Opinion ID: 519964
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicable Statute and Regulations

Text: 21 This dispute involves a rulemaking initiated by the EPA under the RCRA. Subtitle C of the Act, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 6921-34, establishes a comprehensive framework regulating the treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes. Pursuant to its statutory mandate, the EPA has adopted a two-part definition of the term hazardous waste. First, the agency has published several lists of specific listed hazardous wastes. 40 C.F.R. Part 261, Subpart D. Second, the agency has issued rules providing that any solid waste which demonstrates any one of four characteristics--ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and extraction procedure toxicity--will be considered a characteristic hazardous waste. 40 C.F.R. Part 261, Subpart C. The Act provides that any facility which treats, stores, or disposes of a listed or characteristic hazardous waste must first obtain a permit. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6925. 22 The RCRA was recently modified by the Hazardous Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (the 1984 Amendments), which established sweeping restrictions on the land disposal of hazardous wastes. The EPA was required to establish a schedule dividing the hazardous wastes into thirds, see 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(g)(4); the agency promulgated the schedule in May of 1986. 2 See 51 Fed.Reg. 19,300 (May 28, 1986). The division of the schedule into thirds was designed as a means of phasing in the land disposal restrictions. By August 8, 1988, the EPA was required to promulgate treatment standards for each of the first-third scheduled wastes; these wastes may not be land disposed unless they have been treated to meet the applicable standards or the disposal unit is one from which there will be no migration of hazardous constituents for as long as the waste remains hazardous. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(g)(4)(A). Similar land disposal restrictions for second-third and third-third wastes are scheduled to take effect on June 8, 1989 and May 8, 1990; prior to these dates, the EPA is required to promulgate treatment standards for the scheduled wastes. 3 See 42 U.S.C. Secs. 6924(g)(4)(B), 6924(g)(4)(C). 23 The present dispute concerns the rulemaking in which the EPA established treatment standards for first-third wastes. The new regulations were submitted for public comment in two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking, which were published in the Federal Register on April 8, 1988 and May 17, 1988. See 53 Fed.Reg. 11,741; 53 Fed.Reg. 17,577. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on August 17, 1988, with an effective date of August 8, 1988. See 53 Fed.Reg. 31,137. In these public notices the EPA issued treatment standards for the various wastes; in lengthy preambles to the notices, the agency discussed the interpretive principles which would guide its application of the standards. Three such principles merit discussion here. 24 One of these principles concerns the treatment standards applicable to leachate produced from hazardous waste. Leachate is produced when liquids, such as rainwater, percolate through wastes stored in a landfill. The resulting fluid will contain suspended components drawn from the original waste. Proper leachate management involves the storage of wastes in lined containers so that leachate may be collected before it seeps into soil or groundwater. The leachate will periodically be pumped out of the container and subsequently treated. 25 An EPA regulation promulgated in 1980, known as the derived-from rule, provided that any solid waste generated from the treatment, storage, or disposal of a hazardous waste, including any sludge, spill residue, ash, emission control dust, or leachate (but not including precipitation run-off) is a hazardous waste. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 261.3(c)(2)(i). 4 Thus, for some years prior to the 1988 rulemaking, it had been understood that leachate derived from a hazardous waste was itself a hazardous waste. In the 1988 preambles, the agency stated that leachate derived from multiple hazardous wastes would be deemed to contain each of the wastes from which it was generated, and that it must therefore be treated to meet the applicable treatment standards for each of the underlying wastes. 5 See 53 Fed.Reg. 31,146-31,150 (August 17, 1988). This is known as the waste code carry-through principle. 26 The second interpretive principle at issue in this proceeding also involves the treatment requirements for hazardous waste leachate. In its preamble to the August rule, the agency stated that [h]azardous waste listings are retroactive, so that once a particular waste is listed, all wastes meeting that description are hazardous wastes no matter when disposed. 53 Fed.Reg. 31,147 (August 17, 1988). The implications of that statement center around wastes which were not deemed hazardous at the time they were disposed but which are subsequently listed as hazardous wastes. The RCRA does not require that such wastes be cleaned up or moved from the landfill, nor does the agency impose any retroactive penalty on the prior disposal of the waste. Under the August rule, however, the agency announced that leachate which is actively managed after the underlying wastes have been listed as hazardous will itself be deemed a hazardous waste and must be treated to the applicable standards. Under this approach, the fact that the original waste was not deemed hazardous at the time of disposal is simply irrelevant in determining the treatment requirements for the leachate. 27 Finally, the agency discussed the applicability of the treatment standards to contaminated environmental media such as soil and groundwater. The preamble stated that [i]n these cases, the mixture is deemed to be the listed waste. 53 Fed.Reg. 31,142 (August 17, 1988). Thus, when a listed hazardous waste (or hazardous waste leachate) is mixed with soil or groundwater--as may occur, for example, through spills or leaking--the soil or groundwater is subject to all the treatment standards or restrictions that would be applicable to the original waste.