The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on December 17 issued a final rule to address the risk to public health from trichloroethylene with significant prohibitions and requirements that affects a wide range of NGWA members involved in site remediation and onsite wastewater management.
The final also affects owners and operators of facilities or sites involved in disposal of TCE-containing wastewater for the purposes of cleanup projects of TCE-contaminated water and groundwater follow the Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response standard with notable modifications.
Under this rule, owners and operators of these cleanup sites must ensure that potentially exposed persons involved with the activity of removing the wastewater from the location where it was found and treating the removed wastewater onsite are protected to the interim existing chemical exposure limit of 0.2 ppm and protected from dermal contact with TCE-containing wastewater.
Other specific prohibitions, including phaseout timeframes, and other requirements address:
- The manufacture (including import), processing, and distribution in commerce of TCE for all uses
- The industrial and commercial use of TCE
- The manufacture (including import) and processing of TCE as an intermediate for the manufacturing of hydrofluorocarbon 134a (HFC-134a)
- The industrial and commercial use of TCE as a solvent for closed-loop batch vapor degreasing for rayon fabric scouring in aerospace applications
- The manufacture (including import), processing, distribution in commerce, and use of TCE in a wide range of specific applications in some laboratory testing, aerospace, medical, degreasing, adhesion, fabrication, battery metal separation, and other purposes.
Click here to read the final rule.