**Air Conformity for Managers**

A Telecast Originating from the BLM National Training Center

March 22, 2001

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast. It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

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Announcer: The Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network presents live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Air
Conformity for Managers course 7000‑06BC. And now the host of your
program, Elizabeth Souheaver.

E. Souheaver: Welcome to our interagency workshop on Air Conformity for
Managers. I\'m pleased to be here representing the Fish & Wildlife
Service as a refuge manager. In today\'s program we will be focusing on
the Federal evaluation and documentation process and especially your
role as a Federal manager to ensure that activities you authorize on
Federal lands are in compliance with applicable air quality laws and
regulations. We will be looking at some of the basics of the Clean Air
Act, we have some video case study examples for you, and we will also
have an open question‑and‑answer segment near the end of our telecast.
We have an excellent interagency panel of Air Conformity specialists
with us today to provide expertise on air quality issues. Pete Lahm from
the USDA Forest Service stationed at the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality is here to discuss some proactive steps that can
be taken to simplify the conformity process. Good morning, Pete.

P. Lahm: Hi, Elizabeth. How you doing? Enjoying the weather in the
Valley of the Sun?

E. Souheaver: Absolutely. It\'s so much nicer than what we are
experience in DC. And from the BLM Ridgecrest Field Office is Glenn
Harris. Glenn, I believe you will be providing detailed information on
the conformity process.

G. Harris: That\'s right. I will. It\'s a pleasure to be here
representing BLM and being in the great State of Arizona for a while.

E. Souheaver: To give us a view of things from the National Park
Service, Holly sharpless is here to give both the general and
transportation conformity requirements. Hi, Holly.

H. Sharpless: Hi, Elizabeth. It\'s a pleasure to be here.

E. Souheaver: And joining us this morning also is Dave Stonefield, a
senior environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. Dave will be giving us an overview of the Clean Air Act and
providing us EPA\'s perspective as a Federal regulatory agency.

D. Stonefield: Thank you, Elizabeth. It\'s a pleasure to be here
representing the Environmental Protection Agency and we are happy to
help the Federal land managers to learn more about conformity and I want
to congratulate you at becoming a land manager for our refuge in
southeast Louisiana.

E. Souheaver: Thanks, Dave. I appreciate that. I\'m looking forward to
going back to the field. We\'re glad to have you here, all of you and if
we do our jobs right, at the end of this broadcast, we will have met two
main training objectives, and that is: That you know that you need to
consider air quality conformity requirements when making Federal land
management decisions, and recognize the importance of working
pro-actively with state and local air quality regulatory agencies to
simplify and work together on future conformity evaluations. We do not
expect to make you conformity experts. But to provide you a general
knowledge that you can call in the experts when needed. But before we
get started, we have just a few announcements. All of you should have
received the broadcast material located on the Air Conformity web page
and I\'ll read it. www.ntc.blm.gov/air. This website contains an outline
of our program. How to contact us during and after the broadcast, air
quality maps, background documents and a list of acronyms and a gloss re
of terms. There\'s also a broadcast evaluation form which we would like
you to complete and return after our program. This will help us
understand how well we presented this material. But most importantly
throughout this broadcast, we would like to hear from you. If you have a
question or a comment for us, please give us a call. These numbers are
also posted on the website. We have scheduled time at the end of our
program for your questions, and we look forward to some good interaction
between you and our panel of experts. Now, to set the stage for our Air
Conformity discussion, let\'s take a look at what happened to BLM near
Las Vegas, Nevada. In this example, you will hear how a sand and gravel
sale project was delayed and potentially stopped when a local citizen
voiced concern that no conformity analysis had been completed.

Anybody who is in an area of high growth that has the potential for
particulate matter or carbon monoxide production during any of their
activities that they have to approve, if they don\'t address it, it will
come back to haunt them sooner or later.

I don\'t believe that the Air Conformity issues are going to go away in
the near future. I think that\'s something we need to address as soon as
possible. I think the counties, the state and the Federal agencies need
to work together to try to come up with someway of addressing these
problems so that they don\'t get worse.

The management in this office early on back in the ‑‑ back in about 1997
did not realize what a problem air quality could be. Once Mr. Hall got
involved with the agency, it started to make them aware.

During the recent meeting with Mr. Hall last December, one of his latest
concerns was in regards to the Federal conformity regulations. One of
his main concerns is that associated with these land transfers and sales
is the lack of a conformity determination.

I got to know Mr. Hall in 1997. We put together a mineral materials sale
here in the northwest part of the Valley, and we advertised to sell
approximately six million tons of sand and gravel over a 10‑year period.
At the point that we had advertised the sale, we had not done any NEPA
documentation. One of the reasons was we were wanting to make sure we
were going to get some people who would actually buy the material so
that we\'d have an action that we could actually evaluate and do it
seriously. While we were holding the sale, Mr. Hall came in and wanted
us to stop the process. I believe because we addressed the Air
Conformity within the E.A. and the results we got from the interior
board of land appeals and also comments we got back from the
Environmental Protection Agency, that we protected ourselves from a
serious problem. Obviously I believe Mr. Hall would have won his appeals
to IBLA. We would have probably had to stop the removal of the materials
from the area that we had sold, and it would have probably kept us
bottled up for maybe another year or two trying to get things
straightened out.

It\'s a very lengthy process, putting together administrative files. I
think it took us three months and we had to hire a Secretary to come in
and help us, and very expensive undertaking and time consuming, which
means someone has to be working on that project and I guess since this
is a program for managers, if you get a lawsuit like this and you have a
huge administrative file like we had, it was 21,000 pages, and they have
to be numbered, this takes a tremendous amount of time to do that.

Air quality is a serious issue in this basin. We\'re the major land
owner in the basin. So we\'re a part of the problem. We take all their
concerns very seriously. We don\'t blow them off. We can\'t take the
stance that we\'re the Federal government and we don\'t have to adhere
to the rules. We do have to adhere to the rules. Not only do we have to,
but it\'s the right thing. So we want to adhere to the rules.

I think the best piece of advice I could give any manager that maybe
hasn\'t dealt with this Clean Air Act issue and may be dealing with it
in the future, is ‑‑ we hear this all the time, document, document,
document.

And just because of all of this, we know it\'s very important to have
something in your environmental document showing that you have paid
attention, that you know there are some issues out there, and that you
are trying to address them as best as possible.

Air quality is an issue ‑‑ as an issue is not going to go away. It\'s
just not going to go away. It\'s like water quality. Air quality, water
quality, even though they are turned over to the state for
responsibility or to local municipalities, in this case, Clark county,
they are a Federal issue. We own lands, we contribute to the problem,
we\'ve got to contribute to the solution. One of my RAC members made a
statement, you\'re either part of the problem or part of the solution.
In this case we\'re parted of the problem. So we need to take leadership
in the situation and become a major part of the solution.

E. Souheaver: This project had a happy ending and a valuable lesson
learned. All Federal action should consider the conformity process as it
is required by law. Which leads us to our first question for you ‑‑ Are
you familiar with the Clean Air Act and the 1990 Amendments?

E. Souheaver: So to help us answer that question, let\'s go to Dave
Stonefield of EPA, who is going gave us an overview of the Clean Air
Act. Dave?

D. Stonefield: Thank you, Elizabeth. The Clean Air Act as amended in
1990 has a number of provisions to improve air quality and to protect
public health. Two of these provisions concern us today. First is a
program to attain the National Ambient Air Quality Standards or NAAQS,
and the second is a special provision known as general conformity, which
applies to the Federal agencies. So just what are these standards? The
standards are developed by EPA to protect public health and welfare. We
set limits on the pollution that can be in the air for a set time
period. For example, the concentrations can be expressed in units as
parts per million or in the averaging time can be from 1 hour to 1 year.
EPA established standards for six pollutants. They are ozone, carbon
monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead and particulate matter,
or dust particles equal to or less than 10 microns in size, known as
PM‑10. More information about these standards is available on the
website. In 1997, EPA set new standards for both ozone and particulate
matter. The new ozone standard changed the averaging time from 1 hour to
8 hours with a lower concentration level. The new particulates standard
changed the size limit from 10 microns to 2.5 microns. Also with a lower
concentration limit. These changes were challenged in court. On February
27th of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld EPA\'s right to issue
the standards, but directed EPA to revise its proposed implementation
program for the new standards. EPA is now reviewing the court decision
and it determined ‑‑ and determine what its next steps will be. Now,
let\'s take a look at air quality management process, or how EPA and the
states go about implementing the standards. First, the states establish
a monitoring network to collect data on the pollutants concentrations
and identify areas that are exceeding the standards. Based upon that
data, EPA designates non-attainment areas. Next, states develop state
implementation plans, or SIPs, to attain the standards in the
non-attainment areas. These plans include emission inventories, emission
reduction strategies, regulations to implement the strategies and air
quality modeling to demonstrate that the plans will result in attainment
of the standards. Once developed and adopted by the states, the SIPs are
submitted to EP amount ‑‑ EPA for review and approval. If approved by
EPA, the plans become Federally enforceable. State air quality agencies
implement those plans by enforcing the regulations and by monitoring
both the emission reductions and the air quality concentrations. When
the area meets the standards, the state adopts a maintenance plan, and
EPA redesignates the area to a maintenance area. There are national maps
depicting the non-attainment and maintenance areas available on the
website. I would like to note that we expect to increase ‑‑ an increase
in the number and location of non-attainment areas when the new 8‑hour
ozone and the PM‑2.5 standards are addressed. A little bit later Pete
will provide more specifics on how we can ‑‑ how you can determine your
designation status. Now let\'s turn to the Federal agency\'s
responsibility under the Clean Air Act. These include controlling
pollution from the actions and activities which you are authorized or ‑‑
take or are authorized. And ensuring that the actions conform to the
SIP. Section 176(C) of the Clean Air Act requires he had Federal
agencies to demonstrate conformity with the SIPs. This must be done
before the Federal action ‑‑ agency takes a direct action or issues an
approval. It must include not only direct emissions but also the
associated indirect emissions. So what you need to remember here is,
first, EPA sets the national air quality standards to protect public
health and welfare, state and local agencies develop SIPs to implement
the standards, and Federal agencies must demonstrate conformity with the
SIPs. Now, let\'s go to Aspen, Colorado, and see how an area was
resolving an air quality issue and had to address a potential expansion
of the Snowmass ski area on Forest Service lands.

Aspen is an internationally famous ski resort and we have high
mountains, obviously, right around town. Aspen itself is in the bottom
of a Valley, so pollution gets trapped by the mountains and the high
altitude, and sometimes it gets trapped right around town and then we
have a lot of sources in a small area because there\'s a lot of traffic
and a lot of wood‑burning fireplaces and restaurant grills. 86% of our
PM‑10 on a bad day comes from cars driving on paved roads. So the big
issue was, how to get people to drive less and how to provide enough
alternatives so there were attractive alternatives and it wasn\'t just a
matter of trying to get people out of cars but giving them attractive
choices instead.

that\'s our biggest concern in an area like Aspen, is the road dust that
impacts air quality in the area. So it\'s important to have high quality
transportation information and then also when we\'re discussing
mitigation, that we have a good analysis of what the mitigation measures
would do to reduce traffic to acceptable levels.

and for a case like this, we did a have very detailed analysis of what
the air quality impacts would be. We worked with the state and city and
county to make sure that we took into account everything from existing
and potential restaurant grills, vehicle traffic, fireplace emissions,
any other source and did disclose that to the public.

recent studies have shown that PM‑10 is more harmful to people\'s health
than we used to realize, even at levels we experience several times in a
year. There is an increase in hospital admission rates and death rates.
So it really is a public health concern. It\'s also why a lot of people
came to Aspen.

so when you can take cars off the road, put those folks on buses, on
other forms of transit, we see an elimination of the exhaust emissions
and of the road dust emissions that all those individual cars would
produce.

about a year after we had adopted our SIP, the Snowmass ski area came in
with a proposal to expand to add new terrain and new ski lifts, and
since that would have added more traffic with more skiers and more
employees and rooming and all the activities, that had the potential to
negate our efforts to clean up our air. So then the ski area was on
Forest Service land and the Forest Service wanted also to make sure that
they didn\'t make a decision would that interfere with our ability to
keep our air clean.

in fact the conformity regulations give us an affirmative responsibility
to comply with the section of the act. We have an affirmative
responsibility to make sure that our actions don\'t cause a violation of
a state implementation plan. That\'s the strongest language Congress
ever uses to tell an agency that they darn well better do something.

since we are at that time working the town of Snowmass, the City of
Aspen, the county, all trying to come one a comprehensive transportation
plan, the Forest Service allowed us additional time to see if we could
come one a comprehensive solution and if they didn\'t, they required the
ski company to purchase some buses and operate those buses as a way to
offset the increases in traffic that they would otherwise cause.

we in our record of decision, in our permit to the ski corporation,
required that they do something to make sure that there was no net
increase. This made the state happy, this made the local county happy,
this made the city happy. This made EPA happy. And it made us happy,
too. Because not only is this the legal thing to do, but it\'s the right
thing to do. They required a number of things, street sweeping, paved
parking, remote parking, things like that. So that they could bring the
air quality levels under the health standards and protect the health of
the public.

with a requirement that the developer add to the Aspen transportation
network of about 1.7 million of additional bus service, that was a very
good, innovative approach to mitigating the impacts of the expansion\'s
impact on air quality.

we did not do this analysis in a vacuum. As far as our conformity and
NEPA analysis looking at the air quality issue. We made sure we worked
directly with the city, county and state and EPA to make sure that we
were all using the exact same numbers in the analysis, that there would
be no bickering later on about, well, the analysis wasn\'t good because
you didn\'t include X, Y or Z. It was important to work with the air
regulatory community and the public. Then after you do a good analysis,
it\'s still incumbent on the agency to make a good decision, and in this
case we did.

for us, it was essential to coordinate with all the agencies because our
non-attainment area includes different political jurisdictions and then
the state has to approve the SIP as well. So there would be no point in
going forward if everybody didn\'t agree on what to do.

the final decision has to be made by the land management agency. The key
is to make that decision based on good information that everybody is
aware of and then go ahead. .

D. Stonefield: Aspen is a good example of an area where an existing
problem with particulates could have been exacerbated by the indirect
emissions from the ski area expansion. Through the conformity process
and the cooperative efforts of the Federal, state and local agencies,
the ski area expansion could proceed without impacting the existing air
quality. Now I would like to turn it back to you, you a Liz Beth.

E. Souheaver: Thanks, Dave. That really helped us set the stage. Now,
Holly sharpless of the National Park Service, will tell us just what air
quality conformity is. Holly?

H. Sharpless: Thanks, Elizabeth. We need to emphasize that conformity
applies to all Federal land managers and, therefore, affects each one of
you watching today. As stated earlier, general conformity is specific to
Federal agencies and does not apply to state or local governments. So
which Federal agencies need to be concerned about general conformity?
The answer is all Federal agencies with land management
responsibilities, regardless of the mission, are legally obligated to
conduct a general conformity analysis and make a written determination
of conformity before a Federal action may take place. Such agencies
include the departments of defense, agriculture and transportation. As
well as the Department of the Interior agencies. So that brings us to
another Thinkpoint for you. That is ‑‑ where does conformity apply? and
the answer is general conformity rules apply in areas designated as
non-attainment or maintenance for any of the criteria pollutants under
the Clean Air Act. As Dave discussed earlier, areas which do not meet
standards for carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone,
particulate matter and sulfur dioxide are classified as non-attainment
or maintenance areas by the EPA. Therefore, any Federal action within
such areas need to conform to the existing SIPs. So can you answer our
next Think point? Which is ‑‑ Just what defines a Federal action? A
Federal action refers to any activity engaged by a department or agency
of the Federal government. It also refers to any activity that a
department or agency supports in any way. Which includes providing
financial assistance, licenses, permits or formal approval. General
conformity rules apply to all Federal action except those actions
covered by the transportation conformity rules, actions with associated
emissions below certain levels and certain other actions which are
exempt or presumed to conform. I would like to highlight that
transportation ‑‑ that ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ I would like to highlight that
those activities under the transportation conformity rules are dealt
with and include any Department of Transportation Federal highway or
Federal transit activities. They are all covered under the
transportation conformity rules. We will briefly discuss transportation
conformity later with a short video study of transportation planning at
Yosemite National Park. So what does this all mean to you as Federal
land managers? You are responsible for producing a general conformity
analysis, which is a technical analysis done by a Federal agency to
determine whether or not its proposed action conforms to the SIP in your
area. It is important to emphasize that it\'s the Federal agency
responsible for the action that is required to determine if that action
conforms to the applicable SIP, not the state or EPA. The state and EPA
have only a review role of the Federal agency\'s written determination.
The burden of responsibility is completely on the agency proposing the
action. So, again, before a Federal action can take place within a
non-attainment or maintenance area, it must be demonstrated that the
Federal action conforms to the SIP. You will have to demonstrate that
new actions will not cause or contribute to any new violation of any
standard, increase the frequency or severity of any existing violation
of a standard, or delay timely attainment of any standard or any
required interim emissions reductions or other milestones. The general
conformity rule covers both direct and indirect emissions of pollutants
are caused by Federal action as you have just seen in the Aspen video
case study. Again, the Federal agency responsible for the action is
required to determine if its actions conform to the applicable SIP
before the action is taken. Common activities which general conformity
applies to include special use authorizations, such as commercial
visitor services, prescribed fire activities, visitor activities, such
as off‑highway vehicle use, or land use authorization, such as the
expansion of ski areas. Mitigation that is necessary for the conformity
determination will be both state and Federally enforceable. The bottom
line is, no conformity determination, no record of decision
implementation. Although the general conformity rules allow linking
conformity analysis with the NEPA analysis process, the conformity rule
does not require such linking. However, combining conformity and NEPA
analyses in some cases may be efficient and convenient. At the point in
the NEPA process when the specific action is determined, the air quality
conformity analysis can be started. Finally, a categorical exclusion
from NEPA does not exclude a Federal action from the general conformity
rules. Federal agencies must make their conformity determination
available for public review. Notice of both draft and final conformity
determinations must be provided directly to air quality regulatory
agencies and the notice of availability to the public printed in a local
newspaper. If a Federal action is determined not to conform to the
applicable SIP, even though the NEPA process has been completed, the
Federal action cannot be implemented. So, to summarize, the general
conformity rules apply to all Federal agencies with land management
responsibilities. The general conformity rules apply to all Federal
actions within non-attainment or maintenance areas except those actions
covered by the transportation conformity rules, actions with certain
emissions below certain levels, and certain other actions which are
exempt or which are presummed ‑‑ presumed to conform. The general
conformity analysis procedure, including regulatory and public, notice,
review and comment period may be combined with other NEPA documentation.
But the procedures required under NEPA, and those required under the
Clean Air Act, are separate regulations which must be met. Elizabeth?

E. Souheaver: Thanks, Holly. Now we know what conformity is. Now we need
to take a look at the conformity process. To lead that presentation,
we\'re going to turn things over to Glenn Harris from BLM. Glenn, are
you ready to go?

G. Harris: Yeah, I am ready. Thank you very much. Thanks, Dave and
Holly, for setting this up. Up to this point you probably notice we
presented a series of problems and no solutions. That\'s basically where
I got into this process. Here we had a whole new set of rules, a new set
of regulations and rules that say every manager must do this thing
called conformity, yet there were no procedures for it. Basically a new
box to build and no instructions in it. That\'s where I start out. I
knew I had five Federal non-attainment areas to work on and yet I
didn\'t have any process to follow. But I had a background in NEPA and I
worked on the NEPA team, so I basically fell back on that process to
establish a procedure. So I developed a process within NEPA and then
shortly after that when we were developing our national training
package, we developed those into what we call our 10‑step process for
conformity. So we\'re going to go ahead into that. With that background,
we are going to go through basically how I laid out the NEPA dockment
and where the steps fall in there. The first part of the NEPA document
addresses the regulatory setting and this becomes the first step in the
process. This is where things like the conformity law needs to be in
there, the rules that may be applying to this thing, air quality
jurisdiction, if you have an air district test jurisdiction or is there
a state jurisdiction in there and exemptions that may be cited in the
analysis you are going to be doing later. An example in California, we
have both regional and state jurisdictions, and so we may have to cite
those, depending on how the project lays. The next two steps of the
conformity process fall into the environment section of the
environmental document. In here we go through analysis basically of the
background of this process. Step 2, describes the SIP status of the
area, attainment status, pollutants and SIP provisions. In other words,
is this a non-attainment area or not a non-attainment area? Is there a
SIP written for it? What pollutants under non-attainment for the area?
Obviously at this point if it\'s not in non-attainment, it\'s an
attainment situation, there\'s no further analysis necessary on this
project. We need to say that at this point. If we just kind of go on and
kind of let it go and say, it\'s not an issue and so we\'re not going to
talk about it, where is our documentation? It doesn\'t show we did any
analysis or thought process on it. So, the next step, step 3, is
background information. Here we may cover additional information that
might be necessary to do our analysis, things like, What rules has the
air district developed? Is there a reclassification going on?
Non-attainment history, when was this area classified a non-attainment?
What was the problem that was identify there had? Any of that stuff that
might be important for analyzing the situation later needs to be
addressed here. One of the most important sections of NEPA document is
anticipate direct and indirect impacts. Well, that also follows in
conformity process. This is probably the most important part of that
also. Step 4 in this process is the impact analysis. At this point we
need to talk about the types of emissions that may be emitted by our
project, whether ‑‑ what types of pollutants are coming out, how much is
coming out, and we have to analyze stuff like both direct and indirect
impacts and that might be ‑‑ say we had a gravel operation and we were
just selling the gravel off our site. Well, that\'s nice. You have a
mine there, and they\'re digging the gravel out of the ground, but he
has a plant alongside there that processes and it trucks that haul away.
We have to look at all those pieces in the analysis. That\'s what we
have to do with both the direct and indirect impacts. Step 5 in the
process is comparing these expected impacts that we\'ve developed over
here in our analysis with the SIP that we have alongside basically
bringing those two processes together. Many times our SIP has specific
mitigation requirements. There may be things in there like dust plan is
always required for anything over one acre. Then we have to look and see
if this guy has developed a dust plan. Maybe he needs a permit for his
screening plant. There may be very specific control measures required
for various types of activities. This is where that is spelled out. We
need to look at those to see fit conforms. The 6th step is the process
is a concluding statement. This is where we kind of tie all this
together and it\'s kind of important we do this. We need to say this
right here. Things like, is the project specifically exempt? Is F it\'s
specifically exempt, we need to say so right here and state that this is
the end of the analysis because it\'s exempt. We don\'t have to go any
further in the process. Does it conform to the SIP? If it doesn\'t
conform to the SIP, we need to say it doesn\'t and the project can\'t
proceed. What happens the rules say. This is where you would say that.
And expected emissions above or below de minimis levels in each of the
various pollutants have a set of numbers we look at called de minimis
levels and so we compare our project to that set of numbers, and use
that as a decision point for the next process. If it\'s below the de
minimis levels, the process ends here, we basically note it\'s below de
minimis levels and no further analysis is necessary. However, if you get
in a situation where you\'re above de minimis levels, then additional
work needs to be done, and in that process we go on to steps 7, 8 and 9
of the process. In step 7, a formal determination is prepared that reads
something like this, and you probably have this on you are monitor
there, the proposed action and alternatives have been analyzed under the
Clean Air Act and the selected action has been determined to conform to
the SIP. At least some variation of this this needs to be noted in there
and we have cases where we\'ve added in what SIP it is, what date of
approval that SIP is, any of that background information can be added to
that document. Step 8 involves agency and public review. That draft
determination we developed has to be sent to affected agencies.
Sometimes we have sister agencies near us, whether it\'s BLM alongside
park service or BLM alongside Forest Service. Any of those, we let our
sister agencies know what our decision ‑‑ not our decision at this
point, but what our determination is on air quality. Also, a public
notice has to be published in the newspaper close to where the project
is. And there\'s a public notice period on that of 30 days it has to be
done and then we take those comments, we got to incore operate them into
our final decision. Step 9 is to submit the draft and final
determination to appropriate regulatory agencies. This includes any
local air districts in addition to any state and, of course, the EPA
have to look at this. The 10th and final step in the process is
archiving the determination. If you don\'t do this, you don\'t have a
record you do anything. This is a rather important point. So you have to
do something there to show that you did the work. The NEPA document is
the natural location for most of this. To archive the data. Some other
points to consider here, that the courts and EPA have both been looking
for conformity in the NEPA document. We have a number of cases where
this came back that way. We had a NEPA document, EIS, that EPA sent back
to us. We had some court cases where they were looking for conformity
analysis. EPA is also required concurrence from the air area agency Oz
our determination. In our case we had some local ones. So it would be
the local and the state jurisdiction that they wanted conformance from.
And there are also several examples of this format laid out in a NEPA
format on the web page. At this point, we\'re going to kind of shift
gears here and one of the hot topics for Federal land management
agencies is prescribed fire. It\'s coming up, especially after this last
summer with all our fires and so on, it\'s becoming a hot issue. We are
going to look at a case study on the Tonto national for nest Arizona and
how they handle conformity issues. Let\'s look.

we\'re out on the Globe ranger district of the Tonto National Forest,
and the area near the Pinal mountains. The Pinal mountains are located
within the Hayden‑Miami PM‑10 non-attainment area. When the forest I.D.
team looked at the land management plan amendment for fire that\'s being
proposed, they analyzed across the landscape where the emissions would
change from the previous land management plan. One of the key reasons
for incorporating and addressing the conformity determination within the
land management planning process is that individual projects that are
subsequently done under the conformity determination that is done with
an LMP are assumed to be in conformity. This allows a reduction of time
and effort and dollars and also the ability to turn projects around much
more quickly.

air quality is an issue in this area basically because of the
designation as a non-attainment area for the Hayden‑Miami non-attainment
PM‑10 area. This is one of the areas that will be covered by the plan
amendment for the Tonto National Forest.

in the past history on the district, there wasn\'t as much prescribed
burn as we\'re being proposed right now due to the proposal of possibly
increasing those emissions, we are going to need a conformity
determination.

when the Tonto National Forest I.D. team looked at the variety of
non-attainment areas, we have three that are significant, the Phoenix
non-attainment area for PMT, the Payson non-attainment area and also the
Globe‑Miami non-attainment area for PM‑10, we looked at where we would
be increasing the burning and the subsequent emissions from the previous
LMP. Under the conformity rule that\'s in place, land management plans
that have been in operation and in place on the ground prior to the
conformity rule being established were grandfathered in and they were
assumed to conform. So the land management plan amendment would that
result in changes of emissions, or specifically increases of emissions
in non-attainment areas, would have to look at the conformity issue and
address conformity and in the PM‑10 non-attainment area for Phoenix, we
found that the management strategy that would be applied would be even
more aggressive management of fire and less ‑‑ or virtually no
prescribed natural fire or fire to be applied in the Sonoran desert
country and with that, again, no increase in emissions resulting in no
necessity to address conformity. In the other two non-attainment areas,
in Payson the emissions were calculated to be roughly the same as they
had been under the previous land management plan, so there was no
change. And no need to address conformity there. As a result, the only
one of those two of the ‑‑ of the three, rather, that would increase was
this area, in the Pinal Mountains and the Hayden‑Miami non-attainment
area.

due to a number of reasons, the area has influx of residential houses,
lack of fire for quite a number of years, that\'s led to kind of a
buildup of fuels in the area. Last summer, end of July, first of August,
we had the Peak Fire and that fire was about 2300 acres, and that again
was a type conversion. It took out an extremely large amount of
Ponderosa pine. It got into an area of the moth bug kill we\'ve had up
in there and was pretty designated. We were fortunate we didn\'t lose
any summer homes or electronics sites. To me, right now the NEPA
decision right. The people that live up here definitely see the problem
that\'s happened with the Peak Fire, saw how close those summer homes
and integral electronic sites to Sky Harbor ‑‑ what I saw last summer
from the people that use the electronic sites to the people that live in
town, is they\'re ready, this project needs to go and I think we got
some real good public support for it now.

We looked historically what kind of burning was done in the area and we
calculated emissions from the previous plan. We then figured out what
needed to be done under the future plans that Anthony spoke, about and
we figured out how many days per year would be burned and the emissions
that would result. We used some computer modeling to analyze what those
air quality impacts might be. And we then verified through the modeling
that we would not exceed or contribute to a further violation of the
PM‑10 national am ‑‑ National Ambient Air Quality Standards. After we an
Niesed the results from the modeling and determined the number of acres
per day and potential emissions, the modeling proved effectively we
would not be exceeding the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. This
strategy of modeling the impacts is one of the accepted methods for
doing a conformity determination and having an affirmative conformity
determination. We chose in this one to include the conformity
determination step in the NEPA process in order to streamline the
process and not lead to any delays caused by this air quality issue. So
we will follow that procedure, which is outlined in the rules and was
intend to do allow the ease and simplicity of linking the two operations
together.

G. Harris: The Tonto National Forest were faced with issues common to
many other areas. Many of the managers probably saw stuff in there that
looked common to you. They were able to address increased fire use with
‑‑ within different non-attainment areas as well as conformity
requirements through the planning process. By doing this they were able
to plan on a long‑term basis rather an burn‑by‑burn basis. They don\'t
have to do individual plans for each one. As a result of, they do Juan
conformity analysis, which was sufficient for many fire projects in the
Tonto National Forest, which that\'s a big gain in the process.
Elizabeth, back to you.

E. Souheaver: Thanks, Glenn. And fire is a great example of a Federal
action that needs to address conformity issues, especially with the new
national fire plan activities that will be coming up. Next Pete is going
to talk with you about some of the proactive steps to simplify the
conformity process by working with air quality regulatory agencies, and
he also has some additional on the ground examples for us.

P. Lahm: Thanks, Elizabeth. Thanks, Glenn, for your section there. So
far you have learned what conformity is and Glenn helped us with how to
conduct a conformity determination. Now let me pose a question. How do
we interact with air quality regulatory agencies and what are the
requirements for public involvement? . As land managers, we need to work
alone ‑‑ need not work alone addressing conformity. Many advantages can
be realized by the time saved by working with air quality regulatory
community members. In fact, we\'re going to speak some time ‑‑ spend
some time on the different air quality regulatory agencies and their
potential roles in the process. Let\'s start at the Federal level. First
of all there is the Environmental Protection Agency. Here this group can
help us with advising, providing guidance, interpreting the rule and, as
was pointed out before, a mandatory step of reviewing, drafting of the
draft as well as the final conformity determination. The state tribal
local air quality regulatory authority is also another key process in
this as well. The advice role they can play is critical in the beginning
of this, as well as providing further guidance and here we have the
opportunity for collaboration on top of that. Again, this group, as was
mentioned by Glen, also plays a key role in reviewing the draft as well
as final conformity determination. How do we do this best? Well, the
best way to bring in the air quality regulatory agencies is through
early involvement. In the advice and guidance area of this particular
segment, they can provide an awful lot of information. Some of the
information and a key part is the status of the area you\'re going to be
dealing with. This does change over time. Dave allude to do before the
concept we\'re going to have new non-attainment areas associated with
PM‑2.5, the fine particulate standard coming into place and so one needs
to stay on top of the status. One can also take a look at maps of
non-attainment areas and ‑‑ and the various maintenance areas in your
respective area. Another concept, another place for information that
they will be helping provide you with, is the status of the SIP Area
Plan and emission inventory. Here we can get this from the CFR as well.
Another source, EPA has kindly put together a website that provides
further information on the status of the various non-attainment area and
maintenance areas across the United States. Also these folks, the air
quality regulatory agency personnel can help provide us with the SIP
Area Plan elements as well as those that might apply to the project and
activity. Another area where they can help us is in the methods of
calculating emissions, and this is a particularly critical factor when
it comes to this. Because we might calculate, say, for example,
prescribed fiery missions in one way, we\'ve been taught actually in our
field coursed to it in a particular manner. This may not be the
prescribed way by EPA or the state regulatory agency. So if we
calculated a total emissions on an annual basis that was below the de
minimis level yet they used a different process, then we might wind one
a conflict in the end where someone would be expecting a full conformity
determination to occur. To avoid that type of conflict, one does want to
coordinate the calculation of emissions with the regulatory agencies.
Another area where we work together is in the development of mitigation
methods for the project and the activity itself. Here the air quality
regulatory agencies wind up setting up a variety of permits for many,
many different types of activities across the state and they have
probably the latest on mitigation methods as well as how much of control
might be available and possible with the use of these control measures.
The percentage of control efficiency is the term you might hear if you
do start working with these folks. There\'s further work actually that
comes to mind as well when you\'re working with the regulatory agencies
that could be a benefit for the Federal land manager in that this
situation, if one choose the ‑‑ chooses the computer modeling approach
to solving and demonstrating conformity, here they can help provide
information on the top of model, the ‑‑ type of model, what type of
information is needed for the model and other details. That way, again,
we can avoid conflict so we\'re not using the wrong model for the right
source perhaps but not necessarily in the correct application in other
people\'s eyes. We have an example output that\'s available as well just
showing what one of the examples of how a modeling output might be used
to demonstrate conformity and the outputs of the models and how
effective they are. This came from the Carlotta Copper Project which
happens to be our next example that we would like to show you, and this
particular situation we\'ve got a Forest Service piece of land which is
part of a mineral leasing situation.

we\'re located on the Tonto National Forest about six miles from Miami,
Arizona. On the proposed site of the Carlotta copper mine. The Carlotta
copper company proposed a surface copper mine and sulfuric acid electric
winnowing facility at this location back in 1991. The Globe‑Miami mining
district has contributed significantly that to that copper production
over the years. This mining district is located within and adjacent to
the Tonto National Forest. In about 1992, the corporation proposed the
can Carlota Copper Project. This was the first large open pit Copper
Project proposed in Arizona in 15 years. As we learned more about the
project, several issues began to emerge. One of those involved water
resources. There was a large concern that pumping to provide water to
the mine would dewater pinto creek, a perennial stream in the Sonoran
desert, something of value. Also there were numerous water quality
issues associated with the mine. There were also issues related to T & E
species, specifically the Arizona hedgehog cactus.

we would like to describe the location of the Carlota Copper Project.
Here is an air photo where Carlota is located. It\'s located in this
area right here. As you can see, there are other mines in the district.
There\'s a mine immediately adjacent to Carlota. Then there\'s another
series of mines approximately six miles away.

In this particular case we found out that the Carlota Copper Project was
located within two non-attainment areas, that is, historically both
PM‑10 and sulfur dioxide had exceeded National Ambient Air Quality
Standards. This meant that we would have to address air quality in more
detail than we ever thought possible. Initially we didn\'t recognize air
quality as an issue in the NEPA process. As a result, we weren\'t able
to address conformity at the same time as we addressed many of the other
resource issues associated with the mine. As a result, it resulted in
slowing down the overall assessment of the project.

the emission inventory that was created allowed us to compare the total
emissions of PM‑10 and the total emissions of sulfur dioxide, SO2, on
the de minimis level of 100 tons per year for the two pollutants.
Unfortunately, both pollutants in our initial analysis resulted in
exceeding the de minimis level, so we had to further go down the pathway
of conformity determination.

our first step was to determine the emissions inventory for PM‑10 on the
site and look at the major sources of PM‑10, particulate production.
This had to include both primary and secondary sources, such as traffic
to the mine, as well as haul truck traffic and production emissions. We
also had to look at the potential SO2 emissions that would come from
emergency generators and also the tailpipes of the trucks, the haul
trucks. So we then continued and created an emission inventory for the
facility. We looked at both PM‑10 sources and SO2 sources individually.
We then compared these emissions inventories to the 100‑ton‑per‑year de
minimis level at which below which you do not have to conduct conformity
determination and above which you mug through conformity. At the time
that we did the analysis, the totals of the different emission
inventories, both pollutants were above the de minimis level. As we
looked at the emission inventory for sulfur dioxide sources, such things
as tail pipe emissions from haul trucks and emissions from emergency
generators, we looked at alternatives on how to reduce those emissions.
Carlota copper company was willing to take a condition within the EIS of
using low‑sulfur diesel fuel, and this resulted in the emissions for SO
2 dropping below the de minimis level. This effectively stopped us from
having to go in the further and the conformity demonstration process.
Unfortunately for PM‑10, once we had the full inventory, which was above
that de minimis level and we also applied rigorous controls on haul road
dust and production operations that generate PM‑10, we were unable to
get below that 100‑ton‑per‑year level. This resulted in us having to
follow the conformity determination process further in proving that we
would not exceed or contribute to another non-attainment violation,
violation of the national ambient air quality standard. So what we did
there was we used computer modeling in order to demonstrate this, and we
applied the rigorous controls that we could, but at that point, we were
able to demonstrate through the modeling that we were not going to cause
any further exceedances or slow the progress that was necessary in
getting the area into attainment. These were key steps in the conformity
determination process. We were not, unfortunately, done at that point.
As we did not feel that we had one of the key steps in the conformity
process, the Federal enforceability issue addressed fully. In ordered to
that, we then went to the Arizona department of environmental quality,
who was issuing the air pollution permit for the facility, and we
cooperatively worked with them to get them to consider including these
conditions such as the use of low sulfur fuel or the watering schedule
on roads in order to maintain those levels and assure in our public
documents and the conformity determination that these emissions would be
at the level that they were stated at the in the analysis. These permit
conditions were voluntarily added by Carlota copper into the permit with
the help of Arizona DEQ and we worked together collectively to have a
Federally enforceable permit with the conditions that we found through
the conformity determination process, and we could issue a positive and
affirmative conformity determination that would allow the project to
continue forward. As you can see, there are some key lessons that can be
learned from this particular case study. First of all, we have the fact
that the separate NEPA analysis and conformity determination can lead to
significant time delays and in this particular case, it added a
tremendous amount of expense to the process since it almost was after
the NEPA process. The next lesson to be learned, mitigation measures can
be used to reduce the emissions below the de minimis level and,
therefore, you don\'t have to continue further into the de minimis ‑‑
the conformity process. Finally, working with the air quality regulatory
agencies can result in a positive conformity determination and actually
resulted in the inclusion of conditions not only in the ROD and the
environmental impact statements but also within the permit conditions
that are issued by the air quality regulatory agency. This demonstrates
in the Carlota case one of the strategies that was used for addressing
conformity. The particular section is ‑‑ that is using modeling to
determine that you will not be contributing or causing any further NAAQS
exceedances or potentially slowing down the attainment in that local
area, in that non-attainment area. Realize, though, if one chooses to
use modeling as a conformity strategy, you\'ve got to make sure that the
emissions, the modeling strategies, the meteorological information, the
whole array of elements that go into modeling are agreed to ahead of
time and this is where working with the air quality authority, be it EPA
or the local agency, is critical to the success of doing that. So it\'s
not challenged in the end. We have another strategy that\'s useful in
terms of conformity determination and that is in the Aspen ski area
example that we had. Here they were using the offset principle, in which
case the increase of emissions that would be created by the project
expansion, by the ski area expansion were offset by reducing emissions
elsewhere within the non-attainment area. The result, net zero gain in
emissions and they were able to maintain and prove a positive conformity
with the SIP. A further method for conformity determination is the
inclusion of the Federal activity emissions into the state
implementation plan for the area. This is sometimes not always available
as an option, but we\'re going to discuss further how it can happen if
you do get that opportunity. First of all, one would do an emission
inventory with the project and then those emissions would be given to
the air quality regulatory agency that\'s in charge of developing the
SIP plan for that area and then they would work together with you in
terms of the control strategies that might be applicable for the source,
then at that point in time the agency will move forward, the air quality
agency will move forward and model the potential outcome that so they
can prove they will move this area towards attainment, which is the
obligation under the Clean Air Act. And then the ultimate outcome of
this is where the SIP has control measures that may be applicable to our
project and also the project plan and the conformity determination helps
‑‑ it literally envelopes the two together and the same control measures
might be found in both documents. We have a really good case stud knee
this particular situation with the Mojave Desert planning OHV case.
Let\'s take a look at that right now.

the dust that occasionally fills the air in Southern California\'s
Mojave national preserve became a cause of concern for BLM land managers
and the State of California. A part of the preserve located in the area
of Barstow and Victorville serve as a prime example of the concern
because of the almost constant use of public land by the general public
and private industry. Gas and power lines built by heavy construction
equipment crisscross the landscape. Just like the off road vehicle
trails found almost everywhere. El Mirage, an expansive dry lake bed, is
a favorite spot for off road motorsports and has even attracted
Hollywood film crews who use the lake bed as a backdrop for their next
production. Add to the mix several active mining companies using more
heavy construction equipment and the result was extremely high
concentrations of airborne dust. When the lack of air quality threaten
to do endanger public health, roughly 20,000 acres of the Mojave owned
by BLM was designated non-attainment. Working in compliance with the
Mojave Desert air quality management district office, or AQMD, the BLM
helped to develop a state implementation plan or SIP, a plan designed to
conform to Federal environmental protection laws by reducing hazardous
levels of airborne pollutants such as PM‑10.

PM‑10 is one of a group of pollutants called cry a tear yeah pollutants
directly related by the Federal and state Clean Air Act. But we\'re also
concerned about hazardous pollutants and stew a lesser extent odors and
other things that cause a nuisance.

they can shut us down. It\'s no different than the clean water act or
the endangered species act. That possibility always exists. I mean, you
have to cross the Ts and dot the Is and basically do what we are
mandated to do, which is to perform Federal conformity, and that
conformity can be in several processes.

and we looked at a series of those that we probably were going to do
anyway and put those up front and say, ok, here is part of what our
plans are and these will reduce dust. And that got us most of what we
needed to do.

One of the most critical concerns was how the public would react.
Designateing a large and popular area of public land as non-attainment
could present a problem.

Try to tell thousands of people coming from the L.A. basin or the
empire, no, you can\'t ride your motorcycle today because we might
produce too much dust and be in noncompliance with the Clean Air Act is
pretty hard to swallow or even comprehend. So we did what we thought we
needed to do, which was the right thing, proactive approach.

That proactive approach was to actively involve members of the general
public in writing the SIP, making them a part of the decision‑making
process.

the net effect was they are on board now and they understood and we
didn\'t have the kind of negative response or resistance to our plan we
could have. In fact, they came to our adoption hearings in support of
the document.

for BLM, taking care of their individual air quality obligations meant
ensuring their conservation plan control measures would be included in
the SIP.

We incorporated those into the plan as control measures or commitments
by the Federal agency and also into the rule that was the implementation
instrument for the plan.

the process of including BLM\'s Air Conformity control measures was a
simple yet crucial step to comply wing with AQMD and the Clean Air Act.

so we were able to identify that those measures met the requirement that
that portion of the inventory and that land manager also was shouldering
their portion of the responsibility for control measures.

When separate agencies come together to solve a problem, communication
between the two groups can mean the difference between success and
failure. The process of developing a working implementation plan is no
exception.

Communication is the biggest thing. You both learn from each other. From
the air district, they wanted to know what our activities and were being
able to describe those activities on our level and for our part being
able to describe our activities and what we would like to do and what we
have proposed in terms of our planning that we thought would help the
situation.

control measure could say one thing and the rule that implements that
control measure, which is really what matters to a land manager, could
be completely different. So if there\'s a disconnects between the land
manager, Glenn, for example, the local Field Office and the group
developing the SIP, if there is a disconnect after the plan\'s
developed, then all that cooperative work is ‑‑ has been wasted.

Air Conformity issues like the one that faced the Mojave national
preserve and it is a success story and a reminder that BLM land managers
have a responsibility not only to the land itself, but also to the air
around it.

I think it was identified that almost a quarter of the dust produced
came off of BLM lands, and that\'s a significant thing. We are obviously
indebted to the process to do something.

and it\'s really not that hard. It\'s something that ‑‑ it takes a lot
of coordination early up front, early on, a lot of coordination, a lot
of document writing, but it\'s achievable. We are proof that it\'s
achievable and we will continue to do so. I\'m sure ‑‑ it\'s definitely
raised the comfort level of our field manager and our district manager,
that\'s for sure.

P. Lahm: The Mojave case study demonstrates a number of strategies. The
first is importance of a complete activity and emissions inventory and
the projection of a potential increase in those activities. A second
thing is the integration of the Conservation Management Plan and SIP
Area Plan incorporating the joint control measures, which is another
important facet of this example and that then thirdly, the idea of
cooperatively working with air quality regulators, the affected public
and just how that led to not only the successful in terms of the success
of a conformity determination, but potentially public support as well
since there might be an ability to increase some of the activities in
that local area rather than automatic restrictions. So, in fact,
speaking about the public, that kind of triggers the next topic on our
list of things to speak and explore with you, and that is the role of
public involvement and the regulatory review of the conformity
determination once you go that far. First of all, you\'ve got the
Federal land management agency is required to submit it to the
regulatory public notice and review process. Basically you\'re going to
submit a draft and finals to the air quality regulatory agency, and as
was pointed out before by Holly, there is a time periods and review for
the public as well. Those are key elements to the process in public
review and so on. The appeal process, however, if one does the example
conformity and has the conformity determination completed, what happens
when things go awry, someone doesn\'t agree with what\'s happening?
Well, there\'s some formal procedures established for that. First of
all, as in the Las Vegas case, the appeal process occurred under the
NEPA appeals process and, of course, that\'s dictated by each land
management agency\'s guidelines and procedures. And that is one
effective way of dealing with conformity or the lack thereof. In another
case, it goes directly to the courts, and this is under the Clean Air
Act a citizen can bring a citizens\' court suit to the courts under the
Clean Air Act and say, \"what is going on, why isn\'t there a conformity
determination, why are they finding it to be inadequate?\" There is also
actually a third method and that is as was mentioned a moment August, we
submit the conformity determination to the EPA as a regulatory ‑‑ agency
and also the jurisdiction that has authority or the non-attainment area.
If they find it is unacceptable, they will probably rate it as
unacceptable and you will have to address the air quality issues further
and potential even have to reopen a conformity determination process. So
those are some key ways that one deals with the appeals, and you need to
be on top of those. The court example, which I believe has been used, is
a very lengthy, time consuming and costly endeavor if one chose that
option and had to deal with that in response. Let\'s wrap one a come of
concepts here. There are obviously some significant benefits to the
conformity determination process. First in the example and this was very
clear in the Carlota example, the project could be less polluting and
potentially have some emission reductions that come into play because of
the conformity process. That was definitely the case with Carlota.
Second component, that\'s very important in terms of a benefit is
dealing with the compliance with SIP requirements and as well as with
the Clean Air Act itself. And FLMs, Federal land managers, we need to
abide by and follow the law. Here it\'s probable eat most important part
of the element in following and going through a conformity
determination. Finally, as was demonstrated, we can reduce public
concerns over the air quality impacts of our project and activity and
was as demonstrated in Mojave, may get public support for what\'s going
on. Elizabeth?

E. Souheaver: Thanks, Pete for your suggestions on how to be proactive
and simplify the conformity process. Most of our discussion so have
involved general conformity requirements. For those situations where
Federal highway and Federal transit approval or funding are involved,
separate transportation conformity requirements apply. For example,
Holly is now going to describe how the National Park Service is
addressing transportation conformity as they conduct transportation
planning in Yosemite Valley. Holly?

H. Sharpless: Thanks, Elizabeth. As many of you know, air quality issues
in and around Yosemite National Park have been quite a hot topic for
quite some time now. Yosemite National Park has been experiencing
increased visitor use over the past several decades, and because of its
location in an area that has had significant commercial and residential
growth, the park has embarked on serious transportation planning for the
first time. Let\'s now take a look at how Yosemite has successfully met
the challenges of transportation conformity.

located on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Yosemite
National Park has long been one of the crown jewels of the nation\'s
national park system. But over the years, as populations have swelled
and visitor days increased, so‑so, too, have the by products of the
growth. Traffic congestion and poor air quality.

Yosemite National Park like many of the areas of the Sierra Nevada
mountains are faced with challenging air quality issues, and being a
national park, of course, we are concerned about the health of the
natural and the cultural resources within the park.

we\'re a class one park, which means that we kind of have an obligation
to maintain the air in as pristine a quality as possible.

faced with these challenges, the park set outed to planning that would
improve both traffic and air quality. However, park officials quickly
realized two things ‑‑ one, that they weren\'t alone, and, two, that
these issues went beyond the traditional boundaries of the park.

Yosemite is what we would call a downwind area. They are downwind of all
the urbanized areas in the San Joaquin area, which is one giant
non-attainment area. The whole central Valley area is a whole
non-attainment area for ozone and PM‑10. It covers not only Yosemite but
all the counties.

park employees saw the issues were now part of the mix when it came to
transportation planning in the park\'s rural setting.

We took great care in really understanding what our visitors were doing
in terms of movement throughout the park, and once we had a good
understanding of that, we did quite extensive analysis on what the
different traffic options would do to congestion and what the air
quality impacts would be.

when we started looking at the Yosemite Valley plan, we had people on
staff who saw that it was in our best favor to start working with the
transportation agencies to start to lay out our vision of where Yosemite
National Park needed to be and how that tied with transportation, what
things would work, what things won\'t work and then when you start
looking at transportation, you also get to address air quality issues
under transportation conformity.

Yosemite was the first land management agency at the Federal level that
we have worked with in terms of air quality conformity issues. The
designation of the rural areas is such they never had this experience
before, and the regulations that we have to go by were intended to be
dealt with in terms of an urban setting, and so it\'s kind of a learning
experience for all of us as we go forward.

Receiving guidance and leadership from Caltrans and the impact, Yosemite
proceeded with its air quality monitoring program knowing the data
collected would provide valuable information to the neighboring agencies
who would have to be part of the solution. But how exactly does an Air
Conformity plan work?

basically you have a transportation agency doing a long‑range
transportation plan, they are 20‑year plans and on the other hand you
have air quality agencies also doing more short‑range, 5 to 10‑year air
quality plans. What conformity does is it links the two together.
Through the air quality plan, they\'re required to do what we call an
emissions budget, mobile source emissions budget, which puts a cap on
how much motor vehicle emissions can exist in the area and maintain the
air quality standards. Now, that cap that a motor vehicle emissions cap
is the link between the transportation plan and the air quality plan.
When the transportation plan is updated on a periodic basis, they have
to stay within that cap. So if they don\'t stay within that cap, then
there\'s a problem. And they need to either revise the transportation
plan or look for a new ‑‑ look for new control meshers to keep the air
quality clean in the area.

and what happens if agencies don\'t meet or maintain Air Conformity
within a region?

some of the potential consequences if an area isn\'t able to show that
they\'re in attainment for air quality or the agencies aren\'t able to
work together to achieve that, which we all want to avoid, is that
Federal transportation dollars can be shut off for transportation
projects, at least on a temporary basis, and projects that we\'re
banning ‑‑ that were banning on having Federal transportation dollars or
projects designated to be regionally significant, no matter what their
source of funds cannot proceed forward.

in order to assure that we don\'t reach the point where sanctions are
being imposed, all of the agencies involved in a non-attainment area
need to work cooperatively. If one of those agencies is not
participating in providing the information needed for the analysis and
to demonstrate the conformity, it affects all the agencies in that
jurisdiction. If sanctions are imposed, it goes non-attainment areawide,
even though only one agency may have been the reason why the
non-attainment area or the demonstration of attainment wasn\'t able to
be achieved. 1,2 I believe that if we would not have embarked on this
planning process today with the trends in California, we would continue
to see the use of the individual automobile continuing to come to
Yosemite National Park and I honestly believe we would be forced into
saying that we can\'t handle the visitation any longer. By looking at
transportation planning as another way of getting people to the park, we
don\'t have to turn them away because their car can\'t fit ‑‑ or because
their cars are contributing too much pollution. The greatest advice I
could giver anybody working in the planning arena as a Federal land
manager or even in a protection arena of your resources, whether in a
forest, park or BLM lands, is know your other agencies. Know who they
are. Know what they do. And see how you can work together. Because we
all want to work within a larger framework. Then the other thing that I
would suggest is, try and break down your barriers. Try not to talk
about your differences. Talk about your common goals.

I would advise other Federal land managers to do two things ‑‑ one, to
not be afraid to ask for help. That\'s what your state D.O.T. and the
EPA is there to do. They\'re here to help you, and they wanted to that
and they can provide a lot of really valuable resources. And the second
thing I would advise a Federal land manager is to don\'t get overwhelmed
by the big picture of conformity. It\'s very ‑‑ it\'s technical. It\'s
complicated. And it just seems like a big thing to tackle. But just
tackle it one problem at a time.

eye I think one of the most important things that needs to be considered
as agencies embark on this non-attainment and the air quality conformity
process is the interagency consometation aspects. It\'s part of the
guidelines but it\'s really the key to get things done. It\'s more than
just guidelines and procedures. The agencies need to come together. They
need to agree how they\'re going to proceed. They need to agree on what
roles and responsibilities are going to take. They need to agree on how
they\'re going to reach consensus. And they need to make joint decisions
along the way. So cooperation is really the key.

H. Sharpless: As you can see, even though complex transportation
planning was new to the park, as it may be to many of you in the future,
park staff was able to ask state and local agencies for help. This
assistance proved invaluable, and early coordination with these agencies
made all the difference. Elizabeth?

E. Souheaver: Thanks, Holly and I am glad they worked out those issues
in Yosemite. I am planning on going there in a week. Great review, team.
Now that you have heard from our experts, let\'s hear from you. We are
opening up the phone lines now. If you have a question or a comment for
us about anything we have covered so far, please give us a call or send
us a fax. We will take as many of your questions as we can in the time
remaining. Ok. I have one fax that\'s come in that I\'d like to go ahead
and read and it\'s from Robbins Air Force Base, and the conformity
question is, \"once you become non-attainment, if you do not have an
approved SIP plan, do you have to comply with the general conformity
rules or just transportation conformity until you are SIP is approved?\"
This is a two‑part fax. Who would like to take it?

P. Lahm: The answer is you do have to comply with conformity rule. You
have a situation where you\'re going to have to consider whether you can
get your emissions into the SIP. There might be that opportunity, if the
state is still ‑‑ or the regulatory authority is still developing their
SIP plan for that location. Get your emissions in, build that into the
modeling, the control strategies. That\'s one way. The second way is
possibly getting to model the situation, your project or activities
underneath that scenario. There you would also again need to work
closely with the regulatory agency to get background values and so on.
There is also a third whereby you could offset your emission, find ways
to clean up other areas and potentially trade emissions and using a
situation like we spoke about with the Aspen area where you\'ve got the
opportunity to have basically zero net gain in emissions.

E. Souheaver: Great. Ok. We\'ll try the second part of this fax. \"if
conformity analysis is immediately effective upon non-attainment status,
what do you compare your project to? Do you have to have ‑‑ do you have
to Baseline your facility?\"

D. Stonefield: Let me take that one Beth Elizabeth. First of all,
conformity is not immediately effective upon the designation of
non-attainment. What happens is that Congress last year during the
appropriation process built in a one‑year delay in the conformity
application once they ‑‑ an area is designated as non-attainment. So you
will have one year to work on it before that. But beyond that, you would
take your Baseline ‑‑ you would compare it and, again, as Pete was
saying, if there is no SIP in place, then you could do the offsets for
the ozone program or air quality modeling to demonstrate that you are
not exceeding the standards or you wouldn\'t increase the frequency or
the severity of the standard violations.

E. Souheaver: Great. I see we\'ve got a call coming in. Let\'s go to
this call. We\'ve got John in Washington D.C. John, are you there?

Caller: I\'m here.

E. Souheaver: Would you like to ask your question?

Caller: Yes, there seems to be some confusion about mobile sources of
pollution, like aircraft and whether those need to be included or not or
whether they\'re exempt when you\'re doing your analysis of your
emission.

E. Souheaver: John, go ahead that. Who would like to take it?

D. Stonefield: Let me take it. Aircraft emissions must be included. They
are part of the emissions from a facility. In fact, we do general
conformity for our airports. We have airport ‑‑ FAA when they\'re doing
their airport expansions or et cetera, they do an analysis of the
airport emissions and include those emissions into the analysis and they
do a conformity analysis. Does that answer your question, John?

Caller: Yes, thanks. Appreciate it.

D. Stonefield: Thank you.

E. Souheaver: Ok, John. So that takes care of it? Great. Ok. We have
another call in here with BLM. Bruce in Las Cruces. Are you there,
Bruce?

Caller: Yes, I am.

E. Souheaver: Go ahead with your question, please.

Caller: My question is ‑‑ You referred to the conformity rule referring
to non-attainment and maintenance areas, and my question is, what is the
maintenance area?

E. Souheaver: Ok. Good question.

D. Stonefield: I think that\'s my area again, Elizabeth. Bruce, the ‑‑
once an area becomes ‑‑ meets the air quality standards, after it\'s
been through the non-attainment area and then they became a
non-attainment area and they bring it back into attainment, EPA requires
that the states to maintain that area, and there is ‑‑ it\'s basically
out 20 years and the state developed a plan, a maintenance plan for that
area, and EPA designates that area as a maintenance area, and because ‑‑
essentially it\'s going to be close to air quality standards, and,
therefore, we continue close tabs on that area for the next 20 years.

Caller: Oh, ok. That answered my question, then. Thank you very much.

E. Souheaver: Ok, Bruce. Thanks. We have another fax coming in. Let me
read this one. This is Dave from North Carolina. \"is there any
parameters within the conformity process for compliance or enforcement
of the factors that lead to conformity acceptance? For example, what if
they simply stop watering the dusty roads?\" Who would like to try that
one?

G. Harris: I can address at least part of that one. There is a number of
pieces in the conformity rules, if you read them. Toward the end of the
rules there is a section there that talks about that any of the
mitigation that becomes applied to the project, toward the end of the
project, say it\'s not an original proposal but it\'s added mitigation,
there is a requirement actually to get a signoff on who is going to do
that mitigation and it gets done. Most of us as agencies, when we issue
permits, those permits are contingent on all the requirements in the
permit being met, that they meet all the rules and everything, and we
can pull a permit any time somebody is not in compliance.

P. Lahm: When the Carlota case, we also addressed that by making sure
some of the conditions we were concerned about, in terms of watering
roads and so forth, what we did is we made sure they were included in
the permit issued by the air quality regulatory agency, and found that
to be an effective manner of ensuring they would continue to water roads
and maintain the control.

E. Souheaver: Great. We got another fax. Let\'s try another one. Let\'s
see if I can read this here. \"what specific measures were taken in the
Mojave off road vehicle areas to attain conformity?\"

D. Stonefield: I guess I should address that one. There was a number of
things that were going on about that time, but one of them right off the
top was the fact that the desert protection act was being implemented
about the time, enacted, where a whole series of new wilderness areas
were being established. That meant that all of the roads within those
wilderness areas would be closed. Here is an automatic gain type of an
item. We were in the middle of land use planning where we were
designating roads. We knew that we were going to close some of the
routes that we had out there existing. Here goes another item in the
process. And it was along those kinds of lines where we knew that we had
mitigation types of measures coming along that we could go ahead and
directly place right into the process. And it tied into our land use
planning and what we were doing at that time also.

E. Souheaver: Ok. Great. All right. Well, I\'ve got a couple questions
of my own I would like to throw in while we\'re waiting for another fax
or call. I want to try you, Holly. \"in what locations do the conformity
regulations apply?\"

H. Sharpless: Conformity regulations apply in all conformity or
non-attainment areas, for any of the six pollutants, nitrogen dioxide,
lead, particulate matter and ozone. In any of those areas, general
conformity rules apply. If people have questions about what areas are
non-attainment or maintenance, please visit our website, we have
information there as well as links to EPA websites or you can contact
your appropriate air quality agencies.

E. Souheaver: Great. Got another fax in. \"could you clarify whether or
not a Federal action taking place outside a non-attainment area but
affecting a non-attainment area has to undergo conformity analysis?\"
Who would like to handle that?

P. Lahm: I will take the initial step and hopefully Dave will support
me. From what I understand of the rule, it is only if it is a regionally
significant source that it would be in place and you would have to
consider conformity issues if outside of the non-attainment area. I
believe that\'s the only way it could be drawn in, is if it was a
dominant source.

D. Stonefield: We have a different definition ‑‑ different definition
than what the transportation conformity would have, and if ‑‑ under the
transportation conformity, if it\'s a nonFederal action and it\'s a
regionally significant source, then they have to consider the effects of
transportation involved. The rules aren\'t absolutely clear on this, and
in some cases, the Federal land managers have gone through the
conformity process when an activity is right next to a non-attainment
area and they\'ve gone through it where the emissions ‑‑ indirect
emissions from the activity will affect the non-attainment area.
Although it\'s ‑‑ it\'s a fuzzy line there when you have to do it, it\'s
always ‑‑ always helps that the Federal agencies take a proactive role
in doing and it working with the state and local agencies in making sure
that they are not causing a problem in the non-attainment area, because,
again, we have the public to work with, and these things could go to
court and you could end up with a court problem, a legal problem over it
at some point in time.

P. Lahm: I have heard of some of the examples you are speaking about in
Colorado where they were doing that, again, some ski area expansion
issues where this was very much the case.

G. Harris: I had a case where we had a mining operation and in this case
the non attainment area was the county line and it came up to the line
but didn\'t cross and it here we have an operation sitting there, one
side of it is in attainment where the mine was and non-attainment across
that artificial line across the landscape there. What I did is I took
the numbers I was coming up and with and flew them through the area
agency in that case and in that case we figured it didn\'t apply across
the line there.

E. Souheaver: Great. I just want to make a brief announcement that
we\'re going to go over our scheduled time a little bit just to handle
some more of your calls. And we do have one coming in. So we have a John
from bakers field, California, with BLM. Are you there?

Caller: I\'m here. I have a question regarding the staffing potential
for a field offices. Looking at this particular downlink has been very
good, very informative. As a manager I am looking at how am I going to
get a person to help me do this job at the ground? We have experienced
the last few years a number of reductions in staff and to add this to
someone else\'s job seems to be out of line. It\'s almost like you need
to have your own person on board to do this, and as a manager, just
wondering, what kind of ideas do we have? Is this something that could
be contracted? Or is this something we need to really seek an individual
to do this job for us?

E. Souheaver: That\'s a good question and I can understand that
management concern.

G. Harris: I can probably address some of that because that\'s what
I\'ve been doing. There is some time thing, but in our NEPA process we
would have to talk about air quality and any other issues in there. For
most cases, the process isn\'t complicated. It isn\'t long and drawn
out. I can crank one out in sometimes 10 or 15 minutes depending on the
size of the project. A lot of it can be even boilerplate type of
reactions. I have not had good luck working with contractors. Most of
them are not familiar with conformity at all. In fact, on some EISs
I\'ve actually had to train the contractor in how to do the conformity
analysis. So that isn\'t necessarily ‑‑ I wouldn\'t consider it like you
need a staff specialist to do Air Conformity unless you really do a lot
of large projects. For most of the stuff that we do as agencies, it\'s
small enough that it\'s more of a documentation process an real big
analysis and we do have a training class and most of the people have
been through the training can take offer and do the process.

E. Souheaver: Ok. Also I would like to add, John, that\'s a really good
question because so many agencies don\'t have on the ground people to
cover these types of responsibilities. However, there are different
offices that you can contact within your agencies. For example, the
National Park Service, we have an air resources division and several of
the other agencies also have people who are specialists in air quality,
or you are regional offices or also please contact your state air
regulatory agencies for assistance or regional EPA offices. But also if
you\'re able to visit the website after the program, we have links and
names of people that you could contact within your agency or with EPA
could that also help you with the process.

Caller: Thank you very much.

E. Souheaver: Thank you, John for calling in. Ok. I\'ve got one more
question here I would like to bring closure to and maybe it\'s a
follow‑up to where John is coming from, and to simplify it, can
conformity evaluations be included in the NEPA document?

G. Harris: That was basically my presentation, that\'s a logical place
to put and it EPA and the courts are actually looking for it there, and
so, yeah, most of it can be there. What we found, though, is when you
get into a formal determination, because some of the time scales and so
on, sometimes those can run parallel processes. But we still link them
back to the NEPA document and record of decision that go with that, and
it\'s kind of really the logical place to put it all.

E. Souheaver: Ok. Great. You know, as we\'ve stated, the conformity
process can be a day or it can be a little bit more lengthy. That\'s
right.

P. Lahm: It can certainly be very lengthy. If it\'s going to be a
complex situation, in that particular case there are some consulting
companies can that rise to the occasion and do the work and the Carlota
was a case in point where we wound up having a very complex mine, one of
the larger surface mines in quite a while in this area and we had to use
a contractor, and it helped things, but it does add expense and time.

E. Souheaver: Ok. Great. I think we\'ve had a good question and answer
period, and are there any any kind of last thoughts you would like to
leave the audience with on ‑‑ or issue today?

D. Stonefield: By like to start off by summarizing and saying that one
of the key factors is communication. I think we have mentioned that
several times today. And meeting with the state and local air pollution
people and ‑‑ air pollution control people and the EPA early and often,
as they like to say, really helps in the conformity process, and also
helps them develop their state implementation plans that can work with
the Federal land managers in getting ‑‑ their emission inventory into
the SIP.

P. Lahm: Probably the strongest point is that collaborative opportunity
of working together. It can save so much time and so much uncertainty in
the process. It\'s just a tremendous boon. And I happen to work in that
environment, as was pointed out. I\'m actually stationed as an air
quality agency for the Federal land managers and it makes a big
difference in terms of being able to communicate on the issues and cut
through the red tape and really caught to the bottom and do things, as
Glenn demonstrated before, very quickly and I think it\'s a great way to
work.

E. Souheaver: Getting to know folks and working face to face.

H. Sharpless: I hate to be repetitive but I have to agree with Dave and
Pete and the fact that the early contact, getting to know who the
players under your local area will make all the difference. That working
relationship will help facilitate this learning process. Many people are
not familiar with the air quality conformity process or the
transportation conformity process. It\'s not a big problem that can\'t
be dealt with, but getting to know the local, the state and your
regional offices will make all the difference in the world.

E. Souheaver: Great.

G. Harris: Communication is very important. . I have developed myself a
network of people I talk to in various agencies. One of the things
that\'s apparent about the conformity process is it\'s a Federal issue
and local agencies may not actually know what conformity is. That isn\'t
something they\'ve dealt with very much. When we\'re working on that
SIP, which was our video, they went to the air district and said these
are some of the things I need so I can do conformity. Most of them are
very happy for you to come out and work with them, I have no problem at
all working with them and setting those networks up and talking to
people is the best way to get things to happen.

E. Souheaver: Thanks, everyone. That pretty much wraps things up for our
air quality conformity for managers program. Any questions that we
didn\'t have time for or maybe received after the broadcast, we will
answer them and post them on the website. To help us evaluate the
effectiveness of today\'s training, we would like you to please complete
the program evaluation via the website. We also would like all agency
downlink sites and all agencies to please complete the broadcast viewer
roster. And fax it to us immediately. Or you can use BLM\'s automated
viewer reporting system on the National Training Center website. I would
like to thank our interagency panel today for all their hard work and
the ‑‑ in this telecast and we would especially like to thank all of you
for tuning in and taking the time to learn about Air Conformity. We hope
our program has given you a better understanding of Air Conformity
issues as we need to work together to implement these laws and
regulations across the government. Thanks for watching, and so long from
the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix.

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