Is My Facility Subject to Emergency Planning?
A facility is subject to the emergency planning requirements of EPCRA Section 302 when it has an Extremely Hazardous Substance (EHS) present at any one time over the course of the reporting year in an amount equal to or exceeding the Threshold Planning Quantity (TPQ).
The list of EHSs is maintained by the EPA in the “List of Lists” and can be found here. The TPQ for each chemical can be found in the corresponding “Section 302 (EHS) TPQ” column. Listed chemicals that do not have a corresponding TPQ are not considered EHSs.
Requirements
If your facility is subject to emergency planning requirements, then you must indicate this in the Regulatory section of your Tier II report. Click here to learn more about how to do this within the Encamp reporting interface.
NOTE: In addition to the requirement on the Tier II report, facilities are also required to file a notification with regulators within 60 days of each chemical exceeding its applicable threshold. Click here to learn more.
Example Scenarios
Scenario | Conclusion |
Facility A has only a 2,000-gallon tank of acetic acid onsite. | Acetic acid is not listed as an EHS and therefore the facility is not subject to emergency planning requirements. |
Facility B purchases a forklift powered by a lead-acid battery. The facility calculates that the battery is composed of approximately 2,800 pounds of lead and 1,200 pounds of sulfuric acid. | Lead is not listed as an EHS; however, sulfuric acid is listed as an EHS. The facility has a quantity (1,200 pounds) greater than the TPQ of 1,000 pounds. The facility is subject to emergency planning requirements. |
Facility C has begun operating and has brought a 275-gallon tote of nitric acid on-site (approximately 3,200 pounds). | Nitric acid is listed as an EHS with a TPQ of 1,000 pounds. Because the quantity brought on-site (3,200 pounds) was greater than the TPQ at any one point during the reporting year, the facility is subject to emergency planning requirements. |
Facility C uses all of its nitric acid before switching to chromic acid as their cleaning agent. | Even though the facility did not end the year with nitric acid onsite, the facility did bring on a quantity of nitric acid (an EHS) greater than the TPQ at one point during the reporting year. Therefore, the facility is subject to emergency planning requirements. |
Exemptions
EPCRA Section 327 exempts “substances or chemicals in transportation and/or being stored incident to transportation” from any Title III reporting requirements (including Section 302 applicability). In other words, Section 302 requirements do not apply to the transportation of any EHS, including transportation by pipeline, or storage of EHSs under active shipping papers.
Any quantities of EHS in a mixture at or below 1% do not need to be considered when determining whether a facility is subject to emergency planning requirements.
For example, a facility has 100,000 pounds of product A. Product A contains 1% nitric acid (TPQ of 1,000 pounds). The facility does not have nitric acid elsewhere at the facility. Even though the amount of nitric acid (100,000 pounds * 1% = 1,000 pounds) meets the TPQ, the nitric acid in Product A does not need to be considered; therefore, the facility would not be subject to emergency planning requirements.