Class I Areas and New Coal Plant Permitting 0715

Class I areas and new coal plant permitting
Mark Wenzler, Clean Air & Climate Program Director
July 15, 2008
What is a Class I area?
• 1977 CAA Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD)
program designated certain federal lands as “Class I areas”
• Class I areas include the following areas in existence on
August 7, 1977
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
international parks
national wilderness areas which exceed 5000 acres
national memorial parks which exceed 5000 acres
national parks which exceed 6000 acres
• There are 158 Class I areas: 48 National Parks, 21 Fish &
Wildlife Refuges, and 88 Forest Service Wilderness Areas.
• List of Class I areas by state:
www.epa.gov/oar/visibility/class1.html
Mandatory Class I areas
Class I tools for litigators
What to look for…
• Increment violation?
• Air Quality Related Value
concern?
• Failure to give notice?
• Haze SIP compliance problem?
Increments
• PSD protects Class I areas through ceilings on additional
amounts pollution over baseline levels -- increments.
• A PSD permit applicant must complete both an increment
consumption analysis and a cumulative impact analysis.
• There are statutory Class I increments for two pollutants:
(1) particulate matter, 5 and 10 µg/m3 for annual and
24-hour respectively
(2) sulfur dioxide, 2, 5, and 25 µg/m3 for annual, 24hour and 3-hour respectively.
• The CAA requires EPA to promulgate increments or
equivalent protective measures for all pollutants that have
NAAQS. As a result of litigation by EDF, EPA promulgated an
annual nitrogen dioxide increment in 1988, 2.5 µg/m3.
• Next Administration: PM2.5 and tougher nitrogen increments
Air Quality Related Values
• PSD charges the federal land manager (FLM) with an affirmative
responsibility to protect the air quality related values (AQRVs)
of any such lands within a class I area and to consider, in
consultation with EPA, whether a proposed major emitting facility
will have an adverse impact on such values.
• AQRVs include visibility or a scenic, cultural, physical, biological,
ecological, or recreational resource that may be affected by a
change in air quality, as defined by the Federal Land Manager or
by the state or Indian governing body for nonfederal lands.
• FLM’s include political appointees within DOI and USDA AND the
official with direct responsibility for the Class I area (e.g., park
superintendent, forest supervisor).
• Next Administration: Quantify and make enforceable by citizens
AQRVs such as visibility impairment
Notice
• PSD requires EPA or the state to provide to the FLM
notice of any proposed major emitting facility whose
emissions may affect a Class I area.
• A state may not issue a PSD permit when the FLM
files a notice alleging the facility may cause or
contribute to a change in the Class I area's air
quality and identifying the potential adverse impact
of such a change, unless the facility owner
demonstrates to the satisfaction of the FLM that the
facility's emissions will not cause or contribute to
concentrations which will exceed Class I increments.
• Next administration: support FLM decisions
Haze SIPs
Now you should CAIR…
• The Regional Haze Rule requires States to establish goals for
each affected Class I area to 1) improve visibility on the haziest
days and 2) ensure no degradation occurs on the clearest days
over the period of each SIP; first SIPs due December 2008.
• The rule requires States to develop long-term strategies
including enforceable measures designed to meet reasonable
progress goals. The first long-term strategy will cover 10 years,
with reassessment and revision of those goals and strategies in
2018 and every 10 years thereafter. States’ strategies should
address their contribution to visibility problems in Class I areas
both within and outside the State.
• In developing their long term strategy for regional haze, States
can take into account emission reductions due to ongoing air
pollution control programs (CAIR…)
Class I tools for organizers
Some helpful strategies…
• Create compelling visuals of the
impacts to the Class I area
• Rally locals who depend on the Class I
area as an economic driver
• Engage elected officials
(Parks=America)
• Media, media, media!
Visuals
Parks that are too dirty already…
Visuals
Parks that we can still keep clean…
Visuals
haze photos make it real…
Shenandoah National Park
Good Air Day
Shenandoah National Park
Bad Air Day
IMPROVE data by Air Resource Specialists, Inc.
Available for many Class I areas
Rally locals
Businesses depend on healthy parks
VIRGINIANS FOR HEALTHY AIR
•
Adventure Links
•
Paris
•
•
•
•
•
Camp Roanoke
Salem
•
Candlewick Inn
Woodstock
Blue Ridge School
St. George
Camp Curtain Call
Dugspur
Belle Hearth B&B
Waynesboro
Camp Alta Mons & Retreat
Center
Shawville
Artisans Center of Virginia
Waynesboro
•
•
•
•
Crabtree Falls Campground
Tyro
Purcellville
Dayspring Farm
Deer Meadow Winery
Winchester
•
Ebenezer Heights Greenhouses
Culpeper
Caledonia Farm - 1812
Flint Hill
Appalachian Harvest Organic
Foods
Abingdon
•
•
Crooked Run Orchard
Cologne
Buckskin Manor
Purcellville
American President's Museum
Strasburg
•
•
•
Bryce Resort
Basye
Allstar Lodging
Luray
•
•
Afton Mountain Vineyards
Afton
•
Willis
Afton Mountain B&B
Afton
Boundary Rock Farm & Vineyard, •
LLC
•
Fallen Oak B&B
Faber
•
Foster-Harris House
Washington
•
[more…]
Rally locals
Link parks & people
“Toxic mercury pollution from
dirty power plants accumulates in
Virginia's waterways,
contaminating fish and harming
the brain development of
Virginia's children and the
unborn. Even our national parks
aren't safe from toxic mercury.”
Elected officials
Parks are a bipartisan concern…
Elected officials
Protecting the parks they love…
Media, media, media!
Makes decision makers pay attention…
Editorial: Polluting the
parks; The Gainesville
Sun (FL) 05/31/2008
A rule change proposed
by the Bush
administration could lead
to the construction of
power plants near
national parks and
wilderness areas, causing
air quality to worsen and
visibility to be reduced.
That would be 'a huge
mistake,' U.S. Rep. Vern
Buchanan, R-Fla., said in
a recent letter to
President Bush. That is
not hyperbole.
Editorial: Easing Rules That Protect
Our Parks; Bristol Herald Courier
(VA) 05/27/2008 The federal
government has a duty to protect our
cherished national parks for the next
generation. To relax the pollution
standards in this manner is a dereliction
of that duty.
Will coal plants cloud Capitol Reef
and Zion park vistas?; Salt Lake
Tribune (UT), 05/16/2008
Editorial: Parks in Peril; New York
Times (NY) 03/24/2008 The country's
treasured open spaces are no more
immune to air pollution from coal-fired
power plants than are its big cities. Sulfur
dioxide causes acid rain and kills trees.
Mercury emissions poison streams.
Nitrogen oxides and sulfates create smog
and haze.
More resources
• EPA visibility webpages
www.epa.gov/oar/visibility/index.html
• NPS air web pages,
www2.nature.nps.gov/air/
• IMPROVE (Interagency Monitoring of
Protected Visual Environments)
http://vista.cira.colostate.edu/Improve/
• NPCA Dark Horizons
www.npca.org/darkhorizons