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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 06031986 - 1.59 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FROM; Phil Batchelor + County Administrator Costa DATE: May 28, , 1986- Costa Courty Legislation: Chemical Safety Act of 1986 SUBJECT.; SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION: Adopt a position of "support for the Chemical Safety Act of 1986 consisting of SAB 4000,, AB 4001, AB 4002, SB 1875, SB 1891, and SB 2500. BACKGROUND: The Board recently received. a letter from Lt. Governor Leo McCarthy .requesting that the Board support a package of six bills which comprise the . Chemical Safety Act of 1986 . These bills would .implement recommendations made by the California Economic Development Commission, of. which the Lt. Governor is Chairman. AB 4000 (Killea) , as amended May 21, 1986, would establish the . , .California Foundation. The purpose of the Foundation would be to build public confidence by providing an unbiased source of information regarding the performance of technology to manage hazardous substances or hazardous waste through waste reduction, recycling,, or. treatment" and technology for cleaning up chemical contamination. The Foundation would' be directed to draw on the scientific and technical expertise of California' s universities and independent research institutions to demonstrate the performance of. new . and innovative technology to manage hazardous substances and hazardous waste. The Foundation would be directed on or before September 1, 1987 to solicit applications for technology performance demonstrations from equipment manufacturers and operators. They would also be directed to solicit proposals from the State' s public and private universities . and independent research institutions to conduct demonstrations on this technology equipment. By conducting such independent reviews of technology equipment, it is believed that the confidence . of the public in such equipment, and in the ability of government and industry to better manage hazardous wastes", will be improved. CONTINUED. ON- ATTACHMENT. YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE _X APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE S): pC , ACTION OF BOARD ON - June 3, 1986 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS` 1 HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE UNANIMOUS.,(ABSENT AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES' NOES:. AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT ABSTAIN:ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. cc r�county Administrator ATTEST / ED Health" Services Director r Environmental Health Asst. Director PHI BATCHELOR, CLERK OF THE BOARD OF OES Director SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR Lt. Governor McCarthy MSR2i7_Rjthy Snodgrass, Jackson/Banish BY DEPUTY Page 2 AB 4001 (Connelly) , as amended May 14, 1986, would enact the Chemical Plant Safety Act of 1986which would require the owner of each chemical plant in the State to submit a copy of their business plans and an air release statement to the appropriate air quality management district which, in turn, would be required to designate which of those chemical plants are high priority facilities for purpose of air release monitoring. The bill would also authorize any representative of an air quality management district to carry out an inspection of any facility. The bill would require each high priority facility which is subject to routine air release monitoring requirements to prepare a systematic air release monitoring plan which would be subject to the approval of the air quality management district. The owner of the facility would be required to implement the plan and submit a monitoring report to the air quality management district within 90 days after the plan is approved. Finally, the bill would require the State Air Resources Board to assess a fee upon those plants and facilities subject to evaluation. By making these additional requirements on chemical plants and other facilities, the bill would require a more comprehensive and accountable authority to address the issue of air emissions from such high risk facilities. AB 4002 (La Follette) , as amended April 22, 1986, would require the University of California, upon approval of the Regents, to establish a toxic disaster technical advisor pilot training program. This program would be located at the U. C. Irvine regional poison control center and the U. C. San Francisco regional poison control center. The program would be designed to train selected candidates in on-scene coordination of medical emergency response, the epidemiological aspects of toxic substance releases, and other relevant medical and toxicological aspects of toxic disasters. The pilot training program would be required to provide instruction for a period of six months to 12 students who would be selected by the faculty of the departments of occupational medicine at U. C. Irvine and U. C. San Francisco. Among other requirements, candidates for this pilot program would have to be members of local or regional hazardous materials emergency response teams, and would have to be recommended by the team of which the candidate is a member. Upon completion of the training program, the technical advisors would be qualified to respond to a toxic disaster. Such a pilot program, while limited in scope, would provide valuable information to enhance our local capability of protecting first-in responders at hazardous substance spill scenes. SB 1875 (Craven) , as amended April 16, 1986, would enact the Environmental Quality Assessment Act of 1986. The bill would define an environmental quality assessment as a systematic, documented, periodic and objective review of the operations and practices used by any commercial or industrial business whose activities are regulated under specified sections of the Health and Safety Code in order to assist the industry in maintaining and, where feasible, exceeding compliance with State environmental requirements for the manufacture and use of hazardous substances and the generation and disposal of hazardous wastes. The bill would direct the Secretary of Environmental Affairs to adopt regulations and examination requirements for the voluntary registration of independent environmental assessors. Such environmental assessors would include individuals who are trained and experienced to objectively conduct one or more aspects of an environmental assessment. The bill provides that the Secretary Page 3 may register as an independent environmental assessor any individual who meets specified criteria and who successfully completes a prescribed examination. The identification of State-certified environmental professionals who could provide consulting services to companies without in-house expertise in these areas can result in a higher level of compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and reduce the risks associated with the use, storage, generation, transportation, and disposal of hazardous substances and hazardous wastes. SB 1891 (Presley) , as amended April 2, 1986, would revise the manner in which hazardous substance release sites are categorized and prioritized for cleanup. Under current law, such sites tend to be given a higher priority for cleanup when they are inexpensive to clean up and of relatively low risk. Sites which are very expensive to clean up tend to be given a lower priority primarily because of the cost of cleanup. In addition, sites are currently ranked numerically with the implication that the relative differences in the severity between sites is directly proportional to their numeric designation. SB 1891 requires, instead, that all sites be assigned to one of three tiers based primarily on an assessment of the site' s direct risk to public health and on the fact that if prompt action is not taken, there will be a rapid escalation in the cost of cleaning up the site. The bill specifies that the estimated cost of cleanup should not be a major criterion in setting priorities. The bill defines tier 1 to include any site that poses a known or probable immediate threat to public health through direct human contact, explosions, fires, or acutely serious air emissions, has a high potential to contaminate or to continue to contaminate groundwater resources. A tier 2 site would be one which poses a substantial, but less immediate,- threat to the public health and safety or the environment. A tier 3 site would include those which require removal and remedial action, but present only a limited and defined threat to human health or the environment. Funds appropriated to the State Department of Health Services for cleanup action would have to be spent consistent with this priority ranking of sites, with specified exceptions. Enactment of SB 1891 would rank sites requiring cleanup action in a manner more consistent with the perceived danger to the public health or environment and thereby would insure that sites which pose a greater risk to public health or the environment are cleaned up sooner. SB 2500 (Keene) , as amended. April 22, 1986 , would prohibit the State Department of Health Services from issuing a hazardous waste facilities permit to a facility if the facility is going to begin operation on or after November 8, 1988 unless the facility meets specified "residuals repository" requirements. The bill would also require the Department to revoke the permit of any hazardous waste facility on or before July 1, 1990 unless the Department and the State Water Resources Control Board jointly determine that the facility meets the standards and requirements for a residuals repository. The bill defines a residuals repository to mean a hazardous waste disposal facility that accepts for disposal only non-liquid residuals from the treatment of hazardous wastes, or hazardous wastes that meet the criteria established by the Department relating to acceptable characteristics for hazardous waste which may be submitted for disposal at the residuals repository. The bill also requires the Department as a condition of issuing a hazardous waste facilities permit for a residuals repository that the operator or owner establish a residuals repository cleanup fund and make quarterly contributions to the fund in amounts to Page 4 be determined by the Department. The money in the fund would be spent by the owner or operator of the site at the direction of the State Department of Health Services for removal and remedial actions necessary after a release of any hazardous waste from the residuals repository. Passage of SB 2500 would assist in furthering the goal of reducing the amount of hazardous waste which is disposed of in landfills and would make such landfills safer. The Health Services Director has reviewed each of these pieces of legislation and recommends that the Board support all of them. This office concurs in that recommendation.