Treated Wood Waste Industry Asks EPA for Definition as Fuel, Not Waste

Date: November 28, 2011

Source: News Room

Companies that use wood waste, including treated wood as a fuel source are urging EPA to define treated wood as a "fuel" subject to EPA's boiler air toxics rule rather than a "waste" subject to stricter incinerator emissions limits. Officials with the Treated Wood Council met with White House and EPA officials on Nov. 8 to seek a regulatory determination defining treated wood as "traditional" fuel for facilities burning railroad ties and telephone poles, which are often coated with creosote. The group argued that classifying treated wood as a waste would violate longstanding contractual obligations to supply fuel, raising costs, send more waste to landfills, and that banned treated wood would be replaced with petroleum-based fuels or coal that would emit higher levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Environmental groups oppose increased burning of treated wood out of the concern that it releases the chemicals used for treating the product.

The treated wood sector hopes to win a broad definition of its products as a fuel in EPA's planned revisions to the NHSM rulemaking -- part of a wider process that includes reconsideration of key provisions in the boiler maximum achievable control technology (MACT) rule and the commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI) emissions rule.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and others have been pushing a bill, S. 1392, that would define biomass as a fuel subject to the boiler MACT. The legislation would also define as fuel wood debris, resinated wood, creosote-treated wood and other types of treated wood. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson sent an Oct. 14 letter to the senators outlining the agency's plans to revise the NHSM rule to clarify that biomass, wood debris and other products are considered fuel.

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