Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report
VOLUME I:
INNOVATIONS IN CORE FUNCTIONS
Prepared by:
Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Draft for Stakeholder Review
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core functions
"Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report" compiles available information on Project
XL. It follows up the work started in the "Project XL 1999 Comprehensive Report"
(October 1999).
This report has two volumes. "Volume 1: Innovations in Core Functions" describes a
over 70 innovations being explored by Project XL. These innovations are catalogued
by the core functions that are the fundamental different processes and operations the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must use in order to perform its mission
to protect public health and the environment. Volume 1 presents technical and policy
information relevant to each innovation.
"Volume 2: Project Status" summarizes the over 50 projects and project proposals
Project XL has produced to date. The 16 projects which have been underway for a
year or more are described in some detail, including: background, progress in
meeting commitments, benefits for the environment, benefits for stakeholders, benefits
for the project sponsor, spin-off benefits (where applicable), key issues needing
resolution, lessons learned and information resources. For the over 35 projects in
implementation for less than one year or still under development, only background
information is given.
For a short overview of program accomplishments please see " " (September
2000).
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Contents
List of Project Names 1
Executive Summary 2
Introduction 3
Learning From Experiments 5
Catalogue of Innovations in Core Functions 11
Regulations 15
Air Regulations 15
Hazardous Waste Regulations 21
Water Regulations 29
Site Cleanup Regulations 35
Permitting 39
Information Management and Access 50
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance 57
Environmental Stewardship 69
Stakeholder Involvement 88
Culture Change 97
Emerging Innovations 102
Conclusions and Next Steps 114
Information Sources and Methodology 116
Glossary 118
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
List of Project Names
Projects In Implementation As of September, 2000 (33)
Andersen Corporation (Andersen)
Atlantic Steel Site, Jacoby Development Corporation (Atlantic Steel)
City of Albuquerque (Albuquerque POTW)
City of Denton (Denton POTW)
Clermont County. Ohio (Clermont County)
Crompton Corporation, formerly Witco Corporation (Cromplon)
Department of Defense: Elmendorf Air Force Base (Elmendorf AFB)
Department of Defense: Naval Station Ma\port (NS Mayport)
Department of Defense: Vandenberg Air Force Base (Vandenberg AFB)
Eastman Kodak (Kodak)
Exxon Corporation Fairmont Coke Works Superfuud Site (ExxonMobil)
Georgia Pacific Corporation
HADCO Corporation (HADCO)
IBM, Essex Junction Vermont (IBM Vermont)
Imation
Intel Corporation (Intel)
International Paper: Effluent Improvements (IP-El)
International Paper: Predictive Emissions Monitoring (IP-PEM)
Jack M. Berry Corporation (Berry) - Closed Out
Labsll
Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District (Louisville POTW)
Lucent Technologies (Lucent)
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Environmental Results Program (Massachusetts DEP)
Merck & Co. Inc. (Merck)
Metropolitian Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (Chicago POTW)
Molex Incorporated (Molex)
New England Universities Laboratories
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (New York State DEC)
PPG Industries (PPG)
Progressive Auto Insurance (Progressive)
Steele County. Minnesota (Steele County)
U.S. Postal Sen-ice/ Denver, Colorado (USPS Denver)
Weyerhaeuser Company (Weyerhaeuser)
Under Development as of September 2000 (20)
Anne Arundel County
Autoliv Automotive Safety Devices (Autoliv)
Buncombe County
Chicago Regional Air Quality and Economic Development Project (Chicago Livability)
Columbus. Ohio (Columbus)
Crompton Corporation (Crompton TBT)
Department of Defense: Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Puget Sound)
Fort Worth, Texas (Fort Worth)
IBM Hopewell Junction, New York (IBM Fishkill)
Lead Safe Boston
Narragansett Bay Commission POTW (NBC POTW)
NASA White Sands Test Facility (NASA)
New Jersey Gold Track
Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (Pennsylvania DEP)
Port of Houston Authority
United Egg Producers (UEP)
USFilter Recovery Services (USFilter)
Waste Management, Inc. Virginia Landfills (Virginia Landfills)
Yolo County
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Executive Summary
To be Developed
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Introduction
In the last decade environmental protection has become more complex. We face challenges, like
global warming and urban sprawl, that can not be addressed through traditional regulatory
approaches. To ensure progress on these and other issues, we need strategies that take into
account all the factors affecting the quality of our air, land, and water, that respect natural-rather
than manmade-boundaries, and that reflect the priorities of local stakeholders. We also need to
improve regulatory procedures so businesses and communities can focus on problems, not
paperwork.
In 1995, the Clinton Administration launched a portfolio of high-priority initiatives which
challenged us to think of new ways to fulfill the American people's environmental and public
health protection goals. Since then, businesses, communities and other federal agencies have
responded to this challenge by participating in these initiatives, including Project XL (which
stands for excellence and Leadership).
Project XL solicits good ideas from private and public sector facilities, states, trade associations
and communities which propose solutions to difficult regulatory or technical problems and which
explore new approaches to protecting public health and the environment, usually at a lower cost
or lessened regulatory burden for the project sponsor. EPA and these project sponsors formalize
the details of these experiments in a document called a Final Project Agreement (FPA) which
outlines responsibilities of the project sponsor and describes any regulatory flexibility that EPA or
the appropriate State agency is granting in order to conduct the experiment.
These experiments are leading to improvements to well-established programs and exploration of
fundamentally new approaches to protect public health and the environment. By testing sensible,
flexible solutions to specific obstacles faced by a facility, a sector, a state or a local community,
Project XL champions ideas that yield broader concepts for enhancing our environmental
protection system.
This type of flexibility is unprecedented, but it's an offer we have been able to make because we
set high goals for environmental performance and insisted on public accountability for results.
And yet, because we have been breaking new ground, we faced difficult issues in the early stages.
We wrestled with questions like: What kind of flexibility should be allowed9 How do you define
"better results" and "superior environmental performance?" What can we do within the existing
laws? Who needs to be involved in the discussions? We learned a lot, made adjustments to the
program, and found ways to be more responsive to stakeholder needs. As a result, projects are
underway throughout the country.
As of August 2000, over 50 projects are in various stages of operation: 33 in implementation ,
while 20 other project ideas are being developed or negotiated. Early evaluation results show
benefits to the environment, project sponsors and the communities. Data from several projects
give us some indication of the great potential their innovative approaches have for significantly
improving our system for managing our environment. In fact, Project XL's greatest opportunity,
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
and its greatest challenge, is taking successful ideas from individual pilot projects to system-wide
practice. Our goal is to apply the cumulative lessons we learn from each project as widely as
possible by integrating them into EPA' everyday way of doing business.
This volume, Innovations in Core Functions, describes early results and how lessons learned from
these efforts might be incorporated in EPA's everyday work, such as regulation development,
permitting, information management and access, enforcement and compliance assurance,
environmental stewardship, stakeholder involvement, and Agency culture change. For summaries
of the progress and results of individual projects, please see the second volume Project Status.
Project XL is one of many initiatives that EPA national and regional programs are conducting to
address environmental problems that have yet to be solved through the current system. For more
information on these initiatives, please see A Decade of Progress: Innovation at the
Environmental Protection Agency (April 2000) available at
http://www.epa gov/opeihome/decade/ and the 1999 EPA Innovations Task Force report Aiming
for Excellence: Actions to Encourage Stewardship and Accelerate Environmental Progress (July
1999) available at http://www.epa.gov/reinvent/taskforce/report99/.
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report
Volume I: Innovations in Core Function!:
Learning from Experiments
EPA's innovation initiatives aim to improve an already strong system of environmental protection
while building commonsense, cost effective ways to "identify important problems and fix them."1
Project XL works with companies, state, and communities on new approaches that can help
improve our regulatory system. It encourages diverse entities to think creatively about, and
experiment with, better solutions to environmental problems. Basically, we make this offer: If you
have an idea that offers better results than what would be achieved under current requirements,
then we will work with you and other interested parties to put those ideas to the test.
Box 1: New Challenges
In a development that could revolutionize computing, the
IBM Vermont project is testing a way to make computer
chips with copper rather than aluminum —an approach
that promises cheaper computers and taster calculations.
This approach also has an environmental benefit since
IBM is using fewer ozone depleting chemicals at their
Burlington, Vermont, manufacturing facility.
Our world is changing rapidly. Service-
oriented businesses and high technology firms
are fueling rapid growth of the U.S. economy -
an economy no longer dominated by
manufacturing. E-commerce has created a
worldwide marketplace where products can be
bought and sold at the click of a button - and
where companies have to react quickly, or lose
competitiveness. Twenty years ago, few people
envisioned the scope or speed with which these technological changes would alter our economy
and our lives. Project XL is learning how to adapt environmental protection to the challenges of
the new economy.
EPA is not alone in pursuing innovative environmental approaches. Many companies, states and
communities are seeking smarter ways to meet pollution control requirements and solve
environmental problems. Businesses have come to view environmental management as a
fundamental part of a smart business strategy. They are protecting the environment and gaining
competitive advantages as a result. State,
local and Native American governments have
become more experienced in managing
environmental problems, and more innovative
environmental leaders. Project XL provides a
forum for leaders to step forward with
innovations that have improved results, cut
costs, and opened the door to fundamentally
new ways of doing business - the new tools
of environmental protection.
Box 2: New Tools
Both self certification and self audit approaches for small
businesses (Massachusetts Environmental Results
Program) offer enhanced business accountability with
enhanced compliance. Per unit of production emission
limits (Andersen and Intel projects) provide an incentive to
increase efficiency while maintaining flexibility, and
predictive emissions monitoring systems (International
Paper project) offer improved environmental performance
with reduced capital expenditures.
'Sparrow, Malcoin, The Regulatory Craft, Washington. DC: Brookings. 2000
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
EPA has embraced innovation as a way to
accelerate environmental gains. In the early Box 3: New Roles for the Agency
1990s, we recognized the limitations and
costs associated with prescriptive, nationwide
controls, and be»an looking for more flexible
, „ , , , . , , throu°h the Atlantic Steel project.
and affordable tools to do the job. Around the
Project XL supports new roles for EPA as a co-regulator—
supporting new local government water pretreatment
operations in the Steele County project, and helping
communities link their economic and environmental goals
same time, communities are becoming active
players, too. They're helping to develop strategies that address their own priorities and concerns,
and that help sustain the baseline of environmental protection all our citizens have come to expect.
These "cleaner, cheaper, smarter" ways to protect the environment have challenged EPA to
broaden the role it plays in environmental protection - from that of federal command and control
regulator to a co-regulator with states, a convener of public discourse, and partner with business
and community in pollution prevention.
The following section includes examples of projects that are providing cheaper and faster ways of
doing business for companies and projects that are addressing significant community concerns. It
also takes on the broader task of Project XL - describing better approaches that are being
adopted into our national system of environmental protection for everyone's benefit.
Providing More Flexible Air Permitting Methods
America's industrial sectors face a new problem in today's economy. International competition
generates continuously changing market demands which means that companies who can design
and develop new products the quickest will have an advantage in the marketplace. Under the
Clean Air Act, companies must obtain permit approvals from EPA or delegated state agencies
when they install new equipment or change a manufacturing process. Each process or type of
equipment may have its own permit requirements. Yet some industries, such as pharmaceutical or
semiconductor manufacturers, must change their processes frequently to meet customer demands
for new products. The paperwork and time required to obtain permit approvals are costly, both
for the companies and the government agencies charged with permit review. At the same time,
local communities also have an increased awareness and concerns with industry impacts on public
health and the environment and are demanding a greater degree of access to facility information
and government decision-making about permit actions.
The ability to meet environmental performance goals without the delays of recurring air permit
modifications highly desirable. Several Project XL sponsors have addressed this issue by
experimenting with air emissions "caps" that establish an agreed upon limit facilities cannot
exceed, which is normally below their regulatory thresholds for compliance. This new approach
sets overall pollution limits for a facility, allowing companies to change processes and equipment
without prior EPA approval. It reduces the facility's overall pollution, yet allows the company
flexibility (i.e., using pollution prevention instead of treatment) in meeting pollution goals. At the
same time, it provides certainty to the public by creating an enforceable regulatory cap on total air
emissions and to the regulated facility by telling them what they can emit, what they can change
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
quickly, and what limited number of major changes will require new public review. These permit
caps will provide accountability to the public by improving their ability to gain a overall picture of
a facility's performance and that emissions will not exceed permitted levels without giving them a
new chance to become involved.
The Intel Corporation (Intel) has taken advantage of some these concepts as part of its project in
Chandler, Arizona. Early this year, Intel announced it will invest $2.0 billion to build its first 300
millimeter, high volume production wafer manufacturing facility called Fab 22. The company will
seek this expansion under its existing air emissions cap for the Chandler facility established by
Project XL in 1996: the company will operate this new plant, make more wafers, without asking
for an increase in permitted emissions. In announcing this decision, Intel noted that "the new-
facility will help us maintain our leadership in the extremely competitive world of semiconductors.
Fab 22 will give us more manufacturing capacity in order to help us better address our customers'
growing need for high performance microprocessors."
A significant part of Project XL's influence on system change comes from the combined impact of
several projects tackling a problem area. Box 4 describes new regulations and policy guidance
for air permitting that have been heavily influenced by Project XL innovations.
Box 4: National Air Permitting Approaches Influenced by Project XL Innovations
Implementing Site Specific Caps for Determining Major New Source Review (P.4L Rulej: This forthcoming rule
will establish "Plant wide Applicability Limits" (PALs) as a way for plants to establish capped limits on their
total emissions, providing communities with certainty that emissions will not increase above permitted levels, in
exchange for increased flexibility to add and subtract production units without having to go through New Source
Review and the associated permitting. Project XL has served as a test bed for several ideas of an alternative
major NSR applicability system that allows PALs instead of traditional NSR netting for determining whether
modifications are subject to major NSR. Projects that have included PALs as key innovations include: Merck.
Intel, Weyerhaeuser, Imation. and Andersen.
Part 70 Revisions (Permit Revision Process Rulemaking): lliis rule will provide industry' with the flexibility to
make quick operational changes while providing the public and EPA with more efficient and meaningful review
of significant actions that could effect air quality. Instead of the current "one size fits all'" process, which is
paperwork intensive and time consuming for everyone involved, EPA will establish a new five tiered system
which will provide increased flexibility for simple changes and increased accountability for important ones. The
Part 70 changes will allow for an expedited review process for all facilities and will incorporate the flexibility
used by the Intel project.
White Paper =3 Guidance: This guidance will provide guidance to states, tribes, and local governments on how
to design flexible operating permits, within the scope of Title V of Clean Air Act and the operating permit
regulations promulgated at 40 CFR Part 70. This guidance focuses primarily on "advance approvals'" since this
is the most versatile and potentially useful approach. This guidance discusses the many considerations and
factors relevant to designing a permit that allow for advance approvals of modifications or new emissions units
so changes may be made without a permit revision. It also encourages pollution prevention, promotes active
public participation, and the achievement of equal or better environmental protection. Projects supporting the
development of flexible permitting approaches in White Paper #3 include Merck, Intel and Imation.
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Adding Options for Air Regulatory Compliance
Project XL is providing new ways for manufacturers to address existing compliance problems. At
the facility level, manufacturers can find great potential for improving environmental performance,
yet these options may require that greater flexibility be added to federal regulations' technology
requirements. Through the Merck project, for example, the facility in Elkton, Virginia has the
ability to make an air emissions cap adjustment based to accommodate growth and assure
compliance. When a new criteria pollutant regulation is promulgated and becomes applicable to
the site, or when the use of existing regulated equipment is declining at the site, Merck has two
options. It can comply with the regulation(s) as written and install new control equipment.
Alternatively, it can adjust the site-wide emissions cap(s) by the amount of emission reductions
that would have resulted from direct compliance with the rule (e.g., adjusting the cap by the
emissions reductions new control equipment would have achieved, if it was installed at the site).
Project XL has also allowed manufacturers to use innovative approaches and a wider variety of
technologies to control hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). The affect this has had on new options
under HAP-related regulations is described below.
1. The 3M Hutchinson XL proposal did not reach final agreement, however, one of the
flexibilities 3M requested in their proposal was incorporated in the mid-1999 direct final rule
for HAP emissions from magnetic tape manufacturing operations. Based on the 3M proposal
and other industry input, EPA determined that it would be useful to offer regulated entities an
alternative compliance option for balancing HAP emissions from solvent storage tanks with
emissions from other pieces of magnetic tape manufacturing equipment.
2. In 2001, EPA plans to promulgate National Emission Standards for HAPs for "miscellaneous
organic processes." These standards are referred to as the miscellaneous organic NESHAPs
or the "the MON." Production activities at Crompton Sistersville, West Virginia, facility are
classified as one type of these miscellaneous organic processes. It is expected that the MON
will require a level of process vent controls similar to the level required for the vent incinerator
installed by Crompton as part of its project. Thus, this project is providing some preliminary
data for the MON on the effectiveness of this type of air pollution control technology in
satisfying HAP compliance requirements.
3. Innovations being tested as part of the Weyerhaeuser project helped shape several compliance
options in the Integrated Pulp and Paper NESHAP and Effluent Limitations Guidelines Rule
promulgated in 1998. Three specific regulatory flexibilities undergoing testing include using:
alternative compliance regimes for HAP emission reductions, advanced technologies to reduce
effluent discharges, and pollution prevention technologies to reduce air emissions in kraft-
pulping operations.
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Increasing Alternatives for Safe Handling, Disposal and Recycling of Waste
Local communities and businesses are concerned with the impact that the handling and disposal of
wastes can have on both quality of life for their citizens and the community's coffers. Designing
methods that increase safety and reduce costly hazardous waste generation are critical to these
concerns. As described below, changes to Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
policies are underway or under consideration as a result of information learned from Project XL.
• EPA is releasing a national RCRA policy determination that will allow the use of an alternative
disposal technique for lead-based paint debris from residential sources. Under Project XL,
Lead Safe Boston (a Boston, MA, city government entity) is testing the use of a RCRA
Household Hazardous Waste Provision exclusion which would allow the disposal of
residential-generated, lead-based paint architectural debris in RCRA certified municipal waste
landfills. Lead Safe Boston believes that lead-based paint debris can be safely managed in
municipal solid waste landfills that meet RCRA requirements for landfill liners, leachate
collection systems, ground water monitoring, and corrective action provisions. It is expected
that this decision will enhance the clean-up of more lead-contaminated sites within urban areas
because of the lower costs associated with handling and disposal of non-hazardous designated
wastes. In addition, it is expected to facilitate additional residential abatement, renovation and
remodeling, and rehabilitation activities, thus protecting children from continued exposure to
lead paint in homes and making residential dwellings lead safe for children and adults. EPA has
used data generated during the development of the Lead Safe Boston project and other sources
to support its recent policy determination.
• Every day many products containing economically valuable metals are being disposed of as
hazardous waste because there are few alternatives for resource recovery. The US Filter
project proposes to eliminate or substantially reduce the need for electroplators (i.e., metal
finishers, printed wiring board manufacturers) to treat and/or dispose of their F006 hazardous
waste streams. US Filter proposes to offer "portable exchange deionization systems" (ion
exchange canister) to electroplators in lieu of on-site physical-chemical treatment and off-site
disposal requirements. Once their resins become spent, these canisters can be recharged by US
Filter who regenerates the resins. The reclaimed metals then can be sold rather than land
disposed. EPA is considering altering its RCRA manifest and waste treatment requirements for
electroplators who elect to use ion exchange canisters for some or all of their F006 waste
handling requirements.
• RCRA hazardous waste manifest and waste accumulation requirements often entail high
transportation and collection costs associated with low volume waste disposal. The New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) project is testing a solution
to this problem by allowing utilities (primarily electric and gas companies) located in the state
to consolidate their hazardous waste generated at remote locations at central collection
facilities (utility owned) before the waste is sent to a commercial RCRA permitted Treatment,
Storage, and Disposal Facility (TSDF). Currently, utility hazardous waste generators must
have their wastes collected individually at remote sites and transported directly to a TSDF. In
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
many instances, this results in a large number of vehicle trips to transport small waste loads. As
a result of the data generated from this project, EPA is considering the modification of its
RCRA waste accumulation and manifest provisions for utilities to allow national adaptation of
the New York-based system.2
• Municipal solid waste landfill capacity is dwindling in United States and there is a great deal of
interest in how landfills can be designed and rnanaged-to extend their (the landfills') useful life.
There are four project proposals currently being reviewed that explore various options for
using leachate recirculation systems (bioreactors) to extend the life of existing sanitary landfills
by speeding up the decomposition process of organic materials thereby creating more space in
the landfill and extending its life. Each project—Buncombe County, Virginia Landfills, Yolo
County, and Anne Arundel—will be exploring different aspects of a bioreactor system.
Collectively, the various engineering and technical parameters being investigated among these
projects will provide EPA with background data to determine if it appropriate to modify
existing RCRA municipal landfill design requirements.
Identifying N&v Procedures for Water Regulatory Compliance
In February 1999, the Administration unveiled a comprehensive Clean Water Action Plan,
highlighting the public's concern for protecting the nations' waters. In a July 1999 proposed rule
affecting the National Pretreatment Regulations, EPA sought to streamline the procedures for
measuring pollutant loadings for industrial waste water discharges. Under the proposed rules,
Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs) have the option of using mass-based limits in lieu of
concentration limits for industrial users if these users meet certain criteria. The rule proposes that
potential users (dischargers to the POTW) must install "Best Available Technology" (BAT) or
have equivalent BAT installed, and they must use some form of water conservation methods that
substantially reduce their water usage.
The Steele County project is referenced in the proposed Pretreatment rule as one example of a
mass-based compliance experiment. Under Project XL, the POTW of Steele County, Minnesota,
will allow its industrial users to use mass-based limits in lieu of concentration limits for discharges
to the POTW facility. These industrial users are primarily metal finishing facilities in Owatonna
and Blooming Prairie, Minnesota. Using a mass-based limit will allow industrial dischargers to
minimize their water usage while maintaining compliance with their POTW requirements. Using a
concentration limit would not allow this to occur. Steele County also is testing other alternative
compliance approaches such as reduced monitoring for regulated pollutants not present and
alternative significant non-compliance reporting. Collectively these elective approaches toward
complying with Pretreatment Regulations should establish a benchmark against which EPA and
other regulators will determine whether these aspects of the regulations should be permanently
modified.
Currently. EPA is working with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve a lawsuit brought against the project by the
Atlantic States Legal Foundation. New York State DEC will begin accepting requests from the utilities to participate in
the project once these legal issues have been resolved.
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Catalogue of Innovations in Core Functions
Innovation - An
action thai starts or
This section catalogues 50 innovative ideas for achieving cleaner, cheaper
and smarter environmental protection that are in operation under Project
XL. The catalogue employs the following structure to describe the
innovations: in:roduuces
something new or
creative.
• Experiments): characterizes the innovative idea being tested; what
project or projects are testing the innovation; and the regulatory
flexibility required to test the idea.
• Results/Anticipated Oittcome(s): provides information on the potential advantage of the
innovation over the current system. Included in this section are results and data for those
projects that have been in implementation for a sufficient amount of time. For those projects
still early in implementation, this section provides the operating context for the innovation and
anticipated results of the experimental approach.
• Transferability: details the efficacy of the innovation and its suitability for application beyond
the pilot scale. For the more mature innovations, the transferability section describes those
innovative concepts that have been or are in the process of being incorporated into Agency
functions or programs. For the relatively new innovations, this section describes potential
opportunities to integrate the experimental ideas into the national system.
The 50 innovations are sorted by the following core functions: (1) regulations, (2) permitting, (3)
information management and access, (4) enforcement and compliance assurance, (5)
environmental stewardship, (6) stakeholder involvement, and (7) Agency culture change. Core
functions are the different processes and operations that EPA must use in order to perform its
mission to protect public health and to safeguard the natural environment. These core functions
are defined briefly below.
Regulations
A significant portion of EPA's work concerns developing regulations that define for the regulated
community and the public the legal requirements that implement federal statutes passed by
Congress. Under Project XL, EPA seeks to identify the potential for, and confirm the usefulness
of, new and flexible approaches to be incorporated into regulations. Projects have provided
Agency regulation writers with data and results that allow them to include options that they might
not have otherwise. Project XL has been particularly successful at exploring specific regulatory
options under the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA),
and the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
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Permitting
A permit is an authorization, license, or equivalent control document issued by EPA, state or
tribal agency to implement the requirements of an environmental statute or regulation. Federal
permitting requirements are very important environmental protection tools, but they can pose a
burden for regulated entities and regulators alike. The alternative approaches tested in Project XL
fits into a national reform effort designed to strengthen the role of the public in important
decisions, focus on results instead of procedures, reduce unnecessary burdens, and improve
environmental performance.
Information Management and Access
EPA has national information policy and management responsibilities: these include information
content and quality issues for both internal decision-making and public purposes. EPA's
regulations and permits have data collection and reporting requirements which can be burdensome
for facilities to prepare and for regulators to collect, when publicly presenting environmental
information and results. In many cases, state and tribal governments are the primary collectors
and managers for this information. The required data is often in a specified format that is difficult
for the general public to understand and obtain. Project XL explores different approaches that
may improve government systems of environmental information management and access.
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
EPA, tribal governments and authorized states are responsible for ensuring that the regulated
community complies with federal environmental statutes. To do so, an array of approaches are
employed, including regulatory enforcement and compliance assistance. In recent years, national
efforts have centered around identifying and addressing environmental problems using innovative,
integrated initiatives that combine compliance assistance, incentives, monitoring and enforcement.
These compliance incentives include incentives to self-disclose, including the audit and small
business policies, promoting supplemental environmental projects and providing compliance
assistance. Compliance incentives encourage improved environmental performance and have been
explored by states, tribes, local governments, and EPA. Project XL provides another avenue to
test them.
Environmental Stewardship
Environmental management systems (EMS), pollution prevention, and recycling are pathways to
environmental stewardship, helping organizations improve their environmental performance and
potentially go beyond regulatory compliance. An EMS allows an organization to systematically
address environmental decisions, and focus on improvements in compliance rates and other
measures of environmental performance. Pollution prevention, or "source reduction" as defined
by the 1990 Pollution Prevention Act and EPA guidance, involves protecting natural resources
through conservation or increased efficiency in the use of energy, water, and other resources
Recycling shares many of the advantages of pollution prevention: they both reduce the need for
treatment or disposal by conserving energy and natural resources. Project XL is a platform for
testing different EMS approaches, and many projects have incorporated pollution prevention and
recycling activities into their agreements.
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Stakeholder Involvement
The term "stakeholder involvement" generally means that interested parties are given an
opportunity to participate in the development and implementation of projects that may affect
them. A stakeholder may be an organization, governmental entity, or individual. Past, present,
and potential participants in Project XL have identified the stakeholder involvement process as an
area in which all groups (e.g., project sponsors, government staff, and public participants) will
benefit from additional experience and better guidance. Project XL has produced insights into the
site-specific, multistakeholder process and its role in Agency experimentation and innovation.
Agency Culture Change
For EPA, the goal of culture change is to reinvigorate those Agency processes and behaviors
which limit its ability to address constantly changing conditions—environmental, technical,
socioeconomic, and political— with new, creative solutions. Project XL has served as a
laboratory for creating a work environment that supports multi-media innovation. While
designing and testing potential innovations, the Agency has also undertaken management,
teambuilding, and experimentation challenges.
The table immediately below identifies the type of innovation represented by each project. This
table is designed to give the reader a "roadmap" for this section. It is not intended to be used as a
checklist for future projects.
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report
I 'oil/me I: Innovations in Core Functions
Innovations in Core Functions by Project |
Andersen
Atlantic Steel ;
Berrv \
Albuquerque POTW \
Denton POTW !
Crornplon (formerly Wilco) \
ElmendorfAFB I
A'5 May-port ;
Vand-enberg AFB
Exxonk'tobil '•
Georgia Pacific \
HADCO \
IBM Vermont
Imarion \
Intel
International Paper-El
International Paper-PEM
Louisville POTW \
Lucent \
Massachusetts DEP
Merck
Molex \
.-Yew England Universities
Laboratories
New York Stale DEC I
Progressive j
Steele Counrv
USPS Denver \
Weyerhaeuser \
Program wide
3M Proposal) \
Regulations •
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Peimitting .
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Information
Management
X
X
X
X
X
Enforcement & I
Compliance j
X
X
X
X
X
En vironmen tal
Stewardship
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Stakeholder
Involvement
X
X
X
X
X
X
4QPJ
Change \
M
9
xii
"
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Regulations
Project XL has helped to identify and test new, flexible options under federal regulations. To
date, project proposals have focused on hazardous air pollution and conformity issues under
Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations, process streamlining for the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) hazardous waste compliance, promoting metals recovery within RCRA
hazardous waste requirements, improving the effectiveness of the Clean Water Act (CWA)
pretreatment operations, and streamlining cleanups under the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), known as Superfund. Project XL will
continue collecting data about new regulatory proposals and will influence how well-established
rules are interpreted and implemented. New projects are proposing to explore regulatory changes
that can enhance our solutions for increasing the capacity of sanitary landfills, reducing urban air
toxic emissions, and decreasing persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic pollutants.
Because of the large number of regulatory innovations underway, regulatory innovations have
been organized according to media: air, hazardous waste, water, and site cleanup. Under each
sub-section, Tables 2 through 5 identify the regulatory innovations tested by current projects and
illustrate the adaptability that is possible in complying with existing regulatory requirements.
Air Regulations
A large proportion of EPA's rulemaking activities have involved the ongoing development of
National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs). These standards are
required by Section 112(d) of the CAA, which dictates that EPA regulate the emissions of 189
hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). The intent of Section 112 is to protect public health by
requiring new and existing "major sources" of these HAPs to reduce their generation through
pollution prevention or to control their emissions to the level possible through the use of
Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT). This technology-based requirement must
take into account cost, non-air quality impacts, and energy requirements. NESHAPs are generally
structured in terms of numerical emissions limits, although under certain conditions they can
specify a design, equipment, work practice, or operational standard.
According to the CAA, no transportation activity can be funded or supported by the Federal
government unless it conforms to the purpose of a state's air quality plan. Though conformity
was included in the 1977 CAA, it was not clearly defined until the 1990 CAA amendments.
Conformity links transportation planning with air quality planning, and functions by reinforcing a
state's air quality plan and keeping areas on track in meeting their air quality goals. It requires
areas that have poor air quality now or had it in the past to examine the long-term air quality
impacts of their transportation system and ensure that it is compatible with clean air goals. These
areas must assess the impacts of growth up front and decide how to manage it.
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I 'olume 1: Innovations in Core Functions
Table 2: Air Regulatory Innovations
Project^)
Weyerhaeuser
3M Proposal
Crompton
(formerly
Witco)
Atlantic Steel
Affected
•Media
Water
Water
N/A
She
Cleanup
Innovation
Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule: Voluntary effluent discharge limitations - allows additional
time for MACT standards compliance; testing alternative compliance approaches for HAPs;
using pollution prevention technologies to reduce HAP emissions across the facility provides
additional time to comply with MACT standards.
\'ESH.-iP for Magnetic Tape Manufacturing Operations .\L~iCT: Modification to NESHAP
based on data submitted in proposal regarding balancing HAP emissions between controlled
and uncontrolled sources.
.RCR.-3 Organic Emission Standards Miscellaneous Organic Processes \L4CT: Earlv
compliance with NESHAP and air emission control flexibility; use of alternative control
technology, reducing organic air emissions and potential compliance \\ith a ne\v MACT
standard.
CA4 Transportation Control Measure fTCM): Flexibility and smart gro\\th applications of a
TCM for a brownfield redevelopment project moving forward in area previously out of
conformity with CAA.
Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule
The Experiments): The Weyerhaeuser project has been in implementation since early 1997. This
project has helped verify compliance options in the MACT standard provisions of the Pulp and
Paper Cluster Rule. Flexibility for Weyerhaeuser under Project XL involved two major aspects of
the Cluster Rules: bleach plant and kraft pulping operations.
The Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule was promulgated in April 1998. Compliance options included in
the Rule were part of the project for Weyerhaeuser Flint River Plant in Oglethorpe, Georgia.
Specifically, the Water Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards portion of the rule requires
more stringent reductions for toxic pollutants in the wastewater discharges during the bleaching
process and in the final discharge from the mill. As part of its Project XL commitments and its
Minimum Impact Manufacturing strategy underway at the plant, Weyerhaeuser has conducted a
feasibility study of plant-wide effluent reductions through innovative technologies. The Effluent
Guidelines Voluntary Advanced Technology Incentives Program, a compliance option
incorporated into the Cluster Rule, encourages bleach plant operators to install advanced
technologies or make process changes that will reduce effluent discharges beyond the Rule's
limits. Weyerhaeuser's Flint River facility is participating in this program, but expects to exceed
the requirements for this option. If a pulp and paper mill enrolls in this program and can meet the
strict discharge limits through advanced technologies, the facility receives reduced monitoring and
inspection opportunities, and additional time to comply with the air (e.g., NESHAP) portion of
the Rule.
Voluntarily reducing hazardous air emissions from process water streams is another compliance
option for kraft-pulping operations that was incorporated under the Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule.
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The Clean Condensate Alternative Program focuses on reducing the hazardous air pollutant
(HAP) emissions throughout the pulp mill by reducing the HAP mass in process water streams.
The Weyerhaeuser Flint River Facility expects to exceed the requirements to comply with this
option since they are going through a mill modernization program that will reduce condensate
vent streams throughout the facility. The Flint River facility's willingness to redesign the mill with
this option in mind was instrumental in creating this opportunity within the Cluster Rule
requirements. By lowering the HAP mass loading in waste water streams, fewer HAPs will be
volatized to the atmosphere. If a mill can reduce these condensates instead of controlling
individual specified vents, they will achieve greater air emission reductions and reduce their
compliance costs.
The Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule also provides incentives for using pollution prevention
technologies in kraft pulping operations. The MACT standards provide for an extension of up to
eight years from promulgation for compliance if pollution prevention approaches that otherwise
would not have been used, are used. Pulp and paper facilities will have the flexibility to
demonstrate HAP emission reductions using innovative pollution prevention approaches in lieu of,
or in addition to, end of pipe HAP controls. This extension is designed to encourage mills to
install pollution prevention technology that will reduce HAP emissions from the pulping process
as well as both air and water pollutant discharges from the bleaching process. The Weyerhaeuser
project is demonstrating pollution prevention approaches to reducing HAP emissions such as:
reducing process condensate wash water HAP content; reducing bleach plant HAP emissions,
reducing oxygen delignification HAP emissions; and reducing cylinder mould decker and filtrate
tank HAP emissions.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The Cluster Rule will have significant national environmental
impacts as mills move to comply with its requirements. It is anticipated that: emissions of more
than 160,000 tons of toxic air pollutants (59 percent of current levels) will be eliminated;
chloroform discharges to water will be reduced by 99 percent from proposed levels; dioxin and
furan discharges to water will be reduced by 96 percent from proposed levels; and dioxin and
furan loading to sludges will be reduced by 96 percent from proposed levels.
Weyerhaeuser's long-term goal is to reduce bleach plant effluent flow by 50 percent, to 10 cubic
meters per air dried metric ton of finished product (fluff pulp used to make diapers) by the year
2006. Weyerhaeuser conducted a feasibility study to determine the effect of bleach plant effluent
reduction on product quality. Projected environmental benefits include (1) a two million-gallon-a-
day, monthly average water-use reduction (the bleach plant water requirements are approximately
50 percent of the total plant water usage); (2) reductions in effluent biological oxygen demand,
total suspended solids, and adsorbable organic halides; and (3) HAP emission reductions.
Weyerhaeuser has also conducted feasibility studies on its water-use management. The results of
these studies will be used by EPA, the State of Georgia, and Weyerhaeuser to negotiate an
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to be issued in 2002. The
permit will contain enforceable measures for reducing effluent flow to an agreed-upon level by
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
2006. Weyerhaeuser will prepare a site-specific MACT alternative compliance plan (followed by
an EPA site-specific rule) that will detail how the facility will reduce HAP emissions to levels
equal to or exceeding those required under the MACT rule. This plan will also include how
Weyerhaeuser intends to use the Clean Condensate Alternative to reduce HAP emissions.
Transferability: The Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule has been promulgated and now regulates toxic
air pollutants in 155 of the 565 pulp, paper and paperboard mills in the United States. Ninety-six
of those 155 mills also have their toxic water discharges regulated by the rule. Individual mills
may choose the control technologies and process change combinations that are the most
advantageous for them to meet these regulations. As noted earlier, many of the compliance
options associated with the Rule resulted from data and information from the Weyerhaeuser
project.
NESHAP for Magnetic Tape Manufacturing Operations MACT
The Proposal: The 3M Hutchinson XL proposal did not reach final agreement. However, one of
the flexibilities 3M had requested is being used in the revised Magnetic Tape Manufacturing
operations MACT standard. This standard, a recent amendment to a 1994 industry-specific HAP
rule, illustrates EPA's willingness to amend regulatory requirements when the regulated
community can provide persuasive data suggesting new alternatives. Since the 1994 rule was
issued, 3M provided EPA with data showing that the volume of HAP emissions from
uncontrolled solvent storage tanks is very close to that of HAP emissions from uncontrolled
vessels of mix-preparation process equipment. By balancing emissions from these uncontrolled
sources against those sources in the process line that are controlled, 3M was able to suggest
alternative control options. EPA accepted 3M and other industrial data, and proceeded to amend
the 1994 rule providing facility owners and operators with 25 options for "undercontrolling"
tanks and/or mix- equipment vessels based on the level of control they achieve on their coating
lines. 3M developed this data in conjunction with a regulatory flexibility proposal the company
submitted to Project XL.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The revised Magnetic Tape rule was effective in June 1999 and is
expected to increase compliance with this regulation, enhance flexibility for affected entities and
save companies money in compliance costs. EPA published this MACT rule amendment as a
direct final rule because it considers this a noncontroversial change. EPA believes that this change
to the previously promulgated 1994 rule will increase compliance flexibility for affected sources
without any adverse environmental consequences.
Transferability: The MACT rule amendment is a permanent change to an earlier promulgated
rule. It is expected that this amendment will increase compliance with this regulation, enhance
flexibility for affected entities, and reduce companies' compliance costs.
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RCRA Organic Emission Standards/ Miscellaneous Organic Processes MACT
The Experiment(s): The Crompton (formerly Witco) project aims to reduce air emissions through
a combination of flexible air pollution control and waste minimization/pollution prevention
(WM/PP) activities. The polyether methyl capper unit at Crompton's Sisterville, West Virginia
plant is the focus of air emission control efforts. The capper unit is the site of a two-step reaction
that results in one of Crompton's products, methyl-capped polyether. Methyl chloride, dimethyl
ether, and methanol emissions generated in the capper unit during production of the methyl-
capped polyether will be collected and routed to a new process vent incinerator installed on the
capper unit.
EPA and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) deferred the RCRA
Subpart CC organic air emission standards applicable to Crompton's two surface impoundments.
These surface impoundments are one-million-gallon reservoirs that hold wastewater from the
facility's pollution control equipment and other sources. Without the deferral, the Subpart CC
standards would have required Crompton to install air emission controls on these impoundments.
However, Crompton could have replaced the existing reservoirs with open-top reservoirs that are
not regulated under RCRA Subpart CC, and air emissions would not have been reduced. With the
deferral, Crompton will now install a vent incinerator on the capper unit.
Based on an XL-generated site-specific rule, Crompton installed the vent incinerator in lieu of
complying with RCRA organic air emission standards. In 2001, EPA plans to promulgate
NESHAPs for "miscellaneous organic processes", called "the MON," Production activities at
Crompton's Sistersville facility are classified as one type of these miscellaneous organic processes.
Based on current understanding, it is expected that the MON will require a level of process vent
controls similar to the level required for the vent incinerator installed by Crompton under the
project. While the Sistersville project will provide superior environmental performance only until
the MON is in effect, the Crompton project has provided a test bed for experimenting with air
emissions control technology under RCRA. The project's FPA requires a reevaluation of the
project following proposal of the MON. Crompton will prepare a project reevaluation report
within 90 days following the close of the comment period for the MON. If EPA, West Virginia
DEP, and other stakeholders agree to continue the project, the FPA will be amended to identify
new approaches to achieve superior environmental performance beyond the MON requirements.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Installing a process vent incinerator on Crompton's capper unit in
return for a deferral of air emission standards for its surface impoundments will lead to air
emission reductions several years earlier than would have been obtained without undertaking the
project. As required by site-specific rule, the vent incinerator has destroyed at least 98 percent of
the organic compounds (about 271,000 pounds) in the vent stream. In 1998, the capper unit
emitted a total of 59,898 pounds of organic compounds. Since the vent incinerator was installed
and put into operation, air emissions of total organics have been reduced by over 217,000 pounds
per year as compared with 1995 baseline levels. Performance tests indicated that the oxidizer is
reducing total organics in the vent stream by 99.99 percent, versus the 98 percent minimum
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
required by the facility's site-specific rule. In addition, undertaking this project will allow
Crompton to defer the expenditure of approximately S2 million in environmental control costs for
several years.
Transfer ability: The Crompton project demonstrates the potential benefits for allowing air
emission control technology flexibility under RCRA regulations in order to provide superior and
more cost effective environmental protection. Flexibility in the control of air pollutants by
Crompton's Sistersville plant demonstrates the adaptability that is possible in complying with air
regulatory requirements. Similar adaptations may be applicable to other plants who are facing
similar compliance problems and should be investigated relative to existing and future air
emissions issues.
CAA Transportation Control Measure (TCM)
The Experiments): The Atlantic Steel project will redevelop a 138 acre brownfield site in
downtown Atlanta. The redevelopment will integrate residential, office, retail, transportation and
entertainment functions near Atlanta's central business district and incorporate many "smart
growth" design principles in the project. In addition to returning a contaminated site to
productive use, this project will examine how redevelopment can leverage environmental benefits
in air quality by reducing automobile use in the Atlanta region. Under Project XL, this brownfield
development will be considered a Transportation Control Measure (TCM). A TCM is defined as
a measure - an activity undertaken, a transportation project built, or a program implemented -
used to reduce motor vehicle emissions. Classification as a TCM will enable this project to
proceed with Federal approval and using Federal funds during the transportation conformity lapse
in the Atlanta metropolitan region.
Although the State of Georgia is seeking to redesignate for attainment, at the time the Atlantic
Steel final project agreement was being developed, the City of Atlanta was out of compliance with
federal CAA standards for ground-level ozone emissions. Between January 1998 and July 200,
the Atlanta Regional Commission had failed to demonstrate that new transportation activities will
not further degrade or delay timely attainment of air quality standards for the region. The CAA
generally prohibits new transportation construction projects that use federal funds or require
federal approval in areas where conformity with CAA requirements has lapsed. Under the CAA,
a project must demonstrate an air quality benefit to be considered a TCM. In a traditional sense,
the Atlantic Steel project would not qualify as a TCM, but EPA views the combination of transit
linkages (17th Street Bridge), site location, site design and other elements collectively as a TCM.
In order to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the Atlantic Steel development
project, EPA, in consultation with project stakeholders, performed three main analyses: (1)
regional transportation and air emissions impacts; (2) local CO impacts; and (3) site level travel
and multi-media impacts.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: EPA completed an environmental assessment for the Atlantic
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Steel project in compliance with the National Environmental Quality Policy Act. While the
project is still undergoing State Implementation Plan (SIP) approval, it is proceeding based on
the premise that the unique "livability" attributes and inter-connected design of this specific
project will result in long term air quality benefits for the region. EPA evaluated the air quality
benefits of this project based on the fact that (1) the Atlanta metropolitan region is projected to
continue to grow over the next 20 years and (2) if the Atlantic Steel site were not redeveloped,
more of this growth would occur in outlying areas. By comparing this brownfield development to
similar greenfield sites, the Atlantic Steel project and its associated transportation measures were
linked to analyze the overall air quality effects of the development. An analysis of regional
transportation and air emissions impacts of the Atlantic Steel development showed that by
absorbing a larger portion of Atlanta's growth, the Atlantic Steel project would create as many as
34 percent fewer vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) and reduce associated NOx emissions by 45
percent when compared to growth occurring at alternative greenfield sites.
The impact that site design can have on transportation patterns and air emissions was analyzed as
well. EPA examined measures such as density, mix of use, connectivity and transit access to see
how site design implementation might affect travel behavior and ultimately, air emissions.
Trcmsferability: Urban growth has resulted in increased traffic congestion, continued
encroachment on green spaces, and resultant air quality conformity problems. The Atlantic Steel
project—an integrated, mixed-use, multi-modal project, located near the central business
district-can serve as a model for future smart growth planning and redevelopment. As more cities
struggle with urban development, transportation, and air quality problems comparable to those in
Atlanta, many aspects of this project will have the potential to be transferred to these locations.
EPA is in the process of drafting policy guidance identifying methodologies to help account for
the air quality benefits of brownfield developments in the air quality and transportation planning
process. As the Atlantic Steel project proceeds, there will be a need to analyze if the regulatory
flexibility that will enable the project's site design to positively impact transportation and air
quality can provide opportunities to maximize environmental performance at comparable
redevelopment sites.
Hazardous Waste Regulations
RCRA regulations classify hazardous waste as either characteristic or listed. Characteristic
wastes have measurable properties which indicate that a waste poses enough of a threat to require
regulation. EPA established four hazardous waste characteristics: ignitability, reactivity,
corrosivity and toxicity. Listed wastes come from generic industrial processes, certain sectors of
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I 'olume I: Innovations in Core Functions
industry, and unused pure chemical products and formulations.3 F006 wastes - wastewater
treatment sludges from electroplating operations - have been the subject of several projects.
Table 3: Hazardous Waste Regulatory Innovations
ProiectCs)
New York State DEC
New England
Universities
Laboratories
Molex.
HADCO
IBM Vermont
Innovation
RCfL-i Streamlining Waste Handling Waiver: Revisions to streamline remote waste handling
and transportation. Satellite waste consolidation
RCFL-i Performance-based Environmental Management Standard: Laboratory environmental
management standard to streamline RCRA and OSHA regulator.' programs
RCR4 Streamlining-Delistings and Variances: Conditional delistings and solid waste variances
to encourage metals recovery and recycling: optimizing the recovery of metals by operating a
segregated treatment system: testing F006 waste stream and copper dust recvclmg.
Process Exemption— Innovative Copper Metallization: D3M-VT has introduced a new,
innovative copper plating process to deposit a layer of metal on the wafer and is seeking a site
specitic process exemption from the F006 listing for its copper plating process rinsewrater.
RCRA Streamlining — Waste Handling Waiver
The Experiment(s). The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
project allows participating electric, telephone, oil and gas utilities located in the State to
consolidate the hazardous waste generated at remote locations at utility-owned central collection
facilities (UCCFs) before the waste is sent to a permitted treatment, storage and disposal facility
(TSDF). Utilities maintain right-of-ways, such as pipelines, phone lines and power distribution
systems that can extend for hundreds of miles. In the process of accessing these systems at
remote locations, hazardous waste is generated in the form of contaminated sediments
accumulating at utility service access points. Access points for electric power and phone systems
can vary from manholes and street vaults to remote service boxes. RCRA regulations allow the
accumulation of hazardous waste at remote locations for up to 90 days without a permit, but
generally do not allow shipment to or consolidation of hazardous waste at off-site locations other
than permitted TSDFs.
Utilities are currently allowed to accumulate hazardous waste at remote locations for up to 90
days without a RCRA permit prior to transporting the waste to a permitted TSDF. Since remote
locations are often unstaffed, it can be difficult to accumulate hazardous waste and secure it
against releases resulting from accidents or vandalism. Additionally, in urban "remote" locations,
3These wastes are listed according to waste categories, such a F. K. P. and U. Wastes from non-specific sources are
F codes, wastes from specific sources are K codes, and wastes from commercial products are U and P codes.
Wastes from non-specific sources include material-specific wastes generated by a variety of processes. This
category of wastes include solvent wastes, electroplating wastes, metal heat treating wastes, and dioxin-containing
wastes.
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waste left at street access locations can disrupt normal traffic patterns. For these reasons, Utilities
would prefer to transport hazardous waste immediately from remote locations. However, the
waste must be transported directly to a TSDF, and arranging to bring the waste directly to the
TSDF can take several days, especially if the event is unplanned. Under the New York State
DEC project, these utilities will be able to transport remote location hazardous waste as soon as it
is collected and to consolidate wastes for up to 90 days at their designated UCCFs before
transport to a permitted TSDF. In addition, utilities will be allowed to combine similar wastes at
their UCCFs. Consolidation will result in fewer vehicle trips with each trip carrying a larger waste
load. The regulatory flexibility in this project is expected to streamline the reporting process,
resulting in a reduction of duplicative paperwork, streamlined information for the public and a
creation of direct cost savings for participating utilities, EPA, and New York State DEC.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: EPA issued a final rule in July of 1999 providing regulatory
flexibility under RCRA that will allow participating New York State utilities to consolidate the
hazardous waste generated at remote locations at designated UCCFs. New York State has
received authority to administer most of the RCRA program and the rule will not become
effective until the State adopts equivalent requirements as State law. New York State will be
promulgating a specific state rule with equivalent provisions to the federal rule. The State will
review and approve UCCF participation. This rule change will provide superior environmental
performance and protect public health by facilitating the removal and consolidation of hazardous
wastes at remote locations. Under the rule, hazardous waste will be transported to a UCCF
within a utility right-of-way network immediately after collection or when the staff collecting the
waste leave the location, whichever occurs first.
Under the New York State DEC project, each participating utility is required to reinvest one-third
of its direct cost savings into environmental remediation or pollution prevention activities that go
beyond what is legally required and that were not planned prior to participation in the project. In
their annual progress reports, participating utilities will be required to identify the monetary value
of the direct cost savings they have experienced as a result of the project as well as the
environmental activities in which they are investing.
Transferability: The New York projects seeks to enable innovative waste handling practices to
safely and effectively deal with the problems associated with the generation of hazardous wastes
at remote locations. These new practices can benefit utilities across the country facing similar
problems with the remote generation, transportation and secure accumulation of hazardous
wastes. This project provides the opportunity to examine: (1) if immediate transport of hazardous
waste to central collection facilities reduces accidental releases and risks to human health and the
environment; (2) whether the reinvestment of direct cost savings creates better environmental
protection than current regulations; (3) the effectiveness of a regulatory flexibility approach that
extends across industry sectors within a state; and (4) the realized time and cost benefits of the
consolidation approach. EPA is currently considering whether alternative manifest standards for
consolidating wastes from remote utility generation sites are appropriate on a national scale. This
project is helping to inform that process.
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RCRA Performance-Based Environmental Management Standard
The Experiment(s): The New England Universities Laboratories project proposes to test the
effectiveness of an integrated, flexible, performance-based system (i.e., an Environmental
Management Standard) for managing laboratory waste, including RCRA hazardous wastes, in
laboratories. This project will examine this alternative approach to hazardous waste management
because it is more systematic, more centralized, and more environmentally beneficial than the
approach currently being used by these universities. At the same time, the project will try to
integrate some of the current RCRA hazardous waste regulations with current Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. This will be accomplished by developing
an RCRA-based Environmental Management Plan (EMP) similar to the OSHA required Chemical
Hygiene Plan (CHP) at each university. Three universities are participating: University of
Massachusetts-Boston, Boston College, and University of Vermont-Burlington. The Laboratory
EMP will establish the parameters for meeting the minimum requirements for handling wastes at
each individual laboratory. The EMP is the mechanism through which the more general
Environmental Management Standards (EMSs) will be put into practice at each university. These
Laboratory EMSs include provisions similar to those required for compliance with the
International Organization of Standards (ISO) 14001 Environmental Management System.
The three New England university laboratories want to experiment with a Laboratory EMS
approach because it provides a means for comprehensively managing all laboratory hazardous
wastes. It is through the Laboratory EMP that the universities will have the opportunity, and the
obligation, to create a performance-based EMS. This comprehensive environmental management
approach will complement their OSHA requirements, encourage waste minimization, and
stimulate the redistribution and reuse of laboratory waste within each university.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The New England Universities Laboratories project provides the
participating universities a temporary conditional deferral from two specific RCRA regulations
(Hazardous Waste Determination and the Satellite Accumulation Provisions). These RCRA
regulations have been identified by the universities as impediments to a more efficient and
effective laboratory waste management system. This deferral is based on the universities'
compliance with the Laboratory EMP and Minimum Performance Criteria set forth in the site-
specific RCRA rule.
This project is expected to achieve superior environmental performance by setting ambitious goals
for the universities (i.e., 10 percent reduction in hazardous waste generation and a 20 percent
increase in the reuse of laboratory wastes). This effort will include the creation of a
comprehensive management system for achieving these goals through better tracking and control
of the hazardous waste, improved coordination of RCRA and OSHA regulatory compliance, and
a streamlined process for increasing regulatory compliance within the universities. In this project,
the requirement to define and implement laboratory waste management policies and procedures
will effectively manage laboratory waste at every stage of its handling and disposition. Full
compliance with RCRA requirements is required once laboratory waste is received at the on-site
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
hazardous waste accumulation area(s).
Environmental benefits also will result from increased environmental awareness: training, defined
policies and procedures, enhanced audit programs, and pollution prevention strategies are key
management elements. One element of the Laboratory EMP requires each University to define a
list of "hazardous chemicals of concern" and annually conduct a risk assessment survey of these
chemicals in the laboratory. This documented assessment will enhance both waste and risk
minimization efforts, and move laboratory personnel/inspectors away from discussions over
whether a hazardous material on the shelf is a RCRA hazardous waste.
Transferability: The Laboratory EMS is designed to offer a potential RCRA waste management
approach for research and teaching institutions. The long-term vision of the participating
universities in proposing the Laboratory Standard is that, by streamlining and coordinating the
RCRA and OSHA regulatory programs, an integrated and transferable Laboratory EMS will
allow scientists and researchers who move from one institution to another, or temporarily perform
research on a sabbatical at a different institution, to be subject to and familiar with a consistent
approach. The search for an alternative regulatory system for managing hazardous wastes in
laboratories is currently being discussed in California, North Carolina and other states, and
regions of the country. Minnesota has expressed interest in testing this Laboratory EMS and
other research organizations have expressed interest in becoming Dsecond tier adopters. D
Since Massachusetts and Vermont have been authorized to administer most of the RCRA
program in lieu of the Federal program, this rule will not take effect until both states adopt the
requirements as state law. Each state has begun the process of incorporating this new regulation
into their authorized programs while the Universities are in the process of developing their EMPs.
Three New England universities are participating in this project and implementing Laboratory
EMPs. All participants are members of the Campus Consortium for Environmental Excellence
(C2E2) originating in the New England geographic region. The lessons learned from these pilots
could be transferable to other C2E2 members. If results indicate success, the sharing of
information and resources from these pilots will not be limited to the New England geographic
area, however, and are expected to be transferable to other academic institutions, hospitals, and
corporations with extensive laboratory efforts. The types of information and resource sharing that
is envisioned include: (1) developing educational and training materials for laboratory workers;
(2) sharing information about managing and environmental performance monitoring for
laboratories; and (3) integrating environmental management with laboratory health and safety
practices.
RCRA Streamlining - Delistings and Variances
The Experiments): Under RCRA regulations, regulated entities may petition the Agency to
exempt or exclude materials from being classified as a solid or hazardous waste. Two of the
RCRA procedures being tested in the HADCO and Molex projects are respectively: conditional
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delistings and solid waste variances. Delisting is a form of relief for generators and handlers of
listed wastes with low concentrations of hazardous constituents. Through a site-specific process,
a waste handler can submit to an EPA Region or State a petition demonstrating that even though
a particular waste stream (generated at its facility) is a listed hazardous waste, it does not pose a
sufficient hazard to merit RCRA regulation.
Generators, owners, and operators of hazardous waste management facilities also may petition
EPA for a variance from their wastes being classified as a solid and hazardous waste. The
Agency may determine on a case-by-case basis that certain materials should not be classified as a
solid or hazardous waste.
HADCO is examining ways to overcome barriers to the recovery of metals that are associated
with sludge waste. There are three HADCO facilities in two different States— New York and
New Hampshire— currently involved in the project. The HADCO project tests various aspects of
hazardous materials recycling. Transporting hazardous waste sludges offsite is costly and there
are risks inherent in their long-distance transport. Onsite recycling of some of these materials may
be economically feasible. The HADCO project addresses three different waste recycling and
reduction questions: (1) Can F006 RCRA wastes be safely recycled by primary metals smelters or
other appropriate metal reclamation facilities? (2) Is it possible to recycle copper dusts, a current
by-product of HADCO operations that is being sent to a landfill? (3) Does the installation of
sludge dryers safely and economically reduce the volume of sludge wastes? The HADCO project
hopes to demonstrate that new regulatory approaches to safely handling sludge can favor
recycling certain wastes throughout the printed wiring board industry.
Molex has upgraded the wastewater treatment system at its Lincoln, Nebraska facility to optimize
the recovery of metals used in its electroplating processes. This is being accomplished through
use of a segregated treatment system for nickel, copper, and tin/lead wastestreams. EPA and
Nebraska issued Molex a temporary variance from hazardous waste regulations based on the
company's agreement to (1) routinely collect environmental data on the waste sludges and
wastewater effluent; and (2) collect appropriate cost information associated with the operation of
the segregated treatment system and sludge handling activities. Obtaining the temporary variance
classifies its segregated process sludge as a "commodity-like" material rather than as a hazardous
waste, allowing Molex to change not only the method of shipping (to common carriers from
hazardous waste haulers subject to RCRA regulations), but also the shipping frequency (on an as-
needed basis, rather than every 90-days as required for hazardous waste).
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: HADCO will measure the benefits of its copper recycling
experiments by estimating the reduction of air emissions associated with their truck shipments of
sludge wastes. The company hopes to reduce annual fuel usage by 75 percent once regulatory
relief is provided. In its 2000 annual report, HADCO submitted data developed from F006 sludge
shipments from 1995 through 1999, in addition to data analyses and estimates of additional
parameters for the same period. Once regulatory relief is provided HADCO will begin
documenting progress in meeting its fuel reduction goal in its annual reports. The company's
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annual goal is to reduce by 75 percent its air emissions based on F006 sludge shipment records
from 1995 through 1999. HADCO's future'annual reports will describe its progress on meeting
this goal once regulatory relief is secured. Similarly, HADCO expects to include in future annual
reports the project-related savings from the reclamation of its copper drilling, sawing, and edging
dusts, as well as from the reduction in copper use throughout the facility. HADCO installed one
sludge dryer in its Deny, New Hampshire facility, and the company's goal is to reduce the sludge
from this facility by 40 percent. HADCO will describe the utility of the sludge dryer installation in
future annual reports and discuss the feasibility of installing dryers in other New Hampshire
facilities.
The Molex project has been in implementation since August 1998. Molex intends to document
superior environmental performance by demonstrating that (1) its segregated waste treatment
system is technically feasible;(2) through greater metals recovery the environment will benefit
from a reduction of the amount of metals discharged to the community's publicly owned
treatment works (POTW); and (3) a greater quantity of wastewater treatment sludges can be
recycled or reclaimed.
In its Baseline Report, Molex estimated that it would be able to recycle 71,328 pounds of metals
sludges in a year. However, in the first three quarters of 2000, a total of 86,302 pounds of sludge
have been sent to the recycler, a 21 percent increase over the baseline estimate. Based on the
2000 Quarterly Reports, the segregated treatment system has resulted in:
• a 65 percent reduction in the concentration of total metals in the effluent discharged by the
POTW;
• decreased copper concentrations in the POTW's effluent by 81 percent;
• decreased nickel concentrations in the POTW's effluent by 80 percent; and
• decreased concentrations of tin (98 percent) and lead (3 percent) in the effluent being
discharged.
Transferability: By offering regulatory flexibility to HADCO and Molex, EPA and the States of
New York and New Hampshire, and Nebraska, respectively, are able to evaluate the effectiveness
of offering a conditional delisting or solid waste variance for RCRA-listed wastes so as to
encourage metals recycling and reduce solid waste generation. Many printing wiring board
manufacturers face similar environmental problems as HADCO, and the results of this experiment
may offer some data on how these problems may be addressed at other facilities.
The Molex project expects to reduce metals' loadings in its effluent discharges to the Lincoln,
Nebraska POTW by at least 50 percent. This goal should provide a benchmark against which
other potential requests for temporary variances may be measured. Fundamental to both of these
projects will be the environmental and economic feasibility of these alternative compliance
strategies. It must be demonstrated that these regulatory flexibilities not only cause no adverse
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environmental impact but also in fact offer significant environmental benefits.
Process Exemption—Innovative Copper Metallization
The Experiment(s): The technologically dynamic life cycle of semiconductor chip manufacturing
has led to a rapid evolution of manufacturing process technologies. IBM's semiconductor
manufacturing facility in Burlington, Vermont has developed and introduced a new, innovative
copper metallization step into the chip manufacturing process that uses a copper plating process
to deposit a layer of metal on the wafer. This process replaces the Aluminum Chemical Vapor
Deposition process, a dry process used for the current generation of semiconductor device
technologies. IBM's new metallization step adds 400 gallons per day of copper plating rinsewater
(present generation rate, rising to approximately 3000 gallons per day in 2002) to all other
process wastewaters (approximately 4.1 million gallons) generated at the Burlington facility.
Prior to implementation of this new metallization step, these other process wastewaters were not
regulated under RCRA.
Commingling of the copper plating rinsewater with all other wastewaters has required that the
Burlington facility classify all sludge generated by the wastewater treatment process (3 tons per
day) as an F006 hazardous waste, even though the copper plating rinsewater negligibly changes
pollutant concentrations in the sludge. Current RCRA regulations state that wastewater treatment
sludges from electroplating operations are F006 wastes, and this new plating process meets the
narrative description of electroplating. Rather than pursue delisting of the wastewater treatment
sludge, IBM Vermont sought a site specific process exemption from a F006 listing for its copper
plating rinsewater and resultant treatment sludge. This exemption removes an "upstream"
manufacturing process (copper metallization) from EPA's definition of an electroplating operation
as the newer process is considerably different from the electroplating that was performed when
the regulation was conceived. Specifically, this process does not involve plating baths of
thousands of gallons of water which can result in large amounts of toxic metals in wastewater
treatment sludges, instead using only 40 gallons of plating bath for several wafers.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: While the IBM Vermont project is early in implementation, this
new plating process has been developed to maximize efficient use of copper while minimizing the
release of copper into the wastewater treatment system. IBM Vermont has conducted analyses
of the plating bath and rinsewater that showed no presence of any RCRA materials of concern.
The copper metallization process is approximately 30-40 percent more energy efficient than the
previous generation process, producing a chip that is approximately 25 percent more efficient than
its predecessor. In addition, by replacing the Aluminum Chemical Deposition Vapor process, use
of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) - greenhouse gases - will be greatly reduced, eliminating the
emission of 10,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent. (Use of PFC will not be completely
eliminated however; the nature of semiconductor manufacturing still creates a need for some
vapor deposition of aluminum.) IBM has also committed to additional, voluntary greenhouse gas
emission reductions of 40 percent from the 1995 baseline as part of this project
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Due to reclassification of its wastewater treatment sludge, IBM's reported hazardous waste
production has increased by 170 percent per year, from 2.14 million pounds to 5.78 million
pounds (1999 totals), and waste management costs have increased by approximately $3,500 per
year. The State of Vermont has also waived its hazardous waste tax, saving IBM $225,000 per
year. This waiver will be made permanent by a rule change. In addition, conversion to the copper
metallization process is expected to result in operational savings up to $200,000 per year. As the
classification of the wastewater treatment sludge as an F006 hazardous waste has created limited
additional costs, the facility has been provided with little economic incentive to install a cost
prohibitive segregated treatment system that will prevent mixing of plating rinsewaters with
general treatment system influent. However, removal of F006 listing from the wastewater sludge
for this project will afford IBM Vermont the potential to investigate opportunities to recycle the
sludge for other uses.
Transfer ability: IBM's copper metallization process could have application in other chip
manufacturing facilities that are seeking to attain more efficient production methods while
reducing waste generation per unit output. By focusing on the production (copper metallization
process) side, this project also offers EPA an opportunity to test a different approach in
determining whether "downstream" treatment waste resulting from a new "upstream" process
should be subject to hazardous waste listings.
Water Regulations
Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs) that have mastered the programmatic aspects of the
industrial pretreatment program (identifying users, permitting, monitoring) are seeking to move
toward more performance-based environmental processes. Some POTWs want to make decisions
on allocating resources based on the risk associated with the industrial contributions they receive
or other factors. Others want to be able to focus more resources on ambient monitoring in their
receiving waters and/or to integrate their pretreatment programs with other environmental
monitoring programs. In general, POTWs want the opportunity to redirect limited resources
toward activities that they believe can enable greater environmental benefits. A performance-
based pretreatment program pilot can allow experimentation with certain programmatic
requirements of POTWs' approved Pretreatment Program. This flexibility would enable POTWs
to shift resources toward innovative activities likely to yield superior environmental results.
Project XL is sponsoring a series of projects involving POTWs. While each project examines
unique innovations, they all offer EPA the prospect for improving the pretreatment program as a
whole. They all test alternative methods for protecting the environment and better ways to
maintain healthy waterways.
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Table 4; Water Regulatory Innovations
ProieclfVt
Albuquerque
POTW
Denton POTW
Louisville-
Jefferson
County POTW
Steele County
Steele County
Innovation :
Integrating Pollution Prevention into Pretreatment: Resource reapportionment toward pollution
prevention outreach and implementation at 25 new industrial users a year, reduce or stabilize 13 water
pollutants of concern as well as mass and concentration loadings of influent, effluent, and biosolids.
Remote Monitoring and Watershed Protection'. Reduced monitoring and annual inspections while having
greater focus on pollutants in urban stormwater drainage. Resource savings from regulatory flexibility
reapportioned to watershed protection activities.
Watershed-based Pretreatment Management: Three phase project that will reallocate pretreatment
resources to develop a more holistic watershed protection approach. The FPA describes project Phases I
and 33 and will allow implementation of a third phase.
Mass-based Compliance Standard: Replace concentration-based categorical limits with mass-based
limits to help achieve overall industrial water reduction goals.
Reduced Monitoring for Regulated Pollutants Not Present: Reduced or eliminated monitoring for
regulated categorical pollutants not present in a facility's discharge.
Integrating Pollution Prevention into Pretreatment
The Expehment(s): The City of Albuquerque (New Mexico) POTW project aims to reduce the
amount of water pollutant loadings from business and industry in the City by integrating pollution
prevention activities with Albuquerque POTW's existing Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP).
This will be achieved by shifting resources from currently required IPP activities and
requirements. Albuquerque POTW's current pollution prevention outreach efforts will be
expanded through various methods and will be guided by new sampling and monitoring of sewer
system sub-basin manhole locations. Sub-basin monitoring will investigate the feasibility of
detecting where in the City certain pollutants of concern are most prevalent. The Albuquerque
POTW project will create a baseline from which a pollution prevention program can be
customized to meet the requirements of an area. Sub-basin monitoring is a change from the
current system of sampling influent at the POTW and deducing the upstream source(s). The
monitoring information will be used to target the development and promotion of pollution
prevention outreach material at appropriate locations and businesses within the sub-basin(s) of the
City.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Albuquerque POTW seeks to optimize its resources to achieve
institutional integration of pollution prevention into its NPDES pretreatment program. The
project commits Albuquerque POTW to pursuing reduction or stabilization of 13 water pollutants
of concern. To achieve these goals, Albuquerque POTW will look to implement pollution
prevention at a targeted 25 new businesses a year.
Pollutant reductions will be guided by sewer sub-basin monitoring to determine the locations
where certain pollutants of concern predominate. Actual pollutant levels will be monitored in the
sub-basins before pollution prevention outreach and implementation occurs. Once the monitoring
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baseline is established, certain sub-basins could receive more focused and intense pollution
prevention outreach efforts depending on the type and amount of pollutants identified. This is
expected to result in an eventual stabilization and/or decline of targeted pollutants of concern,
reducing targeted pollutants by 10 to 20 percent over time.
Transfembilify: The materials, methods and lessons learned from pollution prevention approaches
in the Albuquerque POTW project could be transferable and serve as a model for other cities.
Given the ability to shift resources to support such activities, sewer sub-basin monitoring could
also be transferred to other POTWs. Sub-basin monitoring has the potential to provide focus to
broader commercial and residential sectors. This project provides an opportunity to evaluate the
benefits and obstacles of directing pollution prevention outreach materials at specific locations and
businesses.
Remote Monitoring and Watershed Protection
The Experiment(s): The Denton POTW project is using regulatory flexibility to begin
development of a watershed protection program for the Pechan Creek. The City of Denton,
Texas (Denton POTW) will receive flexibility from the Pretreatment Program to modify its annual
industrial user inspection and monitoring schedule for individually approved facilities and focus on
pollutants in urban stormwater drainage. Saved resources due to this flexibility will be
reapportioned to site-specific watershed protection activities including developing buffer zones
along underdeveloped areas in the watershed and establishing a remote creek monitoring network
integrated with a local flash flood warning system. This remote monitoring network, being
developed in partnership with the University of North Texas, will transmit real time water quality
data from automated, remote monitoring stations located up and downstream from the POTW.
Denton POTW plans to create an administrative mechanism to allow buffer zone creation in
underdeveloped drainage basins of watersheds lying within the Denton boundary. These
easements, which Denton POTW hopes to establish at a minimum of 50 feet, will create a
network of vegetation that should result in the reduction of suspended solids, nitrogen and
phosphorous fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The Denton POTW project tests the application and development
of technological methods to achieve stormwater and watershed monitoring requirements with
minimal personnel demand. The project will focus on establishing baseline ambient conditions of
Pechan Creek with monitoring designed to assess the impact of pollution control measures.
The Denton POTW will assess the impact of its efforts to control stormwater runoff and pollution
using elements of the State of Texas' Receiving Water Assessment and Clean Rivers Program.
Water quality and aesthetic indicators will be used to measure the effectiveness of all proposed
watershed protection activities.
Transferability: This project will test the application and development of technological methods
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to monitor a watershed that creates minimal demand on personnel. The use of technology
(remote monitoring) to accomplish tasks that would otherwise require extensive staff demand
could serve as a model for other POTWs looking for innovative watershed protection approaches.
Watershed-based Pretreatment Management
The Experiment(s): The Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD)
wants to more effectively manage its local pretreatment program and establish links between other
District wastewater programs (e.g., stormwater). This will move MSD toward a more holistic
watershed protection strategy for the Chenoweth Run watershed. The MSD project will move
forward in three phases: (1) data collection and development of pretreatment performance
measures; (2) pretreatment program redesign to reduce key pollutants and identify areas of
resource inefficiency; and (3) new program implementation to reduce mass loadings. Phase I of
the project was cemented in a Phase I agreement. Phase II is described in greater detail in the
FPA. Phase III is intended to result in resource savings that MSD can shift to pollution
prevention outreach activities, first within the pretreatment program and then in other watershed
based programs.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The MSD project has proposed to better manage the
Jeffersontown POTW's pretreatment program through a holistic watershed approach. In Phase I,
MSD collected supplemental and improved data from "strategic" points in the sewer collection
system. This data, combined with existing pollutant data, enabled MSD to establish a baseline for
pollutant loadings. Once this baseline was established, MSD developed loading projections and
reductions, performance measures, and craft new pretreatment program elements.
MSD has already realized benefits from meaningful data and better coordination of information.
MSD expects to realize further benefit through enhanced response to wastewater treatment plant
upsets, reapportioning monies that would have been spent on permitting and monitoring to
pollution prevention projects within the watershed. These projects are intended to maintain or
decrease loadings of certain pollutants within the watershed.
MSD is also committing to continue its: monitoring of the Chenoweth Run watershed for
pollutants of concern; developing agreements with eligible industry for pollution prevention
projects; and conducting assessments of pretreatment program performance against performance
measures. The FPA specifies performance measures for pollutants of concern to be a percentage
reduction below water quality criteria, local NPDES permits limits and biosolids disposal criteria.
Transferability: Once this new program is fully underway, other municipalities could draw
important lessons from MSD's experience in developing and implementing a performance-based,
and ultimately holistic watershed protection strategy. Also co-regulators (states, tribes and EPA)
have the opportunity to analyze the challenges posed by a regulatory structure that does not
integrate programs - and to find solutions in more holistic approaches.
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Mass-based Compliance Standard
The Experiment(s): The Steele County project sponsors are pursuing a community-wide project
to address industrial wastewater effluent reductions in two municipalities, Owatonna and
Blooming Prairie, Minnesota. The project sponsors are a collection of local industrial users,
primarily metal finishing facilities, that will commit to a cumulative reduction of some regulated
wastewater effluents while reducing overall water usage.
One project goal is to facilitate water conservation measures at sponsor facilities. To effectively
institute such measures, sponsors in Owatonna sought regulatory flexibility to express
concentration-based Pretreatment categorical limits with mass-based limits. The CWA's National
Pretreatment Standards establish limits on pollutants in specific industrial categories. The
standards establish pollutant limitations in different ways for different categories. The Owatonna
sponsor facilities are currently operating under concentration-based standards. Current
regulations do not allow alternative mass-based limits to be substituted for a concentration-based
limit when the applicable standard is expressed in terms of concentration. This lack of flexibility
can cause obstacles for industrial users that are attempting to reduce or minimize water use. By
reducing volume, water conservation can increase the concentration of pollutants, even if the total
mass of pollutants has decreased. A facility that has cut its water use might exceed its
concentration-based limit despite having reduced pollutants in its discharge. By complying with a
mass-based limit that is equivalent to or less than the total pollutant load from a concentration
limit, pollutant loading would be unchanged or reduced, even though effluent concentration might
have increased. Through the Steele County project, the local POTW is able allow sponsor
facilities in Owatonna to use mass-based limits in lieu of concentration limits for discharges to the
wastewater treatment facility.
Sponsor facilities will also pursue wastewater effluent reductions that are greater than what is
achieved under current regulations. The sponsors in Owatonna, a group of small-to-medium
sized facilities, have made a voluntary commitment to a 20 percent reduction in the discharge of
each of four priority metals (chromium, copper, nickel, zinc). The sponsor facility in Blooming
Prairie has made a voluntary commitment to a 20 percent reduction in biological oxygen demand
(BOD), total suspended solids (TSS) and total Kjheldal Nitrogen (TKN) that flow to the local
POTW. If these discharge reductions goals are met, sponsor facilities could receive flexibility in
the form of reduced monitoring frequency.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: In return for the equivalent mass-based limit flexibility, Owatonna
sponsor facilities have committed to a goal of reducing the total amount of water flowing from
sponsor facilities to the wastewater treatment facility by 10 percent over the course of the project.
Regulatory limits for industrial discharges from the sponsor facilities will remain in effect, but
these limits will be changed from concentration-based to equivalent mass-based limits. Any
exceedance of a mass-based limit could result in the use of a traditional enforcement tool. To
ensure the appropriateness of the mass-based limits, sponsor facilities will be required to notify
the POTW in the event that production rates vary, impacting mass loading.
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For the Owatonna sponsor facilities, if the metal discharge goals are met, the POTW would have
the option to reduce the frequency of monitoring from quarterly to bi-annual monitoring for
facilities with satisfactory compliance records. For the Blooming Prairie sponsor facility, if the
effluent discharge goals are met, the frequency of monitoring for BOD, TSS and TKN could
change from a weekly requirement to a bi-monthly schedule.
Transferability: The Steele County project will serve as a test case for the use of equivalent mass-
based limits as an alternative to concentration-based limits. As more industries and municipalities
institute water conservation practices due to supply constraints, environmental conditions, or
costs, the mass-based limit option has the potential to be transferred to facilities heavily dependent
on water who are operating under a concentration-based categorical Pretreatment Standard.
EPA is currently considering allowing POTWs to set equivalent mass-based limits as an
alternative to concentration limits to meet concentration-based categorical Pretreatment Standards
on a national scale through the proposed rule Streamlining the General Pretreatment Regulations
for Existing and New Sources of Pollution (July 22, 1999 64FR39564). The Steele County
project is helping to inform that process. It is also helping to determine whether providing mass-
based limit flexibility prior to implementation of water conservation efforts will encourage more
widespread adoption of such practices.
Reduction or Elimination of Monitoring for Regulated Pollutants Not Present
The Experiments). Steele County project sponsors in Owatonna may be provided flexibility by
the local POTW to allow them to reduce or eliminate monitoring for any pollutant regulated by a
categorical pretreatment standard if that pollutant is not present in the facility's discharge. Under
current regulations, industrial users subject to categorical Pretreatment Standards are required to
submit reports at least twice a year to their Control Authority indicating the nature and
concentration of all pollutants limited by the standards. (For most municipalities, as for
Owatonna, the Control Authority is the local POTW). In addition, the local POTWs must sample
facility sponsors at least annually for all regulated pollutants. This sampling is required for all
pollutants limited by a categorical standard, even if the pollutants are not reasonably expected to
be present in the effluent.
Under the Steele County project, the local POTW will be able to modify an Industrial User's
permit to reduce or eliminate sampling for regulated pollutants not discharged by the sponsor
facility based on 3 years of sponsor effluent data. This flexibility will apply to any categorical
pollutants that are not expected to be present in the waste stream at levels greater than
background in the water supply, with no increase in the pollutant due to the industrial user's
activities4.
4 This flexibility will not apply to Industrial Users subject to the Categorical Standards for the Organic
Chemicals Plastics and Synthetic Fibers point source category. 40 CFR Part 414.
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Results'Anticipated Outcomes: The Steele County project gives the participating POTWs the
flexibility to allow facility sponsors to eliminate or reduce monitoring. This determination will be
based on both sampling data and other technical data (raw material usage, industrial processes and
potential process by-products). Existing data on pollutant concentrations in the local public water
supply will help characterize background concentrations. If a sponsor facility uses an alternative
water supply, representative sampling will be needed to characterize background pollutant
concentrations from the alternative influent. At least three years of facility sponsor effluent data
will then be compared to the background data in making the determination that a given pollutant
is not expected to be present. This determination will also be based on raw materials used,
industrial processes and potential process by-products. It will not consider the capability or
efficiency of the sponsor facility's pretreatment system. Once the POTW determines that one or
more regulated pollutants are not expected to be present at a sponsor facility, it can modify that
sponsor's permit to reduce or eliminate monitoring requirements for those pollutants.
The POTW will sample and analyze the applicable sponsor for all pollutants limited by the
categorical standard at least once during the term of the sponsor facility's permit. Sponsor
facilities will remain subject to the categorical standards for pollutants determined not to be
present, and will need to resume sampling if the pollutant is found to be present at levels greater
than background in the water supply. As a condition of the revised permit, sponsor facilities will
be required to submit a brief certification statement that there has not been an increase of the
pollutant(s) due to activities along with the standard semi-annual monitoring reports.
Transferability. By testing the flexibility to waive or reduce monitoring for categorical standard
pollutants not expected to be present in the waste stream, the Steele County project approach
could be applied broadly by POTWs. This reduced monitoring approach was proposed as part of
the July 22, 1999 proposed rule affecting the National Pretreatment Regulations.
Site Cleanup
In response to growing concern over health and environmental risks posed by hazardous waste
sites, Congress established CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund, on December 11, 1980.
This law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided Federal authority to
respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger
public health or the environment. By April 2000, more than 100 Superfund sites (many thought
to be unusable) have already been recycled without an organized effort on the part of EPA. The
Agency is now embarking on a coordinated effort called the Superfund Site Redevelopment
Initiative - begun in July, 1999 - to facilitate the return these sites to productive use. Through
partnerships with states, tribes, other federal agencies, local governments, communities,
landowners, developers, and parties potentially responsible for contamination, EPA has achieved
substantial results protecting public health and the environment, while piloting and experimenting
with improvements to the cleanup process.
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Table 5: Site Cleanup Regulatory Innovations
Proiect(s)
ExxonMobil
Innovation
CERCL4 Streamlining to Recycle Superfund Site: Streamlined strategy for Superfund site remediation;
early consideration and planning in remediation process for site redevelopment and reuse.
CERCLA Streamlining to Recycle Superfund Site
The Experiment fs): Proposed in September 1998, the ExxonMobil project implements a
streamlined strategy to the traditional Superfund remediation approach to expedite the cleanup of
the Fairmont (West Virginia) Coke Works Superfund Site (Site). To clean up the Site,
ExxonMobil will be administering a series of changes to the traditional Superfund process that
will affect site characterization, risk assessment, management of onsite landfills, and mitigation
requirements for on-site wetlands. Although many of the administrative procedures being used in
this project are available through CERCLA, concurrent use of them represents a departure from
conventional cleanup actions. These changes are intended to minimize the impact of the
Superfund site on human health and the environment, enabling the Site to be cleaned up in
approximately half the time a normal Superfund response might take.
Site Mitigation: While maintaining protection of human health and the environment. ExxonMobil is seeking
to reduce the total time involved in cleaning up the Site. Due to the specific nature of contamination at the
Site, it was recommended that a non-time critical (NTC) removal action framework be used to address the
remediation of process areas and waste management units at the Site. Removal actions are short-term
responses to mitigate imminent threats to the public or the environment while remedial actions are longer-
term clean-up actions to permanently remedy problems at a site. The NTC action will be consistent with
any long-term remedial action at the Site. Other potential cleanup issues at the Site (e.g.. groundwater
contamination) will be addressed by the remedial action process. EPA site managers have estimated that
this use of a NTC removal action will result in a faster, more efficient cleanup. ExxonMobil plans to use
removal and remedial actions in a coordinated manner to reduce the total time involved in cleaning up the
Site.
Site Characterization: ExxonMobil and EPA negotiated the use of an Engineering Evaluation/ Cost
Analysis (EE/CA) to temporarily replace a Remedial Investigation/ Feasibility Study (RI/FS).5 The
EE/CA is a flexible document tailored to identify and analyze the scope, goals and effectiveness of the
NTC removal action. The detail of the EE/CA is determined by the scope of the NTC action. Although
not required by EE/CA guidance, and Ecological Risk Assessment is being conducted on the Site.
Risk Assessment: A baseline human health risk assessment will be conducted as a required part of the
5 Under a traditional Superfund remedial action, once a site is listed on the NPL, a Remedial Investigation (RI) is
performed to characterize the site and determine nature of the contamination. As part of the RI, a risk assessment is
performed to determine baseline risk to human and environmental receptors. A Feasibility Study (FS) is conducted
concurrently with a RI to establish remedial action objectives and evaluate all remedial alternatives in detail. In
consultation with the appropriate State agency, a remediation plan is selected and documented in a Record of Decision
(ROD). Remedial design (RD) technical specifications are selected based on the ROD and then the remedial action CRA)
phase implements the cleanup.
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EE/CA. Human health risk assessments conducted as part of Superfund programs have generally included
an evaluation of potential risks associated with residential exposure scenarios, unless the future use of the
site is commercial/industrial. The assessment of potential risk associated with direct exposure to
contamination at the Site was limited to commercial/ industrial exposure scenarios. The scope of risk
evaluation conducted as part of the NTC removal action was between the limited risk evaluation
undertaken for a time critical removal action and the conventional risk assessment conducted for remedial
actions. ExxonMobil has ownership of the property, thus it can limit the redevelopment options for the site
to commercial or industrial uses through institutional controls such as deed restrictions.
Site Management: A specific area in the northern part of the Site will be designated as an Area of
Contamination (AOC)6 to avoid triggering a RCRA land disposal restriction (LDR) during remediation
activities. Under RCRA. land disposal or placement of RCRA classified hazardous wastes without
previous treatment is generally restricted. Under the AOC concept. EPA has designated activities not
considered land disposal or placement. All waste management units in the Northeast area of the Site will
be designated as a single AOC so that onsitc waste management can proceed in a regulator.' compliant and
efficient manner without being construed as placement or invoking an LDR. This designation is justified
due to the close proximity of the landfills.
Wetlands Mitigation: Some wetland areas (e.g. drainage channels) were formed during interim removal
actions on the Site between 1993 and 1996. ExxonMobil has prepared a map identifying potential wetland
areas created by the removal actions and EPA will evaluate the mapped areas and determine flexible
mitigation requirements for the Site based on the following: (1) If any of the mapped wetland areas are
part of existing treatment of drainage systemsr no mitigation will be required. (2) In addition, if, in the
process of anticipated Site clean up. these wetland areas will be improved due to grading or reconstruction.
such actions could be considered mitigation. Wetlands created during the 1993-1996 EPA removal actions
not fitting the above criteria will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: ExxonMobil has mapped wetland areas created during the earlier
removal actions. The map areas are being reviewed by EPA and the State of West Virginia.
Completion of the EE/CA and NTC removal actions is expected in the coming months.
This project has been designed to achieve accelerated remediation and improved environmental
protection. Coordination of removal and remedial actions by ExxonMobil will result in a more
rapid progression through site characterization, remedy selection and remediation phases without
compromising the technical aspects of the Superfund program. This approach will allow the Site
to be cleaned up in approximately half the time a normal Superfimd response might take. As a
direct result of an accelerated cleanup, control and management measures will be implemented
sooner to mitigate the extent of migration of contamination. Risks to human health and the
environment will be minimized or eliminated sooner due to the shorter cleanup time frame. In
addition, ExxonMobil will experience a reduced administrative burden through the use of
6 EPA defines an AOC as a non-discrete land area on which there is generally dispersed contamination. The AOC concept
arose out of the EPA's definition of "land disposal" and was introduced as a tool for the management of remediation
wastes. Land disposal is broadly defined to include virtually any placement of hazardous waste on the land, including
temporary placement.
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
streamlined risk assessment, site characterization processes and data submissions.
Transferability: At this stage in the project, it is too early to measure changes in environmental
performance, but by examining options for streamlining the Superfund clean up response timeline,
this project can serve as a model for expeditiously and effectively cleaning up a Superfund site and
facilitating its return back to productive use. As the project proceeds, there will be an opportunity
to analyze how streamlined risk assessment and focused site characterization can provide benefits
to the community and environment and how expedited cleanup schedules can help mitigate
migration of contamination and reduce or eliminate potential risks to human health and the
environment.
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Volume I: Innovation* in Core Functions
Permitting
EPA, state and tribal programs require industrial and municipal facilities to obtain permits that
limit their emissions and discharges to the air, land, and water. Permits, which contain detailed
descriptions of proposed activity and operating procedures, are the chief vehicles through which
statutes and regulations are translated into facility-level ordinances. They have been one of our
most effective environmental protection tools, and are the nexus at which most people first
encounter the regulatory process. Permit provisions may include any combination of
requirements addressing (1) limits on emissions or effluents, (2) monitoring, reporting, and
recordkeeping, (3) pollution treatment or control technologies, (4) management practices, and (5)
pollution prevention requirements. Permits are typically issued by states, tribes or EPA (when a
co-regulator permitting program has not yet been approved by EPA). Interested stakeholders are
encouraged to provide input into the permitting process during the mandated public comment
opportunities.
The present system has developed into a sophisticated one that controls significant sources of
pollution from industrial and municipal facilities. However, government permitting regulations
reflect the single media, "command-and-control" focus of our environmental statutes. Industry,
government and community partners recognize the need to design flexible permitting approaches
that are fundamentally performance-based. The essence of the performance-based approach is to
shift the focus of environmental permitting toward measurement and assurance of performance,
while providing flexibility in how a regulated entity meets performance standards. In theory, a
system that focuses more on a facility's overall environmental impacts, and less on narrow
decisions about particular technologies or process changes, should be more beneficial to the
public as well as less prescriptive for the facility. Project XL experiments with approaches that
apply this theory, as briefly described in Table 6.
Table 6: Permitting Innovations
,_ . ...
Proiectfs)
Intel
Weyerhaeuser
Merck
Imation
Andersen
ElmendorfAFB
International
Paper - El
'Media
Air
Air
Air
Water
. . . :,:. . . . . Jfonovatiort : . . ;
Facilitywide Permit Air Emission Caps: Flexible use of Plant Site Emission Limits (PSEL),
Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit, or Plantwidc Applicability Limits
(PALs), facility-wide emissions caps allow preapproval of production changes without
recurring permit revisions.
Performance-based Permitting: Incentive approach to reduce VOC emissions based on per
unit of production emissions limit.
Pollution Prevention Incentives through Title V Streamlining: New approach to streamline
Title V permit process leading to cost savings that can be applied to currently non-funded
pollution prevention projects.
Tailoring NPDES Effluent Improvements. Through use of a collaborative process, IP will
replace a set of qualitative regulatory requirements - Best Management Practices (BMI's)
from the water portion of EPA's Pulp and Paper Cluster Rules - with targeted, enforceable
and quantitative NPDES permit limits
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Proiect(s>
Weyerhaeuser
Bern'
Media
Water
Multi-
media
Innovation
Water Effluent Limits: A revised NPDES permit reflecting more stringent limits on BOD,
TSS. and AOX. Voluntary reductions below permit limits resulted in no fish tissue sampling
or water body assimilative capacity studies.
Comprehensive Operating Permit: Consolidate individual media permits into a multimedia
all permit reporting requirements for a facility.
Facility-Wide Permit Air Emission Caps
The Experiments}: The complexities of air regulations require a considerable effort by both
regulators and facilities in their preparation and review of permit applications for many process
modifications. Project XL is testing how innovations in the air permitting systems can reduce a
facility's environmental impact, while streamlining the permitting process and reducing
paperwork. Using facilitywide emission caps is a way to bring about such changes. Facilitywide
emission caps are designed to prevent growth in discharges from both existing and future
stationary sources. In general, such provisions require that any emission increase from equipment
at a facility be offset by emission reductions from other equipment under the same cap. Table 7
includes the Project XL experiments with facility-wide air emission caps under the following
permits: Prevention of Significant Air Quality Deterioration (PSD), New Source Review (NSR),
and Title V of the Clean Air Act (CAA).
Table 7: Facilitywide Permitting in XL
Project/
Permit Type
Approach
Emission Caps
Intel
New Source
Review
(Minor)
EPA and the State of Arizona have provided Intel with the
flexibility to make equipment and process changes and construct
new facilities at the site without air quality permit reviews, as
long as the Plant Site Emission Limits (PSELs) are not exceeded
and all other FPA and permit limits are met. To provide an
additional safety factor, Arizona Ambient Air Quality Guideline
limits for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) will not be exceeded at
the Intel facility property line or elsewhere on the site.
Emissions for the entire facility
are capped as follows: VOCs at 40
tons per year, NOx and CO; at 49
tons per year. SO, and particulate
matter at five tons per year.
phosphine at four tons per year;
sulfuric acid at nine tons per year;
organic HAPs and inorganic HAPs
at 10 tons per year.
Weyerhaeuser
New Source
Review
EPA and the State of Georgia have modified the facility's existing
air quality permit to include dual emission caps for air pollutants.
The dual emission caps are (1) a cap that allows the recovery
furnace, smelt dissolving tank, calciner. and combination boiler
(the facility's major sources emissions) to be operated to their
design capacity without triggering permit review, and 2) a cap
covering all facility sources except those four major sources. The
modified air quality permit streamlines the permit renewal
process, includes alternate excess emission reporting protocols,
and includes a protocol for conducting manufacturing process
experiments without triggering a permit review.
The caps reduce allowable air
emissions by 60 percent. The dual
emission caps apply to particulate
matter, SO 3f NO x . CO „ VOCs.
and total reduced sulfur (odor-
causing pollutant).
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Project/
Permit Type
Approach
Emission Caps
Merck
Prevention of
Significant Air
Quality
Deterioration
EPA and the State of Virginia issued a new PSD air quality permit
for a facility wide air emissions cap at the Merck Stonewall Plant.
Under the new permit, changes or additions to facility operations
that result in emission increases will no longer require prior
approval under either Federal or State regulations. The new
permit provides the flexibility to implement a change in
operations that increases emissions within the constraints of the
emission caps In addition, Merck will have the option of
reducing the facilitywide caps instead of implementing specific
control technologies prescribed by certain future regulations.
The facility wide cap limits total
emissions of criteria air pollutants
to levels 20 percent below
baseline (i.e., prior actual
emissions): SO, emissions to
levels 25 percent belov, baseline
levels, NOX emissions to levels 10
percent below baseline levels, and
paniculate matter to levels
approximately equal to baseline
levels.
Imation
New Source
Review
Imation will use the concept of a pollutant-specific, plantwide
applicability limit (PAL) for New Source Review (NSR) purposes.
The PAL concept is intended to allow major sources to avoid case-
by-case NSR applicability determinations. Instead, under the PAL
concept, sources are allowed to make facility modifications
without triggering major or minor NSR so long as their actual
emissions do not exceed the PAL, which is set at a level
representative of actual emissions. The existing preconstruction
air permitting regulations that govern modifications at the facility,
specifically the CAA minor NSR and major non-attainment NSR
regulations, require that changes to Imation's manufacturing
processes must be reviewed and approved in advance by the
Ventura County (California) Air Pollution Control District
(VCAPCD)
Imation Camarillo will be subject
to a PAL (a voluntary emission
cap) for VOC emissions of 150
tons per year (tpy). Emission caps
for other pollutants include: CO.
30 tons per year, NOx, 8 tons per
year; paniculate matter and SO2,
less than 15 tons per year each;
any individual hazardous air
pollutant (HAP) less than 10 tons
per year.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Under Project XL's flexible approach to permitting, businesses
have avoided costly production delays. They also have improved their worker health and safety
standards, increased the public's access to useful environmental information, and reduced their
facility's emissions to the environment:
• Since 1997, Intel's Chandler facility has remained well under its air emission caps. The facility
continues to avoid millions of dollars worth of production delays by eliminating 30 to 50 permit
reviews a year. Early this year, Intel announced it will build its first 300 millimeter, high
volume production manufacturing facility at Chandler. The company said it will invest $2.0
billion to build and equip the wafer fabrication facility. The company will seek this expansion
under its existing air emissions cap establish by Project XL in 1996.
• Merck expects to avoid millions of dollars worth of production delays by eliminating repetitive
permit reviews.
• Since 1997, the Weyerhaeuser Flint River facility has remained under its caps. In 1999
Weyerhaeuser was 33 percent under its cap for PM, 44 percent for total reduced sulfur, 66
percent for sulfur dioxide (SO2), 37 percent for nitrogen oxide (NOx), 36 percent for carbon
monoxide (CO), and 61 percent for volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
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• Imation's emission caps for other criteria pollutants include: NOx, 8.34 tons per year; CO and
S02, less than 5 tons per year, respectively. The site-specific air permit will allow Imation to
avoid potentially costly delays in making changes in their existing magnetic tape manufacturing
equipment and processes provided that their air emissions remain below the caps and all other
air permit conditions are satisfied. In addition, Imation must meet a minimum of 95 percent
and 100 percent capture efficiency for organic compounds (VOCs and hazardous air pollutants
(HAPs)) emitted from coating manufacturing operations at the facility.
Transferability: By focusing on the total emissions of a facility, Project XL is testing and
confirming flexible emission reduction strategies that may be both duplicated at similar facilities
across the country and integrated into EPA's existing regulatory regime. These concepts have
already begun to be integrated into the national regulatory system. The recent Pharmaceutical
MACT regulations promulgated in April 1998 have incorporated lessons learned from the Merck
project, allowing the limited preapproval of certain types of production changes without requiring
permit revision for each modification. The Agency is formally considering further expanding this
use of preapproval and "cap permits."
In addition, these projects are testing alternative major NSR applicability systems that allow
"Plantwide Applicability Limits" or PALs instead of traditional NSR netting for determining
whether modifications are subject to major NSR. Through a proposed NSR rule, EPA would
make PALs more broadly available, enabling plants to establish capped limits on their total
emissions in exchange for increased flexibility to add and subtract production units without having
to go through New Source Review and the associated permitting. This would provide
communities with certainty that emissions will not increase above permitted levels. EPA is also
developing guidance on flexible permitting approaches that will allow a facility to permit
alternative operating scenarios, establish limits on emissions and use other techniques to provide
them with operational flexibility for the life of the permit.
Performance-based Permitting
The Experiments): The Andersen project establishes an innovative, incentive-based per unit
emission measure intended to reduce Andersen's VOC emissions at the Bayport, Minnesota
facility. Unlike traditional permitting, the Andersen project will receive a permit that uses a
combination of a plantwide VOC emissions cap and a performance ratio based on VOCs emitted
per cubic feet of product shipped. Traditional regulatory approaches impose penalties for poor
environmental performance but have not focused on encouraging improved performance once a
facility is in compliance. The performance ratio approach will have consequences for poor
performance like the current regulatory system, and will include rewards for beyond compliance
performance. This will provide an incentive for Andersen to continue to improve the
environmental performance of its Bayport facility.
One of the means Andersen will use to achieve its reduced VOC and paniculate matter emissions
levels will be through the expanded use of Fibrex material. The Fibrex composite material is a
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combination of reclaimed sawdust and vinyl. The manufacture of Fibrex composite allows for the
use of wood byproduct materials, rather than the use of virgin wood. The use of Fibrex materials
is beneficial since it reduces the need for raw material and requires no wood preservation
treatment, which accounts for a substantial amount of VOC air emissions from the Bayport
facility. Expanded use of Fibrex composite will result in substantial reductions in the emissions of
VOCs per unit of production.
In addition, Andersen wants to increase the use of its in-line waterborne treatment systems and
reduce the use of solvent-based wood preservatives. The current regulatory system discourages
the use of the waterborne treatment systems such that Andersen has to use a greater amount of
solvent-based wood treatment. Because solvent-based treatment emits substantially more VOCs
than waterborne treatment, current regulations actually cause Andersen to have greater VOC
emissions at it facility. This project removes the limits on Andersen's use of its in-line waterborne
treatment systems, so that Andersen can make greater use of this environmentally-beneficial
process.
Andersen may also experiment with recycling windows as feedstock for the Fibrex process. This
entails collecting old window components from buildings where replacement windows are being
installed, removing the paint (some of which may contain lead), processing the lead for reuse, and
using the wood as feedstock for the Fibrex processes. Andersen's goal is to manage its window
take-back program without invoking RCRA treatment, storage, and disposal facility requirements.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The Andersen project emphasizes an incentive-based system for
the reduction of Andersen's VOC emissions per unit of product produced. The cap on per unit
VOC emissions will ensure that Andersen's per unit VOC emission rate does not significantly
exceed their range of current actual VOC emissions per unit. The penalty limit will be set at two
standard deviations above Andersen's five-year average per unit emission rate. The reason for
setting the rate at two standard deviations is that the emission rate fluctuates on a daily basis
depending on production need: Fibrex demand, use of waterborne treatment, use of solvent-
based treatment, and the number of painted windows ordered. This approach, which is not
available under existing regulatory schemes, is intended to "lock-in" existing efficient
manufacturing methods and processes while encouraging environmental efficiency and rewarding
continued improvement. Andersen will use as a baseline the penalty limit (an enforceable pound
per unit limit for its VOC emissions) the other performance limits and thus the performance ratio
will be based on the penalty limit. Table 8 describes the various performance limits used.
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Table 8: VOC Emission Performance Limits
Community
Advisory
Council
(CAC) Limit
The CAC limit serves as the main limit for evaluating Andersen's ongoing performance. The CAC limit is
the average of the prior five years' performance ratios and will be recalculated once even- three years. It
\vil! decline if appropriate, and \vill increase only if the changes are approved, with concurrence of EPA
and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency If its annual performance ratio exceeds the CAC limit.
Andersen will be required to provide a specific explanation of the exceedance to the CAC as well as
establish an approved corrective action plan to bring the performance ratio below the limit. The CAC - a
group individuals representing local residents, employees, environmental groups and government officials -
was formed to assist Andersen in development and implementation of this project.
Enforcement
Limit
A static enforcement limit for the ten-year duration of the project will be established using the initial CAC
limit plus two standard deviations.
Project Limit
The project limit will be set at two standard deviations above the CAC limit. It will be the same as the
enforcement limit for the first three years, but will be adjusted with the CAC limit. The project limit will
never exceed the enforcement limit.
Reward Limit
This limit will be two standard deviations below the CAC limit. The reward limit will not increase and
will only decline if Andersen remains below it for three consecutive years. In addition to the per unit VOC
limits described above, Andersen plans to make enforceable commitments to keep its overall VOC
emissions for both its Bayport facilities below 2,397 tons per year. Andersen also will maintain a VOC
emission sub-limit of 96 tons per year at its as yet undeveloped West facility.
Transferability: The Andersen project tests whether a tiered air emission ratio system with both
rewards and penalties can provide a better incentive than traditional approaches for reducing air
emissions. Specifically, EPA will gain reference data as to whether emission rates per unit of
production can be used to effectively limit VOC emissions and encourage environmental
efficiency.
In addition, the project will provide information on whether RCRA Treatment Storage and
Disposal requirements can be eliminated for companies that plan to reuse materials. This could be
useful to other window manufacturing and production facilities as well as other manufacturers
who are interested in reuse or product "take back."
Pollution Prevention Incentives through Title V Streamlining
The Experiment(s). The Elmendorf Air Force Base (Elmendorf AFB) XL/EN WEST7 project
tests an approach to air pollutant source permitting and administrative management for military
installations. Elmendorf AFB is looking to (1) reduce air pollution through prevention at the
source, and (2) demonstrate the feasibility of alternative-fuel vehicles in the Anchorage, Alaska
area. Elmendorf AFB is seeking regulatory relief from its monitoring and recordkeeping
requirements by streamlining its CAA Title V permit process.
'As part of the Administration's reinvention initiative. EPA and DoD signed a Memorandum of Agreement in 1995 that
established how the two agencies will interact during implementation of DoD's Environmental Investment (ENWEST)
program. The ENVVEST program emphasizes regulatory compliance through pollution prevention and provides an
alternative to prescriptive regulatory requirements through a performance-based environmental management system
designed to attain superior environmental results.
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Under Title V, military installations are treated as a single major emissions source, with
accountability for all emission sources at the installation. The CAA requires that each installation
permit not only large pollutant sources, but also a significant number of smaller sources. For
Elmendorf AFB, this would involve the permitting of 106 separate sources under a Title V permit
which would create costly administrative burdens for Elmendorf and regulatory agencies.
Elmendorf AFB has proposed to use the Project XL/ENVVEST process to help reduce CO
emissions and to reallocate money, currently earmarked for Title V permitting requirements, into
other currently non-funded pollution prevention projects. Elmendorf AFB intends to demonstrate
superior environmental performance in part through the introduction of a compressed natural gas
(CNG) fleet and fueling program.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The Elmendorf AFB project seeks to reduce air pollution
loadings of CO and NOx through pollution prevention approaches. Although the base is in CAA
attainment, Anchorage, which the base borders, is currently classified as a non-attainment area for
CO. The base will pursue its pollution prevention efforts through a two-fold process of
regulatory flexibility.
• First, Elmendorf AFB and EPA will use the EPA policy document entitled "Major Source
Determinations for Military Installations under the Air Toxics, New Source Review, and Title
V Operating Permit Programs for the Clean Air Act" (Major Source Guidance). This policy
document recognizes that many military installations possess characteristics warranting
flexibility in CAA major source determinations. Major Source Guidance allows military
installations to divide themselves into functionally distinct emitting activities. Based on a
potential to emit (PTE), a select number of emissions sources on a given installation could
potentially be considered major stationary sources. For Elmendorf AFB, only the central
heating and power plant (CH&PP) is a major stationary source based on actual emissions of
CO and NOx.
• The second part of the regulatory flexibility will be limiting the PTE of other emissions sources
on the base so they will not be considered major sources. Actual emissions from these sources
are currently below major source thresholds and the base will obtain limits on the emissions of
these sources. These alternative emissions standards create enforceable standards and are a
critical part of the project's permitting scheme.
These flexibilities will streamline Elmendorf AFB's Title V permit process, placing the CH&PP
(and a number of other sources subject to new source performance standards) in the revised
permit. This change will simplify monitoring and recordkeeping requirements and result in cost
savings that will be applied to pollution prevention projects. By being able to target specific
emission sources, Elmendorf AFB will be able to make more cost-effective use of its resources.
Through reduced monitoring and recordkeeping. Elmendorf AFB estimates that its permit
management costs will decrease by 80 percent, saving the base $1.5 million over six years. These
cost savings will be redirected toward pollution prevention opportunities on the base.
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One of the pollution prevention projects will be the installation of a compressed natural gas
(CNG) fueling station, the conversion of certain base fleet vehicles to be able to use CNG as well
as the procurement of dedicated CNG fuel vehicles. The CNG fleet should help to reduce the
levels of CO on the base and bolster Anchorage's efforts to reduce CO levels.
Transferability: The Elmendorf AFB project explores ways to alleviate regulatory burdens at
federal facilities and could serve as a model for other Department of Defense installations dealing
with emissions from multiple major sources. A demonstration of achievable and superior
environmental benefits could spur the transfer of similar activities to other DoD installations. In
addition, the conversion to alternative fuel vehicles will assist in demonstrating the feasibility of
compressed natural gas technology in Anchorage as well as the potential to transfer this
technology to other installations.
Tailoring NPDES Effluent Improvements
Experiment(s): The International Paper effluent improvement (IP-El) project in Jay, Maine, is
implementing process changes to improve effluent quality at its Androscoggin mill. The IP-El
project replaces a set of qualitative regulatory requirements (Best Management Practices (BMPs)
from the water portion of EPA's Pulp and Paper Cluster Rules) with targeted, enforceable and
quantitative NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit limits for key
environmental parameters. The Pulp and Paper Cluster Rules requires pulp and paper facilities to
develop BMPs to prevent, capture and recover spent pulping liquor and other materials that
might otherwise be discharged into wastewater treatment and eventually into the find effluent.
IP considers its existing practices — including existing spill prevention procedures and process
control technologies — to be advanced enough to be functionally equivalent to the BMPs. In
exchange for a waiver of the BMP requirements, IP is implementing a series of effluent
improvement projects tailored to its Androscoggin mill operations. The improvement projects
will be specifically designed to improve the mills' effluent quality for Chemical Oxygen Demand
(COD) and color. IP will also accept new NPDES permit limits for effluent discharge once the
effluent improvement projects are completed. The regulatory flexibility of the IP-El project will
enable IP to reallocate estimated cost savings to select and implement effluent improvement
projects at the facility.
This project will be utilizing a collaborative process involving IP, co-regulators and other local
stakeholders to design and implement effluent projects that have the potential to yield optimum
environmental benefits. The collaborative process will also be used to estimate potential pollutant
reductions. This stakeholder group would then map out a phased plan for implementing projects.
A list of potential effluent improvement projects to evaluate includes:
1. Knot liquor recovery system:
2. Pulp screening liquor recover}' system;
3. Pulp digester heater drains recovery;
4. Complete recycle of "A" pulp mill wash waters;
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
5. Alternative knot and screening conveyance fluid;
6. Power house sump drains collection system; and
7. Computerized mill sewer conductivity display.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: At this stage in the IP-El project, it is too early to see changes in
environmental performance, but it is anticipated that implementation of these effluent
improvement projects will yield greater environmental benefit for COD and color reduction than
compliance with the Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule BMPs. Numeric limits will ultimately be placed
in the facility-specific NPDES permit that are expected to reflect a 50 percent reduction of current
discharges of several key pollutants (BOD, COD, AOX, TSS).
Transferability: The IP-El project provides an opportunity to explore how water quality
improvement projects tailored to a mill's specific operations can achieve environmental results
superior to what would be attained by adherence to existing regulations. It will also serve as am
opportunity to gain faster familiarity with new effluent technologies that may be transferable to
other mills.
Water Effluent Limits
The Experiments): As part of its project, Weyerhaeuser revised its Flint River Plant's National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to include more stringent effluent limits
on biological oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), and adsorbable organic
halides (AOX). Weyerhaeuser has modernized several components of the pulping process, which
has reduced the BOD and TSS levels in bleach plant wastewater, as well as, maintained the AOX
levels.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The company's 1998 NPDES permit was revised under the
Weyerhaeuser project. Weyerhaeuser modernized several components of the pulping process and
has met the more stringent effluent limits on BOD, TSS, and AOX per ADMT (air dried metric
ton) of finished product.
Table 9: Weyerhaeuser Permit Effluent Limits
Permit Limits
Results
Discharge of 3.8 pounds
ofBOD~perADMTof
finished product.
Reduced the amount of BOD in its effluent from a 1997 level of 3.01 pounds per ADMT to a
1998 level of 2.13 pounds per ADMT. In 1999, BOD levels in facility effluent increased to 2.83
pounds per ADMT.
Discharge of 4.09
pounds of TSS per
ADMT of finished
product.
Reduced the amount of TSS in bleach plant wastewater. Weyerhaeuser reduced the amount of
TSS in its effluent from a 1997 level of 3.13 pounds per ADMT to a 1998 level of 2.8 pounds
per ADMT. In 1999, TSS levels in facility effluent increased to 3.87 pounds per ADMT.
Unreliable operation of a facility process during 1999 caused increased production of off-grade
pulp, which is recycled through the pulp manufacturing process. This increased the amount of
water used, effluent produced. BOD levels per ton of finished product, and TSS levels per ton
of finished product.
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Permit Limits
Discharge of 3.8 pounds
of BOD per ADMT of
finished product.
Discharge of 0.15
kilograms of AOX per
ADMT of finished
product.
Results
Reduced the amount of BOD in its effluent from a 1997 level of 3.01 pounds per ADMT to a
1 998 level of 2. 1 3 pounds per ADMT. In 1 999, BOD levels in facility effluent increased to 2.83
pounds per ADMT.
The AOX limit under the project is 4 percent beyond the best available technology standards
proposed by EPA. AOX levels were 0.10 kilograms per ADMT in 1 996, 1 997, and 1 998. In
1 999, levels of AOX in facility effluent remained at 0. 1 0 kilograms per ADMT.
Transferability: In Aiming for Excellence (July 1999), EPA commits to identifying and
implementing improvements within the NPDES permitting program. The Weyerhaeuser project's
piloting of NPDES permit alternatives have the potential to influence Agency permitting
initiatives. For example, case studies about these alternatives might prove useful in the
development of permit writer training materials for any of the cross-agency permitting initiatives.
The Comprehensive Operating Permit (COP)
The Experiments): The Berry citrus juice processing plant has been required to obtain multiple
permits from multiple regulatory agencies. Air quality, water quality, and consumptive-use
regulations govern the plant's boilers, feed mill dryers, drinking water, industrial wastewater, and
water use operations. The Berry project intended to consolidate these individual permitting
requirements into a single Comprehensive Operating Permit (COP). The COP would have
offered the opportunity for co-regulators (in this case the EPA, the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection, and the South Florida Water Management District) to eliminate
Berry's burdensome requirements for preparing multiple permit applications on differing and
sometimes conflicting schedules.
The COP would have consolidated selected operating permits and requirements, maintained all
environmental standards, and committed Berry to superior environmental performance. The
streamlined permitting approach was also expected to result in cost savings to the facility operator
by reducing administrative burdens. In turn, Berry had agreed to invest these cost savings into the
installation of updated equipment and implementation of updated procedures used in citrus
processing, in order to reduce air emissions of VOCs, S02, and "NOx.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: During the initial phase of COP development Berry employees
and the State of Florida worked together on the development of detailed work procedures.
However, after the Berry project had been underway for almost a year, Cargill, Inc. (an
international marketer, processor and distributor of agricultural products) took over as the
operator, but not as the owner of Berry's LaBelle, Florida facility. Although some project
commitments had been met, EPA and the State of Florida chose to terminate the agreement after
attempts to engage Cargill in the process failed. The COP was not submitted, and the project was
terminated on June 2, 1999.
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Transferability: Should an opportunity arise. Project XL could potentially test the COP concept
at another facility. In March 1999, EPA approved a detailed plan for "The Next Generation in
Permitting." The COP concept is an integral part of this plan and is expected to be a key concept
in the Agency's ongoing permit improvement process.
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Environmental Information Management and Access
Demands for high quality and readily accessible environmental information has never been greater.
To meet these needs, EPA, like many other organizations, has worked to take advantage of the
opportunities created by new information technologies. This new capability brings new challenges,
such as public access, information security, and protection of trade secrets. EPA's new Office of
Environmental Information, working with many different internal and external stakeholders and
partners, is working to develop information-related policies and procedures that reflect the
concerns of EPA managers and staff; local, state, and federal government; tribes, the regulated
community; interest groups; and the general public. As part of this national effort, Project XL is
experimenting with approaches that seek to (1) improve public access to information through the
Internet, (2) gain more stakeholder input into data presentation, (3) build performance-based
incentives into reporting requirements, and (4) eliminate obsolete, duplicative and unnecessary-
monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements from the federal, state, tribal and local
levels. Table 10 below describes the projects' environmental information innovations.
Table 10: Environmental Information Management and Access Innovations
Projects)
Steele County
Intel
Merck
Intel
Merck
Weyerhaeuser
Media
Water
Multi-
media
Air
Multi-
media
Innovation
Alternative Reporting Strategy: Alternative Significant Non-Compliance Reporting for
POTWs. Qualifying pretreatment violations may be posted on Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency website in lieu of being published in local newspaper.
Internet Reporting and Stakeholder Input: Improving public access to information; making
community participation more meaningful; Project XL guide to project tracking and
reporting
Tiered Reporting: Incentive based reporting and record-keeping requirements determined by
levels of emissions control (through a PSD permit)
Consolidated Reporting: Reducing reporting burdens through report streamlining and
consolidation; one stop reporting
Alternative Reporting Strategy
The Experiment(s). The first phase of the Steele County project includes flexibility for the
development and implementation of an alternative Significant Non-compliance (SNC) reporting
approach, under which qualifying violations may be posted on the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency (MPCA) website in lieu of being published in a local newspaper. Current pretreatment
regulations require publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) to annually publish a list of
Industrial Users which, at any time in the previous 12 months, were in Significant Non-
compliance. This list must be published in the largest daily newspaper published in the
municipality in which the POTW is located. The purpose of this provision is to notify the public
of violations and to serve as a deterrent for the Industrial User to avoid noncompliance. Under
the project, the Owatonna POTW will be granted the flexibility to use an alternative procedure for
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publishing SNC. This alternative approach would reserve annual newspaper publication for cases
where that format is needed for its potentially greater effect.
Results'Anticipated Outcomes: The intent of this web-based approach is to provide prompt and
appropriate assistance for identifying and correcting violations. Violations that qualify under this
alternative approach are available for a sponsor facility that is responsive, and where the
violation(s) did not cause a pass-through or interference violation at the POTW . For a SNC
event qualifying under this provision, a description of the event and the corrective action taken
will be published on the MPCA website as the violation is reported. All SNC violations, whether
published in a newspaper or not, would eventually be posted on the MPCA website. The website
will also explain how SNC is determined and will have contact information about violations which
are not SNC.
All non-compliance events will be investigated by a peer review committee established under the
Steele County project. This committee would include two or three sponsor facility
representatives not connected to the non-compliance event under review along with any
stakeholder wishing to participate. The peer review committee would investigate noncompliance
events, make recommendations and provide assistance to expedite the return to compliance. Peer
review recommendations are not binding, and the city will continue to implement its Enforcement
Response Plan. Newspaper publication of SNC will be used at the discretion of the Owatonna
POTW, where the previously discussed criteria are met. The Owatonna POTW would continue
to be required to provide newspaper publication of any violation which is not corrected with 30
calender days, or which results in pass-through or interference. Sponsor facilities in Owatonna
will take steps to ensure that public outreach on the availability of information regarding SNC
events through this alternative publication approach is conducted.
Trcmsferability: A web-based, alternative SNC reporting approach could have application in other
municipalities seeking to provide real-time and "meaningful" public notice of SNC non-
compliance events while continuing to provide a deterrent for industrial users. The Steele County
project also provides an opportunity to test how a community-based approach can provide
prompt and appropriate assistance in identifying and correcting violations. EPA is already
contemplating opportunities to further apply this innovation under the new Performance Track
program. Performance Track offers administrative streamlining benefits in the major program
areas such as air, water, and waste. In addition, EPA will propose a set of changes in its
regulations to accommodate Performance Track facilities ~ including expanding the options for
Publicly-Owned Treatment works to report certain compliance information through the Internet
instead of through the newspaper. These changes will be formally proposed by EPA for public
review and comment later this year.
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Internet Reporting and Stakeholder Input
The Experiment(s): The Intel project has two innovations designed to improve public access to
information: (1) using stakeholder input to help redesign the format and content of the reports on
the environmental performance of the Ocotillo semiconductor facility in Chandler, Arizona; and
(2) making these reports available on the Internet. The facility's new reporting format was
designed in conjunction with the stakeholder team that included EPA, the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality, the Maricopa County Bureau of Air Pollution Control, the City of
Chandler, and members of the Community Advisory Panel (CAP). Based on input from the
stakeholder team, Intel agreed to put routine environmental reporting requirements and
accountability measures into a single, integrated report that is publicly available on the Internet via
Intel's Project XL website. http.\V\v^avJnte{.com/intel/Qther/ehs/projecLx:i/Sndgx.htm . Now
citizens, as well as regulatory officials, can routinely monitor progress toward the facility's
environmental commitments. This approach tests the value of getting comprehensive
environmental information directly from the company. Currently all data must be re-entered,
although the long-term goal is for Intel's Internet form to be merged directly into the State and
local agency information systems.8
Box 3
New example from the Intel Homepage
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Intel established a precedent for making facility-based
environmental information publicly available on the Internet. Co-regulators and public
stakeholders involved with the Intel project have universally endorsed this approach. Project
regulators and public stakeholders have described the report as citizen-friendly, concise, and easy
to use.
However, while it is enhancing public access to environmental performance data and the timely
availability of information to the public, public stakeholders have cautioned that the Internet is not
a panacea for increasing public access to information. For example, the needs of public
stakeholders with limited or no access to computers must be addressed. Other projects enhancing
public access in ways supported by public stakeholders include the Crompton project which both
appointed a Project XL contact at the facility to serve as a resource for the community and
established public files on the project at the local library. Also, under the Weyerhaeuser project,
in exchange for reducing the number of reports filed with the State of Georgia, the facility now
provides information directly to the public upon request, and the facility has agreed to make even
""The current reporting system relies on a mix of paper forms and electronic information systems. Data originates at a
facility, where it is often entered into a computer for storage. Submission of that data to a government agency, however,
requires transferring it to a paper form. The agency receiving the paper report must then rekey the same data into its
system to make use of it. If a State agency is the first recipient, it forwards the data to EPA. where it then must be rekeyed
for use in EPA systems." From Reporting Reform: The Case for A Joint EP.4/Slate Strategy, One Stop Reporting
Program, April 28, 1998.
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more data available than was previously reported.
Transferability: The multi-stakeholder input approach and the Internet access to information have
proven so innovative that EPA has incorporated Intel's approach into the "Guide to Project
Teams—Project Tracking and Reporting," which strongly encourages that all future projects
develop similar Internet reporting formats with interested stakeholders. Also, new projects such as
the Steele County project, are featuring internet reporting innovations.
The demand for high-quality environmental data is increasing rapidly. To respond to the demand,
EPA is developing a prototype system to allow data to be received and stored electronically for
use by EPA, the states, and the public. This new system will allow electronic reporting instead of
paper reporting, saving companies and government agencies millions of dollars. It will also
centralize and integrate EPA's largest environmental databases, making information more
accessible and useful. In step with the direction of this new system, the Intel project can help
facility-based electronic reporting gain acceptance by other companies and regulators. Also, the
stakeholder involvement approach can create an opportunity to make community participation
more meaningful: for example, by allowing firms to redesign reporting mechanisms in ways that
enhance community understanding and trust.
Tiered Reporting
The Experiments): The Merck project provides an innovative three-tiered approach to
monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting linked to its air quality permit. A site-specific rule and
new Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit provide alternative methods for
complying with applicable state implementation plan air quality rules, New Source Review (NSR)
air emission regulations, and certain provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA) relating to air emission controls on hazardous waste equipment. The new PSD permit
includes a facilitywide cap for total criteria air pollutants and subcaps for sulfur dioxide (S02),
nitrogen oxide (NOx), and paniculate matter (PM) with a diameter of less than 10 microns. The
requirements for monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting increase in stringency as the facility's
actual total criteria air emissions approach the sitewide emissions cap. Annual reporting is
required when facilitywide emissions are less than 75 percent of the cap. Semi-annual reporting is
required when facilitywide emissions are between 75 percent and 90 percent of the cap. Monthly
reporting is required when emissions are equal to or greater than 90 percent of the total emissions
cap. This provides an incentive for Merck to purchase the cleanest available technologies and to
maintain low air emission levels.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The three-tiered monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting
requirements will become effective no later than 12 months after Merck completes the installation
of new equipment which converts its coal-fired powerhouse to natural gas. Powerhouse
conversion is required to be completed no later than 30 months after the permit's effective date.
Transferability: Other facilities that face comparable circumstances or business issues could
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I 'olume I: Innovations in Core Functions
benefit from a similar tiered approach to monitoring, record keeping, and reporting designed to
provide incentives for air pollutant emissions reductions. Once the Merck project is in full
implementation, there will be a need to further evaluate: (1) how useful is the data for the local,
State, and Federal users; (2) what must a facility do to implement this approach; (3) whether it
can be transferred into a multi-media approach; and (4) what are the barriers to broader potential
implementation. This tiered provision may also have the potential to influence other Agency
permitting initiatives.
Consolidated Reporting
The Experiment(s)'. A number of projects are testing new approaches for consolidated reporting
of the environmental information required by Federal, State, and local regulations. The
approaches are detailed below:
Table 11: Consolidated Reporting in XL
Description
Programs Affected
Intel
Intel has consolidated recurring and routine reports
into four quarterly reports and one annual report.
The consolidated reporting format was designed in
conjunction with the EPA, the Arizona Department
of Environmental Quality, the Maricopa County
Bureau of Air Pollution Control, the City of
Chandler, and a Community Advisory Panel (CAP)
consisting of area residents.
Internet reports cover air quality, water quality.
and solid and hazardous waste reporting
requirements, with the exception of the Toxic
Release Inventory (TRJ) reports required under
the Emergency Planning and Community
Right-to-know Act (EPCRA) which must be
prepared and submitted separately.
Merck
The requirements for monitoring, record keeping,
and reporting become more stringent as the facility's
actual emissions approach the facilitywide cap under
Merck's air quality permit. Monitoring, record-
keeping and reporting will be performed by Merck
according to the reporting tier determined by the
current 12-month rolling total. Tier I has the least
stringent requirements; more frequent reporting is
required when Tier n or Tier HI requirements are in
effect.
The tiered reporting covers air quality
emissions specified by the innovative PSD
permit.
Weverhaeuser
The Weyerhaeuser project allows the facility to
consolidate reporting into two annual comprehensive
reports for some of the Federal, State, and local
permitting and regulatory programs that apply to the
facility. The reports eliminate some sampling
requirements and allow annual compliance self-
certification in lieu of periodic discharge monitoring
reporting.
The comprehensive, less frequent reports cover
drinking water, water quality discharges.
groundwater and surface water use, and air
quality. Self-certification covers discharge
monitoring reporting for the NPDES permit.
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NYSDEC
Participating utilities will produce one biennial
report on all the hazardous waste generated at
remote locations. Under the current system, a
separate EPA identification number is assigned to
each remote location reporting hazardous waste
production and a biennial report must be produced
for each location. This change will bring about
significant reduction in paperwork and savings in
time and labor, both for the public utilities and
environmental regulatory agencies. The change will
also provide the public with clearer and easier to use
information about waste generated at remote
locations.
NYSDEC will receive fewer reports with more
information from participating utilities,
reducing the number of reports that require
separate tracking and review under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery
Information Svstem.
Berrv
The Bern- project had been designed to have a multi-
media consolidated permit in place, and the State of
Florida would have allowed Berry to use
nonstandard forms in reporting environmental
performance.
The nonstandard forms would have applied to
air quality, drinking water, industrial
wastewater, groundwater monitoring, and fresh
water use reporting. Also, the State of Florida
may not have required Bern' to provide
certification of environmental reports by a
professional engineer, because the
Comprehensive Operating Permit would have
been more extensive than a certified
professional engineer's application.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The Intel and Weyerhaeuser projects' reporting mechanisms have
been underway since 1997. The companies, regulators, and stakeholders involved believe that the
Intel and Weyerhaeuser projects have generally resulted in detailed, value-added reporting.
However, stakeholders' comfort with this approach is not absolute: for example, one stakeholder
for the Intel project wants more technical details to be available to the public, as well as the
technical assistance to interpret the information, so that the community can better evaluate the
potential impacts on health and the environment, and then influence the company's
decisionmaking process for choosing among different available technologies or chemicals. This
desire has been echoed by other national interests. The Merck project's reporting mechanisms
are projected to start in 2001. Berry had not initiated the reporting mechanisms before that
project was terminated in June 1999.
Transferability: EPA strives to reduce reporting burdens by authorizing specific reductions
through recently issued rules and policies. However, the measures that EPA seeks to adopt to
reduce reporting burden typically require state action in order for these reporting approaches to
be achieved. A number of State programs are looking to transition to a consolidated "one stop"
reporting system. In keeping with this trend, EPA plans to further explore the Federal component
of the consolidated reporting and burden reduction opportunities presented by the Intel, Merck,
Weyerhaeuser, New York State DEC and former Berry projects. EPA is already contemplating
opportunities to further apply this innovation under the new Performance Track program.
Performance Track offers administrative streamlining benefits in the major program areas such as
air, water, and waste. In addition, EPA plans to propose a set of changes in its regulations to
accommodate Performance Track facilities — including consolidated environmental reporting
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under various environmental statutes into a single report. These changes will be formally
proposed by EPA for public review and comment later this year.
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Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
One of EPA's most important responsibilities is making sure that companies and other
organizations comply with the laws that protect human health and the environment. EPA and
state governments have typically relied on a strong enforcement program to do this. However,
EPA and states have increasingly sought to identify creative tools to help regulated entities
improve day-to-day compliance and achieve performance at levels beyond compliance. For
example, EPA is helping companies comply through the support of assistance centers, as well as
an audit policy that encourages them to complete their own environmental evaluations.
In recent years, national efforts have centered around identifying and addressing environmental
problems using innovative and integrated initiatives that combine compliance assistance,
incentives, monitoring and enforcement. These compliance incentives include incentives to self-
disclose, including the audit and small business policies promoting supplemental environmental
projects and providing compliance assistance through electronic centers. In particular, self-
certification is being explored by states as an opportunity to deliver better compliance assurance
while EPA is exploring promoting Environmental Management Systems. Self-certification
approaches vary, but they typically ask facilities to report on a specified set of environmental
performance measures (such as sampling actions, sampling results, regulatory compliance, and
regulatory violations). States have used self-certification strategies in a variety of ways: to reduce
reporting burdens, to reduce the need for resource intensive individual permits for small sources,
to reduce the amount of labor-intensive inspections and/or prioritize them to allow states to
reinvest resources into higher priority problems, and to increase the number of facilities addressed
by states' enforcement and compliance systems. Also, states and EPA are trying new procedures
to measure compliance on a facility and sector level. The measures may assist in identifying
problem areas that could be improved through new technology or pollution prevention.
Additionally, EPA is willing to offer flexible options under regulations that encourage facilities to
choose compliance alternatives that are better economically and environmentally. Project XL has
been one venue for testing these innovations which are described below in Table 12 below.
Table 12 :Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Innovations
ProiectfsV
Massachusetts DEP
Weyerhaeuser
IP-PEM
Massachusetts DEP
Media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
; Innovation
Business Self-Certification: In lieu of State permits, self-certifications arc used to
comply with or exceed State performance standards; Weyerhaeuser performs compliance
self-certification in lieu of periodic discharge monitoring repot for facility NPDES
permit based on 16 years of compliance.
Predictive Emissions Monitoring: Reduce the frequency of stack testing and replace a
CEM system with a predictive computer-based system that will correlate operating
parameters with air emissions.
Environmental Business Practice Indicators (EBPls): Use of EBPIs to supplement or
replace traditional measures of compliance allows regulatory agencies to review
compliance as well as beyond compliance techniques for industry leaders.
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ProiecHsV
Merck
Weyerhaeuser
Georgia-Pacific
Media
Air
Air
Air
Innovation
- llfenjative Compliance FU-xibility Under Emissions Cap: Flexibility to reduce air
emissions using a cap instead of complying with newly applicable criteria pollutant
regulations (through the PSD permit).
Major Source Emissions Tiered Compliance Testing: Modified NSR PSD permit creates
a tiered compliance testing schedule based on the control of the facility's major source
emissions.
Gasification of Pulping Liquor Under \4ACT 11. Pulp and paper mill is seeking to
demonstrate a new recovery technology under section 112 of the CAA
Business Self-Certification
The Experiment(s): The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Massachusetts
DEP) established its Environmental Results Program (ERF) on a basic premise: a primary reason
for non-compliance is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the rules (including permit
requirements). ERP offers a multimedia summary of all applicable regulations and makes a facility
manager personally responsible for compliance. It provides a simple but comprehensive checklist
as part of its self-certification package, and encourages a facility manager to use the checklist as a
tool for maintaining compliance. The ERP approach uses self-certification and an EMS-like
approach, in lieu of State permits, for several identified small-business sectors (printers, photo
processors, dry cleaners). ERP focuses in large part on corporate accountability and self-
evaluation with companies required to meet and certify their compliance with industry-wide
performance standards mutually agreed upon by regulators and industry. These sector specific
performance standards emphasize pollution prevention practices and principles to yield
environmental results superior to those achieved through conventional regulatory approaches.
ERP provides a period of outreach assistance and training for companies on compliance and other
performance standards, after which the company submits a statement certifying compliance with
applicable performance standards and that compliance will be maintained for the coming year.
The ERP approach has also been designed with an emphasis on enforcement. Certification
statements are signed under penalty of perjury by a facility's owner, president, CEO, or other
high-ranking official. Under ERP, companies are accountable for reporting any releases or
exceedances of discharge or emission standards to Massachusetts DEP. Participating firms will
need to provide evidence of their good faith efforts to meet and maintain compliance with ERP
standards. Violations will be reported, and a "Return to Compliance Plan" submitted to
Massachusetts DEP, if any such violations are either outstanding at the time of certification or
discovered thereafter. If a facility is not in compliance when it self-certifies, this Plan will identify
the existing violations and specify how and when compliance will be achieved.
The ERP approach will require annual self-certification, use clear performance standards written
in plain language, target compliance assistance, and emphasize pollution prevention. Key to the
process of confirming company compliance as well as measuring and evaluating the environmental
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results of ERP will be the development and use of environmental business practice indicators
(EBPIs). EBPIs are industry-specific performance measures that provide a snapshot of a facility's
environmental performance. EBPIs are unique in that they include measurement of adherence to
traditional regulator}' standards (e.g., level of compliance with labeling, record keeping, and
monitoring), as well as "beyond compliance" measures (pollution prevention and reuse/recovery
activities).
The Weyerhaeuser project allows the facility to eliminate some sampling activity and to provide
annual compliance self-certification in lieu of periodic discharge monitoring reporting for the
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. This limited self-certification
process was allowed due to the company's 16-year history of meeting all required discharge levels
combined with the project's commitment to superior environmental performance. Weyerhaeuser
is still required to maintain required sampling and laboratory analysis records, and all upset,
malfunction, or noncompliance reporting will continue as required by applicable regulations.
These records are available upon request by regulators and the public. Weyerhaeuser will remain
subject to the State of Georgia's standard enforcement protocol, as required by the State's
NPDES permit program.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Massachusetts DEP anticipates superior environmental
performance by means of converting permit requirements into industry-wide performance
standards that enable facility managers to be aware of their environmental obligations before they
make decisions about modifying equipment and operations. In 1995-1996, the Massachusetts
DEP conducted a limited evaluation of the usefulness of company participation in the
Massachusetts Printers Partnership (MP2) — a predecessor ERP program. DEP found that more
than 50 percent of the participating (and certifying) MP2 facilities exhibited higher environmental
performance than non-participating printers.
The ERP project has been underway since late 1996 and the results of the ERP approach and self-
certification are still being evaluated. In May 2000, Massachusetts DEP presented its own
preliminary assessment of the ERP program to EPA. DEP is using EBPIs, compliance inspection
findings, and data reported on the self-certification forms, as well as statistical sampling
techniques to measure and evaluate the environmental results of ERP. Feedback from
preliminary State evaluations has been largely positive. In the fall of 1997, participating dry-
cleaners and photo processors completed their first annual certification. Participating printers
completed their first certification in 1998. These certification statements have increased the
identification and understanding of small businesses not otherwise included in a regulatory
framework. Before ERP, only 10 percent of dry cleaning facilities were "in the system." By
1999, that number had increased to 95 percent. Altogether, nearly 2,400 companies representing
3 sectors have self-certified under the ERP since 1997. Massachusetts DEP has begun expanding
this approach to two additional sectors - industrial wastewater and combustion sources (boilers) -
which will significantly increase the number of Massachusetts facilities self-certifying under ERP.
Preliminary evaluation has also demonstrated that converting permit requirements into
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comprehensive and stringent industry/ sector-wide performance standards has improved corporate
accountability toward annual compliance. For 1997, 80 percent of dry cleaners and photo
processors completed their certifications accurately. 10 percent of submitted certification
statements have "Return to Compliance Plans" (a 10 percent compliance increase). 35 percent of
these "Return to Compliance Plans" will result in a decreased environmental impact.
Massachusetts DEP has estimated that increased compliance will lead to: a program-wide
decrease in VOCs by 10 percent; an estimated 43 percent reduction in perchloroethylene
emissions (a total of 500 tons) from Massachusetts dry cleaners each year; and will reduce
wastewater discharges of silver by 99 percent from photo processors. Increased compliance is
also anticipated to yield significant reductions in the use of smog-forming solvents and alcohol
used by commercial printers.
The Weyerhaeuser project's self-certification has been underway since 1997, and the company
reports that it continues to meet and exceed all of the enforceable discharge levels in the NPDES
permit. Weyerhaeuser's records on the required sampling and analysis are also more accessible to
the public as all information is available upon request directly from the facility.
Transferability: The Massachusetts DEP and Weyerhaeuser projects are testing alternative
mechanisms that enhance accountability while providing flexibility. In particular, Massachusetts
DEP's ERP approach has been designed to increase sector understanding while focusing limited
resources where they will make the biggest difference (away from permitting and toward outreach
for compliance assurance and technical assistance and site inspections targeted against non-
reporters and violators). With Massachusetts DEP expanding this approach to other sectors, the
ERP approach will continue to serve as a test bed to explore opportunities for expanding self-
certification and performance standards.
The extent to which the ERP approach will prove transferable in practice will depend in large part
on the ability to measure and document the anticipated results of the project. Three potential
opportunities for transferability that are being investigated are: (1) Development of a "tool kit"
and communications materials could help expand the availability of information about the benefits
and limitations of the ERP program as program data become available. (2) Sectors have already
expressed an interest in participating in innovative programs and could be interested in
participating in a self certification program if it could provide them some burden reduction or
regulatory flexibility. (3) The concentration of large and small businesses in certain geographic
regions may provide an opportunity to address sector- or place-based issues on a local level.
Predictive Emissions Monitoring
The Experiments): The International Paper predictive emissions monitoring (IP-PEM) project is
seeking to develop, test and implement a sophisticated, computer-based, alternative emissions
monitoring system that can accurately predict pollutant emissions on a continuous basis at IP's
Jay, Maine pulp and paper mill. IP will replace stack testing and the continuous emissions
monitoring (CEM) system on the mill's waste fuel incinerator (WFI) with a predictive emissions
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monitoring (PEM) system. The PEM system would be a computer-generated model that would
predict air emissions (particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), carbon
dioxide (CO,), and carbon monoxide(CO)) from WFI operations on a continuous basis. A PEM
system would provide real-time feedback and would allow IP to make operational adjustments
when predicted pollutant emissions approach permitted limits. IP is also making a voluntary
commitment to maintain its emissions from the WFI at a level equal to or less than 90 percent of
its license limit once the PEM system is implemented.
The IP waste fuel incinerator produces steam from the combustion of fossil fuel, wood residue,
papermill sludge and waste paper. CEM systems are required for S02 and NOx emissions from
the WFI, but currently, WFI PM emissions are subject only to annual stack tests. Development,
testing and implementation of a computer-generated PEM system will determine if IP can predict
emissions from a complex, saturated stack on a continuous basis. Current stack testing and CEM
systems are designed to record compliance and non-compliance with permit limits when a
violation occurs. They do not provide an opportunity to prevent or lower emissions at the time
of measurement. A successful PEM system would allow IP to be proactive, correlating the
relationship between operating parameters and emissions, enabling the facility to predict emissions
in advance and adjust their operations prior to exceedances actually occurring.
To fully develop the computer model, the IP-PEM project has the flexibility to allow a number of
short, controlled exceedances above the current WFI emission limits to formulate the model's
emission prediction capabilities. The exceedances would be needed for model development, since
unless the model was programmed to identify the operating conditions which caused an
exceedance during a test, the PEM system would be unable to accurately predict such a situation
should it arise during regular operations.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The IP-PEM project seeks to provide assurances of pollutant
emissions compliance on a continuous basis. Any permitted exceedance granted for computer
model development will be agreed upon beforehand and will be limited to days when the potential
to exceed ambient air quality standards would be minimal. Successful development of a PEM
model would provide continuous information on particulate emission rates for sources that to date
have no federally approved methods to monitor PM on a continuous basis from saturated stacks.
If the PEM system is successful for PM, a State Implementation Plan amendment could allow the
system to be approved for continuous monitoring of all types of emissions from the WFI. A
successful PEM system will optimize operational efficiency while reducing facility emissions.
Traditional monitoring techniques measure emissions but do not provide information on the
operational parameters that affect those emissions or information on how to reduce those
emissions. The PEM system would help operators better correlate emission rates and the
operational processes that effect them. The system would identify statistically significant operating
parameters and use them to predict emission limits. Data from the PEM will be made available to
the local public via IP's website.
The accuracy and precision of the PEM system will be determined through a formal validation test
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developed by the EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards. If preliminary estimates
prove accurate, transferability may prove to be no problem. Due to improved efficiency, IP is
anticipating fuel savings that could surpass 5200,000 per year.
Transferability. The IP-PEM project offers the potential for technology transfer to other emission
sources at the IP facility as well as to other facilities. PEM systems have previously been
developed for simple stacks and gas fired boilers, but have had very limited application for
complex stacks with high moisture content. This project will help demonstrate if this technology
can be transferred to "complex" boilers, kilns and incinerators. PEM systems can provide a
meaningful linkage between emission rates and the operational parameters that affect them and
could have application for other sources of pollution or operations seeking to optimize operation
controls while reducing emissions. PEM systems generated information can be used by operators
to decrease emissions while maximizing production.
Environmental Business Practice Indicators
The Experiment(s): As part of its Environmental Results Program (ERP), Massachusetts DEP
has developed Environmental Business Practice Indicators (EBPIs), in collaboration with EPA
and industry, to evaluate the performance of three industry sectors - dry cleaners, printers, and
photo processors. EBPIs will play a key role in the evaluation of ERP. EBPIs are industry-
specific performance measures that provide a snapshot of a facility's environmental performance.
The concept is to "benchmark" facility/sector performance and potentially shift compliance
assurance strategies based on how EBPIs track compliance and beyond compliance activities.
The use of EBPIs rather than traditional "single dimension" measures of compliance (e.g., in
compliance, out of compliance, significant noncompliance) allows regulatory agencies not only to
look at compliance more comprehensively and on an annual basis, but also to recognize and
potentially encourage "beyond compliance" strategies for industry leaders. The number of EBPIs
developed for each sector is different. Printers have 16 EBPI measures (including 9 pollution
prevention-specific measures), dry cleaners have 16 EBPI measures, and photo processors have 8
EBPIs. The number is based on the complexity of the industry and the number of multimedia
discharges. Currently, beyond-compliance and pollution prevention opportunities are being
tracked only for printers.
Sector-specific EBPIs can serve as a validation measure for sector-wide environmental
performance. Massachusetts DEP is using EBPIs, along with random inspection findings and data
reported on facility's annual certification forms to measure and evaluate ERP results. In
establishing a sector specific program, Massachusetts DEP uses statistical methodology to
estimate an industry-wide EBPI score "before" program startup, comparing this with "after"
participation scores to determine the accuracy of the certification data and to calculate an
industry-wide compliance rate. Rather than inspecting each ERP facility to establish a baseline
understanding of the regulated universe, the Agency has used statistics to determine the
appropriate number of facilities to target for sampling. After program startup, a random sample
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of participating facilities is conducted based on this estimate. Finally, inspection data from these
facilities are compared to information supplied by those firms' annual certification forms to
confirm or deny the compliance confidence levels based on statistical analysis.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: In a demonstration program under the Massachusetts Printers
Partnership (MP2) in 1995-96, Massachusetts DEP used EBPIs to evaluate the performance of
the MP2. Together with key stakeholders, Massachusetts DEP identified 19 different EBPIs
including regulatory requirements, pollution prevention techniques, and good environmental
management practices for MP2 participants. DEP staff performed inspections at randomly chosen
facilities both before and after program startup and used data from these inspections to calculate
an industry-wide "before" EBPI score as well as two "after" scores — one for printers that joined
the MP2 by certifying compliance and one for those that did not. Massachusetts DEP used this
data to determine if there was a statistical difference between those printers enrolled in the MP2
as compared to those who were not. Comparing EBPI scores, Massachusetts DEP found that the
scores - and hence the environmental performance - of MP2 participants were 50 percent higher
than the score of the "before" sample as well as those printers not certifying for the program.
For ERP, EBPI measures include: using low VOC cleanup solutions (printers); degree of silver
recovery (printers and photo processors); perc recovery (dry cleaners); and other pollution
prevention measures for printers. Massachusetts DEP is using EBPIs to measure and evaluate
the results of the ERP approach and while results are still forthcoming, preliminary findings have
been positive. Baseline data collected during random inspections before the first round of
certification has been compared to data collected during random inspections after certification and
outreach under ERP. For photo processors, preliminary EBPI evaluation has revealed an increase
in aggregate EBPI score from the "before" baseline score (5.7 to 7.1), indicating an increase in
compliance for the sector. For dry cleaners, the aggregate EBPI score remained constant, but the
sector did exhibit a small increase in aggregate score for all certification questions (not just EBPI
questions) after program implementation. In addition to calculating sector-side scores, DEP has
sought to measure the overall level of accuracy of the certification data by comparing data
collected during random inspections after ERP certification with data presented on the
certification forms of those facilities. Although compliance is a single point in time, initial analysis
of dry cleaners in ERP has revealed agreement between certification forms and state inspections
76 percent of the time. By measuring compliance rates by firm, sector, media, and compliance
requirement, DEP anticipates being able to focus its scarce resources for compliance assistance
and inspections based on how EBPIs track sector-specific performance measures.
Transferability: Given that the EBPIs are specific to each industry, it is too early to determine
broader sector-wide applicability. Nevertheless, the use of EBPIs rather than the traditional
"single dimension" measures of compliance (e.g., in-compliance, out of compliance, or significant
noncompliance) allows regulatory agencies not only to look at compliance more comprehensively
but it offers the opportunity to recognize and potentially encourage beyond compliance techniques
for industry leaders. Massachusetts DEP has already agreed to expand its ERP effort to two
additional, cross-sector activities — firms discharging industrial wastewater (the industrial
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wastewater sector) and firms installing or modifying boilers (the combustion sector).
Massachusetts DEP estimates that the addition of these new sectors could quadruple the number
of Massachusetts facilities that ERP could impact. This would provide an even more
comprehensive database of EBPIs and would enable further evaluation of this innovative
performance measurement and tracking system.
It is important to recognize that in an effort to expand the scope of measurement of sector and
facility performance characteristics, new information on the sectors or facilities may be required to
be generated and/or collected. The potential exists for such efforts to conflict with simultaneous
efforts to reduce the amount of recordkeeping and reporting required by regulated entities.
DEP's experience in this regard could prove helpful in future efforts to balance these sometimes
competing goals.
Alternative Compliance Flexibility Under Emissions Cap
The Experiments): Emissions caps provide an incentive for a site to minimize emissions to
assure compliance and to preserve a sufficient margin under the cap to accommodate growth.
Merck's Stonewall Plant criteria pollutant cap has been constructed so that the facility has the
ability to make many common changes at the site without prior approval from the permitting
authority. A unique aspect of this project is that Merck also has the flexibility to reduce their
emissions cap instead of directly complying with a newly applicable criteria pollutant regulation.
Specifically, when the Stonewall Plant becomes newly subject to a regulation, they may choose to
comply with the regulation directly or reduce their criteria pollutant cap by the amount of
emissions reduction expected from direct compliance. Thus, to achieve compliance with a new air
pollutant regulation the plant may install new control equipment and maintain the existing facility-
wide criteria pollutant limit, or they may keep the existing equipment and establish a permanent
reduction in their emissions cap. Figure 1 provides a graphic depiction of this alternative
compliance mechanism. Only regulations addressing one or more of the criteria pollutants covered
by the emissions caps (i.e., VOCs, S02, PM-10, and NOx) can qualify for this alternate
compliance mechanism. For example, a new rule establishing emission standards for VOCs from
storage tanks would qualify; however, if the purpose of the rule was to control hazardous air
pollutants (HAPs), alternate compliance via cap adjustment would not be available.
Re suits/Anticipated Outcomes: This cap adjustment and regulatory compliance scenario is based
on the premise that facilities operating under an emissions cap practice "up-front" compliance to
future rules that would require emission reductions. Merck's commitment, for example, to
convert the site powerhouse from burning coal to natural gas allows the facility to offer an
environmental benefit in advance of any regulation. This is because the cap adjustment "locked
in" a portion of the reductions from that project, preventing the site from increasing its emissions
back to the cap level prior to adjustment. This approach focuses facility efforts on finding
emission reductions in the most cost effective manner, rather than attempting to achieve
compliance through a generic "one size fits all" approach or the mandated installation of air
pollution control equipment.
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Figure 1 - Prevention "of Significant Deterioration (PSD) Permit
Alternative Compliance Mechanism
criteria'
pollutant
regulation
Install new
control equipment
Maintain facility-
wide cap limit;
Reduction in
emissions
Keep existing
equipment
Reduce facility-
wide ca
Transferability: The flexibility offered to Merck under this emissions cap adjustment scenario is
related to their site-specific Prevention of Significant Deterioration Permit. Similar opportunities
for flexibility under an emissions cap are possible based on site-specific conditions. Merck's
ability to operate its Stonewall facility in this manner represents an approach that may be applied
to other plants who are facing similar business issues.
Major Source Emissions Tiered Compliance Testing
The Experiments): The Weyerhaeuser project provides an alternative approach for tiered
compliance testing of major source emissions under the facility's modified air quality permit. This
modified permit grants compliance testing flexibility for the facility's major source emissions
(generated by the power boiler, recovery boiler, smelt dissolving tank, and calciner). For these
major sources at the facility, the tiered compliance testing requirements become more rigid as the
major source emissions converge on the emissions limit. The four tiers of compliance testing have
been established, governed by the following specifications.
Table 13: Weyerhaeuser Tiered Compliance
Monitoring Results
When parametric monitoring has
shown that control of emissions are less
than 25 percent of the allowable limit;
Testing Frequency
Major source compliance testing will be
performed even four years.
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Monitoring Results
When control of emissions are greater
than 25 percent and less than 50
percent of the allowable limit;
When control of emissions are greater
than 50 percent and less than 75
percent of the allowable limit;
When control of emissions are greater
than 75 percent of the allowable limit:
Testing Frequency
Major source compliance testing
performed every three years.
Major source compliance testing
performed even' two years.
Major source compliance testing
performed annually.
will be
will be
will be
This tiered approach provides an incentive to control major source emissions at the facility thus
reducing compliance testing frequency.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Utilizing this tiered performance testing approach,
Weyerhaeuser has reduced costs and analyses by eliminating repetitive compliance tests for
pollutants that are monitored continuously. Process improvements and energy use savings may
also help further curtail boiler usage and reduce emissions, leading to a reduced compliance
testing burden. Compliance testing is currently performed annually—this is due to the need to
conduct testing for other pollutant emissions under the Pulp and Paper Cluster Rule—but it is
expected that increased control of future emissions could lead to compliance testing every three
years.
Transferability: The opportunity to use this major source emissions compliance test flexibility was
provided under the dual emission cap system incorporated into the Flint River modified air quality
permit. Other facilities that face comparable circumstances could benefit from a similar
compliance-based, tiered approach designed to achieve criteria pollutant emissions reductions.
This provision of a facility-wide permit modification may also have the potential to influence other
Agency permitting initiatives. This project will also present an opportunity to analyze how state
air pollution monitoring and reporting requirements can be coordinated with federal compliance
testing flexibility to ensure compliance while achieving superior environmental performance.
Gasification of Pulping Liquor Under MACT II
The Experiments)'. The Georgia-Pacific Big Island, Virginia pulp and paper mill is seeking to
demonstrate a new recovery technology under section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA). The Big
Island facility, a semi-chemical mill, is subject to the air emissions requirements of the Pulp and
Paper Cluster Rule of the CAA, which requires the installation of Maximum Achievable Control
Technology (MACT). A second MACT standard (MACT II), applicable to pulp and paper mills,
was proposed in 1998 specifically to address emissions from combustion sources associated with
the recovery of pulping chemicals. The recovery process is an integral component of mill
operations. Chemicals used in the pulping process are recovered and spent liquor organic solids
are converted to energy (process steam). Currently, the mill takes spent liquor (black liquor)
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from wood pulping, reduces its water content through an evaporation train, and combusts the
resultant concentrated liquor in two smelters (type of recovery furnace). The smelters recover
sodium carbonate from a molten smelt that is then dissolved in water to produce new pulping
liquor.
MACT II does not specify a particular technology to meet the emission standard. However, to
comply with the proposed standard, the current Georgia-Pacific system would require a
substantial upgrade. Georgia-Pacific would have to either (1) upgrade these smelters and add
additional control devices or (2) replace the smelters with a new recovery boiler that utilizes
conventional technology. As an alternative, Georgia-Pacific has proposed installing a black liquor
gasification system to recover puiping chemicals. The current smelter recovery furnace would be
replaced with a PulseEnhanced™ Steam-Reforming chemical recovery system9. Under this
alternative system, organics from the concentrated spent liquor would be pyrolyzed to a hydrogen
rich fuel. In turn, this fuel would be burned as an energy source for the gasification unit and as an
alternative boiler fuel to produce steam used elsewhere in the Big Island facility. Sodium
bicarbonate pellets would be recovered during this process for reuse in fresh pulping liquor.
Recognizing that the existing smelters would not meet the performance standard of the proposed
MACT II, Georgia Pacific sought regulatory flexibility in working to bring the gasification
technology on line. Given that this technology is comparatively new, Georgia-Pacific pursued an
extension to operate the existing smelters or conventional recovery boiler for a set period of time
past the MACT II compliance date (once that date is established). This flexibility would provide
the facility with additional time for commissioning or, in a worst case scenario, replacing a failed
gasification system with a conventional recovery boiler. Georgia-Pacific also requested flexibility
to use steam generated by the new process in place of steam currently generated from a natural
gas boiler.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The final project agreement for the Georgia-Pacific project was
signed on May 31, 2000. The Big Island black liquor gasification system would be the first
commercial application of this innovative technology in the US. General benefits of this
gasification technology are expected to include: increased energy conversion and chemical
recovery efficiency; elimination of the smelt-water explosion hazard; and lower emissions of
criteria pollutants (PM, S02, NOx, VOCs, CO) and HAPs. Georgia-Pacific believes that use of
this system will allow the Big Island facility to reduce HAP emissions below the proposed MACT
II standard. Criteria pollutant emissions would also be reduced, as the gasification system does
not require auxiliary fuel to maintain a stable liquor combustion as opposed to a conventional
recovery boiler. Such emissions reductions are attractive to pulp mills such as Big Island that use
a semi-chemical non-sulfur process requiring auxiliary fossil fuel to combust black liquor.
'The PulseEnhanced™ Steam-Reforming gasification system was developed by StoneChem, Inc.. The process produces an
endothermic reaction converting black liquor organics to a gas in the absence of air or oxygen at temperatures below those
required for smelt formation.
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Transfer ability: This project offers the opportunity to demonstrate and analyze the energy1
conversion, safety and environmental performance benefits of a new technology. The Big Island
mill will test the effectiveness of the PulseEnhanced™ Steam-Reforming gasification technology in
providing fiall chemical recovery capacity for a semi-chemical mill. Other pulping facilities that
face comparable circumstances could benefit from a similar approach to make their energy
conversion systems more efficient and less capital intensive while achieving emissions reductions.
With the Big Island facility similar in characteristic to 12 other mills in the US, successful
demonstration of this technology could contribute substantially to its transfer and implementation
at a larger number of kraft mills. This technology could also have applications for the conversion
of non-wood liquors, sludges and agricultural wastes to energy.
Additionally, as the project proceeds, there will be a need to analyze the energy efficiency
potential of this technology in producing steam as a byproduct of the chemical recovery process
which can be used to offset steam generated with fossil fuels.
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Environmental Stewardship
Environmental stewardship is a way of identifying and pursuing good business strategies that are
consistent with environmental protection: choosing environmentally benign raw materials;
improving the financial and environmental efficiency of manufacturing processes; and employing
effective environmental management systems (EMSs). The ultimate value of stewardship is
deriving economic value from environmental excellence. Recognizing the need to promote
environmental stewardship, EPA recently announced the National Environmental Performance
Track to motivate and reward top environmental performance. Several States have their own
programs as well. Also through Project XL, regulated facilities can further their commitment to
stewardship approaches with pollution prevention, recycling, and EMSs.
Pollution prevention and recycling provide multiple pathways to sustainable development and
environmental stewardship. EPA has defined pollution prevention as "source reduction" (which is
explained under the 1990 Pollution Prevention Act), and protection of natural resources through
conservation or increased efficiency in the use of energy, water, and other materials. Recycling
shares many of the advantages of pollution prevention; it can reduce the need for treatment or
disposal, and conserve energy and natural resources. Many facilities use a broad definition of
pollution prevention that includes recycling.
An EMS applies standard business principles to the management of an organization's
environmental issues. An EMS does not determine a company's legal obligations; rather, it is a
sophisticated tool used by companies to manage compliance and other environmental concerns.
An EMS can help a company boost efficiency, cut waste, and improve worker safety. It also can
bring attention to environmental matters that are not directly addressed through regulation, such
as energy use.
Table 14 identifies several projects that are testing EMS, pollution prevention, and recycling
options that demonstrate these facilities' commitments to sustainable development.
Table 14: Environmental Stewardship Innovations
::::^::;:;:'^-:;.:::-:x;:':::'::::;::';:':.'::''.':' ':\ • -
Prosecf
Weyerhaeuser
Berry
Lucent
Crompton
Weyerhaeuser
Msdm
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
••• : innovation • . ' • • ; ' :
Linking EMSs to Standard Operating Procedures: Link EMSs to facility standard
operating procedures improving environmental performance.
Multi-facility EMSs: Develop a company-wide EMS model that could be used at multi-
facilities and involves stakeholders in the development process.
Waste Minimization and Pollution Prevention Assessment: Facility based reviews that
inventory' and suggest process-level pollution prevention approaches for reducing
environmental impacts and costs.
Timberland Resource Strategies: Non-point BMP and pollution prevention. Incorporate
forestry management best practices into facility-wide EMS.
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\ ' • • ' '-
Project 1 Media
New England
Universities
Laboratories
Intel
Vandenberg AFB
USPS Denver
Progressive
Intel
NS Mayport
Hazardous
Waste
Solid and
Hazardous
Waste
Air
Air
Air
Water
Water
:
Innovation i
University Laborutory Pollution Prevention and Recycling: Erase the distinction
between unused chemicals and waste chemicals in laboratories; support institutional
recycling by managing all laboratory chemicals under an integrated approach.
Process Modifications and Waste Minimization: Continuous improvement DflE
approach to encourage pollution prevention and waste minimization; incorporation of
voluntary measures into management plan.
Alternative Technological Solutions for Preventing Air Emissions: Resource
reallocation; test ways to reduce permit burdens at Federal facilities to encourage the use
of pollution prevention and innovative technologies.
Flexible Fuel Vehicle Replacement: USPS will eliminate 794 delivery vehicles from the
Denver area and replace them with lower-emitting flexible fuel vehicles. USPS Denver
\\ill earn mobile source emission credits.
Testing Incentives for Pollution Prevention in Mobile Sources: Unique voluntary
insurance program which will base automobile insurance rates upon specific driving
factors such as mileage driven, time of day, and geographic location. This should be an
incentive to reduce car travel, and therefore reduce mobile source air emissions.
Partnership for Water Reclamation and Reuse: Unique partnership with a local
municipality to reuse treated city wastewater and reclaim manufacturing process
wastewater and reinject into local aquifer.
Dredged Material Pollution Prevention Opportunities: The Naval Station Mayport is
seeking to examine and demonstrate innovative and beneficial reuse of dredged
material.
Linking EMSs to Standard Operating Procedures
The Experiment(s): Weyerhaeuser is striving to minimize the environmental impact of its
manufacturing processes on the surrounding environment by pursuing a long-term vision of its
Minimum Impact Mill. Weyerhaeuser has voluntarily instituted an EMS at the Flint River facility
that conforms to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 standard. The
EMS will include operational procedures, record keeping, auditing, quality assurance, and permit
requirements. Weyerhaeuser is also developing a comprehensive manual of standard operating
procedures for plant employees. The Berry project had also committed to using an EMS based
upon ISO 14000. The project was designed to test the EMS approach as a means of promoting
continuous improvement in environmental performance, pollution prevention and source
reduction strategies.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: For Weyerhaeuser, the overall process of developing ISO 14001
documentation originally was scheduled for completion in mid-1997. Due to a company focus on
other aspects of the Minimum Impact Mill vision, documentation has proceeded slower than
expected and is now scheduled for completion late in 2000. For Berry, the work on the EMS
itself had not begun before the project ceased implementation; the company had intended for the
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standard operating procedures and work instructions developed for the potential Comprehensive
Operating Permit to be compatible with ISO 14000. Both Weyerhaeuser and Berry believe that
the strategies they have used to develop the EMSs have resulted in a more environmentally aware
workforce. For example, in 1997 Berry reported that developing the standard operating
procedures and work instructions helped the company reduce the cost of training and improved
day-to-day compliance by focusing on how employees should perform their specific job
responsibilities. Weyerhaeuser reported in 1998 that engaging their employees in the
implementation of the revised EMS had begun to increase staff education and awareness of the
environmental aspects of their jobs.
Transferability: When the implementation of the Weyerhaeuser project is further along, EPA
plans to evaluate the benefits and challenges of the EMS approach. EPA will look to work with
Weyerhaeuser personnel to collect data assessing the improvement in day-to-day compliance with
environmental regulations attributable to the EMS. This will assist EPA in meeting a charge by
the 1999 Innovations Task Force to report by 2002, on the use and effectiveness of EMSs in
improving environmental performance and achieving results. Also, on March 12, 1998, EPA
issued a policy statement in the Federal Register,10 describing a number of pilot projects
—including Project XL— which will provide data on the actual compliance and environmental
benefits of EMS approaches. The Federal Register Notice describes how a group of Federal and
State officials involved in EMS pilot projects have been working together to set up a common
national database of information gathered through the pilot projects. As part of that process, EPA
and States developed a series of data protocols which provide instructions and survey instruments
to guide the actual collection of data for the database. Future analysis of the Weyerhaeuser
project also will be designed to support the EMS database.
Multi-facility EMSs
The Experiments): The Lucent project tests whether a corporate EMS can be the basis for
streamlining the implementation of State and Federal regulations, consolidating permits, and
improving Lucent's facilities' day-to-day compliance. The goal is to have more cost-effective
systems that raise facility managers' awareness of their environmental obligations before they
make decisions about modifying equipment and operations (rather than at the end of a long,
expensive regulatory or permitting process) and allow regulators to focus more on compliance
assurance and technical assistance. Table 15 below describes the project approach and goals.
10 Federal Register: March 12, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 48, Page 12094-12097).
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Table 15 : Lucent Project Approach and Goals
Approach
Goals
Develop a third-party certified, high-quality EMS framework that
can be used to:
* identify significant, site-specific regulated and non-regulated
activities, substances, or processes such as water usage,
wastewater discharge, air emissions, energy usage, chemical
consumption, raw material consumption, and land use that interact
with the environment;
• set and achieve site-specific performance goals for reducing
environmental impacts; and
• ultimately, integrate critical information and performance goals
into a single, companywide matrix that facilitates understanding
and accessibility for stakeholders, assists in measuring
performance and accountability, and potentially serves as the core
of a companywide consolidated permit.
To develop site-specific flexibilities that would lead
to superior environmental performance and improved
environmental management at each Lucent facility.
The ultimate goal is to use the EMS as a platform
from which the company can, over time, consolidate
all Federal and State permits for its domestic
facilities into a single companywide multi-media
permit. This permit would be based on objectives and
targets set annually and jointly by the company and
regulators. Involving regulators in this EMS approach
would result in a de facto annual review of the
permit, eliminating multiyear renewals of individual
permits.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Specific results for the Lucent project are not yet available. The
Final Project Agreement (FPA) for the Lucent project is an " umbrella" agreement, and is based
on an existing, third party certified, ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) for
the entire, global microelectronics business unit of Lucent Technologies. The FPA contemplates
the development of specific proposals for regulatory flexibility and superior environmental
performance at individual facilities. The "umbrella" FPA outlines a process that allows Lucent to
use its EMS as a framework for developing facility-specific proposals to simplify permitting,
recordkeeping, and reporting requirements, while driving continual improvement and pollution
prevention programs.
Transferability: The EMS Federal Register Notice states that it is critical to measure any change
in a facility's environmental performance that might be attributable to implementation of an EMS.
Project XL can collect information on types, amounts, and properties of regulated and
nonregulated pollutants that are reduced as a result of an EMS. In particular, the Lucent project
will be able to provide this information on a multi-facility basis. EPA's EMS Federal Register
Notice also states that Federal and State regulators are interested in understanding the
involvement of local communities and other stakeholders in the EMS process. The Lucent project
can collect data to assess the amount and degree of stakeholder and regulator participation in both
the development and implementation of an organization's EMS, and the effect that participation
has on the public credibility of the facility's EMS implementation. EPA plans to evaluate the
benefits and challenges of these EMS approaches designed to support the Innovations Task Force
report and the goals of the EMS database.
Waste Minimization and Pollution Prevention Assessment
The Experiments}: The Crompton (formerly Witco) project conducted a comprehensive waste
minimization/pollution prevention (WM/PP) study for its Sistersvitle, West Virginia facility. The
following focuses on this WM/PP study and Crompton's commitment to methanol recycling.
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Instead of occurring as a single event outside the purview of routine business operations, the
Crompton WM/PP study was an employee 'driven effort that sought to identify and integrate
pollution prevention approaches into the company's standard operating practices using a third-
party contractor to conduct the study. The WM/PP opportunity assessment facilitated employee
involvement in the process and implemented an approach tailored to the specific needs of the
facility Crompton used a multiphased process to conduct the study: (1) identifying and
characterizing plantwide wastes and emissions; (2) screening and prioritizing these wastes and
emissions; (3) identifying pollution prevention options; (4) screening and prioritizing pollution
prevention options; (5) examining the technical and economic feasibility of these options; and (6)
developing an implementation plan.
A WM/PP study team (made up of Crompton management and employees and an independent
contractor, STV Incorporated) was established to guide and conduct the daily activities of the
WM/PP Study. Employee brainstorming sessions were a key component of this process. These
sessions included representatives from a cross-section of the plant's technical and operating staffs.
In addition, an advisory committee was established to offer comments and suggestions throughout
the study process. Through the use of this advisory committee, Crompton involved EPA, West
Virginia DEP, the International Chemical Workers Union Council, and other stakeholders in the
study phase of the WM/PP Project.
Another aspect of the Crompton project is the commitment to recycle methanol. Previously,
excess methanol produced in Crompton's Sistersville facility was condensed, collected, and either
disposed of in the facility's wastewater treatment unit or incinerated. Under the project,
Crompton is reusing, recycling, or thermally treating 95 percent of the collected methanol. This
will minimize the biotreatment of methanol in the facility's wastewater treatment units and reduce
sludge generation.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: A final report was published in December 1998 as a result of the
WM/PP study. This report laid out 330 pollution prevention options that were determined to be
technologically and economically feasible. Crompton's Annual Project XL Report (July 31, 2000)
lists a total of 370 pollution prevention opportunities that have been identified. Of these, 26 are at
some stage of study and 67 have been implemented. Table 16 is a summary of some of the
potential cost savings and potential waste or emissions reductions to be gained by the pollution
prevention options identified by the Crompton WM/PP study.
The most promising identified opportunities are reviewed and selected by an internal Pollution
Prevention Council which was established in 1998 as a result of the WM/PP study. The Pollution
Prevention Council, representing many plant functions, meets monthly. Council members choose
the most promising opportunities identified in the final report to pursue, including options
originally deemed not feasible, as well as offering other ideas. The Pollution Prevention Council
maintains an "evergreen" list of ideas — a list of prioritized waste problems along with a list of
pollution prevention projects that have been proposed to resolve those problems ~ which are
reviewed at each monthly meeting.
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As a result of the Crompton methanol recycling effort, the amount of sludge generated by the
wastewater treatment system and disposed of in an on-site hazardous waste landfill will be
decreased by about 815,000 pounds per year.
Table 16
Crompton Waste Minimization/ Pollution Prevention Study
One-time pollution prevention options - completed in 1 998
Expected
recurring/ongo ing
savings
Project air emissions reduction and
methanol recycle (excludes capital
savings).
Other Pollution prevention options in
progress or put in place July 1 998 - June
1999.
Total savings
Potential Cast
Savings
$ 42,000
$ 16,000 per year
S620,000 per year
$640,000 per year
• - -
Potential H'ast&Ertussion
Reductions
26,000 pounds
1 , 1 00,000 pounds per year
730,000 pounds per year
1 ,830,000 pounds per year
*Crompton has not yet assigned the expense of implementing these projects, and when it does the net cost savings will be less.
Transferability: The Crompton project approach toward pollution prevention and recycling may
offer an innovative model for other chemical intermediate-product manufacturers. Some pollution
prevention approaches can be implemented through modifications to existing standard operating
procedures combined with careful training on the new procedures and follow up to ensure those
procedures are carried out. Involving facility-level personnel "up-front", even in the development
of the process itself, has proven valuable and could have application at other facilities. Including
a broad spectrum of employees, representing many plant functions, has helped to instill a facility-
level culture in which individual employees are trained and empowered to continuously identify
and implement new pollution prevention opportunities and strategies. This approach has required
a clear management commitment on the part of Crompton to commit resources and institute
technically and economically feasible pollution prevention measures.
Timber-land Resource Strategies
The Experiments): Weyerhaeuser manages over 300,000 acres of timberland in Georgia, with
impacts on more than half of the river basins in the state. As a component of the Weyerhaeuser
project's Minimum Impact Mill vision and as a means to further protect the Flint River,
neighboring wildlife habitats, and unique parcels on its forest land, Weyerhaeuser has undertaken
management changes to enhance its Forestry Management System. These methods are expected
to improve water quality and wildlife habitat, soil stability and increase soil productivity while
sustainably producing wood and forest products. Weyerhaeuser has incorporated its forestry
management strategies into the Flint River facility-wide Environmental Management System
(EMS). Weyerhaeuser is also engaging in cooperative efforts to ascertain how company forest
lands can contribute to the conservation of threatened and endangered species.
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Results Anticipated Outcomes: The modified Forestry Management System has produced a more
holistic view of the forest management approaches applied to the forest lands serving the Flint
River facility. It has shifted forest management from a remediation, reactionary approach to a
more pro-active, continuous improvement one. Time formerly spent on remediation of roads and
streams and other impact abatement activities is now spent on process improvements and
preventive measures.
Table 17
Forestry Manageroent System
Environmental
Performance
Improvements have been seen in:
Water quality - through reduced sediment loading, and enhancement and establishment of riparian
zones (aquatic habitat benefits as well)
Soil stability - through better management and planning of roads, site preparation prior to harvesting.
There are approximately 500 miles of roads managed by this facility, historically approximately 20
miles of road a year needed repair. With careful planning of new roads and retirement of older roads,
less remediation has been needed, thus soil erosion into streams has been reduced.
Identification and management of forestland wildlife habitats.
Internal
Process
Weyerhaeuser has worked to integrate the forestry management system into the facilitywide EMS. The
Flint River facility's total quality management system is ISO 9000 certified and the facility has
implemented an EMS that complies with the ISO 14001 standard, although the facility is not ISO
14001 certified at this point
Weyerhaeuser supports and applies principles of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and expects
that its contractors meet SFI principles and objectives as well to ensure timber coming to the plant has
been grown and harvested using responsible forestry practices.
The forestry EMS has been significant from a forest stewardship and sustainability perspective and has
created economic benefits as well.
Community
outreach
To broaden the application of responsible practices and sustainable forestry, Weyerhaeuser
has taken a lead role in updating the forestry Best Management Practices (BMPsj for the
State of Georgia. Under the direction of the Georgia Forestry Commission, work was
conducted with nonprofit organizations, government agencies and private landowners to
develop comprehensive guidelines designed to improve wildlife habitat and water quality in
the state's private forests.
Weyerhaeuser has undertaken other cooperative, outreach and public education activities to
empower landowners and other forest managers with the tools to advance responsible forestry
practices.
Resource
Management
Practices
Weyerhaeuser's forestry practices lead to forests that produce 2-3 times as much wood per
acre as unmanaged forests. In addition to increased productivity, harvested sites are prepared
for prompt reforestation. In 1998. over 78 percent of its harvested lands were replanted
within 1 year.
Forest strategies also seek to minimize waste during harvesting and to encourage the use of
other products from the forest
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Transferability: Weyerhaeuser's Forestry Management System offers a framework for other
facilities that are seeking to integrate their forestry management strategies into a facilitywide
EMS. It also offers an effective model for the incorporation of responsible practices and a
continuous improvement approach into forest management for those facilities that rely on a
consistent, high quality source of wood and wood-related products. In addition, the project
provides the opportunity to explore how performance and management objectives and principles
can serve as leverage points with vendors and contractors.
Variability in environmental performance in the forest products industry could serve as a potential
barrier to broader scale transfer and application of an enhanced forestry management system.
Weyerhaeuser manages its operations to reduce the ecological footprint of the Flint River facility.
Compared to similar pulp and paper operations, the Flint River facility produces only 10 percent
of the air emissions and uses only 20 percent of the forest land needed for an equivalent unit of
production. Diversity of forest types and growth rates across the country, and differing forest land
management desires and systems could also impact the applicability of a timberland resources
strategy.
University Laboratory Pollution Prevention and Recycling
The Experiment(s): The New England Universities Laboratories project includes several
provisions designed to result in increased pollution prevention. One of the objectives of the
Laboratory Environmental Management Plan (EMP)and the overall project is to erase the
distinction between unused chemicals and waste chemicals in the laboratory setting, so that the
value in reusing chemicals can be realized. Thus, all laboratory waste in this project will be
managed under a single standard in the laboratory. The determination whether a laboratory waste
can be reused within the university will be made at a central accumulation facility within the
university by environmental health and safety professionals.
According to a 1996 survey of about 100 academic institutions by the Campus, Safety, Health,
and Environmental Management Association, less than one percent of the hazardous chemical
waste otherwise destined for disposal was reportedly redistributed or reused on-site. Under this
project, the participating universities will be able to more easily facilitate the reuse of chemicals on
a university-wide basis. For example, chemicals that are no longer of sufficient purity for use in a
research laboratory could be used by teaching laboratories, or, if a researcher in one department,
for example, no longer needs certain raw material chemicals, rather than disposing of them as
waste, these chemicals could be available to other departments in the university for use. Waste
reduction will be encouraged as a result of the more comprehensive waste exchange systems
throughout the institution.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The New England Universities Laboratories project is expected to
result in increased pollution prevention. The participating universities have set specific pollution
prevention goals including a 10 percent reduction in the overall amount of hazardous waste
generated from participating laboratories (from the baseline), and a 20 percent increase (from the
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baseline) in reuse of laboratory waste over the life of the project. The universities will report each
year on their progress in meeting these goals.
One element of the Laboratory EMP is a requirement to define a list of "hazardous chemicals of
concern" and annually conduct a risk assessment survey of these chemicals in the laboratory. This
list will be developed on an institution-by-institution basis because the types of hazardous
chemicals at a particular institution will vary with the type of work done there. This list will be
reviewed on an annual basis and adjusted to assure that it covers an adequate breadth of
hazardous materials. This documented assessment will enhance both waste and risk minimization
efforts, and move laboratory personnel/inspectors away from discussions as to whether a
hazardous material on the shelf is a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) hazardous
waste.
The proposed surveys will support institutional chemical reuse and/or the timely disposal of
hazardous chemicals that are approaching or have exceeded their shelf life. The surveys will also
document that hazardous chemicals of concern that remain on the shelf have been assessed for
product integrity and risk to human health and the environment.
Transferability: Laboratory waste management currently accounts for the most substantial
expense for environmental, health, and safety (EHS) programs at the participating universities.
This project is intended to allow these institutions to more effectively promote and implement
pollution prevention programs in their laboratories. It is intended to reduce waste disposal costs
and reduce chemical purchasing costs without diminishing the level of environmental protection
associated with the proper handling and/or disposal of hazardous laboratory wastes.
The three participating universities are members of the Campus Consortium for Environmental
Excellence (C2E2) originating in the New England geographic region. As members of that
Consortium, each participant strives to promote pollution prevention and environmental
performance monitoring for laboratories. In addition, the participants are seeking to continuously
improve their laboratory EHS programs. The lessons learned from these pilots may be transferable
to other C2E2 members, as well as other academic institutions, hospitals, and corporations with
extensive laboratory efforts. Sharing information about managing and minimizing laboratory
wastes and other environmental impacts will result in economic and social values for the
participants, and distinguish them as leaders in the EHS field.
Process Modifications and Waste Minimization
The Experiments): The Intel project seeks to minimize the use and generation of hazardous
waste while exploring the value of incorporating non-regulated (voluntary) items into its
environmental management plan. While Intel is not legally required to recycle the solid, hazardous
and non-hazardous wastes generated at its Fab-12 facility, it has committed itself to specific
recycling goals. Notwithstanding its voluntary recycling targets, Intel's goal is to reduce the total
amount of hazardous waste generated and used at the facility and to shift as much hazardous
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waste as possible into the non-hazardous waste category. To affect this switch, Intel is applying a
Design for the Environment (DfE) approach to its manufacturing process development. Intel
develops new chip-making processes every two years and incorporates environmental
improvement into manufacturing processes through process and technology design and chemical
screening. These process design and technology improvements enable Intel to continuously refine
the management of its waste resources. Intel's waste management goals will also reduce the
impact of the Ocotillo facility on waste treatment or disposal facilities. Intel has committed to
report its waste recycling activities in its consolidated report to equip stakeholders with
information to evaluate Intel's progress toward attainment of these recycling goals.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Through its development and implementation of more
environmentally compatible manufacturing processes, Intel has integrated environmental
considerations into its decision-making process to lessen the environmental burden of waste
generation at its Ocotillo facility. Intel is seeking to spur source reduction of hazardous waste use
with an front-end manufacturing process design approach based on the DfE model of continuous
process improvement. This model incorporates environmental improvement into process
development before these manufacturing processes are implemented at Intel facilities. The DfE
approach will (1) reduce the total amount of hazardous wastes used and generated during
manufacturing processes and (2) employ chemical screening to shift manufacturing processes
towards increased use of non-hazardous materials. These materials shifts complement one
another and Intel expects that they will lead to a decrease in the percentage of hazardous waste
available for recycling while increasing the percentage of non-hazardous waste available for
recycling. Intel is increasing the amount of solid waste recycled by looking outside the scope of
typical solid waste streams at its facility. Intel's progress towards attaining its recycling goals is
outlined below.
Table 18
'Waste Minimization
Intel Goals
Intel Progress
Hazardous
Waste
1997 - recycle 60 percent of hazardous waste
generated
1999 - recycle 50 percent of hazardous waste
generated
2001 - recycle 40 percent of hazardous waste
generated
1997 - 67 percent of hazardous waste recycled
1998 - 53 percent hazardous waste recycled
1999 - 65 percent of hazardous waste recycled
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Waste Minimization
Non-
hazardous
Chemical
Waste
1997 - recycle 25 percent of non-hazardous waste
generated
1999 - recycle 50 percent of non-hazardous waste
generated
2001- recycle 70 percent of non-hazardous waste
generated
1997 - 58 percent of non-hazardous waste
recycled
1998 - 49 percent non-hazardous waste recycled
1999 - 78 percent of non-hazardous waste
recycled
Solid Waste
1997 - recycle 40 percent of solid waste generated
1999 - recycle 55 percent of solid waste generated
2001 - recycle 60 percent of solid waste generated
1997 - 42 percent of solid waste recycled
1998 - 67 percent solid waste recycled
1999 - 67 percent of solid waste recycled
Transferability: Intel's focus on using process design and development to drive source reduction
and improve environmental management could have applications for other technologically
dynamic firms facing comparable rapid evolution of manufacturing process technologies. The
continuous improvement DfE approach offers a model of how up-front consideration of
environmental goals can be incorporated into traditional business decisions and product/process
development cycles to achieve superior environmental performance. The Intel project offers the
opportunity to analyze: (1) the value of incorporating voluntary targets into an environmental
management strategy; (2) barriers to effectively interfacing environmental goals and process
development to create environmentally compatible products and processes; and (3) how chemical
selection protocols might affect process design and reduce the amounts and toxicity of hazardous
materials used in manufacturing processes.
Alternative Technological Solutions for Preventing Air Emissions
The Experiment(s): The Vandenberg AFB project is testing new budgetary approaches that will
allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to spend resources on pollution prevention programs,
innovative technologies, and other approaches that will cost-effectively reduce environmental
impacts. The Memorandum of Agreement (MO A) established a framework for developing
ENWEST11 pilot programs at three to five DOD facilities. The Vandenberg Air Force Base in
Santa Barbara County, California, was selected as the first DoD facility to pilot the ENWEST
program and implement cost-effective environmental protection.
Through this XL/ENWEST project, Vandenberg AFB committed to upgrade ozone-precursor
emission controls using resources that would otherwise be spent complying with Title V of the
"As part of the Administration's reinvention initiative, EPA and DoD signed a Memorandum of Agreement in 1995 that
established how the two agencies would interact during implementation of DoD" s Environmental Investment (ENWEST)
program. The ENWEST program emphasizes regulatory compliance through pollution prevention and provides an
alternative to prescriptive regulatory requirements through a performance-based environmental management system
designed to attain superior environmental results.
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Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements, such as permitting, record keeping, monitoring, and training.
When Vandenberg AFB reduces ozone-precursor emissions to agreed-upon levels, its designation
under Title V as a major source of ozone-precursor emissions (primarily NOx) will be reduced to
a designation as a minor source, resulting in a substantial reduction in air emissions and
compliance costs for Vandenberg AFB. Near term, obtaining reductions has focused on boilers,
furnaces, and process heaters.
Result(s): Vandenberg AFB has committed to reducing annual emissions of ozone precursors by
two tons per year by April 30, 2000, and by 10 or more tons per year by November 30, 2002.
NOx reductions will be accomplished by retrofitting or replacing those boilers with the highest
potential for emission reductions, and VOC reductions will be accomplished by assessing the
emission reduction potential from solvents, surface coatings, and other VOC emission sources.
To date, actual NOx emission data has been collected from nearly 30 preselected candidate boilers
to determine baseline emission levels and the potential emission reduction resulting from a boiler
retrofit/replacement project. Similarly, targeted VOC reductions will entail the application of low,
and zero-VOC coating substitutions for both architectural and corrosion-control operations.
While the emissions reductions achieved by controlling emissions from the candidate boilers fell
short of the 10-ton goal, Vandenberg AFB has evaluated alternative activities to help achieve the
goal. Activities include:
• Using internal combustion engine control technologies to reduce NO x emissions from
aerospace ground equipment.
• Replacing lawn mowers and other ground maintenance and irrigation equipment that use
internal combustion engines with electric equipment.
• Using zero-VOC paints and coatings in corrosion control, industrial facility painting, and
architectural interior and exterior coating operations.
• Consolidating paint booth operations to include application of corrosion control coatings
to reduce VOC emissions.
• Implementing an electric vehicle (EV) fleet program.
On August 25, 1999, Vandenberg AFB presented a proposal to the Santa Barbara County Air
Pollution Control District for investing the balance of ENWESTfunds in an EV fleet pilot
program. This program will help achieve the remaining reduction requirements.
Transfer ability: The Vandenberg AFB project is testing ways to reduce regulatory burdens at
Federal facilities. Likewise, the Vandenberg AFB could be a model and benchmark for other
DOD facilities. This innovative approach in applying resources toward high priority
environmental problems that, in turn, will result in lower costs and reduced environmental
emissions from the facility, should offer useful data for other DoD applications.
Flexible Fuel Vehicle Replacement
The Experiments): The United States Postal Service (USPS Denver) project will reduce its
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impact on air emissions in the Denver, Colorado area by replacing high-emission vehicles with
low-emission ones. USPS has committed to (1) using at least 794 new, alternative fuel vehicles in
Denver and (2) helping support the development of an infrastructure to support these vehicles.
As part of the Colorado Environmental Leadership Program and Project XL, USPS will remove
794 delivery vehicles used in Denver and replace them with Transitional Low-Emitting Vehicles
(TLEVs). In exchange for these commitments, the USPS will receive credits from the State of
Colorado that can be used to satisfy the vehicle purchase requirements of the Colorado Clean Fuel
Fleet Program (CFFP).
This delivery vehicle replacement project will reduce the USPS's contribution to mobile source
emissions in the Denver area. While it is in the process of redesignating for CAA attainment, the
Denver metropolitan area is currently in non-attainment for CO. The CAA requires states with
ozone and CO nonattainment areas to revise their State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to
incorporate a CFFP. Section 246 of the CAA provides that a States' SIP submission must require
fleet operators with 10 or more vehicles that are or are capable of being centrally fueled, to
include a specified percentage of clean-fuel vehicles in their new vehicle purchases each year. In
the Denver area, compliance with the Colorado CFFP requires 50 percent of the new vehicle
purchases to be low-emitting vehicles (LEVs).
USPS sought partial relief from Colorado's Clean Fuel Fleet Program requirements. The State of
Colorado is using the USPS's vehicle replacement actions as a substitute for the federally required
Clean-Fuel Vehicle Program for the Denver non-attainment area. In order to qualify as a
substitute program, all requirements that USPS has agreed to will be made enforceable through a
SIP revision.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: 'Delivery of the first group of vehicles is expected in October
2000. Due to the unique specifications needed for USPS delivery vehicles, the only bid received
for this purchase involved TLEVs, which would not meet LEV requirements. TLEVs are capable
of using unleaded gasoline with up to 85 percent ethanol (E-85) and meet or exceed California
TLEV certification standards. Flexibility under the Colorado CFFP will allow aging postal
delivery vehicles to be replaced with TLEVs. For each E-85 vehicle that the USPS deploys in
Denver, it has agreed to remove either a pre-1984 route vehicle or a long-life-vehicle (LLV -
1987-1991 vintage) from service in the Denver area. The USPS project commits to destroying
512 pre-1984 delivery vehicles and relocating 282 LLVs to other western cities where they will
replace aging fleet vehicles. The destruction and relocation of vehicles is planned for completion
by July 31, 2001. As each of the vehicles to be scrapped emits approximately 250 pounds more
CO2 per year than an E-85 vehicle, this replacement program is anticipated to significantly
decrease USPS's contribution to mobile source emissions in the Denver metropolitan area.
USPS has developed technical specifications for modifying an existing underground storage tank
to properly house E-85 fuel. This modified UST will serve as a demonstration project for public
evaluation of alternative fuel storage.
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Transferability: The USPS project will replace older, higher-emission vehicles with new, lower-
emissions flexible fuel vehicles and could se'rve as a model for vehicle fleets across the country. In
addition, as the project proceeds, there will be an opportunity to examine and evaluate the
opportunities and barriers in developing and maintaining an E-85 fueling infrastructure. The
intent of the USPS Western Area Flex Fuel Vehicle Plan is to concentrate new FFVs in a small
number of metropolitan areas across the western US, concentrating FFVs at facilities within those
areas. An objective in this strategy by the USPS is to promote the development of a retail E-85
fueling infrastructure. Lessons learned from USPS development of an E-85 substructure could
have application in the development of any alternative fuel infrastructure.
Testing Incentives for Pollution Prevention in Mobile Sources
Experiment: The Progressive Auto Insurance (Progressive) project supports a unique voluntary
insurance program which will base automobile insurance rates upon specific driving factors such
as mileage driven, time of day, and geographic location, in addition to more customary factors
such as age, sex, and marital status. This new program is made possible through the use of a
Global Positioning System (GPS) device installed in customers' vehicles. There are plans
underway for a number of automobile manufacturers to incorporate progressive's technology in
their GPS units for new vehicles. The information recorded by the device ensures that the cost of
insurance is based on the usage of the vehicle. The focus of this project is an analytical study that
will determine the extent to which the Progressive program has an effect on environmental
quality. EPA is interested in determining the degree to which people who sign up for
Progressive's usage-based insurance program reduce their total driving or their driving during
congested periods which could result in lower mobile source emissions. According to EPA's
Indicators of the Environmental Impacts of Transportation report released in October of 1999,
U.S. travel is responsible for a substantial portion of U.S. ozone precursor emissions (31 percent
of volatile organic compounds and 36 percent of nitrogen oxides) 61 percent of nationwide
carbon monoxide emissions, and 31 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. Although Progressive is
not currently requesting regulatory relief, if future analysis shows that the project is
environmentally beneficial some alternatives might be explored that will offer regulatory
flexibility.
Anticipated Results: Progressive's system, which has already been piloted in Texas, is designed
not only to lower costs for its customers, but also to encourage positive driving behaviors which
may lead to a reduction in accidents and harmful air emissions. By measuring and integrating
factors that relate to vehicular use into insurance rates, Progressive is providing its customers with
a financial incentive to drive less and choose alternate forms of transportation which could reduce
negative environmental impacts from automobile usage. Thus far, Progressive has not directly
measured the environmental impacts of this program. However, if consumers respond to the
increased per mile costs of a usage-based insurance program in the same way as they do to the
variable costs associated with rising fuel prices, a significant reduction in vehicle usage could
result.
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The possibility of offering State Implementation Plan (SIP) credits in those states that enable this
program to move forward is one alternative for offering regulatory flexibility in the future. In
1997, EPA adopted a policy to allow credit in SIPs for Voluntary Mobile Emissions Programs
designed to reduce emissions. The policy allows 3 percent of the total reductions needed for
attainment in a local or regional geographic area to be from voluntary mobile source reduction
programs.
Transferability Potential: As the Progressive project proceeds, it will analyze the extent to which
usage-based auto insurance can positively impact vehicle miles traveled and associated air
impacts. This unique approach has already been made available in the state of Texas and could
benefit other states concerned with transportation, and air quality problems. Progressive has taken
steps to begin pilot programs in the states of Ohio, Illinois, and California. A potential difficulty
involved in expanding the program is the limited availability and high expense of GPS technology.
Facilitating the retrofitting of GPS systems in older vehicles to enable participation in
Progressive's program is necessary to ensure that the benefits extend to consumers in all income
brackets and that drivers of older, more pollution prone vehicles can be rewarded for driving less.
Expansion of the program will also be dependent in part upon the insurance regulations in specific
states.
Partnership for Water Reclamation and Reuse
The Experiment(s): In the Intel project, an innovative partnership between the company and the
City of Chandler has created opportunities to; (1) reuse treated city wastewater at the Intel facility
for use in cooling towers and on landscaping (Figure 2); and (2) reclaim rinsewater used during
manufacturing processes for reverse osmosis (RO) treatment and reinjection into the local aquifer.
(Figure 2) Intel needs high quality water for semiconductor operations, thus the two water use
streams are not connected and are used in different processes.
Figure 2
CityofChandler-
Ocotillo Wastewater Intel Fab-12
Reclamation Facility • Treated city wastewater is • cooling tower
treats water from sent to Intel facility operations
sewage treatment plant on
Use of treated citv wastewater. Intel has committed to voluntarily minimize its consumption of
freshwater by using treated city effluent for consumptive uses of semiconductor manufacturing cooling
tower makeup and landscaping. Intel will purchase water from the Ocotillo Management Group that has
been treated by the City of Chandler. Intel's initial goal was to achieve 100 percent use of treated water by
January 1997.
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Figure 3
Intel facility
semiconductor
operations
Select streams of rinse water
manufacturing processes
are treated on site
Water sent to Chandler
- RO facility for
additional treatment
and aquifer
Reclamation of Citv Water. Intel's core manufacturing processes need high quality water, but Intel has
arranged for the treatment of some of the rinsewater from its manufacturing processes for reuse or
reinjection into the groundwater to help replenish the local aquifer. The rinse water is first treated within
the facility and is then treated at an off site facility using reverse osmosis (RO) filtration. The City of
Chandler can either recharge the treated water into the groundwater to replenish the aquifer or reuse the
water. The City of Chandler recharges the local aquifer under an Aquifer Protection Permit issued by the
State of Arizona.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Although there is no regulatory requirement or standard to serve
as a baseline, Intel will significantly reduce its fresh water demands through its water reclamation
and reuse goals.
Reuse of treated city wastewater. The percentage of wastewater reuse is calculated by the
quantity of city effluent used for landscaping and cooling tower make-up, divided by the
total quantity of water used for landscaping and cooling tower make-up. A mid-course
review in January of 1999 changed the established goal of 100 percent to 95 percent* use
of treated City effluent for cooling towner and landscaping use. This change was enacted
based on a review of cooling tower design and the need to ensure that there is a constant
supply of water for cooling tower uses during maintenance downtime at the City treatment
plant. Intel's effluent reuse results are shown in Table 19.
Table 19
Reus« of Treated City Water
Year
1997
1998
7999
Treated Effluent Reuse Performance Goal
100 percent use of treated city water for
landscaping and cooling tower uses
1 00 percent use of treated city water for
landscaping and cooling tower uses
* Revised goal to achieve 95 percent use of
treated city water for landscaping and cooling
tower uses
Treated Effluent Reuse Achieved
Ocotillo facility achieved 80 percent use of
treated effluent. (132 million gallons of water)
Ocotillo facility achieved 97 percent use of
treated effluent (183 million gallons of water)
Ocotillo facility achieved 98 percent use of
treated effluent (205 million gallons of water,!
Reclamation of City Water. The reverse osmosis filtration process treats the process rinse
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water to applicable drinking water standards before it is returned to the local aquifer.
Intel's reclamation results are shown in Table 20.
Table 20
Process Water Reclamation
Year
1997
1998
1999
Reuse Performance Goal
45 percent of the total volume of
freshwater purchased from the City will be
sent to the City's effluent treatment plant
for recycling
no goal established for 1998
55 percent of the total volume of
freshwater purchased from the City will be
sent to the City's effluent treatment plant
for recycling
Reuse Achieved
66 percent of water purchased from the Cits' was
returned for RO treatment and re-injection into the
aquifer. (355 million gallons)
61 percent of the water purchased from the City was
returned to the City for treatment (399 million
gallons)
61 percent of the water purchased from the City has
been returned to the City for treatment. (422 million
gallons)
As a result of the Intel project commitment to use treated wastewater from the City of Chandler's
publicly owned treatment works (POTW), the City received a grant to study reuse options for
industrial process water. The study examined the selective use of manufacturing process effluent
in cooling tower applications and the use of cooling tower effluent for specific irrigation needs.
The study has led to the development of a model that portrays the representative quality of
cooling tower effluent to help determine if it can be reused in other applications.
Transferability: The water conservation partnership between Intel and the City of Chandler
provides an innovative model for arid regions that are increasingly faced with low groundwater
replenishment rates and for areas of where municipal water suppliers need to conserve water in
both domestic and non-domestic activities. In Arizona, the 1980 Groundwater Management Act
provided such a requirement for the City of Chandler. As water cost and scarcity increases,
treated effluent is one "source of water" that is expected to continue to increase and could
provide future water supplies through reclamation and reuse.
The Intel project also explores the importance of tailoring environmental performance to an issue
relevant to a local community (water conservation) and serves as the foundation for a model to
identify potential cooperative water conservation projects between industries and their neighbors.
In addition to identifying technical and economic opportunities to conserve and reuse treated
water, there will be a need to examine any technical and economic barriers to reclamation and
reuse. Issues to further explore include: (1) the costs of reverse osmosis technology; the
opportunities as well as costs to design systems from the ground up to allow them to use treated
effluent; (2) the potential cost barriers of retrofitting facilities to enable them to reuse treated
effluent; and, (3) the potential technical limitations and high cost of treating and reusing process
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effluent. (Cooling towers can experience problems with microbial growth and solid precipitates
from treated POTW effluent.)
Dredged Material Pollution Prevention Opportunities
The Experiment(s): In an effort to eventually eliminate ocean dumping of its dredged material,
Naval Station Mayport (NS Mayport) in Jacksonville, Florida is seeking to use the Project
XL/ENVVEST process to examine and demonstrate innovative and beneficial reuse of the
dredged material. The proposed reuse options will be: (1) production of construction building
blocks and (2) production of artificial reef material for new or repaired reef habitat. To maintain
sufficient depths for naval ships, NS Mayport must dredge approximately 600,000 cubic yards of
sediment from the entrance channel on the St. John's river and the installation's turning basin
every 18 to 24 months. Historically, this material was stored in two upland holding sites at the
installation. Once this space was exhausted in 1993, ocean disposal of the dredged material was
approved temporarily by U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) for the naval station.
EPA and COE share responsibility for managing ocean disposal of dredged materials. Permits for
disposing dredged material into ocean waters are issued by the COE , subject to EPA
concurrence. NS Mayport is currently required to obtain three permits with three different
durations to dredge and dispose of its maintenance sediment — two permits from COE and one
from the State of Florida. The naval station has sought flexibility to adjust the lengths of these
permits to synchronize their duration and combine their testing and evaluation requirements.
Through Project XL, NS Mayport, EPA, COE, Florida Department of Environmental Protection
and the City of Jacksonville are creating a partnership to provide flexibility by streamlining the
dredging and ocean disposal process by means of extending the length of one permit to
synchronize permit cycles. Anticipated savings from the streamlining process and the reduction in
paperwork from synchronized or extended permits will be reinvested into development of the
beneficial reuse applications for the dredged material.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The NS Mayport project is pursuing pollution prevention
opportunities through the minimization and eventual elimination of ocean disposal of dredged
maintenance material. Current dredging cycles at NS Mayport are generating approximately
600,000 cubic yards of sand and silt every two years. Lacking the ability to develop products
through the reuse of dredged material, NS Mayport has estimated that by 2020, it will have
disposed of approximately ten million cubic yards of dredged material in the ocean.
Initially, the dredged material for construction of the building blocks and artificial reef material
will be derived from the existing upland storage cells. During this time, ocean disposal of freshly
dredged material will continue. After these storage cells are emptied, dredged material will be
stored temporarily in one of the upland storage cells, thereby eliminating the need for ocean
disposal. The second storage cell will be used for constructing building blocks and artificial reef
material. By establishing a procedure and cycle for using the two storage cells for reuse projects
and temporary dredged material storage, NS Mayport anticipates it would be able to continue to
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use the cells without reaching capacity. In addition, NS Mayport has proposed using excess fly
ash from the local electric authority as a solidification material for the construction blocks (not for
reef material). If fly ash is not suitable, another solidification agent will be used in the
construction blocks.
This project will proceed in phases that will allow NS Mayport to demonstrate and evaluate that
the dredged material finished products are safe to human health and the marine environment.
Implementation will include: (1) collecting samples of dredged material from the upland disposal
sites to ensure they meet all federal, state and local building requirements; (2) researching the cost
and benefits analysis to support long term commercial and/or public use of the new materials; and
(3) evaluating the need and cost effectiveness of mobilizing portable equipment to manufacture
products at or near the upland storage cells. If it is determined that the finished products present
any risk to human health or the marine environment, implementation will stop.
Transferability: The disposal of dredged material is a Navy-wide as well as Nationwide issue and
this project can serve as the test bed to investigate the degree of transferability and savings
beyond NS Mayport. While complete elimination of ocean disposal may not be feasible at all
similar locations, the NS Mayport ENVVEST/XL project could serve as a model for other
locations seeking to decrease the frequency and amount of ocean disposal for dredged material.
Additionally, designated in 1994 as the Navy Environmental Leadership Program East Coast
facility, NS Mayport has been charged with leading the development of innovative technologies
and state-of-the-art management practices to reduce the ecological footprint and effect of naval
facilities. In setting an environmental management standard for all Navy installations, NS
Mayport will look to export its lessons learned from this project throughout the Navy and the
Department of Defense.
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Stakeholder Involvement12
The American public has demanded active involvement in community decisions that affect their
health and the quality of their environment. In response, EPA is increasing public participation in
its programs and providing more environmental information to help the public understand critical,
and often complex, issues. EPA also hosts forums like the National Community Involvement
Conference to support public participation in environmental issues. In addition, EPA is revising
the regulations that guide public participation efforts, and providing models to help staff learn
how to get the public involved in their work. Project XL is an opportunity to test new
stakeholder involvement approaches which give communities a clearer, more coordinated voice in
crafting environmental solutions.
Stakeholder involvement is one of the eight Project XL selection criteria. Because the projects
involve innovative strategies that differ from what would be allowed under regulation, this ensures
that the public has ample opportunity to review and influence actions first. However, stakeholder
involvement in these experiments has also been very challenging. Project XL, as a program, has
sought out approaches (through principles, tools, and processes) that support collaborative
working relationships with project sponsors, government representatives and stakeholders. Table
21 identifies these approaches.
Table 21 : Stakeholder Involvement Innovations
FrolectlsV
Media
Innovation
ExxonMobil
Hazardous
Waste Site
Remediation
and Reuse
Enhanced Stakeholder Involvement: Unique approach by working closely with
stakeholders to plan the cleanup and determine the future uses for the contaminated site;
to ensure that the site will be redeveloped for business or commercial use after cleanup.
Weyerhaeuser
Intel
Merck
HADCO
Multi-media
Public Participation: Identifying models for stakeholder involvement evaluation of
models linking public participation to environmental decision-making.
Program-wide
Multi-media
Project XL Stakeholder Involvement Guide: Developing a clear, plain language guide
which provides helpful ideas and tools to project sponsors and stakeholders for
successful interactions.
Proaram-wide
Multi-media
Manual for EPA Project XL Teams. I'rojectXL Stakeholder Involvement Guide and
Project XL: Best Practices for Proposal Development: Using a corporate sector tool
called "work process reengineering" to engage stakeholders in major redesign and
restructuring of core program practices.
12 To avoid duplication, this section does not cover innovations in other core functions that address stakeholder
involvement issues such as "Internet Reporting and Stakeholder Input" (environmental information management and
access).
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- .;
Project(s)
Program-wide
Media
Multi- media
Innovation
Build Stakeholder Capacity: Providing technical assistance and professional facilitation
to improve trust among stakeholder groups and to build local stakeholder participation.
Enhanced Stakeholder Involvement: Facilitating Site Redevelopment
ChaUenge(s): To facilitate the likelihood that the Fairmont Coke Works Site will be redeveloped
for business or commercial use after cleanup, ExxonMobil has committed to: (1) involve
stakeholders and community groups in planning the cleanup and determining future uses for the
Site; (2) demolish and dispose of all on-site structures; and (3) seek interested developers for
property redevelopment. Public involvement in the traditional Superfund process can vary from
site to site. ExxonMobil, EPA and West Virginia DEP have agreed to go beyond the minimum
Superfund community relations requirements in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances
Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) and involve the community, through its representative (the
Fairmont Community Liaison Panel (FCLP)), in the planning and implementation of the Site
cleanup. ExxonMobil, the State and the FCLP have resolved to work together to build a process
geared toward achieving a consensus on major aspects of the cleanup and incorporating potential
reuse opportunities into the cleanup process.
Although commercial redevelopment is typically not addressed in the Superfund process, the
Fairmont community has expressed a strong interest in redeveloping the Site. The Site is suitable
for redevelopment due to its location and size. ExxonMobil, beyond its statutory responsibility to
clean up the Site, has committed to actively seek interested developers and to facilitate a
productive reuse for the Site. To stimulate interest, ExxonMobil has conducted an extensive
onsite building demolition program that will enhance the market and redevelopment potential of
the property. Onsite building demolition is typically only required at Superfund sites where it has
been demonstrated that hazardous substances are or have the potential to migrate from such
buildings or if the buildings impede a response action. ExxonMobil is implementing a Site wide
demolition plan to increase the redevelopment potential of the Site and provide aesthetic benefits
to the Site and the community even if there is no presence of hazardous substances.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: Substantial involvement and support of project stakeholders are
important catalysts in the planning and implementation of the ExxonMobil project. The project
enhances community and other stakeholder participation in the Superfund cleanup process by
providing citizen participation in the process through solicitation of stakeholder input into cleanup
alternatives and future use determinations for the Site. Establishment of a community panel along
with routine communications with the Project team resulted in consistently supportive local media
coverage and support from the community in project decisions. This project will also
demonstrate how the consideration of future uses of a contaminated site in the early cleanup
planning stages can be a practical and valuable component of the Superfund process.
ExxonMobil's completion of an on-site building demolition and facilitation of redevelopment
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provide additional environmental benefits to the community not found in a typical Superfund
process. ExxonMobil also purchased the Site to help facilitate development. As property owner
and the party responsible for cleanup, ExxonMobil has control over redevelopment preparation
and final disposition of the Site. ExxonMobil will provide EPA a plan that outlines the strategy
for facilitating Site redevelopment that goes beyond planning and assessment stages.
Trcmsferability: By considering and integrating future use opportunities into the cleanup plan for
a Superfund site, the ExxonMobil project will serve as a model for returning Superfund sites back
to productive economic use. The project provides an opportunity to analyze an atypical approach
to partnering with local community members and other stakeholders to solicit their input
throughout the process of selecting and implementing a cleanup remedy and determining future
use plans for the Site. For communities situated near similarly distressed properties, the
ExxonMobil project will explore the potential to improve the health and productivity of a local
community by remediating environmental hazards and allowing those communities to reclaim
distressed properties as valuable and productive assets.
Stakeholder Involvement in Experimental Projects: Identifying Basic Models
Chalknge(s): Since the inception of Project XL, EPA has stated that meaningful and organized
participation on the part of community and national, nongovernmental organization
representatives is an important criterion for selecting projects. However, when Project XL was
first announced in 1995, EPA did not give specific guidelines for the design of the stakeholder
processes. Since the project sponsor, not EPA, is responsible for initiating and maintaining the
stakeholder involvement process for projects, EPA left the responsibility for creating models that
would meet the stakeholder criterion to those project sponsors. Though sometimes difficult, the
experiences of these early projects proved critical to the Agency's understanding of the
approaches and resources needed to make the stakeholder process effective.
The Result(s): Project XL has undertaken a commitment to document and evaluate models of
stakeholder involvement on an ongoing basis. As a first step, in the report titled Evaluation of
Project XL Stakeholder Processes (September 1998), EPA examined four early projects with final
project agreements (FPAs): Intel, Merck, HADCO and Weyerhaeuser. As a second step, EPA
recently completed a second evaluation of stakeholder processes entitled Project XL Stakeholder
Evaluation (August 2000). This report builds upon the earlier report and examines the
stakeholder processes used in eight projects: Andersen, Atlantic Steel, Crompton, ExxonMobil,
HADCO, Intel, New England Universities Laboratories, and Vandenberg AFB
The first report found that different models of stakeholder involvement resulted from the original
call from EPA for project sponsors to design processes for stakeholder participation. Specifically,
the report identified two early models used by the project sponsors: consensus decision-making
with stakeholders (used by Intel and Merck), and public consultation and information sharing
(used by HADCO and Weyerhaeuser). Weyerhaeuser's project was rated as most effective by
survey respondents; this project used a public consultation process that relied heavily on
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longstanding community-company relationships to establish support for the regulatory
experiment. The HADCO project was rated least satisfactory on most measures; this project also
used the consultation and information sharing process. The two projects using consensus
decision-making processes were ranked in between.
In the September 1998 evaluation, neither the consensus decision-making model nor the public
consultation and information sharing model was clearly determined to be a superior method of
involving stakeholders in the project development process. However, the results did show that
clarity of structure and objectives for the process are more important to success and credibility
than the type of stakeholder involvement process. The processes that were rated as highly
effective — that is, clearly structured with adequate resources — had a combination of broad
distribution of benefits (financial, environmental, and public access) among all of the participants
and high individual/ organizational satisfaction with the outcome of the negotiation. The
processes with barriers to participation (such as lack of technical information, unclear objectives,
inadequate resources to participate) were rated less satisfactory regarding the distribution of
benefits and the outcome. Thus, process satisfaction and substantive results are closely linked;
both are critical elements of the success of future projects.
The August 2000 evaluation built upon the original stakeholder evaluation and considered (1) the
early dynamics of stakeholder processes in projects developing their FPA, (2) stakeholder
satisfaction and effectiveness of stakeholder involvement for projects that had recently signed
their FPA, and (3) stakeholder involvement in project implementation for projects that had signed
their FPA at least one year before the evaluation. The analysis is based on case studies developed
for eight projects. In the projects analyzed, project sponsors developed stakeholder models that
centered mainly around public consultation and information. In four projects, sponsors engaged
stakeholders in some form of joint-problem solving or consensus, often done in addition to public
consultation and information sharing. These included Atlantic Steel, ExxonMobil, Intel, and the
national stakeholder process used in New England Universities Laboratories. However, of these,
only the Intel project based its stakeholder process on consensus.
• Of those interviewed, most stakeholders were satisfied with the project outcomes and their
level of involvement in the stakeholder process regardless of the type of process used. In
projects where interviewees were less satisfied with the stakeholder process, the
stakeholders' expectations about opportunities to participate went beyond the avenues of
participation made available.
• Those projects that typically support a process with satisfied stakeholders tend to exhibit
the following characteristics. First, the process involves stakeholders at a level that is
consistent with stakeholders' concerns and expectations. Second, the process ensures that
stakeholders' perceptions regarding their actual influence over the project outcome match
their expectations regarding the level of influence they thought they would have at the
start of the project. Finally, the process allows stakeholders to participate efficiently and
is not unnecessarily drawn-out.
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• In addition to factors that determine satisfaction with stakeholder processes, the second
stakeholder report also identifies barriers that limit effective stakeholder participation. For
stakeholder processes focused on consultation, the amount of time required for
stakeholders to participate and their capacity to understand technical issues can influence
effective stakeholders involvement. For stakeholder processes centered on information
exchange, the greatest barrier to effective participation is the lack of a systematic approach
for outreach an obtaining feedback from the community.
Project XL continues to emphasize the principles and process by which stakeholder involvement
in projects should be governed, rather than advocating that projects use a single model. By
focusing on principles, the sponsors, as the "managers" of the process, can tailor the stakeholder
involvement process to reflect the scope and complexity of the project. EPA expects that the
design of each stakeholder process adequately reflect a proper balance between the complexity
and uncertainty of the project, the stakeholders' desire to participate and have influence over the
project, and the project sponsors' ability to direct resources towards stakeholder process
development. This also allows the stakeholders themselves to have a say in how the process is
structured and conducted.
In addition to emphasizing principles, EPA is beginning to focus on additional resources needed
to better ensure the design of effective stakeholder processes. The August 2000 evaluation makes
clear that neither project sponsors nor Project XL staff always have the proper experience to
effectively design or oversee a stakeholder process. In such instances, project sponsors may
design participation processes that lack clear structure and objectives, are reactive rather than
proactive, and don't allow stakeholders to participate to the extent they think they should be able.
By directing resources to enable the development of more effective stakeholder processes, EPA
hopes to ensure that in the future, these pitfalls will be avoided.
Transferabilily: Project XL's goal is to promote continuous learning and develop a more
comprehensive understanding of the factors that contribute to the success of, and that pose
challenges to, involving stakeholders in experimental projects. The lessons learned in managing
the stakeholder aspects of Project XL are increasingly being shared with other EPA programs and
Federal agencies struggling with similar issues. Most recently Project XL's stakeholder
involvement guide was highlighted in EPA's Public Participation Policy Review Workgroup's
Report to the Administrator. The previous year, Project XL stakeholder involvement tools and
experiences were discussed at the President's Council on Environmental Quality's workshop,
"Linking Public Participation To Environmental Decision Making: An Exploratory Workshop".
In addition, the program continues to share information throughout the network of EPA staff that
have responsibility for various stakeholder involvement efforts.
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Multistakeholder Involvement in "Reengineering"
Challenge(s): Based on strong feedback from Project XL participants, EPA recognized that it
needed a more user-friendly process that would be quicker, more cost effective, produce a
consistently superior result, and provide more focused stakeholder involvement and information
exchanges. So, in 1998, EPA sought to improve Project XL using a process, developed by
corporate America, called "business process reengineering."13 Reengineering refers to the major
redesign and restructuring of core business processes. It is most effective when it identifies a
particular process that impedes the growth or competitiveness of an organization, or a process
that only minimally meets a business need. The process reengineering model used by EPA was
designed to bring about meaningful, lasting change to the Project XL process. EPA convened a
workgroup consisting of industry members, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), State and
local regulators, and a community group.14 Six subgroups were formed, each focusing on a
critical Project XL problem. Each subgroup conducted a step-by-step assessment of existing
processes and identified inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
Result(s): The reengineering workgroup created a new process that is faster, clearer, and more
effective for project sponsors, other stakeholders, and for EPA. With the help of a representative
group of stakeholders, EPA produced three documents that address the primary concerns of many
Project XL stakeholders. Combined, these documents serve to make all aspects of the Project XL
process transparent to all Project XL participants, thus promoting understanding, trust, and
realistic commitments and expectations. These documents include:
• Project XL Stakeholder Involvement: A Guide for Project Sponsors and Stakeholders.
This provides helpful ideas and tools to project sponsors and stakeholders for successful
interactions. (This guide is further described in the next section below titled "Guidance
for Sponsors and Stakeholders.")
• Manual for EPA Project XL Teams. This instructs EPA on how to build effective internal
teams to develop proposals. (This manual is further described as an Project XL
innovation in the section on the core function of "Agency Culture Change.")
'•'Business process reengineering as developed by the corporate sector refers to the major redesign and
restructuring of core business processes. Many corporations have found that, over time, core processes within
their organization become inefficient, bureaucratic, cumbersome and lose their intended focus. Routine
practices often add tasks and steps that do not add value to the core business goal. These inefficiencies slow-
down the organization, detracting from the intended goals. Therefore, reengineering is most effective in
identifying when a particular process is impeding the growth or competitiveness of an organization, or when a
particular process is only minimally meeting a business need. A reengineering initiative targets a process and:
is applied across multiple functions within an organization: must have the support of upper management: and.
leverages information technologies to overhaul, support, and dramatically improve work processes.
14The participating organizations were: Citizens for a Clean Environment; City of Portland. Oregon: Dow
Chemical; Florida Department of Environmental Protection; Environmental Defense Fund; Environmental
Law Institute; Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection; and Union Carbide. In particular.
Union Carbide and Dow Chemical played a leadership role in describing and helping EPA apply the
reengineering approach.
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• Project XL: Best Practices for Proposal Development. This helps project sponsors create
effective Project XL proposals. (Whik very important for Project XL, this type of
guidance is not considered an innovation.)
Transfer ability: The lessons learned from the overall reengineering process, as well as the specific
documents produced, are being shared Agency-wide as part of the Stakeholder Action Plan. For
example, the Manual for EPA Project XL Teams has been distributed to the Reinvention Action
Council and shared with the state's environmental commissioners as a model of accomplishing
cross-Agency multimedia decision-making. The stakeholder guide is on EPA's Stakeholder
Involvement web site at http://www.epa.gov/stakehoiders/involvevvork.htm, in order to share the
information with Agency professionals and stakeholders.
Guidance for Sponsors and Stakeholders
Challenge(s): One key challenge early in Project XL was that some industry project sponsors
lacked experience with convening and managing a site-specific, intensive stakeholder process, and
they feared the inherent costs in time and money to conduct such a process. However, there is
reason to believe that the time and money that project sponsors invest in the stakeholder process
is less costly than originally perceived, and can accrue unexpected benefits. At least two private
surveys of project sponsors (including project sponsors that were not successful in gaining FPAs)
show that their Project XL stakeholder involvement with environmental organizations and
community groups has been beneficial to the companies in the long run. The results from one
study found that the expense of the stakeholder involvement process is an average of 20 percent
of the total transaction cost for the project sponsor—a far smaller proportion than originally
assumed.15 Still, project sponsors looked to EPA for improved guidelines to reduce the early
confusion about, and time-consuming nature of, stakeholder involvement procedures.
Another early challenge was that the participation of national NGOs received mixed reviews from
the other stakeholders. In some projects, the participation of the national NGOs was consistent,
timely, and helped to move the project development process forward. Local stakeholders often
gave the national environmental NGOs high praise for being very helpful to local citizens, and
bringing substantive expertise to the table which local citizens themselves may lack. In other
projects, however, the participation of the national NGOs was considered by local citizens to be
inconsistent, late, and difficult to predict. In these cases, the NGOs' approach was considered
"intervention" and disconnected from local citizen involvement.
In the April 23, 1997, Federal Register Notice, Clarifying the XL Process, EPA took steps to
address these issues for the project sponsors, NGOs, and local citizens. In particular, EPA
1577ie Cosi of Developing Site-Specific Environmental Regulations: Evidence from EPA's Project XL, Blaekman and
Mazurek, Resources for the Future, Discussion Paper 99-35. April 1999.
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defined three levels of public participation in Project XL16 to bring clarity to the roles of public
stakeholders, to move away from ''local citizens versus national environmentalists" clashes, and to
enable industry project sponsors to be more responsive. The Federal Register Notice also
covered the importance of well-defined and transparent ground rules.17 However, while the
Federal Register Notice helped define the policy issues, project sponsors and stakeholders still
sought clear, plain guidelines that could help lead them to successful interactions.
Result(s): A product of the reengineering process, Project XL Stakeholder Involvement: A Guide
for Sponsors and Stakeholders clarifies roles and responsibilities of sponsors and stakeholders,
suggests guiding principles, and provides ideas and tools to help develop, negotiate and
implement successful projects. It explains the potential benefits of stakeholder involvement to the
sponsor as well as to the potential stakeholders. It also explains the EPA and State government
role in assessing the stakeholder involvement process18. Ultimately, the stakeholder involvement
guide provides general information about the project development process and advice to both
stakeholders and potential sponsors regarding how to determine what type of process is
appropriate, stakeholder needs regarding time commitment and technical assistance, and the
appropriate scope and complexity of the involvement process.
Transfer ability: The Project XL Stakeholder Involvement: A Guide for Project Sponsors and
Stakeholders is specifically designed to help less experienced project sponsors grasp the essential
principles of designing and managing a stakeholder involvement process. Thus, the Guide is
featured, along with other documents such as the Constructive Engagement Resource Guide
(March 1999), in the Agency's Stakeholder Involvement Action Plan (December 1998).
Similarly, the Guide is prominent on the EPA Stakeholder web site. The web site, a product of
16i'Direct participants" are involved in the day-to-day aspects of project negotiations; they influence the design
of projects; and their views strongly influence the details and development of the project as well as EPA's
ultimate decision to approve or disapprove it. "Commentors" arc stakeholders who have an interest in the
project but do not participate in day-to-day negotiations; EPA requires sponsors to provide information to
potential commentors and create periodic forums in which they can express their comments. The "general
public" is involved by having clear access to information on the development and environmental results of the
project;. EPA expects the project sponsor to arrange public meetings when the information is available.
allowing the public opportunities to influence decision making.
17Key ground rule topics for consideration include the level of the participant's role (advisor*', consultative or
decisional) and how that input should be expressed (i.e.. by consensus or majority vote). These topics, as well
as other ground rules, must be discussed and consented to by the direct participants.
'"While the sponsor has the primary responsibility for the stakeholder group, experience shows that in the most
successful processes, the sponsor and the stakeholders share in the process creation. EPA will participate as a
member of the overall stakeholder group. This participation is important to help ensure that these processes
are transparent; it should not be confused with EPA's ultimate role of guaranteeing an adequate stakeholder
process to meet Project XL's criterion for public participation. EPA also retains the authority to approve or
disapprove a project—based on how well the criteria are met. States also share the ability to veto projects that
do not meet the criteria. While this authority is not delegated to stakeholder groups, the views and
recommendations of direct participant groups strongly influence the decisions of the regulators.
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the EPA Stakeholder Involvement Action Plan, is designed to share lessons, information, and
tools on stakeholder involvement, throughout EPA and with external stakeholders. The Guide is
now being widely used by Project XL teams. However, EPA is continuing to encourage the other
programs to use the Guide as a model for initiating stakeholder involvement, and will seek to
evaluate its usefulness to project stakeholders and sponsors, other industry representatives, and
EPA staff
Capacity and Trustbuilding Resources to Improve Stakeholder Involvement
Challenge(s): A key lesson from Project XL is that resources may need to be made available to
ensure that all stakeholders, particularly local citizens have the ability to assess the technical and
environmental issues. Repeatedly, EPA found that some form of technical assistance and meeting
facilitation were necessary to ensure that all participants had the capacity to understand, and the
willingness to engage, in these experimental demonstration pilots. But early on, EPA did not have
clear mechanisms or guidelines in place to either assess the needs or supply these resources. EPA
needed practical solutions to address the resource gap.
Result (s): EPA strongly suggests that newly formed stakeholder groups perform a "needs
assessment" to determine whether training or technical assistance is needed to ensure the active
participation of all stakeholders in both Clarifying the XL Process and Project XL Stakeholder
Involvement: A Guide for Project Sponsors and Stakeholders. There can be a number of means
for local stakeholders to receive technical assistance: for example, the project sponsor, the State
government, a national environmental organization or an academic institution might provide
technical information or assistance to local stakeholders. However, when these means are not
available or appropriate, EPA has set up a mechanism to provide task-specific technical assistance
to Project XL stakeholders: the Institute for Conservation Leadership, which manages this service
under a cooperative agreement with EPA. This assistance is available up to $25,000 per project
when requested by the direct participant stakeholder group. This past year two stakeholder
groups involved in the International Paper projects (EP-EI and IP-PEM) accessed the technical
assistance grants. In addition, the stakeholder group involved the Andersen project plans to use
the technical assistance grant once the project is further along in implementation.
EPA has undertaken other activities aimed at building and maintaining stakeholder trust. In
particular, EPA provides contract support for meeting facilitation assistance to project sponsors
for initiating a project and determining the best overall stakeholder process. Also, because
facilitation by a third party, face-to-face meetings, and site visits stand out as demonstrated
mechanisms for building trust, EPA staff actively seek opportunities for scheduling face-to-face
meetings and facility site visits.
Transferability: A key action in the Innovations Task Force Report is to "build leadership
capacity in communities to participate in local environmental problem solving." EPA will work
with the Task Force to incorporate the lessons learned from Project XL regarding how and when
to provide key resources into the analysis and recommendations for building local capacity.
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Agency Culture Change
or
Increasing EPA's Capacity to Innovate
A new emphasis on innovation has changed the way EPA thinks and operates, leading to real
environmental improvements and real reductions in costs. Regulatory and enforcement programs
are still the at the core of our environmental system, but innovation has provided new tools to
meet future demands. The challenge ahead is to make these innovative ideas a permanent part of
EPA's culture. Project XL is one venue through which EPA is learning to change its
organizational behavior, particularly to encourage cross-Agency support for innovation. Project
XL has led to discreet changes in EPA's planning and operational procedures. These changes
support EPA's commitment to test and incorporate innovative solutions to environmental
problems. Table 22 describes the planning and management innovations that leading to change in
the Agency's culture.
Table 22 :Culture Change Innovations
''• Proiectls)
Program
wide
Program
wide
Program
wide
Program
wide
Media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
Multi-
media
Innovation
Compliance Screening Guidance: Creation of guidelines for Agency screening process for
regulatory flexibility projects.
Reinvention Action Council: Build and maintain support, empowerment, and accountability
for projects and innovations Agency-wide.
ECOS-EPA Innovations Agreement: Expand the potential for State and Tribal partnerships
for innovative projects.
Cross-Agency Project Teams: the \4anualfor EPA Project XL Team*. Offers a model to
guide cross-Agency teams in project planning, management, and monitoring.
Senior Management Support and Involvement through the Reinvention Action Council
The Challenge(s): Each of the projects has had varying levels of management involvement at
different junctures in the projects' development and implementation. In fact, EPA found that
there were many instances where a lack of senior management participation in a project hindered
or stopped progress. For projects to develop and system change to occur, there is a need for
active support from senior Agency management. This support includes personally championing
individual projects, empowering Agency staff that participate in negotiations, giving clear
direction to Project XL teams, and providing resources.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: In early 1996, EPA established the Reinvention Ombudsmen, later
called the Reinvention Action Council (RAC), to assist in reaching the Agency's goal of 50
projects. Chaired by the Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy, Economics and
Innovation, the RAC consists of the senior Agency managers (Deputy Assistant Administrators
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and Deputy Regional Administrators) from each of the Headquarters and Regional Offices.
Originally, the RAC served as a resource to' Project XL teams when they faced either
disagreements or difficult technical, legal or policy issues. Since then, RAC members have
committed to working directly with Project XL Coordinators within their offices to support quick
decision-making and ensure that Project XL teams have suitable resources. Involving senior
managers has proven to be effective in identifying and resolving problems for Project XL.
Building on the Project XL experience, in 1997, the Administrator expanded the RAC
responsibilities to support the Agency's overall commitment to reinventing environmental
protection.
Transfer ability: To date, the RAC has taken a hard look at reinvention efforts throughout the
Agency and has addressed a broad array of reinvention issues including incentives, permitting and
environmental management systems, and continues to set new reinvention priorities. For
example, the RAC is the key implementing body of the recommendations from the 1999 EPA
Task Force on Innovative Approaches. The RAC's expanded agenda also calls attention to RAC
endorsement of innovations throughout the Agency, and ultimately serves as encouragement for
staff to experiment. The RAC will play a vital role in designing a systematic approach for
evaluating and adopting new ideas and building innovation into the work of the Agency.
Managing Experiments in Partnership with State and Tribal Governments
The Challenge(s): Federal sharing of environmental responsibilities requires that each project
have the full support of the appropriate State and Tribal government. In fact, the State or Tribal
government is a signatory to most projects. Within the framework of Project XL, EPA, States,
and Tribal governments are innovatively working together through uncharted territory. In
particular, the challenge of developing, refining, and implementing Project XL together has
magnified EPA-State, as well as State-State, similarities, differences, agreements, and
disagreements. States and Tribal governments are, and will continue to be, primary partners with
EPA in both regulating public health and the environment and designing and applying innovative
approaches. Therefore, it is incumbent that EPA, and State and Tribal governments rectify
differences and produce agreements that satisfy each entity. Project XL serves as a testing
ground for managing experiments to the satisfaction of Federal, State, Tribal, and local
authorities.
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: The promise of more efficient and effective government has
encouraged several States to develop their own Project XL-like legislation providing the authority
to test and implement innovative approaches to State environmental programs. To provide an
additional vehicle to test innovative environmental management strategies for the future, EPA and
the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) negotiated an agreement to guide environmental
regulatory innovations in the future. The ECOS-EPA Innovations Agreement was developed as a
result of the Project XL experience. The agreement defines seven principles to guide regulatory
innovations and a process that clarifies how EPA and States will put these good ideas to the test.
As of August 2000 the ECOS-EPA Innovations Agreement was moving forward with three
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projects in implementation and five additional projects having preliminary approval.
Transfer ability: As Project XL closes in on its 50 project milestone, two things are clear: (1) EPA
will continue to test innovative ways of achieving desirable environmental outcomes that are more
supportive of the marketplace and business needs than the current system, and (2) State and
Tribal governments will continue to be partners in achieving these outcomes. The prominent role
of States in the Project XL process, as well as the ECOS Innovations Agreement, has advanced
Federal-State partnerships in developing and managing innovation strategies for environmental
protection. The experiences of Project XL continue to influence States as they consider, develop,
or expand their own programs that offer regulatory flexibility to facilities or industry sectors. For
example, the Project XL model is being considered by New Jersey as it thinks about expanding its
regulatory reinvention program. As the idea of testing tomorrow's solutions today spreads
throughout State and Tribal governments, Project XL will continue to serve as a viable model.
Additionally, in fulfilling the principles of the Joint State/EPA Agreement to Pursue Regulatory
Innovation, a number of states have entered into Memorandums of Agreement (MO A) to pilot
and evaluate innovative environmental regulatory methods.
Effective Cross-Agency Teams for Multi-Media Experimentation
The Challenge(s): To institute change within an agency requires creating guidance and
procedures for staff action. Projects often test innovations that cut across traditional EPA media
programs (e.g., air, water, waste and toxics), which have their own regulations, budgets, policies
and procedures. Projects are region-led, but typically involve national policy issues that require
regions and Headquarters' offices to coordinate. Initially, a lack of such coordination was a major
challenge with Project XL, and a major factor in the high transaction costs of participation for
EPA and its Project XL partneis19.
Projects require prompt and effective cooperation among various EPA offices in order to properly
address project sponsor proposals. Normally, project proposals impact multiple Agency
functions, so EPA staff experts are convened who (1) do not normally work together; (2) answer
to separate and independently managed "chains-of-command"; and (3) have different priorities
(e.g. responsibilities for separate statutes and programs that face very different time, policy,
legislative, and budget constraints).
Results/Anticipated Outcomes: To carry out the Project XL experiments, EPA had to evaluate its
history and effectiveness of working across media doing a major Project XL reengineering20
effort. In order to allow EPA to quickly make decisions across Program Offices, speak with one
voice to project sponsors, and share a common understanding of the project at hand, EPA
19See Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder Processes prepared by Resolve, Inc. for EPA (September 1998r EPA-100-R-
98-009) and The Cost of Developing Site-Specific Environmental Regulations: Evidence from EPA 'x Project XL,
Blackman and Mazurek, Resources for the Future. Discussion Paper 99-35. April 1999.
2USee page 93 for description of the Project XL reengineering effort.
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Project XL 2000 Comprehensive Report I'olume I: Innovations in Core Function?
created a new paradigm for Project XL cross-Agency teams. This new paradigm is defined in the
Manual for EPA Project XL Teams. The Manual has a detailed outline of the proposal
development process, and clarification of roles and responsibilities among EPA media offices,
enforcement staff, and senior managers. These clarifications are helping new Project XL teams
make decisions faster and communicate with project sponsors more clearly and decisively. The
Manual also explains that the EPA teams are required to have a project schedule for all new
projects to help keep the team focused on key milestones and on track. In addition, another tool
EPA has designed to assist each new Project XL team is the option of having a neutral facilitator
kick off the proposal development process and guide the EPA staff in setting the foundation for
an open, productive decision-making process.
These Project XL teams are continuing to make key decisions in the Project XL process faster.
This is more satisfying to participants both outside and inside the Agency. For example, involving
key Agency decisionmakers early in the process and improving the functioning of the cross-
Agency team has paid off in the complex Atlantic Steel project. Several of the streamlined
techniques were applied resulting in an agreement on the project's Phase One signed by the
sponsor and EPA nine months after initial discussions began-a marked improvement over earlier
proposals, some of which lingered more than 24 months without closure. EPA's track record for
shortening the timeframe involved in developing agreements after sponsors initially submit their
proposals continues to improve. Examples of projects have accomplished this in 12 months or less
include Progressive, Louisville POTW , Denton POTW, and USPS Denver.
Transferability: EPA will continue to monitor the effects of these process improvements and the
related transaction costs. Currently, EPA is finalizing an economic analysis framework for Project
XL (to be completed 2001). The framework will develop an analysis plan that will permit
effective evaluation of the financial costs and benefits accruing to projects. Ultimately, as part of
a sampling plan, the information on transaction costs and project benefits for facilities, EPA, and
other stakeholders will be collected. The sampling plan will first focus on the Weyerhaeuser and
the New York State Department Environmental Conservation projects. EPA will use this
information to continue to improve Project XL, and to help design the next phase of
experimentation in the Agency.
As EPA continues to test new approaches to solving environmental problems, the solutions
increasingly cross traditional media program lines. The lessons learned and new tools developed
for Project XL teams are now widely available for other reinvention initiatives that cross the
traditional Agency structure and require cross-Agency team building. Current and future
reinvention efforts can now start with a blueprint for avoiding many of the problems inherent to
cross-Agency team building, and use tools that focus these new teams on their shared goal of
cleaner, cheaper, and smarter environmental protection.
Compliance Screening for Project XL's Voluntary Project Sponsors
The Challenge(s): Agency guidance on critical program components is needed by project
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sponsors to optimize the effectiveness of the Project XL experimental process. EPA actively
encourages a wide variety of public and private entities to participate, but all project sponsors
must have a good history of compliance with EPA regulations. A potential sponsor's overall
compliance history is relevant to ensure the experimental Project XL approach will not pose
undue risks to human health and the environment and to enable EPA to make an informed
judgement regarding the likelihood of the participants ability to achieve superior environmental
performance. As the Project XL process matured, compliance screening became more frequent
and time-intensive and the screening process continued to lack definition. Clear compliance
screening practices and expectations needed to be established.
The Result: OECA developed the Guidance for Compliance Screening for Project XL in 1998 to
standardize and streamline compliance screening. This compliance screen provides the Agency
with useful information on a participant's current compliance status and history. It also provides
factors which could bear on a potential participants eligibility for Project XL, such as the
possibility of a conflict between a proposed project and an ongoing enforcement effort. The
guidance specifies the scope, criteria, and process for conducting enforcement screens, and
indicates that compliance screens will be updated prior to high-visibility public events.
Transferability: Project XL is one example of a shift in our national strategy for protecting the
environment. Increasingly, EPA is trying to achieve its mission through building partnerships with
small and large businesses, citizen groups, State and local governments, and institutions. The
Project XL screening guidance is a program-specific application of the broader framework, and an
example of a rigorous screening process for a regulatory flexibility program. Project XL has
helped lay the groundwork for testing and establishing guidance for an increasing number of EPA
voluntary programs requiring compliance screening. In addition to the Project XL screening
guidelines, on April 5, 1999, OECA and the Office of Reinvention issued the Guidance for
Compliance Screening for Voluntary Programs, the Agency's comprehensive screening
framework, applicable to all voluntary partnership programs.
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Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Emerging Innovations
This section catalogues 23 emerging innovations also sorted by core functions. These emerging
innovations come from projects that, as of August 2000, were in the later stages of development.
As these projects move forward, the Agency will be assessing and tracking their innovative
approaches in future reports. The table immediately below identifies the type of emerging
innovation represented by each project. This table is designed to give the reader a "roadmap" for
this section. It is not intended to be used as a checklist for future projects.
1
Emerging Innovations in Core Functions - Projects Newly Underway or Under Development
AnneArundelCount\' ;
Autoliv
Buncombe County
Chicago Livability
Clermont Count\>
Columbus
Cromplon TBT
Puget Sound
Kodak \
Fort Worth
IBMFtshkill 1
Labs2i I
Lead Safe Boston
Chicago POTH' \
NBC POnV
XASA
\;ewJersev Geld Track
Ortho-McNeil
Pharmaceutical
Pennsylvania DEP
Port of Houston Authority \
PPG :
United Egg Producers >
US Filter \
1'irginia Landfills
Yolo Count\-
Regulations
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Permuting \
X
Information j
Management \
X
Enforcement- I
Compliance
X
X
X
X
Environmental ;
Stewardship \
X
X
X
.V
.V
X
X
X
Stakeholder 1
Involvement
Culture ;
Change j
m
1
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Regulations
Volume I: Innovations in Core Functions
Table 24
Innovations
Media
Anne Arundel and Buncombe County - Testing Bioreactor Methods: Recirculating Leachate over
Alternative Liners
Autoliv - Enabling Metals Recovery from Pyrotechnic Material
Chicago Livability - Regional Air Quality and Economic Development Strategy
IBM Fishkill - Using F006 Wastes as an Ingredient in Cement Production
Lead Safe Boston - Lead-Based Paint Debris Disposal Flexibility
Chicago POTW - Alternative Effluent Discharge Monitoring
NBC POTW - Enhancing the Metal Finishing 2000 Program
US Filter - Encouraging Metals Recycling and Recovery
Virginia Landfills - Testing the Bioreactor Methods: Comparing a Leachate Recirculation System
to the Introduction of Additional Liquid Amendments in Sanitary Landfills
Yolo County - Testing a Bioreactor Method: Aerobic versus Anaerobic Tecnnoiosv
Solid Waste
Hazardous Waste
Air
Hazardous Waste
Hazardous Waste
Water
Water
Hazardous Waste
Solid Waste
Solid Waste
Anne Arundel and Buncombe County - Testing Bioreactor Methods - Recirculating
Leachate over Alternative Liners: Both Anne Arundel County in Maryland and Buncombe
County in North Carolina are seeking flexibility to re-circulate leachate and/or gas condensate
over an alternate composite liner and collection system not constructed as prescribed in the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Anne Arundel County is interested in
effectively increasing its landfill waste capacity while decreasing the concentration of leachate
and reducing the amount of leachate requiring pretreatment and being discharged to the local
wastewater treatment plant. After design and construction of a small bioreactor test area, liquid
will be injected over a four to seven year period through injection devices. To improve the
evaluation of different infiltration systems, the test area will contain both vertical injection wells
and horizontal injection trenches. Settlement resulting from accelerated waste decomposition
will be monitored using settlement plates.
For its project Buncombe County is looking to improve leachate quality and accelerate waste
decomposition and landfill gas generation. Re-circulating leachate over a specific section of its
landfill will accelerate decomposition of its waste and shift that waste to a more benign state.
More rapid decomposition will also compress the time landfill gas is generated, reducing
emissions and making gas recovery more efficient. To measure how this alternative approach
can provide superior environmental performance, the County would provide a baseline estimate
of current conventional sanitary landfill maintenance. It is anticipated that the County will
quantify the benefits of the project against this established baseline.
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Autoliv - Enabling Metals Recovery from Pyrotechnic Material: Autoliv ASP (Autoliv)
manufacturers automobile safety products, including the pyrotechnic (explosive) materials used
to deploy air bag inflators. During the manufacturing of these materials, reactive hazardous
wastes are generated. These wastes are presently treated off site at a RCRA permitted treatment
storage and disposal facility (TSDF) that accepts hazardous waste from outside sources and
treats it via open burning. Autoliv currently operates a highly advanced, Metals Recovery Facility
(MRF) designed to process and recover aluminum and steel from unfired air bag inflator units as
well as previously fired inflator units. The MRF has an extensive air pollution control train which
is capable of capturing emissions produced by the waste pyrotechnic material. Autoliv proposes
that the technology and pollution control devices used in the MRF be adapted to process their
waste pyrotechnic materials onsite rather than sending the materials off-site to a TSDF for open
burning. Autcliv is seeking permitting flexibility under RCRA to be able to modify their MRF
operations and effectively treat and dispose of this pyrotechnic material.
Chicago Livability - Regional Air Quality and Economic Development Strategy: The City
of Chicago's Department of Environment is seeking to exercise a seldom used section (Section
173(a)(l)(B)) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) that will create innovative criteria to promote clean air
and economic development in urban areas. Section 173(a)(l)(B) allows the EPA Administrator,
in consultation with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, to identify zones in
which economic development should be targeted. Chicago has dubbed such areas "development
zones." A development zone would generally be defined as an area needing economic
development and which advances environmental improvements particularly concerning clean air.
Chicago, US EPA and Illinois EPA will develop criteria that an area must meet to be designated
as a development zone. Under this Chicago Livability project, a new or modified major
stationary source (facility) which locates in a development zone (within the Chicago CAA
nonattainment area) would draw emission reductions from a growth allowance generated from
the State's emission inventory — a structure to be approved by the US EPA and Illinois EPA.
This growth allowance would be used in lieu of obtaining emission offsets required under CAA-
New Source Review. The growth allowance would be created using emissions reductions
generated by Chicago and other municipalities and would be made available to companies who
locate in development zones.
IBM Fishkill - Using F006 Wastes as an Ingredient in Cement Production: The IBM
Fishkill project proposal will help examine the need for RCRA regulation of a subset of recycling
scenarios involving the production of products used on the land. Through Project XL, IBM
Fishkill is seeking an exclusion for the use of the electroplating wastewater treatment sludge (i.e.,
F006) as an ingredient in the production of cement. Under current regulations there is an
exclusion for hazardous secondary materials that are properly recycled through use as an
ingredient to produce a product. However, this exclusion is not available if the product being
produced is to be used on the land (or burned for energy recovery). Therefore, even though the
sludge can be recycled as an ingredient in cement (F006 typically has high concentrations of
calcium, needed in producing cement), it remains subject to full RCRA regulation, including
storage permits and hazardous waste manifests.
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Lead Safe Boston - Lead-Based Paint Debris Disposal Flexibility: Lead Safe Boston is
seeking to allow less expensive handling and disposal of lead-based paint (LBP) architectural
debris from residential units. The Lead Safe Boston program currently requires Toxicity
Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) lead testing on architectural debris before disposal for
all projects in accordance with Massachusetts and EPA regulations. The results of this analysis
determines if waste is to be classified and disposed of as hazardous or non-hazardous. When
lead waste exceeds EPA limits of toxicity for disposal as construction debris, it is disposed of as
hazardous waste. Disposal for classified hazardous waste is costly. TCLP testing can be costly
and time consuming as well. Lead Safe Boston is seeking the flexibility to use provisions of the
RCRA Household Hazardous Waste Exclusion (HWE) rule for LBP debris. This exclusion
would allow household LBP debris to be disposed of in a municipal solid waste landfill that meet
certain minimum criteria for liners, leachate collection and groundwater monitoring. Anticipated
cost savings from the flexibility (270 percent reduction in average disposal costs per project)
would enable Lead Safe Boston to remove lead from an additional twelve residential units.
Chicago POTW- Alternative Effluent Discharge Monitoring: The Metropolitan Water
Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (Chicago POTW), one of the largest publicly owned
treatment works (POTW) in the country, requested regulatory flexibility from the Clean Water
Act (CWA) oversight requirements (i.e., inspection and sampling) of the General Pretreatment
Regulations pertaining to discharges from small (de minimus) categorical industrial users (CIUs)
into the Chicago POTW's water reclamation plants. The Chicago POTW project will test several
ideas. First, Chicago POTW has proposed a new definition of "de minimus" Significant
Industrial User (SIU), using criteria specific to their location. Second, Chicago POTW, with
EPA and Illinois EPA, will develop Toxic Reduction Action Plans to identify priority pollutants
that are present in quantities that may pose an environmental risk, but are not currently subject to
regulation. Third, Chicago POTW would like to build on its experiences with the Common
Sense Initiative's 21 Strategic Goals Program (SGP) to create Strategic Performance Partnerships
(Partnerships) with metal finishing facilities that fully achieve the individual facility goals outlined
in the SGP. Under these partnerships, Chicago POTW will work cooperatively with
demonstrated sector leaders to develop, test and implement an alternative measurement system
for demonstrating environmental performance. Under current Pretreatment regulations, SIUs
must conduct self-monitoring according to EPA sampling protocols, typically involving "end-of-
pipe" sampling of effluent. Possible alternative monitoring in the Chicago project would use
statistical process control data collected by the SIU that would provide more precise
performance and product quality data than traditional monitoring data.
NBC POTW - Enhancing the Metal Finishing 2000 Program: The Narragansett Bay
Commission POTW (NBC POTW), located in the metropolitan areas of Providence and
Blackstone Valley, Rhode Island is working to improve the environmental performance of a
21EPA launched the Common Sense Initiative in 1994 with the broad purpose of seeking ''cleaner, cheaper,
and smarter" sector-based approaches to protecting human health and the environment, and has been a
primary component of EPA's regulatory reinvention efforts.
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select number of metal finishing facilities. NBC POTW wants to establish incentives that
promote and reward superior performers and focus compliance and technical assistance on
problem performers. In 1994, NBC POTW developed a pollution prevention integration
program, NBC Metal Finishing 2000, to test new approaches to improve environmental
compliance by the local industrial community. Specifically, NBC POTW proposal asks for the
flexibility to reduce self-monitoring requirements and inspections for top performing industrial
users (IUs), so staff can focus on problem lUs. Problem ILJs would be identified and given
increased oversight in addition to pollution prevention technical assistance. This project would
define quantitative performance criteria for NBC POTW's metal finishing facilities and measure
the effect of this new approach using performance indicators. To implement the project NBC
POTW is seeking regulatory flexibility that will allow them to (1) replacing categorical and mass-
based standards with more stringent local limits specifically designed to protect the facilities'
operations, and (2) eliminate certain categorical monitoring requirements for pollutants not
present based on a facility's non-use of certain raw materials.
US Filter- Encouraging Metals Recycling and Recovery: US Filter Recovery Services (US
Filter), a fully permitted hazardous waste treatment and storage facility in Roseville, Minnesota is
proposing to install its resin regeneration system in customer businesses — such as metal finishers
or printed circuit board manufacturers — that totally deionizes rinse waters containing F006
wastes, making it available for reuse. Rather than sending rinse waters to local POTWs, US
Filter's customers would increase recycling, promote recovery, conserve water, and reduce the
use of hazardous chemicals. The resin regeneration system consists of ion exchange canisters
that US Filter would install on customer's process lines that contain wastewaters. Once diverted
into the canisters, the metals in the wastewater will adhere to the resin material in the canister,
rendering the water free of metal contaminants. The water can then be reused in the customer's
process lines. Once the resins are spent, these canisters can be replaced by US Filter, who then
regenerates the resins. This potentially allows the metals to be reclaimed rather than land
disposed. Excluding ion exchange canisters from some or all RCRA hazardous waste
requirements could promote improved electroplating sludge management. In place of existing
RCRA regulatory requirements, the US Filter proposal asks participants to manage the F006
(electroplating sludge) wastestreams in accordance with alternative management requirements.
Virginia Landfills - Testing Bioreactor Methods - Comparing a Leachate Recirculation
System to the Introduction of Additional Liquid Amendments in Sanitary Landfills: This
proposal encompasses two separate Waste Management landfill sites in Virginia that being
considered together as part of one larger project. Waste Management will implement two
slightly different waste treatment systems at the sites. One site (Maplewood Landfill in Amelia
County) will re-circulate leachate to provide moisture. The other (King George County) will
introduce additional liquid amendments (graywater, stormwater) to its landfill. In addition to
implementing two different waste treatment systems, the project will compare the performance
and results achieved at the two sites (biodegradation potential, methane generation, settlement,
landfill capacity extension) and examine the costs and benefits associated with each treatment
method. To be able to apply liquids other than leachate or gas condensate to the King George
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system, Waste Management is requesting flexibility from current RCRA requirements.
Yolo County — Testing a Bioreactor Method - Aerobic versus Anaerobic Technology:
Yolo County County Bioreactor Landfill (Yolo County) located in California will operate its
next landfill module as a controlled bioreactor landfill. To do this, Yolo County is seeking
flexibility from RCRA restrictions which preclude the addition of bulk or non-containerized
liquid amendments (graywater, septic water) to landfills. The bioreactor method accelerates
waste decomposition and leachate treatment via the addition of liquid amendments through a
network serving the waste mass. This process is designed to accomplish a more rapid
completion of composting, waste stabilization and methane generation than in a conventional
landfill. The Yolo County proposal plans to physically subdivide the landfill module and operate
it as both anaerobic and aerobic bioreactor. The aerobic bioreactor differs from an anaerobic one
in being a process of "landfill-based composting." For the aerobic half of the module,
atmospheric air will be delivered to the waste in addition to liquid. This air will "in effect" dry
out the waste mass. The amount of liquid added to the aerobic part of the module will then be
increased to accommodate any drying effects. The aerobic bioreactor will not create methane
but will degrade significant waste fractions such as lignin and leachate COD components.
Permits Table 25
Innovations
Pennsylvania DEP
- Investigating an Alternative Approach to Writing Coal Remining Permits
Media
Water
Pennsylvania DEP — Investigating an Alternative Approach to Promoting Coal Remining
Permits: The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (Pennsylvania DEP) is
exploring an alternative approach to improve overall in-stream water quality by reducing mine
drainage and reclaiming scarred lands resulting from abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania DEP will develop a new approach to promoting coal remining based on compliance
with best management practices (BMPs) instead of National PollutantDischarge Elimination
System (NPDES) numeric effluent limitations. The Clean Water Act (CWA) NPDES permits for
remining currently establish site-specific numeric effluent limitations representing best available
technology. To implement its alternative permit approach, Pennsylvania DEP is exercising
enforcement discretion to provide that reminors may comply with non-numeric limitations in the
form of specific BMPs as well as in-stream monitoring requirements to measure the performance
of remediation activities on in-stream water-quality.
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Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Table 26
Innovations
Puget Sound - Integrated Marine Environmental Compliance Program
New Jersey Gold Track - Performance-based Approaches to Environmental Management
Port of Houston Authority - Port/Tenant Environmental Management Programs
United Egg Producers - Environmental Management Systems/Third-Party Certification
Media
Water
Multi-media
Water
Water
Puget Sound - Integrated Marine Environmental Compliance Program: Using the Project
XL/ENVVEST process, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Puget Sound) in Bremerton,
Washington is proposing to develop and demonstrate an alternative, long-term, cost-effective
strategy for protecting and improving the health of Sinclair Inlet. The Puget Sound project is
intended to achieve its objectives through the use of sound ecological science and risk based
management, employing approaches consistent with the draft EPA Ecological Risk Assessment
Guidelines. It will demonstrate concepts currently under development for naval shipyards by
marine scientists at the Naval Command, Control, and Ocean Surveillance Center. While
retaining Puget Sound's existing pollution control baselines as the floor, existing permits would
be revised to replace traditional narrowly-focused monitoring, compliance and reporting
requirements with innovative monitoring programs and pollution prevention measures that are
anticipated to achieve better environmental results.
New Jersey Gold Track — Performance-based Approaches to Environmental Management:
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (New Jersey DEP) envisions the Gold
Track as a multi-media program that will move away from a front-end review and approval
process toward back-end monitoring while tracking and maintaining a cost-effective high level of
public health and environmental protection. Gold Track is as an enhancement of the State's
Silver Track Program, New Jersey DEP's first step toward implementing a regulatory structure
that is accountable, measures environmental performance and provides operational flexibility.
The premise of Gold Track is that different levels of environmental performance warrant varying
degrees of regulatory oversight and flexibility. The Program is being designed to require
increased levels of commitment in return for increased regulatory flexibility for qualifying entities
based upon their demonstrated capability and environmental performance. The New Jersey Gold
Track proposal plans to use media-specific addenda to define specific State and Federal
flexibilities to be granted to program participants. Each addendum would be negotiated
separately — the first addendum for the project would be air specific — and would define:
flexibility granted, superior environmental performance gained and the evaluation process used to
judge the effectiveness and benefits of the flexibility.
Port of Houston Authority — Port/Tenant Environmental Management Programs: The
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Port of Houston is a 25-mile-long complex of diversified public and private facilities. The Port of
Houston Authority (PHA) is authorized by Texas law as an autonomous governmental entity that
acts as a landlord for port tenants. Additionally, the PHA may be subjected to enforcement
actions for tenant violations of environmental regulations. The PHA project proposal seeks to
test the benefits of providing regulatory flexibility in exchange for a tenant environmental
management program designed to improve compliance. To improve tenant compliance, the PHA
would develop a compliance manual that contains guidelines describing the roles and
responsibilities of key members of the port staff. Specifically the guidelines will include
environmental compliance procedures, and an environmental regulatory matrix that summarizes
federal, state and local regulations which affect operations at the PHA. PHA's proposal also
establishes a compliance baseline and has set a goal for 20 percent improvement in compliance.
In exchange, the PHA is seeking regulatory flexibility to minimize the liability/compliance
obligations of a landlord port for acts and omissions of their tenants.
United Egg Producers - Environmental Management Systems/Third-Party Certification:
The United Egg Producers (UEP), a farmer cooperative representing egg producers nationwide,
is seeking the capability to operate under a statewide permit rather than a facility specific NPDES
permit as required under the CWA. A significant portion of the farms that the UEP represents
are classified as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAPO) which must obtain individual
NPDES permits for their activities. If these farms were allowed to operate under a statewide
general permit, it would significantly reduce compliance costs for these UEP farms. In exchange
for the reducing the permitting burden, these UEP farms would achieve "zero discharge" status
through the development of a comprehensive environmental management system (EMS).
Furthermore, UEP proposes to establish an EPA-approved third-party certification program that
would be required to verify individual EMS's and the "zero discharge status" among CAFO
operations. This new streamlined permitting would alleviate the pressure on states to perform
inspections on the egg industry, expedite the permitting process for egg producing facilities, help
assure continuing compliance and achieve superior environmental performance.
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Environmental Stewardship Table 27
Innovations
Media
Clermont County - Community Based Watershed Protection
Columbus - Enhancing a Local Lead Hazard Program
Crompton TBT - Alternatives to the Current Tributyltm Monitoring Program
Kodak and PPG - Pollution Prevention Assessment Framework (Developing Environmentally
Preferable Products In the Chemical Industry Through Technology Transfer)
/•brt Worth - Proactive Demolition of Structures Containing Asbestos
Labs21 - Increased Efficiency in Lab Operations
Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical - Catalytic Oxidation of "mixed-waste"
Water
Hazardous Waste
Water
Hazardous Waste
Air
Water
Hazardous Waste
Clermont County XLC - Community Based Watershed Protection: Clermont County, Ohio
(Clermont County) is developing a community designed watershed management plan consistent
with its goals of improving water quality in the Little Miami River Watershed while maintaining
opportunities for economic growth. To improve water quality and encourage all polluters to
share in the necessary expense, Clermont County seeks to develop and apply locally developed
water quality standards that are based on local environmental conditions while employing a
collaborative goal setting approach for managing its resources. This project will develop an
Environmental Protection Plan to integrate Clermont County's watershed management plan into
a broader state plan administered by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA).
Clermont County will develop a sampling and monitoring program and a computer-based
watershed model as part of its watershed management plan. Sampling and monitoring will allow
the compilation of data on existing environmental conditions in the watershed and help assess the
effects of point and non-point source pollution. Computer modeling will enable predictions of
the impact land management policies will have on the watershed. As an incentive to encourage
non-point source reductions, Clermont County's watershed management plan could use an
effluent trading system in which pollution credits may be exchanged among point and non-point
source polluters. Clermont County is seeking flexiblity under the NPDES permit system to
provide time to study and analyze watershed conditions in order to prepare the watershed
management plan. Flexibility may also be needed in considering the development of a point/non-
point effluent trading system.
Columbus — Enhancing a Local Lead Hazard Program: The City of Columbus' Division of
Water (Columbus) is pursuing a means to increase the funds needed to implement a
comprehensive Lead-Safe Columbus Program (LSCP) to identify and reduce lead hazards. The
LSCP would be an lead abatement alternative to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) requirements
for testing and replacement of lead service lines (LSLs). Specifically, Columbus seeks a 3-year
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window of regulatory flexibility from LSL testing requirements in the Lead and Copper Rule,
which was promulgated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. So long as the conditions of this
flexibility are met, Columbus will give $300,000 a year for 15 years to the Columbus health
department to fund the LSCP. These funds will allow the LSCP to provide greater public health
protection from lead exposure in Columbus' community than would be obtained by strict
adherence to the LCR requirements. The scope and breadth of the LSCP would enable it to
proactively identify and prevent potential lead hazards. LSCP interventions will be developed
for children most at risk for lead poisoning and targeted at those exposure pathways that would
have the greatest impact on a child's body-lead burden.
Crompton TBT- Alternatives to the Current Tributyltin Monitoring Program: The
Crompton TBT proposal focuses on relaxing water monitoring requirements for the Crompton
Corporation. Crompton is a major manufacturer of paints containing tributyltin (TBT) which
assist in keeping ship hulls free of marine organisms. These TBT-based coatings contain toxic
substances. In 1989, pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act
(FIFRA), EPA issued a Data Call-In (DCI) to Crompton which required the company to
monitor, for ten years, the tributyltin concentrations in water columns, sediments and marine
organism tissue at certain specified areas of the Great Lakes and the inter-coastal waterways of
the United States. The 1989 DCI mandates the collection and generation of a significant amount
of data and documentation. For example, the company's annual report which only summarizes
the end results of the monitoring program is typically over 3,000 pages long. This XL proposal
would reduce the monitoring requirements mandated by the 1989 DCI and use the resulting cost
savings to decrease emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) at Crompton's Taft Louisiana plant by 15 percent.
Kodak and PPG — The Pollution Prevention Assessment Framework (Developing
Environmentally Preferable Products in the Chemical Industry Through Technology
Transfer): Eastman Kodak (Kodak) and PPG are applying the EPA Pollution Prevention
Framework (Framework) to design and develop new chemicals. Use of the Framework can yield
safer new chemicals, stimulate reformulation of existing products and reduce generation of
hazardous wastes. The Framework is a set of computer models developed by EPA's Office of
Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances that predict risk related properties of chemicals
where data is limited. The models derive important risk information based upon chemical
structure to promote pollution prevention and improve product design and stewardship. The
Framework can be used to estimate physical-chemical properties, environmental fate, and hazard
to humans and aquatic life. Use of the Framework will enable the companies to submit chemicals
that are on average less toxic than those from a development cycle with no assessment feature.
Both Kodak and PPG XL projects involve use of chemical risk screening early in the product
development cycle. Kodak and PPG are seeking regulatory flexibility under the pre-manufacture
provisions (PMN) of the Toxic Substances Control Act. Under Project XL, Kodak and PPG will
be allowed to manufacture PMN chemicals in 45 days, rather than after 90 days as is currently
required under the TSCA. This flexibility will only apply to lower risk chemicals that will
generally have been assessed by EPA within 25-28 days. Both PPG and Kodak will disseminate
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information about the pollution prevention Framework to other chemical companies and
industries. PPG will publish a validation study to verify the accuracy of selected Framework
models. Kodak will complete an environmental cost accounting study which will describe the
economic and business benefits that result from use of the Framework. Kodak will also complete
a study identifying management practices that facilitate pollution prevention outcomes.
Fort Worth, Texas - Proactive Demolition of Structures Containing Asbestos: The City of
Fort Worth's proposal features an alternative method for the demolition of structures not in
danger of imminent collapse which have asbestos-containing building materials (ACBM).
Essentially, Fort Worth is seeking the regulatory flexibility to demolish substandard structures
not in danger of imminent collapse similar to the shortened procedure that exists for structures
which are in imminent danger of collapse. In place of the current CAA National Emission
Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutant (NESHAP) requirements for the regulated
asbestos-containing materials (RACM) in structures, Fort Worth would test its own process for
managing hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). This "Fort Worth" method integrates "wet"
demolition methods, air monitoring, and proper handling/disposal techniques to test if their
method with RACM left in place is at least as protective as demolition with the RACM removed.
The "Fort Worth"method will create significant cost savings for performing environmentally
sound proactive nuisance demolitions allowing local governments to tackle the problem of urban
blight more successfully by performing more demolitions.
Labs21 — Increased Efficiency in Lab Operations: The Labs21 proposal endeavors to
encourage laboratory owners, operators, and designers to improve their energy efficiency, water
conservation with a new laboratory management approach. This agreement would function as an
umbrella final project agreement (FPA), and does not describe any specific federal regulatory
flexibility. These flexibilities would be agreed upon at a later date and would attain measurable
superior environmental performance beyond what is achieved by labs under current federal and
state regulatory systems. Using the Labs21 approach, EPA and DOE estimate that laboratories
can decrease energy consumption by 60 to 75 percent. EPA has applied the Labs21 approach to
an existing EPA laboratory and expects to reduce its annual electric demand by 68 percent and
its utility costs by almost 75 percent. Assuming that only 25 percent of U.S. laboratories achieve
a 60 percent reduction in energy consumption, the U.S. would reduce its annual energy
consumption by an amount equivalent to the yearly energy consumption of 840,000 U.S.
households and save $1.25 billion dollars. In the future, as laboratory energy efficiency
improves, Labs21 will focus on even more aggressive pollution prevention goals and strategies
unique to each type of laboratory.
Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical - Catalytic Oxidation of "mixed-waste": Ortho-McNeil
Pharmaceutical (OMP), in conjunction with the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute
(PRI) uses radio labeled compounds for pharmaceutical research and development. This
manufacturing process yields a waste solution containing both radioactive material and an
organic compound, which constitutes a low level "mixed waste" under RCRA. Ortho-McNeil is
proposing to use an on-site bench-top catalytic oxidation process to treat the mixed waste, which
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would use a more efficient, environmentally safe process as compared with current off-site waste
management and disposal practices. The oxidation treatment process destroys the hazardous
organic component of the mixed waste, transforming it into a relatively innocuous low level
radioactive waste that is easily stabilized. This oxidation process meets the RCRA definition of
"treatment", requiring a TSDF permit under RCRA. To use catalytic oxidation as an on-site
treatment alternative, EPA will grant OMP and PRJ a conditional exclusion from the RCRA
hazardous waste definition for the organic component of its process waste solution.
Information Management and Access Table 28
Innovations
NASA - Real Time Web-Based Information Management
Media
Multi-media
NASA— Real Time Web-Based Information Management: The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) White Sands Test Facility proposes to implement an extensive
web-based information management and regulatory reporting system which would provide EPA
and multiple state agencies from New Mexico real time access to reports and information. This
system would save resources including document preparation time, white paper usage, and
triplicate reproduction requirements. A web-based system will have several benefits over the
existing reporting system which is largely paper-based. Web-based information management will
provide more real time, user friendly data. This would enhance communications with other
agencies by providing immediate access to detailed environmental compliance information
including graphical illustrations of current conditions, access to the groundwater monitoring
database system, and an electronic archival of historical documentation. In turn, NASA seeks
regulatory flexibility from certain reporting requirements specified in site-specific regulatory
documentation and permits. The information contained in the NASA web-based system would
be sufficient to satisfy current regulatory requirements; only the format, delivery method, and
data archival procedures would be modified.
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Conclusion and Next Steps
Under Project XL, EPA made a direct offer to facilities, sectors, states and communities: If you
have an idea that has the potential to provide better results than what would be achieved under
current requirements, then we will work with you and other interested parties to put those ideas
to the test. As shown above in the "Learning From Experiments" section, some innovations are
already being incorporated in EPA's everyday functions. On the other end of the spectrum,
some of the innovations are still emerging, yet they too have highlighted areas of opportunity for
EPA to adopt fresh and transformational strategies.
Today, as an organization EPA faces new phases of the Project XL challenge: As the information
on project results expands exponentially how do we develop the criteria and methodology by
which data gets transformed into knowledge? How do we increase the rate and scale of the
adoption of ideas? How do we learn from our experience to improve our tools for
experimentation?
In theory, the innovation process in an organization can be divided into two broad
activities—incubation and implementation22. Incubation is defined as collecting information,
conceptualizing, and planning for the innovation's testing, all leading up to the decision to adopt.
During the incubation phase, the organization must recognize the need for innovations and have
a matching willingness to experiment. For Project XL, incubation would include the steps
leading up to the signing of the final project agreement (FPA). Then, the decision to test a
Project XL innovation would separate the incubation phase from the implementation phase.
Implementation consists of all the events, actions, and decisions leading to the adoption of an
innovation. In the implementation phase, the organization must produce results to verify the
innovation's potential, clarify results as the innovation is put into more widespread use, and
routinize the innovation into its regular activities. In Project XL, the implementation phase
would begin once the FPA is signed. The innovation process is complete when routinization of
the innovation occurs.
EPA plans to explore the application of this theory of the innovation process , as well as others
in an effort to continue building our system of innovation for Project XL. This important phase
of Project XL coincides with a Agency-wide effort to learn from this and other reinvention
efforts.
Although we have committed to reaching EPA's goal of 50 Project XL experiments, EPA's need
to test new tools and new solutions will not end. Our stakeholders will continue to have
innovative ideas for achieving cleaner, cheaper, and smarter environmental protection. And EPA
is committed to providing a vehicle for testing and implementing those concepts. This next
phase will reflect the Agency-wide commitment to adopt and implement innovative ideas. It will
"Everett M. Rogers. Diffusion of Innovations, 4'1' Edition, New York: The Free Press. 1995.
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provide even stronger incentives for good performance and going beyond compliance by
developing new programs and approaches such as the National Environmental Performance
Track program launched on June 26, 2000. Lessons learned in Project XL will continue to be
integral to developing these high performance alternatives.
Throughout the experimentation process, EPA remains committed to the basic principles of
Project XL. Experiments must show superior environmental performance and meaningful
involvement of interested parties and they must offer transferability potential. Project XL results
indicate that we can create better environmental outcomes when all affected parties work
together toward a common goal. EPA will continue to provide opportunities for testing
environmental solutions that can address complex issues and result in higher quality public health
and environmental protection.
The Agency has not yet worked out the details or blueprint for the next phase of
experimentation, but some observations can be made. First, EPA will retain the capacity built by
Project XL to do cross-Agency, cross-media experimentation. Second, there will continue to be
a need for a gateway through which the regulated community and others outside the Agency can
bring their ideas to EPA and expand our experience with promising concepts. Third,
consultation with stakeholders will be an integral part of any forthcoming initiative. All these
observations indicate that the Project XL concept will continue in some form.
The future will undoubtedly raise new challenging issues, but we are now better prepared to
respond. With the results of the full array of projects at hand, along with the results from the
Agency's other innovative efforts, the greatest challenge should be selecting among all the
available options to design the most effective response to existing and emerging environmental
problems. In some cases, existing laws and regulations will continue to be the best way to
reduce risk. But in others, tailored strategies that involve pollution prevention, maximizing the
use of new technology, site specific reinvestment, new reporting alternatives, livability and smart
growth strategies, and incentives may offer better results at a lower cost. Through Project XL
and EPA's other innovative efforts we will meet the challenges of tomorrow by finding, testing
and adopting cleaner, cheaper and smarter environmental management strategies today.
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Information Sources and Methodology
This report relies on the cumulative information from a number of sources. The sections below
describes these sources with brief descriptions of the methodologies involved in developing them.
Sponsor's Reports
Project sponsors prepare quarterly, midyear, or annual reports as required by the individual
project final project agreements (FPAs). For more information on these reports, please visit
EPA's Project XL web site at http://www.epa.gov/ProjectXL.
EPA Progress Reports
Progress reports completed in March and December 1999 provide an overview of the status of
projects implementing final project agreements for one year or more. These reports are
developed by EPA with the assistance of the project sponsors and co-regulators; and the
stakeholders who are direct participants in the projects have the opportunity to review them.
The progress reports include (1) a background section briefly describing the facility's project and
anticipated environmental benefits; (2) a description of the regulatory flexibility offered by EPA
and other regulatory agencies; (3) a summary of innovations and potential system change; (4) the
status of commitments made by the facility; (5) a review of the progress in environmental
performance; (6) a summary of the stakeholder involvement for the project; (7) names and
organizations of the project contacts; and (8) a 6-month outlook section. These progress reports
are available on the Internet via EPA's Project XL web site at http://www.epa.gov/ProjectXL..
Project Focus Groups
EPA conducted focus groups in December 1998, January 1999, and January 2000 for various
projects. Focus group participants included company employees, co-regulator representatives
(typically state and local government), citizen and non-government organization stakeholders,
and EPA headquarters and regional staff. Project-specific protocols were distributed to
participants prior to each focus group conference call. During the focus groups, participants
gave opinions on (1) the ease and effectiveness of the project implementation process; (2) the
value of the project to their organization; and (3) the opportunities to apply information gained
from the projects more broadly. These are part of an annual program evaluation cycle for
Project XL, and serve as an opportunity for project participants to provide feedback to EPA on
any aspect of their experience in developing and implementing a project. A list of the focus
groups and their participants are in Volume 2: Project Status.
Stakeholder Involvement Reports
In September 1998, a report entitled Evaluation of Project XL Stakeholder Processes (EPA-100-
R-98-009) was prepared by Resolve, Inc. This report provided a review of the design and
conduct of the stakeholder processes at four of the initial projects (Intel, Weyerhaeuser,
HADCO, Merck). The report described the involvement of stakeholders in FPA negotiation and
implementation, with information on national and local stakeholder perspectives about their
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role. It also outlined the various models developed by company sponsors, and reports
stakeholder perspectives on the processes a's gathered in a stakeholder survey.
In 1999, EPA initiated a second extensive evaluation which has been conducted by the Southeast
Negotiation Network. Project XL Stakeholder Involvement Evaluation (August 2000) covers
eight projects in various stages of negotiation or implementation (Andersen, Atlantic Steel,
Crompton, ExxonMobil, HADCO, Intel, New England Universities Laboratories, and
Vandenberg AFB). It considers the early dynamics of stakeholder processes in projects
developing their FPA, stakeholder satisfaction and effectiveness of involvement for projects that
had recently signed their agreements, and the status of ongoing involvement in projects that have
been underway for at least one year.
Other EPA Reports
The Project XL Preliminary Status Report (September 1998) examined three projects in
implementation for at least a year as of January 1998: Berry, Intel, and Weyerhaeuser. The
report covers the projects' initial results on innovation and system change, as well as progress in
meeting FPA commitments, stakeholder participation outcomes, environmental performance, and
lessons learned.
The Project XL 1999 Comprehensive Report (October 1999) provides an overview of the status
of 14 projects, as well as program-wide results and lessons learned. It also presents technical
and policy information on 25 innovations sorted by core functions. Information complied in
progress reports, focus groups, stakeholder reports, and other documentation and information
gained through the experience of Agency staff is synthesized and described. The report follows-
up the work started in the Preliminary Status Report.
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Glossary
Adsorbable Organic Halogens (AOX): AOX is a measurement of the amount of organic halogens present in water. In paper
manufacture organic halogens are commonly by-products of chlorine bleaching processes. The AOX value is expressed in
equivalent chlorine.
Aerobic: Life or processes that require, or are not destroyed by. the presence of oxygen. (See: anaerobic.)
Aluminum Chemical Vapor Deposition Process: A dry process used for the current generation semiconductor device
technologies. Vapor deposition technologies include processes that put materials into a vapor state via condensation, chemical
reaction, or conversion.
Anaerobic: A life or process that occurs in, or is not destroyed by. the absence of oxygen.
Area of Contamination (AOC): A non-discrete land area on which there is generally dispersed contamination. Generally, for
contaminated soil, consider the sampling locations that indicate observed contamination and the area lying between such
locations to be an area of observed contamination. Asphalt or other impenetrable materials contaminated by site-related
hazardous substances may be considered areas of observed contamination.
Asbestos-Containing Waste Materials (ACWM): Mill tailings or any waste that contains commercial asbestos and is
generated by a source covered by the Clean Air Act Asbestos NESHAPS.
Attainment Area: A designated geographic area considered to have air quality as good as or better than the national ambient
air quality standards as defined in the Clean Air Act. An area may be an attainment area for one pollutant and a
non-attainment area for others.
Baseline Standard: The measure by which future environmental performance can be compared.
Best Management Practice (BMP): Methods that have been determined to be the most effective, practical means of
preventing or reducing pollution from non-point sources
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD): A measure of the amount of oxygen consumed in the biological processes that break
down organic matter in water. The greater the BOD. the greater the degree of pollution.
Biodegradable: Capable of decomposing under natural conditions.
Black liquor: spent cooking liquor that has been separated from the pulp produced by the kraft, soda, or semi-chemical
pulping process.
Brownfield: Abandoned, idled, or under used industrial and commercial facilities/sites where expansion or redevelopment is
complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. They can be in urban, suburban, or rural areas.
Carbon Monoxide (CO): A colorless, odorless, poisonous gas produced by incomplete fossil fuel combustion.
Catalytic Oxidation: Catalytic oxidation is an alternative technology used in selective applications to greatly reduce
emissions due to VOCs, hydrocarbons, odors, and opacity in process exhaust. VOCs are thermally destroyed at high
temperatures by using a solid catalyst. Catalyst systems used to oxidize VOCs typically use metal oxides.
Categorical Industrial User: An industrial user which is subject to a categorical standard promulgated by EPA.
Categorical Pretreatment Standard: A technology-based effluent limitation for an industrial facility dis- charging into a
municipal sewer system.
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Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD): A measure of the oxygen required to oxidize all compounds, both organic and inorganic.
in water.
Chloroform: A colorless liquid with a sweet odor. It is used primarily in the production of chlorofluorocarbon and in the
production of plastics. Its other uses are as an industrial solvent in the extraction and purification of some antibiotics.
alkaloids, vitamins, and flavors; as a solvent for lacquers, floor polishes, resins, fats, adhesives, oils, and rubber.
Clean Air Act (CAA): The Clean Air Act is the comprehensive Federal law that regulates air emissions from area, stationary,
and mobile sources. This law authorizes EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public
health and the environment.
Clean Water Act (CWA): The Clean Water Act sets the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants to waters of
the United States. The law gives EPA the authority to set technology-based effluent standards on an industry basis continues
the requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters. The CWA makes it unlawful for any
person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters unless a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) permit is obtained under the Act.
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA): CERCLA is the legislative
authority for the Superfund program funds and carries out EPA solid waste emergency and long-term removal and remedial
activities. These activities include establishing the National Priorities List (NPL). investigating sites for inclusion on the list.
determining their priority, and conducting and/or supervising cleanup and other remedial actions.
Conditional Delisting: Use of the petition process to have a facility's toxic designation rescinded.
Conformity: Conformity is a Clean Air Act requirement intended to ensure that new transportation investments do not
jeopardize air quality in non-attainment and maintenance areas. According to the Clean Air Act, no transportation activity can
be funded or supported by the Federal government unless it conforms to the purpose of a state's air quality plan. An EPA rule
describing the criteria and procedures for determining conformity is found in 40 CFR parts 51 and 93.
Consent Decree: A legal document, approved by a judge, that formalizes an agreement reached between EPA and potentially
responsible parties (PRPs) through which PRPs will conduct all or part of a cleanup action at a Superfund site; cease or
correct actions or processes that are polluting the environment; or otherwise comply with EPA initiated regulatory
enforcement actions to resolve the contamination at the Superfund site involved. The consent decree describes the actions
PRPs will take and may be subject to a public comment period.
Consumptive Water Use: Water removed from available supplies without return to a water resources system, e.g., water
used in manufacturing, agriculture, and food preparation.
Continuous Emission Monitoring (CEM): Continuous measurement of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere in exhaust
gases from combustion or industrial processes.
Criteria Air Pollutants: The CAA requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for certain
pollutants known to be hazardous to human health. EPA has identified and set standards to protect human health and welfare
for six criteria air pollutants—ozone, carbon monoxide, total suspended particulates, sulfur dioxide, lead, and nitrogen oxide.
EPA must describe the characteristics and potential health and welfare effects of these pollutants.
Data Call-in: A part of the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) process of developing key required test data, especially on the
long-term, chronic effects of existing pesticides.
Dioxin: Any one of a family of compounds known chemically as dibenzo-p-dioxins. Concern about dioxin arises from their
potential toxicity as a contaminant in commercial products. Tests on laboratory animals indicate that dioxin is one of the most
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toxic of man-made compounds.
Discharge Monitoring Reporting (DMR): Facilities that discharge wastewater directly from point sources to surface waters
must submit DMRs under National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) wastewater permitting.
Dredge: Dredging: Removal of mud from the bottom of water bodies. This can disturb the ecosystem and causes silting that
kills aquatic life. Dredging of contaminated muds can expose biota to heavy metals and other toxics. Dredging activities may-
be subject to regulation under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.
Ecological Risk Assessment: The application of a formal framework, analytical process, or model to estimate the effects of
human action(s) on a natural resource and to interpret the significance of those effects in light of the uncertainties identified in
each component of the assessment process. Such analysis includes initial hazard identification, exposure and dose response
assessments, and risk characterization.
Effluent: Wastewater or other liquid, raw (untreated), partially or completely treated, flowing from an industrial user,
treatment process or treatment plant
Electroplating Operations: Involves plating various metals onto printed wiring boards and computer components that
provide electronic interconnection.
Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know (EPCRA): Also known as Title m of SARA, EPCRA was enacted
by Congress as the national legislation on community safety. This law was designated to help local communities protect
public health, safety, and the environment from chemical hazards.
Emissions Cap: A limit designed to prevent projected growth in emissions from both existing and future stationary sources
from exceeding any mandated levels. Generally, such provisions require that any emission increase from equipment at a
facility be offset by emission reductions from other equipment under the same cap.
End-of-Pipe Controls: Technologies, such as scrubbers on smokestacks and catalytic convenors on automobile
tailpipes, that reduce the emission or discharge of pollutants to the environment after they have formed.
Engineering Evaluation/ Cost Analysis (EE/CA): The EE/CA is a flexible document tailored to identify and analyze the
scope, goals, objectives and effectiveness of a non-time critical removal action. It contains only those data necessary to
identify the selection of a response alternative, and relies on existing documentation whenever possible.
Environmental Council of States (ECOS): The mission of ECOS is to improve the environment of the United States by
providing for the exchange of ideas, views and experiences among states and territories, fostering cooperation and
coordination in environmental management, and articulating state positions on environmental issues.
F006 Listing: A hazardous waste that is wastewater treatment sludge produced from nonspecific electroplating processes and
operations.
Feasibility Study (FS): Analysis of the practicability of a proposal; e.g., a description and analysis of potential cleanup
alternatives for a site such as one on the National Priorities List. The feasibility study usually recommends selection of a cost-
effective alternative. It usually starts as soon as the remedial investigation is underway; together, they are commonly referred
to as the "RI/FS".
Fenceline Standard: A baseline standard measured at the property line of a facility.
Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV): A vehicle specially designed to use methanol or regular unleaded gasoline in any combination
from a single tank. The vehicles have a special sensor on the fuel line that detect the ratio of methanol to gasoline that is in
the tank. The vehicle's fuel injection and ignition timing are adjusted by an on-board computer to compensate for the different
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fuel mixtures.
Fly Ash : Non-combustible residual particles expelled by Hue gas.
Fugitive Emissions: Emissions not caught by a capture system
Gasification : Conversion of solid material such as coal into a gas for use as a fuel.
Global Positioning System (GPS): A precise surveying system based on a set of satellites that orbit about 12,000 miles
above the earth. On earth, a hand-held specialized computer, a portable GPS receiver, can receive signal from a GPS satellite
above the horizon. The receiver then calculates absolute position, an accuracy that is usually within a few feet, or better.
Greenfield: Greenfields are generally parkland, previously undeveloped open space and agricultural lands, located near the
outskirts of towns, cities and larger metropolitan areas, (see: Brownfield)
Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs): Air pollutants that are not covered by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards but
that may have an adverse effect on human health or the environment. Such pollutants include asbestos, beryllium, mercury,
benzene, coke-oven emissions, radionuclides, and vinyl chloride.
Hazardous Waste: By-products of society that can pose a substantial or potential hazard to human health or the environment
when improperly managed. Hazardous waste possesses at least one of four characteristics (ignitabi)ity. corrosivity. reactivity,
or toxicity), or appears on special EPA lists.
Hydrogen Chloride: Hydrogen chloride is a non-combustible compound that is highly soluble in water. In aqueous solution.
it forms hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid is used to make and clean metals, to make chloride dioxide for the bleaching of
pulp and other chemicals, to make phosphate fertilizers and hydrogen, for the neutralization of basic systems, in the treatment
of oil and gas wells, in analytical chemistry, and in the removal of scale from boilers and heat-exchange equipment.
Hydrogen Flouride: Hydrogen fluoride, or hydrofluoric acid, is a colorless gas or fuming liquid. It is a chemical
intermediary for fluorocarbons, aluminum fluoride, cryolite, uranium hexafluoride, and fluoride salts. It is used in fluorination
processes, as a catalyst, and as a fluorina'jng agent in organic and inorganic reactions. It is used to clean cast iron, copper,
and brass; remove efflorescence from brick and stone, or sand particles from metallic castings.
Indirect Discharge: Introduction of pollutants from a non-domestic source into a publicly owned waste-treatment system.
Indirect dischargers can be commercial or industrial facilities whose wastes enter local sewers.
Influent: Wastewater or other liquid, raw (untreated), partially or completely treated, flowing into a treatment process or
treatment plant.
Industrial User: Any non-domestic source which introduces pollutants into a municipal wastewater collection system
{40CFR403.3(h)}
Interference: A discharge which, alone or in conjunction with a discharge from other sources, both (1) inhibits or disrupts
the POTW; and (2) therefore is a cause for violation of any requirement of the POTW's NPDES permit (including an increase
in the magnitude or duration of a violation).
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14000: ISO 14000 is primarily concerned with environmental
management. The ISO 14000 series sets out the methods that can be implemented in an organization to minimize harmful
effects on the environment caused by pollution or natural resource depletion.
Kraft Mill: Any industrial operation which uses for a cooking liquor an alkaline sulfide solution containing sodium
hydroxide and sodium sulfide in its pulping process.
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Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR): Rules that require hazardous wastes to be treated before disposal on land to destroy or
immobilize hazardous constituents that might migrate into soil and ground water.
Lignin: Organic substance which act as a binder for the cellulose fibers in wood and certain plants and adds strength and
stiffness to the cell walls. It imparts considerable strength to the wall and also protects it against degradation by
microorganisms.
Low-emitting vehicles (LEVs): a vehicle that emits 0.075 g of hydrocarbons per mile
Maximum Available Control Technology (MACT): The emission standard for air pollution sources requiring the
maximum reduction of hazardous emissions, taking cost and feasibility into account Under the CAA Amendments of 1990.
the MACT must not be less than the average emission level achieved by controls on the best performing 12 percent of existing
sources, by category, of industrial and utility sources.
Maximum Containment Level (MCL): The maximum permissible level of a contaminant in water delivered to any user of
a public system. MCLs are enforceable standards.
Methanol: An alcohol that can be used as an alternative fuel or as a gasoline additive. Poisonous if ingested.
Methyl Chloride: A colorless flammable gas. Used in the production of chemicals, as a solvent and refrigerant, and as a food
additive. Mildly toxic if inhaled.
Metallization: The fabrication step in which proper interconnection of circuit elements is made. The act or process of
imparting metallic properties to something.
Mobile Source: Any non-stationary source of air pollution such as cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses, airplanes, and
locomotives.
"The MON": The National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for the source category
"Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Production and Processes." Some examples of these processes are: explosives production;
photographic chemicals production; polyester resins production; and the production of paints, coatings and adhesives.
Multi-media: Several environmental media, such as air, water, and land.
National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS): Standards established by EPA under the Clean Air Act applicable to
outdoor air throughout the country.
National Contingency Plan (NCP): The federal regulation that guides determination of the sites to be corrected under both
the Superfund program and the program to prevent or control spills into surface waters or elsewhere.
National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs): Emissions standards set by EPA for air
pollutants not covered by National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), that may cause an increase in fatalities or in
serious, irreversible, or incapacitating illness.. Primary standards are designed to protect human health, and secondary
standards are designed to protect public welfare (e.g., building facades, visibility, crops, and domestic animals).
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES): A provision of the CWA that prohibits the discharge of
pollutants into waters of the United States unless a special permit is issued by EPA. a State, or where delegated, by a Tribal
government on an Indian reservation.
National Priorities List (NPL): EPA's list of the most serious uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites identified
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for possible long-term remedial action under Superfund. The list is based primarily on the score a site receives from the
Hazard Ranking System. EPA is required to update the NPL at least once a year. A site must be on the NPL to receive money
from the Trust Fund for remedial action.
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS): Uniform national EPA air emission and \vater effluent standards which limit
the amount of pollution allowed from new sources or from modified existing sources.
New Source Review (NSR): The NSR provisions of the Clean Air Act strive to ensure that potential new sources of air
pollution (new plants or facilities, or additions to existing ones) take proper steps to minimize pollution levels. The goals of
the NSR program are: (1) to ensure that an increase in emissions due to a new source or modification to an existing source
does not significantly deteriorate air quality; ( 2) to ensure that source emissions are consistent with applicable State
attainment plans; (3) to ensure that air quality related values are not negatively impacted in areas that have greater pollution
problems; and (4) to establish control technology requirements that maximize productive capacity while minimizing impacts
on air quality.
Nitrous Oxides (NOx ): Air pollutants that are the result of photochemical reactions of nitric oxide in ambient air. Typically,
it is a product of combustion from transportation and stationary sources. It is a major contributor to the formation of
tropospheric ozone, photochemical smog, and acid deposition.
Non-Attainment Area: A designated geographic area that does not meet one or more of the National Ambient Air Quality
Standards for the criteria pollutants designated in the Clean Air Act. (See: Attainment)
Non-time Critical Removal (NTC): Those removals where, based on the site evaluation, the lead agency determines that a
removal action is appropriate and that there is a planning period of more than six months available before on-site activities
begin.
Organic Compounds: Naturally occurring (animal or plant-produced) or synthetic substances containing mainly carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.
Oxygen Delignification: Use of oxygen to remove lignin from pulp after high-density stock storage and prior to the
bleaching system. An oxygen delignification system equipment includes the blow tank, washers, filtrate tanks, any interstage
pulp storage tanks, and any other equipment serving the same function as those previously listed.
Paniculate Matter (PM): Fine liquid or solid particles, such as dust, smoke, mist, fumes, or smog, found in air or emissions.
Phosphine: Phosphine occurs as a colorless, flammable gas that is slightly soluble in water. It is used as an intermediate in
the synthesis of flame retardants for cotton fabrics, as a doping agent for n-type semiconductors, a polymerization initiator,
and a condensation catalyst.
Plant Site Emission Limits(PSELs): Plant site emission limits are facility based emission caps that allow production
changes and facility expansion without recurring air quality permit reviews
Point Source: A stationary location or fixed facility from which pollutants are discharged; any single identifiable source of
pollution; e.g.. a pipe, ditch, ship, ore pit, factory smokestack.
Pollution Prevention: 1. Identifying areas, processes, and activities which create excessive waste products or pollutants in
order to reduce or prevent them through, alteration, or eliminating a process. Such activities, consistent with the Pollution
Prevention Act of 1990. are conducted across all EPA programs and can involve cooperative efforts with such agencies as the
Departments of Agriculture and Energy. 2. EPA has initiated a number of voluntary programs in which industrial, or
commercial or "partners" join with EPA in .promoting activities that conserve energy, conserve and protect water supply,
reduce emissions or find ways of utilizing them as energy resources, and reduce the waste stream.
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Pass-through: A discharge which exits the POTW into waters of the United States in quantities or concentrations which,
alone or in conjunction with other discharge sources, is a.cause of a violation of any requirement of the POTWs NPDES
permit (including an increase in the magnitude or duration of a violation).
Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs): Compounds in which all the hydrogen atoms are replaced by fluorine. PFCs are
greenhouse gases and are expected to have long atmospheric lifetimes.
Point Source: A stationary location or fixed facility from which pollutants are discharged; any single identifiable source of
pollution; e.g., a pipe, ditch, ship, ore pit. factor,' smokestack.
Potentially Responsible Parry (PRP): A PRP is the owner or operator of a contaminated site, or the person or persons whose
actions or negligence may have caused the release of pollutants and contaminants into the environment, requiring a remedial
action response under CERCLA and SARA. The PRP is potentially liable for the cleanup costs in order to compensate the
government for its remediation expenditures.
Pretreatment: Processes used to reduce, eliminate, or alter the nature of wastewater pollutants from non- domestic sources
before they are discharged into publicly owned treatment works (POTWs).
Premanufacture Notification (PMN): Section 5 of TSCA regulates anyone who plans to manufacture or import a "new"
chemical substance for commercial purposes. Under section 5, EPA requires notice before manufacture or importation of non-
exempt substances so that EPA can evaluate whether the chemical substance poses a threat to human health or the
environment. This notice is called a premanufacture notice (PMN).
Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD): Standards aimed at keeping areas that are in compliance with National
Ambient Air Quality Standards from backsliding.
Printed Wiring Board (PWB): A device that provides electronic interconnections and a surface for mounting electronic
components.
Production Unit Factor (PUF): A production-based performance measure.
Pyrolyzed: (Pyrolysis): Decomposition of a chemical by extreme heat.
Radiolabel: To tag (a hormone, an enzyme, or other substance) with a radioactive tracer.
Relative Accuracy Test Audits (RATA): The primary method of determining the correlation of continuous emissions
monitoring system data to simultaneously collected reference method test data, using no fewer than nine reference method test
runs conducted as outlined in 40 CFR 60, Appendix A.
Regulated Asbestos-Containing Material (RACM): Under the asbestos NESHAP, RACM is defined as: (a) fnable asbestos
material, (b) Category I non-friable Asbestos Containing Material (ACM) that has become triable, (c) Category I non-friable
ACM that will be or has been subjected to sanding, grinding, cutting or abrading, or (d) Category n non-friable ACM that has
a high probability of becoming or has become crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by the forces expected to act on the
material in the course of demolition or renovation operations.
Remedial Investigation (RI): An in-depth study designed to gather data needed to determine the nature and ex- tent of
contamination at a Superfund site; establish site cleanup criteria; identify preliminary alternatives for remedial action; and
support technical and cost analyses of alternatives. The remedial investigation is usually done with the feasibility study.
Together they are usually referred to as the "Rl/FS".
Remining: The surface mining of previously-mined and abandoned surface and underground mines to obtain remaining coal
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reserves.
Remote Monitoring Station: Self-contained multidetector electronic instruments installed at remote locations in creeks and
other water bodies to assess ambient water quality and detect real-time changes of dissolved ox-ygen, pH. conductance and
temperature.
Removal action: A removal action is a short-term federal response to prevent, minimize, or mitigate damage to the public or
the environment at sites where hazardous substances have been released. Examples of removal actions are excavating
contaminated soil, erecting a security fence, or stabilizing a berm. dike, or impoundment. Removal actions may also be
necessary1 in the event of the threat of release of hazardous substances into the environment such as taking abandoned drums
to a proper disposal facility. Removal actions may take place at NPL or non-NPL sites.
Remedial Action: Remedial actions are actions documented in the ROD that are taken at NPL sites to eliminate or reduce
the pollution to levels which prevent or minimize the release of hazardous substances so that they do not migrate or cause
substantial danger to public health or welfare, or the environment. An example is to remove hazardous constituents from
groundwater using pump and treat technologies.
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA): Passed in 1976. RCRA gives EPA the authority to control hazardous
waste from "cradle-to-grave." This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous
waste. RCRA also set forth a framework for the management of nonhazardous wastes. RCRA enables EPA to address
environmental problems that could result from underground tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances. RCRA
focuses only on active and future facilities and does not address abandoned sites.
Response Action: Generic term for actions taken in response to actual or potential health-threatening environmental events
such as spills, sudden releases, and asbestos abatement/management problems. A CERCLA-authorized action involving
either a short-term removal action or a long-term remedial response.
Record of Decision (ROD): A ROD documents the remedy decision for a site or operable unit. The ROD certifies that the
remedy selection process has followed the requirements of CERCLA and the NCP, and discusses the technical components of
the remedy. The ROD also provides the public with a consolidated source of information about the site.
Reverse Osmosis (RO): Reverse Osmosis is a high-pressure filtration process which separates dissolved salt and minerals
from water, using a membrane. Clean water passes through the membrane, and the salt and minerals are rejected.
Riparian Zone: Areas adjacent to rivers and stream:; with a differing density, diversity, and productivity of plant and animal
species relative to nearby uplands.
Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA): SDWA was established to protect the quality of drinking water. This law focuses on all
waters actually or potentially designated for drinking use. whether from above-ground or underground sources. The Act
authorizes EPA to establish safe standards of purity and requires all owners or operators of public water systems to comply
with primary (health-related) standards. State governments, which assume this power from EPA, also encourage attainment of
secondary standards (for example, water clarity).
Semi-chemical Mill: A mill that produces pulp using a combination of both chemical and mechanical pulping processes.
with or without bleaching
Sludge: A semi-solid residue from any of a number of air or water treatment processes; this can be a hazardous or non-
hazardous waste.
Sludge dryers: A piece of equipment that reduces the volume and weight of the semi-solid sludge wastes by drying and
reducina the water content of the sludae.
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Smelter: A facility that melts or fuses ore. often with an accompanying chemical change, to separate its metal content.
Emissions cause pollution. ""Smelting" is the process involved.
State Implementation Plan (SIP): EPA approved state plans for the establishment, regulation, and enforcement of air
pollution standards.
Stationary Source: A fixed-site producer of pollution, mainly power plants and other facilities using indus- trial combustion
processes. (See: Point Source.)
Sulfur Dioxide (SO2): SO2 gases are formed when fuel containing sulfur (mainly coal and oil) is burned and can be formed
during metal smelting and other industrial processes. Sulfur dioxide is associated with acidification of lakes and streams.
accelerated corrosion of buildings and monuments, reduced visibility, and such adverse health effects as inhibition of
breathing, respiratory illness, and aggravation of existing cardiovascular disease.
Sulfuric Acid: Sulfuric acid is a clear, colorless, oily, and odorless liquid. It is also known as sulphine acid and hydrogen
sulfate. Its main use is in phosphate fertilizer production. It is also used to manufacture other acids, explosives, dyestuffs.
parchment paper, glue, wood preservatives, and lead-acid batteries in vehicles It is used in the purification of petroleum, the
pickling of metal, electroplating baths, nonferrous metallurgy, and production of rayon and film; and as a laboratory reagent.
Superfund: The program operated under the legislative authority of CERCLA and SARA that funds and carries out EPA
hazardous waste emergency and long-term removal and remedial activities. These activities include establishing the National
Priorities List, investigating sites for inclusion on the list, determining their priority, and conducting and/or supervising
cleanup and other remedial actions.
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI): The Sustainable Forestry Initiative™ is a comprehensive program of forestry and
conservation practices designed to ensure the continuing sustainable management of forestlands. The SFI was developed
nationally through the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), whose members produce 90 percent of the paper and
60 percent of the lumber produced in America today. Compliance with the SFI guidelines is mandatory for AF&PA companies
to retain AF&PA membership.
300-millimeter wafer: Early this year, Intel announced it will build its first 300 millimeter, high volume production
manufacturing facility at its Chandler site. The 300-millimeter wafers represent a technological advance in semiconductor
chips over the standard 200-millimeter (8-inch) waters that are used in many semiconductor manufacturing plants today. 300-
millimeter chips offer over twice as much surface area over the conventional chips and will reduce manufacturing costs per
wafer by more than 30 percent.
Title V of the Clean Air Act: Establishes a Federal operating permit program that applies to any major stationary facility or
source of air pollution. The purpose of the operating permits program is to ensure compliance with all applicable requirements
of the CAA. Under the program, permits are issued by States or. when a State fails to carry out the CAA satisfactorily, by
EPA. The permit includes information on which pollutants are being released, how much may be released, and what kinds of
steps the source's owner or operator is taking to reduce pollution, including plans to monitor the pollution.
Toxic Release Inventory (TRI): Database of toxic releases in the United States compiled from SARA Title ffl Section 313
reports.
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA): TSCA was enacted by Congress in 1976 to give EPA the ability to track the 75,000
industrial chemicals currently produced or imported into the United States. EPA repeatedly screens these chemicals and can
require reporting or testing of those that may pose an environmental or human-health hazard. EPA can ban the manufacture
and import of those chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk.
Total Suspended Solids (TSS): A measure of the suspended solids in wastewater, effluent, or water bodies, determined by
tests for "total suspended nonfilterable solids."
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Transitional Low-Emitting Vehicles: A vehicle that emits . 125 g of hydrocarbons per mile
Transportation Control Measure : TCMs include a variety of measures used to reduce motor vehicle emissions, primarily
be reducing the amount of vehicle miles traveled (VMTs). These can include carpool and vanpool programs, parking
management, traffic flow improvements, high occupancy vehicle lanes, and park-and-ride lots.
Tributyltin (TBT): TBT based paints assist in keeping ship hulls free of marine organisms by acting as both a biocide and as
an agent that imparts a "self-polishing" quality to marine paints. For ocean going vessels. TBT self-polishing copolymer
paints are currently the most effective means of preventing ship hull fouling by marine organisms.
Variance: Government permission for a delay or exception in the application of a given law. ordinance, or regulation.
Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT): A measure of the total amount of miles traveled by vehicle \\ithin a region.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): Any organic compound that easily evaporates and participates in atmospheric
photochemical reactions, except those designated by EPA as having negligible photochemical reactivity.
Wastewater: Spent or used water from a home, community, farm, or industry that contains dissolved or suspended matter.
Wastewater Treatment Sludge: The sludge that is produced from the treatment and removal of pollutants of wastewater.
Watershed: The land area that drains into a stream; the watershed for a major river may encompass a number of smaller
watersheds that ultimately combine at a common point.
"Wet" Demolition Method: A demolition technique specified in the Asbestos National Emissions Standards for Hazardous
Air Pollutants (NESHAP) requirements to limit the release the asbestos particulates.
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