United States Office of Solid Waste Environmental Protection and Emergency Response EPA/530-SW-89-G64 Agency Washington DC 20460 October 1989 Office of Solid Waste EPA Environmental Fact Sheet NOTIFICATION OF GROUND- WATER MONITORING POLICY FOR DELISTING PETITIONS BACKGROUND On January 16, 1981, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a list of hazardous wastes from nonspecific and specific sources. These wastes are listed as hazardous because they typically and frequently exhibit one or more of the characteristics of hazardous wastes - ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity - or they meet other criteria for listing. Individual waste streams may vary, however, depending on factors such as raw materials and industrial processes. Thus, a waste that is listed as hazardous in the regulations may not be hazardous at every facility. Therefore, EPA has a "delisting" procedure that allows a facility to demonstrate that a specific waste from a particular generating facility should not be regulated as a hazardous waste. To delist a waste, the generator must "petition" EPA by submitting manufacturing and treatment process information, raw materials lists, analytical data, and other information. Under current regulations, EPA may require petitioners to submit ground-water monitoring data for waste management units that contain waste targeted for delisting. The Agency has required this data under the general authority given in the delisting regulations. EPA has found that such waste-specific data provides significant additional information important to fully characterize the hazards posed by disposal of a particular waste. ------- ACTION This proposed amendment clarifies the authority of the Agency to require and evaluate ground-water data for delisting purposes. This requirement will apply only if the units containing the petitioned waste are required under current regulations to have a ground-water monitoring system. CONCLUSION By requiring ground-water monitoring data to be included in delisting petitions. EPA can better determine whether the waste in question is hazardous. Data indicating that the waste may have contaminated groundwater may be considered grounds for petition denial. Thus, the proposed rule will increase protection of human health and the environment. EPA is seeking public comment on this proposal. CONTACT For further information or to order a copy of the Federal Register notice, please contact the RCRA Hotline Monday through Friday. 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. EST. The national toll-free number is (800) 424-9346; for the hearing impaired, the number is TDD (800) 553-7672. In Washington, D.C., the number is (202} 382-3000 or TDD (202) 475-9652. ------- PRESS ADVISORY On September 29, 1989, the Administrator signed an interim final rule extending, for manufacturing facilities, the reporting thresholds established for the first two years of reporting under Community Right-to-Know regulations. Section 311 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right- to-Know Act (EPCRA) or Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) authorizes the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish reporting thresholds (i.e. , quantities) for hazardous chemicals present at a facility below which facilities would not routinely have to comply with the reporting requirements specified in Sections 311 and 312 of Title III. EPA previously established reporting thresholds for the first two years of reporting (52 FR 38344); October 15, 1987), EPA also promulgated zero thresholds in that rulemaking to become effective in the third year of reporting, but.' stated in the preamble that it would conduct further studies of all reporting threshold alternatives and would propose final reporting thresholds before the beginning of the third year of reporting. After completing its study of alternative thresholds, EPA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing final reporting thresholds (54 FR 12992; March 29, 1989 > . Because of the time required to address the comments received on the NPRM and to promulgate a v?. n;;l rule, today EPA is publishing an Interim Final Rule whic will become effective on October 17, 1989. ------- - 2 - For manufacturers, promulgation of the Interim Final Rule, limits, for one more year from the current effective date (i.e., October 17, 1989), the hazardous chemicals that must be reported under Sections 311 and 312 to those which are extremely hazardous substances (EHSs) present in an amount greater than or equal to 500 pounds (or 55 gallons) or the chemical specific threshold planning quantity, which is lower. The interim final rule will be published in the Federal Register along with two related notices on Community Right-to-Know reporting. ------- |