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The Clean Air Act Goes To College:
Emerging Air Emission Regulations Trigger New Reporting And Recordkeeping Costs

by Timothy J. Ryan

Reprinted with Permission from the April, 1997 issue of American School and University.

Copyright, 1997, Intertec Publishing, Overland Park, KS.

Table of Contents
CAA and Title V	Liabilities	Permitting Issues	Campus Actions and Costs	Recommendations

Historically less scrutinized by environmental regulatory agencies, many college administrators would be surprised to learn that the activities or equipment on their campuses could label them as "major sources" of air pollution under the Clean Air Act (CAA) Amendments of 1990. More surprising still might be the realization that some chemicals routinely released from their campuses for decades are now classified as hazardous--read "toxic"--air pollutants in need of state or federal emission permits.

Organizations located in unacceptably high pollution zones, or "non-attainment" areas, are especially likely to warrant an examination of their status relative to regulations only now emerging as a direct result of the CAA. As a result of looming air pollution laws, many colleges and universities should begin to anticipate costs associated with inventorying, permitting, and controlling their air pollution sources.

Under changes made in the federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, vehicle emissions testing and Employee Trip Reduction Programs of the early '90s are no longer the only onerous tasks some colleges and universities must address. And unlike these or other efforts already underway on campuses, compliance with the CAA rules on air emissions could very likely necessitate new permitting costs for many institutions, as well as increased staffing expenses to maintain emission records. Some organizations may ultimately face significant unanticipated capital outlays to install new air cleaning equipment or upgrade inefficient plant devices.

CAA and Title V

With the changes to the Clean Air Act in 1990, the very nature of permitting for air pollution sources was overhauled. Under the new requirements spelled out in Title V (Permits) of the CAA, each state must develop a comprehensive operating permit system for sources. Institutions familiar with the original Part B permitting process for campus hazardous waste activities may have an inkling of the new CAA process, although the CAA process is not nearly so straightforward. All states but one (Virginia) have at least interim approval of their State Implementation Plans, or SIPs, to manage Title V permits in their domain. But the Air Permit Report of August 30, 1996, indicated that the vast majority of SIP approvals were published as final actions in the Federal Register only as recently as late 1995 and early 1996.

At the federal level, these clean air compliance laws have been codified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) regulations contained primarily in 40 CFR Parts 60, 63 and 70. Most SIPs are based on these regulations, although critical differences can and do exist. Depending on the specific state, additional permitting requirements may also apply. Because of continuing legal challenges, many permits long required by SIPs are only now advancing as deadlines first enacted years ago approach.

The list of equipment, processes, and sources to be evaluated for a Title V permit is, by most industrial measures, counter intuitive and exhaustive. Virtually any source that is not part of a normal office building air handling system may be subject to listing if it is located within a state's non-attainment areas. Many obvious sources are listed below, but numerous other--sometimes surprising--sources should also be taken into account by a preliminary emissions inventory. Typical equipment or processes that need to be investigated for emissions and possibly named in a permit include some or all of the following:

• Power plant steam boilers
• Cogeneration facilities
• Freon based compressors
• Emergency generators
• Stationary generators
• Cooling towers
• Scrubbers
• Lithographic/printing operations
• Laboratory fume hoods
• Paint booths
• Welding operations
• Gasoline tanks
• Physical plant shop ventilation
• Vapor degreasers

Some less commonly considered sources found in undergraduate 4-year schools or university-affiliated medical centers may include some or all of the following:

• Theater department dry-cleaners
• Laundries
• Gas or wood fired ceramics kilns
• Chemical sterilizers or disinfectant baths
• Roofing operations (both foam and asphalt)
• Photographic laboratories
• Pathological incinerators
• Eating establishment canopy hoods
• Open burning (e.g., Homecoming ceremonial bonfires)
• Histology or diagnostic pathology laboratories
• Parking lot asphalt paving operations
• Mobile sources (e.g., tractors, lawn mowers, weed eaters, etc.).
• Hazardous waste handling operations

  In summary, all stationary point sources, all fugitive emissions, most mobile sources, all air pollution control equipment, and many work practices should be evaluated for inclusion in an emissions inventory. Various of these sources may ultimately be considered insignificant or "de minimis" and therefore exempt from Title V reporting, depending on the language of the states own program rules, but all should be included in at least an initial emissions listing.

Liabilities

In light of relatively recent examples of universities having been made "enforcement examples" under certain environmental regulations, the civil and criminal liability portions of the CAA should be considered carefully. Civil penalties can be enormous; as high as $5,000 per day per violation. The CAA makes provision for direct legal action by private parties and, perhaps of more importance, enables USEPA to pay bounties to individuals of up to $10,000 for information leading to civil or criminal penalties. Finally, like the hazardous waste law mentioned earlier, CAA has criminal enforcement provisions for senior management personnel of up to $250,000 per day per violation and 5 years in jail. Large institutions with extended lines of responsibility should note that up to 2 years jail time is permitted for simply failing to file CAA records or maintain CAA reports.

Permitting Issues

The actual permitting requirements for a given institution vary by state, location in that state, and activities and processes on site. For that reason it is impossible within the scope of this article to do more than mention key aspects of the Clean Air Act that should be considered in trying to ascertain if a Title V permit is required. Some of the more important questions to be answered are listed below.

• Does the sum of all the sources of all air pollutants at the school constitute a major source (i.e., in an attainment area, does the school emit greater than 100 tons per year of any criteria air pollutant, or 10 tons per year of any of 189 listed "hazardous" air pollutants)? It is possible, although not probable, that the very need for a permit may be resolved on this basis alone.
• Is the school located in a "non-attainment" area for one or more specific air pollutants (e.g., ozone or carbon monoxide)? Different timelines and control technologies are in effect for attainment versus non-attainment areas, with lower emission limits requiring permits being applicable in non-attainment areas.
• If in a non-attainment area, what is the non-attainment areas classification: "marginal" versus "moderate" versus "serious" versus "severe" versus "extreme". Depending on the classification, different timelines for compliance will exist in addition to different emission limits.
• What governmental entity is responsible for CAA compliance, and what is the status of their implementation plans? In some states, responsibility for CAA compliance rests with a county governmental office or specially designated airshed district. Since the original SIPs were to have been submitted for EPA approval in 1993, only now are permits for some sources beginning to become issues in certain jurisdictions. Some SIPs have elected to defer for the maximum five years any regulation of nonmajor sources.

Problems in reporting abound, and involve political, economic, as well as logistical issues. For example, all contiguous locations funded by an organizational 'parent' must be included in the parent organization's permit application. Remote research sites, adjacent test centers, dockside marine operations, prototype technology development centers, satellite educational units and the like must all be considered as individual sites if they are the legal or administrative responsibility of the main organization.

If not contiguous to the main campus, each non-contiguous site may require its own permit if the property is under common control (e.g., a university run remote power generation site). On the downside, such sites may require individual emission evaluations. However, sources at these sites may ultimately be exempted from permitting due to their non-contiguous standing relative to larger sources at parent sites.

Campus Actions and Costs

The obvious first necessity under Title V provisions of the CAA is the task of completing an emissions inventory. Some states require such listings, but even in cases where they are not a mandatory requirement, a listing of potential emission sources is a logical starting point to later judge permit requirements.

At a minimum, the emissions inventory should include the identification of all potential air sources in a manner acceptable to the air control authority. Identification must include an equipment designation system; physically labeling all sources is strongly recommended so they may be uniquely identified in the course of future field inspections. Source listing data can then be used to research equipment emissions rates, generate associated annual emission rate reports, and make the emissions inventory filing.

That filing, in turn, will include appropriate material usage data for each facility listed, sample emissions calculations for each type of facility, special emissions for Hazardous Air Pollutants, and current process flow diagrams and site plot plans.

The emissions inventory process is labor intensive, involving both technician level work followed by professional level estimations. While the technician or specialist work may typically charge-out at from $25-40/hour, because of the large number of sources to be accounted for on the average campus, these expense can rapidly accumulate. For example, assuming 500 sources are to be inventoried, and each source requires--on average--20 minutes to locate, describe, and inventory, the source listing expense for this site would amount to $4,200 to $6,700. Added to this are charges for higher order professional expertise, typically charged-out at $100-125/hour. Using the same reasoning, expenses for this service would range from $16,700 to $20,800.

While these example calculations are only approximations, it is evident that the costs of simply beginning the permitting process mount rapidly. At the low end of this example, the emissions listing expense has amounted to $21,100, while $27,500 is expected at the high end. And although these costs are only hypothetical, they are based on realistic estimates of the number of sources to be inventoried and typical third-party service rate schedules.

Upon completion of the emissions inventory and preparation of the necessary administrative parts of a permit application, the organization is well positioned to make application for an operating permit. Exactly which governmental entity is in charge of a particular state's permitting requirements varies by state, and this variability can in turn affect the complexity of the permit application that will need to be submitted. State specific permit requirements, the amount of iterations of the permit application, and the extent of the emissions inventory will all affect the cost of the Title V permit. In some instances, a competitive award process may be satisfactorily used to control overall project costs, but job specifications in those cases will need to be very complete to avoid unanticipated permitting expenses arising late in the application review process.

As a very rough guide, costs of actual application preparation and submittal can be expected to range from 1.5 to 2 times those of the emission inventory. In our example above, the additional permit application expense would range from $31,650 to $55,000. When added to the inventory expenses, total cost for the permit submission would range from $52,750 to $82,500.

Submitting a Title V permit application, while a highly important and monumental task for most sites, represents only the beginning of a new era of accountability for many schools. Once the conditions of an operating permit have been accepted, it falls to the campus to maintain compliance with all permit conditions. For long-established institutions, it may prove more economical to replace certain highly polluting equipment in favor of more easily permitted, less polluting equipment. Demonstration of continued compliance is expected through the establishment of an effective, timely, and accurate air emissions recordkeeping system.

Costs for this new accountability will vary according to the capability and availability of existing personnel. Collection of data about certain operations will be straight forward enough, as will air emission calculations for stable or long-standing processes. These tasks can easily be assigned to current technical staff for smaller institutions. However, larger campuses might well require additional technicians or specialists to generate and maintain the defensibility of such emissions reports. The largest of organizations--those with R&D budgets in excess of $100 million--may need to consider permanent staff additions at a professional level to ensure continued compliance with the Title V permit conditions. This is especially true for institutions that have frequent or substantial equipment or process changes.

Recommendations

Regardless of size, if your organization has not yet examined compliance with Title V of the CAA of 1990 it should do so soon. Intuitive reasoning about applicability of the act to a given campus can lead to false conclusions. In the worse case, a university may find itself out of compliance with the permitting requirements of Title V, and therefore subject to both civil and criminal provisions of the Clean Air Act.

If the issue of Title V compliance has not been addressed at an institution, efforts toward that end should begin sooner than later. Given the not inconsiderable confusion concerning certain aspects of control technologies (e.g., what constitutes a process modification as opposed to what changes may legitimately be accomplished under existing approvals), it may be advantageous to accelerate certain plant upgrades ahead of schedule to obviate or simplify permitting requirements.

According to F. William Brownell, a member of the law firm of Hunton & Williams writing in the 13th edition of the Environmental Law Handbook, any organization "...whose activities are subject to environmental regulation is well-advised to implement an internal compliance program". Due to the highly complex and arcane nature of the evolving CAA regulations, and the limited internal expertise on this topic at most schools, at least the first pass of such a program might best be accomplished by an experienced external consultant. One advantage of such an approach is that, should full permitting become necessary, the institution will be better prepared to finalize data completion in advance of a full application.

There are a number of resources readily available for those wanting to look into compliance further. For those inclined to used the Internet, some of the following sites may prove useful. Exhaustive details about the CAA of 1990 can be located at the USEPA server at: http://www.epa.gov/. For those wishing to consider the issue in less technical language, go to: http://homepage.interaccess.com/~scotte/apr/apr2.htm. Finally, numerous consulting firms can be found by doing a search using key terms such as "CAA" or "air pollution".

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About the Author: Timothy J. Ryan, CIH, CSP, is Director/Risk Manager of the Environmental and Physical Safety Department at the University of Houston.