WAC 173-350-400 - Limited purpose landfills

Agendas and meeting notes from the advisory committee on section 400 on the WAC 173-350 rulemaking.


WAC 173-350-400 - Limited purpose landfills

Ecology staff lead: Bill Harris 

Work group members 
 

Name Organization
Rod Whittaker Washington Refuse and Recycling Association
Jody Snyder Waste Connections
Ted Silvestri Yakima County Health District
David Lowe Waste Management
Chris Martin WA Department of Ecology - WQ
Jana McDonald Central Pre-mix
John Bromley WA Department of Natural Resources
Kathy Pierson Snohomish Health District
Kevin Scott Port Townsend Paper


Focus: Section 400 establishes standards, criteria, and requirements for landfills receiving a wide range of solid wastes. Only dangerous waste, municipal solid waste, and inert waste being disposed in inert waste landfills are excluded. A work group will be formed and begin meeting in late 2014. Some issues to be explored: 

  • The descriptions of the options to propose alternative designs for liners and final closure covers don't reflect the intent of these options or current practice. 
  • The requirements for environmental monitoring and reporting are unclear or inconsistent, particularly with regard to parameters other than groundwater. 
  • Post-closure endpoint criteria are poorly defined and inconsistent with contemporary approaches to determining if a landfill's post-closure care can be ended while protecting human health and the environment. 
  • Financial assurance requirements for post-closure maintenance and monitoring are based on an assumption of a fixed period for post-closure care, rather than being linked to an estimate of time to reach protective and sustainable post-closure endpoint criteria. 
  • A 2006 revision to WAC 173-160, Minimum Standards for Construction of Wells, modified that rule's setback requirements when siting water wells near landfills permitted under WAC 173-350, creating a conflict with the setback requirements in both sections 400 and 410. 

Update: Draft revisions to sections 400 and 410 have been proposed to the workgroup, based largely on two determinations coming out of the broader rule process. First, inert materials and consequently what is acceptable in an inert waste landfill, are both determined by statute (RCW 70.95.030(10)). Ecology cannot make any adjustments that would allow non-inert materials to be disposed in those facilities. Secondly, a new section 235 is being developed to address "impacted" soils. Those are soils that have characteristics which make them solid wastes - but not inert solid wastes. Some adjustments will be proposed in sections 400 and 410 to accommodate the specifics of the new section 235. Please send questions to w2rrulemaking@ecy.wa.gov

Work group meetings and notes
March 16, 2015 1-4 p.m., Ecology Headquarters, Lacey