Hanford Environmental Report
Dedicated to the Goal of 100% Environmental Compliance

Volume 21, Number 6 - June 11, 1999

From Washington, D.C.:

EPA AMENDS ITS ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT POLICY

EPA recently made several changes to its environmental audit policy. Under this policy, companies who want to qualify for reduced penalties from violations of environmental regulations must voluntarily disclose their violations after they are discovered through compliance audits or inspections done through a compliance or environmental management system program. Changes to this policy include:

• An extension of the time to report a violation from 10 days to 21 days;
• A clarification that EPA will release case information after a settlement unless the company makes a claim that it is confidential business information, a Freedom of Information Act exemption applies or another law does not allow the information to be released;
• A clarification that violations will be considered to be voluntarily discovered if they are found through an environmental audit or a compliance management system that was implemented because a company participated in an EPA partnership program; and
• A clarification that EPA does not intend to request a company's audit reports to determine if violations disclosed under the policy qualify for penalty mitigation unless the agency determines that the information is necessary and not readily available otherwise.

EPA will be publishing the audit policy in the Federal Register soon. For more information, email or call Marsha A_Beery@rl.gov of Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc.'s Regulatory Interface at (360) 709-0664.

From Olympia:

ECOLOGY BEGINS RULEMAKING TO AMEND THE DANGEROUS WASTE RULES

On May 19, Ecology published a preproposal statement of inquiry announcing that the rulemaking to amend Chapter 173-303 WAC, the Dangerous Waste Regulations, had begun. In this rulemaking, Ecology will amend the DW regulations to:

• Incorporate certain federal regulations that have been recently promulgated including the used oil regulations, the military munitions regulations, the expanded public participation regulation, Subpart CC air emission standards, the land disposal restriction phase 3 and 4 regulation, and the petroleum refining waste regulation.
• Delete the exemption for steel mill flue dust used as fertilizer;
• Modify the transportation requirements;
• Add mercury-containing lamps as a universal waste; and
• Make editorial and technical corrections.

In the notice, Ecology is soliciting public input on formulation of the regulations. Tony Miskho with FDH's Environmental Protection will be coordinating comments for the site throughout the rulemaking process. If you have any questions regarding the technical aspects of the regulation, email or call Anthony_G_Miskho@rl.gov with Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc. at (509) 376-7313. If you have any questions regarding the rulemaking process, email or call Marsha A_Beery@rl.gov of Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc.'s Regulatory Interface at (360) 709-0664.

BRIEFLY

• EPA's Science Advisory Board which provides information and advice to EPA on environmental concerns recently released a draft final report entitled, "Integrated Environmental Decision-Making in the Twenty-First Century: Summary Recommendations". This report was requested by Congress and EPA's administrator and provides a framework for EPA to move toward an integrated approach to environmental decision-making. The report can be accessed on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/sab.
• EPA recently released a document entitled, "Guidance for Conducting Health Risk Assessment of Chemical Mixtures." This draft guidance supplements EPA's 1986 guidance for assessing health risks from exposure to chemical mixtures (64 FR 23833) and provides three different sets of toxicological data that can be used in risk assessments of mixtures. The draft guidance can be obtained from the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/ncea/raf/rafpub.htm.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals recently struck down major elements of the air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter (American Trucking Associations v EPA, D.C., Cir., NO. 97-1440, 5/14/99) which were promulgated in July 1997. The Appeals Court found that EPA failed to articulate a sound basis for concluding that the standards were necessary to protect public health and remanded the rules to EPA to develop new standards that conform with Sections 108 and 109 of the Clean Air Act.