Waste Management and Pollution Control Flashcards
7 cards from real CES practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Waste Management and Pollution Control flashcards as text
Which criterion is used to designate a water body as 'impaired' and place it on the Section 303(d) list under the Clean Water Act?
Answer: It fails to meet at least one applicable water quality standard
A water body is listed as impaired under CWA Section 303(d) when it fails to attain any applicable water quality standard after considering existing controls.
In a risk assessment for a carcinogen, which value represents the incremental cancer risk associated with continuous lifetime exposure to 1 µg/m³ of an air pollutant?
Answer: Inhalation unit risk (IUR)
The inhalation unit risk (IUR) is the upper-bound estimate of excess cancer risk from continuous lifetime inhalation exposure to 1 µg/m³ of a carcinogenic air pollutant.
Which federal program requires facilities storing petroleum above threshold quantities to develop Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) plans?
Answer: CWA Section 311 and 40 CFR Part 112
CWA Section 311 and 40 CFR Part 112 mandate SPCC plans for facilities with oil storage above threshold quantities to prevent oil discharges to navigable waters.
A state environmental agency sets a groundwater cleanup standard at 5 µg/L for benzene at a leaking underground storage tank (LUST) site. This standard is most likely derived from which federal value?
Answer: EPA Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) under the Safe Drinking Water Act
The EPA MCL for benzene under the Safe Drinking Water Act is 5 µg/L, and states commonly adopt MCLs as groundwater cleanup standards for LUST sites.
Which waste minimization technique involves redesigning a manufacturing process to eliminate the generation of a specific hazardous byproduct entirely?
Answer: Source reduction through process modification
Process modification as a source reduction technique eliminates waste generation at its origin, the highest preferred option in the pollution prevention hierarchy.
Under the Clean Air Act New Source Review (NSR) program, a major modification at a major stationary source in a nonattainment area must obtain which permit?
Answer: Nonattainment New Source Review (NA-NSR) permit
Major modifications at major sources in nonattainment areas require a Nonattainment NSR permit, which mandates Lowest Achievable Emission Rate (LAER) technology and emission offsets.
A facility conducts a life cycle assessment (LCA) and finds that most environmental impact occurs during raw material extraction rather than manufacturing or disposal. This finding represents which LCA phase?
Answer: Impact assessment hotspot identification
Identifying where in a product's life cycle the greatest environmental burdens occur is the 'hotspot' finding from the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase.