From July through September 2023, EPA Region 6 issued penalties to at least 15 destination facilities. This particular campaign carried out by EPA Region 6 was focused on 2 criteria:
- Manifests submitted into e-Manifest after 30 days of receipt by the Destination Facility
- Manifests that were not certified in e-Manifest at the time of submission
Planned Campaign By Region 6 and Headquarters
Quoted below is the exact text from an enforcement summary (we have replaced the destination facility’s name with an ellipsis.)
The EPA Region 6 filed an Expedited Settlement Agreement (ESA) against … under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Region 6 and HQ targeted the non-compliance of Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) facilities’ submission and certification of manifests into e-Manifest as required by 40 C.F.R. 264.71(a)(2)(v) and 40 C.F.R. 265.1311(b)(2). The ESA is being used to encourage facilities to settle those violations with EPA, while returning and improving compliance with manifest requirements. The filed ESA with … addressed these non-complying manifests and resulted in a penalty of $20,000.
EPA openly says they are targeting “the non-compliance of Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) facilities’ submission and certification of manifests into e-Manifest”.
Applicable Regulations
40 CFR 264.71(a)(2)(v) requires paper manifests be submitted into e-Manifest “within 30 days of the date of delivery”.
40 CFR 265.1311(b)(2) states “(a)t the time of submission of an image file upload, a responsible representative of the receiving facility must make a CROMERR compliant certification that to the representative’s knowledge or belief, the submitted image files are accurate and complete representations of the facility’s received manifests…”.
Statute of Limitations…How Far Back Did EPA Go?
It looks like all violations so far only go back to 2020. e-Manifest data begins in July 2018.
Severity of Violation and Penalties
Some destination facilities had thousands of manifests that were both submitted past the 30 day cutoff and not certified at the time of submission.
The penalties range in amount from $3,750 to $20,000 per facility.
No Admission or Denial of Wrongdoing
We would like to point out in EPA’s Expedited Settlement Agreement (ESA) is a clause that states the TSD facility “neither admits nor denies the factual allegations contained herein”.
Basically, pay the money to clear up the past, and, moving forward, submit your manifests timely and also certify them.
Why Did You Say “At Least 15 Destination Facilities”?
Well…we could have miscounted and missed a facility so we like to hedge our bets.
The real reason is some of these settlements appeared only days ago. It is very likely more dockets are still to be uploaded.
The facilities we are seeing seem to have all accepted the Expedited Settlement Agreement (ESA). It is possible there is a lag in logging the data for facilities not accepting the ESA…or have attorneys who want to “attorney” (i.e. waste time and money).
Currently No TX Non-Hazardous Class 1 Facilities
Texas requires federally non-hazardous waste that meets its state definition of Class 1 to be shipped on a hazardous waste manifest, consequently requiring it be uploaded into e-Manifest.
If we were going to pick the MOST LIKELY group of facilities that are not complying with EPA’s e-Manifest regulations…it would be this group (non-hazardous waste destinations that have to comply with e-Manifest regulations). These are facilities not accustomed to complying with hazardous waste regulations.
It is surprising we have not seen any of the TX non-hazardous Class 1 destinations as part of this campaign. Perhaps EPA believes it outside of their jurisdiction and is relying on TCEQ for this enforcement.
Other EPA Regions To Follow?
Region 6 has stated they planned this campaign with EPA headquarters. Is this a pilot program with other EPA regions conducting similar efforts in the future? We shall see.
More Information
You can view the settlement agreements in EPA’s Enforcement Dockets. The link provided is filtered to RCRA Dockets. The particular Cases mentioned in this post all begin with Case “RCRA-06-2023”. Not every case beginning with this prefix is related to e-Manifest non-compliance but most of the cases from July to September are related to this issue.
Shameless Plug #1: Corporate / Vendor Compliance Monitoring
Our application, Enviroview, helps you monitor environmental compliance for all of your corporate facilities and vendors. Enviroview also provides unique reporting tools for sustainability, environmental justice and more.
Contact Us to learn more about Enviroview.
Shameless Plug #2: e-Manifest Automation
We can help your organization automatically push and pull data from e-Manifest. For destination facilities, we can compare what manifests have been submitted and the status to stay on top of which manifests still need to be uploaded into e-Manifest.
Our developers were some of the first (possibly the first) to integrate with EPA’s e-Manifest system back in 2017 and we can help your company, save time, reduce error and lower your manifest fees.
need help with waste software?
Reach out to Concertive today for waste software and integrations