PFPI-BiomassIsTheNewCoal-April-2-2014

the Georgia EPD invoked the comparison to coal, the North Star permit demonstrates how littleprotection communities can expect to receive from EPA and state-level permitting agencies when abiomass facility decides it is going to burn contaminated fuels. Communities should considerthemselves lucky to even know what materials the facility will burn, since the EPA’s rules open thedoor to so many potentially contaminated materials.EPA takes industry’s word that biomass fuels are “clean” – testing not requiredProcessing waste materials to reduce contamination isone way to meet EPA’s “legitimacy criteria” forclassifying a material as a non-hazardous fuel, ratherthan a waste. The first step for processing is generallyvisual inspection – waste is tipped out onto a sortingRemoval of contaminated materialsfrom the fuel stream relies primarilyon visual inspectionroom floor and workers manually sort through it to remove household hazardous waste, e-waste,and other contaminated materials such as PVC pipe that can emit high levels of toxics whenburned. 125 With construction and demolition debris, visual sorting is the means of removingpressure treated and otherwise contaminated wood.Although such sorting is prone to a high error rate, EPA nonetheless states that “In general,contaminated C&D wood that has been processed to remove contaminants, such as lead-painted wood, treatedwood containing contaminants, such as arsenic and chromium, metals and other non-wood materials, prior toburning, likely meets the processing and legitimacy criteria for contaminants, and thus can be combusted as anon-waste fuel.” 126The line of reasoning that once it is processed, “waste is not waste” was employed by a court inWashington as a reason for denying an effort to require an environmental impact report for the 24MW Port Townsend Paper biomass expansion project in Washington. Citizen groupswanted the state to require an environmental impact assessment of the project, which will burnwaste materials, emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, and potentially impact forests wherelogging occurs to provide fuel for the plant. The court responded that a Washington law requiringthat “No solid waste incineration or energy recovery facility shall be operated prior to the completion of anenvironmental impact statement” didn’t actually apply to the facility, in part because it will not be an“energy recovery facility” for solid waste. Solid waste is defined as “all putrescible and nonputresciblesolid and semisolid wastes including, but not limited to, garbage, rubbish, ashes, industrial wastes, swill,sewage sludge, demolition and construction wastes, abandoned vehicles or parts thereof, and recyclablematerials”. However, the court determined that hog fuel, urban wood, and burnable rejects fromthe mill and container recycling facility are not solid waste, because they have “become a125The EPA comfort letters sent to companies manufacturing fuel cubes from garbage and other wastes describe the processingsteps as the waste is “transformed” into a non-hazardous secondary material. These letters are available athttp://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/define/12640 CFR Parts 60 and 241. Commercial and industrial solid waste incineration units: reconsideration and final amendments;non-hazardous secondary materials that are solid waste. Federal Register Vol. 78, No. 26, Thurs. February 7, 2013. p. 913859