Code of Maine Rules › 06 - DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION › 096 - DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION - GENERAL › Chapter 115 - MAJOR AND MINOR SOURCE AIR EMISSION LICENSE REGULATIONS › Appendix 096-115-B - Insignificant Activities

Current through 2024-29, July 17, 2024
Insignificant Activities
A unit or activity may be considered insignificant, but may
				  still be subject to applicable requirements.
A.
Categorically Exempt
The following insignificant units and activities are exempt
				  from being included on a Chapter 115 license application and Chapter 115
				  license:
1. Recreational fireplaces,
				including the use of barbecues, campfires and ceremonial fires.
2. Office activities.
3. Blue printing operations.
4. Paper trimmers/binders.
5. Personal care activities.
6. Flares used to indicate danger to the
				public.
7. Food preparation for
				human consumption including cafeterias, kitchen facilities and barbecues,
				located at a source for providing food service on the premises.
8. Materials and equipment used by, and
				activity related to operation of an infirmary, where the infirmary is not the
				source's business activity.
9.
				Comfort air conditioning or air cooling systems, not used to remove regulated
				pollutants from specific equipment (unless subject to Part 82).
10. Natural draft hoods, natural draft
				stacks, or natural draft ventilators for sanitary and storm drains.
11. Natural and forced air vents and stacks,
				for bathroom/toilet facilities.
12.
				Plant upkeep including routine housekeeping, preparation for and painting of
				structures or equipment, retarring roofs, applying insulation to buildings in
				accordance with applicable environmental and health and safety requirements and
				paving or stripping of parking lots.
13. Cleaning and sweeping of streets and
				paved surfaces.
14. Fugitives from
				application of sand in the winter months, where the sand is used for vehicle or
				pedestrian safety.
15. Repair and
				maintenance activities, not involving installation of an emissions unit and not
				increasing the potential to emit of regulated pollutants.
16. Routine repair of equipment using
				commercially available cleaners, lubricants, etc.
17. Lawn and landscaping
				activities.
18. Agricultural
				activities on a facility's property that are not subject to registration or new
				source review by the Department
19.
				Structural changes not having regulated pollutant emissions.
20. Portable drums and totes.
21. Internal combustion engines for
				propelling or powering a vehicle.
22. Vehicle exhaust from auto maintenance and
				repair shops. General vehicle maintenance including vehicle exhaust from repair
				facilities.
23. Mobile transport
				tanks on vehicles.
24. Fuel and
				exhaust emissions, from vehicles in parking lots.
25. Storage tanks, mixing, packaging, storage
				and handling activities, reservoirs and pumping and handling equipment of any
				size, limited to soaps, lubricants, hydraulic fluid, thermal
				oil
,
vegetable oil, grease, animal fat, aqueous salt solutions
				or other materials and processes, using appropriate lids and covers where there
				is no generation of objectionable odor or airborne particulate
				matter.
26. Pressurized storage of
				oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or inert gases.
27. Sodium hydroxide storage tanks.
28. Vents from continuous emissions monitors
				and other analyzers.
29. Vents from
				rooms, buildings and enclosures (including elevator vents), that contain
				permitted emissions units or activities from which local ventilation, controls
				and separated exhaust are provided.
30. Manual wall or roof vents and powered
				wall or roof vents, used for temperature control of a building or
				structure.
31. Material, gas and
				chemical storage area vents, where closed containers are present.
32. CO2 lasers, used only on metals and other
				materials, which do not emit HAPs in the process.
33. Acetylene, butane, and propane
				torches.
34. Manufacturing brazing,
				soldering and welding equipment and oxygen-hydrogen cutting torches, for use in
				cutting metal where in components of the metal do not generate significant HAPs
				or HAP precursors per Section C of Appendix B.
35. All manufacturing welding, including arc
				welding, where emissions of particulate matter are vented to a control device
				located and vented inside the building (not to include HAP or VOC
				emissions).
36. Metal finishing or
				cleaning using tumblers which do not emit VOCs or HAPs.
37. Metal casting molds and molten metal
				crucibles that do not contain potential VOCs or HAPs.
38. Metal or glass heat-treating, in absence
				of molten materials, VOCs, or HAPs.
39. Drop hammers or hydraulic presses for
				forging or metalworking.
40.
				Electrolytic deposition which do not produce HAPs.
41. Metal fume vapors from electrically
				heated foundry/forge operations wherein the components of the metal do not
				generate HAPs or HAP precursors. Electric arc furnaces are excluded from
				consideration for listing as insignificant.
42. Molten metal holding equipment and
				operations wherein the components of the metal do not generate HAPs or HAP
				precursors. Electric arc furnaces are excluded from consideration for listing
				as insignificant.
43. Mineral and
				metal working processes including squeezing processes (cold rolling, cold
				forging, extrusion, sizing, coining, peening, burnishing), blending processes,
				shearing processes (stamping, piercing, blanking), and drawing processes (bar
				and tube drawing, wire drawing, spinning).
44. Inspection equipment for metal
				products.
45. Die
				casting.
46. Machine tool coolant
				sumps, coolant recycling and processing tanks and equipment and water soluble
				machining coolant emissions from general machining operations which emit to the
				interior of the facility.
47.
				Conveying and storage of plastic pellets.
48. Plastic compression, injection, and
				transfer molding and extrusion, rotocasting, pultrusion, blowmolding, excluding
				acrylics, PVC, polystyrene and related copolymers and the use of plasticizer
				that emit no VOCs or HAPs. Only oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, air, or inert
				gas allowed as blowing agents.
49.
				Plastic pipe welding.
50. Wax
				melting and wax application equipment.
51. Ultraviolet curing processes that emit no
				VOCs or HAPs.
52. Hot melt adhesive
				application with no VOCs or HAPs in the adhesive formulation.
53. Laundering, dryers, extractors, tumblers
				for fabrics, using water solutions of bleach and/or detergents.
54. Portable steam cleaning units.
55. Steam sterilizers.
56. Sample gathering, preparation, management
				and sampling connections used exclusively to withdraw materials for laboratory
				analyses and testing.
57. Fire
				fighting and similar safety equipment used to train fire fighters excluding
				fire drill pits.
58. Carving,
				cutting, routing, turning, drilling, machining, sawing, surface grinding,
				sanding, planing, buffing, shot blasting, shot peening, sintering or polishing;
				Ceramics, glass, leather, metals, plastics, rubber, concrete, paper stock or
				wood, also including cotton roll grinding and groundwood pulping stone
				sharpening provided that:
a. Activity is
				performed indoors; and
b. No
				fugitive particulate emissions enter the environment.
59. Water blast cleaning and stripping
				operations that do not emit fugitive PM into the environment and do not create
				a nuisance.
60. Slaughterhouse
				equipment except rendering cookers.
61. Ozonation equipment.
62. Batch loading and unloading of solid
				phase catalysts.
63.
				Demineralization and oxygen scavenging (deaeration) of water.
64. Pulse capacitors.
65. Laser trimmers, using dust collection to
				prevent fugitive emissions that do not emit fugitive PM, VOCs or
				HAPs.
66. Plasma etcher and plasma
				spray unit, using dust collection to prevent fugitive emissions and using only
				oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or inert gas that do not emit VOCs or
				HAPs.
67. Photographic process
				equipment by which an image is reproduced upon material sensitized to radiant
				energy, e.g., blueprint activity, photocopiers, mimeograph, telefax,
				photographic developing and microfiche.
68. Packaging equipment that does not use VOC
				or HAP containing adhesives.
69.
				Handling equipment and associated activities for glass and aluminum which is
				destined for recycling, not the re-fining process itself.
70. Hydraulic and hydrostatic testing
				equipment.
71. Batteries and
				battery charging.
72. Porcelain and
				vitreous enameling equipment.
73.
				Salt baths using nonvolatile salts and not used in operations which results in
				air emissions.
74. Shock
				chambers.
75. Wire strippers that
				do not emit PM, VOCs or HAPs.
76.
				Solar simulators.
77. Humidity and
				environmental chambers not using VOC or HAP gasses.
78. Steam vents and leaks.
79. Air compressors, pneumatically operated
				equipment, systems and hand tools and centrifuges used for compressing air and
				the related compressed air system.
80. Recovery boiler blow-down tank.
81. Demineralizer tanks.
82. Clean condensate tanks.
83. Alum tanks.
84. Broke beaters, repulpers, pulp and
				repulping tanks, stock chests and bulk pulp handling, process water and white
				water storage tanks not associated with requirements in 40 CFR Part
				63.
85. Lime mud filtrate tanks,
				lime mud water, lime mud filter, lime grits washers, filters and
				handling.
86. Hydrogen peroxide
				tanks.
87. Smelt viewing
				ports.
88. Causticizers and white
				liquor clarifiers and storage tanks and associated pumping, piping, and
				handling.
89. Vacuum cleaning
				equipment and operations where the fugitive emissions are indoors.
90. Winders, slitters, calenders,
				supercalenders, and paper roll wrapping operations.
91. Debarking.
92. Wastewater treatment lagoon pond
				dredging, screw press vents and sludge dewatering and handling.
93. Polymer tanks and storage devices and
				associated pumping and handling equipment, used for solids dewatering and
				flocculation.
94. Oil filled
				circuit breakers, oil filled transformers and other equipment that is analogous
				to, but not considered to be, a tank.
95. Electric or steam-heated drying ovens and
				autoclaves that emit only water vapor.
96. Oven exhaust where the oven is used to
				dry water from parts.
97. Sewer
				manholes, junction boxes, sumps and lift stations associated with wastewater
				treatment systems not associated with requirements in 40 CFR Part 63.
98. Sanitary sewer and storm sewer
				manholes, vents and drains.
99.
				Water cooling towers processing exclusively noncontact cooling water to which a
				source does not add VOCs or HAPs in excess of the levels in Section C of
				Appendix B.
100. Emissions from
				water storage tanks in air emission control systems utilizing a wetting
				process.
101. Ventilating and
				exhaust systems for laboratory hoods used.
a.
				By colleges, primary, or secondary schools used only for academic
				purposes.
b. By hospitals and
				medical care facilities used for medical care purposes only.
c. By pulp and paper mills; including pulp
				testing labs, paper testing labs, analytical labs, water treatment labs, and
				coating labs.
102.
				Chemical, metallurgical, or physical analytical laboratory operations or
				equipment including fume hoods and vacuum pumps.
103. Emissions from laboratory electric hot
				air drying ovens for oriented strand board quality testing.
104. Kilns or ventilating hoods for art or
				ceramic curricula at colleges, primary or secondary schools.
105. Abandoned stack that has not been capped
				off.
106. Machining coolants used
				in super abrasive machining operations.
107. Chip/bark piles and log storage yards
				where natural drying of wood occurs.
108. Ash and lime storage piles.
109. Emissions from town permitted open
				burning of wood or grass.
110.
				Emissions from log hot ponds.
111.
				Oriented strand board storage and handling.
112. Conveying of wood chips.
113. Log sawing.
114. Temporary air emission related
				activities which are granted approval from the Department.
115. Maintenance brazing, soldering and
				welding equipment and oxygen-hydrogen cutting torches, for use in cutting metal
				where in components of the metal do not generate significant HAPs or HAP
				precursors in excess of the threshold in Appendix B Section C of this Chapter.