Land Disposal Restrictions: Site-Specific Treatment Variance for Selenium Waste for Chemical Waste Management, Chemical Services LLC

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) is today proposing to grant a site-specific treatment standard variance from the Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) treatment standards for a selenium- bearing hazardous waste generated by the glass manufacturing industry. EPA is proposing to grant this variance because the chemical properties of the waste differ significantly from those of the waste used to establish the current LDR treatment standard for selenium (5.7 mg/L, as measured by the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP)), and the petition has adequately demonstrated that the waste cannot be treated to meet this treatment standard. In addition, EPA is also proposing to modify an existing treatment variance for this same waste that has been previously granted to another treatment facility. In the "Rules and Regulations" section of the Federal Register, we are publishing a parallel direct final rule that would grant this site-specific treatment variance without prior proposal because we view this action as noncontroversial and we anticipate no significant adverse comment. We have explained our reasons for this approach in the preamble to the direct final rule. If, however, based on today's proposed rule, we receive significant adverse comment, we will withdraw the direct final action and it will not take effect. We will address all public comments in a subsequent final rule based on this proposed rule. We will not institute a second comment period on this action. Any parties interested in commenting on the proposed variance must do so at this time.