On August 5, 2016 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register (at page 51838) Proposed Rules changes to 40 CFR Part 257 referred to the Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) regulations focused on Extension of Compliance Deadlines for Certain Inactive Surface Impoundments. The time extension is related to a partial vacatur ordered by the DC Circuit Court on June 14,2016. EPA will receive comments on the proposed rule until August 22, 2016. The proposed rules applies only to owners and operators of inactive CCR impoundments that meet all three of the following conditions; (1) placed a notice of intent to initiate closure within the operating record by December 17,2015; (2) provided notice to appropriate State Directors or Tribal authority by January 19, 2016 and (3) placed proper notice of intent to close in owner/operators publicly accessible CCR website no later than January 19, 2016. Also on August 5, 2016 EPA published a Direct Final Rule related to this same proposed extension and intends to finalize the action if no comments are filed by interested parties.
The actions by EPA provide the owner/operator of inactive impoundments that were planning to close by October 19, 2018 adequate time to come into compliance with new requirements placed upon them by the Court vacatur. Now inactive impoundments must meet the same requirements as other impoundments and the incentive of committing to early closure no longer are available to the proactive owner/operators who complied with the final CCR regulation. Without the proposed extensions, the delays caused during the court action and mandated rule change would effectively cause the owner operators to be in a non-compliance position through no fault of their own. EPA is extending the deadlines up to 547 days to account for the court related lost time. The new deadlines for compliance with the regular impoundment requirements are listed below:
Location Restrictions: April 16, 2020
Design Requirements:
- Liner Type Documentation- April 17, 2018
- Place permanent ID marker – June 16, 2017
- Prepare Emergency Action Plan – October 16, 2018
- Compile Construction History – April 17, 2018
- Complete Initial Structural assessment – April 17, 2018
Operating Requirements
- Prepare Initial Dust Control Plan – April 18, 2017
- Prepare Initial inflow design flood control plan – April 17, 2018
- Initiate Inspections – April 18, 2017
- Initial Annual Inspection – July 19, 2017
Groundwater monitoring & Corrective Action
- Initial Groundwater monitoring – April 17, 2019
- Initial Groundwater monitoring report and Corrective action report – August 1, 2019
Closure & Post-Closure Care
- Prepare Initial Closure Plan – April 17, 2018
- Prepare Initial Post-Closure Plan – April 17, 2018
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