Faison, George From : Sent: To : H unt, Tim <Tim_Hunt@afandpa

.org > Friday, Jun e 05 , 2015 5:26PM Johnson , Barnes Cc : Faison , George Subject: Borate wood Attachments: re moved

.txt Barnes , Thanks for the call. Here is the borate language from page 15483-84 of the Final NHSM rul e from March 21 , 2011 that concluded it is a non-waste fuel. At the time , the agency did not have information on creosote wood showing it too meets the legitimacy criteria so the preamble talks about creosote wood being a waste and thus any mixture is also presumed a waste

. But since then , we and others have provided data on creosote rail ties in the petition that was the basis for the listing in the supplemental rule proposed last April 14 (2014)

. The agency has proposed that creosote wood meets the legitimacy criteria so if the Agency were to repeat the 2011 analysis in 2015 based on what it knows now, it should conclude that since both components are non wastes then the joint treated wood is also a non-waste. In our June 12 , 2014 comments we provided further support for why dual treated wood should also be listed (page 25)

- namely, that less creosote is used when borate is used first so contaminant levels are even lower
. If X is OK andY is OK then X+Y should be OK. Let me know if you have further questions, Tim From Federal Register (3/21/11) Comments: Comments were submitted that argued that wood treated with borate-based compounds or copper napthenate did not contain any contaminants , but on ly contaminant data was supplied for wood treated with borate-based compounds

. That study i ndi cated that the most prevalent borate treatment, disodium octaborate tetrahydrate , contained 1

.5 ppm of As , <1 ppm of Cd , <2

.5 ppm of Cr, <5 ppm of Co, <0.02 ppm of Hg, <2.5 ppm of Ni , and 0

.67 ppm of Se.45 Since these levels represent the contaminant concentration of the borate treatment , the comments argued that the resulting wood that is treated with this compound would contain even lower concentrations of contaminants. EPA ' s Response: With respect to borate

-treated wood , after reviewing
1data from the one commenter, which shows that the levels of contaminants in this material are comparable to those found in unadulterated wood for the seven contaminants for which data was presented , we be lieve that such treated wood meets the legitimacy criterion on the level of contaminants and comparability to traditional fuels

. Therefore , borate-t reated wood could be classified as a non-waste fuel , provided they met the other two legitimacy criteria and provided that the contaminant levels for any other HAP that may be present in this materia l are also comparable to or less than those in traditional fuels

. We would also note that such borate

-treated wood would need to be burned as a fuel for energy recovery within the control of the generator. Finally , we are aware that some borate-treated wood is subsequently treated with other chemicals , such as creosote , to provide an insoluble barrier to prevent the borate compounds from leaching out of the wood. We did not receive data on the contaminant levels of the resu lting material , but data presented on creosote treated lumber ind i cates that this nonhazardous secondary material would likely no longer meet the legitimacy criteria and wou ld be

**c~ msidered**  a solid waste when burned as a fuel. We do not have information generally about the transfer of borate

-treated wood to other companies to make a broad determination about its use as a fuel outside the control of the generator

. (See Section V.A.1 for a genera l discussion of the issue concerning use of nonhazardous secondary materials within and outside the control of the generator and the EPA's response

.) Thus , under today's rule, borate-treated wood would need to be burned as a fuel for energy recovery within the control of the generator

. With that said , we encourage the use of the non -waste determination petition process to address those instances where transfer of the nonhazardous 2

### secondary material to a different company meets the relevant criteria-that the secondary material has not been discarded in the first instance and is indistinguishable in all relevant aspects from a fuel product.

Tim othy Hunt Senior Director, Air Q ua lity Programs AMERICAN FOREST & PAPER ASSOC I AT ION 1101 K Street, N.W. , Suite 700, Washi ngton , D .C. 20005 Tim Hunt@afandpa.org 202-463-2588



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