There were a couple of items in the environmental news cycle recently that grabbed my attention, both relating to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
RCRA Issues Part 1: Big Enforcement
The last blog we posted regarding environmental compliance and enforcement cases was on June 10th. In that blog, we reported about enforcement at Tonawanda Coke ($12 million) for Toxic Release Inventory violations. While that enforcement wasn’t exactly chump change, it pales in comparison to the recent $2 billion enforcement action announcement.
According to a news release, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Department of Justice reached a settlement with Mosaic Fertilizer that will resolve a series of allegations relating to violations under RCRA.
At issue was the treatment storage and disposal of an estimated 60 billion pounds of hazardous waste at six Mosaic facilities (the largest amount of waste ever covered in a RCRA case).
According to the news release from the EPA, “Mosaic Fertilizer will establish a $630 million trust fund, which will be invested until it reaches full funding of $1.8 billion. These funds will cover the future closure of and treatment of hazardous wastewater at four Mosaic facilities—the Bartow, New Wales and Riverview plants in Florida and the Uncle Sam plant in Louisiana—as well as the long-term care of those facilities and three additional facilities that are already undergoing closure. The Mosaic Company, Mosaic Fertilizer’s parent company, will provide financial guarantees for this work, and the settlement also requires Mosaic Fertilizer to submit a $50 million letter of credit.”
This was a pretty big deal. In fact, the Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, John C. Cruden, said, “This settlement represents our most significant enforcement action in the mining and mineral processing arena, and will have a significant impact on bringing all Mosaic facilities into compliance with the law.”
RCRA Issues Part 2: New Enforcement Trends
The second part of the current RCRA narrative is that, in contrast to the 60 billion pounds of hazardous waste cited in the Mosaic Fertilizer case, the United States generates far less waste than we have historically. As a result, there are fewer “targets” for enforcement. This may explain why the EPA is focusing on health care providers (hospitals and laboratories in particular) and retailers for RCRA enforcement. In a recent blog by Hayes Boone, they state, “What the EPA is finding is that many sources are improperly categorizing their waste generator status and not disclosing all of the hazardous waste they generate. The majority of these sources are underreporting the amount of hazardous waste they generate and dispose of in the TSDs [Treatment Storage and Disposal Facilities].”
This leads me to wonder aloud, “Do we have a generation gap (no pun intended) as it relates to RCRA related issues?” When I was in Graduate School in the Hazardous Waste Management Program, the regulated community was dealing with a lot of RCRA issues because the hazardous waste industry was relatively young (and so was I). With waste reduction and raw-material changes, we don’t have near the volume of hazardous waste, and don’t have the need to know, or at least we don’t think we have a need to know hazardous waste management/RCRA issues.
Waste generation from 1989 to 2011. Source: Right to Know Network
With much of the recent focus turned toward Waters of the United States and air quality issues, it’s easy to forget that regulation regarding hazardous-waste management is still very much alive and well. And, as if we needed reminding, RCRA still has serious regulatory teeth.
If you have questions about environmental compliance issues, including environmental compliance assessments, please feel free to contact me (jbolin@dragun.com) at 248-932-0228 ext. 125.