Regional panel urges no change in air-quality rules

A regional commission of business and government representatives wants air-quality standards left alone.

Last week, the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission approved sending a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency indicating its position on proposed new standards for ground-level ozone in Perry and Ste. Genevieve counties. The EPA proposed Nov. 25 the levels be reduced to a range of 65 to 70 parts per billion from the current 75 ppb.

Ground-level ozone is an air pollutant that poses harm to people, animals, crops, trees and other vegetation, according the EPA.

The letter is the commission's official submission of a comment to the EPA during a comment period on the proposed new standards that ends March 17.

The proposed changes come about as the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, formed to advise the EPA on compliance with the federal Clean Air Act, decided to amend the standard.

In the letter, the commission asks the EPA to retain the current 75 ppb standard for ground-level ozone and includes in its rationale for the request several points, including the difficulty the region may have responding to a new range. It also questions whether the agency's estimates on the effect on human health are reasonable and whether other rules that affect air quality should be given more time to take effect.

The letter contains nine points, but a main concern of the commission is under new standards, the counties could be subject to being assigned a nonattainment status, said David Grimes, deputy director of the commission. With that status could come the loss of businesses and jobs.

"Put yourself into the head of someone making a decision about a location for a business. There are different places they can go into," Grimes said. "You're not going to decide to build a new project or invest in some significant expansion when there may be hard-to-meet standards having to do with permits and high costs and other things involved."

Ground-level ozone readings are taken at monitoring stations in each county and are close to the current standards.

The latest ozone readings, according to data from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, were 71 ppb at the station in Perry County and 72 ppb in Ste. Genevieve County in 2014.

Those moderate readings, Grimes said, are mostly because of a mild summer in 2014. Ground-level ozone is has a "season," from April 1 to Oct. 31, and the heat of the summer is a major factor in how high readings rise, Grimes said.

An environmental quality committee put together by the commission has looked at the issue of the ozone-level changes, Grimes said, and agrees unless all road, river and rail traffic were halted, area industry operations ceased and natural decomposition of plants were eliminated, no lower levels of ozone are possible in the region.

"The bottom line is we can't do much," he said. "Nobody, not one of the people on the committee, are for dirty air. And what we have on our worst days in rural Missouri isn't bad air. We need to do whatever we can to stay compliant with 75, and need the EPA to realize there's not a chance in the world that we will make 65."

There still may be some time before local counties see effects from the proposed changes -- the EPA has October as a deadline for finalized standards, and a one-year period for states to recommend designations follows.

If the new standards do take effect, it would be the second drop in allowable limits for ground-level ozone in less than 10 years.

The limit was lowered from 84 ppb to 75 ppb in 2008.

eragan@semissourian.com

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