[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 250 (Wednesday, December 31, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 68287-68288]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-34102]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[OPPTS-400123; FRL-5763-8]
Toxics Data Reporting Committee of the National Advisory Council
for Environmental Policy and Technology; Notice of Public Meeting
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of public meeting.
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SUMMARY: Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, EPA gives notice of
a 2-day meeting of the Toxics Data Reporting Committee of the National
Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. This will be
the third meeting of the Toxics Data Reporting (TDR) Committee, whose
mission is to provide advice to EPA regarding the Agency's Toxics
Release Inventory (TRI) Program.
DATES: The public meeting will take place on January 29-30, 1998, from
8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Written and electronic comments in response to this
notice should be received by January 16, 1998.
ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held at: L'Enfant Plaza, 480 L'Enfant
Plaza SW., Washington, DC 20024, (202) 484-1000.
Each comment must bear the docket control number ``OPPTS-400123.''
All comments should be sent in triplicate to: OPPT Document Control
Officer (7407), Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics,
Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M St., SW., Room G099, East Tower,
Washington, DC 20460.
Comments and data may also be submitted electronically to: oppt.
[email protected]. Follow the instructions under Unit II. of this
document. No Confidential Business Information (CBI) should be
submitted through e-mail.
All comments which contain information claimed as CBI must be
clearly marked as such. Three sanitized copies of any comments
containing information claimed as CBI must also be submitted and will
be placed in the public record for this rulemaking. Persons submitting
information on any portion of which they believe is entitled to
treatment as CBI by EPA must assert a business confidentiality claim in
accordance with 40 CFR 2.203(b) for each such portion. This claim must
be made at the time that the information is submitted to EPA. If a
submitter does not assert a confidentiality claim at the time of
submission, EPA will consider this as a waiver of any confidentiality
claim and the information may be made available to the public by EPA
without further notice to the submitter.
[[Page 68288]]
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cassandra Vail, telephone: (202) 260-
0675, fax number: (202) 401-8142, e-mail:
[email protected]. or Michelle Price, telephone: (202)
260-3372, fax number: (202) 410-8142, e-mail:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
At the 2-day meeting, the TDR Committee will continue the
discussions begun at the January 29-30 meeting regarding how the
Agency's characterizes the TRI data through the annual public data
release. Concerns have been raised that EPA's presentation of the TRI
data can lead to public misperception of the data. The Committee will
be discussing possible recommendations on ways to more clearly present
release data to the public to distinguish between the various methods
of disposal while still making it possible to present meaningful
statistics on a national basis about releases. In addition the TDR
Committee will discuss how section 8 of the Form R collects information
required by the Pollution Prevention Act concerning waste management
and source reduction of toxic chemicals.
EPA would like specific comment on three issues relating to section
8 of the Form R.
1. Reporting of waste sent to publicly owned treatment works. In
particular, the Agency is interested in comments on how toxic chemicals
in wastes sent to publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) should be
reported in section 8. Historically, these chemicals have been reported
as treated in section 8.7 unless the toxic chemicals are metals. If the
toxic chemical is a metal, the facility would report the toxic chemical
as released in section 8.1 with the understanding that metals cannot be
destroyed and are usually landfilled after treatment by POTWs. Because
some chemicals can be ``treated'' to a limited extent at POTWs and
other chemicals cannot be ``treated'' at all and are ultimately
released by the POTW, EPA is soliciting comment on how these chemicals
should be reported in section 8. One option to address this issue is
that EPA could provide in the instructions a list of chemicals and the
treatment (destruction) efficiency expected to occur at POTWs with
secondary treatment capabilities. EPA would make available for review
and comment a list of toxic chemicals identified as released by POTWs.
The reporter could use the list to apportion quantities of the chemical
to be reported in section 8.1 (releases) and section 8.7 (quantities
treated off-site).
2. Public perception. EPA is asking for comment on how the
generation of the toxic chemical reported to have been managed as a
waste is perceived by the public. Section 8 collects information on
waste managed at the facility whether or not the waste was generated at
the reporting facility. Some individuals are concerned about public
misperception of the data in section 8 because of the focus on the
amount of waste managed at the facility, not waste generated. EPA would
like comments on ways to change section 8 of the Form R which would
continue to allow the user to assess wastes managed by the facility but
would minimize the perception that the wastes reported in section 8
were generated by the reporting facility.
3. Addition of data element. The Agency is requesting comment
regarding adding a data element that would indicate if the toxic
chemical is recycled on-site or off-site more than once during the
calendar year and if so, how many times it is recycled. For example, a
facility recycles batches of 100 pounds of the toxic chemical 10 times
throughout the year. The recycling process is 98 percent efficient with
the other two percent being sent off-site for disposal. The facility
would report 9,800 pounds as recycled on-site in section 8.4 and 200
pounds in as released in section 8.1. In section 8.4, the facility
would also indicate that the toxic chemical was recycled 10 times. The
public could then determine that although the facility recycled 9,800
pounds of the toxic chemical, because the facility recycled 10 times,
it actually only recycled 98 pounds each time.
A meeting summary from the December 9-10 TDR Committee meeting will
be available on the TRI Home Page. The address of the TRI Home Page is
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/tri. This summary can be found under the
heading ``TRI Stakeholder Dialogue.'' In addition, the agenda and an
issue paper outlining topics for discussion at the January 29-30
Committee meeting will also be available at this same site prior to the
meeting. Oral presentations or statements by interested parties will be
limited to 5 minutes. Interested parties are encouraged to contact
Cassandra Vail, to schedule presentations before the Committee.
II. Public Record and Electronic Submissions
The official record for this action, as well as the public version,
has been established for this action under docket control number
``OPPTS-400123'' (including comments and data submitted electronically
as described below). A public version of this record, including
printed, paper versions of electronic comments, which does not include
any information claimed as CBI, is available for inspection from 12
noon to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The
official rulemaking record is located in the TSCA Nonconfidential
Information Center, Rm. NE-B607, 401 M St., SW., Washington, DC.
Electronic comments can be sent directly to EPA at:
[email protected]
Electronic comments must be submitted as an ASCII file avoiding the
use of special characters and any form of encryption. Comments and data
will also be accepted on disks in WordPerfect 5.1/6.1 or ASCII file
format. All comments and data in electronic form must be identified by
the docket control number ``OPPTS-400123.'' Electronic comments on this
action may be filed online at many Federal Depository Libraries.
Dated: December 22, 1997.
Cassandra Vail,
Designated Federal Official.
[FR Doc. 97-34102 Filed 12-30-97; 8:45 am]
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