions later, and talk about the grants
15 that are available and talk a little bit more
16 about the st.ate plan that is required, and what
17 that j^tate plan should contain.
lg But first I would like to address
19 questions to the land disposal provisions, and
20 then we are going to have someone talk on the
2i resource recovery and resource conservation
22 provisions, and I will come back and talk about
23 state provisions which cut aross all portions of
24 the Act.
25 MR. DE BONIS: Questions.
-------
77
2 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: What is the
, status of New Jersey,New York and Puerto Rico
x and the other members of the Region II EPA, as
far as having a state plan right now?
MR. DE BONIS: The question is, what is
the status of jstate plans in New Jersey, New
g York, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands?
o MR. SKINNER: New Jersey has an approved
10 s£ate plan, it was approved several years ago.
It is my understanding tha t tba t plan would
require considerable revision to be approved
under RCRA, and that it exists, it does not
really meet the requirements of the new Act.
New York State has completed a plan, it
, has never been formally Sf proved by EPA because
17 of a requirement regarding the Governor's
lg endorsement of it.
Suffice it to say that it has been update
_0 several times, and is considerably more current
in my opinion than the New Jersey plan, but agair
it has never been formally approved by EPA, even
2 though it has been updated, it will undoubtedly
still require additional work to be formally
able to be ratified under the RCRA provisions.
-------
1 78
2 Puerto Rico is in a similar situation to
3 New Jersey. They have had a plan. It is several
4 years old, which was formally approved at one
5 time, but will require substantial revisions
6 to be approved under RCRA.
7 The Virgin Islands has a plan which is
8 completed, but has not been approved at this
9 time. It also would have to be revised before
EPA would be able to approve it.
So just to sum up, New Jersey and Puerto
Rico have been formally approved, the other two
13 have not, and all four would have to be updated
before their approval under RCRA.
15 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That means by
October 1st then of this year that any open dump
will technically be illegal and who will
enforce that?
19 MR. SKINNER: I believe that is true, but
the only enforcement is through citizen suits.
MR. DE BONIS: The statement made was
that as of October 21, this year, any open dump
will be illegal, and subject to a citizen suit.
MR. SKINNER: If you read the Jet care-
__ fully, it implies that the inventory has to be
-------
1 79
2 complete, that is the implication from that
section, the Act is not clear on this point,
4 but if you read the section on the criteria,
5 the Act indicates that upon publication of the
6 criteria, open dumping is prohibited.
7 This is going to be a problem because
3 the approved s£ate plans probably will not be
forthcoming for maybe So years or three years.
10 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: And there is no
... provision for interim situations, as you have
with the permit sys tern for industry, and et
13 cetera?
14 MR. SKINNER: I think the thing we will
do is albw our regional offices and the states
~~^^^-^
., to enter into agreements for a planning process
which will lead to the development of a state
plan which will then lead to the closure of the
open dumps.
20 I would assume that if that is a reason-
able process, that that would provide some
relief from citizen suite, but if there is
damage froma particular site and it can be shown
that that site does not meet the sanitary land-
__ fill criteria, I think a citizen could SIE for
-------
80
2 closure under the Act.
3 MR. DE BONIS: Let me mention one other
4 point.
5 EPA has prepared a list of those areas
6 where we feel there is some potential contra-
diction to the Act or the Act is unclear, and
8 we hope that that might be acted on sometime
9 in the near future to clarify any of those
10 technical inaccuracies.
11 It was sort of an eleventh-hour bill,
12 which was done at the close of the last Congress
13 which lends itself to potential problems like
14 that.
15 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I want to get a
repetition.
There is no legal remedy other than a
citizen's suit. There are no penalties in this
19 Act anywhere; is that the case?
MR. DE BONIS: I don't think they hear it
in the back.
The question is whether or not there are
23 any remedies for conventional waste disposal
,. violations other than citizen suit
24
25 MR. SKINNER: Except for the hazardous
-------
1 81
2 waste provisions of the Act where there are
3 federal enforcement procedures. For non-
4 hazardous waste, for the waste that would not
5 be classified as hazardous waste, there are two
6 provisions, one is citizen suits and one is an
7 imminent hazard provision where if there is a
8 deayammminent threat to the environment and a
9 clear hazard, the administrator can intervene
10 and C3 11 for that to be stopped, but that is to
11 te used very, very sparingly and there is not
12 going to be a broad enforcement mechanism.
13 MR. DE BONIS: The last row back there.
14 A VOICE: With respect to sanitary tnd-
15 fills and disposal dumps what is the view of
16 EPA on the whole question of rubber tires? On
17 the one hand they shorten the life of a sanitary
lg landfill? Has anyone explored die possibility
19 of going into that area as a side issue?
20 MR- DE BONIS: The quBtion asks what are
2i our feelings regarding special things such as
22 rubber tires and the potential problem they cause
23 sanitary landfills.
24 MR. SKINNER: There has been a lot of worl
done on dealing with rubber tires in various
-------
1 82
2 Incineration, pyrolysis, using them for
3 various applications in roadbuilding, using them
4 for reefs, there is information on tire shredders
5 and the do's and don't's of tire shredders and
6 the operation of them.
7 The problem with rubber tires is the cost
8 of collection of tfem.
9 I think it merely is a cost problem. The;
10 can be shredded at landfills, they can be split
11 at landfills, and ttey don't cause problems at
12 the landfill if they are split or cut up.
13 the question is the economics of doing that.
14 MR. DE BONIS: Up here.
15 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Are your guide-
16 lines going to include something on how to
17 handle methane gas? I live in Brookhaven
lg Town, and they had trouble with the migrating
19 methane gas, and now the county has said they
20 will not allow anymore sanitary landfills.
2i How do you solve that problem?
22 MR. SKINNER: Definintely. The guideline
23 will cover gas migration and methods of control
24 for gas migration. They will cover leachate
25 control and treatment.
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83
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: And the tech-
nology is there to handle it?
4 MR. SKINNER: Yes.
5 MR. DE BONIS: Next question.
6 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I would justlike
7 to impress upon you the need for to do a
8 very thorough job in defining what an open dump
9 is, because in the State of New Jersey presently
there are very stringent regula tions as far as
design parameters for any new landfills, and wha
is essentially happening in New Jersey is that
13 you don't get any new landfills.
The local government cannot afford to
put a liner in and monitoring wells and so forth
Even on a regional basis, a county does not have
the incentive to build such a regional system
because the guy down the street has a landfill
that falls under the grandfather clause, and he
can operate that facility at a much cheaper fee
than you will IE able to, so I think it is
imperative for the Federal Government to
23 be very specific as to what an open dump is.
The way you can rely on the state to do
25 it is in New Jfersey we don't know what is going
-------
1 84
2 to happen to the state. It could be held up
3 for quite some time, so it maybe a good idea for
4 you to be more specific, and then if the cities
5 do want to take action against a landELll, they
6 have something to sink their teeth into.
7 MR. DE BONIS: Next question.
8 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I know there is
9 some concern about the lack of powers on the
10 part of EPA to force jifates and local govern-
11 tnents to comply, or to follow the guidelines,
12 actually, but isn't the main incentive that
13 there is going to be the withholding of Federal
14 funds or funds from this program if jstates do no
15 upgrade their facilities and do not close down
16 their open dumps and install more appropriate
17 facilities? Isn't that the major incentive?
18 MR. SKINNER: That would be a major
19 incentive if the Act was funded fully.
20 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Here we go again.
2i MR. DE BONIS: Yes, sir.
22 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Will your guide-
23 lines allow for the recovery of methane for
24 landfills?
25 MR. DE BONIS: Will the guidelines allow
-------
1 85
2 for the recovery of methane landfills.
3 MR. SKINNER: It is not a matter of
4 allowing, the guidelines are advisory in nature
5 and explain the way various landfill practices
6 should be taken, yes they will.'
7 MR. DE BONIS: Sir.
8 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Maybe I am mis-
9 taken, but did you say the grant funds were con-
10 tingent upon the state having a approved plan?
-Z^^~
11 If that is the case, it is going to be very
12 difficult
13 MR. SKINNER: Are the grant funds con-
14 tingent upon an approved state plan, and it
15 would be difficult, therefore, to develop a
16 sate plan if the funds were contingent upon it?
17 There are funds available in the Act for
lg the planning process itself, but once a ^tate
19 does have an approved plan, then the funding
20 becomes automatic, and whatever funds are allo-
2i cated under the Act are divided up by population
22 basis between the^sjiates with an approved plan
23 I will discuss that more in detail when
24 we talk about the funding provisions of the Act.
25 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Before I can ask
-------
I 86
2 the quesion, I would like to get a clarifica-
3 tion.
When you say you are going to upgrade
5 an open dump, are you going to create -- upgrade
6 this to a sanitary landfill, or scientific land-
fill, or what does that really mean?
MR. SKINNER: We vi 11 write criteria for
open dumping in a way which describes the environ
mental dangers or hazards that should be pre-
,1 vented. The requirements would then be placed
on thejstates to institute programs that -- so
13 that no new facilities would violate those
criteria, that existing facilities over a period
-_ of time, a maximum number of five years, would
meet those criteria.
One of the questions, and I don't know
if that is what you are getting at, is what
about old facilities or facilities which exist
2Q right now, and we are not sure how we will
handle that.
AN UNIDENTIFIED\DICE: That was part of
23
My concern is for dumps that accept waste
24
from homeowners, garbage-type dumps, that have
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1 87
2 television sets and refrigerators thrown on
3 there and have PCB contingent material, obvious1>
4 which is very hazardous, as EPA is well aware.
5 What plans does EPA have in order to try
6 to capture this particular type of disposal?
7 MR. SKINNER: Those materials would not
g probably be covered by the hazardous waste
9 provisions of the Act, because they occur in
10 small quantities, so they would have to be
handled under the open dump criteria of the Act.
12 I would envision our criteria would say
13 things like there could be no leachate from
disposal sites into drinking water supplies,
and then the state would have to design the
site or place the site in such a way so that it
did not occur.
That would be the protection that would
19 be provided for those types of materials.
20 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Would that be
sufficient to cloa e an existing dump?
MR. SKINNER: That is a problem. If you
have a disposal operation with ten years'
_. history and ten years' waste, the cost of
removing that waste or lining the disposal site
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1 88
2 or in someway preventing the leachate could
3 be very, very high. We don't know how you
4 are going to handle that under the Act.
5 It is a very difficult area.
6 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well, with
7 reference to existing operations to try and
8 reduce the impact, one device is to cover the
9 unit with an impermeable membrane, and, there-
to fore, prevent water from going down in it,
11 providing its out of the water table.
12 MR. DE BONIS: Yes, thank you.
13 Let's take one more question on land
14 disposal.
15 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Under the Senate
^g bill 624 amendment, each county is created as a
U district to come ip with a solid waste plan, ten-
18 year plan , and simultaneous to this we currently
19 are having a great deal of citizen unrest becaus
20 of the thought of the county importing outside"
21 of-county waste.
Under DEP regulations a landfill owner or
23 operator is compiled to take a specific waste,
_ . regardless of where it comes from.
24
25 Now, it almost seems to me that the
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1 89
2 amendment somewhat antiquates this DEP regula-
3 tion that would compel a local district landfill
4 owner to take outside county waste.
5 Now, my question is under the Federal
6 regulation or bill, are there any vibrations in
7 there which would have the district manage its
8 own fate, whereas they are not told that you
9 must accept or import out of county solid waste.
10 MR. DE BONIS: Okay, this is a little
11 bit complicated.
12 If we are referring to the New Jereey
13 recently passed provision for which mandates
14 solid waste management planning by the 22 solid
15 waste districts, which are the counties in New
16 Jersey, and the Hackensack Meadowlands Develop-
17 ment Commission area, and one of DEP's regula-
lg tions is that wastes at a facility cannotte
19 discriminated against as far as what their origit
20 is, and the question is whether or not the
2i Feferal legislation is going to address this in
22 any particular feshion, or whether o»6ot we are
23 going to require individual facilities to accept
24 or not discriminate against waste, and I don't
25 know that our -- any of our regulations will
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1 90
2 actually address that.
3 MR. SKINNER: There are no provisions in
4 the Federal bill at all dealing with that issue.
5 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well, going arounc
6 and speaking with \arious municipal governing
7 bodies in the resolutions that they are drafting
8 and supporting, the county solid waste advisory
9 committee, is that they also favor the concept
10 that county solid waste should not be imported
11 into Middlesex Bounty, so this is where we do
12 have a great deal of unrest.
13 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Just nuclear
14 waste?
15 MR. DE BONIS: I am going to hold the
lg questions off here for a minute on this topic.
17 We are going to make some very brief or
18 very minor changes in the program here.
19 First of all, I am going to take about a
20 five-minute break, but before Ida, and 1 hope
2i you don't go too far because we will really
22 start in five minutes, it is necessary to get
23 the prepared statements in as soon as possible,
24 since the official record will be closed at
25 7:00 o'clock, so we want to get what you have to
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1 91
2 say in before that time, so what I would like
3 to do is come back and have our prepared state-
ments at that time.
5 We will set up a podium in front here,
6 and then go on with the rest of the program,
7 but I know it is kind of cramped in here, so
g let's take a five-minute break, and you can go
9 out in the hall and change your mind if that is
what you desire.
.. (A short recess was taken.)
12 MR. NEWTON: Our first speaker is going
13 to be Martin J. Siecke.
Would everyone please be seated.
Before Mr. Siecke begins, let me empha-
size that we would like not that we would
like to, that we are absolutely going to limit
these to five minutes, so that in five minutes your
time will be up and we will ask each speaker
20 to sit down, so please budget your time as you
need to.
MR. SIECKE: My name is Martin Siecke,
and I am a licensed professional engineer, and I
. speak as a chairman of the Environmental
24
25 Management Committee of the New Jersey Society oi
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1 92
2 Professional Engineers.
Our committee has been very concerned witl
4 the disposal of hazardous or toxic wastes within
5 the State of New Jersey.
6 In fact, we made some specific proposals
7 to the New Jersey Department of Environmental
8 Protection when the problems of a particular
Central Jersey landfill were being widely
publicized. My prepared statement does not
address the specific point of this Act, but I
would pass on some of my concerns.
There are and must be realistic time
considerations made to/allow for problem evalua-
ig tlons, and engineering solutions to be formulate
We must be very careful about making what might
l_ be unpopular, technically untenable solutions
to these waste disposal problems.
For example,xe can all recognize that
2Q ocean disposal of primary sludge or municipal
garbage and waste is, in the long run, an
unacceptable means of disposal.
_, We also recognize that to arbitrarily
stop these procedures without engineering
alternatives being ready to accept these wastes
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2 is not acceptable.
3 Likewise, in the case of New Jersey,
there was a landfill openly seeping hazardous
5 or chemical waste not from New Jersey industries
5 but from many industries in surrounding states.
I will not address the fairness of New
g Jersey accepting waste from surrounding _s_tates
9 when it is not capable of properly handling its
own waste, but I do, however, question the
arbitrary closing of this landfill site to these
types of waste without due consideration being
given to the engineer alternatives which must
be made before these wastes can be disposed of
in an environmentally sound manner.
16 I know, for example, that there were not
many industries curtailed when this landfill
closed.
I also know that there were tremendous
20 quantities of waste going into this site.
I ask, therefore, where are these wastes
going now? Perhaps some are being -- some are
,, being stored. Some are going to acceptable
_ alternative methods. But by the need to survive
in business, the balance must be going to
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2 completely uncontrolled and probably less
3 environmentally acceptable dsposal alternatives.
4 In closing, I propose that we must do a
5 much better job of assessing these problems,
6 through planning the expedient,but necessary
7 interim steps to be taken, and following through
8 with properly engineered environmentally sound
9 final solutions.
10 Thank you.
11 MR. DE BONIS: Thank you very much,
12 especially fcr keeping within the time limits.
13 Nancy Meyer.
14 MS. MEYER: I guess first of all after
15 reading the bill several times perhaps I think
lg at most it is a \ery well-written bill, and it
17 took into consideration far more than I had
18 expected it to, and ray conoams are not with the
19 quality of how it is written, but the process
20 as it follows the first Act.
2i My name is Nancy Meyer, and I am a
22 councilwoman for the City of Ithaca, New York.
23 For two years I served on the Steering
_. Committee of the Tri-County Solid Waste
25 Committee.
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1 95
2 It is clear that? solid waste has become
3 a national concern, and that public law 94-580
4 of the 94th Congress is a comprehensive bill
5 that aims in trying to deal with the problems
6 of solid waste.
7 The dimensions of this problem start at
8 the national level x^ith our natural resources,
9 but the solutions at the problem rest with the
people at the local level.
How the taxpayers money is going to be
spent to help solve this problem is the reason
I came to New York today to speak at this
hearing.
There are several primary questions I
would like to ask EPA to answer while they are
involved with the impletnentationjbf this bill.
First, when these guidelines are developed
19 as suggested under Section 4002, will there be
anyone who actually goes to the local government
to findjout what kind of help is needed rather
than just telling the local communities what
thy are supposed to do via a committee from
_. Washington?
25 Secondly, are you going to ask the
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1 96
2 American people to help you separate the natural
3 resources inpe home or are JDU going to ask them
4 to pay for it primarily through the cost of high
5 technological systems that use a lot of systems
6 to use RDF?
7 I am not against these systems,but I
8 think we have to think in more depth.
9 Thirdly, how are you going to help the
10 small communities and the private corridors
H participate when they are removed from tie
12 feasibility of the high technical system and
13 tie expert human resources that are necessary
14 to move the communities out of the easy dumping
15 practices?
15 Fourth, will this money end up going for
17 engineering studies and -- by the wav, I do like
lg engineers -- and other programs without pro-
19 viding aid for the managerial systems necessary
20 f°r the local political bodies?
2i Fifth, how are you going to educate the
22 local DPW's and the political bodies to the
23 urgency in the need and the reason for thi s
24 action?
25
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1 97
2 seriously at the local level.
3 Why do I ask these specific questions?
4 After studying solid waste for about
5 five years,and spending two years on the Tri-
6 County Solid Waste Steering Committee, there
7 are a number of observations I have made that
8 are relevant to the implementation of this bill,
9 and to the situation as it involves the tax-
10 payers' money,and 011 of you are part of that.
11 The first part of the Tri-County study
12 was paid for by state funding to the tune of
13 sixty thousand dollars. It only brought us to
14 the point where it couldjbe said that it was
15 possible to use the waste of three to four
15 counties of RDF at the local electric plant.
17 We are now in the position of trying to
18 f ind forty-five thousand dollars for the second
19 part of the study, for actual implementation of
20 tne RDF system.
2i The local counties don'tvant to contribute
22 anymore than a total of twenty-five thousand
23 dollars for the second step.
24 Analysts ought to be brought into the
25 problem today, or all of this will be lost
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1 98
2 unless we can finish the study with the necessar;
funding.
Will this bill bdp us at the local level?
5 Will the Federal Government try to find a
6 way to help finish what the state started?
I think there was a hundred seventy-five
million that the s£ate originally allocated for
these current concerns. If not about a hundred
thousand dollars of the taxpayers money will
have beenwsted.
It appears to me through the American
fashion if there is a way to make some money,
there will be someone there to develop tech-
nology to make a buck.
The large systems being developed,
fantastic devices to make the American public
lg deal with this problem of solid waste,will be
swept away, and used in an energy system.
20 A large price will be paid.
I think there are some flaws in this
system that are not being talked about.
I am not against the system. I am for th
system. I want these things to be talked about,
and in all the hours I spend, I find people not
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99
2 wanting to talk about the details.
3 First of all, they continue to care-
4 lessly throw away materials we perhaps should
5 be sorting out at the source, your home and mine
6 Certain types of paper are more valuable
7 if they are not mixed into the garbage system.
8 I would like to see this bill provide,
9 as it said it is going to do, money for the
research and development of a separation as
part of a way of life.
The energy that goes on -- into hand
sorting and separating"in the home is energy
that we taxpayers don't have to pay for.
.c The energy that it would save at the
resource recovery plant is also energy that
,- we would be saving.
I would like money from this bill to
develop and investigate the present systems at
the local level, meaning DPW's and what they
_ would hve to do to make separation possible.
There are many communities in this nation
_ that the high technology is not appropriate, and
I am sure many of you come from those communi
ties, and it is not possible, because the quantily
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100
may not be large enough to warrant it.
But sorting it out could help get the
4 materials back into the system.
5 If the markets are not there, create the
6 markets.
Coordinate the markets.
Don't let the money go into large cities
only. In order to implement this system, the
local communities need to have more power to
.... control what happens to the waste, and more help
12 developing the alternatives as to how to handle
13
In Monroe County, it took s£ate legisla-
tion to allow Russell Point to have the right
over the garbage to guarantee they woul d have
enough waste to make it feasible to build a plant
18 there'
On the other hand, with the state legis-
2Q lation, the local communities have given up thei
right to recycle.
My investigation of the legal right to
_ solid waste reeds to be developed.
If the right to recycle paper, for
24
instance, is given up to this kind of legislation^
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1 101
2 what will happen to the recycled paper Industry?
3 Don't we need to make sure that that type
4 of industry continues to operate so that at
5 some time in the future we will realize that
6 we cannot afford to burn all our waste paper,
7 we will have some protection from the too hasty
8 building of too many plants?
9 You know, we have a hdit of kind of over-
10 building and over-doing it before we think.
11 You can look around to see examples of
12 that.
13 Build the plants but build them carefully
14 Use the bill to find out how far we can
15 haul solid waste. Talk to the local politicians
15 and the DPW's before the guidelines are cast and
17 concrete.
lg We local elected officials are constantly
19 being frustrated with the rules from Washington
20 which frustrate us and do not allow us to
2i implement quickly enough.
22 In summary, think small as well as big.
23 Consult the local officials, consider the source
24 separation, and don't be afraid to ask the
25 American people to participate in a personal way
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2 it is time we do it.
3 President Carter is doing it.
4 I think EPA can do it with this bill.
5 Write guidelines that fit the local needs.
6 Remember the energy crisis that hit us.
7 We were all asked to turn down our heat.
8 Write guidelines that fit the local needs.
9 Take care of the existing recycling systen
10 that needs to be protected, and help finish the
11 patterns that have been started.
12 Thank you.
K^e-hle.*.
13 MS. GHetER (Phonetic spelling): My name
14 is Sherry Gfeeier, I am Director of the Environ-
15 mental Coalition.
16 Actually, my comments, or rather some
17 of the questions that I have in my mind should
18 be better raised after we have the discussion of
19 the resource conversation aspects of tils bill,
20 and I am sort of sorry we had to invert the
2i program a bit, but in order to get on to the
22 public record, I would lice to raise some of the
23 problems 1 see maybe occurring with this bill.
24, One of them and I think the title,
25 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, is
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1 103
2 something of a misnomer in that the resource
3 conservation and recovery aspects of this bill
4 are really given much less consideration, I
5 think, than the hazardous waste and land dis-
6 posal aspects of the bill.
7 I think you can see just by the way the
8 audience thinned out after discussion of
9 hazardous waste and land disposal, that not too
10 many people are sticking around to talk about
jl the resource conservation part of things.
12 I think that I must second a great deal
13 of wha t the previous speaker raised in her
14 comments.
j5 I think more attention has to be paid,
jg let's put it that way.
17 EPA is one of the largest -- is the
jg largest regulatory agency in the Federal
19 Government.
20 I think with this bill it is becoming
2i almost entirely a regulatory agency, and those
22 aspects of technical assistance, education,
23 public participation, although they are written
_. into the bill, I feel will not be adequately
^T"
c funded, nor will they be adequately attended to.
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104
2 I hope I am not jumping the gun by
3 saying this, and you may in the next part of the
program, eliminate my fears but 1 mean, I cannot
5 be too supportive of the -- I wish to be suppor-
6 tive of the hazardous waste and land disposal
7 aspects of this bill without question.
g But I do think that we must not leave
9 resource recovery, resource conservation solely
10 in the hands of the private sector, and of publir
interest organizations, such as the Environmenta
12 Coalition.
13 We cannot hold it on our own.
14 We need the support of US EPA as wahave
always had it.
Now, the resources of EPA seem to be
funnelled almost entirely into the promotion of
guidelines and regulations, and I really fear
for the kind of good work that has been cbne in
20 the past.
We can lobby for more money to be put int
those aspects of the program, so that those
22
23 of the program could be adequately staffed and
adequately funded, and that adequate support
25 can be given to the private sector, and to publi
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1 105
2 interest groups, I wish you would help us
3 determine how best to lobby for them.
4 Thank you.
5 MR. DE BONIS: I believe we have one
6 more public statement, would you please identify
7 yourself.
8 MS. LATO: I am Theresa Lato of theBronx
9 Council for Environmental Quality.
10 We stand for an asthetic unpolluted
H environment with a natural and historic heritage
12 I have a questionjto ask of EPA.
13 What is it doing to promote the recycling
14 industry that would automatically reduce waste?
15 Has it considered taxing virgin unrenew-
16 able resources, and considered a rationale of
17 a freight rate program for recycling products?
18 We in BCEQ want to preserve our planet
19 to promote the general welfare for ourselves
20 and our posterity, as the Constitution dictates
21 to us.
22 We are here to uphold the Constitution.
23 Thank you.
24 MR. DE BONIS: Thank you, especially for
25 being so brief, and to the point.
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1 106
2 We are going to continue with our
3 regularly scheduled program, vhich sounds like
4 something you would hear on TV.
5 In any case I have
6 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Was that all of
7 the public statements? I signed a card. I
8 gave it to someone who purported to be a
9 representative of EPA.
10 MR. DE BONIS: How many more people do we
H have who would like to make a public statement?
12 Would those three people come forward at
13 this time, please, and we will take those state-
14 ments.
15 MR. CASS: My name is Clifford P. Cass,IIl
16 and I am from the law firm of Butzel & Cass,
17 here in New York City.
18 We represent the Environmental Action
19 Coalition and a number of citizen groups concernjr\
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1 107
2 two areas, first, resource recovery systems,
3 and facilities, and second, Federal procurement
4 of products made from or including recovered
5 materials.
6 It is clear to those who are familiar
7 with development in the field that a true resour<
8 recovery industry built aroundhigh technology,
9 solid waste processing facilities, is beginning
10 to develop.
H Such facilities are presently under con-
12 struction in over 20 municipalities around the
13 country, and more are on the way.
14 It is good to see that large-scale
15 resource recovery is starting to become economi-
16 cal, and we hope this trend continues. Yet,
17 I have one word of caution to interject, and tha
18 is that such large-scale systems cannot be allow
19 to pre-empt small-scale low technology systems
20 which .can, in some cases do the same job, or in
2i some cases a better job with a much smaller
22 capital investmert, and a good deal less direct
23 governmental involvement.
24 Such low technology alternatives might
25 include prohibition or penalties on one-way
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1 108
2 containers, or packaging taxes, source separa-
3 tion cf newspapers and other valuable fcrms of
4 paper waste and the like.
5 It would be disasterous if state and loca!
-^
6 communities found it impossible to even consider
7 such alternatives,and.thus reduce the amount of
8 solid waste created in the first place, because
9 they were locked into long-term committments to
10 furnish all of their solid waste to high
11 technology fecilities.
12 Given the vast amount of garbage now
13 produced, there is little present likelihood
14 that such pre-emption will occur, but it is
15 the obligation of EPA, in carrying out its
16 responsibilities under the 1976 Act, to see that
17 stte and regional solid waste management plans
18 allow room now and in the future for small
19 scale low-technology resource redemption
20 techniques, as well as massive resource recovery
2i facilities.
22 The resource recovery industry, in other
23 words, must eraphaske many different modalities
24 of conserving resources, and also energy.
25 We must not put all our eggs in one
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1 109
2 basket.
3 My remaining comments are directed
4 cowards Federal procurement policies.
5 As you know the Federal Government is
6 probably the largest single purchaser of goods
7 in the entire country. Moreover, its specifi-
8 cations and procurement practices are followed
9 by many other entities, governmental and non-
10 governmental, so that its influence extends
11 far beyond its own purchases.
12 Unfortunately, that influence in the
13 past has not been used effectively enough to
14 encourage use of reclaimed and recycled material
15 and I hope that those portions of the 1976 Act
15 dealing with Federal procurement, will help to1
17 change the situation.
18 Let me speak particularly of one situatio
19 the Government Printing Office.
20 "J-f tne GPO were to adopt specifications
2i which require significant reclaimed fibre
22 content in the paper products it contracts for
23 it could literally reshape the face of the paper
24 industry in this country, in less than ten
25 years.
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1 110
2 The GPO has refused to ,do this in the
3 past, however, primarily on the grounds, rather
4 curiously, I think that reclaimed fibre content
5 cannot be identified in paper products.
6 So they would have no way of checking in
7 the good faith of people supplying the predicts.
8 This problem can be solved, of course,
9 by appropriate certifications and inspections.
10 But up until now, the GPO has not
11 troubled itself to do so, and there is a danger
12 that its cooperation in implementing the spirit
13 and letter of the 1976 Act will be grudging, at
14 best.
We urge that in implementing the 1976
Act, the EPA adopt regulations whidi will expose
grudging compliance on the part of the GPO, or
any other Federal agency to full public view.
19 Such regulation should require that
public hearings be held throughout the country,
possibly adminis tared by EPA, on new specifica-
tions, and that all agencies spell out exactly
why recovered materials are not included in
product specifications if they are not included.
These regulations should define recovered
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1 111
2 materials for the purpo'se of specifications,
3 so as to emphasize the possible consumer waste
content without excluding any other forms of
5 waste, and they should reqire. Federal agencies
6 to take account and procurement of the fact that
recycled production costs are often smaller than
g their virgin counterparts, and cannot be contracte
9 for in such large quantities or such large time
periods, and they should provide for the phase-in
of products to allow the industry to develop in
an orderly iashion, and they should allow for
13 credit in calculating the cost of procurement
and recycling items for energy saved in their
production.
They should recognize that in some cases
higher costs must be paid for recycled products
at least initially, at least into the cost period
Any such smaller cost increment should
be permitted for at least a limited time, since
they will, in most cases, be offset by reductions
in state and local solid waste disposal cases,
23 and they should make special taxes unnecessary or
_. less necessary.
__ Thank you for this opportunity to present
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1 112
2 our views. I look forward to working with EPA
3 and other concerned public and private agencies
4 in the successful implementation of the 1976
5 Act.
6 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I am from the
7 Bedford Park Civic Association in the Bronx.
8 What has happened to the garbage in our
9 borough is that it is put in the park, and
10 that is why I am here, because I am very,very
11 interested in other things being done with it.
12 We know that a good part of the reason
13 for this solid waste problem is product disposal,
14 and that is what I am about to direct my remarks
15 to.
16 There are many I was jist wondering,
17 I am not familiar with the bill, unfortunately,
18 and I was wondering if there was any provision
19 in it for any sort of way that we could have
20 use the tax system in order to encourage
21 manufacturers to make more durable products,
22 because if it lasted longer, we would not have
23 to throw it away so quickly.
24 MR. SKINNER: There is a study provision
25 in the Act, there is no direct provision in the
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! 113
2 Act, but we are to investigate that, and Bob
3 Lowe is going to be talking about that exten-
4 sively in the next presentation.
5 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: That is great
6 because I think using the tax system, we could
7 even have-- it would bepossible, perhaps, to
8 have a tax we could take it off our taxes,
9 the cost of repair of an appliance, we could
10 encourage retention of havirg a Proctor iron,
jj for example, where one part could be replaced.
12 This kind of thing would keep an awful
13 lot of stuff out of our landfills.
14 We should also make the life cycle of the
15 applicance available to the public. Fifty per
16 cent of what we pay for our refrigerator is in
17 the cost of operating it, and I think these are
lg things most consumers are not aware of.
19 They are aware of the price of something
2o when they initially buy it. They don't have any
2i of the other values involved in it, available
22 to them.
23 Also, there is no -- we really don't have
24 we have a used car market but we don't havs a
25 used appliance or television market, and I think
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1 114
2 this is something else that might be looked
into.
Anything to keep it out of my park is
what I am interested in, so I thank you for
giving me your attention.
7 MR. DAVIDSON: My name is Mark Davidson,
g and I am president of the Putnam County
9 Recycling Council from a small town in Putnam
10 County, New York. I have been involved with
... recycling in various ways, both physically and
12 mentally since 1971.
13 I did jot down a few notes while I was
sitting here in this wonderful meeting and I
-- would just like to share them with you.
,, I would like to mention a few terms that
lo
.- I would like to hear mentioned hare,and one of
lg them is the word labor Intensive,
19 I believe that every minute community
20 is going to have to deal with what may be in
_.. most cases unique to that community. This is
going to involve resource recovery in a most
labor intensive manner, employing people at
varying degrees of ability and beliefs on a local
level.
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1
2 The top would be an environmentally
3 oriented person of considerable skill right
4 down to the employment at the bottom of distress
5 personnel who would be very much enhanced and
6 very much thrilled to break bottles, separate
7 cans and put them in containers.
S We have such a n operation in our town
9 now. It is a pilot project.
Secondly, I believe that every industry
11 and plant and office, every community, village
12 and town, four corners and lengthy country
13 road, is in a way a generator of recoverable
14 resources.
Garbajj£, sewage, hazardous waste, somehow
will all eventually have to be recovered if we
17 are to continue as a successful society.
I think, and I believe, that there can
19 be no .arbitrary discharge to the environment,
unless such discharge ecu Id be proved to be
beneficial to the environment, and our society.
__ Thirdly, in point seven in a brief look
23 that we have all been giving, I would like to
.. direct your attention to the fact that it could
25 include something to the following effect, or
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1 116
2 perhaps you could add an eighth point to focus
3 on the need to continue the development of
4 solid waste as an energy source to conserve
5 andreduce soil depletion, perhaps by attempting
6 to reduce dependence on expensive inorganic
7 chemical fertilizers by the return of organic
8 compost from municipal compost, properly treated
9 septic and sewage.
10 It would seem a technology capable of
11 piping crude oil from Alaska could develop a
12 similar piping system for sewage, while treating
13 it in the pipe back to the source.
14 If a system of this nature was developed,
15 we could then divert muchneeded organics back
15 to the land and augment the conservation of our
17 soil, instead of sending this up a chimney, or
18 wasting it in our oceans.
19 I thank you.
20 MR. DE BONIS: Thank you very much, and
2i I thank all of our speakBJTfor their comments
22 that they have offered to us.
23 I think it is really more important that
-4 we make sure we get all of those comments into
the record.
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1 117
2 We are able to stay after 7:00 and
3 continue answering your questions and provide
4 our briefings, but we did want to give e/erybody
5 a chance to get a comment into the transcript.
6 May I make one quick announcement?
7 I said before that you would hae to
8 indicate your request to receive a copy of the
9 legislation, but we really haven't found anyone
10 yet who does not want a copy of the legisla-
11 tion, so we will mail it to everyone who filled
1Z out a registration card, so if you filled a card
13 you will get a copy of the legislation, as
14 quickly as we can, pmumably within the next
15 week or two.
16 Our next speaker is Robert Lowe, as oppos
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1 118
2 recovery is going to get great emphasis, but
3 as sone cf the people have already mentioned,
4 that depends a lot on the funding level and
5 staffing level that EPA is given for its own
6 use and to pass through to state and local
7 governments.
8 But it is clear that resource conserva-
9 tion and recovery are important objectives in
10 terms of the intent of Congress.
11 I would like to go over those portions
12 of the Act where resource conservation and
13 recovery are called for or programs are called
14 for.
15 Could L have the slides, please.
16 Resource conservation and recovery pro-
17 visions of the Act are included in these areas,
18 and a couple of others. Guidelines in Section
19 1008, which John Skinner already referred to,
20 resource recovery and conservation panels,
2i the development of ^tate and local programs
y-t under subtitle (d) which John vi 11 discuss when
" ^ £
23 I am finished.
24 An item which is not on here, and which
25 is Federal procurements guidiines in Section
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1 119
2 6002.
3 Development and dissemination under
4 Section 8003 and then studies and demonstrations,
5 and evaluations of all saris of things under
6 subtitle (h), Sections 8002, 4, 5 and 6.
7 I would just like to mention one thing
8 about the procurement guidelines before I go
9 onto the others.
10 That is that that someone as one of
11 the excuse me, one ofthe speakers just men-
12 tioned, these guidelines could have great impact
13 but only if they are imitated by state and local
14 governments and industry.
15 We will be writing them with that prime
16 effect, as it is called, in mind.
17 Our major contribution, I think in these
18 guidelines is to help determine and distinguish
19 betseen what is practical and what is not.
20 May I have tie next slide, please?
21 I am just going to mention a few of the
22 sections of the Act that I think are interesting
23 Section 8002 calls for a special study
24 ina variety of areas that you can see listed up
25 here, but one thing I want to assure you is that
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1 120
2 at least in our hearts, if not in our resource
3 allocations, we are emphasizing small-scale
4 systems, sometimes called low technology. In
5 other words, decentralized source separation
6 systems, and we are also concerned more/so now
7 than in the past with the needs of small
g communities, and we are taking some steps to
9 re-orient our program in that direction, although
I have a question for you at the end, that I
think will bear on this.
12 One very important portion of the Act,
13 Section 8002(j), for you bureaucrats who have
14 a copy of the Act, the Congress authorized the
establishment of a resource conservation
committee which is chaired by the_administrator
of EPA, and the membership is composed of the
^ecretaries of several other executive depart-
19 tnents, such as the Department of Commerce, the
/ I G £
20 Department of Environmental Quality and some
others.
What is interesting about this is that
__ this indicates a high priority forthis area.
_ Congress stopped short of legislating incentive
25 and dis-incentive, I guess that was too
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1 121
2 controversial at the time, but it showed a
3 serious intent by creating this committee, and
4 this was the first of a series of study groups
5 dating back to the 1950's with the study of
6 material utilization is called for, but for
7 the first time it is called for within the
8 administration.
9 Prior to this point, there have been
10 commissions, with recommendations to be ignored
11 more easily than this.
12 Hopefully, these will not be ignored at
13 all.
14 Anyway, this committee has been establish!*<£
15 to study several areas which are specified in
16 the law, and these are listed here.
17 Just to give you an example of what is
18 meant by incentives or dis-incentives, price
19 supports could be one, some of the tax incen-
20 tives that the lady speaking before mentioned,
21 the penny a pound tax, x^hich I think is more
22 useful as a concept than an actual measure, an
23 example of existing public policy would be
24 depletion allowances, and these will be examined
25 I think the others are probably
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1 122
2 self-explanatory.
3 Anyway, this represents a chance for
4 effective incentive programs to be passed into
5 law.
6 Fortunately, though it won't happen now,
7 it will happen at the conclusion, when it will
8 be initiated at the conclusion of these studies,
9 at least three years from now.
10 Section 2003 requites EPA to establish
11 resource recovery and conservation panels to
12 provide technical assistance in all areas of
13 solid waste, not just resource recovery and
14 resouuE conservation, but in all areas for a
15 variety of purposes which are listed here.
16 Basically, it is to support the imple-
17 mentation of all aspects of the law, and to give
18 you some examples of what we might do, we would
19 work to help states, design and implement regula-
20 tory programs.
21 We wquld help to develop alternatives
22 to cpen dumping, such as source separation and
23 central processing recycling facilities.
24 Most of the questions that I have receive
25 are oriented or addressed to how these technical
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1 123
2 assistance panels are going to be formed and
3 coitroosed. The terms are required to include
4 expertise in the following areas, technical,
5 marketing, financial, institutional.
6 What is interesting is that the last
7 three, marketing, financial and institutional
8 represent a new emphasis ever previous legisla-
9 tion.
10 The terms will be composed of, and all of
11 this is tentative right now, but so far most
12 of the comments I heard have been supportive of
13 this, they will be composed of EPA staff people,
14 consultants of all types under contract to EPA,
15 who will be provided by EPA to work with the
16 _gfate and local governments and what we call
17 peer matching, and that is we will provide the
18 funding to enable_s£ate aid local officials who
19 have had experience in with certain problems
20 or in certain areas, to travel to other cities
21 who are facing those problems.
22 Sometimes the most effective assistance
23 can come from people who have already been there
24 These teams will be managed by EPA.
25 We will have a fixed unit of individuals
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1 124
2 who operate as a group and travel as a group.
3 We don't envision it that way.
4 We -- our interpretation is that there
5 will be a pall of resources,a stable some people
6 refer to it as, who will be called on by EPA
7 and bring to bear whatever keys is appropriate
8 in the circumstances.
9 The consultant will be selected through
10 competitive bidding that will be held period-
11 ically, and this bidding will be announced in
12 the Commerce Business Daily.
13 Now, the Act requires that 20 per cent
14 of the amount of money authorized to EPA be
15 devoted for technical assistance.
16 I repeat, this is not just a resource
17 conservation and recovery, but also in the land
18 disposal and hazardous waste management.
19 I vjould like to add a couple cf issues,
20 some of which are already on your list of issues
21 that were handed out as you entered.
22 One important one is what will be the
23 relative emphasis placed by EPA on the non-
24 regulatory aspects of this Act?
25 Primarily the resource conservation and
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1 125
2 resource recovery one, as opposed to the regula-
3 tion, the realities are that EPA is traditionall
4 a regulatory agency. It may be said to be
5 oriented in that direction. It will also be
6 said that the Act provides very specific mandate:
7 by specific dates which must be implemented, an
8 with a limited amount of resources and staffing,
9 it is going to be considered prudent that EPA
10 would take care of the regulatory provisions
11 first.
12 That causes some distress to those of us
13 who want to work in conservation and recovery.
14 The question I would like to get aaction
15 to is how should EPA priortize its issource
16 recovery program, its technical assistance,
17 its demonstrations, its information development?
18 We could do this on the basis of who has
19 the most tonnage, in other words, that would
20 take care of New York first, aid Los Angeles
21 second, and with our limited resources, we
22 would probably never get to Putnam County, which
23 would be unfortunate.
24 Or shall we do it on the basis of the
25
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1 126
2 In which case we penalize the 'communities then
3 that have a nice landfill, or do we give first
4 priority to those communities who are most likel;
5 to succeed with something, in which case they
6 may have the most garbage andthe most severe
7 problem, but because of some political or
8 some other kind of problem, we never help them.
9 I am saying these somewhat humorously,
10 but these are difficult problems.
11 If you say let's attack the biggest
12 portion of the problem first, then we eliminate
13 all the small communities, because we don't have
14 the resources to deal with everybody.
15 Another question is should technical
lg assistance be given in depth to a few cities
17 and states?
lg In other words, get a few cities and
19 _s£ates, and give them all the help we can
20 possibly give them, or should we give a limited
2i amount of help to a great number of cities and
22 _s£ates, that is the inch deep and a mile wide
23 philosophy, or visa versa.
24 That again is a very important question,
25 and will dictate how we go about our business.
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1 127
2 With respect to these studies under the
3 resource conservation committee, what should be
4 the criteria for evaluating the various options
5 and measures that can be considered?
6 Should it be total overall pollution?
7 Should it be resource scarcity?
8 In other words, should we try to conserve
9 those resources that are most scarce, even thoug
10 they might involve even though others might
H pollute the world more, or should we be concerne
12 with the balance of payments or the political
13 problems or importing goods, or should we be
14 concerned with the employment impact, and there
15 are a few others that 1 could mention.
16 Also, what should be the role of stats
17 and local government in resource recovery and
18 resource conservation?
19 Should every state have a resource
20 recovery technical assistance program, and shoul
2i our program, therefore, be oriented towards
22 helping the jitates develop that program, and
23 then when they develop a program, we close up
24 and go home?
25 Or should we centralize it?
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I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
13
14
128
Is it more efficient to centralize it
and say okay, _s,tates, you concentrate on land
disposal, and when you can improve your land
disposal practices, by implementing a resource
recovery system, call us and we will come in?
Those are the kinds of questions we are
faced with right now, and that is why I am here,
to hopefully get some answers to these questions
Thank you.
(Whereupon, at 7:00 p.m. this session
was concluded.)
* * *
I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and accu-
rate transcript of the testimony taken at this hearing.
/ / A
16 ^^6*1 C^>rL j X/V^ ' ^ ''"
Vincent Sparaco/- Hearing Reporter
17
lg NOTE:
The Official Reporter ended his recording of the
public meeting at 7:00 p.m., prior to the questions from
the audience on the Resource Conservation and Recovery
provisions, and prior to the presentation and questions
on the State Program Development provisions of RCRA.
19
20
21 M
Office of Solid Waste, EPA
22
23
24
25
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Middlesex County
Solid Waste
Management Program
February 24, 1977
Mr. Michael DeBonis
Chief
Solid Waste Program Branch
U.S. EPA Region II
26 Federal Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10007
Dear Mike:
I very much regret my absence from the RCRA hearing
yesterday, and I want to make amends by writing some of
the comments I would like to have made in person.
The most important point is that solid waste planning
should seek an optimal mix, a balanced combination of manage-
ment methods, rather than a single best solution. What I
have in mind particularly is that source reduction and source
separation should complement, and co-exist with, capital-in-
tensive resource recovery and landfilling.
In making guidelines and sponsoring solid waste plans,
the EPA should require states and other jurisdictions to guard
against flow-control measures that would discourage source
reduction and source separation activities from reducing the
mixed refuse stream.
The issue of "competition" between source separation
and resource recovery from mixed refuse needs to be faced at
the beginning of the design process, not as an afterthought.
With most capital-intensive resource recovery facilities
yet to be built, we can still optimize among the strategies
by planning for a high level of source separation diverting
substantial quantities of newspaper, office paper, and in-
organics from the mixed refuse that will be subject to energy
recovery.
134 NEW STREET NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J 08901 (201) 246-5712
-------
Mike DeBonis -2- 2/24/77
I'm delighted to see some of the scrap-using industries
waking up to this issue and start lobbying efforts to protect
their materials inputs from ill-conceived flow-control regulations.
I feel the EPA should take positive steps to help states to
draft flow-control language that encourages the highest, most
energy - and materials-conserving uses of solid waste resources.
It would be ironic and counterproductive to inhibit source
separation in the name of resource recovery!
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Fett A. Smith
Recycling Coordinator
GAS:br
cc: Mr. Peter Berle
Commissioner David Bardin
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fife. .23, |«J77
STATEMENT FDR THE RESOURCE CONSERVATION AMD RECOVERY ACT BRIEFING
NANCY R. MEYER, COUNCILIinMAN: CITY OF ITHACA, NEW YORK
My name is Nancy Meyer and I am a councilwoman for the city of Ithaca,
New York. For tuio years I have served on the steering committee of the
Tri-County Solid Waste Committee.
It is clear that solid waste has became a national concern
and that the Public law Law 9*4-580 of the 9titn Congress is a
comprehensive hill that aims at rying to deal Dith the problems of
solid waste. The dimensions of this problem start at the national
level uith our natural resources, but the solution of the problem
rests uith the people on the local level. How the taxpayers money
is going *o be spent to help solve this problem is the reason I came
to Neu York today to speak at this hearing. There are several primary
question I would like EPA to answer while they are involved with the
implementation of this bill.
First: Uhen these guidlines are developed as suggested under
serMj^ <*OCZ, will there be anyone who actually goes to the local
situation to find out uhat kind of help is needed rather than just
telling the lo-al co-ri'jnities uhat they are supposed to do via
a GOT^ittes "rrm Ucs'iinQtn-7
Secondly: Are you going to 33k the American people to help
S5c^rgta the natural resourc2s in ths horns or are you going to ask them
to pay for it primarily through the cost of highly technological systems
that i'3e a lot of energy to prod JOB RDF?
Thirdly: How arR yo>j joing to help the small co.-m'jnitlips and the
private carters pariicipsts luhen they are rescued from the feasibility
of the high technology systems and the expert human resources that are
necessary to rr.ove these communities out of the easy dumping practises?
Fourth: Will all this money end up going for Engineering studies
and ether pnt~r3r,s without providing aid for the managerial systems
,-Rceesary *"cr the local political bodies to actualize resource
consar.'atio^?
Fift^: How sre you nning ro educate the local DPU's and political
bDdi 53 J;o the urgeary of ":he 123d and reason for this action?
-------
Why do I ask these specific questions? After studying solid
waste for about five years and spending two years on the Tri-County
Solid Waste Committee there are a number of observations I've made that
are relevant to the implimentation of this bill and to the situation
as it involves the taxpayers money.
^The first part of the Tri-County Study was paid for by state
~unding to the tune of $60,000.00. It only brought us to the paint where it
could be said that it was possible to use the waste of three or four
counties for ROF at the local Electric plant. Ule are now in the position
of trying to find a total of $i»5,OOO.OQ for the second part of the
study for actual implimentation of a RDF system. The local counties
don't want to contribute any more than a total of $25,000.00 for this
second step. Endless hours have been put into the problem todate and
all these will be lost unless we can finish the study with the necessary
funding. Dill this bill help us at the local level? Will the federal
government try to find a uiay to help finish uhat the state started? If
not about S100,000.00 of the taxpayers money will have been wasted.
It appears to me, true to American fashion, if there is a may
to make some money there will be someone there to develop some
technology to sell to make a buck. The large systems being developed are
-Ifr'vW
fantastic devices to make the American public their solid waste is going
to be SLj=pt away and cleverly used to produce energy. A large price will
be paid. I think there are some flaws in these systems that are not being
talked about in enough depth. First of all they encourage us to
continue to carelessly throw away materials we perhaps should be sorting
out at ths source. Certain types of paper are more valuable if they are
not mixed into the garbage stream. I would like to ssgthis bill provide
money for the reasearch and development of source separation of some
materials on a national level, as a way of life. The energy that goes
into hand separating in the home is energy that we as taxpayers don't
have to pay for. The energy it would save at the resource recovery plants
is also energy we would be saving. I would like money from this bill to
develop and investigate th» present systems the local DPLJ's now use
and what they would have to use to make source separation possible.
There are many communities in this nation that the high technology
is not appropriate; not possible because the quantity may not be large
-------
enough to uarrant it. But sorting out natural resources into their
appropriate categories could help get the materials back into the
industrial stream uithout expensive technology. Find the markets,
create the markets and organize the markets....don't let all this
money only go to the industries that are developing the massive technologies
for large cities.
In order to impliment this system, the local communities need to
have both more power to control uhat happens to the uaste and more
help developing the alternatives as to hou to handle it. In Monroe
County, it took state legislation to alloy the Russell Plant to have
the rights over the garbage to guarantee that they uauld have enough
waste to make it feasible to build a Raytheon Plant. On the other
uilh that state legislation the local communities in Monroe County have
given up their rights to recycle independently of the plant. More
investigation of the legal rights to waste need to be developed. If
the right to recycle paper for instance is given up with this kind
of legislation, what mill happen la the recycled paper industry.
Don't we need to Tiake sure that kind of industry continues to operate
so that if some time in the future we realize uie can't afford to burn
all our uaste paper, ue will have some protection from the too hasty
building of too many plants. You know ue Americans have a habit of
overdoing a good thing. Look for example at the gas stations that
have gone out of business, the stores that have closed because of the
over building of too many shaping centers and the over abundance of
fast food restruarants. Build enough resource recovery plants, but
think carefully if ue can endlessly use our paper this way....and
the plastics.
Use this bill to ^if>d out how far ue can haul the sol:d waste
before the fuel it takes to gat it to the plant costs us more than
the energy it is producing. LGOK to the decentralized solutions, the
srall local markets for using the fuel as well as the large ones.
Talk to the local politicians and 0PM's before those guidelines
ars'cast in concrete and federal money is tied to Washington's concept
of what has to be done before the federal governnent will give funding
for the implinentation of a solution at the local level. Ue local
elected officials are constantly being frustrated because ue badly need
money to carry out important programs, but are delayed by having to fill
-------
out meaningless papers, write up surnmeries that don't fit the local
situation at the same time Washington is demanding that me meet this
never-never land criteria or that. We all laugh or cry or shake our
heads in dismay and loose faith. We , in Ithaca are ready for a highway
in our community, the state and federal government are ready to pay for
it. To rrake everyone happy it needs to be built outside of the
designated corridor. And just because of the Mi hearing procedure me
are afraid to face trying to move the highway to where uie all agree it
needs to be. Washington's red tape is costing us time energy and
frustration. Don't let those guidelines end up in such never'never land
that they defeat the purpose they need to be written far. The problem with
solid usste is that every solution needs to be tailor made, therefore
the local officals need to be actively involved.
In summary:
1. Think small as uell as big.
2. Consult local officials.
3. Consider source separation and don't bs afraid to ask the
American psople to participate in a personal way.
b. Urits guidlines that fit the local needs.
?.Take csre that the existing recycling systems are protected.
6. Help finish projects that have been started.
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THE MANAGEMENT OF NON-NUCLEAR
HAZARDOUS WASTES
February 23, 1977
AMERICANA CITY SQUIRE INN
Broadway and 51st Street
New York, New York
Following is the transcript of the Conference on
"The Management of Non-Nuclear Hazardous Wastes." This
meeting, sponsored by the Scientists' Committee for
Public Information, Inc., is part of EPA's continuing
efforts to educate and involve the public on the Federal
solid waste management programs. This meeting was
supported by funds from the Office of Solid Waste, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
The transcript of the Scientists" Committee for
Public Information, Inc., is appended to the transcript
of EPA Region II's public meeting and is for the benefit
of those who attended both meetings and others interested
in those discussions.
-------
1 SPEAKERS: (In order of appearance) 2
2 JUDITH DWOSKIN,
Executive Director, SCPI
3
ERIC CUTWATER,
4 Deputy Administrator,
United States Environmental Protection
5 Agency Region II
6 MURRAY NEWTON,
Program Manager for State Implementation,
7 Hazardous Wastes Management Division,
United States Environmental Protection
8 Agency
9 KARIM AHMAD,
Staff Scientist, NRDC
10
AMIR METRY,
11 Project Manager, Roy Weston, Inc.
12 DAVID NALVEN,
Chair Person, Solid Waste Subcommittee,
13 New Jersey Business and Industry Association
14 ALFRED LINDSEY,
Technology Program Manager,
15 Office of Solid Waste, United States
Environmental Protection Agency
16
ED HALL,
17 Environmental Specialist, Union Carbide
18 DAVID MILLER,
Partner, Geraghty & Miller, Inc.
19
ED SHUSTER,
20 Manager, Marketing/Sales,
NEWCO Chemical Waste Systems, Inc.
21
ROBERT L. HARNESS,
22 Engineering Specialist,
Monsanto Industrial Chemicals Company
23
EDWIN COXE,
2_ Associate Vice-President and Manager
Advanced Energy Division,
c Reynolds, Smith & Hills, Inc.
-------
SPEAKERS: (In order of appearance)
2 JACK RIGGENBACH,
Process Engineer,
3 Environmental Science & Engineering, Inc.
4 SHELDON MEYERS,
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Solid
5 Waste Program, United States Environmental
Protection Agency
6
MICHAEL F, DeBONIS,
7 Chief, Solid Waste Management Branch,
United States Environmental Protection
8 Agency Region II
9 BILL WILKIE,
New York State Department of Environmental
10 Conservation
11 PETER PREUSS,
Special Assistant to the Commissioner,
12 New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection
13
ROBERT GORMAN,
14 Staff Attorney, Division of Public
Interest Advocacy, Department of the
15 Public Advocate, State of New Jersey
16 FRED HART,
Fred C, Hart Associates
17
RICHARD SERNYAK,
18 Eastern Regional Sales Manager,
Rollins Environmental Services, Inc.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 4
2 MS. DWOSKIN: May I have your
3 attention, please?
4 I am sorry for the delay in
5 starting the program, but there is still
6 a mob outside, so I hope we will get
7 everybody in quickly,
8 I am Judith Dwoskin, I would like
9 to welcome you here today, I think we
10 have a very exciting program. We are
11 anxious to get underway,
12 Let me make a few housekeeping
13 announcements first,
14 If you will notice on the program,
it says lunch at the pool, and we mean
that quite literally, outside to the right
17 is a swimming pool, and they setup tables
lg for lunch around there, so you will just
19 follow the crowd out,
20 Another point is that there are
brief bios in the back of your program
22 for all the speakers, so we will not be
making those announcements from the
podium.
Furthermore, there is a smoking
-------
1 5
2 section in the back half of the room,
3 and the front half is for non-smoking.
4 Also, we are having this session
5 transcribed, and it is requested that
6 when questions are asked people state
7 their names and affiliation clearly,
8 Thank you very much.
9 Our first speaker today is Eric
Cutwater, who is from EPA Region II.
11 MR. CUTWATER: Thank you, Judy.
12 You know, I look at the beginning
13 of any new piece of legislation, and if
14 you look out and see a room full of faces,
15 and people aren't really snearing, and
16 they don't look too hostile because we
17 haven't done anything to make you mad
lg yet, I am just hoping that you will love
19 me in September like you love me in the
20 spring, as the saying goes.
I would like to acknowledge the
presence of a number of very distinguished
people.
_ . We are always very delighted to
see Carlin Karnheim (phonetic spelling)
-------
1 6
2 from D, E, C., and Commissioner Fenton
3 from the City, and in particular, Sheldon
4 Meyers, who is our Deputy Assistant Ad-
5 ministrator for Solid Waste Programs
6 from Washington, and I hope that most of
7 you will stay for lunch to hear what
8 Sheldon has to say.
9 I had a £>peech today, one of these
10 ones that exhorts you all to do big things
with this from the beginning, and I will
12 not read this speech, but I will give you
13 just a few thoughts for the moment here.
14 You know, we have been in business
15 in EPA now for almost six years, and we
16 think we have made some pretty good pro-
gress, and I think most of you will agree
lg that we have. But we also recognized that
19 we had been lacking certain key pieces
20 of legislation, cind we got them much to
our surprise last year and the year before
22 such as the Safe Drinking Water Act, the
Toxic Substances Control Act and the
Resource Conserveition and Recovery Act,
25 So we have all the arrows in our
-------
1 7
2 quiver that we need,
3 Now, all we need to do is sit down
4 and do what we always have done in EPA,
5 and that is to sit down, and see if we
6 can figure out together what is right
7 and what is logical, and how we can
8 approach this thing in a way that we
9 can implement it without having an in-
10 credible economic impact and still achieve
11 the goals of the law,
12 The public, obviously, perceives
13 they don't like dumping, they like re-
source recovery, and in a democracy we
do what the public wants,
I think all of you that live in
this region, I think most of you do here,
know we have a problem with waste disposal
19 I don' t mean to say we have an incredible
20 problem in the City,
We still put a hell of stuff
into the ocean that we don't want. Names
like Kenbuck raise a spectra of problems
that many of us know we have to solve,
__ and I see no reason why we cannot work
-------
1 8
2 this thing out logically together.
3 One of the reasons I always felt
4 that my job at EPA has been maybe not as
5 difficult as some other government jobs
6 is that if you need to figure out what
7 to do, and you don't have any answer,
8 you do what common sense dictates, and
9 what we are doing today is we are starting
10 a small and tentative step to have a
11 consensus from you in here as to what
12 is common sense in terms of implementing
13 this piece of legislation,
14 Now, in a regional office none
1<5 of us wants to see the growth of govern-
16 ment any more than necessary,
17 You don't want to see 1 take
18 no particular pride in Region II, in my
19 region, that we have gone from 225 people
20 to almost 600, Now, the only way we are
2i going to stop that, and I might add that
22 you notice that there is still a pressing
23 need for people in EPA, President Carter
24 singled out EPA for 600 more positions
because in spite of his attempts to
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1 9
2 reduce the budget, he perceived that it
3 was essential that we have people to
4 implement some of this new legislation,
5 particularly toxic substances, and this
6 particular program in the hazardous waste
7 area, among others, also in the grants
8 area,
9 But the fact remains the only
10 way we are really going to make this thing
H stabilize the growth of government, to
12 plateau, is for you people in industry,
13 and those of you in the State that have
14 already made the commitment to take over
15 the permanent program, and those of you
16 in local communities who know that if
17 you don't get your input in now, it is
18 like 208, it will be too late,
19 Now, I don't know how many of
2Q you are^ familiar with 208, but it is a
2i program where we are trying to coordinate
22 all our environmental controls that lead
23 towards a plan for water quality mainten-
j. ance, and improvement, and, of course,
25 what we are striving to do is not to
-------
1 10
2 dictate land use policies, but to stimu-
3 late local communities and the states to
4 come up with a viable solution, but again
5 the only way that these programs work is
6 with your input.
7 Now, it is very easy to get
8 cynical about some bureaucrat that stands
9 up here and says tell me what you are
10 thinking, and we are going to reflect it
in the way we write things, and I don't
12 know how I can prove that to you because
13 I say it a lot.
14 In EPA we have a lot of different
types of legislation. We beg for public
comments and consideration because we
17 find out very quickly that we cannot get
18 anything done unless you people out there,
19 and that means industry and labor and
20 local government and elected officials
and appointed officials, feel that it
22 is worth doing,
And so we, I, come to you today
and I beg you to speak what is on your
mind, wrestle with the problems, and
-------
2 they are incredible, I might add, when
3 you just think of what we are faced with
4 here, and try to define and regulate a
5 hazardous waste, to upgrade land disposal,
6 to phase out ocean dumps, and to bring
7 into existence a whole new magnitude of
8 activity in the area of resource recovery,
9 Now, I can keep belaboring this
10 point, and I will be back with you again
11 at 4;00 o'clock this afternoon because
12 as you know, we have a regional session
13 this afternoon, but let's proceed to the
14 next part of the program.
15 We are so far behind here,
15 What do we have, a panel? Where
17 is Judy?
18 Thank you very much,
19 (Applause.)
20 MS, DWOSKIN: The first panel
2i this morning is going to speak to defining
22 hazardous wastes, which I think should
23 raise some very interesting points about
24 the various criteria that possibly could
25 be used to define hazardous waste, and
-------
1 12
2 the moderator for the panel is Murray
3 Newton, from the United States Environ-
4 mental Protection Agency.
5 MR, NEWTON: Thank you.
6 This is an appropriate place to
7 begin, I think, since it typifies what
8 Eric described a moment ago about the
9 problems being difficult, and about the
10 answers having not yet been developed,
11 and they are going to be determined, I
12 hope, with your help.
13 Let me introduce the panel
14 discussion by briefly telling you what the
!5 legislation entails for EPA.
jg I should distinguish between
17 a generic definition and the criteria
18 that go with the definition.
19 As to a generic definitionxpart of the
2Q work is done. The Congress has told us
2j what hazardous wastes are in the generic
__ sense in the Resource Conservation and
23 Recovery Act, under Definition 5, which
_. I won't read just now.
-. Copies of this Act are available,
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1 13
2 and I think many of you, in fact most
3 of you, have it already.
4 The generic definition is in the
5 Act, and has been given to us already,
6 The Act further requires EPA
7 to publish within eighteen months several
8 specific items, one is criteria for ident-
9 ifying the characteristics and for listing
10 hazardous wastes within the meaning of
11 this definition,
12 A second requirement is that with-
13 in eighteen months, in other words, at
14 the same time, EPA must publish criteria
15 for identifying excuse me, to identify
16 the characteristics and listing of what
17 the Act calls particular hazardous wastes,
18 There is a fourth subpart to
19 the definition which presents no problem.
20 Tne law allows any state governor
2i to petition EPA to identify or list
22 a material as a hazardous waste,
23 Now, one might infer from this
2> that it is possible for a governor to
25 petition or for others to ask for the
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1 14
2 inclusion of some waste which would not
3 otherwise qualify on the basis of the
4 criteria, and which was not included in
5 the listing as we published it the first
6 time around,
7 I am going to let the panelists
8 take over now,
9 Our first panelist, David Halven
10 and the biographical material in the
program, I hope, will suffice, except
12 allow me to emphasize that Mr, If.alven
13 is here in his capacity as the Chairman
14 of the Solid Waste Subcommittee of the
15 New Jersey Business and Industry Asso-
16 ciation,
Mr, Halven will discuss some
lg of the overview general problems of
19 defining hazardous wastes,
20 Mr« Nalven,
MR, HALVEN: Thank you. Good
morning,
23 The obvious opening question is
_. just what is hazardous waste.
Is there any easy way to grab
-------
1 15
2 hold of some waste material, figuratively,
3 before it goes to its final, we hope,
4 disposal point and say this is or is not
5 a hazardous waste. It is nice and easy
6 for those who write regulations to look
7 at a ton of 50% sawdust mixed with 50%
8 zinc cyanide, and say this is a hazardous
9 waste, but how about a ton of sawdust
10 with one gram of zinc cyanide dispersed
H throughout it, is it hazardous or isn't?
12 This has been a problem for both
13 the regulators and the regulated, which
14 applies tobothwhen they confront each other
jg in public hearings, or when they sit down
15 together to reason out a workable defini-
17 tion, and that is for openers,
18 What about one family of sub-
19 stances that has been proposed as hazard-
20 ous by EPA and at least one state organ-
2i ization.
22 Sodium phosphates, they're not
23 usually considered in and of themselves
2* particularly hazardous or toxic, but they
25 are definitely environmentally hazardous
-------
if they find their way into a water body
A less complicated substance
might be dioxin, it is toxic in all con-
5 centrations, and may even be hazardous
6 when present in concentrations down to
7 a few parts per billion,
8 Now, that is easy.
But how about heavy metals? If
you use some local sand to filter fish
.... and sticks out of your plant's water
supply, and the sand analysts say one
13 part per million of lead, as you receive
,, it in from the sandbank, is it a hazardous
-,. substance because of the lead that was
there before you used it when it is ready
lo
17 to be trucked away to a landfill?
,_ Let's complicate it a little
lo
19 more.
__ Trace contaminants are probably
20
a threat to the survival of many eco-
systems, including our own. There seem
22
to be a growing body of opinion of ex-
23
pertise that one of these is PcB. This
24
is one material that degrades very slowly
-------
1 17
2 in the environment, and is subject to
3 concentration changes up the food chain.
4 There are probably very few
5 loads of household rubbish hauled to
6 your local landfill which do not contain
7 a defunct air conditioner or a discarded
8 fluorescent lamp fixture, or some other
9 electrical appliance that features a
10 PCB containing component.
11 This material is available to
12 contaminate the environment for years
13 to come, even though it has effectively
14 been outlawed in new products.
15 It may not be too difficult to
16 say how much is a lot, but how small is
17 small? When is a trace only a trace?
18 When does it become hazardous?
19 In my experience, no definition
20 has been found to be completely accept-
21 able to all parties negotiating a
22 definition for hazardous wastes.
23 What has often been agreed upon is
24 that some reference must be included
25 to a level of concentration, Specific
-------
1 18
2 limits are desirable or at the very least,
3 guidelines as to maximum allowable con-
4 centrations,
5 The phrase "in no concentration"
6 or its first cousin "in no quantity" just
7 will not work,
8 Now, where does this leave us?
9 We need a definition for a
10 hazardous waste which is based on the
11 likelihood of a release of meaningful
12 concentrations to the environment, whether
13 through incinerated-off gas, or other
14 discharge modes. It should allow for
15 the fact that certain hazardous wastes
16 can be put into a condition that makes
17 them unavailable to the environment,
lg We also need to recognize, as
19 the Association which I represent here
20 has already recognized, that certain
2i wastes by definition will require special
22 considerations.
23 These are wastes which, because
24 of their extra hazardous nature, at the
25 very least, will require regional disposal
-------
1 19
2 sites and for certain kinds of wastes
3 these regional sites might encompass
4 whole groups of states.
5 Do we need a definition?
6 jfou bet we do,1
7 Whether the quantity is micro or
8 macro, we must come up with a workable
9 method for reducing the potential of
10 solid waste disposal as a source of
11 environmental contamination.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. NEWTON: Thank you, Mr,
14 Nalven,
15 I would like to hold all questions
16 until after all three panelists, if we
17 may'
18 The next panelist is Karim Ahmed,
19 and again there is biographical material
20 i° your handout, but I will say that
2i Karim is with the National Resources
22 Defense Council here in New Kork City.
23 MR. AHMED; What I would like
2^ to do this morning is to discuss the
25 real problems that we face from a
-------
1 20
2 regulatory point of view, and also
3 perhaps a scientific or technical point
4 of view, try to define hazardous wastes,
5 To illustrate the problem, I
6 will go back a little bit in time and
7 talk about one attempt at such a
8 definition which was attempted by the
9 Environmental Protection Agency in
10 development of its regulation in Section
11 311 of the Water Pollution Control Act
12 Amendments of 1972.
13 Now, if you have ever had a
14 chance to look at the document that the
15 EPA proposed, and which has not been
16 promulgated yet as a regulation, you
17 will notice that there are certain types
18 of emphasis that would develop the
19 definition of hazardous substances
20 under the proposed regulation.
2i Whether it actually met the
22 statutory obligation of EPA is a debat-
23 able issue, however, I would like to
24 bring out and highlight some of the
25 things that occurred in this particular
-------
1 21
2 proposal,
3 One, the hazardous waste here,
4 as you know, is defined only in terms
5 of the discharge of the water wastes,
6 and so in a sense, it is slightly differ-
7 ent from the kinds of issues that we
8 are dealing with here today in terms of
9 the Resource Conservation and Recovery
10 Act, and solid wastes,
H But in its definition of toxicity
12 it emphasized, overly, the issues of
13 acute toxicity at the expense of chronic
14 toxicity, but not only did it emphasize
15 the acute toxicity factor, but emphasized
16 it on a chronic organism,
17 The amount of material that they
18 relied on in developing their list of
19 substances that they would regulate
20 mostly relied upon the LC 50 data that
2i they were able to obtain from scientific
22 literature in terms of chronic organism
23 toxicity,
24 Very seldom did they rely upon
25 human data in order to develop this
-------
22
particular list of substances.
They also used few other criteria
that was not based upon toxicity.
These criteria were the quantity
of such substances that were being trans-
ported around the country, the production
amount of this particular substance that
was also considered as part of the criteria
10 and finally the history of spills of
11 such substances as had been recorded in
12 the past.
13 Now, it was a combination of
14 all of these, never spelled out on a case
15 by case basis, and what the weighting
16 factor was in each instance led to this
17 particular substance being placed on the
18 list,
19 They specifically did not con-
20 sider questions of bkxtegradability, or
21 care inogenecity err mutagenicity. They
22 mentioned this in passing, but they
23 felt that because of the nature of the
24 regulation at this time they were not
25 willing to regard this as a criteripn
-------
1 23
2 for selection of substances on this list.
3 Now, recently the State of Hew
4 Jersey has proposed results concerning
5 discharge of petroleum and other hazardous
6 substances, too.
7 This particular document relies
8 heavily on the EPA proposal in Section
9 311, It also defines hazardous substances.
10 They have a category called
11 pesticides and another category called
12 petroleum and petroleum products.
13 There you see another rehash of
14 the same type of definition, and you do
15 have oils as a separate category defined
16 statutorily in Section 311.
17 Now, we come down to the Resource
18 Conservation and Recovery Act, and you
19 notice that the definition, as it is
20 in tne statute, defines hazardous wastes
2i as solid wastes or combination of solid
22 waste which because of its quantity,
23 concentration, or physical, chemical,
24 or infectious characteristics may (a)
25 cause, or significantly contribute to
-------
1 24
2 an increase in mortality or an increase in
3 serious irreversible, or incapacitating
4 reversible, illness; or (b) pose a sub-
5 stantial present or potential hazard to
6 human health or the environment when
7 improperly treated, stored, transported,
8 or disposed of, or otherwise managed,
9 You can see even here the
definition isa rather all-encompassing
11 definition. However, you will notice
12 that there is a great deal more emphasis
13 on human health in the definition as
we have here in the statute, and perhaps
rightly so, because we are talking about
not the waterways of the United States,
but we are talking about landfills,
essentially, or disposal sites, and
19 very often the kind of issues, environ-
mental issues that will rise here are
_- quite different from pointed discharges
into the waterways,
_,
We have hazardous substances
and toxic substances, and you have a
24
_- whole slue of definitions of toxic
-------
1 25
2 substances, and the problem is how do
3 you draw the line from a regulatory point
4 of view, and how do you go about selecting
5 this from a purely scientific point of
6 view?
7 To start, I would like to make
8 a suggestion, that instead of trying to
9 develop a master list of substances that
10 would fit a certain criteria, or a very
11 finely tuned set of criteria, we should
12 start thinking in terms of grouping
13 compounds, or using chemical analogies
14 as a way of trying to deal with the
15 question of hazardous substances,
16 We had an experience with this
17 recently, when some environmental groups
lg settled its suit on toxic substances
19 where we developed a list of 85 substances
2O which should be regulated by the Agency,
2i In the development of this, we used a
22 subgeneric or generic grouping of com-
23 pounds, which we called nitrogen phenols,
and we, in effect, argued that all the
25 well known nitrogen phenols used, should
-------
1 26
2 be included in this list,
3 So what I am trying to do this
4 morning is to make some suggestions about
5 how we can go about selecting groups
6 of compounds rather than trying to select
7 compound by compound, and see how they
8 fit into our matrix of criteria that
9 we try to setup as we go along,
10 Thank you.
11 MR, NALVEN: Thank you, Mr,
12 Ahmed.
13 Our last panelist is Dr. Amir
14 Metry, from the Roy Weston Corporation,
15 Dr. Metry,
16 DR. METRY: It is very obvious
17 that we all got to be needing a very
18 good definition of hazardous wastes
19 and a workable definition,
20 What I would like to present in th|e
2i next two or three minutes is a quick
22 concept of hazardous waste definitions,
23 and as you will see there is no single
2> way of skinning this cat,
25 The classification or definition
-------
1 27
2 of hazardous waste is based on its
3 hazardousness.
4 You could group different wastes
5 into toxic, flammable, radioactive, ex-
6 plosive, irritant, infectious, and materia
7 that could biconcentrate, and then you
8 get into the genetic effects, carcinogens,
9 mutogens and tetrag-ens; these are all
10 types of groupings, and it is appropriate
11 to include these kinds of groupings into the
12 definition because we want to know what
13 kind of animal we are handling, and what
14 is the nature of the beast,
15 If such definitions are going to
16 come up from the EPA studies, and also
17 there are previous studies that if you
18 are in a hurry and don't want to wait
19 for the new requirements, such as the
20 decision model that was developed for
2i EPA in a publication called Management
22 of Hazardous Wastes, 1974, which gives
23 a qualitative criteria for deciding
24, when a waste material or waste stream
25 will become hazardous based on tC 50,
-------
28
2 based on flammability and flash points.
, It is qualitative criteria, but
it is not it is in a way subjective
because who says thataone hundred degree
flash point is the cutoff point, but
it is still a qualitative measure for
classifying the types of hazards, and
it is a workable system.
Whatever system you would need
... in working with hazardous wastes is a
12 physical character or physical classi-
13 fication system. It would be quite
different if you have the same wastes
in solvent form or in sludge or liquid
or in gaseous form, and that becomes a
im management tool if you know the type
of waste, and its physical character.
Then you would need to know
2Q what constituents or pure compounds
exist in the waste, such as do you
_ have arsenic, do you have lead, and
then the pure compound concept enters
_. into the whole picture, you would like
25 to know if this is a sludge containing
-------
1
cadmium, and if so, it would be different
than a sludge containing PCB, it is a
J
different animal, even if both are toxic,
4
so toxic sludge is not enough.
That kind of adds another dimension
o
to the waste definition or classification.
7
Then you would get into a third
o
item, which is the type of characteristics
of the waste, its constituents, and lab
10
analysis, and so forth.
11
The other option of doing that,
you have two options of classifying the
waste, by its nature and constituents.
14
If one is to go into every waste
15
stream and look for a half quarter million
16
or hundred thousandth type of elements,
that becomes impracticable. A s we
18
know in industry it becomes very hard to
define what is the waste itself, because
20
if you have to look for a specific thing,
and if you want to determine if the waste
22
is carcinogenfcor not, that becomes a good
portion of a million dollar study to
determine carcinogeriiceffects of certain
-------
30
wastes.
You cannot go and pay a $50.00
lab fee to determine if your waste will
become a carcinogen or not.
Then it becomes important in the
classification, as Ahmed said, the grouping
of waste into generic categories, and a
good example of that is the current study
by EPA looking at for different types ,
.... of industries which are responsible for
a majority of the wastes, and looking at
it process by process, going into a model
that looks at the quantity of waste, the
.- constituents of waste, if they contain
., any hazardous substances or not, the way
they are handled, its multiple effect
,o type analysis of the waste in deciding
if the waste is potentially hazardous.
We have to use the word potentially
until everything is established and based
_- on that, you get a grouping of types of
waste, because it is very hard for some-
_. body to know that his waste is hazardous,
but it is very easy to know if it is a
-------
31
2 pickling liquors oc If Itlsa chrome-plating sludge,
, and if he has the guidance from the regula-
tory agency that tells him that this type
of waste is potentially hazardous because
it potentially contains these types of
substances, and if it is handled by such
and such a method, it will cause environ-
mental degradation.
In some way, you need not a single
system or definition. There is no legal
12 definition.
It is an engineering process, and
a scientific process to put the wastes in
a slot where it belongs.
For example, you might end up
using all the systems I described by saying
this is a toxic substance, that it is also
19 a metal finishing sludge containing cadmium
20 or chromium, and all of these together will
add up to a definition of a specific waste.
MR. NEWTON: Thank you.
I think our three panelists have
helped frame the issue very well, and
perhaps have helped you to appreciate the
-------
32
many issues we have already identified,
if not what is some new ones, in developing
the criteria to determine what constitutes
a hazardous waste.
We have been asked to move
expeditiously in wrapping up this panel.
If there are questions from the
audience, we certainly have time for one
or two questions for any of the panelists.
Are there any questions?
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It would
seem to me that Mr. Nialven alluded to
something which is extremely important.
._ I think he said that perhaps the definition
,,, of a hazardous waste or a measurement of
ID
«- its degree of hazard should be based upon
the kind of leachate that might result
from its exposure to water or the kind
2Q of flue gas that might be generated by
its incineration.
I think that is an important con-
_ sidecation, and I would suggest that we
address ourselves in the direction of
24
._ measuring the kind of affluents you will
-------
33
1
experience, that would be generated by
the deposition of material into the en-
3
vironment rather than concentrating ex-
4
clusively on the chemical nature of the
waste.
6
MR. NEWTON: Thank you.
Any other questions or comments,
please.
9
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I guess
10
my this is more in the nature of a
11
comment and a question.
12
You people are looking at defini-
tions of toxic wastes, toxic substances,
14
or at least four of the parts of EPA are,
15
and three other agencies in the Federal
16
Government.
17
My plea would be that I would
18
hope that there would be some correlation,
some cooperation, so that we don't have
20
six definitions of toxic substances that
21
we, in industry are going to have to
22
contend with.
23
You are looking at it from one
24
point of view, and we have to look at
-------
34
it from all these regulatory points of
view, and ray plea would be for some uni-
formity, at least within the Agency.
MR. NALVEN: You might add the
solid the National Solid Waste Associa-
o
tion, and probably the States of New York
and New Jersey would be involved, that are
o
developing, or have developed definitions.
MR. AHMEO: I would like to respond
to the question about leachates, if that
is what he said.
I would have to sort of take issue
with that point of view.
How would one go about determining
leachate when the leachate may be differ-
16
ent at any given time. The argument must
be obviously that you have a monitoring
18
system for leachate and only when the
leachate becomes highly toxic do we start
regulating at the entry point into where
you are disposing chemical wastes.
22
I don't see the logic in this
23
particular definition.
Could you perhaps expand on that
-------
2 a little bit.
MR. NALVEN: I would be glad to
. expand on that.
_ I said the definition should
include materials based on the likelihood
of their release into the environment.
If a material is not going to
be released into the environment, but it
could be classified by one of the multi-
farious definitions as a toxic or hazard-
ous substance, if it is not going to be
,, released into the environment, it is
j . almost irrelevant that it be classified
as such.
I think one of the best examples
lo
I know of is, there are processes for
.,_ taking a toxic material, not just hazard-
lo
ous material, and rendering it so it is
2Q unavailable to the environment.
MR. AHMED: My question was on
leachates, really, the definition of
_, hazardous waste by the leachate in a
landfill, for example. Is that what
__ you stated earlier?
-------
1 36
2 MR. NALVEN: Part of what should
3 be included in the definition, and I
4 suspect that is what the person who made
5 the comment meant, too, part of that should
6 include the likelihood of its release into
7 the environment.
8 If a material is not going to ce
9 available for release into the environment,
10 why bother calling it a toxic substance or
11 hazardous substance.
12 MR. NEWTON: Are there any other
13 questions on comments?
14 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Are there
15 national standards or any kind of position
16 from the industry that the industry view-
17 point has generated with reference to
18 this question?
19 The major studies on hazardous
20 wastes, apparently, are governmental in
21 their orientation.
22 There has been an industry position
23 developed as to what is hazardous, and
24 what is not, or how could this be done
25 if it is not already done?
-------
37
MR. NEWTON: I find it difficult
to respond to it because there isn't an
4
industry voice for all we know.
For our part, in the EPA, we do
work with a large number of trade asso-
o
cia tions which represent those industries
_ affected by this legislation, and, of
o
course, the more general trade lobbies,
and associations in Washington, but the
manufacturing chemists and the petroleum
people and so forth, we deal with them
12
regularly, and they are developing posi-
tions, and they do testify when we have
meetings such as this.
15
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I suppose
my question is for Mr. Nalven.
In New Jersey, for example, I
IS
did learn about how difficult the problem
was, but I was wondering whether or not
from your vantage point, your group is
developing its own view of what it was
22
that it was producing that was hazardous.
MR. NALVEN: First of all, I did
not catch what your representation was.
25
-------
1 38
2 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I am with
3 a public interest group.
4 MR. NALVEN: It gives me great
5 pleasure to answer and to respond to what
6 you have said, because the New Jersey
7 Business and Industry Association has
8 been working with the New Jersey Department
9 of Environmental Protection in trying
10 to come up with a workable, useful defin-
11 ition for solid wastes, and for hazardous
12 wastes.
13 We have been working with them
14 now for over a year.
15 It is a very difficult problem
16 to resolve. We do have our own biases,
17 the State does have its own biases, and
18 we are trying to work them out together.
19 There are certain areas that we
20 recognize that it is difficult and almost
21 impossible from the point of view of the
22 regulators or from the regulated to come
23 up with a definition which is going to
24 be workable. However, you do need some
25 of these things to be mentioned.
-------
1 39
2 There is some feeling expressed
that we have expressed, and that the State
\
4 has expressed.
5 There has to be some degree of
6 trust and we don't know how to put this
into a regulation.
8 MR. NEWTON: Yes, sir, could you
9 stand, please.
10 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; My name
11 is Frank Markowitz, and what do you mean
12 by the word trust, precisely?
13 MR. NALVEN: If a definition were
14 to say no cyanide, and I use that in my
15 example, the question is, is a gram of
cyanide in a ton of sawdust or sand toxic?
Now, if the state says no cyanide,
18 then the industry has to trust the state
19 not to prosecute them for a concentration
20 which is below a limit which would be
hazardous to the environment. However,
22 on the other hand, if the definition were
to say your material, your waste shall
24 contain amounts of cyanide which shall
25 not be hazardous to the environment, the
-------
40
2 state will have to say well, we will trust
- industry to make sure that their cyanide
concentration is going to be below that
which is hazardous to the environment,
because we do not want to name zinc cyanide,
or copper cyanide, or sodium cyanide, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and does
n that answer the question.
-_ MR. NEWTON: Any other questions
or comments, please.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I am with
- .
the Solid Waste Committee, and my question
or comment concerns the fact that one of
_ the things we have been doing in the petro-
-- leum industry, in conjunction with EPA,
,_ we have been sampling a number of refiner-
jo ies, every possible stream that could come
out of a refinery is being sampled for
2Q possible hazardous material, and deciding
which of those materials to look for is
21
a big problem in itself.
Aside from the work with EPA, the
23
thing that we have been doing is we have
24
started a survey of everyone of the re-
-------
1 41
2 fineries in our organization, and right
, now we are sampling over a hundred re-
4 fineries, and as somebody pointed out,
~ this is a very complex problem, and we
have been at it for about a year and a
half, and the way it is going, we will
g be at it for another five years, but
o we are working on it night and day.
10 MR. NEWTON: Thank you.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Isn't it
important to establish my name is
Theresa Lato, from the Bronx Council
for Environmental Quality.
.- Isn't it important to establish
criteria for making judgments as to what
-_ is hazardous and what is not, and one
of the criteria would be time, long range
and short range?
2Q I think that the matter of trust
depends not only on goodwill, but judgment,
and how far that judgment extends.
At one time, cigarettes were
thought to be harmless, but after long
25 experience, we find that they are not
-------
1 42
_ so harmless.
MR. AHMED: Well, I will try to
respond to this comment by mentioning the
_ fact that we have in the past placed, as
g I mentioned earlier, far too much emphasis
_ on acute toxicity, which means cyanide,
g if you get enough of it in your system,
_ you die, literally.
Whereas things that are chronic
are added in small amounts.
-_ Even cyanide, in small amounts,
., can be chronic, sawdust or no sawdust.
1 It could accumulate and eventually
cause certain kinds of problems, and there
is a whole host of other issues like
16
different substances placed in the land-
,0 fill, if you will.
Xo
lg We have placed very little emphasis
_ on chronic effects.
What I mean by chronic is something
21
that happens over a long period of time,
22
cigarette smoking being a very good example.
23
It does not happen overnight, it happens
» ^
after twenty or thirty years.
-------
1 43
2 The same thing pertains to the
3 definition, and quite true, the question
4 is, can we tolerate small amounts of
5 PCB diluted in whatever way, which might
6 seep into the ground water.
7 Can we tolerate that?
8 I don't think so.
9 MR. NEWTON: May we have one
10 final comment or question before we break,
11 please.
12 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I find it
13 difficult to understand how you can define
a hazardous material by its likelihood
of getting into the environment.
We don't expect nuclear fissionable
material to get into the environment to
lg be hazardous. We don't expect cyanide
19 to be hazardous unless it gets into the
20 environment.
Maybe I misunderstood?
22 MR. NALVEN: I gather you were
23 sort of addressing that to me.
24 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yes.
25 MR. NALVEN: Part of the problem
-------
44
_ is that maybe I have read too many proposed
regulations, and everyone of them talks
. about how a material is going to be dis-
_ posed, and that is part of the regulation.
Whether it is going to be disposed
« by putting it on a landfill or sealing it
a up, or taking it out to the ocean and
dumping it, this question imposes
many of these regulations impose the same
type of controls, the same type of "thou
shall not".
If you are going to take a drum
, . of material and encapsulate it in six
14
feet of concrete, it is the same thing
as if you were to take it and put it out
16
in your back yard, and throw it on the
ground.
This is the way the regulations
are written.
This is why I mention that
separate consideration. It will not be
available in certain methods, and if it
is not going to be available to the
24
environment, within our present state
-------
1 45
_ of knowledge, there is no reason why we
should apply the same concerns to it.
. I am not saying we should not
be concerned because every regulation
, for disposal operations that I have
_ seen includes keeping records of where
a the bodies are buried.
9 MR. NEWTON: Thank you.
I thank the three panelists, and
the schedule now calls for a fifteen
,, minute coffee break which begins out in
\jL
.., the hall where you registered.
1 . (A fifteen minute break was taken.)
MR. LINDSEY: Please take your
seats everyone.
lo
I am Fred Lindsey, and I am with
t_ the Hazardous Waste Division of EPA in
lo
IQ Washington.
__ May I say at the outset here that
I am really pleased to see such a large
group of people turn out to discuss
hazardous waste management.
I think it is indicative of the
__ interest shown nationwide, at least
-------
1 46
2 partially, concerning the new Act.
3 We have with us today three dis-
4 tinguished experts on hazardous waste
5 management.
6 We heard a little earlier that
7 somebody made the statement that whether
8 or not a waste material poses a hazard
9 depends largely on how it is handled
and disposed. I think none of us can
dispute that, and it is here we are
12 here on this particular panel to discuss
13 treatment and disposal.
14 I am the moderator of this panel.
I am supposed to set the stage
and let the others then do the talking,
17 but being a good federal bureaucrat, I
lg brought along a couple of slides which
19 I could not resist showing, first of all.
20 I am afraid those in the back
of the room will have trouble seeing
22 these, but hopefully it won't be too
23 bad.
We in EPA have been espousing
__ this general philosophy for handling
-------
47
2 hazardous waste for quite some period of
time.
M I will not dwell on these things,
e but I thought it would be worthwhile to
kind of set the stage.
The first thing we should try
to do when faced with a hazardous waste
disposal problem is reduce or eliminate
the use of that waste within the generating
-.. plant. Failing that, we should try to
recycle or reuse it. Failing that, we
should try to destroy it, preferably
. > with heat recovery, if possible, and
._ as a last resort, we should reduce the
,^ volume, and isolate the material in some
lo
form of land disposal.
Now, there are a number of good
and bad approaches to hazardous waste
2Q management, and we will talk about them
2- in some more detail later, but just to
run through some of the options which
2, have been practiced, this has been the
way in which we have typically managed
the hazardous waste in the past, that is,
-------
1 48
2 incorporating them into the open dump,
which has obvious problems with leaching,
percolation to the ground water, perhaps
surface water pollution and occasionally
air pollution problems.
The step up is the Sanitary Land-
8 fill, which is what EPA has espoused, and
9 I think most environmentalists have espoused
10 as being the proper way to handle municipal
11 refuse. However, hazardous waste leaching
12 can remain a problem, and pollute ground
13 water with hazardous materials.
As you can see, it is kind of an
unusual slide, in that there is a lot of
supervisors up there on the hill.
I am not quite sure where that
slide came from, actually.
Lagooning and evaporation are
20 widely practiced in drier areas of the
country, where the they are similar
in nature to irrigation and soil piling,
which are sometimes associated with those
techniques.
In wetter areas these can create
-------
49
2 problems, particularly if the lagoons are
i not lined, and we can also have problems
with emissions from these techniques also.
And then there is the chemical
waste landfill, which can take on a number
7 of characteristics. The primary character -
8 istics of which is physical isolation of
9 the waste from the ground water, and a
10 number of proper management techniques
and safeguards for the environment.
12 But definitely, isolation from
13 the ground water.
The next slide is incineration,
which is practiced. This is one of the
larger incinerators of industrial and
hazardous waste in the country.
lg There are a number of others
19 around.
20 The principle here is, of course,
to detoxify through destroying the organic
22 material.
Chemical treatment is an option,
24 and it basically chemical treatment
25 is designed to do one or more of these
-------
1 50
2 three things, probably the most common
3 chemical treatment techniques in use
4 are oxidation, neutralization, distilla-
5 tion, and chemical fixation.
6 Okay, that is enough with the
7 slides.
8 We will move along next.
9 We will have individual presenta-
10 tions by each of these three gentlemen,
11 probably on the order of five to ten
12 minutes discussing various aspects of
13 hazardous waste management, and then
14 we will be prepared to have a general
15 discussion, and take questions from
16 the floor.
17 So if you will hold your ques-
18 tions until the end, I would appreciate
19 it.
20 First on my left is Mr. Ed Hall,
21 who is an environmental specialist with
22 Union Carbide in Institute, West Virginia.
23 MR. HALL: I am going to talk
24 about waste management processes and
25 control and disposal of chemical waste
-------
1 51
2 in industrial landfills where we put to-
, gether some of the items there on the
A board that Fred showed.
On the Kanar River (phonetic
spelling) within 50 miles of Charleston,
Union Carbide has two diversified chemical
plants and a large engineering research
and development complex.
The two plants employ almost
... 1,800 people each, and the technical
center, 4,000.
The product mix from each of
the plants is 200 plus chemicals, mostly
-_ organic in nature. Chemical wastes are
., processed through a staff waste manage-
«~ ment practices program.
In descending order of preference,
the alternatives are, one, to reprocess,
2Q two, sell, three, burn in a coal-fired
burner boiler, for fuel value, and
__ four, bio-oxidize in the plant's waste
water treatment unit, and five, landfill,
-. and six, incineration.
In support of the system we built
-------
52
2 a chemical landfill that has a unique
, flow-through design coupled with a leachate
M collection system which discharges the
waste treatment unit.
The flow-through landfill evolved
in 1969 from our experience, and from
in studies disposing of practices of
the early I960's. It was licensed by
the State Division of Water Resources
.... in 1969 and unlike today, where we have
permit after permit and questionaire
after questionaire, at the time the
State Division of Water Resources did
-_ not have a permit form for landfills,
so they modified their water waste
-_ water treatment permit to give us a
permit.
It was the first licensed chemical
2Q landfill in West Virginia, and probably
in the country.
In 1970, it won two awards, the
consulting engineers' council of annual
honor award for engineering excellence,
and then later, the construction equipment
-------
_ earth care award.
Now, let's get into the control
. of the chemicals going into the landfill.
,. It was right after we built the
landfill it was not uncommon for many
of our engineers, to not so candidly or
gently ask us, and not in these words,
how do I get anything into your award
winning dump?
It did not come out landfill,
it came out dump.
We told them how you get chemicals
in there.
We had setup some standards.
First we would review with the
16
_ waste generator to insure the safety and
,Q health of the transporter, the landfill
ID
operating personnel, and since the leachate
__ went to waste treatment units, we had to
assure their health and safety, and the
safety of the environment.
In addition, we did some we
required that the generators do some re-
processing to control toxicity, flamability
-------
54
2 reactivity, some physical states, and
, some environmental impacts, such as odor,
A fumes, bio-toxicity, Ph, and metal content.
Any special additional preprocess-
ing required that the landfill was spelled
out also, and entered on the face of the
disposal ticket which we call an order
for waste removal. Also listed on this
ticket is the Eequired personnel protec-
.... tion and precautions required with this
particular waste.
Only when the landfill supervisor
is satisfied, does he certify the order.
Then it becomes a standard for the handling
of that particular waste and the order
travels then with the waste on the truck,
and without that key control, there is
no stamp of approval on the ticket, and
2Q then there is no acceptance by the driver.
Now, to the site.
We were fortunate that right
across the road from the Institute Plant
there was a ravine or a hollow, or if you
"T
25
-------
1 55
2 The ravine was full of clay, it
was ready for a landfill without having
to buy it, and bring it in there, so we
started building the basin seals and
necessary dykes, but prior to that, we
did all of the required extensive sub-
surface geological studies, and salt
tests to make sure that we did not have
10 any problems with the ground water.
On half of this fifteen acres,
12 we started the first section, the first
13 phase of construction, and we built a
landfill with a minimum of two feet of
,e clay as a sealer, except for one section
of the lower dyke.
This we punctured, put a drain
through the wall, and an elaborate drain-
19 age system throughout the landfill, and
2Q the water that comes into the fill then
21 leaches whatever chemicals that are not
22 reacted in the landfill, through the
23 dyke, into a leachate basin, which dis-
charges in two ways, the bottom layer
25 will go to the waste treatment unit for
-------
1 56
treatment, and the top layer is skimmed
Z
and the oil layer is £hen burned in the
J
steam plant for fuel value.
4
An elaborate peripheral drain
, system to divert the rain falling on the
86 hilly acres was also put in.
_ Also, we have six groups of three
o
sampling wells, some of them as deep as
130 feet. The first sampling well goes
down to a foot below the base of the clay,
the next one goes a foot into the broken
12
lock, and the third one goes down a foot
into the bedrock, for monitoring.
Also, there is a monitoring well
above the landfill that monitors the
16
water that flows through the fill.
The key to the operation then
18
. on the landfill is the blending operation.
The soil rather, the chemicals, are
blended one to one with soil, with the
use of an end-loader, and this material
22
which resembles soil, and then this
23
is spread in a four to six inch layer
over the surface of the landfill.
25
-------
57
_ The broadcasting of the soil waste
mix over this wide area allows gas to
. escape over the whole area of the fill.
_ We had concern for odors when we
first started thinking about this approach.
But by keeping the surface relatively
loose, it seems that the anarobic digestion
deep in the fill, where you do get many
of your odors, are anarobically digested
.... in the top six to eight inches of soil,
and eliminates the normal odors from a
landfill.
I . The early blending system also
eliminated some problems we encountered
., when working with an impounded system.
The cellular approach resulted in fires
and problems with day to day mess, guag-
mires, pools, and we would get our eguip-
20 ment all hung up in this mess, and got
swine flu occasionally, and had to change
our method of operation.
By capping these pockets, we had
_. the seals break at times, and we haven't
had any problem since we went to the
-------
1 58
2 blending operation.
3 Now, odor has been a problem in
4 the leachate basin. Therefore,
5 in the expansion that takes place in
6 1977, we will skim the oil continuously
7 before it gets to the basins, and send
8 it to the powerhouse for burning again.
9 The capital expenditures through
10 1977 using 1977 dollars as a value, is
11 1.6 million dollars.
12 The operating cost is expected
13 for 1977 to be 1.2 million dollars, a
14 half million of which is for transporta-
15 tion.
16 Upon completion in 1977, the
17 life of the landfill will extend past
18 2004.
19 Thank you.
20 MR. LINDSEY: Thank you, Ed.
21 I guess we can see that handling
22 volumes of waste materials in a rather
23 complete way is not a cheap or easy
24 undertaking.
25 The next speaker we have is
-------
1 59
2 Mr. Dave Miller, who is a partner with
Geraghty & Miller, a hydrogeology engineer-
ing firm on Long Island.
5 MR. MILLER: Thank you very much.
6 I guess I was asked here to talk
7 about some of the problems, specifically
as they are related to the land disposal
of industrial waste, and the impact on
ground water quality.
11 What I would like to do is to
12 describe the interim results of an EPA
13 funded investigation begun before the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
was passed, but is most timely considering
the recent passage of this legislation.
The objectives of this ongoing
lg study was to install monitoring wells
19 and/or sample existing monitoring wells
at sites across the country which are
receiving or have received significant
22 quantities of industrial waste on the
23 land.
2A Today, we have inventoried over
25 500 such sites in 40 states, field inspecte<
-------
1 60
2 more than 140 sites in the 15 states,
3 and drilled and/or sampled about 50 sites
4 in 10 states.
5 About 25% of these sites involved
6 lagoons that were receiving industrial
7 waste affluents, and 75% were landfills.
8 The criteria as to whether we
9 call a particular site a contamination
10 case or not was the migration of ground
11 water that was contaminated with some
12 type of either heavy metal, trace organics
13 or special toxic substances, such as
14 cyanide or arsenic.
15 In other words, the monitoring
16 roles that we used or installed had to
17 be beyond the limits of the area receiving
18 the waste. The heavy metals and trace
19 organics, et cetera, had to be found in
20 greater concentrations than background
21 so that one of our criteria was to have
22 at least one background well that was
23 tapping ground water supplies that was
24 not affected by contamination.
25 Now, as far as the findings are
-------
61
concerned, in over 90% of the sites
studied, contamination was established.
These sites were chosen to represent a
cross section of both the practices of
industrial waste disposal and a cross
section of different geologic environ-
ments.
Another criteria was that ground
-_ water contamination had not been determined
prior to our testing, in other words, we
ruled out all damage cases and in the
course of that eliminated several dozen
.. cases where ground water contaminance
by hazardous substances had already been
., established.
lo
i_ One of the other interesting
findings was that although earth retention
and attenuation in the earth or the ground
2Q water system had been effective in re-
ducing the concentrations of contaminants
that we found in the industrial waste,
they were not do not eliminate the
contaminants from reaching the ground
__ water system and moving through it.
-------
62
2 Some of the other findings that
are worthy of note are that several hundred
. sites that we inventoried, and inspected,
_ out of that number only about a third had
any type of monitoring, and of these a
very large number, potentially hazardous
substances were not analyzed for.
What does it all mean?
In our opinion, based on the
results so far, land disposal is not and
cannot always be the answer to disposing
of wastes now going tothe air,rivers, and
the ocean.
Even though earth retention and
attenuation processes can reduce the
-_ concentration of hazardous substances
at land disposal sites, they cannot be
depended upon to wipe away such substances
2Q from migrating in the ground water system.
Attention will have to be paid
to either greater treatment and recovery
-_ of industrial waste, transporting such
waste to the limited geological areas
which are alternative, or using water
-------
63
2 supplies or treating ground water to a
greater extent than it is now.
. Thank you.
e MR. LINDSEY: Thank you, Dave.
At. the far end of the table is
Ed Shuster, who is manager of marketing
and sales with NEWCO Chemical Waste
Systems, Inc., in Niagra Falls.
MR. SHUSTER: One of the joys
of being at the end of a panel is that
-_ you don't have to say too much because
.3 a lot of it has been said.
One of the hazards is what do
._ you do to justify being here after all
16 Of this-
I am pleased to be here at this
point representing the professional waste
service industry, and also as a member
of the chemical waste committe of the
Institute of Waste Technology of the
National Solid Waste Management Association
-_ I don't expect anybody to have
written that down.
I point out the Chemical Waste
-------
64
Committee, and that we have we feel
4
we have been a rather effective force
. in trying to develop a partnership
_ between the waste service industry, which
-: includes the transportation, processing
_ and disposal people, on one hand, and
Q the various state and federal governments
on the other hand, and the waste producing
... industries, sort of as a three-way partner-
ship, and in our estimation this is the
only way that a rational and successful
program for ultimate waste management is
going to be achieved.
If I were to say that, you know,
what is probably the biggest problem, the
16
problem is in developing this kind of
partnership relationship between the
three sectors who normally have somewhat
of a standoff relationship with each
other.
Mentioned earlier was the word
23 "trust"'
I think it is really the that
__ signifies a negative point.
-------
1 65
2 I think the positive and affirmative
3 point is that we have to develop a
4 partnership, we have to get the kind
5 of communication going that Murray
6 talked about earlier, to get the proper
7 input so that the program is reasonable.
8 When Ed was talking, he mentioned
9 about six different ways in which differ -
10 ent wastes are processed at the Union
11 Carbide facility. The seventh way in
12 which waste can be properly handled,
13 which he did not mention, is through
14 the use of a waste surface company, a
15 maker by decision.
15 They have undertaken to do most
17 of their work in house, and limited the
18 amount of work that is done by someone
19 that they would hire to do that work as
20 a contractor.
21 Not every company, not every
22 plant has the necessary volume of material
23 requiring treatment, the necessary tech-
24 nology in house, the necessary funds, the
25 necessary space at their site. In other
-------
66
words, there are many reasons why many
plants cannot do the elaborate job of
taking care of their own wastes that "X"
has.
This is where the role of the
professional waste service company comes
into play.
On the other hand, there are
still in many segments of the United
States restrictive barriers to
12 the development of the waste processing
13 industry, and this is through the non-
14 professional outlets.
The ability to dispose of waste
inexpensively, and I am talking about
two or three cents a gallon as opposed
to double figures, including transporta-
tion, and it is a "take it away and
20 make it disappear attitude", that
attitude is becoming less prevalent.
The major companies and a
number of the smaller companies have
_. adopted a good citizenship posture,
~*T
and are not at this point encouraging
-------
1 67
the development of our industry.
It is very probable there will
be a lag in the industry, the lag in
hardware capabilities in the period
, 1978 to 1985.
o
_ I have seen some EPA information
g to that effect, it will be a substantial
Q fall in the ability to process these
wastes as rapidly as they are identified,
and quantified, and that the legislation
requires more processing than has been
the case in the past.
There are a number of technical
problems, the waste materials themselves
frequently defy definition from a practical
16
standpoint.
There are a lot of cases where
18
1<} the material is really debris or sludge
that is contaminated in some degree
from time to time with a variety of
materials which will fall in the hazardous
22
or toxic classifications.
ij
There is a need within our
24
industry to provide what I choose to
-------
68
call flexible processing, the ability to
take building block hardware and modify
it day by day, hour by hour, if necessary,
modify the process, change the flow of
weights, change the operating parameters
to compensate for the varying composition
of waste.
Out of a single industrial process
10 that is making the same product with the
same input material day by day, week by
12 week, very seldom do two shipments of
13 waste coming out of that process behave
the same.
Everything is different.
Everything is custom.
So much for the discussion of
jo problems.
We all have problems in our
industries.
What I would like to mention
-_ though is some of the alternatives in
the processing of wastes, and in the
management of wastes.
First of all, it is desirable
-------
1 69
to take waste out of the category of
waste and put it back into a usable
product form, whether as a material or
4
whether in the form of energy.
. There are programs within the
waste service industry, and within large
_ manufacturing industries to do just that
o
9 today.
Many of the products we use in
our regular life contain recycled materials
that have been recycled internally in the
1Z
plants for years, because it made dollars
and cents to do it.
14
Now, that is shifting toward even
further even further toward the area
16
of recycling more and more, as the cost
of disposal gets more and more.
18
Until the last five to ten years,
the cost of disposal was almost zero,
ZO
relative to operating costs. It sometimes
is the larger single cost in the manufac-
ZZ
turing of a product.
Where recovery is not practical
or for those portions of wastes which
-------
70
cannot be recovered, there are a whole
spectrum of detoxification processes
.
4
that convert the form of the material
from a more hazardous to a less hazardous
, state.
o
_ We cannot create or destroy the
material, we use incineration, distillation,
_ which effectively gives a recovery, but
also maybe preparatory to two or three
disposal systems along the way, you have
re-refining of oils, and other chemicals
-- which create some products, and some waste.
Always you had the techniques
such as neutralization, oxidation, re-
duction, solidification, and then the
16
ultimate disposal techniques from in-
cineration, you have air discharges,
._ which will contain some materials, you
create sludges from scrubbers, and you
have aqueous materials, so that after
detoxification there is a repurified
22
water stream to be entered into the
environment, and then the secured type
landfill that Fred and Ed have spoken
-------
1 71
2 about, where the residuals are placed
i for ultimate containment in storage.
I would like to get on the
questions, I appreciate the opportunity
of being here.
7 MR. LINDSEY: Before we open
8 it up to the floor, I had a couple of
questions which occurred to me, and I
think may have occurred to other people,
so I would like to throw them out for
12 a few minutes.
13 We have a substantial period
of time here for questions, so I don't
think anybody is going to be prevented
from asking them.
Dave, if I could pose one question
to you, you mentioned that within your
19 study, which is still going on, theije
was approximately, I think you said,
10% of the sites where no leaching was
22 found in the ground water, and could
you say anything about what techniques
or what hydrogeologic conditions might
25 have been in existence at those ten
-------
1 72
2 which might have been successful?
3 MR. MILLER: Okay. Some of the
4 10% we had purposely picked as this cross
5 section of geologic environment.
6 Some of the 10% we purposely
7 picked in geologic environments where
8 we felt it would be difficult for leachates
9 to ingrate.
10 For example, a number of areas
11 in the Midwest had a very thick layer
12 of clay that sat between the bottom of
13 the landfill lagoon or the deposits and
14 in those areas we found no contamination,
15 Since we were limited in the number of
15 wells that we could put in, we were not
17 looking or trying to establish the size
lg or the number of the contaminated ground
19 water, or the severity, which I think we
20 missed, there may have been contamination
2i that we missed, and a few of the sites
22 had engineered facilities as has been
23 described here to trap or drain away
24 the leachate, and some of these we found
25 to contain contamination.
-------
1 73
MR. LINDSEY: Thank you.
Ed Hall, if I can ask you a
J
question here, you mentioned that the
leachate from your disposal site was
, handled in a treatment unit.
o
If you mentioned what the treat-
_ ment unitwasldid not catch that, and could
o
you expand on that a little bit?
MR. HALL: It is our five million
10
gallon per day waste water treatment unit
that was built to treat the diluted waste
streams from the processes in the plant.
MR. LINDSEY: Is this a biological
14
plant?
15
MR. HALL: Yes, activated sludge.
16
MR. LINDSEif: Ed Shuster, when a
waste material comes into a complex contract
18
j_ treatment disposal facility of the type
you have been with for some number of
years, how do you go about deciding how
you are going to handle it?
22
You have a number of options in
ftj
most cases.
24
MR. SHUSTER: Well, in our industry,
-------
74
2 we don't simply take someone's waste with
_ a capital "W", and figure out what to do
. with it later.
e The first step is to either inter-
view the generator of the waste personally,
or through the use of a survey form where
we ask the originator to define, describe
and certainly to disclose to us the total
composition of the waste as best he knows
it, and then determine if it is necessary
to get subsequent testing done before we
even see a sample of the material.
In other words, if we require him
to provide more material, more information,
, - excuse me, he will have to do it.
lo
-_ Once it is done, on a new waste
product, we require a sample of that
waste product to be submitted to our
_~ laboratory for some verification of
compositional parameters, and also for
laboratory scale processing treatments
at the laboratory bench to determine
the most beneficial and certainly we
24
__ try to find the cost effective way of
-------
1 75
treating that material.
Then once that is done, we enter
. into an agreement with the customer to
4
treat and dispose or recycle, or whatever,
,- the material meeting that composition.
We write a formal description
into the agreement. Then each load that
comes in must be checked to determine
that the material in fact agrees with
the composition of the sample, and that
it is not going to adversely react in
_ the system, it is not going to cause
damage either through injury to people
14
or damage to equipment this is kind
of a laborious process to get new materials
16
17 in-
You are able after a while for
18
-_ someone who is knowledgeable about the
manufacturing processes that generate
the waste, the inputs, and from on-site
visits to those facilities and discussions,
22
to build a confidence factor of the general
knowledge of the kind of wastes.
I would say in our own cases,
25
-------
1 76
2 two or three samples of waste that come
in, if we have ample knowledge of the
generator and a knowledge of the process,
whether it is a plating operation, metal
etching or printed circuit operation, or
it is solvent cleaning, whatever kind of
manufacturing process generates the waste,
we have a comprehensive understanding
of the material at the present time.
MR. LINDSEY: Could we take some
12 questions from the floor.
13 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I have a
question for Mr. Hall.
Would you please repeat the con-
.,, struction and operating costs of your
waste facility, and if you could break
it down please by solid wastes into the
water treatment unit?
MR. LINDSEY: For those that
cannot hear the question, I will try
__ and repeat it.
That was Jim Rogers, and he asked
if the construction and operating costs
of Mr. Hall's facility could be expanded
-------
77
- upon.
MR. HALL: First, this does not
A include any water treatment costs.
, This is strictly the open the
construction and operation of the waste
of the landfill.
Starting back in 1969, the con-
struction costs were $350,000.00 which
in 1977 dollars is $600,000.00.
_ The construction cost to complete
the project is a million dollars, which
makes it 1.6 million dollars.
Sir, you shook your head. Is
, there a question, or can you not hear?
MR. ROGERS: That is fine.
MR. HALL: Okay.
The operating cost plan for
1977 is 1.2 million dollars, a half
million dollars of which is for trucking,
transportation from the three locations,
and this does take care of three locations,
__ two plants, and one large technical center.
We are only involved with those wastes
that are compatible after pre-treatment
-------
78
_ for landfilling.
_ Does that answer your question?
MR. ROGERS: Yes, thank you.
MR. LINDSEY: Yes, sir.
MR. FENTON: My name is Richard
_ Fenton, I am with the City of New York,
8
_ The first group of speakers,
among the first group, Mr. Nalven men-
tioned the difficulty in getting zero
discharge into the environment, and I
., was pleased to hear that Mr. Miller, in
... his field investigations found that there
were cases of zero discharge, that there
was just no material leaving the fill
-_ according to your test well.
Could you indicate the kinds
of materials that were in these landfills
that got zero discharge, please?
MR. LINDSEY: Again, the question
from Mr. Richard Fenton of New York EPA,
is that previously the difficulty with
achieving zero discharge was mentioned,
24
and he asked Mr. Miller whether in those
-------
1 79
cases where zero discharge was found,
if he could elaborate on the types of
. wastes that were in those facilities.
4
MR. MILLER: Actually, let me
,. do two things.
_ We found, as far as the ground
o water is concerned, zero discharge from
the standpoint that we did not find
y *
contamination.
In many of these cases, where
we did not find ground water contamination,
1_ it was simply because the waste water,
if the lagoon was being held up and
14
being removed from the surface, and in
15
other cases it was being drained off the
16
surface water or being drained off,
collected and treated, the types of
19 waste that we found in these landfills
were the typical they could not be
characterized as being unique from the
others where we found contamination.
22
I hope that answers your question.
MR. FENTON: I am calling for
^T
a more specific response because of
-------
1 80
2 the doubt expressed4this morning of
_ achieving zero discharge. Were these
. industrial type fills?
g MR. MILLER: Yes, they were all
g industrial, every site we studied, the
_ major portion of waste was industrial,
o and it was zero discharge to ground
_ water, but it was not zero discharge
1Q to some other environment.
MR. FENTON: You mentioned that
-_ this would be published?
13 MR. MILLER: Yes, sir.
14 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I would
like to point out a phenomenon with
, respect to waste disposal, and that is
lo
-_ the air bubble jet drop phenomenon which
, is able to materialize particles of
lo
.g particular matter, for instance, from
2 sludge, into the air, and this can be
brought ashore, whether it is from a
21
lake or the ocean, onto the land.
22
Then it depends on the diameter
23
of the material, whether it is water
24
soluble or fat soluble, whether it is
-------
81
respirable, but what the health damage
can be of this waste, I don't think has
. been taken into account.
4
_ MR. LINDSEY: Does anybody want
, to say anything to that?
_ MR. SHUSTER: It was a comment.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I have
_ a question for Mr. Miller.
In his survey he is talking about
landfills that have no contamination to
the ground water, they had either a
-_ thick layer of clay or you used a term,
engineers' facilities.
14
Are you talking about leachate
collection systems like a series of pipes,
lo
or are you talking about man-made liners?
Did any of these landfills have man-made
liners?
MR. MILLER: They had a man-made
liner plus a leachate collection system.
In the case of the landfill, they
had a leachate collection system plus a
24
The liners in some cases were
-------
1 82
2 clay and in other cases were membrane-
type liners.
4 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You mean
5 high prone rubber? Did you run into any
6 with tar liners?
MR. MILLER: They were municipal
type. We studied ones with tar liners,
but not as part of this study.
10 The only ones I ran across are
11 landfills that receive predominantly
12 municipal wastes.
13 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I know
14 what clay is, or what it is supposed to
do, but what kind of percolation weight,
or what is the thickness of this clay
that you think is feasible or does the
18
MR. HALL: We use a two foot
20 layer that is impervious to water and
chemicals. We have not had any internals,
we have had no sign of organics or chemicals
leaching out.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Is it 100%
25 impervious, or 90% impervious?
-------
83
2 MR. HftLL: I don't have those
numbers. Nothing is completely impervious,
. as you well know.
g AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well, do
you have any criteria that a person could
use, say on a permeability basis?
MR. HftLL: I am sure our engineers
have it. I don't have it with me.
MR. LINDSEY: Way in the back.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: My question
is for Mr. Hall.
Could you describe briefly the
j . process by which you blend wastes with
the soil before distributing it in your
,, landfill?
lo
MR. LINDSEY: The question to
Mr. Hall is, can you describe the blending
operation that is used before depositing
the waste into the fill?
MR. HALL: It is a simple
mechanical operation. We use an end
_ loader. We have a pile of dirt of equal
size to the pile of waste. We stir them
24
like you are stirring cereal or soup,
-------
84
- just by continuous mixing until we get
it to the consistency to a consistent
. level, and then it is broadcast over
_ the area with the same equipment.
MR. LINDSEY: Right here.
_ AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I have a
o question for Mr. Hall.
_ In your operation where you spread
it out in thin layers, is all surface run -
off, therefore, collected and treated?
MR. LINDSEY: The question for
Mr. Hall is, is all surface run-off
, . collected and treated.
14
MR. HALL: Surface run-off on
the landfill site, the 15 acres, or what
lo
will be the 15 acres in 1977, all run-off
on that surface, goes down in and with a
lo
system of drainage, goes through the gravel,
it goes to the leachate pond, and then
the waste treatment.
For anything treated or any water
that falls on that area goes to the leachate
pond, yes, it is treated.
Now, the 86 acres surrounding
-------
1 85
2 that, and this is a very hilly area, is
not contaminated. We have a series of
peripheral drains that carries that off,
so they are strategically located, and
that water is monitored regularly to
make sure that we don't have a leak in
the clay seal.
Does that answer your question?
10 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yes.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: For Mr.
12 Hall, two questions.
One is, in your present processing
or your screening of the compound, do
you restrict those that you use on the
landfill to biodegradables? It seems
like everything is done by biological
processing.
The second thing is, did you
2Q find any difference in the type of soil
structure used in the mixing process?
MR. LINDSEY: The question for
23 Mr. Hall, in repossessing and considering
the disposal of wastes, do you restrict
the waste to those that are biodegradable,
-------
86
and the second question, did you find
any difference in types of soils that
you used for mixing with the wastes?
MR. HALL: In answer to your
first question, we do not restrict it
to materials that are degradable, we
treat metals, and at one time we were
treating or setting up to treat metallic
-_ sodium by a pre-treatment, which allowed
it to be treated into soil directly.
You can micronize sodium in
mineral oil, it comes out so finely
~. you can take it directly to the soil
-_ without any problems of fire, as you
-- ordinarily have with the water.
._ We later were able to have an
exchange by agreement with a processor
to make sodium methylate out of it,
2Q and return it to the area.
The other question is that
enough on the first part of your question?
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yes.
MR. HALL: The other question was
~*T
soil
-------
1 87
2 We generally have to buy soil.
3 We have clay, but soil is scarce, and
4 we would like to have the garden variety
5 of soil to treat-with.
6 We don't use clay for that pur-
7 pose.
8 MR. LINDSEY: Yes, sir.
9 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Mr. Miller,
10 could you confirm what I understood you
11 to say, that land disposal does not
12 appear to be the answer, except in very
13 specialized areas with certain geologic
14 conditions, and if that is your position,
15 does that do we hear some difference
15 of opinion on this in the panel?
17 MR. LINDSEY: The question is
lg to Mr. Miller, are you saying as a result
19 of your studies that land disposal does
20 n°t seem to be the answer, except in
2i very specific hydrogeologic conditions,
22 and does this pose a disagreement among
23 the various panel members?
24 MR. MILLER: Let me make sure
25 that I make myself clear.
-------
88
What I would say what I said
was that land disposal is not always
the solution and that there are a number
of very large areas, most areas actually,
where some engineered or very special
precautions, such as resource recovery
methods of treatment must be used if
land disposal is to be the alternative
for the disposal of wastes.
There are not that many geologic
12 environments that are suitable for land
disposal of waste, especially if you
don't have an engineering system.
e Even when you do, since there is
sometimes a great difficulty in getting
a guarantee that that engineer system
will last a long enough period of time
19 to protect the ground water system,
2Q even then it has to be taken into con-
sideration too.
MR. LINDSEY: Is there any
other comments by the other panel members
-> on that issue?
MR. SHUSTER: Land disposal is
-------
1 89
- a necessary part of material handling,
because no matter what you do, there
. is always something left over.
I think this is one of the
, whole thrusts of the new legislation,
_ which is to focus attention on these
o residuals that historically and tradition-
_ ally have been sort of swept under the
tug, and in order to focus attention
on them, and deal properly with them,
there has to be a proper kind of facility
12
j, available.
1 . Now, this is probably going
to involve a lot of engineering features
rather than a sanitary landfill type
16
. of situation, and certainly we do sub-
, stantially eliminate the amount
lo
-g of indiscriminate dumping and direct
discharge to waterways, and things of
this sort.
The shortage of the availability
of ideal geologic sitesis real.
There are some states and some
Ail1
groups of states in our nation where
-------
1 90
2 there is probably not a single ideal
3 site.
4 There may be some that can be
5 engineered so that they would be moderately
6 tolerable, and there is an alarming con-
7 cern about parochialism extending down-
8 ward to state lines, and into county
9 lines, even into township lines, regarding
IQ the transporting of waste across the
H lines.
12 It seems nobody wants to accept
13 it.
14 The concept is that we are willing
15 to accept automobiles made in Detroit
16 anywhere in the United States, and other
17 things that are manufactured at one
18 point and distributed broadly, but you
19 think where the proper location of these
20 sites is, they should be permitted on a
21 statewide and hopefully regional basis.
22 MR. LIHDSEY: The lady in the
23 back.
24 (Question posed.)
25 MR. LINDSEY: That question is
-------
1 91
to Mr. Hall.
The question was, is there any
chance of using dredge materials or
4
sewerage sludge, dried sewerage sludge
, for mixing with the hazardous materials?
MR. HALL: We have worked a
_ little bit and not just a little bit,
o
but we have worked in this area, using
out own waste water treatment unit
10
biological sludge, which is the same
as your domestic sludge, and the problem
12
1_ with sludge, as many of you in here
know, is drying it to the extent that
you can recover enough sludge to mix
with the waste.
16
Also, you would have to have a
metals analysis of this sludge to make
18
sure you did not have copper and chromium
and such things as this, and knock a
waste unit treatment out because it is
incomplete.
22
We knew it would be safe if we
could dry it from the 1^% to the 30%
that was required to mix with the soil,
-------
92
yes, it is a real viable approach.
MR. LINDSEY: In the front here.
. AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Does EPA
4
plan to identify sites where hazardous
wastes can be disposed, or is that up
_ to local authorities?
o MR. LINDSEY: This of course,
you are asking the question relative to
the new Act.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Right.
MR. LINDSEY: We are going to
-, discuss that for those who may not be
familiar with it later this afternoon,
between 4:00 and 7:00, and I would rather
hold most of the questions relative to
16
the Act until that point.
Let me just say briefly that
lo
._ on that score, whether EPA is going
-_ to identify,as it were,good and bad
sites, the new Act does call for a
21
permitting system, which will either
22
be carried out by the states or by the
federal government, if the states choose
not to, which will have that effect, I
-------
93
think.
Any more questions for the
* panelists here?
- The lady over there.
MS. LATO: With the rising costs
of waste disposal, wouldn't it be good
economy to increase the budget for re-
search and development so that we can
recover the materials that we bury or
that will hopefully disappear?
12 MR. LINDSEY: Is that directed
to me?
MS. LATO: To anyone.
.- MR. LINDSEY: The question is
., shouldn't we increase our research and
l_ development budget so that we could make
recycling and recovery more practical,
and identify more options for that.
2Q Ed Shuster, do you want to take
-.. a whack at that?
2_ MR. SHUSTER: Our budget has a
lot of money in it for that.
-. This is one of the costs of
25 doing business as a professional service
-------
94
2 company.
- You are constantly involved in
* research.
e Your research is directed towards
recycling and towards improved hardware
and towards improvement of the life of
your existing hardware. In other words,
make your pumps last more months, and
things of this sort.
There is a lot of practical and
applied research. The federal government
has funded a substantial amount of re-
search and demonstration projects along
-_ these lines, and I am presuming that
they are continuing to do so although
that is a matter of federal and state
budgets.
I have to come back to the
2Q problem that we end up with a lot of
materials that would have to be con-
sidered lowgrade at best, low quality
materials. You can get uranium out
_. of the lock in your driveway, but it
__ is not worthwhile. There is not enough
-------
95
2 there.
, You can come to this kind of a
situation.
Plus, the fact that these wastes
are constantly changing. Of all the
wastes that I see today, probably no
more than half of them were wastes
that were generated five years ago.
The rest of them, they have been
phased out as processes are starting
12 to be improved to generate less waste,
to generate a different kind of waste,
and new processes have generated new
-_ wastes, of course.
I think at the process research
i_ level the generated material balance
situation is that of more product and
less waste at the primary source, and
20 this falls in the area of source re-
duction, and this is Ed Hall's ballgame,
and I will let him talk about that.
_, MR. HALL: Starting with Carbides
pure oxygen system, trash to gas, is one
_. way to approach this, and there has been
-------
_ a lot of money going into that project,
_ and it is using only the home trash
. right now, but later probably we will
. get into the chemical area.
6 Also, the large polluting units
_ are at times replaced by a more efficient
Q process, and this is probably a more
_ economical way to go than to try to
. find some new uses for old materials.
These are two approaches that
you can take.
12
., Now, research in general in the
j . area you are talking about is going on
all the time, and I don't have the
numbers to say whether there is enough
lo
-_ spent, and by whose standards is there
, _ enough spent.
lo
I9 MR. LINDSEY: May I say that
__ we in the federal government never have
« enough money.
I am afraid I am going to have
22
_, to cut this off, folks.
I know there are a lot of other
T*
questions, but we do have several other
-------
1 97
2 speakers before lunch, and I would like
3 to thank the panelists here for doing
4 a good job, and they will be around for
5 a while, I am sure, if you could catch
6 them in the hallway, and so forth, and
7 you will be able to ask questions that
8 you might have.
9 We will move right along.
10 We are not taking a break here.
H Thank you, panelists.
12 °ur next speaker, if you would
13 come forward, is Mr. Robert L. Harness.
14 MR. HARNESS: A number of the
15 speakers this morning, and also several
16 of the questions that have been asked
17 have been directed towards the recovery
18 and reuse of waste materials, and what I
19 would like to talk to you about is the
20 concept of the waste exchange as a tool
21 in waste management, and specifically
22 the experience of the St. Louis Waste
23 Exchange.
24 To begin with, I would like to
25 just give you some examples of what
-------
98
- we found after about a year and a halfs
worth of effort in this area.
. We found an acetylene manufacturing
_ company located in the Midwest that was
generating a lime waste stream, that
_ they were dumping in a landfill located
a on their own property.
On the other hand, we found
several waste treatment plants in the
area that were neutralizing their waste
stream and buying lime, bulk lime, and
shipping it by truck about 200 miles
,. at a very substantial cost to do this,
to do something that could have been
,-. done with a lime stream.
ID
-_ We found a number of sources,
,Q and this really surprised us, of contamin-
lo
ated solvents that were being either
incinerated or in some cases just being
dumped.
On the other hand, we found at
_ least two that I can think of, off the
top of my head, paint companies that
-- could have, and, in fact, did use some
-------
1 "
_ of these solvents later on as thinners
for low quality non-consumer oriented
. paint products.
_ The solution to this sort of
problem is fairly obvious. If these
_ people could get together we could
a eliminate a costly, or in many cases, a
_ hazardous waste disposal problem, and
at the same time save a little money
for somebody.
But unfortunately, and in
practical terms, this is a waste exchange,
. . it is not a difficult concept.
But unfortunately, this does
not occur in the United States to any
16
great degree, I am afraid.
,_ There are some reasons for this.
1.O
The prevalent tendency in the
__ United States is to use virgin or raw
materials, and I think there are several
reasons for this, although any of the
people in the room could point out some
23
exceptions, but generally United States
24
industry is spread out over a fairly
-------
100
2 large geographical area, and this applies
a little more to us located in the wilds
. of the Midwest, than perhaps up here,
_ but nevertheless, I think it is true,
and it makes marketing of waste materials
fairly difficult.
Secondly, there really just has
not been an incentive, and someone before
mentioned the cost of waste disposal was
practically zero until five years ago,
,, and now it becomes one of the major costs
1 i
and acts such as the Resource Conservation
. and Recovery Act to put pressure on
people to take a responsible approach,
and it will, in a lot of cases, be an
lo
expensive approach.
1Q In terms of the scope of the
lo
problem, I think a number of comments
__ have directed themselves towards this,
but I will just quote one statistic,
21
that in 1975, the U. S. EPA Office of
22
Solid Waste Management said that the
*fj
United States industry produced about
260,000,000 dry tons a year of industrial
-------
101
waste, and they expected that figure to
possibly double by 1983.
Well, the ultimate disposal of
these materials has been discussed.
Landfills, incineration, and
in a lot of cases, methods that really
are not environmentally acceptable.
Well, in terms of theory, the
waste exchange, as I mentioned, is a
.., fairly simple concept. It is simply
a mechanism to help individuals, firms,
and in some cases communities, find a
useful end for something that has been
-_ previously considered to be a waste pro-
16 duct-
It operates on the premise that
many waste materials contain some valuable
components, and some of these components
20 are presently in short supply and, there-
fore, extraction and reuse does make some
sense, and in many cases this can be
economically attractive.
I think the basic problem is
25 defining a user.
-------
102
2 It is easy enough to find or
_ define a waste, but to find someone
. that can use the waste, either in its
_ present form, which is, of course, the
most attractive alternative, or in some
_ form that it can be transformed into
o by some treatment or unit process oper-
ation, the waste exchange is an institu-
.-. tional arrangement to market or assist
in the marketing of waste materials;
._ in other words, just to simply try to
find a user.
. . Well, there are two character-
-_ istics that are dominant in waste ex-
-, change operations. First is the type
-_ of service to be offered, and there are
,_ two types of operations, one that deals
lo
in information only, strictly a marketing
service for information, and secondly
that the other stream is one that deals
21
in materials handling, that actually buys
the wastes and sells them and so forth.
The second characteristic that
24
can be discussed would be the approach
-------
j 103
to or the strategy of doing business.
There is -- you can operate your
. waste exchange on the passive in a
_ passive mode, meaning that you don't go
f out and seek customers, you simply create
_ a marketing service, and receive wastes
Q listings, so-to-speak, and they help
_ broadcast the availability of these
wastes listings.
You do not become involved in
the actual business.
j. On the other end of the spectrum
would be an active exchange where you
actually aggressively try to identify
matchups of waste generator-waste user,
16
and then in some cases, even actively
participate in the exchange to the extent
18
-_ of even buying and selling the material
yourself, or even entering into a re-
processing business.
Now, from this these character-
istics, we can identify four types of
waste exchange, and some of these are
24
in existence already.
-------
104
2 The first is1 a direct exchange,
, a company manufactures a product, develops
a waste material, and I am directing my
comments towards industrial wastes, but
I think it holds true in other cases as
well, and by some means finds an exchange
finds a company that can possibly use
the waste, and this is a very common
arrangement that takes place within a
number of big companies already, and I
think you can find examples of this
thing this sort of thing happening.
.. The second is using a specialty
-_ broker. This type of arrangement is
_,. carried on by waste brokers, who deal
.._ in some special area, such as reclaimed
oils or solvents or metal sludges, and
so forth. There is some economic in-
volvment in that he may charge a fee
for this service.
The third type is an active
third party exchange where the exchange
23
deals in materials handling, in actually
24
buying and selling the wastes, and again
-------
j 105
they deal in specialized areas, and
there are some examples of these opera-
tions in the United States already, and
they are very successful, but they are
, very specialized, generally.
And finally, there is a passive
_ third party, where someone simply deals
o
in information only, tries to help a
company find a market, or user for a
given waste material, and there is no
economic involvement required, and
the two companies then make the trans-
action, and the waste exchange simply
14
tries to put companies in touch with
each other.
16
Well, while the materials
17
handling type of exchanges possibly
18
1Q offer the greatest promise for success,
they are there is risk attached to
them in that economic involvement is
required, and they are usually private
zz
operations, whereas this type of an
exchange offered potential for benefits
to industry in general, while not posing
-------
1 L06
2 any significant capital involvement.
3 Capitalizing on this type of
concept that one that a waste from
5 one process can represent a raw material,
6 so-to-speak, for another, several waste
exchanges to be exact have been established
8 in Europe.
9 The first one was established in
10 The Netherlands by the Association of
Dutch Chemical Industries in 1972, and
12 it was followed by exchanges in Belgium,
13 Germany, Austria and Switzerland and
Great Britain.
,c These European exchanges have
several operational and character similar-
ities, and I want to just run through
a few of those.
First of all, they were established
in response to pressure, either regulatory
or economic restraints due to raw mater-
ial shortages.
Second, they were all of the
24 passive, third party type involvement,
25 dealing in information only, and not
-------
1
_ involved in the exchange itself.
Thirdly, they all made an effort
J
. to maintain the confidentiality of the
e people involved. There was little or
no government intervention, and it was
simply a matter of putting compatible
companies in contact with each other.
_ Fourthly, they were operated
by private industrial associations for
use by anyone, really. There are a
few exceptions, the one in Great Britain
.., was a government operation.
Fifth, they were for no other
market other than wastes. They were
not designed to try to take the paper
lo
__ business away from the Boy Scouts, or
to try to deal in trash metals for which
there were established markets at the
20 time'
Sixth, they had access to some
form of communication, trade journals,
direct mailing lists, and so forth,
that advertised their services.
Seventh, they used followup
-------
108
communications to assess the value of
the service, to determine if the waste
. exchange was, in fact, performing any
_ valuable service, and if it was reaching
the proper market place.
Eighth, they initially dealt
only in trying to communicate wastes
available, but later expanded to include
communication of services available.
In a sense, it became an adver-
._ tising agency.
Ninth, they experienced what
we generally call the normal life cycle,
sort of started off slow and grew at
a rapid rate to a peak of business, and
16
then began to die out, and through communi-
cations with the using parties, they
JLo
,_ found that they sort of, in a sense,
killed their own existence. By putting
compatible type companies in contact
with each other, they eventually negated
their own need.
Finally, they in terms of
response, the offers for material
-------
109
- available greatly exceeded the offers
, for materials wanted, and this was
* somewhat understandable.
e A waste management problem is
f at least in today's day and age potentially
- much more difficult than a raw materials
problem. It is a little easier at times
to find the raw material, not cheaper,
but easier.
I would like to talk a little
bit about the St. Louis Waste Exchange.
In May of 1975, a conference very similar
to this was held in St. Louis, and it
was attended by government representatives,
and industrial representatives, and a
number of citizen interest representatives,
and public trade association groups,
and the conference dealt with specifically
__ hazardous waste management, and discussed
a number of the problems that have been
discussed today, but at the conclusion
of the conference there was some parti-
cipation by the people involved in the
European exchanges, we were fortunate
-------
110
to have one of the speakers from the
European exchange, and he discussed
the concept, and a task force was or-
4
ganized to take part of this, and I am
a member of that task force.
6
But you all know how task forces
7
go, they meet a lot of times, and write
8
a report, and say that is it.
We were fortunate to have some
10
cooperation from a lot of people, and
we were well represented by all the
groups that I mentioned.
This task force then took the
14
problem of trying to create a waste
15
exchange operation in the St. Louis
16
area, and we operated on the principle
17
of there was no passive third party
18
type waste exchange in operation in
the United States, and, therefore, we
20
would really be starting something
that was somewhat unique, and we would
22
try to organize along the principles
23
that of the things that we learned
24
from the European exchanges.
25
-------
1 111
2 On this basis, the waste the
3 St. Louis Waste Exchange task force
4 identified several principles of oper-
5 ation that they wanted to follow.
6 First, they decided on a passive
7 third party operation. We would deal
8 only in information.
9 Secondly, it was determined
10 that day-to-day management at the ex-
11 change would best be carried out by
12 some industrial or private association,
13 and we were very fortunate to have the
14 St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth
15 Association, which is a Chamber of
16 Commerce type organization, take the
17 exchange into their charter, and operate
18 it on a daily basis.
19 In terms of finances, the
20 exchange started out and continued to
2i operate on a zero budget. All of the
22 task force time is voluntary, and the
23 St. Louis Growth Activity, which now
24 occupies one person full-time, and
25 another staff person, on 50% time,
-------
I 112
2 was all donated.
, In fact, when I say donated,
. it was paid for by the Industry and
. Commerce Community Association, within
the area, who is the sponsor of this
Regional Congress of Growth Activity.
The only attempt to recover
any of the costs is a $5.00 fee for
making a listing and the attempt here
_ is simply to try to cover the cost
°f a mailing list that has grown to
staggering proportions, and I will
,. talk about that in a minute.
14
In terms of communicating our
services, two things were attempted.
lo
- First, we tried to communicate
10 to the press and to the technical commun-
io
ity, and we were very fortunate to have
--. a number of advertisements and articles
concerning the waste exchange published
in technical journals and so forth.
Secondly, we decided upon a
direct mailing list for the waste ex-
. change to communicate our operations,
-------
_ and that mailing list has started out
well, obviously it started to be
. zero, but has now grown to somewhere
- near 2,000, and is still growing after
a year and a half, and we also communi-
cate through some technical journals
that carry our listings and so forth.
We try to require a minimum
amount of information for our listing.
We did not ask for a tremendous
amount of detail, we just simply wanted
-_ enough detail to identify the waste to
the point where someone could determine
if they are interested or not. We felt
- that maintaining confidentiality is
lo
a must, and in that respect, all the
listings, and I will describe how the
listings are published, but the listings
are published under a coding, and only
the listing company alone makes the
decision as to whether it wants to
_, deal with anyone who might respond.
Now, this we felt was important,
*rr
__ and from a survey that we took, it was
-------
1
verified to be important by the listing
company, there is a concern about govern-
ment intervention, and there was a con-
cern about trade secrets.
However, we try not to address
o
these problems within the exchange, we
were simply trying to provide this
o
marketing service.
In terms of legal the legal
matters, obviously, the passive type
operation lends itself to a lesser,
Li
if totally non-existent legal involve-
ment by the waste exchange.
14
We simply are again trying to
provide the marketing service.
Finally, we have undertaken
17
our own survey after a year's worth of
18
work operation, to determine how success-
ful we are, and I would like to talk
20
about that, but first just to go
through a few slides just depicting
how the waste exchange operates, be-
23
cause I have talked a lot about prin-
24
ciples, but I want to show you in
-------
1
somewhat simple terms how the thing
works.
. First of all, we advertise the
4
availability of our services, and pro-
, vide directions and forms, and so forth,
_ for directing someone to how they would
_ put themselves in contact with us, and
how to make a listing.
Now, we are our mailing list
and so forth has grown to a rather large
proportion, and we are happy to see that,
_ and if there is anyone who feels the
need that they might possibly benefit
14
from the service, I think there is going
to be a pad of paper that you can put
16
your name and address, or leave your
business card, and we will be glad to
lo
1O put you on the mailing list, and there
is no charge or anything for you.
The listings are then coded
to maintain confidentiality, and we in-
22
elude in the coding a description of
the material, whatever quantity or
24
volume of information we have, and
25
-------
1 116
2 then finally the location of the material
, or the general location.
Thirdly, the listings then are
collected and published in the form of
a booklet every three months, and then
again the booklet contains information
and directions as to if you are inter-
ested in any of the materials contained
on the list, how to go about getting
.< in touch with the waste exchange, who
12 would then forward your inquiry to the
13 listing party.
That, of course, is the next
step, the Regional Commerce and Growth
., Association, or the waste exchange re-
ceives inquiries, and then forwards
them to the listing company.
The negotiations then are left
2Q between the two companies, the Regional
Commerce and Growth Association or the
waste exchange do not get involved in
the technical, financial or legal aspects
_. of the negotiations.
We feel we have provided a
-------
1 117
2 service at this point, and while we are
3 hopeful of some success from that contact,
4 we do not take part in that.
5 Finally, we send the survey
6 form to all parties annually to assess
7 whether or not we have done any good.
8 Now, in terms of survey, during
9 our first full year we have been in
10 operation approximately a year and a
11 half, and during our first full year
12 of operation, we received listings for
13 115 waste streams. Of those 115, we
14 from our survey, we have learned that
15 13 actual transactions have been made.
16 This does not sound like a tremendous
17 number, although it does represent a
lg fairly sizable volume of waste, but in
19 terms of the success rate, it is slightly
20 better than 10%, and that exceeds any
2i of the European operations in the first
22 year, at least.
23 We found that of the 115 items
24 listed, we received some 80% of them
25 in the way of inquiries, so it does
-------
118
2 indicate that there is an interest in
, reusing the waste materials, and
the communications part is a significant
problem.
A total of nearly 300 inquiries
were received concerning the listings.
Now, of the 13 successes that we know
about, and these were the 13 that were
confirmed, we have several others that
we think are good potentials, what they
12 were only seven of them involved
companies from the St. Louis area. In
fact, there were, I think, two from
New York and spread all the way across
the country from New York to Colorado,
so we did reach a number of people in
our first efforts.
Of the listings that we received,
2Q only 34% were from the St. Louis region.
Well, just in the way of con-
_- elusion, let me just say that I think
that the waste exchange concept does
offer some relief to the industrial
2- waste management problem. It is, of
-------
2 course, not the only answer, but hope-
, fully and realistically, I think it is
part of the answer.
I might add that with a great
deal of gratitude we have received tre-
mendous support from the United States
Environmental Protection Agency Office
of Solid Waste Management, both the
Washington Office and the Region VII
EPA office in Kansas City, which have
-_ both been very active in the formation
and in advising us of the formation
.. . and the operations of the exchange.
I think aside from the obvious
,- advantages of reusing material, the
lo
.- waste exchange concept offers a selling
point, and the Regional Commerce and
Growth being a Chamber of Commerce type
2Q operation, has tried to use this as a
_.. selling point to relocation of, or the
_ location of industries in the Missouri-
-, Illinois communities.
I might add that since the time
._ that we have started, there are now
-------
1 120
2 ten such operations*either going on
, in the United States or in the beginning
A stages, so that it is a concept that
is growing.
Let me make two final points.
First of all, as you can see
from what I have said, this is by no
means a complicated operation. It is
simply a management practice, in effect,
.... that is what EPA terms it, and I think
12 they have just recently published a
13 bulletin entitled Best Management
Practices For Residuals, the Waste Ex-
change. It is something like that, but
it is a very simple concept, and it is
just a communications problem.
Secondly, as I said before, it
is not the answer to all the problems.
2Q It is an answer to a number of them
though. It is simply a case of just not
wasting something that can be reused.
_, I would like to thank the
_ Scientist Committee for inviting me
-f here today, I just want to commend you
-------
121
1
on the response to this meeting. I
think it is by all means an indication
that the people in this area are very
4
interested in solving these problems.
Thank you.
6
(Applause.)
MR. LINDSEY: Thank you.
S
We do have a couple of minutes
for questions.
10
I think we can entertain one
11
or two if anyone has a question.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I am
13
from the New York State Department of
14
Environmental Conservation, and I would
15
like to know was there any assessment
16
of the economic benefits of this waste
17
exchange? Was there any indication by
the companies of what cost savings they
realized by getting these materials
rather than using virgin materials?
MR. LINDSEY: The question was,
22
was there any identification of the
23
economic benefit to be gained by using
24
these wastes instead of virgin raw
25
-------
1 122
2 materials?
, MR. HARNESS: To answer your
A question, no, simply it was not.
Let me try to elaborate on it,
because I think it is an important con-
sideration.
We want to justify our own actions.
In terms of operating, we do not
want to impose upon the company any legal
.... issues or trade secret issues, or in any-
12 way impose any restrictions upon the
13 potential of someone participating in
the exchange. We felt, you know, there
..- is a lot of things that can be done,
,., and a lot of people so far this morning
have talked about various approaches
to the solution of waste management
problems .
2Q We tried to identify one area
«.. that we could help in, and that is
__ simply the marketing and communications
23
Obviously, we would 1 would
love to be able to say yes, we have
-------
123
2 saved thousands of dollars or millions
, of dollars, I can only say that I don't
A think any of the exchanges would have
e taken place had there not been some
economic advantage.
If nothing else, it saved someone
from the costly from the expense of
having to dispose of a material.
But again, we identify one area
that we were trying to participate in,
.,2 and in terms of response, we are continu-
ing to grow. We had these 115 listings
in our first year, and we are averaging
.._ something like 20% above that rate as
., of the beginning of the second year, so
we are continuing to grow, and we are
just trying to aim at one area right
now.
20 MR. LINDSEY: Is it your inten-
2] tion to be a nationwide exchange?
MR. HARNESS: We have had a
great deal of contact with the United
_. States Environmental Protection Agency
on that subject, and I did not mention
-------
124
2 it because it is really not definite,
_ but we have had direct contact with the
> other ten or the other nine operations
c in the United States, and there is some
likelihood that there will be some re-
ciprocal agreements where our listings
would be published in their program,
and vice versa, and, in fact, there is
a very good possibility that we will
11 have another meeting in the St. Louis
12 region in June, jointly sponsored by
the United States Environmental Pro-
tection Agency and the Regional Commerce
1 _ and Growth Association to try and promote
,, that.
lo
,_ We are moving slowly.
,Q We are not trying to create a
lo
Cadillac when a Volkswagen would do, but
_~ I think that is something we want to move
into, yes.
MR. LINDSEY: Any additional
23 questions?
_. (Question posed.)
.- MR. LINDSEY: The question is.
-------
125
2 can you expand on the difference between
, a broker and an active third party?
. MR. HARNESS: Well, I think there
- is a distinction, and it deals in terras
of financial involvement.
We have found in evaluating this
kind of operation, that there are several
people who would deal strictly as brokers,
and they deal, for example, in waste oils,
and I guess this is an area that has kind
of fallen off because there aren't very
many waste oils, there is enough in-
j, centive to try and reuse them, but some-
._ one dealing in the area of waste oils
-.. simply does what we are doing and then
charges a commission for any sale, whereas
an active third party would be an opera-
jo tion that actually buys the waste stream,
20 and they either, in its present form or
2« in some converted form, sell it to another
market.
23 Now, there is a very large oper-
_. ation of this type in California that I
__ know of, so there is a difference, and
-------
126
1
it is in the area of the extent of
2
financial involvement.
3
MR. LINDSEY: One more question.
4
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Which
5
is the nearest exchange to this region?
6
MR. HARNESS: There has been
7
there is one in New York, it is a private
8
operation, and I have seen some of the
9
brochures, and it is operated by the
10
Kalspan Corporation (phonetic spelling).
11
There are beginnings of opera-
12
tions in Boston, and I think Philadelphia,
13
but I am not positive about that, but
14
I think those two are just in their
15
beginning stages.
16
The Kalspan operation is a private
17
operation, I don't know how they operate,
18
or what kind of a fee they charge. I
19
know they operate on a premise very
20
similar to ours.
21
MR. LINDSEY: Bob, thank you
22
very much.
23
We have one more speaker here,
24
so if we could just exchange speakers.
25
-------
127
2 Our next speaker will be Jack
- Riggenbach, a process engineer from
A Environmental Science and Engineering,
Inc.
MR. RIGGENBACH: Before I begin,
at the outset, let me apologize that
Edwin Coxe, the Associate Vice-President
and Manager, Advanced Energy Divsion, from
10 Reynolds, Smith & Hills, Inc., could not
... be here this morning
12 Y firm, however, and our parent
13 firm, who Dr. Coxe is employed by, are
two firms that did a study for the
«, United States Environmental Protection
Agency on hazardous solid wastes, and
it was looking we looked at various
industrial hazardous wastes that were
generated, and if I could have the
first overhead, I will begin.
This is just kind of the flow
diagram of the project. We started out
by looking at a list of seventeen, and
-, not twenty industries, and we went
25 through a preliminary screening sequence
-------
128
where we narrowed 4the list down to eight
2
major industries, where we took these
eight major industries and looked at
4
a detailed look at the processes in
them, and the types of wastes generated,
6
and if I could have the next slide, this
7
is a listing of the seven agricultural,
those dropped out for one reason or
another, but this shows here the types
10
of wastes that we were looking at in
11
these industries, where they are gen-
erated, and a range of heating values.
We don't have an average, but
14
this gives a range, and a lot of these
wastes come from distillation columns,
16
or various separation processes that
occur within the manufacturing processes.
18
You can see quite a wide range
of values listed here.
20
Some are quite high. That kind
21
of gives a brief run-down of the project,
22
where we stood, and stand right now.
23
If I could talk a little bit
24
more now on what one needs to do in
25
-------
I 129
2 considering whether or not you should
3 pursue incineration with environmental
4 recovery, and the one thing, of course,
5 is to inventory all the plant wastes,
6 hazardous and non-hazardous, and anything
7 that you have that you might consider
8 disposing of through incineration.
9 If you need to categorize waste
10 by combustibility, degree of contamina-
11 tion, heavy metals, tars and sludges,
12 the physical state, whether it be liquid
13 or solid, we did not look at gaseous,
14 of course you would want to consider
15 that as well, and the volume of the
15 wastes, and whether or not they are
17 continuous produced continuously
18 or discontinuously.
19 Then you have to look at the
20 various aspects of composition, if you
2i have moisture, you might analyze one
22 thing at 3%, and the next thing you
23 might get would be 30, and EPA has been
24 finding this in some of their testing
25 programs.
-------
1 130
2 You have to determine preprocess-
3 ing requirements, if you have solids, you
4 have to reduce solids if you want to go
5 through liquid type injection incinerator,
6 or maybe you might not want that, you
7 might want another type.
8 You want to select your incinerator
9 to watch the waste. You determine your
10 in-plant heating and cooling needs, and
jl by cooling we mean absorption and refrig-
12 eration, and you will pick the type of
13 environmental recovery operation that
14 would best suit your particular operation.
jg When you are going through
16 categorizing your waste, you need to
17 consider physical properties, such as
18 density, viscosity of liquids, percent
19 solids, your flashpoint, moisture and
20 percent ash.
2i The chemical properties that
22 one needs to look at are the ultimate
23 composition, your acidity level, and
24 selecting the right components, and
25 composition, and what components you
-------
2 will have in ash on incineration, and
the heating value as received, and on
. an as-fired basis, as-fired being after
_ preprocessing.
Certain problems are suspended
solids, if you have a liquid stream,
you have to reduce your solids to at
least one-eighth of an inch. That is
-_ the largest a liquid incineration can
handle.
12 The solid composition that is
in the waste, you have to avoid problems
*. that you will get with a eutectic forma-
tion, low melting levels on firing that
-,. could cause slagging on your boiler
._ services, and so forth.
Heavy metal emissions, you have
to consider, mercury being very volatile.
Corrosive agents to consider
are sulfur, phosphorous or chlorine.
The ash characteristics, fusion temper-
atures, leachability, and the heavy
_. metals presence that you would have
_- to consider.
-------
132
2 Then an analysis has to be done
, to determine what is your flue gas
composition, corrosive gases, and where
you have to scrub the gases to clean
them up, any unburned hydrogen chloride
or hallogens, and incomplete combustion
products that might be forming during
the upset operation.
Here is a list, just a short
-, list, of a lot of industrial wastes
that have been used, and are being used
right now, and some of these that are
I* hazardous are rubber product wastes,
._ tars and waste oils.
, - Some of these others I won't
lo
get into, whether we find them to be
hazardous, but some of them could be.
The bottom shows samples of
20 operations that are currently burning
wastes, and these are being burned in
package boilers, chemical heaters, you
23 name it, and another example here is the
Union Carbide facility that Mr. Hall
25 spoke about earlier.
-------
133
This is an incomplete list, but
<
- these are types of incinerations that
. one can look at for utilizing.
- Your fixed bed, your local
chamber, multiple hearths, rotary kiln,
molten salt, and submersion combustion,
are three others that are not listed.
The flow ebbs of industrial
wastes that we considered is the next
slide. It was from manufacturing ethyl-
-- chlorohydrogen.
«! Liquids, we show there the
.. storage facilities, the incinerator
itself, a waste heat boiler and absorp-
tion columns, one for producing a twenty
__ percent hydrochloric solution, and then
1Q a dilution column for -removing the last
lo
traces.
The waste that was regenerated,
«- of course, you have to scrub, and going
back on the last speaker, talking about
_, the waste exchange, you can this is
a very viable operation for people of
__ this nature, and certain operations do
-------
134
recover the hydrogenchloride as diluted,
or go into a further distillation to
recover a 35% commercial grade.
The next one shows a mixture
of solid and liquid, where we have waste
7 liquids storage, you have a sledding
3 operation with storage for the solids,
9 and a solid waste generator, and it
should be a rotary kiln in this case.
These types of wastes do not
12 generate corrosive gases, so that you
13 meet the state, federal and local codes.
This one here is a very big
one, and is very, very good as far as
reutilization.
The factor you have to consider,
lg of course, in your air pollution emission,
19 you have you have flue gases, and
20 you have to consider your composition,
what is contained in your particulars,
22 an<3 heavy metals.
23 The term particulars does not
24, tell us anything very much any more.
25 You need the size, range, and
-------
1 I35
2 what the impact will be on the local
environment.
. EPA is looking at incineration
, of polychlorinated byphenols, and I know
g we did some work for a utility company
- down in Florida, where they were burning
Q their wastes in one of the utility
q boilers, and we ran emission tests for
. them, and we analyzed PCB's.
Now, the EPA is looking at
what might happen when you don't complete-
., ly combust these PCB's, because some
- . of these things that you might just may
be worse than what you started out with.
,,, So you have to consider these
lo
-_ various factors. You just cannot say
1Q well, the codes say I have to measure
lo
jo this, that, or the other.
2Q You have to look at and think
about these other matters too.
The various flue gas cleaning
__ techniques that one has to consider
for particulars and gases are listed
^T
here, and I won't go into them in any
-------
1
great detail, but that is the site,
specific operation, and you want the
J
most economic equipment that you want
4
to satisfy your needs.
The waste heat boiler operation,
o
fire tube versus water tube, which depends
on whether you want high or low pressure
8
steam, where you have corrosive gases
to cool down, the possibility of burning
your existing plant boiler, as Union
Carbide does, this, of course, is a much
more cost effective solution, when you
A«J
get into incinerating, you get into a
14
very costly operation, especially for
a smaller plant.
16
Whether or not you want to steam,
hot water or air preheat, these are the
18
types of things you have to consider.
Your gas temperatures, a lot of
people on burning are afraid to look
at environmental recovery because of
22
the hydrechloride in the gas, and yet
»»?
there are a number of samples where
24
people are cooling gases with as much
-------
1
2 as nine or ten percent hydrogenchloride
_ in their gas.
. The ash generator from incinera-
e tion is a very important thing, and this
has been addressed here, and what is
going to happen with the ultimate disposal
of this ash, whether it be a secured land-
fill or something with impervious vari-
10 ables-
This is an analysis of ash at
a plant production facility.
This was a distillation column,
... and you can see there is a whole slew
-_ of various metals here, and some of them
,, are bad and some are not so bad, and I
io
l_ won't comment on whether they are good
or bad, but this one has a lot of
titanium dioxide in it, but you can
20 see the range of metals you can come
across, and we found this in just about
every operation we looked at, a
petroleum refinery being a good one
for having a lot of metals.
__ On the economic side, just
-------
1 138
2 going back this just shows a curve
3 here, and these are just rough figures,
4 but the top curve here shows for waste
5 heat recovery only, and this is from the
6 manufacturing of waste, one type of waste
7 we looked at, and if you go to the top
8 curve there, you are talking about $50.00
9 to $200.00 a metric ton for your average
10 of twenty-five to thirty thousand metric
11 tons a year down to roughly two thousand
12 metric tons a year, which is very small.
13 If you can, you will notice the dramatic
14 effect here of materials recovery, and
15 in this case it is recovery of the
16 hydrogenchloride, and you can sell the
17 stuff in certain cases.
18 You can use the diluted acids
19 for pickling liquors, and just about
20 any facility that will generate a
21 chlorinate hydrocarbon somewhere in
22 their operation.
23 You can take and you can recycle
24 this back in.
25 So the bottom curve there kind
-------
not a factor of ten, a factor of two,
I39
of shows, and there you are talking
roughly of a factor of ten or lower
..
. or lower, by utilizing materials and
f energy recovery.
Another problem we addressed
in our study was that of regionalization,
and this is just a rough flow chart for
how one would go about looking at the
possibilities for a regional facility
-_ to have to dispose not only of hazardous
wastes, but anything you could burn,
-. and produce a usable energy product
_ that you could sell to a customer, and
, there are several examples of this type
-_ of operation extant in the United States
today, but as you can see, there are
a lot of problems you have to face when
2Q you do this.
,., To get an economic operation,
it*.
you have to utilize your scale, you have
.
24
to get a large operation or it just won't
work.
__ You have to go around and
-------
1 14°
2 identify every source that you can
in the area that is going to produce
A wastes that you might use.
c You have to you have to
identify the types of wastes, the
composition, all the chemicals and
physical characteristics one needs
to know.
You have to look around for
.... current projected planning capacities,
and this is a waste facility capacity,
and the supplier of the waste, because
if you are going to have a saleable
e byproduct, say you will be selling
steam, this is what they do in Arkansas,
they burn MSW and they sell steam to
a plant.
You have to guarantee that
20 customer you will have steam when he
wants it, and not when it is available.
You have to know.
_, You have to have reliable sources
of wastes, and then you have to backup
__ fuel costs in case something happens
-------
2 with the waste.
_ Other problems you can that
* you have to face when you look into
e regional facilities, who is going to
own the plants, the various options
that are available, private ownership,
county or city government,' non-profit
organizations, various options will
give you very different economic pictures
due to the tax structures, et cetera,
12 and then the environmental and institu-
tional factors, of course.
Assessing the availability of
.f need for it and usage of the recovery
l_- energy, you have that customer there.
j_ If you don't, there is no sense
in recovering the energy.
This brings us not really an
20 insurmountable problem, but it takes
a lot of consideration. To locate your
plant where somebody close to some-
body who is going to need the steam,
and in a central location where you
25 won't have to transport the wastes
-------
1
a very large distance.
R couple of the other the
. next slide shows some of the various
4
processes we looked at, and it shows
- where you do with utilities, total
_ electrical energy to produce the pro-
duct, and based on the analysis of
these industries, the recoverable energy,
the amount of recoverable energy, you
see quite a range there, and this kind
of gives you an idea of why plants may
12
., or may not look into utilizing-the
energy that is available there.
14
You get down to a figure where
you are like in a petroleum refinery
16
where only half percent of your energy
requirements would be available in the
j_ extremes we looked at, you are not
talking about very much energy there
compared to the total eneroy require-
21
ments.
22
Faced with the other factors
23
that when fuel is cheap, and the need
24
for process steam or whatever right
-------
1 I 143
2 then, is no longer existing, this shows
some of the ideas why some companies are
4 reluctant to look into an energy recovery
5 program.
6 Besides incineration, there are
7 other options available, and this chart
8 right here shows the properties of a
9 product produced by pyrolysis. It is
10 one of the ways we looked at in the
plastics industry.
12 ^s you can see here, if you
13 are familiar with the field at all, this
is a very good oil right here. They have
good recovery, 90% of it was recovered
15 in these particular experiments, and
they have a very, very high heating
lg value, 11,000 kilometers per kilogram.
19 This is another option available
20 f°r your consideration.
MR. LINDSEY: Thank you, Jack.
22 I appreciate it very much.
23 We have a few minutes here for questions
before we break for lunch.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Can you
-------
144
comment generally on some of the environ-
mental characteristics of these plants
in terms of their compatibility with
surrounding land use? What are the
, site properties, what are the inter-
actions with the surrounding area?
0 MR. RIGGENBACH: For which plant?
o
We looked at eight major industries and
we did not do a detailed analysis on
anyone of them.
We were utilizing other contractor
12
studies.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: If you
14
were to site an incinerator, what kind
15
of plants would you look for?
16
MR. RIGGENBACH: An industrial
site. If I sited an incinerator that
.- utilized energy recovery, I would look
at it close to a steam
MR. LINDSEY: Maybe I can clarify
21
that a little bit.
22
I think the sites maybe I
23
am wrong, and you can tell me if I am
the sites that you investigated were
-------
1
part of industrial operations, they were
not private disposal firms, or were they?
MR. RIGGENBACH: No, we looked
4
we were looking at, as that second slide
, showed, major industrial operations,
where chemicals or plastics were produced.
We were not looking at regional
o
facilities except for conceptual analysis
1Q there.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: A previous
speaker spoke of hazardous waste exchange.
Lff
It occurs to me that possibly you could
burn some of this waste and get some
14
energy value. You would need some kind
of technical reference, and I am asking
lo
is there a technical reference if I was
seeking to find out what a BTU value is,
lo
. for example, so I know what kind of an
energy resource I have, and maybe sell
to somebody who is generating heat?
MR. LINDSEY: The question is,
22
how do I know whether I have a reclaimable
resource from the energy standpoint if
24
I have waste stacks?
-------
I 146
MR. RIGGENBACH: The best way to
do this is to get several samples of your
waste and to put them in an oxygen colo-
4
meter to measure the heating value.
, We were not actually collecting
samples, but you could do a theoretical
analysis based on the known elements.
o
Those are the two approaches.
The quickest approach is you have
to have an analysis. You could figure
what your BTU contents would be.
Does that answer your question?
MR. LINDSEY: Any more questions?
14
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You
15
mentioned pyrolysis. That is the burning
16
without air.
Did you look into the destructive
. distillation?
I forget the terminology used for
it, but it is burning without air, and
the product that came off may be a lot
different than a combustion operation.
23 F
MR. LINDSEY: The question is,
24
did you investigate destructive distillatio:
-------
1 147
_ as an alternative in the use of the
, products?
. MR. RIGGENBACH: We looked at
- destructive distillation or pyrolysis,
^ which was heating in the absence of air,
» to produce various products, and I don't
D and I have other slides that I would
n be happy to show you that will show you
- the gaseous and liquid compositions of
various plastics that were pyrolysized
,- in a retort, and you do get a wide range.
\i
.., You do get some that may be worse.
, . AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: What kind
14
of products do you get?
,, MR. RIGGENBACH: You name it.
lo
-_ I would have to show you. You
-,, might break a plastic down through
jo pyrolysis, and get twenty different
2Q gaseous and liquid products.
_, It depends on how you pyrolysize
£ A
it, and what temperature, and the length
,., of time. It depends on the chemical
ftj
structure, you can get aeromatic compo-
nents, or just about anything.
-------
148
MR. LINDSEY: We did some test
burns in a pyrolysis unit using real
.
4
world wastes, as it were, and the results
are not fully available yet, but as I
recall, there was one waste in particular
_ which is a rubber plant waste that looked
Q like it had real possibilities in that
regard.
Have the results been published?
MR. RIGGENBACH: Our draft copy
-_ went to EPA in December.
I am going to Washington, D. C.
1 . tomorrow to make our final oral presenta-
tion, and we have not received the red
ink copy back yet.
16
So it is probably two months
down the road, at least, before it is
18
published.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Will
that be available?
21
MR. LINDSEY: Through the regular
solid wastes information publication
process
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thank you.
-------
1
2 MR. LINDSEY: Any further ques-
3 tions?
4 Thank you very much, Jack.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. LINDSEY: We will now convene
7 for lunch, which is being held in the
8 pool, so it says here, which is to the
9 right.
10 (Whereupon, at 12:30 o'clock P. M.
11 a luncheon recess was declared.)
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
-------
1 ^-E.T.ERNO.O.N S. E_ S_ jS !_ 0_ N
2 (Hearing resumed at 1:30 o'clock P. M.)
3 MS. DWOSKIN: Our first speaker
4 this afternoon is Sheldon Meyers, Deputy
5 Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste
6 Program, from the Environmental Protection
7 Agency.
8 MR. MEYERS: Thank you, Judy.
9 What I am going to do this after-
10 noon is give you a relatively quick run-
11 down of the provisions of the new Act,
12 discuss some parts of it, and end by
13 giving you a brief feel for how this Act
14 relates to other acts that EPA administers.
15 You noticed this morning there
16 was some concern particularly on the
17 part of industry that they would have
18 to deal with several different parts of
19 EPA to get several different kinds of
20 permits, and implying that we don't talk
21 to each other, which is true in many
22 cases.
23 Let me say at the outset, while
24 this is a meeting that is dedicated to
25 hazardous wastes, that the title of the
-------
2 new Act is the Resource Conservation
- and Recovery Act of 1976, and not the
A hazardous waste management act of 1976.
That is important for you to
know.
Public Law 94-580 was signed
into law by the President on October
21, 1976. The Act has eight subtitles,
Subtitle "A" through "H".
They have under Subtitle "A"
12 general provisions, which is important
13 in that it has a series of definitions
that are critical to implementing the
15 act-
It has also a requirement in
there that we write guidelines, and I
mention this because it is a carryover
from the previous acts that allowed us
20 to write guidelines. Those guidelines
are generally advisory to the general
__ public at large, but they are mandatory
for federal facilities.
_. That means that all federal
facilities must comply with these
-------
2 guidelines as if they were law.
Subtitle "B" sets up the Office
of Solid Waste statutorily. Now, many
of you may know that in the past the
solid waste program, while it is a multi-
billion dollar industry in the outside
world, was a relatively small program
in EPA. Congress very specifically
wanted to give the office visibility
and, therefore, set it up statutorily.
Subtitle "C" is the hazardous
waste management provision of the act.
The entire subtitle addresses hazardous
wastes.
Subtitle "D" is the state or
regional solid waste planning section
of the act, and that is important in
that it has a pseudo-regulatory program
20 which mandates the closing of open dumps
and this is to be administered by the
states.
ZZ
Subtitle "E" provides a role
for the Secretary of Commerce. Now,
Z4
this is sort of an odd provision in
-------
IS3
2 that I personally believe it was a hang-
3 over from one of the previous versions
4 of the law that did not make it into
5 law, which called for something called
6 the United States Resource Recovery
7 Corporation, and that particular entity
8 would have had a loan guarantee authority
9 of some two and a half billion dollars
to provide loans for resource recovery
11 plans, and in that particular version
12 of the law, the Secretary of Commerce
13 had an important role to develop new
14 markets for recovered materials, to
promote the technology, and to put to-
gather specifications for recovered
material.
lg Under the act that was passed,
19 he has those roles now.
20 Subtitle "F " is an interesting
2i one, it is called federal responsibilities.
22 Now, I mentioned that the guidelines
23 that we published under Subtitle "A"
24 were binding on federal agencies. Now,
25 this law has a unique provision in it
-------
that is erratically different from the
other acts that we operate under, the
large ones such as Air and Water, have
to do with the obligation of federal
facilities.
o
Under the Air and Water Act,
federal facilities are mandated to
comply with the requirements of the
act like any other person and require-
ments is not further defined.
11
EPA, in conjunction with the
federal agencies developed a scheme
whereby requirements meant substantive
requirements, emission limitations,
regulations, and things of that nature,
but not to get federal facilities to
obtain state permits.
18
Now, this Solid Waste Act is
very explicit. It says federal agencies
must comply with all requirements, both
substantive and procedural, and in
22
parentheses, including getting permits,
so that for the first time, the states
24
will be able to deal with federal agencies,
25
-------
2 at least in the solid waste arena, in
, the same manner as they deal with every-
body else.
Now, I offer a note of caution
to those of you who represent state
governments.
Be even handed. In other words,
treat federal agencies equally. Don't
go after a very big and obvious fed for
I! unenvironmental reasons. If this particu-
12 lar section is not administered properly
by the states, you can bet your last
nickel that the law will be changed in
the future back to the way it was.
., It is an interesting experiment,
and it can work, but there has to be
IQ some caution on the part of the state
governments.
Subtitle "G" is miscellaneous
provisions, and that is important for
a number of reasons, it has a citizen's
suit provision that is quite important,
as I said.
It has the imminent hazard
-------
1 *»
2 provision, and both of these, in con-
-, junction, give us the authority that
> we need.
e Subtitle "H" is the research
development and demonstration authorities
that carry over from other acts.
I would like to read to you two
definitions that are in this act, and one
is the definition of solid waste, and
one is the definition of disposal.
Solid waste is defined as "any
garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste
treatment plant, water supply treatment
plant, or air pollution control facility
,, and other discarded material, including
,- solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained
gaseous material resulting from industrial,
commercial, mining, and agricultural
2Q operations, and from community activities,
_.. but does not include solid or dissolved
material in domestic sewerage, or solid
-, °r dissolved materials in irrigation
_. returh flows or industrial discharges
which are point sources subject to
-------
1
2 permits under Section 402 of the Federal
, Water Pollution Control Act, as amended,
or source, special nuclear, or byproduct
material as defined by the Atomic Energy
Act of 1954, as amended."
The particular definition goes
to excluding certain things that are
covered by other acts, such as radiation
and the like.
I think you can see from the
12 definition that solid waste is a very
13 broadly defined term in the Act, and it
is important because in many cases where
the regulatory program is spelled out,
it talks about solid waste, hazardous
waste, et cetera.
So that when they talk about
19 solid waste, remember this broad defini-
20 tion-
Disposal is defined as "to dis-
_« charge, deposit, injection, dumping,
spilling, leaking, or placing of any
_j solid waste or hazardous waste into
or on any land or water so that such
-------
I**
1 "
2 solid waste or hazardous waste or any
_ constituent thereof may enter the environ-
ment or be emitted into the air or dis-
charged into any waters, including ground
waters. "
« I think you can see that between
o the definition of solid waste and disposal,
this act offers the possibility of rather
... wide coverage. There are, of course, a
whole load of other definitions some of
12 which are not so good.
Let me just quickly run down the
*A key provisions of the act.
-_ I mentioned that the act statutor-
., ily establishes the Office of Solid Waste,
._ and it sets up Subtitle "C", which is
a strict federal-state regulatory program
for hazardous wastes.
You have heard the discussion
-_ this morning on problems with defining
hazardous wastes.
But once you define it, the other
_. provisions of the act follow.
The first section of that
-------
1
2 subtitle Section 3 through Section 1
- is the definitions, but beyond that,
x you get into standards for generators,
e manifest system transporters and a merit
system for treatment, storage and disposal.
All those things will apply to
whatever is defined as hazardous waste,
g and we have 18 months to do that. It is
-- a federal program initially, unless states
come in and tell us they have one at
12 the outset, and there are provisions in
the act to pick up existing state programs.
.. That the program is defined to
._ be run and operated by the states.
-- We will put out an initial set
of standards, regulations and guidelines,
and we will operate the program at the
outset, if necessary, but it is really
20 designed for the states to pick it up.
Now, if the states choose not
__ to, then obviously EPA will.
23 If the states, or any particular
_. state has the program, and chooses not
25
to move against a particular violator,
-------
"I
2 the EPA Administrator does have the
_ authority to step in and move against
, a particular violator.
- We cannot make the state do
anything they don't want to do. The
act also requires us to put out guide-
lines, and I mentioned that earlier,
that was Section 1,008, according to
the general provisions, and again these
guidelines are guided by federal agencies.
._ An important part of the act is
for us to put out criteria guidelines
that define open dumps and sanitary land-
-- fills, and that is important in that once
1, we have defined what an open dump is,
or a sanitary landfill, then the law
1Q also mandates that we take an inventory
lo
of all open dumps.
Once we have that inventory,
then the states have five years to close
down or upgrade the status of sanitary
_., landfills and open dumps.
Now, this is a state run program.
24
The inventory will be done under
-------
i
2 the auspices of the federal government,
- but our initial thinking now is to have
> the states the actual inventory, but it
c will be a federal inventory. Now, this
is important, the inventory itself is
important, in that the state planning
effort that is not mandatory involves
a scheme whereby if a state is working
with us in this planning effort, and
clearly they should have provisions
.._ for either upgrading or closing down
open dumps in that plan, they would
. , then have up to five years to take
care of that particular problem.
,, If for one reason or another
ID
l_ they choose not to work with,us, then
under the citizen suit provision, they
will be operating an illegal open dump,
20 and any citizen can walk in and sue to
shut it down, and my guess is a judge
22 will probably not give as much time as
that five years that is in the law.
_. So a state may be faced with a rather
.- precipitous closing down of an open
-------
-tear
dump, although judges rarely would not
2
leave an option to the state.
J
If there is nothing else you
4
may do with it, it may be okay, but it
is clearly not in line with what the law
o
wants, and the law wants no new open
dumps to be started, and secondly, to
o
close down or upgrade existing open
dumps.
The act provides or authorizes
11 I
provides is the wrong word author-
izes financial assistance to state and
local governments in the form of various
14
grants to implement the various parts
of this act. There is an interesting
16
provision under Subtitle "D" for fin-
ancial aid to rural communities.
18
It is authorized at the level of
some twenty-five million dollars for each
fiscal year of 1978 and 1979, and this
21
is the only provision of the act that
22
allows you to build something.
23
All the other parts of the grant
24
program are designed to plan and implement,
-------
1 *«
in the sense of hiring people. Under
this provision of the act, you can
actually build a sanitary landfill, you
4
can buy bulldozers, you can do everything
f in it in the way of construction of
facilities, except purchase land, and
0 that particular prohibition is in one
o
of those definitions that I did not
read you, and you will have to read
10
the definition.
11
Again, these are all author-
., izations, we have had no appropriations
14
I mentioned the guidelines
that are binding on the feds, and I
16
mentioned that the federal agencies
for the first time must comply with
18
19 all substantive and procedural require-
ments.
The act also recognizes an
administrative memorandum of understanding
between EPA and the Environmental Re-
search and Development Administration.
24
Both of us have in our organic legisla-
25
-------
2 tion authority to work on projects
to convert waste to energy.
. The Congress very wisely
_ suggested in hearings before the laws
were passed that we work together, and
_ work out some mutually agreeable terms
o and conditions which we did, and the
q Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
statutorily recognizes that agreement.
The act also provides for the
normal research and development authori-
ties that I mentioned before. It pro-
vides demonstration authorities. It
14
also provides something called Resource
Conservation and Recovery Panels, which
16
are technical assistance teams, and these
,0 panels, I think, also were a carryover
lo
from when that when the United States
__ Recovery Corporation Resource Recovery
Corporation was being bandiad about.
These panels would have advised
__ the corporation. The corporation did not
make it into law, but the panel did, and
24
__ despite what they are called, the language
-------
16b""
_ of the lad allows them to provide the
complete range of solid waste management
. assistance, not just for resource re-
_ covery.
f The act also provides for train-
_ ing grant authority, and it requires the
agency to setup a broad-based information
_ development system, and it requires a
large number of special studies, and it
established a rather high level resource
conservation committee, and by high level
I mean it is chaired by the EPA Adminis-
, trator, and also composed of the Secre-
taries of Commerce, Treasury, Interior,
and representatives from the office of
16
Management and Budget.
10 This rather high level group
lo
is charged with looking at a number of
__ areas in the field of conservation.
There was very little that Congress
could do at the time that law was
22
passed that would mandate conservation
measures, but I think they very wisely
got some high level people to focus
-------
1 *e"7'
2 attention on it, and these reports, of
, course, will be made available to the
. Congress.
- That is in a rather large nut-
shell what the law is all about.
- Let me very quickly tell you
a where we stand in implementing the act.
One of the things that the act
does, and it is woven throughout the
act, and it is culled out specifically
i-n a number of sections, it mandates
a rather meaningful role for public
.. participation.
. _ Now, I am sure that many of
you have had all kinds of heartaches
in dealing with federal agencies in
trying to get things in the perspective
that made sense to you. We would like
20 to put out the kinds of standards,
regulations and guidelines that makes
sense to the people that, (a) have to
- administer them, and the people who
are covered by them, assuming we live
._ within the confines of the law.
-------
1
We have no preconceived notions
in Washington now as to how these things
3
are to come out.
4
We have whole loads of options,
and our staff are trying very diligently
6
to bring into the regulation writing
process the views of affected parties.
Now, we have held a couple of
meetings, not around the country, we
10
had one in Dallas, and one in Washington,
11
where we merely laid out what the law
12
was all about, and let it be known that
13
we were interested in hearing from any-
14
body to let us know what their thoughts
15
were, and that was just to raise peoples'
16
consciousness.
17
We have going on right now, and
18
one of the firsts is this evening, the
19 |
same kind of meetings that will be held
20
around the country, they are being managed
by our regional offices, and I want to
22 [
encourage all of you who stick around
for that this evening, it will go into
24
a great deal more depth in terms of
-------
2 what the act is about.
_ Moreover, make sure you get the
. names of the people who are here so that
- if you have something to say, and you
want to participate more fully, find out
_ who the people are, and write to them,
Q that will that information will be-
come available this afternoon.
Now, I have charged our people
with, when you get comments from people
.- from the outside, you know, they deserve
either an explanation as to why you cannot
-. do what they want, or a very nice note
saying that is a great idea, we are
... going to do it.
lo
Now, whether or not that works
,0 in practice remains to be seen. We have
lo
tried to setup the system within the
__ agency to sort of accomplish this.
We will have on the working
groups that develop these regulations
representatives of state governments
to help us write them, so the people
__ who have to administer the program will
-------
be there helping us write the regulations.
We could not get outside citizens
. involved, but we were able to get the
_ states. We have also setup a scheme
whereby some fifteen to twenty outside
_ organizations will be fed early versions
a of draft regulations so that they get
material at a stage when nobody's pro-
fessional pride is on the line in terms
of the product, so that if something
makes sense to change at an early stage
-_ in the game, it is very likely it will
, . change.
14
Now, I have done this for a
very selfish reason. At the time we
16
propose a regulation, I don't want to
get a big static from the outside world
18
saying we are out in left field.
__ Hopefully, if we have worked
effectively with all the parties,
21
explaining why we did what we did, there
22
should not be a last minute attempt
saying that these regulations are not
24
what they ought to be, and then you go
-------
1
2 back to first base, and try all over
again.
. Those of you who want to partici-
- pate, we tried to setup a framework, and
moreover, a mental state of mind that
- will permit you to do that.
o I encourage you all, or all of
g you that want to, to make sure that you
1f. find out who it is that is writing
particular regulations, and make sure
they know how you think.
Now, one other thing that the
I . agency has done is that we have setup
an intra-agency strategy developing
group, which has representatives of
-_ various parts of the agency so that
,0 when the strategy for implementing the
lo
act is written, it will not represent
_.. just the parochial views of the solid
waste office, it will represent the
views of the entire agency, which may
_, be parochial as well, but at least
it will address those kinds of issues
24
__ that industry is concerned about, namely,
-------
"!//"
2 that we do not re-invent the wheel three
., times over because we have a new law whose
A coverage may crisscross with other parts
e of the agency's program.
We expect to have a draft strategy
towards the end of April, and this, too,
will be presented to the public for re-
view and comment.
There have been a number of
meetings with various interested groups
12 thus far on the strategy, but mostly to
13 look at various issues that surfaced
before the strategies could be written.
We have received a number of opinions
«, from the Office of General Counsel on
various parts of the act that leaves
some discretion as to what you can do.
We have established a task
force to develop it is not really a
task force, an intra-agency group to
develop new regulations for grants
that may be unique to this act. We
will probably tack that onto the existing
25 agency regulations for applying for
-------
2 grants, but if there is anything unique
a about this act, we want to get it out
right in the beginning.
I have met, in fact, it was
yesterday, I have met with the new
administrator, and the deputy administra-
8 tor to explain this new program to them,
9 and I am really delighted to tell you
10 that the new administrator knows a good
deal about solid wastes, he came from
12 the Connecticut Department of Environ-
13 mental Protection, and was active in
solid waste programs while he was there,
and elicited extreme interest in the
solid waste program, at least in the
hour and a half that I spoke with him.
So from my perspective, it
19 looks very bright in terms of a new
law and new administrator that at least
knows there is a solid waste program,
which as I mentioned earlier, frequently
23 disappears under the weight of the air
and water programs.
That pretty much covers where
-------
2 we stand.
, We have done all the necessary
A things within the agency to allow us
to proceed with writing these regulations,
and standards, and I bring that up be-
cause in the past there was some con-
cern in the government in general about
over-regulation.
Many agencies would tack onto
the last sentence of a law, and build
a monumental program on that, and fre-
quently ended up over-regulating, if
., > that is an appropriate term.
-- At EPA, we try to come to grips
., with our problem by setting up an internal
mechanism that required the administrator
to approve in advance all regulation
writing before you go too far along,
2Q and we have already done that, so that
we have all the necessary approvals to
proceed, we setup all the intra-agency
work groups, that includes state officials
_. to help us write these regulations, and
25 we are well underway.
-------
2 Now, let me just quickly touch
, upon the various parts of other agency
x programs that impact on this new act,
f or vice versa.
EPA, as you know, has major
programs involving air and water.
Water being the waste water
treatment plant program under the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act
Amendments of 1972.
The pesticide program, the
toxic substances program, and the safe
.* drinking water program, and noise and
.- radiation also are very important
... pieces of legislation.
.- Now, as best I can see now,
there is not too much of an impact on
noise and radiation.
20 In air, there could be an impact.
They have a section in air that is
__ entitled Hazardous Pollutants, and these
are hazardous air pollutants, and they
presume that if something goes up a
__ stack, and you prevent it from going up
-------
- that stack, you have a neat little bill
- that you have to dispose some way or
i another.
e In the past, generally, that
waste was disposed of on land.
I guess I should have started
this conversation out by saying something
to the effect that this particular act
closes that last unrelated loop for the
disposal of the most noxious materials.
.._ Now, the difference between
hazardous wastes and toxic substances
,. are that toxic substances are generally
- _ chemical things you can see, and hazardous
., waste is a conglomerate mixture of all
kinds of things, some of which may be
toxic, and some of which may not be.
Someone mentioned this morning
2Q sand and arsenic. So that the Air Act
-I does have an impact, perhaps not as
much as the others that I will mention.
Under the Federal Water Pollution
-. Control Act Amendments of 1972, many of
you are familiar with Section 208 of
-------
1
2 that act, which is a water basin planning
_ concept.
A Now, the previous administrator
f was quite interested in this particular
section. He viewed it as a device for
doing environmental planning, and it
can be.
We felt that there was some
credibility to that, and had been working
.... with our 208 people in Washington, and
12 have mounted a series of nationwide
13 seminars to get 208 people talking to
solid waste people for the first time
.- in many cases, I might add.
-., Now, this new act that we have,
.._ R. C. R. A., under the section that talks
about setting and planning boundaries,
does specifically mention 208 as a device
20 that ought to be looked at.
It does not mandate that solid
__ waste monies flow through 208 agencies,
but it merely says that in setting up
_. the planning boundaries for solid waste,
25 you ought to look at 208.
-------
177
, -i/81
2 Now, where the 208 agency is
a general purpose governmental body
. that covers many areas, it would be a
_ logical place to have this program re-
x: side for planning purposes, as well.
_ fchere t±ie 208 agency is strictly
a water planning kind of operation,
then it would not be a very likely
candidate for the solid waste planning
function.
-« The decision will be left up
to the Governor of the state to do the
... designation. We have worked with our
people in Washington in 208, and if
it is possible to have an environmental
16
.._ planning tool that includes solid waste,
that is fine.
On the other hand, the feedback
we get from the constituency we have in
the solid waste field is they do not
think it makes sense to have water
planners do solid waste planning, and
_. it does not, if it is put that way.
If we are talking about a
25
-------
1
2 general purpose government agency that
, does all planning, then very clearly
. they could hire solid waste planners
e or subcontract to an existing solid
waste organization.
_ So the 208 issue is there, and
Q we will be working with it continuously
_ We will not force anybody to use 208.
On the other hand, if it makes
sense to use 208, it can be used.
The pesticides program is one
that we have worked with in the past,
,. and by that, I mean the main effort in
14
EPA in pesticides is registration of
., pesticides, with an occasional cancella
-_ tion. Now, when you have a pesticide
, Q or pesticide container that you have to
lo
do something with, in other words,
dispose of it, we have an arrangement
with our pesticide office where the
21
solid waste office will do the disposal
part for pesticides.
So anything that has to do with
24
the disposal of pesticides or pesticide
-------
1
containers, and ends up in the form
of regulations, will and have been
prepared by the solid waste office
We have an existing longstanding
arrangement with them.
o
Now, based upon that particular
arrangement, we worked out a similar
o
arrangement with the office of toxic
substances. Their act is designed for
10
mainly premarket testing, and control
of new chemicals on the market.
12
There is language in their act
that concerns disposal. Now, we have
14
worked out an agreement with them where
15
we will write disposal regulations for
16
them as they need them.
17
The first one that will be
18
coming out is one on PCB disposal.
We about six months ago or
20
seven months ago, before the law was
passed, either the toxic substances
22
act or our own act, we put out guidelines
on disposal of PCB's.
24
Now, that was advisory.
25
-------
_ If you are going to dispose of
PCB's, here is the best way to do it.
. We are taking that particular guideline
_ and converting into a regulation. So
f in the arena of toxic substance disposal,
_ we again have worked out an arrangement
where we will worry about the disposal
aspects for them.
The safe drinking water act,
the last one I want to mention, has a
concern about the protection of drinking
,.., waters. One of the concerns they have
_ . is what we call pits, ponds and lagoons,
which may or may not leach into the
ground water, and there is a possibility
lo
of overlap there, and we are currently
working with that office to make sure
lo
that, however, that particular problem
_ is regulated, it will only be done once
within the agency, and not by two differ-
ent parts of the office.
So despite the concern that
many people have that EPA does not talk
to each other, I would say that I spend
-------
H.02'
1
- half my time talking to other people in
_ the agency to make sure that we do not,
A indeed, come out with the kind of programs
~ that are perceived by the public, and
industry, as re-regulating, or over-
~ regulating, or regulating more than once
o the same thing.
n It is sometimes a little tricky
because you have legislated mandates
that give you no options, and the way
I have described this to others on
different occasions, is that many times
when EPA tried to be reasonable, someone
sued us, and generally they won the suit,
,, and we could not be reasonable.
lo
-_ The thing that comes to my mind
is affluent guidelines. We wanted to
be reasonable, and exclude feed lots
2Q of under 500 cattle, or some number,
50 cattle, I forget what it was, and
it made sense to us not to put the
_, burden on the small guy.
We got dragged into court,
_ and whoever did drag us in, won the case.
-------
^
_ He said we have no authority to have
a dLminiimous setup.
I urge you to be patient with
_ us. There are a lot of reasonable
, people in EPA. We recognize that the
_ kind of things we do impact the public
directly, and frequently very quickly,
_ and we are very conscious of that, and
there is nobody that I know in EPA
that, you know, at the outset, wants
to do unreasonable things.
j. We are frequently put into a
box, and end up down the road doing
something that may be perceived as not
too reasonable, but if you get a chance
16
to talk to the people who are involved,
and you find out that there were ten
18
million reasons why it came out that
way, frequently beyond the control of
the guy that was running it.
With that, I would be glad
22
and delighted to answer any questions
that you might have, within the time
~*T
period that is left.
-------
1*3
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You said
that the states would get grant money
to actually purchase equipment like
bulldozers. For what purpose is that?
6 MR. MEYERS: That is under
n the rural assistance program, under
g Subtitle "D", and presumes that many
smaller communities, and when I say
rural communities, the law specifies
what a rural community is, the popula-
.._ tion and density, and things like that,
and the concept is that if you have
an open dump, and everybody is throwing
their stuff in it, and by virtue of
... this other part of the act you close
._ it down, there has to be something that
takes its place, I believe the law
contemplated that these rural commun-
2Q ities would not have the financial
resources to build a well engineered
sanitary landfill, and this grant money
_, could be used for that.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: The
__ grant would be made directly to a
-------
- IflT*
2 municipality rathert than directly to
_ the state, or would it be administered
. by the state?
MR. MEYERS: I think it would
go directly to the rural community,
but I don't remember the exact language.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Could
you tell me when the guidelines for
federal installation will be out? Do
you have an anticipated date?
MR. MEYERS: I am not sure I
know what you mean.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You
were referring to guidelines for what
,, federal installations will have to
ID
-_ follow.
,0 MR. MEifERS: There are five
lo
of them out right now. I believe under
__ the new act we are contemplating two
additional ones.
One is on land disposal, and
the other is on sludge disposal.
Now, these will be advisory to
everybody except for federal agencies
-------
- 1017*
_ which must meet the requirements of the
guidelines. Tne existing guidelines are
. on separation of paper, resource recovery
_ plants, beverage container deposits and
so forth.
_ AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: When do
a you expect the guideline for land disposal
to be out?
MR. MEYERS: I believe in about
eighteen months or fourteen months from
12 today.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: How does
the act tie into other federal programs
outside of EPA affecting water quality,
specifically the coastal zone management
16
program, which defers to 208 on the water
quality aspects? Is there a provision
18
-_ in this law or in your administrative
regulations that would identify the
respective roles of those programs?
MR. MEYERS: As far as I know,
23
We have had very little dealings
with other agencies except the ones that
-------
are mentioned in the law, and the number
of them are, for example in the hazardous
4
waste programs, under the regulations
for transporters, we are obliged to
6
work with the Department of Transportation,
7
but that one has not come to my attention.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Are
9
there any federal subsidies for companies
10
that may want to site at their own waste
disposal facilities, in particular cir-
cumstances?
MR. MEYERS: The only part of
14
this act, and I did not mention it earlier,
that would be considered a subsidy for
industry, is that there is a grant pro-
gram for tire shredders, it is authorized
18 at the level of $750,000.00 for each
19
fiscal year '78 and '79, but you cannot
get any more than 50% of the purchase
price.
22 Other than that, most of the
^ money flows to state and local govern-
24 ments. There are authorizations for
* demonstration plans, and there are those
-------
1
_ in the industry that would be eligible
for that.
. AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: The
_ criteria for obtaining grants, will
this require being substantiated or
backed up by a specific plan?
MR. MEYERS: I don't know what
_ you mean.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well,
let's say, for instance, whether it be
developing a landfill or whatever,
would the engineering plans be required
for entering into the source separation
program, for example, would a specific
plan have to be developed?
16
MR. MEYERS: Well, the proposal the
<0 would go along with the grant applica-
lo
-_ tion should very clearly, as best you
can, the time, indicate what you are
going to do. In other words, I would
call it a plan.
22
It does not -- you don't have
to have engineering drawings of a land-
fill, if that is what you want to build,
-------
_ but describing the problems of the
sites you have, the geology, we want
. assurance that the money will not be
_ wasted, and whatever that takes is all
g we need.
_ It should not be a frivilous
a thought kind of thing, it should be
_ backed up with as much information as
- you have.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: When
you get to the point where you start
1Z
.., inventorying open dumps and eventually
hazardous waste from industry, will
there be a federally designed form
for doing it that the states will hand
16
out to industry, or will it be done
state by state, and will everything
lo
._ be different?
MR. MEYERS: First the inventory
only effects open dumps. It does not
effect hazardous waste sites.
22
That is something completely
separate. Hazardous waste sites will
*rt
be directly regulated, either by the
-------
_ feds or by the states.
The open dump provision for
an inventory is mandated to the feds.
We feel it makes sense to get the
- states to do it for us, and hopefully
they will agree to that, but if they
Q don't, then essentially our regional
o
office will do it for them.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: What
10
is the criteria then for open dumps
if from state to state it varies,
12
-, depending upon their specific regulations?
MR. MEYERS: The criteria will
14
be put out by us. We will put out
the criteria nationally.
16
Now, clearly, criteria is
interpreted differently by everybody
18
under the sun. We won a number of
programs now, we find that no matter
2O
how explicit and clear our guidelines
and criteria are to our regional offices,
22
you know, we always get ten different
23
interpretations of it.
24
But I think one can have a
25
-------
_ relatively high degree of assurance
that most of it will be covered under
4
the open dump provision.
_ AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Do you
know what the prospects are for actual
_ appropriations? I mean, they have the
o suggested appropriations for the various
_ provisions of the act, but how much do
- you think you are actually going to get?
MR. MEYERS: Well, the Ford
budget had some twenty-four million
., plus twelve
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thirty-
five million, I had read for this year,
and sixty-one million for 1978.
16
MR. MEYERS: This year is fiscal
year '77, and we got sixteen million,
18
that's all.
For fiscal year '78, the Ford
budget had twenty-four, plus seven,
plus five, and I mention it that way
because the budget that came through
23
our office was the twenty-four, with
seven million as a consolidated grant
-------
2 program that covers all grants that we
_ hand out, and another five million
. dollars to be managed by the 208 program,
- although we would dictate how the money
f would be spent, which would come through
_ from their pot.
Now, that is a relatively small
amount compared to the authorization.
, The authorization for fiscal year '78
is in the order of $175,000,000.00.
Now, you don't have to be a
great magician to see that there is a
. . wide disparity between that which we
have or think we have, and that which
was authorized.
16
We estimate that if the states
, Q were agreeable to doing an inventory
10
l_ for us, that we'd eat up most of that
_ seven million bucks in consolidated
grant money. That means that the various
planning that has to be done, and there
22
are solid waste plans in most states,
what we are talking about is upgrading
them so that they cover not only solid
-------
- waste, but resource recovery, and hazardous
waste as well.
* Input from local government will
- be diminished greatly unless they get
funding, so we don't have a feel now
_ for how much over and above what I have
c already told you we will get.
I understand that President
.- Carter has said something to the effect
that there will be increased resources
for EPA, but I just don't know what they
13
1A AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Does
14
this act or will this act eventually
get involved with ocean disposal or
16
aspects of ocean disposal, or does this
just pertain to land disposal only?
lo
MR. MEYERS: This act does not
directly effect ocean disposal. There
is another law, the Marine Resources
21
and Sanctuary Act, that explicitly
addresses ocean disposal, and as far
23
as I know, we do not need any additional
authority in that arena.
-------
So even if there were authority
2
in that act, we would defer to them.
3
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well,
4
I was just going to say, if under the
Marine and Sanctuaries Act, you prohibit
6
waste disposal to sea, then you have to
7
address yourself to a method of disposal
S
on 1and.
9
MR. MEYERS: That is right.
10
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Then
11
it would ultimately
12
MR. MEYERS: If it came back
to the land, it would very definitely
be covered if the stuff you were
15
disposing of were hazardous, it would
16
come under the hazardous waste provision,
17
if it were not hazardous, then we would
18
expect the state plan to account for
19
that material, and what you are going
20
to do with it, either recover it, so
21
it can be reused, or that it be disposed
22
of in a well engineered, sanitary land-
23
fill, or some other environmentally
24
sound manner, which language is in the
25
-------
1
_ law without explaining what it means.
Presumably, you could build an
. expensive incinerator and get rid of
_ some of it.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: How does
the act define sanitary landfill?
MR. MEYERS: I have forgotten,
_ but it does define it.
It is rather broad.
One more question.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Do you
., have any provisions in the act for the
safe closure of the open dumps, or do
you envision a walkaway policy after
five years?
lo
MR. MEYERS: The act does not
define what closing means. Now, it
does say that they either close or
_ upgrade. Conceivably, the closing
could be just walkaway from the thing.
If it had been an environmental dis-
22
aster, my guess would be that public
pressure would build up to do something
about it.
-------
_ This act has all kinds of nuances
, that we have not even mentioned, such as
J
. who has long-term responsibility for
- taking care of these sites.
You know, if you build a nice
_ landfill and twenty years later, who
Q is responsible for making sure that
something does not happen to it.
Those are other issues that
we have been trying to address, but
it is possible that closing could
mean that you just walk away from it,
- . although if we find that that is a
prevalent alternative, that people
,, are opting for, we may put out a
16
legally enforceable regulation that
,0 requires perhaps a cover, or something
lo
like that.
I will be around
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Inter-
state transport of solid wastes, is
that governed?
Z3
MR. MEYERS: There is no explicit
prohibition against it, but my guess
-------
_ is that problem will be resolved as
soon as the Supreme Court hears the
. Philadelphia-Camden-New Jersey case,
_ which addresses that explicitly.
g My guess is they will come
_ out ,and say it should be they will
Q knock down the New Jersey law, is my
9 guess.
1Q (Applause.)
MS. DWOSKIN: Shelly will be
here if anyone has any questions they
..., want to ask him outside. But we really
have to get on with the program because
we have two very interesting panels
this afternoon.
lo
I would now like to introduce
Mike DeBonis, who is Chief of Solid
lo
jg Waste in our Region II EPA Office,
__ and with him is Dr. Peter Preuss
from New Jersey, and Bill Wilkie from
New York State, who is replacing Ted
22
Hullar, who is unable to be here today.
MR. DeBONIS: Thank you very
&T
much, Judith.
-------
1
2 Before I get started, I would
_ just like to express my personal appre-
. elation, I think Judith would also, for
, having Sheldon Meyers here. We really
appreciate Sheldon coining up here for
this meeting. He is probably one of
the busiest guys in the federal govern-
ment at this point with the new legie-
lation having been passed, and having
to implement it, and I would just like
to mention in passing that he is not
just another Washington Bureaucrat,
- . because he believes in immersing him-
self with his work.
When he first came into the
ID
-_ job, he came into New York City and
, collected garbage all day long, and
lo
went out to the Fresh Kills landfill,
and really saw it from the grassroots
level up, and I have a lot of respect
for him for that reason.
Let me just tell you a little
bit about the activities of the solid
waste management branch in the regional
-------
- office, as they relate to waste manage-
, ment.
* The foremost activity among
- these is our technical assistance pro-
gram in the hazardous waste area. We
are not in a position to certify any
particular treatment or disposal method
at this time.
We won't be, I presume, until
the hazardous waste regulations under
R. C. R. A. are finally promulgated.
But we will, upon request, attempt to
provide information on alternative
options available for a given waste
stream. Our recommendations are based
16
on published materials on file at our
office, specific agency guidance as
Sheldon recently mentioned on PCB's
or vinyl chloride propelled aerosols,
and also based on consultations with
the Office of Solid Waste, hazardous
waste division staff in Washington,
who are designated to provide us with
backup support on special or unusual
-------
, problems in the hazardous waste area.
i
In many cases, we are able to
. refer technical assistance requests to
- the appropriate state solid waste manage-
.- ment program. State resources used to
_ respond to such requests generally
g emanate at least in part from EPA's
_ state program planning grants provided
by the regional EPA office.
I will go into that just a little
bit more in a few moments.
... The individual in our office
who manages the technical assistance
14
program is Eileen Iwanu (phonetic spelling
and I would just like Eileen to stand
16
up for a minute so you can see where
she is back there.
18
- You might want to speak to
_- her after if you have any particular
disposal problem.
There are two other individuals
22
I would like to have stand up for a
moment, one is Ron Buchannan (phonetic
£r*T
spelling), from the New Jersey Solid
-------
Waste Program, who is Chief of the
Hazardous Waste Section down there,
or hazardous waste problems in New
Jersey, and also Paul Counterman (phonetic
, spelling), from New York State, who is
o
here. I don't believe we have anyone
_ from Puerto Rico represented at this
o
meeting.
In any case, either of those
two individuals is appropriate, depending
on what state you are dealing with, or
our office, you may feel free to get
in touch with it concerning any specific
14
problems.
15
The regional solid waste
16
branch also participates regularly in
a hazardous materials committee, which
18
is a federal inter-agency group here
in the metropolitan area of various
authorities concerned with hazardous
21
waste management, such as DOT, the
22
Coast Guard, and New York City Fire
23
Department, and other agencies.
24
Our office is charged with
25
-------
_ monitoring and assisting in the planning
_ and implementation activities concerned
, with the hazardous waste provisions of
e the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act, and we are acting as lead EPA
region on two critical areas of Subtitle
(c) of this act, the standard for stor-
age treatment and disposal facilities,
and permitting programs, and that such
will be acting as kind of a conduit for
-_ the comments and regulations and guide-
,,- line development from all ten regions
in the country, and ultimately from all
of the state programs directly to
Washington, and sitting on these work
16
groups, which will ultimately come up
, with the regulations.
lo
The other key functions as far
as our hazardous waste activities are
concerned relates to the state grant
program, and that allows for a cooperative
_ federal and state approach to hazardous
waste management.
24
We hae provided almost $300,000.00
-------
to the New Jersey State Department of
Conservation and the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico's policy board.
These grants are provided for
ft the purposes of performing hazardous
waste inventories, supplementing ex-
0 isting staff to provide for technical
o
assistance capabilities, and again I
mentioned previously other activities
directly in support of planning for a
state hazardous waste regulatory pro-
13 gram.
I certainly don't want to
14
cover the topics of the next two speakers,
however, so I think I will just end here
16
in a minute or two.
17
I am going to remain the moderator
18
of the rest of this session, and assist
in the asking of questions as time per-
mits after we have our presentations.
I might just mention again if
22
anyone is interested in more information
23
from our program, or wishes to avail
24
themselves of our technical assistance
-------
_ provisions, please contact me or Eileen
at your convenience. If it is at all
. possible, I would ask that you write
_ us a letter, and put your request in
writing if you can.
We are getting an awful large
volume of telephone calls since the
new solid waste legislation was passed,
j and it really helps us if we have your
request in writing because we can kind
of do extra leg work, and analysis in
the office, and serve you a little bit
j . more efficiently if we have it in
writing.
I think we will move on to the
16
state program presentations now and
save some time for questions a little
18
bit later.
Dr. Theodore Hullar was not
able to be with us today due to another
21
more pressing commitment, but I am
very pleased to introduce William
Wilkie, who is the Deputy Director of
24
Solid Waste Management Division with
-------
.
_ the New York State Department of
_ Environmental Conservation.
Bill is certainly one of the
stalwarts of the New York State Solid
Waste Program, and I cannot think of
anyone who has more knowledge of solid
waste management in New York State
n from the overall state level than Bill,
-_ so with that, I will just let you take
it over, Bill.
MR. WILKIE: What I was about
to say was to thank you for that intro-
,. duction, Mike.
14
I wish very much my mother-in-
law was here at that time, it would help.
16
In New York State, we had an
,0 active solid waste management program
lo
we have had an active solid waste
management program in New York State
since 1963. Our activities in hazardous
waste management are of more recent
origin, but we have been involved in
the hazardous waste management area
24
since 1972.
-------
2 It is an extremely important
_ area of concern to us because approximately
. twelve to thirteen percent of the hazardous
e generated in the United States is gener-
ated here in New York State.
Our initial entry into the
hazardous waste area was in 1971, via
some legislation that became effective
January 1, 1972. This is legislation
that requires annual registration by
all septic tank cleaners, and by all
industrial waste collectors that operate
.. within the state, collectors of sludge,
chemicals, waste oils, solvents, et
,., cetera.
lo
._ The processing and disposal
,_ facilities must be approved by the
lo
Department of Environmental Conservation,
and annual reports have to be filed
2 with the Department at the time of
re-registration, indicating the quantity
_, and the nature of the wastes that were
transported and disposed of.
Currently, we have 855 firms
-------
_ that are registered, 61 of these are
collectors of industrial waste, and 79
. are collectors of waste oils.
_ The results of the program be-
came somewhat dramatic to us after a
year and a half into the program.
In mid 1973, we noticed there
was a great reduction in the number of
reported incidents of gypsy waste
dumping of collected septic tank wastes.
So this was the area that was
most obvious, most apparently obvious
,, as being effective initially.
14
Enforcement of this study was
being enhanced substantially by the
16
Department of Environmental Conservation.
This is a uniformed force of
18
-_ approximately 225 men that have State
Police powers.
Violators of the statute are
guilty of a misdemeanor, and registration
can be revoked. The program has been
pretty successful.
That has been our first element.
-------
1
2 The second element relates to
, the approval of processing and disposal
facilities. Essentially, disposal in
the state must be by means of secured
land burial. This was discussed this
_ morning with impermeable barriers be-
c neath, on top, and gas venting systems
n provided, a leachate collection system,
and with special considerations given
to drainage and geological and hydro-
geological conditions.
We have proposed new regulations
1A that are new before the State Environ-
14
mental Board for their approval, and
,, these would extend a little farther
lo
-_ into effecting improved control of
hazardous waste management practices.
First it will provide for a
permit to operate. Right now, our
rules and regulations are based on
an approval of installations and proper
operation. The new rules and regulations
would specifically require permits first
for construction, then for operation.
-------
- Secondly, it would require that
records be maintained, containing descrip
. tions of the quantities of hazardous
- wastes within these sites together with
a location description. These are to
- be filed with the Department upon comple-
o tion of the site or upon completion of
portions of the site.
Thirdly, that completed sections
be clearly marked with permanent markers
-_ that have appropriate warnings.
Now, we feel this is an important
1 need. Mike illustrated just by one
example in the western part of the state
an area that is now a park, which origin-
16
ally was a disposal area for a chemical
company.
The property changed hands twice.
_ There appears not to be a sufficient
recognition of the materials that have
been disposed of on the site, or what
22
was necessary to improve the site so
it could be used for its present purpose.
24
There has been a real problem
-------
1
2 with the inability of the area to support
., landscaping and vegetation. Problems
A with leachate, problems with odors and
e there must be problems with vapors of
some sort, because I recall reading a
newspaper article where during a summer
evening's concert, nylon stockings were
attacked by those sitting there listening
to the music at the concert. You could
bend down and pick up lumps of sulphur.
12 Now, with proper records maintained
and proper notification of what is at the
site, problems like this could be avoided.
-_ The third major activity in the
-, hazardous waste area has been a survey
... of industrial hazardous waste generators.
This was initiated in February of 1976.
We have been assisted greatly,
20 and I would feel remiss if I did not
_.. mentioned this. We have been assisted
greatly through a grant from EPA, and
_, without that, we would not be in business,
certainly not to the degree we are.
__ The purpose of this survey is
-------
to determine the nature, the quantity and
the geographical distribution of industrial
. hazardous wastes as well as to identify
_ the current hazardous waste management
, practices.
We estimate that there is approx-
imately 2,500 industries generating
hazardous wastes in this state. We will
be inventorying approximately 1,100 of
these.
11
To date, 470 have been completed.
Our inventory will be completed this fall
and a final report will be issued by
14
the end of the year.
15
We have had very good cooperation
from industry.
This was assisted, I would guess
18
in large part, by our working together
with the associated industries of New
York State, initially, so they could
inform their membership of the reason
22
for our survey, and the benefits that
23
could be gained through cooperating with
us.
25
-------
2 Our batting average at this
3 point has been 97%. We get the best
data from the largest firms. They appear
5 to have a greater knowledge of the need
6 for sound nazard waste management practices
7 their records are better, more people
8 that specialize in the larger industries
9 have a better idea of what wastes we
10 are dealing with, the quantities, and
11 what is necessary to handle them properly.
12 This survey will provide a needed
13 data base upon which we can develop and
then implement a meaningful hazardous
15 waste management program in this state.
We have another area, that of
providing technical assistance, and I
lg have been continually surprised at the
19 amount of time that is necessary to
provide assistance to individuals, to
industry, to municipalities, and to
22 consulting engineers in this area of
23 technology, which relates in large part
to how to dispose of waste properly,
25 how facilities should be improved, and
-------
2 to assist in the review and design for
, new and modified facilities.
. Our future direction, our main
_ goal is to achieve sound hazardous waste
management practices to the greatest
_ degree possible in this state.
a We anticipate that our program
_ will be acceptable to EPA under R. C. R. A.
as an interim program. We have worked
closely with EpA through the development
of our program, and will continue to do
13
_ . We are also in the process of
developing legislation that should insure
better management practices, and places
ID
us in a better position to where a state
,0 program will fit in with and be compli-
lo
mentary to the program under R. C. R. A.
This will basically place re-
quirements on storage and reporting by
generators, establish requirements for
collection transportation, processing,
Z3
disposal, and establish a waste manifest
24
system, and also provide for long term
-------
i
2 maintenance.
3 I think we are running behind,
4 I could talk for anothetr twenty or thirty
5 minutes, but I think this is a good time
6 to stop.
7 MR. DeBONIS: Thank you very much,
8 Bill.
9 Seated immediately to my left is
10 Peter Preuss, who is a special assistant
11 to Commissioner David Harden in the New
12 Jersey Department of Environmental Protec
13 tion, and I have also had the pleasure
14 of working with Peter over the last
15 couple of years since I have been in
16 the New York Regional Office.
17 He has always taken a personal
18 interest in the solid waste management
19 activities of the department, and the
20 solid waste management activities of
21 the state, and I would like to introduce
22 him at this point.
23 MR. PREUSS: Thank you.
24 It is very nice to be up here
25 speaking about solid waste because
-------
especially hazardous waste, because of
such tremendous scope about what you
want to talk about.
5 You can talk about the horror
6 stories that you know of, or you can
7 go to the other end and talk about the
8 good things that are being done, and
where we are going.
I am sort of a little puzzled,
I must admit, by what has gone on today
12 so far, and I am not sure if this is a
13 perception that is shared by others in
this room, or this is simply my per-
,- ception, but the feeling that I get,
and that I have gotten listening to
what is going on is that we are doing
pretty well in hazardous wastes, and
19 it is not that much of a problem.
We have a lot of technologies,
we have a lot of good laws.
_2 We have a lot of things going
in our favor, and really we are on top
of the situation.
-- Now, if you have gotten that
-------
1
impression, as I have, I would beg to
differ with that. I think we are in
terrible shape.
4
I don't I really don't under-
, stand this easy feeling that I have heard
o
all day, and don't need to bring out
all the horror stories that I have in
o
my bag to make that point.
It is true, there are technologies,
but the chances are that each of the
11
technologies that we have heard about
exist in one place in the United States.
It is true that there are regulations,
14
and guidelines, but I am not sure to
15
what extent they are actually being
followed in many parts of this country.
I think we are still at a point
18
where solid wastes is the stepchild,
the ignored stepchild of the environmen-
tal movement.
21
All you have to do is take a
22
look at the budgets of EPA. You heard
Shelly speaking up here before.
^
All you have to do is take a
-------
1
2 look at the budget in New Jersey for
, that matter for the past several years,
. they are orders of magnitudes different,
e and I think the reasons are very apparent
to those who work in the field. Solid
waste problems are generally not visible
to the community.
Most people do not see dumps,
most people do not see hazardous waste
leaching out of a landfill, or whatever,
so that there has really never been a
very strong constituency that has been
1 built up for this.
I think more important than
that, for those of you who read the
16
book, "Cleaning Up America", he makes
the point which I think is very good,
._
I think it is not just an environmental
-- working, but in government in general,
government in this country, at all levels,
runs on the basis of crisis, we don't
22
do something unless there is a crisis.
23
And I don't think that there has
24
been enough of a perception in this
-------
" 2 ie"
2 country, that there is a crisis about
_ having to do something about hazardous
. waste.
_ So that I think that we are at
a situation now where we are finally
aware that a problem does exist. We
have not done a whole lot about it.
We have a very, very big problem
on our hands, and the question really is
now, we are at square one, and what are
we planning to do about it.
Now, when we talk about what
,. is happening in New Jersey, you know,
it is sort of a funny thing with me.
There are a lot of things going
lo
on in New Jersey, and many of them are
1Q not particularly good, I would think.
lo
I think the most important point that
many of the people that have spoken
about today, I think that Shelly touched
on it, that my colleague from New York
touched on, that many people have touched
on today, is that we really don't know
what is happening, and I think the first
-------
A/f
- thing that we in New Jersey or the first
, thing all of us have to do is start
> finding out what is happening.
_ At this point in time, I don't
think we know who generates hazardous
waste, I don't think we know who transports
them, I don't think we know where they
are going, I don't think we know the
environmental effects of these wastes.
I mean, how can we build a serious
management program if we do not know
,, these things.
You heard a description about
the survey that New York is carrying
out. In a little while, I will describe
16
._ the survey that we are doing in New Jersey,
,0 but this clearly has to be the number one
10
problem, and the number one effort that
_o we have to put into this.
I find it hard, for example, to
imagine running an air program or a water
program which I am somewhat involved in,
23
without the permits, and the information
24
that we have from industry and the
-------
1
2 information from emission sources.
I don't see how we can run that,
. and that is really the stage that we are
_ at with regard to hazardous waste.
,. We just don't know what is
_ happening. Yet, we are attempting to
o regulate.
_ I think if you look at what has
happened in New Jersey historically in
this area, I think you can understand
why we have had some of the problems
j, we have had.
We promulgated a set of rules.
14
I guess it must be two and a half years
ago that they were that they went
lo
into effect, in July of 1974, which
contained provisions as to what needed
j to be done with hazardous waste.
Certain of these provisions
with regard to hazardous wastes were to
go into effect in March of 1970, and
22
these provisions were stayed at the
23
last minute because we really did not
know what would happen if these were
-------
1
_ to go into effect.
At the same time, or very shortly
. thereafter, we proposed new regulations
_ which everybody dumped on.
g It was unbelievable.
_ I mean, I had just come to the
a Department, I had never seen anything
like it.
I mean, everybody picked on them,
we really did not do too much with those
11
regulations either.
Then in September of 1975, we
proposed another set of regulations,
14
this time with a list of substances
that we considered to be either toxic
16
or hazardous, or what have you.
We held a public hearing on
18
1Q those, and these also for a very large
number of reasons were not adopted.
Zu
Now, again, I don't want to give you
the impression that nothing at all has
happened with regard to regulations
of these kinds of wastes, because
24
clearly somethings have happened, but
-------
222-*
1
~ they have happened in spite of the fact
, that we knew very little about what was
. going on.
_ Now, I think the best example
of this is that seven years ago when
the New Jersey Solid Waste Act went
into effect there were a very large
number, and by very large number I mean
1f. maybe in the order of magnitude of about
a hundred landfills that were accepting
chemical and industrial wastes without
differentiation, whether it was hazardous
or not, and that this year the last such
public landfill was closed in New Jersey.
There have been laws that have
16
been passed fairly recently in New Jersey,
such as the amendments to the Solid Waste
18
._ Act, known as S624, which is a very
broad comprehensive planning bill which
enables us to do planning not just for
municipal, commercial waste, but in
this area as well, and, of course, we
are as well in the throws of surveying
24
and looking at what, in fact, our problems
-------
- are with hazardous wastes, so that we
, currently have out and for those of you
. who are interested, I brought a couple
- of extra copies with me, but we have
a survey out to which went out to
it was the same number, 2,500 firms,
to try and find out all those things
that I mentioned at the beginning that
we don't know, such as when they are
producing, and who is transporting it
and where is it going, and what is
happening to it afterwards.
1 . We will try and assess exactly
what the problem is in New Jersey.
At the moment, the only thing
lo
we know is that it is big, but we haven't
,0 yet been able to define what big means.
lo
We know also that it is bad, but
__ we have not been able to define what
bad is exactly, so that is really the
21
first thing that we have to do.
22
Along the way, we will be trying
to develop criteria for facilities. We
24
will be trying to develop criteria for
-------
_ emergency plans, and hopefully we will
_ come out with the rules and regulations
. necessary to implement a reasonable
- hazardous waste management plan.
f But I think the most important
_ thing that is really happening and it
is very difficult for me to put this
into words really, but I think there is
a new direction, a new tact in the way
we are beginning to handle environmental
problems in this country, and I think
that is extremely important, and I think
, , that we have to be aware of that.
14
I think the new Toxic Substances
Control Act is a manifestation of that.
16
We are not we are sort of stopping
the way we used to look at things, and
18
say let's take care of what is going
- into the air, and let's take care of
what is going into the water.
What we are sort of doing now
22
is I really don't care where it is going,
but let's see if I have an environmental
problem or if I have a potential
-------
2 environmental probl«em, so that along
, those lines there are new state programs
J
. to compliment the federal program that
is developing under the Toxic Substances
Control Act.
« New Jersey has a program under
a the to deal with environmental carcin-
n ogens, for example, and I think, and I
really hope, more than anything else,
that these new programs that come out
under the hazardous waste management
act will sort of fit into that, that we
, . will be looking at overall environmental
problems, we will be looking at overall
., environmental effects, and we will be
16
looking at them in this new light.
1Q I really feel that this is an
lo
extremely positive thing that has occurred
in the last year or so.
Now, there is one other thing
that I would like to mention before I
end, and that is something that I don't
think has been mentioned in too much
detail over the course of today, but
-------
_ which is something that I think we all
have to pay a great deal of attention
4
_ That is, what would we do about
g all the hazardous chemicals, and all the
_ hazardous wastes that have been dumped
o over the past fifty years?
_ I think we will be able, by
application of ingenuity and creative
thinking, or whatever one does under
12 the circumstances, to figure out a
.._ system to deal with the wastes that
are going to be produced tomorrow and
14
next year. But I don't see an awful
lot of attention being paid to the waste
16
that we generated ten years ago and
twenty years ago, and last week that
18
-g are now sitting in some landfill, or
that have now been dumped someplace,
and that are slowly working their way
into the environment.
I think that this is probably
the Achilles heel of what we are trying
to do, and those of you who have something
-------
22 r
2 to do in this area, I would very strongly
urge that this be given much more consider-
. ation than it has.
_ Thank you.
6 AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: My ques-
_ tion is, everyone here is interested in
g seeing how we are going to manage hazardous
g wastes, and I have a fear, like with public
1O law 92-500, the clean water amendments,
where we had 208, that we are going to
,, ask people what kind of hazardous they
\i
., have, and tell them how to handle it, but
1. who is going to tell them how many parts
per million they have of carcinogens or
mutagens or toxins when few laboratories
lo
. are going to be geared up to have equip-
ment, and the personnel and the quality
lo
._ assurance to test this myriad of chemicals
that we are making next week, that we
don't even have on the shelf yet.
Can each of these persons respond
how they see their agency dealing with
making sure there is a competent laboratory
24
capable to tell us how many parts per
-------
- million, or whatever we have, before
, we dispose of it?
. MR. DeBONIS; The question re-
_ lated basically, I guess, to competent
laboratory support to determine carcino-
genie elements in potential waste, per-
haps I will ask Peter to respond to
that first in terms of the New jersey
10 program.
MR. PREUSS: Okay, this is indeed
a very serious problem, and I don't think
.., there is a very simple answer.
I would not accept your first
premise, however, that we not proceed
to plan and not proceed to implement
16
until we manage to analyze all of the
constituents that may be out there. I
18
would suggest that we know, in fact,
enough about the problem that we can
begin to go ahead.
In terms of how do we get to
22
a point where we have enough laboratories
that can monitor for enough things, I
am not really sure how to go through
-------
2 that.
3 Part of that answer, it is clear
4 to me, lies at least in the fact that a
5 very large portion of the budget that
6 I have at ray disposal dealing with environ-
7 mental toxic substances and environmental
8 carcinogens will, in fact, go for moni-
9 toring and for analysis of these sub-
10 stances.
11 So that there will be, I guess,
12 for want of a better word, business
13 generated for those who can do these
14 kind of analyses, and so far I have
15 not found it to be too much of a problem,
16 in terms of finding somebody to do an
17 analysis that I had in mind.
18 With regard to the really esoteric
19 substances, I think that is something
20 that we are going to be developing through
21 the next year or two.
22 MR. WILKIE: I would pretty much
23 echo what Peter says, particularly as
24 far as waiting until we analyze what
25 we learn.
-------
1
2 Right now we know a fair amount
about a fair number of materials, and I
. don't think we can afford to postpone
_ the time that we effectively address
^ improper management or disposal practices.
_ Right now, as far as laboratory
Q services, we, in the Department of
_ Environmental Conservation, do not have
our own general laboratories. The
Division of Land and Forest, and the
Division of Fish and Wildlife, have
13 laboratory facilities, but they are
geared pretty much toward maintaining
those divisional programs.
We continue to work with the
16
State Health Department Laboratory, and
.- certainly because of fiscal stringencies
-Q this whole thing has to be re-evaluated
now in our state.
What they will be doing is trying
to work very closely with EPA so that
we make as few mistakes as we can, and
23
that we wind up with a program that we
can manage rather than having a program
-------
_ that will begin to manage us.
MR. DeBONIS: I would say that
. EPA's point of view in terms of working
on this Section 3001 regulation is for
, the definition or criteria of hazardous
o
_ wastes, I think this was mentioned this
o morning, that we are going to have to
- consider what tests will be performed,
or what criteria we are going to use,
and the tests are going to have to be
either relatively straightforward, or
.., if they are a little more complicated,
relatively available to generators of
waste before we willynilly characterize
everything as hazardous waste.
16
Let's take one more question.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Do you
18
advise that we postpone before we go
20
The key question is nobody is
going to regulate any toxic substances,
22
unless they know it is a toxic substance,
so that means that there is a tremendous
24
burden on the analytical community to
-------
2 be able to do high quality work and
, repeated as to what I am saying, it
seems to me, there needs to be parallel
at the same moment that we need a quality
assurance program, that we know we have
- laboratories that do good work and can
Q find the carcinogen or toxic we are
q looking for.
How can they tell us we are
going to have it, if we don't have the
MR. DeBONIS: There is such a
quality assurance program, and I am sure
j . they will have to become much more sophis-
ticated as the toxic substances control
act progresses in various areas, but I
lo
-_ really would rather not go too deeply
, into the toxic substances area, that is
lo
more of an area of briefing tomorrow
morning.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: The
questionaire that was sent out to 2,500
firms, that lists, you know, the categories
23
that questionaire categorizes what
defines a hazardous waste, so I wanted
-------
to know, does that information reflect
what the federal and state regulations
are going to provide? Is that their
_ criteria, in other words?
, Where do they get the criteria
from?
o MR. PREUSS: Well, the question
_ was for those of you who did not hear it,
how we setup our criteria in our question-
aire for defining what is a hazardous
waste?
1Z
.._ Certainly, I cannot answer you
with regard to what the federal regulations
14
are going to reflect, since I have not
the vaguest idea at this point.
16
MR. DeBONIS: I don't believe
17
we do either.
18
MR. PREUSS: Not only that, I
am not really sure what the state regu-
lations are going to say since those
are in the process of development, and
22
will be to a large extent based on the
information that we receive.
24
The definition that we used
25
-------
_ was one that we sort of put together
on our own, based on other definitions
. that were commonly acceptable, I think
_ is the only way to describe it.
g MR. DeBONIS: I think we are
_ going to have to cutoff questions at
o this point.
_ I apologize we did not get to
more of you, but we have a full program
scheduled through 7:00 P. M., and if
we allow ourselves new additional
12 questions, we will wind up all taking
1 . rooms here and sleeping over, I think.
The next panel is going to
be moderated by Murray Newton.
ID
MR. NEWTON: This is the last
,0 panel of this part of the meeting,
lo
ig appropriately enough, and those of you
_ who have been here through the whole
meeting now know how to define hazardous
21
waste, you are aware of the technology
that exists for managing these, not to
23
mention the waste exchange concept and
recovering energy from them, and now
-------
48?
_ we can proceed from some of the hard
issues into the institutional, legal
. and economic areas.
_ Our first panelist is Mr. Fred
_
Hart, and some of you may be wondering
if this is the same Fred Hart who is
a a former Commissioner of Resources in
the City, and it is.
t Fred is now a consultant here
in New York City, and will discuss
. some of the general issues in the permit
and siting area of hazardous waste manage-
- ment .
Mr. Hart.
MR. HftRT: I promise not to say
16
anything about totals, but I do promise
as Peter Preuss did, to bring you bad
lo
19 news.
I too think that the hazardous
waste problem is really not very much
under control, and I think the siting
issue is the best example of all of the
23
problems that are imbedded in the whole
question of hazardous waste.
-------
In 1975, the figures indicate
that there are roughly 110 sites through-
out the United States which deal with
hazardous waste. That is the number of
, sites that are apparently operated by
o
the Hazardous Waste Service industry,
and also there is an indication that
o
of those in those 110 sites there
remains something like 53% of capacity,
so there is an indication that there may
11
be plenty of capacity to deal with this
1Z
hazardous waste problem, that there may
already be a great number of sites which
14
are well managed as they are, for the
solution of the hazardous waste problem.
16
But I don't think that deals
17
with very close to the real reality of
18
the situation. As both Dr. Preuss and
Mr. Wilkie indicated, they had sent out
in their respective states something
like 2,500 questionaires or questionaires
22
to 2,500 different people who generate
hazardous waste.
24
If you translate that across
25
-------
the country, you will see that there are
25 or 50 of a hundred thousand different
. generators that we may know about just
_ using their kinds of numbers, and it is
very clear to many people that nearly
90% of those firms dispose of their
hazardous waste either illegally or
_ in facilities near or at the site of
generation.
The sense is that after the
11
passage of the implementation of the
._ Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,
that these people who currently dispose
14
of their hazardous waste at or near their
own source of generation, or place of
16
generation, that we are going to begin
to discover that the number of sites
18
-_ which must be developed, the number of
sites which will be the items of regulation,
will be extremely numerous, and that we
are probably looking at a problem which
even if it were limited to the greatest
extent possible would focus on something
like 25,000 different sites.
-------
1
2 So we don't really have this
problem under control at all, and we are
4 going to be confronted over the next years
5 with a considerable number of siting issues,
6 and siting issues historically have been
7 very difficult ones to deal with.
8 I would like, in the few minutes
9 that we are going to take today to address
10 some of the historic aspects of siting
11 in general, and I think that we are going
12 to find that many of these siting efforts
13 that have gone on in other areas, such
as environmental facility siting, for
example, are going to be applicable in
the long term in the area of hazardous
waste siting, and finally I would like
to end up talking a little bit about
19 the relevant provisions of the Resource
20 Conservation and Recovery Act that might
deal with siting, and how they might be
implemented over the next coupe of years.
23 I think historically if we were
to take a look at hazardous materials,
25 we would all agree that hazardous materials
-------
2 are sited on the basis or philosophy of
- isolation.
x The first example is what in
e the old days, where they sited the in-
dustrial materials such as explosives,
people centuries ago chose to put their
explosives on a hillside quite a distance
away from the village. They wanted to
be able to they put it on a hillside
so they could see it, they wanted to
put it quite a ways away so that when
it went off, as it often did, that the
problems they were able to see the
problem but not find the impact.
,, Maybe we are looking at that kind
lo
-_ of a situation at this point as it relates
to hazardous waste.
Another example is the whole
issue of where people put outhouses,
and anybody who grew up on a farm would
know that one of the earliest things
that occurs in the earliest childhood
is that you don't put an outhouse near
a well, and you don't bring it into
-------
240*
_ or near to your home, and apparently, I
did not know this was a fact, but apparently
J
. there was a great deal of consternation
- when plumbing went indoors.
The next example which is most
relevant to people here, who have had
previous experience in solid wastes, is
the handling of municipal landfill material.
-_ Dumps, from the waste of human
settlements, has generally been placed
in landfills as far away from the community
,., as the band of the community would allow.
. . Occasionally, going across the
property lines where that is possible,
an even extending as far as into the
lo
oceans as we are aware of.
This whole philosophy has been one
._ of get it away from me, isolate it away
_o from me, and everything will be just fine.
There are a couple of things that
are happening in hazardous waste that
will not allow that to be the basic policy
that can be followed as far as the siting
~w
of facilities is concerned.
-------
1
_ The first is the question of
volume of material. For years, in the
J
. solid waste business, people have talked
_ about the expanding volume of solid waste
g material. Well, the same thing is happening
_ in hazardous waste, but it is becoming more
a apparent that more materials, more differ-
_ ent kinds of materials are hazardous.
It is becoming apparent that just
in the normal growth of the economy and
so on, that we are producing more and
1_ more of these materials, and we also have
a number of government policies which are
creating more hazardous materials as was
pointed out a couple of times today, the
16
hazardous waste activity in this particular
act is what we are concerned with today.
j We generate, if we have a power
plant, we have a recovery system, and we
ZO
can generate sulphur compounds that have
two directions, they can go in two direc-
22
tions, the liquid material that will end
up in the water, and as it is treated
24
in the water, we create a sludge, and
-------
that ends up back on the land.
2
Simply, the solid materials would
go directly to the land, and that has never
4
been regulated before, and eighteen months
, from October 26, 1976, that will be regu-
lated or quite possibly will be.
o So we are talking about enormous
_ volumes of material that we cannot deal
with any longer.
Similarly, we are also lacking
in the sources and the places of isolation.
\&
., We no longer have the kinds of
places, the number of places where we can
14
store this material in an isolated fashion.
15
What exists in the act which will
16
deal with these problems in the future,
and elsewhere, is the citizen involving
18
himself, and how can he participate in
the process of dealing with these things
in the future.
21
There really are two areas, the
first is the whole site planning the
23
whole site planning aspect of things.
Unfortunately, the hazardous waste
-------
1
_ sections of the act, Title (c), the
three thousand numbers, do not really
. include a planning kind of activity.
_ However, in the state and regional solid
g waste plans there is this planning activity,
_ and we have had some discussion of that
today, and clearly while it is not really
Q spelled out in the state guidelines, it
might be when the regulations are developed,
that hazardous waste plants could be
developed under those state guidelines.
IZ
-_ I think we have learned a lot
_ . as I mentioned earlier in this environmental
14
facility siting area.
For example, in the State of
16
California, in a law which was introduced
and sponsored by the current Chairman of
18
j_ the Council of Environmental Quality in
Washington, Charles Warren, it developed
2O
a large program where the utility had to
come in and submit alternative sites.
22
It had to submit three alternative
sites to the one that to the one that
24
it was submitting as its prime site, and
-------
2 each one of those alternative sites had
, to be developed to the same extent as the
one that they were proposing, in other
words, a full environmental analysis, a
full economic analysis, and one which dealt
with all of those issues.
One other law I just mentioned
a is what the State of Maryland has done in
.» the power siting.
I know they have extended this
over to the hazardous waste area as well,
,, and that is the legislation which indicates
. . that the state itself selects and purchases
land for use by utilities over into
the future as future sites for power
16
plants.
1Q These particular ideas might be
lo
of value in the state plans that will be
__ developed as far as hazardous waste is
concerned.
The other area, and one which is
an element in the act, relates to the
23
permit system
24
Each facility which exists for
25
-------
1 -*«-
2 the treatment, storage and disposal of
hazardous wastes must have a permit.
. These guidelines for the permits will
- be developed at ten months after the
, effective date of the act, and the
_ facilities must meet standards which
o also will be dealt with at ten months
_ which will be prepared at ten months
after the act.
Contained within the permits
are a whole flock of reporting items,
j_ design standards, with indications that
the design standards have been met, and
a number of other engineering related
kinds of activities.
16
It is important that as these
regulations are developed, that the
18
1Q citizen who has input make that input
known.
Many of you in the environmental
community have had great experience on
other issues of a siting nature.
23
You have had experience in the
24
siting of power plants, fills, and similar
-------
types of activities, and this kind of
input is very crucial.
One of the important steps that
4
has to take place in the permits is the
, integration of the hazardous waste permit,
o
the disposal permit.
0 The other kind of activity that
o
ends up generating hazardous waste, such
as the various pollutants, I guess there
are three that are covered under the clean
11
air act, and the 65 pollutants or families
of pollutants that are covered under the
federal water pollution control act, it
14
is important that we come up with some
kind of a system that possibly creates
16
a one stop shop arrangement where a company
which is confronted with both the water,
18
air and hazardous waste program kind of
problems, develop a single permit.
There is a great deal of progress
being made toward developing these guide-
lines, both for the permits and for the
Z3
standards.
24
I think that the people in EPA
25
-------
are really looking for your input as
these are developed, and I know that one
of their goals is to have as much public
4
input as possible.
, Thank you.
6
MR. NEWTON: Thank you, Fred.
Our next panelist is Mr. Bob
o
Gorman, and Mr. Gorman will describe
some of the recent regulatory issues
regulating industrial landfills in
New Jersey.
MR. GORMAN: It is a pleasure
to be here.
14
This opportunity to focus on
some of the dynamics that have taken
16
place in New Jersey with regard to
regulations of hazardous waste landfills
IS
really lifts up for us just one real
focus, because in New Jersey, as Dr.
Preuss pointed out, the last landfill
21
that took such hazardous waste was
22
closed to the last landfill that
23
took such hazardous waste was closed
24
in this past year, or is still in the
-------
process of being closed.
2
I was heartened also by Peter
3
Preuss1 very frank comments with regard
4
to the difficulties that we are facing
5
and perhaps some of the false optimism
6
that exists.
7
I talked about the two ends of
8
the spectrum, about the fact that we
9
can all talk about horror shows, and
10
we can all talk about the great plans
11
that might be able to be provided for us
12
to deal with these problems.
13
I think that maybe focusing on
14
what he termed a horror show, what might
15
be very instructive, and this is something
16
that I am going to be doing to some extent
17
without casting specific aspersions or
18
making generalizations on industry, or
19
on the state agency, which has a very
20
difficult job, but I would like to make
21
a few preliminary comments before I
22
do that.
23
I wanted to point out that the
24
landfill that I am talking about is one
25
-------
2 located in Middlesex County, infamously
3 known as Kenbuck, and this landfill was
4 the only one that was receiving these
5 types of wastes since 1974 in a large
6 quantity.
7 It received well over 1.2 million
8 gallons per week for quite a bit of time.
9 Now, the regulation that was stayed., as
10 Dr. Preuss referenced, was one which would
11 have required leachate collection systems
12 and dykes.
13 It is unclear why this is actually
14 done, yet, it was done, and it specifically
affected a landfill which was already
under the DEP scrutiny for potentially
being in violation of existing landfill
lg existing regulations.
19 Between 1974 and now, therefore,
we have a situation where one landfill is
receiving well over something like 70%
__ of the waste of the largest industry in
23 the state, which is chemical refineries
24 and chemical related industries.
25 No matter how much we develop
-------
1
2 specific approaches to studies for future
_ or new regulations, or creative approaches
for by environmentalists dealing with
these problems, is all just of very limited
value to this, if, in fact, there are not
waste processing facilities to deal with
the present waste flow.
When Dr. Preuss mentioned the
lf. sorry fact that we don't have any idea
where these wastes are going, it is very
serious. There is a likelihood that the
environment today is in New Jersey and
possibly elsewhere, is suffering a
dreadful attack.
... Now, whether it is in the ocean
lo
or on the land or in pine barns, or in
,0 marsh areas, or down in sewers, we don't
10
really know where it is going, and I
__ suggest the possibility that the reason
we do not know is that because there
aren't alternative waste processing
22
facilities in the state besides perhaps
23
one major one in the south, which in-
cidentally was receiving a very small
-------
_ percentage of the waste flow which had
gone to Kenbuck.
. So let us then look at how this
- present crisis, and all the contradiction
related to it evolved.
There is a story of Kenbuck, one
which reveals what might be termed a
human organizational folly, and simultan-
eously, represents just another anecdote
in the book of what you might call
-- planetary impairment, but for our purposes,
,, it is very instructive, and can assist
us in developing an approach to self-
criticism which is based on today's
problems.
lo
Kenbuck was a landfill that
was already in operation for many years.
io
._ It is located along the Variton River,
_o and it is adjacent to many streams,
as well as above a major outcropping
of what is known as the Farrington Sands.
22
Kenbuck, fortunately, or might
23
have seemed to be fortunate for the
industry, was grandfathered in when
-------
i
2 the new statute in, I believe, in 1970 or
3 1971, was put into operation. Now, there
4 is an irony to grandfathers, because
5 there really cannot be such a concept
6 really in operation when you consider
7 that regulations are eventually going
8 to be promulgated, and these regulations
9 are still going to be applied to the
10 operation of any outfit which is operating
11 as a landfill, and might come into viola-
12 tion, so there is no such thing really
13 as a grandfather, it is maybe appropriate
14 where you are dealing with a building
15 that was now in a zone that was not
16 going to be zoned that way any more, but
17 for pollution problems, it is not really
18 a viable concept, and I think that is
19 one thing that has caused a lot of problems
20 and tension, and I am very much aware of
21 the shortness of the time, so I will try
22 to go through this with some speed.
23 The public advocate became
24 involved in this case primarily from the
25 outcry of local groups, and state
-------
2 environmental organizations.
3 We found that the attempt to close
4 Kenbuck was going to be a very serious
5 problem given the fact that there aren't
6 alternative sites.
7 Consequently, when the time came
8 and a closure order was issued, notwith-
9 standing the fact that it was the only
10 landfill that was being used in the state,
11 there seemed to be no planning on the
12 part of the Department of Environmental
13 Protection, perhaps for reasons of
14 staffing, and what have you, to develop
15 what alternatives might exist for these
16 wastes to go into.
17 So we were interested in the
lg process of closing this facility, and
19 at the same time interested in what was
20 going to happen.
2i As Dr. Preuss pointed out, there
22 was still a lack of information. How
23 do you shut down this type of facility
24 without having a transition planned out,
25 without having an idea of what is going
-------
2 to take place to the environment if there
_ is no registered sites for processing
A these chemicals that normally went to
Kenbuck?
That is a dilemma that existed
at the time of the closure proceedings,
and in a joint hearing before the Public
Utility Commission and the Department of
-_ Environmental Protection, it is still the
_.. case today.
The department was faced with a
dilemma, and the industry was faced with
I . a dilemma, and so was the public, and
-_ most importantly, the environment was
,- faced with a dilemma that still continues
ID
17 today.
The hearing officer's report
in this matter reflects the same realiza-
2Q tion that we must find out where the
stuff is going.
We must decide whether or not
__ there is going to be a system developed
so that we can keep count. Now, the
24
__ regulations did exist for a reporting
-------
-3*^
1
2 system once a year by the Department
3 to the Department by generators and by
4 holders.
5 This reporting system would
6 perhaps work very well if it were fully
7 enforced, and if the Department of En-
8 vironmental Protection had the opportunity
9 and staff and money to enforce it. However,
10 even if they did have that, and this
11 might be instructive to others where
12 these landfills are closed, it would seem
13 that a transition reporting, upper
14 mechanism could have been developed to
15 assist in the transition from closing
16 of the landfill to whatever alternative
17 seemed to exist.
18 The reporting system might have
19 lent itself to gaining the information
20 that would have been very valuable in
21 the new future study. However, it did
22 not exist, and the problem persists.
23 So the Kenbuck situation is
24 something which is a thorn in New Jersey's
25 side, and will continue as such until
-------
_ the manifest system perhaps is in operation,
where you can really account for all the
J
. wastes that are generated, or the best
- laid plans are put together, and we can
get on with the technologies that are
_ really very necessary now.
o The one thing that I did want to
_ address also, which was also addressed
by Dr. Preuss, and it was a very important
point, and notwithstanding the chemical
waste generation within the state, there
._ is also the problem of closing these
landfills that are not chemical waste
14
landfills.
For all intensive purposes,
16
leachate from solid landfills, are hazardous
wastes, and what you do with ground water
lo
once it is down there from even the
traditional solid waste facility is still
not seriously being or totally being
addressed by the scientific community,
22
because it would seem to me the opportunity
to deal with that problem is presently
necessary, potentially something that
-------
- could be accomplished.
_ I think that might be enough for
. right now.
MR. NEWTON: Thank you, Bob.
Our last panelist is Mr. Richard
Sernyak from Rollins Environmental Services,
Inc. He will address what I know to be
n of considerable interest to most industries,
-_ and that is the problem of liability for
these wastes when they are consigned to
.._ a waste management firm or to anyone else.
13 MR. SERNYAK: I was thinking for
the last couple of days how I could say
something profound about the economic
and liability aspects of waste disposal
lo
__ in the span of five minutes.
I was not capable of coming up
with anything so profound, but ironically
__ as I was getting off the train this
morning, believe it, it is true, I met
a fellow I haven't seen since 1965, and
he said hi, Dick, how are you doing, and
I said hi, and I did not remember his
24
name, and he said Bob.
-------
>en-k
^^^o
1
- He had the typical Wall Street
, look with the three piece pinstripe suit,
and the Wall Street Journal tucked under-
neath his arm, and he said what are you
doing profession-wise, and I said I am
in the trash business, and it was very
helpful to me to see the initial response
_ in his eyes to that comment.
So that is my theme, that initially
being in this business about three and a
half years reflected the posture of people
in industry, as well as regulatory agencies.
-. In short, they viewed waste
disposal as a petty cash proposition,
.- and not a capital expended item, and
lo
.._ conducted themselves in purchasing waste
,_ disposal services from that point of view.
J.O
We have been in this business six
_o years, sinking in $22,000,000.00 to create
an industry, almost having gone bankrupt
two years ago, and supposedly we are
technical experts.
What the hell are we doing wrong?
24
So we took a different approach.
-------
I
- We tried to put a marketing program
together to address waste disposal from
a different perspective, and that is look
what can happen to you if you don't handle
this waste right.
Look at the liabilities now.
What is it worth to you?
We used to sell to the man on
the third shift or the guy at 4:00 o'clock
who was in charge of refuse in a plant,
and he would make hazardous waste disposal
,, decisions.
j Today, I have to talk to the
attorneys in our department before I
talk to the attorneys in the major
16
. corporations. I am at a totally differ-
ent level today, and that is a reflection
18
upon the sensitivity of the issue.
Industry is aware and in my
experience, and I have talked to a lot
of people in industry because I am a
peddler, I am in business to make a
Z3
buck, and I have to sell something that
we want and they need, and they want it
-------
.
_ and they need it.
The problem is from their per-
. spective in many situations, that they
are perplexed about the arbitrariness
- of regulatory agencies, the inconsistencies,
_ and in short, you are asking me to commit
o big dollars, and I don't know what is
going to happen.
I too was pleased to hear Dr.
Preuss talk about the fact that we really
don't know the magnitude of the problem.
j. In my humble opinion, that is
a very intelligent statement because how
can you solve a problem if you have not
defined it, and I don't think anyone
16
has defined it.
As an interim solution, we do
18
19 have a good disposal service. We analyze
wastes, we run it through our lab, we
sample every load, we insist that the
customer visits our plant, bring his
22
engineers in, have your attorneys read
23
our contracts, it is all up front.
**^
Fortunately, there have been
-------
i
- enough people who have bought, so that
_ years ago when waste disposal was not
^ such an issue as it is today, that we
e have managed to survive. Today, for-
tunately, we are happy and healthy,
» and prosperous, and our stock is going
8
We are making a lot of money,
and we are buying a lot of land, but
believe me, I am turning away so much
business it is no longer a question of
what is the price, it is what is the
-. cost, and from a marketing point of view,
that is important because I think we are
all talking about dollars and cents here.
lo
. They are willing to pay for
cost, but unfortunately we are supposed
lo
to be the Cadillac of the industry, the
biggest in the business, the most finan-
. cially stable, and we have extremely
limited and finite resources.
We have real estate, but we are
fighting about locating new land sites,
and getting in new permits, and fighting
-------
_ limitations from every agency you can
think of.
We are perplexed.
_ We don't know what it is all about.
, So in my humble opinion, to con-
_ elude, the bottomline is we all have a
need, we all want it, we better get to-
gether and communicate effectively, and
get some strong leadership to sell this
thing, because if it is not sold effec-
tively, we all lose, it all comes out
j, of our pockets.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. NEWTON: We have a few minutes
16
for questions. Perhaps I can save one
question by telling you Mr. Sernyak assures
18
1Q me that it is a really true story about
the train.
Are there any questions for any
of the panelists, please?
22
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I want to
23
know, don't you have a problem with finding
suitable chemical landfill areas now?
-------
1
MR. SERNYAK: We are not in the
landfill business. We are in the waste
. treatment business.
4
The only landfill material is
-- sludges resulting from a treatment process.
_ We are not in the landfill business.
g However, we want to be in the
_ landfill business in the very near future
because we do identify a very real need
in that area.
MR. NEWTON: Other questions,
please.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I would
14
like to ask anyone on the panel their
reaction to the comment that if disposal
16
proves to be a serious problem, what
would you recommend doing with that
18
-_ substance?
MR. NEWTON: It sounds like an
excellent question for Mr. Sernyak, please.
MR. SERNYAK: If I understand
22
the question, would you repeat it, I
don't think I got the full impact of
that before I try and answer it.
25
-------
- £04
1
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: If the
2
disposal alternatives all have serious
environmental consequences, what would
4
be your thoughts on how to handle that
substance? Not to handle it at all?
6
MR. SERNYAK: Drop back ten
and punt.
o
Seriously, I think you have to
9
qualify that question with a definition
10
of serious environmental impact.
11
We, to date, have treated over
12
3,300 different wastes at our plant,
and these are all the nastiest. We run
14
the gamut.
15
The only thing we are virtually
16
excluding is radioactive material and
17
explosives, and in essence, we handle
18
all others.
19
In most cases, there is a solution,
20
a treatment method to a disposal problem,
21
but I don't mean to imply that we are
22
the panacea to the waste disposal problem,
23
no.
24
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: During the
25
-------
_ whole day we have been talking about
j*
all kinds of disposal methods and so
. forth. I have not heard a definition
4
_ of what are the health hazards involved.
g You are talking about disposal
_ regulations, but what are the health
a hazards?
_ MR. NEWTON: Well, the question
is perhaps I can rephrase it, and say
what are the hazardous wastes, it sounds
like? What wastes are hazardous to health?
-, We would expect to come up with
some viable answer to that at the end
14
of our eighteen month period, and are
in the process of trying to develop that
16
now with your help.
We most assuredly do not have
18
-_ the answer to that right now.
MS. LATO: Suppose a municipality
is guilty of failure to properly dispose
of its waste, is your company in a position
to take on the problem of municipal waste?
23
MR. SERNYAK: My company? Here
again, I have to qualify my answer to
-------
1
that question.
In defining just what this waste
. is, the projected volumes, the form that
_ it is in, and all the other logistics
.. associated with a definition of hazardous
o
_ wastes, and assessing whether or not we
o have the treatment capabilities, in no
way am I implying that we have the answer
to all the problems, but we do have an
answer to a lot of the problems.
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I wanted
to ask Mr. Sernyak a question.
I would hope that your company
continues to do as well as it is doing,
and continues to overcome some of the
16
struggles it is facing, however, have
any efforts on the part of the state
18
or any efforts on the part of industry
to offer other services such as yours
in the State of New Jersey since there
is a as you mentioned, the need for
22
you to turn away business, been
23
accomplished?
MR. SERNYAK: From an investor's
-------
2 point of view, if I looked at all the
, few companies in this business in relation-
. ship to the new legislation and the time-
e table for enforcement, I would have to
g say that our stock is the hottest stock
_ you could ever buy.
Q The question is, why doesn't
_ new venture capital come into this business:
(a) because it has only been in
the last year that only one major company
has shown a reasonable return on invest-
.., ment.
- . They will not put their bucks
here if they cannot get a good return.
The second reason is that every-
lo
. body wants waste disposal services, no-
body wants waste disposal services in
18
JQ their backyard, and by the time you file
an environmental impact statement and have
public hearings, you are talking about
two, three or four years, umpteen amounts
of money, with no guarantee of a return
23
on your investment, and who needs that?
Businessmen don't think that way.
-------
I don't know where it is going to
3 g°-
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: How much
4
has your business increased since Kenbuck
, closed?
o
MR. SERNY&K: We have received
we received an additional five gallons
a month new business, that we can identify
with Kenbuck, that is a lot because I
know, and I see all the figures. I really
would like to recommend that regulatory
agencies should alter their work schedule,
because all the action occurs from about
14
12:00 o'clock at night to 6:00 o'clock
in the morning.
16
MR. NEWTON: Mr. Sernyak is speaking
for himself on that note.
18
MR. SHUSTER: There is a good
way to find out where things go, and
you know who the generators are, and
sit at their gate and follow the trucks
22
that leave full, and this is the only
way to do it.
24
The law puts the responsibility
-------
1
for the ultimate disposal of these
things on the right people, and that is
the originators of the waste, and I feel
that is a very good provision, and so
, does the committee.
o
_ MR. NEWTON: Other questions or
o comments ?
AN UNIDENTIFIED VOICE; Could
you give us a little more of the institu-
tional implications of a manifest system?
Clearly, in order to get at this, we are
j, going to have to monitor how much, and
this implies a records management system.
This panel is working on institutional
and financial implications.
16
Could we please bear down on
the specifics of that kind of question,
18
because clearly it is one of the big
horizons in public administration. We
have not done anything like this before.
MR. NEWTON: It will be a major
22
burden on all involved, I am sure.
23
I would like to defer that for
24
the 4:00 to 7:00 period, because that is
25 F
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