California
legislation (AB 1772) passed in 1992 established a five-tiered program for authorizing
hazardous waste treatment and/or storage at many businesses that are required
to have a state permit or authorization to do so. The new tiers were added to
make permitting easier for businesses that treat hazardous waste onsite within
their normal operations. In this way, the burden of regulation is matched to the
amount of risk in the hazardous waste activity.
Large
hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposal facilities which require Full
or Standardized permits are regulated by Cal-EPA's Department
of Toxic Substances Control.
As the local CUPA,
our division is charged with enforcing the tiered permitting requirements for
the Permit by Rule (PBR), Conditional Authorization (CA) and Conditional Exemption
(CE) tiers. Permanent Household Hazardous Waste Collection facilities are also
covered under this program.
Our staff conducts routine
inspections of these facilities in conjunction with our hazardous materials business
plan program.
