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AGENCY:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION:
Proposed rule.
SUMMARY:
Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to determine that the Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, sulfur dioxide (SO2) nonattainment area (NAA) has failed to attain the 2010 1-hour primary SO2 national ambient air quality standard (2010 SO2 NAAQS) by the applicable statutory attainment date of April 9, 2023. This determination is based on analysis of reported emissions records and available modeling data. This action, if finalized, will address the EPA's obligation under CAA section 179(c) to determine whether the Evangeline Parish SO2 NAA attained the 2010 SO2 NAAQS by the April 9, 2023, attainment date.
DATES:
Written comments must be received on or before October 4, 2024.
ADDRESSES:
Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R06-OAR-2024-0380 at https://www.regulations.gov, or via email to Thomas.Ronald@epa.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission ( i.e. on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person identified in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section. For the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets .
Docket: The index to the docket for this action is available electronically at www.regulations.gov . While all documents in the docket are listed in the index, some information may not be publicly available due to docket file size restrictions or content ( e.g., CBI).
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Ronald Thomas, SO2 and Regional Haze Section (R6-ARSH), Air & Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, 1201 Elm Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75270. His direct telephone number is (214) 665-7478. Mr. Thomas can also be reached via electronic mail at Thomas.Ronald@epa.gov. We encourage the public to submit comments via https://www.regulations.gov . Please call or email the contact listed above if you need alternative access to material indexed but not provided in the docket.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Throughout this document whenever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we refer to the EPA.
I. Background
A. The 2010 1-Hour Primary SO 2 NAAQS
Under section 109 of the CAA, the EPA has established primary and secondary NAAQS for certain pervasive air pollutants (referred to as “criteria pollutants”) and conducts periodic reviews of the NAAQS to determine whether they should be revised or whether new NAAQS should be established. The primary NAAQS represent ambient air quality standards that the EPA has determined are requisite to protect the public health, while the secondary NAAQS represent ambient air quality standards that the EPA has determined are requisite to protect the public welfare from any known or anticipated adverse effects associated with the presence of such an air pollutant in the ambient air.
Under the CAA, the EPA must establish a NAAQS for SO2, which is primarily released to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels by power plants and other industrial facilities. SO2 is also emitted from industrial processes including metal extraction from ore and heavy equipment that burn fuel with a high sulfur content. Short-term exposure to SO2 can damage the human respiratory system and increase breathing difficulties. Small children and people with respiratory conditions, such as asthma, are more sensitive to the effects of SO2 . Sulfur oxides at high concentrations in ambient air can also react with compounds to form small particulates (fine particulate matter or PM2.5) that can penetrate deeply into the lungs and cause acute health problems and/or chronic diseases. The EPA first established primary SO2 standards in 1971 at 140 parts per billion (ppb) over a 24-hour averaging period and at 30 ppb over an annual averaging period.
36 FR 8186 (April 30, 1971).
On June 22, 2010, the EPA published in the Federal Register a strengthened, primary 1-hour SO2 NAAQS, establishing a new standard at a level of 75 ppb, based on the 3-year average of the annual 99th percentile of daily maximum 1-hour average concentrations of SO2 . The revised SO2 NAAQS provides increased protection of public health. Along with revision of the SO2 NAAQS, EPA revoked the 1971 primary annual and 24-hour SO2 standards for most areas of the country following area designations under the new NAAQS.
75 FR 35520.
B. Designations, Classifications, and Attainment Dates for the 2010 SO 2 NAAQS
Following promulgation of a new or revised NAAQS, the EPA is required to designate all areas of the country as either “attainment,” “nonattainment,” or “unclassifiable,” pursuant to CAA section 107(d)(1). On December 21, 2017, the EPA designated as nonattainment six areas in three States and two territories in the third round of SO2 designations. With that action, the EPA designated as nonattainment a small, rectangular area within Evangeline Parish, centered around the location of the Cabot Corporation's Ville Platte Plant (Cabot) near the city of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Pursuant to section 192(a) of the CAA, the attainment date for the Evangeline Parish NAA was no later than five years after the effective date of the initial designation, or April 9, 2023.
83 FR 1098 (January 9, 2018).
For designations technical discussions, see EPA's Technical Support Document, Chapter 16, Section 4, 27-47, at https://www.epa.gov/sulfur-dioxide-designations/intended-sulfur-dioxide-area-designations-august-2017, available in the docket for this action.
CAA section 191(a) requires States that contain an area designated nonattainment for the 2010 1-hour primary SO2 NAAQS to develop and submit a nonattainment area (NAA) State Implementation Plan (SIP) to the EPA within 18 months of the effective date of an area's designation as nonattainment. For SO2, a NAA SIP (also referred to as an attainment plan) must meet the requirements of sections 110, 172(c), 191, and 192 of the CAA, and provide for attainment of the NAAQS by the applicable statutory attainment date, or no later than five years from the effective date of designation. The effective date of designation was April 9, 2018, which required the attainment SIP submission to be due on October 9, 2019. As of the drafting of this document, Louisiana had not submitted a SIP revision for the Evangeline Parish NAA. On November 3, 2020, effective December 3, 2020, the EPA issued a Finding of Failure to Submit (a SIP) for Louisiana for failing to submit a SIP revision for the Evangeline Parish NAA.
85 FR 69504 (November 3, 2020).
C. EPA's Finding of Failure To Attain by the Attainment Date
Section 179(c)(1) of the CAA requires the EPA to determine whether a NAA attained an applicable standard by the applicable statutory attainment date based on the area's air quality as of the attainment date. The EPA is to issue this determination within six months of the attainment date. Thus, the EPA had a mandatory duty under CAA section 179(c) to determine by October 9, 2023, whether the NAA attained the NAAQS by the statutory attainment date. With this action, the EPA proposes to determine, in accordance with CAA section 179(c), that the Evangeline Parish NAA failed to attain the 2010 1-hour primary SO2 NAAQS by the April 9, 2023, attainment date.
A determination of whether an area's air quality meets applicable standards is generally based upon the most recent three years of complete, quality-assured data gathered at established State and local air monitoring stations (SLAMS) in an NAA and other available information. The EPA's 2014 Guidance for 1-Hour SO2 Nonattainment Area SIP Submissions states, “The EPA will determine whether or not an SO2 nonattainment area has attained the NAAQS based on air quality monitoring data (when available) and air quality dispersion modeling information for the affected area, and/or a demonstration that the control strategy has been fully implemented.” In the case of Evangeline Parish, the designation was based on our review of dispersion modeling results submitted by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) that showed violations of the NAAQS. The modeling analysis included the only major source of SO2 emissions in the parish, Cabot, and relied upon reported SO2 emissions for Cabot for 2013-2015. In addition, as noted above, Louisiana has not submitted a control strategy (via SIP revision) for the NAA.
Guidance for 1-Hour SO 2 Nonattainment Area SIP Submissions; EPA, April 23, 2014, can be found at https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/guidance-1-hour-sulfur-dioxide-so2-nonattainment-area-state-implementation-plans-sip, available in the docket for this action.
See EPA's Technical Support Document accompanying the area's initial designation, Chapter 16, Section 4, 27-47, at https://www.epa.gov/sulfur-dioxide-designations/intended-sulfur-dioxide-area-designations-august-2017, available in the docket for this action.
II. Proposed Determination
A. Area Characterization
The Evangeline Parish NAA is located in south central Louisiana, approximately sixty kilometers north of Lafayette, Louisiana; it encompasses a rectangular area (2150 meters by 3000 meters) approximately six kilometers north of the city of Ville Platte, bounded by the designated NAA coordinate vertices provided in table 1. The Evangeline Parish NAA includes the Cabot carbon black plant within the extent of the modeled SO2 violation impacts from Cabot.
Table 1—Boundary Corner Coordinates of the Evangeline Parish Rectangular Nonattainment Area
| UTM Easting (m) | UTM Northing (m) | UTM Zone | Datum |
|---|---|---|---|
| 570250 | 3400300 | 15 | NAD 83 |
| 570250 | 3403300 | 15 | NAD 83 |
| 572400 | 3403300 | 15 | NAD 83 |
| 572400 | 3400300 | 15 | NAD 83 |
Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system (an ellipsoid earth map projection). The easting is longitudinal, and the northing is latitudinal.
See EPA's Technical Support Document accompanying the area's initial designation, Chapter 16, Section 4, 27-47, at https://www.epa.gov/sulfur-dioxide-designations/intended-sulfur-dioxide-area-designations-august-2017, available in the docket for this action.
Table 2—Annual Emissions From Major Stationary SO 2 Sources in the Evangeline Parish Nonattainment Area for 2013 Through 2022
[Tons of SO 2 per year]
| Year | Cabot Ville Platte |
|---|---|
| 2013 | 8,519.76 |
| 2014 | 8,661.39 |
| 2015 | 8,094.10 |
| 2016 | 8,289.22 |
| 2017 | 11,029.06 |
| 2018 | 11,069.91 |
| 2019 | 11,033.92 |
| 2020 | 7,562.72 |
| 2021 | 8,425.99 |
| 2022 | 9.964.47 |
Table 3—Summary of 2013-2015 Peak Modeled Receptor 1-Hour SO 2 Design Value for the Evangeline Parish NAA
Table 4—EJScreen Analysis Summary for Cabot Ville Platte