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Posted on Fri, Jun. 15, 2007
By KAREN DILLON
The Kansas City Star
KC Breaks Federal Standards on Ozone
This Clean Air Act violation is likely to trigger restrictions for businesses and people
Friday's heat and humidity pushed Kansas City over its pollution limit, an event that will have long-reaching and potentially very costly effects.
Officials had feared for more than three years that the area was on the verge of violating the federal Clean Air Act, which triggers a series of events including possible fines and strictures on businesses and industry, and to a lesser extent on individuals.
Complying with the law will most likely cost the area billions of dollars, officials have said.
That's because the potential fixes - such as expensive pollution controls on power plants and factories - most certainly will be ordered. And many of those expenses will be passed down to utility ratepayers.
Also, new air-quality requirements will mandate pollution controls on equipment such as lawn mowers and boat motors, and those costs will be passed on to the consumer.
In addition, if the pollution problem cannot be fixed promptly, construction projects could be delayed, and businesses trying to relocate to the area could be turned away if violations continue.
The effect will not be felt immediately, most agree.
"It's not like we violate today, and on Monday the world changes," said Mike Boothe, Johnson County environmental compliance manager-air quality. "All the regulatory stuff won't happen until next year."
But Boothe said it was still important for people to realize that immediate steps must be taken to alleviate the problem. If it can be shown that the area responded to the violation quickly and forcefully, the Environmental Protection Agency, charged with enforcing the act and imposing remedies on violators, might not force more-stringent penalties.
"We want people to voluntarily participate, because it still does help," Boothe said.
The culprit that caused Friday's violation was ozone. Most ozone pollution comes from gases generated by coal plants, factories, vehicles, mowers, boats and other off-road engines. They produce nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that, with heat and sunlight, can cook up into a massive stew of bad air that is unhealthy to breathe.
Federal law has a complex formula to measure ozone. Monitors in the area collect ozone readings, and scientists determine the three-year average of the fourth-highest daily maximum reading. If that total exceeds 85 parts per billion at any monitor, it is a violation.
About 5 p.m. Friday, the Rocky Creek monitor in the Northland near Interstate 435 and U.S. 169 violated that standard.
Now the ozone readings will have to be checked by state officials and sent to the EPA.
Because officials on both sides of the state line have seen Friday's violation coming for several years, they have already put together a contingency plan on how to help alleviate the problem. They plan to submit an expanded version of it to the EPA as soon as possible.
The biggest immediate effect will be felt by power plants, where better pollution controls for reducing emissions would be ordered. In fact, better pollution controls could reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants by 25 percent, planners agree.
-On the Kansas side of the state line, the Board of Public Utilities' two coal plants, Nearman and Quindaro, would be required to implement controls to reduce emissions from nitrogen oxide. BPU already is under investigation for violating laws that would have required it to install the pollution controls.
Nitrogen-oxide emissions in 2005 were 5,360 tons from the two plants and would need to be reduced by 2,948 tons per year under the plan.
-AFG Industries, a glass manufacturer in Johnson County, also would be required to immediately reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. That plant released about 974 tons of nitrogen oxide in 2005, and the plan calls for AFG to reduce that amount to between 292 tons and 487 tons per year.
-In Missouri, the Sibley and Blue Valley coal-fired plants would need to cut emissions.
-Kansas City Power & Light has installed state-of the-art pollution controls on its La Cygne plant in Kansas; they began operating May 29. The company also is installing pollution controls at its Iatan plant in Platte County and building a new unit that will become operational in 2010. Together the two Iatan plants will have lower emissions than the one unit does today, said Matt Tidwell, a spokesman.
"We are really focused on continuing with these emission reductions," Tidwell said.
In addition, the plan says emissions from idling vehicles such as trucks that leave their engines running when making deliveries will have to be curtailed. Legislation to require that is being drafted.
The plan says the states have from 12 to 24 months to correct the violation.
But EPA officials said on Friday they hoped it would not take that long.
"The states recognize the health impacts of ozone - but we expect the states will act much quicker than that," said Josh Tapp, EPA's chief of the air-planning branch.
Tapp said EPA would first make sure the contingency plans were implemented quickly and then would take a look at the magnitude of the problem.
He also said that an EPA proposal to be announced Wednesday that would tighten the ozone standard even further could have an effect.
"It is now important for (Kansas City's) air-quality partners to step up their efforts to restore Kansas City's reputation as a clean-air community," he said.
Boothe said Johnson County had begun several programs and incentives for employees to reduce ozone levels. Those include installing vapor recovery systems at the county's three fueling stations and asking employees not to go out for lunch on Ozone Alert days.
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