268.3 Dilution prohibited as a substitute for treatment.

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no generator, transporter, handler, or owner or operator of a treatment, storage, or disposal facility shall in any way dilute a restricted waste or the residual from treatment of a restricted waste as a substitute for adequate treatment to achieve compliance with subpart D of this part, to circumvent the effective date of a prohibition in subpart C of this part, to otherwise avoid a prohibition in subpart C of this part, or to circumvent a land disposal prohibition imposed by RCRA section 3004.

(b) Dilution of wastes that are hazardous only because they exhibit a characteristic in treatment systems which include land-based units which treat wastes subsequently discharged to a water of the United States pursuant to a permit issued under section 402 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), or which treat wastes in a CWA-equivalent treatment system, or which treat wastes for the purposes of pretreatment requirements under section 307 of the CWA is not impermissible dilution for purposes of this section unless a method other than DEACT has been specified in §268.40 as the treatment standard, or unless the waste is a D003 reactive cyanide wastewater or nonwastewater.