July 31, 2000

MEMORANDUM

TO: Peggy Vyas, EPA

FROM: Steven Brown, Margaret James, and Gary Light

SUBJECT: SQG Up-Date

____________________________________________________________________________ This memorandum presents the results of our effort to resolve several ambiquous categories of SQGs identified in our May 18 memorandum. To gain insights on these “potential SQGs”, we contacted the following individuals as per our memorandum:
¢ Ms. Beth McDonough, Massachusetts (6/14/00); ¢ Mr. Robert Finkel, Pennsylvania (6/15/00); ¢ Ms. Hope Wright, Ilinois (6/15/00); ¢ Mr. Richard Johnson, New Jersey (6/16/00); ¢ Mr. Ernie Robbins, New York (6/19/00); ¢ Ms. Beverly Allen, EPA (6/21/00); and ¢ Mr. Les Ott, EPA (7/10/00).

The remainder of this memorandum is organized by category of potential SQG. For each category of potential SQG, we summarize the defining characteristics of the group, report the insights gained from our calls, and recommend whether and how we think the group should be included in the final SQG count.

1. RCRIS- Only SQGs (Groups A and D)

As explained in our May 18 memorandum, RCRIS contains 142,561 generators who notified as the end 1996 as SQGs, but who do not appear in the 1997 BRS as generators who manage waste on site or ship wastes off site according to Waste Receipt data. These generators are identified as Group A in the May 18 memo. RCRIS identifies an additional 7,020 such facilities that notified to RCRIS in 1997. These are Group D generators. All told, there are 149,581 RCRIS-only SQGs. As we have discussed during our recent series of conference calls, there are several plausibleexplanations for these facilities. Some of these explanations, if true, would suggest that

these facilities be counted and others suggest that they not be counted:

¢ Plausible explanations that suggest that these facilitiesshould not be counted include (1) that they never generated or stopped generating hazardous waste because their business plans changed or they went out of business; (2) that the wastes they generated turned out not to be RCRA hazardous wastes; or (3) that these generators are actually CESQGs who never renotified as to their change in status.to be real.

¢ Plausible explanations that suggest that these facilitiesshouldbe counted include (1) that they only generate wastes that are managed in on-site wastewater treatment systems that are exempt from RCRA permitting, and (2) that they only generate wastes that are managed in recycling units that do not require RCRA permits.

1.1 Results of Calls

As might be expected, our calls were far from conclusive with respect to these potential explanations. Everyone we spoke to indicated that it is quite possible that facilities submit a notification form and then never show up in BRS because the information on the notification form is based on what facilities anticipate doing. If in fact they do not generate any waste or generate only exempted waste when they originally thought that they would be a SQG, then they will not show up in BRS. Thus, some of these facilities may not actually generate any waste despite the fact that they notified RCRIS.

As we speculated in our May 18 memo, our telephone conversations confirmed the wide variation among states in the percentage of RCRIS generators subject to the Federal RCRA program is in part because some States have systematically sought to determine the status of RCRIA-Only generators while other States have not. Some States are updating their RCRIS generator information with the latest 3010 notification information and others are not. For example, Mr. Johnson and Ms. McDonough indicated that NJ and MA are regularly reviewing 3010 forms and working with their EPA Region to input the data into RCRIS. RCRIS shows that in NJ and MA, 84 percent of New Jersey’s RCRIS-only SQGs and 47 percent of Massuachussets’ are not subject to the RCRA program (see Attachment 2 from May 18 memo). However, both Mr. Johnson and Ms McDonough noted that because facilities frequently do not renotify when their RCRA status changes (e.g., they go out of business), their RCRIS data still probably overstates the actual universe by up to 20 percent.
Unlike in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Ms. Wright from Illinois made it clear that her state and her region are not entering renotification information into RCRIS. In fact, she reported that EPA Regional staff do not want the updated 3010 forms. Thus, RCRIS information from this area rarely gets updated. Her insight is consistent with RCRIS data showing that only 300 of Illinois’ 8,313 RCRIS-only SQGs are not subject to the RCRA program (i.e., facilities are not being purged when they go out of business or otherise no longer generate federal hazardous waste). Based on the RCRIS data, itappears that most other midwest states are not updating their generator information

either.
The RCRIS-only SQG information from New York and Pennsylvania both suggest that large portions (97% in New York and 80% in Pennsylvania) are not subject to Federal RCRA requirements. Neither Mr. Robbins of New York nor Mr. Finkel of Pennsylvania could explain the generator information from their state. However, Mr Robbins expressed the view that RCRIS information was of little value because it is outdated and because so many generators are not included in the database (see below).

Ms. Allen and Mr. Ott from EPA noted that the information provided by the states is consistent with their experience. They said that the quality of RCRIS data is undermined because most states do not have renotification requirements, lack program interest, and/or do not have adequate resources to up-date RCRIS. Mr. Ott, who worked on RCRIS data issues for the WIN initiative, said that the major outcome of his work with WIN was that a renotification requirement would be needed to improve the data quality of RCRIS. Both he and Ms. Allen suggested that, were possible, we rely more on BRS because its data quality is generally better.

. Recommendation Regarding RCRIS-Only SQGs

Based on our follow-up research, it is clear that many RCRIS-only SQGs are no longer operating as hazardous waste generators, either because they went out of business or significantly curtailed hazardous waste generation, and therefore should not be counted in EPA’s estimate. It is also clear that some generators in this group have been confirmed, and likely do not appear in BRS because they are not subject to BRS reporting (e.g., the generate only recyclable materials or manage all of there wastes in exempt wastewater treatment systems on-site). Therefore, we recommend including a portion of these facilities in your estimate.

To determine the portion to include in the estimate, we recommend using data and the experience of Massachusetts and New Jersey. Their combined efforts to up-date the RCRIS data found that 31 percent of the RCRIS-only SQGs were legitimate. They also suggested that only 80 percent of these are legitimate if one considers that some generators don’t renotify. Taken together, these insights suggest that approximately 25 percent of the RCRIS-only SQGs should be counted. This equates to 40,327 SQGs.

2. BRS-Only SQGs (Groups C4 and C8)

Treatment and disposal facilities that receive waste from off-site are required to identify the facilities, including SQGs, from which they receive wastes. This information is reported on form WR. Because SQGs are not required to submit Biennial Reports, one way to identify potential SQGs from BRS is to identify generators who appear on WR forms but do not submit IC forms. After conducting this analysis as reported in our May 18, memo, we further checked to determine how much waste these potential BRS SQGs ship off site (by adding up all of the quantities attributed to them on WR forms)and checking their status in RCRIS. In taking these additional steps, we identified

54,013 facilities that ship less than 13.2 tons, the amount that would necessarily make them and LQGs for at least part of the year, but that are not in RCRIS as SQGs. These “BRS-Only” SQGs include 46,095 facilities that ship less than 1.32 tons, the amount that would necessarily make them SQGs (not CESQGs) for at least part of the year (Group C4). BRS-Only SQGs also include 12,134 facilities that ship more than 1.32 tons (Group C8). As with the RCRIS-only SQGs, there are a wide variety of plausible explanations for why these facilities appear in BRS but not in RCRIS:

1. The primary plausible explanations that suggest that these facilitiesshould not be counted are that (1) the incorrect ID number was reported for a legitimate facility that is counted elsewhere or (2) that the facility is a temporary generator. It is also possible that these facilities should not be counted because they are CESQGs, but this does not explain why they are not in RCRIS.

2. Plausible explanations that suggest that these facilities shouldbe counted include (1) that RCRIS in not up to date, or (2) that the facily’s ID number did not follow EPA’s guidelines and could not be entered in RCRIS.

2.2Results of Calls

As noted above, many of the contacts we spoke to report that RCRIS is not necessarily up to date, however none could provide any quantitative basis on which to estimate the extent to which RCRIS data quality contributes to the problem. However, we were able to gain insights regarding why legitimate facilities might not show up in RCRIS.

The first reason why BRS generators do not show up in RCRIS is that temporary generators, indicated by a P in their ID#, are given an ID# but are never entered into RCRIS by many states. Interviewees from IL, NY, and NJ all confirmed that this is common practice. Thus, it appears that P IDs are not ongoing generators and could thus be given broken out from the base SQG list. Of the 54,013 SQGs/CESQGs that RCRIS has no record of, Margaret identified 4,986 P generators. Ms. Allen said that RCRIS can accept P generators, but that it was likely that states never entered them into RCRIS and instead kept track of temporary generators separately.

The second reason why BRS generators do not show up in RCRIS is that some states are issuing ID#s that do not meet EPA standards and thus never get entered into RCRIS. Ms. McDonough of IL and Mr. Robbins of NY were especially helpful on this issue. They explained that EPA procedures require that all SQGs have an EPA approved ID#. However, some states (and many TSDs/transporters) also require CESQGs or generators of state-only waste to get an EPA ID# anyway, and some states give them off-spec ID#s (i.e., numbers not meeting the EPA-approved format of three letters followed by numbers). Mr. Robbins indicated that some states are also giving out off-spec ID#s for SQGs and LQGs despite EPA procedures. Furthermore, he noted that the check-digit routine for ID#s did not work properly for WR forms in 1997. Thisproblem allowed certain off-spec numbers into BRS. However, some states, such as

Illinois, have addressed this problem by manually screening the data. Nearly everyone we spoke to considered this to be one of their biggest problems with the WR forms. Thus, many SQGs, and even some LQGs, showing up on the WR forms will never get into RCRIS. Second, the check-digit routine that was used to verify EPA ID#s on the 1997 WR form did not work properly. Thus, WR typos were not caught. This problem should be addressed in the 1999 BRS.

Finally, Mr. Robbins indicated that he thinks that many of the EPA ID#s that were issued a long time ago when EPA was using HWDMs (the precursor to RCRIS) never made it into RCRIS. However, Ms. Allen confirmed that the old ID numbers did get into RCRIS, that none were ‘lost’ in the conversion from HWDMs to RCRIS. She also commented that many legitimate EPA ID#s have strings of zeros in them, as the numbers were given out sequentially starting at zero.
Unfortunately, our efforts to contact Safety Kleen were unsuccessful, and none of our state contacts could comment on the extent to which CESQGs are reported separately on WR forms.

2.2 Recommendations Regarding BRS-Only SQGs

Given the problems noted above with respect to EPA ID numbers, we recommend counting the Group C8 generators, except those whose ID numbers clearly indicate that the facility is a temporary generator. We recommend not counting group C4 facilities on the grounds that they are likely to be either CESQGs, or erroneous ID numbers.

1. Recommended SQG Count Summary

In our memorandum of May 18, we presented several categories of potential SQGs based on the information available on them from RCRIS and BRS. Exhibit 1 presents updated count for each of the categories and subcategories discussed in our May 18 memorandum and what we recommend doing with the category in light of the additional information obtained from our telephone inquiries. Updated diagrams showing the breakdown of categories and subcategories are attached. As indicated in Exhibit 1, our best estimate of the actual number of federally regulated RCRA SQGs operating in 1997 is 113,879.

3.1 Limitations
The two greatest uncertainties in this analysis remain (1) how many RCRIS-only SQGs manage wastes on-site and are not subject to BRS reporting, and (2) how many of the facilities that ship less than 1.32 tons are CESQGs versus partial-year SQGs.Exhibit 1 Summary of Recommended SQG Count

Category Number In Category Number to be counted Rationale for

Number to be counted Group A 137,208 34,011 Portion confirmed by NJ and MA data (See Section 1.2) Group B 67,271 67,271 BRS and RCRIS agree C1 7,836 0 Likely CESQG
C2 3,450 0 Likely CESQG
C3 3,043 0 Likely CESQG
C4 42,449 0 Likely CESQG or Typo (See Section 2.2)
C5 1,430 1,430 BRS supercedes RCRIS
C6 1,797 1,797 BRS supercedes RCRIS
C7 989 989 BRS supercedes RCRIS
C8 6,578 6,578 BRS supercedes RCRIS
D 7,020 1,740 Portion confirmed by NJ and MA data (See Section 1.2)
E 63 63 BRS supercedes RCRIS
F 4,986 0 Temporary Generators
Total 284,120 113,879