[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 111 (Friday, June 8, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30917-30920]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-14475]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-6993-2]


Science Advisory Board; Notification of Public Advisory Committee 
Meetings

    Pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-463, 
notice is hereby given of four meetings

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of the Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS) of the US EPA 
Science Advisory Board's (SAB) Environmental Engineering Committee 
(EEC). The meetings are open to the public, however, seating is limited 
and available on a first come basis. Important Notice: Documents that 
are the subject of SAB reviews are normally available from the 
originating EPA office and are not available from the SAB Office--
information concerning availability of documents from the relevant 
Program Office is included below.

1. Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS)--First 
Teleconference Meeting--June 26, 2001

    The Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS) will meet by 
conference call from noon-2 pm Eastern time on June 26, 2001. Members 
of the public wishing to participate in the teleconference must make 
arrangements with Ms. Mary Winston by noon the Wednesday before the 
meeting. Instructions about how to participate in the conference call 
can be obtained by calling Ms. Mary Winston, Management Assistant, at 
(202) 564-4538, or via e-mail at: [email protected].
    The SISS welcomes written public comment and will accept oral 
comments during a portion of this conference call. The comment period 
will be limited to approximately 30 minutes in total with about five 
minutes allowed for per speaker. Additional opportunities for public 
comment will provided at the July 19 and August 27 conference call 
meetings as well as the September 17-19, 2001 face-to-face meeting.
    Purpose of the Meeting--The purpose of the conference call meeting 
is to allow the Committee and the Agency to discuss and refine, if 
necessary, the charge for the review of the Surface Impoundments Study 
and to make plans for the face-to-face meeting on September 17-19, 
2001.

Availability of Materials and Contact Information--See below.

2. Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS)--Teleconference 
Meeting--July 19, 2001

    The Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS) will meet by 
conference call from 1-3 pm Eastern time on July 19, 2001. Members of 
the public wishing to participate in the teleconference must make 
arrangements with Ms. Mary Winston by noon the Wednesday before the 
meeting. Instructions about how to participate in the conference call 
can be obtained by calling Ms. Mary Winston, Management Assistant, at 
(202) 564-4538, or via e-mail at: [email protected].
    The SISS welcomes written public comment and will accept oral 
comments during a portion of this conference call. The comment period 
will be limited to approximately 30 minutes in total with about five 
minutes allowed for per speaker. Additional opportunities for public 
comment will be provided at the August 27 conference call meeting as 
well as the September 17-19, 2001 face-to-face meeting.
    Purpose of the Meeting--The purpose of the conference call meeting 
is to allow the Subcommittee and the Agency to continue preparations 
for the face-to-face meeting. The chair plans to make writing 
assignments to the panelists and confirm that they have the materials 
necessary to complete them.

Availability of Materials and Contact Information--See below.

3. Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS)--Teleconference 
Meeting--August 27, 2001

    The Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS) will meet by 
conference call from 1-3 pm Eastern time on August 27, 2001. Members of 
the public wishing to participate in the teleconference must make 
arrangements with Ms. Mary Winston by noon the Wednesday before the 
meeting. Instructions about how to participate in the conference call 
can be obtained by calling Ms. Mary Winston, Management Assistant, at 
(202) 564-4538, or via e-mail at: [email protected].
    The SISS welcomes written public comment and will accept oral 
comments during a portion of this conference call. The comment period 
will be limited to approximately 30 minutes in total with about five 
minutes allowed for per speaker. Additional opportunities for public 
comment will provided at the September 17-19, 2001 face-to-face 
meeting.
    Purpose of the Meeting--The purpose of the conference call meeting 
is to allow the Subcommittee and the Agency to complete preparations 
for the face-to-face meeting. Panelists will discuss their preliminary, 
individual writings and accept comments on them.

Availability of Materials and Contact Information--See below.

4. Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS)--September 17-19, 
2001

    The Surface Impoundments Study Subcommittee (SISS) will meet Monday 
September 17 through Wednesday September 19, 2001, room 6530 of the 
Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC. The 
meeting will convene at 9:30 Eastern time on Monday September 17 and 
will adjourn no later than 3:00 pm Wednesday September 19, 2001.
    Purpose of the Meeting--The Subcommittee will review the Office of 
Solid Waste's Surface Impoundments Study and plans to prepare a draft 
report of the consensus findings, conclusions and recommendations 
resulting from that review. The Subcommittee may schedule a subsequent 
public conference call meeting to approve final language of its draft 
report before submitting it to the Environmental Engineering Committee 
for consideration. If so, that will be announced separately.
    Background: Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 
(RCRA), EPA allowed land placement of ``decharacterized'' wastes that 
were formerly characteristic hazardous wastes managed in wastewater 
systems, but had been treated or diluted to remove the characteristic 
hazard. The Land Disposal Program Flexibility Act of 1996 (LDPFA) 
required that EPA study the two types of land placement of these 
wastes: underground injection, and placement (storage, treatment or 
disposal) in surface impoundments. This peer review concerns only the 
surface impoundment waste management technique.
    The study of surface impoundments is also the subject of other 
regulatory and judicial developments. For certain types of facilities 
EPA was required to study human health risks from air inhalation of 105 
chemical constituents present in surface impoundments.
    Industrial Surface Impoundments in the United States is the report 
that discusses EPA's estimated risks to human health and the 
environment that may be posed by managing industrial nonhazardous 
wastes in surface impoundments. It provides estimates of cancer and 
non-cancer human health risks for individuals (receptors) who may be 
exposed to releases from surface impoundments used to manage 
wastewaters and wastewater treatment sludges, a screening analysis of 
other indirect pathway human health risks, and a screening analysis of 
the potential risks to ecological receptors. EPA will use the risk 
results, along with the analysis of existing regulatory and 
nonregulatory programs designed to address the risks (described in 
Chapter 4 of the report) to decide whether, and if so, how, to apply 
the land disposal restrictions or take other appropriate actions to 
address risks found.
    In 1997 a subcommittee of the Environmental Engineering Committee

[[Page 30919]]

Subcommittee reviewed the draft structure for this study. The 
Subcommittee commented on: a) the technical merits of the overall study 
structure; b) the technical merits of the proposed risk assessment; and 
c) the involvement of technical experts, affected facilities and the 
public at critical points in the study's design and implementation. 
This report (EPA-SAB-EEC-98-009) can be found in the Fiscal Year 1998 
Reports section of the SAB's website (www.epa.gov/sab).
    Charge to the Committee--The full charge will be posted at the 
SAB's website (www.epa.gov/sab). In summary, the Subcommittee is 
charged to address the following questions:
    (1)(a) Does the Science Advisory Board believe that the general 
methodology we chose for developing our risk analysis was appropriate 
for the policy questions posed in the statute and consent decree.
    (b) Regarding the overall study implementation, from design through 
sample selection, data collection and analysis, what areas of strength 
do you see in the overall methodology, and what areas of potential 
improvement or additional analysis do you recommend?
    (c) Did EPA adequately characterize the risks? Are the risk 
analysis and findings transparent? That is, are they explicit in:
 Describing the assessment approach, assumptions, 
extrapolations and use of models
 Describing plausible alternative assumptions
 Identifying data gaps
 Distinguishing science from policy
 Describing uncertainty, and
 Describing the relative strength of the assessment?
    (d) Please provide your assessment of the accuracy of EPA's overall 
study conclusions regarding risks to human health and the environment. 
Were the conclusions either false positive or false negative 
conclusions (finding risks of greater or lesser magnitude than the 
risks that likely exist)?
    (2)(a) Should EPA have performed a more in-depth evaluation of 
abnormal operating condition events? If so, what methods or approaches 
would the SAB recommend regarding collecting more reliable data, and 
modeling the probability and impacts of such events?
    (3)(a) For the indirect human health and ecological screening-level 
analyses, in the SAB's view, do the results point to areas of potential 
future research? If so, do you have recommendations on prioritizing 
future studies in these areas?
    (b) Based on the screening-level estimates we developed for other 
indirect and ecological risks, did it appear that we overlooked 
potential problem areas?
    (c) Did we clearly describe and properly characterize the other 
indirect human health and ecological risk analyses?
    (4)(a) Is it likely that EPA's data imputation protocol, or 
``surrogate data protocol'' for imputing waste composition data 
markedly affected the ultimate conclusions regarding potential risks? 
If so, in what direction did the protocol probably bias the 
conclusions?
    (b) Should EPA have used any other approaches for qualifying or 
presenting the data?
    (c) Was using the assumption that a chemical could be present up to 
the detection limit, when it was reported as being present below a 
detection limit, a reasonable concentration to choose for risk 
screening purposes?
    (d) Did the EPA-generated default detection limit protocol provide 
reasonable approximations of likely detection limits encountered in the 
field by the facilities, when the detection limits were not reported in 
the laboratory analysis?
    (e) Do the results that are based on imputed/detection limit data 
suggest that further analysis is needed?
    (5)(a) Although there are limitations of performing the comparison 
of survey and field sampling waste composition data, what is the SAB's 
view on EPA's conclusions about the accuracy of the reported survey 
data on chemical constituent concentrations/quantities?
    (b) What is the SAB's view on EPA's conclusion on the potential 
incomplete reporting of chemical constituents present?
    (c) Would the SAB recommend alternate approaches, in order to 
obtain the best possible information regarding the exact chemical 
constituents present, given the same budget and time constraints?
    (6)(a) Would the SAB recommend another approach for representing 
the groundwater source term, for example, performing a bounding 
analysis, using the sludge data, where available, to represent an upper 
bound of the groundwater source term, and using wastewater data as the 
lower bound, for those chemical constituents for which this situation 
may be an issue?
    (b) Compared to other sources of uncertainty in the groundwater and 
groundwater to surface water pathway analyses, how large a source of 
uncertainty does the decision to use wastewater composition data appear 
to introduce into the overall study conclusions?
    Availability of Materials--The background materials provided to the 
Subcommittee are available at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/ldr/icr/ldr-impd.htm. A limited number of paper copies can be obtained by 
contacting Shannon Sturgeon, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 
Office of Solid Waste (5307W), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20460. Ms. Sturgeon may 
also be contacted at 703 605 0509 or via e-mail at 
[email protected]. The draft meeting agenda may be obtained from 
Ms. Mary Winston, Management Assistant, at (202) 564-4538, or via e-
mail at:[email protected] approximately two weeks before the 
meeting.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Any member of the public wishing further 
information concerning this meeting or wishing to submit brief oral 
comments (10 minutes or less) must contact Ms. Kathleen White, 
Designated Federal Officer, Science Advisory Board (1400A), U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 
Washington, DC 20460; telephone (202) 564-4559; fax (202) 501-0582; or 
via e-mail at [email protected]. Requests for oral comments must 
be in writing (e-mail, fax or mail) and received by Ms. White no later 
than noon Eastern Standard Time on the Wednesday before the scheduled 
meeting.

Providing Oral or Written Comments at SAB Meetings

    It is the policy of the Science Advisory Board to accept written 
public comments of any length, and to accommodate oral public comments 
whenever possible. The Science Advisory Board expects that public 
statements presented at its meetings will not be repetitive of 
previously submitted oral or written statements. Oral Comments: In 
general, each individual or group requesting an oral presentation at a 
face-to-face meeting will be limited to a total time of ten minutes. 
For these teleconference meetings, opportunities for oral comment have 
been expanded to no more than five minutes per speaker and no more than 
thirty minutes total. Deadlines for getting on the public speaker list 
for a meeting are given above. Speakers should bring at least 35 copies 
of their comments and presentation slides for distribution to the 
reviewers and public at the meeting. Written Comments: Although the SAB 
accepts written comments until the date

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of the meeting (unless otherwise stated), written comments should be 
received in the SAB Staff Office at least one week prior to the meeting 
date so that the comments may be made available to the committee for 
their consideration. Comments should be supplied to Ms. White at the 
address/contact information noted above in the following formats: one 
hard copy with original signature, and one electronic copy via e-mail 
(acceptable file format: WordPerfect, Word, or Rich Text files (in IBM-
PC/Windows 95/98 format). Those providing written comments and who 
attend the meeting are also asked to bring 25 copies of their comments 
for public distribution.
    General Information--Additional information concerning the Science 
Advisory Board, its structure, function, and composition, may be found 
on the SAB Website (http://www.epa.gov/sab) and in The FY2000 Annual 
Report of the Staff Director which is available from the SAB 
Publications Staff at (202) 564-4533 or via fax at (202) 501-0256. 
Committee rosters, draft Agendas and meeting calendars are also located 
on our website.
    Meeting Access--Individuals requiring special accommodation at this 
meeting, including wheelchair access to the conference room, should 
contact Ms. Winston at least five business days prior to the meeting so 
that appropriate arrangements can be made.

    Dated: May 31, 2001.
John R. Fowle, III,
Acting Staff Director, Science Advisory Board.
[FR Doc. 01-14475 Filed 6-7-01; 8:45 am]
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