EPA has issued both a press release and a statement on its website announcing its proposed rule concerning the management of coal combustion products (CCP, also called “coal ash”). In the news release, EPA said: The proposal opens a national dialogue by calling for public comment on two approaches for addressing the risks of coal ash management under the nation’s primary law for regulating solid waste, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). One option is drawn from authorities available under Subtitle C, which creates a comprehensive program of federally enforceable requirements for waste management and disposal. The other option includes remedies under Subtitle D, which gives EPA authority to set performance standards for waste management facilities and would be enforced primarily through citizen suits. A chart comparing and contrasting the two approaches is available on EPA’s Web site. Under both approaches proposed by EPA, the agency would leave in place the Bevill exemption for beneficial uses of coal ash in which coal combustion residuals are recycled as components of products instead of placed in impoundments or landfills. Large quantities of coal ash are used today in concrete, cement, wallboard and other contained applications that should not involve any exposure
Read more →The environmental newsletter of the Association of General Contractors (AGC) sheds some light on the status of EPA’s developing regulation of coal ash or coal combustion products (CCP). The newsletter indicated that the agency expects to release a rulemaking on coal combustion residuals (or waste) in April 2010, with a hazardous designation reported likely. CCP has been exempted from regulation as a hazardous waste through an interpretation of existing hazardous waste law. Under that interpretation, coal ash was “pardoned” as part of the “Bevill Amendment” – a 1980 amendment to the federal waste management legistration that excluded from regulation certain mining and mineral processing waste. The amendment also mandated that EPA conduct a study to determine how to manage CCP. The study was completed and the findings were presented to Congress in 1988 and again in 1999 – both times, EPA recommended that CCP not be regulated as hazardous waste. Two regulatory determinations were subsequently published – one in 1993 and one in 2000, both again affirming that regulation of CCP as hazardous waste was not warranted. Although EPA has not yet released its proposed regulation, AGC’s article stated that sources indicate that EPA is strongly favoring a hazardous waste
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