Specific Facility Standards

• Author: Susan M. McMichael
• Pages: 223-285

Page 223

Chapter 8

Specific Facility Standards

8.0 Introduction

EPA has long recognized that the permitting process is intended to transform the generic manage-

ment standards in the regulations into facility-specic standards that take into account actual

conditions at the permitted facility.1

Unit-specic standards result in tailored permit conditions geared to the facility and specic type of unit

used to manage hazardous waste. ere are 10 dierent types of units to treat, store, or dispose hazardous

waste (see Box 8.1). EPA and state rules set design, operation, management, and closure standards for these

units. Units can be non-land-based (containers,

containment buildings, drip pads, tank systems,

incinerators, boilers, and industrial furnaces),

and land-based (surface impoundments, waste

piles, landlls). is chapter discusses the rules

pertaining to those units as well as miscellaneous

units, a catchall category that includes everything

from open-burn/open-detonation units to deep

geologic repositories, such as the Waste Isolation

Pilot Plant (WIPP).

Unit-specic standards are a mix of perfor-

mance-based and HSWA-driven technology-forc-

ing design requirements intended to minimize and

prevent harm to the environment resulting from

leaking or damaged units. Central to these stan-

dards is the concept that regulatory and technical

measures are necessary to detect the useful life of

a unit and to prevent failed units. is chapter

discusses these requirements, and addresses the

ne line and associated litigation with unit deni-

tions for specic devices. RCRA unit denitions,

as pointed out by one scholar, can be dicult to

apply: “[o]nly in law is a dog dened as an ani-

mal that is not a cat—an approach that requires

full education on cats before you can think about

dogs.”2 e chapter also discusses hazardous

waste combustion units, and recent developments

1. Timothy F. Malloy, Once More Unto e Breach, 7 V. E. L.J. 1, 33 (1996).

2. 4 W H. R J., R’ E L  S §7.17, at 191 (West, 2002) (commenting on the incinerator denition).

Box 8.1

10 Unit-Spe cific Informatio n Req uirements

Containers

Tanks

Contain ment Buildings

Drip Pads

Combust ion U nits

Incinerators

Boiler s and Indu strial Furnaces (BIFs)

Thermal Treatment Unit s

Land Disposa l Uni ts

surfa ce im poundments

waste piles

landfills

land treatme nt fa cility

undergro und m ines and c aves

Miscel laneous Units

open-b urn/open- detonation geolo gic

repositories

salt domes, salt bed formati ons

Page 224 RCRA Permitting Deskbook

resulting from the Clean Air Act’s compliance deadlines for these units to meet maximum achievable control

technology (MACT) standards. It also addresses subpart AA, BB, and CC air emission standards, which are

intended to control and prevent the release of dangerous organic air emissions from process vents, equipment,

and certain units. roughout, special considerations are included for facilities that manage radioactive mixed

waste. e goal of the chapter is to summarize the types of hazardous waste management units, unit require-

ments, and permit modication procedures, and to provide tools such as checklists and resources needed to

obtain further information.

8.1 Containers

Container storage units are “simple to design and properly construct,” and “relatively easy to permit.”

—U.S. Environmental Protection A gency3

Container storage units are the most common and simplest type of RCRA permit.4 Perhaps due to the large

number of container storage permits, container violations are also frequent and relatively easy for EPA and

state inspectors to enforce. EPA issued container storage standards in 1980 to address what it considered at

the time to be a serious problem of decaying drums that contaminated surface and groundwater and emitted

fumes that have “killed vegetation and nauseated and sickened nearby residents.”5 e solution to this problem

was remarkably elementary, consisting of straightforward precautions that in essence were “nothing more than

simple good practices in the management of containers of hazardous waste— a level of care commensurate with

the hazardous nature of the waste stored.”6 ese simple management practices, in turn, have endured over the

past several decades with few changes.

Facilities that store hazardous waste in containers must meet specic performance-based unit standards for

permitted and interim-status units at subpart J of parts 264 and 265. RCRA permit applications must contain

information required under §270.15, as necessary to meet subpart I requirements. ese requirements address

container design standards, secondar y containment, air emission, operating, and inspection requirements. e

permit details how containers must comply with container rules, and may reference U.S. Department of Trans-

portation (DOT) performance standards and design specications, or will specif y the types of containers that

may be used for storage at the permitted facility. Because the permitting agency will need to address both the

container and the container storage area, it is critical that the facility’s permit application address both. Facili-

ties that store hazardous waste in containers must also meet general facility standards, closure, and, as applica-

ble, post-closure and nancial assurance requirements, discussed in Chapters 7 and 9. Interim-status standards

are less stringent, and container units are not required to meet design requirements for secondary containment

or closure requirements. Facilities that store or nonthermally treat hazardous waste in containers may be eligible

to apply for a streamlined standardized permit, discussed in Chapter 3.4.3, “Standardized Permit.”

8.1.1 Container Denition

RCRA containers do not come in one size or shape, and can include everything from test tubes and

55-gallon drums to large tanker cars.

A container is broadly dened at 40 C.F.R. §260.10 as a “portable device in which a material is stored, trans-

ported, treated, disposed of, or otherwise handled.” Unlike the rusty drums of the 1980s, the most commonly

used container now is the 55-gallon drum constructed of steel, berglass or various plastics, or polyethylene.

Containers can also be 85-gallon drums, larger truck trailers, tanker trucks, tank cars, and railroad cars.7

3. U.S. EPA, Standardized Permit Rule, 70 Fed. Reg. 53420, 53425 (Sept. 8, 2005).

4. See U.S. EPA, RCRA O M, EPA530-R-06-003, §III, Ch. 5, at 63 (2008) (“Containers are one of the most commonly used and

diverse forms of hazardous waste storage units.”). See also U.S. EPA’s Envirofacts database regarding container storage, available at www.epa.gov/

enviro/html/rcris/rcris_query_java.html) [hereinafter U.S. EPA’ Envirofacts].

5. 45 Fed. Reg. 33150, 33199 (May 19, 1980) [hereinafter May 1980 Preamble].

6. Id.

7. U.S. EPA, RCRA T M, I  C, EPA530-K-05-010, at 2 (Sept. 2005).

Specic Facility Standards Page 225

Small containers, such as test tubes, ampules, and small cans with compatible waste are sometimes packaged

into larger containers such as 55-gallon drums, and are then surrounded in the drum with a layer of absorbent

material such as vermiculite. ese types of containers are referred to as lab packs. R adioactive mixed waste

may be transported and managed in NRC-compliant containers or, as in the case of transuranic mixed waste,

TRUPACT-II shipping containers. Radioactive mixed waste may also be stored in more commonly used con-

tainers, such as 55-gallon drums. ese examples are just a few of the many types of containers that are utilized

by various industries. Containers are as diverse as the types, amounts, and toxicity levels of waste being stored.

e denition of container in 40 C.F.R. §260.10has been litigated, and the cases tend to address the

outer fringes of the ordinary dictionary meaning of a container. For example, courts and EPA tribunals have

reviewed whether the following units meet the container denition: a 5,250-gallon type of tank; a land-based

pit approximately 6.5 feet in diameter and three feet in depth with a volume of 3.66 cubic yards; a 36 x 11 ft,

25,000 gallon tank; 650-gallon mixing chamber; and a large heat exchanger.8 e focus of these cases is gener-

ally whether the unit is portable, as dened under commonly consulted dictionary denitions to mean “that

(which) can be easily carried or moved.”9 Reasonableness, too, is a common thread. For example, one admin-

istrative law judge held that it was unreasonable to conclude that a large, heavy heat exchanger was a container

simply because it was portable.10

If [the denition of a container] referred to everything that could be moved by any method, and to objects as

large as the exchangers . . . , the ‘empty container’ rule would exempt virtually everything except, perhaps,

holes in the ground.

—In re Ohmstede Machine Works, RCRA VI-437-H (Dec. 13, 1985).

8.1.2 Container Storage Standards

EPA’s container storage rules set forth a simple set of standards aimed at minimizing the possibility that hazard-

ous wastes stored in containers escape into the environment. e rules consist of two related performance-based

requirements: (1) design standards for containers and container storage areas; and (2) operating, management,

and inspection standa rds (see Box 8.2). Together, these two sets of standards ensure that containers are stored

in a well-designed area to prevent leakage, and are properly managed to prevent harm to human health and the

environment. Subpart I container storage standards are found at §§264.170-.179 and 265.170-.178.

8.1.2.1 Container Design

EPA rules contain specic design standards, discussed below, to address container condition, design criteria,

secondary containment, processes to address incompatibility, ignitable and reactive wastes, and air emission

standards. Design standards also apply to container storage units in interim-status facilities, with exceptions

noted below. e RCRA permit application must contain sucient information to meet these standards.

8. See, e.g., In re Everwood Treatment Co., RCRA-IV-92-15-R, 1995 WL 441847 (July 7, 1995) (pit was not a “container” because it was land-based

and not portable); United States v. Elias, 27 Fed. Appx. 750, 2001 WL 1297705 (9th Cir. 2001) (court held that a 36 x 11 ft., 25,000-gallon tank

was not a “container” simply because it was portable); Board of Natural Resources v. Walker County, 200 Ga. App. 301, 407 S.E.2d 436(Ga. Ct.

App. 1991), cert. denied (1991) (county failed to present sucient evidence to rebut evidence that 650-gallon mixing chamber was a “container”

and not a “tank” because it was portable); In re Chemtron Corp, RCRA-05-2001-0017, 2002 WL 31745006 (Dec. 2, 2002) (EPA determined

that a 5,250-gallon tank is not a portable device and therefore not a container but a “tank”); In the Matter of Ohmstede Machine Works, Inc.,

RCRA-VI-437-H, 1985 WL 57153 (Dec. 13, 1985) (not reasonable to conclude that a heat exchanger chained to truck is a “container” even

though portable).

9. In the Matter of Ohmstede Machine Works, Inc., RCRA-VI-437-H, 1985 WL 57153 (Dec. 13, 1985) (dening “portability” according to Webster’s

New World Dictionary and others).

10. Id.