BOARD MEETING DATE: July 10, 1998 AGENDA NO. 35
REPORT:
Stationary Source Committee
SYNOPSIS:
The Stationary Source Committee met Friday, June 19, 1998. Following is a summary of that meeting. The next meeting will be July 24, 1998, at 11:00 a.m., in Conference Room CC8.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Receive and File.
Mee Hae Lee
Chair, Stationary Source Committee
Attendance
The meeting began at 11:00 a.m. Present were Committee Chair Mee Hae Lee and Board Members Jon Mikels (who left at 11:55 a.m.) and Leonard Paulitz (who arrived at 11:14 p.m.). Absent were Committee Members Richard Alarcòn, Ron Loveridge, and James Silva.
Summary
The Committee reviewed the items on their agenda (attached). Comments were noted on the following items:
Stationary Source Compliance Assistant Deputy Executive Officer Jack Broadbent gave a status report on this item, which will go before the Board on July 10, 1998. Mr. Broadbent said staff is proposing to amend this rule for a number of reasons. There are a number of compounds that have been identified as a known cancer risk, since the last update on this rule. There are also compounds that are known to cause non-cancer impacts, such as reproductive or neurological toxic impacts. Staff is also proposing amendments to Rule 1401 to make the list of chemicals consistent with Rule 1402. Currently there are about 40 compounds listed in Rule 1401, much less than in Rule 1402 and the AB2588 program. He said staff would like to take the necessary steps to make progress on the Environmental Justice Initiatives adopted last fall.
Mr. Broadbent said there has been a great deal of input developing this rule. A conference was held in December 1997 on Air Toxics, there have been five Working Group meetings, five public workshops, and two public consultation meetings. The proposal is to add only those compounds with known risk values to the Table of Compounds and to make some clarifications to the rule itself. He said that staff has been working closely with a number of industries to address their concerns. To date, staff is proposing a limited time exemption for wood stripping operations. With regard to motion picture film labs, which were asking for exemption in 1994, Mr. Broadbent said staff is not prepared to recommend an exemption because there is available technology, which is in use at a number of facilities. The nickel plating industry is raising a number of issues, but technology has been identified to reduce the risk in nickel plating operations. The aerospace industry has asked us to look at chem film maskants operations. Staff has identified alternatives to perchloroethylene (perc) for that operation.
Mr. Broadbent said other industries reviewed were automobile refinishing, restaurants, printing, plastic product manufacturers, gas stations, and dry cleaners. Dry cleaners are heavily controlled in this basin and throughout California. Rule 1421 is the rule that implements MACT for dry cleaners and the level of control of dry cleaners is 90+% in terms of perc emissions. Staff cannot identify any additional controls that are available with respect to add-on control equipment. These operations have secondary controls. Staff is finding that there are going to be some dry cleaners relocating in the more dense parts of the basin that may exceed the 10 in a million risk level. He said there are alternatives available to perc, such as waterbase materials, CO2, etc. that are just starting to come on the market.
Mr. Broadbent said nickel plating is an integral part of a lot of operations. The industry disagrees that soluble nickel causes cancer. They say there are different types of nickel and that the soluble nickel emitted from plating operations hasn’t been shown conclusively to cause cancer. Staff has been talking with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) who disagrees with the nickel industry. A literature review is being conducted that will be completed in September 1998. Work is continuing with industry and a guidance document has been prepared to go along with the amendments that provide the procedures for calculating risks. It also contains calculation procedures for screening levels and T-BACT. A revised version of the guidance document will be available for the June 26 Working Group meeting.
Also, Rule 219 clarifications will go to the Board in September. The Rule 1401 hearing was set in May 1998 and the Public Hearing will be July 10, 1998. Mr. Broadbent said rule changes will be effective 60 days from adoption and refined guidance documents will be available next week.
Mee Lee said there were a couple of things that the Environmental Justice Task Force asked for regarding exemptions requested by industry. Additional information was requested on geographic locations and population density for film cleaning, plating, and dry cleaning. She asked if that information would be ready by June 26. Staff said they are hopeful they will have that information available at that time.
Larry Straw, attorney for the Metal Finishing Association of Southern California (MFASC), said the SCAQMD is rushing to judgment on Proposed Amended Rule 1401. He said there is currently a study underway by MFASC, EPA, and Health Canada, which is looking at the effects of nickel. That study will not be completed until after the hearing is held on this rule.
Dean High, Pacific Environmental Services, said the study started around January 1, 1998 and should be completed in the late fall. He said the study involves developing a health risk assessment of soluble nickel and, once adopted, there will be peer review with EPA, Health Canada, as well as other scientists across the nation.
Mr. Broadbent said that OEHHA disagrees with the Metal Finishing Association. They believe that the data supporting nickel is official and there is significant epidemiological information supporting the risk factor for nickel. The work undertaken by the Metal Finishing industry, along with Health Canada and EPA, is to find a unit risk factor for soluble nickel based on the literature review.
Mr. High said they would like for the agency to speciate nickel and acknowledge there are differences among the different kinds. Mr. Mikels asked if this was speculation or do speciation studies confirm their position. Mr. High said the most-supportive study was done by EPA and the National Institute of Health. They did a three-year study on mice and rats using three different nickel compounds. The study concluded that nickel sulfate showed no evidence of cancer in mice or rats. This study was done after CARB adopted nickel and all nickel compounds as carcinogens in 1991. He said they are trying to get CARB and OEHHA to open the nickel issue again.
Acting Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein said staff has been asked to contact outside experts to seek independent peer opinions on this issue. Mr. Broadbent said that once the MFASC study is completed and reviewed, following our past practice and policy we want to make sure that OEHHA updates and opens their own unit risk factor. This process could take 18 months to two years.
Mr. Straw expressed concern that if enacted now, the rule would impose costs on individual small businesses that may not be justified and could ultimately force some to go out of business. Mr. Broadbent said staff would make sure they characterize when and how the industry would be affected.
Mr. Wallerstein emphasized that this is not a retrofit rule. It is for expansion or new business and does not affect all existing facilities. Mr. Paulitz asked if industry is maintaining that nickel by itself is not toxic, but some compounds could be. Mr. High said soluble nickel is not a carcinogen, and even if it had some carcinogenic qualities, they maintain that the agency should speciate them, identify them, and allow them to have different values of toxicity, instead of treating them like one massive, uniform compound. Mr. Paulitz asked why the agency classifying the compounds does that. Mr. High said, at the time, they did not have as much information as they do now.
Curtis Coleman, California Manufacturers Association (CMA), Southern California Alliance, and California Aerospace Environmental Association, said their position is that they are not opposing the amendments provided the guidance document gives adequate assurances that when modifications are made at facilities they do not have to go through what is equivalent to an AB2588 assessment. Every permit application involving toxic air contaminants could end up being the equivalent of a new AB2588 analysis with a full-blown risk assessment that needs to be reviewed. This is going to add tremendously to the workload and to the time to get permits.
John Billheimer, Reliability Group, commented on glycol ethers. He said that under Rule 1136 they were examined and determined that no present, existing operation would be handicapped by Rule 1401, which makes a corollary that no one can have a new, relocated, or modified facility without some handicaps.
Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Jill Whynot said that glycol ethers have been looked at in furniture operations, etc. and no problems are expected.
Mr. Billheimer said that on the Rule 1401 socioeconomic analysis, a significant economic effect is not expected because a majority of coating operations will have already put on afterburners or other control devices because of the requirements of BACT/LAER. Since a BACT/LAER determination for coating operations has been delayed, the socioeconomic analysis of 1401 will have to consider these costs.
Mee Lee said the working group meeting next week is a joint meeting of the Environmental Justice Task Force and Rule 1401 Working Group. She asked how the comments coming out of that meeting would be incorporated into the July meeting. Mr. Broadbent said they would be discussed as "comments raised."
Jack Broadbent reported that this is an information item. The report looks at the rule schedule for 1998. Mee Lee asked that in the future the report include tonnage or pounds of reductions for each rule. Staff agreed to include that information for future reports.
Stationary Source Compliance Assistant Deputy Executive Officer Carol Coy gave an update to the Committee on this item. She said when the Board took action on the Title V rule amendment this winter, there was some concern about the procedures being established for public notice, public comment, and potential public hearings, so the Board asked for updates on Title V from time to time as implementation progresses. This is the first of those updates.
Ms. Coy said that after the Board’s action in November, the Title V universe was reduced to 791 facilities. Of the Group A permits, 301 permits were sent to facilities for review, and 97 are pending with EPA. These permits have gone through the 30-day public review period and are pending resolution of discussions on periodic monitoring. Almost two-thirds (over 200) of the rest are through the actual facilities for their review. The remaining are being finalized with the facilities themselves. Staff has endeavored to ensure that the facilities in this District are not held to a higher periodic monitoring standard than the permit conditions being imposed by EPA in other areas in California, as well as in other regions. She said EPA hoped to work issues out and did not want to veto permits. At this point we are down to about three periodic monitoring issues and we have a letter going to EPA with the final staff recommendations. It is expected that these 97 permits should be released for issuance soon.
As for the remaining two-thirds of the Title V permit workload, about 490 facility applications were due at the end of March, and 439 have been received. Staff believes that some of these facilities within the 490 may still request to be exempt and they are in the process of demonstrating that Title V doesn’t apply to them. Also, of the 439, some applications are from companies that have determined they are subject to Title V, although our records did not reflect that.
With respect to current permit issuance, one public comment letter has been received from an environmental organization commenting on four facilities. Their concerns are with AB2588 toxic risk issues. In each case, analysis by staff found that the company had made major mistakes on their 2588 emission assessment. Staff responded to the environmental group and they have been satisfied with that response. The other public request was for a public hearing on three different facilities. A consultant that worked for those three facilities said they weren’t satisfied with their permit conditions. Staff met with them to discuss their concerns and they then withdrew their request for a public hearing when they understood the process. They have since been satisfied.
Ms. Lee asked when the issues with EPA were expected to be resolved. Ms. Coy said a letter has informed them we want to issue these permits within the next month. She said she expects that either the issue will be resolved or EPA will be forced to veto the permits within the next 30 days.
Ms. Coy told the Committee that this rule is on the set hearing calendar and scheduled to be heard by the Board in August. She said that extensive review and revision have taken place on Rule 1107 over the years. Last year there was a lot of activity on Rule 1107 and a feasibility study was done on where to get additional VOC reductions within this industry. There was also an independent study regarding low VOC approaches last year and in September, the conclusion was reached through the public workshop process that we would need to defer a major rule amendment to the year 2000. This was based on trying to move this industry completely into powder coatings and waterborne coatings, for those using air-dried materials. All the studies showed this was an infeasible move at this time. However, the AQMP, both in 1993 and 1997, requires reductions in the metal product classifications. Staff has met with a number of people in the industry including the manufacturers who use the coatings, and suppliers and formulators of materials that are used. The proposal is for some gain through reasonable reductions that can occur at this point. The general strategy is to look at about 87% of the VOC emissions in this industry, which come from air-dried operations and reduce VOC content for single component coatings. These coatings are now readily available. In addition, it is proposed to remove the small quantity general use exemption since compliant coatings are now available. The total rule costs were calculated to be $7,200 per ton of VOC reduced. Staff also looked at an alternative of requiring add-on controls, such as thermal oxidizers to these facilities. The incremental cost-effectiveness was $121,000 per ton. Therefore, the proposed rule revisions appear to be a reasonable way to get some reductions at this time in meeting our AQMP mandates. There is one coating supplier that we know of that disagrees with this. They do not have compliant coatings available in their catalog, but we are proposing a March 1, 1999 implementation date, to allow time for them to bring compliant coatings to the marketplace comparable to the other suppliers. Also, during that time we need to mount an extensive outreach effort.
Ms. Lee asked if we left the small users exemption in, what would be the effect on emission reduction tonnage. Ms. Coy said it would be a total of 0.6 ton instead of one ton. Forty percent of the one-ton reduction is due to the removal of the small use exemption. Staff has asked industry to bring forward special use exemptions they require, during the workshop/public consultation process. There have been a number of exemptions brought to the table that have now been written into the rule.
Ms. Lee asked how widespread the compliant coating is that is being talked about. Ms. Coy said that from what has been discussed with industry, it is very widespread and readily available.
Director of Applied Science and Technology Mel Zeldin told the Committee that this is an administrative rule originally scheduled to go as a set hearing package to the Board in July. A public consultation meeting was held last week and a number of good comments were expressed. Staff believes further analysis will make this a better rule and have asked that the set hearing package be delayed until August to allow time for another public consultation meeting before bringing it to the Board.
John Higuchi, Manager of the Source Evaluation Branch of Applied Science and Technology Division, gave a presentation. Mr. Higuchi said that currently Rule 218 is on the books for both administrative and technical continuous emission monitoring requirements, for those not covered by RECLAIM and other rules, such as the federal regulations. This rule was last revised in 1981 and many of the provisions have been superceded by rules that have been subsequently tasked with the work.
Mr. Higuchi said the rule has been divided and the administrative provisional rule will be retained as Rule 218 and the technical requirements will be added as Rule 218.1. This adds a little more clarity to the rule and will also allow the Board to address strictly technical changes where they are expected to happen faster than the administrative changes. One of the biggest areas being addressed in Rule 218 is taking all the technical provisions and putting them in Rule 218.1. Rule 218.1 will address the technical requirements for continuous emission monitoring systems for modified and new CEMS and existing CEMS, and some that apply to both. He said that would add some complexity to the rule because we now have three levels of requirements. There were no pre-certification requirements in Rule 218 and staff is trying to provide more clarity to the actual requirements for non-RECLAIM CEMS certification so people know up front what they have to do to get certified.
Mr. Higuchi said staff is keying in on quality assurance and quality control plants, learning from RECLAIM that this has been a very beneficial part of the rule both at the facilities and for us. He said there would be a change in the definition of "continuous monitoring" from a minimum of one reading every 15 minutes to a minimum of one reading every minute. The reason for this change is to be more consistent with a short-term compliance limit of 15 minutes to an hour. There was concern from facilities that this would make it impossible to have a non-continuous CEMS. Staff has had discussions with affected facilities and believes they can come up with some language that will allow certain types of processes to comply with the rule even if they don’t have a continuous CEMS under this definition. Discussions are continuing with affected facilities to find a solution.
Mr. Higuchi said defining reporting requirements that are potentially in conflict with Title V has been discussed with the facilities. He said they have come to an agreement with the affected facilities that there is no way this rule can define reporting requirements for all pieces of equipment that would be affected by having CEMS. Consistency will be determined at the time of Title V permitting. He told the Committee a public workshop was held in May and one public consultation meeting has taken place, and there are plans to have another in July to cover more of these issues with the facilities. Staff plans to move the set hearing to August and the Board hearing to September 1998. By that time they will have the final language.
Mr. Paulitz asked if there was resistance on the part of industry to adopt this rule, and if there was instrumentation available that could do the job. Mr. Higuchi said there was instrumentation that will do the job. The major resistance is the cost to replace certain instrumentation that might not do the job but is in there now. That cost could range from simply replacing one analyzer, which could be $25,000, to replacing the entire system which could be $200,000. Cost is an issue.
Chung Liu said this was for non-RECLAIM. Mr. Higuchi said this was for a much smaller population—maybe 50 to 100 individual CEMS units. Mr. Paulitz asked if there were any technical problems going from 15 minutes to one minute. Mr. Higuchi said there was not, most CEMS are taking continuous data typically on a strip chart recorder on a data acquisition system.
Mr. Coleman said for two years the Home Rule Advisory Group has been discussing issues regarding how we can minimize or avoid duplication, overlap, and the excessive costs imposed on industry from having inconsistent or overlapping federal, state, and local requirements. The federal regulations provide for CEMS certification and CEMS requirements for equipment that is required to have continuous monitoring under new source performance standards. He said they question why a separate District rule is needed to deal with these issues which may be different from the federal rule. Instead of just having federal requirements to meet, these facilities are going to have duplicate federal and local requirements. He said this is a perfect opportunity for the District to get rid of its own rule, or keep it for equipment where the federal standards either are inapplicable or wouldn’t apply to that specific situation, and adopt the federal requirements. He said everyone would then be on an even playing field nationwide. They don’t see the point of spending more money to refine data, while the bulk of the emissions are being grossly understated and are not being accurately tracked.
Mr. Coleman said this area had to do much more to reduce emissions than any other area of the country because of its unique characteristics. We already have the most accurate emission monitoring requirements for continuous emission monitors. He said those requirements are applied to sources that no one else in the country requires be monitored. The current systems are providing more accurate information regarding emissions from stationary but the data is probably more than the District needs to develop adequate air quality plans and regulations. Mr. Coleman said it is going beyond that and costing a lot more money. It can’t be used to clean up emissions. All its going to do is give slightly more accurate information of what the existing emissions are.
Mr. Paulitz asked if there is a possibility of catching violations.
Mr. Higuchi said that permit requirements often have NOx levels or CO levels less than 5 ppm. He said they are found very frequently outside the Southern California area. To certify an analyzing system to that level requires a great deal of evaluation and making sure there is no interference with those measurements, making sure that sample is representative, because there is control equipment that interferes with how well distributed the gases are.
Mr. Coleman said all he ever hears is EPA is establishing LAER for NOx at very low levels and presumably require continuous emission monitors. Presumably they have a protocol for validating those. He asked why we always have to be a little different so that when we get in to Title V you have one section where EPA says you have to use their methods to certify and report and the District says you must use their methods to certify and report. It gets frustrating and expensive and confusing.
Mr. Paulitz said that on one level we have heard the federal requirements are more complex than they need to be and we should adopt ours, on the other hand that we should adopt EPA’s. We need to get a meeting of the mind between the federal and our staff because of the unique situation we have in this basin.
Mr. Coleman said they are the ones caught in the middle having to comply with both.
Mr. Zeldin said they are trying to come up with something that would make it as seamless and non-duplicative as possible and recognize that we have requirements to meet as far as evaluations that are needed beyond what EPA provides.
Mr. Zeldin said staff wants to address facilities having existing CEMS that are meeting the current requirements. Why should they be required to go out and replace something that is working fine? If facilities have to replace something, the requirements for that replacement would need to meet the new specifications rather than the old specifications. The facilities that have existing equipment in place are not required at the end of three years to replace the equipment if it is performing adequately.
Mr. Higuchi said there was an additional part to this. There are monitoring systems in RECLAIM that are required to do periodically tests to verify their representative data. The old monitors don’t have to do that. We don’t require quality assurance plans for Rule 218 installations. If we have quality assurance plans in place, then there is a much better legal basis.
Mr. Paulitz said that separating the performance specification from the administrative part probably is a good idea in the rule. On the controversial issues he said that where there were gaps in the new standards, those should be tightened up, but if something is working, why change it. But if it isn’t working and this is going to fix it, he said we need to have justification at the Board level to say we would approve this rule because it would catch emissions that are not reported or the inventory is understated because we don’t have good equipment. If it just says the end results are the same, what is the difference? He said if there is something wrong that needs to be fixed, he needs to know.
Ms. Lee said if we’re going to consider letting facilities that have the equipment that is in compliance today keep the equipment they have, how are you going to reconcile the information that you get from those facilities that are doing the 15-minute monitoring vs. the facilities that are going to now be required to put in the new equipment that is going to keep the record on a different basis. How do you reconcile the two sets of data you are going to get from two different kinds of equipment?
Mr. Zeldin said they are expecting two different types of performance until eventually we get the turnover. Over a period of time, everything would likely be replaced with new equipment so that over time we will end up with the one standard.
Mr. Paulitz asked if the new standards would only apply to new equipment when it’s used. Mr. Zeldin said currently, yes; the rule says there is an old standard and new standard. We will literally carry the two standards until such time as everything goes to the one standard. We would like to bring this back to the Committee before the set hearing.
Greg Adams, Los Angeles County Sanitation District, reiterated what Curt Coleman had said regarding the Home Rule Advisory Group, which is looking at the overlap of EPA and District rules. He said the question is the value in having the Rule 218 requirements. He recommended that staff do a side-by-side comparison of the 218 features versus the 4CFR features to see if the additional items make it worthwhile. This analysis would allow the Board members to understand what the true ramifications of the rulemaking are. They have had discussions with EPA that they should change to conform to us, but maybe we should change to conform to them. This is one area where we may be able to do that. If it is duplicative and doesn’t offer a substantial betterment of the environment versus what the federal government has, maybe we shouldn’t have it.
The Committee asked staff to bring this item back after the second public consultation meeting.
Initiative #2 - Ambient Monitoring of Air Toxics: Director of Applied Science and Technology Mel Zeldin gave an update of the Environmental Justice Initiative No. 2, MATES-II and Microscale Study. He reported to the Committee that of the ten microscale sites, we are now collecting data at eight of those sites, and have completed the license agreements for the remaining two (City of Compton and DWP in Wilmington). They should be on-line soon. He said they have received the first set of analyses for sampling and that will be compiled and made available within the next week or so.
Mr. Zeldin said the first microscale sampling for Hawthorne for the spring quarter has been completed and mobile platforms have been deployed in Pacoima and Montclair. The last of the mobile platforms for Torrance are underway and should be deployed in the next week.
Ms. Lee asked what the time frame is to complete the analysis, once the sampling is complete. Mr. Zeldin said it is about a 2-month turnaround.
The Technical Review Group met on June 17, 1998 and they have agreed to include the Boyle Heights area as part of the consideration for one of the microscale sites. They were also given the proposed pilot health study for review and comment.
Mr. Zeldin told the Committee there was a press conference at AQMD Headquarters and the Pacoima site on June 9, 1998. He also mentioned the Montclair "community visit" held June 5, 1998. He said a similar "community visit" will be scheduled in Torrance on July 8, 1998.
Ms. Lee asked if it was possible to include other microscale sites now. Mr. Zeldin said he believes that, after the program is completed in March, we would have the capability to continue that program if the Board wishes.
Initiative #8 - Field Inspection Technology: Stationary Source Compliance Senior Manager Dave Schwien gave a status report on Field Inspection Technology. This initiative directs staff to investigate the current field emission measuring capability and the lab sample analytical ability. The major item accomplished in June was the selection of a consultant to conduct this investigation. In-house review of the staff recommendation for the contractor is taking place now. In addition, the first Peer Review Group meeting was held June 11, 1998, which included a display and description of our field emissions monitoring equipment and a tour of our analytical laboratory. Another orientation meeting may be scheduled next week for those members unable to attend on June 11. Recommendation of the $45,000 consultant contract will go to the Board July 10, 1998. Results of the consultant’s work are expected in early September.
Initiative #10 - Rules 1401 and 1402:
This item was discussed under Agenda Item #1.
John Billheimer said he had some data on the issue of BACT/LAER. He said he had taken the District data base for all control equipment and analyzed the data for afterburners and carbon absorbers that might be relevant to spray booths. There are 70 listings in the database but only 13 appear to apply to spray booths. Of those, none apply to the wood coatings, Rule 1136 industry.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:40 p.m.
June 19, 1998 Committee Agenda (without its attachments)
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