Opinion ID: 574870
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Consideration of Other Special Wastes

Text: 47 Petitioners complain that in developing the high volume criteria for mineral processing wastes, EPA neglected to evaluate the volumes of wastes clearly within the Bevill Amendment's scope and thereby ignored the only direct evidence of Congressional intent relating to the special waste concept. Jt. Brief at 16. EPA did indeed base its high volume criteria principally on a comparison of volume data from regulated Subtitle C facilities, but the Agency did not ignore the volumes of wastes within Bevill's compass. The rulemaking record documents the consideration given to the generation rates of such wastes. See 53 Fed.Reg. at 41,293-94; 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,330; Internal EPA Memorandum dated Oct. 19, 1988 re: Quantitative Basis for High Volume Mineral Processing Waste Criteria, reproduced in JA at 241-48. Quantitative comparisons showed that mineral processing wastes proposed for continued Bevill status in the 10/88 NPRM 48 are generated in quantities that are comparable to many of the other special wastes, and that the lower bounds of the quantitative criteria approximate the lower limit of the quantities of waste generated by the other industry types contained within the Bevill exclusion. 49 EPA Mem., Oct. 19, 1988 at 1, JA at 241. 50 True, EPA rejected the suggestion to use the lowest of extraction and beneficiation waste generation rates to establish the high volume threshold. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,611-12; see also 54 Fed.Reg. 15,330. As EPA reasoned, Congress intended the Bevill exclusion to cover only those waste streams that are generated in such quantities as to be potentially unmanageable under [S]ubtitle C regulations; therefore, the volumes of wastes currently managed under Subtitle C controls formed the appropriate analytical basis for developing the high volume criterion. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,611; see also 54 Fed.Reg. 15,329. In EPA's view,comparisons with Subtitle C wastes are not only reasonable and appropriate, but necessary. Comparisons with other Bevill wastes, on the other hand, do not provide conclusive evidence but do suggest boundaries on what might be considered a high volume special waste. 51 Id. at 15,329; see also id. at 15,330; 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,61 1. 8 52 Nothing in the legislative history of the Bevill Amendment indicates that Congress contemplated a specific volumetric threshold, or intended the generation rate of any particular Bevill waste to serve as the cutoff for mineral processing wastes to qualify for exemption from Subtitle C regulation. Rather, the legislative record, as the EDF II panel concluded, demonstrates only that Congress intended the Bevill exclusion to encapsulate the 'special waste' concept articulated by the EPA in 1978. EDF II, 852 F.2d at 1329. Given the absence of more precise instructions from Congress, the EDF II court properly left to EPA the task of setting criteria for determining which mineral processing wastes are special wastes. Id. at 1331. 53 EPA, we are satisfied, provided a reasonable explanation for its decision to base the high volume criteria on the volumes of waste generated and managed at Subtitle C-regulated facilities, and to use generation rates of other Bevill wastes as a reality check on the volume thresholds selected. See 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,330; 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,611. 54