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Amendments to the Corrective Action Management Unit Rule
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- Proposed Rule - August 22, 2000
- EPA Reaches Settlement on "CAMU" Rule - February 11, 2000
- Final Rule - January 22, 2002
EPA promulgated amendments to the regulations governing Corrective Action Management Units. Corrective Action Management Units, or "CAMUs,"' are special units created under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to facilitate treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes managed for implementing cleanup, and to remove the disincentives to cleanup that the application of RCRA to these wastes can sometimes impose. The original CAMU regulations were promulgated on February 16, 1993.
EPA amended the 1993 CAMU rule in six ways.
- First, EPA established a specific definition, distinct from the definition of remediation waste, to govern the types of wastes that are eligible for placement in CAMUs.
- Second, the Agency established more detailed minimum design and operating standards for CAMUs in which waste will remain after closure, with opportunities for Regional Administrators to approve alternate design standards under certain circumstances.
- Third, the Agency established treatment requirements for wastes that are placed in CAMUs, including minimum treatment standards, with opportunities to adjust treatment requirements under certain circumstances.
- Fourth, EPA established more specific information requirements for CAMU applications and is explicitly requiring that the public be given notice and a reasonable opportunity for public comment before final CAMU determinations are made.
- Fifth, the Agency established new requirements for CAMUs that will be used only for treatment and storage.
- Sixth, the rulemaking "grandfathered"' certain types of existing CAMUs and allows them to continue to operate under the 1993 rule.
The amendments were proposed on August 22, 2000 (PDF) (56 pp, 485 K), referred to throughout this rulemaking as "the proposal." EPA also proposed a supplemental proposal on November 20, 2001 (PDF) (13 pp, 219 K), referred to as "the supplemental proposal."'
Federal Register (PDF) (68 pp, 465 K) - January 22, 2002
Amendments to the Corrective Action Management Unit Regulations: Proposed Rule
The Agency proposed amendments to the regulations governing Corrective Action Management Units (CAMUs) concerning: the types of wastes that may be managed in a Corrective Action Management Unit (CAMU), the design standards that apply to CAMUs, the treatment requirements for wastes placed in CAMUs, information submission requirements for CAMU applications, responses to releases from CAMUs, and public participation requirements for CAMU decisions. In addition, the proposed amendments would "grandfather" certain categories of CAMUs and create new requirements for CAMUs used only for treatment or storage (i.e., those in which wastes will not remain after closure). This proposed rule also requested comment on a potential change to the staging pile regulations. Finally, this rule proposed an approach to state authorization that would grant "interim authorization" for the proposed amendments to most states currently authorized for the CAMU rule and would expedite the authorization process for states authorized for corrective action but not the CAMU rule. The proposed amendments were intended to make clearer the Agency's general minimum expectations for CAMUs and to make the CAMU process more consistent and predictable, as well as more explicit for the public.
Federal Register Notice (PDF) (56 pp, 485 K) - August 22, 2000
Fact Sheet (PDF) (2 pp, 7 K, About PDF) || Fact Sheet (Text)(3 pp, 5 K)