– TITLE V PERMITS –
by Wallace McMullen
Ozark Chapter ExCom
The Clean Air Act’s Title V was passed by Congress in 1990 with the intent of bringing all the various types of air emission regulations together in one permit for industrial operations, with provisions for citizen participation and oversight of the process. Like some other provisions of environmental protection laws, the actual implementation of Title V is occurring years after the passage of the legislation.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which administers the Clean Air Act, sponsored a Title V training workshop for citizen participation on June 16 and 17 in St. Louis. The Sierra Club Ozark chapter was very well represented with 10 members attending. (Ozark Chapter members Wallace McMullen and Roy Hengerson initiated the process that brought this workshop to St. Louis). Other attendees came from Illinois, Colorado, Utah, and California.
The workshop explained how citizens can review and comment on Title V operating permits prior to their finalization. At least theoretically, citizen activists would be able to improve air quality by participating in this process.
Individual operating permits are issued by state and local agencies with EPA oversight. The permits include emission limits, monitoring requirements, and reporting requirements with which the permitted facilities are to comply. Citizens can review and comment on draft permits during the public comment period. They can also monitor whether an industrial emissions source is complying with a permit, challenge permits in court, and bring enforcement actions against facilities that don’t comply with their permits. The process is highly structured with rules that must be followed to make such challenges. Some of the parameters are still being litigated.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is now issuing Title V permits pursuant to EPA guidelines. They run from 25 to 65 pages in length. Fortunately for those of us who have worked on reviewing them, some of each document is boilerplate standard text.
To date, we’ve tried to review permits we feel are most critical to the environment. These include the permits covering the emissions from large sources of air pollution, such as power plants, (which typically emit hundreds of tons of NOx, SOx, carbon monoxide, and fine particulate pollution into the atmosphere each year), and the permits issued to the Doe Run lead mining operations.
The training session got off to a confused beginning, because Candice Caraway from the national EPA office was scheduled to do the introduction and overview, and her flight was delayed by weather. So we did not get the overview and context for the structure of the Title V program until the second day. However, her presentation was excellent once we got to hear it.
Kari Powell, an activist lawyer on the staff of the New York Public Interest Group, gave us some insightful and very useful tips in her presentation during the workshop. Other presenters included Randy Raymond, Chief of the Permitting Section in the DNR Air Pollution Control Program, and the staff in the EPA Region 7 office who review Missouri’s Title V permits. The EPA staff also gave the attendees two handbooks, a reference binder, and copies of a CD with many of the applicable regulations.
Those of us who attended left with mixed feelings. We were exposed to a great deal of information in the workshop, which was good. We also got an understanding of how much goes into doing a thorough review of a Title V permit, which was a bit intimidating. Several of us commented afterward that we would have liked more opportunity to network with the other activists who were at this workshop, and we didn’t have much opportunity to do so during the short breaks.
Our Chapter has submitted comments on some of the recently issued permits that we are most concerned about, such as those for Doe Run lead mining facilities, and a few power plants, but we haven’t had the wherewithal to really dig into double–checking DNR’s work on applicable requirements, and its interpretation of some of the voluminous regulations. Now that the Ozark Chapter has more widespread knowledge about the Clean Air Act Title V, and more members have begun reviewing permits, we have the potential to take on a more vigorous role in the Title V permitting process within Missouri.