Prepared 10/20/2008

**New York State Department of Environmental Conservation**

**Division of Solid & Hazardous Materials**

QUESTION 1: Do states that now collect manifests make individual manifests available at public request , or are there restrictions on acce ss? How long after hazardous waste shipments are completed does it ty picall y take the state to make such manifests available to requestors?

**Response: Images of individual manifests are available on a publicly accessible web site. A delay in availabili**  **ty is not intentionally implemented, however, at present the images are generally posted**  **four to six weeks from date of receipt of the form (in general,**  **one to two months after the date of shipment )** 

**.** QUESTION 2: Do states that now collect manifests make aggregate d data from manifests , multiple manifests, or data reports freely availabl e to the public upon request ? (Examples would be a request for all manifests with a particular waste code or all manifests going to or managed b y a particular company or facility .) Have states imposed any CBIrelated limitation s on the information they will disclose in response to such requests? How long after hazardous waste shipments are completed does it ty picall y take the state t o provide aggregate data in respons e to such a request ?

**Response: Manifest data, in text format, is availab le on the Department web site.**  **This data is updated from the information in our State computer system monthly. If information can be provided to a requestor from a canned query from**  **our computer system, then this is provided. Per State FOIL requirements, paper**  **reports over seven**  **pages cost 25 cents per page , however, many times this**  **information is sent electronically at no cost**

**. Generally, this information is provided**  **within one to**  **two week**  **s of the request.** 

QUESTION 3: In a survey conducted for ASTSWMO by L iz Bols (MI DEQ) in January , 2007, nine States provided responses to questions related to manifests and a future electronic manifest sy stem. The States that responded were NY , OR, SC, FL , MI, WA, CT, ID, and OH. Of these nine states, eight states responded that manifest data would probabl y not be subject to CBI under state laws and policies, while Ohio indicated that manifest data might be subject to CBI claims based on the e xperience in Ohio with Ohio’s Hazardous Waste Annual Report. In addition, several states on the e

- Manifest rule workgroup, including MD, PA, NJ, and CA, stated that they would also release their HW manifests as public information without allowing CBI claims.
However, i n August, 2004, Paula Canter of the Ohio EPA polled the States on their Site ID , manifest tracking, and Hazardous Waste Reporting requirements. As part of the 2004 survey , 44 States responded to the question “Do you allow CBI claims on the Hazardous Waste Report?” The responses to this question in 2004 from the 44 respondents wasevenl y split between states that would allowed and states that would not allow CBI

claims for their HW Report data.
Given that the request for aggregate manifes t data may be viewed as presenting many of the same data and issues as requests for a state’s HW Report data insofar as the disclosure of customer list information, how should we reconcile the answers given in response to the 2004 and 2007 surveys? Should aggregate manifest requests and requests for HW Annual Report data be treated differentl y for purposes of CBI claims?

**Response: New York considers manifest data to be publicly available, however, a company can request CBI status for certain information**  **in a hazardous waste report. The last time New York received such a request was**  **in 2001 for year**  **2000 data**  **. That year, one facility requested CBI status for GM pages for waste they generated at their facility and disposed of at their facility. This info**  **rmation was not part of the public manifest record and CBI status was granted. The second facility**  **requested CBI status for information on WR forms which was readily available from the hazardous waste manifest data base. In this case, CBI status was deni**  **ed. The company appealed and the decision to deny CBI status was upheld. The third**  **facility made a general request for CBI for all information in the WR section of the report. A letter was sent to them detailing the information they must provide the**  **Sta te in order for a determination to be met, noting that the information found on**  **manifests is considered publicly available, and a response from the company was never received so the data was not given CBI status.** 

QUESTION 4 : Do you think that your state ’ s current policy on public disclosure of information of the ty

pe described in Question 2 would be at all affected b y the fact that an electronic manifest s ystem may make information available more rapidly than it is available under the current paper s ys tem ?

**Response: There will not be an impact on the State’s availability of information.**