Opinion ID: 546365
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Waiver of Ground Water Monitoring Requirement

Text: 31 RCRA and implementing regulations generally require hazardous waste management facilities to monitor the ground water for contaminants that might migrate from landfill disposal areas, unless a basis exists for EPA to grant a waiver. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(o), (p); 40 C.F.R. Part 264, Subpart F. In the final permit for the Emelle facility, EPA included a provision that waived ChemWaste's obligation to monitor the ground water in the uppermost aquifer, the closest significant water supply to the surface. See 40 C.F.R. Secs. 170.2, 260.10 (defining uppermost aquifer). Petitioners argue that EPA's decision, finding a basis for the waiver, was arbitrary and capricious because the decision was based on erroneous conclusions of fact. 32 EPA may waive the ground water monitoring requirement in a final permit if the applicant facility shows that there is no potential for liquid wastes to migrate from landfill trenches into the uppermost aquifer during the period spanning both the active life of the landfill trench and the post-closure care of the trench. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(p); 40 C.F.R. Sec. 264.90(b)(4). EPA found that the uppermost water supply under the Emelle facility was 700 feet below the ground's surface. Petitioners contend that this determination is wrong because evidence of more shallow ground water exists. During the public comment period, petitioners brought to EPA's attention five shallow wells being used by residents of the Emelle area. EPA investigated these five wells, along with a sixth well that EPA itself discovered, and conducted tests to determine if the wells were being fed from a significant water source closer to the surface than 700 feet. EPA found that they were not. 16 33 In addition, EPA found that the uppermost aquifer at the Emelle facility was protected by 700 feet of dense chalk. According to EPA, ChemWaste sufficiently demonstrated that liquid waste would not migrate from a landfill trench through this chalk and into the water supply in less than 300 years. The time projected for a landfill trench's active life and post-closure care at the Emelle facility totals forty years. 34 We cannot reverse EPA's decision to allow a ground water monitoring waiver: the agency's decision is within EPA's statutory authority, is not clearly wrong, and appears to be based on considered and carefully articulated expert opinion. 17 See, e.g., EPA Memorandum, Waiver of 40 CFR 264 Subpart F Requirements for Releases into the Uppermost Aquifer from Regulated Units, & Attached Report from Golder Assocs., Consulting Geotechnical and Mining Engineers, dated March 25, 1987, ROA-Exh. 348; EPA Memorandum, Field Trip to Inspect Shallow Dug Wells in Sumter County, Alabama, dated March 27, 1987, ROA-Exh. 350. Particularly when we consider a purely factual question within the area of competence of an administrative agency created by Congress, and when resolution of that question depends on 'engineering and scientific' considerations, we recognize the relevant agency's expertise unless it is without substantial basis in fact. Federal Power Comm'n v. Florida Power & Light Co., 404 U.S. 453, 463, 92 S.Ct. 637, 644, 30 L.Ed.2d 600 (1972). 18 35 AFFIRMED.