Maine Department of Environmental Protection
Small Business Technical Assistance
If you:
Degrease parts… Paint or coat products… Use fiberglass resins… Make asphalt… Use diesel generators… Incinerate… Dry Clean… Operate ovens or kilns… Make concrete products… Burn fuel to heat a large amount of water and/or building space... Process crushed stone or a gravel pit...
…you may require a license or have other reporting requirements for air emissions. This guide will help you recognize your responsibilities under Maine's Air Quality Regulations.
This guide is for small businesses. Businesses like boat building and repair, rock crushing, crematories, veterinary incinerators, asphalt batch plants, concrete batch plants, wood products manufacturing, sawmills, tanneries, and metal and wood coating facilities.
Emitting certain amounts of air pollutants makes it necessary to apply for a license and/or to report activities. Although there is an annual fee associated with licenses, some reporting requirements (Maine Air Quality Regulations-Chapter 137) are simple emission inventory reports that involve no fee. Depending on your emissions, your business may be required to take one or more of the following steps:
- Complete an Emissions Inventory
- Obtain a License
- Conform to MACT Standards
- Register your activity
Do I need to complete an Emissions Inventory?
Your business may be required to report emissions that fall in either of two categories. The reporting requirement depends on the quantity of each pollutant.
The first category is covered by the "criteria" emissions inventory. It requires reporting every year on pollutants [such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOC), lead, or particulate matter (i.e. dust or ash)] produced primarily from combustion or other manufacturing processes.
Here are two examples where a criteria emissions inventory is required. Example A is a business that fires in a boiler more than 250,000 gallons per year of No. 6 fuel oil containing 2.0% sulfur. This business needs to submit a criteria pollutant emission inventory report. So does Example B, which is a business that uses 7,000 gallons of paint or solvent in a year (exceeding 25 tons/year of VOC). If there is any question whether you may exceed a threshold for reporting, please contact our "Air Toxics and Inventory" Air Bureau staff.
The second category requires reporting every other year (example 1998, 2000, etc.,) on the use, process, or manufacture of "toxic" or other pollutants above certain threshold levels. The level for reporting these chemicals is typically 2,000 lbs./year, although several potential cancer-causing chemicals have lower thresholds for reporting. (See Chapter 137 of our DEP regulations for a complete list of pollutants and their reporting levels.) Some more commonly used chemicals in this group include acetone, hydrogen sulfide, toluene, MEK, hydrochloric acid, styrene, xylene, and ammonia. Your material safety data sheets (also called MSDS) and purchasing records can help you determine whether you have used more than the threshold amount. (These emission inventory requirements may apply even though you may not need a license. They may also be part of an air emission license.)
Does my business need a license?
To protect air quality, air emissions are monitored and regulated through a licensing program. Air emission licenses are issued to commercial, industrial, and electricity generating facilities that emit criteria air pollutants including particulate matter, SO2, NOx, CO, VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and HAPs (Hazardous Air Pollutants.) You may require an air emission license if you exceed certain fuel burning capacity limits or have the Potential to Emit pollutants above certain amounts. Determining your Potential to Emit requires calculating the maximum possible throughput of VOC and/or HAP materials that your facility could possibly use on a yearly basis. This "worst case scenario" determination uses a production rate for a full year or 8,760 hours per year.
Facilities that have the potential to emit Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) at the levels below are subject to licensing:
10 tons per year of a single Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP)
25 tons per year of all Hazardous Air Pollutants combined
A Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP) is any of the 188 air pollutants identified by the EPA that may reasonably be expected to cause irreversible illness or death. Examples include styrene, benzene, toluene, and xylenes. For a complete list of HAPs please contact the DEP.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds that react in the atmosphere to create ground level ozone. Many solvents are VOCs.
Exemptions
The following guidelines and examples help you decide if your activity is exempt from licensing requirements:
1.) Fuel-burning equipment (or combination of equipment), whose total maximum design heat input is less than 10.0 million British Thermal Units per hour (BTU/hr), is exempt from licensing. When calculating total maximum design heat input, do not include stationary internal combustion engines of less than 0.5 million Btu/hr each or fuel-burning equipment of less than 1.0 million Btu/hr each;
Examples:
1) Any units burning #6 oil at a level of 66.6 gal/hr is 10 million BTU/hr and would thus require licensing.
2) One or several units burning diesel fuel (#2 oil) at 71.4 gal/hr is 10 million BTU/hr and would also need a license.
3) In combination, one boiler burning #2 oil at 57.1 gal/hr creates 8 million BTU/hr and two stationary internal engines burning gasoline at 7.7 gal/hr produce 2 million BTU/hr, for a total of 10 million BTU/hr and thus would need a license.
2.) Stationary internal combustion (IC) engine (or combination of several stationary IC engines), whose total maximum design heat input is less than 5.0 million BTU/hr, is exempt from licensing. Also, natural gas or propane fired stationary internal combustion engines (or combination of natural gas/propane engines) with a total maximum design heat input of less than 10.0 million Btu/hr, which demonstrate that the maximum design capacity is physically limited to generate 25 tons/year or less of total pollutants, are exempt from licensing. When calculating total maximum design heat input, do not include stationary IC engines of less than 0.5 MMBtu/hr;
Examples:
1) An IC engine burning diesel fuel at 36 gal/hr is 5 million BTU/hr would need a license.
2) An IC engine burning diesel fuel at 3.6 gal/hr is 0.5 million BTU/hr.
3) An IC engine burning propane at 112 gal/hr is 10 million BTU/hr would need a license.
4) An IC engine burning natural gas at 9800 SCF/hr is 10 million BTU/hr would need a license.
(SCF is Standard Cubic Feet, IC is Internal Combustion.)
3.) Incinerators whose total maximum design heat input is less than 1.0 million Btu/hr for the auxiliary fuel are exempt from licensing. Crematory, pathological and infectious waste incinerators are NOT exempt. (Only clean wood waste can be burned in small incinerators and only with an open burning permit from the municipal fire warden.)
4.) Total facility general process sources whose emissions without consideration of air pollution control apparatus and under normal operation are less than 100 lb/day or 10 lb/hour of any regulated pollutant are exempt from licensing.
Example: Typical rock crushing and concrete batching plants will exceed 10lb/hr level.
Note: These numerical limitations may not apply to a source that is subject to regulation for the control of Hazardous Air Pollutants pursuant to Maine State law or Federal law (Title 38 MRSA Section 585-B, New Source Performance Standards promulgated at 40 CFR Part 60, or National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants promulgated at 40 CFR Part 61.) For a complete list of exemptions please refer to Chapter 115, Section (1)(C).
Do I need to conform to MACT standards?
Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) is used interchangeably with the federal regulations called NESHAPs (National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants.) These regulations are aimed at reducing 188 listed hazardous air pollutants by using control technologies. You may be subject to a MACT standard and therefore need to install/operate certain control technologies if the level of any one hazardous air pollutant exceeds 10 tons per year or a combination of the hazardous air pollutants exceeds 25 tons per year.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed MACTs for some smaller sources of air pollution (called area sources) that have no threshold amounts. These existing MACTs apply to any one operating the following processes (and may not require a license):
- chrome electroplaters
- secondary aluminum smelters (melting "used" aluminum)
- use of halogenated solvents including methylene chloride, and perchloroethylene, trichloroethylene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, carbon tetrachloride, and chloroform.)
- dry cleaners using perchloroethylene
- secondary lead smelters
Do I need to register with the Department?
In accordance with federal requirements, businesses performing any of the three operations: dry cleaning, surface coating, or solvent degreasing require registration of these activities with the Department's Air Quality Bureau. Please contact Department staff to receive registration information.
Specific information about the Department of Environmental Protection Air Quality Regulations can be found in:
Chapter 100 (definitions)
Chapter 115 (licensing for minor sources) includes list of Exemptions (insignificant activities)
Chapter 140 (licensing for major sources)
Chapter 137 (emission statements)
Also:
Chapter 125 (dry cleaners)
Chapter 129 (surface coating)
Chapter 130 (solvent degreasers)
Additional information, also available upon request:
1.) Fact sheet for veterinary incinerators
2.) MACT-Section 112 Hazardous Air Pollutants
3.) Appendix A-(Chapter 137)
4.) Small Business Compliance Incentives Policy
Contacts:
The Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Air Quality Licensing Unit can be reached at phone number 1-800-452-1942 or (207) 287-2437, and its Small Business Assistance Program can be reached at 1-800-789-9802 or (207) 287-8550. Written information can be found in our State of Maine Air Quality Regulations or accessed from the State of Maine's internet web site, www.state.me.us/dep.
Regional Air Bureau Offices:
Northern Maine (Presque Isle) 1-888-769-1053 (toll-free) or 207-764-0477
Eastern Maine (Bangor) 1-888-769-1137 (toll-free) or 207-941-4570
Central Maine (Augusta) 1-800-452-1942 (toll-free) or 207-287-2437
Southern Maine (Portland) 1-888-769-1036 (toll-free) or 207-822-6303
February, 2002
