Stephen R. Schulte P.E. REM

Sulfuric Acid Reporting

Back in 2005, you responded to a question regarding the reporting of sulfuric acid in lead/acid batteries for SARA 302/311/312 reporting. You had estimated that sulfuric acid would be about 18% of the weight of the battery. Is this still a good estimate?

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Industrial Storm Water Runoff

The other day during our annual inspection by the sewer district, they expressed concern over our "boneyard" behind the plant where we store used equipment, tanks, and scrap building materials, mainly metals. The inspectors then finished their typical tour and review of our records without saying anything more about this issue. This is the first time we have heard anything about the city's concern regarding our storm water. Do you have any input to help us prepare for what will surely be a future inspection?

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Flouride Removal

Any recommendations on how we can easily remove fluoride without major modifications to our pretreatment system?

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Protection from Hex Chrome

OSHA’s relatively new hexavalent chromium standard remains somewhat confusing when trying to implement at our plant. Could you provide some insight on how to obtain compliance?

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ENVIRONMENTAL SITE ASSESSMENT FOR LEASED BUILDING

Q: We are consolidating several plants into one location in order to improve our efficiencies and better serve our customers.

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NON-HAZARDOUS FILTER PRESS CAKE

Is it your understanding that filter press cake from a zinc or zinc cobalt plating line that uses trivelant chromates would be considered non-hazardous, and, therefore, could be disposed into our local sanitary landfill?

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Preparing for Inspection

I have looked over our hazardous waste procedures and recordkeeping, and they look OK. Do you have any additional advice for us regarding this impending inspection?

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Lowering Wastestream pH

Is there a way to lower the pH of this highly alkaline wastestream without generating the NO2 ?

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PAINT BOOTH FILTER FOR VOCS?

Recently, a sales representative told us that his company’s fiberglass paint booth filters reduce the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) going up the stack by up to 75%. He claims that we could use a higher- VOC coating that’s less expensive and easier to control. Could you please comment on this?

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WASTEWATER SAMPLING

We have a small plating line and batch wastewater treatment system that are captive to our manufacturing operation. For many years, the city has allowed us to perform grab sampling from a sampling port on the side of our batch treatment tank for our compliance sampling. During the city’s recent annual inspection, they stated that EPA is making them require us to install a sampling manhole outside of the plant; this manhole will also require a weir or flume to allow collection of flow proportional samples.

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NITRATE TOXIC RELEASE REPORTING

We use a significant amount of nitric acid, and I know nitric acid contains the nitrate ion. I checked past Form R reports, and we have been reporting nitric acid. I am concerned because I cannot find any backup calculations or explanations on where the numbers on the forms came from, and they look like they had been copied from year to year. Is there something that I should be concerned about?

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Remove More Nox

Do you have any ideas to reduce the yellow/brown color of air emissions from our nitric acid-based aluminum bright dip process?

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Metal Pretreatment Technology
Pretreatment Washer and Finishing Equipment
Filtration Systems
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