Tennessee Air Quality Update

Outline  Ozone  EACs  Non-attainment Areas  Fine Particulate Non-attainment Areas  Regional Haze  Vacatur of CAIR  North Carolina vs. TVA

Knoxville Area  A Court Vacatur of the EPA Part I 8-Hour Ozone Rule Eliminated The June 15, 2007 Deadline For Subpart I Basic Area SIP Submittals.  A Bid For Redesignation To Attainment ( Data) Has Been Submitted, But Is On Hold, While Exceptional Event Data For 2007 Is Being Reviewed.  Working To Prepare A SIP Package When The New EPA Rule For Subpart I Basic Areas Is Promulgated.

Memphis Area  As A Subpart II Marginal 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area, Shelby County failed to demonstrate attainment using the data set.  It also did not qualify for a 1-year extension to attain based upon 2006 data.  EPA has “bumped up” the area to a Subpart II Moderate 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area – SIP due March 1,  Shelby County is protesting, averring that if EPA had included Desoto County, MS in the original designation, none of this would have happened.

Final 2005 – Hr Ozone DV (Exceptional Event Flagged Data Included)

The New 8-hour Ozone Standard County Analysis By Monitor Measurement: Designations for the new standard are based upon future data measurements (9) Slides that follow are Year-by-Year Design Values Up to

Middle Tennessee Ozone Data Summary

Knoxville Area Ozone Data Summary

Chattanooga Area Ozone Data Summary

Memphis Area Ozone Data Summary

Tri-Cities Area Ozone Data Summary

The New Ozone 8Hour Ozone Standard Here’s the “Kicker”: contributing You can also be designated nonattainment for contributing to the nonattainment of another county even if you measure attainment. Traditionally, EPA looks to the MSA as the starting point for “contributing”designations.

Old MSAs New MSAs

Implementation Timeline MilestoneDate Rule SignedMarch 12, 2008 State Designation Recommendations to EPA No later than March 12, 2009 Final DesignationsMarch 12, 2010 Up To 1 Extra Year If Unclassifiable Attainment Demonstration SIPs Due 2013 Up To 1 Extra Year If Unclassifiable Attainment Dates Depending Upon Severity Of Problem

Historic Ozone Trends In Tennessee

PM 2.5 Attainment Status

Photo of SmokeShaded Graphic of Plume Wildfire Plumes May Have Impacted Ambient Air Measurements In Tennessee

PM 2.5 SIPs  Greater Knoxville Area SIP  SIP approved by the state air board on April 4, 2008 and submitted to EPA for federal approval.  Greater Chattanooga Area SIP  Includes portions of GA & AL  Will be taken to hearing soon to work with other states  Working on a term called “NO x Insignificance”

The following data should be considered preliminary because EPA has not yet finalized the exceptional event flags for these data. The data for 2008 is current only through 1 st qtr of 2008 and is not enough to evaluate for trends in the current calendar year.

Knox Co. Design Values

Knox Co. Trends

Montgomery Co. Design Values

Montgomery Co Trends

State Obligations To Address Regional Haze  Assess Current Visibility Levels In Class I Areas  Determine Natural Conditions Of Visibility In Class I Areas (pre- Americanization)  ID & Protect the 20% Best Days  ID & Improve the 20% Worst Days  Apply BART and Reasonable Progress as needed  Be At Natural Conditions By 2064

Consult With Others In Preparing The SIP  Talk to Federal Land Managers  US Department of the Interior National Park Service Fish and Wildlife Service  US Department of Agriculture Forest Service  Talk to Neighboring State Air Agencies  Talk to EPA  Public Comment

New IMPROVE equation Uniform Rate of Progress Glide Path (Base G2a projections) Great Smoky Mountains - 20% Worst Days Year Haziness Index (Deciviews) Glide PathNatural Condition (Worst Days)ObservationMethod 1 Prediction Uniform rate of progress = 4.4 dV by 2018

BART  BART = Best Available Retrofit Technology  Applies to Certain Large Source Categories that were Pre-PSD  26 Source Categories  Emit >250 Tons/Year PTE of Visibility Impairing Pollutants  Built → 15 years prior to PSD  In Tennessee, only those sources that model Class I Area impacts of >0.5 dV will be subject to BART

Reasonable Progress Analysis  Required by Regional Haze Rule [§51.308(d)(1)(i)(A)] to consider four factors when establishing our Reasonable Progress Goal (RPG)  Cost of compliance  Time necessary for compliance  Energy and non-air quality environmental impacts of compliance  Remaining useful life of any existing source subject to the requirements

Discussions with other states: This one from MO & AR

What’s Next?  The state air board approved the regional haze SIP on April 4,  The regional haze SIP has been submitted to EPA for federal approval.

Vacatur of Clean Air Interstate Rule  On July 11, 2008, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Clean Air Interstate Rule in its entirety and remanded the rule to EPA to promulgate a rule consistent with the court’s opinion.

One Petitioner was North Carolina - Their Challenges  Lawfulness of Trading Programs.  “Interfere With Maintenance”  2015 Compliance Deadline  Other Challenges

Court Decision – Pollution Trading  EPA never measured the “significant contribution” from sources within an individual state to downwind nonattainment areas. It has not measured the unlawful amount of pollution for each upwind-downwind linkage.  CAIR must require elimination of emissions from sources that contribute significantly and interfere with maintenance in downwind nonattainment areas. It must measure each state’s significant contribution to downwind nonattainment, even if that measurement does not directly correlate with each state’s individualized air quality impact on downwind nonattainment relative to other upwind states.

 Areas that find themselves barely meeting [ozone] attainment in 2010 due in part to upwind sources interfering with that attainment have no recourse. An outcome that fails to give independent effect to the “interfere with maintenance” prong violates the plain language of §110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I).  Because EPA does not give independent significance to the “interfere with maintenance” language, it unlawfully nullifies that aspect of the statute.  The rule includes the same flaw with regard to PM 2.5. Court Decision – “Interfere with Maintenance” (I)

Court Decision – 2015 Compliance Deadline  EPA did not make any effort to harmonize CAIR’s Phase Two deadline for upwind contributors to eliminate their significant contribution with the attainment deadlines for downwind areas… EPA ignored its statutory mandate to promulgate CAIR consistent with the provisions in Title I mandating compliance deadlines for downwind states in 2010…

Remedy  EPA must redo its analysis from the ground up. It must:  Consider anew which states are included in CAIR, after giving significance to the phrase “interfere with maintenance” in §110(a)(2)(D).  Decide what date, whether 2015 or earlier, is as expeditious as practicable for states to eliminate their significant contributions to downwind nonattainment.

Remedy -Continued  In the absence of CAIR, the NO X SIP Call trading program will continue, because EPA terminated the program only as part of the CAIR rulemaking.  In addition, downwind states retain their statutory right to petition for immediate relief from unlawful interstate pollution under section 126.  “It is possible that after rebuilding, a somewhat similar CAIR may emerge; after all, EPA already promulgated the apparently similar NO X SIP Call eight years ago.”

Implications of CAIR Vacature  PM 2.5 SIPs – Knoxville and Chattanooga  Regional Haze SIP  North Carolina Section 126 Petition

Annual SO 2 Emissions Acid Rain Program

Annual NO X Emissions Acid Rain Program

Ozone Season NO X Emissions Acid Rain Program

Ozone Season NO X Emissions NO X Budget Trading Program StateYearProgram Months Reported NO X Emissions (tons) Heat Input (MMBtu) NO X Rate (lb/MMBtu) NC2004NBP427,731271,214, NC2005NBP532,888370,328, NC2006NBP530,387366,994, NC2007NBP528,390377,617, StateYearProgram Months Reported NO X Emissions (tons) Heat Input (MMBtu) NO X Rate (lb/MMBtu) TN2004NBP424,451226,280, TN2005NBP525,718292,147, TN2006NBP523,930295,003, TN2007NBP523,260300,041, Emission Comparison: North Carolina vs. Tennessee

Questions