R96003D.PDF

ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

January 9, 1997

IN THE MATTER OF:

)

STEEL AND FOUNDRY INDUSTRY WASTE

)

R96-3

LANDFILLS: AMENDMENTS TO 35 ILL.

) (Rulemaking - Land)

ADM. CODE 817.309 (FACILITY LOCATION

)

FOR LANDFILLS ACCEPTING

)

POTENTIALLY USABLE WASTE)

)

Adopted Rule. Final Order.

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD (by R.C. Flemal):

This matter comes before the Board upon a petition for rulemaking filed by the Illinois

Cast Metals Association (ICMA) on September 6, 1995. ICMA filed a revised petition on

February 26, 1996. By today’s action the Board adopts amendments to 35 Ill. Adm. Code

817.309 in accord with ICMA’s revised proposal. In pertinent part, Section 817.309

establishes minimum setback distances and strata thicknesses between the waste unit and Class

I and Class III groundwaters. The instant amendments allow the owner or operator to make a

demonstration to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency) that, the absence of

natural barriers notwithstanding, the unit could be operated in a manner protective of human

health and the environment.

The Board's responsibility in this matter arises from the Environmental Protection Act

(Act) (415 ILCS 5/1

et seq

. (1994)). The Board is charged therein to "determine, define and

implement the environmental control standards applicable in the State of Illinois" (415 ILCS

5/5(b)(1994)). More generally, the Board's rulemaking charge is based on the system of

checks and balances integral to Illinois environmental governance: the Board bears

responsibility for the rulemaking and principal adjudicatory functions; the Agency has primary

responsibility for administration of the Act and the Board's regulations, including the

regulations adopted today. The Agency has indicated that it does not oppose the instant

amendments. (Exh. 3.)

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

ICMA filed its initial proposal on September 6, 1995. By order of September 21, 1995

the Board accepted the proposal for hearing.

Hearings were scheduled on the initial proposal for November 28 and 30, 1995.

However, by filing of November 22, 1995 ICMA moved the Board to postpone the hearings

pending additional discussion of the proposal with the Agency.

On February 26, 1996 ICMA withdrew the initial petition and filed a revised petition.

In the initial proposal, ICMA sought to effectuate the rule change it sought by amendment of

35 Ill. Adm. Code 814.902

. In the revised proposal the locus of the proposed amendments

was changed to 35 Ill. Adm. Code 817.309.

Public hearings were held before hearing officer Audrey Lozuk-Lawless in Chicago on

June 24, 1996 and in Edwardsville on June 26, 1996. ICMA presented the testimony of

Michael Slattery and Christopher Peters, both of Residuals Management Technology, Inc.

The Agency presented the testimony of Kenneth W. Liss, manager of the Groundwater Unit,

Permit Section, of the Agency’s Bureau of Land.

In response to considerations raised at hearing, on July 18, 1996 ICMA filed revised

proposed language. The Board adopted that proposal for first notice by Board order of

August 15, 1996. Publication occurred at 20

Illinois Register

11554 (August 30, 1996).

On November 7, 1996 the Board adopted a proposal for second notice. On December

17, 1996 the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) voted “no objection” to the

Board taking final action on this matter.

OVERVIEW

Today’s amendments have antecedents in two prior Board rulemakings. In the first of

these, R88-7, the Board adopted a broadly applicable and extensively revised set of regulations

governing non-hazardous waste landfills

The R88-7 rulemaking resulted in the establishment of several categories of waste for

which waste-specific landfill standards were established. Among these, for example, are

standards applicable to putrescible waste landfills. The principle underlying waste-specific

landfilling standards is that different types of waste may have sufficiently different properties

as to warrant distinct provisions governing their disposal. Moreover, the Board recognized at

the time that the R88-7 rulemaking was finalized, that there were additional categories of

wastes for which further waste-specific landfill standards might be warranted.

Section 814.902 contains miscellaneous standards for the operation and closure of existing

landfill units that (a) accept only potentially usable steel or foundry industry waste and (b) plan

to stay open for more than two years.

See In the Matter of: Development, Operating and Reporting Requirements for Non-

hazardous Waste Landfills R88-7, 114 PCB 483, August 17, 1990, effective September 18,

1990.

One such additional category explicitly identified in the R88-7 rulemaking and in the

regulations themselves is “wastes generated by foundries and primary steel production

facilities” (35 Ill. Adm. Code 811.101(b)). In the second of the two antecedent rulemakings,

docketed as R90-26(A)

and R90-26(B)

, the Board adopted regulations governing the land

disposal of a variety of steel and foundry industry non-hazardous wastes. Included in the R90-

26 rulemakings was adoption of Part 817, which is at issue in the instant proceeding.

Today’s focus is on only a small portion of Part 817

, the portion that deals with

landfills that receive only potentially usable steel and foundry industry waste. Potentially

usable waste (PUW) is one of the three types of steel and foundry industry wastes for which

waste-specific landfilling standards were developed in the R90-26 rulemakings. “Potentially

usable waste” is defined at 35 Ill. Adm. Code 810.103 as:

“Potentially usable waste” means any solid waste from the steel and foundry

industries that will not decompose biologically, burn, serve as food for vectors,

form a gas, cause an odor, or form a leachate that contains constituents that

exceed the limits for this type of waste as specified at 35 Ill. Adm. Code

817.106.

Moreover, today’s focus is only on the facility location standards for PUW landfills

and, further, only on that aspect of the location standards that concerns the positioning of the

landfills with respect to Class I and Class III groundwaters

. The current regulations at Section

817.309(b) contain a prohibition against the siting of any new PUW landfill where any part of

the landfill unit is within 1200 feet, vertically or horizontally, of a Class I or Class III

groundwater, unless there is an intervening confining layer of specific properties:

* * *

No part of a unit shall be located within the recharge zone or within 366

meters (1200 feet), vertically or horizontally, of that portion of a

stratigraphic unit containing Class I or Class III groundwater as defined

at 35 Ill. Adm. Code 620, unless there is a stratum between the bottom

In the Matter of: Steel and Foundry Industry Amendments to the Landfill Regulations (35

Ill. Adm. Code 810 through 815 and 817) R90-86(A), July 21, 1994.

In the Matter of: Steel and Foundry Industry Amendments to the Landfill Regulations (35

Ill. Adm. Code 810 through 815 and 817) R90-86(B), September 1, 1994.

See today’s order for the full text of the table of contents of Part 817.

Class I groundwaters are groundwaters that constitute potable resources, as defined at 35 Ill.

Adm. Code 620.210. Class III groundwaters are groundwaters that, pursuant to 35 Ill. Adm.

Code 620.250, are explicitly designated as “Special Resources Groundwaters”; as of this date,

no Class III groundwaters have been designated.

of the waste disposal unit and the top of the Class I or Class III

groundwater that meets the following minimum requirements:

The stratum has a minimum thickness of 15.2 meters (50 feet);

The maximum hydraulic conductivity in both the horizontal and

vertical directions is no more than 1 x 10

-7

centimeters per

second, as determined by in situ borehole or equivalent tests;

There is no indication of continuous sand or silt seams, faults,

fractures or cracks within the stratum that may provide parts for

migration; and

Age dating of extracted water samples from both the aquifer and

the stratum indicates that the time of travel for water percolating

downward through the relatively impermeable stratum is no faster

than 15.2 meters (50 feet) in 100 years.

* * *

Today’s new rules retain this prohibition generally, but allow for an exception if the

owner or operator of the unit successfully demonstrates to the Agency that siting of the unit

will not degrade the use of any Class I groundwater or adversely impact any existing Class III

groundwater.

The Board notes that, although Part 817 is titled “Requirements for New Steel and

Foundry Industry Wastes Landfills” (emphasis added), today’s amendments, through the

operation of 35 Ill. Adm. Code 814.902(a), also apply to existing PUW landfills.

JUSTIFICATION

Environmental Considerations

The purpose of the existing Section 817.309(b) is to provide assurance that steel and

foundry industry waste landfills will not be sited in such manner as to cause or allow pollution

of adjacent groundwaters. This assurance is currently provided by the requirement of a large

spacial separation between the landfill and groundwater, or by the requirement of a intervening

confining layer. Today’s amendments provide a third assurance mechanism. That mechanism

is a demonstration made to and accepted by the Agency that the landfill will not pollute the

groundwater based on the site-specific character of both the landfill and the groundwater.

This third exemption would require the operator or owner of the landfill to demonstrate

to the Agency that the unit will not impact any existing Class III groundwater or impact any

Class I groundwater such that treatment or further treatment will be required to allow

reasonable use of such Class I groundwater for potable water supply purposes. ICMA

contends, and we agree, that there are certain hydrogeologic situations in which existing PUW

landfills pose a negligible potential for impacts to downgradient potable water supply wells or

to surface water. ICMA further requests, and we again agree, that an applicant should be

allowed to site or continue to operate a PUW landfill if such a technical demonstration is

made.

Economic Considerations

ICMA describes the economic considerations motivating their proposal as follows:

ICMA is aware of several facilities in current operation who have the

potential to benefit from this proposal. It is also believed that there are several

inactive landfills which, if the rule is changed, have the potential to re-open.

Finally, the proposed revision will allow new landfills to be sited in locations

that are currently prohibited even though a landfill would have no reasonable

likelihood of adversely impacting downgradient groundwater users.

We have prepared disposal cost estimates for an average-sized foundry

who: (1) sends its waste to an offsite landfill; (2) operates a chemical waste

landfill; or (3) operates a PUW landfill . . . Of interest to this rule making is

the difference between offsite disposal and disposal in a PUW landfill. That

difference is . . . estimated at $1,327,560 per year per landfill.

In addition, diversion of PUW wastes to chemical waste landfills would

reduce the capacity of those landfills by hundreds of thousands of tons per year.

ICMA believes the limited capacity of chemical waste landfills should be used

for more difficult to manage industrial wastes which create a greater threat to

the environment than does PUW.

An additional benefit of this rule making is the continued segregation of

PUW from chemical wastes. Since the promulgation of Part 817 in July 1994,

the Illinois Cast Metals Association (ICMA) has continued to work with

regulators and the foundry industry to promote beneficial use of foundry sand

materials. ICMA held several seminars to promote the new rule making and

educate the membership on protocol for becoming a beneficial use participant.

ICMA has additionally sought out new approaches to promote beneficial

use on a statewide basis. One such approach was to meet with Illinois

Department of Transportation (IDOT) officials in the Bureau of Materials and

Physical Research Division to seek their participation in utilizing foundry

byproduct materials for highway construction material. IDOT is considering a

specification for foundry byproducts materials in construction back fill and

indicated they will work with individual foundries to qualify materials for

construction use.

ICMA has initiated a contract with the University of Illinois to conduct

research on beneficial use of foundry materials for the potential use in

improving the drainage of Illinois farm soils and the project is underway. The

research proposal from the University, entitled “Use of Foundry Green Sand to

Improve the Physical Properties of Poorly Drained Soils,” . . . represents the

scope of the project.

Substantial supplies of Potentially Useable Waste make it much easier to

convince a possible purchaser to consider the use of the material. ICMA

believes the current rule making effort is necessary to promote continuation of

PUW sites to assure a supply of construction materials when needed.

* * *

ICMA believes that the proposed revision will result in a net economic

and environmental benefit to the State of Illinois. It will allow existing facilities

to continue to operate and new facilities to be sited without seeking Board

approval for each siting decision.

Exhibit 1 at p 4-6.

CONCLUSION

The Board believes that ICMA has presented evidence warranting adoption of the

amendments as proposed.

ORDER

The Board directs that the following amendments be submitted to the Secretary of State

for final notice pursuant to Section 5-40 of the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act.

TITLE 35: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

SUBTITLE G: WASTE DISPOSAL

CHAPTER I: POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

SUBCHAPTER i: SOLID WASTE AND SPECIAL WASTE HAULING

PART 817

REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW STEEL AND FOUNDRY

INDUSTRY WASTES LANDFILLS

SUBPART A: GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

Section

817.101

Scope and Applicability

817.103

Determination of Waste Status

817.104

Sampling Frequency

817.105

Waste Classification

817.106

Waste Classification Limits

817.107

Waste Mining

SUBPART B: STANDARDS FOR MANAGEMENT OF BENEFICIALLY USABLE

STEEL AND FOUNDRY INDUSTRY WASTES

Section

817.201

Scope and Applicability

817.202

Limitations on Use

817.203

Notification

817.204

Long-Term Storage

SUBPART C: STEEL AND FOUNDRY INDUSTRY POTENTIALLY

USABLE WASTE LANDFILLS

Section

817.301

Scope and Applicability

817.302

Design Period

817.303

Final Cover

817.304

Final Slope and Stabilization

817.305

Leachate Sampling

817.306

Load Checking

817.307

Closure

817.308

Nuisance Precautions

817.309

Facility Location

SUBPART D: NEW STEEL AND FOUNDRY INDUSTRY LOW RISK WASTE

LANDFILLS

Section

817.401

Scope and Applicability

817.402

Facility Location

817.403

Design Period

817.404

Foundation and Mass Stability Analysis

817.405

Foundation Construction

817.406

Liner Systems

817.407

Leachate Drainage System

817.408

Leachate Collection System

817.409

Leachate Treatment and Disposal System

817.410

Final Cover System

817.411

Hydrogeologic Site Investigations

817.412

Plugging and Sealing of Drill Holes

817.413

Groundwater Impact Assessment

817.414

Design, Construction and Operation of Groundwater Monitoring Systems

817.415

Groundwater Monitoring Programs

817.416

Groundwater Quality Standards

817.417

Waste Placement

817.418

Final Slope and Stabilization

817.419

Load Checking

SUBPART E: CONSTRUCTION QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAMS

Section

817.501

Scope and Applicability

Section

817.Appendix A

Organic Chemical Constituents List

AUTHORITY: Implementing Sections 5, 21, 21.1, 22, 22.17, 28.1, and authorized by

Section 27 of the Environmental Protection Act [415 ILCS 5/5, 5/21, 5/21.1, 5/22, 5/22.17,

5/28.1, and 5/27].

SOURCE: Adopted in R90-26(A) at 18 Ill. Reg. 12411, effective August 1, 1994; amended

in R90-26(B) at 18 Ill. Reg. 14370, effective September 13, 1994; amended in R96-3 at 21 Ill.

Reg. _________, effective ______________________ .

Section 817.309

Facility Location

No part of a unit shall be located within a setback zone established pursuant to

Section 14.2 or 14.3 of the Act.

No part of a unit shall be located within the recharge zone or within 366 meters

(1200 feet), vertically or horizontally, of that portion of a stratigraphic unit

containing Class I or Class III groundwater as defined at 35 Ill. Adm. Code

620, unless:

There is a stratum between the bottom of the waste disposal unit and the

top of the Class I or Class III groundwater that meets the following

minimum requirements:

The stratum has a minimum thickness of 15.2 meters (50 feet);

B) The maximum hydraulic conductivity in both the horizontal and

vertical directions is no more than 1 x 10

-7

centimeters per

second, as determined by in situ borehole or equivalent tests;

There is no indication of continuous sand or silt seams, faults,

fractures or cracks within the stratum that may provide paths for

migration; and

Age dating of extracted water samples from both the aquifer and

the stratum indicates that the time of travel for water percolating

downward through the relatively impermeable stratum is no faster

than 15.2 meters (50 feet) in 100 years; or

The owner or operator of the unit has demonstrated to the Agency,

through the use of a site-specific groundwater model, or through other

appropriate means, such as historical knowledge of local conditions or

regional geological and hydrogeological data, that operation of the unit

will not adversely impact any existing Class III groundwater or impact

any Class I groundwater such that treatment or further treatment will be

required to allow reasonable use of such Class I groundwater for potable

water supply purposes.

Factors to be considered in evaluating whether a Class I

groundwater may be reasonably used for potable supply purposes

include, but are not limited to:

Physical or technological practicability of development;

ii)

Existence of deed restrictions or other legal mechanisms

for imposing a restriction on land use; and

iii)

The nature of an existing use of the groundwater.

In performing groundwater modeling, the owner or operator

shall:

Estimate the amount of seepage from the unit during

operations assuming that the actual design standards for

the unit apply;

ii)

Determine the concentration of constituents in the leachate

from actual leachate samples from the waste or similar

waste, or laboratory-derived extracts;

iii)

Collect information to develop the site-specific

groundwater model (e.g., hydraulic conductivity,

gradients, hydrogeology, stratigraphy);

iv)

Develop a conceptual groundwater flow model of the site

to determine the soil units through which leachate may

migrate;

If leachate from the unit is expected to contain organic

constituents in excess of the MALCs for beneficial usable

waste, determine the organic carbon content for soil units

through which the leachate constituents may migrate; and

vi)

Determine the retardation factor for constituents of

interest based on traditional hydrogeological methods.

Subsection (b) shall not apply to units that accept only beneficially useable

waste.

A facility located within 152 meters (500 feet) of the right of way of a township

or county road or State or interstate highway shall have its operations screened

from view by a barrier of natural objects, fences, barricades or plants no less

than 2.44 meters (8 feet) in height.

No part of a unit shall be located closer than 152 meters (500 feet) from an

occupied dwelling, school, or hospital that was occupied on the date when the

operator first applied for a permit to develop the unit or the facility containing

the unit, unless the owner of such dwelling, school, or hospital provides

permission to the operator, in writing, for a closer distance.

(Source: Amended at 21 Ill. Reg. ______________, effective __________________.)

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Board Member Marili McFawn dissented and Board Member Kathleen M. Hennessey

abstained.

I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control Board, hereby

certify that the above opinion and order was adopted on the _______ day of

___________________, 1997 by a vote of _______.

______________________________

Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk

Illinois Pollution Control Board