Document ID: EPA-HQ-RCRA-2016-0040-0251
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2016-04-11T04:00Z

September 4, 2015

Via Electronic Transmission: Helms.greg@epa.gov
Mr. Gregory Helms
Project Manager, Corrosivity Standard
Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (5304 P)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Mr. Helms:

Waste Management (WM) is pleased to offer the following comments and information regarding the recently signed settlement agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  EPA has agreed to decide by March 31, 2016 whether to grant the PEER petition for rulemaking to propose to revise the corrosivity characteristic to (i) lower the alkaline limit from a pH of 12.5 to 11.5, and (ii) extend the characteristic to physically solid wastes.  WM believes that the operational and cost implications of granting the PEER petition for rulemaking would be very significant for our hazardous waste management operations, our municipal solid waste landfill operations, the management and recycling of construction and demolition (C&D) debris and would impose significant new costs on our customers.

WM is the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America.  Headquartered in Houston, WM serves over 20 million municipal, commercial, industrial and residential customers in 48 states and most Canadian provinces, providing waste collection, transfer, treatment, disposal, and recycling services.  We operate 262 Subtitle D MSW landfills and 5 Subtitle C hazardous waste landfills.  We also recycle over 800,000 tons of C&D wastes each year for beneficial reuse.

Based on a review of our operations, we believe that a change to the alkaline limit and its application to non-aqueous, solid wastes would result in a very significant increase in new hazardous waste volumes.  In fact, the increased volume of newly characterized hazardous waste would be so great, that it would quickly overwhelm the existing Subtitle C infrastructure needed to manage it.  The petitioners note that the reason for their recommended rulemaking is to prevent chemical burns and respiratory consequences from exposures to alkaline corrosive materials.  However, the listing of these wastes as hazardous will neither prevent exposures from alkaline corrosive dust nor protect workers, response personnel or the public during demolitions, implosions or explosions of concrete buildings or structures.  RCRA hazardous waste management requirements for manifesting, transporting, treating and disposing of wastes would require risk evaluation and control during waste generation, storage, treatment and disposal.  Waste Management's health and safety program requires consideration of worker exposure risks for all Special Wastes (non-MSW).  We are concerned that reducing the alkaline pH limit, would not provide a substantial increase in worker protection, but would require the management of a large quantity of liquid and solid waste as hazardous waste, including treatment residues from metals stabilization using alkaline reagents as discussed below.

Implications for Hazardous Waste Operations

WM owns and operates five hazardous waste Subtitle C landfills.  Together they accept and manage (when operating at full capacity) about one million tons of hazardous wastes per year.  About 60 percent or approximately 600,000 tons would have a known pH level of greater than 11.5 or if stabilized would have a resulting pH level of greater than 11.5.

All five of our hazardous waste landfills are permitted to accept a variety of materials that must be stabilized in accordance with the RCRA Land Disposal Requirements.  Examples of these materials include wastewater treatment sludge, solids and soils containing heavy metals from remediation of industrial facilities, sand blast grit, incinerator ash, incinerator slag, and emissions control dust and residuals.  

Solids with no free liquids having an "as is" pH of greater than or equal to 11.5 are directly disposed in the Subtitle C landfills.  Solids requiring treatment for metals undergo alkaline stabilization, which is the primary EPA and industry accepted treatment method for hazardous waste metals and inorganics.  Reagents commonly used in stabilization include fly ash, bed ash, Portland cement, lime and cement kiln dust.  Approximately 95 percent of stabilized, post-treatment wastes will have a pH greater than 11.5.  Liquid waste may also be treated to the DEACT standard with alkaline solidification/stabilization reagents to facilitate removal of the hazardous waste characteristic by converting a liquid to a solid.  These wastes would likely have a pH above 11.5 as well.

If the Agency were to apply the D002 characteristic to physically solid wastes, stabilization of RCRA metal and inorganic containing wastes in accordance with LDRs would create a new characteristic "alkaline" waste during treatment of metals.  Attempts to reduce the pH would require the use of acidic materials that could cause the stabilized waste to fail the TCLP for metals.  Neutralization treatment (e.g. using an acid to neutralize sodium hydroxide, lime or other alkaline solids) would result in potentially violent heat-producing reactions that would pose safety concerns for our employees.  We are not aware of any Agency or industry-accepted stabilization technology for RCRA metals that does not involve alkaline reagents.  Furthermore, low pH solids could present compatibility issues with the predominantly basic or alkaline nature of a Subtitle C landfill.

If EPA were to apply the D002 definition to solid matrices, this would also affect the treatment of debris to the alternate debris standards.  Our Subtitle C landfills manage debris wastes using macro encapsulation or microencapsulation.  Microencapsulation uses high alkaline materials as reagents to render the contaminants in the debris less able to leach into the environment.  In the case of macroencapsulation, removal of the hazardous characteristic would have to be performed prior to the placement of the debris in the HDPE MACRO vault.  It would be extremely difficult to lower the pH of the solid matrix below 11.5 and it would be difficult to sample treated debris to confirm a lowered pH.  

Implications for Subtitle D MSW Landfills

WM's Subtitle D landfills receive close to 100 million tons of non-hazardous wastes each year.  A portion of this volume is non-hazardous solid wastes that will likely have a pH greater than 11.5.  These materials may include remediation soils, filter cake and caustic scrubber solids, cooling tower solids, caustic catalysts, concrete and cement, tank cleanout residues, sandblast media, soda ash, drilling muds containing bentonite and furnace or incinerator ash meeting LDR treatment standards.  Because these solids are not required to report a pH level, we were unable to develop a definitive inventory of alkaline waste volumes received.  Nonetheless, by querying our internal databases for materials most likely to have a pH above 11.5, we developed an estimated annual volume of 1.5 million tons received.  We believe this volume significantly underestimates the actual amount of non-hazardous solid materials we receive that could be classified as hazardous if the alkaline pH limit were lowered to 11.5 and applied to solid materials.  

More than a quarter of our MSW landfills (approximately 70) perform solidification of solid wastes prior to disposal.  Over half of those landfills use reagents such as lime, fly ash and cement kiln dust in the solidification process.  The reagents received for direct disposal, the reagent materials used in solidification and the post-treatment waste would likely become hazardous if the D002 definition were to apply a lower pH limit to solids.  Using internal records we identified the landfills that perform solidification and estimated the volume of material solidified.

Of the nearly 100 million tons of solid waste received at our Subtitle D landfills, we estimate over one percent undergoes solidification (approximately 1.07 million tons) with alkaline reagents.  This would result in newly characterized hazardous wastes in an amount 50 percent greater than the annual amount of hazardous waste received by all five of WM's Subtitle C landfills.  

These wastes would need to be handled and disposed as hazardous wastes, which will greatly increase their management costs.  WM's hazardous waste management professionals estimated that the increased costs per ton would range from $181 up to $395.  This would be the incremental cost addition as compared to the current practice of landfilling de-characterized solids at a Subtitle D landfill.

Implications for Management of Construction & Demolition (C&D) Debris

We understand that the Agency is also evaluating the application of the D002 standard to C&D wastes.  WM's waste acceptance managers suggested that the portion of C&D wastes most likely to trigger a pH above 11.5 would be Portland cement and concrete.  According to EPA's June 2015, Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2013 Fact Sheet -- Assessing Trends in Material Generation, Recycling and Disposal in the United States, EPA530-R-15-003, 67 percent of the total volume of C&D debris generated comprises Portland cement and concrete.  In 2013, the amount of Portland cement and concrete debris generated was 353 million tons.  Much of that material is beneficially reused rather than disposed.  Waste Management alone recycled over 500,000 tons of cement and concrete in 2013.  If these materials were classified as hazardous waste due to a lowered pH standard applied to solid materials, beneficial reuse in roadbed or new construction would likely halt, and the materials would need to be landfilled in Subtitle C facilities.

This raises a very troubling implementation issue should EPA revise the corrosivity characteristic  -  there will not be sufficient disposal capacity for the significantly augmented amount of hazardous waste generated by the regulatory change.  In addition, what would be the Land Disposal Restriction (LDR) standard for concrete?  Adjusting the pH of concrete prior to landfill disposal would not be practical.

Insufficient Subtitle C Capacity

EPA cannot assume that if it creates new hazardous waste by regulatory fiat, disposal capacity to handle it will follow.  Our experience is that commercial hazardous waste capacity is extremely difficult to expand.  The process for siting and continuing to renew and expand hazardous waste management capacity is extraordinarily complex, combining the challenges of zoning, hydrogeological compatibility, demands on permit writers and negotiators, and the political will of communities to allow Subtitle C capacity within their midst when it is far easier to assume it can go to another's backyard.  State requirements supplement the federal Subtitle C regulations and often require complex NEPA-like assessments, approvals by local officials, extensive public outreach and consideration of need.  WM recently received an expansion permit for one of our Subtitle C landfills that took over half a dozen years to be approved.  A second landfill seeking an expansion permit underwent an engineering review by the state for over eight years.  When EPA proposed the Coal Combustion Residuals Rule (75 Fed. Reg. 35158), it acknowledged that Subtitle C landfill capacity was wholly inadequate to handle CCR residuals that might constitute 100 million tons each year.  The volume of materials that would become hazardous wastes should EPA decide to grant the PEER rulemaking petition would dwarf that amount.

WM appreciates the opportunity to provide comments and information to assist the Agency in making its regulatory determination in response to the PEER petition for rulemaking.  We strongly recommend that EPA maintain the current corrosivity standard that defines an alkaline or basic hazardous waste as an aqueous waste with a pH greater than or equal to 12.5.  The PEER proposal would not have the intended effect of protecting  first responders or the public from inhalation exposures or chemical burns.  WM's hazardous waste professionals are convinced that attempts to treat stabilized alkaline wastes to lower their pH would be contrary to the requirement to stabilize the waste to immobilize the toxic metals.  These materials have been managed safely in Subtitle D landfills for over 35 years.  Application of the corrosivity standard to solid materials and C&D debris will so significantly increase the volume of hazardous waste produced each year, that sufficient Subtitle C disposal capacity will not be available to accommodate them.

Should you have any questions about the information provided, please feel free to contact me at (202) 639-1218 or kkelly5@wm.com.  We look forward to continuing to work with you as you develop your response to the petition.

All the best,

Kerry Kelly, Senior Director Federal Affairs

Cc:	Schatzi Fitz-James	Fitz-James.schatzi@Epa.gov