Proposed rule · 2026-02346

US Ecology Nevada, Inc. High Mercury Subcategory Wastes Land Disposal Restrictions Variance

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to grant, with conditions, US Ecology Nevada Inc.'s (USE) petition for a site-specific treatability variance from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) treatment standards. USE's petition is for treatment and disposal of elemental mercury waste generated from retorting high mercury waste in accordance with the LDR technology-based standard of RMERC. The EPA believes that the petition demonstrates that the LDR standard for placing elemental mercury generated from RMERC back into commerce for reuse is inappropriate and the treatment variance is sufficient to minimize threats to human health and the environment posed by land disposal of the waste. If the variance is granted, the existing LDR treatment standard of RMERC will continue to apply to high mercury hazardous wastes, but the elemental mercury generated from this process will be treated and land disposed subject to specified conditions at both Bethlehem Apparatus in Hellertown, Pennsylvania and USE's Beatty, Nevada, Subtitle C treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) facility where treated mercury wastes will be disposed in a designated monofill.