§ 51.20 - What are the emission thresholds that separate point and nonpoint sources?

§ 51.20 What are the emission thresholds that separate point and nonpoint sources?

(a) All anthropogenic stationary sources must be included in your inventory as either point or nonpoint sources.

(b) Sources that meet the definition of point source in this subpart must be reported as point sources. All pollutants specified in § 51.15(a) must be reported for point sources, not just the pollutant(s) that qualify the source as a point source.

(c) If your state has lower emission reporting thresholds for point sources than paragraph (b) of this section, then you may use these in reporting your emissions to EPA.

(d) All stationary source emissions that are not reported as point sources must be reported as nonpoint sources. Episodic wind-generated particulate matter (PM) emissions from sources that are not major sources may be excluded, for example dust lifted by high winds from natural or tilled soil. Emissions of nonpoint sources should be aggregated to the resolution required by the EIS as described in the current National Emission Inventory (NEI) inventory year plan posted at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/eiinformation.html. In most cases, this is county level and must be separated and identified by source classification code (SCC). Nonpoint source categories or emission events reasonably estimated by the state to represent a de minimis percentage of total county and state emissions of a given pollutant may be omitted.

(1) The reporting of wild and prescribed fires is encouraged but not required and should be done via only the “Events” data category.

(2) Agricultural fires (also referred to as crop residue burning) must be reported to the nonpoint data category.

[73 FR 76552, Dec. 17, 2008, as amended at 80 FR 8795, Feb. 19, 2015]