(a) Any person in charge of a vessel or an offshore or an onshore facility shall, as soon as he or she has knowledge of any release (other than a federally permitted release or application of a pesticide) of a hazardous substance from such vessel or facility in a quantity equal to or exceeding the reportable quantity determined by this part in any 24-hour period, immediately notify the National Response Center (1-800-424-8802; in Washington, DC 202-267-2675; the facsimile number is 202-267-1322).

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(b) Releases of mixtures or solutions (including hazardous waste streams) of

(1) Hazardous substances, except for radionuclides, are subject to the following notification requirements:

(i) If the quantity of all of the hazardous constituent(s) of the mixture or solution is known, notification is required where an RQ or more of any hazardous constituent is released;

(ii) If the quantity of one or more of the hazardous constituent(s) of the mixture or solution is unknown, notification is required where the total amount of the mixture or solution released equals or exceeds the RQ for the hazardous constituent with the lowest RQ; or

(iii) For waste streams K169, K170, K171, K172, K174, and K175, knowledge of the quantity of all of the hazardous constituent(s) may be assumed, based on the following maximum observed constituent concentrations identified by EPA:

(2) Radionuclides are subject to this section’s notification requirements only in the following circumstances:

(i) If the identity and quantity (in curies) of each radionuclide in a released mixture or solution is known, the ratio between the quantity released (in curies) and the RQ for the radionuclide must be determined for each radionuclide. The only such releases subject to this section’s notification requirements are those in which the sum of the ratios for the radionuclides in the mixture or solution released is equal to or greater than one.

(ii) If the identity of each radionuclide in a released mixture or solution is known but the quantity released (in curies) of one or more of the radionuclides is unknown, the only such releases subject to this section’s notification requirements are those in which the total quantity (in curies) of the mixture or solution released is equal to or greater than the lowest RQ of any individual radionuclide in the mixture or solution.

(iii) If the identity of one or more radionuclides in a released mixture or solution is unknown (or if the identity of a radionuclide released by itself is unknown), the only such releases subject to this section’s notification requirements are those in which the total quantity (in curies) released is equal to or greater than either one curie or the lowest RQ of any known individual radionuclide in the mixture or solution, whichever is lower.

(c) The following categories of releases are exempt from the notification requirements of this section:

(1) Releases of those radionuclides that occur naturally in the soil from land holdings such as parks, golf courses, or other large tracts of land.

(2) Releases of naturally occurring radionuclides from land disturbance activities, including farming, construction, and land disturbance incidental to extraction during mining activities, except that which occurs at uranium, phosphate, tin, zircon, hafnium, vanadium, monazite, and rare earth mines. Land disturbance incidental to extraction includes: land clearing; overburden removal and stockpiling; excavating, handling, transporting, and storing ores and other raw (not beneficiated or processed) materials; and replacing in mined-out areas coal ash, earthen materials from farming or construction, or overburden or other raw materials generated from the exempted mining activities.

(3) Releases of radionuclides from the dumping and transportation of coal and coal ash (including fly ash, bottom ash, and boiler slags), including the dumping and land spreading operations that occur during coal ash uses.

(4) Releases of radionuclides from piles of coal and coal ash, including fly ash, bottom ash, and boiler slags.

(d) Except for releases of radionuclides, notification of the release of an RQ of solid particles of antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel, selenium, silver, thallium, or zinc is not required if the mean diameter of the particles released is larger than 100 micrometers (0.004 inches).

(e) The following releases are exempt from the notification requirements of this section:

(1) Releases in amounts less than 1,000 pounds per 24 hours of nitrogen oxide to the air which are the result of combustion and combustion-related activities.

(2) Releases in amounts less than 1,000 pounds per 24 hours of nitrogen dioxide to the air which are the result of combustion and combustion-related activities.

(3) Air emissions from animal waste (including decomposing animal waste) at a farm.

[50 FR 13474, Apr. 4, 1985, as amended at 54 FR 22538, May 24, 1989; 54 FR 33481, Aug. 14, 1989; 63 FR 13475, Mar. 19, 1998; 63 FR 42189, Aug. 6, 1998; 64 FR 13114, Mar. 17, 1999; 65 FR 67132, Nov. 8, 2000; 67 FR 45356, July 9, 2002; 71 FR 58533, Oct. 4, 2006; 73 FR 76959, Dec. 18, 2008; 76 FR 9666, Feb. 22, 2011; 77 FR 10390, Feb. 22, 2012; 83 FR 37446, Aug. 1, 2018]