Table Of Content

Published by the Environmental Management Unit Logan Office Center A quarterly environmental newsletter Issue No. 19, Quarter III - 2004 EPA Considers New Discharge IN THE NEWS Guidelines United Airlines Fined for hazardous Background waste violations The Clean Water Act (CWA) directs the United Airlines, Inc. in San Francisco, California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to institute was fined $850,000 for hazardous waste violations. limitations guidelines and standards that reflect Inspectors found the airline had repeatedly violated pollutant reductions that can be achieved using the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act rules specific technologies. Effluent guidelines are requiring the following: national regulations for controlling the discharge of • Lids are placed on hazardous waste containers. pollutants to surface waters and to publicly owned • Waste be segregated and each container is treatment works (POTWs). The EPA develops properly labeled. effluent guidelines that are technology based and specific to an industry. An annual review takes • Hazardous waste is stored no longer than 90- place under CWA Section 304(b) and a plan is days. established under Section 304(m). The inspection was conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of The effluent guidelines program is one of EPA’s Toxic Substances. most successful environmental protection programs. The guidelines have helped reverse water quality From the Environmental Compliance Alert, August 16, 2004. degradation by reducing the discharge of pollutants that have serious environmental impacts. Some of North Andover Company Pays these impacts include: Penalties for Idling Violation • Kill or impair fish and other aquatic organisms The United States Environmental Protection • Cause human health problems through Agency (EPA) is seeking penalties totaling contaminated water, fish and shellfish $109,120 from a North Andover company for • Degrade aquatic ecosystems violating Massachusetts anti-idling regulations. The company, Material Installations, Inc. is a distributor To date EPA has issued guidelines for 56 industries of pre-manufactured office furniture. and estimated that this has prevented the discharge of more than 690 billion pounds of pollutants The complaint alleges that furniture trucks illegally annually. idled their trucks on-site for up to 1,000 minutes between April 2003 and March 2004. The company Proposed Guidelines then received another violation notice in June 2004. The EPA’s 2004 plan includes the results of the Agency’s annual review, a response to public The Massachusetts anti-idling regulation prohibits comments received on the preliminary plan; the idling the engine of any motor vehicle while the industrial sectors identified for effluent guidelines vehicle is stopped in excess of five minutes. This rulemaking; and a rulemaking schedule. regulation is part of the states plan to meet federal air quality standards and it is therefore enforceable In the 2004 Plan EPA identifies four industries for by the EPA. potential effluent guidelines. These are Airport Deicing Operations, Drinking Water Supply and FUN FACTS Treatment, Vinyl Chloride manufacturing, and As of January 1, 2005 hairspray will contain 55% Chlor-Alkali manufacturing. Both Airport Deicing volatile organic compounds as compared to 80% and Drinking Water Supply and Treatment are not today. The low-VOC products will still hold hair, but subject to existing effluent guidelines. will take longer to dry! Continued on Page 2 1 DID YOU KNOW? For Your In Canada they are using a lichen monitoring system to measure air quality. Lichens are primitive organisms that grow on almost any rough Information surface. Some species of lichens are sensitive to air pollution such as Paper or Plastic Bags sulphur and nitrogen based pollutions, particulate matter and ground level ozone. Lichen communities change as air quality changes. Which is better for Examining the types of lichens on trees can give you a measure of local air quality. the environment? THE FACTS Guidelines continued from page 1 Paper Airport Deicing Operations • Generate 70 percent more In their preliminary plan the EPA noted that there was inadequate data air and 50 times more water to determine if discharges were non-trivial and that it would obtain pollutants than plastic more data in future planning cycles. The public comments on airport deicing operations suggested that EPA develop effluent guidelines for • Made from trees, a this sector because of the potential for facilities to discharge non-trivial renewable resource amounts of non-conventional and toxic pollutants. • Take up more landfill space Many comments suggested that airport deicing fluid was not captured, • It takes four times as much reused or treated prior to discharge. At the time of the study it was energy to manufacture paper estimated that airports discharged approximately 21 million gallons of bags as it does to airport deicing fluid. It was estimated that these discharges could be manufacture plastic reduced to 4 million gallons with the implementation of effluent limitation guidelines and standards. • Research shows that 20 percent of paper bags are Since the preliminary plan the EPA has conducted a review of proposed recycled discharge permits for over twenty airports. The review indicated that while some airports have stringent requirements and have decreased discharges since the first review, there is still significant disparity Plastic among discharge requirements. EPA concluded that it is appropriate to identify the discharges from airport deicing operations in the final plan • Introduced in 1977 and now and has committed to taking final action on effluent guidelines by account for four out of five August 2007 bags in grocery stores The effluent guidelines for the category would only apply to • Made from polyethylene, wastewaters from airport deicing operations that are considered point which is made from crude source discharges. These include those discharges that are required to oil and natural gas, obtain a permit, such as a permit under the National Pollutant Discharge nonrenewable resources Elimination System. • One percent of plastic bags Excerpted from Federal Register: September 2, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 170) are recycled EnviroQuestion Neither plastic nor paper degrade at a significant rate in Question: Which creates more pollution, the average car or the average today’s landfills due to lack of home? water, light, oxygen and other Answer in the next issue. important factors in the process. Quarter II Question: How many bags of grass clippings are produced In New York City, one less each year by a ½ acre lawn? grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by five Answer: A ½ acre lawn in Massachusetts produces over 3 tons or nearly million pounds and save 260 bags of grass clippings each year. $250,000 in disposal costs! 2