Dive summary:
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is questioning a state-approved plan to allow a battery company, Exide Technologies, to treat hazardous waste at its nonhazardous landfill in Frisco, Texas.
- Texas authorities claim it will be safer to deal with the waste as is rather than dig it up and move it to a licensed hazardous waste disposal site.
- In a letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the EPA expressed concerns about Exide’s air monitoring and dust-control plans during demolition and cleanup.
From the article:
“Many of the problems cited by the agency are the same ones citizens have been complaining about since Exide announced its unusual scheme to try to treat its illegal hazardous waste in place in its Frisco landfill, instead of digging it up and re-burying it in an official, licensed hazardous waste disposal site,” the groups said in a news release.
Exide’s landfill plans were approved by the TCEQ in December and incorporated into an order unanimously approved by the agency’s commissioners last week.
The environmental groups had questioned whether Exide would need a permit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which deals with hazardous waste. The EPA had also asked what regulatory or statutory provisions allow Exide to treat the hazardous waste on site. ...