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"THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING"
--Burke

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Multimedia Consent decree stated that all operations at the Facility would have materials tracked and a x-ray fluorescence spectrometer used

After twelve months of efforts to get a copy of a full chemical analysis of the material dredged from the bottom of the Asarco El Paso 100 year old pond, after it was dredged in July of 2006, the TCEQ Regional Director begs the question by stating that the TCEQ under law does not require that TX US Ecology release (or collect) such data.

However, the multimedia consent decree stated that [it] :

Encycle shall manage waste
at the Facility in accordance with this Waste Analysis Plan, which
shall supersede the WAP referenced in the Permit. Immediately upon
entry of this Decree, Settlors shall apply the WAP attached to
this Decree to all operations at the Facility. Settlors shall use
their best efforts to install and operate as soon as possible an
x-ray fluorescence spectrometer for use in analyzing metal content
in Solid Feedstock for compliance with Feedstock acceptance
criteria. Between entry of this Consent Decree and the date on
which the x-ray fluorescence spectrometer is operational, which
shall be no later than June 1, 1999, except for CC-5112,
preshipment samples of bulk Solid Feedstocks shall be taken to
confirm compliance with all applicable acceptance criteria,
including those contained in Paragraph 28 herein. During this
period, confirmation samples shall be analyzed on receipt of each
shipment. If the preshipment sample demonstrates compliance with
the acceptance criteria but the confirmation sample does not
confirm such compliance then future shipments of such material
shall not be unloaded prior to receipt of analysis results
confirming that the materials meet acceptance criteria.


Notice that this paragraph says "ALL OPERATIONS AT THE FACILITY". Even dredging and taking that stuff away to TX US Ecology?

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/decrees/civil/mm/asarcophs2cd.pdf

Since TCEQ deny ever requiring a spectrometer to analyze the waste coming from El Paso to the
dump site then they should explain why they failed to do this when the US DOJ / EPA consent decree required
this be done to "weed out" improper feedstock/materials even after Asarco-el paso closed.
TX US Ecology cannot accept all waste - in order to determine the proper disposal method, a spectrometer or
equivalent sensitive analysis needed to be done because that pond-dirt contains all the stuff that was "missed"
when Encycle had failed to run these tests from 1992 through 1999.

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