TRANSCRIPT
REGIONAL PUBLIC MEETINGS ON THE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT of 1976
February 23 and 24, 1977, Atlanta, Ga.
These meetings were sponsored by EPA Region IV,
and the proceedings (SW-15p) are reproduced entirely as transcribed
by the official reporter, with handwritten corrections
by the Office of Solid Waste
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1977
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An environmental protection publication (SW-15p) in the solid waste management series.
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THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY MEETING
TRANSCRIPT
on
THE RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT OF 1976
P.L. 94-580
SHERATON-BILTMORE HOTEL
Atlanta, Georgia
Wednesday, February 23, 1977
6:30P.M. - 12:OOA.M.
James )fC. Scarbrough, Moderator
This is to certify that the attached proceedings were held as
herein appears, and that this is the original transcript there-
of for the file of the Environmental Protection Agency.
'7 /I L
/sf Reporter / f S
WHITENS PROFESSIONAL SECRETARIAL
SERVICE
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THE PROCEEDING
Moderator: I would ask you, as our notice stated, when we ask
for public comments to limit your comments to no more than five
minutes. Please, when you approach the mike, we have a court
recorder here taking this down, please give your name. If
it's a little bit difficult like mines is, Scarbrough, spell
it for them, it won't take long and then who you are represent-
ing. If you're just representing yourself, that's fine, but
let them know who it is so we can get it correct on the record.
I will keep the record open for written comments or written
statements until March llth. First, we will have presentations
from staff people in our EPA Office of Solid Waste. At the end
of their presentation, we will take public comments, discussions,
questions, whatever you have on that particular item. At the ap-
pointed time, as shown in the agenda, that discussion will be
terminated and we will go on to the next agenda item. At the
end... the last item on the agenda is state program development,
at the end of that we'll take comments, questions, whatever you
want to say about any portion of the Act, at that time. We
have microphones, we have asked that you please move to the
microphone when you get ready to speak. If there's someone
there, fall in behind them, wait your turn, and I'll try to ask
you to speak on a first come first serve basis. We are making
copies of the transcript. Each person that filled out one of
those forms as you came in here or brought with you to fill-out
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and turn in as you leave, well, you will get a copy of the
transcript in the mail. It will probably take us six or eight
weeks or so to get that thing reproduced and mailed back out,
but you will get that. If you know other people who are
interested in it, and they want a copy, please have them con-
tact our office, our Regional Office here in Atlanta. We'll
be happy to send them a copy, we'll have plenty of them. I
think... if you don't know our address, it's 345 Courtland
Street, Atlanta 30308, and a telephone call will do just as
well, it's (404) 881-3016. You see on your agenda, a welcome
by Mr. Jack Ravan, Regional Administrator of Region IV, he's
unable to be with us tonight. We have with us, Mr. Asa Foster,
he's the Director of the Hazardous Material Division, and he'll
welcome you from out of town to Atlanta.
Speaker Asa B. Foster: Thank you, Jim. I think you're slipping.
Some of you were at the meeting last week that we had on Toxic
Substances, and I didn't allow any smoking in the room. So, I
think it's good that we are segregated. There's a lot of things
happening in EPA and many of you are aware. We're talking about
one of the exciting things tonight, this new Act that we have.
And we also have the Toxic Substances Act which we had a public
meeting on last week, and.... President Carter has nominated as
the new Administrator, Douglas Costell; the new Deputy Administrator,
Barbara Blum. I'd like to tell you a little bit about these people,
so that you... just for your information. Douglas Costell has been
a member of the transition team under President Carter's leader-
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ship there. From July of '75 until 1977, the first of the
year, he was the Assistant Director for Natural Resources
and Commerce in the Congressional Budget Office. From about
March '73 until July 1975, he was Commissioner of the
Connecticut Department of Environ(gftntal Protection, and for
about a year and a half prior to that he was Deputy Commissioner
for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. He
has a lot of experience. He has a long list of other experience
that I won't go into, but the point I wanted to make is that he
has a lot of experience in environmental protection. I'm not
sure exactly of the way the Connecticut department is organized,
I think it's very similar to many of our states here in Region IV
in that you have your air and water and solid waste all wrapped
up in onforganization. Barbara Blum is from here in Atlanta.
She's a native of Kansas. She has been a very active individual
in consumer affairs; been very effective in working with the
legislature, various legislative bodies. She's been a very
active environmentalist. I saw some of my friends here that
use to... I use to be acquainted with who was in the water pro-
gram and I remember that Barbara was very active along the
Chattahoochee River. So, we have the new leadership coming
into EPA, we have the new legislation we're charged with the
responsibility of administering, and, I look forward to a lot
of exciting things happening. Tonight, we want to give you
some information about the new Act. Public Law 94-580 which
you have a copy of. The Act states that public participation
in the development, revision, implementation and portions of
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any regulation, guidelines, information or program under the
Act shall be provided for. It shall be encouraged and
assisted by the Administrator and the states. That's what
we're here tonight for is to give you some information and
get your feed-back. I think that this is becoming more and
more recognized. I think particularly by the Congress as the
thing that we should do, and that we must do. I think you
will find that Congress intend^for land disposal to be regu-
lated and a lot of our value resources, re-used. This new
Act will have far-reaching influence on the social and
economic issues, ranging from the attitudes of the individual
citizen and consumer to how we extract, manufacture and market
products to such complex issues as depletion allowances and
international trade policies. We at EPA intend to take public
information and public participation that's required for this
Act, seriously. We want your input. I realize that tonight
you will be receiving a lot of information^ you may not be
able to provide us with your comments; you may wish to send
them in later to Mr. Scarbrough and I would ask that you would
do that. Many of you are from out-of-town and I want to wel-
come you to Atlanta. I usoJto be very close friends with the
Commissioners of Public Works who has resigned. I understand
Mr. Scarbrough knows some of the people down there at City Hall,
and I've asked him that if any of you get a parking ticket or
anything^ to go with you down to City Hall and get his friend
and go over with you to traffic court and hold your hand while
you pay your ticket. So, we can do that service for your....
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Question: (Unidentified SPeaker) What happens if you get
mugged, Asa?
Speaker Foster: Pardon?
Question: (Same Speaker) What happens if you get mugged?
Speaker Foster: If you get mugged, I don't know, don't come
to me.... (Laughter) But it's good to have you here tonight
and if you decide tonight that you want to come back in the
morning, we'll have a sort of a re-run in the morning, and
I'm sure that all the speakers will be a little better imbursed
with their subject and you might get a little better treat in
the morning. So, if you want to come back tomorrow, you're
certainly welcomed to do that and to participate at that time...
Question: (Unidentified speaker) How long will the discussion
last in the morning?
Speaker Foster: I believe it's scheduled until about noon...
Moderator:. We'll have to get out of this room at about 1:00P.M.
No later than 1:00P.M.
Speaker Foster: Thank you.
Moderator: Thank you, Asa. Since I didn't introduce myself in
the beginning, my name is Jim Scarbrough and I'm with the Solid
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Waste Program in the Regional Office, here. What I'd like
to do now is that I'll run over briefly a summary of some
of the things that are in the Act. Then, we'll get into our
presentations, which will be quite short, because we are not
here to tell you; we're here for you to tell us, and please
keep that in mind. We want to hear from you. We did hand
out, out there on the table as you came in, copies of the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). If you look
over in front of that, Congress has given us some words of
wisdom there that they had in mind in drafting this Act and
passing it and offering it up to the President for signature
to make it Law. Looking there closely you will see that the
objectivesof this Act are the protection of public health;
protect the environment; conserve valuable material resources
and conserve energy resources. You say, well, it sounds real
good, you know, if everybody would be for that. I don't
think there's anybody here that wouldn't be for that. But
then you get into the question of how shall we do that. How
will you do it. How will government; how will state govern-
ment, federal government, local government, industry. How
will we do that. And, in their wisdom they did write down
some things for us as to how they think it should be done
and that's our charge to carry out their purposes and their
intent as they have written in this Law. They said that what
we should do is give technical and financial assistance to
state and local government, manpower development. And this
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Law will prohibit future open dumping. It will require us to
convert or close existing open-dumps. It will require us to
regulate hazardous waste. It requires EPA as an agency to
publish guidelines for solid waste management. It requires
us to do certain things in research and development. It
requires us to do demonstration projects. Those of you that
are familiar with our program in the past know that we have
been active in this area, but it requires us to go even further,
to demonstrate resource recovery on a larger scale and indeed
on a smaller scale, and on a scale that small communities can
use. It mandates that the federal, state and local government
and industry partnership in material and energy recovery be
carried out to it's fullest extent. Those of you that have
gas for your heat in your house in the last month or so have
come to realize that's not something that we can consider
casually. It may not always be here. We may have to seek
other sources. Here is a source that has potential. This is
what Congress told us even before the gas shortage. It requires
public participation, and this is very important as expressed
by the Act. Now, basically, this Act as I read it sitting in
the Regional Office, has two main thrusts in it. The first
being Sub-Title C which is the hazardous waste regulatory pro-
gram and as I read it, it seems to me that it's intended by
Congress for this regulatory program to be run by the state
government. Whether or not you agree really doesn't matter.
But, if you would read Section 3006 under Sub-Title C, I think
you'll see where I get that sort of thinking from. The other
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thrust is state and local planning, that's found in Sub-Title
D, along with that goes the prohibition of open dumping and
all disposal, except hazardous waste disposal, being required
at a resource recovery facility, center or land-fill or dis-
posed of in an otherwise environmentally sound manner. In
addition to that, in supporting that as part of the foundation
is relatively small compared to some of our other grant pro-
grams. A relatively small rural assistance grant program
with an authorization there of some twenty-five million dollars
a year, nation-wide. And, if you read closely there you will
find that this grant assistance is intended for towns of
less than five-thousand population and counties with a popu-
lation of less than ten-thousand or less than twenty people
per square mile. Now, if you look a little further you will
see a landmark piece of legislation in Sub-Title F. And, it
has to do with federal facilities, and it basically says that
if you have a land-fill on your federal property, whoever you
may be, U. S. Army or the Marine Corp, or the U. S. Forestry
Service Department, it really doesn't make any difference, but
is says that you have to get a state permit. And, it doesn't
say that you go over and ask them what is required for a state
permit, you do it without the paperwork, you have to do the
whole thing. Generally speaking, that basically covers this
Act and I'd like to leave you with that short summary and get
right on into the public participation part. With us tonight,
we have as I said earlier, staff people from the Office of
Solid Waste and if you read the Act, you will see that this is
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the Office that's charged with carrying out this Act by the
Congress. We have with us first of all to speak to training^
public information, public participation scheduled Mr. Thomas
Williams. Tom is unable to be with us, he has the flu and
%>
substituting ably for him is Jerri Wyer, on my right. And,
£>
xfferri will give us the presentation there. It's going to be
five minutes or so and upon conclusion of that, we want you
to please speak to us about what you think about public
participation, training, public information. And then, at the
appropriate time, we'll ask that you cease the public discuss-
ion on that part and we'll go on to the n&xt part, hazardous
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waste. ^
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Speaker Jerri Wyer: Thank you, Jim.
The RCRA contains an unusually complete array
of provisions which could bring about a high degree of public
understanding and participation. Taken together, these various
provisions make it clear that the Congress understood that it
is impossible for the public to participate, meaningfully,
unless the government first produces valid, scientific, and
technical data and then produces and publishes the information
in such a way that everyone may have real access to it. Only
in this way can the public really have a reasonable chance of
influencing the social, economic and political changes which
the Law will bring about. I have some slides here, I'd like to
show... can you dim the lights, Jim? (Pause)
Moderator: Yes. (Pause)
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Speaker Wyer: Now, this is fine. In Section 8003, the
Administrator of EPA is required to develop, collect, evaluate
and coordinate information on nine key elements which are
crucial to the Act's purposes. The Administrator is not only
to implement a program for the rapid dissemination of this
information, but he's also to develop and implement educational
programs to promote citizen understanding. This makes it quite
clear that the information called for is not to be developed
for the exclusive use of those, who, for one reason or another
may be considered experts in the field. Moreover, the Admin-
istrator is asked to coordinate his actions and to cooperate
to the maximum extent possible, with state and local authorities
and to establish and maintain a central reference library for
virtually all the kinds of information involved in the solid
wastes management for the use of state and local governments,
industry and the public. Just who is the public? To ensure
that the public participation process does not become lop-sided,
we felt it was necessary to identify major categories of interest
groups who represent the public at large. Under RCRA we regard
these to include consumer, environmental and neighborhood
groups; trade, manufacturing and labor representatives; public
health, scientific and professional societies; and, governmental
and university associations. This spectrum of categories of
representative groups will be altered and supplemented as
necessary, if in the course of implementing the Act it appears
desirable to do so. Section 7004A of RCRA states that any per-
son may partition the Administrator for the promulgation, amend-
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merit or repeal of any regulation under this Act. Section 7004B
calls for full public participation in the development, revision
and/or enforcement of any regulation, guidelines, information or
program under this Act. Secondly, it states that the Administra-
tor in cooperation with the states shall develop and publish minimum
guidelines for public participation and such processes. Section
7002A states that any person may commence civil action on his own
behalf against any other person, including the United States,
who is alleged to be in violation of this Act or against the
Administrator is there is an alleged failure by him to perform
any act or duty under the Act. What are some of the available
public participation techniques? The many techniques which can
be used to involve the public in government actions fall into
three major categories. One, to ensure that appropriate public
meetings, hearings, conferences and workshops and so forth
are held throughout the Country, and that they are planned and
held in accordance with the unfolding of the Act's key provis-
ions. Two, the use of advisory committees and review groups
which may meet periodically, but which will also be called upon
to review and comment upon major programs, regulations and plans
no matter when these occur and no matter whether a specific
meeting is convened or not. The third public participation
technique is the development of educational programs so that
the public has an opportunity to become aware of the signifi-
cance of the technical data base and the issues which emerge
from it. Effective public educational programs depends on the
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use of all appropriate communcation tools and media. These
include publications, slides, films, exhibits and other
graphics; media programs, including public service television
and radio announcements and releases to daily and professional
press and public education projects carried out by service
and civic organizations with EPA technical and financial assist-
ance. What does the Law say about manpower development? Section
7007A and B authorizes the Administrator of EPA to make grants
and/or contracts with any eligible organization for training
persons for occupations involving the management, supervision,
design, operational or maintenance of the solid waste disposal
and resource recovery equipment and facilities, or to train
instructors. Eligible organizations means the state, or any
state agency, a municipality or educational institution capable
of effectively carrying out a project. Section 7007C states
that the Administrator shall make a complete investigation and
study to determine the need for additional trained state and
local personnel to carry out plans assisted under this Act and
to determine means of using existing training programs to
training such personnel and to determine the extent and nature
of obstacles to employment and occupational advancement in the
solid waste disposal and resource recovery field. The Administ-
rator is required to report the results of such investigation
and study to the President and Congress. In view of the man-
power limitation, and many time-mandated provisions of the Act,
it is not likely that the training activity or the manpower
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training will be begun during this fiscal year. That concludes
my presentation. I'll try to answer your questions if you have
any on what I have said.
^
Moderator: Thank you, Jerri. I'd like to open the floor up
now for comments and questions. Whatever you have aimed toward
training, public information, and public participation, those
portions of the Act. If you would like to speak, you will please
move to the microphone. There's a little switch right here that
I discovered, turns that thing on, makes it work. So you will
need to turn them on when you get up there. I think they're
all turned off, now.
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) Jack, do you want us to
make individual presentations on each section, or just wait and
make a presentation at the end?....
Moderator: If you have a general presentation that doesn't
apply itself with the assemblance to a particular portion of
the agenda as we have it laid out, if you'd like to wait until
the end, then we'll take general presentations on anything you
want to give us. (Pause) Here's one right here, Moses, or
that one back there.
Question: In regards to the.... Excuse me, I'm Moses McCall
from the State of Georgia. In regards to the public participation
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portions of the Act. I think the efforts thus far have been
pretty good and I would commend EPA on that part of the imple-
mentation of the Act. I have to get in my gig, you know. No
longer are we seeing the faceless or nameless bureaucrats up
on the Potomac. There was a publication last Thursday in the
Federal Register of individuals who are working on specific
guidelines, regulations, etc. in conjunction with the imple-
mentation of the Act. I would urge that we have timely dissemin-
ation of any guidelines, regulations, etc. which might come out
of EPA to the various interested parties. And, I would also
urge that these things be dated so that we can keep up with
what came out when, that's caused us some problems in the past.
We have gotten some un-dated ones which didn't make a lot of
sense. In terms of training, there's no specific authorization
for training, but I would urge that as we build up state programs
and as EPA builds up the federal program there's going to definitely
be a need for training authorization or training professional per-
sonnel in solid waste management. I hope this will be considered.
Speaker Wyer: Notice, we are... as a matter of fact, we're
detailing from the Atlanta Regional Office, here... coming here,
and at* will be coming in next Monday^ To help us try and deter-
mine what the manpower development needs are. And, jtfe will be
here for a period of two months, and hopefully, during that time
we may come up with some actual efforts.
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Question: (Same SpeaKer) Good. Thank you.
Moderator: Thank you, Moses. Do we have anybody else who
would like to make a statement, ask a question? (Pause) I
ask you not to throw rotten oranges or anything like that.
Okay, with that, we'll move on. We have with us fromthe Hazard-
ous Waste Division, Walt Kovalick. Walt's the Chief of the
Guidelines Branch of the Hazardous Waste Division, the Office
of Solid Waste in Washington. Walt, you want to use
that mike over there?
Speaker Walter W. Kovalick: Several of us are going to work
from down here to try and make it a little easier for you to
confront us with questions, if that's the right word. Ah-
&>
/Jerri was telling you about the process of involving all of
you and those who live in many of the other regions that we're
carrying on public meetings in. We're in the process of develop-
ing guidelines, regulations and information. Not only as Asa
said are we doing a repeat performance in the morning, we're
simo-casting because there's a similar meeting going on right
now in New York City, in our Region II. So, I hope it's clear
that this is the first Step among many steps to let you all
know exactly what we're doing in the process of developing this
Law. I'm to talk to you about Sub-Title C, which is the 3000
series of the Law, and it's the regulatory portion. I'd like to
make a few philosophical points and then move in quickly to
summarize the sections, and then still leave enough time to dis-
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cuss them as we go along. You may want to stop me when I do
get through with the individual sections. Anyway, the first
part you should note if you had a chance to look at that
section is that Section 3001 is the keystone for the entire
Sub-Title C, that is where EPA is asked to define what is a
hazardous waste. And that particular section then creates the
umbrella, or as it's sometimes termed, the net which will be
thrown out over what we call hazardous waste and then either
through state programs and/or if necessary, a federal program.
those wastes will be controlled from crad^le to grave using
the regulations and standards that are contained in the rest
of the 3001 series. And, I'll be talking about those, indivi-
dually. So, the work that we do and the input that we get on
the definitional section are very critical to the way the rest
of the sections operate and the way it is implemented. The
second broad point I wanted to make is that Sub-Title C con-
tains a set of national standards, a set of national minimum
standards for generators of waste. National minimum standards
for those people who transport wastes... hazardous waste, we're
talking about, those that are defined earlier on in the Sub-
Title. And then, national standards for those who operate
storage, treatment and disposal facilities. Meaning not
just land disposal, but we're talking about generation
facilities for hazardous wastes, chemical treatment facilities,
biological treatment and other kinds of land application
other than just burial. So, it's a very broad gauge cover-
age of minimum national standards. The third broad
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overview point is that it is the intent of Congress, certainly
in the history of the legislation, it is our implementation
intent that the states take over this program and operate it.
And we're making every possible effort, as I will explain in
a moment, in the development of the state guidelines section,
to see that that happens. So, this is to be after the model
S/»F*
of the State Drinking Water Act which EPA also administers that,
if the states wish to, they shall take over the program^as
opposed to some of our earlier environmental models where it
wasn't at all clear that EPA was in any hurry to turn over the
programs. The last point I wanted to make was that the Law,
as we understands it would not allow us to go back at old dis-
posal problems except in the case of there being an imminent
hazard from that situation. In other words, wastes that are
already disposed of, the standards that I am going to be dis-
cussing would not allow us to go back at them other than for
imminent hazard purposes. So, we're starting fresh with the
development of the regulations. Let me now run through the
sections to give you a little more specifics and then I'll,
hopefully, have more than enough time for questions. A- why
don't we use the slides. As I just mentioned, the definition
is the critical starting point. You'll see eighteen months
repeated each time I show you a slide, there are seven or eight
of these. And so, all of the work that we're doing which
commenced October 21st when the Act passed,through -tfie-April of
'78 are aimed at turning out the best possible product, that is,
in terms of regulations that we can all live with and still pro-
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vide the kind of environmental protection that this problem
needs. Section 3001 calls on us to do three things. One is
to identify criteria which Congress gave usj some suggestions
or criteria that might be used to identify hazardous waste.
Now, the first thing we have to do is chose the criteria.
Things like flammability, corrosivity, explosivity, toxicity,
both chronic and accute, bio-concentration, and a variety of
factors that you might not normally consider in your thinking
about what defines a hazardous waste. I also call your atten-
tion to the definition of solid waste in the Law, which
includes semi-solids; liquids; sludges; and, slurries. So
Congress, in its wisdom, has re-defined solids as a semi-
solid; liquid; sludges; and, slurries, slush, ah- whatever.
So, we're talking about those things that have qualities in
terms of criteria that's used to be identified as hazardous.
Then, using those criteria, we then identify hazardous waste,
that's Part B of that section. To carry my example of flamm-
ability one step further, we would... assuming we chose
flammability, we'd have to pick a standardized test which are...
in that particular case, there are several available which are
generally agreed upon by government and industry as effective
tests for flammability. And, it would be a matter of choosing
a flash-point to use in that standard test. So, choosing the
flash-point would be choosing the criteria; and, running the
standardized test would be applying the criteria of flammability
to identifying the waste. The third thing we have to do in this
section is issue a list and there are a variety of options for
issuing a list. It could be a list of things- list of wastes,
excuse me, that flunked the list. In other words, those things that
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failed these standardized tests that we were just discussing
under identification. That's been one approach. Another
approach could be a list of things that we do not have the
technology or where-with-all now to devise a reasonably
priced test and yet we all agree... meaning industry, govern-
ment, labor, environmental groups, that we have a significant
problem. For example, waste contaminated with PCBs might well
be considered to be in concensus as a hazardous waste and yet
it's not easy to devise a simple, economic test for waste con-
taminated with PCBs, and therefore, they might be listed on the
list just because they are important, but not because they meet
any flammability, corrosivity or other toxicity requirement.
They happen to be a problem because they bio-accumulate, to
which there is no simple test. Another idea for a list has been
the possibility of a list of industrial outputs, in terms of
waste outputs, that might be a concern. For example, if
there were a concensus that those who are in the business of
manufacturing asbestos brake linings had waste that because of
the afebestos contents were of concern, then waste from that
industry category might be on the list. So, all I'm trying to
explain is that we have not reached any decisions on what the
list should be, but to offer you some of the perspectives on
how diverse the list could be. Most of you, when you think
of the lists that are familiar with some of our environmental
programs, probably think of the Section 311 Water Pollution
Spill List, and that's a simple list of substances which you
know whether or not you've spilled, and therefore, know whether
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or not you need to comply with the regulation. But, we're
talking about... not about substances when we talk about hazard-
ous waste, but mixtures, green slimes, and *S/q./1/C./gS (.this
word waa-Jjxdjj>tjjigiiiska-brfce) that are not easily identified. So,
you can see that this is quite a bit more complex, and as I
pointed out at the beginning, the definition is then what
governs the rest of the regulations. There are three sets of
national standards that I mentioned, the first, that I'll run
through quickly. For generators, there are only three subjects
that we are instructed to write regulations on. We cannot write
regulations that affect the way you generate waste. That is
the process that you use to generate waste. We can only write
regulations on... for record-keeping and reporting requirements
regarding the hazardous wastes that we defined earlier; or, on
labelling of containers; or... and/or, I should say, on hazardous
waste manifest systems, which is a term that Congress included.
It, basically, is a paper system that tracks those industrial
wastes that leave a facility until their ultimate point of
disposal, so that hopefully, the state government is knowledge-
able that the waste did indeed arrive at the disposal facility
and was properly disposed at a permitted disposal facility.
So, it's kind of a tie that makes sure that the waste that was
generated which fall under this category reach their ultimate
destination. The second national standard relates to transporters.
There is no limitation there on the... there are some suggestions
for regulation, including record-keeping, labelling and compliance
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with this same manifest system. That is, the transporter
would maintain copies with him as he delivers the waste to the
disposal facility or wherever he's taking it, that is permitted.
You notice that we are aware, as I'm sure those of you who are
here, that are in the transportation business know that the
Department of Transportation is in the transportation regulat-
ion business. We have began oujc discussions with the Office
of Hazardous Material Operations and we've expressed our desire
to try to make these regulations as compatible as we possibly
can. As a matter of fact, identical, hopefully, given they
have a transportation protection mandate and we have an environ-
mental protection mandate. The last set of national standards
that I mentioned applies to those that own and operate facilities.
Again, I don't mean just land disposal sites, I mean incinerators_,
chemicals fixation-type processes, biological treatment facilities
and others. These again would be standards affecting record-
keeping; reporting; and the manifest system which I mentioned
earlier; monitoring; the right to inspect maintenance and
operational and contingency plans in case of accident. But,
there's a broad group of items that could be covered in the
national standards affecting facility operators. Now, these
particular facilities, the ones that we call hazardous waste treatment
facilities have one more set of requirements. That is, they
must obtain a permit. None of the other contingencies... not
the transporters and not the generators, they do not have to
get a permit. But, the hazardous waste facility operators
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22
do have to have a permit. So, when we discuss the permit pro-
gram under Section 3005, it only affects those who are in the
business of treating, storing and disposing of waste. Now,
if you are a generator of waste and you also operate a storage
treatment or a disposal facility, then you would need a permit,
also. The idea of permits... this is not a permit program for
truckers, this is not a permit program to generate waste. This
is a permit program for those who treat, store and dispose of
waste. Ah- you see there basically that a permit is required
and Congress has wisely included a provision for interim permits
for those of you who were involved with obtaining water pollut-
ion permits are aware that we had quite a work over-load and
quite a frenzy in trying to issue those permits and this Law
provides for those firms who need a permit... who were in
business on the 21st of October in 1976, which is when the
Law was signed^ and who have notified EPA or the state, which
I will explain in a moment and who have applied for a permit,
who have done those three things, if you're in that category,
you have a permit. In other words, this is a load-leveling,
cmi
work-leveling opportunity for us at EPA in the regions who will
be issuing the permits or the states to take the most important
permits, first. So that you will not be operating without a
permit during this time that EPA is cranking up, or the states,
to issue permits. Section 3006, I'll just cover momentarily, is
the section where we devise guidelines for what an authorized
state program is and this is the part of the Law where we are
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23
working with state governments to try and design a compatible
program. The Law does include three requirements which we
will have to design with these guidelines. One is the state
programs be equivalent to the federal programs ....
Question: (Unidentified Speaker)- Substantially.
Sjaeaker Kovalick: Substantially equivalent. That they be con-
sistent with other state programs. Some of you may be aware
that Ohio recently published a study that they shipped waste...
industry in Ohio shipped waste to thirteen other states. So,
there's quite a commerce in hazardous waste between and among
states. And finally, that there by adequate enforcement of
the provision that relate to Sub -Title C. There is also a
provision for interim authorization, so that states can meet
this full-authorization over a period of time and that's also
included in the Section. One of the sections- skipping to
3010, that is least noticed, but I think has one of the evident
set of ramifications, as we read it in that it affects those
who generate, those who transport, those who store, treat and
dispose of hazardous waste, this is a notification section
where witHh three months after the hazardous waste that I dis-
cuseed earlier are defined. Each of these entities will have
to notify the state in which they're located, or EPA. It
says EPA ^there; it should be state or EPA, that they are in
fact in this business, handling hazardous waste. So, this is
a way... ah- a registration, if you will, so that there is an
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24
awareness of where the generators, transporters and storers,
treaters and disposals of waste are located. It also, as you
recall, provides a way for us to do this load-leveling or
work-leveling on how many permits we've processed. If you've
notified EPA under this section, if you were in business in
October and if you've applied for a permit, then you have a
permit until official action is taken on your permit. So, this
is the section that provides us with a cushion, and also pro-
vides the operators with a cushion so that they are not outside
the Law. That last significant section is one related to assist-
ance to states and there are provisions for grant funds to
support state hazardous waste programs, both to develop them
and for their implementation. There's an allocated formula
that's based on the nature of the problem. It has a three
factors in it, and this, of course, is a function of the actual
appropriation when we get down to the last analysis. But,
there is a separate authorization here for state hazardous
waste programs. That's what I wanted to cover and very briefly,
it's a lot of information to run through very quickly. And, if
you've had a chance to look at the fact sheets or glance through
the Law, perhaps you have some initial questions or comments.
Moderator: Thank you, Walt. If you'd like to speak, just move
to the mike and we'll get to you just right after the other.
Yes sir? ,
Question: John Coins. The question I have with this hazard-
ouX waste, what about heavy metal?, etc. that might be found in
domestic sewage, would that be covered?
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25
Speaker Kovalick: It's... it's possible. We intend to run,
you know, these standardized tests which we're trying to
development over time on a variety of wastes. And, as you
know... probably better than I, there are a number of
communities where well over ninety percent of waste water
treatment plants are municipally-owned and industrially-
owned, in some cases, well over ninety percent are from
industrial sources. So, it's not possible that such slu*«...
dy&f
some such slus*es could be hazardous waste. But, we're just
starting out.
Question: Moses McCall from Georgia. Ah- the question I
have, Walt, is granted I know you'll be listing the wastes
specified under Clean Air and the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act as hazardous, but do you envision a strict list-
ing of the other wastes as hazardous, or a decisiontry
approach to determine which wastes are hazardous?
Speaker Kovalick: I'm not sure about the first part. One
of the early drafts to this legislation as you probably know
better than I, did have that requirement, that we count
those things that are called hazardous in the Clean Air Act,
asbestos, berillium mercury and vinyl chloride, and the things
that are identified as hazardous in the Water Act. But that's
not in there, statutori^ally. So, we'll see if they meet the-
1tre '—approach, the so-called decisiontry approach, meaning
that you run some of the least expensive and therefore the
easiest tests, first. Like those for physical properties,
corrosivity, explosivity and so forth, and then, move on to
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26
the more difficult tests to see which wastes might, quo to,
flunk the tests. I think it's fair to point out, I'm talking
as if this is all industrial program^that ideological wastes
may well and might well be called hazardous wastes. Which
means that we're affecting hospitals, clinics, veterinarian
plants and so forth, as well as some radioactive wastes.
Those that are not regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory
£Rof?
Commission or HRTA, the low-level kind, radiant in a watch
and the ah- those kinds of wastes that are a result of that
process. So, we expect that all of them will be affected
by some kind of decision approach. And, hopefully, the
least expensive tests will be the ones you do first. Flash
tests, something like that, and moving on to the more com-
plicated tests, so that the cost is minimized. We intend
to ask, in the Federal Register, for comments as to who
should bear that cost^, I might add. Whether it's obvious
to you or not as to whether the generator of wastes should
bear the cost for running the tests on his wastes. And, we
will be asking that question for comments.
Moderator: I'd like to ask- we do have some people here
from some of our states programs, Mop, as well as some others
and I'd like to ask you how do you think this standard that
we've developed with your help, do you think that will affect
whether or not the states take over the program? I'd like
to hear some of you on that.
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27
Question: fUuiUUlllirie J GPeukur) Jim, I could probably
answer that very briefly. . . .
Moderator: Would you move to the mike, please, and give your
name. We're not asking for a commitment, all we're asking
for is participation.
O^7^1' ' J
Question: I understand. My name is Ben Druse from Florida. ^~> -,-j".
I believe that the answer to your question depends entirely
on the nature of the guidelines that you produced as to
whether or not we can live with it and whether or not you are
pre-empting some of the existing programs that we already
have. So, I believe that we can't answer that particular
question at this point in time. While I'm up here I might
ask Walter, what kind of rampart are you establishing with
NPDES and the Water Quality boys when you get into industrial
wastes and discharge permit aspects?
Speaker Kovalick: Well, we've got the suggestions, as a
matter of fact that all of those infamous guidelines and
documents that was developed over the past few years for
controlling waste water discharge. There is a lot of inform-
ation there about the contents of the sludges that you create.
So, that was brought up as a very good point as a way to get
data about things that might well be considered hazardous,
the heavy metals, to the point that this gentleman brought
up over here. ...
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28
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) That's a good point.
Speaker Kovalick: I know you're from a state... and several
states in this Region have a fairly large agricultural pro-
duction, hopefully, if it rains, and there is the question
of whether pesticide-related wastes, specifically pesticide
containers which some argue are never empty. That is if
you turn a five gallon pail or drum upside-down it is never
really empty unless it is appropriately rinsed. So, I hope
that as we think about what is a hazardous waste, we not
ignore the farm community and the fact that some of those
kinds of wastes can be even worse than some of the ones
that we might normally throw into the hazardous waste pot
to begin with.
Question: (Mr. Druse) Well, we're wrestling with that
particular problem in Dajfe County right at the moment. Hope
we come up with some answers pretty soon. Thank you.
Moderator: Yes sir?
Question: Tom Tiesler from Tennessee. I'd like just to
respond to that. I'd like to respond a little bit later
to some of the other- I guess, a general overview. I'd
say yes it's going to make a difference to the states whether
they take the program or not. Depending on the ways, parti-
cularly if the states don't have an input in determining
what is a hazardous waste. If, in fact, the states are
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29
given a program that they don't feel like they could live
with or implement, that's so strict or so ridiculous guide-
lines, I know in Tennessee that probably they would say well
let's let the Feds have it. So, I think that it is very
important that the states have an input into formulating
how the hazardous wastes are determined and how the list
is made up. So, I would say yes for Tennessee, anyway.
Speaker Kovalick: I wanted to- when I said this is the first
step I wanted to maybe elaborate to speak to Tom's point.
We are planning some seventy-five or eighty smaller versions
of this meeting along individual sections of the Law. Seven
or eight sections on seven or eight meetings around the Country
on 3001 and likewise through the other sections. And, we
intend to see that the Regions, of course- our regional offices
will be participating and organizing these meetings and one
of the necessary participants in such meetings, of course,
are the states. So, I- that's one way in which we intend to
be out discussing where we are at the moment in defining
hazardous wastes, as well as, the other regulations. These
are six states who are working with us now, primarily on
the states guideline portions of the Law. But, you should
feel free, if you are representing a state to contact us
direct. As Moses noted, all the names and addresses and
phone numbers of people working on the regulation was in the
Federal Register last Thursday. Or, through the regional
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30
office right here in Atlanta to find out what's going on.
We've tried an experimental program in the last week to
have a weekly phone call with our regional offices to try
and brief them as best we can on where we are on any given
section. So, they should be quite knowledgeable on how
we're doing.
Moderator: Yes sir, go right ahead. f /_L-0/.r/-/
-- ' **
Question: I'm Jack McMillan^ from Jackson, Mississippi.
In response to Jim's question about the determining whether
the" *§tates will take on the responsibility, two factors
that we -have looked at. Are these guidelines and regul-
ations going tQ be designed to where it would be econo-
mically feasible fecr us to afford this type of program?
I can look at some of the guidelines and management of the
land-fill operations where it's disposal of by land. It
would be totally out of the ability of state and local
governments to finance such systems. And, another thing
that's very important of mine^, is the federal government
going to continue to support the financing of the state
program? The Law calls for two years of authorizations
here and it would call for a new Act to support our program
from hereon. Possibly, if the money runs out , we could turn
it back over to EPA to operate. There's a couple of quest-
ions that I want to ask in regards to the liabilities of
the management of the wastes. Have you given any thought in
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31
this area of the transfer of ownership from the generator to
the transporter to disposal or treatment facility, and by the
fact of transfering ownership does this release the liability
of those individuals that had ownership before hand?
Speaker Kovalick: Yes, that's a good question. Our experience
to-date in those- there are a couple of states that some of you
may know, where this program and the basic frame-work that I've
outlined is already in operation. And, the manifest system
that I've mentioned goes a long way towards so-called trans-
fering the liability. However, we also are aware of experiences
whereas a person is affected by a bad disposal practice, the
Courts have seen fit to go way back all the way in the chain
through the transporter back to the generator. So, I think
any generator who feels that he's going to be able to write-
off his liability permanently, forever, he's being perhaps
•i
Q*4S
a little njrCVe. On the other hand, if the permit system is
well-run for that facility and if that facility has being
doing everything possible, hopefully under state permit, to
meet the requirements, it would be very difficult, I think,
for a reasonable man, which is what we count on judges to be,
to go back in the chain at the generator because the facility
was meeting the basic requirements.
Question: (Same Speaker) Ah- you're talking about in time
to come in the management of this waste will there be any
special care or guidelines written for disposal or treatment
facilities?
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32
Speaker Kovalick: Yes, I breezed by that one.on the bottom
•^
lines on that one slide^,which had too many words on them, was
regulations regarding ownership and continuance of operation.
We spent some time studying that in-house. Some of you may
be aware that Oregon has a requirement that the land on
which such facilities be built be deep into the state and a
fund be set-up during the life of the operation of the site
where contributions are made with each load of waste. So
that in the end when the operation is closed in twenty or
thirty years, there is a fund whose interest can pay for the
monitoringand so-called long-term care of that facility.
So we definitely have an instruction in the Law to figure
out a way to address that problem. I'm just- I tossed out
the Oregon model because that's one that's working now, and
you could inquire of them about it. I mean, if you read one
of the permits for an Oregon facility, it has the require-
£c -ii-is ^-h?rr~
ment that the land be P/cxT/9££> (this word waa—indistinguish-
able) and that there be a fee for every load that comes in
to the facility.
Question: (Same Speaker) One other question, I know that
some of you must be charged with the writing of the regulations
or charting on working papers. Do you have any working papers
that have been developed and would be available to the states
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33
ing our regulations. So not only are we busy writing them,
but we have to figure out how many thousands! signatures we
can get on the bottom. We are going to have available, in
mid-March, using the Federal Register which is the daily
newspaper of the federal government, a list of questions
-?
that we have come up with based on thinking about each of
these seven or so sections that I've discussed this morn-
ing. So, the notice that Moses McCall mentioned last
Thursday is listed the names and addresses so you'll know
who to get in touch withj Who the person is who would sign
such a regulation when we get all done. But the material
that we're trying to get out in March is not a proposal.
We are many, many months, like August and September, from
proposing a set of regulations. And, I think that's what's
different about implementing this Law from our Air and Water
0«.t
Acts. We are *«< gathering information at this point, and
the notice that I'm commenting about, hopefully, we'll make
in the Federal Register in mid-March may contain as many as
five or six dozen questions that we have, such as the one
on what makes sense for long-term care and continuity, that
the gentleman just raised. So, that's where we are at the
moment, and ah- that should be out very shortly. And then,
starting after we get the data back from asking those quest-
ions we would start having the kinds of drafts that Moses
McCall referred to that should be circulated. And, we intend
to use an advisory committee system, which represents a
variety of interest groups. We intend to use one of the major
interests groups that the Association of State and Territorial
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34
Solid Waste Management Officials, which is a long name, but
ah- they circulate drafts between and among the states, too.
So, we hope to use a variety of review groups, as well as
the kind... the eighty meetings or the seventy meetings that
I was discussing earlier to try and get input on what we
might write.
fc
Question: I'm Jerry Parkins from the North Carolina Solid
Waste Program. I would have to echo pretty much what the
other States have indicated as far as the ah- meeting the
federal requirements. In addition to that, I want to say
that- you know, if the requirements were more than our
legislature would be willing to go along with, or more than
we could afford on a mass basis in terms of a grant, then
we too would probably say okay, you asked for it. I do
have a specific question for Walt. No doubt, in terms of
special waste handling and handling of hazardous waste, pri-
vate-enterprise will play a major part. Besides meeting our
water quality and air quality standards, will there be other
requirements that will qualify the different categories of
treatment and disposers? In other words, if a facility
claims to be a de-toxifying facility, will it be eligible?
Ah- considerations that will help qualify him so that we
will know the difference between a jack-leg and one that will
be certified by EPA.
Speaker Kovalick: If you're... I think you're asking me
whether the.... Let me take an example, I will try this.
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35
As some of you may know, the Air Pollution regulations that
exists at the national-level for incinerators only cover
two subjects, at the moment, particulate matter and
sulfur-oxides. Well, the kinds of incinerators that burn
the kinds of waste we're talking about, exotic, organic
compounds, those two regulations would not provide suffi-
cient control and so one of the issues we're trying to
wrestle with in EPA, generally, meaning the air programs
and the solid waste offices. How do we deal with the pro-
blem of burning exotic, organic compounds where public
health is not being protected in this so-called de-toxi-
cation or destruction facility. So the answer to your
question is yes, we're going to have to be more wide-
ranging. Now, I don't know whether there's going to be
admission standards or ambient standards or technology
base standards, or the Law says, performance standards.
So, we're trying to understand better what flexibility that
provides. When you're burning some of these very toxic
organic compounds, I know I would, and I'm sure you would
if you lived next door, want to be assured that there
were more requirements being laid on that incinerator than
just particulate matter and sulfur-oxide.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you.
Moderator: Do we have anyone from industry that would like
to address that problem for us? About whether or not they
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36
think that the states should, in fact, take over the hazard-
ous waste regulatory program... about the consulting community?
Yes sir?
Question: Elmer Cleveland, EPA here in Atlanta, Georgia.
Walt, I'd like to ask you a question, if you've been into
discussions on when does a hazardous material, or a by-product
through the process of using hazardous material become a
waste? Lots of this stuff is stored for maybe later use.
What's ah- what's your feelings on that?
Speaker Kovalick: You're one of us, aren't you Elmer! And
you're asking all the easy questions! Well, I don't know,
is the answer to your question. If you think about the
Law and the word storage .permits, which is one of the require-
ments for storage permits, the question that^when is a waste^-
a waste^becomes very important. We do not have a position on
that, we're going to be asking for a lot of input because at
7/i
-------
37
^
ating into the air and Affecting the environment, it would
seem that this Law would want us to be regulating it. And so,
there's that one extreme where it's difficult to draw a line,
-•£•
and then we are aware of a huge mountain of asbestos^^ailings
C*—f
that have resulted from^manufacturing process in Pennsylvania ,
'~-r-T-'5i
-ikey'-re sitting on the land, children are playing in it and
tumbling in it, or were. And those kinds of waste's we want to
be sure are in the permitted program. So, trying to draw this
line in the grey area between by-product and true waste is
quite obviously very hard. We haven't yet, as a matter of fact/
we've just started, but I think it's important for those of you
who might not have thought about that to do so, because if you
are in industry it makes a difference. I think it's fairly
simple that flSBe^ms h.>mre~± (-this woro was iniiistittgtHrS&aklej
-people are in this a^ew-and it gets harder in radioactive; but
when we move into chemicals, that ah- it gets a lot more compli-
cated.
Question: ,p/// v^7/!/('.X^//?// a ^Speakers name wag n-ot
audiaMre^T. I'm with the North Carolina Solid Waste Management
Program. Two comments I'd like to make and one is this.
First, I'd like to congratulate the writer of the Act for putting
public health back where is belongs in Solid Waste Management.
For the last ten years or so we have gotten totally away from
the public health aspect of solid waste management. And I see
again here we're coming back, I think this is a step in the
right direction. Another thing that I think is most important,
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38
and I think it should be brought out again, that you're not
going to put out just a list of hazardous material. Because
we can take most of the heavy metals, or most anything else,
it depends upon the quantity you have and the strength you
have to make it hatch. And I think this is ah- very import-
ant. If you say to industry they may have a platium sludge
that has less heavy metals in it than our sludges coming from
our municipal treatment systems, yet, we look much harder on
industry as they have the platium sludge, than we would look
on the great quantities of waste. So, I am hoping that
you'll take into consideration the small operator that may
generate a few hundred pounds a month and it may be, ah- not
put him in the same category just because he has a certain
amount of heavy metals in it, as you would the generator
that generates great quantities of it.
Speaker Kovalick: I'm glad you also brought that point out
for... as a thought piece, for those who are here. The quest-
ion of whether there should be some exemptions under the
generator, storage... generator, transporter and storage treat-
ment disposal regs has been raised a number of times. You
<£
might be surprised to know that^our December public meeting
in Washington, a representative of the waste oil re-refining
industry offered testimony that he was absolutely certain
that waste used lubricating oils ought to be a hazardous
waste and that was his testimony. As you may know, that's
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39
collective of every gas station in the CjZuntry. So, obviously,
there has to be some kind of equitable line drawn around what
are facilities that would be affected by this Law and those
that are not, based on the public health criteria that you
pointed out is in the Law. So, it could be very far-reaching
and that's why we're out here trying to meet these goals.
Moderator: We have time for one more, if anyone would care
to comment. If not, the next topic we'll look into is land
disposal. We have with us to give you a short presentation
on that, Mr. Truftt DeGeare. Also of the Washington Office
of Solid Waste. Trust's the Chief of the Land Protection
ft* Sys*e*5 . &
Branch in ftnrfgfinrr Management Division. Tru/ttt.
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40
requirements for state and local governments will be discussed
later under state and local program development provisions.
RCRA defines open-dump and sanitary land-fill as the only
two types of solid waste disposal facilities. They will be
distinguished by the criteria to be promulgated under Section
4004. RCRA adds clarity by defining disposal and solid waste.
These are relatively broad definitions in specifying the
activities which encompass in the terms solid waste disposal.
Disposal is defined to mean the discharge, deposit, injection,
dumping, spilling, leaking or placing of any solid waste or
hazardous waste into or on any land or water. So-tthat such
solid waste or hazardous waste or any constituent thereof
may enter the environment or be emmitted into the air or
discharged into waters. Solid waste means any garbage,
refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply
treatment plant or air pollution control facility and other
discarded material, and that being solid, liquid, semi-solid
or contain gasSbus material resulting from industrial, com-
mercial, mining and agricultural operations and from
community activities. That does not include solid or desolved
material in domestic sewage or solid and desolved material
in irrigation return flows or industrial discharges which
are point sources subject to permits under the Federal Water
Pollution Control Act or particular nuclear materials as
defined by the Atomic Energy Act. As I said earlier, the
statutory definitions of sanitary land-fills and open-dumps
refer to Section 4004 of the Law. That section is called
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41
Criteria for Sanitary Land-Fills. Sanitary land-fills required
for all disposals. This section requires' the Administrator
to promulgate regulations containing criteria for determining
which facility shall be classified as open-dumps and which
shall be classified as sanitary land-fill. At minimum, the
criteria shall provide for the facility may be classified as
A
a sanitary land-fill and not an open-Jfump only if there is
no reasonable probability of adverse effect on health or the
environment from disposal of waste at the facility. An import-
ant aspect of the implementation of this Law then is further
interpretation of what constitutes no reasonable probability
and what constitutes adverse effects on health and the
t
environment. Development of this criter^J* will be particularly
difficult for ground-water protection, because of technological
uncertainties and the general lack of ground-water protection
policies. The regulation containing these criteria is due by
October 21st of this year, after consultation with the states,
notice, and public hearings. We've considered that it's
appropriate for the criteria to be performance rather than
operations-oriented. The intent of promulgation of this cri-
teria is not to provide for a federal regulatory system for
sanitary land-fills, but to establish criteria for use by the
state solid waste management programs. Section 4004B requires
each state plan to prohibit the establishment of open-dumps,
and to contain a requirement that all solid waste within the
state be disposed of in sanitary land-fills unless it is
utilized for resource recovery. And finally, Section 4004C
indicates that the state prohibition on open-dumping shall
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42
take affect six months after the date of promulgation of
the criteria or on the date of approval of the state plan
whichever is later. Not later than one year after promul-
gation of the criteria for sanitary land-fills and open-
Xumps, the Administrator shall publish an inventory of all
disposal facilities in the United States which are open-
dumps. Section 4005 also prohibits open-dumping when
useable alternatives are available. If such alternatives
are not available, the state plan shall establish a timetable
or schedule for compliance, which specifies remedial measures
including an enforceable sequence of actions or operations
leading to compliance with the prohibition on open-dumping
within a reasonable timetable not to exceed five years from
the date of publication of the inventory. If the jtate plan
is not being undertaken, the citizen suit provision of Sect-
ion 7002 provides recourse to a grieved party. Section 1008,
Solid Waste Management Information and Guidelines, requires
the Administrator to publish in one year, guidelines which
provides a technical and economic description of the level
of performance that can be obtained by various available
solid waste management practices. Areas to be addressed by
the guidelines include methods and degrees of control that
provide a minimum for protection of public health and welfare,
protection of the quality of ground-water and surface-waters
from leakage, protection of the quality of surface water from
run-off through compliance with absolute limitations under
the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, protection of ambient
air quality through compliance with new source performance
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43
standards of air quality implementation plans under the Clean
Air Act, disease infection control, safety and esthetics.
Guidelines are viewed as being intended as descriptive rather
than prescriptive and to suggest alternatives for dealing with
concerns raised in the criteria being promulgated under
Section 4004., Section 1008C from this guidelines provision
requires minimum criteria to be used by the state to define
s~
open-dumping of solid waste as prohibited under Sub-Title D.
The response to Section 1008 which calls for guidelines on
a variety of unspecified subject areas, the Agency intends,
first, to up-date our current land-disposal guidelines and
initiate slush disposal guidelines. We will also be carrying
out a process for determing which other guidelines shall be
developed and what priority sequence. With regards to imple-
menting that program, we are soliciting your input to guide
us in what you see as the most important areas for develop-
ment of these guidelines.
9
Moderator: Thank you Trmtt. Do we have any comments?
Question: (Note: Two people — speaking _ a£_lh.e_-ijjne-. the- -questioner
was g-iv-rn-g fri-s name, thcrof-ojpe^. nama was indisidng-uish-a-bie) .
...from North Carolina, again. Have you taken into considerat-
ion demolition, construction, land disposal or tree and land-
scaping waste?
Speaker DeGeare: We haven't yet. We haven't really acted on
either the criteria or the guidelines. That's a reasonable
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44
concern. One alternative with regards to the guidelines activity
is to get a separate guidelines dealing with various types of
waste. For example, one guidelines would deal with land disposal
of municipal waste water treatment plant, sludges, another could
deal with demolition waste or tree and brush clearing waste.
Question: (Same Speaker) One of the definitions that I saw
in the pamphlet was that if it was not a sanitary land-fill,
it was a dump. Do you anticipate different types of guidelines
for a sanitary land-fill that receives the participal waste
from the municipalities from the different places, and a
different set of regulations for a site that was just receiv-
ing tree and landscaping or demolition waste. Do you antici-
pate the two?
Speaker DeGeare: With regards to the guidelines, that is under
consideration, and if you have feelings as to whether that
should be the way we go, them we would like to hear suggestions.
With regards to the criteria, the Law does provide for various
classification of disposal sites and sanitary land-fills. That
is an alternative that we could build it.
Question: (Same Speaker) One other comment. I think that the
potential for problems lies very much in these two definitions.
I've heard the definition of sanitary land-fills from some people
that were supposed to know. They say that a cigarette-butt if it
drops to the ground it's a dump. We've got to look at this,
and I'm sure this is going to be most difficult to set-up a set
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45
of regulations from California to North Carolina, and I do plead
with you to take the local people into consideration when you
look at this criteria.
Speaker DeGeare: So you would suggest differing criteria based
on the types of wastes being disposed of?
Question: (Same Speaker) I certainly would. I do not think
that we can possibly.... For instance, you have a munici-
pality that goes into the area of reconstruction when you're
tearing down twenty blocks and getting demolition waste, or you
have land-clearance if you are clearing fifty lots. I see no
reason for daily cover, I see no reason for taking up the type
of land-fill space that we would acquire for p=a*ticipal waste
and filling it up with this type of waste that we could use
marginal land-owned, and not take up our good, planned sanitary
land-fill. So, I do think there's a place for the two sets
of guidelines. Not necessarily daily cover on the tree and
landscaping waste, but a cover enough to prevent fire, to...
this type of thing.
sets of regulations.
this type of thing. I do think it's very much^place for two
Speaker DeGeare: Okay. Thank you. This is one of several
areas of concern that we have had already in trying to con-
sider what we should look to in terms of a criteria. And that
is, what types of wastes would be covered by a criteria and in
what form the criteria would be. Would they be specific for'
different types of wastes, or should we try a broader, general
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46
criteria that would be applicable to all types of wastes. Just
to, maybe give you a little more food for thought.
Question: Moses McCall from Georgia. I strongly reiterate
what Bill just said. I think there's definitely going to have
to be some sort of classification system, so that we can, you
know- handle these wastes according to the type of waste we're
dealing with. And, I also think that if EPA approaches the
subject of open-dump AS being something where there's abso-
lutely zero discharge, that's completely unrealistic. Because
we're going to have to assess the fact that there is going to
be discharge, either into the ground-water, you know, to a
minimal extent or whatever. But, there is going to have to
be maximum flexibility that we can apply at the sjtate and
local-level, if we're going to be able to live with the Act.
Moderator: Thank you. Do we have anyone here from a municipal
or other local government? We'd like very much to hear their
feelings on that particular question that Mr. Strickland just
addressed. Yes sir.
p.
Question: John -Hailer from the Solid Waste Management, State
of Georgia. I'm speaking now for local representatives who've
called today and so I'll pass this on to you. This is from
Don Hackney in Savannah and he expressed somewhat of the same
opinion that's already been expressed, except, I think, he
goes a little further. And his comments involved making the
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47
requirements at least general enough that they could be adopted
to varying areas of, not only the COuntry, but of the state.
For instance, he would prefer that we not set a definite standard
as to the depth of ground-water below the lowest depth of trench
or filling. In other words, say five feet because solids leak
out of Georgia, over Florida, it's impossible for some of these
areas to meet this. So, I think his general comment was that
we adopt standards which are general enough, or which could be
varying for different areas of the Country, rather than adopt-
ing one strict standard for the whole Cduntry. The comment I
wanted to make is, at least in Region IV, I think you're
familiar, in our work plan you've indicated that we're to
address pits, ponds and lagoons. My question is will these
be defin/ed as a sanitary land-fill or open-dump or another
method of disposal? I'm not sure exactly where they fit into
the Law.
Moderator: What we're trying to do here, John, is to seek
your advise on that particular question. If you have a feeling
on that, we'll certainly be glad to hear it.
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, I think our concern, number
one^ is that they've completely been left out of all previous
regulations. At least in Georgia pits, ponds and lagoons fall
into what we call no-man's land. Water quality claims them
when they want to. We claim them when we want to. And when
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48
neither one of us want them we just claim that it's the other
one's responsibility. So, to do an inventory of this would
require a tremendous amount of effort, above, say an inventory
of municipal waste sites which we could give you tomorrow to
go into pits, ponds and lagoons, this is ah- enough to hold
the ball-game which we have absolutely no information on.
Water Quality, I'm sure would have more than we would. So it
may take a cooperative effort between the water and land pro-
grams.
Moderator: If I understood you correctly, you are suggesting
that they should, in fact, be included?
Question: (Same Speaker) Certainly. I think they should be
included in one or the other programs. Either air or land or
water, because, right now they sort of wonder around from one
program to another and really don't have a home. So, I would
certainly recommend that they be included. But I'm not sure
whether the definition of sanitary land-fill will be broad
enough to include a pit, pond or lagoon.
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) John brought up a good point
about pits, ponds and lagoons. They should be included, but
where is the quest. Right now the Safe Drinking Water Act and
the proposed sub-service injection regs are proposing to cover
them. And in the proposed regs they do require that an inventory
be made by the state within twelve months of the potential affect
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49
on ground-water. So, if they're going to be covered there, then
they sure as hell ought to be left alone in this Act. You
know, let's cover them in one place, but let's don't overlap.
But, I think EPA in this respect needs to get its Act together
and decide where they want to cover it and how they want to do
it and not impose on the jtate that you do an inventory under
the guise of the Safe Drinking Water Act and then turn right
around and within twelve months have to include an inventory
under RCRA.
Speaker DeGeare: The states that are being certified under the
Safe Drinking Water Act and they not all are, are being charged
to do a survey, not an inventory of pits, ponds and lagoons.
It is my understanding that the regulations proposed to-date
under the Safe Drinking Water Act will not apply to pits, ponds
and lagoons. But, directly to underground injections in a
facility where the depth is greater than the surface diameter
of the injection point. The emphasis I put at the beginning
of my discussion on the broad new definition of solid waste
and disposal was intentional in that disposal by a statutory
definition in term does include almost any placement of a
waste material on or into the land. We are striving to avoid
duplication. But we too recognize that pits, ponds and lagoons
have, for too long a time, fallen into a no-mans land in terms
of control, aa4 aise^ in- terms &f s ite mans- tand if ys« want- to
fe*y *e- tree h1 inking water-"fee- ffckts wwd was- indis-
tjaguishablej- 4n the v4cinity of such -a faciMty-. So we have
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50
great concern for those. And ah- as to whether they would be
sanitary land-fills or open-dumps, I feel that pits, ponds
and lagoons could then be operated in a manner which will not
provide an adverse effect on the environment or public health.
And, depending on how we define what an adverse effect is,
they could then be acceptable disposal methods, i.e. a sanitary
land-fill or an unacceptable method, i.e. a dump, and open-
dump, and thereby be prohibited.
Speaker Kovalick: I just wanted to add to that that we are
proceeding at the moment, that those pits, ponds and lagoons
that receive a hazardous waste will require permit under
Section 3005. I .Must point out that RCRA has a broader
coverage than the drinking water act in that, we're concerned
about the facility, regardless of whether it is located near
drinking water sources. So ah- if a hazardous waste in oppose
to a non-hazardous waste is involved, and if it goes to what
we are calling, pits, ponds and lagoons which may either end
up to be a storage or disposal facility, we don't know which,
it will be covered in a regulatory manner under this Sub-Title
C, as opposed to a survey as i/ standard^ now in drinking
water regulations.
Moderator: Yes sir, go right ahead.
kf,(_ d ft/? i>
Question: Steve Simmons from the Resource Recovery Council in
Florida. I'm also a local government-official. I would point
out, maybe the Florida experience will help you on this. I don't
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51
that it will, but our experience on this trash problem, we've
adopted strict guidelines that said that all of this would
go into a land-fill. After a number of hearings in the
(this word was indistinguishable) support, and
a number of other support, we have had to amend our guidelines.
Put a separate set of regulations for the building materials
and the waste, the yard waste, because certainly in Florida
we have a great deal of yard waste in tropical Florida. That's
a bigger problem for us in South Florida than it is in garbage.
And, I would say to you that I think this will be an area that
I would encourage you to look into and I certainly encourage
the flexibility, because even in Florida we have found that
our state's... in our state, we have great diversity on what
-# Z-
are table problems from North to South, and I'm sure as you
go around the Country, you'll find many differences. And we
would ask that you take those into consideration when develop-
ing your guidelines.
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) I have a question for- on
the hazardous waste. Is there any method that you've set-up
to work with the Food and Drug Administration as far as some
of these waste materials that have been attempted to be used,
like some which have been banned by Food and Drug, that are
presently discharged to pits, ponds and lagoons?
Speaker Kovalick: You're obviously thinking of some specific
example that I'm....
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52
Question: (Same Speaker) About the paper industry.
Speaker Kovalick: Oh. Well, let me just say that we've asked
representatives of Food and Drug and the other federal agencies
*•
to sit with us on our working group, where we are devising the
various regulations on various sections. So, they'll be
Nftrityfli. j-
represented along with Financxar Institue of Environmental
Health Statistics. So, we're going to try and get at that
issue.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you.
Moderator: Yes sir, go right ahead. I'd like to say that if
there's someone else that wants to speak, if you'll just move
right on to the microphone, it'll save us time waiting for you
to get there. ^
t tbtP
(6"*'
Question: Clark Gregory, Solid Waste Researcher. I'm having
trouble finding the provision for land application of the waste,
besides open-dump or sanitary land-fill. Such as land appli-
cation of process refuse for soil improvement. Now, does that
exclude in this Act?
Speaker DeGeare: It's ah.... Another closely related concern
we have is for the land surrounding the municipal waste-water
treatment plants. Our concern is this, you put it on the land
which dispose of waste material for solid waste disposal. The
Law provides for sanitary landfills and open-dumps. The latter
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S3
are prohibited. Therefore the criteria must address the land-
spreading process of solid waste or municipal waste-water
treatment plant sludge. Therefore, an acceptable means of
spreading that on land would have to not pose an adverse
effect on the environment or public health. So, the criteria
is going to have to deal with that, somehow....
Question: (Same Speaker) I hope not....
Speaker DeGeare: I hope it will be done very appropriately.
Question: (Same Speaker) I hope you'll do it in the reason-
able manner, and not be too strict on what you call, hazardous
and ah- discouraging folks from doing this very beneficial
process.
^,
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) Truaftt, I've got one quest-
ion I wanted to ask in relation to monitoring the movement of
leakage into the ground-water tables. Your regulations are
going to require that all facilities be monitored, or are you
going to leave that criteria up to the local agency that is
controlling solid waste programs within a state?
Speaker DeGeare: There are appropriately periods of concern
with regards of monitoring. One is guidelines. For example,
our guidelines could or could not specify where the river is
suggested monitoring programs. So, that's one area of concern.
At this point in time, and I don't know where we're going to
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54
be going. We'd like your feelings on that. We could deal
with that in the guidelines. With regards to the criteria
which are going to be the basis for the inventory, and
therefore, the basis for determing which sites will be closed
down. There has to be some means of evaluating the sites.
So, if we have ground-water, there has to be some means of
determining whether the criteria are being met. That would
require some kind of monitoring. We haven't, thus far, dealt
with that, and if you have suggestions on that we would
appreciate it.
Question: (Same Speaker) The second intent of this criteria
that would be applicable to different area of the United States.
What would apply to desert area of the mid-west wouldn't apply
to the more humid areas of the southeast, or the northeast,
either one. There - plenty ways... the geological situations
are much different to different areas. I've often wondered
how you could apply criteria to the State of Mississippi and
to Arizona that would fit both situations.
Speaker DeGeare: One means, and this is just aH- thought
I have had, and it doesn't- doesn't in any way relate to
what we are doing or will be doing, because we haven't
decided on it, is to ah- suggest criteria that are rather
broadened in regards to ground-water protection. That is,
the criteria might say the site will not impair the present
or planned future use of ground-water resources. Then, that
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55
bends the issue of someone having to determine, one, what the
current use of this ground-water resource is, and what the
planned future would be, as opposed to another alternative
which would be to specify a sampling technique and a sampling
point to determine what is, Teally, a way to the disposal site.
If you have suggestions on which type of approach or something
in-between, you would like to see or you think would be more
acceptable, please let us know.
Moderator: Do we have anyone else who would like to speak to
land disposal before we move on? (Pause) The next item we
have on the agenda is resource conservation and recovery and
overall technical assistance. We have with us from our Office
of Solid Waste Staff in Washington, Tom Canfield. Tom is the
&--
Chief of the Waste i^sduction and Guidelines Branch in the
Resource Recovery Division of our Office of Solid Waste. Tom.
Speaker Thomas Canfield: I think we are gathered here, tonight,.
I think we are gathered here, tonight, to talk about the RCRA,
and so far we haven't talked about resource conservation, or
resource recovery, at all. And, this is the name of the Act
we're talking about, and I will admit to being very bias. But
I think, and my perspective is that it was Congress' first
priority in this Act. The predecessor Act, and this was called
The Resource Recovery Act, and Congress titled this one, The
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Basically, I feel that
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56
resource conservation and resource recovery are a little harder
for people, Congress to set a legislative policy. It's a lot
easier for Congress and EPA to deal with a regulatory program.
And, Congress did establish a regulatory program for all of land
disposal, with a very specific concern about the sub-set of
waste called hazardous waste. And, I really think that in the
long-term, Congress is still looking for a switch in our... a
change in the way we generate and dispose of waste, and will be
looking much harder in the future toward resource recovery and
resource conservation. The land disposal program, the tougher
standards that we're having for all land disposal are going
to mean that the cheap options are going to be closed, and
that we will be encouraging, just because of that economic
incentive, we will be encouraging resource recovery in the
future. Before I go into the slides I'd like to talk a little
bit about what EPA does now, or has done in resource recovery
and resource conservation. And our efforts have been on focus-
ing on reducing waste and re-cycling waste, which result in
less waste to be disposed of. We think this means in turn, less
pressure to find new, bigger land disposal sites in marginal
areas, marginal means environmental areas, that tend to create
ground-water hazards. So resource conservation and recovery
do have a charge to public health and environmental pro-
tection. But there's three things that we've been doing in EPA
that this Act really, basically emphasizes. The first one is
that EPA try to get aid to ^states and cities to help them imple-
ment resource recovery systems. We evaluate and promote techno-
logy of resource recovery systems. We focus on evaluation of
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57
what we call high technology or black-box technology, if you
will, and low technology or almost no technology systems such
as source-separation of waste. These are separated waste at
the household that are then re-cycled as materials. And the
third thing that we've been doing is that we focus on waste
reduction and the target that the things we've been doing most
on is beverage container guidelines that we have applied to
federal facilities which requires a deposit on beverage containers
sold at federal facilities. We've conducted general studies on
waste generation and in trends on waste generation. So, I'd like
to go through the Act and try to tie-in sections of the Act a
little more specifically to these three general areas that we've
concentrated on. (Pause) First of all, the resource conservat-
ion and resource recovery provisions are tied in a number of
sections. It's not a nice, neat sub-title as we've seen in the
hazardous waste^that's seen pretty much in the land disposal
area. It's included in the guideline section. EPA can write
guidelines. These guidelines can include resource recovery and
resource conservation. The area that emphasizes Aid, the first
major area is in Section 2003, which calls for resource recovery
and conservation panels. I'll dwell on that a little bit later.
Sub-Title D does include the fact that EPA may- must give guid-
ance to s,tates on resource recovery and resource conservation
programs,' it also allows money to go to local communities for
resource recovery and resource conservation services. There
are a number of information dissemination and evaluation sections
that allow us to do evaluations of technology and resource
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58
systems. I'd first like to focus on Section 2003, the Resource
Recovery and Conservation Panels. The important thing here is
that the title says it's resource recovery and resource conser-
vation panels, but the language clearly indicates that it cuts
across all portions of the Act, including hazardous waste and
solid waste... of the solid waste management problems. Basically,
it's the types of things that we... to give you a sense of the
types of things that we've done before in the resource recovery
area, for instance, we have really worked with cities on fin-
ancial, marketing kinds of problems. And, I'll go into that a
little bit more. But, the point here is that this is... the
panels, we do not envision, are meant to compete with normal
city consultants, the normal ways cities contract with consult-
ants. The panels are to be made up of a number of different
groups that give to get aid to cities. This is a little more
detailed. The team... the Law says the teams are going to
include technical, marketing, financial and institutional kinds
of skills. These are primarily the way we have in the past
described the aid we've given to cities on resource recovery,
and the Act calls for teams composed of EPA people, private
consultants and paf-e-matching, meaning one-on-one relationships
with a county official, for instance, who has a particular...
he has already faced this problem, with another county official
who is facing a similar problem, now. And the aid is to go
from EPA or from the panels to s.tate and local governments upon
request. The Act mandates that twenty percent of the authorization,
of the general authorization of this Act be devoted to resource
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59
recovery and conservation panels. Sub-Title D I mentioned before
does mandate that EPA give guidance to states to have programs
in resource recovery and resource conservation. It also re-
quires efforts by states to help develop and implement local
^
plans. Section 4008 allows EPA to give financial aid to states
•?>
and local agencies for resource recovery and a broad range of
services including resource conservation services for imple-
mentation programs. Section 6002 is the specific section
devoted to resource recovery and resource conservation. This
section primarily makes mandatory a guideline that EPA has
already published. We've already issued a non-mandatory guide-
line for procurement by the federal government for the maximum
amount of re-cycled material. This section makes that mandatory
after input from the National Bureau of Standards, within two
years. EPA had already issued another guideline for the federal
government to encourage energy recovery systems. It requires
that certain size facilities must consider energy recovery
or materials recovery resource recovery systems. This section
of the Law requires that agencies of a certain size consider
waste-to-energy systems. This also applies to people who con-
tract or sell to the government. The third guideline that we
have issued that does fall under this section, also basically,
is a guideline that EPA had written to... for the federal
government in requiring source-separation of waste for office
buildings, separation of high grade office paper and a few
cases in military bases where there were residences on those
bases, separation of news-print... newspapers for recovery.
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60
The biggest point about this section is that we really feel
that it's... the federal government procurement is really
a lever for state action, for municipal cities, to follow
up on this if it's really going to have an impact on resource
recovery. The next big section or portion of the Law that
focuses on resource recovery is a group of studies in Section
8002. This section requires eleven special studies. Eight
are listed here, and these studies... the ones that we kind
of think are probably the most important, right now, maybe
I'd better give a better explanation of them. The priority
study is a study to determine priorities for research and
development on resource recovery. The small-scale, low tech-
nology study is to give more emphasis on the kind of techno-
logy of resource recovery that could be applicable to small
communities. The words, front-end separation means a study
of the source-separation by the house-holder of waste and the
relationship of source-separation of waste to large-scale
energy and materials recovery. We have conducted studies that
conclude that basically source-separations are compatible with
large-scale rescovery systems. But this is another study of
that same topic. The resource recovery facility study really
is to estimate economic impediments to large-scale recovery
systems. The major... a major study that we're going to focus
on in that section is a study calls for a resource conservat-
ion committee. This is a cabinet-level committee, consisting
of EPA and six other- heads of six other agencies, chaired by
EPA, and it lists a wide-range of incentives that we are to
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61
make, compose a study and report to Congress in two years. We're
supposed to issue six-month reports every six months. Congress
has considered incentives for resource conservation and re-cycling
in the past. And they're asking here for a major study to examine
all the ones that they have considered, and others they have not
really looked into, I guess, and to make recommendations to them.
Our plans now are to focus really on post-consumer municipal
solid waste, but we have not finalized those plans. And we will
probably focus on the kinds of incentives that Congress has con-
sidered in most recent past. Such as, a dollar per ton, cash
or tax subsidy for each ton of material re-cycled, and investment
tax credit or acceleration of depreciation for middle equipment
used for re-cycling, a product charge which is specifically men-
tioned in the Act for detail evaluation. We will probably use
the depletion allowance allowed for certain virgin materials
and secondary materials do not have the same sort of benefits.
Certain virgin materials have special capital gains treatments
that secondary materials do not have. We'll probably again
review things like freight-retreatment for virgin and secondary
materials. So, in summary, those are the major topics in this
Law that address resource recovery and resource conservation
and technical assistance, fairly broadly. So, I'd like to take
questions from you and like to ask you some questions to get
your input as to what we should be doing in this area.
Moderator: I'm going to ask you to give us your views now on
what you think we should do as far as resource conservation,
resource recovery, resource recovery and conservation panels.
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62
Question: My name is A. S. Chipijy, from Alabama Solid Waste.
I don't stand here having any answers. But specifically, I
wanted to talk to Canfield. I think he remarked that the
resource recovery was of primary importance. I don't
think it is, not because I don't think resource recovery is
important, in fact, I think resource recovery is inevitable.
But, I think it will be brought about by economics, by
economic squeezes from two directions. As natural resources
become more scarce their price will go up. Therefore, it
will be more attractive. As land disposals becomes more
expensive, the costs will go up and there will be a squeeze
from that direction which will take the resource recovery to
a greater extent. I think there will always be a generation
of waste and there will always be a need for land disposal.
And, as these two price squeezes come about, our resource
recovery will come about, automatically. And, this is a
system that can be fitted in, anywhere along the line as it
becomes economically feasible, without interfering with...
it will reduce the waste-stream and that will be its effort.
I think we need to consider, first, the basics of which
wastes are being generated that are hazardous. We have to
consider what we do, finally, with them. While I'm here, I
think EPA is caught in a squeeze, itself, in the definition
of solid waste, which includes liquids and sluries. This
forces them in the position of making broad definitions. The
definition that a dump is anything that's not a sanitary land-
fill is too broad. But, you can't narrow it down too much
without getting into the areas of that Mississippi was talk-
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63
ing about and others. Because, the geographic location is going
to make a whole lot of difference in what is an acceptable
sanitary land-fill and which is not.
Moderator: Thank you very much. Just step right, if you will.
l_. I1' v~
Question: Mr. Canfield, Dan Marks, I represent a company that's
in the business of operating bailing plants, we own paper mills
and box plants. Our primary concern is, we feel that our
industry, in general, has reached a point where we see some
stability in secondary material prices developing. We feel
we're in a position to offer cities certain assurances that
have precluded the re-cycling of material. Mainly guarantees
to take certain quantities of materials; guarantees on minimum
pricing and so forth. And, it's been our experience that it's
very confusing to cities when we come and approach them to the
availability of the central source-separation method for
recovering, whether it's newspaper, or corrugated or high-grade
office paper. They seem to have difficulty in understanding
what laws apply, and who has jurisdiction and so forth. So,
my point being, how can you make it simple for our industry
to go to a city. How do they know if they're in compliance
with the county and how does the county know if they are in
compliance with the state, and the ^tate in compliance with
the EPA? That's question number one, and the second part is,
we're concerned that source-separation- you said something that
alleviated some of our concerTland that is that source-separation
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64
is compatible with this resoufce recovery. We've heard that,
but we also see instances where the materials that we depend
on for our finished products or industry, have been included
in the solid waste stream and defined out of use by ourselves
to be used for energy recovery. So, those are my two points.
Speaker Canfield: I don't know if I can respond to your
second point, but your first point. We'll... I guess I can
try to respond to both. Your first point is if a city is
having problems trying to understand the legal problems of
dealing with you, our kinds of panels and the kind of aid
we try to give is to try to overcome those kinds of problems.
I don't specifically know, I'm trying to follow....
Question: (Same Speaker) Let's say we want a city to engage
in newspaper source-separation of newspaper. The cities express
concern that they... that in the long run they may be in vio-
lation with the county's desire for some sort of resource
recovery where they would depend on that newspaper for a
fuel supplement. There's that kind of ambiguity. Are you
following what I'm saying?
Speaker Canfield: Yes. I'm not familiar with any county
laws or saying that one cannot re-cycle waste because the
county or state wants to re-cycle in a different manner.
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65
Question: (Same Speaker) There are those instances, but this
may not be the forum to discuss that. But, secondly, the
concept I'd like you to address you-self to expand on the
source-separation not being in conflict with the resource
recovery, I mean the Act.
Speaker Canfield: Well basically, I think we've conducted a
number of studies, a number of people, independent people that
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66
But, I don't really see how you're going to run into a. conflict
there with newsprint and those things that you want to point out.
Source-separation, a lot of people that I've dealt with are
certainly in favor of it's use in the waste stream.
Speaker Canfield: There is at least one facility that I'm aware
of in Massachusetts that is not run by a municipality, but
never-the-less receives waste from somewhere between twelve and
sixteen municipalities in which the contract for that waste
includes any material normally found in the waste stream. Which
means that those communities that choose to have a newspaper
collection program, separate from the delivery of materials
to this plant, that that material recovered by the municipalities
is the property of the contractor with the plant. So, regardless
of the value of the materials over the years, the municipality
cannot get the benefit of the revenues coming out of that waste
stream.
Question: My name is John P. Lynch, I'm Vice President of
Garden State Paper Company. And, as the world's largest
recycler of used news into fresh newsprint, my purpose in
speaking here today is to talk on conservation and recovery
is to underline the value of paper as an important resource.
I'd like to preface the comments that I'm making by saying
that Garden State Paper, a subsidiary of Media General in
Richmond, Virginia, has recycling mills in Garfield, New Jersey
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67
Pomona, California and a joint-venture mill with Field Enter-
prises in Alsip, Illinois. These three mills consumed more
than a half-million tons of used newspaper in 1976. We
recently completed construction of a joint venture mill with
the Mexican government. The mill, located two-hundred and
fifty miles north of Mexico City, has an initial capacity of
sixty-one thousand metric tons which is expected to be doubled
in the near future. Much of the paper stock raw material for
this mill comes from the southwestern United States. We have
selected this public meeting of the EPA to make our statement
because we are considering construction of a paper recycle
mill in the State of Georgia. Our company has given continuous
support to recovery and recycling of all resources in the solid
waste stream, but today I would like to focus specifically on
paper. In the months ahead, the municipalities, the counties,
and the states that comprise Region IV will be facing decisions
on how to manage the paper in the solid waste stream. An option
they will be faced with is burning refuse for energy. An argu-
ment has been made that burning paper fraction of the waste
stream for energy constitutes an efficient and beneficial
utilization of that portion of the waste stream. We would
like to emphasize that where a visable market exists for used
paper, burning is not the best use of that waste in terms of
energy or in terms of most productive utilization. When paper
is recycled there is an offsetting energy consideration.
According to an article in the Harvard Business Review that
quotes the National Association of Recycling Industries, "the
use of recycled fibres rather than virgin pulp in paper manu-
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68
facturing results in energy savings ranging from sixty to seventy
percent." In effect, burning old newspapers for energy is a
gross waste of energy. To say it in a slightly different way,
it takes the BTU value of two-tons of paper to make one-ton
of virgin paper. Pre-sorting can make available considerable
quantities of used newspapers and corrugated boxes for recycl-
ing, there will still remain in the solid waste stream a high
percentage of paper that is contaminated and not commercially
recoverable. The paper and boxes that have been separated at
the household, office and business levels and not get into the
waste stream will be available to the paper industries in the
area. According to your own estimated figures, the elimination
of this portion from the waste would affect the BTU value of the
garbage by five percent or less. And, I don't really think the
tolerance of these systems even accounts that. In addition,
these recovered fibres can be used several times in the recycl-
ing process. And they will still be available for burning in
the end as they eventually find their way into the contaminated,
unrecoverable portion of solid waste. Therefore, we urge that
in considering how to handle used news and corrugated, that the
following steps be taken to develop guidelines for thepost
efficient use of this portion of the waste stream: First,
that on municipal, county or state levels, surveys be made
*?
to determine what markets exist or could exist for used newspaper
and corrugated as well as other recyclables. Second, that
industries wishing to purchase these recyclable materials be
given priority to do so. And thirdly, that in order to assure
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69
the continuous and expected flow described above, that these
industries be asked guarantee that they will purchase the
recyclable materials specified for a reasonable number of years,
at prices which will be to the advantage of cities or other
sources to provide them for recycling. Finally, municipalities
should reserve the right to exclude from contracts for the
operation of Refuse Derived Fuel Systems (RDF) recyclable
materials, such as newspapers and corrugated, recoverable
through household and commercial source separation programs.
We urge that proposed guidelines for identifying regions and
for state solid waste management planning emphasize that
materials recycling is a national objective which must be
reflected to the maximum practical extent in State and local
government plans. To accomplish national objectives for mater-
ials recovery for recycling into useful products demands that
government at all levels must join with industry in a common
effort to remove existing impediments to the achievement of
these objectives. And we at Garden State certainly stand
ready to help in anyway we can.
Moderator: Thank you. Next, go right ahead.
Question: I'm Jack McMillan with the Board of Health in
Mississippi. I wanted to know if these funds are now
available for technical assistance to local governments?
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70
Speaker Canfield: We have not formally established the panels.
We do give aid on resource recovery, we give aid on all aspects
of solid waste management. We, specifically, have focused in
resource recovery. We do have direct aid that we can give.
We have contractors available to work with cities on a number
of these problems, now.
Question: (Same Speaker) Are these panels from the national
level or local level?
Speaker Canfield: These are not panels, that ah- we do not
have panels. We established these before the Act. We're in
the process of establishing before the Act. We have finalized
contracts with three consultants, consortions to give aid to
local cities and to states. We have really not formalized the
panel concept, yet. The panel is to include not just consultants,
not just federal employees, but federal, state, local people
^ ^ -?
giving aid to others.
Question: (Same Speaker) Those consultants you have under
contract, can they turn-around and solicit the business of
the municipality....
Speaker Canfield: No....
(Same Speaker) ...that they are advising?
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71
Speaker Canfield: No.
Moderator: If you have additional comments on resource recovery
and conservation panel, after the gentlemen stepping to the mike
now, I would ask you to hold that until the end, so we can move
along. Yes sir, go right ahead.
Question: My name is John Cower and I'm from the City of Athens,
Alabama. We're a city of about sixteen thousand. We collect
our own garbage and trash. We also have a county system where
it's collected by private contractor. We're interested in the
Resource Recovery Act, we which we could implement it in the
City of Athens in our accounting. But, we see a lot of diffi-
culty in the collection of these items, the separation and
collection of these items. The City probably can do this, but
the county or private contractor, I don't see how we can do
it unless they can meet the economic cost. Do you have any
plans along this line?
Speaker Canfield: Your question deals with separating waste,
separate collection of waste is that what you're...
Question: (Same Speaker) That's true. I know that if you
go out on one shot, and you collect everything from the same
household, if they haven't separated, how are you going to
separate it when you get to your land-fill? Unless you have
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72
a separate collection for your paper; separate collection for
your glass; a separate collection for your cans and so on?
Speaker Canfield: Well, I think we do have information and
guidance that does help make economic decisions as to how you
should operate your collection system to separate those
materials. I do know some of the people in the audience, for
instance, I'm sure Garden State does give aid to places trying
to figure out the best, most economical way to separate out
newsprint for example. So, I think there is a lot of inform-
ation that we do have that I can make available to you that
may help you.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you, sir.
Moderator: The next item on this agenda is state jprogram
development and again we have Mr. TruZtt DeGeare.
e-
Speaker Tru^tt DeGeare: Back by popular demand. If you
care to stand up for just a second, then sit back down. I've
been getting to stand up. I really appreciate it, what you
might feel. (Pause) Okay, let's not enjoy ourselves too
much. We'd better get on with this program. We'll have more
enjoyment, later. (Pause) Okay. Let's try to get on with ah-
another part of of Sub-Title D of RCRA is that it talks about
state and local program development. The RCRA recognizes that
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73
the dominate role in solid waste management lies with state
and local governments. The state may play a key role in elimin-
ating open-dumps and also the regulating of the hazardous waste
program. The governor, in consultation with local-elected
^
officials can structure a mechanism for preparing and imple-
menting solid waste management plans that build on an existing
efforts at the jjtate and local levels. At the federal level,
the Administrator shall publish guidelines for identification
of regions, state plans and jstate hazardous waste programs.
Section 4002A of RCRA gives the Administrator six months to
publish guidelines for the identification of those areas which
have common solid waste problems and who are appropriate
municipal planning regional solid waste service. This activity
is a kick-off of a three-step process involving eighteen
months according to the schedule contained within the Law.
Within six months after the publication of guidelines, the
governor of each state, after consultation with local elected-
officials shall promulgate regulations identifying the
boundaries of each area within the state which as a result of
urban concentration, geographic conditions, markets and other
factors is appropriate for carrying out regional solid waste
management. The state then has another six months to jointly
with appropriate elected-officials of general purpose units
of local government, identify an agency to develop the s^tate
plan and identify one or more agencies to implement the plan
and identify which solid waste functions will, under the plan,
be planned for and carried out by state, by regional or local
authority or a combination of regional or local or state
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74
authorities. Existing, multi-functional agencies have an
authority for solid waste planning and management shall be
designated to plan and implement. Where feasible^, agencies
designated under Section 208 of the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act shall be considered for designation. So, in
summary, there are three-steps, the first is EPA promulgation
of guidelines for identification of planning areas and regions.
Secondly, governors with local governments, identify the
planning areas and thirdly, governors and local governments
identify the roles of the various agencies. Section 4002B
requires the Administrator, after consultation with appro-
priate Jederal, state and local authorities to promulgate
regulations containing guidelines to assist in the development
and implementation of state solid waste plans. This is by
April of 1978. Minimum requirements for approval of statea
$-
plans include identification of the responsibilities and
implementing the state plan, distribution of federal funds
to the authorities responsible for development and imple-
mentation of the plan, and the means for coordinating regional
planning and implementation under the plan, the prohibition
of the establishment of new open-dumps within the s,tate, and
the requirement that all solid wastes, including solid waste
originating in other states, but not including hazardous wastes,
shall be utilized for resource recovery or disposed of at
sanitary land-fills; provisions for the closing or up-grading
of all existing open-dumps within the state, and provisions
for the establishment of such state regulatory powers as may
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75
be necessary to implement the plan; provisions that no local
government within the s,tate shall be prohibited under state
or local law from entering into long-term contracts for the
supply of solid wastes to resource recovery facilities;
provisions for such resource conservation or recovery of
the disposal of solid wastes in sanitary land-fill or any
combination of practices that may be necessary for use or
disposal of solid wastes in a manner that is environmentally
sound. RCRA authorizes assistance to jtate and local govern-
ments in a number of places... both Sub-Title C and Sub-Title
D. Within Sub-Title D, Section 4008A(1) authorizes thirty
million dollars for 1978; forty million for 1979. For grants
to spates to be distributed to state, local, regional and
interstate authorities carrying out planning and implementation
of the jjtate plan, as discussed earlier. This money is distri-
buted on a population basis among the states, except that each
state receives at least one-half of one-percent of the total
appropriated. Section 4008A(2) authorizes fifteen million
dollars each for fiscal years 1978 and 1979 for states, counties,
municipalities and inter-municipal agencies, and state and local
public solid waste management authorities for implementation of
the programs to provide solid waste management, resource
recovery and resouce conservation services and hazardous waste
management. This assistance shall include assistance for
facility planning and feasibility studies, expert consultation,
survey and analysis of market needs, marketing of recovered
resources, technology assessments, legal expense, construction
-------
76
feasibility study, source-separation projects, and physical
or economic investigations or studies. But, such assistance
shall not include any other elements of construction or land
acquisitions or interest in land or any subsidies for the
price of recovered resources. Agencies assisted under this
sub-section shall consider existing solid waste management and
hazardous waste management services and facilities, as well
as facilities proposed for construction. There is a provision
for assistance to special communities, for '78 and '79, two
and a half million dollars for specific communities to identify.
One community is allowed per state and one project per state,
and the project must be consistent with the approved state plan.
There's special concern in RCRA for rural communities, so
financial assistance has been authorized, twenty-five million
dollars per year for FY '78 and '79. These are grants to
states for subsequent distribution within the jttates in order
to help rural communities meet the Section 4005 dump closing
requirements. Construction is allowed, but land acquisition
is not allowed with these funds. They are tight criteria
and relatively complex allotment formula. And the community
must be fairly well isolated and unable to avail themselves to
other systems on a regional basis. The assistance and funds
that I've talked about they were all discussed in terms of
what was authorized in the Act, and at this point, that has
no relationship to available funds and the amount to be made
available in the future, we're unable to see at this time.
So, I wish to stop now with the comment that I don't think
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77
you should be stopping any on-going efforts that you have under-
way, or contemplating simply to await some federal funds to help
you.
Moderator: We welcome comments now. We welcome comments now,
go right ahead.
Question: I'm Mike McGonallcy with the Central Midland Planning
Council in Columbia, South Carolina. With respect to the Central
Midland region, the resource recovery and conservation recovery
act do provide opportunities for one continued progress in the
development and use of both collection and disposal practices
within the region. And second, for achieving a greater role
for resource recovery in the region. Almost four years ago,
in June of 1973, a solid waste management pla'ee for the central
li^
Midland Region was completed. And, I'd^to parenthetically
comment that this was using flood- funding which was available
at the time, and the plan was adopted by twenty-one local govern-
ments working, jointly, through the regional planning council.
The plan includes an analysis of the projected solid waste
generation through 1995 for solid waste districts within each
of the four counties within the region. It ^includes an evalu-
d
ation of current solid waste practices, laws, ordinances, and
a profile of solid waste management goals and objectives,
feasible alternatives for collection, and disposal equipment
processes and services were examined, and plans and recommend-
ations were developed for each of the four counties and for the
region, as a whole. It's noticeable that this plan does not
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78
address the potential for resource recovery recycling at any
depth. But, rather deferred this to a later time when it
would be more economically and technically feasible. Since
the completion and adoption of the regional solid waste manage-
ment plan major steps have been taken by local governments to
implement it. Much improvement has resulted in the collect-
ion and disposal elements of solid waste management within the
region. There are many problems that remain, but a pattern
of local action and inner-governmental coordination has been
established. An organizational frame-work exist for effective
regional planning, and coordinated local implementation of
solid waste collection and disposal efforts. In developing
the regulations and guidelines for the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act, these previous investments and actions of
many local governments should be recognized and substantial
flexibility retaining to allow s_tate and regional planning
and implementation to build upon the past efforts. The new
planning regulations and guidelines should also provide
opportunities for areas which are fairly advanced in the
disposal practices to place major emphasis on the collection
and the resource recovery elements of a regional and local
program. I might add just a couple of other comments based
on what's already transpired tonight and I guess they relate
back more to public participation presented earlier. It's
been stated that there are many more meetings of this nature
planned to secure input, and I would recommend that if at
all possible, these meetings be held on a state-basis. If
you are serious about trying to get input from the people at
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79
the working level, it's very difficult for them to get to a
meeting of this nature. And second, that I think the issue
papers that was available at the door is very valuable and
provides a lot of useful information. But, it needs to be
distributed in advance, so that people have time to react to
that. I thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Moderator: Thank you very much. You'll have to step right up.
We'll move right along.
Question: My name is Richard Simmons. I am City Manager of
West Palm Beach, Florida. But, today I am speaking on behalf
of the State of Florida Resource Recovery Council. In 1974 I
was appointed by Governor Rubin Askew to serve as Chairman of
the Council. Many of the things the previous speaker said, I
think would apply jtate-wide to the state. So, I'm going to
skip through some of this and give you ray written report. I
would say that it's an entirely comprehensive plan, the
adopted guidelines, the designated area plan for resource
recovery. I think we're ahead on a lot of this stuff that
it's been done. But I would like to commend specifically on
portions of the Law. Public Law 94-580 authorizes a preventa-
tive medicine, not volmiminous prescriptions for everything
that ails us. So let your guidelines be simple guidelines,
not detailed specifications. Specifically the guidelines
for identification of planning regions mandated in Section
4002A, and due almost immediately, should not be written
so narrowly, originally, that Florida and many other states
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80
would have to redo something that has already been done.
Several states now have four or five years of solid waste
$
planning experience. During the past two years, Florida
has accomplished the objectives of this Section and used the
same guiding criteria contained therein to do so.
Similarly, in the guidelines for s^tate plans, Section 402
'^
all eleven of the guiding criteria in sub-sections have
been considered in Florida. Likewise, we believe the
Florida program also meets the minimum requirements in Section
4003 for approval of s_tate plans. Although the judgement will
^
be yours to make, of course. Likewise, we believe Chapter
17-7, Part II of Florida Administrative Code adopted by the
Florida Environmental Regulation commission in '76 accomplishes
the objectives of 4006. You can appreciate the time consumed
by public hearings and meetings, members of the staff and
council have already participated in close to seventy-five
public meetings and numerous hearings. The Department of
Environmental Regulations invested eighteen months of extens-
ive staff time to carry out it's responsibilities under
Florida law. You will find this eager to cooperative process.
In connection with points two and three above, Section 401
makes it absolutely clear that the objectives are of Sub-Title
D States Solid Waste Plans are to assist, and this is under-
lined. And I emphasize assist. Section 4001 states further
that these objectives are to be accomplished through ^federal
technical and financial assistance to a state. Assistance, not
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81
regulation. And, Section 4001 concludes by stating that the
federal guidelines are to foster cooperation among federal,
state and local governments and private industry. Cooperation,
not regulation. We in Florida accept the regulatory provisions
of the Act where the Congressional intent is clearly regulatory,
such as Sub-Title C Hazardous Waste Management. But, we oppose
any attempt to encumber the several guidelines in Sub-Title D
with regulatory intent or language when such is not authorized.
We have similar concerns about the various solid wast inform-
ation guidelines required in Section 1008. Clearly these guide-
lines are supposed to provide positive, helpful guidance, not
regulations. We suggest that this information be presented in
a format that is brief, readable and practical. I have no
comment on Sub-Title C, since hazardous waste management is
appropriately under the jurisdiction of the Department of
Environmental Regulation. We see a potential problem in
Section 4004 when later this year EPA must define sanitary land-
fills versus open-dumps. We believe the intent of this Section
is to close, up-grade and ban open-dumps through state regu-
lation and enforcement, not federal regulation of local sanitry
land-fills. True, one man's sanitary land-fill has often been
someone else's open-dump, so we endorse the need for standard-
ization. But we also stress the vast differences in geological
and hydrological conditions from place to place and the danger
of undermining state regulatory programs that are already in
place. The special studies for glass recovery and for small
scale technology authorized in Section 8002 are urgently
needed and I encourage you to schedule and complete them as
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82
soon as possible. The model codes as authorized in Section
8003D are also badly needed, much more so than some of the
other items. For example, our staff ran a search through
EPA's Solid Waste Information Retrieval System on the title
to ownership of solid waste, and legal precedents for its use
in local ordinances and contracts. The search did not yield
anything we could use. In fact, we have found research on
legal and institutional issues in resource recovery is lagging
behind the word on economic and technical evaluations. EPA
has new and broader authority for technical assistance under
Public Law 94-580. We believe that any private firm retained
by EPA to render assistance to ^state and local governments should
*Z~
be ineligible for follow on contractural work with the reci-
pients of the federal assistance. Appropriate state agencies
$ "£
and officials should receive proper and advance notice of EPA
assistance activities within the state. The resource recovery
teams authorized in Section 2003 should be assembled and
assigned in a manner that will avoid both actual and potential
conflicts of interest. Federal financial assistance is also
authorized in this Act. In good government fashion all the
monies authorized under the Act are tied to planning require-
ments. However, it appears that for many s_tates and local
governments... it appears that for many states and local
government completion of the various requirements will come
well before the federal funds. If the earliest availability
of funds is Fiscal of 1978, widespread distribution of those
funds appears to be unlikely before 1979. As I mentioned
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83
earlier, if our proposed amendments are passed, Florida local
governments will be required to submit their plans in 1979.
In short, a concentrated effort must be made to obtain ample
appropriations and rapid distribution of funds or else reim-
bursement should be allowed for planning expenditures already
made. And I would underline this because many of the jitates , as
the man who just spoke pointed out they have done a lot and I
think you ought to take this into consideration, giving them
those funds back. In conclusion, we wholeheartedly- we con-
cur wholeheartedly with the view of Sheldon Meyers, Director
of EPA's Office of Solid Waste, that the Law does not provide
all the answers to complex issues, but instead, establishes a
pattern for interaction and assumption of roles by all the key
parties involved in solid waste management and resource
recovery. You have a difficult job to do. But your tasks are
no more difficult than those placed upon the ^s.tate and local
governments. We must work together. And you may be assured
of our interest and cooperation.
Moderator: Thank you very much. Ah- step right up.
Question: Tom Tiesler with the State of Tennessee. I saw
the inside of something that the last speaker just said in
talking about the spates role, and I think that it's clearly
the intent of the Act that the ^tates have input into the Act
and that they be responsible for implementing parts of the Act.
I think every speaker here tonight has said that that's the
intent of the Law. Yet, when I go back and talk to my people
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84
that are involved in the Safe Drinking Water Act or Water
Quality Control Act, federal Act, I tell them, I say, I've
been talking to the EPA's Solid Waste people and they're
listening and they're going to take the states input, they
sort of just look at each other and smile and say that guy's
going to learn before it's all over with. (Laughter) But,
you know, I'm just a babe in the woods, I guess. But, I
think if you are sincere about the states taking the program
and the states implementing it, the only way that we can do
that is that the states are on the front-end of drafting the
guidelines and the regulations. And I think it's good that
after they've been drafted, the states can comment on them,
-^
but I have a feeling in human nature that sometimes if some-
one has drafted a regulation, and I'm the same way, and I've
written it down and back and forth with my own people, you've
sort of got your mind made up. I think it would be better
if at all possible to let the states get involved on the front-
end in putting the regs together. If they've been sitting
there during the discussions, because, afterall
(this word was indistinguishable) say during the last thiry
years or so, I think most states have been in regulatory solid
waste business, has the experience, and they know what the
local problems are, they know a lot of the regulatory problems
are, they know a lot of the regulatory problems. Some of the
s,tates have been involved with grants programs, some of them
are very much into resource recovery, some have on-going
-------
85
hazardous waste programs. I think the EPA ought to take
the benefit of the jitates. I sincerely believe after talk-
ing with my boss back in Tennessee that the guidelines
written that the states cannot live with, that they don't
feel like they can handle, that they'll turn around and
say, here in EPA, you all handle it. I don't think that's
what we want. I think it can be prevented if the states
can sincerely have an input in directing the regs.
Moderator: Thank you, Tom. Anybody else, step right up.
In the meantime ah- go right ahead.
Question: I'm Bob Lloyd with the Appalachian Council Govern-
ments in Greenville, SOUth Carolina. The gentleman who just
spoke mentioned something about existing agencies, multi-
functional regional agencies that are authorized by sta.te
law to undertake solid wast planning , and I think that he
left out a phrase there that's related to appointment by the
governor. One of the problems that we see in South Carolina
^
in terms of the states involved in establishing which agency
will do the planning and which areas will be involved. It
seems to us that there is a very heavy emphasis on decision-
making by the sjtate, and I think the point that the gentleman
from Tennessee just made with regards to ^tate input into
EPA can be very well taken as far as local input into the
states. I'd like to see, if at all possible, for the EPA
guidelines to emphasize the fact that once areas are design-
-------
86
ated as solid waste areas for planning that the input from
local officials be done within those areas, and that the
agencies that might be designated for planning purposes
would be much more acceptable to the local officials
within a given area, than might otherwise be the case. I
think the point has been made several times here that there
are substantial variation among areas within states. This
is something that would be of great concern to us, as I'm
sure it would be to the gentleman from Columbia, South
Carolina, because we are two different regions and our
responsibilities and problems are somewhat different. Also,
the level of activity is somewhat different. I think this
would be useful for EPA to consider.
Moderator: Thank you very much. Go right ahead.
Question: I'm Ben Druse from Florida. I propose what that
gentleman from South Carolina just mentioned. This problem
of designating areas to do regional planning presents a
lot of problems, not only in Florida, bntin other states,
^
because the degree of expertise that's available in various
areas of the state goes from zero to a hundred-percent. And
ah- what's our governor going to do, he'll look to us for
advise, of course. But, when you have perhaps a dozen
planning areas and only about a half or two-thirds of them
have the expertise to even start a solid waste management
plant, where do we go with those other districts? You got
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87
an answer on that, Trujltt?
Speaker DeGeare: No.
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, I'll phrase it another way.
What options does a governor have in the light of that kind
of a circumstance?
Speaker DeGeare: Just off the top of my head, and that's
where I'm coming from right now is... one option would be
to designate the s,tate agency to plan that particular area,
or to restructure the area so that some of the skills
available and expertise in adjoining areas could be used
in the area that doesn't have that capability. In other
words, we identify the boundaries so that you do have a
planning instrument that will stand on its own feet.
Question: (Same Speaker) Then you get into a problem of
staffing, again, this gets to be the nitty-gritty part of
it, whose going to do it? But, I know that's not something
that you can answer at the moment, but I wish you'd give it
serious thought, because it's going to be a problem for not
only our governor, but the governor of Louisiana and all the
rest of them. Another thing, it's a little confusing in the
Law as to what the actual base for a j>tate to put in to sub-
mit their state plan. It says a hundred and eighty days
after the date of the enactment of this section. Now, where
does that one-hundred and eighty days start from? October 21
-------
of '76? But, then that's the publishing of the guidelines, then
how long does the s,tate have after the guidelines have been
published to submit their plan? That isn't clear to me in the
Law. I haven't been able to verify it. (Laughter) While
you're looking that up, let's address a question to the young
lady in information. Do you happen to plan a reader's
digest of the Law that could be used for desssiminating inform-
ation to local communities so that they get a little feel of
it before we start talking to them?
0,5**
Speaker Wyer: I've been told that the information is pro-
duced by our three divisions and given into our Information
Office, we will get it published and send it out.
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, I wouldn't think in terms of
the guidelines that you're going to be publishing. I'm think-
ing of a boiled-down of the significant factors that the
local communities are going to be faced with when they try to
implement the provisions of the Law.
Moderator: Excuse me Ben, do you think that's what we should
do? That's why we're here, to find out....
Question: (Same Speaker) I, ah- well, that's a suggestion,
at this point.
Moderator: You recommend that we do that?
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89
Question: (Same Speaker) I certainly do, because you can
hold meetings all over this sjtate, and you're lucky to get...
-^
oh- suppose we held meeting in Florida we'd get a hundred
at each meeting, we're lucky. That way we're talking about
six-hundred people, and we've got eight and a half million
down there. That's the problem. If we could have a mass-
mailing through the proper people, city and county officials,
planning councils, and so on.
Mose
Question: •(UiiiduiLiriid Opiiaku-) Ben, the National League
of Cities, is right now, planning to do mass-mailing on any-
thing that is made available. I was meeting with them this
morning and of course that would come out of Washington,
and I assume would come to people like the Georgia Municipal
Association or perhaps, directly to the cities. Jim, how
would they normally work that?
Moderator: They usually send it to us, then we would send
it out to each of the cities.
Question: (Ben Druse) There's got to be something, MoJ^
that's going to be easily understood. Not the detail that
you or I ....
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) Hell, if it comes out of
Washington, nobody's going to understand. You know that.
(Laughter)
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90
Speaker DeGeare: Ben, I couldn't find a date. I don't think
I understand that thing numerous times I've....
Question: (Ben Druse) I've read it three or four times, I
can't find it. Does anybody in the audience have a feel for
when the states are suppose to submit a plan? (Pause) It's
not in the Act, you can't find it there.
Speaker DeGeare: I'd like to mention that ah- in January's
edition of \A/a,S'TE Pfjf Magazine? (name of magn-ino w«u
there was a... what I though was a pretty
de/cent synopsis of the Law.
Question: (Same Speaker) You mean the boil-down?
Speaker DeGeare: Yeah, the boil-down, it was written by
Eric -Kiujlui and to me it made sense, it was reasonable.
So you might want to get a copy of that if you want.
Question: (Same Speaker) Maybe we can plagiarize it..
Moderator: Walt, perhaps you can influence ah- derrjf here
to have our information people to get a reprint of that, if
it will serve a purpose and there's no point in doing it
again. Go right ahead, Ron.
Question: I'm Ron Cooper from the State of Tennessee. I'd
like to comment and ask a question concerning the training
-------
91
and man-power development.A few years ago we had an Institute
of Solid Waste Management Training and EPA, in it's wisdom
shut this down, to the detriment, I guess of state and local
people. Tonight I want to mention that an individual with
the air program is going to be selected to determine the
training needs of solid waste management programs. I'd like
to know why the person in the air program is selected and
what his qualifications are?
Moderator: I can speak to that, Ron. That is not the only
thing this gentleman has got to do, as I understand it. To
clarify that a little bit for you. Number two, the need is
for staff people to look into this question and that leads
you, immediately, to where are these staff people going to
come from. And, they asked for volunteers, and this particular
gentleman happened to volunteer. He just happened to be from
the air program. He happened to be from Atlanta, from our
Office. I do know, personally, that other people were asked
to do that and didn't feel that they could leave their parti-
cular office at that particular time. When they want it done
for that particular length of time and so forth. It's not that
being from the air program had any significance at all, as far
as I know. Mog£ you've been standing up here a long time.
Question: Moses McCall, again. This time I'm not going to be
speaking for the state, I'll be speaking for the National
^
Governors Conference, also the Association of State and Terri-
torial Solid Waste Management officials. And I would just like
-------
92
to re-emphasize, I guess, four points. One, Tru^tt talked
awhile ago about the authorization, and I think that the
authorizations in the Act are sufficient to allow reason-
able implementation. The appropriations, however, are not
there. I think it's important that EPA and the current
Carter Administration recognize the fact that we are going
to have to have realistic appropriations, if we are going
to get about the business of adequate implementation of the
Act. Number two, ah- nobody has mentioned 208 tonight. So,
I thought I'd have to bring that up... you did. Okay. We
definitely, in this Act, don't want to get into again the
bloody battle that we went through in implementation of Section
208 of 92-500. The Act says that 208 agencies shall be con-
sidered where feasible in designation of local, regional
planning agencies. In some cases I think that the 208 agency
is the logical choice and others probably it's not. Therefore,
any guidelines coming out of EPA should definitely not make
the state designate the 208 agencies as the solid waste
planning agency, the option should be open. Number three.
In terms of designation of local regional planning agencies,
I think the latitude the governors held in this respect in
consultation, of course, with the local elected-officials
has got to be very broad and very flexible. You can't bind
them into a small, tidy box and expect that the job is going
to be a wide latitude, a lot of flexibility for the governors
for the various states. And then, number four. Dont' re-invent
-------
93
the wheel. The point has already been made where we have
adequate planning agencies established by state law, in
California, for instance, where counties are designated by
state statute as the local planning agencies for solid
waste management. Those agencies must be allowed to stand.
The guidelines that come out should not eliminate what has
already been done.
Moderator: There's a book that was left out here at the
registration desk, it has a Mr. Williams, if he'd like to
claim it, I have it here.
3
Question: My name is Jeff ^lood, and I represent the South
Alabama Regional Planning Commission, based in Mobile.
And talking about bloody battles, we're pretty familiar with
it. We're faced under a HUD 701 Program to come up with a
regional land-use and housing program. We have a very
active 208 program. We're in the coastal zone management
program. We had the Tennessee Tom Victory Water-Way Project
that's going to end up in Mobile. We've got a
(this word was indistinguishable) facility, and we've got
the United States Army Corp of Engineers 404 Permit System.
This has come on us over about the last three years. So
we don't want to bother you with the battles. I have three
questions. One of them is the funds going to be coming down
at the air filter down to a southern agency on 208 or regional
-------
94
planning commission? Is there a matching requirement on these
funds, or will they be a hundred percent grant?
Answer: (Unidentified Speaker) Yes. (Laughter)
Speaker DeGeare: I don't think the Law provides for that.
We've had a ninety-five percent maximum policy. But, we're
open to your suggestions. I assume you might suggest a
one-hundred percent grant.
Question: (Same Speaker) More, if we could get it. (Laughter)
But, I'm sure, based on the experiences we've had in some of
these bloody battles, if the match was higher than that, I
think EPA is going to be running the program instead of the
states and the sub-districts. Second item, is there any funds
^/
in the program for capital equipment? Especially in small
communities, you're talking about building, planning and
implementating in all these communities that our agencies
represent, I imagine, a lot of these other regional planning
agencies are very small communities, with budgets of fifty-
thousand dollars and less. If you are going to put these
requirements on them, is there going to be any kind of
capital money there for capital equipment, or tie-ins with
another program?
Speaker DeGeare: There's a statutory definition for the term
implementation and that is pretty restricted. The exception
-------
95
provided for in that definition is for the real communities'
assistance program. I think it's twenty-five million a year
for two years that was authorized, and that money could be
available for capital equipment in that position.
Moderator: The money is authorized, I might hasten to add,
that if you take the number of cities of that size and the
number of counties with that sort of population nation-wide,
you're going to find that even if the total amount authorized
is appropriated, it's going to be spread quite thin. Which,
I think, leads the states, in particular, and us along with
them, into a problem of deciding who's going to get what is
appropriated and who is not going to get it.
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, that's no different than the
HUD Community Development distributing their grant program, or
EPA or any other. I mean, I'm glad I'm not going to have to
make the decision, but hopefully, you'll consider the smaller
communities that ah- and you won't be placing these require-
ments on them. That you are going to come up with some kind
of funding source so they can meet the requirements. The
next question I had is, if the money does come down from
these smaller agencies, is it right to assume that part of
that money can be used for citizen participation programs in
the planning process?" Even if there is an on-going 208 pro-
gram, is that correct?
-------
96
Speaker DeGearg^ I don't know of anything that would pre-
clude that.
Moderator: It seems reasonable to me that you're going to
have a program that is accepted by the public here, you
must do that on the front-end and carry it forth. Other-
wise they won't care to implement it.
Question: My name is George Elder with the Georgia Solid
Waste Management Program, and I'd like to address two
aspects of resource recovery economics. In the first of
these, I think we need to be realistic when we talk about
economics and resource recovery and solid waste management.
Garbage is a liability, and we would hope that EPA would
address the extent of liability that should be born and
by whom. When a community has a consultant come to them
and say, we can get you a six dollar profit per ton on
your solid waste, how do you deal with that? I think we
have to identify some of these parameters in terms of the
liability and who should absorb it. The main economic
issue in resource recovery seems to be the fact that there
are artificial benefits for use of virgin materials. When
a timber company can buy an acre of land, hold it for six
months, sell the timber and gets, not only the profit, but
can also claim capital losses for tax purposes, are they
going to use secondary fibres? Well, no they're not. The
-------
97
scrap-metal industry probably has in present capacity to pro-
vide probably twice the amount of raw material in form of
scrap without adding to this additional equipment. There's
no market there, because of artificial incentives to use
the virgin ore. I think this has to be dealt with, if we
are to get into the resource... the economic aspects of
resource recovery. So, let's not promote resource recovery
based on environmental considerations, and judge it by
another standard, that of economics. Because I feel that
it's really not acquired. Basically, I would like to ask
two additional questions. Will bond guarantors back funds
based on RCRA. Specifically, in states or communities
^
where there are limitations on contracting and on bonding?
Speaker Canfield: Based on RCRA... Would you explain that
question to me a little... if you have a banker or someone
to guarantee....
Question: (Same Speaker) I would think that there is a
statement in there that would allow communities to enter
into long-term contracting, ah- for resource recovery
purposes.
Speaker DeGeare: There is a requirement in one of the
sections that says the states, ah- as part of their plan
or part of one of the things they have to have in an
acceptable plan the ability for cities to enter into long-
-------
98
term contracts that certainly is a barrier that does make
resource recovery more attractice to someone wanting to
finance a system. So, yes, it does add to the ability
of someone to finance a system. But, it's not going to
guarantee it, of course. There are a whole number of
factors, one we're going to look at before one would
guarantee the financing of the system.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you.
Question: Bob Lloyd again, with the Appalachian Council in
Greenville, South Carolina. I just want to make one
response to what Mr. DeGeare said, in response to the
gentleman from Florida with regards to sub-state dis-
tricts that have, or do not have capability. If I can be
presumptious, I'd like to speak for some of the local
officials that I work with who are very much concerned about
federal mandating of certain types of multi-functional or
multi-jurisdictional, I should say, regional agencies. Many
of them are saying in our state and in other states, don't
make us deal with any other different bodies at the regional
level. And, I think this is something that ah- if at all
feasible, existing sub-state districts should be honored.
I think this is one thing... that where they can be honored,
they should be. If they have to be the 208 agency, that's
just another factor. But, there is a fairly extensive sub-
-------
99
state district planning capability in about forty-five states.
And, I don't think EPA should sell that thing down the
river without looking very hard at it.
Question: Donny Alberts from Land-to—Sky Regional Council
in Nashville, and, by-the-way, we are 208. I didn't come
down here to make any statement, I just come here to find
out what you're talking about in solid waste because that's
one of your priorities for 208. So, I've just got some
observations that I want to share. And that is, let's don't
jumb in head-first, especially when we can't determine the
depth of a sludge and the pits and ponds and lagoons. I'd
like to compliment EPA on how it had this meeting, tonight
and get some replies. It shows, I think, a true understand-
ing of the process involved in something like 208, because
now EPA is being told that the spates will say, you can
/
keep your money, we don't want the program. And, you've got
real strict guidelines and things that are changed over and
over again. This costs time and money. So, I think what
we ought to do is maybe do something probably is do some-
thing that's probably impossible in terms of the Law. And
let's take it a step at a time. Let's have EPA look at the
various spates in the various regions of the Country, in
*^
terms of solid waste and get the information together. As
far as the states are concerned, look at the various regions
-x^
within your states, and don't jump into the thing head-first.
-------
100
Go ahead one step at a time, because if we look at the things
we're talking about tonight, a lot of them are going to be
technically impossible, right now. And so, I think we need
to look at it very slowly and take it... and learn from the
past mistakes and some of the other programs.
Moderator: Thank you. Go right ahead, J)evon.
£
Question: I'm^fevon XEoQqg. (.faaat namo wao—indiatinguioh-
, representing the Fulton County Health Department. If
you don't know how to spell my name, I'll talk with you,
later. I'm glad to respond to Jim's early invitation to talk
because I was afraid that the locals haven't been invited. I
looked at the Act and I really couldn't see a role defined
for local agencies who are concerned and who have a possible
role in the program, and have the resources and capability.
I think in many respects local health departments, particu-
larly those with strong environmental programs in the sense
of public health appreciate Jack's comment about the public
healt coming back into the solid waste picture. But, they
need to be involved, because, I think we're root of the pro-
blem, and to coin a phrase, we're searching for an identity.
We think that the local governments, at least I do, may have
specific roles, already. Roles that could be defined with-
in the parameters of this Act. I'm a little distressed to
words used in your literature or your presentations such as
-------
101
that concerning the state being handed the dominate role. I
<£
would prefer that you say the leading role or leadership role.
And contend that RCRA not retract whatever it is, needs to
define the role for local government intities in planning, in
resource recovery and in hazardous waste management. Some of
us do have programs and interest that... to which these
resources could be addressed. Right now, for instance, we
are mounting an air pollution control program. We're dealing
with industry from day-to-day basis, and I contend that we
could be a great assistance to EPA or to a state agency, or
even in a singular role, could make a lot of progress in
these areas. Another area that's ah- close to my concern, and
being an old solid waster that knowing that solid waste quite
often is not hazardous in itself, it may be hazardous because
of where it is. We deal, on a day-to-day basis, with problems
in communities and urban areas where solid waste has become
a hazard. Such things as abandoned automobiles in low-income
neighborhoods. It's almost a resource, but it's a hazard.
It requires many of the public health officials to be concern-
ed about that waste, where it is. And we spend tax-payers'
money to account for the problems that they create. Yet this
Act doesn't seem to be addressed to things of this nature.
If money can be provided to help buy tire-shreaders, why not
help buy automobile shreaders, or help remove that car from
where it is to where it can be recovered. These are the kinds of
things that we face from day-to-day, as local responsible people.
-------
102
And I feel that we chould have a role and some mechanism esta-
blished where we could participate.
Moderator: Thank you very much. We will hear comments on any
portions of the Act, or anything we've said here tonight that
you'd like to say.
Question: Jerry Perkins of North Carolina. I can tell the
word about the new Act is getting around in our s,tate, because
of the questions I get in my office. Ah- our rural communities
are interested in the rural assistance, that is authorized in
the Act. Regional governments are interested in any planning
monies that might be available. Our urban municipal population
are interested in solidifying any innovative ideas that they
have developed concerning the resource recovery and recycling
that haven't had adequate resources to complete this solidifi-
cation. Along with this interest comes ah- two questions. One
is what role will the s^tate play whenever their package or
^
request for assistance is provided? And the other one is, how
soon will the money be available? So, Mr. DeGeare, if you would,
provide some clarification as to what is meant by dominant s.tate
role.
Speaker DeGeare: To me in reading the Law it's obvious that
Congress placed the state to- that is, identified the state
?, Z
as the primary action point for implementation of the Act.
-------
103
With regards to Sub-Title C, the states can pick-up on the
^>
action under that part of the Law, with regards to Sub-Title
D, it's obvious throughout that the state has the primary
role. The state is, to identify, the governor and state are
"'' £• •*•
mentioned so many times that it's obvious that the primary
action role is with the state. They are to identify the
•^
regions for planning; they are to work with the local agencies
in determining what the relative roles are going to be in the
planning and implementation process. That's all discussed in
Section 4006. I don't think it's a matter of the federal
^
government coming in and dictating what's to be done. It's
a matter of the Law saying that the states will get together
-------
104
other words, somebody has to decide who is going to get what.
Speaker DeGeare: I don't know how that decision is going to be
made. As to whether funds will be made available for that
particular portion of the Act as opposed to another part, I'm-
ah- I'm concerned with. Once we get funds into a particular
section of the Act, for example, rural communities, we can
deal with the formulas for disbursement among the state. I
/
don't think I can answer your question.
Moderator: Well, let me suggest that there was fifteen million
authorized for implementation grants. I think Jerry's question
is, how and who decides, assuming all that's appropriated, how
would we decide, or who decides whose going to get the fifteen
million dollars. That's his question, as I understand it.
Question: (Same Speaker) We're all familiar with some priority
systems in the water program, and the facts that based on. If
you come from a rural area or small town, you know, where does
that put you? It puts you on the bottom of the totem pole, and
you don't feel too good about that. Do you get what I'm saying?
Speaker DeGeare: Okay that's something we haven't dealt with,
yet. Primarily because we don't see any dollars yet to deal with
and we've got other things under the Law that we ah-...
-------
105
Moderator: Perhaps we may need to develop some sort of
guidance for you as a state solid waste agency, presum-
^
ing the governor designates you to take care of this
'/
particular thing here. But, we'll be most interested
to hear from you about how you think we should do that,
or how do you think you ought to go about doing that.
Would you want us to tell you exactly how to do it, or
would you want us to tell you just to do it and give
you the money? How do you feel about that?
Question: (Same Speaker) Well basically, I was search-
ing for the intent of Congress when they passed this Act,
and we'd like to take it from there. No, we wouldn't
want you to dictate to us.
Speaker DeGeare: I can't recall anything in the Act that
would dictate a prioritization of Congressional intent.
Moderator: Is there another comment or question or obser-
vation that anyone else would like to make?
Question: (Unidentified Speaker) One question I failed to
ask, does this Act cover septic tank pumpings. Is that a
hazardous waste?
Moderator: You want to speak to that, Walt?... it has to do
with whether or not it meets the criteria is the answer....
-------
106
Speaker Kovalick: That's the answer.
Moderator: Sorry about that. If there's not any more comments,
as you know, we're going to have an identical session tomorrow.
We'd be more than happy to have you come back and join us. Per-
haps you would think of questions over the time between now
and then, that you would like to bring up, tomorrow. If you
don't care to join us tomorrow, we're most appreciative of you
being here. I would ask you to clear the room, if you want to
visit and talk, please do it out in the hall. I need to get
this room straightened up and the equipment secured, and so
forth. So, the ones of us that do have to be back here in
the morning can be on our merry way. Thank you very much.
The Environmental Protection Agency Meeting Transcript on
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, Wednesday,
February 23, 1977 closed Friday, March 11, 1977. Total pages
106.
-------
THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY MEETING
TRANSCRIPT
THE RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT OF 1976
P.IT. 94-5W
SHERATON-BILTMORE HOTEL
Atlanta, Georgia
Thursday, February 24, 1977
8:30A.M. - 12:OOP.M.
James )(. Scarbrough, Moderator
This is to certify that the attached proceedings were held as
herein appears, and that this is the original transcript there-
of for the file of the Environmental Protection Agency.
~/ Reporter /~^?~
WHITE/S PROFESSIONAL SECRETARIAL
SERVICE
-------
-------
THE PROCEEDING
Moderator: Good morning. If I could have your attention please,
we would like to get started. My name is Jim Scarbrough. I'm
with the Solid Wastes Program, the Region IV. Our office is
here in town, as you know. I'd like to ask you that if you
smoke, to sit on the right-hand side of the... my right, side
of the room. If you don't smoke, you sit over here if you
don't want to breathe someone else's smoke. We'd appreciate
your cooperation. To give you a feel for how we're going to
run the meeting, we'd ask you to please not make read or
written statements that are over five minutes. If you have
a written statement and you would like to have it entered
into the record, we'd be happy to take it. We will keep the
record open for written comments until March llth, at that
time, if it has not been received in my office, it will not
be accepted. The transcript of this meeting and the meeting
last night... last night we had an identical session, will
be published. It will probably take us six to eight weeks.
If you've left your name with us you will receive a copy in
the mail. If you have friends or know people you think would
like to get a copy, if they would contact us at the Regional
Office here, our address is 345 Courtlan^ Street, Atlanta
30308 or, if you prefer, you may call and the telephone number
is (404) 881-3016. We'd be more than happy to send you a copy.
We'll have presentations from staff people from the Office of
-------
Solid Wastes in Washington. These will vary from five minutes
to fifteen minutes long, and at the end of each presentation,
we will accept questions, comments, anything other than throw-
ing rotten fruit at us until the appointed time for the next
agenda item to start. Then, at the end of the last agenda
item, you may make comments on anything that you feel like,
any of the topics that we've covered or other things that was
covered in the Law. If you wish to speak, please move to one
of the microphones, give your name. If it's hard to spell,
please spell it for the court recorder so that we get it
correct in the record. Please use the mike and feel free to
step right up and don't feel like you have to wait until the
guy that's speaking gets through. Just move right up there
behind him so that we can save everybody's time and get as
much done as possible in the time that we have. We also ask
you to give the name of the organization that you're represent-
ing, or if you don't represent anyone other than yourself, to
please let us know that. And I would ask you to speak on a
first-come-first-serve basis. There are two mikes over there
in the center isle and there's one up here that we can use.
So, we'd ask you just to step right up and let us get it moving.
We have with us this morning Mr. Alec Little to welcome you
here. He's our Deputy Regional Administrator for Region IV.
Speaker - Alec Little: Thank you. Morning. It's always good...
I was here at 8:30. I thought that was when it started, so it's
much more encouraging to see the meeting actually starting at
-------
9:00 o'clock. If you want to throw the fruit it's okay, I'll
be leaving shortly and anytime after that will be alright.
Let me say that there is one group that I know is repre-
sented here and that is... and everyone of you are members of
it, and I think they call it tax-payers. And it's always
encouraging to see people come out to see how their tax monies
are going to be spent. Perhaps you're going to be receiving
some of them in salary. I.think there's got to be a lot of
government officials here, there were last night, I'm sure.
But I know there's a lot of citizens, as well. I'm hoping
that there are a lot of people from industry because this
particular Act certainly affects the industrial sector in our
Country. We're glad also to see that all of the southern
Baptist didn't go to Washington. I can tell that from the
empty front rows up here. There are some seats all the way
in the back, if any of you really want to go all that way.
But, I'm hoping that you will participate fully in this program
as Jim has suggested. Please ask you questions, because we
need to hear those. That's exactly what this process is all
about. In the past few years we've tried to have, in all of
government, I think, a lot more public participation. And
that means that you've got to come and ask your questions.
You've got to write them down. You've got to do it in any way
you can to let us know if we're doing what you want us to in
the programs that have been adopted in Congress, and that we
in the federal and state and other sectors administer. The
program of resource recovery, which I'm glad to say, does have
-------
that name right at the moment, and this wasn't the Solid Wastes
Act of 1976, that we've progressed quite a bit just in that
name, itself. I believe that if I was starting over again in
this area of environmental protection that this is probably
the program that I would like to go into, that has perhaps
more prominence in terms of pay-off, conservation, perhaps
energy creation or many other things that can be done with
what we call now, a problem. I think that those of you that
are here that represents programs that will be administering
this should be very proud of the fact that you're in it. As
I was talking to some of the people here a little bit earlier
this particular program has not been one of those in the
federal or state sector or local either one for that matter
that's received vast amounts of resources. Yet, I think those
of us that observe the environment around us and what's been
happening to us, probably can observe more in terms of problems
with out solid wastes than we can with either air, water or
pollution, even though those two have received most of the
support. And I'm not belittling those particular areas. I'm
just saying that we're perhaps a little bit slow in getting this
one underway. I'm personally proud that we've got these people
up here this morning from Washington to hear what you have to
say out here and down here in the southern country. And I hope,
again, you will speak forward, ask any questions you want to.
Let's fill-up that record for this particular meeting. Thank
you for coming. Good to see all of you here.
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Moderator: Thank you, Mr. Little. I will give you a short
overview of the Act, and we will move right into the first
presentation. After which we want to hear from you. Please
understand that we're not here to tell you how we're going
to do this or how we're going to do that with this Act, we're
here to solicit your ideas of how you think we should do it.
And that's what we're interested in, we want to hear from you.
If you look at the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA), Public Law 94-580 signed by President Ford in October,
you'll see that Congress has outlined some objectives that
they mandate us to carry out, being the Agency responsible
for most of this Act. If you read in there you will see
that they said the objectives are to protect health and to
protect the environment and to conserve valuable material
resources and to conserve energy resources. I think if you
think back over the last month or six weeks you can under-
stand how important energy resources are. The General Motors
Assembly Plant here was shut-down for a week and other places
of business were shut-down for a lack of the energy that they
happened to be hooked-up to. So, if you think about those
objectives, the Congress, in its wisdom said, well, how are
we going to achieve these objectives, and they also again
laid down some things for us to do to achieve these objectives.
And if you look right in there you'll see that they told us
to provide technical and financial assistance to state and local
governments. They told us to work on manpower development. The
Law stipulates that open-dumping is prohibited. It also stipu-
-------
lates that existing open-dumps are to be converted or closed.
It provides for a regulation of hazardous wastes. This is an
area that's been lacking for sometime. It provides for us to
publish guidelines for solid wastes management. It provides
for research and development. It provides for demonstration
projects, as we've done in the past. But, I point out to you
that it provides for some work in low-cost demonstration pro-
jects for resource recovery that can be done in rural areas
and small communities. It provides for federal, s_tate and
local governments and industry partnership in material and
energy recovery and particularly it provides for public
participation which is why we're all here today. Now, the
first item on the agenda, the first presentation is concerned
with training, public information and public participation,
and if you look at the program you will see Tom Williams'
name on there. Tom's not here, he has the flu and was unable
to come. And representing him, quite ably, from the Technical
Information and Community Branch is one of his staff-members,
&, fe-
//erri Wyer. Jerri.
&•
Speaker - ,/erri Wyer: Thank you, Jim. I was pleased to hear
our Deputy Regional Administrator say such nice things about
the Solid Wastes Program, and the EPA does intend to take the
public participation mandates of this new legislation very
seriously. The RCRA contains an unusually high, complete
array of provisions that could bring about a high degree of
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public understanding and participation. Taken together these
various provisions make it clear that the Congress understood
that it's impossible for the public to participate, meaningfully
unless the government produces valid scientific and technical
data and produces and publishes the information in such a way
that everyone may have real access to it. Only in this way can
the public really have a reasonable chance of influencing the
social, economic and political changes which the Law will bring
about. Would you turn the lights off, we have chosen a few
slides that we have for you. (Pause) in Section 8003, the
Administrator of EPA is required to develop, collect, evaluate
and coordinate information on nine key elements which are crucial
to the Act's purposes. The Administrator is not only to imple-
ment a program for the rapid dissemination of this information,
but he's also to develop and implement educational programs to
promote citizen understanding. This makes it quite clear that
the information called for is not to be developed for the
exclusive use of those who, for one reason or another, may be
considered experts in the field. Moreover, the Administrator
is asked to coordinate his actions and to cooperate to the
maximum extent possible, with state and local authorities and
to establish and maintain a central reference library for
virtually all the kinds of information involved in the solid
wastes management for the use of state and local governments,
industry and the public. Just who is the public? To ensure
that the public participation process does not become lop-sided,
we felt it was necessary to identify major categories of interest
groups who represent the public at large. Under RCRA we regard
-------
these to include consumer, environmental and neighborhood
groups... thank you, Walt... trade, manufacturing and labor
representatives; public health, scientific and professional
societies; and, governmental and university associations.
This spectrum of categories of representative groups will be
altered and supplemented as necessary, if in the course of
implementing the Act it appears desirable to do so. Section
7004A of RCRA states that any person may partition the Admin-
istrator for the promulgation, amendment or repeal of any
regulation under this Act. Section 7004B calls for full
public participation in the development, revision and/or
enforcement of any regulation, guideline, information or
program under this Act. Secondly, it states that the
Administrator in cooperation with the states shall publish
"^ iH
minimum guidelines for public participation aiwl such processes.
Section 7002A states that any person may commence civil action
on his own behalf against any other person, including the
United States, who is alleged to be in violation of this Act
or against the Administrator if there is an alleged failure
by him to perform any act or duty under the Act. What are
some of the available public participation techniques? The
many techniques which can be used to involve the public in
government actions fall into three major categories. One, to
ensure that appropriate public meetings, hearings, conferences
and workshops and so forth are held throughout the Country, and
that they are planned and held in accordance to the unfolding
of the Act's key provisions. Two, the use of advisory committees
-------
and review groups which may meet periodically, but which will
also be called upon to review and comment upon major programs,
regulations and plans no matter when these occur and no matter
whether a specific meeting is convened or not. The third
public participation technique is the development of educational
programs so that the public has an opportunity to become aware
of the significance of the technical data base and the issues
which emerge from it. Effective public educational programs
depends on the use of all appropriate communication tools and
media. These include publications, slides, films, exhibits
and other graphics; media programs, including public service
television and radio announcements and releases to daily and
professional press and public education programs carried out
by service and civic organizations with EPA technical and
financial assistance. The last provision... (Pause) I'm
ahead of myself? Okay. The last provision I'll speak about
here is on the man-power development, Section 7007A and B
authorizes the Administrator of EPA to make grants and/or
contracts with any eligible organization for training persons
for occupations involving the management, supervision, design,
operation or maintenance of solid wastes disposal and resource
recovery equipment and facilities, or to train instructors.
Eligible organizations means the states or any state agency,
or municipality or educational institution capable of effect-
ively carrying out the project. Section 7007C states that the
Administrator shall make a complete investigation and study to
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10
determine the need for additional trained state and local
personnel to carry out plans existing under this Act, and
to determine means of using existing techniques... I'm sorry,
existing training programs to train such personnel, and to
determine the extent and nature of obstacles to employment
and occupational advancements in the ^olid Wastes Disposal and
Resource .Recovery Field. The Administrator is required to
report the results of such investigations and studies to the
President and the Congress. In view of the man-power limitat-
ions and many time-mandated provisions of this new legislation,
however, it's not likely that the training activity or the man-
power development study will be begun during this fiscal year.
However, we are planning on the- within the next couple of
months working on the study to determine what needs are needed
out in the jtates in this effort. Thank you.
&
Moderator: Thank you very much,/
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11
solid wastes and ah- they did very fine work. They were
djfeolved, and it would appear now with the increase in
emphasis coming along, more technical material, technical
content of hazardous wastes program, resource recovery,
that it would help people in the ^tate program a great deal
if EPA was to reconstitute a training group that would...
a group of professionals that would be in training for pro-
fessional people in the fields of sanitary land-fills,
hazardous wastes, -and resource recovery technology.
Moderator: Thank you very much, anybody else. Yes sir?
Just go right ahead, you don't have to wait until he gets
through to get up there...
Question: My name is Larry Hirrd with the EPA Regional Office
and in support of what the gentleman just said, the last year
that the Cincinnati Training Institute was in Cincinnati we
had workshops in Region IV in which was over six-hundred
people attended in the different states and there was a need
then, and I think most of the people that would speak for
the states would say that there is a need for that sort of
-^
an organization now.
Moderator: Yes sir, go right ahead.
Question: My name is Jerry Boyd, I'm with Sonoco Products
Company. Our company uses re-cycled paper to make new paper
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12
products. We're very interested in setting-up programs with
local land-fills for separating the corrugated wastes, and
also with municipalities in separating newspapers. And, we
feel that there is a great need for training in areas with local
governments and communities to separate these wastes from the
disposals in these land-fills and we feel that the awareness
of this could really contribute to preventing all this disposal
in the land-fill.
Moderator: Thank you. Tru?tt, go right ahead.
Speaker - Tru7tt DeGeare: TruZtt DeGeare, I'm with EPA. A
couple of the specific issues that we're concerned with are-
I gathered from a couple of the comments made that you think
it's most appropriate for such training to be the logical fed-
eral role, is that pretty much in concensus? Is that the way
we should organize that the training activities should be done
at the Jederal level? Should it be done primarily by the
states? Secondly, to who should the training be primarily
^.
directed? Should it be operational-type, should it be public
education-type of training, or a diversified sort of training
program? If you'd care to address those issues, we'd be happy
to hear your comments.
Question: (Same Speaker) You're talking to me?
Speaker - Tru^tt DeGeare: Anyone.
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13
Question: I think a professional group of training people in
EPA at the national level would do several things. They would-
they would conduct certain courses that people could go to,
state-level people. And they could- say community people.
Another function would be to develop training
material that could be used by the states when they're doing
training for local people. Ah- better manuals, better film
stripes, audio/visual materials of various types, and that
would- well- so- be somebody will help us in communicating
with the public- materials for communicating with the public
in the technology. Like the man was saying, a good method
of separating the corrugated out from the rest of the refuge.
It would be kind of a broad spectrum program. I would en-
vision that a lot of states would do their own training, but
they could do a better job with aid and support from a national
training group.
Moderator: Excuse me, but may I please remind you to give your
name. Now, the court recorder may not know you as well as I do.
Question: My name is Paul Wagner. I work for a consulting firm,
Mayes, Sudderth and Etheredge here in Atlanta. Jim, I was going
to ask you, first of all, does EPA currently have any short courses
which would be useful to more-or-less bring those of us who have
oeen eight or twelve years out of school the opportunity to get
caught up on the technology of the field. The concept of resource
recovery, I guess, hasn't been around forever and a lot of the
equipment, the processes, the philosophies and the techniques
-------
14
in resource recovery may not be as broadly known or, especially
in areas of research, that those of us out of the field that's
going to be in a position of implementing this program really
needs to know. So, first of all, I wondered are there those
kinds of courses or short courses available now tnrougn tPA,
and if they're not, if this is an area we could conceivably
move into?
Moderator: Yes, please do. We'll hear from the national level,
then I'll tell you from Region IV.
Unidentif iod Ipenlter: We don't have the type of courses that
some of you are familiar with. Max Wilcom|> that use to be with
our office in Cincinnati use to run the training program that's
been alluded to earlier. And several of us participated in
that. We really enjoyed it because it was fun and it also
gave us an opportunity to meet with people, directly, as
trainers, you might say, and get a feel for what the real pro-
blems are ( and then to go back and try to address our research
and demonstration activities to those particular areas and to
provide more information to better develop future training
efforts. We don't have that type of activity now. It's
possible depending on what kind of funding levels we end up with and
man-power resources in the future. that might be one alternative
we go to in the future. We have training material available.
A lot of reports, documents and some audio/visual material that
are available through out Office in Washington and through the
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15
regional offices, as well. In particular I'd like to mention
a series of symposiums or seminars that our Research Office
has been conducting. There was one a year ago in Rutkers,
and later last year in Tucson, and then next month, around
the 15th of March there will be a third in St. Louis. They
aren't short courses, but they are an up-date on on-going
research activities in the field of 3olid .Wastes Management,
in particular with regards to land disposal of solid wastes.
So, you might be interested in looking for the announcements
on those types of symposiums.
Moderator: In addition to that, there's a couple of techno-
logy seminars in resource recovery coming up this Spring or
Summer. They'll be put on by the Washington Office. I would
suggest that if you're particularly interested in that, you
speak to the gentleman on my right, sometime during the meet-
ing or when it's over. Whenever he can fill you in on that,
or you can call us at the Regional Office and we'll be glad
to enlighten you on that. First- now, they have told you
from the national picture, now I'm going to tell you some
of the things we have done in Region IV. We have, in Region
IV, a Southeastern Solid Wastes Management Training Committee.
It consists primarily of the state directors of Solid Wastes
^
Management in the eight s,tates in Region IV. with my Office
^> ^
and staff in an advisory function. The state directors pri-
marily run it, or some designated member of their staff.
We have conducted one training course and it was held here in
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16
Atlanta, I forget the month. It was within the last three
or four months. It was in the Fall. It was primarily for
training new jtate employees. We have discussed broadening
this to other people, but we have not come to any decision
as yet. And, if and when we do come to a decision to
reach out and take in municipal officials, local government
officials, consulting community, Paul, well we'll certainly
let you know. You have to realize that we're quite limited
by funding and staff time because in order to do this, it
takes staff time from the state people that they would nor-
mally do on their regular day-to-day job. Yes sir, Mr. Chiply,
go right ahead.
(2x
Question: I'm A. S. Chiply, Solid Wastes in Alabama. I
merely wanted to say that in the first place that I think
there's a need for some centralized training set-ups as has
been done in the past. And one answer to Tru^tt's question
as to whether this should be j.tate or federal, I think there
will always be state training or a need for state training,
but I think that in the light of the need for uniformity,
we need a training center that is either national or at least
regional in area. And, the thing that I'd like to comment is
that it's going to be awfully difficult to set-up a training
session as was what was available in the past because you're
going to have a time replacing Max WilcomD. Thank you.
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17
Moderator: Yes sir, go right ahead.
Question: My name is Benjamin Brown with the Wayne Colony Consult-
ing Engineers,Tallahassee, Florida. I just want to make a
comment with regards to the public education aspect. We've
been involved recently with several land-fills in the north-
ern Florida area and we've found that the biggest problem
that we've come up against is the public attitudes towards
the... they just don't seem to understand what sanitary land-
fill is. And, consequently, several of them are in Court
right now, probably won't be out of Court for another two or
three months before it gets settled. And ah- a lady set-up
and shot her senator, taking a partition and they're all
afraid their property-value is going down. If there was
just some way that the public could be made aware of exactly
the concept. It's not a great big open, burning dump. I
think the majority of the problems would be over as far as
the overall design of the site.
Moderator: Your suggestion is so noted and very appropriate.
Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, go right ahead.
Speaker DeGeare: It's certainly a nation-wide problem that particu-
lar issue about public education on sanitary land-fills, and
my suggestion won't solve that problem, completely. But, I'd
just like for you to be aware that we have a training package
t^£~ A/W////
called Training and Sanitary -wa**fes hmployees. It consists of
-------
18
a film, series of slides- about two-hundred slides, and an
instructors' manual and a students' manual. The film can
be taken by itself and very readily used for public education
or information on the concept of sanitary land-fill and how
it operates. And, you can contact the Regional Office for
access to those materials. You might, as a consultant or a
state or local government representative, you might just
^
want to look at that with the potential for using that film
by itself.
Question: My name is Henry Hudson, I'm with the EPA Regional
Office in Atlanta and I'd like to point out the fact that in
the era that we had the Solid Wastes Training Institute,
EPA at that time also supported graduate-level training,
principally in the engineering department in several univer-
sities around the Country. This scholarship support produced
a lot of people who did go into^Sblid /Wastes^anagement. As
a result of having gone through the program, I feel that
there will be a large demand for professionals in the field
as we look around to implement the various provisions of the
Act. I've heard a lot of people asking the question where are
these people going to come from, and would like to support
the idea of ,&nkindllng the universal
that normally was supported by EPA.
the idea of ,&nkindllng the university training grant program
Moderator: Thank you very much. Anyone next? Anyone else?
(Pause) Okay. You'll note on the agenda the next item for
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19
a short presentation and discussion from you is hazardous
wastes. If you're familiar at all with the Act you know
that hazardous wastes is contained in Sub-Title C. We
have with us this morning, Walt Kovalick. Walt is from
the Hazardous Waste Management Division,Office of Solid Waste
in Washington. He's the Chief of the Guidelines Branch of
the Hazardous Waste Division. Walt.
Speaker Walter W. Kovalick: Thank you, Jim. Chuck ah-
Alec Little, with the introduction this morning for us was
a little different from the ah- the one we did in Kansas
City last week. We're not only having double-bills of
these public meetings, as last night and this morning here,
we're simo-casting in the sense that we had an identical
meeting in New York, yesterday. And last week in Kansas
City the regional- Deputy Regional Administrator said that
there are three things that you need to be concerned about,
if some one tells you that your check is in the mail, or your
car will be ready at 4:30, or I'm from the _federal government
and I'm here to help you. Well, my role this morning is to
discuss the regulatory portion of the new RCRA and so I can't
fall into that last category arguing that I want to help. I
guess I want to help us, and we are in the portion of the Act
when we talk about Sub-Title C that involves environmental
protection and public health protection from what is to be
defined as hazardous waste. And, I'd like to start by making
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20
a few overview points, one of which is that that definition
which is in the first section, 3001 of Sub-Title C is the
key section to the rest of the regulatory program that I'm
going to run through this morning. That is that Section
does request the Administrator of EPA, meaning the Office
of Solid Waste, define what is it that should be a hazard-
ous waste. And so, as we move on in the slide and discuss
in a minute that section, I want you to realize how broad
or how narrow that definition is. It governs the scope and
breath and depth of the program that will be controlling those
wastes. The second thing you should note when reading through
that Sub-Title if you- when you have a chance if you have not
already, is the fact that it has a set of national minimum
standards for three different kinds of parties. One is a
national set of standards for generators of hazardous wastes
once those are defined. Which is in Section 3002. One is a
set of national standards for transporters of hazardous
wastes which is rather a unique section for EPA. It puts us
in the transportation regulation business, along with the
Department of Transportation. And, the third section has to
do with national standards for those who own and operate
storage treatment and disposal facilities. And by that I
mean not just land-fills or chemical wastes land-fills, but
incineration facilities and chemical fixation facilities and
other kinds of facilities used to treat and dispose of hazard-
ous wastes. So, on one hand there are the traditional national
standards that come along with environmental regulatory laws
-------
21
that we may be familiar with in air and water, on the other
hand there is a permit program in Sub-Title C, in 3005 that
affects only those facilities that store, treat or dispose
of the wastes. We prefer to do that as a positive side of
the Act because it isn't a permit to discharge into the
environment, in a since, but it's a permit to ensure the
community by the fact that the standards apply to that
facility are appropriate. That this so-called hazardous
waste or chemical treatment plant is capable of performing
a function for which it is designed. So, we like to view
that as kind of an insurance for the public and those of
us who might be living near it that it is possible to
operate it in accordance with the national standards which
are the more traditional regulatory approach. The third
major thing that should cone through to you in reading the
section is that it is the intent of Congress, it is the
intent of our Office and the Regions to have as many j_tates
as possible pick-up this program. The Act is written in
such a way that as soon as some of these broad definitions
are put into effect, which is about eighteen months from
last October, hopefully, as many _states as possible will
apply to be authorized to run the hazardous waste program.
The final point I wanted- well, two more points, one is
that waste that's already disposed of, that's already in
the ground would not be regulated by the regulations
that we are writing except in the case if there was an
emminent hazard to health. In other words, we're talking
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22
about wastes that about eighteen months from now would be
generated and they would fall into this regulatory scheme,
but if they're already land disposed, unless there was
some critical public health or environmental problem result-
ing they would not be regulated by the Law. The last thing
you should know « that ye-t, should be aware of is that this
is the first of many public sessions we're going to have.
Obviously with this one we've spent a little more time ex-
plaining the way we understand the Law, but in the future we
plan to discuss the implications of the Law. Especially this
part, from my point of view, that affects those to be regu-
lated. We're planning some- on the order of seventy-five or
eighty meetings, not of this size, more like twenty or thirty
people. We're to discuss, in-depth, certain sections of the
Law and how it will affect those who generate, those who store,
transport these wastes. Now, I'd like to take a moment and
run through about seven slides that I have, one on each of
the sections. To repeat again, 3001 requires the Administrator
of EPA, in eighteen months, to define hazardous waste criteria
and list hazardous wastes. And, if you look carefully at that
section there are three parts. One is that we must chose the
criteria that might definle hazardous wastes. The Congress
gives us some suggestions of kinds of factors that we should
consider, like flammability, explosivity, corrosiveness,
toxicity, bio-degradability and so forth. So, the first job
we have is to chose those parameters as criteria that we think
are important, and then using those criteria, to identify
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23
hazardous wastes. And, finally, after we have identified
them, prepare a list^, Which may sound simpler than we think
it is, ,To take an example, if we chose a criteria like
flammability, then our view is that we'll probably need a-
some kind of standardized test so that we kn^w how to apply...
we, meaning the generator of the waste, know how to apply
that criteria to the waste. So, it so happens for physical
parameters like flammability, corrosivity, there are some
fairly widely accepted industry and government standards
for testing for flammability and corrosiveness, explosivity
and some other kinds of physical parameters. So we would
chose, say flammability of a flash-point of say a hundred
degrees or a hundred and five degrees or ninety degrees and
run that test on the waste and if it failed that test, then
it would be defined into this management control system
that we're creating through the rest of the sections of the
Act. These tests then would have to be designed in such a
way that if a waste passed the test or the several tests
that are designed^then that waste would logically not have to
go into the control systems that's defined in the rest of the
Sub-Title. And, therefore, would logically be going to the
sanitary land-fills as you'll hear later in our discussion
of the overall Law. So, the way we're working at the moment
is to try and consider criteria that might make sense for
defining hazardous waste, knowing that if it does not- that
is, it passes these tests, then it would be going to a normal
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24
sanitary land-fill. The last thing it says it issue a
listing. Those of you who are familiar with the water
pollution acts- act in EPA are probably familiar with
Section 311 which has a spill regulation, has a listing
of some three or four hundred individual substances.
That is not necessarily the kind of listing that is called
for here. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons we are
having meetings like this and others is to consider what
the listing might be. Let me give you some examples of
what the list could be. It could be a list of wastes, for
example, a waste containing substances. For example, if a
waste containing some heavy metal that was of concern might
be considered on that list. That would be one way to devise
the list. So, the list might be made up of things that
would flunk the test I was discussing earlier. Another
approach might be to have a list of things that are of con-
cern to us, but for which we are not technically able to
devise inexpensive, reasonable tests. For example, I think
it's logical to assume that some ideological biological
active waste could be considered hazardous wastes. There-
fore, it might be more appropriate as HEW has done previously,
to just list kinds of ideological wastes or their sources,
like those coming from veterinarian clinics or hospitals
or other locations. So, the list may be things for which we
are not technically able to devise tests, but which we are
able to reach concensus on hazardous wastes. Another option
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25
for a list is that it could be a list of categories of waste
generators. It's possible... if you're familiar with the
water pollution experience they had listed industry categories
and we might be concerned and be able to reach concensus that
waste from the asbestos brake manufacturing process would be
of concern to us because of the asbestos content they have,
and if we do not have a reasonable test for asbestos or an
inhalation test, then it might be logical to put things on
the list that represent industry categories. So, I'm only
trying to explain that the language in this third part of
this s_ection is fairly wide-open. It does require us to
issue a list, but the content of that list is what we're
trying to understand, the variety of options that we havej and
I've tried to describe three of them to you and there's
probably variations on those. But, I wanted you to be think-
ing as broadly as possible. By now you probably realize that
I've walked in here with a different definition of solid
waste than you have or some of you have, and if you read that
&,
definition in the Law which Tru^ftt will repeat later, it in-
cludes solids, liquids, semi-solids, slurrys, sludges and so
forth. So, Congress has re-defined, for those of you who are
physical scientists, has re-defined solids to include liquids
and sludges and contain gases. So you have to be fairly
Catholic in your view that solid waste and hazardous waste or
a sub-set of them include things in other physical states
than solids. Now, that's a lot on that one section. I will
not spend that much time on each of the others, but I wanted
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26
you to get a since of the breath and depth that this defini-
tion could take. The next three sections are these national
standards that I mentioned earlier. The Section 3002 requires^
in eighteen months that we have national standards and regu-
lations affecting generators of wastes. And, if you read the
j>,ection carefully, there are only three subjects about which
-?
we can have national standards. These are the only three
things about which we can write regulations. We can not write
regulations that affect the process of manufacturing or the
way the waste is generated. We can only write regulations
about record-keeping and reporting practices regarding the
hazardous waste, about the labeling of the containers those
wastes are shipped in, and, about compliance with the so-
called manifest system. The manifest system is a system that
tracks waste from their point of generation... that is, the
hazardous waste, through their transportation, to their
ultimate disposal. The reason for this section, as we
understand it and based on evidence that we have, is that
there are many, many fine hazardous- well, a number of fine
hazardous wastes disposal facilities around the Country who
are constantly wondering why they're not getting any waste
when we know that some of the responsible manufacturers are
shipping waste to those facilities. And, the reason they're
not is that it's much cheaper to pay the higher fee to the
transportor, who, in this case, who is irresponsible and he
carries off the waste to the side of the road and opens up
the valve on the back of his vacuum truck and the waste dis-
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27
appears, or, down storm sewers and so forth. So, the purpose
of the manifest system is to permit... as we've said, the
state government, hopefully, to be able to track the fact
that a waste that is defined as hazardous at the beginning
of the cycle, does indeed reach the disposal facility for
which it was intended. So, this manifest system will recur
on the other slides, but I wanted you to have a general idea
of what is meant by it. The second set of national standards
relates to transporters. This is much broader. It does not
just limit us to these subjects, but these are the ones list-
ed in the Act, are record-keeping, labeling and again, com-
pliance with the manifest system. We recognize, as I mentioned
earlier, that the Department of Transportation is in the busi-
ness of regulating the packaging, marketing and shipping papers
that relates to the transportation of hazardous materials.
And, we're meeting with them regularly and I expect it will
be more frequently to try and see how we can mesh the require-
ments in our Act with the existing work that they already have
underway and also the work they already have on the books.
They have a number of regulations already on the books, but,
unfortunately the Department of Transportation's mission is
to provide for safety and public health of the transporter
and his vehicle. Our mission is to prevent damage to public
health and the environment. And so they, at the moment, do
not recognize environmental damage. That's one of the reasons
for writing regulations by the Department of Transportation.
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28
They have put out, and you should know, a Federal Register
notice on December 9th which is asking for your comments,
and we are putting in our comments as to whether or not
they should start considering environmental matters in the
writing of Transportation regulations, assuming that we,
meaning you and us, are able to make a case for that. And
hopefully, we will have on^set of regulations written
jointly by us and theDOT as it relates to this section.
The third section has to do with those who own and operate
treatment storage^and disposal facilities. Again, this is
national standards. There's a whole list of things, moni-
toring, record-keeping, location design, maintenance and
operation, ownership you see on them. We are familiar with
cases where individuals opened so-called hazardous wastes
disposal facilities, they accepted many, many drums of wastes,
all different kinds on their property, and for a variety of
reasons, they walked away. So this is going to be a portion
of the regulation devoted to making sure that there is the
where-with-all in the firm to carry-out to completion the
operations that they have begun when they began in their
business. That's the kind of thing covered in the ownership
which is rather a new concept in environmental statutes as
opposed to the others. I mentioned that there is a permit
program. The permit program does not affect generators, it
does not affect transporters. The permit program is for
those who store, treat and dispose of hazardous wastes. That
includes people who are in the business, commercially. That
is those to whom you can go and hire out and use their incin-
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29
erators. And it applies to those industries who have disposal
facilities or treatment facilities on their own property. So
both sets of storage, treatment and disposal facilities are
covered. Not only off-site, but those on-site. The interest-
ing thing I want to mention here which was Congress have pro-
visions for interim permits. That is, while we are analyzing
or hopefully, while the j5.tate is analyzing permit programs,
if a business-that is, the storage, treatment^or disposal
facility that was in business on the 21st of October last
year, which was when the Law was signed^and if that same
facility has notified the s_tate or EPA via a procedure I
will discuss in a moment, and if they have applied for a
permit, then, they have a permit until such time as we have
a chance or the state has a chance to act on their application.
This provides a way for industry or- who will have facilities
to continue to operate them while either the state or jiederal
government is able to, with the limited resources that we
have, to analyze the permit application and process them.
This gets us around the problem that we've had in past acts,
for example, the Waiter Pollution Act^whereas an industry
would apply for a permit and since they got no word back
from EPA due to the fact that we were trying to process
something like forty-five thousand of them, nationally,
they were in violation of the Law. This provides a way for
the facility to be in compliance with the Law. That is, to
have an interim permit while their true permit is being
analyzed. Briefly, this is the Section 3006 that relates to
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30
state^ programs and if possible and we are hopeful that
as many gtates as possible will chose to take over this pro-
gram rather than have EPA operate it out of its Regional
Offices. There are three criteria listed in the section
-£_
relating to state authorized programs. One is equivalent
to the federal program which is a word that we're going to
be trying to define what that means. The second is that
it would have to be consistent with other jtate programs and
this is a very important concept when we're talking about
hazardous industrial waste. You may be aware that the State
of Ohio recently completed a survey of their manufacturing
industry which indicates that Ohio industry ships waste to
thirteen other states. So, there is definitely a trade or
=55.
a market interstate in these kinds of wastes for not only
disposal reasons but also recovery reasons. Therefore, the
consistency between and among the state programs is a very
important factor. And finally, as you might expect in a
regulatory program, there would have to be adequate enforce-
ment in the state program in order for the state to take it
over. There is a section in there which you might want to
look at, particularly interesting to the jtates, where they
can obtain, interim authorization. That is, if they're on
their way to having a fully authorized program there is an
opportunity for them to take over. Another chance for states
who want to play, to use the expression, to be able to take
over the program early, as early as possible. The last section
I want to cover is a very unusual one, and it was somewhat of
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31
a surprise to us when it was in the Law as we were tracking
it, but it is a very helpful one to us. This is the section
on notification and it affects generators, transporters,
treaters, storers and disposirls of hazardous wastes* The
reason for this section, as we understand it, is that it
provides us with a way, as I mentioned earlier, for those
of you who need a permit to have an interim permit. That
is, it is a load-level devise. If you'd remember, a business
facility that was in business in October that has applied for
a permit and has notified EPA or the ^tate under this section
would then have a permit. So, this notification is a kind of
registration for storage treatment and disposal facilities.
And it's a way for us to be aware of people who generate and
transport wastes so that we know where the manifest should be
coming from. The manifest that I mentioned earlier. Obviously
if someone has not notified, then we would not expect them to
be generating manifest as time goes along. And this require-
ment... this notification, by-the-way, could be as simple as
a name arrtT address and location and phone number.and the fact
of which business you are in and the general character of the
waste. So that the coverage of this particular _section is a
very interesting question which we hope to get comments on as ive
go along. Ah- you might be interested to know that the waste
oil re-refining industry testified at our public meeting in
December, or£like this, in Washington that they felt that used
motor oil, meaning waste oil ought to be a hazardous waste.
And, if you carry that to it's logical conclusion, the impli-
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32
cation is that gas stations, those that- who generate used
motor oil would have to notify the area EPA. So, I think
that's a little extreme example and we don't think that's
necessarily the way it should go. And yet they're
advocating the fact that used waste oil might, in fact, be-
come... that it's failed some of the tests that was mention-
ed earlier. So this section is very important in the sense
$-
that the coverage of people who might be required to notify.
If you do not notify^you are not allowed to transport, store
or treat or dispose of waste. So, it is... there's a penalty
associated with this section and it's very important that it
be constructed sensibly, in a way that we can all read it,
sensibly. So let me stop there. I probably over-loaded you
with information, and ask for questions.
Moderator: Do we have questions or comments?... pertaining
to Sub-Title C or hazardous waste? Please feel free to step
right up, we'll move right along.
3".
Question: My name is Peter Dawson. I'm with Hennxx., Durham
and Richardson, a consulting firm in Charlotte. You mentioned
that you cannot write regulations on the process. Are you
referring to the manufacturing of wastes that could be termed
hazardous?
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33
Speaker Kovalick: Yes.
Question: (Same Speaker) Okay. Thank you. (Pause)
Speaker Kovalick: That was too easy. (Laughter)
Moderator: Mr. Chipiy will make it harder.
Question: No. I won't make it harder. I'm Qi ipff from
Alabama. I don't know quite where to start, you asked whether
or not the s_tates are willing to or want to take over this
type of program. Personally I feel that the jstates should
assume the responsibility for these types of programs. They
are in their states and the wastes are generated in their state
and this is where it should be taken care of. You have a Law
that's quite broad and you're talking about writing some three
sets of rules and regulations to cover these laws, and here we
get into a point of possible danger. I'll give an example, in
our state we've been trying to get a central amendment to our
solid waste act and everybody-agrees it should be there, but
people stet around and decide and start shooting in things that
they want from their special effort and the law becomes... the
writing of rules and regulations, and a law should not be rules
and regulations. I think federal rules and regulations that
are written are often accepted as law and perhaps of necessity
so. And, if this is true, then they must be broad, because
the rules and regulations to apply these things have to apply
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34
to the local areas where the Acts that are set-up will funct-
ion. A facility, for example, that will work in Alabama may
well not work in Florida. And, to go further, a facility
that may work in parts of Alabama, may not work in other
parts of Alabama. So, there has to be a local effort. Now,
we speak of grants and frankly grants scare the hell out of
me. I think there is a place for grants and a need for them.
But, in some cases, I think, personally, if our _s_tate should
become eligible for a ^federal grant on hazardous waste, we
"Z*
would, in the first place, need a greater staff to manage and
handle that grant than we would need to manage hazardous waste.
(Laughter) This does bother me to a considerable degree. Now,
last night, you didn't bring it up this time, but you were
mentioning a specific problem of the analysis of hazardous
o
'
waste. Where it should be done and who should J&&' the analysis.
I think the question that was posed was should it be a community
payment, or by the generator of the waste. I think here again
we all know who is going to pay for this, whether it be a grant
or whether it be an analysis. It's going to be the people whose
going to pay for it, in the long run- it's going to be the con-
sumer, one way or another. If that is a true premise, then I
think the analysis of the hazardous waste should rest with the
generator of that waste, because then he could pass that cost
on to the primary and secondary buyers of his product. Thank
you.
Moderator: Yes sir.
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35
Question: My name is Bob -Skerrp and I'm with Mineral Research
and Development Corporation in Harrisburg, North Carolina. One
of the biggest problems in dealing with hazardous waste is that
the options of disposing the material is getting smaller and
smaller. There are fewer and fewer places that we can put
these residuals for ultimate disposal. I would like to suggest
that in setting up programs that waste exchange or things of
this nature be considered. For some people could use the
waste of others. And also, a program for technical ssistance
to assist generators to determine what they can do with their
product. Whether they could treat it themselves or find other
sources of disposals... other people who might accept it.
Speaker Kovalick: Thank you. I'm glad you brought that up
because on my limited time with these programs I have to dis-
cuss the regulatory part of the Law... you should know that
we've published a policy statement, that is an EPA policy
statement on the handling of hazardous waste, last August.
That is long before this Law was passed, in the... August 14th,
I believe, Federal Register and we'd be happy to get you some
of.those if you have not seen it. But it does have at the top
of the list, priorities,.not generating the waste or isolating
it, so that it could be used for exchange. And I appreciate
you bringing up the concept of waste exchange. That is, that
one man's waste could be another man's feedstock. Especially
in the industrial sector. We've spent quite a bit of time and
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36
have completed a contractual study of not only the waste
exchanges that are in existence in this Country of which
there are less than a half-dozen, right now. One... some are
more successful than others, and there are over thirteen of
them in Western Europe, right now, run not only by trade
associations, industrial trade association, but also quasi-
government institutes. So, we've been doing our best to
popularize the concept of wastg-exchange and if any of you
think there is a possibility, that is, in terms of quantities
or an institution that might be used to operate that, you
might want to get in touch with Jim and he with us to get a
copy of that recent study on waste exchanges. It is a pre-
script of one, it tells you where it makes sense. That is,
the kinds of government, quasi-government or industry institut-
ions that make sense, like trade associations, to run these
exchanges. Your point about facilities also I want to cover
or mention as a very important part, we think, of the jjtate
program as it develops. That is, it's all very fine to have
these regulations defining hazardous waste and tracking L ."m,
but if there isn't any place to track them to_,it becomes very
difficult. So, we're very conscious of the fact that there's
decreasing numbers of options. That is, ocean disposal is
becoming very restrictive. They're increasing incineration
restrictions and so we think that some energy has to be put
into trying to think of ways to provide for these kinds of
facilities. As the gentleman said, it's hard to site a sani-
tary land-fill, should try to site a hazardous waste incincerator,
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37
sometimes. It's a very difficult process according to the
industry that's tried to do it. We're aware of one firm
that tried sixteen different times to obtain a site upon
which they could build what might be considered a quite
adequate hazardous waste incinerator. So, it's no small
problem.
Question: My name is Tom Lesl-»y, I'm with the Atlanta
Regional Commission. I wonder if you anticipate the definit-
ion and the regulatory program would extend to radioactive
waste on a military facility?
Speaker Kovalick: Again when I read the definition of solid
waste which I didn't g6 justice to, it does exclude only one
kind of radioactive waste. Those that are... the high-level
radioactive waste controlled by the Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission and UftTS". So that means that there are a number of other
low-level radioactive waste. The kinds that are used to make
radiant watch dials; the kinds that are used in low-level
isotopes in medical practices and so forth that could con-
ceivably be included in this definition of hazardous waste.
So, we have not... we're only restricted from covering those
£l?DA
things that are already regulated by URTA and NRC. So, I think
it's quite likely that some radioactive waste will be included.
Moderator: Yes sir, go right ahead.
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38
Question: I'm Howard Jolley with the Regional Enforcement
Program. I had two questions. One on radioactive waste
which is just been answered. My second question is^did I
understand you correctly in saying that industrial sludge if
it would be determined hazardous... stored on an industrial
site, would require a permit?
Speaker Kovalick: That's possible. Yes.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you.
Speaker Kovalick: I might add that what it is that can define
storage is becoming one of the more knotty problems. That is,
if you're storing two or three drums for three or four days in
order to fill-up and get an amount or quantity to ship to dis-
posal, is that storage or is a lagoon with several million
gallons of contaminated solids a storage. And so, trying to
draw a line between the two kinds of storage will be a problem
for us over the next few months.
Question: (Same Speaker) I agree.
Moderator: We still have ample time if anyone would care to
comment on the subject of hazardous waste or the regulation of
hazardous waste. I might ask you for... we're seeking your
opinion and perhaps the state people represented here would
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39
be interested in your opinion as to whether or not you think
the jjtate should, in fact, regulate hazardous waste. Go
right ahead.
Question: I'm Andrew CaramacrR. I work for the Environmental
Quality Commission in the State of Kentucky. I 'm a little
bit confused about this radioactive low-level waste. You
££DK
said that they could be included in the definition if -UftWi
or NRC wasn't responsibile for them. Well, at the present
time I... the specific example I have in mind is a. low- level
waste disposal site in Kentucky which is... it's regulated
by the Health Department in Kentucky, or the Human Resources,
but NRC has the final say in that situation. It's low-level
waste, but NRC is the regulator. And I just wondered if you
anticipate any interaction with NRC on those sites?
Speaker Kovalick: I'm not an expert in radioactive materials,
I... we are just beginning in the program to look at radio-
active-type waste. So we obviously have to go to such as
£KDA. v€
yfiTS. We ha€T a radiation program in EPA that's related to
setting the standards that affects the sites that NRC is
licensing, but all I'm trying to say is that there are some
radioactive wastes that are not controlled that will probably
fall under the umbrella of this Act, but which ones, I'm not sure.
Moderator: If you read the Act there is a specific exclus-
ion for those that are covered under the 1954 Atomic Energy
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40
Act and if it's not covered under that Act then I think
what Walt is saying is that it's a good possibility it may be
covered under this Act. For those of you from Florida, you
might know that there is a great deal of phosphate mining in
Florida. And phosphate ore, in it's natural state contains
radium and some of the mining concentrates that's radium, as
well as some of the ground-water has radium in it, and when
you treat the ground-water for drinking purposes, perhaps you
may concentrate the radium. And some of these type wastes
will be some of the things we'll be looking at as to whether
or not they should be regulated under this Law. Yes sir, go
right ahead.
Question: Just have a comment, Peter Dawson, again. Con-
cerning your question about storage or not storage, you may
have already been made aware of this, but I'm referring to
one installation where they had an ore material that they stored
in rail-cars that they shipped later. And they were really in
a conflict as to whether or not that was storage of whether or
not that was transportation. And if it was storage, they had
to put a dike around it. Put a dike around it, then they
couldn't haul the rail-car. (Laughter) I thought I'd throw
that out to you to give you something to think about tonight.
Speaker Kovalick: I'll try to be conscious of the fact that
C//Ag,s __ (fehi-s— troid Indistinguishable) around railroad
tracks makes it hard to move the car.
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41
Question: (Same Speaker) Some of the consulting firms may
want to take that into consideration for designing a portable
dike. (Laughter)
Question: My name is Henry Hudson, I'm with the EPA Regional
Office in Atlanta and I would like to get a clarification if
I could regarding the disposal. Also, in regards to the quest-
ion earlier or the statement earlier, about possibility of a
lagoon or pond or pit containing an industrial solvent. For
example, from the definition of disposal as I read it in the
Act, it would appear that if such a lagoon leaked some of its
content into the ground or into the ground-water, that facility
would by definition be a disposal facility as opposed to a
storage facility. Is that correct?
Speaker Kovalick: I would say if it's an unlined lagoon that's
probably the way it would go, but the point is the lagoon
would be covered either as a storage facility or as a disposal
facility. One way or the other.
Question: (Same Speaker) Yes, but my point is that .that nor-
mally one would be quite surprized to think of a pond or a
lagoon as a disposal option rather than a storage option. It
is a rather strange definition as storage and disposal normally
been regarded.
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42
Speaker Kovalick: Yes, along with re-defining solids to include
liquids, the definition of disposal deserves some study, too.
Question: Good morning. My name is Jerry Cousins of Piedmont
Engineers, of Greenville, South Carolina. I've been associated
with the development of regional hazardous waste treatment
plants. The EPA has suggested three possible definitions for
hazardous waste, all could be complicated. I want to suggest
a fourth that could not go anywhere else. And I'm
concerned about the definition of hazardous waste, that what
you might do... it could become very complicated and I suggest
another alternative. In practical terms, if you're going to
build a plant you do a market survey. You decide which materials
are presenting problems that you could handle. And those are
the hazardous materials. And since I'm looking for prototypes
I suggest that as an alternative for compliance. The things
that can't go in the land-fill. The things that can't go in the
sewers, can't go in the water. It would be very broad and it
would be the most realistic kind of definition you have. I'm
pleased to see that you know about these facilities, I hope
those people have an input into it. I think they've had a lot
of experience. I think that's the major point. I'd like to
talk to you afterwards about analysis and how these things
could be done because I've gone through it.
Speaker Kovalick: To elaborate on your simplier definition, I
guess I'm....
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43
Question: (Same Speaker) A definition... a backwards definit-
ion on things that are hazardous waste or things that can not
go to the sewer, can not go to the land-fill, that cannot be
disposed of at large. And ah- when you know... you know what
those things are. I can tell by your talk that you have a
good feel for what these materials are. I know what these
materials are. In practical terms, you don't have any trouble.
You know, you go into a given area, you look around, you know
what's there. And, the definition really is the things that
cannot go somewhere else. And, that kind of an approach, i
think, will be the most successful and. tne least cumbersome...
most realistic.
Speaker Kovalick: That's a good point. The only... there is
quite a bit of research, as a matter of fact this St. Louis
3s
Conference that Trui'tt was mentioning is going to discuss land
disposal waste and I would say that it's certainly not con-
census about those things that cannot be land-filled. That is,
the soil is quite a continuator in many people's view and it
can be used as a treatment mechanism, if you will. So.,..
Question: (Same Speaker) Well....
Speaker Kovalick: It would be easier if there was concensus
that certain things cannot be land-filler but some waste-
there is a great area of waste where that concensus doesn't
seem to exist. That's why... it's a though solution....
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44
Question: (Same Speaker) Let me come back on that one there.
There are a great many ways to use land-fill treatment systems
besides the practice that is used for land-filling, garbage
and solid waste, and the land system and the land disposal
system would probably be part of most hazardous waste plans.
Now, I... there's another comment, you're talking about being
more positive and people are talking about the options that can be
removed. Anotner way of approaching tnis wnoie problem now that
I think has to be done is to take a look at this whole process
again from backwards, and find out what material residues you
would like to have... what can you produce. You're going to
have salt, you're going to have things like organic materials,
you're going to have ash and a limited number of things and
you have to decide where these are going. Is the salt going
to the ocean. How is it going to get there. And work back-
wards and in your regulations, I think, the one thing you
should not do is prohibit things from going to the right places.
Just make it so complicated- you know.... There's a law out-
side the radioactive business, the law of conservation of
matter. If you work at it you can account for everything.
If you burn it, you know, there's the gases, pounds of gas
out there. Nobody can make anything disappear. So you really
have to decide where you want it to end-up, and you have to
decide that early, to plan intelligently so that you get there
in the best possible way. And so, your objectives... there
ought to be some positive objectives in these regulations about
where you do want things to go.
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45
Speaker Kovalick: I guess at the same time you would agree
that we would want to leave the options open to the generator
so that we don't... these regulations do not say that you must
take waste X to the incinerator. They may say that if you
take them to the incinerator they have to be burned at certain
temperatures and have certain kinds of monitoring. But you
still have the option of taking that waste to the land-fill.
These regulations are not, ah....
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, the guys who are operating
that central treatment facility, he's got to have an outlet.
He can't make it disappear....
Speaker Kovalick: No. No, he's got a... from his point of view,
he may move on to the land. But I'm saying as an industrialist,
if I had a waste the Law provides me with the option to chose
incineration or land disposal or chemical treatment or physical
treatment or whatever....
Question: (Same Speaker) Oh yeah, but still those end pro-
ducts are there.
Speaker Kovalick: Oh yes...
Question: (Same Speaker) And please don't write the regu-
lations in such a way that they're supposegto disappear. Don't
tighten-up on us, the guy that's got no option. Otherwise the
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46
the whole program breaks down.
Speaker Kovalick: Thank you very much. Yes sir, go right ahead.
Question: William -Wlieldii, -Bon Shamrock Chemical Company. We
have at the present time an on-site lagoon which is in com-
pliance with the S-tate of North Carolina and the Jederal regu-
lations. Do we need any additional permits under this new Act
to operate that facility?
Speaker Kovalick: I dorft d know, becOause we haven't written
the regulations, yet. This... I think it's fine to say that
this set of regulations will affect storage or disposal
facilities that are lagoons and since this Act does get the
federal government involved in ground-water protection, I
^
know there are no federal laws right now except in the under -
< ^
ground -abjection area that affects the operation of that
lagoon. So, depending on the North Carolina statutes, with
which I'm not familiar, there may be some additional require-
ments regarding ground-water protection. Not surface-water
which is probably well-protected in your regulations.
Question: (Same Speaker) Just a comment that any regulations
that be written, especially in our case of lagoon overflow, that
they not be written any tighter than drinking water regulations.
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47
Speaker Kovalick: W®-l%"i you're on the subject of surface-
water there, I think it will have to mesh with the existing
water pollution regulations on surface-water, certainly.
Moderator: Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Walt. The next
item on our agenda is land disposal. We have with us this
morning, Tru,ftt DeGeare. Trui^tt is the Chief of the Land
Protection Branch in our Systems Management Division, Office
of Solid Waste, EPA Washington. TrujFtt.
Speaker Trui'tt DeGeare: Good morning. The Act contains
important new definitions. Some which have been alluded
to earlier this morning. Also a requirement for the Admin-
istrator of EPA to promulgate regulations containing criteria
for determining which facilities shall be classified as sani-
tary land-fills and which shall be classified as open-dumps.
A requirement that the Administrator publish an inventory
of all disposal facilities in the United States which are
open-dumps and a requirement that the Administrator publish
suggested guidelines for various solid waste management
practices, including disposal. The implications and require-
ments for state and local governments will be discussed later
'j-ffrte,
under stawd and local program development provisions. Part of
the Act that addresses land disposal of non-hazardous waste
is Sub-Title D and you may in the future want to refer to
various sections of that. First though, we should look at a
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48
couple of these key definitions which appear in the first
part of the Law as opposed to Sub-Title D. The definition
that's of special importance are those for open-dump and
sanitary land-fill. The Law defines those two practices as
the only two types of disposal facilities. The two pract-
ices will be distinguished by the criteria to be promul-
gated under Section 4004. RCRA adds clarity by defining
disposal and solid waste. I think these definitions are of
such significance it's worthwhile for me to just take a
minute to read them for you. Then you can look at them,
later, in your copy of the Act. Disposal is a pretty
broad definition. It means the discharge, deposit, injection,
dumping, spilling, leaking or placing any solid waste or
hazardous waste into or on any land or water. So, that solid
waste or hazardous waste or any constituent thereof may enter
the environment or be eirfmitted into the air, or discharged
into any water, including ground-water. So, any practice
of placement of waste on land is virtually defined as dis-
posal. The term solid waste, as Walt mentioned, is very
broad. And it means any garbage, refuge, sludge from a waste
treatment plant, water supply treatment plant or air pollution
control facility, and other discarded materials, including
AuS
solids, liquids, semi-solids or contain gases materials ah-
resulting from industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural
operations and from community activities, but does not include
solid or d/rsolved material in the irrigation return flows or
industrial discharges which are point sources subject to per-
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49
mits of Section 402 of the Federal Water Pollution Control
Act, or source special nuclear or by-product materials as
defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. As I said earlier,
the statutory definitions of sanitary land-fills and open
dumpi refer to Section' 4004 of the Act which is entitled,
Criteria for Sanitary Land-fill, sanitary land-fill is re-
quired for all disposal. This Section requires the
Administrator to promulgate regulations containing criteria
for determining which facilities shall be classified as
open-dump and which shall be classified as sanitary land-
fills. At a minimum, the criteria shall provide that a
facility shall be classified as a sanitary land-fill and not
an open-dump only if there is no reasonable probability of
adverse effects either on health or the environment from
the disposal of solid waste at the facility. An important
aspect of the implementation of the Law then is for the
interpretation of what constitutes no reasonable probability
and what constitutes adverse effects on health or the environ-
ment. The task of developing this criteria will be particularly
difficult for ground-water protection because of technological
uncertainties and the general lack of ground-water protection
policies. It seems appropriate that the criteria would be
performance rather than operational and the intent, as we
read it in the Act, is not for federal regulation of sanitary
^
land-fills or the establishment of a federal regulatory pro-
gram, but for jtate control. This regulation containing the
criteria is due by Octob?t 21 of this year, after consultation
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so
with state agencies, notice and public hearings. Section
4004B requires each jstate plan to prohibit the establish-
ment of open-dumps and to contain a requirement that all
solid waste within the s_tate be disposed of in sanitary
land-fills unless it is utilized for resource recovery.
Finally, Section 4004C indicates that the gtates prohibition
on open-dumping shall take affect six months after the date
of promulgation of the criteria which is due October 21 of
this year, or on the date of approval of the state plan^
•Whichever is later. Not later than one year after the pro-
mulgation of the criteriajthe Administrator must publish an
inventory of all disposal facilities in the United States
which are open-dumps. Section 4005 also prohibits, open-dumping
when usable alternatives are available. If such alternatives
are not available, the state plan shall establish a timetable
or schedule for compliance, which specifies remedial measures
including an enforceable sequence of actions or operations
leading to compliance with the prohibition on open-dumping
within a reasonable time. And, that time is not to exceed
five years from the date of publication of the inventory.
If the state plan is not being undertaken, the citizens suit
•^
provision of Section 7002 provides recourse to a grieved
party. Section 1008, Solid Waste Management Information and
Guidelines requires the Administrator to publish, in one
year, guidelines which provides a technical and economic
description of the level of performance that can be obtained
by various available solid waste management practices. Areas
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51
to be addressed by guidelines include appropriate methods
and degrees of control that provide at a minimum for pro-
tection of the public health and welfare; protection of
the quality of ground-water and surface-water from leakage;
protection of the quality of surface-waters from run-off
through compliance with applicable limitations under the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act; protection of /JM b,<->.n~(:
-fthis word indistinguishable) airtl air quality through com-
Va<.,(iV
disease Anfcction control, safety and esthetics. It is our
interpretation of Congressional intent that these guidelines
would be descriptive and not prescriptive. And, that they
could suggest alternatives for dealing with the concerned
raised in the criteria. Section 1008C requires minimum
criteria to be used by the states in defining open-dumping
of solid waste as prohibited in Sub-Title D. The Congress
did not specify which practices and guidelines are to be
developed to address—our initial reaction to the charges
of Section 1008 is to address the predominent practice
which is land disposal, and the first attempt in this area
would then be to up-date and revise on current land dis-
posal guidelines. We will also be initiating slu^ff disposal
guidelines. In order to provide for future activity under
this Section, we're going to be carrying out a process to
determine a logical and reasonable sequence for promulgation
of future guidelines on various practices. We obviously
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52
can't dump all our resources at one time into trying to
cover every solid waste management practice. So, we would
appreciate any suggestions you might have or any input to
determining a prioritization of the various practices which
should be covered, ultimately. (Pause)
<2-
Moderator: Thank you, Trui'tt. We'll ask you to step forward
now and comment on the land disposal, definition of a sani-
tary land-fill... criteria for an open-dump. (Pause)
Question: I 'm Bill Proportcet" £ia-sJ" "amp -may t>e apetted- in-
7t?/v/y,
tlf9 — **• Eastman Company* I think my question may pertain
more to the previous speaker, but it's raised somewhat by the
definitions that were just discussed, and it pertains to the
regulations under RCRA, ah- a lagoon. Well, suppose a lagoon
is part of a waste-water treatment system which is subject
to permitting under the NPDES system, would there be any
regulation of such a lagoon? Which would be part of a point
source discharge under RCRA?
Speaker DeGeare: I think it's very possible from the view-
point of any leakage to the bottom of that lagoon as opposed
to any kind of permitting or regulatory action on the upper-
surface water.
Speaker Kovalick: Just to add on to that point, I... we've
thought some about that, the waste in that lagoon are but
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S3
prior treatment then they might well be considered to fall
into the category of domestic sewage in the sense that they
are not yet a sewage sludge. That is post treatment. So
we are... there may be a possible gap in the coverage for
that one kind of lagoon prior to the time that the domestic
sewage is treated. Even though domestic sewage could
include industrial input, of course, from the hazardous
waste point of view. And I'm purely saying that there is
a possibility we might be able to put out the guidelines
that mighty would reflect management might be able to cover
them under the non-hazardous portion.
Sc/v/V?/^
Question: Bob Sharp with Mineral Research, again. Your
definition on open-dump, I'm considering a facility which is
a settling of a lagoon for inorganic materials, would this
also be defined as an open-dump and how would it be fitterf*
of these classifications?
g,
Moderator: Tru.i'tt, you want to speak to that?
Speaker DeGeare : Okay. We can't, at this point, say that it
would be an open-dump or sanitary land-fill. What we can
address, I think, is whether it's a disposal practice as
covered by this Law. I can give you my opinion from my
reading of the Law and at the same time I'd like to solicit
your opinion on whether it's appropriate for us to address
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S4
that practice. My reading is that it is... it would be dis-
posal, placing of waste on land. And the criteria would
therefore have to address that. Now, as far as to whether
it would be classified as an open-dump would depend on
whether there was probability of adverse effects on environ-
ment and public health.
Question: Peter Dawson with Hennut, Durham and Richardson.
We've been talking about open-dumps and sanitary land-fills,
but does an inert land-fill such as receives this construction
waste, is that part of the sanitary land-fill area?
Speaker DeGeare: Yes. It's prohibited.
Question: (Same Speaker) And the other question I had when
d^/c.
would Appeal 945A affect land disposal sewage slusfr, just
when it would have hazardous waste and heavy metal?
Speaker DeGeare: Ah- no. If it... based on the tests and
criteria that Walt discussed, the sludge would fall into the
category of hazardous waste, then it would be regulated under
Sub-Title C. Otherwise the criteria called for in Sub-Title D
would apply.
Question: (Same Speaker) Which ah... Sub-Title D refers
to what?
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55
Speaker DeGeare: The open-dump and sanitary land-fill criteria.
Question: I'm Marvin Dlmll from the State of Kentucky and I
might say that we're quite interested in seeing here guide-
lines for the management of sludges as soon as possible in
your priorities. And I'm somewhat interested in the fact
that the water pollution people have a great interest in thisj
and personally I am inclined to come up with management guide-
lines of their own in this regard. As I interpret the present
Law, this really lies within the province of the solid waste
act and that's probably where it should be done. I'd like to
have your comment on that, and I'd also like to have some com-
ment relative to what time-frame you see management guidelines
for sludges.
Speaker DeGeare: The Act doesn't addresses sludges, specifically.
There is a definition for sludge, and sludge is included in the
definition for solid waste. Therefore, we are addressing that.
And, as I indicated, our guidelines on sewage sludge or... I
guess you would classify it now as a second priority. Our
first will be dealing in land disposal guidelines. Or, within
our own Agency the development of suggested practices or guide-
lines on sludge is going to be a very painstaking process, be-
cause we are going to be coordinating very closely with the
Water Program Operations Office. They have dealt with waste-
water treatment more extensively than we have and are pretty
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56
familiar with the sludges or components of sludges produced.
We then are going to take the attitude that we will be follow-
ing up after the sludges is produced and dealing with it from
that point. So, we're going to be coordinating very closely
with that Office in the development of these guidelines.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you.
c,
Moderator: I'd like to add to that, Mr, Shell. Waste-water
treatment plant sludge and water treatment plant sludge are
specifically included in the definition of solid waste in
this Act. However, I do feel like the governor and designated
agencies should utilize any agency you see fit as long as the
appropriate measures are carried out under this Act. But
I also point out that by these sludges being included in the
definition of solid waste, they will have to be covered in
the required state solid waste management plan and appropriately
^:
provided for in that plan. Yes sir, go right ahead.
Question: Carl Comhard-, Jan Uber Corporation (Last ^tame -and
-camp_ajiY. name- may 4>e- spelled incoxxectly)- . I'm concerned about
the settling ponds and in the operation we mine cacodyl clay
and we've got some heavy metal settling out of this pond which
is covered by NPDES permit. Are you saying if this stuff is
leaking into the ground where it applies, you can force us to
make it into a sanitary land- fill in five years, or what?
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57
Speaker DeGeare: Surely not a sanitary land-fill in the since
that we've traditionally known what a sanitary land-fill is....
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, can you force us to light it
at sometime? This is a hundred and eighty acre impound, now.
What are we going to do?
Moderator: We understand....
Speaker DeGeare: We really don't know what we're going to do.
The issue that we're trying to deal with now is whether and
how we should deal with those types of impoundments. We know
that there can be and has been damage from surface impound-
ments and it's apparent that the Act was intended to provide
control to prevent damage. But, I understand your concern
for a hundred and eighty....
Moderator: There's also a call for appropriate coordination
e-l
with the '72 Fair Water Pollution Control Act which requires
you, if that has a discharge, to get what we call an NPDES
discharge permit, as well as the Safe Drinking Water Act.
We'd be most happy to hear from you how you think this should
be handled in the instance of a storage lagoon, let's say,
that does, in fact, have a discharge permit under the water
act but is in fact not lined and leaking to the ground-water.
Now, what do you think we should do with that?
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58
Question: (Same Speaker) I don't know. Ah- how are you
going to determine whether it's leaking or not. Cacodyl
clay is so fine, we all assume that this seals itself after
a period of two months, it settles itself. Now, how are you
going to determine whether we're leaking into the ground-
water supply?
Moderator: Well, I didn't mean to imply that we would say
you were leaking. I said perhaps one is leaking. Now, the
question is what to do about one that does have a discharge
permit and is leaking. You know, we're asking for your help
here or anybody else's who is here for that matter. You know,
this is something we've got to face up to.
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, will there be meetings or
something like that in the future or when the criteria is
published?
Speaker DeGeare: There will be hearings on the criteria. They
will be published as proposed in the Federal Register to pro-
vide opportunity for comment. Then there would be hearings
specifically on the criteria.
Question: (Same Speaker) One other question, what about over-
burden, the dirt which covers the clay? Can that be termed as
solid waste?
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59
Moderator : Mining waste as... are mentioned in the
definition of solid waste.
Question: (Same Speaker) It's only a waste for a certain
amount of years, then we have to reclaim the land and we can
use it again.
Speaker DeGeare: Sure....
Question: (Same Speaker) Up 'til then will that be included
as a solid waste?
Moderator: It depends on how the criteria is developed. Here
again we're seeking your advise on how to develop the criteria.
We don't know what the criteria is going to be, yet. We're at
the ground-zero... we're at the start-point.
Question: (Same Speaker) Okay. Thank you.
Speaker DeGeare: One issue that was discussed some last night
was what types of disposal practices, that is the combinations
of the various waste types and ways of dealing with those on
land should be addressed by the criteria and then how the
criteria could address.that. If, that is, by means of a general
rather broad criteria or specific criteria for various types
of practices. One particular practice that was commented on
by three or four individuals last night was that of land dis-
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60
posal and demolition waste and land clearing waste and it
seems like the concensus of those who commented was that it
would be most appropriate to have a separate criteria for
that type of practice. So you may want to discuss that a
little bit this morning.
Question: I'm Bob Sk*rp, again, I'm from. Research Corporation.
The last speaker has mentioned in effect his company's practice
for preventing seepage is to line the pond with cacodyl , and
he didn't know whether this was done deliberately or in the
process of building the pond. My own company's process is to
take the waste materials out so that the mineral component will
IAS
not be soluable and thaws' will not seep down to the ground. I'm
sure this is not the proper forum to discuss the application of
these techniques, and I} too^ would be interested in participating
in such discussions and formulations.
Speaker DeGeare: There will be public notices- hearings on
these regulatory actions. If you have specific concerns, you
can indicate that. Leave your name and address or card with us.
Question: William -Whatsit, I'm with .Shamrock,, again. On the
definition of an open-dump, a quarry that's filled with water...
an abandoned quarry, material... waste material going into that
from beneath the surface. Is that considered an open- dump?
Speaker DeGeare : Waste material going into it beneath the surface?
Question: (Same Speaker) Beneath the surface discharge to
build up the solids in the bottom of this abandoned quarry?
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61
Speaker DeGeare: Yes. It's possible. But ah- I don't know
if it would be an open-dump, that would depend on... again
on what the criteria would say. But, it sounds like a
practice that should be addressed by criteria.
Question: (Same Speaker) It's an interesting situation,
anyway. Thank you.
Question: Tom Tiesler with the State of Tennessee. TalKing about the
ponds and lagoons, what you are saying is then it is possible
that a lagoon that is currently permitted under the NPDES
system, it may have to come back and be re-permitted under
this new Act? Would you have two agencies, possibly, regu-
lating a permit of the same facility?
Moderator: I think what Tru^tt said Tom is that that may
be possible. My own personal evaluation of that situation is
that I don't see that happening, myself. Now, the guys from
Washington may well see that differently. Having grown-up
in the water program, myself, it doesn't seem right to me.
However, you know, when he says it's possible, that's anywhere
from zero to a hundred percent. So keep that in mind. Ah-
we would be most interested to hear how you feel about that, as
a matter of fact.
Question: (Same Speaker) Okay. Well, we're in the process
of putting together a hazardous waste bill in the State of
Tennessee, a state law, and we've been talking to the sanitary
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62
industry there and that's one of their primary concerns, not
to have duplication of enforcement activities. And I tend
to agree with them. There is confusion enough, I think, pro-
bably in dealing with one agency, but if you've got two
different agencies regulating the same facility you can
really confuse things more. So I would think there ought
to be a real effort, I guess, at the federal level to make
sure that we don't have more than one regulatory agency
regulating it... the same facility. Get that ironed out
before it gets downs to the point of implementing the Act.
Speaker Kovalick: I think that's a very good point which we'll
be asking about in our public notices relating to the Sub-
Title C, as well. I think the challenge lies more in the
states. You can usually do quite a bit of one-stop shopping
•^
at an EPA Regional Office in terms of talking about air,
water, solid waste, radiation and noise, but a lot of strain,
at least in the industrial hazardous waste area, is that at
least in two states, I know of, you have to go to three
different places to get answers on waste management, alone.
That is, the water board control liquid waste that are not
municipal; the Health Department controls the solid wastes
that are municipal; and, there's an overall state .solid waste
•£ =- ^
board that controls resource recovery. So, I think the
?
challenge lies with the spates and I think there are ways to
do it. I'm familiar... in my experience in air pollution
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63
with ah- when air pollution permits used to be granted in one
large major city and you went to the building department to
get your permit just to begin construction? that permit was auto-
matically routed through the Air Pollution Control Department
of Environmental Quality for a check on air pollution control
devises. So, I think the opportunity for creativity is both
in our office where we are at least, in many cases, in one
building talking to each other in terms of air and water and
solid waste; and, at the ^.tate-level it's even more of a
challenge to assure industry... if you take on the program,
that you are going to coordinate and pass... have some kind
of opportunity for them to have one-stop shopping or one kind
of contact point. _ -~)
teer. °* *">' 'K^^no*
^o^^
Moderator: Mr. Druse/J go right ahead.
Question: Thank you, Jim. So far we haven't heard a great
deal about the economic impact of a lot of this activity down
at the local level. If you look at certain portions of this
particular section, under 4002 it says you should consider
^
the volume of solid waste that should be included. So that
might be interpreted to say that you might partially exempt
sites that handle very small numbers of people. And yet, on
the other hand, you go into 4004B and there it says that every-
thing's got to be sanitary land-fill, and there's also another
section, 4003 in a section there. So you have a dichotomy
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64
there where in one case you might think you could see a way..
you take a small community. The reason this is quite import-
ant to us at the moment, we're getting a lot of flack from
some of our senators and representatives whose constituents
are in small communities that even our daily cover' requirement
is creating an economic difficulty for small communities who
just can't afford to do it. And we're being impartuned to
relax our rules which we are very loathed to do. And ah-
this is not only true in the sanitary land-fill portion that
we're discussing at the moment, but when you get over into
the hazardous waste aspect, the economic impact is going to
be terrific. And I'm wondering if anybody in EPA has done
anything on a national-scale as to what the true economic
impact of this Law is going to be? It would seem like
it's 'going to be into the trillions, rather than into the
billions. Have you any thoughts on that?
Speaker DeGeare: An economic impact analysis has not been
done on the Act. Somehow Congress is able to avoid that
responsibility. Regretfully not everyone can. We will be
doing an economic impact analysis on regulatory actions. We
have not done it for the criteria. I'd like to back-up and
comment on a couple of your comments. Section 4002 deals
with guidelines for identification of planning regions and
we'll be talking about that a little later. But it doesn't
really relate directly to the criteria for classification of
disposal facility and I have not found any place in the Act
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65
which contain... call for an exemption or any implication
that there should be an exemption for disposal facilities
of a particular size or smallness. Or, for a community of
a particular size.
Question: [Same Speaker) Well there's the old story, you
can't get blood out of a turnip and these small counties are
poorly financed low capital income and low tax base. Some-
times it's almost impossible to come up with the right kinds
of dollars.
Moderator: The rural systems portion of the Act, I think,
directs itself to that very issue. However, you'll notfithat
the funding level is tagged at authorization of twenty-five
million dollars a year. Which, if you think about the number
of cities that meet those criteria for size and counties that's
quite thin nation .-wide. If you would permit me... if you
would allow me to use that term, permit, I will allow one
more speaker, the gentleman standing in back. And then we
will move on to the next item. If you have more discussion
about this particular topic, please hold it until the end
and then we'll have ample time until I have to clear this
facility.... Yes. One response to your question, Mr. Druse
before the next speaker.
Speaker Kovalick: I think you asked that similar question
last night and I didn't get around to responding. The
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66
economic impact. For all the regulations we're writing we
have to prepare an environmental impact assessment to show
what kinds of improvements that's going to be resulting. And,
also do an economic impact analysis. So, almost... on the
order of about twenty percent of our contract and grant funds,
such as they are, that we have available are being spent on
that very subject, and one bit of data that may be some com-
fort to you in not so much for the local sector, but we
have studied industry categories about thirteen of them that
we think might be a particular hazardous wastes generators
and we published these reports. And our tentative conclusion
is that the cost of complying properly with the kinds of regu-
lations that we'll be coming out with we're talking about
less than a half of one percent of sales would be involved
in terms of economic impact on that firm. Now, admittedly
that's very rough data on a national basis, but it does indi-
cate that we're not talking about massive infusions of... a
massive infusion of money to get at the problem.
Moderator: Jack, go right ahead.
Question: I'm Jack McMillan with the Solid Waste Program in
Mississippi. There's one point that I want to go back to,
briefly, in regards to interfacing with NPDES permits. I
have about sixty-two of our plants that have been submitted
for assistance... I believe forty-two facilities have been
designed that have such holes in the rooms that are tied in
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67
with the system inverter and they do not have any discharge.
Ah- this becomes a disposal facility and get full considerat-
ion under the present system air and water program of site-
selection of these facilities? And, I think this is an issue
that we should address at an early stage and make a decision
on whether or not the other agencies, other programs....
Moderator: You want to address that, Truilt?
Speaker DeGeare: There is one option for dealing with those
types of facilities, it is to just let the entity responsible
for the NPDES permits expand their analysis and address that
in the permitting of the facility.
Moderator: If you would like to stand up and stretch, we're
not going to have a break. But, if you want to stand up and
stretch and turn around, we will permit that, and then we're
going to go right ahead because we don't have all day to use
this room. (Pause) If I could have your attention, Mr. John
Shanbo, I have a message here for you. (Pause) If anyone
knows this gentleman and he's not in the room, would you please
tell him when he comes back, we have a message for him. It
says it's very important. Okay, we'd like to get started back
again, please. The next item on the agenda is resource conser-
vation and recovery and overall technical assistance. We have
with us to give you a brief discussion of that, Mr. Tom Canfield.
Tom is with our Resource Recovery Division in the Office in
Washington.
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68
Speaker Thomas Canfield: We're here today to talk about the
RCRA, and we really haven't talked about resource conservation
and recovery. Clearly Congress recognized three major objectives
in this Act, public health and environmental protection, but
also recognized for the first time in an Act administered in
the Office of Solid Waste, an explicit objective for materials
and energy conservation. A couple of points I want to make
before I go to the slides. Resource recovery in the United
States is increasing. Economic scarcity of materials, coupled
with hard-to-find land is resulting in cities turning to serious
looks at resource recovery. RCRA will help speed this process.
The major way it does it is to shut-off the cheap option of
inappropriate disposal. Resource recovery and resource conser-
vation can reduce the wastes to be disposed of in land disposal
sites. I think we all clearly recognize there will always be
a need for land disposal. On a national basis, our estimates
are that the waste to be disposed of in land disposal sites will
increase over the next decade, even assuming highly optimistic
rates of increase in resource recovery. But, on a local basis,
resource recovery can significantly reduce the pressure for new
land disposal sites and result in environmental improvement.
We find that resource recovery is not solely limited by economic
factors. The technology in resource recovery is developing and
fairly new. When the technology seems to be better established
for the resource recovery systems, such as floor separation at
the local-level, seems to be well in hand, those technologies
and those systems are not well understood. Resource recovery
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69
technology and the resource recovery system usually require
new kinds of arrangements between cities, companies operat-
ing system, and companies buying material or energy from those
system; new financing arrangements; new marketing arrangements,
and it's just not been the normal way cities have conducted
business. Our efforts in resource recovery focuses on three
area. The first, aid, we focus our aid to try to resolve a
non-economic problem to resource recovery. Secondly, we are
involved in systems evaluations to better understand the
technology, such as refuge to derive fuel; water wall incin-
erations and to better understand resource recovery systems
and explain them to people, such as source separation of
materials at the local-level. Third, we conduct studies on
the ways to reduce waste. Our studies have, to-date, emphasized
re-use of products. An example of this is that we have written
guidelines for beverage containers which require deposits on
beer and bottles... cans sold at federal facilities. So,
with that I would like to go into the slides to give you a
feel for what this Act does in terms of resource recovery and
resource conservation. The first major point I want to make
is that there is not a neat, clear, distinct sub-title in this
Act for resource recovery and resource conservation. The
resource recovery and resource conservation aspects of this
Act are spread throughout a number of sections. Some of them
are listed here. I'll go into further detail on resource
recovery and conservation panels, development of state and
local programs, later. One thing that I do want to point out
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70
that I don't go over later is the bottom line of this chart
which describes... mentions demonstrations. The Act in
Sections 8004, 8005 and 8006 gives added emphasis to evaluations
of technology and systems. I think you may know that our pre-
vious laws allowed EPA demonstrations with public agencies
with resource recovery systems. This Law expands that to allow
demonstrations with public and private agencies for resource
recovery. Section 2003 is a major section in this Act on
resource recovery and resource conservation, focusing on a...
the point of this slide... major point of this slide is to say
that the aid that we will provide, even though the title of it
is Resource Recovery and Resource Conservation Panels, the
aid that we will provide will be broader than that. We'll
cover all aspects of solid waste management. Again, in resource
recovery and resource conservation, this section really emphasizes
that kinds of things we have been doing. The panels that are
called for in this section will comprise of teams of people.
It calls for federal, state and local people, local public
officials, as well as consultants to make-up the team of the
group of people that will provide aid to state and local agencies
ce.^
upon request. The item there called p»re-matching really means
that we should be trying to match county officials who have
solved the problem with county officials who are facing similar
problems. Or, mayors who have solved a similar problem with
mayors who are facing a similar problem. This section of this
Law requires that twenty percent of the appropriations under
the Act, under the general- the general appropriations under
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the Act should be devoted to this kind of aid. The Act in
Sub-Title D also provides- allows EPA to give financial aid
to spates and local agencies to plan and implement programs.
It names some specific things for implementation in the Act;
resource recovery; resource conservation services; hazardous
wastes management services and also points out that it's broader
than that, it can include all the solid waste management. Fifteen
million dollars is authorized for this section, each of two
years. And, the implementation- the funds that we can provide
for implementation covers all of the activities leading up to
construction, but do not include construction of the facility.
Section 6002 addresses federal procurement. And, the key
points of this section are that within two years EPA must
issue a guideline on how to implement this section. But,
"^-
within two years in the federal government, agencies that
procure products or materials will have to use the highest
percent of re-cycable material as possible. Those agencies-..
those federal agencies that use fossil fuels will now have
£ <*
to use refu.g« as a supplementary or primary fuel to the
maximum extent possible. And then there's- to the ^federal
government will have to certify in their products the amounts
of re-cycled material in those products. This is applicable
to procurements over ten-thousand dollars. In Section 8002
Congress aste f or a number of studies. Actually, they ask for
eleven studies, most of which are due in two years, some of
which are due in three years. Some of the key studies I want
to point out here, or explain a little bit better. The priority
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72
study is the priority in research and resource recovery. The
small-scale, low technology study emphasizes- is to emphasize
resource recovery for small communities. The study on front-
end separation is meant to be a study of source-separation of
materials by the householder for separate collection and re-
sale materials to be re-cycled; and, the compatibility of
that system with large-scale, centralized, resource recovery
systems. We've already done a number of studies on this that
indicate that source-separation is totally compatible with
large-scale, centralized plants. The Congress wants a more
detailed examination of this issue. One of the major studies
in this section which is not listed on this slide is a study
to be conducted by a resource conservation committee. This
is the highest priority study in our mind of this study section.
It has a separate, two-million dollar authorization. It is a
two—year study headed by EPA^with six other heads of agencies
and it's going to focus on those kinds- those concepts for
incentives or new taxes or regulations to increase resource
conservations and to increase re-use of secondary materials.
We'll probably focus on those concepts which have been most
widely debated over the past several years. Such as further
examining existing policies that encourage virgin materials
use at the expense of use of secondary materials, such as
depletion allowances for certain materials and capital gains
treatments for certain virgin materials. We'll examine new
kinds of incentives, taxes or bounties, such as money for
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73
each ton of new material that is re-cycled; money for each
new dollar of investment for re-cycling equipment; and,
specifically mentioned in the Act, a tax or a product charge
to reflect solid waste management cost in products that are
sold. The Act also requires us to examine product regulations
to increase resource conservation and resource recovery.
Those are the major portions of this Act that address resource
conservation and resource recovery. I'd be glad to answer any
questions that you may have.
Question: Goodmorning, Shell Luddon, Solid Wastes Task Force,
DeKalb County....
Speaker Canfield: Well.... Can I just wait 'til I
switch this... the lights on....
Moderator: Now... hold it. We've got a dimmer over here. You
all have got to get coordinated. One of you're doing one thing
and the other is doing- counteracting it. There you go I
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you very much, although I'm
not that great to look at. (Laughter) We just went through
an exercise in refuse-derived fuel in which Georgia Power... I
don't know whether they're represented here this morning or
not. Is anybody here from Georgia Power? (Answered affirmative
by unidentified speaker(s) ). Okay. These gentlemen are...
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74
fortunately their company decided that refuge derived fuel
was detrimental to their boilers, and therefore, they were
not interested in using refuge derived fuel from DeKalb
County to burn in their boilers. Now, do I understand you
to say that you are going to force private industry to burn
refuje derived fuel at the detri... and incur degradation of
their facilities?
Speaker Canfield: No. The Act... that jection on federal
procurement says that the federal government will use refu
derived fuel or other recovery materials as a supplementary
or primary fuel if they are already using fossil fuel. It
only applies to the federal government to the maximum extent
possible.
Question: (Same Speaker) That's federally-owned boilers?
Speaker Canfield: Federally-owned boilers, it would not be
a private power company. I should add that other... other
public utilities or private utilities do not feel that refugfe
derived fuel is necessarily a detriment to their boilers.
Union Electric in St. Louis is a prime example.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you, sir.
Moderator: Before the next speaker, I'd say again that Mr. John
Shanbo has a message here if he's in the audience. It says it's
important- very important. Go ahead.
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75
Question: My name is Chuck Wiggl-y, SeairPy County, Florida.
Ah- I too have the same problem with private power companies.
We are experiencing the same difficulty with Gulf Power in
Pensacola. They say this resource recovery, as far as using
solid waste, would be detrimental to their boilers. Now,
I've also talked to some people who are having the same pro-
blem, it seems, in this part of the Country.
Speaker Canfield: What do you feel that we should be doing
to resolve that problem?
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, I'm not real sure it's a...
so much of a technical problem, one of the big things that
Gulf Power has brought up would be not only detrimental to their
boilers, but would also degrade their air quality, and this
would have an impact on permit under the Air Quality Act. There
may be more information generated by EPA to the industries indi-
cating that it might not be such a detriment to their operation,
or some sort of discussion panel set-up with industry, both
government and federal officials to go over these problems?
Speaker Canfield: Good thinking.
Question: Tom Tiesler, the State of Tennessee, again. You
just said that it would be a requirement that federal facili-
ties, you used refuse-derived fuel, in their boilers. From
the national point, that's practical? Would this apply to TVA.
Tennessee Valley Authority?
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Speaker Canfield: Yes. (Pause) We already have guidelines
for federal facilities on the use of refuge derived fuel or
solid wastes as an energy source that is already applicable to
federal facilities. The requirement in this Law is really
'£•
^-
not a new...is not a new addition. It really just reinforces
the existing guidelines we do have that are applicable to
fjsderal facilities.
Question: Paul Wagner, MayesjSudderth and Etheredge. Pertaining
to Section 4008 and the portion of that section which deals with
assistance to communities for resource recovery studies. I
wonder, first of all, what's the status, if ah- you might be
able to give us to-date might be in initiating that grant program
and can you give us any information on how you see it being
administered. That is, for example, would it be a partial
grant, total grant, what would be the qualifications and the
priorities for obtaining those funds, who would administer it
and at what level and basically what you see as the application
procedure being?
Speaker Canfield: I can only reflect on what we've done in a
similar nature in the past. If you have any kind of ideas as
to how it should be administered and the kind of criteria, we'd
like to hear from you. We have, in the past several years,
issued, at the federal level through the Congress Business Daily
a set of criteria and solicited grants on a cost-shared basis
with local communities for resource recovery. We call them
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77
implementation grants. That- the funds were limited each year.
The number of grants to be funded is relatively few. We don't
have funding. Authorization for this section is fifteen
million dollars, we don't have appropriations for this section,
yet. I think much of your answer... much of the answer on how
it will be administered, who will administer it and what the
criteria will be when the flow of money will start is going
to be tied to the magnitude of the appropriations for that
section. But, I think if you want to get a general feel for
it you could refer back to the kinds of criteria that we've
published for those grants in the past which are available.
Moderator: We have time for about one more speaker and we
have a gentleman here, ready.
Question: My name is John Lynch, and I'm Vice-President of
Garden State Paper Company. And, incidentally, I made similar
remarks last night. So, for those of you who were here, my
associate is quite skilled as a member of a one-man-band.
He'll be performing up at the top of the escalator, if you'd
like to step out for a couple of minutes. Garden State Paper
Company is the world's largest recycler of used news into fresh
newsprint. My purpose in speaking here today on conservation
and recovery is to underline the value of paper as an import-
ant resource. I want to preface this statement by saying that
Garden State Paper, a subsidiary of Media General of Richmond,
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78
Virginia, has recycling mills in Garfield, New Jersey, Pomona,
California and a joint-venture mill with Field Enterprises in
Alsip, Illinois. These three mills consumed more than a half-
million tons of used newspaper in 1976. We recently completed
construction of a joint venture mill with the Mexican govern-
ment. The mill, located two-hundred and fifty miles north of
Mexico City, has an initial capacity of sixty-one thousand
metric tons which is expected to be doubled in the near future.
Much of the paperstock raw material for this mill comes from
the southwestern United States. We have selected this public
meeting of the EPA to make our statement because we are consider-
ing construction of a paper recycle mill in the State of Georgia.
Our company has given continuous support to recovery and re-
cycling of all resources in the solid waste stream, but today
I would like to focus specifically on paper. In the months
ahead, the municipalities, the counties, and the states that
comprise Region IV will be facing decisions on how to manage
the paper in the solid waste stream. An option they will be
faced with is burning refuse for energy. An argument has been
made that burning paper fraction of the waste stream for energy
constitutes an efficient and beneficial utilization of that
portion of the waste stream. We would like to emphasize that
where a viable market exists for used paper, burning is not
the best use of that waste in terms of energy or in terms of
most productive utilization. When paper is recycled there is
an offsetting energy consideration. According to an article
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79
in the Harvard Business Review that quotes the National Associat-
ion of Recycling Industries, "the use of recycled fibres rather
than virgin pulp in paper manufacturing results in energy savings
ranging from sixty to seventy percent." In effect, burning old
newspapers for energy is a gross waste of energy. To say it in
a slightly different way, it takes the BTU value of two-tons of
paper to make one-ton of virgin paper. Pre-sorting can make
available considerable quantities of used newspapers and corru-
gated boxes for recycling, there will still remain in the solid
waste stream a high percentage of paper that is contaminated
and not commercially recoverable. The paper and boxes that
have been separated at the household, office and business
levels and not get into the waste stream will be available to
the paper industries in the area. According to your own estimated
figures, the elimination of this portion from the waste would
affect the BTU value of the garbage by five percent or less. And,
I don't really think the tolerance of these systems even accounts
that. In addition, these recovered fibres can be used several
times in the recycling process. And they will still be available
for burning in the end as they eventually find their way into
the contaminated, unrecoverable portion of solid waste. Therefore,
we urge that in considering how to handle used news and corrugated
that the following steps be taken to develop guidelines for the
most efficient use of this portion of the waste stream: First,
that on municipal, county or state levels surveys be made to
determine what markets exist or could exist for used newspaper
and corrugated as well as other recyclables. Second, that
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80
industries wishing to purchase these recyclable materials be
given priority to do so. And thirdly, that in order to assure
the continuous and expected flow described above, that these
industries be asked to guarantee that they will purchase the
recyclable materials specified for a reasonable number of years,
at prices which will be to the advantage of cities or other
sources to provide them for recycling. Finally, municipalities
should reserve the right to exclude from contracts for the op
operation of Refuse Derived Fuel Systems (RDF) recyclable
materials, such as newspapers and corrugated, recoverable
through household and commercial source separation programs.
We urge that proposed guidelines for identifying regions and
for State solid waste management planning emphasize that
materials recycling is a national objective which must be
reflected to the maximum practical extent in State and local
government plans. To accomplish national objectives for mater-
ials recovery for recycling into useful products demands that
government at all levels must join with industry in a common
effort to remove existing impediments to the achievement of
these objectives. And we at Garden State certainly stand
ready to help in anyway we can.
Moderator: Thank you very much. If we have additional comments
on resource conservation and recovery and the federal assistance,
^
please hold them until the end of the next presentation when
the floor will be open to comments on any topic. The next item
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81
on the agenda is state program development, and again, we
Q ^
have Mr. Tru/tt DeGeare. Tru/tt. (Pause)
t?
Speaker Truarlt DeGeare: The RCRA recognizes that the major
role in solid waste management lies with state and local
governments. This is especially evident in Sub-Title D. The
states may play a key role in eliminating open-dumps and also
the regulating of the hazardous waste program. The governor
in consultation with local-elected officials can structure a
mechanism for preparing and implementing solid waste management
plans that's built... that is build one existing at the state
and local level. At the ^federal level, the Administrator
shall publish guidelines for identification of regions, state
plans and state hazardous waste programs. Section 4002A of
the Act gives the Administrator six months to publish guide-
lines for the identification of those areas which have common
solid waste problems and who are appropriate municipal planning
regional solid waste service. This activity is a kick-off of
a three-step process that is suppose to entail eighteen months
according to the calendar set forth in the Act. Within six
months after the publication of guidelines, the governor in
each s^tate after consultation with local elected-officials
shall promulgate regulations identifying the boundaries of
each area within the state, which, as a result of urban con-
centration, geographic conditions, markets and other factors
is appropriate for carrying out regional solid waste manage-
ment. The state then has another six months to jointly with ap-
"&-
propriate elected-officials of general purpose units of local
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82
government, identify an agency to develop the jjtate plan and
identify one or more agencies to implement the plan and identi-
fy which solid waste functions will, under the plan, be planned
for an carried out by state, by regional or local authorities
or by an agent of regional, local and state authorities.
Where feasible,agencies designated under Section 208 of the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act shall be considered for
designation. In summary, the three-steps are during this
eighteen months, EPA will first, publish guidelines on the
identification of planning areas. Second, governors and local
officials will identify planning areas. Thirdly, the planning roles
of the various entities involved. Sec. 4002B requires the Administ-
rator, after consultation with appropriate federal, state and local
^ »
authorities to promulgate regulations containing guidelines
to assist in the development and the implementation of state
solid waste plans. This is due April of 1978. The Act dis-
cusses the minimum requirements for approval of stated plans.
And, these requirements includes the identification of the
responsibilities in implementing the state plan, the distri-
bution of federal funds to the authorities responsible for the
development and implementation of the plans, and the means
for coordinating regional planning and implementation under
the plan; prohibition of the establishment of new open-dumps
within the jstate; and, the requirement that all solid wastes,
including solid waste originating in other states but not
including hazardous wastes, shall be utilized for resource
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83
recovery or disposal of in sanitary land-fills; provisions for
the closing or up-grading of all existing open-dumps within
the state, and this is related to the requirements of Section
4005; provisions for the establishment of such state regulatory
powers as may be necessary to implement the plan; provisions
that no local government within the g_tate shall be prohibited
under stand or local law from entering into long-term contract
for the supply of solid wastes to resource recovery facilities?
-JJK for provisions for such resource conservation or recovery
and for the disposal of solid wastes in sanitary land-fill or
any combination of practices that may be necessary for use or
disposal of solid wastes in a manner that is environmentally
sound. RCRA authorizes assistance to state and local govern-
ments in a number of places. Section 4008A(1) was discussed
a little bit by Tom Canfield, it authorizes thirty million
dollars for 1978; forty million dollars for 1979. These funds
will be for grants to jstates to be distributed to state, local,
regional and interstate authorities carrying out planning and
implementation of state plans as discussed earlier. This dis-
tribution of funds will be laid out earlier through the plann-
ing exercise conducted by the states in conjunction with the
local officials. The money is to be distributed among the
states on a population basis, except that each state receives
at least one-half of one-percent of the total funds available.
Section 4008A(2) authorizes fifteen million dollars for each
fiscal year, 1978 and 1979 for states, counties, municipalities
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84
and municipal agencies, and state and local public solid
waste management authorities for implementation of the
program to provide solid waste management, resource recovery
and resource conservation services and hazardous waste manage-
ment. This assistance shall include assistance for facility
planning and feasibility studies, expert consultation, survey
and analysis and market needs, marketing of recovered resources,
technology assessment, legal expense, construction feasibility
study, source-separation projects, and physical or economic
investigations or studies. But, this assistance will not
include any other element of construction or any acquisition
of land or interest in land, or any subsidies for the price
of recovered resource. Agencies assisted under this sub-
section shall consider existing solid waste management and
hazardous waste management services and facilities, as well
as facilities proposed for construction. The Law also pro-
vides for assistance to what are described as special communities.
Two and a half million dollars is authorized for each of the next
two fiscal years. One such community would be allowed per state
and one project would be allowed per state; the project as such
should be included in the state plans. Section 4009 recognizes
the special needs of rural communities, especially with regard
to meeting the Section 4005 dump closing requirements and this
discussion in the Act leads me to... my interpretation is that
there is no exemption called for as regards to rural or small
communities as related to the dump closing requirement. These
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85
are- this Section authorizes twenty-five million dollars for
each fiscal year, '78 and '79 for grants to the ^tates. In
the case of these grants, the implementation is allowed to
include construction, but not land acquisition. There are
various criteria which are pretty stringent for allocation
of these funds and there is an allotment for them. I want
to emphasize that the planning levels that I've talked about
are all simply authorizations contained within the Act. And
they're based on past history, they do not necessarily relate
in any form to actual funds which say eventually may become
available. So, a key word of advise which I think is appro-
priate if you have on-going efforts and implementations, don't
stop in anticipation of federal funds becoming available in
the near future. I'd like to hear any views you might have
on this part of the Act.
Moderator: Any comments on the state program_developjnent?
Question: A. S. Chiply, State of Alabama. I never know what
I'm going to talk about when I get up here. The business of
state assumption. The federal Act is divided into two major
portions, I think. You've got the hazardous waste section which
is mandated either by the state on the state, or the federal
" •£. "^
government. And, you've got the normal solid waste management
which is left up to partly to the grace of the j^tate to imple-
ment. But these are not separate twins, they are Siamese.
There is a bridge between them in the mandate to close open-
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86
dumps. Whether or not these dumps contains hazardous materials,
whether or not they are lagoons or what-not. This is a bucket
of worms and one we've got to live with. I don't know whether
or not we would accept the program as far as hazardous wastes
are concerned. I don't think anybody else does, because we
have to define what this bullit is that we have to bite. We
don't know how big it is or what it's made out of. And, we
don't know whether they're going to bite it or not. Grants
are fine. But the question has been raised about the hardship
that the dump closures and all the rest of this makes on small
rural communities. It is a hardship. I don't altogether
agree with Mr. Druse that it's impossible for these small
communities to do this, because I think we've done a pretty
good job of it, and it can be done in the since of a mandate.
The public health of people in small communities is just as
important as the public health of people in large communities.
If these mis-managements of solid waste is a question of public
health, then it should concern all of them. And, if it is
mandated more-or-less that all wastes should be handled in such
and such a manner, then it is an incentive to the smaller
communities to band together to get some economic escape, which
can be done. As far as the grants are concerned, this provision
in the Act that ah- implementation and construction grants are
available to small communities is somewhat of a farce. It's
not available. There's not enough federal money to do this
job for everybody, so there is little dribbles of money avail-
able. I think there's a portion in this Act on this special
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87
communities bit which is to be determined by the Administrator
of the Act in cooperation with the states to determine what is
a special community. That such grant funds as are- is available
is only available to one such community in each state. This
is not an incentive, it's a drag, because it means competition
and moneys spent in competition to see which of these small
communities are going to receive this grant. And normally, the
one that receives it will be the one that is most expertise in
grantsmanship which almost parenthetically means the community
that can best afford to do it on it's own, anyway. The poor
community that cannot afford the expertise is the ones most
in need of the money. So, I'll leave this, we've got a bucket
of worms .
Moderator: Thank you very much for those remarks, Mr. Chipfy'.
The floor is open for comments, questions or remarks on any
subject of the Law.
Question: My name is John Connors-, I 'm from the small city
of Athens, Alabama, about sixteen-thousand people. We operate
a joint county and city land-fill which is successful. We
bury- everything except the hazardous waste and liquids. They
are referred to the County Health Department and if they are
permitted to bury in the land-fill, then we bury them on permit
of the County Health Department. What happens to them if they
are not okayed by the ah- County Health Department, I don't
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88
know. Now, we are concerned with the collection of resource
recovery materials. We would like to collect as many of these
items as we can properly collect so that it would extend the
life of our land-fills. We're concerned about this because they
are rapidly filling up with the amounts of garbage and trash
that we have. Now, one of the items that concerns us is the
throw-away items, such as bottles and cans. I understand that
the federal government has instituted a program at some of
their installations where they charge a fee, no matter whether
the can is returnable or not. Is this true?
Moderator: Tom, would you like to address that for us, please?
Speaker Canfield: Our guidelines, ah- require that a federal
agency that S*res beer or soft drinks that those cans... cans
or bottles must carry a deposit and those cans or bottles
can be returned, can be recycled °r re-used and re-filled, again.
Question: (Same Speaker) How successful has this been? Can
you tell me?
eJ-e-
Speaker Canfield: The guidelines were finalized in la-st
September. The date that the agencies have to decide how
they're going to implement them is December 1977. We've begun
&lls
a test, the Department of Defense, we think, satFS ninety or
ninety- five percent of all beverages within the United States
and they are starting a test of ten facilities. All of those
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89
tests are to start in June. The only federal agency that I
can think of right now that has implemented it on their own
has been Yosemite National Parkjwhich implemented it last
summer, voluntarily, and without the requirement of the guide-
line, plans on carrying it out forever. They achieved a
seventy-percent return rate on all their containers. It
increased their gross profits, increased the amount of material
that they recycled.and they felt it was a success and they do
plan to continue it.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you, sir. (Pause)
Question: Durham Shelton, Kentucky. I have a question here
regarding what flexibility or options do you see relative to
the mechanics- mechanisms which may be available to governors.
And, the definition of planning areas. I'm considering that
some states have special districts and special planning areas
already set-up under law and the law is rather specific
relative to involving local officials. And, I'm wondering
what- how broad that definition is going to be and what might
be possible?
<3-
Moderator: Ah- I think that Tru/tt can speak to that. I
might ask you to first of all give us how you think it ought
to be.
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90
Question: (Same Speaker) Well, I don't think I'm in a position
at the moment to say specifically how I think it ought to be.
I know what the objective is that you have in mind and I'm
wondering whether or not what happens should be based upon
the ability to meet the objective upon the specific mechanisms
involved as stipulated.
Moderator: Will you speak to that, Tru^tt?
Speaker DeGeare: I'll only speak to it in a general manner,
because I'm not coming to you with any preconceived notions.
The prime concern is to see that the objectives are met. That
is that workable planning areas are identified for the develop^
ment and implementation of the state plan. And ah- I would
think that there should be considerable latitude to accommodate
the various, previous, collective agencies that have been
established within the state if those are indeed acceptable
in terms of a workable plan.
Moderator: I've discuss this, Mr. Shelton, with people from
several different j^tates. As you know, we have eight vtates
in Region IV, and I've probably heard a preference given for
the complete spectrum of how to do that. Some prefer that it
not get any larger than at the county-level, and others prefer
that it be a much broader scope than that. Some prefer that
the discretion be left to the governor and the affected bodies
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91
and the public at-large to determine how they want to do it
in their particular area. Personally, I would hope that our
guidelines are broad enough to- the agencies, the governor
and the local people can pretty much decide exactly how they
want to put it together in their area and who they want to
implement the plan once it's done.
Question: (Same Speaker) Thank you.
T- irff" ^
Question: Peter Dawson with Henn«r-a«tt Durham and Richardson.
I have an amazing article that sort of summarizes the Law, may
even take it a little bit out of context. I'd like to read
one phrase of it, I'm not even sure what they mean. It says:
Guidelines will be published for developing performance stand-
ards for solid waste management practices, including deciding
the location, design and construction of facilities, and guide-
lines for spates in planning open-dumping. Now, the open-
dumping, I think, has been covered pretty well, but could you
tell me what's referred to as far as performance standards
concerning location and design of solid waste facilities?
Moderator: I think he's referring to 1008, and if you want
to speak to that?
Speaker DeGeare: That is the general guideline section. Con-
gress said for us to develop guidelines, and these are not
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92
mandatory regulations, they are simply guidelines, in our
opinion, describing various alternatives and how well they
perform... and how well they perform. This is not just in
terms of hardware, it's also site selection with regards to
disposal sites, especially.
Question: (Same Speaker) Okay...
Moderator: May I offer to you that I don't know if you've
travelled in other parts of the Country, but perhaps other
parts of the Country the stated programs may not be as well
developed as they are in the southeast and perhaps they could
use some guidelines in developing j^tate programs and develop-
ing local programs in solid waste. I think this is one area
where these guidelines could be useful and helpful and will
be. In addition to that, they may in fact be helpful to
amplify or support the standards and criteria that are already
under effect in state laws as the state programs attempt to
explain the reasons for approving a site and a particular
location or not approving at site.
Question: (Same Speaker) Okay, that helped me. My concern
was, it seemed like a duplication of effort, if I was inter-
preting this article correctly. But, I understand what they
were driving at now, with your comment. I had two comments I
wanted to make concerning revisions to... I'm getting a little
ahead of the game since you haven't written the criteria yet,
-------
you obviously don't want to talk about revisions, yet. But,
based on other programs, I'm sure there's going to be some
revisions coming along which will be necessary when different
problems come up. But, one thing I'd like to suggest or
ask is that there's been a problem with P.L. 92-500 in that
the regulations- the ah- special conditions for grants are
set-up so that if revisions are and what time they've made
and whatever revisions that are required will be- will need to
be met as far as an on-going program. As a specific example,
like the 201, like if a revision is made anywhere along the
time-frame which you're under-going, the 201 process... the
201 has to be brought up-to-date with those revisions. Which,
legally, it may be required, but it wrecks havort with plann-
ing processes, say if you're ninety percent complete with a
program and a revision comes along and change it, then you've
got to drop back maybe three or four months of work and start
over again. Some time-frame for these revisions could be
implemented as far as this Act saying that this revision will
become active in four months or six months or twelve months.
I think it will make the whole planning process much more
beneficial in the long run. There may be some legal ramifi-
cations of that that I'm not aware of. The other comment that
I'd like to make is that in one of your slides you had a
phrase in there about reducing public risks in implementing
resource recovery facilities which is an important point. The
comment that I would like to make is that the implementing the
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94
program needs to be made aware of this as they reduce their
risks they usually reduce the amount of potential revenue they
could get. And, I'm not sure some really realize that until
after it's too late, until after negotiations are already final-
ized, and it's legally binding that they've got to go through
with the reduced risks. And then they realize then at that
point that they're not going to get near as much of the revenues.
And if they do have a trade-off there then they need to be
aware of it before they go through with it.
Moderator: That's a good point about the revisions. I
appreciate the havoc that perhaps has been caused in changed
requirements with the water program 201 planning program,
I'm familiar with that and I hope these gentlemen will indeed
take that fact with them to Washington as they prepare our
regulations and perhaps even in the future, decide they might
need some revisions. Yes, go right ahead.
Speaker DeGeare: I'd like to follow-up a little bit more on
the guidelines question you raised. That's the area that I
especially wanted to solicit any viewpoints you might have on
which practices should be addressed in the priority sequence.
Question: My name is Walter Trish, Coast Regional Planning
Council. I have a concern, being a planner, and in a regional
planning council. Again you see the federal government going
«,/Y ^
into what I would call a pragnwftation. It began to take a more
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95
of a block approach, instead of categorical during the sixties,
and I'm beginning to see, like with the health planning agencies,
kind of going off and doing their own planning and doing it by
themselves. And again, I'm beginning to see... it looks like
some of EPA's programs may be doing the same thing. I have a
concern for the... like I said, coordination. I look at EPA
and say who is the land use agency on the federal level, and
you begin the question and you say maybe EPA is because of the
programs. When you talk about air, when you talk about water
quality, you talk about solid waste management, you're really
getting into crucial areas in terms of land use development
and it's impact. And, I have my own bias in terms of the
regional planning council, which should be a coordinating
element within the total staffing because we try to deal with
a number of issues. I mean, we get to transportation, we get
to resource recovery how do we get it to and from and collected.
So, we're dealing with a... I think a gentleman mentioned, I
think a can of worms, and also a can of worms from my perspective
plain. There is many aspects that can be taken into concern.
I think maybe in 895, I noticed in one of the handouts the 895
is the type of thing that should be used so that everyone
can make their input.
Moderator: Good point, thank you very much. Next speaker, go
right ahead.
Question: Tiesler of Tennessee, again. I'd like to ask a
question about the grants to the states to carry-out the program.
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96
One is a funding period mentioned in the Act and is a matching
ratio of monies in the Act? In other words, fifty-fifty
grants; seventy-five - twenty-five; and, the period of time
that these grants will be continued. Is this specified or is
there any guidelines along that line, or is that going to be
left up to EPA?
Moderator: Somebody want to catch that one?
Speaker DeGeare: There is no funding ratio... no matching ratio.
And the authorization is provided for two fiscal years....
Question: (Same Speaker) Okay, I....
Speaker DeGeare: That's not to say that they won't ever become
available or that it won't become available, and that's not to
say that there's no potential for anything beyond those two
fiscal years. All we know is what the Law says and it states
authorizations for two fiscal years.
Question: (Same Speaker) What we're use to getting is grants
one year at a time and not knowing the next year whether we're
going to have federal money the next year to carry on the pro-
gram, and is this going to continue with this new Act? The
problem that we face is trying to hire personnel which is a
problem getting positions set-up and then having to tell these
people that we can only guarantee you a job for one year. It's
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97
hard to work with... it's hard to hire people on that basis,
and there needs to be something, say, in the term of at least
two or three years so we can get scaled-up and guarantee
these people that they have a job and hire competent people
to do the work. I don't know if anything can be done or if
the Act mandate something different from that. But, if
there's anyway the guidelines can be written along that line,
it sure will be helpful to the states.
Speaker DeGeare: I think the ah- I don't see the Act preclud-
ing that. To my knowledge, it's very possible that the grant
regulations could be developed so to allow a funding program-
say a three year program.
Question: (Same Speaker) I'd like to recommend that, for
what it's worth, because it's important to the states.
Moderator: I'd like to point out to you Tom, perhaps you've
read this the same as I have, but under the definitions, it says
for the purposes of federal financial assistance, other than
the rural communities assistance, the term implementation does
not include the acquisition, leasing, construction or modifi-
cation of facilities or equipment or the acquisition, leasing
or improvement of land. And, it has an 'and' there and that
'and' is not underlined, but my opinion is it should be. It
said 'and' after December 31, 1979 such terms does not include
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98
salaries of employees due pursuant to Sub-Title D of this Act.
Now, I'd be most happy to hear what the people from the
Washington staff has to say about that, but it says to me that
Congress intends for us to get our planning done prior to that
date and after that date, they want it carried out. (Pause)
That is, with federal money.
Speaker DeGeare: Also, the provision for federal assistance in
Section 4008 says that funds can be used for the development and
implementation. They jumb from talking about the restrictions
on implementation. So, if you're in a planning development pro-
cess or if you're using people for planning development as
opposed to implementation, I don't think there's any exclusion
with regards to salaries on that. But, there is limitation.
Speaker Kovalick: Jim, I just wanted to make a comment that
we have to take this Law in the context of other factors going
on in Congress. And, I think, given the sunset, if you will,
provisions of better interest these days that is programs de-
serve to have a regular re-evaluation whether they are environ-
mental, social or military or whatever, I think, it is less
and less likely to expect Congress to have long dates between
initial passage and the next time they review legislation. And
the way they ensure that they get around to it is that they
turn-off the water in terms of their look at the legislation
every year or two years. So, I think it would be remiss of
us to think that. First of all, we're not being singled out
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99
in the solid waste field of this Act for individual attention,
but this is an overall trend. And yet, on the other hand, I
think you realize that it's not likely that we in EPA and you
in the states and local governments would want to start a
relationship to vigorously implement a Law and then not be able
to in some way, keep it up, partially. So, we get a lot of
questions about the fact that this has '78 and '79 and no more
in it, and I think you can only be comforted a. little in that
we are not being singled out in environmental programs, 'This
is the way things are going. They deserve to be looked at
every couple of years and the new legis^ure that you'll see
in other areas will probably have the same kind of condition.
Moderator: Any further comments? I don't know if you can
hear my stomach grawling over this microphone, but it's about
that time for me. So, if there's no further comments, I'll
close this public meeting. Remind you that the record will
be open until our office closes on March llth, that's on a
Friday. If you have additional comment, or know of someone
that was unable to be here that you think they would like to
have something to say about this Act or any portion of it,
either send yours in or ask them to send theirs in. I thank
you all for coming here. We appreciate your help and we hope
to have more of this sort of thing in the future as we pro-
ceed down the road to developing our regulations, guidelines,
criteria and so forth. Thank you very much.
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100
Statement by Richard G. Simmons, Chairman, State of Florida
Resource Recovery Council before the EPA Region IV Public
Meeting on P. L. 94-580, February 23-24, 1977, Atlanta,
Georgia. My name is Richard G. Simmons. I am City Manager
of West Palm Beach, Florida; but I am speaking today on
behalf of the State of Florida Resource Recovery Council.
In 1974 I was appointed by Governor Reubin Askew to serve
as Chairman of the Council. On behalf of the State of Florida
and its localities, I want to express my appreciation to the
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and to its Office of
Solid Waste for this opportunity to present our views on the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. The Florida
Resource Recovery COuncil supported P. L. 94-580. Our favor-
able analysis of the Bill was given to Governor Askew and to
all members of the Florida Congressional delegation. We were
pleased to see the Bill received their unanimous support. But
my personal interest in this legislation goes back to 1972
when I was asked by the National League of Cities and U. S.
Conference of Mayors to serve on the National Municipal Solid
Waste Task Force. That Task Force looked at the needs of
cities in solid waste management and made several legislative
proposal to EPA and to the Congress. Through the National
League of Cities Task Force and as a member of the Solid Waste
Advisory Committee for the National Commission on Productivity,
I also learned more about EPA's mission and the difficult job
they have. I gained respect for EPA staff and what they can
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101
accomplish when given a chance. I have been pleased, therefore,
to see new federal solid waste legislation that includes many
of the provisions we first proposed years ago. (Who knows, maybe
I can even convince my city commissioners that all those trips
to Washington were worth it,) consequently, I believe P. L. 94-
580 is a good piece of legislation. On behalf of the entire
Council, I applaud its goals and objectives; and my comments
are intended to improve its administration and not in any way to
find fault with its intent. My remarks today are divided into
two parts. First, I want to summarize what we've already done
under state legislation in Florida. Then secondly, I think it
will be obvious why certain potential problems in the new Federal
Act concern us. One. Florida, like several other states, did
not wait for Congressional action to establish state policy on
solid waste and resource recovery. Through the leadership of
Senator Guy Spicola of Tampa and others, the Florida Legislature
in 1974 passed the Resource Recovery and Management Act. This
Act did three things: It made adequate solid waste management
and resource recovery goals of the state. It set forth the
steps that would be taken to achieve these objectives. And it
assigned responsibility for each of the tasks necessary to
achieve the legislative goals. For example, the Law required
the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation to develop
a statewide resource recovery and management program. The
Florida Law further required the statewide program to include
guidelines for local governments to provide for proper handling
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102
and control of solid wastes from storage to collection, transfer,
disposal and recycling. The Department was given authority to
permit all solid waste handling facilities and has made a dili-
gent effort to bring all disposal sites into compliance with
state requirements. The Law also required local governments to
prepare comprehensive solid waste plans for approval by the
state environmental agency. In addition to the responsibilities
defined for the Department of Environmental Regulation and for
local governments, a separate but complimentary mission was
assigned to the Resource Recovery Council, a thirteen-member
body established to advise the Governor and the Legislature.
The Council was told to: One. Study the laws and programs of
other states; two. Consult with local governments, regional
planning councils, business, industry and environmental groups;
three. Designate the areas where resource recovery is econo-
mically practical and which should be required to plan for
resource recovery; and four. Make recommendations for and
approve the state program before its adoption. In effect, the
Council was given the charge of assessing the feasibility for
resource recovery in Florida and identifying the logical plann-
ing regions. At the same time, the COuncil was made the vehicle
for broad public participation in the program. This is evidenced
by the make-up of the Council and its appointive nature. The
nine council members appointed by Governor Askew represent cities,
counties, business and industry, agriculture, environmental groups,
professional engineering and the universities. There are also
two members each from the House and the Senate. So, what have
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103
we done? The Department of Environmental Regulation in 1976
adopted a statewide waste management and resource recovery
program. Under the Florida program, all cities and counties
are required to develop coordinated solid waste management plans.
Amendments proposed to this session of the Legislature will
make those plans countywide, if passed. The Resource Recovery
COuncil has designated nineteen county area which, on the basis
of population, waste volumes, and available markets, are required
to plan for resource recovery. Local plans are due by July 1,
1978. But the Council has proposed an amendment to change that
date to July 1, 1979, to make this requirement consistent with
the planning deadlines in the Florida Local Government Compre-
hensive Planning Act of 1975. The Florida program is comprehen-
sive. For instance, it includes hazardous wastes, although its
provisions do not go as far as 94-580. Furthermore, the State
program is designed for end results not endless planning. Every
local or regional plan must include an implementation schedule
which will be monitored by the Department of Environmental
Regulation. Two. Now let me turn to what concerns us about
the forthcoming guidelines and regulations under the new Law.
As you can see from my summary of the Florida program, the
Florida Resource Recovery and Management Act appears very
compatible with the new Federal Law. Based upon the language
of P. L. 94-580, we expect only minor revisions or additions
to our State program. 1. P. L. 94-580 authorizes preventive
medicine, not voluminous prescriptions for everything that ails
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104
us. So let your guidelines be simple guidelines, not detailed
specifications. 2. Specifically, the guidelines for identi-
fication of planning regions mandated in Section 4002A, and
due almost immediately, should not be written so narrowly and
rigidly that Florida, or any other state, would have to redo
something that has already been done. Several states now have
four or five years of solid waste planning experience, during
the past two years, Florida has accomplished the objectives of
Section 4002A and used the same guiding criteria contained
therein to do so. 3. Similarly, in the guidelines for state
plans, Section 4002B, all eleven of the guiding criteria in
sub-section C have been considered in Flroida. Likewise,
we believe the Flroida program also meets the minimum require-
ments in Section 4003 for approval of state plans, although
the judgement will be yours to make, of course. Likewise, we
believe Chapter 17-7, Part II of the Florida Administrative
Code, adopted by the Florida Environmental Regulation Commission
in 1976, accomplishes the objectives of Section 4006. You
can appreciate the time consumed by public hearings and meetings.
Members and staff of the Council have already participated in
close to seventy-five public meetings and numerous hearings.
The Department of Environmental Regulation has invested eighteen
months of intensive staff time to carry out its responsibilities
under Florida Law. You will not find us eager to repeat the
process. 4. In connection with points two and three above,
Section 4001 makes it absolutely clear that the objectives of
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105
Sub-Title D (State Solid Waste Plans) are "to assist", and I
emphasize assist. Section 4001 states further that these
"objectives are to be accomplished through federal technical
and financial assistance to states." Assistance, not regulation,
and Section 4001 concludes by stating that the federal guidelines
are to "foster cooperation among federal, state and local govern-
ments and private industry." Cooperation, not regulation. We
in Florida accept the regulatory provisions of the Act where
the Congressional intent is clearly regulatory, such as in
Sub-Title C (Hazardous Waste Management); but we oppose any
attempts to encumber the several guidelines in Sub-Title D
with regulatory intent or language when such is not authorized.
5. We have similar concerns about the various solid waste
information guidelines required in Section 1008. Clearly, these
guidelines are supposed to provide positive, helpful guidance,
not regulations. We also suggest that this information be pre-
sented in a format that is brief, readable, and practical.
6. I have no comment on Sub-Title C, since hazardous waste
management is appropriately under the jurisdiction of the
Department of Environmental Regulation. 7. We see a potential
problem in Section 4004 when later this year EPA must define
sanitary land-fills versus open dumps. We believe the intent
of this Section is to close, up-grade and ban open-dumps through
state regulation and enforcement, not federal regulation of local
sanitary land-fills. True, one man's "sanitary land-fill" has
often been someone else's "open-dump," so we endorse the need
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106
for standardization; but we also stress the vast differences
in geological and hydrological conditions from place to place
and the danger of undermining state regulatory programs already
in place. 8. The special studies for glass recovery and for
small scale technology, authorized in Section 8002, are urgently
needed and I encourage you to schedule and complete them as
soon as possible. 9. The model codes authorized in Section
8003D, are also badly needed, much more so than some of the
other items. For example, our staff ran a search (through EPA's
Solid Waste Information Retrieval System) on the title to or
ownership of solid waste, and legal precedents for its use in
local ordinances and contracts. The search did not yield any-
thing we could use. In fact, we have found research on legal
and institutional issues in resource recovery is lagging behind
the work on economic and technical evaluations. 10. EPA has
new and broarder authority for technical assistance under P. L.
94-580. We believe that any private firm retained by EPA to
render assistance to state and local governments should be
ineligible for follow on contractural work with the recipient
of the federal assistance. Appropriate state agencies and
officials should receive proper and advance notice of EPA assist-
ance activities in Section 2003 should be assembled and assigned
in a manner that will avoid both actual and potential conflicts
of interest. 11. Federal financial assistance is also author-
ized under P. L. 94-580. In good government fashion, all of the
monies authorized under the Act are tied to planning requirements.
However, it appears that for many Sntaaa and local governments,
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107
completion of the various planning requirements will come well
before the federal funds. If the earliest availability of
funds is fiscal 1978, widespread distribution of those funds
appears unlikely before 1979. As I mentioned earlier, if our
proposed amendments are passed, Florida local governments will
be required to submit their plans in 1979. In short, a concen-
trated effort must be made to obtain ample appropriations and
rapid distribution of funds or else reimbursement should be
allowed for planning expenditures already made. In conclusion,
we concur wholeheartedly with the view of Sheldon Meyers,
Director of EPA's Office of Solid Waste, that this Law does
not provide all the answers to complex issues but instead
establishes "a pattern for interaction" and an "assumption of
roles by all the key parties" involved in solid waste manage-
ment and resource recovery. You have a difficult job to do.
But your tasks are no more difficult than those placed upon
state and local governments. We must work together. You may
be assured of our interest and cooperation.
The Environmental Protection Agency Meeting Transcript on
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, Thursday,
February 24, 1977 closed Friday, March 11, 1977. Total pages
107.
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Additional statements for the record submitted from:
Mr. Moses N. McCall, III, Chief
Land Protection Branch
Department of Human Resources
Environmental Protection Division
270 Washington Street, SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Mr. Moses N. McCall, III, Chief
Land Protection Branch
Department of Human Resources
Environmental Protection Division
270 Washington Street, SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30334
Donald I. Hackney
Director of Sanitation
Department of Public Services
P.O. Box 1027
Savannah, Georgia 31402
Mr. J. C. Edwards
Tennessee Eastman Company
Kingsport, Tennessee 37662
Mr. Clark Gregory, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Morris Brown College
Atlanta, Georgia 30314
Jerry C. Perkins, Head
Solid Waste & Vector Control Branch
Sanitary Engineering Section
Department of Human Resources
P. O. Box 2091
Raleigh, North Carolina 27602
Letter dated: 3/11/77
Letter dated: 3/3/77
Letter dated: 2/22/77
Letter dated: 3/10/77
Letter dated: 3/9/77
Letter dated: 3/9/77
-------
of ^Natural
JOE D. TANNER
Commissioner
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DIVISION
270 WASHINGTON STREET S W
ATLANTA GEORGIA 30334
J LEONARD LEDBETTER
Division Director
,. , , , ,„_-
March 11, 1977
Mr. James H. Scarbrough, Chief
Residuals Management Branch
Hazardous Materials Division
Environmental Protection Agency
Region IV
345 Courtland Street, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
Dear Jim:
Although I made several comments at the recent public meetings regarding
RCRA, the following written comments are being submitted to be included as
a part of the record.
1. Federal RCRA implementation policy should establish, in consultation
with the states, national goals and broad guidelines for the achievement
of these goals. The states, however, must be permitted to develop their
solid waste management programs in concert with these guidelines while
at the same time maintaining maximum flexibility. The Federal regulatory
role should be designed to support state and local regulatory responsi-
bilities rather than to over-ride, pre-empt or duplicate them.
2. The criteria for determining what wastes are hazardous will have a direct
bearing on the states' abilities and desires to implement hazardous
waste programs. The criteria should establish a realistic decision tree
approach for determination and should not be too broad so as to list
virtually all wastes as hazardous.
3. If pits, ponds, and lagoons are to be covered under regulations developed
pursuant to the Safe Drinking Water Act, they should not be covered under
RCRA.
4. Disposal sites which have been closed should not be addressed during the
disposal site inventory.
kl MAR 1 1 ;977 | ] |
ik^aiiJlj
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT BRANCH
AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
-------
Mr. James H. Scarbrough
March 11, 1977
Page 2
5. Planning guidelines must be broad to allow maximum flexibility to the
states. In addition, the guidelines should not require the enactment
of state legislation, should not disrupt what has already occurred in
planning, and should not mandate that 208 water planning agencies also
do solid waste planning.
Please advise if you have questions.
Sincerely,
Moses N. McCall, III, Chief
Land Protection Branch
MNM:bbk
cc: Mr. James W. Dunbar
Mr. John D. Taylor, Jr.
-------
bparlmoti of ^atural
JOED. TANNER
Commissioner
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DIVISION
270 WASHINGTON STREET S W
ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30334
J. LEONARD LEDBETTER
Division Director
March 3, 1977
Mr. James H. Scarbrough, Chief
Residuals Management Branch
Hazardous Materials Division
Environmental Protection Agency
Region IV
345 Courtland Street, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
Dear Jim:
At the recent public discussion of PL 94-580 you indicated that the record
would remain open for the receipt of additional comments until March 11, 1977.
Please accept the attached letter from Mr. Donald I. Hackney of Savannah as
supplemental to the comments presented in his behalf by Mr. John Taylor of
this office. We would appreciate inclusion of this letter in the final
hearing transcript.
Sincerely,
ases N. McCall, III, Chief
Land Protection Branch
MNM:bbk
Attachment
cc: Mr. Donald I. Hackney
-------
aframtalf,
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICES
p o BOX IO27
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 31403
February 22, 1977
Mr. Moses N. McCall, III
Land Protection Branch, EPD
270 Washington Avenue, S.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 3033*1
Dear Mr. McCall:
Thank you for your letter announcing public discussion sessions on the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (PL94-580) to be held
on February 23 and 24. We will not be able to send anyone to the meet-
ings but do have comments we would like entered into the record.
It is our understanding that under the new Act, one of EPA's first ob-
jectives is to draft a definition of a sanitary landfill. We agree with
some of the views of Mr. Wayne D. Trewhitt, Chairman of the National Solid
Wastes Management Association's Institute of Waste Technology, which are
paraphrased below:
Sweeping, specific criteria from the federal level could
seriously hamper landfill disposal efforts in many states.
A broad federal definition of a sanitary landfill must be
results-oriented, not operationally oriented, and its In-
tent should be that a landfill not harm its surrounding
environment relative to the environment's current condition.
If the water table at the proposed landfill site is alretJy
contaminated, then the landfill can be engineered so any dis-
charge is below current acceptable levels of contaninsfcion.
It would not make much sense to me to Increase disposal costs
for the sake of discharging pure water into an already con-
taminated source.
This type criteria would be especially helpfull in Coastal areas where the
water table is usually high. Arbitrary distances required between the bot-
tom of a trench and the water table may be unnecessary and could rule out
many landfill sites.
We appreciate receiving notification of the meetings and the opportunity to
participate.
Sincerely,
DONALD I. HACKNEY
DIRECTOR OP SANITATION
DIH/jar
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ASSOCIATION OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL
SOLID fcRSIE MANAGEMENT OFFICIALS
Boon 824, 270 Washington Street, S.W.
Moses N. McCall, III
President
March 3, 1977
Mr. Nicholas Humber, Director
Resource Recovery Division
Office of Solid Waste
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, D. C. 20460
Dear Nick:
We appreciate receiving the Technical Assistance Program Strategy Paper and
the invitation to the March 9, 1977, meeting. Although I will be unable
to attend, other State representatives will be there. As a whole, I find
the overall strategy paper to be well done; however, I offer the following
comments for your consideration:
1. Page 2--I disagree with the statement that "regulatory approach
will not be implemented by State and local government —" without
TA from EPA. This may indeed occur in some instances, but it
certainly is not an absolute fact.
2. Page 4--EPA is not "the only source of objective information dealing
with solid waste management in a comprehensive manner." Certainly your
agency is the major source, but other organizations such as APWA are
also sources.
3. Page 6--What is the supporting data behind the flat statement that
"no new State initiatives would be undertaken and only ten more plants
would successfully be built by communities by 1985." without technical
assistance?
4. Plage 6--I disagree with the statement in item 3 that "States would
not provide adequately for the monitoring, enforcement, etc." See
statement 1 above.
5. Page 7--There appears to be a word or phrase missing after line 9
of the Discussion.
6. Page 7, Issue No. 1--EPA should exercise Option A, and give
technical assistance a higher priority than regulation. EPA regulatory
authority under RCRA is limited to hazardous wastes.
-------
Mr. Nicholas Humber
March 3, 1977
Page 3
7. Page 8, Issue No. 2--EPA should exercise Option C and develop a
comprehensive technical assistance role.
8. Page 10, Issue No. 3--EPA should exercise Option B. I do not
agree, however, that transfer of responsibility to the regions should
be contingent on the regions having 9 full time employees who have
completed a headquarters training and qualification program. The size and
complexity of the regions and their ability to carry out technical assis-
tance should determine when the transfer of responsibility occurs.
9. Page 12, Issue No. 4--EPA should exercise Option A. Technical
Assistance has been the major thrust of OSW for years. TA efforts
have contributed greatly to improved programs and certainly should be
continued.
We appreciate the opportunity to comment. Please contact us if you have
questions.
Moses N. McCall, III
President
MW:bbk
cc: ASTSWMO Board of Directors
Ms. Beatrice Tylutki
^Mr. James H. Scarbrough
Mr. William B. DeVille
Mr. David W. Johnson
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TENNESSEE EASTMAN COMPANY
A Division o! Eastman Kodak Company
KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE 37662 • 615 246-2111
March 10, 1977
James H. Scarbrough, P. E.
Region IV, U. S. Environmental
Protection Agency
345 Courtland Avenue
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
Dear Mr. Scarbrough:
A representative of Tennessee Eastman Company, Mr. W. M. Crawford, attended
the public discussion session on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
of 1976 (RCRA) in Atlanta on February 24. We appreciate this opportunity
for public participation in the formulation of the Environmental Protection
Agency's policies and programs for implementing the RCRA. We also appreciate
your invitation to submit written responses and we ask that you consider the
following comments which relate to Subtitle C, "Hazardous Waste Management."
The act provides for standards to include extensive record-keeping and
reporting with respect to generation, transporting, treatment, storage,
and disposal of hazardous wastes. Furthermore, treatment, storage, and
disposal will also be subject to standards for construction and operation
of facilities. In those instances where hazardous wastes are transported
from one premises to another and/or custody of the wastes changes hands,
the need for regulating such operations at the various steps is apparent.
However, in cases where two or more phases of the generation-through-disposal
cycle are performed on the same premises and without change in custody,
regulations should apply only to the transfer of hazardous waste from such
premises or to another responsible person. In many cases, the treatment
process will result in a relatively small quantity, if any, of residual
hazardous waste and the emissions or discharges from the treatment process
will be subject to regulation under federal and/or state air and water
regulatory authority.
The purposes of the RCRA will not be served by imposing duplicate regulation
on such operations. The regulations to be promulgated by the Environmental
Protection Agency and/or the states should provide exemptions for such
operations and any others for which any harmful emissions or discharges
are subject to regulation under other acts. Such an approach is necessary
in order that the provisions of Section 1006 of the RCRA, quoted in part
below, will be implemented.
(b) INTEGRATION WITH OTHER ACTS - The Administrator shall
integrate all provisions of this act for purposes of administration
and enforcement and shall avoid duplication, to the maximum extent
practicable, with the appropriate provisions of the Clean Air Act
(42 U.S.C. 1857 and following), the Federal Water Pollution Control
Act (33 U.S.C. 1151 and following), the Federal Insecticide,
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Mr. James H. Scarbrough
Page 2
March 10, 1977
Fungicide, and Eodenticide Act (7 U.S.C. 135 and f ollowing) , the
Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300f and following), the Marine
Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (33 U.S.C. 1401
and following) and such other Acts of Congress as grant regulatory
authority to the Administrator.
As criteria are developed for identifying and listing hazardous wastes
under Section 3001, attention should be given to the words "significantly
contribute" and "substantial . . . hazard" (underlining added) as used in
the Act's definition of hazardous waste. This will assure that priority is
given to the more serious problems without the unnecessary delay and
confusion which would be inherent in a system designed to cover all possible
risks. Definitions of hazardous waste in some of the earlier bills; for
example, a definition including any quantity of a material designated as a
toxic pollutant, hazardous substance, or hazardo-us air contaminant under
other acts, were rejected as Congress finalized the RCRA. Thus it is
apparent that our suggestion on this matter is consistent with Congressional
intent. Subtitle D provides for the regulation of other solid wastes under
state and regional solid waste plans. Implementation of that Subtitle will
enable the states and regions to establish appropriate priorities for such
regulation.
J. C. Edwards
csf
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BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ,, , .. ,„,-,
March 9, 1977
Mr. James H. Scarbrough, Chief
Residuals Management Branch
U.S. EPA
345 Courtland Street, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
Dear Mr. Scarbrough:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on RCRA. I would appreciate your
attaching the enclosed article and schematic to your list of comments. I do
not want to see artificial barriers placed in the way of any future "land
application of wastes" systems that are designed for the benefit of the soil.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Clark Gregor
Assistant
f Accounting
CJ=
Since 1881
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Compost May Be The Most Misunderstood
Product in America
CLARK GREGORY, Ph D
Georgia Institute oj TethnoJogv
\ REVIEW ot the current <>///< tal lit-
erature in composting could easily
lead to the conclusion that composting
is not a viahk alternative to solid
waste treatment either in the I S or
burope ' 4 Having just returned from
an extensive trip through L-urope, I
can assure >->u that such a picture of
composting is misleading Compost
plants ute operating smi < \\fully in
all parts ot i urope—east and west—
in spite ot meager support troni cen-
tral governments Latest figures show
that the Swiss and Dutch each com-
post the domestic refuse (along with
sludge in most cases) ot I 5 percent of
their respective populations, Czechs.
English, and Germans— two to five
percent I here are about 50 compost
plants operating in I ranee alone
I hese [ uropean compost plants
are producing high-grade fine-sieved
composts lor a large variety ot
uses- as a soil amendment for
ciosion control on vineyard slopes, a
tood supplement providing essential
trace minerals in the diet of piglets,
pi even ting anemia and diarrhea; a
growing medium tor evergreen trees
set out on harsh Alpine slopes tor av-
alanche control, a topsoil substitute
in landscaping, a soil builder tor rec-
lamation and recultivation ot lands
devastated b) strip mining, a fill ma-
terial for depressions in cultivated
fields, a soil structure improver and
soil-enricher in basic agriculture, a
permanent litter tor chicken houses,
tor soil improvement on highway
shoulders and embankments allowing
higher forms of plant life to thrive, a
substitute tor heating manure in hot-
house horticulture. ;i lawn and garden
soil enncher, and so on ad infinitum
The earl\ literature was encourag-
ing ' ' However, the American expe-
rience with municipal composting in
the 1960's was dismal indeed v
Municipal composting as a general
pn'position has not worked in the
I S 1 he most common and recurrent
reason cited tor this failure in report
after report has Iven ' Iheie's just
no market tor compost " I his has
never m ide am sense to me I he tact
is that no real market HH compost
has been demonsiuted or developed
This does not mean that no such
market exists Compost may be the
inoM nit sitnder Mood product in
A merit a
The statement that the lack of
markets for compost is. the mu|ur
drawback to its production led me to
undertake a study to determine where
compost is most needed in America.
On reading through Sam Hart's
booklet on composting,! I became
aware that compost could help salve
the wounds inflicted on the American
landscape by thoughtless strip-mining
practices. An extensive literature
search yielded the nature, extent and
effects ot strip mining in
America *' IJ A glance through the
New York fnne\ Index indicated the
problems ot strip-mine reclamation
have not been solved, and in 1972
some 90 I S Congressmen co-spon-
sored Ken Hechler's (D -\V Va )
bill (HR 4556) to ban strip-mining
entirely in the b S
Scientists, such as Mr Carroll
Duggan ot Tennessee, and Dr Her-
mann kick and Dr Eberhard Spohn
ot Germany, have had some experi-
ence in reclaiming stnp mines by
rebuilding soils Other European sci-
entists have been studying the effects
ot compost made from urban refuse
and sludge on soils, plants, and
animals I he Europeans" special in-
terest in compost production and
utih/ation is erosion control
Alter writing about 20 letters to
Mr Grcf>oi \ traveled < xti'n\n < /v
throughout icntnil Europe dnitnt> the
summer ami hill ot 1972 ti> Mnd\ the
ittM'iin h p> oil tu tion, and utilization oft oni-
po*,r He tra\,'li't! more than 10,000 nitlt'\ in
I'ifjfii conntui"> He but k packed, hitchhiked
and genetiillv w rounded around on t-oi -,
e'\e(itu\ei. llut-ioltur workfis. hou^fHne\
tind t hildrcn \\ iu> provided ttii'ttl\. beds or
/1oor\ rides, totnersatton inanotteii stKinm'
lout;tic. ti'ul ttitourtiffi'nit'nt, tire •.tuttt'ml
m io\\ mtin\ Ituuls He i isiied 33 < otn posting
Jtn tin ic\ of i in IOH\ and $nnt.!>\ tit \mn\,
Chapes and w.o dist u^sed various '(i< in loner*,, immufix I in a \ ami
the European experts with whom I
wanted to discuss composting,- ' "' 1
set off on my four-month European
composting odyssey with a round-trip
ticket to London, $500, a 44-pound
loaded backpack, and lots ol ques-
tions The voluminous information 1
gamed in Europe boils down to this
Europeans have been composting
urban retuse for as many as 40 years
in some places. They have recognized
that some soils need more than ar-
tificial fertilizers to gam and/or retain
their fertility They have recognized
that waste disposal is a many-faceted
problem, they have found ways to
make their urban refuse and sludge
beneficial to the land even when
confronted with shortsighted, short-
term and incomplete economic and
social considerations Composting in
Europe is on the upswing in spite of
meager support from centra! govern-
ments.
Compost marketers have found
new, higher-valued uses of the life-
giving material that provides soil
humus, e g., the Dutch annually sell
140,000 tons of high-quality com-
post, 80 percent of which goes into
what they call recreational uses, gen-
erally landscaping, at $7 per ton
German vmeyardists continue to
form cooperatives to supply them-
selves with an ever-growing supply ot
compost for erosion control and
moisture retention on their steep!)
sloping vineyards
The Czech Ministry of Agriculture
has recognized that Czech soils need
more organic matter, and has em
barked on a massive compost plant-
building program which will someday
provide virtually every Czech agricul-
tural acre with 12 tons of compost
every third year The Europeans
know that piglets raised on the
concrete pads, typical of modern hog
husbandry and thus deprived of soil
to "root" in, are susceptible to
anemia and diarrhea They discov-
eied that finely-ground compost mix-
lures tec! to the young pigs effectively
and economically remedy this
problem 1 he> found that compost
torms an effective base for "deep
litter" chicken-house practices,
Compo\t St ic'it e
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greatly reducing the drudgery and ex-
pense of chicken-house cleaning
Ifwv ha\c learned to hang on to ne\\
cottipoMing operations in the early
_WtfM, realizing thut it take\ time Jot
lot ai mark et \ for t ompo st to develop
It is eas> to say that the European
culture is based on a 'waste-not-
wjnt-not" ' philosophy, relatively
and sadly lacking in the L' S Al-
though this philosophy may have en-
couraged the search tor and develop-
ment of ways to recycle organic-
wastes, there is more to it than that
[ uropeans live in the same \vorld, the
same western civilisation, that we live
in, and our paths seem to be con-
verging For composting to be prac-
ticed in Europe or in the LI S , the
compost must be produced cheaply
and efficiently, and it must be ot
\aiue to someone and available at a
reasonable price. This takes the un-
derstanding and cooperation of a lot
of people with many different
backgrounds.
If composting is so great, why
aren't we doing if "There's no
market for compost," they tell
you What is compost'* The kind of
rough compost we are talking about
for erosion control in strip-mine rec-
lamation and highway embankment
stabilization is little more than pul-
verized refuse that has been cleaned
up by running it through a self-
cleaning, long, slowly rotating drum
screen with approximately two-inch
holes and mixed with digested and/or
devvatered sewage sludge and/or
animal manure at a 3 1 volume ratio
(refuse sludge/manure) It can then be
taken straight to the slope tt is des-
ijncd to enrich, and quickly mixed
inot plowed) into the soil 'the addi-
tion of sludge/manure speeds up
decomposition and increases the nu-
ti lent content of the mixture
\fler a brief respite, the land could
be sown to legumes and ultimately to
' rres or grasses. This has already
been done at Penn State, where Prof
Uiiliam Sopper has grown trees, or-
n.imcntal shrubs, grasses and vegeta-
! tes on strip-mine land that has been
ue.ited with sewage sludge effluent
Ih's is first-year strip-mine soil that
':as not been enriched in any other
vV ith many American cities al-
'i:.id\ questioning the merits ot incin-
r.ttion and going to garbage pul-
vL'ii/tition tor ultimate baling and/or
land! 11 ling, ami with many cities
sinousiy contemplating rail haul ot
r^ 1 use tor i<. mote disposaI in so
called strip-mi ne reclamation
schemes, we are actually moving \er\
close tt> the procedure just described
V\ hy not go all the \va\ ' It would cost
onl\ about $6 per ton $3 to grind.
screen and mix, $2 to rail haul 100
miles, and $1 to deliver locull) and
incorporate into the soil About one-
third of th/s cost could reasonably be
borne by the user, leaving the city a
net cost ol $4 per ton By compari-
son, incineration costs between $8
and $10 per ton, sanitary landfillmg
between $2 and $5 per ton
Many studies have shown that in-
corporation or mulching of organic
matter on steep slopes and/or poor
soils is decisive and essential if perma-
nent vegetation and thus erosion con-
trol are desired.17 '* With more than
four billion tons of sediment being
produced by erosion in the U S an-
nually.'*' clearly we as a nation have
recogm/ed neither the value ot or-
ganic matter for erosion control not
its widespread availability This is an
especiall\ glaring error considering
that it costs us about SI per ton to
remove sediment from rivers, roads
and reservoirs j"
My European composting odyssey
and subsequent stud} and reflection
have allowed the ideas expressed
herein to jell We will be putting our
ideas into practice in the spring with
the cooperation of the DeKalb
C oumy ((icorgia) Sanitation Depart-
ment, the Southern Railway System,
and the J M Huber Mining Com-
pany, and under the auspices ol the
Georgia Department of Natural
Resources' Land Reclamation Sec-
tion and Solid Waste Management
Office and Georgia State Universi-
ty's Environmental Research,
Group
REFERENC ES
1 McGauhey.P. H Amenttin CumpoMinv
Concepts Environmcnt.il Protection
Agency. Solid Waste Management Of-
fice Publication No SW-2r Washington
L1 S Government Printing Office, 1971
2 Jensen. VI E Ohwrvuttom oj(.ontnn n-
ttil Luiopvan Solul Wa\ie Muntn>t'tni'iit
Pratt tie*. Public Health Service Publica-
tion No 1880 Washington US Gov-
ernment Printing Office, 1969
3 Hart, S A Solid Wa\te Manage-
incntlComposting European At tivnv
and Atnentan Potential Public Health
Service Publication No 1826 Washing-
ton U S Government Printing Office
1968
4 Breidenbach, A W (<>n\porting of Mti-
nii ipul .W/J WaMe\ in the United Sm/<".
Environmental Protection Agency, Solid
Waste Management Series Publication
No SW-47r Washington L- S Govern
, ment Printing Office, 1971
5 Reclamation of Mitn'uipal Refuse f
Composting Technical Bulletin No >
Series 37 Sanitary F.ngi nee ring *
* search Project Berkeley Umversn it
California 1953
6 Ciotaas, H. B Composing, \nnn >f \mpaml \ur-
/( ^urfmc Mining
i'n /"/s/f t,m i ilJn/i' in Appalttt hia
BMK-.UI i-* S. -.it i ishciics and Wildhte
Resource Public it ion 6^ Washington
L S Government Printing Office. 1968
11 \mldtt' Mining and (Mn Environment
U S Dep.ntineni of the Interior Wash-
ington I s Government Printing Of-
fice. 196"7
12 Spauldirik. WilldidM Jr and Ronald D
Ogden /, KiiuJ \urftin-Mintnxon the
/-M/rm./ Hilillttf Re\ot,ne\ot the Unit-
ed S/«'t's Bureau ot Sport I-ishenes and
WilitI k Resouice;. Publication 68
W.isi./ngton U S Government Punting
OHW 1968
13 Rt fni'ff Surfan-Mined tumh I S
Hi r u i ment of Agi iculture MisceM.i-
n.«is Publication No 1082 Washmg-
.•II I1 S Government Printing Office
I - Di I'hil Cireeai biologist Shorter
( nllege, Rome. Georgia Personal com-
munication, Novembei 12 1972
•> Magnuson. Malcolm O and R. L Kim-
ball Re\egt'tati»n \tudte\al i hree \tnp
Mine Sttc\ in \orth Central f'cn/r.vl-
\tintti I S Department of the Intenoi
Washington US Governmcni Pi intmg
Office 1968
16 John S Wiley, retired Sanitary Higi-
neering Directoi U S Public Health
Seivicc Personal visit eail> June 1972
17 Dickens, Ray et al (t>n\t'i\ti!u>n ot
Rt^onne\ tn Mtinmpal WaMt bnvnon-
mental Protection Agency Solid Waste
Management Series (SW- Mi g on 1971
18 Cosack, J "The Reforestation Fxpen
ment at /onser Heath Rcpiinttd m In
ternatiotidl Research Croup on. Refine
\o 3 (October 1957) bv Public Health
Service Washington LS Govemment
Printing Office, 1969
19 VM/ Crt>\tt>n. the Work of Umonirolleti
Wattr Soil C onservaiion Service. Agri-
culture Intoimation Bulletin 260 Wash
ington U S Goveinment Printing Of-
fice 1971
mill Roaiiitiif Dili ht-\ SoiK onservation
Service. Agricultuie Information Bul-
k-tin No ^25 Washington L S Govein-
mcnt Printing Office. 19<>7
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STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES JACOB KOOMEN, M D.. M.P.H.
DIRECTOR
Division of Health Services
P. 0. Box 2091 Raleigh 27602
March 9, 1977
James H. Scarbrough, P.E.
Chief, Residuals Management Branch
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Region IV
1421 Peachtree Street, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Dear Mr. Scarbrough:
Please find enclosed a statement from the North Carolina
Solid Waste Management Program concerning Public Law 94-580.
This statement is being provided to complement the comments
and questions provided at the public meeting on February 23
and 24, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Should you have questions concerning our statement,
do not hesitate to call for clarification.
' Jerry C. Perkins, Head
Solid Waste & Vector Control Branch
Sanitary Engineering Section
JCP;bm
Enclosure
BRANCH
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STATEMENT FROM THE NORTH CAROLINA SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM CONCERNING PUBLIC
LAW 94-580
Personnel from the State of North Carolina's solid waste management program
appreciate the opportunity to have participated in the public meeting concerning
PL 94-580 in Atlanta, Georgia on February 23 and 24, 1977.
In addition to the verbal input provided at that meeting, it was felt that
a brief summary statement would be in order. This statement provides input con-
cerning the program's current status in North Carolina as well as some of the
implications of a projected program. The statement is brief but attempts to
emphasize some of the major issues to be addressed with the implementation of
PL 94-580, "Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976".
The expanded definition for solid waste includes liquids and semi-solids
which are not part of the present definition of solid waste as used in the North
Carolina General Statutes. The addition of liquids and semi-solids in the
definition has implications of much additional responsibility. In the past,
disposal of waste liquids and semi-solids have been the responsibility of the
North Carolina Department of Natural and Economic Resources especially when
(1) those wastes resulted from liquid industrial treatment processes or from
commercial activities which generated a liquid waste and (2) where stream quality
could have been affected as a result of evaporation ponds and lagoons construction.
Responsibility for sanitary landfill approval, resource recovery facilities
and recycling certification, and overall solid waste management is vested in the
Solid Waste and Vector Control Branch of the North Carolina Department of Human
Resources. Assistance in surveillance of solid waste collection and storage
facilities is provided by local health departments in the State. With primary
responsibility for solid waste management and authority being vested in the
Department of Human Resources, there are existing permit procedures which will
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have to be considered in an expanded solid waste management role for the State
of North Carolina.
This Branch also has in existence rules for issuing permits to impoundments
which exceed one-fourth of an acre in size. This program is carried out as a
preventive measure against the re-occurance of malaria outbreaks in this State.
The sanitary landfill definition currently used in North Carolina has dealt
with solid waste from individual homes, commercial establishments, institutions,
and industrial sources. Solid waste resulting from the demolition of old building
sites, urban renewal projects, and landscaping activities have been found to be
non-compatible with solid waste from the conventional sources. In developing
criteria for the various requirements for sanitary landfills, the criteria for
demolition waste sites needs to be considered separately. Also, in determining
requirements for a secure landfill; that is, one which is projected to receive
hard-to-manage or hazardous wastes, design criteria needs to consider future
monitoring requirements for land, air, and water at the site regardless of whether
the site is strictly for disposal or a part of a hazardous waste treatment and
disposal facility.
The proposed manifest system for tracking hazardous industrial waste will
have to take interstate transportation into consideration. The State of North
Carolina does not propose to become a dumping ground for toxic and hazardous
waste from other states.
It has been found that the basic and most versatile planning unit for solid
waste management in North Carolina is the county unit of government. This concept
allows planning within its jurisdiction as well as without. Solid waste management
systems are financed with county ad valorem taxes and special tax assessments.
Where federal financial assistance has been specified as in the areas of
resource recovery and recycling facility planning, rural operational assistance,
and state planning assistance, it is highly desirable that the funds designated
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for these purposes be specified by the above categories and by amount as the
State of North Carolina and its local units of government become eligible for
these funds. It is not desirable to have these funds sent to the State as part
of a block grant to compete with other environmental programs. The State of
North Carolina has developed an incentive program through special tax treatment
for resource recovery and recycling activities. It would be desirable through
implementation of the Resource Recovery Act of 1976 to provide expanded markets
for the recovered and recycled materials.
The State of North Carolina is currently involved in a survey of industrial
facilities to determine the magnitude of its industrial waste problem especially
problems associated with hard-to-manage wastes and those considered hazardous
because of their composition. It is anticipated that a formal program for
control and management of these wastes will not be complete until mid 1979
due to legislative and budgetary changes that would be required for implementation.
Shelf No. 592
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