Companies that manufacture or use carbamates will benefit from a regulatory amendment that raises the 1-pound Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) reportable quantity (RQ) for 28 individual carbamates and 5 carbamate-related hazardous wastestreams.

Carbamates are widely used as active ingredients in pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides and in the production of synthetic rubber.

Under CERCLA, the person in charge of a vessel or facility from which a CERCLA hazardous substance is released in a quantity that equals or exceeds its RQ must immediately report the release to the National Response Center.

Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), releases of CERCLA hazardous substances must also be reported to local and state emergency authorities.

CERCLA provides EPA with broad authority to set and adjust RQs for hazardous substances based on intrinsic physical, chemical, and toxicological properties. For each substance, the Agency may select an RQ of 1, 10, 100, 1,000, or 5,000 pounds.

In general, EPA raised the RQs for 27 of the 28 carbamates based on risk associated with the speed of degradation of the substances or chemically similar substances in the environment.

The one exception was for the carbamate dimetilan, which was adjusted to a final RQ of 1 pound.

In contrast to individual hazardous substances, RQs for hazardous wastestreams are based on their hazardous constituents.

Specifically, the RQ for the wastestream is equal to the lowest RQ of any constituent(s) of the wastestream. RQs EPA is establishing for the individual carbamates therefore result in adjustments in the RQs of the wastestreams in which individual carbamates are constituents.

RQs for four wastestreams (K156, K157, K158, and K159) have been set at 10 pounds. The RQ for the fifth, K161, has been set at 1 pound based on the presence of arsenic.

Finally, in the amendment, EPA has established a 1,000-pound RQ for K178, a noncarbamate-related wastestream associated with the inorganic chemical manufacturing industry.

EPA's adjusted RQs for individual carbamates, carbamate-related wastestreams, and K178 are available at http://www.blr.com/keyword. Type in em672rq when prompted.

[Source: Environmental Manager's Compliance Advisor. Subscribe today!]