GCI TECH NOTES ©
DAY 1
IMPLEMENTATION OF REGULATIONS, POLICIES, AND WORK PRACTICES
Mike Harrell of Ash Grove Cement Company, Technical Conference Chair, and Dave Alburty of Midwest Research Institute, General Conference Chair, kicked off this year's "BIF" conference, now officially known as the Hazardous Waste
Combustor Specialty Conference. Mike pointed out that this was the 10th conference, even though the ten conferences had occurred over more than a ten-year period.
An employee of Lone Star Industries, Inc., well known among the BIF crowd, was the Technical Conference Co-Chair but chose to remain transparent as one of the "attendees" of the conference. He will remain
anonymous for the moment. An article in "America's newspaper," USA Today had a Money section article about Jack Welch and GE. The article detailed how communication and
teamwork changed the thinking of one of the most successful businessmen in America today. Interestingly enough, as the conference unfolded, there almost seemed to be an unofficial theme of teamwork that
threaded it's way through various presentations as well.
SESSION 1 - PLANS & PROGRAMS
The first person to address the conference (unscheduled at the time) was Scott Rauenzahn of USEPA. He briefly took responsibility for why we were all gathered at the conference and then mentioned 28
amendments to the Waste Combustor MACT. Carrie Yonley of Schreiber and Yonley was the Session 1 Chair. The first scheduled speaker was Ken Herstowski of Region VII USEPA.
He spoke about planning a comprehensive performance test and mentioned that he had one approved comprehensive performance test in his region and two others that had been submitted.
While he didn't name names, the approved plan is for Ash Grove at Chanute Kansas (in conjunction with their new kiln and the required compliance test) and the two other plans are for Lone Star
Industries, Inc. in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and Continental Cement Company, LLC in Hannibal, Missouri. Both of these submitted plans were written and/or had input from Gossman Consulting, Incorporated.
A question from the audience at the end of Ken's talk queried as to whether submitting the plans 12 months in advance of a test date would be sufficient review time. It was
Ken's opinion that with the 9-month review provision in the rule, it should be sufficient time.
The next speaker was Brad Phillips who joined S&Y in 1998. His paper was entitled, A Practical Approach to Developing an Operation and Maintenance Plan. Brad pointed out
during his talk that he moves around a lot when he makes presentations because "as they tell all good consultants, it is hard to hit a moving target." Someone in the audience wondered quietly if that is
not what they tell other kinds of consultants. Brad explained that he had looked far and wide; utilizing the internet extensively, and that there are "no plans out there to go by."
He explained that he thought it would take a couple of plant man years to put together an Operation and Maintenance Plan, pointing out that "the environmental manager and/or corporate cannot do it and
time is running out." His point appeared to be that on short notice it was best to take a team approach. Probably his best advice was "don't put more in the plan than you
need." Concerning sources, standards and air pollution control device(s); he didn't think "the technical guy at the plant" could make those determinations.
One of his final points was that plants needed to look at competitors to make sure that you weren't "submitting something head and shoulders above the rest or something so Mickey Mouse that it won't pass
the laugh test."
Jerry Drake of Compliance Strategies & Solutions, Inc. was the next speaker. The paper was entitled Incorporating Statistics into a Waste Analysis Plan. Jerry talked about applying USEPA WAP guidance
but it was unclear as to whether or not he was aware of plants that were actually doing what he discussed. He did point out that "if you implement a statistical approach, be aware that there are not only
advantages but that there are also liabilities." It appeared that the liabilities would likely outweigh whatever advantages there might be.
Gary King of Safety Kleen spoke next. His paper was entitled Mercury Detection Limits and Feed Rate Controls. His presentation was based upon the expectation that feed rate
controls will be the primary way to meet the new HWC MACT standards. Through various analyses and experimentations, it was confirmed that by lowering the method detection limits (MDLs) in the
non-hazardous input streams, the allowable mercury input through the hazardous waste feed could be significantly increased.
The final speaker before the break was Michele Lusk of CKRC who brought the group up to speed on what was currently happening on the Waste Combustor MACT implementation issues. 1) Transition between 2
modes & calculation of the rolling average - the current language is to start anew and the upcoming technical amendment (T.A.) is expected to be a "retrieval" approach, or going back to the previous time under the same mode 2)
early compliance concerns; rule requires cessation of burning if there is failure of the ICPT but what about early compliance? T.A. will exempt early compliance from the documentation of compliance requirement 3) Use of previous DRE
test data; current language says only after 3/20/98 but T.A. will reportedly allow all DREs that have had proper QA/QC 4) Conflicting operational parameter limits; T.A. will encourage BIF like flexibility 5) data-in-lieu-of; 36
facilities across the country have used this approach and an EPA letter points out that 63.7(h) can be interpreted to allow data-in-lieu-of 6) the T.A. will also update the operator training requirement which is expected to allow
site specific application.
Following Michele's presentation, time was taken for questions from the Session 1 participants. One question asked about the process of making decisions concerning submitted requests for alternative
monitoring. The Ken Herstowski response was that if they were consistent with existing amendments then no problem and that one request had been approved on the technical merit and that one had been sent
to Washington. Michelle pointed out that there is the possibilities of two six-month extensions so DON'T do a test with an unapproved plan. Another question was concerning the
operator training and it is expected that there will need to be some sort of testing requirement even in the site specific scenario.
SESSION 2 - RECORDKEEPING
Mike Harrell was the session chair for Session 2. Talk about a guy who wore multiple hats. The first speaker after the break was Ken Frato. His
paper was entitled A Case for Effective Community Interaction. Ken relayed his and Lubrizol's story about finding out late in the game about compliance with the MACT Notice of Intent to Comply (NIC)
requirement and how teamwork helped him to meet that requirement. He got help from Lubrizol's 22-member community panel, which was established in 1993 as part of their Responsible Care Initiative.
The team approach really helped, given the short time frame he had to achieve compliance.
The next speaker was David Palmer of Crawford, Johnson, Robinson & Woods. His paper was entitled Building Public Support for a Major Expansion: The Ash Grove Cement Company Chanute Plant Story.
As a public relations person, he offered Exxon and the Exxon Valdez oil spill as a bad example of how to handle public relations and then as the good example, the much-studied example of Johnson &
Johnson and their reaction to Tylenol tampering. He offered six general points in dealing with the media; 1) you and the media have different agendas 2) you can't turn bad news into good news 3) if you
have to eat humble pie, take big bites 4) be the primary source of information for your organization 5) be prepared - control the interview and 6) manage media anxiety - be accessible, forthright and friendly.
Brian Graf of Essroc gave the next paper. His previously "To Be Announced" paper was entitled Successful Community and Industrial Planning. Anyone and everyone familiar with
hazardous waste burning in cement kilns is painfully aware of the explosion that took place at the Essroc plant in Logansport on February 18, 1999. Brian explained how beginning in 1985, he was involved
in developing an emergency management plan. In the extensive plan that was put together, he was the primary incident commander yet he was too far away to help at the time of the incident. The team
approach to developing the plan was very instrumental in how the plan worked when the explosion occurred. The incident occurred at 12:03 a.m., by 12:15 the necessary agencies were there and by 12:30 the
fire was out. Amazingly enough, 2 hours into the response, they were ready for cleanup.
Dr. Dennis Lane of the University of Kansas presented the final paper of the morning. His paper was entitled Southeast Kansas Air Quality Monitoring Study. He started off his
talk by relating an example of a study performed some years ago where a subject of little or no interest to the American public was subject to experimentation. False information was released into the
press and then a survey was conducted. Sure enough, 80% of the American people suddenly were concerned about the issue. While he did not identify the issue(s) he did add the
caveat that it was innocuous. Nonetheless, don't under estimate the effect of the press on your situation. A study is on the verge of being released that will include southeast
Kansas data concerning PM10, PM2.5, TSP, benzene, toluene, xylene, tri & tetrachloroethane, passive sample data for SO2 and NOx plus wet deposition samples for mercury. They initially used EPA models
but found them wholly inadequate and came up with their own models which were more dispersion and much less dry & wet deposition oriented. Paul Peters (actually Dr. Paul Peters) of southeast Kansas's
fame, provided input towards picking background sample locations. Sampling was performed for 1.5 years. A draft report will be going to USEPA by June 30, 2001.
When asked about the results, he provided a blank overhead and asked attendees to envision four quadrants which contained the following four corners; some adverse results but no adverse effects, some
adverse results and some adverse effects, no adverse results but some adverse effects and no adverse results with no adverse effects. Within his concluding remarks he pointed out that "public relations
and science is an interesting game" but "a difficult situation."
SESSION 3 - COMMUNICATION WITH THE PUBLIC
Following an excellent lunch (with no speaker this year), Session 3 began. Tita LaGrimas of Pollution Control Industries was the session chair. A little switcheroo on the
schedule and the first person to speak was Rich Lasher from the USEPA. His talk addressed the new manifest rule, which will ultimately allow electronic versions and processing, including an electronic
signature. Only one hard copy of the manifest will be required and that will be on the shipping truck. Rich pointed out that the pilot testing of the electronic manifest
reaffirmed Murphy's Law and he found out that "lawyers have a vested interest in paper." The manifest rule can be viewed at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/gener/manifest and comments are not only
welcome but are encouraged. The next speaker was Bob Campbell from Pollution Control Industries. His paper was entitled HWC NESHAP: A Generator's Perspective.
Bob had clearly been in the waste fuel blending business for many years as he mentioned discussions with Mike Benoit and Ted Reese in the early days. His main point was that
the USEPA was in the business of shutting down waste combustors. He explained that his data revealed that there had been 22 haz waste cement kilns in 1996, there were only 17 in 1998 and today there are
only 14 plants. Safety Kleen is closing down their Bridgeport, NJ and Coffeeville, KS facilities due to the costs of compliance. This editor would add that it seems clear that
the Carol Browner anti-combustion strategy is working.
The final paper before break (and originally unscheduled) was given by Mike Scanlon of Barnes & Thornburg. Mike spoke about A Review of Recent Judicial Action Revisiting the Age-Old Question: Is it
or; isn't; it a "Solid Waste"? His presentation addressed a challenge of the Phase IV land disposal restrictions and what was meant or intended by the word "discarded" and an American Mining Congress
ruling concerning the definition of "immediately reused." The battery recyclers have challenged the rule having to do with materials that are "destined for reuse as part of a continuous industrial process
and, therefore, is not abandoned or thrown away." The group then broke for exhibition viewing.
SESSION 4 - SUPPLIERS & GENERATORS
Fred Sigg, of Von Roll and the much written about WTI incinerator (thank you Al Gore), chaired session 4. Fred's first speaker was Duncan Kimbro of Franklin Engr. Group who's paper was
entitled, RCRA Permitting and 'Mini-Trial Burn Test Results for a Liquid Waste Incinerator Upgraded to Meet the HWC MACT Standards. This paper was sort of an update from a paper presented at the last Haz
Waste Combustor Conference about the Eastman Chemical incinerator(s) in Kingsport, TN. In brief, the facility was looking at what seemed to be an impossible situation in terms of getting into compliance,
but thanks to equipment manufacturers (last year), engineering expertise and of course, lots of consultants, the facility successfully demonstrated compliance with PM, LVM (Cr), dioxins/furans and CO/THC.
Let's hear it for the consultants! (author attempt at levity) The next speaker was Don Blair of Eli Lilly. Don spoke
about PM and metals CEMs and the progress made over the last year (actually several years) and results reported at the last Waste Combustor Conference. In Phase I the CEMs did not meet the performance
specification 11 criteria. In Phase II (after modifications) the CEMs did meet the performance specification 11 criteria and in the first quarter of 2000, everything was looking good.
They had just received data from the first quarter of 2001 and the Method 5 data looked pretty good and the range of data was spread out fairly equally but then they had problems with their calibration
correlation. The tolerance was out at 27% versus the need for 25% or less. The new data did not fall into the calibration curve and they did not meet performance specification
11. His conclusion(s) was that PM CEMs can be installed and run effectively for plant operations even though they don't meet performance specification 11. Of course that does
not meet the regulations. Lilly is also working with Cooper Environmental Systems to develop multi-metals CEMS. Expectations are to implement the plan this year, have
shakedown, develop the protocol, compare results to Method 29 and then publish the results. The bottom line is that Lilly believes that appropriate use of CEMs can be very cost effective.
Also, just for the sake of perspective, this author would point out that Don is the plant person who has to live with the operations (or lack thereof) of the CEMs.
The next presenter was Jurgen Wirling of Rheinbraun Brernstoff Gmbh who presented a paper entitled Implementation of Process-Integrated Waste Gas Cleaning Using Lignite Coke. Von Roll provided the next
speaker, Bill Bailey, who spoke about Maximizing Operational Flexibility under the Hazardous Waste Combustor NESHAP Through the Employment of Innovative Monitoring and Testing Protocols. Most people
familiar with Von Roll and WTI already know that they are an emissions performance leader in the industry. They are clearly the most highly scrutinized plant in the United States, again, thank you Al
Gore. A previous speaker had linked the current HWC MACT with WTI and while Bill did not necessarily concur, he did acknowledge that the Browner (anti) combustion strategy in 1993 was probably a result of the WTI startup.
With the help of Eli Lilly, WTI has been evaluating two PM CEMs and an HCl analyzer. In addition, WTI has done much work on multi-metals CEMs but there have been some
developmental problems. When working, it works great, but there has been excessive down time. They are also looking at two multi-metals units.
SESSION 5 - MACT IMPLEMENTATION
Session 4 went right into Session 5. The son-in-law of the well-known Dr. Paul Peters of Lafarge was the session chair, Curtis Lesslie of Trinity Consultants. Curtis was
formerly a Kansas regulator and had only recently donned a white hat (or black hat depending upon your perspective). The first speaker he introduced was Scott Ellis of Schrieber & Yonley.
His paper was entitled Title V Operating Permit Strategic Planning. He talked about many transitions; WAP to FAP; PCOC to DOC; COC/ROC to NOC; RCRA training to operator
certification and overall; RCRA/BIF permit to Clean Air Act Title V permit. He ended his talk on a lighthearted note by borrowing the blank overhead technique of Dr. Dennis Lane earlier and his charge to
the attendees to "visualize a conclusion." However, his primary point was that "a facility is out of compliance if it does not do what is described in the permit." Scott's
presentation ended on schedule as everyone migrated to the reception in the exhibition area. Day 1 successfully completed.
DAY 2
SESSION 6 - HWC NESHAPS
Dave Alburty, General Conference Chair, kicked off the first session of Day 2 by introducing the chair of Session 6, Dick Stoll. Anyone active in hazardous waste burning cement plant activities is
familiar with the name of Dick Stoll. Dick started off by talking about decisions whereby the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the early cessation portion of the Waste Combustor MACT was "a classic case of
an arbitrary and capricious ruling" and Dick was kind enough to provide all attendees to his session with a copy of his paper. A copy can also be obtained by contacting Dick at rstoll@foleylaw.com and we
should all stay tuned for continuing legal activities. Mary Ellen Ternes then spoke about how to design a test burn and resulting permit provisions to limit enforcement under Title V.
She pointed out that the new residence time requirement in the rule would be a perfect opportunity for enforcement fines. She was also concerned about the broader citizen suit
provisions and EPA indications that they will likely over-file state lawsuits so industry will have a double whammy. A wave of vocal agreement accompanied the announcement by Dick Stoll that they were
pursuing a ruling that EPA could only require site specific risk assessments if it were put through the rulemaking process. This would seem to be consistent with the American Power ruling that remanded
periodic monitoring guidance because it became/becomes defacto rules/requirements without having gone through the rulemaking process.
Stu Weis of Honigam, Miller, Schwartz & Cohn was the next speaker. Readers may remember Stu from when he worked for Holnam Corporate in Dundee Michigan. Stu kicked off with
a lawyer joke about two people being lost, asking someone where they were and hearing the response that they were lost. One said to the other, must be a lawyer to which he queried how he know that.
Well, what he told us was 100% accurate but the information was totally useless. Stu then talked about how the battery recycler's case (presented the day before by Mike
Scanlon) may have an affect on CKD. He strongly recommended that industry take a good detailed look at the general provisions of the rule and determine what affect they might have.
He also made a point to warn attendees not to believe everything they read on the EPA web site(s) [such as the HWC Tool Kit] but to use it as a source of information.
The next lawyer to talk was David Friedland of Beveridge & Diamond. David talked about additional D.C. Court litigation and CAA enforcement. He pointed out that the HWC
NESHAP rules apply under startup, shutdown & malfunction plans as long as there is hazardous waste in the combustion chamber and that general provisions apply when waste is not in the combustions chamber.
Dick Stoll added that the philosophy at USEPA has been that with hazardous waste you can tighten the rule all you want and that is all right.
The final speaker before break was Alok Ahuja of Lathrop and Gage who spoke about avenues other than litigation. His client, Ash Grove, was caught in a limbo situation where construction had started on
their new kiln before the rule was finalized (of course for THAT matter it is still not finalized) and they had a monitoring location situation that EPA could not have foreseen so they did a "petition for reconsideration."
They have been told that the next (imminent) technical amendment would address the Ash Grove issues. In the question and answer time at the end of the session, Dick Stoll was
asked about the time frame on the SSRA court decision. He said that there could be a ruling any day now and that there would then be a minimum 9 months to 1 year time frame for the process.
Then it was time for the 9:55 a.m. break and off to the exhibition area.
SESSION 7 - PC MACT & OTHER NESHAPS
Mike Harrell introduced Michelle Lusk of CKRC, the chair for Session 7. Michelle kicked off the session by pointing out that there had been 75 to 100 issues at the time the waste combustor rule was
published in the Federal Register. Through interaction with the Agency they addressed approximately 50 of those issues and now it has come down to about 8 primary issues that are still getting attention.
The first speaker of this session was Andy O'Hare of APCA. He talked about the Portland Cement rule (the non-hazardous version of the waste combustor MACT) and explained that
APCA & membership identified 15 or 16 issues originally and then filed a petition. They decided that these issues could be worked out and began settlement negotiations.
However, thanks to a challenge by the Sierra Club, EPA must now go back and consider mercury, HCl and total hydrocarbons. As a result of this challenge, the courts also gave
EPA authority over process changes and raw material considerations. Raw materials have been thought to be off limits up to this point (although it never seemed to make any difference for Hazardous Waste
Combustors - see Dick Stoll comments).
David Novello of The Law Offices of David Novello, LLC was the next speaker. David covered many of the same issues that had been addressed by a previous speaker but he provided a 112 overview and then
focused on metals and dioxins/furans. He stated that that it was "really key to understanding how Part 63 Subpart A general provisions interact with HWC MACT" and when waste combustor kilns are covered
under one rule or the other. He also explained that D/F averaging under PC MACT was 3 hrs and under HWC MACT it was a 1 hour average. This is being litigated and the approach
is one that has turned into a favorite phrase of this author, "arbitrary and capricious."
The session co-chair, Bob Schreiber (of Schreiber & Yonley, Assoc.) introduced Pam Muren of Missouri DNR as the next speaker. Her talk was titled, "Portland Cement Maximum Achievable Control
Technology; PC MACT; 40CFR Part 63; Subpart LLL Implementation. In MO there are five PC MACT facilities, 2 of these have Title V permits and 1 kiln has a Title V permit AND is subject to waste combustor
MACT. The startup, shutdown and malfunction plan was included in the plant wide condition portion of the permit but was not included in the permit by reference section. The
same approach was used with the Operation and Maintenance Plan. Missouri has also been putting PC MACT limits into Title V permits with a 6/10/02 date for going into effect.
For a time frame reference, she explained that when she started working with Norris Johnson on his Cape Girardeau permit, she was not pregnant and at this point in time her daughter is 6 months old.
She also explained that Missouri waste combustors are applying for alternate provisions, which will be finalized once the Feds make their decisions.
Brad Phillips was the next speaker who was going to bat for a colleague that was unable to attend and present the planned paper. Brad pointed out that he might be taking a different angle on the issue of
"significant change" but he threw it together at the last minute so here goes. "Used to only have to worry about NSPS but now have PC MACT which includes a performance test, operation & maintenance
plan, startup-shutdown-malfunction plan, dioxin/furan testing and last but most assuredly not least, significant change management." By definition, significant change is/are "changes in feed and fuel that
could result in changes to emissions" and he wondered if one ton per year of a raw material versus 1.5 tons per year is a significant change? This author believes that the ultimate decision here will
likely end up in the courts but significant change is here to stay. Brad also prognosticated that we are inching closer to a "waste analysis plan" for alternative waste raw material substitutes.
Tom Nilan, attorney with the American Chemical Council, was the next speaker. His introduction brought a chuckle from the attendees because Michelle Lusk had previously announced that at least her session
didn't have attorneys like the session before. Tom talked about the Phase II MACT, hazardous waste burning boilers. The ACC has over 125 members that will be affected and they
make up 90% of the total affected units. He doubted that the rule would be final by May 2002, which will then bring case-by-case approach into play. He lamented that it is
uncharted territory and that it won't be any fun to figure it out. The next presenter was Scott "I'm the one responsible for all of you being here" Rauenzahn of the USEPA. He
also talked about the Phase II combustor rule. After letting attendees know that during the break he had been asked if he enjoyed being beat up by everybody, he responded with the following statement; "I
am interested in hearing what everyone thinks is true and of course I actually KNOW what is true and I am finding things moderately humorous." Just the kind of regulator you want to work with, right?
He confirmed Tom Nilan's fears by pointing out that USEPA hoped to propose the Phase II rule by the hammer date but wasn't sure if that would happen and that the situation would then be ripe for
litigation.
Lisa Douglas of Compliance Strategies & Solutions, Inc. was the final speaker before lunch. Her paper was entitled Projected MACT Limits for Hazardous Waste Burning Boilers and Industrial Furnaces.
She pointed out that applicable data was available on the USEPA web site and if you didn't want to wait on the final proposed rule you could probably get a pretty good idea from the June 2000 database
that was the Phase II NODA. The session ran quite a bit over so everyone bolted for lunch so as not to be left out.
SESSION 8 - RISK ASSESSMENTS
David Weeks was the chair for Session 8. Readers may remember some years ago when Dave was with Region VI EPA when one of the early conference presenters referred to regulators as "jack booted thugs" and
David later "kicked" off his presentation about the several thousand pages of risk assessment guidance by introducing himself as one of those jack booted thugs. Since that time David has joined with the
Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, LLC. David started off his session by defending what seems to be his favorite subject, site-specific risk assessments. He was
compelled to attempt to counter previous discussions about forcing EPA through rule making to require SSRAs. He seemed to be pretty adamant that risk assessments would not go away and referred to EPA
omnibus authority as a reason it won't go away. This author would point out that omnibus authority is only legally valid if the Agency makes a sound scientific/health based reason to perform the risk
assessment, which has not ever been done as far as anyone can tell.
David Patrick of Sciences International was the first presenter and he talked about a multipathway risk assessment of a cement kiln combusting hazardous waste. He talked about this risk assessment being
performed before all the guidance (thank you David Weeks) came out and before the plant had any accidental spills. It began in 1996 as part of the response to public concern, determined that there was
less than 5 chances in a million of getting any of the cancers examined and the testing is updated each year. While the facility was not identified, logic would dictate that it is the old Medusa (now
Southdown/Cemex) facility in Wampum, Pennsylvania. That facility was unfortunately the site of one of the largest contingency plan implementations in the universe of waste burning cement plants for many
years until the Essroc incident (see session 2). David Weeks commented on the fact that some of the compounds evaluated did not have available toxicity data and how cumulative risk assessment is the next
big thing from regulators. He said that Region VI is already doing it, Region V is moving to it and Region IV is moving in that direction.
The next presentation also had to do with the state of Pennsylvania. Craig Evans of the PA Dept. of Env. Protection spoke about a cumulative exposure project. The project was
based upon 1990 emissions and inventoried 148 HAPs of which 53 were carcinogenic. USEPA had run modeling for 48 contiguous states. They found that the magnitude of emissions
does not always correlate to concentrations and of 9 risk drivers only 6 had defensible correlation to concentration. PADEP wanted to identify what was contributing to the risk numbers.
They found that benzene concentrations could readily be traced to US Highways throughout PA. While no great surprise, the greater risks occurred in the high population areas
at which point Craig made the comment that "factories are built near where people live." This author would comment that maybe we should have Craig Evans working on environmental justice issues and maybe
that issue would become much less complex.
At the end of Craig's talk, David Weeks put in another plug for cumulative risk assessments.
Khanh Tran of Applied Modeling, Inc next spoke about a comprehensive health risk assessment model for hazardous waste combustion facilities. Following up on some of the lawyer jokes and comments made
earlier in the day, he pointed out that he finds details and mathematical modeling is often more offensive to people than lawyers. He was also glad that David Weeks had previously taken credit for the
thousands of pages of risk assessment guidance because if attendees wanted to file a lawsuit they should go after David Weeks because all he (Khanh Tran) did, as a modeler was follow EPA guidance. He
talked about a model that he developed that met USEPA protocol, had been validated by looking at a hypothetical mercury situation and was efficient to use. David Weeks complimented Khanh on his
presentation and commented, "as multiple pathway risk assessment is maturing we are seeing other models."
Benjing Sun of EA Engr., Science & Technology next spoke about a road map to successful multipathway risk assessment for RCRA Part B permit application. He started off his talk by stating that he was
not debating the yes or no of a risk assessment but that once the decision has been made to perform a risk assessment then he can tell you how to do it right. He also pointed out that the human health
portion of the multipathway risk assessment guidance is 1000 pages by itself. He did cite successful MPRAs in Region VII. The success of Region VII reminds this author that
around 1993/94, a Region IV represent-ative basically threatened all BIF conference attendees that year that they were coming to get them and they better have their houses in order. But Region VII
threatened no one and quietly and efficiently went about the business of getting final BIF/RCRA permits and now they have all of their waste burning cement plants under permit and Region IV has none. Kind
of makes one wonder.
David Weeks ended the session by pointing out that Region VI updates their risk assessment parameters on a regular basis and is available on their web site. He cited a recent example where risks
associated with eggs and chickens had been reduced by a factor of ten.
SESSION 9 - PERFORMANCE TESTING
Following the break, Session 9 began. George Cobb of Air Source Technologies was the chairperson. Dave Constans of Gossman Consulting, Inc. (and Combustion Performances
Services, Inc.) talked about requirements associated with the HWC MACT Continuous Monitoring System Performance Evaluation Plan regulations. Dave's paper can be found
here.
The next speaker was David Gossman of Gossman Consulting, Inc. who looked at factors influencing emission levels of PCDD/PCDF from cement kilns. Dave looked at industry-wide data thinking that since there was no 100% direct demonstrated correlation between APCD inlet temperature or chlorine input and D/F emissions, he might find something having to do with hydrocarbons in raw materials. However, his data demonstrated that not only was there still no correlation with APCD inlet temperature, there did not appear to be any correlation with hydrocarbon input either across the industry. This paper can be found here.
SESSION 10 - SCIENCE BEHIND COMPLIANCE
Session 9 moved right into session 10 with Mike Harrell of Ash Grove chairing the session. Paul Gorman of Midwest Research Institute talked about three different PM continuous emission monitors.
His real time data was collected over a six month period and he seemed to question whether or not they were reliable and/or durable but pointed out that they did meet performance specification 11.
Testing was performed at a power plant. Paul concluded "this project demonstrated that the three PM-CEMS met the criteria in draft performance specification 11 for the initial
correlation but did not meet the RCA criteria in draft Procedure 2 for either of the two RCAs."
The next speaker was John Arnold of Mechanical Systems, Inc. who also spoke about particulate monitoring. He talked about the Beta Gauge system and how he had been involved in the development of over 350
CEMs systems and how that experience had taught him that different PM sizes get different responses out of light dispersive CEMs. He did sing the praises of the Beta Gauge system but gave no cement plant
examples of any significance.
SESSION 11 - CONTROL & MONITORING EQUIPMENT
Session 10 then moved into session 11. Norris Johnson, technical co-chair of the entire conference [he had been hiding as an attendee in the audience up to this point] now stepped forward as the session
11 chairperson.
Craig Chrispell of Lone Star Industries in Greencastle Indiana was the first session 11 presenter and also the last presenter of the day. He took a practical look at CEMs and particulate emissions.
Greencastle modified their kiln which triggered PSD and caused them to perform a series of tests to figure out how the modified kiln was going to operate. Craig presented data
that demonstrated how opacity could be an effective predictor of particulate matter emissions. Hopefully regulators were listening.
DAY 3
SESSION 11 - CONTROL & MONITORING EQUIPMENT (CONT.)
The final day of the conference began with a continuation of Session 11 so Mike Harrell reintroduced Norris Johnson of Lone Star Industries Cape Girardeau Missouri facility as the session chair.
The first speaker of the day was Tim Menke of Lone Star Industries, Inc. from Greencastle Indiana. Tim talked about the decision making process for choosing the semi-dry process modification on their
existing cement kiln. Some of the reasons included extra long retention time, reducing conditions in the riser duct, scrubbing action of calcium oxide in the calciner and the bypass system.
An indicator that their decision seems to be making sense already is that it does a great job of keeping the sulfur in the clinker which does great things for early strengths and fits well with the
market of today.
Norris Johnson himself was the next speaker. His presentation addressed an operational experiment that he conducted whereby he monitored the baghouse pressure at his facility (as required by BIF and his
permit) and he purposefully set one of the bags so that it had a "hole" in it. He also monitored opacity during this time period. It was clear that the baghouse pressure did
NOT indicate when the baghouse had a problem but the opacity obviously did. The monitoring of every bag in the baghouse portion of the rule has currently been rescinded and will be re-proposed.
SESSION 12 - COMPLIANCE ENFORCEMENT
Following questions and answers at the end of Session 11 the conference moved right into Session 12. Mike Harrell introduced Curtis Lesslie as the session chair. He, in turn,
introduced Ing Van Buren from the Netherlands who spoke about the state of regulations there versus the state of regulations here in the US and she asked for as much help as we could provide. However, one
of the attendees turned out to be from the Netherlands and was much more familiar with their regulations. A spirited discussion ensued which livened up the last day of the conference tremendously.
On one hand, Van Buren seemed to be right on the money but when it came to other issues, there was disagreement
The next speaker was Bryce Tobyne of Tetra Tech EM, Inc. who spoke about MACT & RCRA compliance enforcement issues. He started off with a statistician joke that sounded amazingly similar to the lawyer
joke told earlier in the conference, except he added that the answer was very long in coming. Bryce talked about all the reasons a facility could get audited and the myriad of issues associated with those
various audits/inspections. One thing that he did point out was that you could educate your employees to answer questions without spilling their guts. Good advice.
Session chair Curtis Lesslie gave the next presentation entitled "Effective Communication of Your Facility's Compliance Status to Your Inspector." Curtis explained that up until recently he had worked as
a Kansas regulator but has recently switched over to consulting. He further explained that sometimes he feels like the last Boy Scout. His primary point was to know your
inspector. He also pointed out "contrary to what my father-in-law used to say (Dr. Paul Peters), "KDHE inspectors do not get paid according to violations that they find." This
drew quite a chuckle from the crowd. He ended his presentation by stating, "a confused inspector is a dangerous inspector." Following questions and answers at the end of the
session, it was time for a break.
SESSION 13 - OVERLAPPING/INTEGRATING BIF & NESHAPS REQUIREMENTS & COMPLIANCE DEMONSTRATIONS
Dan Wilkus of Black & Veatch Corporation was the session chair for Session 13 (lucky 13; actually it was lucky because it was the last session of the conference and by the end of any conference, EVERYONE is looking for that last session). The first speaker of the final session was Jim Woodford of Gossman Consulting, Inc. (yours truly) who presented a comparison between BIF testing and waste combustor MACT testing. I will spare you the gory details but a couple of highlights were the allowance for combining metals into two groups and allowing one metal in each group to be spiked as a surrogate and the dropping of barium & silver from any consideration plus dropping the requirement for a maximum combustion chamber temperature. One of the less attractive issues was the adding of dioxins/furans to the non-haz demonstration for CKD as this is not only a joke but adds $1,000 per analysis. You can find this paper on our website here.
The next presenter was Ed Shepard of Schreiber & Yonley whose paper was entitled, "Cost for Complying with the Proposed Cement Kiln Dust Rule”.
Then that speaker that all attendees were waiting for, the last speaker of the conference was Deborah Henry of Black & Veach. Her original presentation had been titled "Overlapping BIF & HWC
NESHAPs Requirements; Dioxin/Furan Considerations" but by the time of her talk, it turned out that her title had been prescient because most of the stuff in her paper had been overlapped or covered at least once and in some cases
more than once. Consequently, even at the speaker breakfast before the start of the third day, she was modifying her modified/new presentation that ended up being called, "PBT Rule Considerations for the Cement Manufacturing
Industry." On October 29, 1999 EPA published a final rule under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) that lowers the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)
reporting thresholds for persistent bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemicals and adds other PBT chemicals to the list of covered chemicals. The PBT rule is effective for the 2000-reporting year with the
first Form R reports for PBT chemicals due on July 1, 2001. Deborah's presentation provided a brief review of the implications of the PBT rule to cement manufacturing facilities and provided suggestions
for facilities preparing to comply with the new reporting requirements. A brief overview of the CERCLA section 103 and EPCRA section 304 Continuous Release Reporting program was also provided with an emphasis on those listed
chemicals of most concern to cement manufacturing facilities.
As a sort of wrap-up to this conference summary, Gossman Consulting, Inc. would like to acknowledge some long time cement people who unfortunately for the industry, recently retired. There very well may be others out there that
deserve recognition but three that GCI are quite familiar with are Stan Ehinger, who retired from the plant manger position at the Holnam Clarksville Missouri facility, Walter Greer who retired from Ash Grove Cement (although it is
often said that retired cement people don't fade away, they just become consultants - as Walter did) and Horace Compton who retired from the plant manager position at the Lafarge Fredonia Kansas facility. Hats off to Stan who was
one of the best plant managers in the country when it came to knowing what his kiln could do. Kudos to Walter who proudly announced three BIF conferences ago that he & Ash Grove managed to get the
first waste fuels/RCRA permit at a cement plant in the entire country and who did it WITHOUT the help of consultants [risk assessors excepted] - and now he are one (Walter was also the owner of the jack booted thugs comment).
Last but certainly not least, accolades to Horace who without a doubt was the best plant manger in the country when it came to keeping his old wet kiln running in business and making money by
experimenting with getting as much waste into his kiln as possible. Horace lived the dream of trying to make good clinker by putting 100% waste materials into his cement manufacturing process.
While he didn't get there, he got a lot closer than anyone else in the country and maybe the world. Congratulations to all of you! You will be missed.