TRANSCRIPT
REGIONAL PUBLIC MEETINGS ON THE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT of 1976
March 3 and 4, 1977, Denver, Colo, and Salt Lake City, Utah
These meetings were sponsored by EPA Region VIII,
and the proceedings (SW-17p) are reproduced entirely as transcribed
by the official reporter, with handwritten corrections
by the Office of Solid Waste
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1977
Re/,!:••-.
230 S-
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An environmental protection publication (SN-17p) in the solid waste management series.
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BEFORE THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
In the Matter of:
PUBLIC DISCUSSION SESSIONS REPORTER' S_ TRANSCRIPT
on the RESOURCE CONSERVATION
AND RECOVERY ACT, PUBLIC LAW 94-580.
Auditorium
Denver Public Library
14th and Broadway Streets
Denver, Colorado
Thursday, March 3, 1977
The above-entitled matter came on for public
hearing at 9:00 o'clock a.m.
BEFORE:
JON P. YEAGLEY, Chief, Solid Waste Section,
Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIII.
APPEARANCES :
VAL GREY Chief, Program Management and
Support Services, Office of
Solid Waste, Environmental
Protection Agency.
JAMES LEHR Deputy Director, Air and
Hazardous Materials Division,
Environmental Protection Agency.
ALFRED LINDSEY Chief, Implementation Branch,
Hazardous Waste Management
Division, Office of Solid Waste,
Environmental Protection Agency.
ROBERT A. LOWE Chief, Technical Assistance
Branch, Resource Recovery
Division, Environmental Protection
Agency .
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APPEARANCES: (Continued)
BRUCE WEDDLE
Chief, Special Wastes Branch,
Systems Management Division,
Office of Solid Waste,
Environmental Protection Agency.
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SPEAKERS :
James Lehr
Val Grey
Alfred Lindsey
Bruce Weddle
Robert A. Lowe
Anice C. Swift
Frank Rozich
NUMBER:
1 and 2
INDEX
EXHIBITS
49
91
62
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PAGE HO.
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MB. JAMES LEHR: Good morning. Ladies and Gentlemen.
I'm Jim Lehr from the Regional Office of the EPA,Deputy
Director of the Air and Hazardous Materials Division, and I'm
here on behalf of John Green and Roger Williams of the
Regional Office of the EPA to welcome you to this public
meeting discussing the new legislation in solid waste and
resource recovery.
Before we get started, maybe in the interest of
hearing better and participating more directly with the
dialogue today, some of you in the back would move up. This
is a friendly crowd, I think, so feel free to come up front a
little closer.
(Pause.)
MR. LEHR: This is the first of two public meetings
that EPA, Region VIII, is having to discuss the early
implementation plans and characteristics of this new
legislation. We will be meeting tomorrow in Salt Lake City
to have a similar type meeting to provide an opportunity for
everyone to have some input in the early stages of the Agency
plans for implementing this Act. Some 60 similar meetings
are going on in the country providing this kind of a public
forum or public discussion on what RCRA, as the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act is often called.
This Act has been long needed to assist EPA and the
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Nation in the closing of the loop on environmental protection
programs. As many of you know, the Agency has had air
pollution control, water quality legislation, drinking water
quality legislation, and this year legislation regulating the
toxic materials and, of course, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, helping us to prevent the further deterioration
of our land use in terms of disposal of discarded material.
We have prepared for you a summary discussion of key
aspects of this new legislation and these short discussions ar
on your program, described on your program, and they are to be
about ten minutes in length and they are to be followed by a
30-minute discussion period where we invite you to participate
in a dialogue on that aspect of the Act. We welcome any
questions and opinions and any concerns that you might have on
each of those four key aspects that we will be talking about.
At the end of the presentations, there will be an open period
to invite any miscellaneous kinds of comments that you might
have on the rest of the Act that wasn't covered on the
presentations.
The panelists that are going to summarize for you
the key aspects of the legislation I'd like to introduce right
now. On my far left is Bruce Weddle. He's Chief of the
Special Wastes Branch in our EPA offices in Washington, the
Office of Solid Waste, and he will talk about the land use
aspect.
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Fred Lindsey will summarize for you-Section 3-of the
Act, the hazardous waste portion. He's Chief of the
Implementation Branch, again of the Office of Solid Waste in
Washington.
And then there's Jon Yeagley on my immediate left.
Jon is from the EPA Office in Denver. He is heading off the
solid waste management program in the Air and Hazardous Materials
Division. Be will act as moderator of the program today.
As I said, I'm Jim Lehr from Region VIII and to my
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immediate rightxrt Val Grey who is the Chief of Program
Management and Support Services, again of the Office of Solid
Waste in Washington, and to his right is Bob Lowe who is the
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Chief of the Technical Assistance Branch-am"the Resource
Recovery Division in our offices in Washington.
Any of these gentlemen will be most pleased to answe
any questions you might have and the intention of this meeting
is to have a full and open dialogue on all aspects of this
legislation and its implementation.
Before we start, I'd like to take a couple of minute
to summarize some of the major provisions of the Act and some
of the major purposes of this new legislation. The Nation
faces enormous problems in terms of dealing with its discarded
materials. Some three to four billion tons of such material
solid, liquid or gaseous are disposed of every year.
That's something on the order of ten million tons per day of
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materials that have to be contended with in some fashion in
this country. That includes some 30 to 40 million tons each
year of material that is hazardous, directly hazardous to the
health and safety of the people of this country, material that
can get into the water supply and could get into the air and
into the food chain and can constitute a direct health hazard.
Particularly, hazardous materials are addressed in this new
legislation.
It's an enormous problem, one which we have coped
with in the previous years and one which Congress is dealing
with directly in this legislation. Congress took quite a bit
of time to update the 1965 and 1970 Acts and develop new
legislation and received input from the public and industry
and from Governmental Agencies in how best to address this
serious problemand benefited from the input of several major
committees in Congress and as of late October of 1976, this
new legislation was passed.
It generally does three or four major kinds of
things. It establishes for the first time a vigorous hazardous
waste management program. It encourages, and in fact requires
that Government, State, local. Regional and Federal, must move
toward full comprehensive waste management .programs for dealing
with discarded materials, it does that through grants, throug'i
funding special studies, through providing money for State and
local agency implementation, does that through major efforts
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in providing technical expertise and assistance in moving from
an open dump kind of method of disposal of discarded materials
to a full waste management system.
The major of the commitment that Congress made to
this is not only in the body of the legislation, but in the
sum $180 million authorized to do the job in fiscal year '78
and something over that authorized by Congress for fiscal
year '79.
Congress was serious about it; EPA is given the
major responsibility of it is serious about it; State agencies
who will develop programs to implement these requirements are
serious about it and I know that you all for being here today
are serious about grappling with this problem in a sound and
workable way.
Let me introduce Jon now, if you have any opening
remarks as moderator.
MR. YEAGLEY: Thank you, Jim. Let me just make a
couple of opening comments. We do have registration forms on
the table in the hallway in the back for those of you who were
here earlier than I *as and may not have gotten a chance to
register.
We will be issuing a transcript of this meeting and i
you wish to get a copy of it, be sure that we have your name
and address on the registration form. ..s,
Also, if you wish to make a statement that is over and
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above just a general question, I would ask that you indicate
that on the registration form. also. We do have several
hand-outs, including copies of the Act, which we encourage you
to pick up out on the table in the hallway.
At the end of each short presentation, if you have a
question or a statement, if it's one that you think you might
have difficulty having your voice heard, we do have a podium
down here by the stage with a speaker and we ask that you come
down here and make any statement and questions if you would
like to.
We are transcribing the entire session so that we
can take full benefit of everything that is said. I want to
just emphasize the point that Jim said that our purpose in
being here is to gather information. Hopefully, you can gain
some knowledge of what the Act is about and how we are
directing ourselves to this point, but keep in mind our first
purpose is to hear from you. I'm going to ask all the speaker
to keep that in mind in keeping your time short.
I think that's all I need to say at this point. I'l
introduce Val Grey at this time.
MR. GREY: The Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act of 1976, RCRA, as we have affectionately started to call
it, 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
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it clear that the Congress understood that it is impossible fo
the public to participate meaningfully unless the Government
first produces valid scientific and technical data, and then
processes and publishes the information in such a way that
everyone may have access to it. Only in this way can you. the
public, have a reasonable chance of influencing the social,
the economic, and political changes which the Law is designed
to bring about.
(Slide.)
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; he
is 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, but for everyone. 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 kinds of information involved in
solid waste management, for the use of State and local
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governments, industry, and the public.
(Slide.)
Now, who is the public? To insure that the public
participation process does not become lopsided, we felt it
was necessary to identify major categories of interest groups
who represent the public at large. Under RCRA, we regard
these groups 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
purposeful to do so.
(Slide.)
What does the law say about public participation?
Section 7004(a) of the Act states that any person may petition
the Administrator for the promulgation, amendment or repeal
of any regulation under this Act.
Section 7004(b) deals with public participation.
It states that public participation in the development,
revision and enforcement of any regulation, guideline,
information, or program under this Act shall be provided for,
encouraged, and assisted by the Administrator and the States
and further, that the Administrator in cooperation with the
States (Slide) shall develop and publish minimum guidelines
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for public participation in such processes.
Section 7002(a) states that any person may commence
a civil action on his own behalf against any other person
and person in this case includes the Dnited 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, the use of appropriate public meetings, hearings
conferences, work shops, and the like, throughout the country
which EPA intends to plan and hold in consonance with the
Act's key provisions. This meeting today is one of these
actions.
(Slide.)
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.
And three, 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
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emerge from it. Effective public education programs depend
on the use of all appropriate communication tools, techniques,
and media. These include publications, slides, films,
exhibits, and other graphics; media programs including public
service television and radio announcements and releases to the
daily and professional press; and public education projects
carried out by service and civic organizations with EPA
technical and financial assistance.
(Slide.)
What does the law say about manpower development?
Sections 7007(a) and (b) authorize the Administrator of the
EPA to make grants or offer contracts with any eligible
organization for training persons for occupations involving
the management, supervision, design, operation, or maintenance
of solid waste disposal and resource recovery equipment and
facilities, or to train instructors. "Eligible organization"
is defined to mean a State or any State Agency, a municipality
or educational institution capable of effectively carrying out
such a project.
Section 7007(c) provides that the Administrator shal
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 the means of
using existihg training programs to train such personnel, and
to determine the extent and nature of obstacles to employment
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and occupational advancement in the solid waste disposal and
resource recovery fields. The Administrator is required to
report the results of such investigation and study to the
President and the Congress.
I'll entertain any questions now on this area.
(Pause.)
MR. YEAGLEY: Any questions?
MR. GREY: It must be pretty clear.
MR. YEAGLEY: Any comments?
MS. LAWRENCE: How much of this money, of this
$180 million, is allocated for studies?
MR. GREY: Allocated?
MS. LAWRENCE: I mean, how much is going for
management studies and so forth?
MR. GREY: You're talking about the 8007? The amoun(t
that's authorized is $35 million for 1978.
MS. LAWRENCE: This will come out of the $180 millio|n?
MR. GREY: Let me define or at least make clear
the terms authorized and allocation. Authorized is in the lav
whatever the Congress said. We can go that high.
Obviously, we seldom do in any law and we aren't likely to
in this law. Our budget for '78 is considerably less than
$180 million. It's roughly at $40 million as of this moment.
It keeps changing and it's being reviewed this week between
0 aud~g and Congress. Only a small portion of that will go to
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the studies and I can give you that figure, if you like, that
we have requested.
(Pause.)
MR. GREY: Let me look it up later and get it to you
later. It's in ay records, but for that section alone, it's a
very small amount, it isn't very much.
MS. LAWRENCE: I'm glad to hear that.
MR. GREY: I'm glad to hear that.
Would you identify yourself, please?
MS. LAWRENCE: Judy Lawrence.
MR. GREY: If you'll see me during the break or
something, I'll give you those figures.
MR. YEAGLEY: Let me just make a point. Any others
of you that have a question, if you will give us your name so
that we can record that in the transcript and organization if
you're with a particular group.
Any other questions?
Yes, sir?
MR. EDEEN; Erik Edeen, Eagle County. You made
reference to a dissemination library or central reference
library. Where will this library be? Will it be branch
libraries for quick reference to local Government officials?
MR. GREY: Well, I would estimate that would be an
expansion of our current library. EPA has a large library in
Washington. The solid waste portion of that library, however.
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is not contingent or located in the same place as the EPA
library. Our library is being maintained by private contract.
It's being maintained in conjunction with the solid waste
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Lj.eaUiienL system. It will be an expansion of that system
under the current law that would fullfil that requirement.
MR. EDEEN: Is there a place in Denver where we can
get this
MR. LEER: I might add that we also have a library
and an expansion of this library might be planned. But, there
is a library at EPA Headquarters in Denver.
MR. GREY: Does it have a solid waste identified
section?
MR. YEAGLEY: Yes.
MR. GREY: They probably have the same in each
Region. Now, in addition to that, we publish from Washington
a list of available materials. This is not the total library,
but it is material produced within our office, under the
auspices of our office, and available to everyone under one of
several systems, either directly through GPO, directly through
ua, in Cincinnati, or through the National Technical Information
System which is run by the Department of Commerce.
MR. YEAGLEY: I might just throw a. pitch in there foi
the Regional Office. We have a fairly extensive inventory of
the solid waste publications-.-<-I f we don't haVe^th* particulai
publication on hand that you wish, we can order it for you.
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Yes, sir?
MR. ALTERS: I'm Stephen Alfers, an attorney with
Dawson, Nagel, Sherman and Howard, in Denver. You mentioned
something about review groups that were going to assist you in
this public participation. Would you expand on the composition
of these groups?
MR. GREY: The first group we're calling an ad ho«*
group because according to the Federal Regulations, we are
allowed to have an ad hoeRgroup for almost any purpose.
Because it takes some time and approval by the Office of
Management and Budget for a permanent advisory group, rather
than wait nine months or a year for the approvals, we're
going ahead with an ad ho*Kgroup.
The ad hoefcgroup will be meeting in late April or
May, I think it's scheduled right now. The number of members
or invitations going out is about 30. This is a composite
list of our best estimate of who has a primary interest and
the capability to help us. They are involved in the same kind
of groups that I read to you environmental groups, labor,
public interest groups, educational groups, or specific
individuals that we know are prominent in the field of solid
waste. I don't have a list of those people, but that is
roughly the number.
Now, from the ad hocR groups they themselves will
select from among themselves representatives of each area and
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we hope to reduce that number to a permanent group of about
15 people. That is, if we can get it approved. Currently,
advisory groups say in Washington are not very popular and
are undergoing some critical review and probably rightfully so
and it's doubtful at the moment whether we could get official
approval of an advisory group. But in the meantime, we can
legally proceed with an ad hoex group. Next year we can have
another ad ho*x group for a different purpose, however, to keeji
it legal. Does that answer your question?
MR. ALFERS: Yes.
MR. YBAGLIY: Yes, sir?
MR. LEFFLEN: Dick Lefflen with Western Technical
Services.
When are the grants under Section 7007, when will
they be available?
MR. GREY: I expected that question to be the first
one. They are not available yet. The resources that we are
getting now are so mejper compared to what we are authorized,
we are going to have a. difficult time priortizing our work.
The Sub-title C and D are our primary targets right now • ^he
sections in the 3000 and 4000 series. Most of the money that
we have allocated to us in the current '77 budget, and what we
expect to get in the '78 budget will probably go mostly for
implementing both sections and it's not even sufficient for
those. Some token amount will be given to 7007, but I can't
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tell you at this time how much. I can tell you it's not
going to be very much. We are not going to be able to implement
this as fully as we would like to.
If you can get your Congressman to support more
funds, it's fine with us.
Any other questions?
(Pause.)
MR. YEAGLEY: Okay. I don't want to cut off any
discussion here if you're interested in asking more questions
on the subject.
Let me get this point, then we'll proceed on with
Fred Lindsey's discussion on hazardous waste.
MR. LINDSEY: Good morning. May I say at the outset
that we are pleased and we appreciate the interest you have
shown by coming in here this morning to give us the benefit
of your thoughts and suggestions on this whole matter of
implementing this Act. Let me assure you that we are
interested in receiving your suggestions and we will be
considering each and every one of them.
I'm here to talk about the hazardous waste provisior
and what I'd like to do is again summarize the requirements
under the hazardous waste part of the Act and also to discuss
some of the issues which we are facing, some of the questions
we are facing as we attempt to deal with this area. Sub-title
C, which is in the 3000 series, mandates a regulatory program
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to be defined to control hazardous wastes from the point of
generation usually as an industrial waste, although not
always to ultimate disposal at a permitted facility. This
i« a very clear mandate there's a lot of latitude as to
how we are to carry it out, but the mandate as to What we are
supposed to do is pretty clear.
(Slide.)
The first thing we have to do is come up with
criteria by which we can identify what is and what is not
a hazardous waste. Congress has mandated in setting up these
criteria that we consider such things as toxicity, persistence
in the environment, degradability, bioaccumulation of
material, flammability and corrosiveness. Once having
determined what the criteria are to be, we are to develop a
listing of typical materials which fit or fail those criteria
and thus are hazardous waste.
Now, as with most of the hazardous waste regulatory
provisions of the Act, we have 18 months within which to do
this, to promulgate these standards or criteria. This is
18 months from the passage of the Act and for those of you
who don't know when that was, it was October 21, 1976, which
brings us to a deadline then of April 21, 1978.
In terras of identifying the criteria, some of the
problems are not only what level of toxicity and what type of
toxicity should we include, but also, simply, when is a waste
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a waste? This may seem clear to most people, but when you
think about it there are now some industrial chemicals which
may fit the category of hazardous waste which are sold for
some small price and used for some low grade purpose such as
perhaps wetting down dusty roads or horse arenas and things of
that nature, so we have to be very careful in defining when a
waste is a waste as well as when it's hazardous.
One of the other questions we have involves the fact
that wastes are typically not pure substances. When we are
dealing with air pollution or water pollution, typically we
are dealing with a material like lead or abestos or some
specific chemical which is the pollutant and which we can
deal with directly. When we are dealing with hazardous
wastes, we are dealing with brown goo and red gunk and this
type of thing which is a mixture of a variety of things, any
or all of which can be hazardous and these mixtures of the
Sv/y£V3&fS TIC.
various materials can be either gyabiotie or antagonistic
in their relationship from one to another.
So, we have a problem in first of all, trying to
figure out how to test for toxicity or how to test for any
of these characteristics, for that matter? Do we test the
material or set our criteria on so many parts per million of a
substance that is in the material, or do we test the entire
material for toxicity? Xhege arjs some, of the questions we arc
wrestling with and we would like to have any thoughts that yov
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may have, either now or later, on this issue.
(Slide.)
Under Section 3002 of the Act, we are required to
come up with certain standards which relate to generators of
hazardous waste. These standards require record keeping and
reporting provisions to include such things as quantities of
waste, constituents of the waste, disposition where the
material was sent and how it was handled requirements for
the labeling of containers or the use of certain type s of
containers and construction requirements of containers may be
involved and probably more importantly is the initiation of a
manifest system which is to be designed to track the waste
to track the waste from cradle to grave. That is, from the
point of generation to the point of disposal, to make sure
they get fron Point A to Point B.
This manifest system is also to include, according
to Congress, pertinent information on the waste material which
may be needed by the transporter and the disposer again,
characteristics and quantities and things of that nature.
Now, on those states that already have a manifest
system under their current State programs, this has
specifically taken the form of a trip ticket approach.
For those of you that may be familiar with the California
system, that is a manifest system which will probably be
somewhat similar to that which the Federal system will be.
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important and one of the most difficult along with the 3001
Ejection that we have to deal with because it's here that owner
and operators of treatment, storage, and disposal facilities
will have to meet regulations that we are setting up for these
types of facilities and it is by such standards that improper
disposal will be made illegal. It's a very important part of
the Act, I think.
Congress does require again that we come up with
certain specific types of regulations including requirements
for record-keeping and reporting, including how much material
was received, what type, and how it was handled and how it
was disposed and of course, compliance, again with that part
of the manifest system relates to feeders, storers and
disposers and we have to set up minimum requirements for
monitoring so that we can determine whether a site is or is
not polluting and minimum inspection requirements.
There will be criteria for the design, location
and construction of such facilities, including such things
as where facilities can and cannot be placed, what design
options may be restricted or required.
Maintenance and operating standards are also
required. Contingency plans. What to do if something goes
wrong. What will be done.
And then there is a class of regulations called for
Which we refer to as ownership requirements. This might
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include such things as performance bonds, long term care funds
requirements for training programs, site closure plans, things
of that nature.
If that wasn't all inclusive enough. Congress has
said there is a provision in there that says such other
provisions as may be necessary to protect the public health
and environment. It's a very broad mandate and we can
set those regulations pretty much as we see fit although, as
I say, there are a number of mandatory requirements. Some of
the questions that we are facing here are kind of tricky. We
would like to know, for example, what problems would a treatme
facility or disposer face in trying to integrate the standards
which we may come up with with those they already have to
comply with relative to air, water and OSHA standards. Again,
we do not want to be deplicative or unnecessarily bureaucratic
with all of this and we would like to be able to integrate
them as far as we can.
Should the performance standards of the hazardous
waste sewage treatment or disposal facility apply only at the
fenceline of the facility? What form should the standards
take? For example, they might tak« the form of what we call
performance standards which says you can't degrade the
groundwater beyond such and such and such a limit from any
disposal site. Or, on the other hand, you can take the form
of what we would call an equipment standard which would say
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such things as if you're going to burn chlorinated hydrocarbons
you must have a scrubber with such-and-such a pressure drop.
Two totally different ways of regulating. We're iaterested in
your thoughts as to how you would like to see this go.
Should hazardous waste facilities be uniform
nationally or should there be some differokce in provision for
climatology or hydrogeology or density of population or
whatever? Another major problem we can see being faced is
many citizens automatically oppose the siting of a hazardous
waste material facility even a well designed, good
operating hazardous waste material facility in their
locality. They may be all for the principle, but they don't
want it here. Now, this is common, not only with hazardous
waste materials, but with many other types of facilities aad
it's understandable. Nevertheless, it's going to be necessary
to site these facilities and to site good facilities and we're
interested in any thoughts you may have as to how this type of
opposition can be dealt with or how we are, in fact, going to
be able to go forward and site adequate facilities. How can
we proceed with that? With training of the local people aroun<
one of the sites in terms of public meetings of this type and
training programs and educational lectures ? On the other
hand, would very stringent facility standards have any
appreciable influence on that? We would like to have your
thoughts on that.
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Should the regulations published by EPA require
certification of employees that work at these facilities?
We certify boiler watcher operators and maybe we could certify
waste facility operators. It's a question we would like to
have some input on.
Should it require bonding and insurance of hazardous
waste facilities and even if we were to require it, are there
insurance companies who would consider undertaking the long
term, almost open-ended insurance requirements that might be
needed?
What type of monitoring should be required? How
often should testing be done? Who should run the tests?
Should the facility itself; should the applicable State or
Federal agency us, or should the State undertake this
type of testing? These are just some of the problems with
which we are faced and the questions which we are going to
have to face and we would appreciate your comments on them.
(Slide.)
It's under Section 3005 of the Act where a permit
system is required for the facility. By this mechanism then,
that facility would be brought into compliance with the
standards that would be developed under Section 3004. The
Act says within six months after we have identified what is
and what is not a hazardous waste and have promulgated the
standards under 3004, that it would be illegal then to dispos<
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of any hazardous waste as defined in the Act or as defined
under our regulations in any site that does not have a permit.
It will be illegal. Now, given the 18 months that are in the
Act for developing those standards and then six months beyond
that, that brings us somewhere in the neighborhood of
October 21, 1978, assuming all time requirements are met on
the date that is required.
Now, a permit will be granted based on whether or
not the regulatory agency feels the site is or is expected to
be in compliance with those standards we just talked about.
They have also set up certain requirements that are to be on
the application such as the manner of disposal or treatment,
the types and amounts of waste which they expect to receive,
the frequency of treatment or rate of application of disposal
and information on the site I assume such things as
climatology and hydrogeology and things of that nature.
There is also a provision in here which is of
interest and for those facilities which are in business at
the time of the passage of the Act and who have notified
EPA or the appropriate State under 3010 and who have applied
for a permit, they will be granted an interim permit to
continue operation until such time as EPA or the State has
adequately reviewed and gone through the paperwork and so
forth of making a decision.
One of the questions that we are faced with in this
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permitting area is should there be different classes of
hazardous materials, perhaps depending on the types of materi
or amounts of material received or what. We'd be interested .
any thoughts you have on that.
(Slide.)
3006 of the Act authorizes states to undertake the
•&•
permitting and enforcement requirements of the Act. In order
to be authorized by EPA, the State program would have to be
equivalent with the Federal program, consistent with other
State programs and maintain adequate enforcement programs.
Unfortunately, Congress didn't tell us what equivalent,
consistent and adequate are. So, we are going to have to
wrestle with those definitions ourselves. We will be coming
up with guidelines to assist the jitates in setting up what
would be acceptable programs.
(Slide.)
Section 3010 of the Act requires that within three
months after we have identified the characteristics of a
hazardous waste under 3001, once we have identified what is
and what is not a hazardous waste, three months after that
each person who generates, transports, treats or stores, or
disposes of any material fitting these criteria will have to
notify EPA or the appropriate s.tate. This is a one time
requirement that is in the Act and notification probably will
be a pretty simple operation.
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MR. LINDSEY: I would suggest I'm not going to
read this. There are three types of facilities, treatment,
storage, and disposal, and the definition of thoee are in
Section 1004 of the Act and I think that will give you a fair
idea. Let me say that such things as landfills will be
included.
MR. HEMINGTON: Any landfill?
MR. LINDSEY: Any landfill that receives hazardous
waste under the definition of the Act will come under that.
MR. HEMINGTON: There are numerous small disposal
facilities that receive small amounts of hazardous material
in small sites and you have to have a permit to do that? I
think there's a possibility that enormous numbers of
facilities will be hurt by that.
MR. LINDSEY: I think there's a possibility that a
good number of places that would have to be permitted. One
of the things that I indicated was should there be different
classes of permits for different types of wastes as received.
Are you suggesting that you feel that would be something we
should consider?
MR. HEMINGTON: Nell, yes. I think you ought to
consider the magnitude of disposal problems. For example,
that each mine that is out in the country, there are solid
wastes that are disposed of locally rather than transported
and because of the complexity, mix of waste, it's reasonable
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that some of them will fall into categories called hazardous
waste. To some degree there should be an additional permit
requirement above and beyond the permitting required now. I'gi
not sure
MR. LINDSEY: I think maybe I can take that point
one step further. For example, most fluorescent lights
contain a ballast, a small ballast in them and that ballast
is PCB. Trying to control this disposal of those little bits
of ballast that come from homes and so forth would be a pretty
near impossible test as far as enforcement. This is one of
the problems we have, one of the questions we have, is how
can we control them and should we even try to control them
from the enforcement standpoint. Does anyone else have any
points on this?
MR. TURK: Donald Turk, Tri-County District Health
Department.'
T think they're throwing you a real bag of worms
IN '
an* trying to define a hazardous waste/period. Number one iSj
that if the Act was adopted to protect the public health by
the disposal of solid wastes and if solid wastes in and by
themselves are or do offer a public health problem, then all
of the solid wast* is a hazardous material to be disposed of.
Number two is that the Act is designated as a. solid
waste disposal, how do you intend to handle liquid industrial
"hazardous waste?"
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MR. LIHDSBY: If you look under the definition of
the Act I can't speak for it verbatim solid waste
also includes liquids, gases, that contain the gases .
Includes solids, liquids, semi-solids that contain gaseous
materials that result from industrial, commercial, mining,
and agriculture.
MR. TURK: Then it would seem that reasonable
persons would have defined the Act as waste disposalxperiod^
and left out the solid.
MR. LINDSEY: It's really called the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act. it doesn't say anything at
all about solids in the title.
MR. TURK: Title II, Solid Waste Disposal.
MR. LINDSEY: You may be right. Sub-title C is the
hazardous waste disposal and you're right. It does contain
some inconsistencies between the title of the Act and what
the Act addresses.
MR, TURK: I'm not trying to be fecetious. You
really do have a problem because even solid waste, domestic
solid waste, in sanitary landfills, if there are any leachates
from this material, these leachates in and by themselves are
hazardous and toxic material. Therefore, are you going to
permit all disposal sites?
MR. LINDSEY: I think the intention of Congress ia
probably not to go that far. The criteria which we are given.
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MR. LIHDSEY: It's too early to say one way or
another. We haven't gotten to that. So, I can't answer your
question on whether we will or not because we haven't addressed
the issue. We'd be interested in any facts or problems you
might see if we are to adopt that approach or on the other
hand, any environmental problems we might encourage if we
didn't take that approach. Do you have anything you might
like to say on that matter? I can't answer your question,
because we haven't gotten that far. But, we will have to
wrestle with that problem.
MR. MIHLAN: I was wondering if the Act would cover
only mainly large generators or include smaller type
generators because if it would include a small agricultural
operator or even just an applicator, he would be located in
such a far part of the united States, like eastern Colorado,
someplace where there might not be a hazardous waste facility.
MR. LINDSEY: You're saying it's impractical as you
see it?
MR. MIHLAN: I'm not saying it's impractical, I'»
just wondering what you're going to do
MR. LINDSEY: I don't think it's clear in the Act.
It doesn't say or not say, as I read it, anything in there
that would say yes or no, you include or don't include that.
That then leaves us some latitude to consider that. I'd be
interested in any impacts, economically or from a practical
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standpoint or environmentally going one way or the other.
MR. FOSTER: Al Foster, Denver Regional Council of
governments.
I'm interested in the schedule which you would
anticipate for the guidelines and regulations and what have you
for public comment and finalization and secondly, if you were
considering issuing those piecemeal or as one integrated
package. I think we have a number of sections of the Act that
relate to hazardous waste there and they relate very much to
one another.
MR. LISDSEY: Yes, they do.
MR. FOSTER: And it might make sense, rather than
piecemeal then, to wait and put together an integrated package
MR. LINDSEY: That's a lot of questions a lot of
issues there. I suspect we will try to issue the ones that
clearly impact one upon the other together or very close
together so that the whole issue can be seen at once. Probably
two of the sections which impact one upon the other are 3001,
how do we identify what is a hazardous waste? If we're very
tight on that and we have a relatively small number of wastes
that fall into that category, then perhaps treatment standards
under 3004 would be much more strict.
On the other hand, if we have a very broad number,
very large number of waste materials, extremely broad
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categories of waste materials, it night be economically
unfeasible to have a tight control or standards for treatment,
storage, that kind of trade off issue.
Relative then to the scheduling of how we will move
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forward from here, we are now conducting^a» this is one of the
meetings, a lot of public contact work at this point, what we
would call front and public contact work where we go to the
public and say okay, here's what we have to do. He are
interested in your telling us how you see doing it, number one
and what kind of product do you see ending up out of all of
this. Once we have done this, both in large meetings like
this and smaller group meetings discussing certain issues or
certain questions, then we will come up with a draft. That
draft will have citizen coramentors on these drafts people
that we will send these to on what's what and we'll publish
them as a notice of proposed rule making and that will be an
official publication saying this is what we are proposing and
giving an opportunity for hearings and written comments on
those. That will be down the road some piece, some time in the
fall or winter, something along those lines. And then, it wil
come back and we will revise it based on hearings and comments
but there will be additional meetings like this later on also
in the schedule.
MR. FOSTER: Taking you back to the water quality
and thaproblems that EPA had in getting all the legislation
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and guidelines together, do you think you have the resources
available and the manpower available to meet the 18 months,
April 21, 1978, deadline?
MR. LINDSEY: Being a good bureaucrat, we never have
enough people.
MR. FOSTER: I know. I'm one, too.
MR. LINDSEY: Okay, all I can say, it's too soon to
say. We are doing our best. We have schedules set up to allow
us to meet that if everything goes well and we are going to
try.
MR. CHKN: Phil Chen with Stone and Webster
Engineering.
Two questions. Will the permit system under 3005
trigger a NIPA review?
Second, you have provided for interim permits for
facilities in business as of 10/21/76. What positions do you
have for facilities that begin operations between 10/21/76
and 4/21/78?
MR. LIMDSEY: Let me answer the later question first
and then I'll ask Mr. Grey to answer the former.
The later question what was it again?
MR. CHEN: What positions do you have for people
that will be putting a facility into operation in the interim?
MR. LINDSEY: The Act does not grant any special
provisions for that. It only has provisions for those
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facilities in operation as of the time the Act was passed.
So, as I would interpret it, they would require permits from
the outset which is within six months, I believe. It will
be illegal to dispose of a waste without a permit within six
months after we have identified the criteria unless you were
in business, as I pointed out, as of 10/21. That's what the
Act calls for. Are you saying that there should be some kind
of special provision for those people going into business
now?
MR. CHEN: I would think so because yon pose a
dilemma to any operator who might put a. facility into
operation in conjunction with any other type of industry
where he might not be able to dispose six months after you
put the date in. Perhaps he might be able to put it in
operation today and whenever you promulgate your identificatiojn
of hazardous wastes, he would have to shut down his facility
until April of 1978 when your permitting goes into operation.
MR. LINDSEY: I think there is a little confusion.
Within 18 months, which as I translate it is a final deadline
of April 21, 1978, we have to come up with standards for what
is a treatment, storage and disposal facility, for what
standards they have to meet and then within six months after
that it will become illegal to dispose without a permit. So,
presumably people that go into business now after the Act has
been passed, would have to meet those requirements within
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those six months. Between the six moaths. Between the
identification of the standards. They would have to meet
those requirements within those six months. Whereas, people
who have been in business for some period of time could get an
interim permit until the EPA paperwork clears for the permit
applications which might be some longer period of time.
MR. CHIN: To summarize, if I understand what you're
saying, if someone was going to put a facility into operation
which is passed 10/21/76, he may do so on the premise that six
months after April 21, 1978, he can obtain one of the permits.
MR. LINDSEY: He Would have tokiave a permit to
operate. He would not be eligible for an interim permit. I
can't say anything more about it than that.
MR. GREY: What was the question about the HEPA?
MR. CHEN: Under 3005, you're establishing a
Federal permit system. Under the national Environmental
Policy Act of 1969, any Federal action that might have a
substantial effect, et cetera, will require a SEPA review.
Will this require a NEPA review?
MR. GREY: The Agency has never recognized that
regulatory actions required a NEPA EIS Environmental
Impact Statement. However, Mr. Train, before he left, has
voluntarily agreed to do so by a statement of policy. In fact
he 'issued a policy exclusive of the old Solid Haste 'Disposal
Act of October, '73, I believe, or '74. But, he has since
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expanded it in a letter to the CG and voluntarily has agreed
to do so for this particular Act or for solid waste management.
Mot all Federal actions are major nor do they have
a significant impact on the environment. We are reviewing all
actions to determine whether or not they are major or whether
they have a significant impact on the environment. Those will
get an EIS. This program would be a major program and very
likely would have an Environmental Impact Statement.
MR. LINDSEY: I think maybe the question went a littlje
further than that. Are you relating when a permit is granted
whether or not that would require an Environmental Impact
Statement?
MR. CHEN: Yes, the individual permit.
MR. GREY: Probably not, because the major action is
the program itself. Every agency has a decision to make on
any EIS action, what level of action do we write in the KIS.
Do we write it for that section of the law or do we write it
for all of the Sub-title C? I would say probably that program
the permit program, would get a separate EIS, not each permit.
MR. CHBN: You're talking about a programatic EIS?
MR. GREY: Yes, and that would be an umbrella for
every permit. Remember that every permit would not be a
Federal permit, obviously.
MR. YEAGLEY: Let me get one back here. Yes, sir?
LT. PETERSON: Lieutenant Peterson, United States
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Array Environmental and Hygiene Agency.
I'm curious to find out what sort of regulation you
might anticipate as far as this getting a permit six months
after your program is promulgated with respect to Federal
facilities, particularly with sites that are now located that
will contain potentially hazardous materials and it's locating
a new site on the Federal installation? Is that going to
require a permit six months after or is that going to be able
to get an interim permit?
MR. LINDSIY: A new facility at the same site?
LT. PETERSON: My question is, if you have a
disposal site now and if it's at its capacity and yon are now
in the process of finding a new location for a disposal
facility, does that constitute a new business under your
rules?
MR. LINDSEY: At the same site?
LT. PETERSON: At the same installation.
MR. LINDSEY: I don't know; we haven't addressed
that. I guess it's up to us to determine and we haven't
addressed, for example, if there's a land disposal site whethe
it's military or Federal agency or private, if he. opens up a
new section, does that constitute a new facility. We haven't
addressed that and I can't give you an answer yet.
I should point out that you're familiar with the
provisions of the Act to Federal facilities relative to
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complying with the State?
LT. PETERSON: IB that going to be discussed, that
particular section?
MR. LINDSEY: Am I going to discuss it?
LT. PETERSON: Yes.
MR. LIHDSEY: Hot specifically. If you like, I
could mention that.
There is a requirement in this Act which says that
Federal facilities, whatever they be, whether to treat, store,
dispose or otherwise generate, et cetera, hazardous waste will
have to comply with the provisions of the Act which is not
unusual in the sense that NEPA guidelines apply to Federal.
On the other hand, it also mandates that such facilities would
have to comply with the State programs if the State is
authorized to take over the program and the facility will
follow that program.
LT. PETERSON: With respect to that, I have a
question about when the Federal facility has to comply with
the State program. Were you interpreting or EPA in general,
interpret that as stating we at the present time must comply
with any State program or does a
MR. LINDSEY: There are not any authorized State
programs at the present time. It would have to be a program
authorized by EPA under the guidelines and standards for what
is equivalent and adequate. These haven't been developed yet
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so there wouldn't be any State programs until they are.
LT. PETERSON: It's only authorized State programs?
MR. LINDSEY: I'm not a lawyer, but as I read the Ad:
anyway, it seems to me that the intent of Congress is that the
Federal facilities be treated in the same fashion as any otter
type of facility. As I read it, but I'm not a lawyer.
MX. GREY: Can I add a little bit to that? We
recognize that there is a little bit of conflict about when a
Federal facility must comply with the Federal guidelines or
the State guidelines or regulations and programs. We're
grappling with that right now. We don't have a resolution yet.
We realize that the Federal facilities are in the middle and
there will be nany cases where it would be impossible to compl;
with two different authorities and still be effective. We are
not sure how we are going to handle this. There really isn't
an answer to your question because this is under discussion
and we are going to try to perhaps issue the guidelines in
such a way that they will be written in such a way that it wilL
make it clear what a Federal facility must do.
MR. YEAGLEY: I might make this further point on
that. Past environmental laws have, as Fred mentioned, required
that Federal facilities comply with substantive State
regulations, guidelines, or whatever. I think the significant
point with this Act is that it requires adherance to procedural
aspects as well as the substantive aspects. That is, if the
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State is authorized to run the permit program, the Federal
facility will have to obtain its permit from the State, where!
the past that would not have been the case.
Yes, sir?
MR. ROZICH: Frank Rozich, Colorado Department of
Health.
As I read the Act, all through it, its encouraging
the State and local agencies to assume various portions of the
Act that they feel they can handle themselves. I wonder,
especially from the State's standpoint, we're considering of
course the permit program and the enforcement program, what
can we expect in the way of technical and monetary assistance
to handle this program the way you feel we should handle it?
The reason I bring this up, I know our State
legislature and I feel others in the Region are getting to the
point where they are not willing to take any more of these
grants from the Federal Government and then have to throw in
so many dollars of State money and say eventually the Federal
share keeps dwindling and the State's share keeps going up.
In fact, there is a bill before our Legislature that would
require a Legislative review of all such grant programs.
MR. LINDSEY: Bruce Weddle to my left is going to
address that in some detail. I just might mention that there
is $25 million authorized but not appropriated, so funding-wi^e
there will probably be somewhat less than that. We would be
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interested, and I would like to talk to you or someone else
about your concerns that you would have, whatever problems you
would have in taking over this program in our writing or
putting together the standards or criteria for what is
equivalent or you might have some comments that might help us
in that regard.
We do have several jtates that we are working with
in that regard in helping us develop this. We are getting some
input, but certainly not all we need.
MR. YEAGLEY: Yes, in back?
MR. HALLA: Mike Halla, Fort Carson.
I'd like to get back to the question immediately
preceeding this last one about Federal facilities. You
mentioned Section 601 differs from past environmental
legislation because it submits Federal, facilities to procedura
requirements as well as the standing requirements of State
programs. How do you feel that that will be affected by the
most recent Supreme court decision on Ruckleshouse vs. Kentuck
which indicated that Federal facilities or Federal agencies
are not subject to procedural requirements?
MR. LINDSEY: That was under a different Act, the
Ruckleshouse vs. Kentucky.
It's my understanding, at least, that this is the
first Act which specifically states that Federal facilities
must comply with the procedural requirements as well. How the
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courts will interpret it, who can say, but it's a different
Act and the Act is written differently and therefore one would
wonder, at least, whether or not the previous decision would
have any effect on the requirements of this Act.
MX. HALLA: Have there been any internal changes in
the EPA relative to this?
MR. WEDDLE: After the Congress passed this
legislation, the President debated whether to sign it or not.
The Department of Defense expressed its concern about this
section of the Act and we gave them a lot of assurances that
Federal facilities would be treated no differently than
cities or municipalities or states. We are not going to have
more stringent regulations for them than for cities or states.
What that means and how it will be interpreted in the long run
is hard to say. One thing it does mean is we are knowledgable
of the problem and we are concerned about the problem, but
beyond that, there's very little we can say today but that we
are concerned about the problem.
MR. HALLA: I would like to state one other thing
with respect to compliance with State programs, that there is
an existing Executive Order 11752, I believe, that requires
all Federal facilities to voluntarily comply with the State
programs.
MR. GREY: 11752 applies specifically to the solid
fs
waste disposal Act. We know we are going to have to revise
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11752 and the problem is not with 11752. The problem is in
the implementing of the guidelines and instructions that EPA
puts out on implementing Federal guidelines. We have, as you
know, a data system which your requirements to meet EPA
regulations are included in that. Are you aware what I'a
talking about?
MR. HALLA: Yes.
MR. GREY: If a Federal facility cannot meet the
requirements, it's required to request under the A—106 process
a request for additional funds so that they can comply and
EPA manages that system.
MR. YEAGLEY; Any other questions on hazardous
waste?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you see the definition
of hazardous waste definitely including all mine dumps?
MR. LIMDSEY: In the legislative history I guess
it was the House version of the Act it was made clear that
EPA was not to single out mine wastes specifically except that
we are supposed to undertake a study of mine wastes which is
required under 8002(f) which we will be undertaking at some
point.
On the other hand, if a mine dump or waste from a
mine dump is considered to meet the criteria of being
hazardous under the Act, it would be covered.
MR. WEDDLE: I don't want to contradict what you
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just said, but under the 8002(f) study, we just decided this
week that a major portion of the funds we allocate in that
study would be to look at the regulability of the raining
industry and whether they can be included on the hazardous
materials provisions, for example, and I don't think we are
going to require a man that is producing several million tons
of waste containing lead above what would be considered
hazardous to carry it to a hazardous disposal facility somepla
I think I'm saying that is a problem that we are going to be
addressing under 8002(f).
MR. LINDSEY: Well, I've been out of town for a
week.
MR. YEAGLEY: Any other questions now?
I might just mention that we will be having a
summary discussion at the end so if an additional question
comes up on a subject we've passed, we'll pick it up then.
At this point, let's move on to Bruce Weddle for a
discussion on land disposal.
MR. WEDDLE: We're here to talk about some of the
provisions of the legislation and some of the directions that
we are taking and more importantly, to listen to some of the
things that you have to say.
Before I start, before I left Washington yesterday,
it's my understanding that we would have the Senate Confirmation
Hearings yesterday and today. I haven't seen the paper yet.
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so I don't know if they were a disaster or a success. Under
the assumption that they did go successfully, it's quite
likely that we will have an administrator and deputy
administrator by early next week.
After hearing about the Act's hazardous waste
provisions, I'd like to shift gears a. little bit and talk
about the non-hazardous or land disposal problems of RCRA.
In the land disposal area, RCRA contains important new
requirements for the Administrator of EPA. He must promulgate
regulations containing criteria for determining which faciliti
shall DC classified as sanitary landfills and which shall be
classified as open dumps. He is required to publish an invent
of all disposal facilities or sites in the United States which
are dumps. He is required to publish solid waste management
guidelines, including a description of levels of performance
required to protect groundwater from leachate. The
implications and requirements for State and local governments
will be the subject for our presentation which I will be
giving a little bit later today. I'm sure some of the
questions will overlap and I will try to determine which ones
will be handled better in my presentation now and which will
be handled a little bit later.
RCRA offers broad new definitions for traditional
terms. Solid waste is one of those. I presume in answering
the questions from the gentleman from Tri-County Health that
ry
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«. >)
the word solid is just used for convenience. Disposal also
has a new definition. It now means the discharge, deposit,
injection, dumping, spilling, leaking or placing of any solid
waste or hazardous waste into or on those are the key
words any land or water so that such solid waste or
hazardous waste or any constituent thereof may enter the
environment. What that simply means that any waste placed on
land or on the surface of the land or into the land that
results in any contamination of the environment, will be
considered disposal.
The term "solid waste* now means any garbage,
refuse, sludge from a municipal waste water treatment plant,
water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control
facility. What that simply means is that municipal sewage
sludge is specifically included in the definition of solid
waste. However, the definition specifically excludes solid
or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or industrial
discharges which are point sources subject to permits under
Section 402 of the FWPCA. It also excludes nuclear material.
(Slide.)
As I said earlier, the definitions of sanitary
landfill and open dump refer to Section 4004 of this
legislation. This section requires the Administrator to
promulgate regulations containing criteria for determining
which sites are sanitary landfills and which are open dumps.
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At a mimimum, these criteria shall provide that a facility
may be classified as a sanitary landfill and therefore not an
open dump only if there is no reasonable probability of adversi
effects on health or the environment from disposal of waste at
such a facility. These criteria are due in one year from the
passage of the Act, in October of this year. These criteria
will state what is an open dump, everything else can be a
sanitary landfill. It will state that we, as the Federal EPA
will be saying what we will allow. I'm sorry, we will not say
what we will allow, we will say what will be banned.
V
It was the intent' of Congress for us not to tell
State and local governments what they should do, but rather
what they should not do. It may seem like a subtle difference
but it's a major difference.
x
Section 4004 (b) requires each State plaryC to
prohibit open dumps and require all disposals within a State
to be sanitary landfills.
(Slide.)
Using the criteria developed in Section 4004, the
states under the authority of 4005 will conduct an inventory
^f-
of all open dumps. This inventory should be conducted in
fiscal '78, meaning this October through September of '78.
Following the completion of that inventory EPA will publish a
list of all open dumps in the country. Any facility on that
list must be closed or converted to a sanitary landfill within
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five years.
Section 4005 also has an interesting provision as
does Section 7002 >« that is citizen supervision. A citizen
may take any site that is not included in the inventory and no
included in the State plan for closure within five years or
upgraded to a sanitary landfill within five years, a citizen
or public interest group may take that disposal site operator
or open dump operator to the Federal courts. And that is
significant because I suspect that the Federal courts would be
less sympathetic than the local courts.
This provision would be particularly interesting
because it will put a lot of pressure on State governments to
follow our guidelines and obtain an EPA acceptable state plan.
If a state does not have an acceptable approved EPA approved
state plan, any open dump in that state is, therefore., liable
to citizen suit. If a state has an approved plan and that
dump is listed, it's not subject to citizen suits under this
plan.
(Slide.)
I'd like to move on to Section 1008 which requires
the Administrator to publish within one year guidelines which
provide a technical and economic description of the level of
performance that can be attained by various available and
I underline the word available solid waste management
programs. In two years, these guidelines will describe levels
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of performance, including appropriate methods and degrees of
control, that provide a minimum for protection of public healt^i
and welfare. These guidelines must also provide for the
protection of the quality of the groundwaters and surface
waters from leachates, protection of the quality of service
waters from run off from the sites and protection of ambient
air quality. They must also provide for aesthetics such as
vector control and safety.
In response to Section 1008, the current thinking of
the Agency is the updating of the existing land disposal
guidelines and initiate municipal sewjlr sludge disposal and
land utilization guidelines.
In summary. Section 4004 establishes criteria for
establishing what an open dump would be and what a sanitary
landfill will be. This raises many questions, it raises
questions of discharge, raises questions of classification of
groundwater, where we would permit the degradation of some
groundwater from leachates and other groundwater must be
protected. It raises questions of lining and treating at all
sites. It raises questions about the types of wastes that
should be included should they be limited just to municipal
solid waste, should they include municipal sludge, agricultural
waste, cess ponds and lagoons. These are questions we are
wrestling with.
Section 1008 in its relationship to Section 1004 is
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another issue. The current thinking is that 1008 would
provide the ^tate and local governments on environmentally
acceptable methods to achieve sanitary landfills as defined
in Section 4004. It would be technical advice on how to do
it properly. Section 1008 will be mandatory and for local
implementation grantees under Section 4008(a)(2)(a) and
simply be an advisory to the jtate and local government.
That was a quick, brief overview of the land
disposal portions of the Act.
I'd like to entertain any questions that we have at
the present time.
MR. SHRUM: Daryl Shrura with the Oblinger-Smith
Corporation.
Under Sub-title B, Section 4, Part C, you're saying
that all open dumps have to be eliminated by 1983. I agree
totally with your objective, but what about out in rural
communities where the problem is they don't have the
funds to do this. They don't have the means," they don't have
the equipment,* they don't have the necessary finances to make
the changes. Are there going to be appropriated Federal and
State funds to make sure this Act is implemented?
MR. MEDDLE; It's two questions there. The first one
is, is it stated that all open dumps would be banned by
1983. That would be an optimistic statement. They -will be
banned five years after the publication of the inventory.
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therefore, any site must collect and treat leachates generated
or would have to have a sensitive monitoring system to detect
any contamination.
Class B groundwater could be something that the Stat
could write off because it's naturally unpotable, has been for
years, and forever will be.
They're very difficult questions and I don't know hoi
we are going to proceed. If you have any suggestions, I'd
be happy to hear them.
MS. QUAIL: How about things like piles of silica,
material just sitting on top of the earth?
MX. WSDDLE: How did it get there?
MS. QUAIL: Say you're making steel. You have got
this residue that is deposited on the site of the plant. Do
you think that would come under this?
MR. WEDDLE: It's possible, but I can't answer that
question. One of the approaches of the criteria, which will
come up at least six months before the hazardous waste
definitions, would be to include all wastes with the criteria
for hazardous wastes and set a baseline for environmental
disposal of everything, all waste, and any additional criteria
would be developed under Sub-title C or perhaps on the 1008
facility. That may or not be the case. It's a good one and
we're going to have to try to focus our own minds and raise
these questions in public forums like this.
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If no one else has a question and I have a minute, I
have a question that wasn't raised earlier and may or may not bi
an issue in this region. That is an inclusion of municipal
sewjPr sludges as hazardous waste. There may not be any
operators here that will come home to, but I thought it might
help those of you here to know where we stand or would like to
stand on the cess ponds and lagoons in EPA' Current thinking
is that the Agency would have difficulty excluding municipal
sludge under the definition of hazardous waste. Industrial
sludges have the exact same or similar characteristics to
municipal sewage sludge. It's my estimation that a percentage
of the municipal sevjar sludge will indeed be a hazardous
waste. For example, a number of cummunities have a number of
PCB concentrations up to 200 parts per million. Certainly I
think that would fit any definition that we may develop on
hazardous waste but on the other hand, I think that the vast
majority of sewage sludge will not be classed as hazardous
waste but will be addressed in the criteria of 4004.
MR. TURK: Don Turk, Tri-County Health Department.
The last Colorado State Legislature let me go
back. The State solid waste Act did include sewage sludge as
being solid waste. This last State Legislature did amend this
Act to say that if the sludge met the standards adopted by the
State Board of Health for use as a fertilizer for beneficial
use, then it would be excluded from the terminology as being a
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solid waste. How would this fit into the Federal requirement
provided that the sewage treatment facility does put out a
quality of sewage sludge that would meet the fertilizer
standards?
MR. WEDDLE: We are wrestling with the same issue.
It could go either of two ways. One, that EPA would
establish such levels that could be acceptable for use on
agricultural lands and that any sludge meeting those levels
would be a resource and handled like a resource recovery would
be. On the other hand, it could be that it's a solid waste
but the beneficial use of solid waste, not just sewxr sludge,
but compost and other waste utilization could come in on that
and criteria on those would be different than for a sanitary
landfill or
MR. TURK: Do you have any target dates for
addressing this?
MR. WEDDLE: Well, the criteria are due in final
form in October next year. I suspect that we will have to go
forward in draft form sometime early this summer, but we will
be wrestling with that issue probably over the next three
months and we shall solidify our thinking on that at least
for the draft purpose by June.
MR. ROZICH: The reason Don brings this up, both he
and I have been working on a task force to come up with criter La
as to what is acceptable sludge for agrinomical use and we are
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just down to the last draft now, we hope, and if there is
going to be a change we would like to know it as soon as
possible.
MR. WEDDLE: You just said something near and dear
og,
to my heart because sewar sludge is my area of expertise.
I'd be delighted to look at what you are drawing up, both from
the professional standpoint and from a bureaucratic standpoint
on how this fits into the Agency thinking.
MR. TURK: Can we get your name and mailing address
from Jon later?
MR. WEDDLE; Yes.
MR. LEHR: Maybe you could contact Jon Yeagley or
myself and we'll get involved next week.
MR. WEDDLE: I have some cards if anyone wants those.
That's open for anybody in the room that would like me to take
a look at something dealing with municipal sewad sludge.
MR. YEAGLEY: I think in general I'll expand on what
Jim is trying to get to that anytime you have need for a
review of standards, or regulations, or whatever, we'd be
more than willing to do that through the Regional Office and
in those areas where we don't have those capabilities such as
the one that Bruce just mentioned, we'll certainly tap the
Washington office.
I think at this point we need to take a short break,
s.f for nothing but to give this gal down front here a chance
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to revive her fingers. Let's take a ten-minute break and then
o^i
we'll commence with resource conservation/recovery.
(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
MR. YEAGLEY: At this point, I'd like to continue so
we can maintain some schedule. I'd like to introduce to you
now, Mr. Bob Lowe, who will speak on resource conservation 4^d
recovery.
MR. LOWE: Qood morning. I'm going to talk about
the sections of the Act that deal with resource conservation
and resource recovery. The Act provides authorization to do a
lot of good things, we think, but before I discuss the section:
of the Act and raise your hopes about what might happen and
what someday might flow from this, I want to reiterate the
budget constraints that have been mentioned earlier. As you
know, we have a relatively low level of funds and staff to
implement this Act. The Act gives us much greater
responsibilities than we have ever had before, but we haven't
had a budget increase or a commensurate increase in staff.
The aspect of this that affects us directly is what
priority within our Agency will be given to resource
conservation and resource recovery. In general, the priority
seems to be going in the direction of hazardous waste
management and land disposal guidelines and primarily because
those sections of the Act have specific mandates and specific
deadlines and the resource conservation and resource recovery
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sections of the Act do not have such requirements, so it's
natural that people who are responsible for administering and
managing this Act would lean in that direction.
There's also the issue of what is the traditional
orientation of our Agency which has typically been a pollution
control agency and not an environmental protection agency.
The resource conservation and recovery is more in the line of
environmental protection as opposed to the pollution control.
Having said that, I'd like to review those sections
of the Act that address resource conservation and recovery.
(Slide.)
Resource conservation and recovery is specifically
addressed in these sections shown on this slide. The guide-
line section that was mentioned, I believe first by Bruce,
calls for guidelines in the area of improved solid waste
management. We have already written some guidelines under
previous legislation and we are going to reissue those
guidelines. It's unlikely that we are going to issue any new
guidelines, or at least not for some time, primarily because
of resource constraints.
The next item on here is the resource recovery and
conservation panels. I would like to go into that in a little
more detail in a moment. The section of the Act, Sub-title D
for those of you who are bureaucratically inclined and
would rather talk in terms of letters and numbers and not in
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to increase the market for secondary materials. Their review
should, we are hoping, they will remove any restrictions on thi
use of secondary materials and they will increase the
requirements for use of secondary materials and hopefully this
action by the Federal level will be imitated by State and loca
governments and hopefully even by industry and create a demand
for secondary materials.
(Slide.)
This will give you an idea of some of the study
areas that are called for under one section, 8002. As you can
see, mining wastes and sludge are included on here and that's
Bruce's area and he's already mentioned that.
One thing I'd like to mention is what is referred to
jyfi here as small—scale low technology recycling processes and
product separation. These refer to source separation and
collection and for those of you who are not familiar with that
terminology that is a recycling system in which the generator
of the waste, the householder or the people in office building:
or commercial establishments, segregate recyclable material
such as newsprint and office paper and keep them separate from
other materials and they are collected and handled separately
on their way to a user such as a paper plant. These things,
having been specifically included in the Act, show an emphasis
on this area.
(Slide.)
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One of the most significant areas in the Act was the
creation of a resource conservation committee whose charge is
to study certain methods and approaches to resource
conservation, ways of reducing the amount of material that is
produced or used in the first place in an attempt to reduce thJ3
amount of waste that will require disposal.
In this list of items, there is a study for incentives
and disincentives such as taxes and penalties, public policies
such as depletion allowances and some other things.
This provision is both good news and bad news. The
bad news is, by requiring more studies as an alternative to
passing the kind of provisions, laws, and so on, effectively
Congress has delayed the implementation of those programs for
at least three more years because it's not feasible for the
Congress to pass such laws and regulations while it's being
studied. On the good side now, it does at least include in th
law specifically a requirement to address these issues. But
most importantly, the studies are now being done by a
cabinet committee, a committee composed of the Secretary of
Labor, the Secretary of Commerce, the Chairman of the Council
of Environmental Quality, the Administrator of the EPA is the
Chairman. It also includes a representative fromthe
President's Office of Management and Budget which I might add
that a mere representative of that office is equivalent to a
secretary of one of the Cabinet departments. But, that will
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give you an idea of how things work in Washington.
The significance of this being a Cabinet level
committee is this, this is about the fifth tine that such a
study of material utilization and waste impacts have been
studied since about 1950, but prior to this, all the studies
have been outside the Administration. They were done by
special commissions. This is the first time that the study is
being done within the Administration, and therefore, the
likelihood of any recommendations being implemented is that
much greater. I think it's fortunate that this has started
taking pla ce at the beginning of a new Administration because
it's likely that the people who do the study and sit on the
committee will be around later to recommend legislation and
implement and recommend programs.
(Slide.)
Section 2003, which calls for the creation of resour
and recovery and conservation panels to provide technical
assistance and governmental terminology and provide information
and advice and guidance to State and local government
officials and to the private sector and to anyone else who is
willing to listen for all these purposes that are listed up
here. As an example of some of the things they would be
doing under this program would be to help states design and
implement regulatory programs, to help them design and to
help them plan and develop alternatives to land disposals sue!
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as the separation system or the resource recovery facility.
(Slide.)
Thse panels will be composed of people who have
expertise in the following areas: technical, marketing,
financial, and institutional. They will be composed of EPA
staff, consultants under contract to EPA, and other State and
local public officials who will be brought into the program
under the concept which we call peer matching where we bring
together public officials who have had experience in a certain
area and they will be sent to other communities where they are
facing that problem.
I should mention that the title of this program or
the resource and conservation panel is somewhat misleading in
two respects. First of all, it's not limited to just resource
conservation and recovery, but the technical assistance progran
is being planned to address all areas of solid waste managemen
including hazardous waste management. This is appropriate
because if we are going to do an effective job of protecting
the environment, the technical assistance is going to be
required to make any regulatory program effective and the
administrators of this law should have at their disposal both
regulatory tools and technical assistance so they can bring
to bear whichever is appropriate in that circumstance.
The other misleading of this title is that the word
"panel* normally brings to mind the idea of a fixed unit of
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individuals, let's say four people which will convene as a
unit and travel as a unit. But, that's not the way we are
interpreting this. We are interpreting this to mean something
on tha order of a stable or a pool of resources, a list of
individuals or firms with known expertise who would be called
on one at a time or in groups, whatever is appropriate, in the
particular circumstances, to address particular problems.
The law requires that 20 percent of the general
authorization for this Act, 20 percent of $35 million or
$7 million, be spent on the resource conservation and recovery
panels. At the moment, that's 20 percent of a fairly small
number, so we don't really know what it's going to be.
I have some questions I'd like to ask the audience
and get feedback to help us in our planning of this program,
but before I do that, I'd like to open the floor to hear any
comments you have, suggestions you have, on what I have already
said. Are there any such comments or suggestions or questions
I'd be happy to take them now.
MS. FOSTER: Al Foster, Denver Regional Council of
Governments.
To raise an age old bugaboo in the resource and
recovery laws, is there any provision in the Act to study
freight rates or try to do something about that problem?
MR. LOWS: No, there is not; but, the Railroad
Revitalization Act of 1975, I think it was, required the
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Interstate Commerce Commission to review and I guess, modify
at least to review its rate structure as it relates
to the transportation of secondary materials in comparison to
virgin material and it required that the Interstate Commerce
Commission allow EPA to review what it's doing and we are
doing that. We are reviewing the Interstate Connerce Commission's
activities.
MX. FOSTER: May I suggest that you encompass that
in your incentive-disincentive study you have on the list for
the Cabinet study?
MR. LOWE: Yes, I'm sure it is, but I will make sure
that gets back to Washington. We have looked at this issue
before and we have found that freight rates do discriminate
against secondary materials on certain commodities. But,
freight rates also discriminate in favor of secondary materials
of other types, so it's not altogether clear and I'm not sure
the freight rates really do mean that much, anyway. It's
an idea that's easy to lable and easy to conceptualize and
therefore, it has become very popular and talked about. I
think it's a problem, but I think the amount of attention to
i±
be given to.is larger than it deserves in relation to some
other problems.
MR. YEAGLEY: Before we go on to other specific
questions, I'd like to introduce Mrs. Anice Swift from the
League of Women Voters, who has a prepared statement to give.
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MS. SWIFT: I'm Chairman of Solid Waste for the
League of Women Voters for Boulder.
As the League State Chairman of Solid Waste has
stated a written opinion which has been given to you, we are
encouraged to find how many of the League's national state and
local positions on the management of solid waste have been
taken into consideration in this law. One of our special
interests has to do with the recovery of usable materials
before they get into the waste stream to be buried in landfill
or compacted under high technology disposal systems.
We are concerned that under the implementation law
too much attention and money has been given to the highly
technical logical plans for solid waste management and not
enough emphasis given to low technology plans which encourage
the recovery and conservation of solid waste materials
for programs focused on the beginning of waste treatment.
These fears are well grounded in the Denver
metropolitan area. The Denver Regional Council of Governments
spent a great deal of time and money in the past several years
studying the feasibility of high technological resource
recovery plans. Finally, last July, that proposal was
shelved as not being a feasible solution at the present time
for the Denver metro area.
On the other hand, without help from governmental
agencies, several low technology plans for retrieval of reusab
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materials at the front of the solid waste stream, notably
Eco-cycle in Boulder, have demonstrated that they have made a
real contribution toward cutting down the amount of solid
waste to be disposed of and toward conserving many valuable
materials for reuse.
We are glad to see the many ways which the new
Solid Waste Disposal Act can give support and assistance to
such programs, in particular by many of the ways that
Mr. Capcfield emphasized, by making grants available to purchas
equipment, tire shredders, for example, to aid in the reuse of
discarded materials by providing Federal assistance and
obtaining information on the marketing of recovered materials,
by encouraging through the Secretary of Commerce the greater
use of recovered materials, by removing the present economical
and technical barriers for their use.
Thank you for this opportunity to take part in this
discussion.
MR. YEAGLEY: Thank you. Are there any other
specific questions on the subject of resource conservation
recovery?
(Pause.)
MR. LOWE: I'd like to thank Mrs. Swift for her
comments. We have heard those comments everywhere we have
gone and we are glad to hear them here.
You might be interested to know what we are doing
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with respect to the Denver area. We gave the Denver Regional
Council of Governments a grant for the project that ended last
July and they were prudent enough not to spend very much of our
money and so there's a good amount left. We are now trying to
work out an arrangement with Eco-cycle to implement a source
separation system, and we're still trying to work that out.
When we gave the grant to the Denver Regional
Council of Governments, we gave similar grants to a number of
other communities and we are working with a few of them to do
the same thing even where some of the original projects, the
large-scale projects, are being still planned. We think a
source separation and resource recovery facility can co-exist
and we'd probably be better off than either one of them alone.
We're working with some of them on that.
Are there any other questions before I go into mine?
(Pause.)
MR. LOWE: I'd like to give you some idea of the kin<
of issues that we are trying to deal with and if you have any
comments on these either now or later, I'd appreciate hearing
them.
Given that we have fewer people and less money than
we need to answer all the requests for technical assistance, w<
are going to have to prioritize our efforts. The question is,
to whom shall we give our technical assistance? How do we
select communities to be recipients of technical assistance?
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Do we do it on the basis of the most tonnage of waste, in whic'i
case we will give our technical assistance to New York City
first, Los Angeles second, Chicago third, and so on, and we
probably would not give any assistance to smaller communities.
Should we give our technical assistance on the basis
of who has the most critical environmental problems, in which
case we would not give it to a place like Los Angeles which ha >
a very good landfill. In that respect, we may be discriminating
against them, even though they deserve something for doing a
good job in the past.
Should we give our assistance where there is the
greatest level of ignorance? This was not on my original
list. This was suggested in our public participation meeting
in Pittsburg on Monday night. My immediate reaction was I
could just picture myself reading off the list of people that
we decided to give our assistance to the following people
are judged to have the highest level of ignorance.
One problem there is, if the ignorance level is so
high, we might not ever achieve any successes. If we can
bring somebody from 90 on a scale of 100 90 to 100
we may be achieving more than bringing somebody from zero to
70. That's one of the problems of using that criteria.
Another criteria is giving technical assistance on
the basis of most likely to succeed. In that case, we could
address all sized communities whether they have a serious
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problem or not and our current thinking is that this is the
one we prefer. Our overall objective is to recycle and conser
the greatest amount of waste and to solve the most critical
environmental problems and we will take into account all of
these factors. But, our thinking is if we work with the
communities most likely to succeed, we will be helping to
create models which other communities can follow and they can
do on their own later and in that respect, we can budget our
resources. I'd like to hear comments on that.
Another issue is, should we give technical assistant:^
to only a few states, cities, counties, but do it in a very
in-depth way give them as much help as we can? Or, should
we hit as many communities as we can in a shallow manner
the inch deep, mile wide approach? That is a big question and
we don't really have an answer there.
When our Resource Conservation Committee and our own
administration are considering the resource conservation
options, what criteria should they use; what subjects should
they study; what material should they concentrate on? Should
they look at total overall pollution, meaning even if the
material doesn't get into the waste stream because it's
reused or has a long lifetime, but in the course of producing
it or extracting it from the earth and manufacturing it it
generates a lot of air and water pollution and let's say a lot
of toxic wastes in the particular production cycle, should tha-:
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(Pause.)
MR. HALLA: Mike Halla from Fort Carson.
Nith regard to demonstration projects and pilot
plans, it seems to be a perception that I have that the only
way the regional communities or large cities will ever have
resource recovery programs is if they each have their own
demonstration project. There have been many instances where
a demonstration project being successful and being duplicated
in other cities. Is this what the intent of these projects
were in the beginning?
MR. LOWE: The answer is yes.
I take issue with your statement that demonstration
facilities are the only way to establish projects in a city
because there are a number of communities already that have
plants in operation or signed contracts and plants under
construction. There are two notable examples of demonstration
projects, both of which are Federal demonstration projects
which resulted in plants being built elsewhere. One is the
•xfo'
system in St. Louis, Missouri. It's called "trasly^kilowatts
where garbage was shredded and burned in a lake or utility
boiler to supplement the coal. There is already a facility
operating in Ames, Iowa, and there are facilities under
construction in Milwaukee, Chicago, Bridgeport and Rochester,
New York, using that concept. The demonstration project in
Franklin, Ohio, is being imitated in Cade County, Florida,
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which is where Miami is and also in Hempstead. New York.
There are several example* of other technologies
that we didn't feel needed demonstration because they had
been demonstrated in Europe and systems like that are being
built in this country. One is now operating in Saugus,
Massachusetts, and another is operating somewhat unacceptably
in Nashville, Tennessee, but it's unacceptable for management
reasons, not technical reasons.
MR. HALLA: If there are several demonostration
projects, how does the Agency see a continued need for additio
demons trations?
MR. LOWE: That is a good question and we hear all
opinions on that and I'd like tdhear your opinion unless your
statement implies one. One justification for doing more
demonstrations is by having more demonstrations, we increase
the number of technical options that communities would have to
choose from. Some of the available technologies are not
applicable in every situation because the markets for the
recovered products do not exist, so if we wanted to develop
the number of alternatives, demonstrating would be the way to
go.
Should the Federal Government be demonstrating at
all or should we allow the private sectors to do that? That
is a good question, also. We are tossing that over and « look
at the private sector and we see some research and development
al
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going on, but the public sector as a customer for these
systems is a very difficult customer to deal with. For privat<
companies who think whether or not they want to develop
these technologies, they sometimes say, well, we're not going
to bother developing this .technology because it's so difficult
to deal with municipalities, so difficult to sell them the
product, it takes two, three, four, five, six years to make a
sale, it's just not worth it, so we won't do it. When we
hear signals like that, we think the Federal Government ought
to be involved in it. On the other hand, tiere are some
systems being marketed by the private sector. We are looking
for feedback on whether you think the existing arrays of
technology are satisfactory.
Do you have an opinion on that or not? You don't
have to answer now if you don't want to.
MR. HALIA: I don't wish to state an opinion now.
I just wondered if there was any framework to stop demonstratii
projects once success is achieved.
MR. LOWE: Well, we will not demonstrate the
St. Louis system again, even though that system was a very
early prototype and the systems that have followed that in
other cities are significantly different from the one we did.
We feel we have planted the seed and whether or not we need to
do others is being evaluated now.
Do you have a question, in the back?
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MR. HERMAN: Russ Herman. You use the term
successful projects. How do you define "successful?"
MB. LOWE: Good question. We define successful in a
number of ways depending on who we are talking to and how mud
jeopardy our program is in. The main criteria for success is
does the project meet its original objectives and that can be
defined in a lot of ways. The main objective of our projects
is to increase the amount of information so that municipal an
state officials can make good decisions, hopefully the projec
will result in something worth doing and it will be imitated.
But, we also consider a project successful if it teaches
somebody not to do something. I think we consider the St. Lot
project a success even though as a piece of hardware it didn't
work very well, it demonstrated a concept and it is now being
imitated. Our facility in Baltimore is somewhere between the
viewing and the unveiling. It's essentially over and as a
technical process it probably will not be imitated. It's
unfortunate that that method which we had so much hope for,
unfortunately, we no longer have that as an option. But, on
the bright side, we learned some things about a variety of
things. We learned something about the procurement process,
how to negotiate a contract with a private company and we
learned about shredding and receiving and those kinds of
things. Materials handling and those kinds of things that could
be used elsewhere, so I think that is very valuable,so I think
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in some respects that project was a failure, but in other
respects it was successful.
MR. STOCKWELL: Hill you just take this and maybe
just a little recitation on that. It looks like it involves
just what we're talking about now.
MR. LOWE: What Mr. Stockwe11 has handed me is a
newspaper clipping reporting on a demonstration facility
funded by the United States Energy Research and Development
Administration, known as ERDA. They invested, I think,
$30 million into building a facility in Florida, I don't know
what the amount was, but it was to build a facility to process
all waste and produce methane gas. I don't know the latest
status on that, but the legislation that ERDA operates under
is similar to ours. They have a program similar to ours and
we are working mostly with them sometimes against them
on these and other projects. We would not attempt a project
like this because they have done it.
Are there any other questions on any aspect of this?
MR. STOCKWELL: Only that further into the article
there it says, it seems to be progressing and the possibility
of success if it doesn't say it there, it's in the later
part of the writing.
MR. LOWE: Naturally, we're hopeful about something
like this. It's kind of early to tell. I have some fears
about this only because the prototype of this facility, which
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I think is 50 tons per day, is very, very small. Once you go
in very small steps, if you have something of one scale then
the next step should be something you could fit into your
garage and the next step something you could fit into your
house and then you start getting bigger and bigger.
One of the problems that we had in Baltimore was we
went from a 30-ton per day pilot facility to 1,000 tons per
day demonstration and that was a factor of 33 times and it was
just too much. The problems that we had were directly related
to that.
MR. GERDOM: Joe Gerdom, Laramie-Albany County
Planning Office.
The allocation of technical assistance, I would hope
that, of course, realizing the time limits and so forth, rathe;-
than using those communities and regions that would be most
likely to succeed that perhaps it would be simpler for a
demonstration process to use protypical communities that could
be identified which would although they may not have the
capability of most likely succeeding, they would in their
example show the greatest number of community pitfalls as well
as potential points for success in demonstrations and through
some identification and operationalizations of your objectives
in the Act that you could do this. You could accomplish this
identification in such a way as to stratify various communitie^
to which you would apply this technology.
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MR. LOWE: In other words, what you're saying is we
should give importance, priority, to the demonstration value o
a given project?
MR. GERDOM: Not only from success, but from possible
shortcomings that might be encountered and through that provide
both a positive and negative demonstration.
MR. LOWE: That's a good point. I might say that we
have taken that into account in the past. One reason we found
the Denver Regional Council of Governments an attractive
candidate was it was a regional council of governments and it
had a good reputation nationally for being able to achieve
things. We thought that would be a good model.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: In this resource recovery,
getting back to Russell's question, would you expect that thes<
projects would become self-supporting or do you always expect
some Governmental support?
MR. LOWE: Would the demonstration projects
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No. no. If in fact these
projects work, is part of their feasibility the fact that they
should be self-supporting?
MR. LOWE: Definitely, yes. Self-supporting, I must
qualify that. There are two sources of revenue. One is
product revenue received from energy and material and the othe
is revenue from the service of providing disposal for the wast
At this point in time and for the foreseeable future, the reve:
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from the sale of products will not be high enough to offset
the costs of their disposal. There will always be a problem.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Going one step further, as I
understand Eco-cycle in Boulder, they will pick up, free of
charge, recyclable materials from private people; is that not
correct?
MR. LOWE: I don't know yet. I'll know after lunch.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay; if you decided upon
them, or Governmental agencies in general did this kind of
thing, how do you expect then for the public ever to assume
they're going to be charged because they pick something like
that for a resource recovery area or a sanitary landfill? In
other words, I think you might be starting something here that
is going to snowball in a sense that it appears that the
Government then is willing to give free of charge this kind of
service to the public or
MR. LOWE: Can you respond to that, Al?
MR. FOSTER: Al Foster.
What we hope will happen is that we can pick up and
separate material from homes and businesses to a very large
degree and the sale of materials in that instance, we would
expect then eventually to cover all costs and it would operate
in a non-profit type of mode so you're not requiring subsidies
from the Governmental agencies.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: in other words, it's something
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that could be withdrawn over a period of time?
MR. FOSTER: That's correct. However, 1 know that
many of us anticipate that not 100 percent of all the wastes
are going to be recovered from that route and you will always
have somewhere between 30 to 50 percent of all types of waste
including concrete and so on, that will go into landfills.
In that instance, we are going to/iave a service charge just
like you pay now for garbage pick up.
In addition to that, once we get to the level where
we know how much material people will voluntarily separate,
there will be a certain amount left of people who will not
separate on their own and for that you will have to have a
mechanical type system to separate those types of waste. At
the present time, those types of systems, we still have a
charge, probably a service charge rather than a governmental
subsidy, but it's the same thing.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Wouldn't it then be more
reasonable to fund them only to a certain extent and charge
then a certain amount so that the public, in fact, does not
become induced to believe that they may well be going to get
this free?
MR. FOSTER: 1 overlooked saying something and that
is, people in Boulder, for example, and in the region of my
business, will continue to pay for garbage and trash pick up
for material not separated. All this does is take some of tha
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to the recycling operation.
UMIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: In other words, you would not
fund anything other than materials for recycling?
MX. FOSTER: That's correct. We are looking only
for recyclable materials.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: When household garbage become
recyclable or an energy producing source, do you intend then
to fund that pick up?
MR. FOSTER: Perhaps
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'm just pointing out the
general idea that there may be something the matter with the
concept of picking any of this up totally free because sooner
or later the public is going to have to come around to the
fact that the Government didn't mean to provide free service
in this area.
MR. FOSTER: I'm taking over for the EPA here and I'
sorry. What we're talking about here is kind of a demonstrate 1
guess on these concepts and as they become economically
feasible then I think the Government will adopt that kind of
approach. It's kind of a start-up system which Ithink will
limit
MR. LOWE: I think it's important to understand what
the Federal money is used for and it's used for different
things in different projects. Frequently, it's used for
preconstruction and pre-operation activities such as the publilc
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relations in advertising work necessary to make the household
understand how to participate in the program or to pay to
somebody for negotiating with the paper company that's going t
buy the paper or if a special kind of truck is required, it's
not likely that a truck manufacturer will invest the money in
a new type of truck unless it's had some kind of assurance tha
the truck will be bought. If the Federal Government says well
we'll buy the truck for this purpose, then they have that
assurance and they will go ahead and make that truck.
There's always the question of, okay, let's say we
use a new kind of truck, is that new kind of truck going to b
financially successful? Is the system in which it is used
going to be financially successful? That's a major question
and that's the reason why we invest the money initially. So
far, we haven't had the problem with having a free of charge
system and raising the public's expectations.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: In other word, the public
has always been willing to pick up the costs later after it's
no longer funded?
MR. LOWE: Yes, they have. Or, what we've been
funding was something that was new and additional to what they
were paying before. Generally, we fund one small segment of
the total operation of the local governmert and the public
doesn't always perceive the change because it's usually so
small.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Under this section of the
bill, would there be similar educational processes whether it
be literature or otherwise? I think what bothers me more
about the resource recovery is nobody ever talks about the bad
things that can happen and a lot of people get into it before
they realize all the other alternatives that they didn't
realize when they started.
MR. LOWE: That has been a problem and we, ourselves
were guilty of that up until about three years ago. I think
if you read our literature, I think we have earned the
reputation that we tell both sides of the story. We will not
enter into a demonstration or evaluation project unless there
is built into the project some mechanism for gathering data
and analyzing and reporting it in some meaningful fashion. In
our list of available information are a number of reports. We
will not enter into a demonstration project unless we are
provided in advance for the preparation of reports.
Just to give you an example of how important that is
to us, it used to be that we would have the grantee write
the reports. Well, grantee* are not report writers necessaril
They are public works directors who are responsible for making
machines work, not necessarily engineering investigators.
So, what we have done is hired research firms and consulting
firms to gather this kind of data and write these reports and
these reports are available and if you'll write to us, we'll
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send you a list of what things are available.
MR. McCLURE: Tim McClure with the Colorado Open
Space Council on Solid Waste Recycling Workshop.
Our main obstacle we're sort of a coalition on
recycling projects across the state. I'd like to mention some
^
of the problems we have in trying to organize and continue
operating recycling projects. The main one is transportation.
There is just not sufficient and cheap enough transportation t>
haul the materials.
Another is processing machinery and storage facilities.
We desparately need a bigger storage facility so we can
economically ship things in the Denver area or somewhere in
Colorado, anyway.
Another thing we would like to see is some kind of
motivation for private enterprise to start using the
recyclable products. For instance, a big problem here is the
facilities for recycling glass are very limited here and try tb
ship it clear to Oklahoma City it's hardly worth it for ths
price of glass. So, if we could get private enterprise
interested in making glass jars or what not made from cullet
here in Colorado, that would solve that problem.
I think if those things can be addressed when you're
implementing this Act, rather than just all the studies, we
will have a pretty good situation.
MR. LOWE: Thank you. Let me make two comments in
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response. One is, most of the equipment used in solid waste
processing has been borrowed from other industry, food
processing, mining, that kind of thing, lumber and paper
machines and some of it needs refinement and in some cases tha(t
refinement is taking place in demonstration projects and in
other cases it's taking place on its own and over time that wi{ll
improve, but you're right. At the time, it's a problem.
Also, you mentioned the incentives for using
recycled materials. These studies that I mentioned that the
Resource Conservation Committee will undertake will address
that. Some of the studies we have been doing in house will
address things like that. By studies, I mean, we have a
gutt feeling that certain things will work and we have one
concept that we're working on now that we think will be
effective and politically acceptable. But, before we can
persuade other people that it will be, we have to do analyses
to see what the results will be to give people an idea what
will happen with this, to give people some idea what would
happen if this kind of a. measure would be passed. We have to
explain it to them in terms that they will understand and
using data sources that they will believe and that takes
a lot of time and persuasion going to this guy and that guy
and when we say studying, that's a lot of the time.
MR. YEAGLEY: Are there any other questions on this
subject?
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(Pause.)
MR. YEAGLEY: Okay, let me make a comment that we
are right at about 12 noon. We only have one more section.
So, if you'll bear with us, we'll proceed with that and pick
up a couple of presentations that we will have from the
audience and then we'll adjourn, hopefully somewhere close to
the time that we can all get something to eat.
I'll present Bruce Weddle to you to speak on state
"•$'
and local program development.
MS. WEDDLE: One of the clear messages of the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is that states should
*>
play a dominant role in solid waste management. By that, I
don't mean to minimize the local role and you'll see why as
we progress. But, the states will be responsible for
administering both the hazardous waste provisions of the Act
as well as eliminating open dumps. The Governor, in
consultation with local elected officials, is given the
flexibility to structure a mechanism for preparing and
implementing solid waste plans which build on existing
efforts. At the Federal level, the EPA will publish
guidelines for the identification of regions, state plans,
Z
and state hazardous waste programs. I'd like to focus on the
^
non-hazardous waste aspects for the rest of my talk.
Essentially, Sub-title B requires EPA to publish
two sets of guidelines.' 4002 (a) and 4002 (b). The first set
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identifies regions and the second set identifies what should
be an acceptable state plan. The first step for the 4002(a)
^
guidelines are really a three step process on which EPA has
one part. The first part is that EPA by this April will
publish guidelines for the identification of those areas which
have common solid waste problems and are appropriate units
for planning regional solid waste services. After the
publication of those guidelines, the Governors of each state
'^
have six months to work with local communities and local
elected officials to identify boundaries of areas within each
state which will then be used for regional and local planning.
Following the designation of those boundaries, the
Governor then has another six months, working again with local
elected officials to identify an agency or agencies within eaci
of those regions to implement the state plan. The Governor
^
also has to identify an agency to oversee that state plan.
In doing so, it's important for the Government to
consider existing multi-functional agencies having authority
for solid waste planning and management. An example of one of
these agencies could be the 208 agencies, created under
Public Law 8200. Certainly a minimum of linkage should be
established between the state solid waste planners and the
^
208 planners. In some cases, the 208 agency may be the
designated agency for solid waste planning.
The second set of guidelines which will be developed
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concurrently and published in April 1978, 18 months after the
passage of the Act. Section 4002(b) requires the Administrate
again after consultation with Federal, State and local
authorities, to promulgate guidelines to assist in fhe
development and implementation of state plans.
These guidelines must, at a minimum)prohibit the
establishment of open dumps within the State and require that
all state plans require either resource recovery or disposal iji
'4
sanitary landfills. Again, it's either open dump or sanitary
landfills for resource recovery.
State plans must have a provision for the closing or
upgrading of all existing open dumps within the state. It
•sf_
must also have a provision for the establishment of such state
regulatory powers as they may be necessary to implement the
plan. It must also have a provision that no local government
shall be prohibited under State or local law from entering int|o
long-term contracts for the supply of solid waste to resource
recovery facilities.
(Slide.)
I'd like to step back from my planned presentation
and ask' a favor from each of you in the audience. What you're
saying is being duly recorded and will be assimilated by the
EPA. I think another way that you can have an even stronger
impact in the way of guidelines and rules and regulations and
that would be to express your concerns in writing to the
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Regional Office on whatever matter is of concern to you. For
example, throughout the day we have talked about appropriation
levels versus authorization levels and there is quite a
difference. In some cases, I think we have to face reality,
sufficient funds won't be available to do all the things that
this legislation suggests or requires an<$ there may be other
ways to get around some of your concerns. For example, one
gentleman mentioned the isolated rural areas north of here am
he was concerned about funding for local communities to pay fo
equipment and funding to upgrade dumps in his area to sanitary
landfills. If that funding isn't available and it probably
won't be maybe there's another approach to the problem of
rural communities. Perhaps the criteria under 4004 could be
made into several classifications. Maybe one could be a
classification for rural areas and one could be for communitiejs
of less than 10,000 or counties with less than 10 people per
square mile.
We in Washington have often been iafeendated by
environmental groups who say that groundwater should be
protected at all costs.' There will be industry lobbyists
who will have their own viewsj jfhere will be the National
League if Cities with their own views. I think-the best way
for your views to be heard is through direct form of
communication with your Regional Office or though your lobby
groups.
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This slide shows the authorization of FY 78 and FY 7<
This money will be allocated accordhg to population formula
with no state receiving less than one half of one percent.
*,
although we would suggest some alternatives in the disbursal
policies.
The FY 77 budget has been changed by the Carter
Administration. Rather than tell you what the changes are,
the Carter budget which will be submitted to Congress, I think
this week, includes $12 million in FY 77 funds currently under
the general authorization for both Sub-title D and Sub-title C
planning and an additional $5 million which will b^fal located
through the 208 planning agencies for residual planning by the
agencies.
(Slide.)
Section 4008 (a) (2) authorizes $15 million for fiscal
1 78 and fiscal ' 79 to state and local governments for
^
implementation of programs to provide for resource recovery ant,
hazardous and non-hazardous waste management and studies.
This assistance includes facilities planning and feasibility
studies, consulting fees, surveys and analyses of marketing of
recovered resources, technology assessments, legal expenses,
construction feasibility studies, and on and on and on and on.
It specifically excludes construction funds or the
acquisition of land. Unfortunately, under the current budget
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submitted to Congress, that is the $12 million carter budget;
it's not likely that there will even be sufficient resources
to fund this section.
The first priority as we see it, is to establish
state programs for both hazardous waste and for Land disposal.
'4
The second priority would be the local funding and I would lik3
to hear your thoughts and comments on that statement after I
finish.
What I just said is our current thinking and it
certainly can be swayed by your comments and the comments
received by the other regions,
(Slide.)
The last slide I have discusses rural communities
assistance. Again, $25 million is authorized in FY 78 and
79. These will be used for grants to states for assisting
^-
comraunities with populations of less than 5,000, and counties
with populations of less than 10,000 or less than 20 people
per square mile. This does include equipment purchase but
excludes land acquisition.
I would urge communities that fall into this
classification not to plan on any funding under this section
in the near future. I seriously doubt whether Congress will
appropriate sufficient funds for this section to be adequately
implemented, indeed, it's my own thinXing that we as an
office would be better off not funding this section at all
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^than funding at a minimal level. The reason I say that is, if
there was only one or two million dollars available under this
section, many communities would wait in the hopes of getting
•^
this money, rather than taking the steps they will have to
take anyway to comply with the 4004 criteria. So, unless the
Congress or the Administration decides to fund this somewhere
near the full level, we;as a nation^are probably better off
with no funding at all. Again, we encourage your comments.
That statement is my own opinion, not the opinion of the
office.
Rather than elaborate on this, I'd like to entertain
any comments you have now,
(Pause.)
MR. WEDDLE: No comments about what I just said abou
local governments and priorities?
(Pause.)
MR. WEDDLE: can I assume then that you all agree
with what I said?
(Pause.)
MR. WEDDLE: Again, it'a my opinion that £tate
planning is probably the most important thing we can do with
the initial funds we receive and local grants and special
grants and other grants are of a secondary priority.
MR. YEAGLEY: I might make the general comment that
if you don't agree with this type of approach, it might be
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appropriate to shoot a letter off to your Congressman or
Senator and suggest to him that additional money might aid us
in meeting some of the situations that don't come right out
on the top priority.
MR. WEDDLE: I might add that it would be very
useful to send a letter to the Regional Office or to us
because what I have stated today is current thinking and
certainly not concrete. A case could be made for the
implementation of those state plans or a minimal funding of
•^
other sections of the legislation. We'd be glad to take a
look at your comments.
MR. YEAGLEY: With that in mind, I would suggest
that if you have a comment that you'd like to put in writing
to the Regional Office, you can send it to me. Our address is
1860 Lincoln Street, Suite 900, Denver, Colorado, 80203.
At this time, I'd like to call on Frank Rozich.
Frank has a prepared statement he'd like to give to us.
While Frank is coming up, for those of you who don't
know him, he's the Director of the Water Quality Control
Division of the Colorado Department of Health.
MR. ROZICH: That was it until October 1 and at that
time we had a reorganization and now it's the Water Quality
Control and Public Health Engineering Division which includes
water supplies, water pollution controls, solid waste and
swimming pools and anything else they can throw at us.
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I might point out that this statement which we'll
turn in, incidentally, was prepared by Orville Stoddard who
heads up our solid waste program and he did plan to be here
but unfortunately, he didn't plan too well since he also has
a training session down in Southeast Colorado today so he
asked me to at least point out some of the highlights of it
and that's about all I'll do.
We do, I think, after listening to today's discussion
we'll probably submit another letter later on. Of course, not
knowing what was going to come out of this discussion, we
didn't address it at that time. This is very general in
nature and more or less tells what we are doing in Colorado.
The Colorado Solid Waste Disposal Act was enacted in
1967, amended in 1971 and again in 1976, the latest being the
change to allow for agrinomic use of sludges. This State Act
provides for regulatory control of land disposal sites and
facilities. The location, design and operation of new sites
and facilities have improved considerably as a result of the
requirements for engineering reports and operational plans
and of course, minimum standards which we developed. County
regional solid waste management planning projects were
encouraged and have initiated cooperative approaches to iraprovs
solid waste management practices. The use of transfer systems
improved landfill technology, and conversion of substandard
sites to sanitary landfills are results of planning and
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implementation by local governments and private entities.
Presently there are no designated sites and facilitii
in Colorado foystorage, processing and disposal of non-
radioactive hazardous wates nor specific requirements for
generators and transporters of hazardous waste, incidents
of environmental damage and property damage have occured as a
result of uncontrolled disposal of chemicals in landfill
sites. Some hazardous wastes are presently being shipped
regularly out of state to hazardous waste sites in Idaho and
%
Nevada.
There are some resource conservation recycling
projects in operation in Colorado. They rely heavily on
volunteer help for separation of reusable materials such as
ferrous, non-ferrous metals, paper, corrugated paper and
glass. The feasibility of using shredded refuse as a fuel
supplement to generate electricity was investigated by the
Denver Regional Council of Governments. Even though available
technology indicates this can be done, various constraints
prohibited its implementation.
The objectives of this Act are consistent with those
of our Department. The cooperative development of regulations
standards and guidelines with provisions for technical and
financial assistance in planning and implementation can improve
solid waste management practices throughout Colorado.
Our department supports this Act and encourages funding
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of authorized amounts for planning, implementation, and
construction of improved solid waste management systems to
protect public health and the environment in Colorado and
the nation as a whole.
Thank you.
MR. YEAGLEYi Thank you, Frank.
MR. LEHR: One question. I'm assuming that by your
support of the Act and the purposes of the Act, when the time
comes for the State's assumption of some of the responsibilities
you, at this point anyway, intend to proceed to that end; is
that correct?
MR. ROZICH: We are presently proceeding there.
One of our first acts was to set up a committee consisting of
environmentalists, local officials, industry people in the
refuse collection and disposal area and this committee has
been meeting once a month. We're presently working on the
work plan to be submitted to EPA. Our next procedure will be
to look at our Act and compare it to the Federal Act to see
what changes need to be made and of course, we're looking
for the guidelines to come out of EPA so that we can
manipulate ours accordingly.
However, as I pointed out earlier, we are going to
be looking very closely as to what we intend to assume if
there isn't the funding to carry out or implement whatever we
do assume like the permit plan and so forth. °ur present
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thoughts are and I was talking during the break to the
gentleman fro* EPA here. I think we're pretty much in accord
in that we are looking to have the program implemented on as
low a local level as is possible with the State acting only as
an overseer and of course stepping in wherever the locals
can't handle it.
HR. YEAGLEY: Any other questions on this State
situation?
MR. EDEEM: Eric Edeen, Eagle County.
Getting back to Bruce Weddle's comment on rural
community assistance, I don't believe that they should be
across the board excluded. If there are some opportune
situations where this situation would prove to be a
worthwhile project, I think this should be pursued.
MR. WEDDLE: I guess in concept I agree with you, bu
our experience has been that with the limited amount of money
for local governments, you and 5,000 other local communities
stop working on everything they are doing and wait until they
find out if they are going to get Federal monies to do it.
And perhaps we can only fund 1 or 2 percent of that 5,000 and
as a result the net environmental effect is a loss because
this money has hindered progress rather than assisted in
progress. So, my point was if we are going to fund under this
section, we ought to have enough money to do it right so that
we don't hinder the progress of the community.
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MR. LEHR: Let me expand on that. I want to make
sure everybody understands completely that EPA policy on any
of these items has not been defined. I want to make it clear
that on any of these items that we've addressed today, that
EPA policy and implementation of this Act has not been defined
These public meetings are for the purpose of assisting in
defining those policy calls that are going to have to be made.
Issues of who gets the funding are nowhere near being defined
at this point. This is why we are getting your input and your
comments and thoughts are being solicited and are appreciated.
Any budget issues, since the budget has not been
defined, is also up for considerable speculation. I urge you
to keep that in mind as you consider the fact that priorities
have to be set in implementing a lot of these things in this
tJK
new leaiglation. Bow many dollars will be available EPA
doesn't know yet. Clearly, everything can't be done and there
never is enough money to do everything, but decisions have not
been made for how much money will be given to various portions
or the implementation of this Act.
When you write your comments down and I urge you
to give this some more thought as you reflect back over the
meeting today as you put your comments down, if you would
keep in mind that the options are wide open in terms of policy
and budget questions in the implementation of this Act.
MR. EDEEN: It seems like in the past your emphasis
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has been on the larger communities and that there is a need
for some work in communities of less than 5,000 population or
if you have examples of those. All of the examples that you
cited were from larger municipalities.
MR. LEHR: That's where the demonstrations were
Because that's where the application came from and because
that's where the matching funds are.
MR. GREY: I think essentially your comment is correi
that the focus has been on large technologies, large
communites and so forth, but that's why we have a new law that
specifically addresses itself to smaller communities and
smaller technologies. Now, what we need are the funds to
pursue that.
MR. WEDDLE: We have done a very limited amount of
local community work. Some in western Colorado a year ago wit*
a technical assistance program of about $20,000. I forget
which area it was, but you're right. I think the reason for
that is the problaa faced by a larger community is that
absolute magnitude sways the Agency to push resources into tha
area. I think the environmental impact for a community of
5,000 is probably minimal compared to that of suburban Denver
and so forth. I think that's why Congress put this section in
Congress can appropriate money under that section an
require EPA to spend it. It's not totally under our own pervi
to say yes we will spend it or no we won't, it's FY 78 funds
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and it's up to both EPA and Congress to request funds in this
area.
My only point was that it ought to be funded at an
adequate level and we urge you in your correspondence to
whomever you write to to make that point because that's
something that we would intensify on in the progression of the
budget hearings. We certainly support funding at the rural
level and I think especially the Federal money that's in this
Act which includes purchase of equipment would be very
beneficial. So, I'm not trying to be adamant about my position
just trying to see if you understand my point.
MR. YEAGLEY: Any other comments?
(No response.)
MR. YEAGLEY: Any comments in general about any of
the subjects we have dealt with today?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What is your name?
MR. YEAGLEY: Jon Yeagley, Y-e-a-g-1-e-y.
MR. LEHR: Jon is listed in the program and the
address of our office is also listed on that yellow pamphlet
as a return address. Use that or anybody you can find down
there.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can we use the same address t(J>
get the report on the 8002 study?
MR. YEAGLEY: Yes.
MR. WEDDLE: That study probably won't be complete
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for 18 months. It's FY 78 funds and it started on FIT 77 funds
but the report to Congress isn't due until October of '78,
so you are going to have to wait awhile, unfortunately.
MR. LEHR: Perhaps if you have general queries and
you're not sure who to write to then use John Green. He is
also listed on the program. He is the Administrator and the
right person will get your letter.
MR. YEAGLEY: Anything else before we close this up;
MRS. SWIFT: Thank you for such an interesting and
clear explanation of this difficult-to-explain Act.,
MR. LEHR: We appreciate your being here today.
There has been a big time commitment for you, but it has been
very helpful.
MR. YEAGLEY: Thank you, very much.
(Exhibits Nos. 1 and 2 were
received into the record.)
(Whereupon, at 12:20 o'clock p.m., the hearing in
the above-entitled matter was adjourned.)
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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the attached proceedings
before the Environmental Protection Agency in the matter of:
Public Hearing on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,
Public Law 94-580, at Denver, Colorado, Thursday, March 3,
1977, was held as herein appears, and that this is the
original transcript thereof.
Donna L. Gioia
Official Reporter
FEDERAL REPORTING SERVICE
980 Ursula Street
Aurora, Colorado 80011
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COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
4210
March 2, 1977
4210 EAST 11TH AVENUE • DENVER, COLORADO SOttO • PHONE 388-6111
Anthony Robbini, M.D., M.P.A. Executive Dinctor
Mr. John A. Green
Regional Administrator Region VIV
1860 Lincoln Street
Denver, Colorado 80203
Dear Mr. Green:
Landfills are used universally throughout Colorado for the disposal of solid
wastes. Historically ravines and arroyos have been filled and some marginal
land reclaimed for beneficial use. Constraints that keep sites and facilities
from maintaining compliance with minimum state standards for sanitary land-
fills include economic, hydrological, geological, topographic, climatic and
soils conditions. Increasing amounts of solid and liquid wastes, sludge and
slurries add to operating problems and costs. Public acceptance of landfill
sites and facilities is not readily obtainable within municipalities, suburban
and developing areas, mountainous and agricultural areas.
The Colorado Solid Waste Disposal Act was enacted in 1967, amended in 1971 and
1976. This State Act provides for regulatory control of land disposal sites
and facilities. The location, design and operation of new sites and facilities
have improved considerably as a result of requirements for engineering reports
and operation plans, and compliance with minimum standards. County and region-
al solid waste management planning projects were encouraged and have initiated
cooperative approaches to improve solid waste management practices. The use
of transfer systems, improved landfill technology, and conversion of substandard
sites to sanitary landfills are results of planning and implementation by local
governments and private entities.
Presently there are no designated sites and facilities in Colorado for storage,
processing and disposal of non radioactive hazardous wastes nor specific require-
ments for generators and transporters of hazardous waste. Incidents of environ-
mental and property damage have occured as a result of uncontrolled disposal
of chemicals in landfill sites. Some hazardous wastes are shipped regularly
out of state to hazardous waste sites in Idaho and Nevada. This R.C.R. Act
provides for regulatory control of hazardous waste from generation sources to
final disposal by the Environmental Protection Agency or by a State Agency.
The control measures must be as stringent as E.P.A. requirements.
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There are some resource conservation and recycling projects 1n operation 1n
Colorado. They rely heavily on volunteer help for separation of reusable
materials such as ferrous, non-ferrous metals, paper, corrugated and glass.
The feasibility of using shredded refuse as a fuel supplement to generate
electricity was investigated by the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
Even though available technology indicates this can be done, various constraints
prohibited implementation.
Coordinated planning efforts can favorably effect the feasibility of resource
conservation and recovery alternatives. The Federal Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act of 1976 has objectives to provide for regulatory control of hazard-
ous wastes from its source to final disposal by the E.P.A. Administrator or
State Agency. This Act provides technical assistance and funds to State, region-
al and local entities for solid waste management planning and implementation.
This Act broadens the roles of the public and private sectors in solid waste
management including land disposal, hazardous waste management, resource conser-
vation and recovery.
The objectives of this Act are consistent with those of this Department, as
indicated above. The cooperative development of regulations, standards and
guidelines with provisions for technical and financial assistance in planning
and implementation can improve solid waste management practices through out
Colorado.
This Department supports this Act and encourages funding of authorized amounts
for planning, implementation and construction of improved solid waste management
systems to protect public health and the environment in Colorado.
Sincerely yours,
Frank Rozich P.E., Director
Water Quality Control Divisior
FR/OS/jj
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The League of Women Voters of Colorado
1600 Race Street
Denver, CO. 80206
303 - 320-8493
STATEMENT
to the
UNTIED STATES EINVORNMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
OFFICE OF SOLID WASTE
March 3, 1977
Since I am unable to attend the meeting, I wish to submit this prepared
statement for the official transcript of the Public Discussion Session on the
Kesource Conservation and Recovery Act (PL9'<-580) in Denver, Colorado on torch
3, 1977.
We believe that democratic government depends upon the informed and active
participation of its citizens and requires that governmental bodies protect the
citizens' right to know by giving adequate notice of proposed actions, holding
open meetings and making public records accessible. In order to facilitate
informed and active participation, we suggest the following:
1. Since many citizen groups depend on monthly newsletters to dispense
information to their membership, it would be helpful if notices of public meetings,
plan changes, hearings, etc. could be received at_ least 3_0_ days prior to the date
of the meeting.
2. The right of the public to know the results of research projects,
pilot systems and demonstration projects should be interpreted to include measures
for immediate release of the information, perhaps within 60 days of completion.
The League of Women Voters was involved in an EPA project in June and July of 1975,
-------
but the results were not made public until October of 1976. This tine-lag
should not be considered to satisfy "Rig* to Know" requirements.
We conroend those responsible for creating and implementing the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act. As a result of our nationwide study of solid
waste practices, the League of Women Voters has recommended since 1972 that the
federal government should establish policies and programs to increase the demand
for secondary materials. We sugeest that the Department of Corrmerce include in
its studies methods to:
. Equalize tax treatment for virgin and secondary materials by such
methods as reduction of tax exemptions for extractive industries and increase
of tax exemptions for secondary materials industries.
. Equalize transportation costs for virgin and secondary materials.
. Increase changes for federal land uses which yield virgin materials.
. Reduce subsidies for the use of inorganic fertilizers and/or offer
subsidies for the use of compost and sewage sludge.
. Offer tax benefits to companies which install equipment that allows
use of recyclable materials.
. Revise federal specifications for products made of reclaimed materials.
. Increase federal government purchase orders for products made ol
reclaimed materials.
As the staff at E.P.A. are well aware, the League of Women Voters believes
the federal government whould establish policies and programs to encourage recycling
of post-industrial and post-consumer wastes and to reduce the generation of solid
wastes. We would emphasize the importance of subtitle H, "Research, Development,
Demonstration, and Training" for the planning, implementation, and operation of
resource recovery and resource conservation systems, including the marketing of
recovered resources..the production of useable forms of recovered resources,
-2-
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including fuel, from solid waste, the reduction of the mount of such waste and
unsalvageable waste materials. Studies In the Denver area Indicate we should be
able to process our waste and recover materials and enersr, but the technology
suggested for our specific needs is still beyond what most local govemiMntal
officials consider a reasonable cost.
Even before high technology systems there Is an immediate need for small
scale and low technology solid waste management systems, including, but not limited
to, resource source separation systems. Need we remind you of our work in many
states on "Bottle Bills" to effect source separation of a specific material? We
would like to see funding patterns that reflect the energy and financial savings
in source reduction or source separation more than in the high technology systems.
Mast counties in Colorado are much more concerned with rural systems and source
separation than with waste conversion or high technology systems.
Finally, a comment on the state Program Development. The League of Women
Voters supports measures to improve the coordination, effectiveness, and efficiency
of governmental units within the state of Colorado toward furthering integrated
planning for environmental management. We would suggest that planning be coordinated
with, or done by, the 208 Water Qualify Management planning areas, where
practical. Areas which are already planning for enerpy impact, prowth management
or the provision of other services. Vie do not support the proliferation of
planning agencies. The programs should take into account the qualify of life ar.i
provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of citizens, present and
future.
We again ask that the public be involved early in the decision-making process
and that alternative solutions be considered. Public hearings on the state plan
should be held throughout the state. This public meeting is evidence of E.P.A.'s
interest in public involvement. We can only underscore the importance of public
-3-
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awareness and involvenent if we are all to succeed In promoting the protection
of health and the environment and conserving valuable material and energy
resources.
Clara Lou Hunphrey
League of Women Voters of Colorado
Solid Waste Chairman
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I UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
2 OFFICE OF SOLID WASTE
3 WASHINGTON, D. C.
4 and
5 UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
6 REGION VIII
7 1860 LINCOLN STREET
8 DENVER, COLORADO
9
10
11 PUBLIC DISCUSSION SESSION
12 ON THE
13 RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT
14 "PUBLIC LAW 94-580"
15
16 Friday, March 4, 1977
17 Hilton Hotel
18 150 West 5th. South Street
19 Salt Lake City, Utah
20
21
22
23
24 Reported by:
25 Barbara G. Andersen, CSR
ANDERSEN REPORTING
228 JUDGE BUILDING
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111
531 1906
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INDEX
SPEAKERS QUESTIONS OR REMARKS BY
Introduction and Overview of Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act:
JIM LEKR, Deputy, Air and Hazardous Material Division,
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Region VIII, Denver, Colorado
Opening Comments:
MODERATOR - JON P. YEAGLEY, Chief, Solid Waste Section
United States Environmental Protection Agency,
Region VIII, Denver, Colorado
Manpower Development, Public Information, Public
Par tic ipation ;
VAL GREY, Chief, Program Management and Support
Services, Office of Solid Waste,
United States Environmental Protection Agency
401 M. Street, S.W., Washington, D. C,
Yukus Y. Inouye, Commissioner,
Utah County Commission
51 South University Avenue
Provo, Utah
Ms. Joyce Hunt, President
J. E. Hunt & Associates
6250 South 1300 West
Murray Utah
Ms.. June Wickham, Vice-Chairwoman
Salt Lake Group Sierra Club
3814 Birch Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah
Ms. Emily Hall, Environment Chairwoman
League of Women Voters
2652 East 6200 South
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Yukus Y. Inouye
Mr. Randall S. Isham, Wildlife Biologist
Utah Department of Transportation
Room 408, State Office Building
Salt Lake City, Utah
PAGE
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ANDERSEN REPORTING
2J8 JUDGE BUILDING
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INDEX (Continued)
SPEAKERS QUESTIONS OR REMARKS BY
Hazardous Wastes:
ALFRED W. LINDSEY, Designate Chief, Implementation
Branch, Hazardous Waste Management Division,
Office of Solid Waste,
United States Environmental Protection Agency,
Washington, D.C.
Mr. LeGrand 0. Jones, Assistant Manager
Utah Motor Transport Association
P.O. Box 686
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Lawrence Mills., Geaeral Manager,
W. S . Hatch Company
643 South 800 West
Woods Cross, Utah
Ms. June Wickham
Mr. John Weber, Environmental Control Engineer
Stauffer Chemical Company
P.O. Box 25893
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Duane Whiting, Senior Hydrogeologist
Ford, Bacon & Davis Utah, Inc.
P.O. Box 8009
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Yukus Y. Inouye
Mr. Peter Poletto, Executive Director
Sweetwater County Priority Board
P.O. Box 632
Green River, Wyoming
Mr. Alton Huf faker
Environmental Control Supervisor
Kennecott Copper Corporation
Box 11299
Salt Lake City, Utah
Ms, Emily Hall
Land Disposal:
BRUCE R. WEDDLE, Chief, Special Wastes Branch,
Systems Management Division, Office of Solid Waste,
United States Environmental Protection Agency,
Washington, D.C.
PAGE
25
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39
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ANDERSEN REPORTING
728 JUDGE BUILDING
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111
531 1906
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INDEX (Continuedl
SPEAKERS QUESTIONS OR REMARKS BY
Mr. J. Dewell, Environmental Control Engineer
Phillips Petroleum Company
Woods Cross Refinery
Woods Cross, Utah
Mr. John Weber
Mr. Roger Stead, Chief
Air and Solid Waste Program
South Dakota Department of
Environmental Protection
Foss Building
Pierre, South Dakota
Resource Conservation and Recovery and Overall
Technical Assistance:
ROBERT A. LOWE, Chief, Technical Assistance Branch
Resource Recovery Division
Office of Solid Waste Management Programs
United States Environmental Protection Agency,
Washington, D.C,
Mr, Yukus Y. Inouye
Mr, W, Robert Richards
Kaiser Steel
Box 452
East Carbon, Utah
Mr, William F. Christof fersen,
Regional Representative
United States Brewers Association
3027 East Bonnie Brae Avenue
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Randall Isham
Mr. John Weber
Ms. Joyce Hunt
State Program Development:
BRUCE R. WEDDLE, Chief Special Wastes Branch,
Systems Management Division, Office of Solid Waste,
United States 'Environmental Protection Agency,
Washington, D. C.
Mr. Robert A. Lowe on behalf of Utah Department
of Transportation Representative
ANDERSEN REPORTING
328 JUDGE BUILDING
531 1906
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INDEX (Continued]
SPEAKERS QUESTIONS OR REMARKS
W. Robert Richards
Mr. Roger Stead
Ms. Joan H. Ogden, Chairperson
West Valley Multi-Community Committee
3454 South 7580 West
Magna, Utah
James Dean Maxwell, Environmental Specialist,
United States Department of Agriculture
Soil Conservation Service
125 South State Street, Room 4012
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr. Clair Anderson, Sewage Disposal Operator
Bear River Town
44 North 2nd East
Bear River City, Utah
Dr. Garth R. Morgan
Special Projects Coordinator
Templeton Linke & Associates
40 West 2950 South
Salt Lake City, Utah
Mr . Yukus Y . Inouye
Ms. Joan S. Ogden
EXHIBIT
General Report No. SWC - 174
Defenders of the Outdoor Heritage
Post Office Box 15135
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115
ANDERSEN REPORTING
228 JUDGE BUILDING
PAGE
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Attached
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, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1977: 9:00 A.M.
2 oOo
3 MR. LEHR: It's time. We can begin, ladies and
4 gentlemen. My name is Jim Lehr, L-e-h-r. I am not on the
5 program or your agenda today. I am here on behalf of Jack
6 Green, Administrator from the EPA office in Denver, which
7 includes Utah in its area of activity. I am very pleased
8 that so many of you came out today to participate with us
9 in some dialogue on this new legislation.
10 Are you able to hear well enough? I won't be
II the only one speaking today. The gentlemen on the panel
12 will also be discussing aspects of this legislation with
13 you, and so will you, I hope. The purpose of this meeting
14 is to get your input, your thoughts, your ideas, your
15 recommendations, your complaints, if you will, on this
15 legislation and how we might best go about implementing it.
17 EPA is having a series of these discussions
•trni.
18 all across the country. In RegionjK we're having our
19 second today. We had a meeting yesterday in Denver and
20 got many, many good suggestions, and ideas, and recommends-
2i tions as to how we might best go about developing implemen-
22 tation plans for this legislation. That's the kind of
23 feedback we want from you today. Participate freely and
24 openly, please, and throughout the session. This legis-
25 lation is a major loop-closer in programs the federal
ANDERSEN REPORTING
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government, state governments have for protection of
environmental quality. You are aware of the Clean Air Act,
Drinking Water Act, and other water quality protection
legislation that EPA and other agencies have been working
with the last few years in developing environmental
protection programs. This new legislation closes that
loop, I think, in providing for full waste management
programs for those materials that are discarded, for those
materials that result from air pollution control activities,
10 water pollution control activities, and just plain discarded
I materials. This is a very important piece of legislation
we'll see evolving over the next few years. We have
arranged for you today a series of four presentations that
cover the major points in that legislation, and at this time
I I'd like to introduce those that will make the presentations,
1C and they'1* be introduced again later on. The panelists,
]? starting from the far left, are Mr. Fred Lindsey, who is
Chief of the Implementation Branch, Hazardous Waste Manage-
ment Division in our office in Washington and Office of Solid
Waste. To his right is Bruce Weddle, who comes to us also
2] from the office in Washington, the Office of Solid Waste,
22 who is Chief of the Special Waste Branch. To his right is
Val Gre-, who is also from our office in Washington and
is the Chief of the Program Management and Support Service.
And at this table on the left is Bob Lowe, L-o-w-e. He's
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not on the program, either. He's here in place of Tom
2 Canfield and Bob will give you his title. He's Chief,
3 I think, of the Hazardous Waste --
4 MR. LOWE: Resource Recovery and Technical
5 Assistance Branch.
MR. LEHR: •— Resource Recovery and Technical
Assistance Branch in our Washington office.
And then Jon Yeagley, the Moderator today, is fro
our office in Denver. He's Chief of the Solid Waste
in -H\e.
Section •«•* Hazardous Materials Division.
Before we begin with the panel presentations,
. I wanted to call your attention to a couple of things
.- and provide you a little summary of my perspective of the
major thrust of this legislation. As you came in, I
think most of you got copies, not only of the program
today, but also of an issue paper of the legislation itself
17 and a summary sheet of the legislation. EPA has been trying
to cope with the many, many issues that have to be resolved
in deciding how best to implement this legislation. Many
20 of those issues are in that paper that you received when
you came in. We're here to get input from you on those
22 issues, some additional thoughts from you either here or
23 later. And I'll make clear on the record we'll be open for
24 some time for your thoughts following the meeting today.
25 And for mailing addresses, you might use the address that's
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I on this yellow program*that's the address of the office of
2 the EPA in Denver, and we would appreciate hearing from you
3 and we will transmit to whomever is necessary whatever your
4 input might be. John Green is the Regional Administator.
5 Address your communication to him or to Jon Yeagley, who
6 is going to compile all this input.
7 The nation has faced an enormous problem, as
8 you know; a problem of some three to four billion tons
9 of discarded material generated and material that needs
10 to be disposed of each year, some ten million tons each day
11 of solids and liquid and contained gaseous kind of material
12 This legislation deals with that material. It's not simply
13 a Solid Waste Act; it's a piece of legislation that tries
I4 to cope as best as possible with disposal of this enormous
55 amount of waste. Included in this three to four billion
16 tons each year is some thirty million tons of an enormous
17 and unbelievable number of truly hazardous material;
18 material that can blind and can maim and can harm public
j9 health, yours and mine; material that needs special handling
20 material that enters our water and our air and can enter
21 our food chain. And in the interest of public health and
22 in coping with this enormous amount of waste, Congress has
23 enacted this legislation. In October this last year, after
24 many, many years of coping with the two old acts, the 1965
25 and 1970 acts, many meetings involving public industry and
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1 government agencies and several Congressional committees,
2 this act does several major things in grappling with the
3 problem. One is to establish a hazardous waste regulatory
4 and control program, which you'll hear about later this
5 morning in great detail, but a program that will truly man-
6 age these toxic materials, these hazardous materials with
7 an enforceable regulatory program for the first time. This
8 act also establishes waste management programs that are to
9 be the result of the best thinking industry; state, regional
10 and local governments; along with whatever support the
II federal government can give, in establishing more than
12 sanitary landfills and establishing more than dumps, in
13 establishing as best as possible full waste management
14 systems. The act also puts major emphasis for the first
15 time on reducing volumes or reusing them or reusing
16 the discarded material, recycling it, and putting it back
17 into the system. Those three, I think, are the primary
18 thrust of the legislation.
19 The slide on the screen gives some of the
20 legislative objectives I mentioned in the protection of
21 public health as the primary objective; protecting environ-
22 ment, visual environment as well as health environment;
23 conservation for natural resources and for energy resources.
24 And these objectives will be achieved through a
25 variety of techniques with major emphasis on technical and
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, financial assistance to the state and local governments
2 which the act calls for doing the job. It's not a federal
3 program. The action for this kind of program has to be
4 with state and local and regional governments, and EPA's
5 intent is to encourage that: manpower development,
6 training kinds of things, prohibition of open dumping, the
^ future of this act, conversion or closing of existing
8 open dumps. You'll hear more about it. It's another
9 feature in this act, and, of course, the regulation of
10 hazardous wastes.
'1 Jon, if you want to begin to give some last
12 minute instructions?
13 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Let me just make a couple of
14 comments about what we are going to be doing here, how
15 we'd like to have you participate. Just to emphasize the
16 point that Jim has already made, our purpose in being here
17 this morning is to gather your input on how we can best
18 implement this Resource Conservation Recovery Act.
1' Somewhat differently than previous ^federal acts,
20 we are seeking out your input prior to having made major
21 decisions that will be required as a result of this act, and
•^^
22 we're hopeful that going about public participation in this
23 manner will not only allow you to have more timely input
24 but will also allow us to have the benefit of some of the
25 grass-roots experience. Obviously we get a little distant
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from the problem, as I'm sure you are well aware, and I
think it's important that we seek your help and your input.
, So therein lies our purpose. We hope you'll take advantage
of this opportunity to give us your concerns, your comments,
whatever. We would be glad to hear from you as we go on.
J. will just mention: If you'll refer to the program, you'll
note on there that we have four speakers — actually five
speaking slots. Each speaker will speak for ten minutes —
ten minutes or less, let's put it that way — and I'll
-0 encourage the speakers to stay with that. After/teach topic
then, we'll have approximately thirty minutes of just public
input: your comments, questions, statements, whatever. I
will ask when you ask a question or make a statement, please
state your name and your association — who you're with —
., for the benefit of the reporter. We are transcribing the
„ entire meeting, which will help us as we go back and try to
ID
.- formulate this information into regulations and standards
and criteria. Please give your name and your association.
Those of you who have filled out a registration form and
20 indicated that you'd like to make a prepared statement, I
2) will call on you for your statement based on which of these
22 blocks at the bottom you have marked as it appears in that
section of the program. Now, let me just make one comment
24 on that: If for some reason you have to leave earlier than
that section comes up, just let me know, and we'll try and
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10
1 be very informal here and we'll get you in ahead of time.
2 I'm interested in hearing all of the statements and all of
3 the questions. And if you feel that you have to leave
4 earlier than that time, when we get to that point, let us
5 know and we'll squeeze you in.
6 For the benefit of the gal doing the transcrib-
7 ing I'll suggest that we try to talk one at a time — and
8 I'll make every effort to insure that we do -- and also talk
9 hopefully, at a decent p,Zace.
10 If Y°u have trouble keeping up with us, just
,, holler. We'll try to adjust to that. Okay.
12 Jiro mentioned some handouts that you all picked
13 up at the door. Unfortunately they weren't at the door
14 when you came in, so I'm sure that most of you don't have
15 them; however, they are there now. Correct? Okay. Some-
I6 time during the meeting, if you happen to be back at the
17 table in the back, we do have about four handouts; we have
18 copies of the act, we have copies of the overview that Jim
19 was mentioning of the special issues, and we have some other
20 associated literature with the Jtf^w Resource^Conservation aw
2i Recovery Act. They're available to you, and we encourage
22 you to pick them up.
23 I think that's about all the comments that I
24 need to make at this time, and with that in mind, we'll
25 proceed right on into the program. Again, T encourage you
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11
1 to be informal. If you do have a prepared statement
2 and if you have it written down, it will be very helpful
3 to us if you could give us a copy of it. If it turns out
4 to be your only copy, put your name and address on it and
5 we'll send it back to you next week. But it would be very
g helpful to the gal that's doing the transcribing to have
7 that to insure that what you say is actually what gets
8 printed.
9 At this point, then, we'll move head, and I'll
10 introduce Val Grey, who will be talking on the plans
II for development of public information and public partici-
12 pation sections.
13 MR. VAL GREY: I think Jim was trying to say
I4 that the spelling of some of the more technical terms
,5 would be corrected by your submitting a copy of your
Ig prepared statement.
]7 The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
jg of 1976, which we have started to term "PCRA" — you'll
19 be hearing that all morning — contains an unusually
20 complete array of provisions which could bring about a high
21 degree of public understanding and participation. Taken
22 together, these various provisions make it clear that the
2j Congress understood that it was impossible for the public
24 to participate meaningfully unless the government first
25 produced valid scientific and technical data and then
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12
processed and published the information in such a way that
2 everyone may have access to it. Only in this way can you,
3 the public, have a reasonable chance of influencing the
social, economic, and political changes which the law is
designed to bring out.
5 Now, in Section 8003 the Administrator of EPA is
7 required to develop, collect, evaluate, and coordinate
Q the information on nine key elements which are crucial to
9 the Act's purposes. The Administrator is not only to
... implement a program for the rapid dissemination of this
.. information; he is 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, but
for everyone. Moreover, the Administrator is asked to
]7 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
2Q virtually all kinds of information involved in solid waste
-. management for the use of state and local governments,
22 industry, and again, you, the public.
23 Now, who is the public? To insurance the public
participation process does not become lopsided, we felt it
25 was necessary to identify major categories of interest
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13
1 groups who represent the public at large. Under RCRA we
2 regard these to include the consumer; environmental and
3 neighborhood groups; trade, manufacturing, and labor
4 representatives; public health, scientific, and professional
5 societies; and governmental and university associations.
6 This spectrum of categories of representative groups will
7 be altered and supplemented as necessary if, in the course
8 of implementing the Act, it appears purposeful to do so.
9 What does the law say about public participation?
JO Section 7004 fal of the Act states that any
U person may petition the Administrator of EPA for the
12 promulgation, amendment, or repeal of any regulation under
13 this Act,
14 Section 7004 Cbl deals with public participation.
15 It states that public participation in the development,
16 revision, and enforcement of any regulation, guideline,
17 information, or program under this Act shall be provided
18 for, encourage, and assisted by the Administrator and the
19 States, and further, that the Administrator in cooperation
20 with the States shall develop and publish minimum guidelines
21 for participation in such processes.
22 Section 7002 (al states that public participation
2J in development, revision, and enforcement of any regulation
24 guideline information or program under this Act shall be
25 provided for, encouraged, and assisted by the Administrator
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1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
14
and the States and, further, that the Administrator
in cooperation with the States shall develop and publish
minimum guidelines for public participation. Section 7002 Caj
states that any person may commence a civil action on his
own behalf against any person and "person" defined to include
the United States Government, 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 this Act.
What are some of the available public participa-
tion techniques? The many techniques which can be used
to develop the public on governmental actions fall into
three major categories: Cll the use of appropriate public
meetings, hearings, conferences, workshops, and the like,
throughout the country, which EPA intends to plan and to
hold in consonance with the unfolding of the Act's key
provisions — this meeting here this morning is one of those
actions. (21 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 they occur and no
matter whether a specific meeting is convened or not. And
C3J 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
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15
Effective public education programs depend on tht
use of all appropriate communication tools, techniques, and
media. These include publications, slides, films, exhibits
and other graphics, media programs, including public service
television and radio announcements and releases to the daily
and professional press and public education projects
carried out by service and civic organizations with EPA
technical and financial assistance.
What does the law say about manpower development?
Sections 7007Cal and CbJ authorize the Administrator of
EPA to make grants or offer contracts with any eligible
organization for training purposes for occupations
. involving the management, supervision, design, operation,
or maintenance of solid waste disposal and resource recovery
equipment and facilities, or to train instructors,
"Eligible organization" is defined to mean a
]7 State or any State agency, a municipality, or educational
institution capable of effectively carrying out such a
program
20 Section 7007(cl provides that the Administrator
shall make a complete investigation and study to determine
22 the need for additional trained State and local personnel
to carry out plans assisted under this Act and to determine
the means of using existing training programs to train
25 such personnel, and to determine the extent and nature of
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16
1 obstaces to employment and occupational advancement in the
2 solid waste disposal and resource reovery fields. The
3 Administrator is required to report the results of such
4 investigation and study to the President and to the Congress
5 That's my 10 minutes, and I will entertain any
6 questions at this time.
7 Yes, sir.
8 MR. YUKUS INOUYE: My name is Yukus Inouye, and
9 I'm a County Commissioner of Utah County.
10 One question I have is that we do not wait in
11 Utah County to proceed. We have some problems now. What
12 about getting funding for the projects that's going on
13 now?
14 MR. GREY: Which projects are you talking about,
15 training projects?
16 MR. INOUYE: Training and the gambit of resource
17 recovery.
18 MR. GREY: All right. I'm the first speaker
19 up here, but you will hear this probably all morning, but
20 funding is one of our major problems in implementing the
21 law. Currently we are under a fiscal '77 budget which was
22 budgeted, planned for, and appropriated under the old
23 Congress and under a previous administration for a previous
24 law. We have reprioritized our program and tried to
25 divert as many of the resources that we currently have for
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17
all programs under the new legislation under RCRA. It's
far, far from being sufficient. Now, some programs are
not going to Be funded at all. Our manpower and training
programs are not going to be funded. Our public partici-
pation program will be funded to some degree — as you can
see, we're here this morning •— so we funded something. We
7 do have a library which is in embryonic form but can be
8 expanded for full use under the RCRA. We intend to have
* public hearings with all of our regulations and guideline
10 development. We intend to have an Advisory Committee, as
II I have indicated in here. We are funding an Xd/Hoc commit-
12 tee to begin with. This is '77 I'm talking about, and so
13 we are to some degree able to divert current resources.
M Our first new budget under a new administration and a new
IS Act, RCRA, is under discussion this very week. We have
16 made it known through several means what our requirements
17 are to fully implement RCRA. Our total authorizations for
18 '78^0 up to $181 million. Currently it looks like we'll
19 have at the most around 45 or 46 million counting everything
20 I can count into that pot. Still we do not have sufficient
21 funds for manpower training developments. We may wind up
22 with a study, at best, on the manpower needs, but not much
23 more than that. On other special studies which involve
public participation programs, we'll have somewhat more fund
I would say somewhere up to $1 million of grant moneys for
the various sections of the law. But when we have 56 entiti
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18
in the United States — 56 States because it includes
2 Puerto Rico and Guam and others, the District — we're not
3 going to go very far with $1 million. I don't know if that
4 answers your question, but I wanted to give you sort of a
5 broad base of the answer that you'll be hearing constantly
this morning .
MR. LOWE: I'd like to respond to Mr. Inouye's
question.
As a general rule we will not fund a project
to reimburse you for money that you've spent prior to
our approving an application for grant money. One reason
12 for this is that one of our purposes in giving money is
to induce recipients to do something. If you've already
done it, then that purpose no longer applies. In a sense,
that discriminates against communities and other organiza-
tions like yourself who have taken the initiative without
]7
_federal assistance. We applaud that, but the inequality st
exists. I would say, though, that if you were to apply for
continued funding for the same kind of project, then the
20 fact that you've already spent money for that kind of
2j project would count in your favor and you would probably
22 be more likely to get a grant awarded than someone else
23 who had not already had a program underway; therefore, it
24 demonstrates your commitment.
25 MR. GREY: Yes, ma'am.
MS. JOYCE HUNT: My name is Joyce Hunt, J. E,
Hunt and Associates. I would like to ask you, clarifying
11
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19
1 what you are saying, is there a technical data to
2 substantiate a complete total resource recovery system
3 now; is there funding with EPA rather than for all of
4 these studies? I'm familiar with Utah County's problem.
5 And with the project being to do total resource reovery
6 now, rather than wait -- people don't stop making garbage
7 for studies.
8 MR. LOWE: There is no money now. And I'd like
9 to get into that in more detail when my turn comes up.
10 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: We will come back to that
II issue,
J2 Are there other question of this speaker?
13 Yes, ma'am.
14 MS. JUNE WICKHAM; June Wickham of the Sierra
,5 Club.
]g CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Could we have the spelling
]7 of that?
18 MS. WICKHAM: W-i-c-k-h-a-m. I would like to
19 have him back up and tell me what funds are being
20 appropriated for committees, rather than for delegating
2i funds for technical assistance with the different groups.
22 Can you tell me what committees you're funding for?
23 MR. GREY: You mean the Advisory Committee?
24 MS. WICKHAM: Yes.
25 MR. GREY: We have about^OO, 000 for public
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20
1 participation right now set aside this current fiscal year.
2 I am not sure how much of that will be spent on the jXd Jloc
3 Committee.
4 Now, let me explain the Advisory Committee. We
5 are taking steps to get a formal Advisory Committee for the
6 implementation of RCRA which would meet periodically,
7 roughly speaking, twice a year. In order to do that, we
8 have to have OMB — Office of Management and Budget •—
9 approval for such a committee. We are in the process of
10 getting that approval; in fact, the document is on the new
II Administrator's desk this week for signature. In the
12 meantime — and that takes some time, though, another
13 several months before we can get it approved, and by the tim
14 we get it organized, it would be to function this fiscal
IS year. In the meantime, we are organizing an Ad Hoc Com-
16 mittee. It is being called an Ad Hoc Advisory Committee --
17 excise me, Review Committee, rather than Advisory Committee
18 and it is scheduled currently, I think, for late April or
19 May. Someone else in my office is handling that; I cannot
20 give you all the participants in that group. But they will
21 spend a substantial amount of money to bring those people in
22 and to operate that Ad Hoc Committee for the number of
23 sessions needed to start this advisory process.
24 MS. WICKHAM: Could you tell me what groups of
25 people are going to be on this Advisory Committee?
MR. GREY: Just about everyone I mentioned.
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21
Now, if you ask me whether the Sierra Club is on it or not,
I can't answer it, but my guess is, it is, because you're
considered one of our major environmental groups that we
would solicit or invite to the meeting. If you'd like to
Jcnow more about it, I suggest you write to Tom Williams of
6 our office,
7 MS, WICKqM: Washington or Denver?
8 MR. GREY: In Washington. Tom Williams is the
Director -- not the Director, but the Chief of the
10 Technical Information and Communication Branch. And the
II rough number of groups that will be represented is upwards
12 of 30 now, and I would almost bet that you're on it. We
13 will have to, however, for the permanent Advisory Committee,
14 reduce this number to a maximum of 15 because that is the
15 way our charter has been written up for the permanent
Advisory Group and the way we're going ahead with OMB.
17 That may not be sufficient, but we are going to allow each
18 major category of groups, like environmental groups, to
1' select from amongst themselves the two or three that would
20 represent that area of interest.
21 MS. WICKHAM: That really isn't my question. My
22 main question was why are all the funds going to the Advisor
Committee instead of some of it being diverted for technical
24 assistance to some of the communities that presently have
problems with landfill operations?
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10
11
12
13
14
IS
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
22
MR. GREY: All the funds are not going to the
Advisory Committee, only a small portion of that which has
been set aside for public participation. The technical
assistance fund is another area, another pocket of funds,
and we will be covering that later, and you will be able
to ask exactly how much for which type of technical
assistance. The technical assistance will come under
the group that handles discussion of the panels, the resource
and conservation panels.
CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes, ma'am.
MS. EMILY HALL: Emily Hall, League of Women
Voters of Utah. How will you prioritize? What group will
actually make the final decision? In other words, r'm
curious to know how much actual public participation will
be used in the final decision-making for which technical
assistance will be used? It seems to me that in many of
these projects, you take lots of public input, but the final
decisions are made not by the public, but by two or three
people,
MR. GREY: Could I ask that we withhold that
question until we get to the technical -- the resource
conservation panel, because Mr. Lowe here will be discussing
that, and that is one of the issues of how we prioritize
or how do we select our main thrust of technical assistance,
and he has a number of alternatives which he'll present to
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23
you and maybe we'll ask you that question instead of you
2 asking us,
3 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes.
4 MR. YUKUS INOUYE: I have another question:
5 Generally the implementation is the responsibility of the
5 local government, and I find as a County Commissioner we
7 get guidelines, and when it comes to the point of imple-
8 mentation of all the regulatory requirements that the
9 local government has, it becomes very awkward financially,
as well as technically, to meet the requirements, and I
think that throughout the meeting here I'd like to hear
12 how the local government is going to implement these
regulations, funding and otherwise.
14 MR. GREY: I guess again we're off the subject
of public participation and into local funding, and
Mr. Bruce Weddle will be covering the state programs and
17 local programs and how we fund which particular types.
18 So I hope I don't sound like I'm putting everyone off,
19 but we are covering that, and I know that is of prime
20 interest to everybody, since we have been to several of
2| these meetings already and that seems to be the tenor of
22 the interest, and we are prepared to talk about it, but if
23 I may ask we put that off.
24 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes, sir.
25 MR. RANDALL ISHAM: Randall Isham, I-s-h-a-m,
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24
I Utah Department of Transportation.
2 You indicate you would be having a limited
3 library set up with the program. Will you be continuing
4 to supply pamphlets and booklets as you have in the past
5 in the Office of Solid Waste?
6 MR. GREY: Yes. Very definitely so. Those of
7 you who have dealt with our distribution of materials know
8 that we put out a publication called "Available
^
9 Information r Materials", which is getting rather thick,
10 and we have probably within EPA the best source, the
II largest distribution, the largest selection of technical
12 and specialized literature on solid waste management that
13 is available to the public free. That is not quite the
14 library. The library means essentially that there is a
15 library of books to which you can refer, get extracts, and
16 so forth. But this would be, let's say, an additional
17 service in addition to the library, the distribution of
18 those documents which are generated through the auspices
19 of the Office of Solid Wastes.
20 MR. ISHAM: Will this be continued?
21 MR. GREY: Yes, it definitely will be. Now,
22 somebody asked about priorities of different expenditures.
23 We are always taking off the top a certain amount for
24 the production of publications of different documents and
25 the distribution of those documents, because, after all,
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any other study that we fund or any work that we do results
in a document that must be made available, and since one
of the major thrusts of this legislation is to make this
information available to everybody, we're taking off the
top of our budget those funds which deal with the distribu-
tion of those documents.
7 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Any other questions on this
8 particular part of our meeting?
' CNo responsel
10 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Okay. At this point, then,
11 we will proceed on into a discussion of hazardous waste,
12 and I'll introduce to you Fred Lindsey, and with that I'll
13 ask Fred to come up.
M MR. ALFRED LINDSEY: Can you all hear me? I'd
15 like before I get started to add my words of appreciation
to those that have already been made to all of you for
coming out and joining with us to discuss with us this
18 whole issue of this new Act and to give us the benefit of
19 your suggestions and comments. May I assure you that
20 we are interested in what you have to say and in any sug-
21 gestions you have, and we will consider them fully. This
22 is perhaps the seventh or eighth of these sessions that
23 have been held so far, and the comments and suggestions whic i
24 we have received so far have been very helpful, and T
25 expect that they will continue to come in.
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1 As is indicated, I am here to discuss the
2 hazardous waste management provisions of the Act, and what
3 I expect to do here, briefly, is to summarize the require-
4 ments as we see them of the Act and to develop some of the
5 issues and questions which we're facing now and will
6 continue to face for the next period of time. Subtitle C
7 of the Act, the Hazardous Waste Management Provision,
8 mandates that a regulatory program be put together, the
9 purpose of which is to control hazardous wastes from the
10 point of generation, usually an industrial concern, to
II the ultimate disposal at a permitted facility. Now, this
12 is a very clear mandate. There is quite a bit of latitude
13 as to how we carry it out, but the mandate as to what it
14 is we're supposed to do is pretty clear.
15 Now, the first thing that comes up in one of thos
16 difficult parts of this particular requirement is that we
17 identify characteristics of wastes which makes them hazardou
18 or not hazardous. That is, criteria for what makes a waste
19 hazardous or not hazardous. Now, Congress has mandated that
20 we consider, in doing this, such properties as toxicity,
21 persistence in the environment, degradability, bio-accumulat
22 in tissue, flammability, and corrosiveness, as well as
23 perhaps others. Once having done this, we're to use these
24 criteria to develop a list of typical examples of wastes
25 which then are hazardous under this set of criteria.
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I As with most of the hazardous waste provisions
1 of the Act/ we are given 18 months in which to do this,
3 Now, that's 18 months from passage of the Act, which --
4 to those of you who are not familiar — was October 21st,
5 so our deadline, then, for most of these sessions is the
6 21st of April, 1978.
7 A couple of the questions which we face rela-
8 tive to this criteria, obviously — some of the questions
9 are fairly obvious — such as How do we test toxicity?
10 What levels of toxicity do we choose as being hazardous
11 or being the limit for hazardous? and things of that
12 nature. In addition, we face the question of when is a
13 waste a waste? Now, that might seem ludicrous at first
14 glance, but think of it this way: Some materials are sold
15 for a very low price and then used for such things as
16 wetting down roads, horse arenas, and things of that nature
17 and some of these materials can be and have been in the
18 past hazardous and have created problems. So our defini-
19 tion of what is a waste is also an important thing. How
20 do we devise such a definition?
21 We'll be interested in any comments you might
22 have relative to that.
23 Another problem: Wastes are typically mixtures
24 of many different materials. When we're considering air
25 pollution and water pollution control, we typically think
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in terms of lead or some phenol or some specific material
2 in the water or air, which is then the pollutant. However,
3 when we're talking about hazardous waste, we're usually
4 talking about red gunk or green slime or this sludge or
5 that combination of liquids, and they're not pure
5 substances. The interaction of the many materials which
7 may be in that waste can be antagonistic or synergistic in
8 creating more problems or fewer problems for that waste
9 than what the sum of the parts might indicate. So the
problem becomes: How do we determine — in other words,
how do we test a waste material to determine whether or not
12 it is hazardous. Do we do it by in some manner trying to
13 determine what the components are and what the combination
of components are likely to cause in terms of hazard or
do we set up standard tests for the wastes themselves by
which the actual wastes can be tested and is that practical
17 and is that possible and what tests might exist?
18 So if any of you have any knowledge in these
19 areas, why, we would very much like to have your opinions
20 and your suggestions and your data, if you have some on
2j these issues.
22 Section 3002 of the Act requires that we come
23 up with some standards for generators, those people who —
24 those organizations and firms, et cetera, that generate
25 the waste to start with. And these include requirements
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I for recordkeeping and recording, keeping track of such
2 things as quantities, constituents of waste and the manner
3 in which they were disposed; requirements for the labeling
4 of containers and for perhaps the use of certain types
5 of containers, perhaps construction provisions for
6 containers; and, probably more importantly, the setting up
7 of a manifest system. Now, the manifest system is to be
8 designed to track wastes from cradle to grave, as we say;
9 that is, from point of generation to point of disposal,
10 to insure that they do move from generation to an
II acceptable disposal site. The Congress has mandated that
12 the manifest system also include pertinent information
U to be added by the generator for use by the transporter
14 and disposer in carrying out his part of the mission.
15 Where manifest systems exist today, they have typically
Ig taken the form of a trip ticket which accompanies a waste
17 load.
18 Now, some of the questions we face in this area
19 are: How can recordkeeping and reporting firms be minimized
20 and yet provide adequate control of hazardous waste manage-
21 ment problems in their movement? How can we minimize the
22 paperwork and the reporting work so as to do that. How can
23 we integrate it, perhaps, with the other requirements that
24 various firms have to comply with, with other environmental
25 programs or other government systems? Should transport
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manifests be uniform nationwide or should there be some
leeway allowed for differences in the way local or state
3 or area economies work?
4 Similar requirements are mandated under
Section. 3003 for those people who transport waste from
one point to another. Again, recordkeeping requirements
will have to be set up which will include such things as
the source of the waste and the delivery point of the waste.
There will be labeling requirements, again, for the
JO containers; compliance with the manifest system or that
II part of the manifest system that deals with transportation;
12 and then there is a requirement that whatever we come up
13 with under the transportation section must be consistent
14 with the Department of Transportation regulations.
15 Section 3004 of the Act is really a very
important part of the Act because it is here that we set
17 up standards for treatment, storage, disposal facilities
18 for those people who own or operate them. And it is by
19 such standards, then, that improper disposal will be made
20 illegal. So this is a very important section of the Act.
21 Congress has mandated certain standards, that we provide
22 certain standards, including requirements for recordkeeping
23 and reporting, again, which would include information on
24 how much material was received and how it was treated or
25 disposed; of course, compliance with that section of the
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manifest system that deals with the treatment, storage,
and disposal facility. We must set up minimum requirements
for monitoring and for inspection, so as to insure that
adequate information is collected to determine if a site
is in. fact polluting or not. There will be location,
design, and construction standards which will include such
things as where facilities can or can't be placed; what
design options may be restricted, required, or otherwise
controlled. Maintenance and operating standards are
required. Contingency plans are required, setting up
plans as to what course of action will be followed if
something goes wrong at the facility.
Then there's a broad classification of require-
ments which are called "ownership standards", what we call
"ownership standards", which might include such things as
requirements for performance bonding for long-term care
funds, for having training programs, for setting up site
closure plans. Any or all of those could be considered
under this section. Then there's also a statement in there
which in effect says that such other standards as necessary
to protect public health and the environment might be set.
So it's a very broad mandate in this section, and how we
carry that out is going to be a matter of some concern to
us for the next period of time, and we'd like your thoughts
on how we should implement the various parts of this section
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I'm not going to read off large numbers of
questions here, but in order to stimulate your thinking,
I would like to throw out a couple of the problems which
we face; For example, should performance standards at a
hazardous waste facility of this nature apply a defense
line at a facility or someplace else? Alternatively, what
form should such standards take? Should they be what we
call performance standards in the sense that we perhaps
set some limit on, you know, "Thou shalt not degrade
.„ groundwork" beyond some certain limit as a result of
really hazardous waste facilities?
.. Or should they take a different form which we
.- might call equipment standards, such as, "You're going to
.. burn chlorinated hydrocarbons; you must have a scrubber
._ with a pressure drop of such and such."
.- What form should they take? Or should there be
)7 some combination? Difficult question?
,8 Should regulations published by EPA under this
section require certification of employees working at
20 hazardous waste facilities? We certify boiler operators.
Should we certify the operators of hazardous waste
22 facilities? Should we require bonding or insurance for
hazardous waste facilities? If so, is the insurance
industry ready to undertake this sort of thing. These are
25 just a couple of the questions.
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I would like to point out that one of the hand-
outs which was mentioned earlier is called "Issues for
Discussion", It's like maybe a 5- or 6-page — 10-page,
take it back — white publication here or list here, mimeo-
graph list, which you can pick up at some point, and it
contains ,a variety of questions of this nature for
6
which we're really looking for input and suggestions, and
we would appreciate having them, if not today, in writing
at some later point.
Section 3005 is the provision for setting up a
10
permit system or the requirement, really, for setting up a
permit system. And it's by this permit system, then, that
we would bring treatment, storage, and disposal facilities
into compliance with the requirements under Section 3004,
with the standards under Section 3004. Now, the permit
system applies not to generators or to transporters but,
rather, to treatment and storage and disposal facilities.
And in order to obtain a permit or to receive a permit, a
facility would have to convince EPA or the appropriate State
agency — permitting agency — that they are in fact
meeting the requirements of a facility as outlined or
as developed under Section 3004.
Now, within six months after we promulgate the
standards for treatment, storage, and disposal facilities
under 3004, it will become illegal to dispose of hazardous
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waste without a permit. Now, assuming we have 18 months —
we do have 18 months to come up with the standards under
3004, and assuming we meet that deadline -- why, that would
4 bring us, then, to approximately October 21st, 1978.
5 Now, Congress also sets up some of the
requirements which would be included in a permit applica-
tion. In making an application, one would have to give
us adequate information on the waste itself, including
the manner of treatment or disposal, the types and .amounts
of waste which are to be received, the frequency of
treatment or the rate of application in the case of
12 disposal. It would also require that there be information
on the site, including such thing as hydrogeology and
climatology and things of that nature.
There is also a provision in here for the
granting of interim permits. Now, this applies only to
17 those facilities which were in business as of the passage
of the Act and who have notified the State or EPA under
,9 Section 3010, which I'll get to in a minute, and who have
20 applied for a permit.
Now, because there is a rush, or there will be
22 a rush of permit applications at that point, Congress saw
23 fit to say that anyone who has done all of these three
24 things and has an ongoing operation will be granted an
25 interim permit until EPA can process and go through the
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paperwork, et cetera, to either grant or deny a regular
permit. Congress is clear in its intent that it would
like to have the States take over the permitting and
4 enforcement parts of the Act or requirements of the Act
5 from EPA, There is no requirement that the States do this.
But Congress indicated very strongly that it provide this
method. If the State did not do it -- the permitting and
8 enforcement part — then the EPA must, in order to fulfill
' the State Program. The program would have to be equivalent
10 to the federal program , consistent with other State
II programs which have been authorized, and must contain
12 adequate enforcement provisions. Unfortuntely, Congress
13 never told us what "equivalent", "consistent", and
14 "adequate" were. So these are definitions which we'll be
15 wrestling with over the next few months on which we'd like
to have your opinions. We must set up guidelines to assist
'7 the State in setting up acceptable programs.
'8 Section 3010: Within three months after we have
19 identified the criteria for what is and what is not a
20 hazardous waste, there is a requirement in the Act that all
21 generators, transporters, treaters, storers, or disposers
22 must notify EPA or the appropriate State that they do
23 handle hazardous wastes in some fashion. This is a one-time
24 requirement. It's likely to be a very simple requirement
25 in terms of the paperwork, and so forth, that will be
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I necessary,
2 Congress has authorized $25 million for each
3 of two years to assist the States in setting up hazardous
4 waste and management programs. They have not appropriated
5 that amount, and as you heard before, we're not quite
5 sure how much money will be appropriated for this. There
7 will almost certainly be some, but what the total amount
8 will be is unclear at this point. We will be devising a
9 formula which will be based on the amounts of hazardous
10 waste and on our estimates as to the extent of public
II exposure in the various States to these wastes and that
12 formula then will be used to decide how much each State
U gets or what percentage.
j4 That's it in brief,
15 As I say, we would be very much interested in
15 having you comment to us on these issues or any others
17 that you may have as time goes along. We really want your
13 thoughts, and we will take every one of them to heart
19 and consider them. I am here, then, to receive any
20 inputs, any suggestions, any comments, or any questions
2| you may have. I see you've got some slips of paper.
22 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Before we open up to general
23 questions, I would like to indicate that we do have a
24 couple of individuals that indicate they would like to
25 make a statement at this point on hazardous waste..
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1 I will ask you to come -up to the microphone
2 to make the statements so that we can all hear well and
3 the gal can catch everything that you have to say.
4 First of all, I'd like to call on LeGrand Jones.
5 MR< LeGRAND JONES: LeGrand Jones with the
5 "Utah Motor Transport Association,
7 I guess like a lot of people here, in filling
8 out that form I checked everything to make sure I'd
9 covered or protected myself, and I really did not intend
10 to make a formal statement. But let me comment to a
II couple of items that Mr, Lindsey has stated here.
12 In regard to the storage and the packaging —
13 or you alluded to specification of containers in the
14 transportation process, the manifesting, and so on. You
15 made the statement that you must be consistent with the
K Transportation Act. And I would like to add our amens to
17 that statement.
|g As you know, we have many agencies that we must
19 deal with in the area of transportation and storage, and
20 we have a proliferation of regulations to contend with, and
21 we certainly hope that you will keep true to your statement,
22 and in fact be consistent with the Transportation Act in
23 that regard. And I would just ask one other question in
24 closing: For clarification I ask that you restate your
25 position to make sure that I clearly understand. Are we
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in fact dealing only with commodities that are defined as
2 waste? Or do you see the possibility, Mr. Lindsey, that
3 a corrosive liquid, as an example, that is being
transported or stored to be used in an end product
5 or in a manufacturing process, that we could twist this
6 definition and in fact imply that it comes under the Act,
when it is not really or is not clearly in my opinion
defined as a waste product. Are we clearly dealing only
9 witli waste products of hazardous commodities?
10 Thank you.
II MR. LINDSEY: Should I answer that now or do
12 y°u want to wait?
13 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes, Go ahead and respond
14 to that, Fred.
15 MR. LINDSEY; Fine. As I say, the Act is -- I
16 think I may have alluded toward it, but not clearly — the
17 Act clearly deals with wastes. Okay? Now, we have to
18 define, as I think I pointed out it's one of the problem
19 areas, when is a waste a waste? Now, we're not talking abou
20 intermediate products, intermediates that are shipped from
21 one plant to another to be used as a product. But there
22 is a gray area in there where materials which are truly
23 wastes are occasionally used for some minimal purpose, and
24 I think I used the example of perhaps using hazardous
25 chemicals, which has been done. I have known examples of
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j this as a way of wetting down roads -- dirt roads — or
2 horse arenas or dusty areas, parking lots, and things like
3 that, which have then caused serious problems. So we have
4 to consider, then, that there is this area where a product
5 may have or a waste material may have some very minimal
5 use or value and decide to come to some decision on this
7 matter. We haven't as yet tried to identify or come up
g with a. definition of what is a waste. Okay? So we have to
9 try and address that,
IQ If you have some suggestions'on how we're going
II to work that — we haven't gotten to that yet. We're
12 thinking about it. We would be interested in your
13 suggestions -- write to us and let us know. But clearly
14 I think we are not talking about chemicals which are
15 intermediates for other products and things of that nature.
16 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Okay. I'd also now like to
17 call on Lawrence Mills.
1g MR. LAWRENCE MILLS: My name is Lawrence Mills.
19 I am General Manager of the W. S. Hatch Company.
20 We are a trucking company, a common carrier of
2j bulk commodities and tank trucks and using all other types
22 of units. I also serve on the Executive Committee of
23 the Utah Motor Transport Association and the National Tank
24 Truckers Association in Washington, D.C.
25 Well, our concern, of course companies like
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1 ourselves, and of course ourselves, we'll be transporters
2 of these hazardous wastes as soon as they are set up
3 to transport to recycling plants or disposal areas or
4 whatever. And of course we're concerned primarily in that
5 area today, although we have other concerns in residuals
6 disposal of the material remaining in our tank after
7 unloading, but that's not the problem I want to address
8 right now.
9 In the area of transportation, though, I might
10 point out in your hazardous materials management issues we
II are concered with — at least I'll be talking on Subjects
12 8, 9, 10, and 13 -- as Mr, LeGrand Jones of the Utah Motor
13 Transport suggested, we're currently regulated in the
14 movement of hazardous materials and almost all products
15 that we transport or companies like us transport by both
16 the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Depart-
17 ment of Transportation, as well as by almost every State
18 regulatory agency we operate in throughout these United
19 States. We would not like to have additional transportation
20 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency if
21 current ICC or DOT regulations can be applied or modified
22 to apply to your requirements under this Act, We, there-
23 fore, would like to encourage you to work with these
24 transportation regulatory agencies to see if something can't
25 be worked out to perhaps modify their regulations instead of
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1 imposing an additional set of regulations on us through
2 EPA. And two examples of this in the area of No. 9
3 on record, counting first, you mentioned trip tickets and
4 transport manifests. As a common carrier now, all
5 common carriers are regulated through a bill of lading
6 system. We are required to have a bill of lading for
7 everything we move under common carriage. We would
8 encourage the EPA to review these bill of lading require-
9 ments under ICC and DOT regulations and see if this system
10 cannot be adopted for transportation of hazardous wastes,
U The second under No. 8 on the reporting
12 requirements and recordkeeping, we now have to make
13 numerous records and reports to both the ICC, Federal
14 Department of Transportation, and various State regulatory
J5 agencies, and we have to maintain records in accordance
16 with these regulations, and we are wondering, also, if
17 it isn't possible to work within this framework instead of
18 requiring an additional set of recordkeeping through EPA.
19 We hope that you would work with the Interstate Commerce
20 Commission and the Department of Transportation and the
21 various State regulatory agencies to develop procedures and
22 guidelines in transporting of these wastes.
23 On Item No. 10 concerning container and labeling
24 requirements: drums, cargo tanks, and other specified
25 containers are now regulated by the Federal Department of
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' Transportation. They have a very detailed set of specifica-
2 tions and design requirements on what they consider hazard-
3 OTIS materials, I realize all hazardous wastes are not
4 considered hazardous materials, but still, it would seem
5 that that would be a good starting point, and if you could
6 work with those regulations and specifications, I think
7 you'd find the drums and cargo tanks and other containers
8 can be fit within that framework or at least modified to
9 fit within the framework. The same thing with labeling.
10 A very extensive labeling system has been interstate for
II years now and will go into effect July 1 of this year
12 on regulating all transportation of hazardous materials
13 such as flammables, corrosives, poisons, gases, and so on,
14 and we think that that is an area that you can work with
>5 DOT on.
16 And finally, on No. 13, the insurance require-
17 ments area: In the transportation of hazardous substances
'8 we find that we're facing a higher and higher premium cost
19 in order to transport these. And even that doesn't cover
20 all situations. There are certain commodities that we now
21 transport that require even extra premium coverage due to
22 the nature of the risk involved in some of the products
23 moved; currently such things as LP gases, propane, butane,
24 hydroxylamine, and crude oil categories, to name just a few
25 of them. Now, it's conceivable, of course, when we get to
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...
waste mixtures that are now being disposed of perhaps
in a different manner than hauling to a treatment facility,
or these wastes as you mentioned, sludges or some other
mixture, could require an additional higher risk and,
therefore, your insurance would require a higher premium.
So we would request consideration — of EPA considering
assuming part of this risk on these extra types of
hazardous wastes, because we are not sure that truckers
or common carriers can afford to move this, and you would
have a problem there for getting transportation if the
. insurance was not available or of prohibitive cost.
One last comment: Mr. Jones brought up a
.. question on the movement of corrosive materials as a
hazardous waste. There is a product that come to mind, that
._ being the one of spunacid, which is sulfuric acid run
., through a petroleum refinery and that, of course, is a used
lo
product, the spunacid moved by our company and others
18 to other manufacturing facilities, and while it's moved
.„ in that course, we would hope it would not be defined as
.0 a waste substance, but only being moved to a treatment or
disposal facility.
22 Thank you very much.
„ CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Thank you, Mr. Mills.
Fred, would you come back now. We'll open to
25 general comments and questions and, hopefully, answers.
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MR. LINDSEY: I'd just like to thank Mr. Mills
for that statement. Some of those comments can be helpful
to us, and we will consider them fully.
Are there any other questions or comments or
suggestions that you might have, anyone?
Yes, ma'am.
MS. JUNE WrCKHAM; June Wickham. Will
hazardous waste still be permitted at sanitary landfill
sites? And the second question: What enforcement powers do
. you have under this law for hazardous waste?
MR. LINDSEY: Okay. Question No. 1: Will
hazardous waste still be permitted in routine disposal
.. at sanitary landfill sites? The answer to that is yes,
if the facility obtains a permit and if it then complies
with all the requirements that we have as yet to set up unde
Section 3004, that is, all the standards for such facilities;
.. otherwise, the answer is no.
The second part of your question was -- I'm
,9 sorry?
20 MS. WICKHAM: Enforcement.
MR. LINDSEY: What kind of enforcement authority
22 exists under the Act? There's really three ways enforcement
23 can be carried out under the hazardous wastes provisions
of the Act. And one of the provisions is that EPA or the
25 authorized State has the authority to inspect, take samples,
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and otherwise analyze whether a facility is meeting the
2 requirements of its permit. If it is not meeting the
3 requirements of its permit, then there is a procedure
4 within the Act which includes public hearings, et cetera,
5 by which the permit can be revoked. And without a permit,
5 a facility cannot operate.
7 Further, there is provision within the Act
whereas the Government can take direct action against a --
either criminal or a civil action — It's under Section
3008, I believe. We have copies of the Act here, and you
can look it up and read the actual wording for yourself —
12 under Section 3008 where we can proceed with direct court
13 action in court to stop some specific problem from being
perpetuated. That's on a case-by-case basis.
15 Thirdly, there's the citizien's suit provision
16 which provides that any citizen can go to court to force
I7 the compliance with the provisions of the Act, including
the standards under Section 3004, the standards for those
19 facilities.
20 That's the three ways.
21 MR. GREY: There's also the imminent hazard.
22 MR. LINDSEY: Oh, yeah. There's also the
imminent hazard provision. For those actions or those
24 situations where a hazard is imminent, a hazard to human
25 health is imminent, why, there are provisions to get a
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direct injunction to prevent that happening.
Val, what section is that? Seven thousand •—
MR. GREY: 7003.
MR. LINDSEY: 7003 of the Act.
Any other questions, please?
Yes?
MR. JOHN WEBER: Yes. John Weber, Stauffer
Chemical.
You have a very short time in which you have
to publish these regulations. What are your plans for
public review of the criteria you set up before they are
promulgated?
MR. LINDSEY: Okay. Let me address that whole
procedure, if I might, because that may be of interest
to a lot of people. As was pointed out a little earlier,
we decided to go about the regulation writing procedure
a little differently this time, and we decided to come to
the public first and say, "Okay. Here's what we have to
do. How do you see us carrying this out and what do you
see the final product including or consisting of?" That's
what we're about now. There are, as was pointed out, a
number of meetings such as this being held around the countr
to explain the Act and try and generate interest to the
point of receiving that kind of information. We're also
holding different types of meetings, including one-on-one
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meetings with public interest groups, with various firms,
2 with trade organizations, with college professors, and
3 with anybody we know that has a specific expertise that
4 we're interested in, in order to gain data, identify
5 alternatives, and things of this nature. Then there have
5 been a few and will be a great many more what we call
7 round-table discussions or small group meetings to which
we invite people representing all different interests
9 relative to hazardous waste, including public interest
10 groups, including industrial organizations, and including
probably unions and other interested groups and people
12 that we know, again, who have experience or have expertise
in a given area, and we will invite them to sit down with
14 us to discuss a specific problem, perhaps, how can we get
control air pollution from such facilities, for example?
We'll have those people in and we'll sit down and discuss
17 all the alternatives. Once having received, then, all this
public input, public suggestions from the various publics, w
will then put it all together, weigh it, and analyze it,
using contractors to assist us in some cases, and we will
then come up with a draft. That draft will be submitted
22 throughout our agency for comment by other parts of the
23 agency who have interest and experience in this area, and
24 it will be submitted to groups of outside reviewers — again
25 those same types of people who have expertise and interests
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in these areas, for comment, and then we'll review it and
we'll go forward ultimately with the notice of proposed
3 rule-making. Now, the notice of proposed rule-making is
4 a draft set of regulations. And there'll be a formal
comment period and there'll be public hearings on that,
at which time there'll be again more time for the public
to input into this whole thing. And then after that's all
done, then we'll revise it again, based on the input, and
„ go on with the final regulations.
... There is one other thing I might mention, and
that is something called Advance Notice of Proposed
Rule-Making, which is typically a notice that EPA is
starting work on certain areas, and in this case, we're
going to be including -- they're not yet issued — but we
will be including in the hazardous wastes area, at least,
a significant list of issues, perhaps some of the ones
which are on these sheets which you have already seen.
.„ Again, these will be published, and there will be an open
period in the hopes, again, of gaining public input, and
this will be done rather soon.
That's basically it.
Yes, sir. Next, please.
MR. DUANE WHITING: Duane Whiting, Ford Bacon &
,. Davis Utah, Inc. W-h-i-t-i-n-g.
25 Along the same lines that Mr. Mills was
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discussing on this proposal from the storage point of view,
what attempt is your agency making to coordinate the
effect of the regulations that you're proposing or that
you will be setting, based on several other laws which
are already in existence or are now being proposed. To
ray knowledge there are about six that would have some
o
conflict. The Guidelines for Mining and Milling, Toxic
Substances Act, Toxic Guidelines under 301 and 304, Safe
8
Drinking Water Act, Sections 208 and 404 of the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act. All of these have provisions
10
in them for either ground water or surface water control.
MR. LINDSEY: Yeah. You're addressing the whole
question of whether there's overlap between various Acts,
and to some extent there is some overlap; it's almost
unavoidable in the sense that Congress passes these things
piecemeal. However, the overlap is not, as we see it,
great. But there is the definite need for coordination, and
I'll be interested in turning over to the people who are
I O
dealing with the storage provisions of the Act your comments
as to where you saw the conflict being, to make sure we
do in fact address that,
MR. LEHR: If I may comment here a little bit
before you leave that point. We are very concerned that
there be as little overlaps as possible and can benefit
from anybody's regulations, like those of the ICC. I
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1 found Mr. Mills' comments very helpful. But in the copy of
2 the Act that you picked tip in the back. Section 1006
specifically instructs EPA to make sure that it doesn't
4 overlap and that it uses all of the authorities in the
5 other Acts wherever possible and uses authorities and
procedures and what not from other agencies that may
have regulations that pertain. It very clearly instructs
EPA to keep its Act out of anybody else's wherever possible.
So I tRinJc that concern will be taken care of. It certainly
10 is our intent to do so. That is an excellent point.
MR. LINDSEY: Let me say how that is carried out
12 in the way in which we put together regulations. When we
13 first sit down to put together regulations, the agency forms
what is called a work group. That work group, then, is
,s made up of not only people from the lead office — in our
case the Office of Solid Waste — but also people from all
17 of the other major offices in EPA — which in this case
|g includes the Office of Toxic Substances, the Air Pollution
19 Guidelines Division, the Office of Water Planning Standards,
20 the Office of Air Quality Planning Standards, and all of
2| the others whose area of concern or whose expertise in terms
22 of having put together a permanent Act like this before
23 can be brought to bear so that we do two things: No. 1,
24 insure that there is no overlap with other EPA type
25 environmental regulations, and (21 that we get the benefit
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of their experience, things not to do as well as to do,
in proceeding down this path, I might also point out
in reference to Mr. Mills' questions that the Department
of Transportation — I can't remember the name of the
division — but the division that deals with hazardous
materials transport is serving as an advisory on the
work group for the Transportation Committee. So this has
been a big help to us in the early stages of this whole thinj
Yes, sir.
MR. YUKUS INOUYE: Mr, Inouye again. What
happens with the input that you give when the attorneys
.- get ahold of it and make the law, what happens? I under-
stand that when the attorneys, get ahold of it, a lot of
the information that is given, they say it's unconstitu-
.r tional, it's this, and it's that, and it's changed quite
16
., MR. LEHR: Sometimes that happens.
18 MR. LINDSEY: Attorneys do have a whack at this,
because we don't write — as engineers and economists and
20 all " apparently well enough to suit them or whatever the
reason may be. But there are attorneys on the working
22 groups — the working groups that I mentioned — so we
try to minimize the amount of that as we go along by having
input from the attorneys -- in our case, the Office of
25 General Counsel — as we proceed. But in the end, once the
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1 language is written, the decisions are made, and then the
2 language is written by us and approved by the working
3 group, then the attorneys will add their input to that.
4 I hope that we — we will certainly insist that insofar
5 as possible the intent or meaning of what it is we're
6 trying to do will not be altered substantially unless, as
7 pointed out, it becomes clear from the attorneys in the
8 Office of General Counsel that it's not legal or not
9 possible to do it that way.
ig Do you have any comments in addition to that?
jl MR. LOWE: I've heard a number of comments just
12 like that, that EPA's regulations which are written -- the
13 final writing that is done by lawyers -- are written
,4 partially to keep EPA out of Court and to make it easier
15 for the EPA lawyers, and that sometimes makes it mores
]6 difficult for those who are trying to implement those
]7 regulations. That's a systemic problem within EPA, and
13 your bringing it to Fred's attention I think will help
19 at least to make us aware of that problem. I don't know if
20 we can change it, though. If you're concerned about that,
2j which I hope you are, it would be worthwhile bringing that
22 to the attention of the proper people through the proper
2j channels. The proper people would be the top administration
24 of EPA, and the proper channels would be your representative
25 in Washingtoni the National Association of Counties, your
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Congressional delegation, that kind of people.
MR, LEHR; The lawyers try to make things as
clear as possible, but all of the panel members, since
none of us are lawyers, can commiserate with them. They
have something to worry about.
, CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Nor is it particularly
o
necessary to come to their defense.
Are there other questions?
8
MR. PETER POLETTO; Peter Poletto with the
Syonting Sweetwater County Priority Board.
10
And the question I have is one thing I guess
you'll be doing under this Act is defining exactly what is
a hazardous waste. I don't know if this has been done in
13
all cases. But once you define what are hazardous wastes,
will this be recognized by all other federal agencies?
The reason I bring up this point is because up
16
in Sweetwater County, the County, together with some other
local governments, has leased land from the BLM, Bureau of
Land Management, for a sanitary landfill site, and I guess
one of the provisions of the lease — the leas,* agreement
is for 25 years •— is that the site will handle no hazardous
wastes. Now, I don't know. It's not clear to me what is th'
whole scope or spectrum of hazardous waste, and if EPA
defines a thing as a hazardous waste or not a hazardous
waste, will the BLM recognize this?
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. MR. LINDSEY; The answer to the question is, yes,
this is a federal law set up by Congress that we do identify
, what is a hazardous waste, so that in the sense that we
4 are talking about it here — the treatment, storage, and
- disposal of these wastes -- that will carry the weight of
* law, and all parts of the federal government will have to
7 accept that.
MR. POLETTO: There won't be any haggling between
O
„ you and the Bureau of Land Management?
MR. LINDSEY: Not after we have promulgated
the standards. There may be some haggling, but —
MR. LEHR: Not any more than usual.
MR. LINDSEY; — it should be relatively easy
to square away. It's pretty plain. It's pretty clear.
There is not a lot of ambiguity in the Act.
MR. POLETTO: Okay.
16
._ MR. LINDSEY: Are there any other questions?
,g Yes, sir.
)9 MR. ALTON HUFFAKER: Alton Huffaker from
20 Kennecott Copper.
Does the Act provide an avenue for recourse in
the event that a permit is denied?
MR. LINDSEY: Yes. There would always be — You
. mean if somebody comes in for a permit to dispose and
-- a permit is not granted, would they have avenue of recourse
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. Yes. They could take it to the courts. There would be no
reason why they could not take it to the courts. I would
. assume the plea could be made on many grounds: that we did
not meet the requirements of the Act, that we had been
arbitrary or capricious, or whatever. As I say, I am not
- a lawyer, so the enforcement end of it is a little out of
. my line, but there would always be that recourse. Of
„ course, there would be the recourse of petitioning the EPA
o
for a review and things of that nature, as well. There
will probably be the provision set up for compliance
schedules. Okay. So if a permit is denied or if it is
granted with certain stipulations, that might include a
compliance schedule approach.
MR. LEHR: Section 7006 touches on that a little
bit. But I am sure there will be adequate review provisions
,, CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes, ma'am.
ID
]? MS. EMILY HALL: Emily Hall. Is there anything
. - new in this Act which will help us cope with long-standing
„ pollution problems of hazardous nature, such as vitriol
20
tailings. We can't seem to get any action. We feel it's
. a_federal problem to be shared with the State, but nothing
is going.
3 MR. LINDSEY: There is a provision in the Act.
. There is no provision for a grandfather clause. We're
-. talking about action which exists from here on. The example
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disposal facility which does not meet the standards, for
example, that we come up with, that disposal facility will
have to be closed, but there is no requirement in there or
no provision in there that we are able to make anyone do
3
4
5
under the imminent hazard provision, whether or not that
o
anything about that. It's not clear to me, however,
under the imminent hazard prov:
might apply. I just don't know.
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
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18
19
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21
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24
25
7
CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I might just make the comment
relative to the vitriol tailings problem, I am sure you are
aware that there is a study going on now that the EPA and
the Energy Research and Development Administration are
jointly working on through Ford Bacon & Davis Utah. It
our hope that with the results of this study, which is
one of the noxious piles being studied — one of eighteen,
something like that — is vitriol pile. We're hopeful that
Congress will see fit to appropriate dollars to actually
carry out the recommendations of those studies. So in that
particular case there is some action, albeit a slow moving
in the direction of control of that problem.
Okay. At this point I'd like to suggest we take
a short break. I'd like to suggest that it be very short,
however, say five or ten minutes. I'll encourage you not
go off too far away, and we will call you back in a short
time.
CShort recess. 1
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I CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: At this point we'll move into
2 the land disposal area, and I'll introduce Bruce Weddle to
3 you.
4 MR. BRUCE R. WEDDLE: Before starting today, I'd
5 like to express my appreciation for the good turnout today
6 and to say that I've been delighted with the questions that
7 we've been receiving. They're some of the better questions
g that we've received in any of the public meetings. I hope
9 it continues through the rest of the morning.
ig I'd also like to mention about the Administrator
II and the Deputy Administrator of EPA to those of you who
12 may not be aware, Doug Costle and Barbara Blum passed
l> through the Senate confirmation hearings with flying
14 colors Wednesday and a vote of nine to nothing in their
IS favor took place on that date. The expectations are that
IG the full Senate will act on their confirmations either
17 Monday or Tuesday of next week. Hopefully that is the case
Ig After hearing about the hazardous waste provisions
19 I'd like to shift gears and talk about the land disposal
20 provisions of that legislation, particularly in the
2i nonhazardous waste area. In this area the Act contains
22 important new requirements for the Administrator of EPA.
23 He must promulgate regulations containing criteria
24 for determining which facilities shall be classified as
25 sanitary landfills and which shall be classified as open
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I dumps. I'd like to note right here that there'll be two
2 types of disposal which especially serve the public, and
these are an open dump or a sanitary landfill. The
Administrator is required to publish an inventory of all
disposal facilities or sites in the United States which
are open dumps, and he is also required to publish solid
waste management guidelines, including resource recovery,
and a description of the levels of performance required to
protect ground water from land disposal. The implications
.- of these guidelines and the criteria to State and local
.. government will be the discussion of my later presentation.
. During this half hour I'd like to focus on
„ Sections 4004 of the Act and 1008 of the Act. This legis-
.. lation offers broader definitions to traditional terms such
as "open dumps" and "sanitary landfills". These will be
„ distinguished by the criteria promulgated under Section 4004
J7 which I'll talk about shortly. There are several new
]8 definitions that I'd like to emphasize. The first of these
19 is definition of "disposal". "Disposal" now means the
20 discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking,
or placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into or
22 on — let's underline those words "into or on" because it
means both surface disposal as well as subsurface disposal
on land or water, so that such solid waste or hazardous
25 waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment.
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1 The term "solid waste" has also been signifi-
2 cantly broadened. "Solid waste" means any garbage, refuse,
3 sludge from a municipal waste water treatment plant, a
4 water supply treatment plant, an industrial treatment plant,
5 an air pollution control facility, et cetera. This includes
6 both solid, liquid, semisolid, or containing gaseous
7 materials resulting from industrial, commercial, mining,
8 and agricultural operations. However, it specifically ex-
' eludes dissolved materials in domestic sewage, or solid or
10 dissolved materials in irrigation return flows, or indus-
11 trial discharges which are subject to the permit system of
12 Section 4002 in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
13 It also excludes special nuclear waste or by-product materiajl
H as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954,
15 As I said earlier, the definitions of "sanitary
16 landfill" and "open dumps" refer to Section 4004 of the
17 legislation. This section requires the Administrator to
18 promulgate regulations containing criteria for determining
1' which facility shall be classified as "open dumps" and which
20 shall be classified as "sanitary landfills". These criteria
21 are due withine one year, or October 1977. Again, these
22 criteria will state what is an open dump. Everything else
23 will be a sanitary landfill. I'd like to clarify that a
24 bit. It is not our intention to tell you what you can do.
25 We will tell you, rather, what you cannot do. It is
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I important in the intent of Congress that we should not
2 tell you how to manage your waste, but, rather, to tell you
3 what you can't do. It may seem like a play on words, but
4 it is a significant difference at the local level.
5 State plans are required under Section 4004 Cb}
5 to prohibit open dumps and require all disposal to be a
7 sanitary landfill. Using criteria developed in 4004, the
3 State will conduct an inventory of all open dumps. This
9 inventory will begin in October of this year and end in
10 September of 1978. EPA will then publish a list of all
II sites in the country that are open dumps. Any site
12 contained on this list must either be closed or converted
13 to sanitary landfill within five years. This section
14 also contains another interesting provision which gives
15 the local citizen groups and other interested parties
16 quite a bit of leverage on State planning. And that is
17 the citizen suite provision. Any site that is an open dump
18 that is not contained in the State plan is liable to citizei
19 suit for closure. The expenses of such litigation will be
20 born by the operator of that site. However, that site can
2| obtain immunity from prosecution if it has two things:
22 CD it must be listed on the inventory of open dumps and
23 f2f it must be listed in an EPA approved State Plan. So
24 there will be a lot of pressure upon the State to obtain EP,
25 approval of their plans, for without that approval of the
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I site that is an open dump within that State is subject
2 to prosecution under federal law in jrederal court for
3 closure. That's important; it's the federal court, and I
4 suspect that federal judges will be somewhat less sympa-
5 thetic to local problems than State or local courts have
6 been in the past. So this citizen supervision is a strong
7 provision and will have great impact on State planning.
8 In the State plan, every site that is an open
9 dump must either have a closure plan or a plan to upgrade
10 to a sanitary landfill within five years.
11 I would like to move now quickly to Section 1008
12 of the legislation. This section requires the Administra-
13 tor to publish within one year guidelines that provide a
14 technical and economic description of the level of
15 performance that can be obtained by available solid waste
16 management practices. And I'd like to underline the word
17 "available",
18 In two years those guidelines shall describe
19 levels of performance, including appropriate methods and
20 degrees of control that provide at a minimum for protection
21 of public health and welfare. These guidelines must also
22 provide for the protection of the quality of ground waters
23 and surface waters from leachates and protection of
24 quality surface waters from runoff and protection of ambient
25 air quality. They must also provide for disease and vector
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8
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25
62
control and safety control and esthetics.
Under this section the agency currently intends
to update its existing sanitary landfill guidelines and
to implement municipal sewage sludge disposal and utiliza-
tion guidelines.
To summarize what I have said, Section 4004
establishes criteria for determining if a site is an open
dump or a sanitary landfill. This raises several jtey
questions, particularly in the groundwater area. Since
we're talking about protection of public health, does this
jection require zero discharge to all groundwater? In
other words, would all sites have to be lined, or only
these that have to be collected and treated? Does the
agency haye the latitude to classify aquifers or do the
States have the latitude to classify groundwater. By that I
mean can we classify some groundwater that must be protected
at all cost or should we allow contamination of existing
groundwater that perhaps is already contaminated from natura
sources?
The scope of these guidelines is another issue
we're facing. Should these guidelines include agricultural
waste, municipal sludge; should it just be limited to muni-
cipal solid waste?
I encourage any questions or comments you have on
the scope of these criteria.
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1 Section 1008 is tied directly to the criteria
2 in that they will provide the advice on how communities
3 can implement alternatives and environmentally acceptable
4 methods for waste management.
5 Essentially, 4004 will tell you what you can't
6 do and 1008 will tell you alternative ways on how you can
7 do it. These guidelines will be mandatory on a federal
8 facility and on local implementation grantees under
9 Section 4008Cal f2{CAI and they will simply be advisory
10 to State and local governments.
11 I would like to entertain any questions at this
12 time.
13 MR. J. DEWELL: I'm J. Dewell, Phillips Petroleum
14 Company. One technique used for disposing of sludge oils
15 is a thing that's called land farming sometimes. If you're
16 familiar with it, I won't go on from there. How would this
17 definition of an open dump take into account these land
18 farms where they are well run. I think there are some
19 problems with some people's operation of land farms, but thei
20 are some well run ones that I know of. How would that be
21 rectified with fuel sludge dumpers and landfill?
22 MR. WEDDLE: Okay. If you'll permit me I
23 could draw a parallel to municipal sludge in farming. It's
24 the same thing. It's a different material and it may be
25 known to more people in the room. Both land farming tech-
niques can have a beneficial use, depending upon the quality
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of the material being spread on agricultural land or
on land, even. The question you raise brings the issue
to the forefront. Can certain practices be excluded from
the criteria? For example, if you place waste oil or
municipal sludge on agricultural land in agronomic rates
in such a way that you will not detrimentally affect the
environment, that shouldn't be called disposal and perhaps
could be excluded from the definition. If that is the
case, EPA in all likelihood would probably define what
10 is acceptable practice. If your practice would happen to
meet those criteria, it would be excluded. On the other
12 hand, if you did not meet those criteria, you would fall
underneath the 4004 criteria. You would either hcive to
14 upgrade or close such practice. I don't know if I
answered your question or not. We're certainly going to
]6 address it. But it's much too early for me to indicate
17 which way we'd go.
18 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Any other questions?
19 MR. JOHN WEBER: John Weber, Stauffer Chemical.
20 What do you do with an existing dump once you close it?
2i Do you have certain protections that you have to provide
22 that facility or do you just close it and forget about i
23 MR. WEDDLE: Unfortunately there is less
24 contained in the Act for nonhazardous waste disposal sites
25 than there is for hazardous waste disposal sites. Federal
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control over land disposal of nonhazardous wastes is
2 minimal at best. The Congress intended for the State
3 programs to assume nonhazardous waste enforcement permitting
cpabilities, so retrofitting of old sites, prevention of
continued damage from old sites that have been closed,
really aren't at rest, other than perhaps the imminent
hazard section of the legislation. That's an issue that
g the States are going to have to wrestle with, and I am not
9 sure what we will do about it or what we will recommend.
It's possible we may promulgate guidelines under 1008 that
suggest alternative ways to close old dumps to minimize any
l_ further environmental degradation.
,3 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Any further questions or
comments?
MR. ROGER STEAD: Roger Stead, Department of
Environmental Protection, South Dakota. I was just wonder-
ing, is there any chance that communities or people would be
exempted from this Act or there is a possibility that
burning for volume reduction would be allowed in smaller
20 communities?
MR. WEDDLE: There are two questions. Let me
22 handle the latter one first. Would open burning, say, in
small communities be exempted? My best guess is that they
24 would not be exempted from the criteria.
25 MR. STEAD: Why I ask that, there are two bills
in the legislature right now addressing this issue, and I
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1 think both of them will pass, allowing for open burning
2 in South Dakota.
3 MR. WEDDLE: If the Governor doesn't veto it as
4 he has in the past.
5 MR. STEAD: He vetoed it last year, but it
6 looks like we're going to be able to override him this
7 year.
8 MR. WEDDLE: Okay. I have visions of several
9 scenarios: One could be a legal battle with EPA within
10 the State. One of the problems that would raise is that
II it is possible that the Regional Administrator of EPA
12 in Washington would not approve a State plan that permitted
13 open burning. If it did not approve such a State plan,
14 every site within the State that was an open dump would
IS then be subject to citizen suit.
16 I'm not sure that the site operators in the
17 State of South Dakota wouldn't apply enough political
18 pressure upon the legislature to overturn such an
19 eventuality.
20 That's a scenario that may or may not happen, but
21 it's possible under this legislation.
22 Jon, would you like to add anything to that.
23 You're much more familiar with South Dakota than I am. I
24 may have been totally off base. I am not sure.
25 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: No, I think your comment,
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1 Bruce is right. I don't really have a whole lot to add.
2 This has been a recurring problem in South Dakota, as
3 Roger mentioned. I will make the point a little differentl
4 that you made: The definition of "sanitary landfill" for
5 rural communities is to be made and there's not a firm
6 decision made yet. However, in the past, historically,
^ sanitary landfilling has not included open burning, it's
8 very adamantly prohibited, and I think it's reasonable to
9 assume that will continue. On the other hand, I will say
10 that with caution in that that decision has not yet been
11 cast in bronze, if you want to put it that way. Hopefully
12 we won't have to sue you, though, Roger.
13 MR, STEAD: Is it reasonable to assume that
14 there will be different classes of landfills, perhaps, for
15 cover daily, for example --
16 MR. WEDDLE: That's a hard question.
17 MR, STEAD: — for smaller communities?
18 MR. WEDDLE: I can't say it's reasonable to
19 assume. That's one of the questions that came up in
20 Denver yesterday, and we will give serious consideration to
21 varying operational procedures based on the size of the
22 community. We fully recognize and Jack Green in Region 8
23 recognizes the cost of sanitary landfill in rural communi-
24 ties, isolated communities, may be beyond what the citizenry
25 can or should have to bear. So I can't say. It's likely
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1 there will be classifications, but it's something we will
2 be wrestling with and giving serious consideration to.
3 CHAIRMAN YBAGLEY: Let me make a further comment
on that, Roger, to you directly, and to everyone in the
room here. The definition of "sanitary landfill", as I
mentioned, is in the development stage. I would encourage
any and all of you to supply your input in writing,
particularly if you have an issue such as this one relating
to rural communities and the financial burden on a rural
community to come up with a system that allows for daily
.. cover and no burning and et cetera, et cetera, making very
., sure that you point out these kinds of issues and reinforce
„ them so that we can consider that sort of a thing and have
the benefit of your comments to do that.
I; Having said that, I will repeat that I would
appreciate receiving those comments. My return address is
on the program. My name is Jon Yeagley. Keep those cards
and letters coming. I'd be very much interested in hearing
19 from you in writing to emphasize the comments that we are
20 hearing now.
MR. WEDDLE: Did we answer all your questions?
MR. STEAD: Are we going to get into the planning
23 at all?
MR. WEDDLE: That will be the subject of my
25 presentation to follow the resource recovery presentation.
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, CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Okay. Thank you very much.
2 We will proceed into resource and recovery and
I will call Bob Lowe. We will be getting back to Bruce for
those of you who do have concerns on the State planning and
the scenarios involved there.
MR. ROBERT A. LOWE: I am going to deal with the
sections of the Act that addresses ways to reduce the amount
g of waste that has to go through disposal. There are two
9 approaches to this: one is waste reduction, and the other
... is recycling or resource recovery.
I. Waste reduction, for those of you who are not
familiar with that term, means taking certain measures such
. as reusing products or using less material per product or
using products for a longer period of time and not replacing
., them indiscriminately. Those are methods of waste reduction
Before I go into discussing the provisions of the
Act which are indicated on the slide that address resource
jo conservation and resource recovery, I am obligated to repeat
what's been mentioned earlier and that is the fact we have
2Q very little funds and a small staff to implement these
sections of the Act, so a lot of these sections will either
22 go unimplemented or unfunded where others will be funded or
implemented at a very low level of effort. But we do have
certain authorities now that we didn't have before; certain
25 authorities we had before in general terms we now have in
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specific terms, and therefore, the channel is open to
2 doing work that we couldn't do before, and all we need is
3 the money. I must also point out that the funding issue
and the staffing issue applies to the entire Solid Waste
Office and, therefore, priorities have to come into place.
At the time priorities were given primarily to Subtitles
C and B and the landfill criteria definitions, and so on.
g The reason for this is that those sections of the Act have
9 definite and specific deadlines and the resource conserva-
... tion and recovery sections of the Act do not have such
.. specific deadlines, and for that reason, when it comes time
j to cut it, the decisions have been made to give greater
emphasis to the areas with specific mandates and deadlines.
I am not particularly happy with that, but it's a fact that
we all have to live with at the moment.
Now, my concern is that the resource conservation
17 and recovery portions of the Act are not weakened to the
point where they're so ineffective that they can't be
effective in the future. I don't think that any regulatory
2Q program can be effective without providing for alternatives
to land disposal.
22 Well, having given a little philosophy beyond my
23 boundaries, maybe I'll go right into the text of my talk.
Resource recovery and resource conservation are
25 provided for in the following sections of the Act:
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1 We are authorized to write guidelines under
2 Section 1008. We have already written some guidelines
3 tinder the previous legislation. Those will be reissued.
4 I don't contemplate writing additional ones now, at least
5 in the area of resource conservation and resource recovery.
6 The new Act creates resource recovery and
7 conservation panels to provide technical assistance
g as the Government charted out for you in information and
9 advice. And I'll discuss those panels in a little more
10 detail in a moment.
U Subtitle D which provides procedures and
12 authorization for funding of State programs and local
13 programs and projects requires that recourse recovery and
14 resource conservation be considered. And I can go into
15 that in response to your questions, if you want, but
15 Bruce Weddle is going to discuss that in greater detail
]7 when I am finished.
IS Section 8003 — and I use these section numbers
19 for those of you who are bureaucratically inclined and not
20 used to dealing in concepts and ideas. A good bureaucrat
2i can go through an entire day speaking in numbers,
22 abbreviations, and acronyms, without saying a full word
23 of more than one syllable. We place great emphasis on
24 developing information and on disseminating it to people
25 who can use it. We put great emphasis on that in the past,
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, and, as Val indicated, we'll continue to put great emphasis
, on that. The demonstrations up here mentioned under
Section 8004, I'd like to just briefly discuss all of the
sections under Subtitle H, which is all of the 8000 series.
Sections 8002, '4, '5, and '6 call for a wide variety of
studies and demonstrations and evaluations. We have done
such things in the past and we will continue to do such
things in the future as our resources allow.
One thing I might point out here under demonstra-
tions is, in the past we have been authorized to award
.. demonstration grants to State and local governments. Now
we're empowered to conduct demonstrations through a contract
mechanism where we can deal directly with a private company.
And that's where some of our demonstration projects have
failed or at least have been inadequate in the past. One
.f of the problems has been that we have been forced to deal
through a public sector body of the city, which is not
equipped and not set up to do research and development.
We think we can do it quicker and better in some situations
with a contract with a company. I am speaking primarily of
hardware demonstrations. There are other kinds of
22 demonstrations, demonstrations of innovative planning
„ procedures, human procedures, things like that, which of
course we have to do, and it would be preferable to do
25 through a public company.
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Section 8002, just as an example of some of the
2 studies that are being more called for under the Act, I'd
3 like to emphasize a couple of them on here, and that is the
small scale, low technology, and front-end separation areas.
These refer to source separation and separation collection.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with that term, "source
separation" refers to a recycling procedure where the
generator of the waste, either the householder or office
building occupant, or commercial establishment segregates
recyclable materials, like paper, and keep it segregated
through separation collection all the way back to the
consumer, like the paper companies do. And we have been
placing additional emphasis on this, gradually increasing
emphasis over the last few years, and the emphasis will
continue to increase.
Section 8002 Cj! calls for the establishment
17 of a Resource Conservation Committee. The purpose of this
18 committee, which is a cabinet level committee, is to
investigate and report to the Congress on various incentives
2Q or disincentives that could be applied to increased recy-
21 ding and to reduce consumption of materials; in other words
22 to conserve resources, to examine existing public policies,
such as depletion allowances, and to do a few other things
24 that are listed on the slide.
25 The way Congress handled this issue is both good
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11
12
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16
17
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19
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and bad >— for those of you who would have liked to have seen
Congress take action and implement specific actions now
instead of by calling for a study that effectively delays
any action until the studies are complete, which could be
three years from now. On the other hand, it did specifi-
cally recognize and give priority to, some signifiance to,
these kinds of issues. And, more significantly, I think the
creation of a cabinet level committee is a very significant
thing. Waste utilization and materials utilization in
general has been studied for or five times since about 1950.
But previously it's been only through special study commis-
sions created outside of the administration. This is the
first time such a committee on such a study has been
authorized within the administration at the cabinet level.
And I think that because of that the recommendations that
this committee comes up with are more likely to be imple-
mented, especially because the administration is new and
will be in office when the studies are completed and will
therefore be in a position to recommend action where called
for.
I find it interesting and, for those of you who
are interested in how Washington politics works, the. committe
is composed of many high level people: the Secretary of Labor
the Secretary of Commerce, the Administrator of EPA, the
Chairman of the Council of Environmental Quality, a represen-
tative of the Office Of President's Management and Budget,
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1 which should give you an indication of the relative power
2 in Washington, that the community representative of the
i Office of Management and Budget is equal to the Secretary
4 of Labor or the Secretary of Commerce. That's a fact of
5 life that we have to deal with.
6 Now, getting on to the resource recovery panels.
7 The purpose of these panels is to provide technical assis-
8 tance to help meet the objectives of this Act, to help
9 States design and implement regulatory programs, both
10 for hazardous wastes and other wastes, and to help the
11 States and the local governments develop alternatives for
12 land disposal, such as resource recovery programs, source
13 separation programs, and resource conservation programs.
14 The term is misleading, the "resource recovery and
15 conservation panels"term is misleading, I believe, in two
16 ways: First of all, it's not limited to resource recovery
17 and resource conservation. It extends to all areas of
18 solid waste management, including hazardous waste management
19 And the second point is that the word "panels" implies
20 something a little bit different from the way I interpret
21 this. "Panels" implies that a fixed unit of individuals,
22 let's say four people, who will meet as a unit and travel
23 as a unit and, when called by Salt Lake City, let's say, thejy
24 travel to Salt Lake City, four people sit down and provide
25 information and advice. I don't see it working that way.
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I see the creation of a pool of resources •— a "stable" is
2 a term somebody has given to it — essentially a list of
3 people, EPA staff, consultants under contract to EPA, and
4 State and local officals, who can be sent to a city or
5 state where help is needed, and those individuals would
6 be called on by the EPA staff as needed, as appropriate
7 under the circumstances, so that maybe only one goes to one
city and another person goes to another, or a whole team is
9 brought in. These teams will be required by law and will
10 have expertise in the following areas; technical, marketing,
financial, and institutional. The inclusion of the areas
other than technical represents new emphasis under this law
and recognizes that engineering alone will not solve the
problem. The teams will be composed of, as I mentioned,
15 EPA staff and sometimes contracted to EPA and State and
local officials, who will be provided through a program we
17 refer to as peer management. The program will also include
13 implementation grants which are authorized under Section
19 4008, which Bruce will mention a little later on.
20 If YOU are interested, I could get into the
method of selection that we have employed in the past and
might employ in the future. And in a moment I will ask for
comments and suggestions, and then after that I want to
24 raise a few questions that we have on fundamental policy
25 issues that we would like your input on. With respect to
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1 what somebody asked earlier: What kind of public partici-
2 pation are we conducting ourselves? Who do we listen to,
3 in other words? Well, we listen to anybody who takes the
4 time to contact us, first of all. On a regular basis,
5 though, we listen to several organizations who do take the
6 time to deal with us and give us their opinions. And we
7 meet with these people one-on-one and from time to time.
8 But we're having special meetings next week. We're having
9 a series of three meetings, and these meetings are by
10 invitation only, and that is for the purpose of keeping the
II group small so we can discuss details in a meaningful way.
12 And the thing we are going to be discussing is the draft
13 program plan for the technical assistance program.
14 Of the three meetings, one is with industry,
15 another is with representatives of government organizations,
16 and the third is with the environmental and civil groups.
17 And most of the organizations I have heard in here are
18 represented either directly or indirectly by the participants
19 of these meetings. I will be glad to tell you who they are,
20 although I don't have the list with me.
21 At this point I'd like to open the floor to any
22 comments, suggestions, criticisms, or questions that you
23 would have. And then I'll step back in a moment and we'll
24 answer any questions you have.
25 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I'd like to call on a couple
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8
of individuals who indicated they would like to make
statements at this time before we open to general questions.
3 Commissioner Inouye, would you like to make some
4 comments?
5 MR. YUKUS INOUYE: The solid waste business has
been the most frustrating for me as a County Commissioner fo
the past four years. I think that we had a private industry
contract with us to give us the service for a fixed fee.
They were so close in opening the project and yet so far,
10 because there is no track record. And the statement that
II I made previously of rewarding or awarding for those that
12 are proceeding with a method of recycling, I think that if
13 they are encouraged and would be benefited by financial
14 help, it may solve some problems for the industry.
15 And I think that we have been an affluent nation;
we have been wasteful. I think the time is here when we
17 should mine, so to speak, our solid wastes or garbage. r
\8 think there is a lot of dollars and a lot of good material
19 that we're just covering up, throwing away. And I think
20 that if there is ever a time that the federal government
*&
21 could help of solving and conserving our natural resources,
22 it is through this effort of recycling. It has been most
23 confusing to me because, without the track record, you get
24 so many different organizations and methods thrown at you,
25 and they also are lacking in track record. And I think in
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1 recycling, whether it be of a gaseous nature, methane
2 and so forth, if there is a good track record, and I think
3 this is where we got to .start, is to establish a track
4 record, and I think this is where the jrederal government
5 could help, because private industry or the local government
6 to tell the citizens that, "Yes, we have a method; we'd
7 like to try it," they'll say, "Well, let somebody else try
8 it. We can't afford to." And this is the frustration that
9 I have had.
IQ And I think again I'd like to emphasize that I
I) was in the farming business. I mean — to relate a story -•
12 I was in the farming business, and I raised a group of
tj cattle. In order to sell breeding stock you have to
14 show an "it" cattle and win a few ribbons. And I got a
IS book that told me exactly how to catch that calf in the
16 corral, how to put the halter on it, and how to groom it,
17 but when I got into that corral, the calf hadn't read the
18 book. And I think this is where experience is the deal.
]9 r want to congratulate you for what you're doing
20 here today, for coming out in the field to work with those
21 that have caught that calf in the corral. And I think it's
22 important because theory and where we implement, as we have
23 to as live professionals implement in the field, is a real
24 problem, as I mentioned before. Thank you.
25 MR. LEHR: Thank you very much.
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...
CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY; Thank you very much,
Commissioner.
Is Mr. Jones still here? LeGrand Jones? He
mentioned that he thought he might like to make a statement
here also.
Okay. Let's open up to general questions.
Yes. You here in the foreground.
MR. W. ROBERT RICHARDS: My name is Bob
Richards .
So far this morning my concern is that the whole
program appears to be directed really at very large
standard metropolitan areas. These are the only areas
large enough to generate the amount of waste that can
really profit by a full-blown recycling program or the end
., product that has some commercial value or by a large
., compacting operation whereby you get sufficient reduction
._ or any of the other means that the smaller towns would
. „ consider exotic operations. And I wonder if there has
.„ been any concern given to the problem of the very small
town that has an open dump in most cases because they
can't afford much more, if any. The equipment to run a
-- sanitary landfill is pretty expensive and the outlook of
manpower is even more expensive. I would hope that in your
-. looking at these studies you would consider how can you
apply some of this technology to a little town like Elast
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Carpenter or Surmyside or Moab or Kanab where they don't
2 generate enough garbage to fill three trucks in a week,
3 and could never possibly justify some of the large
4 expenditures required for this more exotic recovery. I
5 also wonder how many people realize really there's an awful
5 lot of things you're talking about do take place in a very
7 small town.
I live in a very small town now and, really,
recycling takes place. A certain amount of recreation is
there; a certain amount of social intercourse takes place.
I'm referring to the kids who reduce the amount by shooting
.- at bottles with BB guns and pellet guns; a certain amount of
., recycling in the sense there are people who have trees who
.. drag these to the dump who never have chain saws or fire-
]5 places, so the dump becomes a place where you recycle the
.< wood. We're planning a new dump and there is provision for
17 the people to park the trees on one side so they won't wind
18 up in a sanitary landfill, and it will also provide an
19 opportunity for people to get some firewood at a relatively
low cost.
We have some other ingenious arrangements that
22 haven't been considered. People always bring their garbage
23 to the dump on Sunday morning, I've found, in a pickup truck
24 And the trucks line up, and this is where a certain amount
25 of spiritual uplift on Sunday morning takes place. Many of
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1 these trucks leave with more in them than when they came.
2 Therefore, we have not only recycling but constant cycling
3 back and forth.
4 What I'm pointing out, in a way, is there is a
5 kind of a point of operation that takes place out there.
6 I myself do welding and go out and gather up an angle iron
7 from time to time. I don't know where else I can get an
8 angle iron. Small dumps provide this kind of thing.
9 I really do seriously, though, think that an
10 awful lot of this is directed at only the very large cities
II and in Utah we've only got one SMSA and all the rest of the
12 state has very, very small operators, and I just don't see
13 any application to that.
14 MR. LOWE: Thank you very much for that comment.
15 I'd like to respond to both your comment and that of
15 Commissioner Inouye.
17 The distance between here and Washington is
IS definitely a problem. This is my first trip here, personall
19 and I have a different feeling about the place already. I'm
20 sorry we didn't meet two years ago. I think we might have
21 done some things differently.
22 In terms of encouragement and financial help, we
23 can provide the encouragement and advice and assistance,
24 without the financial help, if, indeed, that's not available
25 In some places -- I don't mean to be facetious — I think
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•a
I that in some places we have been asked to come out just to
2 put our stamp of approval on a project to help persuade
3 those who are skeptical. In some places we have done that
4 and have been told that that was important in the success
5 of the project. Other places we've helped kill projects
6 because we put a stamp of disapproval on it, but we have to
7 do that to keep our credibility sometimes.
g You're right that there is a need for a track
9 record. X think what you're saying is that without a track
10 record opportunities are difficult to evaluate and difficult
II to justify making a commitment. To some extent we can help
12 you already by telling you what's going on in other parts
13 of the country, which is essentially where our expertise
14 comes from. We don't make it up. We're not that smart.
15 In another sense, though, the many, many aspects of this
15 field, with the technology and legal and procurement
17 aspects, are new and there is no track record, or very littL
18 in the way of a track record, and this, we think, is the
19 justification for demonstration programs, demonstration of
20 both hardware and nonhardware products. That is all I can
2j respond to that at this point.
22 With reference to your comments about small
23 communities, we have not given enough emphasis to small
24 communities in the past and, depending upon the outcome of
25 these public participation meetings and one of the questions
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I I will ask shortly, I believe we will be giving more emphasi
2 One thing we have been doing, though, is there are a couple
3 of communities principally in Arkansas which are using small
4 incinerators with heat recoveries to produce steam, and
5 therefore recover energy from their solid wastes. We are
6 entering into a contract with a private R & D firm of some
7 Rind of consultants to evaluate this to provide information
3 to the public as to whether or not this is a worthwhile
9 approach and what the pros and cons are economically,
10 environmentally, and politically.
Ij We also put a lot of emphasis into source separa-
12 tion programs which can be applied in small communities.
U There are special problems, though, I know, in
14 small communities just in the management of a given project;
15 having the available staff, time, and expertise to do the
15 necessary planning that a larger community can do.
17 But this is the kind of problem that I think we
18 are going to be addressing, that we should be addressing
]9 in the future.
20 Let me just raise a couple of these questions
2i that I have, and I will open back up for more discussion
22 if you want.
23 Given that we cannot give our technical assis-
24 tance or our financial assistance to every community, that
25 means we are going to have to prioritize the requests
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\ that we do get. What should be the basis of this priority?
2 There are several criteria that could be applied: one is
3 most tonnage, second could be most critical environmental
4 problem, third could be most likely to succeed, fourth
5 could be the greatest level of ignorance — in other words,
6 the largest need, fifth could be the demonstration value
7 of a particular project.
8 If we awarded technical assistance or a grant
9 on the basis of most tonnage, then we would be solving the
IQ largest amount of the problem in terms of tonnage, but we
II would have to ignore the small communities. If we awarded
12 money and help on the basis of serious environmental
13 problems, then we might discriminate against points like
1^ Los Angeles which has a very good landfill; and if they
jj wanted help on. resource recovery, for example, then we
I6 would say, "We can't help you. You have done such a good
17 job in the past, we can't help you," and in a sense we'd
Ig be discriminating against someone who has done a good job,
19 really, and in some sense deserves some kind of reward for
20 that.
2) Someone suggested that we award technical
22 assistance and money to those that have the greatest level
23 of ignorance. The thing that occurred to me when I heard
24 this was, I sort of pictured myself announcing the
25 recipients of our financial assistance, "With great pleasure
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\ I can tell you who the most incompetent people in the
2 country are."
3 The most likely to succeed is one of the
criteria that we have given the greatest priority to in the
5 past. We'd like to recycle the most tonnage and clean up
6 the most problems, and we do take all of these factors
7 into account to some extent, but the most likely to succeed
3 criterion — first of all, let us deal with any size city,
let us deal with any community whether it has a serious
environmental problem or not and, most of all, it provides
an example which other communities can follow later, even
]2 if they don't get our financial and technical help. That's
13 the way our thinking is going right now. I'd be happy to
hear your comments in disagreement or in agreement with that
Another issue is, with our limited capacity for
assistance, should we concentrate on a small number of
17 communities and give them all the help we can give them, or
,8 should we give a limited amount of assistance to a large num.
19 of communities?
One question I have concerning the studies that
the Resource Conservation Committee are going to be doing:
22 They're going to have to look at options that will focus
23 on one aspect of the material stream versus another.
24 And how do they decide which aspect to look at? Do they
25 do it on the basis of total overall pollution, meaning not
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only that pollution that occurs in the land disposal site,
2 But also the pollution associated with mining the raw
3 material in the first place and then processing it and
4 manufacturing it, which is a problem, or should it be
5 concerned primarily with resource scarcity or employment
5 impact or balance of payment. If we dealt with resource
7 scarcity, for example, then we could forget anything that
had to do with glass because glass is made of many
abundant resources. If we deal on the basis of scarcity,
maybe we'd give our attention just to what materials are
very scarce; tin, for example. There are a number of other
12 questions that I could raise, but maybe I have talked too
much.
14 What comments do you have?
15 Sir?
|6 MR. WILLIAM F. CHRISTOFFERSEN: I'm Bill
17 Christoffersen. I'm Regional Representative for the United
18 states Brewers Association.
19 I would like to ask what has the EPA done --
20 you said a lot of these things are in their infancy — what
2| have you done as far as coordinating with the National
22 Center for Resource Recovery, which is financed mainly by
23 private industry, on some of the things that they have come
24 up with in technology? And, No. 2, you were talking about
25 what is happening in smaller cities. What has happened to
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the pilot program in Franklin, Ohio, with a population of
about 11,000 that was started a few years ago; is that thine
working? And/or in what other cities are the particular
resource recovery programs working that are in existence
now? Another question I'd like to ask: Has anything been
done through our Congress or through EPA or anyone else about
the discrimination between raw materials and reusable
material on freight rates. Now, this is one thing that's
holding private industries from getting involved in
10 resource recovery; and another one, tax incentive on new
materials and reusable materials.
.- MR. LOWE: Thank you. The National Center for
Resource Recovery is a nonprofit organization created by
industry, mainly those industries and associated labor
I5 organizations that make materials that end up in the waste
16 stream. The purpose of their organization is to advance
the state of the art of technology and the implementation
of technology to recover resources as a way of solving solid
.„ waste disposal problems as opposed to waste reduction
2Q measures. They are located in Washington, and we communi-
2J cate with them regularly, and we know about their projects
22 and they know about ours, and we try not to duplicate their
efforts. One project they have underway is to help plan
„ and finance a large-scale material separation system in
New Orleans. As a result of that project, we are not doing
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-90"
1 one like that. We are waiting to see what the results of
2 that project are.
3 You asked what the status of Franklin and other
4 cities are. Franklin, Ohio was a project funded in part
5 by an EPA demonstration grant, and that project, as far
6 as its demonstration is concerned, is complete. The plan
7 is operating and taking care of all of the municipal waste
g and sewage sludge in Franklin on a daily basis now. In
9 terms of a demonstration, we believe this is somewhat
JO successful because it's been imitated by at least two
II communities that we know of: Bade County, Florida, which is
12 where Miami is, and Hempstead, New York, which are signed
Ij contracts to build systems using similar equipment, although
14 they are producing a different product. In both cases
15 they're producing electricity.
K Rather than going into what's happening in other
17 communities, I'd like to invite you to send for—if anybody
IS is interested, let me know, preferably in writing, it
19 would make it much easier for me — and I can send you what
20 we call a Nationwide Survey of Resource Recovery Activities
2i which is a status report of what is happening in resource
22 recovery and waste reduction programs around the country.
23 We have that as one of our information materials and we'd
24 be glad to send that to you.
25 With respect to freight rates, since you asked
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C10
\ me the question, at the break I read the latest issue
2 and saw this report and found something I should have known
3 earlier in the week. The Railroad Revitalization Act of
4 1975 required the Interstate Commerce Commission to review
5 its rate structure, looking for discrimination against
6 secondary materials, and to take action on that, and
7 authorized EPA to review that process. I just read that
3 the Interstate Commerce Commission has completed its inves-
9 tigation and we already have a contractor in place to do
10 the review for us and that is going on now. So that's the
II status of that. According to this report, which is always
12 reliable, the ICC, the Interstate Commerce Commission,
13 directed certain railroads to adjust their rates according
14 to certain percentages which were deemed to be percentages
U Of discrimination. I'd like to make one comment on freight
15 rates, though. Freight rates is a concept that a lot of
17 people have latched onto and that has been given a lot of
18 publicity. I don't want to minimize that as a problem,
19 but I think there are other problems that haven't got as
20 much publicity and there are other problems that don't have
2| handy labels like that and are much more significant. Those
22 are the kinds of problems that we are dealing with. They're
23 the kinds of problems that you, Commissioner Inouye, have
24 brought up.
25 Well, that's enough on that.
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I In terms of tax incentives, as I mentioned, tax
2 incentives are going to be looked at by the Resource
3 Conservation Committee, One incentive, this incentive
4 package that we have been working on over the last year and
5 a half, is called the product charge, and it's intended to
5 review the economic differential between the use of virgin
7 materials and the use of secondary materials by giving a
credit to those people who use secondary materials and
phasing that credit out over time and charging, putting a
tax, essentially, on those who use virgin materials,
.. phasing that in from zero the first day of implementation
l_ and phasing that in over a 10-year period, so that the
difference between the charge and the credit would be con-
14 sta,nt, and the purpose, then, would be to offset the
.5 difference, the economic disadvantage now suffered by
secondary materials as a result of the way our materials
17 utilization system, economic system, has developed. Just
to give you an idea why this kind of thing takes so much
19 study: It's not just a bunch of people fumbling with each
20 other in an office. If a certain kind of measure is going
2) to be introduced, these people who are affected by it
22 want to know that they're going to be affected, and they
want to know how they are going to be affected, and it's
24 not always easy to tell. It sometimes requires a lot of
25 time and a lot of analyses: How is labor in the glass
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I industry going to be affected? How is transportation going
2 to be affected? What's going to be the effect on balance
3 of payments? There are all kinds of aspects that have to
4 be looked at. That's part of what we are doing. Another
5 part of it is taking that information to the people who are
6 going to be affected and saying, "Here is what we're think-
7 ing; what are your reactions?" and helping to introduce the
8 concept gradually and build public support for it where
9 that support is deserved and find out where the opposition i
jO where that exists, too. Well, that's where we have been.
11 Any other comments or questions?
12 MR. RANDALL ISHAM: Randall Isham, Department of
jj Transportation.
14 On this Resource Recovery and Conservation Panel,
15 you indicated State and local governments could receive
16 assistance. What about the private industry which might
17 be cooperating with the local government on solid waste
18 disposal and will they be included as people who could be
19 assisted?
20 MR. LOWE: The question is: Can private industry
2i be a recipient of technical assistance? If you read the
22 Act literally, the answer is no, because, at least in
23 Section 2003, it limits assistance only to State and local
24 governments. I am sure, though, that somewhere else in the
25 Act we could justify giving assistance to private industry.
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We have to be careful, though, as a matter of policy, not
to give assistance to an individual company where it would
advance their — would help their competitive advantage
and disadvantage their competitors. Do you follow me?
MR. ISHAM: Yeah.
6 MR, LOWE: What we try to do, therefore, is
7 work through the city, and the company that they're dealing
g with, the particular company, may be helped in the process.
We also take steps ourselves to work through associations
representing an entire industry, representing various entire
industries, and that way we advance the cause of certain
industries without advancing the cause of any particular
member. Of course we do so only if we think that the genera
good would be helped,
]5 MR. JOHN WEBER: John Weber. Are any of your
16 programs aimed toward setting up recycling centers so that
,7 people who are interested could bring their paper to one
place, their bottles to another, their cans to another, or
.„ whatever, to another?
20 MR. LOWE: Yes, there are. We don't do this
directly. We encourage State and local governments to do
that. Mostly, we encourage them through our technical
assistance, but to some extent, we encourage them through
our financial assistance.
25 Jon and I met yesterday with people from Boulder,
Colorado, who are negotiating for the amount of money that's
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1 left in a grant that we had given to the Denver Regional
2 Council of Governments, and that would be used to increase
3 tfvfi effectiveness and the coverage of a source separation
4 program in the Denver area. That's the kind of project
5 that we're working on. We also awarded demonstration
6 grants to two towns in Massachusetts to develop data on
7 source separation programs, recycling programs.
3 Yes, ma'am.
9 MS. JOYCE HUNT: Joyce Hunt, J. E. Hunt &
10 Associates. I'd like to point out one thing that I have
II heard several people ask about, this particular thing about
12 having something to do with, take like paper, or just doing
U partial resource recovery, and would completely alter the
14 financial structure, profit structure for private industry
ls and if too much of it was done, it takes away from an
I6 area that normally private industry would want to come in
17 and do total replacement. Like, for example, if the paper
18 were all taken out, it would change the structure.
19 MR. LOWE: Essentially, I think what your
20 question is: Can a source separation program which removes
2| paper, which recycles paper, can that source separation
22 program coexist with a mixed waste central processing
23 facility, which probably would involve energy recovery
24 that would want to burn the paper? Is that the question?
25 MS. HUNT: What I am saying, if anything were
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I started in an area or a law passed for a partial resource
2 recovery program in an area, then a private industry that
3 would want to come in and do a total resource recovery
4 would not be as apt to want to come into that area because
5 it would change the profit structure. Where you do this,
6 please Be aware of that fact where this is going on this is
7 going to alter the attractiveness for private industry to
8 come into that area,
9 MR. LOWE: It is our opinion that source separa-
10 tion programs and central processing plants can exist
II together. Tt's better if they're both planned simultaneous'
12 !y-
13 MS. HUNT: That is true.
14 MR. LOWE: So the caution that you advise is
15 well taken. But there are circumstances where — I can't
15 think of any towns, offhand — but there are places where
17 they have source separation of paper in the community, and
18 they're still pursuing mixed waste recycling facilities,
19 energy recovery facilities, and industry is interested.
20 We've done some analyses on the effect of removing paper
21 and the effect of that on the economics of an energy
22 recovery system, and we find that the two can coexist,
23 that an energy recovery system can be economical even if
24 the paper is removed, unless such a large amount of paper
25 is removed as to make it uneconomical, but that large an
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1 amount is impractical; we don't see it happening. So as
2 a practical matter, the two can coexist.
3 MR. LOWE: Thank you very much.
4 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Let's take another 10-minute
5 break and then we'll come back and complete our program.
6 (Brief recessl
7 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Okay. Let's move ahead, then
8 into the State program section, and I will call on Bruce
9 Weddle again.
jO MR. BRUCE WEDDLE: One of the clearer messages
II of the Resource Recovery Conservation Act is that State and
12 local government should play a dominant role in solid waste
U management. Each should play key roles in administrating
14 both the hazardous waste portion of the legislation, as
,5 well as in the elimination of open dumps. The Governor
U in consultation with local elected officials is given the
17 flexibility to structure a mechanism for preparing and
18 implementing solid waste plans which should build on
19 existing efforts. At the ^federal level the Environmental
20 Protection Agency will publish guidelines for the identifi-
2) cation of Regions, State plans, and State hazardous waste
22 management programs. I'd like to concentrate on the
23 nonhazardous waste implications of Subtitle D, if I may,
24 for the rest of my talk, since Fred talked about the hazardo
25 waste planning provision.
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-9*-
1 Subtitle D requires two sets of guidelines to
2 be prepared by EPA, The first set identifies regions,
3 while the second identifies what should be in an
4 acceptable State plan. The first set, which were required
5 in Section 4002 ta} in bureaucratic terminology, give the
6 Administrator six months or until April of this year to
^ publish guidelines for the identification of those areas
8 which have common solid waste problems and are appropriate
9 units for planning regional solid waste management services,
10 I might step back and state that these regional
II identification guidelines really entail a three-step
12 process. The first step belongs to EPA, and that is
13 publishing guidelines for States or Governors to identify
14 regions. The second step is the actual identification of
15 regions by the Governor in concert with local governments.
16 The third step is the designation of agencies or an agency
17 in each of the identified regions in the second step. These
18 designated agencies shall be responsible for planning
19 and/or implementation. The Governor under this step must
20 also identify the State agency which will be responsible
21 for State planning and coordinating local planning and
22 implementation. During these steps existing multi-function-
23 ing agencies, such as the 208 agency that may exist in this
24 area, should be factored into the selection of both region
25 and the implementing agency. By that I don't mean to say
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1 that the 208 agency should be the agency responsible for
2 solid waste planning. It may be. And minimum linkages
3 should be established between the designated solid waste
4 agency and the 208 agency that may exist in an area
5 The second set of guidelines required in this
5 section shall spell out what shall be an acceptable State
7 plan. Again, these guidelines will be developed over the
next 18 months in concert with State and local officials.
Minimum requirements for the approval of State plans include
the identification of those agencies selected for regional
implementation and regional planning. Plans shall prohibit
12 the establishment of all new open dumps within the State
and require that all solid wastes shall be either utilized
14 for resource recovery or disposed of by sanitary landfilling
The plans shall provide for closing or upgrading
of all existing dumps within the State within a period of
five years. The plan shall provide for the establishment
of such State regulatory powers as may be necessary to
19 implement that plan. And the State shall provide that no
20 local government shall be prohibited either under State or
local law from entering into long-term contracts for the
22 supply of solid waste resource recovery facilities.
23 I'd like to step back a minute in my prepared
24 talk and talk a little bit about budgets. We touched upon
25 it several times today, and I don't want to dwell on it.
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I The point I'd like to make here is the rest of my speech
2 will have some good news and some bad news, and it will be
3 different for those who view it. Some people will view
4 the funding levels that will be authorized or asked of
5 Congress as being too high, and others will see them as
5 being too low. I urge you to write the Regional
7 Administrator in Denver if you have any complaints or
8 suggestions on the funding levels or the content of any-
i
9 thing you've heard today. I think it's not enough to
,0 stand up and make a comment today. We will consider those
II comments. But the impact of a letter from anyone who feels
12 strongly about a certain issue will be far greater than
13 what you say when you stand today. So I urge each of you
M to write the Regional Administrator. Or other channels
15 may be appropriate. You may decide to write the Adminis-
jg trator of EPA or perhaps even your local Congressmen.
17 I think that correspondence of this type should be
lg encouraged to the appropriate individuals. Okay.
19 As you can see, the authorized levels for
2o State planning and implementations for FY '18 are $30 mil-
2j lion and for PY '79 are $40 million. These moneys shall
22 be allocated using a population formula with no State
23 receiving less than one-half of one percent of the total
24 amount appropriated by Congress. The funds which may be
25 available for local use shall be distributed by the
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too
1 Governor of each State. Okay.
2 To bring you up to date on the latest status of
3 potential funding under these sections, the Administration
4 budget submission for both Subtitle D and Subtitle C,
5 hazardous waste and nonhazardous waste, State planning
5 and local planning, and implementation is $12 million.
7 This money, if appropriated at that level or a higher
8 level, will be distributed by the population formula which
9 will be established by our office. An additional $5
,0 million will be requested by the Administration under the
II 208 residual planning parts of the Federal Air Pollution
,2 Control Act. So that there is a total of $17 million in
13 return Administration submission to Congress. These
I4 numbers may go up or down depending upon the Appropriation
,s Committee hearings.
I6 Section 4008 Cal £2} authorizes $15 million for
,7 fiscal years '78 and '79 for State and local government
18 implementation of programs to provide for resource recovery
19 planning, hazardous waste planning, and nonhazardous waste
20 planning at the local level. This assistance includes
2| facility planning and feasibility studies, consultant fees,
22 surveys and analyses of market needs, technology assessments
2j legal expenses, construction feasibility studies, and on
24 and on and on. However, this assistance does not include
25 the construction or acquisition of any land.
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/o/
1 Unfortunately, under the — Well, maybe I should
2 step back again and state that the authorization level for
3 FY '78 is about $180 million. I think it is clear that
4 neither Congress nor the Administration is going to
5 appropriate at that level. This will require the agency
6 to prioritize the spending of such funds. Such priority,
7 as we see it today — and I encourage your comments to me
8 now on the priorities — would place higher priority for
9 State planning for both hazardous waste and nonhazardous
10 waste and resource recovery than it would for local
U planning. So that, based on the moneys appropriated, we
12 may or may not get to distributing funds to the local
13 levels identified in 4002 CaJ Regional Planning Guidelines.
14 In fact, I think under the current Administration request
15 there will be little funds available beyond State planning.
16 My final slide deals with Section 4009, which
17 is probably a subject that's near and dear to the heart
18 of each of you here. It includes money to rural coiranuni-
19 ties in the amounts of $25 million for FY '78 and another
20 twenty-five for FY '79 and shall take the form of grants
21 to States to assist communities with populations of 5,000
22 or less and counties with populations of 10,000 or less or
23 counties having less than 20 people per square mile. The
24 important part of this community systems program is that
25 it does include money for the purchase of equipment. And
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fOiL.
that's something we've been hearing at many of the Regional
presentations is that equipment money is needed at the
local level.
I would be less than honest with you if I led
you down the path to think there would be much money in
this area. I think that communities should not plan on
7 receiving funding under this section in FY "78 and perhaps
8 not in FY '79, since there is little likelihood there will
be sufficient funds appropriated to get to this section of
... the legislation. That's not good news, and I would
. encourage any comments you have on that. Rather than
elaborate any further on this section of the law, I
would like to entertain any questions that you might have.
MR. LOWE: I was asked a question by the Utah
.- Department of Transportation representative concerning when
,, a highway is built and material is removed from the earth
ID
_ to make way for the highway, is that material, is the
)g waste material from that exercise covered under this law?
„ I would consider it construction debris. He was afraid it
would be considered mining waste.
MR. WEDDLE: Well, I really can't answer that
„ question because T don't know.
MR. LOWE: The other aspect was when a highway i
being repaired and a layer of asphalt is removed and
-e stockpiled somewhere, does that come under the purview of t
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16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Act? His concern was that if it does, then that's going
to place a hardship on his agency, and in terras of
protecting the environment, it is good to have that
hardship on that agency, but it also would be wise for
the federal government and the State Solid Waste agency to
recognize that hardship and to allow a sufficient amount of
time for that transportation department to deal with the
problem.
MR. WEDDLE: That's a good question. That's
something I'll bring back with me for consideration.
Val?
MR. GREY: Looking up the definition of "solid
wastes", it does include the type of material that is
generated from community activities. By that I don't know
community activity or not, but there's nothing specific
here about construction waste, though, and that's the area
generally that that type of waste would be categorized under
But it is hard to say.
MR. WEDDLE: I would like to make another state-
ment before we get into the --
MR. LEHR: Wait a second. There is one more
question.
MR. W. ROBERT RICHARDS: Bob Richards again.
I accept your comment that 25 million isn't much. How much
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f04-
do you expect to get appropriated and how will you spend
it?
MR. WEDDLE: Is that rural?
MR. RICHARDS: Yes, rural, right now.
MR. WEDDLE: That's a tough question. To be
honest with you, I would be surprised if there is anything
7 appropriated under that section. We, as an agency, will
8 probably testify to the need to develop strong State
programs as a first step in implementing this legislation,
both in the hazardous waste area and the nonhazardous waste
area. Further, I have a personal problem with authorizing
a minimum amount of money under this section, and that
would be — let's assume we authorized or appropriated
J4 $2 million. $2 million won't go far at all, and I would
„ suspect that many, many communities would wait and, rather
than implementing something today, would wait in hopes
of receiving some of the $2 million. And that, taking a
look at the nation as a whole, we may be further behind
by appropriating a small amount of money under this section
20 than we would be if we appropriated none. Of course, I
2, guess, in my own opinion here, I would like to appropriate
22 more money under this section, but of course I am bound by
other persons, since it affects our program. This is
24 something that you should write your Regional Administrator
25 about your concerns.
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1 I would like to raise another issue, and that is
2 that just because there is no money under this gection
3 doesn't mean nothing can happen. We will be able to
4 provide some technical assistance in this area, which may
5 not solve your problems but can be helpful. But more
6 directly than that, I think the way the criteria are writ-
7 ten under Section 4004 will greatly impact the rural
8 communities' ability to comply with the legislation. If
9 different criteria were established for isolated communi-
10 ties for landfilling, I think it may make it easier for
II those communities to comply with this legislation. And that
12 certainly would be an area that you could write Jack Green
13 in Denver about changing the criteria, having classifica-
14 tions of criteria based on the size of the community.
15 MR. LEHR: It's simply too early to tell anything
16 about how much money will be appropriated. We in Region VII]
17 will try to get as much, naturally, as possible. There are
18 Regional procedures, and we will keep you advised. We will
19 Keep the States in Region VIII advised of what happens as
20 we learn about it. Right now nobody knows,
21 MR. WEDDLE: I didn't want to sound too negative,
22 but on the other hand, I didn't want to mislead you, either.
23 The purpose of this dialogue is to communicate what's going
24 on in Washington and to hear what's going on in the real
25 world. I would be less than honest if I led you down the
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path that you could plan to get some of this money, because
2 I don't think the likelihood is all that bright for rural
3 communities at this time. Now that may change as soon as
4 the appropriation hearings are held, or it may change
next year, but currently it is not a part of the picture.
6 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Let me ask you a question
7 relative to that: Who has made that decision that the
8 rural community program would not be funded?
9 MR. WEDDLE: I think it's a joint decision.
I think EPA has to bear part of the responsibility for that.
There's $180 million authorized for the next fiscal year
12 and we had to prepare a prioritized list of how we would
spend that money. The legislature requires that we must
do certain things; it requires we must develop criteria
for hazardous waste; we must establish a permanent program;
we must define hazardous waste; we must develop criteria
for State planning; we must do a lot of things, and all of
those things cost quite a bit of money, and rural assistance
19 is something that is not a must. We're not mandated to do
20 it, so right at the top it's a lower priority because it's
2) not the law that we have to spend that money. Beyond that,
22 EPA headquarters, anyway, feels that the priorities of
23 this legislation are closing of open dumps and the estab-
24 lishment of a hazardous waste management program, arid those
25 are State functions or State responsibilities to begin with.
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I And in prioritizing leftover money after the mandated
portions of the legislation, we had to give higher
, priority to those things. Of course, that's our current
thinking and it can be swayed by comments from you to the
Regional Office, which will be passed, then, on to us.
That's why I am pleading with you, almost, to write to the
Regional Office. Because that's one of the main ways we
change our thinking if it is going to change.
o
CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I would like to place a
considerable amount of emphasis on that last point that this
is not a decision that's cast in bronze, and we would very
much appreciate hearing from you.
Bruce has mentioned that on the high priority
list is closing open dumps. One of the mechanisms built
into the Act to do that is rural assistance. So there is
., some continuity that doesn't exactly follow there in my
16
mind. And I am sure for those of you who are rural
... community representatives, you can appreciate that.
A VOICE: Say that again, please.
CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Well, my point there was that
the Act has as a major priority to close open dumps, and
,, one of the mechanisms to achieve closure in the rural
community is rural community assistance. We have not
.. stricken the requirement to close the dumps, only the
« mechanism, if you want to think of it that way. There
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to?
^tftt
\ are other mechanisms. I don't mean to make that real cut
2 and dried, black and white. On the other hand, I think
3 for a rural community it is a very serious issue to
4 eliminate the funding potential, at least initially.
5 MR. GREY: I'd like to add something more on
6 this budget process that nobody has mentioned, but it's
7 going to become a very important factor. President Carter
g is committed to zero base budgeting. I don't know how
9 many of you realize what that really means, but zero base
JO budgeting essentially means that every program under RCRA
II is competing with every other program within RCRA, and
12 RCRA as a program is competing with every other environ-
13 mental program, and every environmental program is
14 competing with every federal program. Zero base budgeting
15 means that every year we start from the zero base looking
16 at each and every program and the funding for that program
J7 and comparing what our priorities are. Now, traditionally
18 within EPA the solid waste program has not enjoyed the
19 highest priorities. Rightfully or wrongfully, that's a
20 fact of life. I do not predict that it will remain quite
21 so low, but there are many programs that are now low within
22 RCRA itself that will probably remain low and very low
2J within the agency as a whole. Now, that's something to
24 bear in mind. Now, it's true that we may link up lesser
25 priority things with higher priority and maybe in our
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I program presentation work in the future we may be able to
7 raise priorities by manipulation or association. But
3 ultimately the test will have to be applied to every
4 program and the federal government is not going to be
5 able to support everything.
6 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I think that is a point well
7 made.
g MR. LEHR: There's never enough money to do
9 everything.
,0 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: If it is a concern, let it
II be Known. That will add emphasis to priority listings.
12 Roger, you indicated that you wanted to make
13 a statement at this point. Do you?
14 MR. ROGER STEAD: Roger Stead. I think some of
15 the problems that South Dakota finds itself in is due to
)6 the fact that the State took a leaf home and did not go
17 to the local communities as perhaps they should have for
18 comprehensive planning, and that's what our plaintiffs are
19 crying out for, that they want to have this money so that
20 they can plan for their communities and express their needs
2] and I think you really struck home; if they want to close
22 the dumps, you have to give the money to the local
23 communities. I don't know how you can get around it.
24 MR. WEDDLE: The comment was just made that the
25 States have a lot of latitude in how they use the money.
I guess I can emphasize that somewhat. South Dakota is
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1 a fairly sparsely populated State. I suspect that in the
2 population allocation formula, they would end up with
3 somewhere between 60,000, 100,000 dollars if Congress
4 appropriated the 12 million. That's not a lot of money to
5 establish a hazardous waste management program, look at
6 resource recovery, close open dumps, or develop a State
7 plan. It doesn't go far.
8 MR. LOWE: I am not saying it goes very far. I
9 am saying you can decide how you want to spend it.
10 MR. WEDDLE: Right, within the guidelines
II established under 4002fbl. However, the previous slide
12 under 4002(bl, I believe any of the grantees under that
13 section have to comply with the guidelines promulgated
14 tinder 1008. So —
15 MR. STEAD: If the guidelines say that the State
16 taR.es the lead role, I don't know how you can distribute
17 all the money all the same. On page 22 —
18 MR. WEDDLE: I don't really know what to say. I
19 recognize that the problems of rural states and rural
20 communities really aren't adequately addressed in this
21 legislation, although there is provision for them. I just
22 can't be that hopeful right now. I wish I could. And the
23 only way that's going to happen is if you write to EPA.
24 Perhaps, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the money.
25 MR. LOWE: The State can take the lead role
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0*2"
, without doing all the work itself, I've heard the words
2 "lead role" just mean —
3 MR. LEHR: You sign off on it in the end.
MR. LOWE: Yes, just supervising and directing
what's going on. But you can use none of the money and
pass it all through the books if you want. I think that's
part of the guidelines, interpreted broadly. And the States
will be able to come back with their plan to do it any way
they want within the guidelines. I think our tendency
... is going to be flexible and broad, rather than restrictive
.. and directive.
MR. LEHR: Absolutely.
MR. WEDDLE: My guidance to your State would be
j you have to achieve an EPA approved State plan first,
._ because if you don't do that, you are subjecting every
„ open dump within your State to citizen suit. So, no matter
]7 how you develop a State plan, whether it is done by your
office within the State or local level as Bob has suggested,
,9 that should be highest priority immediately.
2Q MR. STEAD: Okay. In developing your plans,
I assume the guidelines should be given a certain deadline
22 by which to have this plan in. And this, again, is where we
run into trouble when we hurry up and try and meet a
deadline, rather than sitting back and doing comprehensive
25 planning. I'd like to see it more flexible to allow for
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1 differences within the State.
2 MR. WEDDLE: I suspect, in fact, I'm almost
3 positive there would be interim approval of those plans,
4 and the Regional office will be granting those interim
5 permits for the full State plan.
6 MR. LEHR: Bruce, doesn't the legislation
7 provide two years after the guidelines are out to develop
g a State plan; isn't that the general time frame?
9 MR. WEDDLE: I think so.
jO Jon, do you —
H CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I believe that's the case.
j2 I can't really speak real confidently on that.
13 MR. LEHR: Before we leave the matter of State
14 and local waste management planning, there is a major
15 planning effort going on in all areas of the country now,
16 well funded under the Water Act, Section 208. Most of you,
17 I think, have heard of it or are aware of it. Major
18 dollars are going into water planning activities which
19 include closely enough growth-related activity to be
20 expected in the county and waste management, I think.
21 That is going to happen in the Regional planning area.
22 So I think there is a lot of piggybacking can go on in
23 solid waste planning along with the 208 planning
24 activities utilizing some of that money. If you have not
25 yet tapped that, I'd explore it.
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1 MR. WEDDLE: We won't leave the State of South
2 Dakota unprotected with an unapproved plan until you have
3 developed such a plan. In a general way I mean there will
4 be interim approval.
5 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Let me just comment on that.
6 One of the early discussions on the Act was that it says
7 that you can't receive funding until you've got an
8 approved plan, and yet we'll fund you to write the plan,
9 which is kind of an accounting. To get around that, we
10 are going to accept an interim plan from you, and we've
II talked about what that interim plan will be, in order to
12 allow us to begin to flow money from the actual development
13 of the final plan. And we're to be continuing that dialogue
14 as to how we can get that interim plan, what our approval
15 requirements will be. This is the dialogue that we'll need
16 to be continuing, I am not sure how much it relates to
17 everyone else here in the room. But are there any other
18 questions on this particular area?
19 I have an indication, then, here from Joan Ogden.
20 I believe I am saying the name correctly. She'd like to
21 make a statement on this general subject.
22 MS. JOAN OGDEN: I am Joan Ogden and represent
23 the West Valley Multi-Community Committee. I'd like to
24 make a statement,
25 First of all, I think that it was a good idea
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for Noah to start all over again. Things get very confusing
2 don't they.
3 The Salt Lake County is proposing the establish-
4 ment of a sanitary landfill at one of seven proposed sites,
5 all of which are located adjacent to the east slopes of the
Oquirrh mountain range, from 5400 South to 11800 South.
7 WHEREAS, the West Valley Multi-Community
g Committee has been formed representing the communities of
Magna, Kearns, Hunter, Copperton, Granger, Lark, and
Herriman to oppose the establishment of a sanitary
landfill at any point adjacent to the east side of the
., Oquirrh Mountains from Herriman, north to and including
., Magna, now and in the future.
WHEREAS, all of the seven sites are subject to
.r the watershed of the Oquirrh Mountains, and the rapidly
growing community of Magna is totally dependent on the
water flow coming from the Oquirrh Mountains with over
3,000 connections providing water for 12,000 users.
,9 THEREFORE BE IT KNOWN THAT there can be no assurance that
20 contaminants from landfills will not leach into the water
supply and create serious health problems.
22 WHEREAS, the access routes to any of the sites
in the Oquirrh Mountains are the main roads through the
center of Magna, Kearns, Hunter, and Granger, and these
25 roads have been designated as hazardous routes in a
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j statewide study by the Utah State PTA in 1977. THEREFORE
BE IT KNOWN THAT a landfill for the entire Salt Lake County
will create an unforeseeable increase in private and
commercial traffic along these hazardous routes, and
create an extremely dangerous threat to the children, senior
citizens, and all other pedestrians along these routes,
o
and THEREFORE, is not in the best interest of the citizens
of these communities.
8
WHEREAS, there are past records of serious
earthquakes in Magna and flash floods in the canyon areas
south of Magna, washing out entire bridges. THEREFORE
a landfill at any of the sites in the Oquirrh Mountains
would pose a threat of contamination to the water supply
and wells and health conditions, were future geologic
and natural hazards or acts of God to occur in the
unforeseeable future.
16
WHEREAS, sites numbers 7 and 2 are located less
than two and two-thirds miles directly southwest of present
and proposed housing developments on the southwest perimeter
of Hunter and less than two and one-half miles directly
east of housing developments on the east perimeter of
Kearns, and sites numbers 1, 6, 5, and 4 are located from
one-Half to two miles from the perimeter of Copperton
and Lark, and the Housing and Urban Development through the
„ Community Development Block Grants Program has allocated
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1 thousands of dollars to upgrade and rehabilitate Kearns,
2 Magna, and Copperton. THEREFORE,a landfill located in the
3 Oquirrh Mountains would create a lowering of property values
4 become an aesthetic blight and a general nuisance,
5 downgrading the communities located nearby.
6 WHEREAS, a sanitary landfill located in the
7 Oquirrh Mountains would create environmental havoc and
8 threaten the natural wildlife in the canyons of the Oquirrh
9 Mountains and destroy the natural pristine beauty of these
10 mountains.
I] WHEREAS, Salt Lake County is anticipated to
J2 generate 836,700 tons or 1,653,400,000 pounds of garbage
13 or solid waste per year by the year 1990. NOW THEREFORE,
14 these solid wastes, including hazardous wastes, raw
15 sewage, and demolition materials would be designated as
lg landfill in one or possibly eventually all of the seven
17 proposed sites.
18 THEREFORE BE IT KNOWN that we approach the
19 Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Government
20 to accept this petition of opposition to the establishment
21 of a sanitary landfill at any location along and adjacent
22 to the east side of the Oquirrh Mountains from Herriman,
23 north to and including Magna, now or in the future and to
24 guarantee that protection will be given to prevent any
25 future landfill sites from being located in the Oquirrh
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I Mountains.
2 THEREFORE BE IT KNOWN THAT we are asking for
3 and encouraging the establishment of a total resource recovejry
4 program in the near future in Salt Lake County with
5 opportunity for financial assistance if necessary, as well
6 as technical assistance, if necessary,
7 THEREFORE BE IT KNOWN THAT this committee
8 extends our support to Public Law 94-580.
9 I'd like to make a comment here. These facts
10 and opposition and our recommendations are being bound
II for future reference, and we should like to send a copy
12 of these facts to submit them to you folks, which would be
13 within the next few weeks, as soon as we get them bound.
14 And do we send them to you, Mr. Yeagley?
15 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes.
16 MS. OGDEN: And then the Salt Lake County
17 Commission is declining a public hearing on this issue,
18 and at this time they agreed to hear a small group of us
19 concerning this problem, but we feel when there are so
20 many people and communities involved that we have a right
21 to be heard, and the communities have a right to be heard.
22 Am I wrong in assuming this and what can you suggest we do?
23 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Let me just initially say
24 that I am not certain that this forum is the proper place
25 for this kind of a discussion. And our purpose is to gather
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10
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input for the implementation of this Act. But in direct
response to your question, the Environmental Protection
Agency does not directly involve itself in this type of
a situation, which I would consider to be a local issue.
And I would suggest that the State Solid Waste Program has
the responsibility for the review and approval of design and
operating plants for disposal sites within the State, and
in that the approval lies at that level that they should be
the individuals you should talk. to. EPA does not have
authority that allows us to approve, disapprove, or
whatever, of a particular site in a local situation. Rela-
tive to resource recovery in the Salt Lake Valley, we are
very much in support of that and we would like to see it
proceed and have had discussions with Dr. Eckhoff, who has
the 208 program in the Salt Lake County, and we would
hopefully be able to offer whatever assistance/ be it
technical assistance or possibly financial assistance,
assuming dollars are available and priority is such that we
are able to do that. But I think that is the extent of
comment I woud like to make to that regard.
MS. OGDEN: What we wanted to do was bring this
to your attention because there have been very serious
threats here. And if the EPA — for example, in the
Teton Dam disaster up there they did not listen to the
people. And the rest is history. And this is what we're
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1 pleading for, that you are aware of the situation, because
2 it isn't just a private group that's involved here; there
3 are thousands of people that are involved, and realizing
4 the problem perhaps may even help you in your resource
5 recovery fight, whatever.
6 Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Thank you very much.
8 Now I'd like to call on the representative of
9 the Soil Conservation Service, who would also like to
10
II
12
13
14
15
16
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18
19
20
21
22
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24
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make a statement.
MR. JAMES DEAN MAXWELL: Maxwell. Dean Maxwell,
representing the Soil Conservation Service.
Any disturbance of a large area which could be
the case in the establishment of a disposal site causes
soil disturbance, and I'm not sure this law or this forum
is the place to air this totally, but I would just like to
mention the fact that whenever large areas of soil are
disturbed, there are problems that should be considered.
So in the promululgation of your guidelines, you may want
to consider addressing some of these. I find only one small
place in the law that applies; Section 4005 discusses
upgrading of open dumps.
But just a few items that you might know could
be considered in your guidelines. You should give
consideration to the suitability and the limitation of those
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soils when you select the site so that hazards where
ground water and surface water and so on are addressed.
And provisions for control of erosion from either direct
rainfall on the site or from tributary flow that may come
over the site that would cause erosion, that you revegetate
any area that is disturbed so that the soil would stay in
6
place, rather than remove it. Consider the stockpiling --
removal and stockpiling of topsoil at disposal site and
8
then replacing that to allow for a better chance of success
of revegetation following that disturbance. And to
consider the effect of water discharge from, well,
disruption of natural drainage ways so the site does not
interfere with natural runoff. One that I feel is very
important is that you give consideration to preservation
of any prime agricultural land areas. Our prime agricul-
tural land is being used up in urban development and other
16
things at a very rapid rate, and it's almost alarming how
much of that prime land is going out of production. So
1 o
we could, as an agency, help identify where those prime
agricultural areas are and help in the site and disposal
areas to prevent that loss of that kind. We also have —
of course it does not necessarily run into agriculture --
but there are many unique cultural values other than these
Rinds of things: marshland has values for wildlife and
other things. To give consideration to what the site is.
I don't see this addressed in the law, but as I say,
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1 it may be the ninety-two five hundred is a costly item,
2 some others may be the place that that is taken care of,
3 at least in the guidelines. You may want to address these
4 items.
5 Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Thank you, Dean. I think
7 that some of those kinds of materials will be considered
8 under the land disposal, sanitary landfill criteria
9 guidelines; isn't that correct, Bruce?
10 MR. WEDDLE: Yes. Almost everything you mentione<
II There's a few that I hadn't thought of, like sites on
I2 cultural land, that I'll bring back with us and give it
13 strong consideration. But the 1008 guidelines will address
14 almost everything you pointed out.
15 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Okay. Yes, ma'am.
15 A VOICE: If you don't become involved in
17 local issues, how can you become involved after they become
18 a blight?
19 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Anybody want to respond to
20 that?
21 MR. LOWE: We do from time to time become
22 involved in local issues, but there are a lot of parties
23 that have a responsibility that should be exercised before
24 ours and the discussion that was raised here, I think ought
25 be discussed first between the citizens and the elected
officials. Now, if we can be brought in to provide
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I information in support of or refutation of the claims
2 made by either party, we would be glad to do that. We
3 don't have authority, though, to step in and say, "Hold it,
4 Mr. Ccrunty Commissioner, you have no right to put a
5 landfill here. The citizens are right." We can't act
6 as referees in that kind of case. I think if either of
7 the parties want some information about the environmental
8 impact of what's proposed or on the possibilities for
9 resource recovery in that area, then it would be appropriate
10 for us to step in and get involved. But I hope I made
11 myself clear.
12 A VOICE: Are you as responsive to citizen input
U as you are to governmental official input?
14 MR. LOWE: Give us a try.
15 THE VOICE: Thank you.
16 MR. LOWE: We have to evaluate each circumstance
17 carefully. We tend to be called in by public officials,
18 elected officials, but we can assume that they are acting
19 in support of the majority of their people, even though
20 we know that certain of their actions may be opposed,
21 but that doesn't say we will support them blindly. We
22 would help them to listen to all the supporters, take all
23 of their advice into account.
24 THE VOICE: Do you ever investigate governmental
25 official claims like, for instance, they do have the support
of their people when in fact they are not telling the truth?
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1 MR. LEHR: We pretty much leave that process
2 up to referenda and the election.
3 MR. LOWE: If we are asked the question directly,
4 we have to respond honestly. A lot of times we are
5 involved in a situation and there are things going on
6 that we don't know about, and even if we look at them, we
7 don't see them. I don't know if we can speak in general
8 terms about that. You have to ask more specific questions.
9 THE VOICE: Okay. How much clout does the
10 EPA actually have?
II MR. LOWE: How much clout does the EPA have?
12 THE VOICE: How much clout does EPA actually
13 have?
14 MR. LOWE: Not much. Not much. All we have is
15 what's written in the law. Subtitle C is the only regula-
16 tory program we have. Everything else requires •— About
17 the only power that we have is a question of influence and
18 only if the locals or state want something from us. If
19 the State and local governments don't want any of our money,
20 then they don't have to do anything for us.
21 The only thing that applies is our definition of
22 what is to be done, and then they are susceptible to citi-
23 zen's suit. That's not a very strong law. That just the
24 underlying premise behind my remarks and Jon's remarks,
25 which is not much for EPA to get itself involved in.
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CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Yes, sir.
MR. CLAIR ANDERSON: Clair Anderson, represent-
ing Bear River City, population about 500 people. The
closing of open dumps: Well, out there I don't think we
can afford sanitary landfill, and we go back 30 years where
we burn our own stuff in our back yard and take out the tin
cans on a dark night along a county road. Now, the burning,
I guess, wouldn't amount to much, when the big factories
would put out enough in a day to last us for 100 years.
. But take it easy on us, will you?
CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: This gentleman.
]2 DR. GARTH R. MORGAN: I'm Dr. Garth Morgan,
Templeton Linke & Associates.
It was mentioned that on October 1st, 1978,
permits will have to be applied for prior to that time;
. is that correct?
lo
17 MR. LINDSEY: That's under the hazardous waste
Jg provision. Let me back up a minute and make it very clear.
There are 18 months granted by the Act from October the
21st, 1976, for us to come up with standards for what is
. and what is not a hazardous waste, for standards for
treatment, storage, and disposal facilities, for performance
„ standards, of that sort.
Then within six months after that it will become
2j illegal to dispose of hazardous waste without a permit.
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1 That's the way the law reads.
2 Now, the October 21, 1978, figure assumes that
3 the 18 months will be met to the day instead of earlier
4 or later and that the six months will then ensue after
5 that, you see; so that makes a two-year period. Okay.
6 Is that clear?
7 DR. MORGAN: We do not have that hazardous list
8 yet?
9 MR. LINDSEY: No. That's one of the 18-month
10 requirements.
11 DR. MORGAN: And then enforcement will begin at
12 that time?
13 MR. LINDSEY: Then there will be six months from
14 that time for people to apply for permits. If they apply
IS for a permit and if they have already existed as of the
16 time the Act was passed and if they have notified EPA under
17 Section 3010, then they will be granted an interim permit
18 until such time as the paper work for the regular permit is
19 acted upon. Okay?
20 All that get a little confusing, but that's
21 technically the way it is.
22 DR. MORGAN: Then the Act itself is wide open;
23 it's very nebulous as to who must apply for a permit?
24 MR. LINDSEY: Anyone who owns a treatment,
25 storage, or disposal facility for hazardous wastes and the
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criteria for what is or what is not a hazardous waste
and for facilities will be generated within 18 months, so
that at that point people will be able to tell exactly.
I think most people know now whether they have a facility
of the nature that's going to be involved, perhaps with some
limits.
DR. MORGAN: That could include every farmer in
the nation.
MR. LINDSEY: Depending on how we define it.
That was brought up in, I guess, two or three of the other
meetings, you know, what about the farmer who has a
pesticide container, for example, or bags, or whatever? Do
they become a generator? Will they need a permit? Well,
generators don't need permits. Disposers, treaters, and
storers need permits. Now, depending on how we define what
is a disposer, treater, or storer, depending on whether or
not we might perhaps give exemptions or require different
types of permits or something like that, why, we could, I
think, do that. There's some flexibility there on how we
carry that out. I was asked, I think in Denver — I am not
sure whether it was Denver or Richmond or where, because
we've been around the last few days, but this was brought up
very strongly there — you know, what the impact might be on
farmers. That's the kind of information we need: In other
words, if a farmer is going to be required to have a permit,
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1 what does that do to him? How much of a problem is that?
2 What is the cost involved? On the other hand, from people
3 who might oppose that, what kind of environmental impact are
4 we likely to have? What kinds of problems may exist if we
5 don't bring these particular materials under control?
5 That's the kind of information we need in order to make the
7 decisions we'll have to make on that sort of thing. And
3 if you have any thoughts, data, or opinions on that, why,
9 please make them known either here right now or by letter
ig or however.
I] DR. MORGAN: After these permits are issued,
12 there must be a suit brought as a result of a violation
13 before a fine can be levied. I was noticing in here that
]4 up to $25,000 is the fine. That seemed to be awful stiff.
15 MR. LINDSEY: That's stiff.
16 DR. MORGAN: That would put anyone out of
17 commission almost immediately, especially in these small
,8 communities.
19 MR. LXNDSEY: Well, on the other hand, there are
20 a lot of big corporations, you see, and I think that's the
2] reason why — It's up to $25,000 and it also can be
22 criminal or civil, and it also can include one year in jail,
23 as well, if it's a criminal case, and that's per day of
24 violation. So it can mount up, you're right; it's a very
25 steep fine. But how much of a fine would be levied would
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I involve what the situation was and who was involved and how
2 big the problem was and the courts then would end up
3 with that.
4 On the other hand, the more probable way of
5 enforcing violations is through the consideration of
5 revocation of the permit. We don't necessarily have to end
7 up in a civil or a criminal suit. There's the whole
g provision of the permit system, and if a facility which has
9 a permit is found then later to be violating conditions of
10 the permit or, on the other hand, is not meeting the
II standards for those kinds of facilities, then the permit can
12 Be revoked; and if the permit is revoked, then it is
]3 illegal for them to operate further, they have to close
14 down, cease whatever they were doing. Is that clear?
,5 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I think that becomes even
jg more significant when you tie in the manifest system,
17 which keeps good track of where the waste is, realizing
Ig a transporter has to go to a permanent disposal site.
19 MR. LINDSEY: Along a similar line to the
20 question which the gentleman presented about the farmers
2| is the similar problem someone mentioned during one of the
22 breaks, and I thought it's worth comment because some people
23 might have some suggestions,
24 What about the small volumes of potentially
25 hazardous wastes which enter the municipal waste stream from
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1 the homeowner? Half a can of paint sludge or half a can
2 of turpentine or something of that nature which may or may
3 not be hazardous but might be, or the ballast from
4 fluorescent light fixtures, et cetera, which have small
5 amounts of PCB in them? Should we try to control those
6 things. Can we control those things? If we do try, what
7 mechanisms can we use or should we just write them off
8 as something which is essentially impossible to control,
9 and do we have problems from the disposal of these materials
10 along with municipal refuse.
II This is a similar area, I think you can see, and
12 it's a difficult problem to control if we try, and we'd
13 like to have any opinions anyone might have on that, as
14 well.
IS CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Commissioner?
16 MR. YUKUS INOUYE: One question: I think I am
17 the only elected official here now. In answer to the
18 question the lady asked, do you have a proposal to give
19 your County Commissioner as to where to go?
20 MS. JOAN S. OGDEN: Yes.
21 (Laughter!
22 MR. LOWE: Are they referring to a landfill site?
23 CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: I have been told that several
24 times.
25 MR. INOUYE: We elected officials are between the
rock and the hardtop all the time. We have a group come in
ANDERSEN REPORTING
228 JUDGE BUILDING
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1 and say, "Well, don't do that," but "Go here." And we'll
2 have another group come here and say, "Go there." A lot
3 of times if you can get a concrete suggestion and you have
4 investigated and that is popular and easy to go, land is
5 available without any other interference, this can be
6 helpful. But to get comment, "Don't put it here; put it
7 someplace else," where is that someplace else?
g MS. OGDEN: No, but do you ever go just because
9 you don't have anyplace else to go regardless of wfiat is
10 said?
II MR. INOUYE: No. No. What I am saying, the
12 people on the east side here say that's the logical place
,3 to go.
14 MS. OGDEN: How come it's been there for the last
15 30, 40 years?
|6 MR. INOUYE: Well, I don't know. This is Salt
17 Lake County. I am Utah County. This is the reason I asked
18 that question. It's a toughy. Solid waste is everybody
19 wants yoa to pick it up, noboby wants you to put it down.
20 MS. OGDEN: This is why the whole thing is
21 so important, because we are making ourselves more aware
22 of the problem we all have. With the EPA and resource
23 recovery and so forth, we can all work hand in glove and
24 solve this problem. That's all we're asking.
25 MR. INOUYE: I agree with you. I agree.
ANDERSEN REPORTING
226 JUDGE BUILDING
SALT LAKE CITY. UTAH B4111
531 1906
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CHAIRMAN YEAGLEY: Thank you.
Any other comments? ___
All right. I will take this opportunity to
thank you all for being here. We very much appreciate your
input. We hope that it has been beneficial to you.
Thank you very much.
(Whereupon, at 1:00 o'clock P.M. the hearing was
adjourned.)
oOo
ANDERSEN REPORTING
228 JUDGE BUILDING
SAl-T LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111
531 1906
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ISA.
1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2
3 STATE OF UTAH I
I
4 COUNTY OF SALT LAKE I
5
6 I, BARBARA G. ANDERSEN, CSR, a Notary Pxiblic
7 in and for the State of Utah, do hereby certify that the
8 foregoing Public Discussion Session of the Resource
9 Conservation and Recovery Act, Public Law 94-580, sponsored
10 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency,
11 Office of Solid Waste, Washington, D.C., and the United
12 States Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIIE, Denver,
13 Colorado, was taken in stenotype by me commencing at
14 9:00 A.M., Friday, March 4, 1977, at the Hilton Hotel,
IS 150 West Fifth South Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, and
16 that the foregoing pages 3 to 132, inclusive, were
17 transcribed under my direction and supervision and represent
18 a full and correct transcript of the proceedings.
19
20 DATED at Salt Lake City, Utah, this 18th day
21 of March, 1977.
22
23 .. . _
G. ANDERSEN, Notary Public
24 Certified Shorthand Reporter
In and for the State of Utah
25
ANDERSEN REPORTING
228 JUDGE BUILDING
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DEFENDERS OF THE OUTDOOR HERITAGE
Post Office Box 15135
Salt Lake City, Utah 81115
SVC -
AN OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
A ma.lor environmental problem has been recognized and great strides
are being taken to address solutions to solid waste management. The
Defenders of the Outdoor Heritage believes that the initiative provided
by the national solid waste program, resulting from the Solid Waste
Disposal Act of 1965 and the Resource Recovery Act of 1970, should not
be lost.
The DOH particularly laud the elimination of open dumps, the sponsoring
of improved disposal techniques, action toward resource recovery, generation
reduction studies and the development of training programs. The DOH
are concerned with the increasing energy needs of this country and the
potential use of solid waste products as fuel for power.
VMle the DOH agree with the view of many administration officials that
solid waste is basically a local problem - particularly in the area of
collection, storage, and disposal of non-hazardous waste - we observe
that many problems must vigorously be attacked, directed and funded by
the federal government.
For example, problems not local in scope are generation reduction, resource
recovery, handling and disposal of hazardous wastes, demonstration and
dissemination of data on improved techniques, urgent personnel training
needs for all levels in the solid waste system, continuing research and
development requirements, funds needed by some local governments to start
acceptable solid waste programs. Federal funds are needed to organize
and execute these phases of a national solid waste program.
With these programs to work with, the Solid Waste Management Committee
will commit themselves.
ROBERT BATEMAN
PORTLAND, OREGON
CHAIRMAN
JOHN OLSEN,
LAS 'VEGAS, NEVADA
VICE CHAIRMAN
STANLEY JOHNSON.
ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO
ALTERNATE
JACK BRATCHER,
SALT LAKE CUT, UTAH
SECRETARY
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DEFENDERS OF THE OUTDOOR HERITAGE
SOLID WASTE COMMITTEE
Post Office Box 15135
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115
SM3-1
BQTT
RECOMMENDATION HIGHLIGHTS FOR SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT. 197H.
HAZARDOUS WASTE
Hazardous waste, in its many forms, is not restricted by any man-made
boundaries. Therefore, the Defenders of the Outdoor Heritage feel that
due to the relatively small supply of hazardous solid waste products
locally, and to the interstate nature of the problem, regulation and
enforcement of standards relating to hazardous solid wastes should be
at the national level.
Most counties do not have the technical capability to analyze a
particular hazardous waste product to find out if it should be treated
before disposal. This capability is more apt to be at the state level.
For this reason, the DOH see the actual collection, intrastate transportation
and disposal being rightfully located with the state government and
coupled with this, the necessary enforcement powers, Wien a large employer
in a county, with a small population, tends to mishandle its hazardous
waste effluent, the county finds it difficult to exercise the proper
enforcement authority,
A state could provide uniform requirements and the capability to
arbitrate among other level of government (cities, counties, townships)
in carrying out these functions. The federal government also must
control and enforce the interstate transportation of hazardous wastes and
establish ultimate disposal locations. At the county level, decisions
on ultimate disposal of hazardous wastes, from manufacturing processes,
for example, are difficult to make as there may be no legal site for
disposal within its boundaries. For some items perhaps there are only
a few places within the uhited States where materials can be disposed.
The general feeling of the DOH is that local government's role should
b» minimized in the area of hazardous waste; however, they feel local
government should have the option of adopting regulations which are more
stringent than either federal or state regulations when hazardous solid
waste disposal might impact on local zoning or land use plans.
GENERATION REDUCTION
Regarding non-hazs«lous solid waste activities, the DOH believes the
federal government must lead the effort to reduce the generation of solid
waste waste, since only at the national level is it possible to control
manufacturers, packaging practices and other causes contributing to
solid waste problems. It is too large a task to bft handled by local or
state governments.
-------
The DOH feels that state government should only develop guidelines for
the storage, collection, processing, and disposal of non-hazardous solid
waste. Many states have issued operational standards whereas performance
standards would be adequate. The DOH feel such variations as population
and geology throughout the state, mandate that guidelines must be general
enough to fit a variety of circumstances. The general concenus is that
local government should set operational standards on storage, collection,
transportation, and disposal of non-hazardous solid wastes,
ENFORCEMENT
Coupled with the problem of regulation is enforcement. Local government,
of course, must enforce its own standards. However, to do this, they must
have the power. If proper enabling authority does not exist, the state
should aid the county in obtaining the authority. The DOH expresses the
hope that with proper federal support, state government can ease the
restrictions on local governments, such as, the lack of enabling authority,
bonding limitations, and other similar constraints, which enable local
government to provide proper solid waste management.
The DOH feels that local government should set standards on vehicles and
contract operators to ensure citizen protection. Such standards should
include mandatory use of devices on vehicles in transit, to prevent trash
from flying off, and controlling the lenght of time garbage is stored before
disposal. Further, local government should set standards on the level-of
service, and control over serviced areas,
FISCAL INCENTIVES
The DOH discussed various types of fiscal incentives all levels of government
could use to upgrade solid waste activities. The DOH recommends there should
be a federal grant program but it should be limited to fund local government's
initial acquisition costs of solid waste facilities which exceed their bonding
limitations. This particularly is needed in rural areas where the cost of
converting from open dumps to sanitary landfills has a severe impact on those
counties with limited tax bases. Therefore, site acquisition and preparation
costs, purchase of on-site equipment, and in some cases, rolling stock costs
should be augmented by the federal government.
The establishment of pilot solid waste projects should be initiated by the
federal government, not by local government.
'•Ihen low interest, long term federal loan programs are established, these
loans should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate new technologies and
breakthroughs. It was pointed out many counties that took 26 and ho year
loans have been trapped by the original conditions of the loan and now,
ten or fifteen years later, the situation has changed and they are bound
by these original requirements. Therefore, flexibility is needed.
2.
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The federal government should create tax incentives for industry,
by allowing preferential tax treatment for research and development
leading to reduction of products entering the waste stream, and by
accelerating depreciation on capital expense related directly to
solid waste management. Define concern is expressed that unless there
is an incentive, be it positive or negative, industry will not react.
The DOH feels that when a state establishes procedures for effecting
compliance at the local level, proper enabling legislation must be
enacted which would allow local government the authority to finance
and operate solid waste management programs.
Finally, local government's major responsibility is to establish
a self-sustaning solid waste management system. Local governments
should consider charging user fees, the use of other local revenue
sources if user fees are not adequate or any combination thereof.
Also they must promote public acceptance of solid waste programs.
RECYCLING
The DOH believes the best way to encourage local government and
the citizen to become involved in recycling activities, is the use
of incentives. Various members cite examples where recycling on a
small scale is successful, but these are usually in areas where a
market exists locally, i. e., a glass plant, a used-oil refinery,
a steel, mill, etc. However, it is noted that these are usually
isolated cases and unless profitable, this type of recycling will
not be done.
Experimental resource recovery systems now going on in several
locations also were discussed. The DOH is primarily concerned
that the cost of resource recovery prohibits effective solutions.
The DOH recommends resource recovery systems be examined to consider
the marketability of the end product. National markets should be
identified and the entire problem should be addressed by the U. S.
Department of Commerce as opposed to the Environmental Protection
Agency.
The DOH expresses concern over the number of auto hulks in their
cities and counties, and the need for legislation to finance the cost of
disposal and recycling. The subject of a trust fund for disposal
of costly items was discussed and it is felt that should a trust
fund be established there should be a pass-through from the trust
fund to the local agency responsible for the disposal of the
product,
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
3.
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The DOH feels EPA should augment its research and development
efforts. Particular areas requiring further study include the
controlof leachate and methane gas generation, compaction density
verus settling rates, the rate of leachate attenuation of various
solid waste components, and the long term environmental effect of
material going into the landfill.
Research and development should be directed toward the means to
dispose of difficult items, whether through burying, recycling, or
partial reprocessing. Items particularly identified were tires,
automobiles, trees and tree stumps, liquid wastes, oil, sewage,
sludge, animals and animal by products.
A study by EPA, is needed to independently evaluate all solid
waste demonstration programs. Too much advance publicity on the
effectiveness of various public and industrially sponsored programs
is detrimental to the overall national effort. Claims of great
performance have caused local governments to procure or install
systems, due to local pressures, before they are fully tested, or
without understanding that a system was effective pnly in a
particular geographical region. Therefore, the DOH specifically
urges USSPft to evaluate these systems independentally from any
evaluation by the sponsor of the project. Also they feel a
need for a consumers guide to coaimerical hardware, from rolling
stock to capital equipmont. Officials want to know not only what
this equipment can do, but also its limitations, its realistic
life, maintenance probelms, etc.
KNEROr CRISIS
One problem which kept surfacing throughout the meetings is ways
to encourage and develop economical techniques for using solid waste
in alleviating the growing energy crisis. Several experimental
efforts, now underway, were discussed. However, the economics
of these systems have not been proven.
TRAIHINa NEEDS
The DOH recommend USEPA should augment the training programs
at the university level by developing courses in soli! waste
management and related engineering problems. The DOH feel that
this would only occur if supported by federal grants. Additionally,
efforts should be made by the adrainistratisn to strengthen other
professional development programs. It is also noted that several
states sponsor courses in connection with HSEPA or at state
universities which have proven useful. This effort should be
expanded to the remaining states. This expanded effort also
should be directed to instructing managers on training their own
personnel.
h.
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The DOH feels USEPA should launch an improved public relations
campaign to train the public to recognize the growing solid waste
problem; to make all citizens understand that they are part of
the problem; that the problem must be addressed and solved; but
that it will take their cooperation as well as money.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This project could not have possible without professional assistance.
The Solid Waste Committee, Defenders of the Outdoors Heritage, would
like to thank each person who knowingly and/or unknowingly who helped
with this project.
Vfe wish to thank the Solid Vaste Management Office, USEPA, first
as it was they who aroused our interest in the field. It was this
Office which has educated us in the field of solid waste management.
We wish to thank the solid tsaste management officials in Clark
County, Nevada; Ventura County, California; Los Angeles County,
California; New London County, Connecticut; Kay County, Oklahoma;
Multnomah County, Oregon; Utah County, t%ah; Salt Lake County, Utah;
Weber County, Utah; and last but far from least Ittnta County, Wyoming.
The officials offered both suggestions and comments and without their
time and effort, the DOH could not complete this project.
Without comments and ideas from the membership, the DOH could not
be. To these people, the Committee owes the most.
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REGIONAL PUBLIC MEETINGS ON RCRA
Meeting
Date
Feb 15,16
Feb 17,18
Feb 23
Feb 23,24
Feb 25
Feb 26
Feb 28,
March 1
March 3
March 4
Mar 8,9
Mar 10,11
Mar 17,18
Mar 21,22
Meeting
Place
Kansas City,
Missouri
Richmond,
New York,
City
Atlanta,
Georgia
Worcester,
Massachusetts
Concord,
New Hampshire
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania
Denver,
Colorado
Salt Lake City,
Utah
Dallas, Texas
San Francisco,
California
Seattle,
Washington
Chicago,
Illinois
Facility
Hilton Inn Plaza
45th & Main
Colony House
American City
Squire,
52nd & 7th Av
Sheraton-Biltmore
Hotel, 817 W.
Peachtree N.E.
Sheraton-
Lincoln Inn
Ramada Inn
William Penn
Hotel
Main Library
1357 Broadway
Hilton Hotel
150 W. South
Fifth Street
First Int'l Bldg
(29th Floor)
1201 Elm St
Holiday Inn
Union Square
480 Sutler
Seattle Center
O'Hare Holiday
Inn (Kennedy
Expressway)
Time
Evening Feb 15,
morning Feb 16
Evening Feb 17,
Day, 9 am -3 pm
evening 4-7 pm
Evening Feb 23,
8:30 am Feb 24
1 pm
1 pm
Evening Feb 28,
morning Mar 1
8:30 am-
12:30 noon
8:30 am-
12:30 noon
Evening Mar 8,
morning Mar 9
Evening Mar 10,
8 am Mar 11,
Evening Mar 17,
All day Mar 18
Evening Mar 21,
all day Mar 22
Sponsoring
EPA Office
Region VII
(Kansas City)
Region III
Region II
(New York City)
Region IV
(Atlanta)
Region I
(Boston)
Region I
(Boston)
Region III
(Philadelphia)
Region VIII
(Denver)
Region VUI
(Denver)
Region VI
(Dallas)
Region IX
(San Francisco)
Region X
(Seattle)
Region V
(Chicago)
Shelf No. 594
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