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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Proposed Rules designated MSW landfills. Subpart Cf requires that MSW landfills that have a design capacity of greater than or equal to 2.5 Mg by mass and 2.5 million cubic meters by volume incorporate a GCCS if they exceed the emission threshold. The amended EG apply to landfills that commenced construction, reconstruction, or modification on or before July 17, 2014, and have accepted waste at any time since November 8, 1987. States with affected facilities are required to submit a section 111d state plan to implement and enforce all provisions of the EG, as amended on August 29, 2016, and codified at subpart Cf.
D. What revisions did the EPA make to the EG, as amended on August 29, 2016, and codified at 40 CFR part 60 subpart Cf?
Landfills are the third largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States.1 Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is 28 to 36 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period.2 For these reasons, and due to significant changes within the landfill industry that allowed for additional reduction of emissions at a reasonable cost, the EPA updated its emission guidelines that were adopted in 1996 on August 29, 2016. In addition to revisions to the EG and compliance times for existing MSW landfills, the control requirements, monitoring, reporting, and record-keeping provisions were also updated.
The revised EG is designed to further reduce emissions of landfill gas containing NMOC and methane. The revised EG lowers the emission threshold at which a landfill must install and operate a GCCS. Under the 1996 EG, the emission threshold at which MSW landfills were required to install and operate a GCCS was 50 Mg/
year of NMOC. By contrast the revised EG reduces the threshold for installing a GCCS to 34 Mg/year for active MSW
landfills. Closed MSW landfills will retain the threshold of 50 Mg/year of NMOC for installing a GCCS. Other major revisions to the EG include revisions to surface emissions monitoring, wellhead monitoring, and address the definition of landfill gas treatment system.
A summary of major provisions in the revised EG include the following:
1 MSW landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for approximately 15.1 percent of these emissions in 2018. See https www.epa.gov/
lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas.
2 Id.

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Retention of the design capacity threshold of 2.5 million Mg and 2.5
million cubic meters of waste in order for the rule to apply.
A new alternative modeling procedure, referred to as Tier 4, used to determine when to install a GCCS.
Clarification of the definition of Landfill Gas Treatment and use of treated landfill gas.
Removal of wellhead oxygen/
nitrogen operational standards and corresponding corrective action for their exceedances.
Addition of an electronic reporting requirement using the EPAs electronic reporting tool ERT.
Updated criteria for capping, removing, or decommissioning a portion of the GCCS in low-producing landfill gas areas.
Addition of a requirement that landfills must conduct surface emission monitoring SEM at all cover penetrations and openings within the area of the landfill in which the waste has been placed and where a GCCS is required.
New provisions for startup, shutdown, and malfunction periods.
New Yorks revised State Plan, dated December 11, 2019, for existing MSW
landfills, incorporates by reference all the revisions to the EG as of August 29, 2016, codified at 40 CFR part 60 subpart Cf.
III. New Yorks State Plan A. What is contained in the New York revised State Plan?
In order to implement the 2016
amended EG for existing MSW landfills located in New York state, NYSDEC
submitted its revised section 111d state plan for existing MSW landfills, dated December 11, 2019, which made revisions to Title 6 of the NYCRR, at Parts 200 and 208.
On August 5, 2019, New York repealed previously enacted 6 NYCRR
Part 208, and replaced it with a newly adopted Part 208, Landfill Gas Collection and Control Systems for Certain Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, and simultaneously revised Part 200, General Provisions. 3 The 3 New York previously codified landfill regulations at NYCRR Part 360, Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Permitting, which were included in New Yorks section 111d state plan that was submitted on October 8, 1998 and approved by the EPA on July 19, 1999. See 64 FR 38582, 38585.
To avoid duplication between NYSDECs Division of Air Resources and Division of Solid and Hazardous Materials, and to add compliance milestones pursuant to 40 CFR 60.23, NYSDEC
transferred the EG requirements from NYCRR Part 360 to Part 208 in 2001. No revisions to the State Plan were made at that time to reflect the regulatory transfer within NYSDEC.

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majority of MSW landfills that are regulated by Part 208 are located in rural communities throughout New York state. The revised rule is designed to reduce emissions of NMOC and methane from these landfills by lowering the emission threshold at which the owners and operators of these landfills must install a GCCS. The emission guidelines and revised Part 208 retain the formal design capacity threshold of 2.5 Mg and 2.5 million cubic meters of waste for MSW landfills.
Part 208 defines existing MSW landfills as landfills that accepted waste after November 8, 1987 and began construction, reconstruction, or modification prior to July 17, 2014.
Consistent with the revised EG
promulgated at 40 CFR part 60 subpart Cf, the trigger threshold for installing a GCCS in Part 208 is reduced from 50
Mg/year to 34 Mg/year of NMOC for active MSW landfills. Since closed landfills do not produce as much landfill gas as an active landfill, the trigger threshold for installing a GCCS
remains at 50 Mg/year of NMOC for closed MSW landfills. Landfill operators and owners had thirty days from the adoption date of the revised Parts 200
and 208 to comply with the revised regulation, or until September 4, 2019.
In order to be considered for the closed landfill subcategory, MSW landfills had to submit a closure report within one year after the revised Part 208
became effective, i.e., by September 4, 2020. New Yorks revised rule also includes the alternative site-specific emission threshold determination methodology to determine when a landfill must install a GCCS, referred to as Tier 4. Tier 4 is based on SEM and requires four consecutive quarters of surface emissions below 500 parts per million ppm of methane, followed by quarterly SEM reports for active landfills and annual SEM reports for closed landfills. Both active and closed landfills are required to notify delegated authorities thirty days prior to conducting the Tier 4 test so that officials can be present to observe the SEM, keep up-to-date records of the SEM readily accessible for at least five years, and send annual reports to NYSDEC of the SEM monitoring results.
NYSDECs revised Part 208 also incorporates the removal of certain wellhead oxygen/nitrogen operational standards in 40 CFR part 60 subpart Cf.
Owners and operators are no longer required to report or take corrective action based on exceedances of specified operational standards for nitrogen/oxygen levels at wellheads.
However, landfill owners or operators
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