Faison, George 

From: 

Sent: 

To: 

Hunt, Tim <Tim_Hunt@afandpa.org> 

Friday, June 05, 2015 5:26PM 

Johnson, Barnes 

Cc: Faison, George 

Subject: Borate wood 

Attachments: removed.txt 

Barnes, 

March 

Thanks for the call. Here is the borate language from page 15483-84 of the Final NHSM rule from 

on 

21 , 2011 that concluded it is a non-waste fuel. At the time, the agency did not have information 

wood 

creosote 

being 

wood showing it too meets the legitimacy criteria so the preamble talks about creosote 

a waste and thus any mixture is also presumed a waste. 

basis 

But since then, we and others have provided data on creosote rail ties in the petition that was the 

for the listing in the supplemental rule proposed last April 14 (2014). The agency has proposed 

2015 

that creosote 

based on 

wood 

what 

meets the legitimacy criteria so if the Agency were to repeat the 2011 analysis in 

it knows now, it should conclude that since both components are non wastes 

then the joint treated wood is also a non-waste. 

listed 

In our June 12, 2014 comments we provided further support for why dual treated wood should also be 

(page 25) - namely, that less creosote is used when borate is used first so contaminant 

are even 

levels 

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 only contaminant 

data was supplied for wood treated with 

borate-based compounds. That study 

indicated 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 

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data 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 believe that such treated wood 

meets the legitimacy criterion on 

the level of contaminants and 

comparability to traditional fuels. 

Therefore, borate-treated 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 material 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 resulting 

material, but data presented on creosote 

treated lumber indicates that this nonhazardous 

secondary material would 

likely no longer meet the legitimacy 

criteria and would 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 general 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 

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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. 

Timothy Hunt 

Senior Director, Air Quality Programs 

AMERICAN FOREST & PAPER ASSOCIATION 

1101 K Street, N.W., Suite 700, Washi ngton, D.C. 20005 

Tim Hunt@afandpa.org 

202-463-2588 

~·o~ 

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