Data / Federal rules / 2026-12927
U.S. Ecology Nevada, Inc. High Mercury Subcategory Wastes Land Disposal Restrictions Variance
The Environmental Protection Agency published this final rule in the Federal Register on June 26, 2026. It took effect on July 27, 2026.
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What the agency says
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is granting, with conditions, U.S. Ecology Nevada Inc.'s (USE) petition for a site- specific treatability variance (SSTV) from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) treatment standards. USE's petition is for a variance from the existing treatment and disposal standard for elemental mercury waste generated from retorting high mercury waste as prescribed by the LDR technology-based standard of RMERC. The petition demonstrated that the LDR standard for placing elemental mercury waste generated from RMERC back into commerce for reuse is inappropriate and the alternative treatment variance proposed by USE is sufficient to minimize threats to human health and the environment posed by land disposal of the waste. Under the approved SSTV, 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's facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and USE's Beatty, Nevada, subtitle C treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) facility where the treated mercury wastes will be disposed in a designated RCRA subtitle C compliant monofill.
Key facts
- Document number
- 2026-12927
- Type
- Final rule
- Action
- Final rule
- Agency
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Published
- June 26, 2026
- Takes effect
- July 27, 2026
- Dates
- This final rule is effective July 27, 2026.
- Docket
- EPA-HQ-OLEM-2025-2038; FRL-8504-04-OLEM
- Regulation ID (RIN)
- 2050-AH21
- Code of Federal Regulations
- 40 CFR 268
- Topics
- Environmental protection; Hazardous waste
- Significant
- Yes, under Executive Order 12866
- Pages
- 4
Other documents from the Environmental Protection Agency
Everything from the Environmental Protection Agency · Rules on environmental protection · Rules on hazardous waste · Published in June 2026
Read from the Federal Register API, last updated 2026-10-23. The document on federalregister.gov is the official record; dates and dockets can change through later corrections. Free to reuse with credit to SpecStream under CC BY 4.0.