The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has opened a public comment period for a proposed permit that would continue hazardous waste regulations at the BASF Corporation plant in Hannibal.
BASF is an international corporation that manufactures a wide variety of chemicals that have agricultural, pharmaceutical, and industrial uses. In Hannibal, the BASF plant primarily manufactures insecticides and herbicides, which means it needs regulatory oversight and a special permit from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to manage any hazardous waste that is generated at the facility.
New permits were sought for the plant in 1999, before existing permits were set to expire in the spring of 2000 - but those new permits were never finalized. Federal regulations allowed B-A-S-F to legally continue hazardous waste management since the plant had an application pending.
Now, the Missouri DNR has written a draft permit to be approved next year - and the agency wants to hear from the community.
Breanon Dowling is the Hannibal draft permit project manager for the DNR. She said since the original permits were issued, the facility has grown in size, so the new permit accounts for all these changes and restores the original permits that BASF applied for around 25 years ago.
"Hazardous waste impacts air, water, land, people, animals," Dowling said. "So this public notice comment period is for the public to raise any concerns or ask any questions or clarifications for the permit that will inevitably possibly impact our lives. But it is a renewal - so the permit already exists, we're just renewing it."
The permits BASF originally held were called Part I and Part II permits. The Part I permit, formally known as the Missouri Hazardous Waste Management Facility Part I Permit, is the permit currently up for renewal by the DNR. Part II permits are issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and are known as Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments Part II Permits. Dowling said the EPA will not be issuing a new Part II permit for the Hannibal BASF facility because Missouri has gained new authority to oversee items previously covered in Part II permits in the years since BASF originally applied.
Missouri DNR is accepting public comments on the draft permit until January 6. Dowling said there will be another chance for the public to comment during an appeal period that opens for about a month after the final permit is issued.
“So when this comment period wraps up [on] January 6, I have a plan of working on that for about a month," Dowling said. "[The permit] should have minimal changes - but I do address any comments from the draft comment period and then incorporate it, and then we go out on public notice one more time."
