New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 

DRAFT || Best Available Retrofit Technology Determination || DRAFT 

Facility Samuel A. Carlson Generating Station 

Location Jamestown, NY 

Chautauqua County 

Permit ID 9-0608-00053 

Source Category Fossil-fuel fired steam electric plant of 

more than 250 mmBtu/hr heat input 

I. Introduction 

The above referenced facility contains at least one emission source that falls under the 

requirements of the federal Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) rule under 40 CFR Part 

51 and Appendix Y, and the New York State BART regulation as codified under 6 NYCRR Part 

249. These requirements affect an emission source which fulfills the following criteria: 

1. Falls within one of 26 specific source categories, 

2. Was not in operation prior to August 7, 1962 and was in existence on August 7, 1977, or 

underwent reconstruction between August 7, 1962 and August 7, 1977, and 

3. Has a potential to emit (collectively, with other emission sources at the facility which 

fulfill items 1 and 2) of 250 tons per year or more of any visibility-impairing pollutant. 

Emission sources that are deemed eligible by the above criteria may be exempted by the BART 

analysis through several means, as follows: 

1. A permit condition may be accepted which restricts the eligible source’s potential to emit 

to less than 250 tons per year (tpy) for each visibility-impairing pollutant, as per Part 

249.1(c)(1). 

2. A permit condition may be accepted that requires the source to permanently shut down 

the unit by January 1, 2014, as per Part 249.1(c)(2). 

3. The facility may show through modeling or other means acceptable to the Department 

that it does not or will not emit any combination of visibility-impairing pollutants that 

results in a visibility impairment equal to or greater than 0.1 deciviews in any federal 

Class I area, as per Part 249.1(c)(3). 

II. Proposed BART Compliance Method 

The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities (JBPU) initially submitted a letter to the Department, 

dated September 27, 2010, regarding its BART-eligible unit at the Samuel A. Carlson Generating 

Station. The S.A. Carlson facility’s eligible unit, “Unit 12,” is a coal-fired steam boiler with a 

nominal heat input rate of 297 mmBtu/hr. At the time, JBPU proposed to shut down Unit 12 as 

compliance with BART under Part 249.1(c)(2), though it requested flexibility and an additional 

year for compliance (a permanent shut down date of December 31, 2014) due to reliability 

concerns on the District Heating System. 

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The Department did not accept JBPU’s argument for extending the BART compliance date via 

shutdown by an additional year. After JBPU considered capping the unit out of the BART 

requirements instead, it was eventually determined that Unit 12 could indeed be shut down by 

January 1, 2014 without compromising system integrity, thus complying with the Department’s 

required deadline. 

III. BART Determination 

The Department and JBPU are in agreement that S.A. Carlson Generating Station Unit 12 will be 

shut down by January 1, 2014. This will meet compliance with the state’s BART regulation via 

Part 249.1(c)(2). The Department formalized this requirement in an Air State Facility (ASF) 

permit modification, which was issued on February 8, 2012. This modified ASF permit is being 

submitted to EPA as a revision to the New York Regional Haze State Implementation Plan.