Opinion ID: 574870
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Overly Stringent High Volume Measurement

Text: 55 Petitioners charge that EPA's data selection from the TSDR Survey and methodological choices piled one conservative assumption atop another, resulting in high volume criteria that are so unreasonably high as to be arbitrary and capricious. Jt. Brief at 18-19. Specifically, petitioners argue that by examining only facilities that use land disposal to manage solid wastes or treat hazardous wastewaters, ignoring small volume waste generators, and including commercial waste management facilities, EPA improperly narrowed the comparative data base to exclude the majority of Subtitle C wastes. Id. at 19-22. Petitioners also contest EPA's decisions to consider only the largest waste stream managed at each facility in its data base, id. at 23, to use data that aggregated the volumes of individual Subtitle C waste streams, id. at 24-26, to establish separate high volume thresholds for liquid and solid wastes, id. at 27-28, and to select the 95th percentile as the statistical cutoff to define the numerical high volume standards. Id. at 28-30. 56 EPA, we conclude, reasonably interpreted the special waste concept when the Agency decided to quantify the high volume criterion through an analysis of the technical feasibility of Subtitle C controls. EPA adequately explained, as logically within this permissible interpretation, each of the methodological decisions petitioners challenge. To the extent petitioners quarrel with EPA's methodology or selection of a precise numerical measure, they have failed to demonstrate that the Agency acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. See State Farm, 463 U.S. at 43, 103 S.Ct. at 2866. 57 Petitioners fault EPA for not basing its high volume criteria on the full universe of industrial Subtitle C facilities. Jt. Brief at 19. But EPA reasonably limited the comparative data base to facilities using those Subtitle C management techniques that would most likely be employed to manage hazardous mineral processing wastes--landfills for solid wastes, and wastewater treatment processes, surface impoundments, and injection wells for liquid wastes. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,608, 36,629. Small quantity waste generators, and those that do not employ these waste management techniques, could supply no data relevant to EPA's inquiry into the technical feasibility of managing large volumes of mineral processing waste under Subtitle C. 58 EPA similarly rejected the suggestion that a relevant comparative analysis should reflect 'typical' quantities of hazardous waste generated. 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,329. Instead, endeavoring to identify mineral processing wastes generated in volumes so high as to resist Subtitle C controls, EPA appropriately concentrated its examination on the largest volume wastes currently managed under Subtitle C. Id. at 15,329; 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,611. 59 The Agency likewise reasonably decided to include data from commercial Subtitle C waste management facilities in its analysis. EPA reasoned that information on waste volumes managed by commercial facilities was relevant to the Agency's determination of technical feasibility[,] ... the fundamental issue addressed by the volume criterion. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,612. [C]onsiderations of differential economic incentives facing operators of commercial and private hazardous waste management facilities, EPA said, are not relevant in resolving this [technical feasibility] issue. Id. at 36,630. 60 EPA's decision to establish separate high volume thresholds for liquid and solid mineral processing wastes is similarly rooted in the Agency's legitimate focus on technical feasibility. EPA proposed setting separate volumetric standards in the 4/89 NPRM, noting that Subtitle C facilities typically manage liquid wastes in far larger volumes than solid wastes. 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,33 1. The Agency finalized this approach in the 9/89 Rule. EPA thus properly recognized the highly significant differences in treatment processes and management options that rendered management of large volumes of wastewater more technically feasible than management of large volumes of solids. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,630. 61 EPA acknowledged the analytical inconsistency of using data on the generation rates of aggregated Subtitle C waste streams to calculate a waste stream-specific high volume threshold for mineral processing wastes. 53 Fed.Reg. at 41,293-94; 54 Fed.Reg. at 15,329; 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,609-10. The TSDR Survey data, however, enabled EPA substantially to disaggregate the data on Subtitle C waste generation rates. Id. at 36,610; see also Development of the High Volume Criterion for Mineral Processing Wastes (Aug. 8, 1989) at 1-2, JA at 171-72 (describing methodology for developing high volume criterion based on TSDR Survey data, including formula for calculating disaggregated waste generation rates). 9 62 Finally, EPA properly exercised its discretion in selecting the 95th percentile as the statistical cutoff to define the numerical high volume standards, permitting a 5% overlap between the volumes of Bevill mineral processing wastes and the volumes of wastes currently managed under Subtitle C. See 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,629. Environmental watchdog groups recommended a cutoff at the 99th percentile, allowing for an overlap of only one percent, while members of the mineral processing industry favored an overlap of at least 10 percent, translating to a cutoff at the 90th percentile. Id.; see Comments of National Audubon Society, et al. (May 31, 1989) at 55; Comments of American Mining Congress (May 31, 1989) at 44. EPA explained in the 9/89 Rule that the percentile overlap was reduced from 10%, as proposed in the 10/88 and 4/89 NPRMs, to 5% because problems with the data used in the analysis (i.e., the 1985 Biennial Report ), which had justified a lower percentile cutoff, had been resolved when better data (i.e., the TSDR Survey ) became available. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,613. EPA determined that this much stronger data supported a 5% overlap. Id. 63 Given EPA's logical conclusion that current management of large volume hazardous wastes indicates that Subtitle C regulation of that quantity of waste is technically feasible, the Agency reasonably selected a percentile cutoff that eliminated from Bevill Amendment coverage those mineral processing wastes generated in volumes lower than the largest volume Subtitle C-managed wastes. In selecting a 95th percentile cutoff, resulting in a 5% overlap between the generation rates of large volume Subtitle C wastes and Bevill mineral processing wastes, EPA chose a numerical standard ... within a 'zone of reasonableness'  that warrants judicial approbation. See Small Refiner Lead Phase-Down Task Force v. EPA, 705 F.2d 506, 525 (D.C.Cir.1983) (citations omitted).