[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 120 (Monday, June 23, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 33868-33870]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-16353]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-5845-8]
Notice of Availability of Waste Minimization Software and
Documents
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.
ACTION: Notice of availability for public comment of a draft software
package and other draft documents pertaining to priorities for waste
minimization.
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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the
availability of a beta-test version of a software package which will
prioritize chemicals according to their persistence, bioaccumulation,
toxicity, and quantity; a draft list of chemicals derived from the
software and ranked according to persistence, bioaccumulation, and
toxicity; and a crosswalk identifying which RCRA waste codes are likely
to contain these chemicals. These materials have been prepared in order
to assist hazardous waste generators, government agencies, technical
assistance centers, and others involved in waste minimization in making
progress towards the goals of EPA's 1994 Waste Minimization National
Plan, which calls for a fifty percent reduction in the presence of the
most persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals in hazardous
wastes by the year 2005.
DATES: Written comments will be received by August 7, 1997 to the
addresses below.
ADDRESSES: Please send an original and two copies of comments,
referencing docket number F-97-MPCA-FFFFF, to: RCRA Docket Information
Center, Office of Solid Waste (5305G), U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency Headquarters (EPA, HQ), 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460.
Hand deliveries of comments should be made to the Arlington, VA,
address listed below. Comments may also be submitted electronically by
sending electronic mail through the Internet to: rcra-
[email protected]. Comments in electronic format should also be
identified by the docket number F-97-MPCA-FFFFF. All electronic
comments must be submitted as an ASCII file avoiding the use of special
characters and any form of encryption.
Commenters should not submit electronically any confidential
business information (CBI). An original and two copies of CBI must be
submitted under separate cover to: RCRA CBI Document Control Officer,
Office of Solid Waste (5305W), U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, Washington,
DC 20460.
Public comments and supporting materials are available for viewing
in the RCRA Information Center (RIC), located at Crystal Gateway I,
First Floor, 1235 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA. The RIC is
open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding federal
holidays. To review docket materials, it is recommended that the public
make an appointment by calling (703) 603-9230. The public may copy a
maximum of 100 pages from any regulatory docket at no charge.
Additional copies cost $0.15/page.
Copies of the software package and the documents cited in this
notice can be obtained by calling the RCRA/Superfund/CERCLA Hotline at
(800) 424-9346, TDD (800) 553-7672 (hearing impaired), or (703) 412-
9810 in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Eastern time.
The software package and documents are also available in electronic
format on the Internet, and can be obtained by accessing:
WWW: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/minimize.
FTP: ftp.epa/gov
Login: anonymous
Password: your Internet address
Files are located in /pub/gopher/OSWRCRA.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general questions pertaining to
waste minimization, specific aspects of this notice, or information on
public meetings to discuss comments, contact the RCRA/Superfund/EPCRA
Hotline at the telephone numbers cited above, or U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste, Waste Minimization Branch,
401 M Street, SW., (5302W), Washington, DC 20460; telephone: (703) 308-
8402, fax: (703) 308-8433.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
In November 1994, EPA released the Waste Minimization National Plan
(National Plan, WMNP). The National Plan focuses on reducing the
generation and subsequent release to the environment of the most
persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals in hazardous wastes,
and establishes three goals:
(1) To reduce, as a nation, the presence of the most persistent,
bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals in hazardous wastes by 25 percent
by the year 2000 and by 50 percent by the year 2005.
(2) To avoid transferring these chemicals across environmental
media.
(3) To ensure that these chemicals are reduced at their source
whenever possible, or, when not possible, that they are recycled in an
environmentally sound manner.
Persistent chemicals do not readily break down once they are
released into the environment. Bioaccumulative chemicals tend to
accumulate in plant and animal tissues. Toxic chemicals have the
potential to harm ecological systems or adversely impact human health
(e.g., can cause cancer, reproductive, and mutagenic health effects).
These three characteristics of chemicals are considered important
determinants of the human health and environmental risks associated
with environmental releases, or potential releases, or chemicals.
Chemicals that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic, therefore,
have the potential to accumulate in the environment and cause harm to
human health and the environment, even when released in small amounts.
The National Plan seeks a voluntary reduction of these chemicals in
hazardous waste so as to reduce the potential for future harm to human
health and the environment.
[[Page 33869]]
During development of the Waste Minimization National Plan,
stakeholders indicated a need for assistance in setting waste
minimization priorities, specifically, the need for a flexible
screening tool to prioritize waste minimization activities. EPA
committed in the National Plan to developing a software tool which
would help establish waste minimization priorities based on the
inherent hazard of chemicals based on characteristics of chemicals in
wastes as generated, specifically on persistence, bioaccumulation, and
toxicity characteristics of chemicals in hazardous wastes, as well as
chemical quantity. EPA will also use the software tool to establish
national waste minimization priorities by selecting certain chemicals
and measuring national reductions in the presence of these chemicals in
hazardous wastes.
Today's notice announces the availability of: (1) The Draft Waste
Minimization Prioritization Tool, a software package which ranks
chemicals according to persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity, and
allows users to add chemical quantity data into the ranking process;
(2) The Draft User's Guide and System Documentation; (3) The Draft
Prioritized Chemical List, a list of chemicals that have gone through
the persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity prioritization process
and their relative rankings; and (4) The Draft Chemical/RCRA Waste Code
Crosswalk, a crosswalk of RCRA hazardous waste codes and the chemicals
they are likely to contain.
II. Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool
The Prioritization Tool is a Windows-based computer program that
houses available persistence, bioaccumulation, and human and ecological
toxicity data and provides a relative ranking of nearly 900 chemicals
based on their persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity scores. The
software also allows users to import their own data on chemical
quantities for use in the scoring algorithm.
A. Scoring Aspects of the Prioritization Tool
The Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool was developed by
modifying the Use Cluster Scoring System, which EPA's Office of
Pollution Prevention and Toxics developed as a screening mechanism to
rank the relative risk of chemicals that can substitute for one another
within certain chemical and technology use categories (e.g., solvents
that can be used for metal degreasing). EPA added a larger subset of
chemicals found in hazardous wastes into the software's database and
made other modifications to make the Use Cluster Scoring System more
useful as a waste minimization prioritization tool.
The persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity, and quantity scoring
algorithm is the primary component of the Waste Minimization
Prioritization Tool. The scoring algorithm assigns chemical-specific
scores based on the chemicals' potential to pose risk to human health
and aquatic ecosystems. The scoring algorithm is a screening tool and
is not intended to be used as a substitute for detailed risk analysis.
The Prioritization Tool provides a relative risk ranking of chemicals
rather than an absolute measure of risk (i.e., it provides a chemical
score or ranking that indicates potential concerns relative to other
scored chemicals).
Four factors were used to develop the overall chemical score: Human
toxicity (including cancer and non-cancer effects); human exposure
potential (based on persistence and bioaccumulation potential);
ecological toxicity (determined by aquatic toxicity); and ecological
exposure potential (based on the same scores persistence and
bioaccumulation potential scores as for human exposure potential). Sub-
scores of 1 (lowest), 2, or 3 (highest) are assigned for each of the
components based on an evaluation of chemical data and then summed to
create an overall score ranging from 18 (highest) to 6 (lowest). For
example, dioxin is assigned a score of 18 as follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2, 3, 7, 8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin Score
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Human Health Risk Potential:
Persistence.................................................. 3
Bioaccumulation.............................................. 3
Human Toxicity............................................... 3
Ecological Risk Potential:
Persistence.................................................. 3
Bioaccumulation.............................................. 3
Aquatic Toxicity............................................. 3
Overall Score.................................................. 18
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The software also allows users to add chemical quantity data into
the scoring algorithm. Because the software is flexible, a variety of
types of chemical quantity data can be added, ranging from facility-
level data to national data, depending on user needs.
Complete data sets (i.e., data sets for human toxicity, aquatic
toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation potential) existed for
nearly 900 chemicals, which were then ranked in the Waste Minimization
Prioritization Tool. EPA used the Waste Minimization Prioritization
Tool to generate a Draft Prioritized Chemical List, discussed below.
The software also includes partial data sets for an additional 3800
chemicals.
B. Supplementary Information in the Prioritization Tool
The Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool also provides
supplementary information relevant to risk-based decision-making,
including information on which RCRA hazardous wastes are likely to
contain the scored chemicals (i.e., Chemical-RCRA Waste Code
Crosswalk), as well as whether the chemicals appear on other national
environmental regulatory and non-regulatory lists of concern.
1. Draft Chemical/RCRA Waste Code Crosswalk
The Draft Chemical-RCRA Waste Code Crosswalk portion of the Waste
Minimization Prioritization Tool links each of the nearly 600 RCRA
hazardous waste codes with about 500 chemicals likely to be found in
these wastes. The crosswalk feature in the Prioritization Tool can be
used two different ways: To identify RCRA waste codes that are likely
to contain a particular chemical, and to identify which chemicals are
likely to be found in a particular RCRA waste code. EPA used background
analysis for hazardous waste listing rulemakings, Land Disposal
Restrictions rulemakings, and the proposed Hazardous Waste
Identification Rule to identify linkages between the chemicals and RCRA
hazardous wastes.
Hard-copy versions of the Draft Chemical/RCRA Waste Code Crosswalk
can also be obtained through the addresses above.
2. Lists of Concern
Each chemical in the Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool is also
cross-referenced with seventeen regulatory and non-regulatory lists,
including the Clean Air Act Amendments Title III Hazardous Air
Pollutants, the Clean Water Act section 307 Priority Pollutants, RCRA
section 3001 Hazardous Wastes, Appendix VIII Hazardous Constituents and
Appendix IX Ground Water Monitoring List, and RCRA P and U Wastes
(261.33).
3. Draft Prioritized Chemical List
The list of chemicals with available persistence, bioaccumulation,
and toxicity data and, therefore, able to be scored by the Waste
Minimization Prioritization Tool is known as the Draft Prioritized
Chemical List. The Draft Prioritized Chemical List is a relative
ranking of the nearly nine hundred
[[Page 33870]]
chemicals based on the chemicals' persistence, bioaccumulation, and
toxicity. EPA will draw from the chemicals on the Draft Prioritized
Chemical List to create a National Waste Minimization Measurement List,
which EPA will track nationally against the goals of the Waste
Minimization National Plan and will report as part of Government
Performance and Results Act reporting. The Prioritized Chemical List is
included in the appendices of the documentation for the Waste
Minimization Prioritization Tool. Additional hard copy versions of the
Prioritized Chemical List can be obtained through the addresses above.
III. Topics for Public Comments
EPA is interested in getting public comment on the following topics
and questions. Please separate any comments into these topic
categories.
A. Technical Aspects of Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool Software
This includes comments on the substance of the software, including
the underlying chemical data, the algorithms used for chemical scoring
and ranking, and the basic functions and products provided by the
software (i.e., the Chemical/RCRA Waste Code Crosswalk and the
regulatory lists).
Questions
--Are there specific improvements that EPA could make to the chemical
data and algorithms to improve the software's scientific foundation,
keeping in mind the intended purpose of the software, the rationale for
EPA's chemical screening approach, and the context for application of
the software discussed in Chapter 1 of the WMPT User's Guide and System
Documentation (e.g., to provide relative rankings of chemicals
according to persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity and to select
priority chemicals for national waste minimization activities?)
--Which functions and products provided by the software are most useful
(e.g., scoring and ranking chemicals based on PBT; scoring and ranking
chemicals, waste streams, facilities, and sectors based on PBT and
chemical quantity; translating between chemicals and RCRA hazardous
waste codes; and identifying regulatory and non-regulatory lists that
chemicals appear on)? What additional functions and products should be
provided by the software?
B. Presentation Aspects of Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool
Software
This includes comments on the ease of use of the software and the
presentation of the different screens in the software.
Questions
--How could the functions provided by the software be made easier to
use and understand (e.g., editing/viewing scores and underlying data;
importing chemical quantity data and conducting rankings based on PBT
and quantity; and generating reports and printing/saving them)?
--How could the appearance of the menus and screens in the software be
improved?
--What kinds of help information should be incorporated in the
software? What kinds of technical support or training should EPA
provide separate from the software (e.g., training courses, telephone
hotline assistance, on-line assistance)?
--Does your organization have sufficient computer hardware and staff to
operate and apply the software?
C. Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool User's Guide and System
Documentation
This includes any comments related to the supporting written
documentation for the software.
--What other information could be provided in the documentation to make
it more useful in applying the software and understanding its
scientific foundations? How could the written documentation be made
easier to read and use?
D. Potential Applications of the Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool
--Related to the potential applications of the software that are
discussed in Chapter 3 of the WMPT User's Guide and System
Documentation (e.g., identifying source reduction priorities for waste
streams at a facility level or priority chemicals for waste
minimization outreach at a state level), how would your organization
apply the software? How would results from the WMPT fit in with your
current waste minimization and management priorities? What other
specific applications would the software be useful for?
Dated: May 29, 1997.
Elizabeth A. Cotsworth,
Acting Director, Office of Solid Waste.
[FR Doc. 97-16353 Filed 6-20-97; 8:45 am]
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