SPSA supports reasonable, scientifically based measures to identify and address actual elevated-temperature conditions. However, we believe the proposed guidance is overly broad, prescriptive, punitive, and would disproportionately impose substantial monitoring, permitting, operational, and financial burdens without adequately connecting those requirements to demonstrated environmental risk.

SPSA’s principal concerns are that the draft functions as regulation through guidance, provides no meaningful implementation period, and relies on overly broad ETLF classification criteria.

Comments on Regulation through Guidance

• DEQ should not establish binding regulatory requirements through guidance. Although the draft states that it does not impose requirements beyond existing law, it directs staff to require substantive actions including permit modifications, added monitoring and reporting, management and corrective-action plans, expiration of approved HOVs, cessation of waste placement, capping, and increased financial assurance.

These provisions go beyond interpreting existing statutes and regulations. If DEQ believes statewide requirements are necessary, they should be adopted through formal rulemaking under the Virginia Administrative Process Act, supported by a technical basis, regulatory impact analysis, stakeholder participation, and consideration of reasonable alternatives.

• The guidance appears to respond to serious but unusual conditions at a limited number of landfills. Site-specific issues may warrant site-specific action, but DEQ should justify imposing substantial new requirements on compliant facilities that have not exhibited comparable conditions.

Comments on Effective Date

• The proposed effective date does not allow meaningful consideration of public comments or reasonable implementation. The comment period closes August 12, 2026, and the guidance would become effective the next day. DEQ should delay implementation, respond to significant comments, and establish a phased schedule so facilities can revise plans and permits, procure needed services, budget appropriately, and coordinate with GCCS operators.

Classification Criteria Comments

• The Category 1 requirements are not risk-based. Facilities complying with the federal temperature standard and without HOVs above 145°F should not automatically be subject to additional gas evaluations, leachate sampling, five-year trending, monthly electronic reporting, permit modifications, and increased financial assurance absent demonstrated risk.
• The proposed methane-to-carbon-dioxide ratio of 0.9 may create false indications, particularly in older waste, low-production wells, perimeter wells, or areas affected by normal biological changes or air intrusion. A formal evaluation should be triggered only by a confirmed, sustained trend considering gas concentrations, oxygen, temperature, balance gas, and operating history.
• Previously approved HOVs should not automatically expire or create punitive classifications. Existing HOVs were approved through site-specific demonstrations allowed under MACT AAAA and should remain effective unless DEQ makes an individualized technical determination otherwise. At a minimum, facilities should be allowed to demonstrate the continued adequacy of an existing HOV.
• The “ETLF” label should be based on a comprehensive, weight-of-evidence evaluation, not a single temperature, hydrogen result, or approved HOV. Category 3 criteria should instead initiate confirmatory monitoring and site-specific evaluation of sustained temperature trends, gas composition, leachate conditions, settlement, odors, seeps, and other corroborating indicators. The guidance should also provide confirmation procedures and criteria for returning to a lower category.
• Waste-placement cessation and temporary or final capping should not automatically follow Category 3 classification, particularly given the one-off nature of triggering Category 3 status. These measures could eliminate permitted capacity, disrupt approved filling sequences, require redesign, and increase costs. They should be required only when supported by a site-specific engineering evaluation.
• DEQ should provide clarification of how the inability to obtain HOVs above 170°F per the guidance document would affect the established corrective action timelines and reporting, such as the enhanced monitoring requirements, Root Cause Analysis, Corrective Action and Implementation Timeline, etc.

Other General Comments

• Monthly electronic reporting would duplicate existing MACT AAAA and Title V monitoring and reporting. Unless a confirmed condition presents an immediate risk, additional data should be maintained in the facility’s operating record and submitted through existing reporting mechanisms.
• The leachate sampling location requirements are overly prescriptive and may not produce representative data. Sampling from individual sump risers may be unsafe, impracticable, or unrepresentative where cells are not hydraulically independent. DEQ should allow site-specific sampling locations coordinated with receiving-facility requirements and establish analytical methods, quality-control requirements, baselines, trend criteria, and actionable thresholds before requiring additional sampling.
• Exceeding a receiving facility’s leachate acceptance criterion should not automatically be treated as an unusual condition requiring notice within 24 hours. Notification should be required only after results are validated and when the condition causes an unauthorized discharge, violates an enforceable permit requirement, or creates an actual or imminent environmental risk.
• Financial assurance adjustments should be limited to closure, post-closure care, and groundwater corrective action. Routine operating costs should not be added based solely on category status or possession of an HOV. Any adjustment should be tied to a documented, site-specific deficiency in an existing cost estimate.
• The guidance should recognize that third-party operation of a GCCS is a lawful and common arrangement. The statement recommending that landfill owners avoid contracting or selling gas system operational rights is unnecessary and intrudes into legitimate contractual relationships.

SPSA asks DEQ to delay implementation, withdraw or substantially revise the guidance, and use formal rulemaking if these provisions are intended to operate as mandatory requirements. DEQ should also convene a technical stakeholder group and publish the technical basis and anticipated cost of each proposed threshold and requirement.

A more reasonable framework would retain existing requirements for normally operating facilities, use investigation levels for sustained or corroborated indicators, and reserve ETLF classification and corrective action for conditions confirmed through a site-specific, weight-of-evidence evaluation.