Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 29, 1992 TAG: 9202290219
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TARMAC WASTE PLAN FACES REJECTION
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff member said Friday that the EPA will turn down Tarmac/Roanoke Cement Co.'s request to begin burning hazardous waste as a fuel at its Botetourt County plant.A denial would not necessarily kill Tarmac's controversial project - the first major commercial burning of hazardous waste in Virginia - but it could delay it by years.
Bill Toffel, a congressional-affairs staffer at the EPA's Philadelphia regional office, which covers Virginia, said that an EPA denial letter to Tarmac was in its final draft. "I know that it will be denied," he said.
Tarmac officials could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. A Tarmac engineer speculated months ago that the first waste-burning might be this summer if the EPA gave its OK.
Botetourt County protesters of the proposed burning were tentatively celebrating Friday afternoon as word of the EPA's decision reached them.
Carol Lensch, a leader of Valley Concerned Citizens - which contends that the burning would endanger neighbors and the environment - had gotten a tip on the decision from an aide to Rep. Jim Olin, D-Roanoke. Her organization already had planned a party for tonight and, she said, "now I think we're going to break out the champagne."
The news is not solid, though. Some other staffers in the EPA's Region 3 office in Philadelphia were mum Friday on what the agency had decided.
Susan Sciarratta, who's working closely on the agency's review of Tarmac's plans, would not confirm that the EPA had decided to say no to Tarmac. "No decision has gone out yet," she said. "Our decision is in its final draft, but I can't confirm what's in the decision."
She said a letter probably will be sent to Tarmac on Monday.
What's at stake is a crucial step in a complicated bureaucratic process that could allow Tarmac to take up to 45,000 tons of hazardous waste from Virginia and other states each year.
Tarmac could earn money by taking the waste from companies and other institutions. Tarmac describes the venture as an environmentally beneficial recycling of alternative fuels.
The company, in southwestern Botetourt County, also would save money by using hazardous waste as a fuel in its cement-making and by reducing the amount of coal it buys.
In EPA lingo, what Tarmac wants is "interim status." That would give Tarmac the go-ahead to do its first burning of hazardous waste. Once that begins, it is considered relatively easy for companies to win EPA approval for full-scale waste-burning.
Cement plants generally are considered eligible for interim status if they already are burning hazardous waste or are well-prepared to burn it.
Tarmac has done test burns of tires but not hazardous waste, according to company officials. The company also needs to receive a state air permit to burn hazardous waste.
If Tarmac does not win interim status from the EPA, it would be forced to appeal that decision or submit a far more detailed application.
Simply compiling the design data for that application - down to the exact sizes of pipes, tanks, manholes and laboratory equipment - could take at least a year and be very expensive, according to Edward Kleppinger, a Washington consultant on hazardous waste and an opponent of cement kilns' burning it.
After that, there could be a long wait for an EPA decision, "depending on the citizen opposition," said Kleppinger. "That could easily go to five years, depending on how much controversy there is."
In September, Tarmac engineer John DeLong said he expected EPA to give the plant permission to make the first burns. If the company had to file the lengthier application, he said then, the plan would be set back five or six years. More conservative estimates are two to three years.
DeLong left the area Friday to become manager of a cement plant in Hawaii and could not be reached for comment.
If EPA staffer Toffel's news is true, said Carol Lensch, "it buys us time, if nothing else."
Her organization recently has pressed Olin and Sens. Charles Robb, D-Va., and John Warner, R-Va., to express their opposition to EPA. An aide to Warner said Friday that the senator had requested information about the project from EPA but had not taken a stand. Aides to Olin and Robb said they were unable to learn Friday afternoon if the two had written the agency.