My friend, who makes his living in environmental compliance, thought that the EPA had absolutely no case on the waste dumping charge since there was no waste. He said they were setting him up on a "Title V" charge for the VOC evaporation, assuming that the quanitities were enough. Apparently, it doesn't matter how much solvent you actually used, only the "theoretical" amount that you "could" have used.
My friend rattled off all the applicable regulations, and frankly, my eyes glazed over. Example: It makes a difference whether you are wiping down a machine with a solvent for "maintenance" or "repair" or "some other use".
Cutting through all the BS, what we have here is a case of a bureaucracy making an example of what happens to a small business owner who doesn't show the proper respect. That's it, plain and simple.
Nonetheless, it is a HAP (Because the EPA gave Congress the list, and Congress unquestioningly put it into the CAAA of 1990, and President Bush signed the law. Now the EPA falls back on the "Congress created the HAP list, not us" fiction as they crucify industries under Title V and Title III).
Potential to emit (PTE) is calculated by the EPA, persuming an operating scenario of 24/7/365, at the worst possible operating secnario (in McNabb's case, he would thoretically be manufacturing the one part that caused him to use the greatest amount of the solvent conceivable in any one hour, times 24 times 7 times 365.
Now, if he had that PTE of 10 tons, but didn't ever or didn't conceive that he ever would, operate in a manner to achieve the 10 tons per year, then he had to petition the state to grant him a "Synthetic Minor" source permit. In this permit, he would presume legally enforcable limitations on his operation (hours of operation, throughput of materials, product mix, etc. Thue "synthetically" creating a legally enforceable set of restrictions to ensure he would never be a "major source" of HAPS) that would hold him below the 10 ton threshold.
But he would have had to have establish himself as a synthetic minor source prior to the deadline for Major Sources to have filed for their Title V permits. Because with a PTE of 10 tons he needed a Title V permit, unless he had already proven to the state (Fed EPA) that he really didn't need one in the first place.
Confused?
So were and are the states and so are all of the regulated sources.
And you have a bunch of people who have never made anything in their lives running around telling industries just what they are doing wrong, and giving then magically simple sounding solutions that have no practicality in the real world.
Just like the "He could possibly find a roof coating mfg and give it away to be incorporated into the coating." comment. What self respecting businessman could conceive of incorporating an raw material that has dubious origins, virtually unknowable constituent makeup and uncertain availability into their product.
It sounds like a utopianly simplistic solution but it lacks somewhat in realistic grounding in an ISO 9002 kind of world.