Clean Air Act Title III accidental emission release risk management program, and how it applies to landfills
On June 20, 1996, EPA promulgated regulations pursuant to Title III of the Clean Air Act (CAA) Amendments of 1990 (Section 112(r)(7) of the CAA). The rule, contained in 40 CFR Part 68, is called Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Risk Management Programs, and is intended to improve accident prevention and emergency response practices at facilities that store and/or use hazardous substances. Methane is a designated highly hazardous chemical (HHC) under the rule. The rule applies to facilities that have 10,000 pounds of methane or more in any process, roughly equivalent to about 244,000 cubic feet of methane. The US EPA has interpreted this threshold quantity as applying to landfill gas within landfills. This paper presents an overview of the Accidental Release Prevention regulations, and how landfills are affected by the requirements. This paper describes methodologies for calculating the threshold quantity of landfill gas in a landfill. Methane is in landfill gas as a mixture. Because landfill gas can burn readily, down to concentrations of about five percent methane, the entire landfill gas mixture must be treated as the regulated substance, and counts toward the 10,000-pound threshold. It is reasonable to assume that the entire landfill gas collection system, active or passive, is filled with landfill gas, and that a calculation of the volume of the system would be a calculation of the landfill gas present in the process on the site. However, the US EPA has indicated that there are some instances in which pore space gas should be included in this calculation. This paper presents methods available to calculate the amount of pore space gas in a landfill, and how to determine how much of that gas might be available for an explosion. The paper goes through how to conduct the release assessment to determine the worst-case hazard zone around the landfill.
- Research Organization:
- Camp Dresser and McKee, Cambridge, MA (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20006487
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990608-; TRN: IM200008%%94
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Air and Waste 92nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition, St. Louis, MO (US), 06/20/1999--06/24/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating Systems: Windows 3.1, '95, '98 and NT; Macintosh; and UNIX; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Air and Waste 92nd annual meeting and exhibition proceedings, [9500] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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