GASP in Lawsuit Settlement — Delivers Additional Clean Air Protections For the Pittsburgh Region

Hotline, Spring 2003

by Suzanne Seppi, GASP Executive Director

A settlement agreement calling for stronger steps to prevent future violations of federal health standards for ozone pollution in the Pittsburgh region was signed on January 22, 2003 between the United States Department of Justice and Group Against Smog and Pollution and Sierra Club, represented by Earthjustice. The suit was filed last year, contending that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had improperly re-labeled the Pittsburgh area as meeting clean air requirements for the one-hour ozone standard without mandating proper additional steps to prevent future violations of the standard. The settlement agreement includes terms and conditions requiring the Commonwealth to amend the contingency measures portion of the Pittsburgh-Beaver Valley area maintenance plan with regard to attainment of the 1-hour ozone standard. The revised maintenance plan (the part of the plan that describes what strategies will keep the area in attainment) must be submitted to the EPA for approval as a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision.

The settlement includes the following:

1. Several rules known as the Model OTC rules were placed into the Maintenance Plan. These rules were formerly designated as contingency measures for this area. The four rules result in reduced volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are precursors to ozone, in categories as follows: solvent cleaning operations, better portable fuel containers, consumer products, and architectural and industrial maintenance coatings. To date, the first three have been adopted by Pennsylvania statewide and the last is up for consideration as a final rule by the Environmental Quality Board. All four rules (including the last if adopted) have been designated through the settlement as part of the maintenance plan to help keep this region in attainment of the 1-hour ozone standard. While the first three rules have already been adopted by the state, the last has not nor have any of the rules yet been made federally enforceable for this area. This settlement gives impetus for approval of the final rule and placement of the rules in the State Implementation Plan (SIP), which then makes the rules federally enforceable. These rules should reduce volatile organic compounds (precursors to ozone) by 26.5 tons per day in the Pittsburgh region.

2. If there are two or more exceedances a year of the 1-hour ozone standard at the same monitor, the settlement provides for certain steps to be taken to prepare for a possible violation as follows:

3. If there are more than three exceedances of the 1-hour standard at the same monitor in a three year period or less, then a violation has occurred. In that case the following go into effect as indicated in the settlement:

This plan adds an additional insurance policy to the region’s strategy for maintaining the one-hour ozone standard. Last ozone season there were two exceedances of this standard in the Pittsburgh region and thirty-three exceedance days of the new 8-hour standard. The health implications from elevated levels of ozone, especially for the young, elderly and those with respiratory problems is so serious that we must press forward with new reduction strategies as quickly as possible. More than 50,000 hospital admissions annually for respiratory diseases are attributed to ozone exposure in the eastern U.S. The EPA targets setting non-attainment area designations for the new slightly more stringent 8-hour ozone standard in spring 2004.

This plan is contingent upon formal EPA approval, after a public comment process.

Group Against Smog and Pollution | gasp@gasp-pgh.org | 412-325-7382
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