Substance Release Regulation
(AR 124/93)

January 1997

The Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) gives Alberta Environment powers to regulate the release of substances into the environment, including release to air, water and land.

The Substance Release Regulation came into force on September 1, 1996 and represents a consolidation and amendment of the previous EPEA Air Emissions Regulation and Industrial Plants Regulation.

Overview

Part 4, Division 1 of EPEA deals with the release of substances into the environment and encompasses the releases of substances to air, land and water. The Act regulations releases, principally through a framework of approvals and Codes of Practice and also creates general prohibitions with respect to substance releases.

The Substance Release Regulation covers various types of substance releases into air. These include:

• visible emissions (opacity) from stationary activities;
• particulate emissions from a wide variety of industrial and combustion activities;
• secondary lead smelter particulate emissions; and
• vinyl chloride releases from vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride plants.

The Regulation also defines "burnable debris" and "prohibited debris" in relation to acceptability for open burning and maximum opacity emissions. In addition, the Regulations give the Director the following authorities related to both air and liquid emissions to the environment to:

• request any substance release returns or reports;
• specify monitoring requirements related to substance release control;
• specify ambient monitoring related to a substance release; and
• to specify analytical methods for measuring substance releases.

The Regulation also outlines activities whose substance releases are now governed by Codes instead of approvals.

Regulatory Details

The Substance Release Regulation along with the Activities Designation Regulation and Approval Procedures Regulation provide details on the legislative requirements and procedures that apply to substance releases from a wide range of activities. There is a separate regulation that deals specifically with Ozone-Depleting Substance.

The Substance Release Regulation establishes general substance release restrictions for certain activities that are not subject to approvals. It also established minimum substance release requirements for many activities which must also obtain an approval pursuant to the Activities Designation Regulation. In these cases, the Director, in an approval, may specify more stringent limits than are in the Substance Release Regulation, but may not relax the limits.

It is expected that substance releases to the environment will be minimized by applying pollution prevention practices and the use of best available demonstrated pollution control technologies. The Alberta Ambient Air Quality Guidelines, the Alberta Ambient Surface Water Quality Interim Guidelines and the Alberta Tier I Criteria for Contaminated Soil Assessment and Remediation are used to evaluate the acceptability of substance releases that cannot practically be further minimized.

A major change in the regulatory framework for controlling substance releases occurred in September 1996 when the requirement for approvals for certain activities was replaced with a requirement to comply with a Code. The activities affected by this change and the name of the Code applying to that activity are listed in Table 1. Codes also require certain monitoring to ensure the ongoing effective control of emissions. Industry sectors selected for regulation by Code were those that used standardized environmental protection practices, were not complex and had little potential to create a significant adverse effect. Copies of Codes can be obtained from the Queen's Printer Bookstores in Edmonton and Calgary.

The release of emissions exceeding or contrary to the limits in the Substance Release Regulations or an approval must be reported in accordance with the substance release provisions of the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) and the requirements of the Release Reporting Regulation (AR 117/93) and a related Release Reporting Guideline.

Table 1. Substance Release Codes

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ACTIVITY	CODE
Asphalt paving plant	Code of Practice for Asphalt Paving Plants
Concrete producing plant	Code of Practice for Concrete Producing Plants
Compressor and pumping stations Sweet gas processing plants	Code of Practice for Compressors, Pumping Stations and Sweet Gas Processing Plants
Foundry	Code of Practice for Foundries
Fish farm Fish processing plant	Code of Practice for Small Fish Farms and Fish Processing Plants
Hydrostatic testing	Code of Practice for Discharge of Hydrostatic Test Water from Hydrostatic Testing of Petroleum Liquid and Natural Gas Pipelines
Hydrologic tracing analysis	Code of Practice for Hydrologic Tracing Analysis Studies
Red meat processing plant Poultry processing plant	Code of Practice for Small Meat Processing Plants
Tanker truck washing facility	Code of Practice for Tanker Truck Washing Facilities
Vegetable processing plants	Code of Practice for Small Vegetable Processing Plants