Georgia EPD Update
Land Protection Branch
Air and Waste Management
Association Annual Meeting
April 2013
Keith Bentley
Land Protection Branch Chief
1
Georgia Statistics
• 29,000 Underground storage
tanks
• 7,100+ Scrap tire generators
• 4,000+ Hazardous waste
generators
• 78 RCRA TSD facilities
• 2,000+ Asbestos projects/year
• 2,000+ Landfills
– 2,000+ inert waste
– 380 closed landfills
– 189 solid waste facilities
• 824 Active surface mining
permits
• 558 Sites on Hazardous Site
Inventory
• 440 Brownfields applications
processed (258 LOLs issued)
• 300+ Active hazardous site
remediation projects
• 1,400+ Active UST cleanups
• 290 Identified scrap tire piles
• 63 VRP applications received,
52 approved, 3 remediated and
delisted from HSI
• 11 NPL sites
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Organization
Keith Bentley, Branch
Chief
Jeff Cown, Assistant Branch
Chief
Deborah Moore,
Administrative Assistant
Lon Revall, Program
Manager, UST
Jim Brown, Program
Manager, HW
Corrective Action
Jan Simmons, Program
Manager, HW
Management
MSW Landfills
Inspections &
Enforcement
RCRA
Remediation
RCRA Permitted
Facilities
HSRA
Remediation
Industrial
Landfills
Private Party
Cleanups
NPL Sites
HW Generators
VRP
Surface Mining
EPD Managed
Cleanups
Risk
Assessment
DOD Facilities
Brownfields
Melanie Henry, Program
Manager, Solid Waste
Waste Reduction
& Scrap Tires
Derrick Williams, Program
Manager, Response &
Remediation
Lead & Asbestos
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Budget Trends and Impacts
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LPB is funded from ~20 sources (federal and state)
Since 2008 staff has been reduced by ~20%
Funding has been reduced by 35%
Most reductions have been from state-based funding
Seeing reductions in federal funding as well
Spending on orphan site cleanups (scrap tires, HSI
sites, landfills) has been minimal recently
• Continue with inspections and enforcement to
prevent problems from getting worse
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Initiatives
• General theme: How to get job done with
declining resources?
• Expedited permitting for borrow pits
– So far so good
• IT projects
– Online permit tracking
– Unified Facility Registration System
– Online fee payments
• VRP/HSRA work process improvements
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Legislation: Hazardous Waste
Trust Fund
• Hazardous Waste Trust Fund reauthorized
through July 2018
• Funded through fees (landfill tipping,
hazardous waste generators, hazardous waste
disposal)
• Funds staff to run HSRA and VRP programs
• Funds orphaned site cleanups
• Funds emergency response
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Legislation: Scrap Tires
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Legislation targets dumping of scrap tires
Regulates used tire carriers to close loophole
Requires decal for all used/scrap tire carriers
Allows enforcement by police and local code
enforcement officers
• New rulemaking required; probably this fall
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Legislation: Inert Waste Landfills
• Inert waste landfills were subject to permit by rule
• Reached unmanageable numbers and noncompliance rates were high
• New rules final January 2013
– Requires permit, methane control and financial
assurance
• Legislature passed law exempting facilities that can
certify compliance with PBR requirements
• New rulemaking will be required
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Regulation: Composting
• Composting industry evolved and existing rules were
inadequate to address variety of applications
• Food residuals of 800,000 tons per year could be
diverted from MSWs
• Composting capacity < 10% of that needed
• Engaged stakeholder group to determine what was
needed
• Draft regulations developed with tiered requirements
based on feedstock and technology
• Proposed rule out for comment in May?
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Regulation: GUST Fees
• Georgia Underground Storage Tank (GUST) Fees
– Fund cleanups for leaking USTs
• Voluntary program
– Participants are smaller operators
• Market forces reducing fees collected
• Ability to fund cleanups threatened
• Rule raising fees proposed in February (short-term
fix)
• Strategy for long-term stability TBD
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Solid Waste Handling Permits
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Hazardous Site Inventory
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Brownfields
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Questions?
Keith Bentley, EPD
Land Protection Branch Chief
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