| Gossman Consulting, Inc |
GCI TECH NOTES©
Volume 6, Number 1 A Gossman Consulting, Inc.Publication May 2001
Air
and Waste Management Association
DAY 1
IMPLEMENTATION
OF REGULATIONS, POLICIES, AND WORK PRACTICES
Mike
Harrell of Ash Grove Cement Company, Technical Conference Chair, and
Dave
Alburty of Midwest Research Institute, General Conference Chair, kicked
off
this year's "BIF" conference, now officially known as the Hazardous
Waste Combustor Specialty Conference.
Mike pointed out that this was the 10th conference, even though
the ten
conferences had occurred over more than a ten-year period.
An
employee of Lone Star Industries, Inc., well known among the BIF crowd,
was the
Technical Conference Co-Chair but chose to remain transparent as one of
the
"attendees" of the conference.
He will remain anonymous for the moment. An
article in "America's newspaper," USA Today had
a Money section article about Jack Welch and GE. The
article detailed how communication and teamwork changed
the thinking of one of the most successful businessmen in America today. Interestingly enough, as the conference
unfolded, there almost seemed to be an unofficial theme of teamwork
that
threaded it's way through various presentations as well.
SESSION
1 - PLANS & PROGRAMS
The
first person to address the conference (unscheduled at the time) was
Scott
Rauenzahn of USEPA. He briefly took
responsibility for why we were all gathered at the conference and then
mentioned 28 amendments to the Waste Combustor MACT.
Carrie Yonley of Schreiber and Yonley was the Session 1
Chair. The first scheduled speaker
was Ken Herstowski of Region VII USEPA.
He spoke about planning a comprehensive performance test and
mentioned
that he had one approved comprehensive performance test in his region
and two
others that had been submitted.
While he didn't name names, the approved plan is for Ash Grove
at Chanute
Kansas (in conjunction with their new kiln and the required compliance
test)
and the two other plans are for Lone Star Industries, Inc. in Cape
Girardeau,
Missouri and Continental Cement Company, LLC in Hannibal, Missouri. Both of these submitted plans were
written and/or had input from Gossman Consulting, Incorporated. A question from the audience at the end
of Ken's talk queried as to whether submitting the plans 12 months in
advance
of a test date would be sufficient review time. It
was Ken's opinion that with the 9-month review provision
in the rule, it should be sufficient time.
The
next speaker was Brad Phillips who joined S&Y in 1998.
His paper was entitled, A Practical
Approach to Developing an Operation and Maintenance Plan.
Brad pointed out during his talk that
he moves around a lot when he makes presentations because "as they tell
all good consultants, it is hard to hit a moving target."
Someone in the audience wondered
quietly if that is not what they tell other kinds of consultants. Brad explained that he had looked far
and wide; utilizing the internet extensively, and that there are "no
plans
out there to go by." He
explained that he thought it would take a couple of plant man years to
put
together an Operation and Maintenance Plan, pointing out that "the
environmental manager and/or corporate cannot do it and time is running
out." His point appeared to
be that on short notice it was best to take a team approach. Probably his best advice was
"don't put more in the plan than you need." Concerning
sources, standards and air pollution control
device(s); he didn't think
"the technical guy at the plant" could make those determinations. One of his final points was that plants
needed to look at competitors to make sure that you weren't "submitting
something head and shoulders above the rest or something so Mickey
Mouse that
it won't pass the laugh test."
Jerry
Drake of Compliance Strategies & Solutions, Inc. was the next
speaker. The paper was entitled
Incorporating
Statistics into a Waste Analysis Plan. Jerry talked about applying
USEPA WAP
guidance but it was unclear as to whether or not he was aware of plants
that
were actually doing what he discussed.
He did point out that "if you implement a statistical approach,
be
aware that there are not only advantages but that there are also
liabilities." It appeared
that the liabilities would likely outweigh whatever advantages there
might
be.
Gary
King of Safety Kleen spoke next. His
paper was entitled Mercury Detection Limits and Feed Rate Controls. His presentation was based upon the
expectation that feed rate controls will be the primary way to meet the
new HWC
MACT standards. Through various
analyses and experimentations, it was confirmed that by lowering the
method
detection limits (MDLs) in the non-hazardous input streams, the
allowable
mercury input through the hazardous waste feed could be significantly
increased.
The
final speaker before the break was Michele Lusk of CKRC who brought the
group
up to speed on what was currently happening on the Waste Combustor MACT
implementation issues. 1)
Transition between 2 modes & calculation of the rolling average -
the
current language is to start anew and the upcoming technical amendment
(T.A.)
is expected to be a "retrieval" approach, or going back to the
previous time under the same mode 2) early compliance concerns; rule
requires
cessation of burning if there is failure of the ICPT but what about
early
compliance? T.A. will exempt early compliance from the documentation of
compliance requirement 3) Use of previous DRE test data; current
language says
only after 3/20/98 but T.A. will reportedly allow all DREs that have
had proper
QA/QC 4) Conflicting operational parameter limits; T.A. will encourage
BIF like
flexibility 5) data-in-lieu-of; 36 facilities across the country have
used this
approach and an EPA letter points out that 63.7(h) can be interpreted
to allow
data-in-lieu-of 6) the T.A. will also update the operator training
requirement
which is expected to allow site specific application.
Following
Michele's presentation, time was taken for questions from the Session 1
participants. One question asked
about the process of making decisions concerning submitted requests for
alternative
monitoring. The Ken Herstowski
response was that if they were consistent with existing amendments then
no
problem and that one request had been approved on the technical merit
and that
one had been sent to Washington.
Michelle pointed out that there is the possibilities of two
six-month
extensions so DON'T do a test with an unapproved plan.
Another question was concerning the
operator training and it is expected that there will need to be some
sort of
testing requirement even in the site specific scenario.
SESSION
2 - RECORDKEEPING
Mike
Harrell was the session chair for Session 2. Talk
about a guy who wore multiple hats. The
first speaker after the break was
Ken Frato. His paper was entitled
A Case for Effective Community Interaction. Ken
relayed his and Lubrizol's story about finding out late
in the game about compliance with the MACT Notice of Intent to Comply
(NIC)
requirement and how teamwork helped him to meet that requirement. He got help from Lubrizol's 22-member
community panel, which was established in 1993 as part of their
Responsible
Care Initiative. The team approach
really helped, given the short time frame he had to achieve compliance.
The
next speaker was David Palmer of Crawford, Johnson, Robinson &
Woods. His paper was entitled Building
Public
Support for a Major Expansion: The Ash Grove Cement Company Chanute
Plant
Story. As a public relations
person, he offered Exxon and the Exxon Valdez oil spill as a bad
example of how
to handle public relations and then as the good example, the
much-studied
example of Johnson & Johnson and their reaction to Tylenol
tampering. He offered six general points
in
dealing with the media; 1) you and the media have different agendas 2)
you can't
turn bad news into good news 3) if you have to eat humble pie, take big
bites
4) be the primary source of information for your organization 5) be
prepared -
control the interview and 6) manage media anxiety - be accessible,
forthright
and friendly.
Brian
Graf of Essroc gave the next paper.
His previously "To Be Announced" paper was entitled Successful
Community and Industrial Planning.
Anyone and everyone familiar with hazardous waste burning in
cement
kilns is painfully aware of the explosion that took place at the Essroc
plant
in Logansport on February 18, 1999.
Brian explained how beginning in 1985, he was involved in
developing an
emergency management plan. In the
extensive plan that was put together, he was the primary incident
commander yet
he was too far away to help at the time of the incident. The team
approach to
developing the plan was very instrumental in how the plan worked when
the
explosion occurred. The incident
occurred at 12:03 a.m., by 12:15 the necessary agencies were there and
by 12:30
the fire was out. Amazingly
enough, 2 hours into the response, they were ready for cleanup.
Dr.
Dennis Lane of the University of Kansas presented the final paper of
the
morning. His paper was entitled
Southeast Kansas Air Quality Monitoring Study. He
started off his talk by relating an example of a study
performed some years ago where a subject of little or no interest to
the
American public was subject to experimentation. False
information was released into the press and then a
survey was conducted. Sure enough,
80% of the American people suddenly were concerned about the issue. While he did not identify the issue(s)
he did add the caveat that it was innocuous. Nonetheless,
don't under estimate the effect of the press on
your situation. A study is on the
verge of being released that will include southeast Kansas data
concerning
PM10, PM2.5, TSP, benzene, toluene, xylene, tri &
tetrachloroethane,
passive sample data for SO2 and NOx plus wet deposition samples for
mercury. They initially used EPA
models but found them wholly inadequate and came up with their own
models which
were more dispersion and much less dry & wet deposition oriented. Paul Peters (actually Dr. Paul Peters)
of southeast Kansas's fame, provided input towards picking background
sample
locations. Sampling was performed
for 1.5 years. A draft report will
be going to USEPA by June 30, 2001.
When asked about the results, he provided a blank overhead and
asked
attendees to envision four quadrants which contained the following four
corners; some adverse results but no adverse effects, some adverse
results and
some adverse effects, no adverse results but some adverse effects and
no
adverse results with no adverse effects.
Within his concluding remarks he pointed out that "public
relations
and science is an interesting game" but "a difficult situation."
SESSION
3 - COMMUNICATION WITH THE PUBLIC
Following
an excellent lunch (with no speaker this year), Session 3 began. Tita LaGrimas of Pollution Control
Industries was the session chair.
A little switcheroo on the schedule and the first person to
speak was
Rich Lasher from the USEPA. His
talk addressed the new manifest rule, which will ultimately allow
electronic
versions and processing, including an electronic signature. Only one hard copy of the manifest will
be required and that will be on the shipping truck.
Rich pointed out that the pilot testing of the electronic
manifest reaffirmed Murphy's Law and he found out that "lawyers have a
vested interest in paper."
The manifest rule can be viewed at
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/gener/manifest
and comments are not only welcome but are encouraged.
The next speaker was Bob Campbell from Pollution Control
Industries. His paper was entitled
HWC NESHAP: A Generator's Perspective.
Bob had clearly been in the waste fuel blending business for
many years
as he mentioned discussions with Mike Benoit and Ted Reese in the early
days. His main point was that the
USEPA was in the business of shutting down waste combustors. He explained that his data revealed
that there had been 22 haz waste cement kilns in 1996, there were only
17 in
1998 and today there are only 14 plants.
Safety Kleen is closing down their Bridgeport, NJ and
Coffeeville, KS
facilities due to the costs of compliance. This
editor would add that it seems clear that the Carol
Browner anti-combustion strategy is working.
The
final paper before break (and originally unscheduled) was given by Mike
Scanlon
of Barnes & Thornburg. Mike
spoke about A Review of Recent Judicial Action Revisiting the Age-Old
Question:
Is it or; isn't; it a "Solid Waste"? His
presentation addressed a challenge of the Phase IV land
disposal restrictions and what was meant or intended by the word
"discarded" and an American Mining Congress ruling concerning the
definition of "immediately reused." The
battery recyclers have challenged the rule having to do
with materials that are "destined for reuse as part of a continuous
industrial process and, therefore, is not abandoned or thrown away." The group then broke for exhibition
viewing.
SESSION
4 - SUPPLIERS & GENERATORS
Fred
Sigg, of Von Roll and the much written about WTI incinerator (thank you
Al
Gore), chaired session 4.
Fred's first speaker was Duncan Kimbro of Franklin Engr. Group
who's
paper was entitled, RCRA Permitting and 'Mini-Trial Burn Test Results
for a
Liquid Waste Incinerator Upgraded to Meet the HWC MACT Standards. This paper was sort of an update from a
paper presented at the last Haz Waste Combustor Conference about the
Eastman Chemical
incinerator(s) in Kingsport, TN.
In brief, the facility was looking at what seemed to be an
impossible
situation in terms of getting into compliance, but thanks to equipment
manufacturers (last year), engineering expertise and of course, lots of
consultants, the facility successfully demonstrated compliance with PM,
LVM
(Cr), dioxins/furans and CO/THC.
Let's hear it for the consultants!
(author attempt at levity)
The next speaker was Don Blair of Eli Lilly.
Don spoke about PM and metals CEMs and the progress made
over the last year (actually several years) and results reported at the
last
Waste Combustor Conference. In
Phase I the CEMs did not meet the performance specification 11 criteria. In Phase II (after modifications) the
CEMs did meet the performance specification 11 criteria and in the
first
quarter of 2000, everything was looking good. They
had just received data from the first quarter of 2001
and the Method 5 data looked pretty good and the range of data was
spread out
fairly equally but then they had problems with their calibration
correlation. The tolerance was out
at 27% versus the need for 25% or less.
The new data did not fall into the calibration curve and they
did not
meet performance specification 11.
His conclusion(s) was that PM CEMs can be installed and run
effectively
for plant operations even though they don't meet performance
specification
11. Of course that does not meet
the regulations. Lilly is also
working with Cooper Environmental Systems to develop multi-metals CEMS. Expectations are to implement the plan
this year, have shakedown, develop the protocol, compare results to
Method 29
and then publish the results. The
bottom line is that Lilly believes that appropriate use of CEMs can be
very
cost effective. Also, just for the
sake of perspective, this author would point out that Don is the plant
person
who has to live with the operations (or lack thereof) of the CEMs.
The
next presenter was Jurgen Wirling of Rheinbraun Brernstoff Gmbh who
presented a
paper entitled Implementation of Process-Integrated Waste Gas Cleaning
Using
Lignite Coke. Von Roll provided
the next speaker, Bill Bailey, who spoke about Maximizing Operational
Flexibility under the Hazardous Waste Combustor NESHAP Through the
Employment
of Innovative Monitoring and Testing Protocols. Most
people familiar with Von Roll and WTI already know that
they are an emissions performance leader in the industry.
They are clearly the most highly
scrutinized plant in the United States, again, thank you Al Gore. A
previous
speaker had linked the current HWC MACT with WTI and while Bill did not
necessarily concur, he did acknowledge that the Browner (anti)
combustion
strategy in 1993 was probably a result of the WTI startup.
With the help of Eli Lilly, WTI has
been evaluating two PM CEMs and an HCl analyzer. In
addition, WTI has done much work on multi-metals CEMs but
there have been some developmental problems. When
working, it works great, but there has been excessive
down time. They are also looking
at two multi-metals units.
SESSION
5 - MACT IMPLEMENTATION
Session
4 went right into Session 5. The
son-in-law of the well-known Dr. Paul Peters of Lafarge was the session
chair,
Curtis Lesslie of Trinity Consultants.
Curtis was formerly a Kansas regulator and had only recently
donned a
white hat (or black hat depending upon your perspective).
The first speaker he introduced was
Scott Ellis of Schrieber & Yonley.
His paper was entitled Title V Operating Permit Strategic
Planning. He talked about many
transitions; WAP
to FAP; PCOC to DOC; COC/ROC to NOC; RCRA training to operator
certification
and overall; RCRA/BIF permit to Clean Air Act Title V permit. He ended his talk on a lighthearted
note by borrowing the blank overhead technique of Dr. Dennis Lane
earlier and
his charge to the attendees to "visualize a conclusion."
However, his primary point was that
"a facility is out of compliance if it does not do what is described in
the permit." Scott's
presentation ended on schedule as everyone migrated to the reception in
the
exhibition area. Day 1 successfully
completed.
DAY 2
SESSION
6 - HWC NESHAPS
Dave
Alburty, General Conference Chair, kicked off the first session of Day
2 by
introducing the chair of Session 6, Dick Stoll. Anyone
active in hazardous waste burning cement plant
activities is familiar with the name of Dick Stoll.
Dick started off by talking about decisions whereby the D.C.
Circuit Court ruled that the early cessation portion of the Waste
Combustor
MACT was "a classic case of an arbitrary and capricious ruling" and
Dick was kind enough to provide all attendees to his session with a
copy of his
paper. A copy can also be obtained
by contacting Dick at rstoll@foleylaw.com and we should all stay tuned
for
continuing legal activities. Mary
Ellen Ternes then spoke about how to design a test burn and resulting
permit
provisions to limit enforcement under Title V. She
pointed out that the new residence time requirement in
the rule would be a perfect opportunity for enforcement fines. She was also concerned about the
broader citizen suit provisions and EPA indications that they will
likely
over-file state lawsuits so industry will have a double whammy. A wave of vocal agreement accompanied
the announcement by Dick Stoll that they were pursuing a ruling that
EPA could
only require site specific risk assessments if it were put through the
rulemaking process. This would
seem to be consistent with the American Power ruling that remanded
periodic
monitoring guidance because it became/becomes defacto
rules/requirements
without having gone through the rulemaking process.
Stu
Weis of Honigam, Miller, Schwartz & Cohn was the next speaker. Readers may remember Stu from when he
worked for Holnam Corporate in Dundee Michigan. Stu
kicked off with a lawyer joke about two people being
lost, asking someone where they were and hearing the response that they
were
lost. One said to the other, must
be a lawyer to which he queried how he know that. Well,
what he told us was 100% accurate but the information
was totally useless. Stu then
talked about how the battery recycler's case (presented the day before
by Mike
Scanlon) may have an affect on CKD.
He strongly recommended that industry take a good detailed look
at the
general provisions of the rule and determine what affect they might
have. He also made a point to warn
attendees
not to believe everything they read on the EPA web site(s) [such as the
HWC
Tool Kit] but to use it as a source of information.
The
next lawyer to talk was David Friedland of Beveridge & Diamond. David talked about additional D.C.
Court litigation and CAA enforcement.
He pointed out that the HWC NESHAP rules apply under startup,
shutdown
& malfunction plans as long as there is hazardous waste in the
combustion
chamber and that general provisions apply when waste is not in the
combustions
chamber. Dick Stoll added that the
philosophy at USEPA has been that with hazardous waste you can tighten
the rule
all you want and that is all right.
The
final speaker before break was Alok Ahuja of Lathrop and Gage who spoke
about
avenues other than litigation. His
client, Ash Grove, was caught in a limbo situation where construction
had
started on their new kiln before the rule was finalized (of course for
THAT
matter it is still not finalized) and they had a monitoring location
situation
that EPA could not have foreseen so they did a "petition for
reconsideration." They have
been told that the next (imminent) technical amendment would address
the Ash
Grove issues. In the question and
answer time at the end of the session, Dick Stoll was asked about the
time
frame on the SSRA court decision.
He said that there could be a ruling any day now and that there
would
then be a minimum 9 months to 1 year time frame for the process. Then it was time for the 9:55 a.m.
break and off to the exhibition area.
SESSION
7 - PC MACT & OTHER NESHAPS
Mike
Harrell introduced Michelle Lusk of CKRC, the chair for Session 7. Michelle kicked off the session by
pointing out that there had been 75 to 100 issues at the time the waste
combustor rule was published in the Federal Register.
Through interaction with the Agency they addressed
approximately 50 of those issues and now it has come down to about 8
primary
issues that are still getting attention.
The first speaker of this session was Andy O'Hare of APCA. He talked about the Portland Cement
rule (the non-hazardous version of the waste combustor MACT) and
explained that
APCA & membership identified 15 or 16 issues originally and then
filed a
petition. They decided that these
issues could be worked out and began settlement negotiations. However, thanks to a challenge by the
Sierra Club, EPA must now go back and consider mercury, HCl and total
hydrocarbons. As a result of this
challenge, the courts also gave EPA authority over process changes and
raw
material considerations. Raw
materials have been thought to be off limits up to this point (although
it
never seemed to make any difference for Hazardous Waste Combustors -
see Dick
Stoll comments).
David
Novello of The Law Offices of David Novello, LLC was the next speaker. David covered many of the same issues
that had been addressed by a previous speaker but he provided a 112
overview
and then focused on metals and dioxins/furans. He
stated that that it was "really key to understanding
how Part 63 Subpart A general provisions interact with HWC MACT" and
when
waste combustor kilns are covered under one rule or the other. He also explained that D/F averaging
under PC MACT was 3 hrs and under HWC MACT it was a 1 hour average. This is being litigated and the approach
is one that has turned into a favorite phrase of this author,
"arbitrary
and capricious."
The
session co-chair, Bob Schreiber (of Schreiber & Yonley, Assoc.)
introduced
Pam Muren of Missouri DNR as the next speaker. Her
talk was titled, "Portland Cement Maximum
Achievable Control Technology; PC MACT; 40CFR Part 63; Subpart LLL
Implementation. In MO there are
five PC MACT facilities, 2 of these have Title V permits and 1 kiln has
a Title
V permit AND is subject to waste combustor MACT. The
startup, shutdown and malfunction plan was included in
the plant wide condition portion of the permit but was not included in
the
permit by reference section. The
same approach was used with the Operation and Maintenance Plan. Missouri has also been putting PC MACT
limits into Title V permits with a 6/10/02 date for going into effect. For a time frame reference, she
explained that when she started working with Norris Johnson on his Cape
Girardeau permit, she was not pregnant and at this point in time her
daughter
is 6 months old. She also
explained that Missouri waste combustors are applying for alternate
provisions,
which will be finalized once the Feds make their decisions.
Brad
Phillips was the next speaker who was going to bat for a colleague that
was
unable to attend and present the planned paper. Brad
pointed out that he might be taking a different angle
on the issue of "significant change" but he threw it together at the
last minute so here goes.
"Used to only have to worry about NSPS but now have PC MACT
which
includes a performance test, operation & maintenance plan,
startup-shutdown-malfunction plan, dioxin/furan testing and last but
most
assuredly not least, significant change management."
By definition, significant change
is/are "changes in feed and fuel that could result in changes to
emissions" and he wondered if one ton per year of a raw material versus
1.5 tons per year is a significant change? This
author believes that the ultimate decision here will
likely end up in the courts but significant change is here to stay. Brad also prognosticated that we are
inching closer to a "waste analysis plan" for alternative waste raw
material substitutes.
Tom
Nilan, attorney with the American Chemical Council, was the next
speaker. His introduction brought a
chuckle from
the attendees because Michelle Lusk had previously announced that at
least her
session didn't have attorneys like the session before.
Tom talked about the Phase II MACT,
hazardous waste burning boilers.
The ACC has over 125 members that will be affected and they make
up 90%
of the total affected units. He
doubted that the rule would be final by May 2002, which will then bring
case-by-case approach into play.
He lamented that it is uncharted territory and that it won't be
any fun
to figure it out. The next
presenter was Scott "I'm the one responsible for all of you being
here" Rauenzahn of the USEPA.
He also talked about the Phase II combustor rule.
After letting attendees know that
during the break he had been asked if he enjoyed being beat up by
everybody, he
responded with the following statement; "I am interested in hearing
what
everyone thinks is true and of course I actually KNOW what is true and
I am
finding things moderately humorous."
Just the kind of regulator you want to work with, right? He confirmed Tom Nilan's fears by
pointing out that USEPA hoped to propose the Phase II rule by the
hammer date
but wasn't sure if that would happen and that the situation would then
be ripe
for litigation.
Lisa
Douglas of Compliance Strategies & Solutions, Inc. was the final
speaker
before lunch. Her paper was
entitled Projected MACT Limits for Hazardous Waste Burning Boilers and
Industrial Furnaces. She pointed
out that applicable data was available on the USEPA web site and if you
didn't
want to wait on the final proposed rule you could probably get a pretty
good
idea from the June 2000 database that was the Phase II NODA. The session ran quite a bit over so
everyone bolted for lunch so as not to be left out.
SESSION
8 - RISK ASSESSMENTS
David
Weeks was the chair for Session 8.
Readers may remember some years ago when Dave was with Region VI
EPA
when one of the early conference presenters referred to regulators as
"jack booted thugs" and David later "kicked" off his presentation
about the several thousand pages of risk assessment guidance by
introducing
himself as one of those jack booted thugs. Since
that time David has joined with the Center for
Toxicology and Environmental Health, LLC.
David started off his session by defending what seems to be his
favorite
subject, site-specific risk assessments.
He was compelled to attempt to counter previous discussions
about
forcing EPA through rule making to require SSRAs. He
seemed to be pretty adamant that risk assessments would
not go away and referred to EPA omnibus authority as a reason it won't
go
away. This author would point out
that omnibus authority is only legally valid if the Agency makes a
sound
scientific/health based reason to perform the risk assessment, which
has not
ever been done as far as anyone can tell.
David
Patrick of Sciences International was the first presenter and he talked
about a
multipathway risk assessment of a cement kiln combusting hazardous
waste. He talked about this risk
assessment
being performed before all the guidance (thank you David Weeks) came
out and
before the plant had any accidental spills. It
began in 1996 as part of the response to public concern,
determined that there was less than 5 chances in a million of getting
any of the
cancers examined and the testing is updated each year.
While the facility was not identified,
logic would dictate that it is the old Medusa (now Southdown/Cemex)
facility in
Wampum, Pennsylvania. That
facility was unfortunately the site of one of the largest contingency
plan
implementations in the universe of waste burning cement plants for many
years
until the Essroc incident (see session 2). David
Weeks commented on the fact that some of the compounds
evaluated did not have available toxicity data and how cumulative risk
assessment is the next big thing from regulators. He
said that Region VI is already doing it, Region V is
moving to it and Region IV is moving in that direction.
The
next presentation also had to do with the state of Pennsylvania. Craig Evans of the PA Dept. of Env.
Protection spoke about a cumulative exposure project.
The project was based upon 1990 emissions and inventoried
148 HAPs of which 53 were carcinogenic.
USEPA had run modeling for 48 contiguous states.
They found that the magnitude of
emissions does not always correlate to concentrations and of 9 risk
drivers
only 6 had defensible correlation to concentration.
PADEP wanted to identify what was contributing to the risk
numbers. They found that benzene
concentrations could readily be traced to US Highways throughout PA. While no great surprise, the greater
risks occurred in the high population areas at which point Craig made
the
comment that "factories are built near where people live."
This author would comment that maybe we
should have Craig Evans working on environmental justice issues and
maybe that
issue would become much less complex.
At the
end of Craig's talk, David Weeks put in another plug for cumulative
risk
assessments.
Khanh
Tran of Applied Modeling, Inc next spoke about a comprehensive health
risk
assessment model for hazardous waste combustion facilities. Following up on some of the lawyer
jokes and comments made earlier in the day, he pointed out that he
finds
details and mathematical modeling is often more offensive to people
than
lawyers. He was also glad that
David Weeks had previously taken credit for the thousands of pages of
risk
assessment guidance because if attendees wanted to file a lawsuit they
should
go after David Weeks because all he (Khanh Tran) did, as a modeler was
follow
EPA guidance. He talked about a
model that he developed that met USEPA protocol, had been validated by
looking
at a hypothetical mercury situation and was efficient to use. David Weeks complimented Khanh on his
presentation and commented, "as multiple pathway risk assessment is
maturing we are seeing other models."
Benjing
Sun of EA Engr., Science & Technology next spoke about a road map
to
successful multipathway risk assessment for RCRA Part B permit
application. He started off his talk by
stating that
he was not debating the yes or no of a risk assessment but that once
the
decision has been made to perform a risk assessment then he can tell
you how to
do it right. He also pointed out
that the human health portion of the multipathway risk assessment
guidance is
1000 pages by itself. He did cite
successful MPRAs in Region VII.
The success of Region VII reminds this author that around
1993/94, a
Region IV represent-ative basically threatened all BIF conference
attendees
that year that they were coming to get them and they better have their
houses
in order. But Region VII
threatened no one and quietly and efficiently went about the business
of
getting final BIF/RCRA permits and now they have all of their waste
burning
cement plants under permit and Region IV has none.
Kind of makes one wonder.
David
Weeks ended the session by pointing out that Region VI updates their
risk
assessment parameters on a regular basis and is available on their web
site. He cited a recent example
where risks associated with eggs and chickens had been reduced by a
factor of
ten.
SESSION
9 - PERFORMANCE TESTING
Following
the break, Session 9 began. George
Cobb of Air Source Technologies was the chairperson.
Dave Constans of Gossman Consulting, Inc. (and Combustion
Performances Services, Inc.) talked about requirements associated with
the HWC
MACT Continuous Monitoring System Performance Evaluation Plan
regulations. Dave's paper can be found at http://gcisolutions.com/dlcawma01.htm.
The
next speaker was David Gossman of Gossman Consulting, Inc. who looked
at
factors influencing emission levels of PCDD/PCDF from cement kilns. Dave looked at industry-wide data
thinking that since there was no 100% direct demonstrated correlation
between
APCD inlet temperature or chlorine input and D/F emissions, he might
find
something having to do with hydrocarbons in raw materials.
However, his data demonstrated that not
only was there still no correlation with APCD inlet temperature, there
did not
appear to be any correlation with hydrocarbon input either across the
industry.
This paper can be found at http://gcisolutions.com/dgawma01.htm
SESSION
10 - SCIENCE BEHIND COMPLIANCE
Session
9 moved right into session 10 with Mike Harrell of Ash Grove chairing
the
session. Paul Gorman of Midwest
Research Institute talked about three different PM continuous emission
monitors. His real time data was
collected over a six month period and he seemed to question whether or
not they
were reliable and/or durable but pointed out that they did meet
performance
specification 11. Testing was
performed at a power plant. Paul
concluded "this project demonstrated that the three PM-CEMS met the
criteria in draft performance specification 11 for the initial
correlation but
did not meet the RCA criteria in draft Procedure 2 for either of the
two
RCAs."
The
next speaker was John Arnold of Mechanical Systems, Inc. who also spoke
about
particulate monitoring. He talked
about the Beta Gauge system and how he had been involved in the
development of
over 350 CEMs systems and how that experience had taught him that
different PM
sizes get different responses out of light dispersive CEMs. He did sing the praises of the Beta
Gauge system but gave no cement plant examples of any significance.
SESSION
11 - CONTROL & MONITORING EQUIPMENT
Session
10 then moved into session 11.
Norris Johnson, technical co-chair of the entire conference [he
had been
hiding as an attendee in the audience up to this point] now stepped
forward as
the session 11 chairperson.
Craig
Chrispell of Lone Star Industries in Greencastle Indiana was the first
session
11 presenter and also the last presenter of the day.
He took a practical look at CEMs and particulate
emissions. Greencastle modified
their kiln which triggered PSD and caused them to perform a series of
tests to
figure out how the modified kiln was going to operate.
Craig presented data that demonstrated
how opacity could be an effective predictor of particulate matter
emissions. Hopefully regulators
were listening.
DAY 3
SESSION
11 - CONTROL & MONITORING EQUIPMENT (CONT.)
The
final day of the conference began with a continuation of Session 11 so
Mike
Harrell reintroduced Norris Johnson of Lone Star Industries Cape
Girardeau
Missouri facility as the session chair.
The
first speaker of the day was Tim Menke of Lone Star Industries, Inc.
from
Greencastle Indiana. Tim talked
about the decision making process for choosing the semi-dry process
modification on their existing cement kiln. Some
of the reasons included extra long retention time,
reducing conditions in the riser duct, scrubbing action of calcium
oxide in the
calciner and the bypass system. An
indicator that their decision seems to be making sense already is that
it does
a great job of keeping the sulfur in the clinker which does great
things for
early strengths and fits well with the market of today.
Norris
Johnson himself was the next speaker.
His presentation addressed an operational experiment that he
conducted
whereby he monitored the baghouse pressure at his facility (as required
by BIF
and his permit) and he purposefully set one of the bags so that it had
a
"hole" in it. He also
monitored opacity during this time period. It
was clear that the baghouse pressure did NOT indicate
when the baghouse had a problem but the opacity obviously did. The monitoring of every bag in the
baghouse portion of the rule has currently been rescinded and will be
re-proposed.
SESSION
12 - COMPLIANCE ENFORCEMENT
Following
questions and answers at the end of Session 11 the conference moved
right into
Session 12. Mike Harrell
introduced Curtis Lesslie as the session chair. He,
in turn, introduced Ing Van Buren from the Netherlands
who spoke about the state of regulations there versus the state of
regulations
here in the US and she asked for as much help as we could provide. However, one of the attendees turned
out to be from the Netherlands and was much more familiar with their
regulations. A spirited discussion
ensued which livened up the last day of the conference tremendously. On one hand, Van Buren seemed to be
right on the money but when it came to other issues, there was
disagreement
The
next speaker was Bryce Tobyne of Tetra Tech EM, Inc. who spoke about
MACT &
RCRA compliance enforcement issues.
He started off with a statistician joke that sounded amazingly
similar
to the lawyer joke told earlier in the conference, except he added that
the answer
was very long in coming. Bryce
talked about all the reasons a facility could get audited and the
myriad of
issues associated with those various audits/inspections.
One thing that he did point out was
that you could educate your employees to answer questions without
spilling
their guts. Good advice.
Session
chair Curtis Lesslie gave the next presentation entitled "Effective
Communication of Your Facility's Compliance Status to Your
Inspector." Curtis explained
that up until recently he had worked as a Kansas regulator but has
recently
switched over to consulting. He
further explained that sometimes he feels like the last Boy Scout. His primary point was to know your
inspector. He also pointed out
"contrary to what my father-in-law used to say (Dr. Paul Peters),
"KDHE inspectors do not get paid according to violations that they
find." This drew quite a
chuckle from the crowd. He ended
his presentation by stating, "a confused inspector is a dangerous
inspector." Following
questions and answers at the end of the session, it was time for a
break.
SESSION
13 - OVERLAPPING/INTEGRATING BIF & NESHAPS REQUIREMENTS &
COMPLIANCE
DEMONSTRATIONS
Dan
Wilkus of Black & Veatch Corporation was the session chair for
Session 13
(lucky 13; actually it was lucky because it was the last session of the
conference and by the end of any conference, EVERYONE is looking for
that last
session). The first speaker of the final session was Jim Woodford of
Gossman
Consulting, Inc. (yours truly) who presented a comparison between BIF
testing
and waste combustor MACT testing. I will spare you the gory details but
a
couple of highlights were the allowance for combining metals into two
groups
and allowing one metal in each group to be spiked as a surrogate and
the
dropping of barium & silver from any consideration plus dropping
the
requirement for a maximum combustion chamber temperature. One of the
less
attractive issues was the adding of dioxins/furans to the non-haz
demonstration
for CKD as this is not only a joke but adds $1,000 per analysis. You
can find
this paper on our website at: http://gcisolutions.com/jwawma01.htm.
The
next presenter was Ed Shepard of Schreiber & Yonley whose paper was
entitled, "Cost for Complying with the Proposed Cement Kiln Dust Rule”.
Then
that speaker that all attendees were waiting for, the last speaker of
the
conference was Deborah Henry of Black & Veach.
Her original presentation had been titled "Overlapping
BIF & HWC NESHAPs Requirements; Dioxin/Furan Considerations" but by
the time of her talk, it turned out that her title had been prescient
because
most of the stuff in her paper had been overlapped or covered at least
once and
in some cases more than once. Consequently, even at the speaker
breakfast
before the start of the third day, she was modifying her modified/new
presentation that ended up being called, "PBT Rule Considerations for
the
Cement Manufacturing Industry."
On October 29, 1999 EPA published a final rule under Section 313
of the
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) that
lowers
the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting thresholds for persistent
bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemicals and adds other PBT chemicals to
the list
of covered chemicals. The PBT rule
is effective for the 2000-reporting year with the first Form R reports
for PBT
chemicals due on July 1, 2001.
Deborah's presentation provided a brief review of the
implications of
the PBT rule to cement manufacturing facilities and provided
suggestions for
facilities preparing to comply with the new reporting requirements. A
brief
overview of the CERCLA section 103 and EPCRA section 304 Continuous
Release
Reporting program was also provided with an emphasis on those listed
chemicals
of most concern to cement manufacturing facilities.
As a
sort of wrap-up to this conference summary, Gossman Consulting, Inc.
would like
to acknowledge some long time cement people who unfortunately for the
industry,
recently retired. There very well may be others out there that deserve
recognition but three that GCI are quite familiar with are Stan
Ehinger, who
retired from the plant manger position at the Holnam Clarksville
Missouri
facility, Walter Greer who retired from Ash Grove Cement (although it
is often
said that retired cement people don't fade away, they just become
consultants -
as Walter did) and Horace Compton who retired from the plant manager
position
at the Lafarge Fredonia Kansas facility. Hats off to Stan who was one
of the
best plant managers in the country when it came to knowing what his
kiln could
do. Kudos to Walter who proudly
announced three BIF conferences ago that he & Ash Grove managed to
get the
first waste fuels/RCRA permit at a cement plant in the entire country
and who
did it WITHOUT the help of consultants [risk assessors excepted] - and
now he
are one (Walter was also the owner of the jack booted thugs comment). Last but certainly not least, accolades
to Horace who without a doubt was the best plant manger in the country
when it
came to keeping his old wet kiln running in business and making money
by
experimenting with getting as much waste into his kiln as possible. Horace lived the dream of trying to
make good clinker by putting 100% waste materials into his cement
manufacturing
process. While he didn't get
there, he got a lot closer than anyone else in the country and maybe
the
world. Congratulations to all of
you! You will be missed.