Colorado Compliance

Colorado Compliance

The state's sole independent source of business-related environmental regulatory and compliance data.

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EPA: Massive Ozone Redesignation For Denver

Dec. 4 -- Robbie Roberts, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Denver office, on Dec. 3 informed Colorado Gov. Bill Owens that federal regulators will reject his June 2003 recommendation that all of Colorado be designated as attainment for EPA's new 8-hour ground-level ozone standard. Instead, Roberts said, EPA will designate the entire 8-county metro Denver area as "nonattainment" for the new standard -- and will expand the nonattainment boundaries to include Elbert, Larimer and Fort Morgan counties. The action is a serious blow for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, as well as the Regional Air Quality Commission, the lead air quality planning agency for the Denver area.

EPA believes new measures are needed to meet ground-level ozone health standards. Roberts' letter is part of a formal process that began this summer when states and tribes sent updated boundary recommendations to EPA. EPA issued the 8-hour ozone standard in 1997, based on information demonstrating that the 1-hour standard was inadequate for protecting public health. The new standard is based on 8-hour averages of ozone levels, which reflects a more realistic measure of people's exposure and is more protective of public health.

EPA may designate an area as nonattainment if it violated, or has contributed to violations, of the 8-hour standard over a three- year period. Those areas will be required to reduce emissions to meet the standard. EPA is scheduled to make final designations by April 15, 2004. Subscribers wishing to view Roberts' letter to Owens containing the redesignation announcement should click here.

NOVEMBER 30, 2003

UP FRONT

2   Controversy Over State NSR Changes

Green groups this month fired a major volley at Colorado’s regulated community when they attempted to slow state regulatory efforts to adopt recent Environmental Protection Agency changes relaxing what business groups have long complained are suffocating provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA). In a tactical surprise Nov. 3, seven of the state’s most influential environmental groups ambushed industrial interests with a letter to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) executive director Douglas Benevento and state Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) chairman Robert E. Brady, Jr., challenging Colorado’s planned adoption of federal changes to CAA permitting provisions governing new source review (NSR).

The letter laid out a detailed argument against the NSR changes, and pinned green groups’ opposition on the Denver region’s rising struggle with ground-level ozone (smog), one that reached a peak this summer with levels of the smoggy pollution not seen since the mid-1980s (see CC 7/03, p. 3). Loosening NSR rules, the green groups said, would permit Front Range industry to ramp up emissions — including those of ozone precursors nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — and exacerbate an ozone problem that is spreading outside the metro area to stretches of northern and southern Colorado, including Rocky Mountain National Park.

The five-page letter named names, flagging ...

4   As Massive Ozone Redesignation Sought

The dustup over incorporating the proposed NSR changes in state regulations comes as environmental groups seek a sweeping redesignation of the Front Range’s status for compliance with EPA’s smog NAAQS. Just weeks before, a bevy of environmental groups formally asked EPA to redesignate a huge swath of the Front Range as a "serious" nonattainment area for smog based on this summer’s high ground-level ozone readings. Their request is far-reaching, asking EPA to slap the nonattainment label as far north as Larimer County.

In their request, the green groups claim that areas monitoring violations of the 8-hour ozone standard after the submittal of state recommendations must be designated nonattainment (see CC 7/03, p. 3). "There are several areas that have violated the 8-hour ozone standard since the state recommendations were submitted," they state in their request. "EPA must base its final nonattainment designations on the most recent data and ensure that all areas violating the standard based on 2001-2003 data are in fact declared nonattainment. Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California, for example, are two major metropolitan areas that violate the health-based ozone standard based on 2001-2003 data. EPA must ensure that the full Denver (metro area) is designated nonattainment along with all of the counties encompassing Rocky Mountain National Park and those counties with sources contributing to nonattainment. Designating the entire airshed as nonattainment will ensure comprehensive, effective planning and is especially important given the far-reaching high ozone concentrations across the Front Range. For example, numerous ozone exceedances have been recorded the past two summers at Rocky Mountain National Park."

The redesignation request concludes on an ominous and wildly expensive note: "We recommend that EPA designate the Denver CMSA and Elbert, Grand, Larimer and Morgan Counties as nonattainment for ozone." Subscribers wishing to view the redesignation request in its entirety should click here (see pages 14-15).

5   Walcher Under Fire At DNR

6   ‘Supreme’ Win For Cotter

8   Little Support For ‘Big Straw’

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BRIEFS

Toxic tort seminar ... Drilling plan delayed ... More biodiesel available ... BLM studies cleanup ... COGCC legal setback ... Questions over water and wells ... ‘Grousing’ over funds ... Gas cop needed ... Wrassling over power plant ... Dam cost overruns... All begin on page 9

REGULATORY ROUNDUP

12   AQCC Moves Ahead With NSR Changes

13   EPA Aids Streamlined Permitting

14   Summit Studies Cyanide Regulations

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

15   Voters Overwhelmingly Reject H2O Bonds

16   Udall Pushing New Recycling Mandate

ENFORCEMENT REPORT

16   EPA Looks To Drop Case Against Xcel

17   Feds Probe Discharges At West Slope Firm

SUPERFUND/HAZARDOUS WASTE

19   Exemptions Draw Scrutiny From Many

20   New Discharge Limits For Lockheed?

20   Board Of Health: Not Our Department

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Colorado Compliance is the state's sole source of independent business-related environmental regulatory and compliance data. Subject matter (no advertisements accepted) is limited to administrative, legal and public policy developments impacting commercial activities conducted in Colorado. Published monthly by Compliance Publishers, Inc., Denver, Colorado. A limited number of annual subscriptions are available for $375.00 per year.

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Phone (303) 333-4750 -or- (800) 662-2269

Facsimile (303) 623-0680 -or- (800) 209-5361