This information was published as a technical amendment to delete one of the telephone numbers, the facsimile number, and the telex number previously published, and to provide a new facsimile number.
The final rule amended the notification requirements of 40 CFR 302.6(a) to read as follows:
(a) Any person in charge of a vessel or an offshore or an onshore facility shall, as soon as he or she has knowledge of any release (other than a federally permitted release or application of a pesticide) of a hazardous substance from such vessel or facility in a quantity equal to or exceeding the reportable quantity determined by this part in any 24-hour period, immediately notify the National Response Center (1-800-424-8802; in Washington, DC 202-267-2675; the facsimile number is 202-267-1322).
The revision in the NRC’s contact information became effective February 22, 2011. Be certain to update your emergency plans with the revised NRC contact information accordingly.
How to Prepare for OSHA Adoption of the GHS for Classification and Labeling of Chemicals
This means that virtually every chemical label, MSDS (soon to be called “safety data sheet”), and written hazard communication plan must be revised to meet the new standard. Worker training must be updated so that workers can recognize and understand the symbols and pictograms on the new labels as well as the new hazard statements and precautions on SDSs.
Theses dramatic changes will also impact other OSHA standards such as Flammable and Combustible Liquids, Process Safety Management (PSM), Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER), Fire Prevention and Protection, Occupational Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals in Laboratories, and many of the chemical-specific OSHA standards such as the Lead Standard.
At this live webcast, you will learn:
- GHS standards OSHA is adopting
- How the new standards differ from current requirements
- How to implement the changes
- Expected timetable for GHS implementation
Cary, North Carolina 24-Hr and 40-Hr HAZWOPER Courses
Courses for HAZWOPER training will be offered in March at Environmental Resource Center’s Cary, North Carolina office.
Personnel who are expected to stop, contain, and clean up on-site releases are required to have 24 hours of initial training. Personnel who are involved in cleanups at waste sites—including Superfund sites, RCRA corrective action sites, or even voluntary cleanups involving hazardous substances—must have 40 hours of initial classroom instruction.
Satisfy your training requirements by attending a comprehensive class that provides in-depth instruction on how to perform emergency response activities. Topics include hazard recognition, spill control and containment, worker protection, and waste site activities such as site characterization, waste handling, and decontamination. You will have the opportunity to apply your training during a hands-on simulated incident response.
Advertising Opportunities Available
Environmental Resource Center is making a limited number of advertising positions available in the Environmental Tip of the Week™, the Safety Tip of the Week™, and the Reg of the Day™.
FAA Proposes $227,500 Civil Penalty against Dover Chemical
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing a $227,500 civil penalty against Dover Chemical Corporation of Dover, Ohio, for alleged violations of federal hazardous materials regulations.
The FAA alleges that Dover Chemical offered sulfur monochloride, a hazardous material, to United Parcel Service (UPS) for transportation by air from Hammond, Indiana, to Dover on June 15, 2010. The hazardous materials regulations prohibit carriage of sulfur monochloride aboard any type of aircraft. The chemical’s vapors are poisonous if they are inhaled.
Dover Chemical allegedly offered the material when it was not packaged, marked, classed, described, labeled, or in condition for shipment as required by regulations. UPS workers at the carrier’s sorting hub in Louisville discovered the shipment because it had leaked.
Dover Chemical has 30 days from receipt of the FAA’s enforcement letter to respond to the agency.
EPA Releases Updated Guidance for Clean Air Act Section 112(r) Inspections
The new guidance document is effective immediately and supersedes both the “Guidance for Auditing Risk Management Plans/Programs under Clean Air Act Section 112(r)” of August 1999, and EPA’s interim policy on involvement of employees and employee representatives in CAA Section 112(r) on-site compliance evaluations, established in an EPA memo dated April 2, 2010.
The new document includes updated EPA policy on involvement of facility employees and employee representatives in EPA and delegated state agency on-site compliance inspections as provided for in CAA Section 112(r)(6)(L). Additionally, the guidance reflects EPA’s focus on inspections as a means of facility oversight, and provides additional information on CAA Section 112(r) inspection procedures.
The guidance preserves Risk Management Program audits as a facility oversight option; however, audits should supplement implementing agency inspection programs and not be done in lieu of inspections.
Farm Supply Retailer to Pay $54,922 Penalty for Chemical Risk Management Program Violations
ADI Agronomy, Inc., which owns a group of farm supply facilities in southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas, has agreed to pay a $54,922 civil penalty to the United States for chemical Risk Management Program violations at its Ag Distributors retail facility in Kennett, Missouri, which sells liquid fertilizer made with anhydrous ammonia.
EPA Region 7 issued an administrative compliance order to the Kennett facility in July 2010, after an inspection noted eight violations of the chemical Risk Management Program regulations contained in the federal CAA. Specifically, Ag Distributors failed to establish and implement maintenance procedures to ensure the ongoing integrity of its anhydrous ammonia process equipment, and failed to document that the equipment complied with recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices, among other violations.
As part of an administrative consent agreement issued by EPA in Kansas City, Kansas, ADI Agronomy, doing business as Ag Distributors, agreed to pay the $54,922 penalty.
The Ag Distributors facility in Kennett is subject to the Risk Management Program regulations because it uses, stores, manufactures, or handles the on-site movement of 10,000 pounds or more of anhydrous ammonia in its fertilizer production process, the agreement says. Anhydrous ammonia is corrosive, and exposure to it may result in chemical-type burns to skin, eyes, and lungs.
Facilities like Ag Distributors that mix or blend fertilizers using anhydrous ammonia, but which do not sell anhydrous ammonia directly to farmers, must implement the most stringent type of Risk Management Program, known as the Program 3 Prevention Program. Ag Distributors failed to comply with the Program 3 Prevention Program requirements, which require detailed safety precautions, preventative maintenance, operating procedures, and employee training measures.
Risk Management regulations are intended to help prevent accidental releases of harmful chemicals, and help local emergency responders prepare for and respond to chemical accidents. Failure to have an adequate Risk Management Program and Plan can compromise a facility’s ability to prevent releases and minimize the impact of releases that do occur.
As part of its settlement with EPA, ADI Agronomy has certified that the Ag Distributors facility in Kennett is now in compliance with the chemical Risk Management Program regulations.
CAA Standards for Boilers and Incinerators Established
In response to federal court orders requiring the issuance of final standards, EPA is issuing final Clean Air Act (CAA) standards for boilers and certain incinerators that achieve significant public health protections through reductions in toxic air emissions, including mercury and soot, but cut the cost of implementation by about 50% from an earlier proposal issued last year.
Mercury, soot, lead, and other harmful pollutants released by boilers and incinerators can lead to developmental disabilities in children, as well as cancer, heart disease, aggravated asthma, and premature death in Americans. These standards will avoid between 2,600–6,600 premature deaths, prevent 4,100 heart attacks, and avert 42,000 asthma attacks per year in 2014.
In response to a September 2009 court order, EPA issued the proposed rules in April 2010, prompting significant public input. The proposed rules followed a period that began in 2007, when a federal court vacated a set of industry specific standards proposed during the Bush Administration. Based on the public input received following the April 2010 proposal, EPA made extensive revisions, and in December 2010 requested additional time for review to ensure the public’s input was fully addressed. The court granted EPA 30 days, resulting in EPA’s recent announcement.
Based on input from key stakeholders including the public, industry, and the public health communities, EPA’s announcement represents a dramatic cut in the cost of implementation, while maintaining maximum public health benefits. As a result, EPA estimates that for every dollar spent to cut these pollutants, the public will see between $10 to $24 in health benefits, including fewer premature deaths.
EPA received more than 4,800 comments from businesses and communities across the country in response to the proposed rules. Public input included a significant amount of information that industry had not provided prior to the proposal. Based on this feedback, and in keeping with President Obama’s executive order on regulatory review, EPA revised the draft standards based on the requested input to provide additional flexibility and cost effective techniques—achieving significant pollution reduction and important health benefits, while lowering the cost of pollution control installation and maintenance by about 50%, or $1.8 billion.
“The Clean Air Act standards we are issuing today are based on the best available science and have benefitted from significant public input,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “As a result, they put in place important public health safeguards to cut harmful toxic air emissions that affect children’s development, aggravate asthma and cause heart attacks at costs substantially lower than we had estimated under our original proposal.”
Because the final standards significantly differ from the proposals, EPA believes further public review is required. Therefore, EPA will reconsider the final standards under a CAA process that allows the agency to seek additional public review and comment to ensure full transparency. EPA’s reconsideration will cover the emissions standards for large and small boilers and for solid waste incinerators. EPA will release additional details on the reconsideration process in the near future to ensure the public, industry, and stakeholders have an opportunity to participate.
About 200,000 boilers are located at small and large sources of air toxic emissions across the country. The final standards require many types of boilers to follow practical, cost-effective work practice standards to reduce emissions. To ensure smooth implementation, EPA is working with the departments of Energy (DOE) and Agriculture (USDA) to provide the diverse set of facilities impacted by the standards with technical assistance that will help boilers burn cleaner and more efficiently. DOE will work with large coal and oil-burning sources to help them identify clean energy strategies that will reduce harmful emissions and make boilers run more efficiently and cost-effectively. In addition, USDA will reach out to small sources to help owners and operators understand the standards and their cost and energy saving features.
The types of boilers and incinerators covered by these updated standards include:
- Boilers at large sources of air toxics emissions: There are about 13,800 boilers located at large sources of air pollutants, including refineries, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities. These standards will reduce emissions of harmful pollutants including mercury, organic air toxics, and dioxins at some of the largest pollution sources. EPA estimates that the costs of implementation have been reduced by $1.5 billion from the proposed standard. Health benefits to children and the public associated with reduced exposure to fine particles and ozone from these large source boilers are estimated to be $22 billion to $54 billion in 2014.
- Boilers located at small sources of air toxics emissions: There are about 187,000 boilers located at small sources of air pollutants, including universities, hospitals, hotels, and commercial buildings that may be covered by these standards. Due to the small amount of emissions these sources are responsible for, EPA has limited the impact of the final rule making on small entities. The original standards for these have been dramatically refined and updated to ensure maximum flexibility for these sources, including for some sources, revising the requirement from maximum achievable control technology to generally available control technology. The cost reduction from the proposed standard to the final is estimated to be $209 million.
- Solid waste incinerators: There are 88 solid waste incinerators that burn waste at a commercial or an industrial facility, including cement manufacturing facilities. These standards, which facilities will need to meet by 2016 at the latest, will reduce emissions of harmful pollutants including mercury, lead, cadmium, nitrogen dioxide, and particle pollution. The cost reduction from the proposed standard to the final is estimated to be $12 million.
In separate but related actions, EPA is finalizing emission standards for sewage sludge incinerators. While there are more than 200 sewage sludge incinerators across the country, EPA expects that over 150 are already in compliance. These standards will reduce emissions of harmful pollutants including mercury, lead, cadmium, and hydrogen chloride from the remaining 50 that may need to leverage existing technologies to meet the new standards.
EPA has also identified which non-hazardous secondary materials are considered solid waste when burned in combustion units. This distinction determines which CAA standard is applied when the material is burned. The non-hazardous secondary materials that can be burned as non-waste fuel include scrap tires managed under established tire collection programs. This step simplifies the rules and provides additional clarity and direction for facilities. To determine that materials are non-hazardous secondary materials when burned under the new rule, materials must not have been discarded and must be legitimately used as a fuel.
The agency recognizes that secondary materials are widely used today as raw materials, as products, and as fuels in industrial processes. EPA believes that the final rule helps set protective emissions standards under the CAA.
The emissions standards for sewage sludge incinerators and the definition of solid waste are not part of EPA’s reconsideration.
New York DEC Reaches Settlement with Lead Smelting and Battery Recycling Facility
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced a Consent Order settlement with Revere Smelting and Refining Corporation (Revere) and Eco-Bat New York LLC (Eco-Bat), companies which own and operate a lead smelting and battery recycling facility in Middletown, New York. The battery recycling operation by Revere has been in existence since 1972, and the facility is one of the largest recyclers of automobile and other vehicle batteries in the Northeast United States.
“Ensuring the proper treatment, management, and storage of hazardous materials and the appropriate cleanup of any releases is a cornerstone of DEC’s hazardous waste programs,” DEC Regional Director Willie Janeway said. “This settlement will protect public health and the environment, while ensuring that the operation of a battery recycling facility continues to support the local economy.”
The Order resolves an enforcement proceeding initiated by DEC after several investigations of the facility in 2009 and 2010 revealed violations of spill reporting and response requirements. The enforcement proceeding also involved continuing treatment and containment of hazardous waste at the facility and an ongoing remedial program to address contamination. The Consent Order requires:
- Upgrades to the containment building at the facility to prevent future harm to the environment, and
- Remediation of certain properties impacted by the smelting and recycling operations.
The settlement specifically requires Revere and Eco-Bat to perform the following actions:
- Construct a new liner floor system for the containment building where battery recycling occurs, which will prevent future releases of hazardous waste to the environment.
- Undertake a study of the contamination in the areas where battery recycling is conducted, to identify the steps which will need to be taken to ensure that the contamination from operations will be properly addressed when the facility is closed.
- Post a financial guarantee once DEC approves a closure plan for the facility.
- Remediate the remainder of the inactive hazardous waste disposal site in accordance with a remedy which DEC issues for this property. An aspect of the remedy will involve the excavation and proper disposal of contaminated soil and sediments.
- Construct a parking area for the storage of trailers containing lead acid batteries prior to processing, which will contain any spills from these trailers.
- Pay a $150,000 penalty and complete a Department-approved project to benefit the environment with a value of $300,000.
“In the past, Revere has been cooperative in correcting issues at their facility and in this case we are confident they will do the same to operate in an environmentally responsible way,” said Supervisor John Ward, Town of Wallkill.
EPA’s Energy Star Leaders Drive Greater Energy Efficiency
Thousands of buildings across the country are saving energy while reducing harmful air pollutants and protecting the health of Americans with EPA’s Energy Star program. EPA recognized 74 leading Energy Star organizations for their achievements in energy efficiency across their entire building portfolios in 2010, 50 of which were recognized as first time Energy Star Leaders. Through their commitment to superior energy management, these organizations together have prevented the equivalent of more than 460,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and saved more than $100 million a year.
To be an Energy Star Leader, an organization must meet one of two energy efficiency improvement milestones. The first milestone requires a 10% improvement in energy performance across the entire building portfolio, and subsequent recognition is given for each 10% improvement thereafter. The second milestone, known as “top performer,” requires the buildings in an organization’s portfolio, on average, to perform in the top 25% of similar buildings nationwide.
Two organizations have taken Energy Star Leaders to new heights, becoming the first to improve energy efficiency across their building portfolios by 40 and 50%. These organizations are Blue Mountain School District in Pennsylvania and DeKalb County Central Unified School District in Indiana, respectively.
The complete list of Energy Star Leaders includes more than 150 school districts, commercial real estate companies, healthcare systems, supermarket operators, hotel managers, and government organizations. These organizations represent more than 6,790 buildings covering nearly 540 million square feet across 36 states and the District of Columbia.
California Air Board Standards Drive New Clean Fuels
The California Air Resources Board (ARB) formally considered the first proposals from private companies for new ways to make low carbon transportation fuels under California’s program to reduce dependence on petroleum and promote cleaner alternative fuels. The proposals included those from two manufacturers of Midwest ethanol—the Archer Daniels Midland Company and POET—and ethanol made from Brazilian sugarcane.
Data related to the manufacture and production of the proposed fuels were presented by staff to ARB Executive Officer James Goldstene at the first public hearing held to consider fuel production techniques not currently assigned a carbon intensity score in the Low Carbon Fuel Standard regulation.
“California’s standards were designed to drive innovation and invite companies to devise new low-carbon approaches to making alternative fuels,” said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. “The fact that private companies are now approaching us with new methods of producing ethanol is proof that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard is working exactly as advertised. Fuel suppliers know that California has established a large and certain market for low-carbon fuels though 2020, and we expect to see many more proposals for even cleaner fuels in the coming years.”
The ARB approved the Low Carbon Fuel Standard in April 2009, to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reduce the dependency on foreign oil by encouraging a variety of fuels used for transportation, and boost the market for alternative-fuel vehicles.
California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard requires that suppliers of transportation fuels meet an average declining standard of carbon intensity that will provide a 10% reduction in GHG emissions for all fuels used in California by 2020. The carbon intensity of a fuel is determined by the sum of all GHG emissions associated with the production, transportation, processing, and consumption of a fuel, referred to as the fuel’s pathway.
The recent hearing was held to consider the carbon intensity numbers associated with a range of new approaches to producing fuels. These approaches focus on more efficient methods as well as the use of cleaner energy when producing transportation fuels.
In total, 28 new fuel production techniques were considered, including two proposed carbon intensity numbers for biodiesel derived from used cooking fuels. Collectively, the proposed changes provide additional options for meeting the carbon intensity reductions called for under the program.
The modifications will be published soon in the form of amendments to the original Low Carbon Fuel Standard regulation which will allow for at least 15 days of public comment before final approval.
The ARB expects California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce the use of petroleum and result in total reductions of 16 million metric tons of GHGs in 2020, roughly 10% of the total GHG reductions required under AB 32, California’s overall climate change legislation.
Environmental News Links
Trivia Question of the Week
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, shale gas production accounts for what percentage of U.S. natural gas production?
a. 4%
b. 8%
c. 14%
d. 24%
