RCRA Requirements

Upgrade facilities to meet RCRA requirements. A data-collection program should he instituted to obtain any needed data. 

The J 984 Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA, pronounced "hiss-wa") to RCRA requires phasing-out land disposal of hazardous waste. Some of the other mandates of this law include increased enforcement authority for EPA, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and a comprehensive underground storage tank program. 

Permitting To ensure that only facilities meeting the TSDF standards are treating, storing, and disposing of hazardous waste and to provide each TSDF with a record of the specific requirements applicable to each part of its operation, RCRA requires owners and operators of these facilities to obtain a permit. 

RCRA s TSDF standards also include provisions to protect groundwater and air resources from hazardous waste contamination. RCRA requires owners and operators of land-based units (i.e., land treatment units, landfills, surface impoundments, and waste piles) to monitor the groundwater below their TSDF for possible contamination, and clean up any discovered contamination. 

Wastes must be an RCRA hazardous waste in order to be subject to the LDR program. In other words, unless a waste meets the definition of a solid and hazardous waste, its disposal is not regulated under the LDR program. Once a generator identifies its waste as hazardous (either listed, characteristic, or both), the waste is assigned a waste code. When U.S. EPA establishes a treatment standard for the waste code, the waste will then become restricted (i.e., subject to the LDR requirements). RCRA requires that U.S. EPA establish treatment standards for hazardous wastes within six months of promulgating a new listing or characteristic. Until U.S. EPA establishes a treatment standard for a waste, this newly identified or newly listed waste (i.e., waste for which U.S. EPA is yet to establish a treatment... 

In September 1999, U.S. EPA finalized a rule that established coordinated CAA and RCRA requirements for incinerators, cement kilns, and LWAKs, commonly known as the M ACT rule. This rule ensures that these facilities will avoid two potentially different regulatory compliance schemes by integrating the monitoring, compliance testing, recordkeeping, and permitting requirements of CAA and RCRA. 

Hazardous waste generators and TSDFs may need to comply with OSHA training and planning standards, in addition to RCRA requirements. 

The pulp and paper industry generates hazardous wastes, but most are associated with wastewater, which is rendered nonhazardous in wastewater treatment or neutralization units within the manufacturing facilities and therefore is not subject to RCRA requirements. Also, black liquor is exempt as a solid waste if it is reclaimed in a recovery furnace and reused in the pulping process. 

U.S. Federal law (the Recourse Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, known as RCRA) requires a national cradle to grave tracking system for hazardous waste. In the State of Massachusetts, for instance, every shipment of hazardous waste by a large or small generator must be transported by a licenced hauler and sent to a licenced treatment, storage, or disposal facility (TSD) or a permitted recycling facility, and it must be accompanied by a multipart shipping document, called the Uniform Hazardous Waste Manifest. 

A final section of the RCRA concerns underground storage tanks (USTs). Under the RCRA, the USEPA requires that all USTs be protected against spills, corrosion, and overfills within 10 years of the promulgation date. Over 1 million USTs are known to exist in the United States, and many leak hazardous substances (e.g., petroleum products) into the ground and groundwater (Danner et al., 1998). The RCRA requires that all facilities with USTs must do one of the following ... 

A listed hazardous waste cannot be rendered nonhazardous by treatment or by dilution or mixing with nonhazardous materials. EPAhas issued proposals to establish exemption levels for listed wastes that contain small amounts of hazardous substances, but such exemption provisions are not yet established in regulations. Thus, a listed hazardous waste can be exempted from RCRA requirements only by the process of delisting. EPA also has exempted certain materials that contain hazardous substances to allow their beneficial use (e.g., ash and sludge from coalburning power plants, sewage sludge). 

Management and disposal of hazardous chemical waste under RCRA is based on detailed and prescriptive technical requirements that apply to any facility for waste treatment, storage, or disposal, whereas management and disposal of low-level radioactive waste is more flexible because AEA allows consideration of waste- and site-specific factors. As a consequence, acceptable approaches to management and disposal of mixed low-level waste probably will be determined primarily by RCRA requirements, unless exempt levels of hazardous chemicals are established that render the waste nonhazardous under RCRA. 

EPA regulations developed under AEA specify that operations and closure at uranium or thorium mill tailings sites must conform to RCRA requirements on hazardous waste. These requirements acknowledge the presence of hazardous chemicals in mill tailings, especially heavy metals. 

Established Exemption Levels. NRC s radiation protection standards in 10 CFR Part 20 (NRC, 1991) include limits on concentrations or annual releases of radionuclides for unrestricted discharge into sanitary sewer systems, except any excreta from individuals undergoing medical treatment with radioactive material are exempt from the limits. These regulations also include an exemption for land disposal of liquid scintillation materials and animal carcasses that contain 2 kBq g 1 (0.05 pCi g-1) or less of 3H or 14C, although the exempted scintillation materials must be managed in accordance with RCRA requirements due to the presence of toluene. 

Because mixed waste contains radionuclides and hazardous chemicals, it is subject to dual regulation under AEA and RCRA. Mixed waste generated in commercial activities is regulated under EPA or state RCRA requirements and NRC or comparable Agreement State requirements under AEA. Mixed waste generated by DOE is regulated by DOE under AEA and by EPA or a state under RCRA. This dual regulatory framework has created difficulties for mixed waste... 

DOE acknowledged the dual regulatory framework for mixed waste in 1987 with a notice clarifying the definition of byproduct material (DOE, 1987b). In this notice, DOE issued a final interpretive rule establishing that the exclusion of byproduct material at Section 1004(27) of RCRA applied only to the radionuclides in mixed waste and that the nonradioactive portion of the waste was subject to RCRA. In addition, in 1987, DOE recognized that RCRA LDRs (see Section 4.2.2) and other RCRA requirements applied to transuranic waste intended for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (see Section 4.1.2.3.2). 

LDRs specified in RCRA required EPA to develop treatment standards for hazardous chemical waste and established deadlines for EPA to develop treatment standards for those wastes for which treatment standards did not exist. Congress divided LDR hazardous waste into several categories solvents and dioxins California listed wastes first, second, and third listed wastes and characteristically hazardous wastes. 

The specified exemptions from RCRA requirements for management and disposal of mixed low-level waste were prompted by several concerns (EPA, 1999e 2001c) ... 

Finally, if high-level waste is considered to be hazardous waste under RCRA, requirements on construction, operation, and closure of a disposal facility, including the provision of a liner system, leachate collection and removal system, and leak detection system (see Section 4.2.2), would need to be addressed. Such requirements are impractical at a geologic repository for disposal of high-level waste... 

Under terms of the Federal Facility Compliance Act (FFCA, 1992), DOE was subject to RCRA requirements beginning in October 1995, including individual states variations thereof. DOE was expected to have mixed low-level waste treatment plans for each site approved by the host state, but adequate treatment capacity for some mixed waste will not be available until far beyond the time when its storage becomes non-compli-ant. As a result, solidified mixed low-level waste is and will continue to be stored in a noncompliant manner for times longer than those allowed under RCRA. This practice continues to be tolerated by EPA for responsible generators because of the lack of practical alternatives, but only until such time as appropriate treatment or disposal capacity becomes available. 

Test Methods for Evaluating Solid Waste, SW-846, Physical)Chemical Methods, first published in 1986, is a living document that underwent its fourth update in 2001. This manual and its methods are summarily referred to as the SW-846 or the RCRA methods. This two-volume, 13-chapter manual provides the guidance (not mandatory) test procedures approved by the EPA s Office of Solid Waste for obtaining data that satisfy the RCRA requirements of 40 CFR Parts 122 through 270. 

There are some differences in the specific waste disposal management schemes at the five sites that were reviewed. Most of the differences between the five chemical destruction facilities are due to the different implementation strategies in place in the five different states, particularly permit parameters and requirements. Each state has a program for granting permits for the construction and operation of TSDFs. Permits implement the general RCRA requirements in the design, construction, and operation of a TSDF. They also establish appropriate site-specific conditions for almost every aspect of the hazardous waste management and destruction processes used. 

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