The following terms as used in this Chapter shall have the following meanings:

            (1) “Commission” means the Emergency Response Commission appointed by the governor to implement the mandates of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act passed by the United States Congress in 1986. This commission is created within the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services.

            (2) “Department” means the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

            (3) “Deputy secretary” means the deputy secretary for the office of public safety services in the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

            (4) “Electronic Notification” means a process approved by the department for reporting required notifications.

            (5) “Environment” includes water, air, and land and the interrelationship which exists among and between water, air, and land and all living things.

            (6) “Extremely hazardous substance” (EHS) means a hazardous substance listed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 40 C.F.R. part 355, Appendix A (the list of Extremely Hazardous Substances and Their Threshold Planning Quantities) and subject to the emergency planning, release reporting, MSDS filing, and inventory filing requirements of SARA Title III.

            (7) “Facility” means the physical premises used by the owner or operator in which the hazardous materials are manufactured, used, or stored. A natural gas pipeline, including but not limited to transmission and distribution assets, shall be considered a facility and subject to the reporting requirements for facilities under this Chapter. A natural gas pipeline shall not be considered a transport vehicle or otherwise subject to the reporting requirements under Chapter 12 of Title 32 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, regarding hazardous materials transportation and motor carrier safety. A natural gas pipeline shall not be classified as a compressed natural gas facility.

            (8) “Hazardous material” means any substance deemed a hazardous material or a hazardous substance and included on a list adopted by rule by the deputy secretary to include those materials deemed hazardous under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation Liability Act (CERCLA), the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA, Title III U.S.C.), and certain substances included in the U.S. Department of Transportation regulations as found in 49 C.F.R. part 172.101. Hazardous material also means any substance designated by the deputy secretary by rule on recommendation of the commission which meets criteria established for adding other materials to the list. This term shall mean and include hazardous substances.

            (9) “Hospitalization” means the admission into a hospital as a patient for an overnight stay or emergency treatment at a hospital to the extent that the owner or operator requested such treatment or becomes aware of such treatment within twenty-four hours of the initiation of the relevant release.

            (10) “Immediately” means a reasonable period of time after identifying the nature, quantity, and potential off-site impact of a release considering the exigency of the circumstances.

            (11) “Inventory form” means the reporting form adopted by the department, and completed by owners and operators, which contains certain requested information on hazardous materials and which is used in developing the information system mandated by this Chapter.

            (12) “Local governing authority” means the police jury, parish council, the mayor’s office of the city of New Orleans or the city-parish of East Baton Rouge or other primary governmental body of a parish.

            (13) “Owner or operator” means any person, partnership, or corporation in the state including, unless otherwise stated, the state and local government, or any of its agencies, authorities, departments, bureaus, or instrumentalities engaged in business or research operations which use, manufacture, emit, or store a hazardous material in a facility.

            (14) “Reasonably be expected to affect the public safety beyond the boundaries of the facility” means fire, explosion, incident, accident, or cleanup within a facility that may reasonably impact public safety beyond the facility, including but not limited to an impact of such nature as to require shelter-in-place orders, evacuations, immediate response by emergency responders, or off-site road closures. The term shall not include facility drills, internal facility announcements, internal facility alarms and sirens, or internal facility response activities such as rolling facility fire trucks or ambulances, and movement of facility personnel in personal protective equipment.

            (15) “Release” means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment (including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles) of any hazardous material or substance. However, the term release as used in this Paragraph shall not include federal or state permitted releases.

            (16) “Reportable release” means a release of a regulated hazardous material or substance which causes any injury requiring hospitalization or any fatality, results in a fire or explosion which could reasonably be expected to affect the public safety beyond the boundaries of the facility, or exceeds the reportable quantity when that reportable quantity, as defined pursuant to rules promulgated by the deputy secretary, could be reasonably expected to escape beyond the site of the facility. A reportable release as defined herein shall be based upon the quantity of hazardous material or substance discharged continuously, intermittently, or as a one-time discharge, within any continuous twenty-four hour period.

            (17) “Repository” means the local entity designated pursuant to La. Rev. Stat. 30:2368 to house and record information on hazardous materials received from the department, regulated facilities, and other state agencies for public dissemination and inspection.

            (18) “Retail gas station” means a retail facility engaged in selling gasoline or diesel fuel primarily to the public, for use in land-based motor vehicles.

            (19) “Small business” means a single business establishment employing not more than nine full-time employees and having not more than two million dollars in average annual gross receipts. Any business employing more than nine persons shall not be considered a small business regardless of the average annual gross receipts. Any business with average annual gross receipts of over two million dollars shall not be considered a small business regardless of the number of employees.

            (20) “Trade secret” means any confidential formula, pattern, process, device, information, or compilation of information, including chemical name or other unique identifier, that is used in an employer’s business, and that gives the employer an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.

            Acts 1985, No. 435, §1, eff. July 11, 1985; Acts 1987, No. 347, §1; Acts 1992, No. 666, §§1, 2; Acts 1997, No. 1046, §1; Acts 1999, No. 424, §1, eff. June 18, 1999; Acts 1999, No. 771, §1; Acts 1999, No. 1166, §1, eff. July 9, 1999; Acts 2008, No. 550, §1, eff. June 30, 2008; Acts 2014, No. 311, §1; Acts 2021, No. 246, §1.