Minutes
Meeting of the SIP Advisory Panel
to the
Air Pollution Control Board of Jefferson County

November 14, 2000

A meeting of the SIP Advisory Panel to the Air Pollution Control Board of Jefferson County was called to order November 14, 2000, at 1:47 p.m. in the Board Room of the Air Pollution Control District, 850 Barret Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky, by the Chairman, Pat Moran, Rohm and Haas.

The following members were present: Dr. Anneta Arno, Greater Louisville, Inc.; Barbara Hall, Ford Motor; Bill Herron, City Public Works; Judith McCandless, KY Conservation Committee; Wayne Cassady for Larry McFall, Riverport Authority; Marlene Ryan, Citizen; Heidi Saunders, Citizen; Steve Wilborn, KY Petroleum Council; and Malcolm Winsper, Kentucky Motorcycle Association. There was not a quorum.

The following District staff were present: Jon Trout, Gayle Ballard, Jess Goldsmith, Doug Spillman, Rebecca Stutsman, Cynthia Lee, Martha Gammons, Diane Hazellief, Dr. Barry Zalph, and Donna Anthony. Kathy Matheny, Director of Government Affairs for the County, was also present.

Unfinished Business

None

New Business

A. One-hour Attainment Status; Ozone BUSter

Mr. Trout distributed a summary of the 1998-2000 ozone monitoring data. During the 2000 ozone season, there was no exceedance of the 1-hour ozone standard at any of the seven ozone monitors in the Louisville ozone nonattainment area. Furthermore, based upon ozone monitoring, the Louisville ozone nonattainment area, for the first time ever, attained compliance with the 1-hour ozone standard for the 1998 to 2000 three-year period. The 1998-2000 design value is 124 parts per billion. This will allow the State of Indiana and the Commonwealth of Kentucky to submit a request for redesignation of the Louisville ozone nonattainment area to attainment.

One minor issue regarding redesignation is that the Charlestown, Indiana, ozone monitor did not start up on April 1, 1998, the beginning of the ozone monitoring season, because the electrical service to the monitor had not been reinstalled. The monitor began operation on April 8, seven days late. As a result, the 1998-2000 calculated expected exceedance for the Charlestown monitor does not demonstrate attainment. However, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 office (EPA-5) to demonstrate that the 1-hour ozone standard could not have been exceeded during this period and therefore those days not count against a monitored attainment demonstration. The EPA-5 has given preliminary approval to excusing those days.

Mr. Trout discussed the handouts 30 Year of 1-Hr Ozone Design Values (1971-2000) and 2000 Ozone 8-Hour Exceedance Update. During the year 2000, there were 17 exceedances of the 8-hour ozone standard that occurred in the Louisville ozone nonattainment area on 8 separate days. During 1999, there were 84 exceedances of the 8-hour ozone standard on 42 separate days. While 2000 was much cleaner than the year before, the area is not meeting the 8-hour ozone standard.

Mr. Trout distributed information summarizing the results of the Transit Authority of River City (TARC) Summer Fare Ridership 2000 program. During the four-month 2000 campaign, TARC ridership increased by 9.1 and 7.5 percent over 1999 levels for the months of June and September, respectively, and a total of 12.0 and 15.7 percent over 1998 levels for the months of July and August, respectively. During 1999, TARC’s Ozone BUSter program operated during July and August.

B. Redesignation requirements

Mr. Trout distributed a handout and discussed the five specific Clean Air Act requirements for redesignation. The first is that EPA has determined that the standard has been attained. The District will send quality-assured monitoring data to the Kentucky Division for Air Quality (DAQ) by the end of this month; the DAQ will do its quality assurance activities and then enter the data in the EPA’s data base. The EPA will then review the data and make its determination of attainment.

The second requirement is that the nonattainment area has a fully-approved State Implementation Plan (SIP). Before the EPA can redesignate the Louisville ozone nonattainment area, the District will need to have a fully approved 15% plan.

The third requirement is that the EPA has determined that the improvement in air quality is due to actual permanent and enforceable reductions of emissions. The District, as well as DAQ and IDEM, has implemented programs that require emissions reductions, for example, the industry 15% plan, improvement to the Vehicle Emissions Testing (VET) program, reformulated gasoline (RFG), Stage II gasoline station controls, and various transportation control measures.

The fourth requirement is that all applicable Clean Air Act nonattainment area requirements have been met. These are found generally in Section 110 and Part D (Sections 172 and 182). For example, if the EPA published a Control Techniques Guideline (CTG) document, then the District must have a Reasonable Available Control Technology (RACT) regulation for that source category. Also, RACT was required for all major sources of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and oxides of nitrogen (NO_x). Also the area is required to have a basic Inspection/Maintenance (I/M) program. The VET program meets this requirement. The District will be working with the EPA to insure that all requirements are identified and addressed.

The fifth requirement is that the EPA has fully approved a maintenance plan. The four agencies, DAQ, IDEM, the Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency (KIPDA), and the District, have agreed on the emissions inventory maintenance plan approach. Under this approach, a base year is chosen as representative of a year in which monitoring showed attainment, and a complete actual emissions inventory is developed. The year 1999 was chosen because the agencies were already required to do a full emissions inventory for that year. This base year emissions inventory then sets an emissions cap for the future. As long as emissions are no greater than they were during the base year, it is then assumed that compliance with the standard will be maintained. The maintenance plan must show for at least 10 years after the date that the EPA approves the maintenance plan that emissions will not exceed the base year cap. The agencies have chosen 2002, 2005, and 2008 for periodic maintenance demonstrations and 2012 for the end of the maintenance plan. A SIP Advisory Panel member asked whether the VET program could now be eliminated. Mr. Trout replied that all of the required actual and projected emissions inventories have not been developed so it is not known if maintenance of the cap could be accomplished without the emission reductions achieved by the VET program. However, he indicated that he believed that it was likely that reductions from the VET program would be needed for the maintenance plan.

With regards to the timing of the redesignation request, Mr. Trout noted that, under current requirements, the 1999 emissions inventory would not have been due until November 2002. The District and the other agencies are going to accelerate getting the inventory done, with a target completion date being the end of this year. Once the 1999 base year emissions inventory is completed, the agencies will need to develop full projected emissions inventories for 2002, 2005, 2008, and 2012. The target date for all four agencies for completion of the redesignation requests and maintenance plans is the end of January. Unlike the attainment demonstration in which a regional modeled attainment demonstration was completed for both the Indiana and Kentucky portions of the Louisville ozone nonattainment area, Indiana and Kentucky will have separate maintenance plans. However, both submittals will include a regional mobile source budget for transportation conformity purposes. The four agencies and the EPA Region 4 and Region 5 offices are working towards the goal of EPA approval of the redesignation requests and maintenance plans by the end of May. Mr. Trout distributed and briefly discussed the document that the Commonwealth of Kentucky submitted for redesignation of the Northern Kentucky portion of the Cincinnati ozone nonattainment area. The DAQ and the District will use this document as a template for the Louisville redesignation.

C. 1-hour attainment demonstration update

Mr. Trout said that efforts are now being focused on the development and submittal of a redesignation request and maintenance plan rather than resolving the issues raised by the EPA regarding the 1-hour ozone attainment demonstration and request for extension of the attainment date. However, many of the issues needing resolution are the same for either project.

As part of the attainment demonstration, both the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Indiana had begun the regulation adoption process for a state-wide utility boiler NO_x limit of 0.25 pound per million Btu with a compliance date of April 1, 2003. The federal NO_x SIP Call required the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Indiana to adopt a state-wide utility boiler NO_x limit of 0.15 pound per million Btu with a compliance date likewise in 2003. However, even though the federal NO_x SIP Call was essentially upheld in a judicial process, the compliance date was changed to May 31, 2004. With different compliance dates, some utilities in Kentucky would have a problem meeting the 0.25 regulation in 2003 even though they would comply with the more stringent 0.15 regulation in 2004. November 14 was the date by which the DAQ needed to decide whether the 0.25 regulation should go into effect or stop the 0.25 regulation from going into effect and adopt only a 0.15 regulation as required by the NO_x SIP Call. Mr. Hornback, Director, DAQ, has indicated that the decision has been made to let the 0.25 regulation go forward. However, the DAQ will immediately start a regulation amendment process to change the compliance date of the 0.25 regulation to May 31, 2004. If the 0.15 regulation is later adopted, the DAQ would then repeal the 0.25 regulation. For Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E), it really doesn’t matter because under a separate Clean Air Act Section 126 petition process, LG&E has to meet a 0.15 limit by 2003 anyway.

Mr. Trout distributed and discussed the insert that LG&E sent to its customers with the last bill. This insert indicated that the total cost of meeting the NO_x SIP Call for all of the company’s facilities is estimated at $163 million dollars. Mr. Trout indicated that, while this is indeed a large amount of money, cost considerations of emission controls should not only include total cost and cost effectiveness (dollars per ton of emissions reductions), but should also consider cost to the entity actually paying for the controls. Mr. Trout indicated that the cost to his family, as an electric customer of LG&E, would be $0.89 per month, an amount that he believed is certainly affordable in return for significant emission reductions and cleaner air.

Mr. Trout referred to the handout Outreach Initiatives for Vehicle Emissions Testing (VET) Program and Other District Programs: Activity Report for August-October 2000. This document highlights the many outreach activities that the District is undergoing. Mr. Trout congratulated Rebecca Stutsman, the District’s Public Information Officer, on her significant role in the development and implementation of these community outreach activities.

D. PM_2.5 attainment status

Mr. Trout distributed and discussed the September 2000 PM_2.5 report. The PM _2.5 annual standard is 15.4 µg/m³. While the average for the month of September was below this level, the 2000 annual year-to-date average is above this level as was the 1999 annual average. Attainment of the standard is calculated by taking the annual average for each of three consecutive years and determining the average of those three numbers. Based upon the monitored readings starting in 1999, it is not likely that Jefferson County will demonstrate attainment of the PM_2.5 annual standard. It was noted that in general the monitored PM_2.5 concentrations were lower in the colder months of the year and higher in the warmer months of the year. Mr. Trout indicated that speciation monitors will soon be placed into operation in Jefferson County. These monitors will provide information on the chemical composition of the monitored PM _2.5 particles. This will provide the District with the likely types of sources of the particulate emissions or precursor emissions and thus provide direction on a more effective control strategy.

Mr. Trout introduced Martha Gammons, who has been promoted to the Small Business Ombudsman position. Martha will be working with small companies on awareness of regulations, reducing emissions, and pollution prevention. She replaces Cara Waddell as a member of the SIP Advisory Panel.

Dr. Arno discussed and distributed pamphlets on the upcoming Breakfast Series of the State of the Environment 2001. The next presentation will be on the State of Water on November 16. The State of Air will follow on December 21 with Marcia Willheit, Assistant Chief of the Environmental Health Division, Lincoln-Lancaster County (Nebraska) Health Department and President of the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (ALAPCO), and end with the State of the Environment on January 16, 2001.

E. Land Development Code Regulations

Mr. Trout stated that Mr. Williams, District Director, is working on this issue and discussion will be deferred until the next Meeting.

Dr. Zalph said that a year ago EPA published guidelines for getting credits in the SIP for land use policy practices that reduce the emission of air pollutants. If land use decisions are made that would encourage the use of transit and mixed-use developments, people would drive their vehicles less or travel a shorter distance between home and work which would reduce total vehicle miles traveled. The resulting emission reductions could then be quantified and submitted to the EPA for SIP credit. The District is investigating the feasibility of employing such practices.

Mr. Goldsmith briefed the SIP Advisory Panel on the upcoming Citizen Training on Title V Permitting which is scheduled for Saturday, December 9, 2000. The training session will be in the Board Room from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. There is no charge for attending. The training will explain the process of Title V permitting, with a focus on citizen review and comments on draft permits and ascertaining compliance with issued Title V permits.

Next Meeting Date

The next meeting is scheduled for either Tuesday, January 9 at 1:30 p.m. or February 13 at 1:30 p.m., depending upon the development status of the redesignation request and maintenance plan.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 2:46 p.m.

________________________________
Patrick J. Moran
Chairman

__________________________________
Jonathan L. Trout
Secretary-Treasurer