Opinion ID: 574870
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Low Hazard Criterion

Text: 64 To qualify as a special waste covered by the Bevill Amendment, a mineral processing waste, EPA has ruled, must not only be high volume, it must also be low hazard. Petitioners challenge the very inclusion of any low hazard criterion. They also challenge the particular hazard screening tests EPA used. We find EPA's low hazard criterion and tests compatible with the legislative design, consistent with our decisions in EDF I and EDF II, and reasonably explained. We therefore reject petitioners' challenges. 65 According to petitioners, the special waste concept, as originally presented in EPA's 1978 proposal, classified wastes as special because of their large volume and, consequently, the anticipated infeasibility of Subtitle C regulation. Jt. Brief at 33. While acknowledging EPA's statement in the 1978 proposal that hazardous 'special wastes' posed a 'relatively low' risk to human health and the environment, id., petitioners insist that volume, not hazard, is the key to the special waste concept. Id. at 34 & n. 39. Volume, no doubt, is a necessary key, but EPA maintains it does not suffice to open the special processing waste category. 66 Interpretation of the Bevill Amendment to exclude wastes that are clearly not low hazard, 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,331, we continue to hold, is consistent with congressional intent and the regulatory history of the special waste concept. See EDF II, 852 F.2d at 1329 (Congress intended the term 'processing' in the Bevill Amendment to include only ... 'high volume, low hazard' wastes.). The Agency's 1978 proposal lists low hazard as one of the three identifying characteristics of special waste, along with large volume and lack of amenability to Subtitle C controls. 43 Fed.Reg. at 58,992. In its November 1979 Special Waste Background Document, EPA explained that it had deferred regulation of special wastes, pending further study, in part because [t]he various special wastes pose only a low potential hazard to human health and the environment. Special Waste Background Document at 21, JA at 205. The Agency, at that time, expressly established low potential hazard ... as a criterion for special waste status, and observed that, consequently, all the [special] waste streams will pose no more than a minimal threat to human health and the environment during the several year interim period in which EPA planned to study the wastes to determine appropriate regulatory action. Id. at 21-22, JA at 205-06; see also 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,318-19 (recounting that Background Document identifies low potential hazard as a key criterion EPA would use to evaluate petitions to designate special wastes). 67 Petitioners further maintain that EPA's imposition of a low hazard screening criterion conflicts with this court's interpretation of the Bevill Amendment in EDF I. Jt. Brief at 34-35. In EDF I, the court upheld EPA's regulatory determination under the Bevill Amendment to exempt hazardous mineral extraction and beneficiation wastes from Subtitle C controls, and to subject them instead to the less restrictive standards of RCRA Subtitle D. See EDF I, 852 F.2d at 1310. The court rejected the Environmental Defense Fund's argument that EPA was required to regulate under Subtitle C any wastes found in the Bevill study to be hazardous under RCRA. EPA's interpretation of the Bevill Amendment as allowing the agency discretion to base its regulatory determination on a variety of factors, the EDF I court held, is a permissible construction of the statute. Id. at 1313. 68 Petitioners argue that by applying a low hazard screening criterion, EPA has made hazard the determinative factor in establishing the regulatory status of high volume processing wastes that would otherwise qualify for Bevill coverage, contrary to EDF I. It is not inconsistent, however, to interpret the Bevill Amendment as requiring a context-specific determination of hazard as one of several factors to be considered in regulating wastes definitively placed within Bevill's scope, e.g., wastes from the extraction and beneficiation stages of mining, EDF I, 852 F.2d at 1315-16, and, at the same time, to construe the Amendment's terms to exclude from Bevill's scope processing wastes that do not qualify as low hazard. EDF II, 852 F.2d at 1329. This is indeed the very interpretation our circuit approved in EDF I and EDF II, companion cases decided the same day. 69 EPA adopted in the rulemaking on review low hazard tests generally less stringent than the RCRA hazardous waste characteristic tests normally used for Subtitle C wastes. Thus a waste qualifying as low hazard under Bevill might subsequently be found to contain a RCRA hazardous characteristic. See 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,597. 10 Consistent with EDF I, EPA assured that 70 the low hazard criterion is solely a preliminary screening device to determine which mineral processing wastes are special wastes, and will not be used in determining which wastes will subsequently be regulated under Subtitle C, either as a result of today's rule or in the upcoming regulatory determination. 71 Id. 72 In sum, EDF I held only that EPA is not required to regulate high volume special wastes under Subtitle C simply because they exhibit a RCRA hazardous characteristic. That holding does not mean EPA is prohibited from using hazard as a criterion, along with volume, to determine which processing wastes fit the special waste category. Petitioners' argument both overreads EDF I and is at odds with EDF II, which constantly juxtaposes high volume, low hazard in the context at hand. See EDF II, 852 F.2d at 1322, 1325, 1326, 1329, 1331. 73 Petitioners further object to the tests EPA selected. The Agency selected Method 1312 as the procedure for extracting waste constituents from solid mineral processing wastes to test for toxicity and mobility. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,597. EPA considered Method 1312, a recently developed leaching procedure, to be generally less aggressive than Method 1310, the leaching procedure used to measure the hazardous toxicity characteristic under RCRA. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,597, 36,601. Petitioners argue that EPA failed to verify the accuracy and precision of Method 1312 in measuring hazards that may be posed by mineral processing wastes, and that selection of the procedure was therefore arbitrary and capricious. Jt. Brief at 38. 74 While EPA ha[d] not yet completed its evaluation of Method 1312 when the procedure was first proposed in the 4/89 NPRM, the Agency reported that work conducted to date indicates that the procedure is of acceptable precision. 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,340. Because EPA's evaluation of Method 1312 was incomplete, the Agency tested several mineral processing wastes using the more aggressive extraction medium of Method 1310, and neutral water testing, considered only slightly less aggressive than the Method 1312 leaching medium. Id. After retesting these wastes using Method 1312, EPA determined in the 9/89 Rule that the new sampling and analytical data obtained using Method 1312 confirm the Agency's earlier findings from Method 1310 and neutral water testing. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,601. 75 This court does not demand certainty where there is none, Small Ref. Lead Phase-Down Task Force, 705 F.2d at 525, and the Agency here may apply its  'expertise to draw conclusions from ... probative preliminary data not yet certifiable as fact, and the like.'  AMC v. EPA, 907 F.2d 1179, 1187 (D.C.Cir.1990) (quoting Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 541 F.2d 1, 28 (D.C.Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 941, 96 S.Ct. 2662, 49 L.Ed.2d 394 (1976)). Given the respect properly accorded EPA's judgment in this area, use of Method 1312 as a testing mechanism, we rule, withstands petitioners' attack. 76 Petitioners also challenge EPA's pH corrosivity test as arbitrary and capricious because the pH standard overstates the potential hazard of wastes containing unbuffered acids. Jt. Brief at 40. Petitioners state that a small amount of unbuffered acid in a waste will result in a very low pH, even though the waste's acidic content or potential hazard ... may be quite minimal. Id. As EPA explained, however, the fact that mineral acids are not appreciably buffered does not alter the fact that wastes of such low pH may pose a hazard prior to treatment. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,600. Petitioners have not demonstrated that EPA's refusal to except unbuffered acids from the corrosivity test is arbitrary or capricious. 77 EPA selected a pH range of 1.0 to 13.5 to identify which wastes clearly are so corrosive that they do not merit continued regulatory exclusion and further study. Id. The final low hazard corrosivity standard represents a relaxation by one order of magnitude of the RCRA hazardous characteristic pH standard of 2 to 12.5. Id. EPA determined that any further increase in the pH range may result in wastes that are clearly not low hazard remaining in the Bevill exclusion, which may in turn compromise the protection of human health and the environment. Id. Because the agency examined the relevant data and ... articulated a rational explanation for its action, EPA's predictive low hazard screening criterion warrants our respect on review. Eagle-Picher Industries v. EPA, 759 F.2d 905, 921 (D.C.Cir.1985).