Bevill Amendment Questions

What is Mining?
What is Mineral Processing?
What is the Bevill Exclusion to RCRA?
What is the Definition of Extraction and Beneficiation?
What is the Definition of Mineral Processing?
What are the Basic Steps in Making Bevill Determinations?

What is Mining?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

EPA has jurisdiction to regulate solid wastes from mining activities in the United States under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). However, the current program focuses primarily on hardrock mining (i.e. mining of metallic ores and
phosphate rock)
There are approximately 1200 active extraction and beneficiation hardrock mining sites operating in the United States at this time
Mining practices have changed dramatically over the last 20 years (e.g., cyanide "heap leaching" of gold has become widespread), creating new environmental and human health challenges and leading to a resurgence of mining activities in many areas of the country.
Copper and gold mines comprise 80% of the facilities in the United States. Nevada is the most active with approximately 150 gold mines.
In a general sense, Extraction is the initial removal of ore from the earth.
In a general sense, Beneficiation is the initial attempt at liberating and concentrating the valuable mineral from the extracted ore. This is typically performed by employing various crushing, grinding and froth flotation techniques. The remaining material is often physically and chemically similar to the material (ore or mineral) that entered the operation, except that particle size reduction has often occurred.
The extraction and beneficiation of minerals necessarily leads to the generation of large quantities of waste, approximately 1.5 billion tons annually (85 percent of which are solids).

--Total waste (waste rock and tailings) produced during the extraction and beneficiation of minerals can range from 10% of the total material removed from the earth (potash) to more than 99.99% (gold).

-- In 1992, the gold mining industry generated about 540,661,000 metric tons of waste and the copper mining industry generated 731,065,000 metric tons; potash, on the other hand, generated 197,000 metric tons (Bureau of Mines, 1992). To put these quantities in perspective, about 200,000,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste are generated in the United States each year. (National Hardrock Mining Strategy, US EPA, 1997).

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What is Mineral Processing?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

Mineral Processing generally generates waste streams that generally bear little or no resemblance to the materials that entered the operation. These operations most often destroy the physical structure of the mineral, producing product and waste streams that are not earthen in character.
The Agency estimates there are approximately 500 mineral processing plants in the United States which generate about 500 million tons of waste per year.
Mineral processing operations generally follow beneficiation and include techniques that often change the chemical composition of the ore or mineral, such as smelting, electrolytic refining and acid attack or digestion.

-- Some mineral processing operations are indistinguishable from chemical and refining plants.

-- These operations usually change the physical structure of the mineral. For example, concentrated ores are heated to produce a product metal, a slag, air pollution control dust, and acid plant blowdown.
Twenty mineral processing wastes, specified in the September 1, 1989 final rule (54 FR 36592), qualify for the Bevill Exclusion as "low toxicity, high volume wastes." The remainder of mineral processing wastes are regulated under RCRA and are newly subject to Land Disposal Restrictions according to the Agency's recent May 26, 1998 final rule (63 FR 28555).

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What is the Bevill Exclusion to RCRA?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

Much of RCRA's history in mining regulation has involved rulemakings designed to determine which mining and mineral processing waste streams should be regulated as "hazardous waste."
In October, 1980, RCRA was amended by adding section 3001(b)(3)(A)(ii), known as the Bevill exclusion, to exclude "solid waste from the extraction, beneficiation, and processing of ores and minerals" from regulation as hazardous waste under Subtitle C of RCRA. This exclusion held pending completion of a study and a Report to Congress, required by section 8002 (f) and (p), and pending a determination by the EPA Administrator either to promulgate regulations under Subtitle C or to declare such regulations unwarranted.

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What is the Definition of Extraction and Beneficiation?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

The Agency further discusses the definitions of Extraction and Beneficiation in its September 1, 1989 final rule (54 FR 36592)

The [1985] RTC defines beneficiation as "the treatment of ore to concentrate its valuable constituents" [(Report to Congress on wastes from Extraction and Beneficiation of Metallic Ores, Phosphate Rock, Asbestos, Overburden from Uranium Mining, and Oil Shale (RTC), p. D-1)]. While the RTC did not attempt to articulate a comprehensive list of beneficiation operations, procedures or techniques, it did expound on the definition by describing beneficiation processes as including Physical/chemical separation techniques such as gravity concentration, magnetic separation, electrostatic separation, flotation, ion exchange, solvent extraction, electrowinning, precipitation, and amalgamation" [(1985 RTC, pp. 2-15)]. In addition, the RTC explicitly includes leaching operations as an integral part of the extraction and beneficiation domain and labels the leachate as a "beneficiation solution" [(1985 RTC, pp. 2-16, D-4)].

While this definition serves well as a foundation for making a distinction between beneficiation and mineral processing, the list in the RTC is not an all-inclusive list of beneficiation processes and several points of clarification are necessary regarding application of this RTC definition to real-life operations. For example, the RTC list does not include milling techniques such as crushing, grinding, washing, filtration, sorting, and sizing, or agglomeration techniques such as sintering, pelletizing, and briquetting that both industry and EPA consider to be beneficiation operations.
In the September 1, 1989 rulemaking, the Agency identified other activities it considered to be within the realm of beneficiation, and in particular discussed the status of activities using heat and acid. The full list of beneficiation activities has been codified at 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7):

Beneficiation operations include crushing, grinding, washing, dissolution, crystallization, filtration, sorting, sizing, drying, sintering, pelletizing, briquetting, calcining, roasting in preparation for leaching (to produce a final or intermediate product that does not undergo further beneficiation or processing), gravity concentration, magnetic separation, electrostatic separation, flotation, ion exchange, solvent extraction, electrowinning, precipitation, amalgamation, and heap, dump, vat, tank, and in situ leaching.

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What is the Definition of Mineral Processing?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

The Agency discusses the definition of mineral processing in the September 1, 1989 rulemaking (54 FR 36592).

For purposes of this rule, mineral processing wastes are generated by operations downstream of beneficiation and originate from a mineral processing operation as defined by the following elements:
1. Excluded Bevill wastes must be solid wastes as defined by EPA.
2. Excluded solid wastes must be uniquely associated with mineral industry operations
3. Excluded solid wastes must originate from mineral processing operations that possess all of the following attributes:
  1. Follow beneficiation of an ore or mineral (if applicable);
  2. Serve to remove the desired product from an ore or mineral, or from a beneficiated ore or mineral, or enhance the characteristics of ores or minerals, or beneficiated ores or minerals;
  3. Use mineral-value feedstocks that are comprised of less than 50 percent scrap materials;
  4. Produce either a final mineral product or an intermediate to the final product; and
  5. Do not combine the product with another material that is not an ore or mineral, or beneficiated ore or mineral (e.g., alloying), do not involve fabrication or other manufacturing activities, and do not involve further processing of a marketable product of mineral processing.
4. Residuals from treatment of excluded mineral processing wastes must be historically or presently generated and must meet the high volume and low hazard criteria in order to retain excluded status.
Processing operations generally follow beneficiation and include techniques that often destroy the ore or mineral, such as smelting, electrolytic refining, and acid attack or digestion. EPA also wishes to emphasize that operations following the initial "processing" step in the production sequence are also considered processing operations, irrespective of whether they involve only the techniques defined above as beneficiation. Therefore, solid wastes arising from such operations are considered mineral processing wastes, rather than beneficiation wastes.
The September 1, 1989 final rulemaking also points out differences between extraction/ beneficiation wastes and mineral processing wastes (emphasis added):

In considering the functional distinctions between beneficiation and processing using both heat and acid, EPA has examined both the range of actual practices employed, and the types of waste streams that are generated by these operations in various mineral commodity sectors. In a general sense, the lines that the Agency has drawn between beneficiation and processing parallel the common sense differences that can be observed between beneficiation and processing wastes generated using other types of mineral exploitation techniques. Most beneficiation processes, at least those immediately upstream from the initial processing operation in a production sequence, generate high volume solid waste streams that are essentially earthen in character. Despite the fact that valuable constituents have been removed, the remaining material is often physically and chemically similar to the material (ore or mineral) that entered the operation, except that particle size reduction has often occurred. Processing operations, in contrast, generate waste streams that generally bear little or no resemblance to the materials that entered the operation (with the arguable exception of smelting slags). These operations most often destroy the physical structure of the mineral, producing product and waste streams that are not earthen in character.

This common sense distinction is reflected in EPA's definitions of beneficiation and processing operations using heat and acid. The beneficiation operations (e.g., calcining, dissolution, roasting in preparation for leaching) produce wastes, where applicable, that are essentially earthen and of relatively high volume. The processing operations (e.g., smelting, acid or alkaline digestion), on the other hand, produce wastes that are not earthen, bear little resemblance to the materials that entered the operation, and are of relatively lower volume.
The Agency recently (April 1998) issued two finalized collections of damage cases involving extraction/beneficiation and mineral processing wastes: Human Health and Environmental Damages from Mining and Mineral Processing Wastes and Damage Cases and Environmental Releases from Mines and Mineral Processing Sites.

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What are the Basic Steps in Making Bevill Determinations?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

Determine whether the material is considered a solid waste under RCRA.
Determine whether the facility is using a primary ore or mineral to produce a final or intermediate product and also whether less than 50 percent of the feedstocks on an annual basis are from secondary sources.
Establish whether the material and the operation that generates it are uniquely associated with mineral production.
Determine where in the sequence of operations beneficiation ends and mineral processing begins.
If the material is a mineral processing waste, determine whether it is one of the 20 special wastes from mineral processing.

This analytical sequence will result in one of three outcomes:
1. the material is not a solid waste and therefore not subject to RCRA;
2. the material is a solid waste but is exempt from RCRA Subtitle C because of the Mining Waste Exclusion; or
3. the material is a solid waste that is not exempt from RCRA Subtitle C and is subject to regulation as a hazardous waste if it is a listed or characteristic hazardous waste.

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Please refer to the Bevill Amendment Issues Training page for additional information.

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Bevill Amendment Questions

What is Mining?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

What is Mineral Processing?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

What is the Bevill Exclusion to RCRA?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

What is the Definition of Extraction and Beneficiation?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

What is the Definition of Mineral Processing?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

What are the Basic Steps in Making Bevill Determinations?

Note: The answers to these questions should not be used to make formal determinations of the status of how wastes at a particular facility are regulated under 40 CFR 261.4(b)(7). Such opinions should be secured from the RCRA authorized state or the EPA Regional office.

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