Land Disposal Restrictions: Site-Specific Treatment Variances for Heritage Environmental Services LLC and Chemical Waste Management, Chemical Services, Inc

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) is today granting two site-specific treatment standard variances from the Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) treatment standards to Chemical Waste Management, Chemical Services LLC (CWM), and to Heritage Environmental Services LLC (Heritage), to treat a selenium-bearing hazardous waste from the glass manufacturing industry. This final rule follows a proposed rule and a subsequent request for comment. These facilities intend to treat and dispose of selenium-bearing hazardous waste from Guardian Industries Corp. (Guardian) at their RCRA permitted facilities in Model City, New York and Indianapolis, Indiana, respectively. Based on treatment data on a new proprietary chemical stabilization technology provided by Heritage, EPA is issuing variances so that both facilities may treat the Guardian waste to an alternate treatment standard of 11 mg/L selenium, as measured by the TCLP. Upon promulgation of this final rule, CWM and Heritage may dispose of the treated waste in permitted RCRA Subtitle C landfills, provided they meet the applicable LDR treatment standards for any other hazardous constituents in the waste. EPA is granting these variances because the chemical properties of the wastes differ significantly from the waste used to establish the current LDR standard for selenium (5.7 mg/L, as measured by the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP)), and the petitions have adequately demonstrated that the waste cannot be treated to meet this treatment standard.