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REPORT:

Stationary Source Committee

SYNOPSIS:

The Stationary Source Committee met Friday, March 20, 1998. Following is a summary of that meeting. The next meeting will be April 17, 1998, at 11:00 a.m., in Conference Room CC8.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Receive and File.

Attendance

The meeting began at 11:25 a.m. Present was Board Member Leonard Paulitz (who chaired the meeting). Appointed to the Committee for this meeting only were Wayne Nastri, Norma Glover, and Nell Soto (who arrived at 12:20 p.m.). Absent were Committee Chair Mee Hae Lee, and Committee Members Richard Alarcón, Ron Loveridge, Jon Mikels, and James Silva.

Summary

The Committee reviewed the items on their agenda (attached). Comments were noted on the following items:

1. Report and Recommendations on the Air Quality Assistance Fund (AQAF)

The Committee, having heard this item at the Administrative Committee, waived the presentation.

2. BACT Guidelines Update (Item #3 on the agenda)

Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Pom Pom Ganguli informed the Committee about the BACT Guidelines update for Phase IIB. Dr. Ganguli said there are new technologies being brought forward, consistent with legal requirements under the Clean Air Act. He said that BACT must be at least as stringent as federal LAER determinations. There are two parts to the BACT Guidelines, Part A and Part B. Part B has individual BACT requirements for each type of equipment category. Dr. Ganguli said Part A was updated with the Board in 1995, and Part B of the BACT Guidelines has been in the process of being updated since 1996. The purpose, he said, is to make BACT consistent with federal LAER, and to comply with H&S Code requirements for BACT. Dr. Ganguli said Regulation XIII - New Source Review, provides specific requirements for BACT determination.

Dr. Ganguli explained that the update process is divided into four phases. He said that federal and state law requires that, if the BACT determination meets federal LAER requirements, this is not a discretionary action on the part of staff or the Board, but is required under law. When BACT exceeds federal LAER, AQMD has certain options or discretions. He said that based on these legal requirements, all BACT updates, up to now, meet the minimum requirements of LAER and are required in the permitting process. Phase IIB has about 26 different types of equipment ranging from boilers, dryers, and ovens to fugitive components, gas turbines, engines, and vapor degreasers.

Dr. Ganguli said Phase IIB will go before the Board, on April 10, 1998. BACT for spray booths, which is more contentious than anything that has been worked on to date, will be presented to the Board on May 8, 1998.

Curtis Coleman of CMA/Southern California Air Quality Alliance, said that airless vapor degreasers are being proposed as BACT by staff who believe it is cost-effective. Their concern is that all the data shown is for chlorinated solvents, like trichloroethane, which is expensive. He said there are very few of the degreasing operations using chlorinated solvents, and does not think it is appropriate to set the new BACT for all degreasing, when there has been no demonstration that it will work equally well with other types of solvents.

Lee Wallace, of the Gas Company, said that now that BACT is getting down to the very low levels (2 ppm NOx), it is very difficult for operators to stay in compliance at all times. He will propose to the Board that enforcement policy be changed to address this difficult problem.

Acting Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein asked Mr. Wallace to provide the AQMD with his suggestions in writing.

Rita Loof of Radtech International encouraged District staff to consider UV coatings and advanced technologies for BACT/LAER and to revisit alternatives so that operators are not forced to use a particular technology if they can show they can achieve equivalent emission reductions with other products.

3. Status Report on the BACT/LAER Process with EPA/ARB/CAPCOA
(Item #2 on the agenda)

Dr. Ganguli reported to the Committee that a draft BACT/LAER agreement is being worked on. The Home Rule Advisory Group (HRAG) has initiated this work. The last time it was presented, the HRAG felt that there was not enough public participation opportunity in the proposed agreement draft. Staff was directed to work with HRAG members to develop language for public participation. Dr. Ganguli said EPA’s position, which has not changed in the last month, was that public participation does not belong in LAER determination, but at the time of permit issuance. HRAG members have proposed alternative language, which will be presented at the next meeting.

4. Status Report on Green Carpet Priority Permitting

Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Dave Schwien reported that this item, which was approved by the Board in April 1996, is oriented towards projects which will reduce emissions, projects which will have a capital cost greater than $10 million, or projects experimenting with air quality enhancing equipment. He said over the last two years, we have had 28 inquiries. Of those 28 company inquiries, 10 companies have submitted 100 applications, 7 of these companies have received permits to construct, 242 new jobs are expected to occur, and total project costs are approximately $548 million. The cost of permitting and implementing this project is about 30% higher than the fees collected, but staff recommends the project should continue and will go before the Board in June with more formal recommendations.

Mr. Paulitz asked how staff handles this kind of application differently. Mr. Schwien said that this program provides a mechanism for internally expediting these applications.

Assistant Deputy Executive Officer Carol Coy said there are meetings throughout the process to plan specific application contents, coordinate with other agencies, and to track throughout with progress reports by both parties.

5. Reg. II - Proposed Amendments to List and Criteria Identifying Information Required of Applicants Seeking a Permit to Construct from the SCAQMD and Rule 210 - Applications

Ms. Coy briefed the Committee on this rule amendment which makes the current rule language consistent with the California State Law streamlining requirements. She said it adds deadlines for staff permit action after completion of certain CEQA documents. Ms. Coy said there is also a list of criteria that is used to accompany this rule that gives an up front notice to everyone about what is required for an application to be complete, and a new hazardous waste statement that is required under California law is proposed to be added to that list. Ms. Coy said the deadlines in Rule 210 are generally consistent with staff practice. She said there was one area where the District would act as lead agency in declaring a project exempt where the proposal will shorten our process time to 120 days. We will need to carefully track our permit processing progress on these applications. Ms. Coy said this item would go before the Board for public hearing in April.

Greg Adams, Los Angeles County Sanitation District, said he hopes it will not become a requirement that CEQA review be completed prior to the permit application submittal or processing. Many agencies do the CEQA analysis in a parallel fashion. Mr. Adams said they have submitted a letter stating this.

Ms. Coy said that is not the case. She said AQMD will continue to process the applications concurrently with CEQA action. Although the 180-day clock does not start until the CEQA document is complete we will proceed with permit processing as is current practice.

6. Report on the Gasoline Vapor Recovery Program

Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Larry Bowen briefed the Committee on the current activities under this multi-point plan. He said additional inspectors have been assigned to the program and they are in the process of training additional inspectors to do gasoline station inspections. In addition, inspectors are working overtime to do as many inspections as possible. Mr. Bowen said we are moving into the area of testing, using contractors or using our own test equipment. He said we have found that we need to test bootless systems effectively to determine compliance and we need to develop that capability. During the latest round of inspections they have found about 1% of the stations are out of business; about 15% are in compliance; and the remaining 84% have either received Notices to Comply, to fix or correct some problem; or a Notice of Violation, many of which are for major defects.

Mr. Bowen said vapor recovery compliance is a statewide problem and there has been recent testing on bootless nozzle systems by CARB, the Bay Area, San Diego, Monterey Bay Unified, and Santa Barbara. Almost all of the bootless nozzle stations tested were not compliant. Of those, about 35% to 80% of the nozzles failed the required emission test. As a result of this, an industry/CARB/
CAPCOA group is trying to develop a resolution.

Dr. Wallerstein said ARB has a process where they certify this equipment as being durable and operating at 95% control efficiency, but we and other districts are finding that some manufacturers’ equipment does not perform in the field up to the standards it is certified to. He outlined the situation that we have new service stations applying for permits and we know that this equipment is certified but does not generally perform properly in practice. Do we go ahead and continue to permit the equipment at a cost of about $30,000 per station when we know that we could expect excess emissions beyond what the rule anticipated?

Ms. Glover asked if we can recommend to station operators specific equipment that we know will work properly.

District Counsel Barbara Baird said there is a prohibition on recommending the use of specific systems, but we can provide factual non-confidential information. If it is our information that a particular system does not work, it would not be prohibited to give that information to an applicant.

Mr. Bowen said that we are also looking at amending Rule 461 in a number of areas including the ones dealing with bootless systems, and we may want to put more focus on the equipment manufacturer and the people who install and test these systems.

Dr. Wallerstein also stated that a proposal under consideration in the upcoming fee rule amendment, is to institute a fee for service stations to pay for the additional cost of the inspections.

Greg Adams asked if EPA gets this data, how does this impact Title III equivalency analysis with our inspections, our more stringent rules, and our comprehensive programs?

Dr. Wallerstein said that of the 85% that aren’t in compliance, a little less than one-half are emission related; the other half are recordkeeping data related; and of the half that are emissions related, 1/2 to 2/3 are bootless nozzle related issues, and the remainder are other types of systems. But, part of the problem with the bootless systems is that ARB’s certification protocol did not include an adequate durability test. Unlike the ARB Motor Vehicle regulation which requires manufacturers to repair or replace faulty emission control equipment on cars, there is no such requirement for vapor recovery equipment manufacturers.

Mr. Broadbent told the Committee that staff would keep them up to date on this issue.

7. EPA Guidance on Implementing Title VI

Ms. Baird told the Committee that Title VI is a federal statute which prohibits discrimination in the administration of federally funded programs. Ms. Baird summarized EPA’s interim guidance, specifically to the question of when permits are to be issued. Title VI seeks to make sure there is no discrimination or disparate impact on any particular ethnic or racial group in the issuance of a permit. This guidance states that EPA will ordinarily only find a disparate impact in cases where an individual permit contributes to a preexisting burden of pollution such that a community’s cumulative burden is disproportionate, or where a permit is part of a pattern of disparate impacts.

She said EPA will investigate upon a complaint whether or not a permit contributes to a cumulative burden on a community. If it does, they will allow the facility the opportunity to mitigate those adverse impacts, or to justify those adverse impacts by showing that there is an overriding substantial governmental interest supporting the issuance of that permit, notwithstanding the disparate impact. Ms. Baird said this guidance raises a number of questions regarding the administration of our permit program. She said what our proposed comment letter does, is ask a series of eight questions of EPA for further guidance.

Ms. Baird said staff will be seeking Board approval at the April 10, 1998 Board meeting for the proposed comment letter.

Greg Adams told the Committee that this item was on the agenda for the Home Rule Advisory Group which is meeting this Thursday, March 26, and asked that the Board hold off on a formal position until after that discussion.

Ms. Baird said this would not be final until the April 10, 1998 Board meeting.

8. Status of Environmental Justice Initiatives:

Initiative #2 - Ambient Monitoring of Air Toxics: Director of Applied Science and Technology Mel Zeldin gave a status report on this item. He told the Committee that the Technical Review Group (ATSTRG) met on March 18, 1998 and was supportive of the staff’s process for selecting the Microscale Study sites. He further indicated that the draft monitoring and Laboratory Protocol document is nearing completion and will then be reviewed by ATSTRG. He said arrangements are being made for three 1-year fixed sites for MATES-II. They are Huntington Park, Compton, and Wilmington. Mr. Zeldin said the public notification process is upcoming. The combined PM2.5 and toxics monitoring public consultation sessions are scheduled for April 21-23, 1998. The next ATSTRG meeting will be April 15, 1998.

Initiative #8 - Field Inspection Technology: Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Dave Schwien reported to the Committee that the Board-approved work plan to investigate the technical feasibility and cost of using detection and monitoring instrumentation for routine inspections continued to be implemented. He said an analysis to determine the nature and sources of complaints has been completed. The contract study will determine if there is enhanced real-time field monitoring equipment that will significantly improve source identification. Continued use of site-specific monitoring in community complaint situations is recommended. He said the Request for Proposals to analyze our current laboratory and analytical procedures are closing today. By next week we hope to review the bids submitted and determine who the consultant will be so the work can go forward. He said there will be a Peer Review Group established which will take the consultants recommendations and additional staff recommendations and help us formulate a Board presentation for September.

Dr. Wallerstein told the Committee there is an Odor Conference April 2, 1998, where new technologies will be discussed that will focus on the methodology for identification of chemicals near and around emission sources.

Ms. Coy added the contract study also identifies new sampling apparatus for further help in lab analysis.

Initiative #10 Rules 1401 and 1402: Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Jill Whynot briefed the Committee on this initiative. She said progress has been made on proposed changes to Rule 1401. A Working Group meeting on March 5, 1998, was very well attended and staff received good feedback. Some of the comments have been incorporated into the draft staff report and draft rule which are available now, as well as the draft Environmental Assessment, which has started the 45-day review period. She said there will be another Working Group meeting March 27, 1998, and they will be talking more with members about proposals for adding compounds and non-carcinogenic impact prevention into the rule. Ms. Whynot said Public Workshops will be held in early April. At that time, we can expect more feedback from industry and the public.

John Billheimer said he is hoping the Chemical Abstract numbers will be carried into the rule.

Ms. Glover asked if anyone had attended the Working Group meeting. Mr. Coleman said he attended. He said the environmental community’s concern is that only the AB 2588 list is being looked at and it may not be inclusive enough. The industry community thinks it doesn’t make a lot of sense to put compounds on the list that are not used and they had some concerns regarding risk factors. Mr. Coleman said they would be working with staff on this process.

Mr. Billheimer said there were some questions regarding glycol ethers that need discussion. Ms. Whynot said they will work with Mr. Billheimer on this.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:50 p.m.

Attachments

March 20, 1998 Committee Agenda (without its attachments)

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