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RCRA Docket Information Information Center
Office of Solid Waste (5305W)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters
401 M Street S.W.
Washington D.C. 20460

NATIONAL CITIZENS ALLIANCE COMMENTS TO RCRA DOCKET NUMBER F-96-RCSP-FFFFF

The National Citizens Alliance (NCA) is a coalition of grassroots environmental organizations from communities across the U.S. where cement or aggregate kilns are burning or proposing to burn hazardous wastes. NCA was formed in 1993, and is dedicated to bringing regulatory equity to EPA's hazardous waste combustion policies.

NCA recognizes that the proposed MACT emissions standards for combustors as published in the Federal Register are voluminous and highly technical. NCA knows that it does not possess the resources or expertise to adequately comment on all of the MACT as proposed and is faithful that others, better equipped and credentialed, will provide crunched numbers and legalese to guide EPA in the right direction.

The NCA comments contained herein address areas of importance regarding how the MACT will or will not apply safe and protective standards for the environment and the people living in communities hosting waste-burning cement or aggregate kilns.

NCA thanks the reviewer of these comments for time expended.

PART ONE: The expanded MACT pool. Deja vu, "all over again."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants corporate, non-profit, and grassroots stakeholders, including the public at large, to waste their valuable time compiling and submitting comments on an agency proposal that is destined to "auger into the bog" long before it ever reaches the desk of Administrator Browner.

EPA staffers are always quivering with trepidation every time it's Federal Budget allocation time, but when you get your hands on the taxpayer's hard-earned cash, you treat it like CKD in the wind.

"Exhibit A" attached to that sad reality is this latest proposal, the (Proposed MACT Emissions Standards for Combustors).

As with the so-called "Enforcable Agreement" that went down in flames, the National Citizens Alliance (NCA) is here to tell you, your proposed MACT standards will not fly. In fact, even if it does get off the ground, it won't stay up there long, because there are "bombs" on board, i.e., the gerrymandered regulatory devices put in place by EPA to avoid the Clean Air Act (CAA) and satisfy special interests...devices that will only obliterate the entire MACT effort. Sadly, you already know about these, but are yet seeking clearance for takeoff.

Similarly, you were warned early on...during the "Enforcable Agreement" spectacle, where the EPA was caught skulking in the shadows with the Portland Cement Alliance and the Cement Kiln Recyling Coalition...that there was NO regulatory mechanism to concoct "govern yourself" deals with one of the dirtiest industries in the United States.

And, by the way, a foriegn-controlled industry with known cartel and illegal monopoly entanglements in Europe and Canada who will eventually impose artificially inflated construction costs through price-fixing on the already overburdened American consumer. (See Toronto Globe correspondent, Jock Ferguson's expose entitled "The Sultans of Cement".)

Well, the Sultans are here and they're actively subverting the MACT process just as they did with the EPA's Report to Congress on CKD.

Back then, in typical fashion, the EPA did not...or chose not, to heed the wisdom of various stakeholders and pranced ahead tossing taxpayer dollars like beads in a Bourbon Street parade. As you are keenly aware, some flabbergasted stakeholders filed Notices of Suit, and then the inevitable happened. The "Enforcable Agreement" was exposed as folly and quietly went away. But not after much valuable Agency time and resources had been scattered beyond hope of recovery.

Now you're proposing to do it all over again.

Citizen stakeholders, and most other stakeholders, including the EPA knows there is no regulatory mechanism to equate MACT emissions standards using an expanded pool. The requirements of the congressional statute Clean Air Act (CAA) are succinct, unambiguous, and meant to corral the EPA into setting emissions standards that are protective of human health and the environment. Simply put, the MACT standard MUST be calculated thusly:

1) For new sources, the standard MUST be calculated on the average associated with the "BEST controlled similar source."

2) For existing sources, the standard MUST be calculated on the average associated with the BEST 12% of sources, or the TOP 5 sources where there are not as many facilities in that source category.

Yet again, as with the enforcable agreement, EPA wants stakeholders to transcend that pesky "reality" thing, and have us comment in the abstract on a proposal that's outright illegal.

Additionally, the convoluted expanded pool approach EPA is proposing to use, will generate the exact opposite result that the statute was crafted to portray. The MACT will be weak, and it won't take a forensic scientist to expose the special interest fingerprints plastered all over it.

By bending to industry screamers and expanding the pool instead of calculating a "world class" MACT, you are clearly allowing the poorest poorest performers and lowest technology to frame emissions standards that are supposed to represent MAXIMUM (best) not MINIMUM (worst or so-so) Control Technology.

The perfect example of how EPA's "expanded pool" approach trashes the recently reauthorized Clean Air Act (CAA) is the proposed MACT number for PCDD/PCDF's (dioxins and furans) of 0.20ng/dscm.

0.20ng/dscm is miscalculated to the high end by at least a factor of ten. Cement kilns operating under this number will be allowed to emit 10 TIMES OR MORE PERMISSIBLE DIOXIN PER HOUR THAN A HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATOR. 

EPA "failed" to factor that a cement kiln has 8 to 10 times the stack gas flow of a hazardous waste incinerator and less than half the O2. Clearly, if EPA had remained true to CAA, the MACT standard for PCDD/PCDF's would be lower by a factor of 10. 

Thus, the standard for PCDD/PCDF's should be 0.02ng/dscm OR LOWER.  

But for the continuation of EPA's woeful policy of coddling waste-burning cement plants, EPA has squandered an opportunity to implement a dioxin standard equal to what best American technology can achieve.  

EPA KNOWS HOW TOXIC AND BIO-ACCUMULATIVE DIOXIN IS. American citizens will be put at risk. Good, law-abiding people living in Alpena, Chanute, Fredonia, Paulding, Harleyville, Midlothian, or any other waste-burning cement plant community in the U.S., will find it difficult to understand why EPA is allowing this to happen. It's wrongheaded, immoral and illegal. 

Another example, is the proposed standard of 630 ppmv total chlorine for cement kilns. Clearly, 630 ppmv HCl is not the true MACT "floor" if calculated properly. 

630 ppmv HCl is TRIPLE the HCl put out by the worst performing cement kiln in the country...a facility that should have been bulldozed out of the cement business decades ago, let alone included in calculating a MACT for TSD's. 

Whatever happened to Carol Browner's Combustion and Waste Minimization Strategy? Does the Administrator know what you're up to? The Counsel General? Right out of the gate...EPA looks like hell on this thing.

Be advised, people are fed up. If you don't get back on course and fly right on the MACT issue, quit playing games with the statutes and the health of the American people, in the very near future environmental lawyers may well outnumber Japanese lobbyists inside the beltway. It won't be pretty.

~ 

Now that EPA knows that most stakeholders are acutely cognizant of EPA's flawed and ultimately doomed approach to calculating what's MOST ACHIEVABLE by industry... and stands ready to vigorously challenge that approach...lets move along to the areas of the proposed rule where EPA is struggling to further provide special exemptions to cement kiln waste burners. 

To citizen stakeholders living in cement kiln communites, it appears that these exemptions are nothing more than the perpetuation of an incestuous fling between the EPA and the CKRC; an affair that's kept these inept and dangerous facilities up to their necks in an ocean of revenues provided by surreptitious and unpermitted access to the bulk of the country's hazardous waste-stream.

~ 

PART TWO: Special Exemptions for cement kiln waste-burners that must be removed from the EPA's proposed MACT standard are as follows:

A.) Process speciation and subcategorization of wet and dry burners. (FR 17415)

Because of the inherently antiquated, stagnant, and inefficient nature of wet-process cement kiln technology, the EPA should immediately phase these facilities out of the hazardous waste combustion universe.

Wet process kilns burning hazardous waste are dangerous and ineffective, and confound resource conservation and waste-minimization. ( You've heard it all before, it's true and you know it.) EPA's own database reveals that a wet process cement kiln burning only fossil fuels emits more dioxin than a hazardous waste incinerator.  

Furthermore, the inclusion of these units by EPA as a factor in the MACT equation calculation intones a lack of resolve by EPA to propose even mere (not more) stringent emissions standards loyal to the letter of the law.  

The inclusion of wet process cement kilns in any MACT scenario also demonstrates a puzzling trend by EPA of moving away from "technology forcing" regulations, the types of which hold the only hope for safe and protective "cradle to grave" waste management.

B.) 1. Failure to implement beyond the floor (BTF) MACT standards for Particulate Matter PM for cement kilns, while EPA went beyond the floor for incinerators (FR 17393) results in a dismal across-the-board PM standard. 

A true PM standard for cement kilns using CAA calculations should be 0.002 gr/dscf. 

Under EPA's flawed approach, the standard is 0.03 gr/dscf. 15 times the true MACT. 

2. EPA's failure to address the threat to human health and the environment imposed by uncontrolled fugitive CKD from waste-burning cement plants. 

The other morning I got up, poured a cup of coffee, and walked out to the river to inspect my boat to see if it had taken on water from a storm the night before. I live on the Devil's River in Ossineke, Michigan across Thunder Bay (Lake Huron) from the Lafarge Corporation waste-burning cement plant in the city of Alpena. Distance, about ten miles as the seagull flies. 

My boat was coated with CKD. Two blocks from my home is a rustic campground on the shores of the bay. I'm sure all the campers and their equipment were likeswise dusted with fugitive CKD from Lafarge as was every square inch of bay surface water between there and the plant. Fugitive? Or, was it a broken bag in the baghouse and it came out the stack? We've been told that at night or when it rains they (Lafarge) run with broken bags. It rained the night before... 

Haz-waste CKD is not inert. It's hazardous waste incinerator ash pure and simple. CKD generated from waste-burning cement plants has elevated heavy metals and has shown hits for dioxin, including the 2378 isomer. Sometimes the metals numbers exceed the levels of heavy metals in incinerator ash.  

A Rutgers University study done in Alpena recently reveals that Alpena citizens are carrying lead (Pb) in their blood tracable to fugitive CKD from the Lafarge cement plant. Portions of Thunder Bay are contaminated with heavy metals from CKD runoff.

But, you know all that, these are facts supported by EPA's own database.

For EPA to not go beyond the floor to calculate a PM standard for cement kilns means what? Has EPA finally aquiesced that many waste-burning cement plants can't do a decent job of PM (metals) control without spending significant money on upgrades and so EPA was thereby coerced to expanded the pool to keep most of these poorly run facilities in the lucrative waste business? Inquiring minds want to know. 

NCA recommendation: Redefine the MACT floor for PM for cement kilns following CAA guidelines. Include risk from uncontrolled fugitive CKD as dictated by the CAA, and then impose one very STRINGENT across the board PM standard for ALL COMBUSTORS.

C.) Proposed exemption from combustion zone temperature monitoring for waste-burning cement kilns. (FR 17423) and proposed exemption from CO and HC monitoring for waste-burning cement kilns with high organic raw materials. (FR 17398) 

Notwithstanding some secret EPA strategy meant to create Regulation Free Burn Zones (RFBZ's) in little haz-waste cement plant towns all over the U.S. , these proposals parade EPA's flamboyant willingness to grant the Cement Kiln Recycling Coalition (CKRC) anything in their their wildest dreams.  

Repeat after me.. These are hazardous waste incinerators. Say again. These are hazardous waste incinerators. EPA has to sit down and rethink this issue.  

My advice: Deny CKRC access to OSWER headquarters. They are not your friends. They make fun of you behind your back. Lock the door, hug your desk and do the right thing. Abandon these proposed exemptions. 

NCA recommendation: No exemptions for haz-waste incinerator cement kilns from CO, HC or temperature monitoring under any circumstance. These exemptions will only bring derision upon your agency, erode the last bulwark of citizen trust in EPA, totally eviscerate Administrator Browner's Combustion Strategy, and run Al Gore's book out of the stores and into the outhouse.  

Without these controls EPA is rolling the dice with the health and well-being of folks unlucky enough to reside in haz-waste cement kiln communities.  

TEMPERATURE, CO AND THC MONITORING ARE ALL THERE IS...TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT A KILN IS EQUILIBRATED AND RUNNING AT OPTIMUM, OR OTHERWISE...HOSING DOWN SOME POOR COMMUNITY WITH DANGEROUS PIC EMISSIONS. Please, strike these exemptions from your proposal.

D.) EPA's proposed continuation of a weak heavy-metals monitoring protocol for cement kiln waste-burners and proposed weaker alternative for testing these metals in CKD. (FR 17431)

Repeat after me. These are hazardous waste incinerators. Again. These are hazardous waste incinerators. What wild-eyed rationale could be behind providing an indirect mechanism for cement kilns to minimize metals monitoring? Is it that you really don't want to know how much metals are coming out the stack, or is it that you would rather the citizens never find out? Either way, this proposal smacks of collusion.

If commercial incinerators have to monitor the metals in the feed stock, then by God, so should cement kilns. EPA has no sane explanation for even thinking in this direction. Controlling metals in the feed stream before they enter the combustion device is the only safe and protective way to monitor stack metals emissions, and EPA knows it.

Or is it something more ominous? Did some CKRC operatives, the ones with beat up forty year old wet process kilns, who know that they can't comply even with your gerrymandered MACT numbers, ask EPA to look the other way for the THREE YEARS they get to PRETEND THEY INTEND to comply with standards they know they CAN'T MEET? 

By enjoying a loose and ineffectual heavy-metals testing protocol, they can go on a three-year-long waste-burning "bender" without ever having to worry about being pulled over. When it's done, and there isn't a mailbox standing in the neighborhood and the car is in the ditch, they can just walk away from it unscathed and unaccountable. 

NCA recommendation: You gotta be kidding. Do the right thing. Demand that metals be measured and controlled before they enter the combustion device, and adopt a rapid implementation schedule requiring combustors to immediately certify willingness to comply with the standards. No extensions or grace periods, and a guarantee that they will be hit hard BY SERIOUS ENFORCEMENT they are caught playing games with EPA to keep burning during the 3 year schedule.

E.) EPA's contention that Electrostatic Precipitators (ESP's) are the MACT equivalent to fabric filters (baghouses) (FR 17395)

EPA knows this isn't true and nobody will buy into it. If you were calculating automobile emissions standards, and it was proposed by the Big Three that straight-pipes on a 57' Chevy were the technological equivalent of a catalytic converter on a 96' Lincoln Town Car, you'd laugh them all the way down M Street.

This contention cannot stand. It subverts the MACT standard for Semi-volatile metals (SMV) by increasing the SMV standard for cement kilns from 57 to 160 ug/dscm. An almost three fold increase.

NCA recommendation: We are opposed to this false speciation. Fabric filters and ESP's are different animals and should be treated as such.

(Also, NCA stands opposed to EPA's proposal to delete emissions data from the MACT database that was derived from cement kilns which burned waste in the past, but then later got out of the business.) This proposed move by EPA will drive the MACT standard for SMVs for cement kilns away from an adequate standard by raising the SVM standard from 57 to 1200 ug/dscm. This is not good.

NCA recommendation: The data that EPA proposes to delete is valid and will have a significant impact on the final rule. This data must be included.

Respectfully submitted, August 19,1996

John C. Pruden, Director/facilitator
National Citizens Alliance
10702 Lake Ave
Ossineke, MI 49766 

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