In today's EHS Steering Committee conference call, there was some concern over 
the Subpart CC rules.  I'll give a little bit of history as to how Merix has 
approached this rule.  This may or may not be applicable to your company's 
specific situation!  Please  evaluate your own specific waste streams to 
determine whether you are affected by these rules.  The information that you 
need is in 61 FR 59932-59997.  

Background on Subpart AA, BB, and CC

Subpart AA rules apply to TSD facilities and generators of hazardous wastes 
(as do all three subparts).  Subpart AA is equipment-specific.  If you manage 
hazardous wastes that contact certain types of equipment (distillation, 
fractionation, solvent extraction, thin-film evaporators, air or steam 
strippers, etc.) then Subpart AA applies.  Since Merix doesn't operate any of 
that equipment, we didn't pursue this any further.  One question that I do 
have is:  What if you go for zero discharge, and evaporate your wastewater.  
This equipment contacts a listed hazardous waste (F006).  I don't know the 
rules well enough to know if a vacuum distillation makes this rule apply.  

Subpart BB rules apply to companies that handle wastes in 90-day storage 
areas.  If you manage hazardous wastes in 90-day storage areas that contain 
10% organics or greater, then the Subpart BB rules apply.  You then have to 
basically set up a detailed Leak Detection and Repair Program.  Again Merix 
did not fall under these rules.

Subpart CC applies to organic emissions from containers, tanks and surface 
impoundments.  If you have a hazardous waste that contains more than 500 ppm 
(by weight) organics, and it is managed in a container greater than 26 
gallons, these rules apply.  What Merix did was to look at all of our 
hazardous waste streams, and evaluated the MSDSs of all the products that went 
into the waste streams.  If there was organics in the waste stream, then we 
noted that.  If the MSDS listed proprietary ingredients, then we asked the 
manufacturer if the ingredients were organic or not.  We didn't have any 
problem getting this information.  We took the organic streams and included 
only the ones that had a container size of greater than 26 gallons.  So we 
culled out a lot of waste streams.

Next, we tested these organic streams, using EPA method 25D.  There are other 
approved test methods.  However, they don't analyze for all of the 
constituents that EPA is looking for.  So if you use one of them, you should 
ensure that the method accounts for everything that is in the stream.  If EPA 
audits your facility, they will use 25D.  You can use "process knowledge" 
rather than test, but you better be right.  In the Federal Register citation 
mentioned above, there is a table on page 59993 (Appendix VI to Part 265) that 
is a list of a lot of organic chemicals with a Henry's constant less that 0.1. 
 So if by process knowledge, you have determined that you have organics, but 
they are all in this list, you don't have to test for them.  These chemicals 
are not considered very volatile.  (God I wish EPA would give us a list like 
this for VOCs for air quality compliance!).

The sampling protocol is quite stringent.  I believe that we used 
teflon-coated stainless steel samplers,  strict preservation techniques, etc.  
You have to take 4 samples of each waste stream, attempting to account for any 
process variability that would affect the organic content of the waste stream. 
 These four samples have to be taken within a 1-year period.  The analysis 
costs were $200 per sample, so that is $800 per waste stream.

Merix had one stream over 500 ppm.  This was the drum that we collected the 
residue from puncturing aerosol cans.  We reduced the drum size to 20 gallons 
to fall out of the rule.  The next closest waste stream was a cleaner used in 
a soldermask developer (~400 ppm).  

I hope this helps clarify things somewhat.  Although I am not the expert in 
our company on these rules, if you have questions or concerns, let me know and 
I will ask the expert.

John Sharp, Merix Corporation
503-359-9300 (ext. 5-4351)
503-359-1040 FAX
[log in to unmask]

**************************************************************************
* The mail list is provided as a service by IPC using SmartList v3.05    *
************************************************************************** 
* To unsubscribe from this list at any time, send a message to:          *
* [log in to unmask] with <subject: unsubscribe> and no text. *
************************************************************************** 
* If you are having a problem with the ComplianceNet forum, please call  *
* Dmitriy Sklyar at 847-509-9700 ext. 311 or email at [log in to unmask]     *
**************************************************************************