EPA wants Crittenden County off ‘dirty air’ list, Governor says will help job efforts

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday proposed to approve Arkansas’ request to designate Crittenden County as attaining the federal 2008 ozone standard, a move that Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and other officials said will boost the state’s economic development in eastern Arkansas.

The proposed “attainment” designation comes after a letter last month from Hutchinson requesting the EPA to remove the eastern Arkansas county from the federal “dirty air” nonattainment list, a designation that goes back to the Huckabee administration’s recruitment of a Toyota superproject.

Crittenden County lies within the tri-state greater Memphis area, and had been included in the area’s designation of nonattainment for the standard. The Memphis area as a whole has also been redesignated as attaining the standard.

“Arkansas has shown that Crittenden County’s air quality has improved and ozone levels are within the Clean Air Act’s protective levels,” said EPA Regional Administrator Ron Curry. “This is good news for everyone’s health, especially children, the elderly, and those with breathing problems.”

The federal Clean Air Act sets standards for ozone that protect people’s health and the environment. Under the standard set in 2008, the greater Memphis area in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri was classified as a marginal nonattainment area. Since then, Arkansas has met all requirements of the Clean Air Act to bring Crittenden County into attainment through reductions in vehicle and point-source emissions, and has shown how the area can maintain the improvements in air quality.

Ground-level ozone can trigger many health problems, especially for children, the elderly, and people with breathing problems such as asthma, and can also harm sensitive vegetation and ecosystems. Ozone is created by reactions between chemicals emitted from sources such as vehicle exhaust and industrial facilities in the presence of sunlight.

EPA’s proposal will be published in the Federal Registration seven to 10 days after signature. After publication, the proposal will be open for public comment for 30 days.

In a recent interview, ADEQ director Becky Keogh said her staff has been working getting Crittenden County back to attainment status after federal regulators reclassified the area as “nonattainment” in 2012.

To support the ADEQ, Gov. Asa Hutchinson submitted a formal request to Curry on behalf of the State of Arkansas and ADEQ noting in his letter that “ozone monitoring data for the period of 2012 through 2014 show that Crittenden County has attained and continues to attain the 2008 eight-hour ozone” standard of 75 parts per billion under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

Along with the letter to Curry, the state submitted a Maintenance Plan that outlines measures to keep the area in compliance with the standard for a minimum of 10 years. ADEQ held a public hearing in West Memphis on Nov. 5, 2015, on the proposed removal of the nonattainment designation for ozone compliance under federal air quality standards which has applied to Crittenden County since 2012. The department didn’t receive any comments opposing the proposal.

In his letter, Hutchinson said a designation to attainment would be of key interest to developers and transportation planners not only in Crittenden County, but across the Delta and the rest of Arkansas.

“Once the request is approved by EPA, Arkansas will be in full attainment of all criteria pollutant standards for the entire state,” the governor said. “An attainment designation will not only demonstrate that Arkansas’ air quality has continued to improve over the last several years, it will also clear the way in making Arkansas more competitive in attracting business opportunities.”

‘DIRTY AIR’ HISTORY
Arkansas’ on-and-off dirty air problems go back more than a decade to when Gov. Mike Huckabee and former state Economic Development Chief Jim Pickens pulled out all the stops in the state’s attempt to lure an auto assembly plant to the Delta region.

In May 2005, in the effort to remove the federal “dirty air” cloud hanging over the state’s prized super project site in Crittenden County, Arkansas sought to be the first state in the nation to seek designation as an Economic Development Zone. At the time, that designation would have allowed Crittenden County to land industry without providing emissions offsets.

“It has never been done,” David Neleigh, chief of the EPA’s air permit section at Region 6 office in Dallas said at the time. “There is nothing in our rules that tell us how to do it. We are plowing new ground.”

In 2004, Crittenden County was the first county on its federal dirty air list to ever go on the EPA’s nonattainment list for failing to meet standards for ground-level ozone, which is considered unhealthy to breathe. Under the EPA rules, nonattainment areas are designated as marginal, moderate, serious and severe. Moderate areas must attain national 8-hour ozone air quality standards no later than June 2010.

Gov. Huckabee, Crittenden County officials, and the state’s congressional delegation successfully convinced the EPA to “bump down” Crittenden County’s status from moderate to marginal in September 2004, but the area did not meet more stringent pollution control measures to hasten cleanup of the county’s ozone problems by June 2007.

In 2008, however, Crittenden County was reclassified to “moderate” nonattainment after failing to meet the 2007 attainment deadline. Two years later on March 24, 2010, Crittenden County was redesignated to attainment for the 1997 eight-hour ozone standard of 80 ppm (parts per billion).

But the Obama administration had earlier in 2008 set the new eight-hour ozone standard at the current 75 parts per million level, which went into effect in 2012. Based on ozone data collection in the 2007-2009 season, Crittenden County was again designated as a “marginal” attainment area, along with Shelby County in Tennessee and portions of DeSoto County in Mississippi.

This nonattainment designation became effective July 2012 with an attainment date of not later than Dec. 31, 2015. Keogh said on Monday she had received notice the EPA would likely approve ADEQ’s and the governor’s request for attainment before the end of this month. She said the process normally takes several months, but believes the state’s modeling and research had demonstrated Arkansas officials took the necessary actions to fulfill the federal mandate.

Keogh and ADEQ Associate Director Stuart Spencer said modeling designs for Crittenden County for 2013-2015 show ozone levels averaged 66 ppb (parts per billion) over the three-year period. Spencer added that one of the state’s models shows that if Arkansas were to attract two automobile plants or large super projects to the eastern Arkansas county, the area would still be able to stay below the EPA’s newly proposed 70 ppm standard.

Looking forward, Keogh said with attainment designation from the EPA will benefit eastern Arkansas in a number of ways, including cleaner air for local citizens, and improvements in industry permitting and economic development efforts.

“We see this being a win-win-win situation,” she said.