Vol. 77 Tuesday, 

No. 195 October 9, 2012 

Part II 

Environmental Protection Agency 

40 CFR Part 52 

Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; State of Hawaii; 

Regional Haze Federal Implementation Plan; Final Rule 


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61478 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

1Although states and tribes may designate as 

Class I additional areas which they consider to have 

visibility as an important value, the requirements of 

the visibility program set forth in section 169A of 

the CAA apply only to ‘‘mandatory Class I Federal 

areas.’’ 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

40 CFR Part 52 

[EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345, FRL–9727–1] 

Approval and Promulgation of 

Implementation Plans; State of Hawaii; 

Regional Haze Federal Implementation 

Plan 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA) is issuing a final Federal 

Implementation Plan (FIP) to address 

regional haze in the State of Hawaii. 

This FIP addresses the requirements of 

the Clean Air Act (CAA or ‘‘the Act’’) 

and EPA’s rules concerning reasonable 

progress towards the national goal of 

preventing any future and remedying 

any existing man-made impairment of 

visibility in mandatory Class I areas in 

the State of Hawaii. 

The FIP establishes an emissions cap 

of 3,550 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) per 

year from three specific fuel oil-fired, 

electric utility boilers on the Island of 

Hawaii beginning in 2018. The Hawaii 

Electric Light Company (HELCO) can 

minimize impacts on the ratepayers by 

meeting the cap through the increased 

use of renewable energy and energy 

conservation. EPA finds that this control 

measure, in conjunction with other 

emissions control requirements that are 

already in place, will ensure that 

reasonable progress is made during this 

first planning period toward the 

national goal of no man-made visibility 

impairment by 2064 at Hawaii’s two 

Class I areas. 

EPA worked closely with the State of 

Hawaii in the development of this plan 

and the State has agreed to incorporate 

the control requirements into the 

relevant permits. The State has 

indicated that it intends to take full 

responsibility for the development of 

future Regional Haze plans. 

DATES: This rule is effective on 

November 8, 2012. 

ADDRESSES: EPA has established docket 

number EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345 for 

this action. Generally, documents in the 

docket are available electronically at 

http://www.regulations.gov or in hard 

copy at EPA Region 9, 75 Hawthorne 

Street, San Francisco, California. Please 

note that while many of the documents 

in the docket are listed at http:// 

www.regulations.gov, some information 

may not be specifically listed in the 

index to the docket and may be publicly 

available only at the hard copy location 

(e.g., copyrighted material, large maps, 

multi-volume reports or otherwise 

voluminous materials), and some may 

not be available at either location (e.g., 

confidential business information). To 

inspect the hard copy materials, please 

schedule an appointment during normal 

business hours with the contact listed 

directly below. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Gregory Nudd, Air Planning Office 

(AIR–2), U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency Region 9, 415–947–4107, 

nudd.gregory@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Throughout this document, wherever 

‘‘we,’’ ‘‘us,’’ or ‘‘our,’’ is used, we mean 

the United States Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA). 

Table of Contents 

I. Background and Purpose 

A. Definitions 

B. Overview 

II. EPA Responses to Comments 

A. EPA Responses to Written Comments 

1. Baseline Visibility, Natural Visibility 

and Uniform Rate of Progress 

2. Estimating Natural Visibility Conditions 

3. Contribution Assessment According to 

IMPROVE Monitoring Data 

4. Impact of Fugitive Dust on Visibility 

Impairment in Hawaii Class I Areas 

5. Subject to BART Analysis 

6. BART Determination for Kanoelehua 

Hill 

7. NOX Reasonable Progress Analysis for 

the State of Hawaii 

8. Reasonable Progress Analysis for SO2

Emissions on the Big Island 

9. Point Source SO2 Emissions on Maui 

10. Reasonable Progress Analysis for SO2

Emissions on Maui 

11. Agricultural Burning on Maui 

12. Integral Vista Issue and Reasonably 

Attributable Visibility Impairment 

13. Comments on the Monitoring Strategy 

14. Other Comments 

B. Comments From the Public Hearings 

III. Summary of EPA Actions 

IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews 

I. Background and Purpose 

A. Definitions 

For purposes of this document, we are 

giving meaning to certain words or 

initials as follows: 

1. The words or initials Act or CAA 

mean or refer to the Clean Air Act. 

2. The initials bext mean or refer to 

total light extinction. 

3. The initials BART mean or refer to 

Best Available Retrofit Technology. 

4. The term Big Island refers to the 

Island of Hawaii. 

5. The term Class I area refers to a 

mandatory Class I Federal area.1

6. The initials DOH refer to the 

Hawaii Department of Health. 

7. The initials dv mean or refer to 

deciview(s). 

8. The initials EGU mean or refer to 

Electric Generating Units. 

9. The words EPA, we, us or our mean 

or refer to the United States 

Environmental Protection Agency. 

10. The initials FIP mean or refer to 

Federal Implementation Plan. 

11. The initials FLMs mean or refer to 

Federal Land Managers. 

12. The words Hawaii and State mean 

or refer to the State of Hawaii. 

13. The initials HECO mean or refer 

to the Hawaiian Electric Company. 

14. The initials HELCO mean or refer 

to the Hawaii Electric Light Company. 

15. The initials IMPROVE mean or 

refer to Interagency Monitoring of 

Protected Visual Environments 

monitoring network. 

16. The initials MECO mean or refer 

to Maui Electric Company. 

17. The initials MW mean or refer to 

megawatt(s). 

18. The initials NOX mean or refer to 

nitrogen oxides. 

19. The initials NP mean or refer to 

National Park. 

20. The initials OC mean or refer to 

organic carbon. 

21. The initials PM mean or refer to 

particulate matter. 

22. The initials PM2.5 mean or refer to 

particulate matter with an aerodynamic 

diameter of less than or equal to 2.5 

micrometers (fine particulate matter). 

23. The initials PM10 mean or refer to 

particulate matter with an aerodynamic 

diameter of less than or equal to 10 

micrometers (coarse particulate matter). 

24. The initials PSD mean or refer to 

Prevention of Significant Deterioration. 

25. The initials RAVI mean or refer to 

Reasonably Attributable Visibility 

Impairment. 

26. The initials RP mean or refer to 

Reasonable Progress. 

27. The initials RPG or RPGs mean or 

refer to Reasonable Progress Goal(s). 

28. The initials SIP mean or refer to 

State Implementation Plan. 

29. The initials SO2 mean or refer to 

sulfur dioxide. 

30. The initials tpy mean or refer to 

tons per year. 

31. The initials TSD mean or refer to 

Technical Support Document. 

32. The initials URP mean or refer to 

Uniform Rate of Progress. 

33. The initials VOC mean or refer to 

volatile organic compounds. 

34. The initials WRAP mean or refer 

to the Western Regional Air Partnership. 


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2Areas designated as mandatory Class I Federal 

areas consist of NPs exceeding 6000 acres, 

wilderness areas and national memorial parks 

exceeding 5000 acres, and all international parks 

that were in existence on August 7, 1977. 42 U.S.C. 

7472(a). In accordance with section 169A of the 

CAA, EPA, in consultation with the Department of 

the Interior, promulgated a list of 156 areas where 

visibility is identified as an important value. 44 FR 

69122 (November 30, 1979). The extent of a 

mandatory Class I area includes subsequent changes 

in boundaries, such as park expansions. 42 U.S.C. 

7472(a). Although states and tribes may designate 

as Class I additional areas which they consider to 

have visibility as an important value, the 

requirements of the visibility program set forth in 

section 169A of the CAA apply only to ‘‘mandatory 

Class I Federal areas.’’ Each mandatory Class I 

Federal area is the responsibility of a ‘‘Federal Land 

Manager.’’ 42 U.S.C. 7602(i). When we use the term 

‘‘Class I area’’ in this action, we mean a ‘‘mandatory 

Class I Federal area.’’ 

3See 77 FR 31691 (May 29, 2012). 

B. Overview 

On May 29, 2012, the EPA proposed 

a FIP to address regional haze in the 

State of Hawaii. We proposed to 

determine that this FIP would meet the 

requirements of the CAA and EPA’s 

rules concerning reasonable progress 

towards the national goal of preventing 

any future and remedying any existing 

man-made impairment of visibility in 

mandatory Class I areas.2 A detailed 

explanation of the requirements for 

regional haze plans and an explanation 

of EPA’s Plan are provided in our Notice 

of Proposed Rulemaking and are not 

restated here.3

In our Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking, we proposed to find that 

there was only one source in Hawaii 

that was subject to Best Available 

Retrofit Technology (BART) 

requirements, the Kanoelehua Hill 

Generating Station (Hill) on the Island 

of Hawaii (the Big Island). We also 

proposed to find that the current level 

of pollution control at Hill was 

consistent with BART and no additional 

controls would be required to meet the 

BART requirement. In addition, the EPA 

proposed to find that sufficient 

emissions reductions were expected on 

Maui to make reasonable progress 

during the first implementation period 

of 2001–2018. We also proposed to find 

that additional SO2 reductions were 

required on the Big Island to ensure 

reasonable progress. We proposed that 

those reductions should be derived from 

controlling emissions on three oil-fired 

power plants on the Big Island: Hill, 

Puna and Shipman. The proposed 

control measure would cap the 

emissions of these three plants at 3,550 

tons of SO2 per year beginning in 2018. 

EPA received several comments during 

the public comment period on our 

proposal. We have provided summaries 

of and responses to significant 

comments below. Following 

consideration of all comments, EPA has 

decided to finalize the Hawaii Regional 

Haze FIP as proposed with one 

clarification regarding the compliance 

date for the emissions cap. We will 

work with the Hawaii Department of 

Health on developing future regional 

haze plans. 

II. EPA Responses to Comments 

EPA held two public hearings in 

Hawaii on May 31 and June 1, 2012 to 

accept oral testimony and written 

comments on the proposal. The first 

meeting was held at Maui College in 

Kahului on the Island of Maui. Twenty 

people provided oral comments and 

four provided written comments at this 

hearing. The second hearing was at the 

Waiakea High School in Hilo on the Big 

Island. Four people provided oral 

comments at this hearing and one 

provided written comments. Verbatim 

transcripts of the public hearings are 

available in the public docket for this 

rulemaking, Docket ID No. EPA–R09– 

OAR–2012–0345, which can be 

accessed through the 

www.regulations.gov Web site. 

We also received an additional 18 

written comments through email, postal 

mail and the rulemaking docket. These 

comments are also available in the 

public docket for this rulemaking, 

Docket ID No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012– 

0345, which can be accessed through 

the www.regulations.gov Web site. 

A. EPA Responses to Written Comments 

EPA received 18 written comments on 

the proposal. Commenting organizations 

include: Friends of Haleakala National 

Park (FHNP), Alexander and Baldwin, 

the parent company of Hawaii 

Commercial and Sugar (HC&S), Maui 

Electric Company (MECO), Hawaii 

Electric Light Company (HELCO), 

National Park Service (NPS), Maui 

Tomorrow Foundation (Maui 

Tomorrow), Law office of Marc Chytilo 

on behalf of Preserve Pepe’ekeo Health 

and Environment and private citizens 

(Chytilo), Robert W. Parsons on behalf 

of the Office of the Mayor of Maui 

(Parsons) and Earthjustice on behalf of 

the National Parks Conservation 

Association, Sierra Club, and Blue 

Planet Foundation (Earthjustice). Seven 

private citizens also submitted 

comments on the proposal. 

1. Baseline Visibility, Natural Visibility 

and Uniform Rate of Progress 

Comment: Four commenters 

(Earthjustice, HC&S, HELCO, and 

MECO) believe that EPA’s proposed 

analysis contains a fundamental flaw in 

including the contribution of the 

Kilauea Volcano in baseline visibility 

conditions, but excluding it from 

natural visibility conditions. The 

commenters asserted that EPA must 

revise its analysis and the resulting 

uniform rate of progress (URP) in the 

final FIP. 

Two of these commenters (HELCO, 

MECO) stated that EPA’s exclusion of 

volcanic emissions from the 

determination of natural visibility 

conditions is arbitrary and capricious. 

Another of the commenters 

(Earthjustice) stated that EPA’s methods 

for incorporating volcanic emissions 

into its analysis are internally 

inconsistent and arbitrary. These 

commenters asserted that while 

emissions from the volcano vary from 

year to year, there is no reasonable basis 

for EPA to completely exclude them 

from the estimate of natural conditions. 

According to two of the commenters 

(HELCO, MECO), EPA has expressed the 

opinion that Kilauea could stop 

erupting at any time and that natural 

visibility conditions in 2064 might not 

include emissions from the volcano. In 

the view of the commenters, this does 

not justify EPA’s use of the default 

conditions developed by the Western 

Regional Air Partnership (WRAP) for 

western states in the continental United 

States to determine requirements for 

Hawaii; rather, it displays a 

fundamental misunderstanding of 

Kilauea’s emissions profile. Based on a 

report attached to the comments, the 

commenters asserted that significant 

SO2 emissions would continue venting 

from the volcano even if it were to stop 

erupting immediately because, although 

SO2 output is greatest during eruptive 

events, Kilauea emits SO2 at all times, 

even during non-eruptive periods. The 

commenters contend that a substantial 

amount of data on Kilauea’s emissions 

has been collected, and EPA should, at 

a minimum, use existing data to develop 

a ‘‘non-eruptive’’ emissions profile. The 

commenters stated that like particulate 

emissions from fire, SO2 emissions from 

Kilauea are naturally occurring and 

would continue to occur in the absence 

of human activities. Accordingly, the 

commenters asserted that EPA cannot 

simply ignore emissions from Kilauea. 

These commenters (HELCO, MECO) 

stated that by including emissions from 

Kilauea in baseline visibility conditions 

but excluding them from natural 

visibility conditions, EPA has created an 

‘‘apples to oranges comparison’’ that 

artificially inflates the amount of 

manmade emissions reductions 

necessary in Hawaii. As a result, the 

commenters asserted, the proposed FIP 

would establish reasonable progress 

goals that would be impossible to 

achieve through the reduction of 


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4 In addition, as noted in our proposal, CAA 

section 169A and the RHR at 40 CFR 

51.308(d)(1)(i)(A) require consideration of the 

following four factors in determining ‘‘reasonable 

progress’’: (1) The costs of compliance; (2) the time 

necessary for compliance; (3) the energy and nonair quality environmental impacts of compliance; 

and (4) the remaining useful life of any potentially 

affected sources. The weighing of these four factors 

is sometimes referred to as a ‘‘four-factor analysis’’ 

to distinguish it from the ‘‘five-factor analysis’’ for 

BART determinations. Comments concerning the 

URP and related issues are addressed in this 

section. Other comments on our RP analysis are 

addressed below. 

anthropogenic emissions, which is 

inconsistent with EPA’s own guidance. 

The commenters conclude that EPA 

must revise its analysis and the URP 

based on a proper evaluation of volcanic 

emissions and EPA’s failure to 

appropriately evaluate volcanic 

emissions is arbitrary and capricious 

and must be addressed in the final FIP. 

However, the commenters recognized 

that EPA may opt not to revise its 

reasonable progress analysis in this way 

during this planning period. In that 

event, the commenters requested that 

EPA commit to addressing Kilauea’s 

emissions in the next planning period 

because continuing to exclude these 

emissions that are the dominant cause 

of visibility impairment would create 

untenable results—increasingly 

expensive controls in successive 

planning periods that would not result 

in perceptible improvements in 

visibility. 

Another commenter (Earthjustice) 

stated that the goal of the haze program 

is to eliminate visibility impairment 

‘‘from manmade air pollution’’ [citing 

42 U.S.C. 7491(a)(1)]. According to the 

commenter, failing to include the 

volcano in natural conditions distorts 

the analysis of the impacts from human 

sources and the corresponding BART 

controls and reasonable progress goals 

to achieve natural visibility conditions. 

The commenter asserted that based on 

this ‘‘skewed analysis,’’ EPA summarily 

eliminated any controls for NOX for the 

BART analysis and reasonable progress 

goals. The commenter contended that 

EPA avoided evaluating the actual URP 

for anthropogenic SO2 pollution; 

instead, rejecting a URP inflated by 

volcano impacts (which the commenter 

termed a ‘‘strawman of EPA’s own 

making’’), then proposing arbitrary 

progress goals of its own choosing. The 

commenter indicated that EPA’s 

approach toward volcano conditions is 

unjustified and prevents the Agency 

from providing a rational and 

transparent justification for its pollution 

control determinations. According to 

the commenter, this approach also 

deprives the public of proper notice and 

opportunity to comment; in the 

commenter’s view, EPA must rationally 

review and address impacts from 

human sources unskewed by volcano 

impacts and allow the public a 

meaningful opportunity to review and 

comment on such determinations. 

The fourth commenter (HC&S) 

pointed out that under EPA’s 

methodology, the URP incorporates 

reductions in visibility impairment that 

are sufficient to offset both the portion 

of baseline impairment that comes from 

anthropogenic emissions and the 

portion that is caused by the volcano. 

The commenter believes that to make a 

more accurate assessment of the 

reduction in emissions from 

anthropogenic sources necessary to 

achieve natural visibility conditions, 

emissions from Kilauea either need to 

be included in, or excluded from, both 

the estimate of baseline visibility 

conditions and the estimate of natural 

visibility conditions. The commenter 

recommended that EPA adopt the 

Hawaii DOH’s proposed method to 

adjust the baseline visibility impairment 

to account for the impacts of volcano 

emissions as well as for the impacts of 

Asian dust. According to the 

commenter, under this approach, the 

URP target for 2018 would be 0.32 

deciviews (dv), which is only slightly 

greater than what would be achieved 

through the proposed FIP. 

Response: The central concern of 

these comments appears to be that the 

approach EPA used to determine the 

uniform rate of progress (URP), in 

particular how we considered volcanic 

emissions, led to inappropriate 

regulatory decisions in the proposal 

and/or may lead to inappropriate 

regulatory decisions in the future. EPA 

disagrees with this concern. The 

commenters mistakenly conclude that 

the URP sets a target or goal for the first 

planning period. In fact, the 

development of the URP is an analytical 

exercise that is intended to inform the 

setting of reasonable progress goals 

(RPGs) rather than a standard or 

presumptive target for the plan to meet. 

In establishing RPGs, the states and 

EPA must ‘‘consider’’ both the URP and 

the emission reduction measures 

needed to achieve the URP.4 More 

specifically, EPA has recommended that 

states use the following approach in 

setting their RPGs: 

1. Establish baseline and natural 

visibility conditions. 

2. Determine the URP (i.e., a straight 

line between baseline visibility in 2000– 

2004 for the worst 20 percent days and 

projected natural conditions for the 

worst 20 percent days in 2064). 

3. Identify and analyze the measures 

aimed at achieving the URP. 

a. Identify the key pollutants and 

sources and/or source categories that are 

contributing to visibility impairment at 

each Class I area. 

b. Identify the control measures and 

associated emission reductions that are 

expected to result from compliance with 

existing rules and other available 

measures for the sources and source 

categories that contribute significantly 

to visibility impairment. 

c. Determine what additional control 

measures would be reasonable based on 

the statutory factors and other relevant 

factors for the sources and/or source 

categories identified. 

d. Estimate through the use of air 

quality models the improvement in 

visibility that would result from 

implementation of the control measures 

found to be reasonable and compare this 

to the URP. 

4. Establish an RPG. 

In this case, the commenters’ 

concerns relate primarily to how EPA 

performed step 1 of this analysis. 

Specifically, the commenters object to 

EPA’s inclusion of volcanic emissions 

in the baseline and exclusion of 

volcanic emissions in our estimate of 

natural conditions. EPA acknowledges 

the commenters’ concerns, but does not 

agree that our approach is arbitrary or 

unjustified in this case. Rather, we have 

followed the statutory and regulatory 

requirements for Reasonable Progress 

analyses, while also accounting for 

unique circumstances in Hawaii that 

severely limit the utility of the URP as 

an analytical tool for setting RPGs for 

the state’s Class I areas. 

Pursuant to 40 CFR 51.308(d)(2), 

baseline visibility conditions must be 

calculated using actual monitoring data 

from 2000–2004. Therefore, the baseline 

conditions for Class I areas in Hawaii 

necessarily include volcanic emissions. 

It is difficult to include volcanic 

emissions as part of natural background 

visibility in 2064 because of the extreme 

variability in volcanic emissions from 

year to year. In this case, a 2064 

projection would be little better than a 

guess. Therefore, in estimating natural 

conditions for purposes of this first 

planning period, we have not attempted 

to forecast the future contribution of the 

volcano to natural background visibility. 

Even if we could quantitatively estimate 

‘‘natural’’ volcanic emissions and air 

quality effects in 2064 with any 

accuracy, the URP would be of very 

limited value in setting RPGs for 

Hawaii. 

As explained in EPA’s Reasonable 

Progress Guidance, the URP is intended 

to serve as a gauge against which to 

measure the improvement in visibility 

conditions that is projected to result 


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5See Section 1–7 of ‘‘Guidance for Tracking 

Progress Under the Regional Haze Rule’’, Document 

No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0003–B10. 

6 77 FR 31707, May 29, 2012 

7See ‘‘Guidance for Estimating Natural Visibility 

Conditions under the Regional Haze Rule’’ 

Document No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0003– 

B9. 

8See ‘‘Technical Support Document for the 

Proposed Action on the Federal Implementation 

Plan for the Regional Haze Program in the State of 

Hawaii, Air Division, U.S. EPA Region 9’’, 

[hereinafter TSD] p. 12, Document No. EPA–R09– 

OAR–2012–0345–0003–A3. 

from implementation of reasonable 

control measures during the first 

planning period which ends in 2018.5

However, the variability of volcanic 

emissions from Kilauea renders this 

type of analysis unhelpful for Hawaii’s 

Class I areas. To understand why this is 

the case, it helps to look at Figure II.B– 

6 in EPA’s technical support document 

(TSD). This figure shows the URP 

calculation for Hawaii Volcanoes 

National Park (NP). The points on the 

left side of the figure are the actual, 

measured visibility impairment at 

Hawaii Volcanoes for the past several 

years; these measurements vary by at 

least 13 dv, as compared to the 

difference between baseline conditions 

and natural conditions of 11.7 dv. This 

dramatic variation in visibility 

impairment on the worst 20 percent 

days is driven by the extreme variability 

of the volcanic emissions, which 

dominate visibility impairment on those 

days. Thus, the only way EPA could 

accurately estimate the improvement in 

visibility on the worst 20 percent days 

by 2018 is if we could accurately predict 

volcanic emissions on those days. In the 

absence of an accurate projection of 

volcanic emissions for 2018, there is no 

reasonable estimate of visibility 

conditions in 2018 to compare with the 

URP. Therefore, EPA has used a 

different method of gauging reasonable 

progress for this first planning period, as 

explained in Section F of the proposal, 

‘‘Reasonable Progress Goals for 

Hawaii.’’ 6

However, given the dominance of 

volcanic emissions on the worst 20 

percent days in Hawaii, it may be 

appropriate for future plans to focus on 

other days when the proportion of 

anthropogenic contribution to visibility 

impairment is larger. We expect that the 

State of Hawaii will develop future 

regional haze plans, consistent with the 

CAA and EPA’s implementing 

regulations. We plan to work with the 

State of Hawaii on those future plans 

and we will consider different 

approaches to gauging reasonable 

progress, and different approaches to 

determining the URP. 

2. Estimating Natural Visibility 

Conditions 

Comment: One commenter (NPS) 

noted that emissions from the Kilauea 

Volcano vary from year to year, making 

it difficult to project future emissions 

levels or the specific contribution of 

these emissions to visibility impairment 

in 2018 or 2064. For clarity, the 

commenter recommended that EPA 

revise the conclusion in section III.B.1 

of the preamble to the proposed FIP (77 

FR 31699, May 29, 2012) to read ‘‘* * * 

in estimating natural conditions for 

purposes of this first planning period, 

we have not tried to forecast the future 

contribution of the volcano to natural 

background visibility’’ rather than 

stating an assumption that there will be 

no visibility impact from the volcano. 

Response: The NPS is correct in 

saying that EPA did not attempt to 

forecast the future contribution of the 

volcano to natural background visibility. 

However, since the default natural 

conditions do not include volcanic 

emissions, we implicitly assumed that 

there would be no visibility impact from 

the volcano in our URP analysis. EPA 

does not consider this implicit 

assumption to be problematic because 

the URP analysis is not useful in the 

case of Hawaii due to the infeasibility of 

accurately accounting for volcanic 

emissions in the 2018 projections (see 

Section II.A.1. of this notice). 

We would consider a refined estimate 

of natural conditions at these Class I 

areas if the State of Hawaii were to 

propose such a change as part of the 

next Regional Haze plan for Hawaii. 

Any such estimate would need to be 

consistent with our guidance on this 

subject.7

3. Contribution Assessment According 

to IMPROVE Monitoring Data 

Comment: One commenter (NPS) 

generally agreed with EPA’s assessment 

of contributions to visibility 

impairment. 

Response: EPA appreciates NPS’ 

support of our contribution assessment, 

given their extensive expertise in this 

subject. 

4. Impact of Fugitive Dust on Visibility 

Impairment in Hawaii Class I Areas 

Comment: One commenter (Parsons) 

stated that EPA is incorrect in stating 

that there are no impacts or 

degradations in visibility to Haleakala 

NP as a result of fugitive dust. 

According to the commenter, EPA did 

not examine the impacts of particulate 

matter carried into the atmosphere from 

Maui’s agricultural fields, which affects 

air quality on many days. The 

commenter asserted that Maui is 

subjected to strong trade winds on many 

days, and plantation practices of 

clearing and tilling hundreds of acres at 

a time means that tons of windborne 

topsoil are lost each year. The 

commenter believes that best 

management practices might help 

mitigate this loss, and preserve Maui’s 

air quality, but plantations are exempt 

from the sort of requirements that would 

be applied to other land-altering 

activities, such as construction site 

grading. The commenter suggested that 

EPA may be able to work with the 

Hawaii Department of Agriculture and 

DOH to revise standards for dust control 

in order to protect the health and 

welfare of the community and nearshore coral reef ecosystems, and to help 

mitigate impacts that contribute to 

regional haze. 

Two commenters similarly asserted 

that fugitive dust from the sugarcane 

fields affects the haze in Haleakala NP 

and is killing Maui’s coral reefs. The 

commenter indicated that after harvest, 

the cane fields are left bare and the 

loose topsoil is picked up by the trade 

winds and carried across the island, 

coating everything in its path and 

eventually settling on and killing the 

coral reefs south of Maui. 

Response: EPA disagrees with the 

commenter’s assertion that we did not 

consider the impact of dust from 

agricultural activities when evaluating 

causes of haze at Hawaii’s national 

parks. Dust from agricultural activities 

and other sources is measured at the 

IMPROVE monitors as coarse mass and 

soil. Section II.A.3. of the TSD discusses 

causes of haze at Haleakala NP. Section 

II.B.3 discusses the causes of haze at 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP. Both of these 

sections of the TSD address the 

contribution of coarse mass and soil to 

visibility impairment on the best and 

worst days. Coarse mass contributes 

about 9 percent to visibility impairment 

on the worst 20 percent days at 

Haleakala.8 The source of the coarse 

mass measured at the IMPROVE site is 

unclear. It could be dust from the low 

elevations transported up to the park, or 

it could be from nearby sources such as 

unpaved roads. 

EPA shares the commenters’ concerns 

about the impact of dust emissions on 

public health, the loss of topsoil and 

possible impacts to water quality and 

marine life. However, in the context of 

this rulemaking, EPA does not consider 

it reasonable to require additional 

pollution control without clear evidence 

that the dust is causing or contributing 

to haze at the Class I area. Further 

analysis of the source of this coarse 


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61482 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

9Six of the eight BART-eligible sources had a less 

than 0.5 deciview impact and so were exempted 

from BART. One of the remaining facilities, Hu 

Honua Bioenergy is no longer permitted to burn 

fossil fuels and is therefore also exempt from BART. 

This leaves one facility in Hawaii as subject to 

BART, the Kaneolehua Hill facility. See 77 FR 

31704, 31705. 

mass should be conducted as part of the 

reasonable progress review for the next 

planning period. 

5. Subject to BART Analysis 

Comment 1: Agreement with analysis 

to identify sources subject to BART. 

Three commenters (HC&S, HELCO, 

and MECO) agreed with EPA’s analysis 

to determine which sources should be 

subject to BART requirements. Their 

comments are summarized in the 

following paragraphs. 

Two of the commenters (HELCO, 

MECO) noted that CAA section 

169A(b)(2)(A) requires the relevant 

regulatory agency to review a state’s 

BART eligible sources and determine 

whether they emit ‘‘any air pollutant 

which may reasonably be anticipated to 

cause or contribute to any impairment 

of visibility in [a Class I] area.’’ These 

commenters cited the BART Guidelines 

(70 FR 39109, July 6, 2005) to add that 

if a source does not meet this threshold, 

it may be exempt from further BART 

review. Based on these principles, the 

commenters believe that EPA’s analysis 

of which sources in Hawaii should be 

subject to BART is sound and consistent 

with the BART Guidelines, and they 

urged EPA to retain it for the final FIP. 

These two commenters stated that the 

BART Guidelines provide regulatory 

agencies with three options for making 

a ‘‘cause or contribute’’ finding and that 

EPA reasonably chose to use an 

‘‘individual source attribution 

approach’’ and a threshold of 0.5 dv in 

this case. According to the commenters, 

the BART Guidelines explain that the 

appropriate contribution threshold 

depends on the number and proximity 

of sources affecting a Class I area, and 

a threshold lower than 0.5 dv is justified 

where there are a large number of 

BART-eligible sources within the state 

and in proximity to a Class I area. The 

commenters added that in Hawaii there 

are few BART-eligible sources and they 

are not concentrated near a single Class 

I area. On this basis, one of the 

commenters (MECO) explicitly 

expressed agreement that 0.5 dv is the 

appropriate threshold. 

These two commenters went on to 

note that, consistent with the BART 

Guidelines, EPA applied the 0.5 dv 

contribution threshold to the results of 

computer modeling that was used to 

predict visibility impacts from each 

BART-eligible source in Hawaii, with 

the result that six of the eight BARTeligible sources fell below the 0.5 dv 

contribution threshold.9 The 

commenters agreed that EPA 

appropriately determined that only 

HELCO’s Kanoelehua Hill Generating 

Station is subject to BART and 

exempted all other BART-eligible 

sources in Hawaii from further BART 

review. One of the commenters 

(HELCO) specifically stated that this 

analysis correctly excluded Hawaiian 

Electric Company’s (HECO’s) Waiau and 

Kahe facilities, and the other (MECO) 

stated that MECO’s Kahului facility was 

appropriately excluded. 

The third commenter (HC&S) also 

agreed with the proposed threshold (0.5 

dv) used to assess whether the impact 

of a single source contributes to 

visibility impairment at the Hawaiian 

Class I areas. This commenter pointed 

out that of the six sources in Hawaii 

exempted from BART because their 

modeled impact is below 0.5 dv, none 

has a modeled impact of as much as half 

of this threshold level. The commenter 

also stated that the combined impact 

from all six sources is 0.715 dv at 

Haleakala NP, which is lower than the 

level (1.0 dv) at which the BART 

Guidelines consider a single source to 

‘‘cause’’ visibility impairment. The 

commenter added that while this 

combined impact is somewhat higher 

than the proposed 0.5 dv contribution 

threshold, the BART Guidelines 

explicitly caution that visibility effects 

of multiple sources should not be 

aggregated and their collective effects 

compared against the contribution 

threshold, because this would 

inappropriately create a ‘‘contribution to 

contribution’’ test. The commenter 

concluded that it is therefore reasonable 

to conclude that these six sources do not 

cause or contribute to visibility 

impairment at Haleakala NP. The 

commenter also asserted that since the 

combined visibility impact of these six 

sources at the Hawaii Volcanoes NP 

totals 0.35 dv, it is reasonable to 

conclude that these sources do not 

cause or contribute to visibility 

impairment at Hawaii Volcanoes NP. 

The commenter noted that setting the 

contribution threshold at 0.5 dv for 

sources subject to BART will capture 

those BART-eligible sources responsible 

for more than half of the visibility 

impacts at Haleakala NP and nearly 90 

percent of the visibility impacts at 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP while still 

excluding other sources with very small 

impacts. The commenter believes that 

given the relatively small number of 

BART-eligible sources potentially 

impacting Class I areas in Hawaii and 

the magnitude of both the individual 

sources’ impacts and the combined 

impact from all sources proposed to be 

exempt from BART, the proposed 0.5 dv 

threshold for determining whether a 

single source contributes to visibility 

impairment is wholly consistent with 

the BART Guidelines and is therefore an 

appropriate threshold for use in the 

Hawaii FIP. 

Response 1: EPA agrees that the 

determination of sources subject to 

BART was conducted appropriately and 

in accordance with the applicable 

regulatory requirements and guidance. 

EPA also agrees that the 0.5 dv 

threshold is appropriate for Hawaii. 

Comment 2: Disagreement with part 

of the analysis. 

Two commenters (FHNP, Parsons) 

disagreed with some aspects of EPA’s 

analysis to determine which sources 

should be subject to BART 

requirements. 

One commenter (FHNP) suggested 

that the MECO Kahului and HECO Kahe 

facilities should not be exempted from 

BART analysis. The commenter noted 

that EPA used a modeled increase of 0.5 

dv at the Haleakala IMPROVE 

monitoring site (HALE) to identify 

candidates for BART analysis, and that 

the measured concentrations of 

pollutants taken at the Haleakala Crater 

monitoring site (HACR) are 

approximately half of those measured at 

HALE. According to the commenter, it 

is expected that the point sources 

analyzed in this report would contribute 

similar densities of non-anthropologic 

elements at both the HALE and the 

HACR sites (with the exception of some 

smoke sources) and that, hence, a point 

source modeled to produce a 0.25 dv 

change at HALE would be expected to 

produce an approximate 0.5 dv change 

at HACR in the Class I area. The 

commenter pointed out that the MECO 

Kahului site and the HECO Kahe site 

were modeled to produce changes of 

0.232 dv and 0.221 dv, respectively, at 

HALE. The commenter believes that 

extrapolating these contributions to the 

HACR site suggests that these sources 

are very close to contributing 0.5 dv in 

the Class I area. The commenter 

concluded that since actions 

recommended in the report are 

projected to produce less than the target 

rate of progress, the MECO Kahului and 

HECO Kahe sites should not be 

exempted from BART analysis. 

The second commenter (Parsons) 

objected to EPA’s omission of the 

Kahului facility from BART 

requirements. The commenter stated 

that air emissions from MECO’s Maalaea 


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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 61483 

10See ‘‘Subject-to-Best Available Retrofit 

Technology (BART) Modeling for the State of 

Hawaii, Application of the CALPUFF Modeling 

System; Prepared for: Hawaii State Department of 

Health, Environmental Management Division Clean 

Air Branch by Alpine Geophysics, LLC (March 3, 

2010)’’, Document No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345– 

0006–C3d. 

11 Id. Section 3.2.4. These receptor locations were 

provided by the National Park Service and are 

available at http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/Maps/ 

Receptors/index.cfm. 

12The Hawaii BART/RP Supplemental Modeling 

Results Report does include modeling results at 

individual receptors placed at the location of the 

Haleakala (HALE) IMPROVE monitoring site and 

Haleakala Crater (HACR) site. See Hawaii BART/RP 

Supplemental Modeling Results, Alpine Geophysics 

(March 29, 2010), (Document No. EPA–R09–OAR– 

2012–0345–0011-Attachment 1) Table 12. The 

predicted visibility impacts from the Kahului and 

Kahe BART-eligible sources at the HALE and HACR 

receptors were similar to predicted visibility 

impacts at the NPS receptors, and were below the 

0.5 deciview threshold for all receptors. 

Specifically, the modeled 98th percentile delta 

deciview impact from the BART-eligible units at 

Kahului was 0.227 at HALE and 0.247 at HACR. Id. 

Table 15. The modeled 98th percentile delta 

deciview impact from BART-eligible units at Kahe 

was 0.262 at HALE and 0.255 at HACR. Id. Table 

15. Therefore, even if we had used HACR as a 

receptor for purposes of subject-to-BART modeling, 

neither the Kahe nor the Kahului facility would 

have been found to be subject-to-BART. 

13Specifically the modeling was performed 

against natural visibility baseline conditions for the 

best 20% of days. Use of either the best 20% days 

or average natural conditions is permissible under 

the BART Guidelines. See Memo from Joseph W. 

Paisie regarding Regional Haze Regulations and 

Guidelines for BART (July 19, 2006) (Document No. 

EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0003–B15). However, 

use of the 20% best days is more conservative (i.e., 

it tends to increase the baseline impacts for a given 

source). 

14EPA does not believe doubling the source 

impact is appropriate. However, EPA notes that 

doubling the source impact of 0.23 deciviews and 

0.22 deciviews would result in values below the 0.5 

dv threshold. 

15Compare 40 CFR 51.308(d)(1) and 51.308(e). 

16See transcript of Kahului hearing, Document 

No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0022. 

and Kahului facilities rank them as the 

fifth and seventh worst polluters in 

Hawaii. The commenter noted that EPA 

has not proposed additional pollution 

controls at either facility. According to 

the commenter, at the public hearing on 

May 31, 2012, EPA stated the belief that 

the Kahului facility will cease 

operations by 2018. The commenter 

asserted that this is conjectural and 

indicated that it would be prudent to 

apply more stringent pollution control 

standards to this facility, especially in 

the short term. 

Response 2: We do not agree that the 

Kahului or Kahe facilities should be 

subject to BART. 

As an initial matter, we would like to 

clarify that the modeling upon which 

we have based our subject-to-BART 

determinations did not use either the 

Haleakala (HALE) IMPROVE monitoring 

site or the Haleakala Crater (HACR) site 

as a receptor.10 Rather the subject-toBART modeling predicted visibility 

impacts at gridded receptor locations 

spaced approximately one kilometer 

apart within the Class I area domain.11

Therefore, the modeled impacts cited by 

the commenter (i.e. 0.232 dv for Kahului 

and 0.221 dv for Kahe) represent the 8th 

highest delta-deciview values for the 

year modeled (2005) from all modeled 

receptors at Halekala National Park and 

do not reflect modeled impacts at either 

HALE or HACR.12

To the extent that the commenter is 

arguing that the subject-to-BART 

modeling should have used background 

conditions for HACR rather than HALE, 

we also disagree. Consistent with the 

BART Guidelines, the subject-to-BART 

modeling for Hawaii was performed 

against natural visibility conditions.13

Natural conditions have not yet been 

established for the HACR site. 

Therefore, EPA reasonably relied on the 

available information regarding natural 

conditions at the HALE site for purposes 

of conducting subject-to-BART 

monitoring. 

With respect to measured pollutant 

concentrations, the commenter (FHNP) 

correctly notes that the values of the 

measured concentration of pollutants 

taken at the HACR site are smaller than 

those measured at the HALE site (i.e., 

the HACR site is ‘‘cleaner’’). The 

commenter suggests that, therefore, a 

point source modeled to produce a 0.25 

dv change at HALE would be expected 

to produce an approximate 0.5 dv 

change at HACR, and hence a 0.5 dv 

change in the Class 1 area. However, as 

noted by the commenter, doubling the 

source impact is a rough approximation 

of the effect of reducing the background 

light extinction by half. The effect of 

reducing the background extinction by 

half on the change in deciviews (delta 

dv) varies depending on the source 

extinction bext (source) and the 

background extinction, bext (bkg), but 

would be smaller than doubling the 

source impact. Therefore, the rough 

approximation proposed by the 

commenter (doubling the source impact) 

to estimate the potential change in 

visibility impacts from the facilities 

from using the new HACR site to 

calculate background light extinction 

would not be appropriate.14 So, even if 

natural conditions for the HACR site 

had been available, we do not expect 

that the impact of the sources would 

approximate 0.5 dv. EPA therefore 

disagrees that these sources should be 

subject-to-BART. Nonetheless, because 

Kahului and Kahe are both significant 

sources of pollution and include nonBART-eligible units as well as BARTeligible units, they may be appropriate 

candidates for controls as part of future 

Regional Haze plans. 

We also disagree with the commenter 

that the URP is relevant to whether 

Kahului and Kahe are subject to BART. 

Under the Regional Haze Rule (RHR), 

the determination of which sources are 

subject-to-BART is a separate analysis 

from the calculation of the URP and the 

setting of RPGs.15 Moreover, as 

discussed in Section II.A.1 of this 

document, the URP is not a target and 

is particularly poorly suited for 

regulatory decisions in Hawaii. 

Regarding the comments from 

Parsons, EPA agrees that the electric 

power plants Maalaea and Kahului are 

relatively large sources of pollution. 

However, as noted above, the modeled 

98th percentile visibility impact of the 

BART-eligible Kahului source is 0.23 

dv, less than one-half of the 0.5 dv 

subject-to-BART threshold. Due to the 

age of its equipment, the Maalaea power 

plant does not have BART-eligible units 

and therefore is not subject-to-BART. 

EPA disagrees that we represented at 

the hearing in Maui that the Kahului 

Power Plant would no longer be 

operating in 2018. That assertion is not 

supported by the transcript.16

Regardless, we did not base our decision 

on BART for the Kahului plant on future 

operation, but instead based it on the 

current emissions level for the facility. 

Comment 3: Puunene Mill. 

One commenter (HC&S) stated that 

the small contribution to visibility 

impairment from the Puunene Mill 

warrants a determination that the 

facility should not be subject to BART. 

While conceding that it was reasonable 

to use maximum actual 24-hour 

emissions to model worst-case visibility 

impacts, the commenter indicated that 

typical visibility impacts from the 

Puunene Mill are likely to be lower than 

the modeled results. The commenter 

noted that even so, modeling results for 

both coal and bagasse firing showed that 

the impact of the facility was well below 

the 0.5 dv contribution threshold at both 

Haleakala NP and Hawaii Volcanoes NP, 

at both the maximum 24-hour 98th 

percentile impact and the highest 

modeled impact. According to the 

commenter, the highest modeled impact 

for the facility (i.e., during coal firing) 

was less than half the contribution 

threshold at Haleakala NP and less than 

20 percent of the threshold at Hawaii 

Volcanoes NP. The commenter added 

that modeling of the combined impacts 

of both BART-eligible (Boiler 3) and 

Reasonable Progress-eligible (Boilers 1 


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61484 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

17See Section 2.4 of ‘‘Subject-to-Best Available 

Retrofit Technology (BART) Modeling for the State 

of Hawaii, Application of the CALPUFF Modeling 

System; Prepared for: Hawaii State Department of 

Health, Environmental Management Division Clean 

Air Branch by Alpine Geophysics, LLC (March 3, 

2010)’’, Document No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345– 

0006–C3d. 

18 Id. Table 6. 

and 2) sources at the Puunene Mill 

demonstrated that the maximum 24- 

hour 98th percentile visibility impacts 

from the facility during both bagasse 

firing and coal firing scenarios are well 

below the 0.5 dv contribution threshold. 

The commenter believes that the 

modeling analysis clearly shows that 

even worst-case emissions from the 

Puunene Mill do not cause or contribute 

to visibility impairment at either 

Haleakala NP or Hawaii Volcanoes NP, 

and that additional controls are 

therefore not warranted. 

In contrast, one commenter (Parsons) 

believes that with regard to the Hawaii 

Regional Haze FIP and for public health 

concerns, air emissions at HC&S’s 

Puunene Mill should be subjected to 

BART determinations, Maximum 

Achievable Control Technology (MACT) 

Hammer standards and both continuous 

opacity monitoring systems (COMS) and 

continuous emissions monitoring 

systems (CEMS) guidelines. The 

commenter stated that the Puunene Mill 

is the second worst polluter in Hawaii 

with regard to air emissions. The 

commenter indicated that Boilers 1 and 

2 at the facility predate the Act, and 

thus have been exempt from those 

standards for decades. The commenter 

also contended that EPA’s ‘‘revised 

MACT Hammer provisions’’ have not 

been applied to these units because 

HC&S and sugar growers in Florida and 

Texas submitted a report replacing these 

emission limits with their own 

subcategory of bagasse-fired boilers. The 

commenter added that HC&S combusts 

100,000 tons of coal annually without 

emission standards that apply to other 

coal-burning facilities. The commenter 

also stated that Boiler 3 at the facility 

has not been held to Federal standards 

required for COMS and CEMS or 

regulatory oversight by the Hawaii DOH. 

Two other commenters also stated 

that EPA should include all of the HC&S 

smoke stacks in its review. In particular, 

the commenter asked that EPA review 

and closely monitor the electric power 

production emissions on the Puunene 

Mill. 

Response 3: We reaffirm that the 

Puunene Mill is not subject-to-BART. In 

accordance with the BART Guidelines, 

the subject-to-BART modeling for 

Puunene Mill was performed using 

worst-case emissions from the Mill and 

best-case visibility (under natural 

conditions) at the parks.17 This analysis 

assumed the Mill was powered entirely 

by coal, its most polluting fuel, for 24 

hours. That worst-case 24-hour emission 

rate was then compared to the clearest 

days at Haleakala NP and Hawaii 

Volcanoes NP. This comparison of very 

high emissions at the Puunene Mill to 

very clean conditions at the park was 

modeled for every weather condition 

during the 365 days of the year. The 

resulting visibility impact was less than 

the 0.5 dv threshold that would make 

the facility subject to BART.18 EPA 

reviewed this analysis and concurs with 

the results. 

The commenter indicates that he 

believes the Mill should be subject to 

Federal guidelines for CEMS and 

COMS. We are confident that the 

methods used to calculate worst-case 

emissions are appropriate and 

conservative. Therefore, the absence of 

continuous monitors does not weaken 

the analysis. 

The commenter also indicates that he 

believes the Puunene Mill should be 

subject to MACT controls. The 

applicability of MACT is outside the 

scope of this rulemaking. 

Comment 4: Hu Honua and 

Tradewinds should be subject to BART 

controls. 

One commenter (Chytilo) objected to 

the exclusion of the Hu Honua 

Bioenergy Facility and the Tradewinds 

Veneer Mill and Cogeneration Facility’s 

electric generating EGUs from the 

proposed FIP. The commenter argued 

that these facilities should be subjected 

to BART controls and emissions limits. 

The commenter stated that even though 

neither source was operating during the 

baseline period, the emissions from 

each source are significant and will 

interfere with progress towards national 

visibility objectives. 

The commenter also asserted that EPA 

improperly exempted these sources 

from controls, reporting and reasonable 

further progress based on what the 

commenter believes is the irrelevant and 

incorrect belief that each source is 

entirely biofueled. The commenter 

stated that emissions controls will be 

less successful for these facilities 

because steady state operations are more 

difficult to achieve and the operators 

contemplate diurnal fuel source changes 

and other operational shifts daily. The 

commenter added that biofueled sources 

still cause visibility impairment, and 

alleged that the FIP rulemaking offers no 

explanation for why biofueled sources 

should be exempted from haze controls. 

The commenter indicated that the two 

facilities are permitted to burn wood 

waste which, according to the 

commenter, is a variable fuel that 

actually produces increased emissions 

and should be subject to enhanced 

controls. The commenter believes that 

haze objectives cannot be met if these 

sources are exempted. 

The commenter made the following 

additional points related to the Hu 

Honua facility: 

• The emissions calculations for the 

Hu Honua facility are questionable. The 

commenter expressed agreement with 

EPA’s comments on the facility’s 

Covered Source Permit (Hawaii’s term 

for a title V permit), which the 

commenter characterized as saying that 

unrealistic emissions factors were used 

and actual plant emissions are likely to 

be considerably higher. 

• The facility’s permit allows the use 

of conventional diesel fuel during 

startup and off-peak periods, so any 

exemption for biofuels is not warranted. 

• Sulfur oxides (SOX) emissions are 

not insignificant. The commenter 

asserted that SOX emissions from the 

facility ‘‘constitute nearly 93 percent of 

the * * * NAAQS,’’ and that EPA’s 

rationale that these emissions may be 

ignored due to background volcanic 

emissions is misplaced. The commenter 

stated that the Pepe’ekeo area is only 

affected by volcanic emissions during 

certain wind conditions, and during 

other periods the facility’s SOX and 

other visibility-impairing emissions will 

be significant and should not be 

exempted. 

Response 4: The definition of BARTeligible facility may be found in 40 CFR 

51.301. It provides a list of types of 

facilities that may be eligible for BART 

if they were built between 1962 and 

1977. These types of facilities include 

‘‘fossil-fuel fired steam electric plants of 

more than 250 million British thermal 

units per hour heat input.’’ When Hu 

Honua converted to biofuels, it was no 

longer ‘‘fossil-fuel fired’’ and therefore 

was no longer BART-eligible. The 

permit for this facility allows for it to be 

fueled by wood or biodiesel. Neither of 

these is a ‘‘fossil fuel.’’ Therefore, the 

facility is not eligible for BART. The 

Tradewinds Veneer cogeneration facility 

was not built between 1962 and 1977 

and does not burn fossil fuels. 

Therefore, this facility is also not 

eligible for BART. 

We note that the commenter’s general 

concern about emissions from new large 

facilities possibly interfering with 

visibility goals is a common 

consideration in air quality planning 

and is not limited to these two facilities. 

Such emissions are regulated in large 

part under the CAA’s Prevention of 


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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 61485 

19See ‘‘BART Five-Factor Analysis Prepared for 

Hawaiian Electric Light Company, Trinity 

Consultants’’ (April 12, 2010), Document No. EPA– 

R09–OAR–2012–0345–0010-attachment 3, 

[hereinafter ‘‘Trinity BART Report’’]. 

Significant Deterioration (PSD) 

permitting program, which applies to 

new major sources and major 

modifications at existing sources for 

pollutants where the area in which the 

source is located has been designated 

attainment or unclassifiable with one or 

more of the NAAQS. Among other 

requirements, PSD review requires an 

air quality analysis, using dispersion 

modeling, of ambient concentrations 

that would result from the applicant’s 

proposed project. The PSD regulations 

provide special protection of Air 

Quality Related Values, including 

visibility, in Class I areas, including 

oversight by and coordination between 

the permitting authority and the Federal 

land managers (FLMs). The RH rule also 

requires reviews of plans every 5 years 

and complete new regional haze plans 

every 10 years. The 5-year update of this 

plan will include a verification that 

emission trends on the Islands are 

consistent with reasonable progress and 

an analysis of whether anthropogenic 

visibility impairment is decreasing The 

next full plan, required in 10 years, will 

include a new reasonable progress 

analysis that would take into account 

these and any other new sources of 

pollution. 

6. BART Determination for Kanoelehua 

Hill 

Comment 1: General comments on 

BART for Hill. 

One commenter (Earthjustice) stated 

that EPA’s proposal to exempt the Hill 

facility from any BART controls neither 

meets the requirements of the BART 

program, nor promotes necessary 

visibility improvements at Hawaii’s 

Class I areas. The commenter pointed 

out that even though EPA has stated that 

this facility is by far the largest source 

of anthropogenic SO2 emissions on the 

Big Island (citing 77 FR 31706), no 

BART control is required. The 

commenter believes that this result 

lacks a reasoned and lawful 

justification. The commenter asserted 

that EPA must require demonstrably 

cost-effective controls, rather than 

readily relieving polluters of these 

obligations. The specific arguments 

made by the commenter related to 

nitrogen oxides (NOX) and SO2 are 

detailed in the following subsections. 

In contrast, another commenter 

(HELCO) agreed that EPA appropriately 

determined that BART controls are not 

justified for the Hill facility. The 

commenter noted that EPA’s analysis of 

the five statutory factors that must be 

considered in establishing BART was 

based largely on an analysis performed 

by a consultant for HELCO (‘‘the Trinity 

BART report’’ 19) which, according to 

the commenter, was consistent with the 

BART Guidelines even though the 

guidelines are not mandatory for a 

facility the size of the Hill facility. 

However, because the BART Guidelines 

were designed for power plants, the 

commenter believes they are both an apt 

and a conservative guide in this 

instance. 

Response 1: EPA disagrees with 

Earthjustice’s comments with respect to 

our BART determination for the Hill 

facility. The EPA BART determination 

is appropriate for Hill for reasons 

detailed below. And, it is important to 

note that we are requiring SO2

reductions from Hill and two other 

plants on the Big Island in order to 

ensure reasonable progress toward 

eliminating anthropogenic visibility 

impairment at Hawaii Volcanoes NP. 

EPA agrees with HELCO’s comment that 

the BART analysis conducted by Trinity 

for HELCO was consistent with the 

BART guidelines, although EPA does 

not agree with the company’s cost 

estimates for lower sulfur fuels. 

Comment 2: HELCO’s comments on 

particulate matter (PM) and NOX. 

One commenter (HELCO) agreed with 

EPA’s determination that the Hill 

facility should not install NOX or PM 

BART. The commenter stated that the 

Trinity BART report evaluated the 

available control technologies and that 

EPA, based on that report, found that 

the controls considered for PM would 

not be cost effective and that the 

controls considered for NOX would not 

provide a measurable visibility benefit 

at Haleakala NP or Hawaii Volcanoes 

NP. Given what the commenter 

characterized as the high cost of 

controls and low degree of improvement 

in visibility that might result from 

controls, the commenter supports EPA’s 

determination that ‘‘no control for NOX

and PM at the Hill Plant is consistent 

with BART’’ (citing 77 FR 31706). 

Response 2: EPA agrees that the 

existing emission levels of PM and NOX

from Hill are consistent with BART, 

given the unique conditions in Hawaii. 

Comment 3: Earthjustice comments 

on NOX. 

One commenter (Earthjustice) stated 

that EPA proposed no control as BART 

for NOX even though HELCO admitted 

that the control option of low-NOX

burners (LNB) is cost effective and 

proposed them as BART (citing the 

Trinity BART report, p. 5–11). 

According to the commenter, EPA 

reached this conclusion based on the 

rationale that ‘‘due to the overwhelming 

contribution of sulfate to visibility 

impairment at the nearby Hawaii 

Volcanoes Class I area, it is unlikely that 

reductions in NOX would have a 

measurable impact on visibility at that 

area’’ (citing 77 FR 31705). However, as 

detailed in section II.A.1., the 

commenter believes that EPA inflated 

the impact of sulfate by including the 

natural contributions of the Kı ̈lauea 

Volcano in baseline conditions but not 

in natural conditions. The commenter 

believes that this approach ignores the 

goal of the haze program of controlling 

anthropogenic visibility impairment. 

The commenter asserted that EPA 

cannot justify dismissing a pollution 

control that the utility already 

acknowledged as BART by burying it 

within the background impact of the 

volcano. 

The commenter also stated that EPA 

summarily dismisses post-combustion 

controls such as selective catalytic 

combustion (SCR) because ‘‘they were 

not found to be cost effective’’ in the 

Trinity BART report (citing 77 FR 

31706). However, according to the 

commenter, that report showed that the 

cost effectiveness of SCR for Hill falls 

within the range established in EPA and 

state BART determinations. The 

commenter quoted the Trinity BART 

report as including SCR costs of $2,600 

and $2,200/ton for the units at the Hill 

facility, while EPA’s proposal for BART 

at the Four Corners Power Plant 

considered cost estimates of $4,887 to 

$6,170/ton to be cost-effective (citing 75 

FR 64227, October 19, 2010) and states 

have established thresholds for costeffectiveness such as $7,300 (Oregon), 

$7,000 to $10,000 (Wisconsin), $5,946 to 

$7,398 (New Mexico), and $5,500 (New 

York). 

The commenter believes that, in any 

event, EPA has no basis for eliminating 

BART controls without engaging in the 

statutorily mandated five-factor BART 

analysis. According to the commenter, 

EPA simply waived any analysis, and 

any pollution reduction benefit, based 

on speculation. The commenter alleged 

that proper inquiry would confirm, for 

example, that LNB would prove much 

more effective at controlling NOX than 

the relatively high figures the utility 

cited. 

Response 3: EPA disagrees with the 

commenter’s assertion that a full fivefactor analysis was not conducted for 

NOX controls at Hill. The Trinity BART 

report contains a complete five-factor 

analysis of NOX controls at Hill, which 

is consistent with EPA requirements 


wreier-aviles on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with RULES2
61486 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

20See Trinity BART Report Chapter 5. 21See Trinity BART Report at 5–11. 22 Id. Table 5–7. 23Trinity BART Report at 5–11. 24See ‘‘Chemical coupling between ammonia, 

acid gases, and fine particles’’, B.H. Baek et al./ 

Environmental Pollution 129 (2004) 89–98. 

and guidance.20 We have relied in large 

part on that analysis in conducting our 

own five-factor BART analysis for NOX

at Hill. As noted by Earthjustice, the 

Trinity BART Report found low-NOX

burners to be cost-effective at Hill.21 The 

Trinity BART Report also estimated that 

installation of LNB would result in an 

improvement of 0.21 dv at Hawaii 

Volcanoes and 0.02 dv at Haleakala 

(based on the 98th percentile impacts).22

However, the Trinity BART Report 

noted this projection ‘‘does not reflect 

reality’’ because it ‘‘relies on an 

approach for establishing natural 

conditions that does not consider the 

local volcanic activity.’’ 23 In other 

words, the actual visibility benefit of 

LNB will be significantly less than 0.21 

dv, due to the impact of volcanic 

emissions. Taking this fact into account, 

EPA concluded that the costs of LNB 

were not justified by the visibility 

benefit that would actually result from 

installation of controls. 

In particular, EPA considered the 

unique atmospheric conditions on the 

Big Island, which call into question the 

reliability of the benefits predicted by 

the air quality model. The air quality 

model used by Trinity compared the 

impact of the NOX controls with 

estimated natural conditions consistent 

with EPA protocols. As described in 

Section II.A.1, above, the SO2 emissions 

from the volcano were not included in 

those natural conditions. SO2 emissions 

combine with ammonia in the 

atmosphere to form ammonium sulfate. 

NOX emissions combine with ammonia 

in the atmosphere to form ammonium 

nitrate. These ammonia compound 

particles contribute to visibility 

impairment. In these complex chemical 

reactions, ammonia is more likely to 

combine with sulfur than with 

nitrogen.24 As such, inclusion of SO2

emissions from volcanoes in the 

modeling would reduce the amount of 

ammonia available to combine with 

NOX to form ammonium nitrate. Given 

these baseline conditions at Hawaii 

Volcanoes NP, EPA finds that NOX

controls will be much less effective at 

improving visibility than SO2 controls 

during this first planning period. 

As a result, we find that the costs of 

LNB are not justified by the visibility 

benefit that would actually result from 

installation of controls due to the 

unique atmospheric conditions on the 

Big Island. We also find that 

substantially more expensive postcombustion controls, such as SCR, were 

not justified for the same reason. 

Although the costs for those postcombustion controls could be 

reasonable in some contexts, they are 

not reasonable for Hill, given the low 

visibility improvements that would 

result from installation of such controls 

at this time. Nonetheless, as 

anthropogenic contributions to visibility 

impairment decrease over time, further 

reductions in NOX emissions may be 

required in order to ensure reasonable 

progress toward eliminating 

anthropogenic visibility impairment. 

Therefore, we expect the State of Hawaii 

to reevaluate the costs and visibility 

impacts of NOX controls at Hill in future 

regional haze plans. 

Comment 4: EPA’s Determination of 

BART for SO2. 

One commenter (HELCO) agreed with 

EPA that the Hill Plant should not be 

required to install SO2 BART, stating 

that the potential improvement in 

visibility that might result from 

installing SO2 controls on Hill Units 5 

and 6 is far outweighed by the excessive 

costs of the controls that would be 

imposed on HELCO and its customers. 

In contrast, another commenter 

(Earthjustice) stated that EPA’s proposal 

to exempt the Hill facility from any 

BART controls falls short of the law’s 

mandates by summarily eliminating any 

SO2 controls based on the rationale that 

it may increase retail electric rates by 1 

percent. According to this commenter, 

EPA must require demonstrably costeffective controls, rather than readily 

relieving polluters of these obligations. 

Additional detail of these comments is 

presented in the paragraphs that follow. 

The first commenter (HELCO) stated 

that there are no cost-effective control 

options available for the Hill facility. 

The commenter noted that the BART 

Guidelines state that the majority of 

BART-eligible units could meet the 

presumptive limits at a cost of $400 to 

$2,000/ton of SO2 removed, and that the 

costs for Hill far exceed that range. 

According to the commenter, the Trinity 

BART report found that switching to 1 

percent sulfur fuel would cost between 

$6,677 and $7,363/ton, while EPA’s 

analysis estimated costs of $5,587/ton. 

The commenter believes that the Trinity 

BART report estimate is more accurate, 

but pointed out that EPA’s estimate also 

exceeds the cost-effectiveness threshold 

established in the BART Guidelines. 

This commenter also agreed with 

EPA’s statement that imposing fuel 

switching at Hill as BART would 

‘‘unduly increas[e] electricity rates in 

Hawaii’’ (citing 77 FR 31707). The 

commenter stated that fuel switching 

would increase both the cost of 

electricity produced by the Hill facility 

and the cost of electricity that HELCO 

purchases from independent power 

producers (IPPs) because most of the 

contracts with the IPPs are tied to 

HELCO’s ‘‘avoided cost’’ of producing 

electricity; thus, as HELCO’s fuel costs 

increase for Hill, the price that most of 

the IPPs receive for the renewable 

electricity they provide increases. The 

commenter pointed out that the BART 

Guidelines recognize that there may be 

circumstances that justify taking into 

consideration the conditions of the 

plant and the economic effects of 

requiring the use of a given control 

technology, including ‘‘effects on 

product prices, the market share, and 

profitability of the source’’ (citing 70 FR 

39130, July 6, 2005). The commenter 

asserted that given that the electricity 

rates in Hawaii already are three times 

higher than the national average, the 

increased cost of electricity alone is a 

reasonable basis for determining that 

BART for the Hill Plant is no additional 

controls. 

The second commenter (Earthjustice) 

quoted the proposal preamble as saying 

that the pollution control of switching 

to 1 percent sulfur fuel oil would 

produce a 0.5 dv benefit, which EPA 

acknowledges is ‘‘a significant 

improvement in visibility’’ (citing 77 FR 

31707). In addition, the commenter 

believes that this benefit is understated 

because EPA derived the 0.5 dv figure 

from the Trinity BART report which 

started from a baseline impact of Hill of 

1.56 dv (citing 77 FR 31705), but EPA 

cited a higher baseline impact of 2.334 

dv from the state’s consultants in 

finding Hill subject to BART in the first 

instance (citing 77 FR 31704, 31705). 

This commenter also stated that the 

cumulative benefit of BART controls 

must be analyzed, contending that EPA 

and states have in numerous cases 

recognized and included such 

cumulative visibility benefits in BART 

determinations. The commenter pointed 

out that the Trinity BART report’s 0.5 

dv figure includes only the visibility 

impact on Volcanoes NP; it does not 

include the visibility impact and benefit 

to Haleakala NP. The commenter 

indicated that EPA cited an impact of 

0.808 dv at Haleakala NP in finding Hill 

subject to BART, while the Trinity 

BART report cited a figure of 0.44 dv 

(citing 77 FR 31705 and EPA’s TSD, p. 

50, footnote 45). The commenter 

stressed that in either case, this impact 

is not negligible, yet EPA has failed to 

calculate the visibility benefits to 

Haleakala NP. In sum, the commenter 

believes that the ‘‘significant 


wreier-aviles on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with RULES2
Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 61487 

25The Trinity CALPUFF modeling was performed 

using the current regulatory version of the model, 

CALPUFF version 5.8, level 070623. The 

meteorological modeling prepared by JCA for the 

Trinity CALPUFF modeling was based on the MM5 

mesoscale meteorological model developed by 

scientists at Penn State University (PSU) and The 

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). 

The CALPUFF regional haze modeling domain was 

based on three of the MM5 modeling domains 

which were used as CALMET inputs. The first 

domain is a 9 km resolution ‘State’ grid 

encompassing the 8 major Hawaiian Islands and 

two domains are 3 km resolution grids 

encompassing the islands of Maui and the Big 

Island, respectively. The MM5 modeling period 

extends from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2008. 

The results of the statistical analysis show the MM5 

simulations for the state of Hawaii are in close 

agreement with acceptable benchmarks for all of the 

examined variables. For example, the wind speed 

agreement appears to be good, with typical bias 

below the recommended 0.5 m/s error. See also 

TSD pp. 48 and 50. 

26See Letter from Brenner Munger, Manager, 

Environmental Department, Hawaiian Electric 

Continued 

improvement’’ of 0.5 dv constitutes a 

bare minimum level of visibility benefit. 

The commenter also contended that 

EPA’s cost-effectiveness figure of 

$5,587/ton is inflated because EPA 

quotes the cost of the 0.5 percent sulfur 

oil burned on Oahu as an upper limit, 

but then assumes it to be the cost of 1 

percent sulfur oil (citing the TSD, pp. 

52–53). The commenter believes that in 

all likelihood, 1 percent sulfur oil 

would cost less than the 0.5 percent 

sulfur oil upper limit. The commenter 

added that, conversely, if EPA uses the 

cost of 0.5 percent sulfur oil, it also 

should use the pollution reduction 

benefit of the same. 

According to the commenter EPA did 

not determine its figure of $5,587/ton to 

be unreasonable as a general matter, but 

instead indicated that it does not believe 

the benefits justify the costs ‘‘in this 

case’’ (citing 77 FR 31707). The 

commenter alleged that the only 

grounds EPA provided for this 

conclusion are the following: ‘‘We are 

particularly concerned about unduly 

increasing electricity rates in Hawaii, 

given that these rates are already three 

times the national average according to 

the Energy Information Agency’’ (citing 

77 FR 31707). The commenter asserted 

that this rationale falls short for the 

following reasons: 

• EPA’s reliance on electricity rate 

increases contradicts its previous 

rejection of this rationale as a metric for 

cost effectiveness. In its BART 

determination for the San Juan 

Generating Station in New Mexico, for 

example, EPA maintained that ‘‘we do 

not consider a potential increase in 

electricity rates to be the most 

appropriate type of analysis for 

considering the costs of compliance in 

a BART determination’’ (citing 76 FR 

52400, August 22, 2011). Rather, ‘‘cost 

effectiveness analyses are based on the 

cost to the owner to generate electricity, 

or the busbar cost, not market retail 

rates’’ (citing 76 FR 52398). 

• EPA calculated that the fuel change 

would bump up retail electricity rates 

by only 1 percent, which seems 

negligible on its face. EPA does not 

explain how 1 percent amounts to an 

undue increase in rates, or provide any 

method to gauge an undue increase 

other than its assertion. This amounts to 

an arbitrary conclusion that any control 

having an effect on rates is 

unreasonable. 

• In proposing to eliminate BART 

based on electricity rate impacts, EPA is 

straying into policy decisions that are 

more appropriately left to the Public 

Utility Commission (PUC) of the State of 

Hawaii’s authority and expertise, or the 

regulated utility and market. The PUC is 

best positioned to decide how Hill can 

be most cost-effectively deployed in 

relation to all other available resource 

options if EPA fulfills its duty of 

controlling Hill’s air pollution and 

having Hill internalize the cost. By 

negating BART based on generalized 

rate impact concerns, however, EPA 

undermines both its own function of 

controlling pollution and the PUC’s 

regulatory function of managing utility 

resource costs and rates. 

• It is not true that requiring Hill to 

adopt pollution controls will necessarily 

increase electric rates. Several large 

wind plants on Hawaii Island are 

routinely curtailed, especially at night. 

(The commenter appended many pages 

of HELCO’s reports of such 

curtailments.) Increasing the cost of 

Hill’s operation would not necessarily 

result in Hill’s generation remaining 

constant and costs proportionately 

rising. Rather, it may lead the utility to 

reduce Hill’s use to save on the 

increased fuel costs and instead receive 

more wind energy, which has a zero fuel 

cost (as well as zero pollution impact). 

In that case, an actual reduction in costs 

and rates may result (along with an even 

greater pollution reduction and 

visibility benefit than EPA calculated). 

• EPA’s proposal would not help to 

avoid unduly increasing electric rates, 

as much as it would distort the relative 

costs of polluting and clean energy 

resources and unduly disadvantage the 

latter. EPA recognizes the goals of the 

state’s ‘‘Clean Energy Bill’’ (i.e., the 

state’s renewable portfolio standard 

[RPS] and energy efficiency portfolio 

standard), although it does not make 

clear how this contributes to its 

analysis. The RPS allows a waiver of its 

requirements, however, based on 

‘‘[i]nability to acquire sufficient costeffective renewable electrical energy,’’ 

Haw. Rev. Stat. § 269–92(d) (2011 

Supp.), which highlights the need for 

polluting generation like Hill to 

incorporate the costs of cost-effective 

pollution controls to enable accurate 

comparisons with ‘‘cost-effective’’ 

renewable energy. In this regard, EPA’s 

proposal not only forfeits cost-effective 

pollution control now, but also works 

against the State’s cited clean energy 

goals overall by exempting Hill from 

such costs and thus artificially 

subsidizing it relative to clean 

generation. 

The commenter (Earthjustice) 

concluded by asserting that at 

minimum, EPA’s proposal and rationale 

fail to consider the overall benefits of 

adopting the cost-effective option of 

switching to low-sulfur fuel, including a 

potential reduction in electric rates. The 

commenter believes that this highlights 

the analytical and practical flaws in 

EPA’s use of utility rates as a 

justification to avoid its responsibility of 

requiring cost-effective pollution 

controls. 

Response 4: We reaffirm that our 

BART determination for SO2 at Hill was 

reasonable. With respect to visibility 

impacts from Hill, EPA acknowledges 

that the modeling by the State’s 

consultants estimated a higher baseline 

impact at Hawaii Volcanoes NP (2.334 

dv) than the modeling in the Trinity 

BART report (baseline impact of 1.56 

dv). However, EPA does not consider 

one estimate to be more reliable than the 

other. The Trinity modeling was 

performed in accordance with EPA 

guidance and based on appropriately 

developed meteorological modeling 

data.25 Even if we were to assume that 

the State’s consultant’s modeling results 

were somehow more accurate, it would 

not change our determination. 

Assuming a baseline impact at Hawaii 

Volcanoes of 2.334 dv from Hill, the 

corresponding estimated visibility 

benefit of switching to 1 percent sulfur 

oil would be approximately 0.8 dv. We 

find that this benefit is not sufficient to 

justify the cost of $5,587/ton. 

Regarding the ‘‘cumulative benefit’’ of 

BART controls, EPA notes that the RHR 

and the BART Guidelines do not 

prescribe a particular approach to 

calculating or considering visibility 

benefits across multiple Class I areas. 

Summing the total visibility benefits 

over multiple Class I areas is a useful 

metric that can further inform the BART 

determination. However, in this 

instance, the baseline impacts of Hill at 

the only other affected Class I area, 

Haleakala NP, were less than 0.5 dv, and 

the projected improvement of switching 

to 1 percent sulfur fuel was 0.2 dv.26 We 


wreier-aviles on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with RULES2
61488 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

Company to Tom Webb, U.S. EPA Region 9, 

October 11, 2011, Document No. EPA–R09–OAR– 

2012–0345–0011—attachment 4. 27 40 CFR part 51, Appendix Y, § IV.D.4.c. 28 40 CFR part 51, Appendix Y, § IV.E.4. 

29 70 FR 39132. July 6, 2005. 

30 40 CFR part 51, Appendix Y, § IV.E.4. 

31See Trinity BART Report at pg. 4–2. 

32 40 CFR Part 51, Appendix Y, BART Guidelines 

§ IV.E.3. 

33 76 FR 52400. 

34 76 FR 52398. 

have taken this benefit into account in 

making our BART determination, but 

have concluded that this benefit (in 

addition to the 0.5–0.8 dv benefit for 

Hawaii Volcanoes) is not sufficient to 

justify requiring 1 percent sulfur fuel oil 

as BART, given the costs of compliance 

for this control option. 

With respect to the costs-ofcompliance factor for Hill, EPA has 

primarily taken into account the average 

cost effectiveness of controls, as 

recommended by the BART 

Guidelines.27 We do not agree with 

HELCO that the BART Guidelines set 

any ‘‘cost-effectiveness threshold.’’ 

Rather, the Guidelines set presumptive 

BART limits of 95 percent SO2 removal, 

or an emission rate of 0.15 lb SO2/ 

MMBtu, for currently uncontrolled coalfired EGUs greater than 200 MW in size 

located at power plants greater than 750 

MW.28 In the preamble to the 

Guidelines, EPA noted that the majority 

of BART-eligible units with these 

characteristics could meet the 

presumptive limits at a cost of $400 to 

$2,000 per ton of SO2 removed.29

However, EPA did not indicate that 

these cost-effective values constituted a 

‘‘threshold.’’ Moreover, the BART 

Guidelines do not set a presumptive 

limit for EGUs that burn oil, but instead 

recommend that ‘‘[f]or oil-fired units, 

regardless of size, you should evaluate 

limiting the sulfur content of the fuel oil 

burned to 1 percent or less by 

weight.’’ 30

In this case, we estimated the average 

cost effectiveness of limiting the sulfur 

content of the fuel oil burned at Hill to 

1 percent, based on reasonable 

assumptions concerning fuel costs in 

Hawaii. As explained in Section VI.D.2 

of the TSD, since data for the 

continental United States would not 

reflect transportation costs to Hawaii, 

EPA determined that it was appropriate 

to use fuel market data for the State of 

Hawaii. Currently, the power plants on 

Oahu burn oil that is no more than 0.5 

percent sulfur by weight, while the 

power plants on Maui and the Big 

Island (including Hill) burn oil that is 

no more than 2 percent sulfur by 

weight. In addition, the 0.5 percent fuel 

oil burned on Oahu has significantly 

different mechanical properties than the 

fuel burned on the Big Island.31 Power 

plants on the Big Island would not be 

able to use the Oahu fuel without 

extensive modification to barges, 

pipelines in the ground, storage tanks, 

and boiler fuel delivery systems. 

Therefore, use of the 0.5 percent oil 

used on Oahu is not a viable option for 

Hill or the other power plants on the Big 

Island. In addition, we were not able to 

find market data for Hawaii or for the 

continental United States for 0.5 percent 

fuel oil that could be used on the Big 

Island. Therefore, our SO2 BART 

analysis for Hill focused on the costs of 

switching to 1 percent sulfur fuel oil. 

In the absence of any reliable publicly 

available data on the cost of 1 percent 

sulfur fuel oil in the State of Hawaii, we 

determined that it was appropriate to 

use the price of the Oahu 0.5 percent oil 

as an upper limit to the cost of 1 percent 

sulfur fuel oil. In other words, we 

assumed that, if 1 percent sulfur fuel oil 

were available on Oahu, it would cost 

the same or less than the 0.5 percent 

sulfur fuel burned on Oahu. The sixyear (2006–2011) average cost 

differential between 0.5 percent fuel oil 

used on Oahu and the 2 percent fuel oil 

used on Maui and the Big Island is 

0.190 $/gal, so we assumed that 1 

percent sulfur fuel oil will, on average, 

cost 0.190 $/gal more than the 2 percent 

sulfur fuel oil currently being burned. 

We recognize that this is a conservative 

assumption, but find it to be reasonable, 

in light of the lack of reliable, publicly 

available market data for 1 percent 

sulfur fuel oil in Hawaii. 

Based on this and other reasonable 

assumptions, we estimated that the 

average cost effectiveness of limiting the 

sulfur content of the fuel oil burned at 

Hill to 1 percent would be 

approximately $5,587/ton. We have 

concluded that $5,587/ton is too 

expensive to justify the projected 

visibility benefit of approximately 0.5– 

0.8 dv at Hawaii Volcanoes NP and 0.2 

dv at Haleakala NP. 

In addition to average cost 

effectiveness, EPA also took into 

account the potential impact of controls 

on electricity rates on the Big Island. 

Contrary to the commenter’s assertion, 

consideration of electricity rates is not 

impermissible as part of a BART 

determination. The BART Guidelines 

provide that: 

There may be unusual circumstances that 

justify taking into consideration the 

conditions of the plant and the economic 

effects of requiring the use of a given control 

technology. These effects would include 

effects on product prices, the market share, 

and profitability of the source. Where there 

are such unusual circumstances that are 

judged to affect plant operations, you may 

take into consideration the conditions of the 

plant and the economic effects of requiring 

the use of a control technology. Where these 

effects are judged to have a severe impact on 

plant operations you may consider them in 

the selection process, but you may wish to 

provide an economic analysis that 

demonstrates, in sufficient detail for public 

review, the specific economic effects, 

parameters, and reasoning.32

EPA has determined that the unique 

energy situation in Hawaii (islandspecific power grid, no availability of 

natural gas, high electric rates) 

constitutes an unusual circumstance, 

and accordingly, has considered the 

potential economic effects of requiring 

lower sulfur fuel as BART. In doing so, 

EPA is not ‘‘straying into policy 

decisions that are more appropriately 

left to the [PUC] * * * or the regulated 

utility and market.’’ Rather, EPA is 

exercising its discretion to consider 

unusual economic circumstances as part 

of its BART analysis. EPA agrees that 

the ‘‘PUC is best positioned to decide 

how Hill can be most cost-effectively 

deployed in relation to all other 

available resource options’’ and our 

BART determination does not constrain 

the PUC’s ability to exercise this 

authority in any way. 

EPA’s consideration of the potential 

impact on electricity rates on Hawaii 

does not contradict previous EPA’s 

BART determinations. With respect to 

EPA’s BART determination for Public 

Service Company of New Mexico’s 

(PNM) San Juan Generation Station 

(SJGS), the commenter’s quotation of 

EPA’s responses to comments is 

misleading. While EPA did not calculate 

potential increases in electricity rates 

associated with BART for SJGS, we 

noted that ‘‘our cost estimate, being 

about 1⁄3 that of PNM’s, will result in 

significantly less costs being passed on 

to rate payers.’’ 33 EPA’s statement that 

‘‘cost effectiveness analyses are based 

on the cost to the owner to generate 

electricity, or the busbar cost, not 

market retail rates’’ pertains to the 

appropriate way to calculate the cost of 

auxiliary power needed to run a 

selective catalytic reduction (SCR) 

system and is not a general statement on 

the relevance of electricity rates to 

BART determinations.34 In addition, the 

unique circumstances in Hawaii where 

there is no grid interconnectivity 

between islands to mitigate costs to 

ratepayers were not present in New 

Mexico. 

We also note that EPA has taken into 

account economic effects as part of its 

BART determinations for other power 

plants with unusual circumstances. For 


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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 61489 

35 75 FR 64227, October 19, 2010. 

36The Western Regional Air Partnership provided 

three years of meteorological modeling for the 

analysis for all western states, with the exception 

of Hawaii and Alaska. Because meteorological 

modeling was not provided for Hawaii, Hawaii 

DOH directed their contractor to prepare 

meteorological modeling for the subject-to-BART 

analysis. 37 77 FR 31708, 31709. 

example, the Four Corners Power Plant 

(FCPP) is located on the Navajo Nation 

and contributes annually to revenues to 

the Navajo government through lease 

payments and coal royalties. In response 

to concerns raised by the Navajo Nation 

that options considered for BART may 

cause FCPP to close, EPA conducted an 

affordability analysis for our proposed 

BART determination for FCPP.35

Finally, we acknowledge that 

additional factors could influence the 

ratepayer impacts of requiring lower 

sulfur fuel. As noted by Earthjustice, 

increased fuel costs at Hill could result 

in the increased use of other types of 

generation. At the same time, the cost of 

electricity that HELCO purchases from 

IPPs could also increase due to 

increases in HELCO’s ‘‘avoided cost’’ of 

producing electricity. These factors are 

outside of the scope of our analysis, but 

we note that it is not clear whether the 

overall effect of switching to alternative 

sources of generation would be to 

further increase costs or to mitigate the 

impact to ratepayers. As such, our 

estimate of ratepayer impacts is far from 

certain. Therefore, while we have 

considered these impacts as part of our 

analysis, we do not rely upon them 

specifically as part of our final BART 

determination. 

In sum, taking into account the five 

BART factors, and particularly the costs 

of control and expected visibility 

improvement, we conclude that BART 

for Hill is no additional controls. 

7. NOX Reasonable Progress Analysis for 

the State of Hawaii 

Comment 1: Determining reasonable 

progress through island-specific 

emissions inventories. 

One commenter (Earthjustice) 

objected to the fact that EPA limited its 

emissions inventories only to Maui and 

the Big Island in isolation. According to 

the commenter, EPA supported this 

approach by saying that ‘‘trade winds 

tend to transport pollution from Oahu 

away from the Class I areas’’ (citing 77 

FR 31708). The commenter pointed out 

that the ‘‘Kona’’ winds often blow in the 

opposite directions, sometimes for as 

long as a week at a time, and asserted 

that general meteorological tendencies 

do not justify EPA summarily 

exempting all pollution sources from 

Oahu. 

The commenter also quoted EPA as 

saying that modeling ‘‘indicates that 

even very large sources on Oahu have 

relatively small visibility impacts on 

Haleakala’’ (citing 77 FR 31708). The 

commenter stated that these visibility 

impacts are understated. According to 

the commenter, EPA’s BART Guidelines 

recommend a minimum of three years of 

meteorological modeling for such 

analysis, while in this case, only one 

year of data were available. The 

commenter indicated that in other cases 

where only one year of modeling was 

conducted, it was established that the 

highest result, and not the 98th 

percentile result, should be used, and 

that in this case the highest result would 

have provided a visibility impact for 

two large plants on Oahu (Kahe and 

Waiau) of 1.28 and 0.57 dv at Haleakala 

NP, respectively, subjecting those plants 

to BART. 

Response 1: The meteorological 

modeling for the analysis is based on 

one year of meteorological data, which 

represents the variety of meteorological 

conditions that occur throughout the 

year. This includes time periods when 

‘‘Kona’’ winds are prevalent. Kona 

winds are from the west and southwest. 

These winds also direct emissions from 

Oahu away from the Class I areas. 

EPA’s BART Guidelines do not 

specify a minimum number of years of 

meteorological modeling for subject-toBART analyses, but EPA agrees with the 

commenter that it is generally 

appropriate to use three to five years of 

meteorological data for such analyses. 

For Hawaii, the subject-to-BART 

modeling was performed using the best 

available meteorological modeling 

available at the time, which for Hawaii 

was one year of meteorological 

modeling.36 Given the generally 

consistent Pacific trade wind patterns, 

EPA concludes that this meteorological 

modeling, based on one year of data, is 

adequate to sufficiently represent the 

range of meteorological conditions in 

Hawaii. Therefore, we find that it is 

appropriate to use the 98th percentile in 

the case of Hawaii for making subjectto-BART determinations. Based on the 

results of this modeling and information 

on prevailing winds, it is reasonable to 

assume that emissions from Oahu do 

not contribute to visibility impairment 

at the Class I areas on Maui or the Big 

Island. 

Comment 2: EPA’s reasonable 

progress analysis for NOX sources on 

Maui and the Big Island. 

One commenter (Earthjustice) 

indicated that EPA should not have 

eliminated controls for NOX in its 

reasonable progress analysis. According 

to the commenter, EPA ignored its own 

guidance indicating that installation of 

LNB is ‘‘highly cost-effective’’ (citing 40 

CFR part 51, Appendix Y), as well as the 

utilities’ own analysis confirming the 

same (citing the Trinity BART report). 

The commenter asserted that EPA 

circumvented the legally mandated 

analysis for reasonable progress by 

misleadingly claiming a ‘‘small 

contribution’’ of NOX in relation to SO2

levels inflated by volcano impacts. 

In contrast, two other commenters 

(HC&S, MECO) agreed with the proposal 

that sources on Maui and the Big Island 

should not be required to install NOX

controls. The commenters stated that 

such controls are not justified given the 

20 percent net reduction in NOX

emissions anticipated from existing 

regulations and the small contribution 

of NOX to visibility impairment in 

Hawaii’s Class I areas. One of the 

commenters (MECO) also indicated that 

such controls are not justified due to the 

high cost of compliance. 

Response 2: Based on our analysis of 

the reasonable progress factors, as set 

forth in section III.F.2. of our proposal,37

and given the unique atmospheric 

conditions in Hawaii, as described in 

section II.A.6 above, EPA finds that the 

significant reductions in NOX emissions 

from mobile sources are sufficient to 

show reasonable progress for the first 

planning period for both Maui and the 

Big Island. Additional controls on 

industrial NOX sources may be required 

in future planning periods. 

8. Reasonable Progress Analysis for SO2

Emissions on the Big Island 

Comment 1: Cap could/should be 

lower. 

One commenter (NPS) believes that 

the proposed SO2 cap for certain point 

sources on the Big Island is the 

minimum acceptable action to 

demonstrate reasonable progress for 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP. Given the 

reductions projected under Hawaii’s 

Clean Energy Bill, the commenter 

believes that a lower SO2 emissions cap 

is feasible and justified. The commenter 

also noted that EPA’s analysis used the 

current costs for 0.5 percent sulfur fuel 

oil on Oahu to estimate the costs of 1.0 

percent sulfur fuel oil on Maui and the 

Big Island, concluding that EPA likely 

overestimated the costs of switching to 

1.0 percent sulfur fuel oil. 

Another commenter (Earthjustice) 

stated that the proposed SO2 cap on 

certain HELCO plants on the Big Island 

does not achieve progress toward 

eliminating anthropogenic visibility 

impairment, but instead largely 


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38 77 FR 31710. 

39 77 FR 31711, 31712. Table 23 in the proposal 

mistakenly listed the total cost as $7,859,89,’’ but 

the text correctly reflects the estimated cost of $7.9 

million. 

maintains status quo emissions levels 

(noting that the proposed cap level of 

3,550 tpy is only 375 tpy less than the 

affected plants’ current baseline SO2

emissions of 3,875 tpy). The commenter 

questions why EPA does not adopt the 

State’s clean energy mandates under 

which the HELCO plants’ SO2 emissions 

are projected to decline to around 1,000 

tpy or less as part of the long-term 

strategy (and thereby make these 

reductions federally enforceable), 

particularly since they reflect the State’s 

own legal mandates and judgments as to 

what is reasonable. 

This commenter added that while the 

proposed cap serves as a minimal 

‘‘backstop’’ against increased pollution, 

it does not fulfill the legal mandate of 

progress toward eliminating 

anthropogenic visibility impairment. 

The commenter stated that EPA must, 

first, calculate a meaningful URP that is 

unskewed by volcano conditions and 

second, require a rate of reasonable 

progress that is no less than the URP 

and reflects NOX and SO2 controls and 

state clean energy mandates. The 

commenter believes that EPA has not 

justified its failure to provide for 

achievement of a ‘‘rationally based’’ 

URP, or its failure to consider or provide 

for even greater progress, as its own 

rules and policies require. 

Response 1: Based on our analysis of 

the reasonable progress factors, set forth 

in section III.F.4 of our proposal,38 and 

given the unique atmospheric 

conditions in Hawaii, as described in 

section II.A.6 above, EPA finds that the 

proposed cap of 3,550 tpy is sufficient 

to ensure reasonable progress for this 

planning period. This cap provides a 

federally enforceable requirement to 

ensure that total emissions of SO2 from 

the sources on the Big Island with the 

greatest anthropogenic visibility impacts 

on Hawaii Volcanoes NP will not 

increase over the course of the first 

implementation period. With the cap in 

place, total anthropogenic emissions of 

SO2 on the Big Island are expected to 

decline during this period. 

The Hawaii 2009 Clean Energy 

Omnibus Bill (Act 155 (09), HB1464, 

signed June 25, 2009, [hereinafter 

‘‘Clean Energy Bill’’]) sets standards for 

renewable energy and energy 

conservation which would tend to 

reduce emissions at Hill, Shipman and 

Puna. However, it is unclear how those 

standards will be met and what new 

generation will be on line by January 1, 

2018. The analysis of the bill provided 

by EPA in the proposal was intended to 

give the reader a qualitative 

understanding of the uncertainty in 

existing 2018 emission projections for 

these plants. It is up to the State of 

Hawaii to determine how the Clean 

Energy Bill is implemented and it is 

quite possible that Hill, Shipman and 

Puna will continue to operate at a 

similar capacity in 2018 as they do now. 

In light of this uncertainty, EPA finds it 

is reasonable to set a cap that could be 

met entirely by conversion to 1 percent 

fuel oil at the targeted plants, even if 

these plants did not have to reduce 

emissions under the Clean Energy Bill. 

We also find that no additional 

reductions in anthropogenic SO2

emissions are reasonable for this 

implementation period. As noted in our 

proposal, we estimate that meeting the 

cap through conversion to 1 percent fuel 

oil will cost approximately $7.9 million 

per year and $5,600/ton of SO2

reduced.39 We acknowledge that this 

cost estimate is conservative, but we 

find it to be reasonable for the reasons 

set forth in Section VI.D.2 of the TSD 

and Section II.B.6 above. 

Finally, we do not agree that EPA 

must or should set RPGs for Hawaii that 

provide for a rate of improvement 

equivalent to or faster than the URP. As 

explained in Section II.A.1 above, the 

URP does not set a mandatory target for 

emissions reductions and is unhelpful 

in setting RPGs for Hawaii, given the 

unpredictability of volcanic emissions. 

Comment 2: High cost of proposed 

cap outweighs possible benefits. 

One commenter (HELCO) does not 

agree that a cap is required to meet 

reasonable progress goals. The 

commenters asserted that the costs and 

non-air quality and energy impacts of 

achieving SO2 emissions reductions are 

excessive, and are unlikely to achieve 

any improvement in visibility; thus, the 

commenter believes that no controls 

should be required. 

The commenter asserted that EPA has 

significantly underestimated the costs of 

switching to 1 percent sulfur fuel at the 

Hill, Puna, and Shipman Plants, noting 

that EPA estimated that the proposed 

emissions cap will cost $5,500/ton of 

SO2 reduced annually (citing 77 FR 

31711), while the commenter estimates 

that this control measure would cost 

approximately $7,354/ton at Hill, 

$7,204/ton at Shipman, and $7,205/ton 

at Puna. The commenter indicated that 

EPA’s cost estimate fails to account for 

all of the costs associated with 

switching fuels at these facilities. As 

previously discussed in the section of 

this document on SO2 BART (Section 

II.A.6.), fuel switching at the 

commenter’s facilities will increase both 

the cost of electricity produced by the 

commenter’s units and the cost of 

electricity that the commenter 

purchases from specific IPPs with 

avoided cost pricing. The commenter 

stated that EPA has not provided a 

reasoned basis for disregarding the 

commenter’s cost estimates. 

In addition, the commenter asserted 

that the visibility improvements 

anticipated by EPA do not justify the 

costs associated with complying with 

the proposed cap. The commenter made 

the following points in support of this 

assertion: 

• EPA’s proposal is based on 

modeling showing that Hill and Puna 

may be causing or contributing to 

impairment at Haleakala NP and that 

Shipman may be contributing to 

visibility impairment at Hawaii 

Volcanoes NP, using the same 

conservative assumptions used for 

MECO’s Kahului Plant on Maui (citing 

77 FR 31711). For Kahului, EPA’s 

modeling was ‘‘based on conservative 

assumptions that are unlikely to occur 

during normal operations’’ (citing 77 FR 

31709). Such tenuous connections to 

visibility impacts should not be the 

basis for imposing significant costs on 

HELCO’s ratepayers. 

• The proposed cap cannot be 

justified based on the ‘‘slight 

improvement’’ in projected visibility for 

2018 at Volcanoes NP (0.18 dv) and 

Haleakala NP (0.29 dv) (citing 77 FR 

31713). These levels are far less than 

either the level necessary for a 

perceptible improvement in visibility or 

the level of improvement EPA estimated 

in the BART analysis for the Hill Plant 

(citing 77 FR 31707). 

• There is no reasonable basis for 

EPA’s determination that a control cost 

of $5,500/ton of SO2 and a 2 percent 

increase in electricity rates are justified 

for a visibility improvement of 

significantly less than 0.5 dv. In the 

BART analysis for the Hill Plant, EPA 

determined that a 0.5 dv improvement 

was outweighed by a control cost of 

$5,600/ton and a 1 percent increase in 

electricity rates (citing 77 FR 31707). 

EPA fails to explain why an emissions 

cap that achieves less at a greater cost 

to rate-payers is justified as a reasonable 

progress requirement, particularly since 

the degree of improvement in visibility 

is a factor in determining BART and is 

not a factor in determining reasonable 

progress [citing 40 CFR 51.308(d)]. 

• The high control costs for fuel 

switching are excessive for an aesthetic 

program such as Regional Haze. These 

costs far exceed the cost thresholds EPA 

recently applied in the Cross-State Air 


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40 40 CFR 51.308(d)(3) (emphasis added). 

41See Section 1–4 of ‘‘Guidance for Tracking 

Progress Under the Regional Haze Rule’’, Document 

No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0003–B10 

(emphasis added). 

42 40 CFR 51.308(d)(1). 

43See 77 FR 31707. 

44TSD at 41–42. 

45TSD at 24–25. 

46EPA’s regulations governing treatment of CBI 

are set out at 40 CFR Part 2, Subpart B. 

Pollution Rule (citing 76 FR 48208, 

August 8, 2011), which is a health-based 

standard for which EPA selected costeffectiveness thresholds of $500/ton for 

NOX reductions and $500 or $2,300/ton 

for SO2 reductions. 

The commenter went on to assert that 

the proposed emissions cap is not 

necessary to meet reasonable progress 

goals because of the high likelihood that 

SO2 emissions from the affected 

facilities will decrease absent any 

Regional Haze requirement due to 

Hawaii’s Clean Energy Bill. According 

to the commenter, EPA guidance 

indicates that emissions reductions from 

local control measures are an important 

factor in establishing reasonable 

progress goals and may be all that is 

necessary to achieve reasonable progress 

in the first planning period for some 

states. Citing EPA’s Reasonable Progress 

Guidance, the commenter stated that 

despite EPA’s assertion to the contrary 

(citing 77 FR 31712), neither the BART 

Guidelines nor the statute requires that 

emissions reductions from state 

programs must be federally enforceable 

to be considered in a reasonable 

progress analysis. 

Finally, the commenter stated the 

understanding that EPA believes 

anthropogenic controls are necessary 

because Kilauea could stop erupting at 

any time, leaving all resulting visibility 

impairment from anthropogenic 

emissions that must be addressed. As 

discussed earlier, the commenter 

believes that even if Kilauea stopped 

erupting tomorrow, SO2 emissions from 

the volcano would continue. Rather 

than imposing controls and significant 

costs to address what the commenter 

believes is an unlikely hypothetical 

situation, the commenter suggested that 

EPA should conclude that controls are 

not necessary during this planning 

period to meet reasonable progress goals 

but must be re-evaluated during the next 

planning period. The commenter 

believes that such an approach ensures 

that any burdens imposed on the 

commenter’s rate payers are justified by 

real-world environmental benefits. 

Response 2: As an initial matter, we 

do not agree that we can rely solely on 

state and local measures to ensure 

reasonable progress under this Regional 

Haze FIP. Pursuant to CAA section 

169A(b)(2), Regional Haze SIPs must 

include ‘‘such emission limits, 

schedules of compliance and other 

measures as may be necessary to make 

reasonable progress toward meeting the 

national goal * * *’’ of achieving 

natural visibility conditions in all 

mandatory Class I areas. This statutory 

requirement is implemented through the 

RHR, which requires that the long-term 

strategy element of a Regional Haze SIP, 

‘‘* * * include enforceable emissions 

limitations, compliance schedules, and 

other measures as necessary to achieve 

the reasonable progress goals * * *’’ 40

Once approved by EPA into the 

applicable SIP, these emission limits, 

schedules of compliance and other 

measures become federally enforceable 

under the CAA. 

In this regard, the commenter’s 

selective quotation from EPA’s 

Reasonable Progress Guidance is 

misleading. The Guidance notes that: 

One important factor to keep in mind when 

establishing a RPG is that you cannot adopt 

a RPG that represents less visibility 

improvement than is expected to result from 

the implementation of other CAA 

requirements. You must therefore determine 

the amount of emission reductions that can 

be expected from identified sources or source 

categories as a result of requirements at the 

local, State, and federal levels during the 

planning period of the SIP and the resulting 

improvements in visibility at Class I areas. 

Given the significant emissions reductions 

that we anticipate to result from BART, the 

CAIR, and the implementation of other CAA 

programs, including the ozone and PM2.5

NAAQS, for many States this will be an 

important step in determining your RPG, and 

it may be all that is necessary to achieve 

reasonable progress in the first planning 

period for some States.41

Read in context, it is clear that the 

discussion in the Guidance of state and 

local measures refers only to measures 

resulting from implementation of other 

CAA requirements (i.e., federally 

enforceable requirements promulgated 

by EPA or submitted by the State and 

approved by EPA into the applicable 

SIP). Hawaii has not submitted the 

measures contained in the Clean Energy 

Bill for approval into the applicable SIP. 

Therefore, these are not federally 

enforceable and, in promulgating a 

Regional Haze FIP, we cannot rely on 

these measures to assure that reasonable 

progress is made during the first 

planning period. In addition, we note 

that the Clean Energy Bill is not 

intended to address regional haze and 

does not specifically target those 

sources found to cause or contribute to 

visibility impairment in Hawaii’s Class 

I areas. While implementation of the 

Clean Energy Bill may lead to 

reductions in emissions of SO2

emissions from such sources, it does not 

ensure that such reductions will occur. 

We expect that Hawaii will assess the 

actual effects of the Clean Energy Bill 

and consider incorporating some or all 

of these measures into the SIP as part of 

future Regional Haze plans. The RHR 

requires that regional haze plans 

‘‘ensure no degradation in visibility for 

the least impaired days over the 

[planning] period.’’ 42 As explained in 

our proposal, our reasonable progress 

analysis for Hawaii focuses on 

anthropogenic emissions of visibilityimpairing pollutants, as measured 

through island-specific emissions 

inventories.43 Without additional 

federally enforceable controls, 

anthropogenic emissions of SO2 on the 

Big Island are projected to increase 

between 2005 and 2018.44 SO2 is the 

principal cause of visibility impairment 

on the best 20 percent days at the 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP.45 If 

anthropogenic SO2 emissions on the Big 

Island were to increase between 2005 

and 2018, it is reasonable to assume that 

visibility on the best days would 

degrade. Therefore, additional control 

measures are needed to prevent such 

degradation. 

With regard to the costs of 

compliance, EPA recognizes that there 

is a great deal of uncertainty in 

projecting the future costs of petroleum 

products. The EPA-estimated cost of 

$5,587/ton is conservative, and was 

presented as an upper bound on what 

the costs could be in order to inform as 

best as possible both EPA’s decision 

making and public comment. Because it 

is a conservative estimate that likely 

does not represent the true cost of the 

cap, we believe it would not be 

appropriate to use this cost estimate as 

a benchmark for BART or reasonable 

progress decisions on other sources in 

Hawaii or other states. EPA is unable to 

describe our specific disagreements 

with the details of HELCO’s cost 

analysis because the company claimed 

that analysis as confidential business 

information (CBI).46 EPA agrees with 

HELCO that if the utility were to decide 

to meet the cap by purchasing more 

expensive fuel, the costs to the 

ratepayers may be greater than a 2 

percent increase in rates. This is due to 

HELCO’s contracts with independent 

power producers (IPPs) that specify that 

the IPPs would be paid based on 

avoided costs. Nonetheless, we expect 

that HELCO will be able to limit the 

impact on ratepayers by meeting the cap 

through increased use of clean power as 


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47 40 CFR § 51.308(d)(1). 

mandated by the Hawaii Clean Energy 

Bill. 

Finally, HELCO misstates EPA’s 

position regarding the need to control 

anthropogenic SO2 emissions in light of 

the fact that the emissions of the 

volcano are uncertain and variable. As 

noted above, the RHR requires that 

RPGs ‘‘ensure no degradation in 

visibility for the least impaired days’’ 

over the period of the implementation 

plan.47 Given that SO2 is the principal 

cause of visibility impairment on even 

the best days, limiting emissions of SO2

from manmade sources is necessary to 

ensure no degradation. Whether the 

volcano continues to erupt or not is not 

directly relevant. EPA has identified 

Hill, Shipman and Puna as appropriate 

sources to control because modeling 

indicates that they contribute to 

visibility impairment at Hawaii 

Volcanoes National Park. We have 

selected the lowest cost emissions 

control method to set the emissions cap 

and have provided HELCO with 

substantial flexibility on how to meet 

that cap. 

Comment 3: HELCO willing to accept 

a 24-month cap. 

One commenter (HELCO) stated that 

in spite of disagreeing about the 

reductions necessary to meet reasonable 

progress goals, the commenter 

appreciates the flexibility that an 

emissions cap provides and is prepared 

to accept a cap on SO2 emissions at its 

Puna, Hill, and Shipman facilities. 

However, the commenter asserted that it 

is critical to the commenter’s ability to 

cost-effectively dispatch its system and 

maintain reliability that compliance 

with the cap be determined over a 24- 

month period (i.e., a rolling 24-month 

cap of 7,100 tons rather than a 12-month 

cap of 3,550 tons). 

The commenter’s primary concern is 

that the company be able to operate the 

five units subject to the proposed cap as 

much as necessary in the event of 

concurrent forced outages of a 

significant duration at multiple units 

within its system; this concern arises 

from historic events involving the IPPs 

that provide almost 90 megawatts of 

power to the commenter’s system. In 

such a situation under the proposed 12- 

month cap, the commenter might find 

itself faced with two unacceptable 

options—violate the cap to maintain 

grid reliability or allow rolling 

blackouts. The commenter indicated 

that a 24-month cap would provide 

sufficient flexibility to ensure reliability 

without incurring CAA penalties. 

The commenter added that a 24- 

month cap would diffuse the potential 

increase in electricity rates that may 

occur if multiple overlapping forced 

outages occurred under a 12-month cap, 

necessitating increased generation with 

higher-cost diesel-fired units. A 24- 

month cap would allow the commenter 

to operate its most cost-effective units as 

needed during an event and then offset 

the period of higher emissions during 

the remainder of the compliance period. 

The commenter also stated that if EPA 

does not establish a 24-month cap, it is 

critical that EPA create an exemption to 

the 12-month cap in the event of 

concurrent forced outages of significant 

duration at multiple units in the system. 

Because its system is isolated, the 

commenter does not have the option of 

purchasing replacement power and 

must be able to operate its units as 

needed to maintain system reliability. 

Finally, the commenter requested that 

if a 12-month cap is established, EPA 

confirm that compliance must first be 

demonstrated on December 31, 2018, 

rather than January 31, 2018. The 

commenter indicated that the difference 

is extremely important for planning and 

implementing compliance measures. 

The commenter is concerned that the 

proposed FIP is not clear on this matter 

[citing proposed 40 CFR 52.633(d)(4) 

and 77 FR 31718]. 

Response 3: EPA understands the 

commenter’s concern for electric 

reliability, but moving to a 24-month 

rolling average would significantly 

weaken the control requirement by 

allowing for greater number of days in 

each year that have large 24-hour 

emission rates. We note that, under the 

BART Guidelines, emissions limits for 

EGUs are set as 30-day rolling averages 

in order to ensure that they are 

enforceable and consistent across 

sources. Because the SO2 emission cap 

here is being set pursuant to reasonable 

progress requirements, rather than 

BART requirements, we have provided 

HELCO with the additional flexibility of 

a 12-month rolling cap, rather than a 30- 

day rolling average limit, in order to 

address concerns about costs and 

electric reliability. However, given that 

reasonable progress is measured by the 

best 20 percent days and worst 20 

percent days on an annual basis, we do 

not agree that an averaging time greater 

than 12-months to be appropriate. 

Nonetheless, EPA may be willing to 

consider a modification of the control 

requirement that would allow for shortterm exceedances of the cap in 

conditions where electric reliability is 

genuinely at risk. However, such an 

amendment to the rule would need to 

comply with all substantive and 

procedural CAA requirements for 

implementation plan revisions. Since 

this requirement is not scheduled to go 

into effect until 2018, there is adequate 

time for promulgation of such a revision 

via notice-and-comment rulemaking. 

EPA confirms that HELCO would 

need to first demonstrate compliance 

with the cap on December 31, 2018. The 

rule language has been modified to 

clarify this issue. 

Comment 4: Alternative approach. 

One commenter stated that EPA’s 

proposed SO2 limits for the Big Island 

power plants appear to ignore the very 

large emissions from the volcano, which 

are much greater than those from the 

power plants. According to the 

commenter, adding cost to power 

generation that is already the highest in 

the nation with no benefit makes no 

sense and adds to the perception that 

EPA is not working in the best interest 

of the country. However, the commenter 

noted that because emissions from the 

volcano might decrease or stop in the 

future, some limit to power plant 

emissions would be appropriate. 

To address this issue, the commenter 

suggested a ‘‘second order’’ limit that is 

tied to the amount of volcanic 

emissions. As explained by the 

commenter, the limit would consist of a 

constant limit that would not affect the 

visibility from the volcano should 

volcanic emissions stop (i.e., the current 

amount of emissions EPA considers 

appropriate should volcanic emissions 

stop), plus a variable amount that would 

be some fraction of emissions from the 

volcano (e.g., 2 percent of the volcanic 

emissions, an amount that would be 

undetectable given the volcanic 

emission variation and clearly would 

not impact visibility). The commenter 

believes such a limit would provide 

‘‘breathing room’’ for HELCO and price 

relief for its customers, while at the 

same time meeting EPA’s mandate to 

limit emissions to values that will not 

significantly affect visibility in national 

parks and not adding to the public 

perception that EPA is working against 

the citizens of this country. 

Response 4: EPA appreciates the 

commenter’s concerns, and the thought 

that went into this comment. However, 

we do not agree that our proposed 

emission cap ignores the very large 

emissions from the volcano. Rather, the 

cap is intended to limit the 

anthropogenic contributions to haze, 

consistent with the purpose and the 

requirements of the RHR. We agree with 

the commenter that accounting for the 

impact of the volcano presents a 

significant challenge for Regional Haze 

planning in Hawaii. Unfortunately, 

given the high variability and 

uncertainty of the volcanic emissions, 

the commenter’s suggested approach 


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would result in a situation where the 

electric utility would not know what 

their allowable SO2 emissions would be 

until after the data on the volcanic 

emissions are available. This approach 

would not be workable. 

Comment 5: Other comment. 

One commenter stated that EPA is 

mistaken if it thinks that it is going to 

raise taxes or rates in Hawaii over what 

the commenter termed ‘‘some ignorant 

climate change haze nonsense.’’ 

Response 5: This rulemaking is 

required to meet requirements set under 

the CAA amendments of 1990 to move 

toward eliminating anthropogenic 

visibility impairment at Class I areas. It 

is not related to climate change. EPA is 

cognizant of the potential costs of the 

plan and so has designed it to minimize 

impact on the ratepayers as much as 

possible. 

9. Point Source SO2 Emissions on Maui 

Comment 1: Puunene Mill emissions 

will go down. 

One commenter (HC&S) disagreed 

with the EPA’s projections that point 

source emissions of SO2 on Maui will 

increase during the first planning period 

ending in 2018, and that much of this 

increase will come from the Puunene 

Mill (with projected emissions of 469 

tons in 2018). The commenter noted 

that SO2 emissions from the Puunene 

Mill are driven by coal consumption 

because bagasse, the primary fuel at the 

facility, contains negligible amounts of 

sulfur and fuel oil is a very small 

fraction of annual heat input. According 

to the commenter, SO2 emissions from 

the facility averaged 409 tons per year 

from 2006 to 2011, and this average was 

inflated by historic lows in sugar 

production in 2008 and 2009. The 

commenter expects that sugar 

production will continue to rebound 

and coal consumption will continue to 

decline so that SO2 emissions from the 

facility will be in the range of 280–300 

tpy by 2018. Based on this, the 

commenter believes that SO2 emissions 

from point sources in Maui are more 

likely to decrease by 2018 rather than to 

increase as projected in the proposal, 

resulting in a larger decrease in overall 

anthropogenic emissions than projected 

and in further improvements in 

visibility at Haleakala NP. 

Response 1: The EPA appreciates this 

new information and believes that it 

supports our conclusion that it is not 

reasonable to require additional SO2

reductions on Maui at this time. The 

EPA encourages the commenter to work 

closely with Hawaii DOH as they 

develop emission inventory projections 

for future updates of the Regional Haze 

plan to ensure that the best information 

is used in making emission inventory 

projections. 

Comment 2: Reasonable progress 

analysis not warranted for Kahului. 

Although supporting the EPA’s 

conclusion that the Kahului facility 

should not be subject to controls, one 

commenter (MECO) disagreed that a 

reasonable progress analysis was 

warranted for the Kahului facility. 

According to the commenter, the EPA’s 

finding that prevailing winds should 

transport Kahului’s emissions away 

from Haleakala NP (citing 77 FR 31709) 

is a sufficient basis for the EPA to make 

a determination that controls are not 

required at Kahului; and no additional 

analysis should be necessary. The 

commenter stated that the visibility 

modeling upon which the EPA based its 

decision to conduct the reasonable 

progress analysis was based on 

conservative assumptions and unlikely 

to occur in normal operations (citing 77 

FR 31709), and that Kahului’s actual 

contribution to visibility impairment at 

Haleakala NP is likely considerably less 

and may not even be in the range of 

perceptibility. For this reason, the 

commenter believes that the EPA should 

have determined that Kahului should 

not be subject to reasonable progress 

requirements during this planning 

period. 

Response 2: The EPA believes it was 

reasonable to consider additional SO2

controls at the Kahului power plant, 

given four concerns: significant 

visibility impairment from sulfur 

compounds at Haleakala NP on both the 

worst and best visibility days, a 

projected increase in point source SO2

emissions during the planning period, 

the very high SO2 emissions from the 

facility, and significant modeled 

visibility impacts from the plant on 

Haleakala. However, based on our 

analysis, we determined that no 

additional controls for Kahului are 

reasonable at this time. 

10. Reasonable Progress Analysis for 

SO2 Emissions on Maui 

Comment 1: Concurrence with 

proposal. 

One commenter (HC&S) concurred 

with the EPA’s analysis showing that 

existing requirements under the Act will 

result in net reductions of 

anthropogenic emissions of SO2 on 

Maui during the first planning period 

(ending in 2018) and that it is therefore 

reasonable to assume that visibility at 

Haleakala NP on the worst visibility 

days will improve and on the best 

visibility days is not getting worse. In 

addition, the commenter concurred with 

the EPA’s proposal to find that the 

projected level of emissions reduction is 

reasonable for this planning period. (See 

Section II.A.9. of this notice for the 

commenter’s comments and our 

responses on projected point source SO2

emissions on Maui.) 

Response 1: The EPA appreciates the 

supportive comment. With 

anthropogenic emissions decreasing 

substantially in the first planning 

period, it is reasonable to assume that 

visibility impairment due to 

anthropogenic sources will improve 

during the planning period. 

Comment 2: Cap emissions from 

Kahului and Maalaea. 

One commenter (NPS) recommended 

that the EPA establish an SO2 emissions 

cap for the Kahului Power Plant and the 

Maalaea Generating Station on Maui, 

which could be met by lower sulfur 

fuel, reduced plant utilization, or 

increased use of biofuels. The 

commenter noted that under Hawaii’s 

Clean Energy Bill, SO2 emissions from 

these two facilities are projected to be 

reduced by 83 percent by 2018. The 

commenter believes that a federally 

enforceable SO2 emissions cap for the 

Kahului and Maalaea facilities is 

justified for reasonable progress and 

would provide incentive for early 

implementation of the Clean Energy Bill 

objectives. The commenter added that 

the visibility modeling demonstrated 

that the Kahului Power Plant 

contributes to visibility impairment at 

Haleakala NP, and that the EPA 

determined that costs for 1 percent 

sulfur fuel would be lower for Kahului 

Power Plant ($4,200 per ton) than for 

the electric generating facilities on the 

Big Island ($5,587 per ton) that are 

required to meet an SO2 emissions limit. 

In addition, the commenter (NPS) 

disagreed with the EPA’s reliance on the 

projected reductions in SO2 emissions 

from marine shipping under the North 

American Emissions Control Area 

agreement (that requires lower sulfur 

fuels for marine shipping within 200 

nautical miles of the U.S. coastline 

beginning in August 2012) to offset 

emissions from the electric generating 

facilities on Maui. The commenter 

contended that there is considerable 

uncertainty in the levels of baseline and 

future marine traffic and the extent that 

these emissions should be included in 

the island inventory. 

Response 2: EPA disagrees with this 

comment. As explained in our proposal, 

due to the federally enforceable 

emissions reductions from mobile 

sources (including shipping), total 

anthropogenic SO2 emissions on Maui 

are projected to decrease by nearly 8 

percent between 2005 and 2018 without 

additional control measures. We also 

expect emissions reductions from the 


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61494 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

48See written comments on proposal from 

Alexander and Baldwin Company, July 2, 2012, 

Document No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0019. 

Hawaii Clean Energy Bill, but we do not 

need to make those reductions federally 

enforceable in order to show reasonable 

progress. In addition, HC&S has 

indicated in their comments on the 

proposal that their 2018 emissions 

should be significantly lower than 

indicated on Table V–2 of the TSD.48

Even without these additional 

reductions in point source emissions, 

anthropogenic SO2 emissions on Maui 

are projected to decrease by nearly 8 

percent between 2005 and 2018. 

11. Agricultural Burning on Maui 

Comment 1: Cane burning impacts 

visibility and should be addressed. 

Eight commenters expressed concern 

over emissions from agricultural 

burning in the sugarcane fields of Maui. 

Four of these commenters (Earthjustice, 

FHNP, Maui Tomorrow, Parsons) 

specifically questioned EPA’s 

conclusions that there is no evidence of 

agricultural burning contributing to 

haze at Class I areas and/or that no 

further controls on agricultural burning 

are reasonable at this time (77 FR 31715, 

May 29, 2012). In contrast, one 

commenter (HC&S) concurred with 

EPA’s findings. 

One commenter (Earthjustice) 

indicated that the community’s direct 

experience and testimony have 

provided evidence that agricultural 

burning contributes to haze at Class I 

areas, specifically that smoke plumes 

from agricultural burning impair 

visibility within Haleakala NP when 

meteorological conditions are not 

optimal and that the smoke directly 

impairs the views of park visitors of the 

panoramic vistas of the island, 

coastlines, and ocean from the park, 

which is an integral part of the park 

experience. Given the serious 

community concerns, the commenter 

urged EPA to undertake a full 

reasonable progress analysis for this 

pollution source and adopt a plan 

incorporating best practices for 

controlling emissions. 

Another commenter (Parsons) stated 

that on many days, his view of 

Haleakala NP from Wailuku is obscured 

by a cloud of cane smoke through the 

central valley of Maui, and that views 

from Haleakala NP would certainly be 

impacted likewise. The commenter 

expressed disappointment that EPA has 

done little to address environmental and 

health concerns over the ongoing 

practice of open burning of sugar cane 

despite considerable public outcry. 

One commenter (FHNP) indicated 

that a significant portion of the visitor 

experience of Haleakala NP is the 

enjoyment of views from within the 

park to places outside of the park. The 

commenter stated that it is the nature of 

human perception to be acutely aware 

of changes in scenery that are not 

‘‘natural’’ even when the events are 

short lived or spatially limited. The 

commenter believes that such events, 

particularly agricultural burning in the 

cane fields, may not be adequately 

captured by EPA’s analysis and 

methodology. According to the 

commenter, these agricultural burning 

events have a significant negative 

impact on the view from Haleakala NP 

toward the West Maui Mountains and 

other surrounding areas. The 

commenter added that it is intuitively 

obvious that burning such large 

quantities of vegetation in close 

proximity to a Class I area will have 

some impact on the viewing quality in 

and from that Class I area, even though 

the analysis showed no direct 

correlation. 

Another commenter (Maui Tomorrow) 

stated that cane field burning produces 

billowing clouds laden with toxins and 

fine particulates, which can blot out the 

sky and the natural vistas, and cause or 

contribute to a range of severe 

respiratory and cardiovascular illness. 

While recognizing that the major 

contributor to visibility impairment in 

Haleakala NP is volcanic emissions, the 

commenter quoted the NPS as saying 

‘‘sugar cane processing facilities and 

field burning * * * can affect air 

quality and visibility’’ in Haleakala NP. 

The commenter noted that Hawaii has 

‘‘no smoke management plan as such’’ 

(citing 77 FR 31715, May 29, 2012) and 

contended that cane field burning is 

among the largest anthropogenic sources 

of nitrogen dioxide, SO2, VOC and PM 

pollution on Maui, concluding that it 

makes little sense to rule out practical 

and achievable limitations on emissions 

from stopping the burning of cane 

fields. The commenter added that the 

fact that SO2 is the dominant visibilityimpairing pollutant in Hawaii’s two 

Class I areas does not mean that the 

agency should ignore the contribution of 

other pollutants at one of them. 

This commenter also stated that work 

published by a National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 

researcher that EPA cites in its TSD 

indicates that ‘‘Haleakala NP has greater 

impacts’’ from smoke as compared to 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP (citing TSD 

quotations of M. Pitchford). According 

to the commenter, that study notes that, 

based on data from the Haleakala 

monitoring station, ‘‘about half of worstcase days are associated’’ with factors 

other than volcanic emissions, 

including smoke, and that 

recommendations for follow-on work 

include examination of the smoke factor 

with respect to burning (e.g., 

agricultural) events. The commenter 

concluded by stating that EPA’s 

proposed determination to not restrict 

cane field burning on Maui under the 

Regional Haze FIP is not reasonable and 

urging EPA to reconsider its position in 

light of the available evidence. 

Another commenter (HC&S) noted 

that agricultural burning in Hawaii is 

regulated under a permit program, and 

widespread and persistent haze 

conditions are used as a criterion for 

establishment of a ‘‘no-burn’’ period by 

the Hawaii DOH. According to the 

commenter, ‘‘no-burn’’ periods 

established by the DOH are most likely 

to occur on days when volcanic smog 

from the volcano is present on the 

island, and therefore the potential for 

visibility impacts at Haleakala NP from 

agricultural burning should be lowest 

on the worst visibility days. The 

commenter indicated that under its 

agricultural burning permit, HC&S 

operates an extensive network of 

weather stations in and around the 

plantation that provide real-time data 

both to burn managers and to a 

meteorological consultant who prepares 

daily micro-forecasts of anticipated 

weather conditions, expected smoke 

dispersion, and optimum times and 

locations for burning. On occasions 

when existing air quality or expected 

smoke dispersion have been judged to 

be unsuitable for burning, HC&S has 

elected not to burn even when a ‘‘noburn’’ period has not been established 

by the Hawaii DOH. 

This commenter added that 

agricultural burning at HC&S is 

conducted in a manner largely 

consistent with the Tier 2 Smoke 

Management Program (SMP) 

recommended by the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture’s Agricultural Air Quality 

Task Force (AAQTF) in its Air Quality 

Policy on Agricultural Burning. 

According to the commenter, the 

AAQTF policy allows the use of fire as 

an accepted management practice, 

consistent with good science, to 

maintain agricultural production while 

protecting public health and welfare by 

mitigating the impacts of air pollution 

emissions on air quality and visibility, 

and the Tier 2 SMP is designed for areas 

where agricultural burning contributes 

to particulate matter NAAQS violations 

or visibility impairment in Class I 

Federal areas—neither of which is the 

case on Maui. On this basis, the 

commenter disagreed with the statement 


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49See 40 CFR 52.620(c). 

50See 77 FR 47530, August 9, 2012. 

51TSD pp 17–20. 52TSD at 34. 

in the proposal that ‘‘there is no smoke 

management plan as such’’ in Hawaii. 

The commenter also pointed out that 

the proposal indicated that by far the 

biggest contributor to visibility 

impairment in Hawaiian Class I areas is 

SO2 emissions from the Kilauea 

Volcano, with emissions of NOX and 

coarse mass as secondary concerns, each 

contributing less than 10 percent of 

visibility impairment at Haleakala NP. 

According to the commenter, 

agricultural burning accounts for only 

about 3 to 4 percent of anthropogenic 

NOX emissions on Maui, so the overall 

visibility impact of NOX emissions from 

sugarcane burning is clearly negligible. 

The commenter noted that coarse mass 

emissions may result in part from 

agricultural burning but also arise from 

construction sites, roads, and other 

fugitive dust sources. Due to what the 

commenter termed the uncertainty with 

regard to contributions from various 

sources of coarse mass and the 

secondary importance of this pollutant 

with respect to visibility impairment at 

Haleakala NP, the commenter concurred 

with EPA’s conclusion that it is not 

reasonable to recommend emission 

control measures for coarse mass at this 

time. 

Noting that it has been postulated that 

elemental and organic carbon levels 

measured at the HALE site may be 

indicative of visibility impacts from 

agricultural burning, the same 

commenter asserted that the DOH’s 

Haleakala National Park Visibility 

Assessment did not identify a 

significant correlation between 

measurements at this site and sugarcane 

burns, and suggested that this site may 

be impacted by small nearby emission 

sources rather than, or in addition to, 

agricultural burning. The commenter 

also stated that while organic carbon 

may also originate in part from 

agricultural burning, recent monitoring 

at HACR site has shown low 

contributions to visibility impairment 

from both organic and elemental carbon, 

and even at the HALE site (outside of 

the park) the contribution of elemental 

and organic carbon sources to visibility 

impairment is relatively low (and only 

a portion of this contribution is 

attributable to agricultural burning). On 

this basis, the commenter concluded 

that efforts to reduce visibility impacts 

of organic carbon from agricultural 

burning would appear to be 

unwarranted. 

Two of the commenters (Earthjustice, 

Parsons) suggested that EPA install 

additional air quality monitors to assess 

the impacts from sugar cane burning. 

See section II.A.11. of this document for 

more on this topic. 

Response 1: While not directly 

relevant to this rulemaking, EPA agrees 

that exposure to emissions from 

agricultural burning can pose health 

concerns. We note, however, that the 

PM2.5 monitor in Kihei, typically 

downwind from the burning, has never 

recorded an exceedance of the healthbased NAAQS. In addition, Hawaii DOH 

has promulgated a series of rules 

regulating agricultural burning, several 

of which have been approved into the 

Hawaii SIP.49 EPA recently determined 

that the Hawaii SIP ‘‘include[s] 

enforceable emission limitations and 

other control measures, means, or 

techniques * * * as may be necessary 

or appropriate to meet the applicable 

requirements of [the CAA]’’ with respect 

to the 1997 and 2006 p.m.2.5 NAAQS, as 

well as the 1997 ozone NAAQS.50 EPA 

will continue to work with Hawaii DOH 

to ensure that the state’s agricultural 

burning rules and permit program meet 

all applicable CAA requirements. 

With respect to the visibility impacts 

of agricultural burning, we reaffirm that 

there is no evidence that smoke from the 

burns is causing visibility impairment 

in the park. If smoke from the burns 

were transporting up to the park, the 

HACR monitor (inside the park, close to 

the park entrance) would measure 

significant levels of black carbon along 

with significant levels of organic 

compounds when the sugar cane fields 

were burning. But there are no 

significant levels of organic compounds 

and black carbon at the HACR 

IMPROVE monitor in the park on those 

days when burning took place. There 

were significant levels of these 

pollutants measured at HALE (outside 

the park and down the mountain, closer 

to the isthmus where the cane is grown) 

on particular days, but those pollutants 

were not found in significant levels at 

HACR for those same days.51 It is 

unclear what caused the high readings 

at HALE, but, given that the HACR 

monitor did not register similarly high 

readings, it is clear that the emissions 

causing the high readings did not reach 

the park from the direction of the HALE 

monitor, which is northwest of 

Haleakala. Without clear evidence that 

agricultural burning is impacting the 

Class I area, EPA does not consider it 

reasonable to impose additional controls 

as part of the Regional Haze plan. 

Regarding Maui Now’s reference to 

the comments by Marc Pitchford, we 

note that Dr. Pitchford found that 

Haleakala NP has comparatively more 

impact from all non-volcano factors, 

including smoke, than Hawaii 

Volcanoes NP.52 Because Haleakala NP 

has a comparatively smaller impact 

from the volcano, the impact from the 

other factors (as a percentage) is larger. 

Dr. Pitchford recommends further 

examination of the smoke factor in 

addition to his recommendation of 

further examination of the attribution of 

dust, coarse mass, and the ‘‘nitrate’’ and 

‘‘sulfate/nitrate’’ factors. EPA agrees that 

further examination of each of these 

factors will be useful for the 

development of the next plan. Dr. 

Pitchford’s work was based on the 

Haleakala National Park (HALE) 

IMPROVE site. EPA believes that future 

work should be based on the more 

representative Haleakala Crater (HACR) 

IMPROVE site, and the focus of the 

work should be on the factors which 

contribute most to the impairment of 

visibility at that site. 

The regional haze plan is designed to 

improve visibility within the park itself. 

Smoke outside of the park would 

certainly impact the views from the 

park, but, as explained below, views 

outside of the park are not covered 

under the regional haze program. 

While not relevant to this rulemaking, 

EPA agrees with the commenters that 

additional monitoring of smoke impacts 

and evaluating its impact on the public 

would be helpful. We are working with 

Hawaii DOH to identify funding to 

install a new PM2.5 monitor on Maui 

that will be located on the isthmus 

between the mountains on Maui where 

the cane is grown and where many 

people live. 

Comment 2: TSD Sections II.A and 

II.B and the contribution of agricultural 

burning to visibility impairment. 

One commenter (Maui Tomorrow) 

noted that the preamble to the proposed 

FIP cites sections II.A, II.B, and III.B of 

the TSD in support of EPA’s assertion 

that there is ‘‘no evidence of agricultural 

burning contributing to haze at Class I 

areas’’ (citing 77 FR 31715, footnote 75, 

May 29, 2012). The commenter stated 

that section II.B is germane only to 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP, not to Haleakala 

NP. The commenter also contended that 

section II.A appears to establish the 

opposite result from that which EPA 

asserted in its proposed determination, 

namely that, at least in Maui, the 

contribution of organic carbon and 

elemental carbon pollution to visibility 

impairment is significant. According to 

the commenter, sugar cane burning in 

Maui is a principal contributor of these 

pollutants. 

According to the commenter, readings 

from the HALE monitor, from which 


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53TSD pp. 73–74. 

54TSD pp. 17–20. 

55 Inverse megameter (Mm-1) is a measurement of 

light extinction; the amount of light lost as it travels 

over one million meters. This unit is most useful 

for relating visibility directly to particle 

concentrations in the air. 56TSD p. 69–72. 57 59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994. 

baseline year emissions for the 2001– 

2004 period were obtained, imply that 

10 percent of visibility degradation 

derives from organic carbon pollution 

and 5 percent from elemental carbon 

(citing TSD pp. 12–13). While 

conceding that for recent years the 

HACR monitor has reported lower levels 

of organic and elemental Carbon 

readings than at the HALE monitor, the 

commenter asserted that even if the 

organic and elemental Carbon pollution 

contribution from agricultural burning 

and other sources to visibility 

degradation at Haleakala NP were half 

of that indicated from the HALE 

monitor readings (7.5 percent of 

visibility impairment rather than 15 

percent) this would still be significant. 

The commenter added that EPA has 

provided no reason for deeming such an 

organic and elemental carbon 

contribution to regional haze over 

Haleakala NP to be of no concern 

whatever. According to the commenter, 

EPA indicated that recent monitoring at 

the HACR monitor shows a ‘‘low 

contribution to visibility impairment 

from organic and elemental carbon’’ 

(citing TSD p. 55), but fails to define 

what EPA means by ‘‘low contribution.’’ 

Response 2: EPA finds a lack of 

correlation between smoke measured at 

HALE and agricultural burning days. 

The measured levels of smoke-related 

compounds within the park (as 

monitored at HACR) indicate that there 

is no significant impact from smoke.53

For example, the measured level of 

organic carbon is below 1 mg/m3, and 

the measured elemental carbon is below 

0.2 mg/m3 for each day of 2009 and 

2010.54 The contribution to light 

extinction from organic carbon is below 

2.7 Mm-1,55 and the contribution to 

light extinction from elemental carbon 

is light extinction is below 1.4 Mm-1. 

For the same time period, the light 

extinction from all compounds ranges 

from 20 to 70 Mm-1 on the 20 percent 

worst days. 

Comment 3: Monitoring for 

agricultural burning. 

A number of commenters 

(Earthjustice, NPS, Parsons) provided 

comments related to air quality 

monitoring for pollutants released by 

agricultural burning on Maui. 

One commenter (Parsons) noted that 

there is only one monitoring station on 

Maui, located in North Kihei, and that 

it tests for only PM2.5 and not for NOX

or SO2. The commenter believes that the 

overall air quality of Maui may be better 

addressed by installation of additional 

air quality monitoring devices to more 

accurately assess the harmful materials 

being emitted from cane burning and 

other sources. 

One commenter (NPS) noted that 

there was considerable comment at the 

July 31, 2012 public hearing on the 

impact of cane burning on public health 

on Maui and visibility at Haleakala NP. 

The commenter stated that while there 

are days in the IMPROVE record at 

HALE with elevated organic and 

elemental carbon suggestive of biomass 

burning, the monitor location is not well 

suited for evaluating smoke impacts 

from cane burning. Accordingly, the 

commenter recommended that if EPA’s 

objective is to characterize smoke 

incidence and potential health impacts 

from smoke, then a PM monitor sited 

closer to populated areas would be more 

useful than the HALE monitor. 

Another commenter (Earthjustice) 

stated that EPA must provide the 

necessary monitors, particularly for 

PM2.5, so that it can conduct deeper 

analysis and better informed 

determinations related to emissions 

from agricultural burning going forward. 

According to the commenter, EPA 

recognizes that the HALE monitoring 

site located outside of the Haleakala NP 

has higher levels of organic and 

elemental carbon than the HACR 

monitoring site located at higher 

elevation, which generally confirms the 

effects of agricultural burning (citing 77 

FR 31716, May 29, 2012). Yet, the 

commenter believes neither location is 

suited for monitoring the impacts on the 

vistas from the park and this lack of data 

impedes reasonable progress on the 

impacts of agricultural burning on 

visibility and public health. The 

commenter asserted that EPA must 

develop a monitoring strategy as 

required by 40 CFR 51.308(d)(4) to 

address this deficiency. 

Response 3: EPA agrees that 

additional monitoring for particulate 

matter on Maui would be helpful and is 

working with DOH to identify the 

resources needed to place a new PM2.5

monitor on the island to be in a 

populated area on the isthmus near 

sugar cane fields. 

EPA disagrees with the commenter 

and finds that HACR is sufficient for 

monitoring visibility within the park. 

EPA has reviewed the monitoring data 

and the Hawaii DOH analysis of data 

collected at the HALE and HACR 

monitoring sites.56 Based on this review, 

EPA has found the HACR IMPROVE 

monitoring site to be representative of 

visibility conditions within the 

Haleakala NP. 

Comment 4: Other issues related to 

agricultural burning on Maui. 

One commenter (Parsons) asserted 

that open field burning of sugar cane 

amounts to an issue of environmental 

justice. According to the commenter, the 

health and welfare of the community are 

deemed secondary, and are subjugated 

to claims of the plantation’s economic 

viability if forced to harvest without 

burning. 

One commenter stated that cane 

burning hurts Maui’s economy and 

health. Another commenter asserted 

that emissions from cane burning (as 

well as HC&S smokestacks and fugitive 

dust from the sugarcane fields) threaten 

public health, visibility and enjoyment 

of Haleakala NP, and the health of the 

ocean environment and coral reefs. 

Response 4: We appreciate the 

commenters’ concerns regarding the 

negative health impacts of emissions 

from cane burning. We agree that the 

same pollutants that contribute to 

visibility impairment can also harm 

public health. However, for purposes of 

this action, we are not authorized to 

consider these health impacts, and we 

have not done so. However, as noted 

above, EPA is working with Hawaii 

DOH to identify the resources needed to 

place a new PM2.5 monitor on the Island 

of Maui to be sited in a populated area 

of the isthmus near sugar cane fields. 

Regarding environmental justice, as 

explained in our proposal, Executive 

Order 12898,57 establishes federal 

executive policy on environmental 

justice. Its main provision directs 

federal agencies, to the greatest extent 

practicable and permitted by law, to 

make environmental justice part of their 

mission by identifying and addressing, 

as appropriate, disproportionately high 

and adverse human health or 

environmental effects of their programs, 

policies, and activities on minority 

populations and low-income 

populations in the United States. Our 

responsibilities under the Executive 

Order must be exercised in the context 

of our statutory authority under the 

CAA, which, in this case, is limited to 

addressing visibility impairment in 

Class I areas. Without evidence that 

agricultural burning is impacting 

visibility in Haleakala, it is not 

reasonable for us impose restrictions on 

agricultural burning as part of this 

rulemaking. 


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58 64 FR 35734 (July 1, 1999). 

59Citing Comparison of Haleakala NP HALE1 

and HACR1 IMPROVE Monitoring Site 2007–2008 

Data Sets, March 30, 2012, State of Hawaii, 

Department of Health, Clean Air Branch, p. 14. 

Document No. EPA–R09–OAR–2012–0345–0005– 

C2f. 

12. Integral Vista Issue and Reasonably 

Attributable Visibility Impairment 

(RAVI) 

Comment: One commenter requested 

contact information and supporting 

documents for the FLM finding of no 

integral vista in Hawaii under RAVI. 

The commenter assumed that the lack of 

finding of integral vista is the result of 

a lack of appropriate or timely 

responsiveness by the FLM. 

The commenter stated that most Maui 

residents and visitors to Haleakala NP 

consider the panorama from within 

Haleakala NP to areas outside of 

Haleakala NP (the view of the peaks of 

Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big 

Island, the views of Maui’s central 

valley, the views of the West Maui 

Mountains, and the surrounding oceans) 

an integral vista within the intent of the 

federal definition. 

Response: Pursuant to EPA’s 

regulations governing RAVI, the FLMs 

had the opportunity to identify any 

integral vistas on or before December 31, 

1985. No such vista was identified for 

Haleakala NP. In promulgating the RHR 

in 1999, EPA declined to extend the 

integral vista concept to the regional 

haze program because: 

* * * regional haze is caused by a multitude 

of sources across a broad geographic area, 

and it can create a uniform haze in all 

directions. The regional haze program is 

designed to bring about improvements in 

regional visibility for the range of possible 

views of sky and terrain found in any Class 

I area. Accordingly, the program does not 

protect only specific views from a Class I 

area. To address haze, regional strategies will 

be needed, and emissions resulting from 

these strategies are expected to improve 

visibility across a broad region, not just 

within a Class I area. Thus, although the 

regional haze program does not include a 

specific provision regarding integral vistas, 

the long-term strategies developed to meet 

reasonable progress goals would also serve to 

improve scenic vistas viewed from and 

within Class I areas.58

13. Comments on the Monitoring 

Strategy 

Comment 1: HALE and HACR. 

One commenter (NPS) agreed with 

EPA’s proposal to use the IMPROVE 

monitor at the Haleakala Crater (HACR) 

for future regional haze planning efforts 

because it more representative of the 

park’s air quality and visibility than the 

HALE monitor, which is located at 

much lower elevation than much of the 

park area. The commenter has evaluated 

the IMPROVE data for both monitors for 

the period 2007 through 2010 and found 

the following: (a) sulfate concentrations 

are elevated on the same days at the two 

monitors, indicating that volcanic 

emissions from the Kilauea Volcano are 

impacting both monitors concurrently, 

although the concentrations are lower at 

the higher elevation (HACR) site; (b) in 

general, concentrations of nitrate, 

organic carbon, elemental carbon, and 

seasalt are lower at the higher elevation 

site; and (c) concentrations of soil and 

coarse matter at times are higher at the 

higher elevation site, suggesting 

possible international transport. The 

commenter is consulting with the 

IMPROVE network representatives to 

assure a representative data record for 

the regional haze process. 

Another commenter (HC&S) also 

concurred with the conclusion that the 

HACR site is more representative of 

visibility conditions within the park and 

supported the proposal to base future 

regional haze planning efforts on data 

collected at the HACR site. This 

commenter stated that it was recognized 

as far back as 2005 that the HALE site 

was not appropriate for monitoring 

visibility at Haleakala NP since it is 

located well outside the park, is at a 

much lower elevation than a majority of 

the area of the park, and is impacted by 

emissions sources which are less likely 

to cause visibility impacts within the 

park. 

However, a third commenter (Maui 

Tomorrow) stated that EPA’s conclusion 

that the HACR monitoring data are more 

representative of visibility conditions 

within the Haleakala NP (citing TSD p. 

74) is based on a misreading of studies 

from the Hawaii DOH. According to the 

commenter, the relevant Hawaii DOH 

study concludes only that, ‘‘The 

available data indicates that HACR 

IMPROVE monitoring data could be 

more representative of visibility 

conditions within the Haleakala 

National Park.’’ 59 The commenter 

indicated that the DOH also noted that, 

for one cane field burn undertaken by 

HC&S in 2007, the HACR monitor 

registered higher organic and elemental 

carbon increases than were recorded at 

the HALE monitor, and that the 

Department postulated that this and one 

other set of readings—showing higher 

impacts from agricultural and other 

burning inside Haleakala than outside 

the park—were ‘‘not representative’’ of 

HACR readings. Despite this, the 

commenter concludes that EPA’s 

assertion that the higher readings from 

HALE are less representative than those 

at HACR do not reflect the careful views 

of the Hawaii DOH. 

Response 1: EPA appreciates NPS’s 

evaluation of the IMPROVE data for 

both the HALE and HACR monitors for 

the period 2007 through 2010, and 

agrees with their recommendation to 

use Haleakala Crater (HACR) for future 

regional haze planning efforts. EPA 

agrees (with Maui Tomorrow) that 

EPA’s summary of DOH’s study findings 

does not fully capture the depth of this 

careful analysis. Nevertheless, EPA 

believes that the Hawaii DOH’s study’s 

conclusion that ‘‘[t]he available data 

indicates that HACR IMPROVE 

monitoring data could be more 

representative of visibility conditions 

within the Haleakala National Park’’ is 

consistent with EPA’s support for the 

use of the IMPROVE monitor at the 

Haleakala Crater (HACR) for future 

regional haze planning efforts because it 

more representative of the park’s air 

quality and visibility than the HALE 

monitor. 

Comment 2: Use image-based 

monitoring. 

One commenter (FHNP) 

recommended that EPA use image-based 

techniques for monitoring, such as 

described by Graves and Neuman, Using 

Visibility Cameras to Estimate 

Atmospheric Light Extinction, IEEE 

Workshop on Applications of Computer 

Vision, 2011. According to the 

commenter, the University of Hawaii 

Institute for Astronomy already has 

several cameras, including one that is 

located near the summit and directed 

into Haleakala NP, and the Institute and 

the Mees Observatory take regular 

measurements of the atmospheric 

conditions at the summit of Haleakala. 

The commenter believes that these 

resources should be used to monitor 

progress toward the goal of reducing 

haze in Haleakala NP. 

Response 2: EPA appreciates the 

thought that went into this comment. 

This is an interesting approach and the 

webcam pictures may be useful as 

supplemental information to 

understanding the visibility at 

Haleakala; we would encourage its use 

in the development of the next plan. 

However, we caution that this is a poor 

metric to use for tracking trends towards 

natural conditions. Visibility derived 

from photographs is complicated by the 

varied shading of the scene from clouds, 

which can cause high uncertainties. In 

addition, the relative humidity is not 

corrected for nor measured. Changing 

relative humidity will cause large 

changes in light extinction/visibility, 

further adding to the uncertainty in the 

visibility measurement and 

interpretation. 


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60See CAA section 307(d). 

61 77 FR 27671. 

62 77 FR 31692. 

14. Other Comments 

Comment 1: Broaden EPA’s 

evaluation. 

One commenter (Parsons) expressed 

understanding that the Regional Haze 

FIP for Hawaii considers only some of 

the overall factors and parameters of 

emissions into Maui’s atmosphere. 

Nevertheless, the commenter urged EPA 

to broaden its determination of relevant 

impacts to Maui’s air quality and 

regional haze to include the other 

common-sense environmental factors 

mentioned in his comments: (a) 

emissions from MECO’s Kahului and 

Maalaea generating facilities, (b) 

emissions from HC&S’s Puunene Mill, 

(c) HC&S’s open field burning, and (d) 

fugitive dust. 

Response 1: We appreciate the 

commenter’s concerns about air quality 

generally. However, our authority in 

promulgating this FIP is limited by the 

provisions of the CAA and the RHR. 

Specifically, with regard to reasonable 

progress, we considered the following 

factors established in section 169A of 

the CAA and in EPA’s RHR at 40 CFR 

51.308(d)(1)(i)(A) and (B): (a) The costs 

of compliance; (b) the time necessary for 

compliance; (c) the energy and non-air 

quality environmental impacts of 

compliance; (d) the remaining useful 

life of any potentially affected sources, 

and (e) uniform rate of improvement in 

visibility and the emission reduction 

measures needed to achieve it. Based on 

our analysis of these factors, we 

determined that, for the sources named 

by the commenter, no additional 

controls were reasonable at this time. 

Comment 2: Government control. 

One commenter argued that volcanic 

emissions are the cause of visibility 

impairment in Hawaii, but EPA will use 

it as a vehicle to put sanctions on 

carbon dioxide, smoke from sugarcane 

harvesting, and methane emitted by 

cattle at Haleakala Ranch even though 

these substances are emitted naturally 

from breathing, burning, and bovine 

flatulence. The commenter objected to 

the imposition of additional government 

control. The commenter stated that 

Hawaiians should tell EPA to take its 

‘‘unattainable goals back to Washington 

and spare the Taxpayer expense.’’ 

Response 2: This rulemaking is 

required to meet requirements 

established in the CAA amendments of 

1990 to move toward eliminating 

anthropogenic visibility impairment at 

Class I areas. It is not related to climate 

change. EPA is not proposing any 

controls on breathing, burning, or 

bovine flatulence as part of this 

rulemaking. 

Comment 3: Public hearing process. 

One commenter asked that EPA 

provide details regarding the notice 

requirements for the public hearings. 

The commenter believes that the public 

hearing was held too soon to give the 

public a proper opportunity to review 

the plan and the technical support 

documents. The commenter requested 

that EPA confirm that it had complied 

with the notice requirements. 

Response 3: In promulgating a FIP 

under CAA section 110(c), EPA is 

required to: ‘‘give interested persons an 

opportunity for the oral presentation of 

data, views, or arguments, in addition to 

an opportunity to make written 

submissions; keep a transcript of any 

oral presentation; and keep the record of 

such proceeding open for thirty days 

after completion of the proceeding to 

provide an opportunity for submission 

of rebuttal and supplementary 

information.’’ 60 In this case, EPA held 

two public hearings on its proposed FIP, 

one on Maui on May 31, 2012 and one 

on the Big Island on June 1, 2012. These 

hearings were announced in the Federal 

Register on May 11, 2012,61 and a prepublication version of the NPRM was 

posted on EPA’s Web site on May 16, 

2012. The proposal was published in 

the Federal Register on May 29, 2012,62

and public comments were accepted 

through July 2, 2012. 

B. Comments From the Public Hearings 

EPA received written and oral 

comments on the proposal at the public 

hearings. Representatives of the 

following organizations provided oral or 

written comments: Maui Tomorrow 

Foundation (Maui Tomorrow), 

Alexander and Baldwin, parent 

company of Hawaii Commercial and 

Sugar (HC&S), the Ko Hawaii Pae Aina 

people, and Syntex Global (Syntex). 

Nineteen private citizens also provided 

oral or written comments at the public 

hearings. A summary of the major 

comments and EPA’s responses are 

provided below. 

Comment 1: Visibility impacts of cane 

burning. 

The majority of the commenters at the 

hearing on Maui expressed concern that 

the proposed FIP does not require an 

end to the practice of agricultural 

burning in the sugar cane fields. These 

commenters generally indicated that 

they have witnessed thick smoke from 

cane burning that clearly impairs 

visibility, disrupting the scenic vistas on 

the island. For example, one commenter 

stated that during periods of cane 

burning, he cannot see Kihei from 

Haleakala NP or see the park from Kihei, 

and another similarly asserted that cane 

burning obscures the view from the top 

of Haleakala, especially over the valley. 

One commenter indicated that as many 

as three fires are lit in the morning, 

creating smoke plumes that fill the sky, 

and added that after the plumes of 

smoke dissipate, a brown film hangs in 

the air just under the inversion layer of 

the mountains. Seven of the 

commenters specifically objected to the 

proposed determination that no further 

controls on agricultural burning are 

reasonable at this time. One of these 

requested that EPA explore pollution 

controls to mitigate the impact of 

organic carbon from agricultural 

burning on visibility at Haleakala NP. 

One of the commenters noted that 

EPA’s analysis acknowledges that 

agricultural fire emissions occur over 

roughly 30,000 acres of cane fields, and 

added that this is among the largest 

anthropogenic sources of SO2, VOCs 

and PM on Maui. (Another commenter 

indicated that the correct figure for cane 

fields in production is 35,000 acres.) 

This commenter alleged that the NPS 

has stated that sugar cane processing 

and field burning can affect air quality 

and visibility in Haleakala NP. The 

commenter also said that work 

published by NOAA researchers 

indicates that Haleakala NP has greater 

impacts from smoke as compared to 

Hawaii Volcanoes NP, and that about 

half of worst-case days are associated 

with factors other than volcanic 

emissions, including smoke. 

Another commenter, citing a study by 

University of Hawaii meteorology 

Professor Andrews Daniels, stated that 

an average cane burning event releases 

approximately 200 to 600 tons of PM as 

compared to the estimated 700 tons of 

PM emitted each day in the Los Angeles 

basin. This commenter believes that PM 

should be considered in EPA’s 

evaluation. 

Response 1: EPA understands the 

concern of the commenters about the 

local visibility impacts of agricultural 

burning. However, as detailed in the 

responses above (II.A.11), the Regional 

Haze Rule is designed to protect 

visibility inside the National Park. EPA 

has no evidence that agricultural 

burning is impacting visibility inside 

the park; therefore, we do not consider 

it appropriate to restrict agricultural 

burning as part of this rulemaking. 

Comment 2: Health effects of cane 

burning. 

Many of the commenters at the Maui 

hearing expressed concern over the 

health effects that they believe result 

from PM and toxic pollutants released 

by cane burning on the island. Several 


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63See 40 CFR § 52.620(c). 

64See 77 FR 47530. 

65Six of the eight BART-eligible sources had a 

less than 0.5 deciview impact and so were 

exempted from BART. One of the remaining 

facilities, Hu Honua Bioenergy is no longer 

permitted to burn fossil fuels and is therefore also 

exempt from BART. This leaves one facility in 

Hawaii as subject to BART, the Kaneolehua Hill 

facility. See 77 FR 31704, 31705. 

of these commenters noted that the 

plastic irrigation pipes are burned along 

with the cane waste, adding to the toxic 

content of the smoke. A number of 

commenters indicated that the same 

pollutants that cause haze also have 

health effects, and that health and 

visibility effects are not separable. 

Some of these commenters recounted 

personal experiences with breathing 

problems or respiratory illness that they 

believe are attributable to smoke from 

cane burning. Other commenters 

expressed concern over the exposure 

that children are experiencing or the 

high incidence of asthma on the island. 

One commenter expressed dismay the 

sugar company is allowed to conduct 

cane burning simply to save money at, 

the commenter believes, the expense of 

public health. 

Another commenter noted that cane 

burning was stopped in Florida because 

of its negative health effects. One 

commenter recommended that 

agricultural burning on Maui be 

suspended immediately so that its 

health and environmental impact can be 

studied. The commenter suggested that 

the burden should be placed on the 

growers to prove that the practice is not 

hurting the environment. 

Response 2: As noted above, EPA 

agrees that exposure to emissions from 

agricultural burning can pose health 

concerns. We note however, that the 

PM2.5 monitor in Kihei, typically 

downwind from the burning, has never 

recorded an exceedance of the healthbased NAAQS. In addition, Hawaii DOH 

has promulgated a series of rules 

regulating agricultural burning, several 

of which have been approved into the 

Hawaii SIP.63 EPA recently determined 

that the Hawaii SIP ‘‘include[s] 

enforceable emission limitations and 

other control measures, means, or 

techniques * * * as may be necessary 

or appropriate to meet the applicable 

requirements of [the CAA]’’ with respect 

to the 1997 and 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS, as 

well as the 1997 ozone NAAQS.64 EPA 

will continue to work with Hawaii DOH 

to ensure that the state’s agricultural 

burning rules and permit program meet 

all applicable CAA requirements. 

With respect to the visibility impacts 

of cane burning, there is no evidence 

that smoke from the burns is causing 

visibility impairment in the park. 

Without clear evidence that agricultural 

burning is impacting the Class I area, 

EPA does not consider it reasonable to 

impose additional controls as part of the 

Regional Haze plan. 

Comment 3: Chemtrails. 

Six commenters at the Maui hearing 

expressed the belief that a 

‘‘stratospheric aerosol geoengineering’’ 

program that results in ‘‘chemtrails’’ 

that drift over Hawaii are responsible for 

some, or much, of the visibility 

impairment that is occurring. In the 

most extensive comments on this topic, 

one commenter stated that these effects 

are scientifically observable. The 

commenter indicated that he is able to 

observe the progress of these chemtrails 

through satellite images. He also stated 

that measurements from rainwater 

collected on the North Shore of Maui 

showed 30 to 200 parts per billion of 

aluminum and lesser amounts of barium 

and strontium, which according to the 

commenter are the chemical fingerprints 

of chemtrails. The commenter suggested 

a program of aerial sampling of the 

clouds drifting over Hawaii, and 

requested that EPA add aluminum, 

barium and strontium to the materials 

that it routinely monitors. 

Another commenter similarly 

recommended that EPA broaden the 

scope of its analysis to include 

stratospheric aerosol spraying. The 

commenter believes that the waters of 

South Maui are impacted by such 

spraying, and that the spraying also 

causes health issues in people. The 

commenter also asserted that the 

spraying has introduced chemicals into 

the soils that are killing the plants in the 

area of Hana and Kipahulu. 

Response 3: The commenters 

provided no evidence that the visibility 

impairment in the Class I areas are 

caused by sources that are not captured 

using the IMPROVE monitors on Maui. 

EPA reaffirms our analysis of the causes 

of haze addressed in the TSD. 

EPA believes the current monitoring 

program is appropriate for Regional 

Haze. The IMPROVE program is a 

cooperative measurement effort 

governed by a steering committee 

composed of representatives from 

Federal and regional-state organizations. 

The IMPROVE monitoring program was 

established in 1985 to aid the creation 

of Federal and State implementation 

plans for the protection of visibility in 

Class I areas (156 national parks and 

wilderness areas) as stipulated in the 

1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act. 

The objectives of IMPROVE are: 

(a) To establish current visibility and 

aerosol conditions in mandatory class I 

areas; 

(b) To identify chemical species and 

emission sources responsible for 

existing man-made visibility 

impairment; 

(c) To document long-term trends for 

assessing progress towards the national 

visibility goal; 

(d) And with the enactment of the 

Regional Haze Rule, to provided 

regional haze monitoring representing 

all visibility-protected federal class I 

areas where practical. 

Aluminum and strontium are 

measured as part of the IMPROVE 

program. The summary statistics for all 

data, including aluminum and 

strontium measurements, at individual 

monitoring sites are available at the 

VIEWS monitoring sites data statistics 

site http://views.cira.colostate.edu/web/ 

Statistics/SiteStatistics.aspx. 

Comment 4: Concerns about the 

BART ‘‘exemptions’’ and the 0.5 dv 

screening level. 

Six commenters objected to the plan’s 

proposal to exempt six of the eight 

BART-eligible sources from BART 

review,65 stating that EPA should 

conduct full BART review of all BARTeligible sources until the amount of 

improvement needed to meet the 

uniform rate of progress (1.38 dv) can be 

achieved through federally enforceable 

control measures. Two of the 

commenters specifically asserted that 

the screening level of 0.5 dv used by 

EPA to determine which BART-eligible 

sources are subject to BART review is 

too high and should be reduced. One of 

the commenters stated that EPA has 

inappropriately used the highest 

allowable deciview threshold in the 

proposed FIP. 

Without discussing the deciview 

screening level, another commenter 

similarly objected to the plan’s proposal 

to exempt six of the eight identified 

BART eligible sources from further 

review under BART requirements. One 

commenter simply expressed opposition 

to exemptions and exceptions for some 

of Maui’s major air polluters, and 

another objected to the exemptions 

made by EPA. 

Response 4: As EPA addressed in 

Section II.A.1 above, the plan is not 

required to meet the URP. As we 

addressed in Section II.A.5, above, we 

find that the 0.5 dv threshold is 

appropriate for determining which 

sources should be subject to BART in 

Hawaii. 

Comment 5: Control measures are 

insufficient. 

Eight commenters stated that the 

proposed control measures are not 

sufficient to ensure that reasonable 

progress is made during the first 


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61500 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

66Nephelometers directly measure light scattered 

by aerosols and gases in a sampled air volume, and, 

therefore would not be useful to estimate the 

visibility over a distance, such as Kihei from 

Haleakala. Transmissometers directly measure the 

light transmission properties of the atmosphere 

along a several kilometer sight path. 

67See Section 2–15 of ‘‘Visibility Monitoring 

Guidance’’, June 1999 Document No. EPA–R09– 

OAR–2012–0345–0003–B5. 

planning period. The commenters 

believe that additional control measures 

are necessary. 

Response 5: EPA finds that the control 

measures are sufficient to ensure 

reasonable progress. Our reasoning is 

explained further in Sections II.A.7., 

II.A.8 and II.A.10. of this document. 

Comment 6: Uniform rate of progress. 

Six commenters objected to the 

proposal to determine that the uniform 

rate of progress for the implementation 

plan to attain natural conditions is not 

reasonable. The commenters asserted 

that this rate of progress is reasonable 

and that the FIP should require 

additional control measures as 

necessary to meet this rate of progress. 

One commenter (HC&S) stated that 

the methodology used to determine the 

proposed uniform rate of progress 

unnecessarily skews this value high. 

The commenter noted that EPA chose to 

exclude emissions from Kilauea 

Volcano when estimating natural 

visibility conditions while including 

these emissions in the estimate of 

baseline visibility conditions. As a 

result, the commenter asserted, the 

uniform rate of progress includes 

reductions in visibility impairment from 

anthropogenic sources that are sufficient 

to offset baseline emissions caused by 

the volcano. The commenter 

recommended that EPA consider 

adopting the methodology proposed by 

the Hawaii DOH to adjust the baseline 

visibility impairment to account for the 

impacts of the volcano as well as Asian 

dust. The commenter stated that if EPA 

were to use this adjustment in the 

calculation of the uniform rate of 

progress, the uniform rate of progress 

target for 2018 could essentially be 

achieved through the emissions 

reductions projected to occur by 2018 

under the proposed FIP. 

Response 6: This comment was 

addressed in Section II.A.1, above. 

Comment 7: Monitoring concerns. 

Seven commenters stated that since 

the HALE monitor’s data were used for 

the baseline visibility assessment, that 

monitor must be kept in place or 

replaced with new monitors at that 

location so that long-term visibility data 

comparable to baseline may be 

captured. Another commenter objected 

to plans to reduce the current 

‘‘measurements in place.’’ 

Five commenters contended that the 

Hawaii DOH and EPA are choosing data 

from different monitors to conclude that 

organic carbon agricultural burning does 

not contribute to visibility degradation 

although, according to the commenters, 

Table 11 of the proposed FIP clearly 

indicates that it does. (Four of the 

commenters also cited Table III–1 of the 

TSD.) The commenters added that the 

Hawaii DOH and EPA should not be 

moving and placing monitors 

selectively. The commenters asserted 

that based upon the data, it is not 

acceptable to find that there is no 

evidence of agricultural burning 

contributing to haze. 

One commenter stated that there is 

inadequate monitoring data backing up 

the proposal. The commenter indicated 

that emissions from cane burning, 

fugitive dust from agricultural 

operations, stack emissions from 

companies burning high-sulfur coal or 

emissions from bunker fuel are not 

monitored. The commenter believes that 

without such monitoring, there are no 

hard data to support the proposal, and 

no data on which to base public 

testimony. 

One commenter stated that the 

surrogate approach of measuring 

different substances in the air does not 

directly address visibility. The 

commenter noted that a nephelometer 

can be used to measure visibility 

directly, and that nephelometers 

operated at two different frequencies 

can distinguish between smoke and 

water in the air.66 The commenter 

concluded that the current monitoring 

instrumentation is inadequate and 

recommended that EPA set up two 

nephelometers in Kihei. The commenter 

believes that such a monitoring program 

would show that during cane burning 

days one cannot see Kihei from 

Haleakala or Haleakala from Kihei. 

Another commenter similarly 

indicated that if the monitor in its 

current location is unable to measure 

what one can easily see, the monitor is 

insufficient. The commenter believes 

that the monitor should be moved, 

additional monitors should be added or 

the monitor should be replaced by one 

that can collect better information. The 

commenter stated that the monitor does 

not account for Kipahulu, the area of the 

park at sea level in East Maui. The 

commenter indicated that HC&S has 

increased production since 2004, 

concluding that the data presented is 

not accurate. The commenter also stated 

that the 24-hour period of measurement 

does not adequately represent the 1 to 

3 hour burning time. 

Response 7: Hawaii DOH, NPS and 

EPA are reviewing HALE and HACR 

data to develop methodologies to 

establish a 2000–2004 baseline estimate, 

which can be used to track continued 

progress at the site in a manner 

consistent with RHR requirements. 

Therefore, it is not necessary to 

continue operation of HALE to provide 

continuity with the baseline. In 

addition, since HACR is more 

representative of conditions in the park, 

and HALE is nearby, it is not a good use 

of resources to continue operation of 

HALE. EPA is working with Hawaii 

DOH to move the Federal funding 

currently used to support HALE to 

instead support the operation of a new 

PM2.5 monitor to be sited in a populated 

area of the isthmus near sugar cane 

fields. 

EPA is not selectively using data to 

justify a particular policy outcome. Data 

from both HALE and HACR were 

considered when determining if there 

was any evidence that smoke from 

agricultural operations was impacting 

visibility at Haleakala NP. This is 

explained in more detail in our 

discussion on agricultural burning in 

Section II.A.11 of this notice. 

The tables in the proposal and the 

TSD referenced by the commenters 

indicate possible smoke impacts at the 

HALE monitor. As we discussed 

previously, there is no evidence that 

this smoke is from agricultural burning. 

Nor is there any evidence that the 

smoke measured at HALE (which is 

outside the park and at a significantly 

lower elevation) is impacting the park 

itself, 

EPA believes the current filter-based 

monitoring instrumentation, based on 

the IMPROVE Program, is the 

appropriate approach to determine the 

visibility levels at Hawaii’s National 

Parks. The IMPROVE Program is 

discussed in greater detail in the 

response to Comment 3: Chemtrails, 

above. Visibility levels can be estimated 

from aerosol monitoring filters. 

Understanding the characteristics of the 

aerosols in a haze can also help identify 

the type of sources that contributed to 

the haze. It is possible to statistically 

estimate what portion of haze is caused 

by each aerosol type. This approach, 

known as an extinction budget analysis, 

can narrow the list of possible sources 

responsible for visibility impacts.67

Therefore, in addition to establishing 

visibility levels, the filter-based 

monitoring approach, which measures 

the characteristics of the aerosols in 

haze, can help identify the type of 

sources that contributed to the haze. 

The commenter recommends that 

EPA set up two nephelometers in Kihei, 


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68The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative is a broad 

strategy by the State of Hawaii and the U.S. 

Department of Energy to reduce Hawaii’s 

dependence on fossil fuels. The Hawaii Clean 

Energy Bill, referenced elsewhere is a Hawaii 

Continued 

and such a monitoring program would 

show that on cane burning days one 

cannot see Kihei from Haleakala or 

Haleakala from Kihei. However, the 

regional haze plan is designed to 

improve visibility within the park itself. 

Smoke outside of the park could 

certainly impact the views from the 

park, but such views are not specifically 

protected under the regional haze 

program. 

Regarding the concerns that a 24-hour 

average does not adequately capture the 

impacts from one to three-hour 

agricultural burns, the length of the 

burn is just one factor determining the 

percentage contribution to visibility 

impairment. A shorter burn, if it were 

impacting the monitor, could show up 

as a high percentage of visibility 

impairment if the source was heavily 

impacting the monitor for the duration 

of the burn. 

Comment 8: Emissions from sugar 

mill. 

Three commenters are concerned 

about the combustion of coal on Maui. 

One of the commenters asked EPA to 

consider that current permits allow over 

100,000 tons of coal to be fired at the 

Puunene Mill each year. Another of the 

commenters submitted a photograph 

purportedly showing dark smoke being 

emitted from the mill’s smokestacks. 

One commenter simply commented on 

the dense black smoke that comes from 

the mill’s smokestack. 

One commenter stated that the 

Puunene Mill’s most recent permit 

application proposed increasing the 

amount of used motor oil combusted 

from 1.5 to 2 million gallons. The 

commenter asked that EPA consider the 

impacts that combustion of an 

additional 0.5 million gallons of used 

motor oil might have on haze-causing 

pollutant. 

Four commenters objected to EPA’s 

analysis discussed in the section titled 

‘‘Point Source SO2 Emissions on Maui’’ 

in the TSD for the proposal. These 

commenters asserted that the four-factor 

analysis must be applied to all point 

sources on Maui, especially the 

Puunene Mill. 

Response 8: Section II.A.5 of this 

document includes a discussion of why 

the Puunene Mill is not subject to 

BART. This section also includes a 

discussion of the impacts of various 

fuels being burned at the Mill in that 

determination. The additional motor oil 

would not change the results of our 

analysis. 

EPA selected sources for a full 

reasonable progress review based on 

their total emissions of visibilityimpairing pollutants and computer 

modeling of the impact of the sources’ 

emissions on visibility at the Class I 

areas. The Puunene Mill is a much 

smaller source of visibility impairing 

pollutants than the Kahului Power Plant 

(See TSD Table VII–2.1). And, the BART 

modeling for the mill showed an impact 

that was much lower than the 0.5 dv 

threshold. While we understand and 

share the commenters’ concerns about 

visible emissions from the plant, there 

is no evidence that these emissions are 

contributing significantly to visibility 

impairment in the park, therefore it was 

reasonable to omit it from the 

reasonable progress analysis. 

Comment 9: ‘‘Reasonable to assume’’. 

Seven commenters disagreed with 

EPA statements in the TSD for the 

proposal that it is reasonable to assume 

that visibility at Haleakala on the best 

days is not getting worse and it is 

reasonable to assume that the visibility 

on the worst days will improve. Two of 

the commenters stated that in their 

experience in guiding tour groups 

through the Haleakala NP, visibility is 

not improving but is getting worse. 

Another commenter (Pearson) also 

asserted that the haze is not getting 

better on Maui. 

Response 9: EPA acknowledges the 

imprecise language in our TSD cited by 

the commenters. The proposal should 

have said that with emissions of 

visibility impairing pollutants being 

significantly reduced during the first 

planning period, it is reasonable to 

assume that anthropogenic visibility 

impairment will be reduced during the 

first planning period. 

Comment 10: Fugitive dust. 

One commenter stated that fugitive 

dust contributes significantly to the 

haze and poor air quality on Maui, yet 

large agricultural operations are 

exempted from best management 

practices. The commenter 

recommended that EPA consider this in 

the FIP. Another commenter also stated 

that fugitive dust from agriculture 

contributes to poor visibility in the park, 

and to health concerns. 

Four other commenters requested that 

EPA review the possible impacts of 

fugitive dust from agricultural 

operations, especially from equipment 

operating on unpaved roads, on 

visibility in Haleakala NP. The 

commenters noted that agricultural 

operations are not required to mitigate 

dust emissions as is required of similar 

construction operations. 

Another commenter also expressed 

concern about how HC&S clears and 

plows its fields. The commenter stated 

that this commonly creates huge clouds 

of dust hundreds of feet in the air going 

across the Mokelele Highway and past 

the harbor. The commenter asserted that 

the reefs are devoid of fish and the coral 

is dying. The commenter questioned 

why HC&S does not use water trucks to 

mitigate dust emissions and asked who 

establishes rules for the amount of 

pollution that HC&S can emit. 

Response 10: EPA shares the 

commenters concerns about impacts of 

fugitive dust on Maui. As explained 

earlier in Section II.A.4 of this 

document, coarse mass and soil do 

appear to be a relatively significant 

contributor to visibility impairment at 

Haleakala NP (and Hawaii Volcanoes 

NP to a lesser extent). However, the 

source of this pollutant is not clear. 

Comment 11: Modeling. 

One commenter stated that EPA’s 

model is inadequate because it does not 

agree with his observation. The 

commenter noted that he has observed 

that the visibility between Kihei and the 

park is diminished when cane is being 

burned and concluded that if the model 

does not match that observation, the 

model is wrong and should be 

discarded. Another commenter 

indicated that she would challenge the 

models and assumptions being used for 

the analysis. 

One commenter representing the 

HC&S and its parent company, 

Alexander & Baldwin, concurred that it 

is reasonable for EPA to use the highest 

emitting day between 2003 and 2007 for 

BART modeling of emissions from the 

Puunene Mill. However, the commenter 

pointed out that the typical visibility 

impacts from the facility are lower, no 

more than 20 percent of the selected 

threshold for BART review and 

reasonable progress prioritization. On 

this basis, the commenter supported the 

proposed determination that additional 

controls on the mill are not warranted. 

Response 11: The model is not 

intended to measure visibility 

impairment at points outside the park; 

it is intended to estimate visibility 

impairment as measured inside the 

park. As explained above, the regional 

haze program does not specifically 

protect views outside of the park. 

EPA understands that typical 

emissions can be lower than the 

maximum emissions used in the BART 

modeling. We affirm the determination 

that the mill should not be subject to 

BART. 

Comment 12: Federally enforceable 

measures. 

One commenter stated that the Hawaii 

Clean Energy Initiative 68 and 


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statute that puts many of the goals of the Initiative 

into law. 

69 40 CFR 51.308(d)(1)(vi); see also, 40 CFR 

51.308(d)(3)(v)(g). 

70Phillips Petroleum Co. v. U.S. E.P.A. 803 F.2d 

545, 556 (10th Cir. 1986) (citing Federal Power 

Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation, 362 U.S. 

99, 116–18 (1960). 

71See 40 CFR 52.632–633. 

assumptions about reductions in 

emissions from automobiles are not 

federally enforceable for purposes of the 

proposed FIP. 

Response 12: We agree that the 

Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative is not 

federally enforceable. Therefore, we did 

not rely upon emissions reduction 

expected to result from the Initiative for 

purposes of demonstrating reasonable 

progress. 

With respect to reductions in 

emissions from automobiles, we note 

that the RHR provides that states ‘‘may 

not adopt a reasonable progress goal that 

represents less visibility improvement 

than is expected to result from 

implementation of other requirements of 

the CAA during the applicable planning 

period.’’ 69 Therefore, in setting RPGs 

for Hawaii, we took into consideration 

the anticipated net effect on visibility 

due to projected changes in point, area, 

and mobile source and shipping 

emissions expected to result from other 

CAA requirements, including Federal 

mobile source regulations, over the 

period addressed by the long-term 

strategy. Finally, we note that mobile 

source regulations are federally 

enforceable against vehicle and engine 

manufacturers, automobile dealers, fuel 

importers, and refineries. 

Comment 13: NOX emissions. 

Two commenters objected to EPA’s 

conclusion that it is unreasonable to 

require additional controls on NOX

emissions. The commenters indicated 

that the monitor data show that NOX is 

a substantial contributing factor toward 

visibility impairment, and one 

(Andrews) added that NOX is 

contributing 9 percent. 

Response 13: EPA addressed this 

issue in some detail in Section II.A.7 

above. 

Comment 14: SO2 controls. 

One commenter objected to the 

proposal to determine that it is not 

reasonable to require additional SO2

controls on Maui. The commenter 

asserted that such controls on point 

sources are necessary on Maui. 

Response 14: EPA addressed this 

issue in some detail in Section II.A.10 

above. 

Comment 15: Integral vista. 

One commenter objected to the 

finding of no integral vista at Haleakala 

NP. The commenter asserted that the 

panoramic view from within the park to 

areas outside the park, including 

Volcanoes NP on the Big Island and the 

view of central Maui and the 

surrounding oceans, is an integral vista 

within the meaning of the Federal 

regulations. The commenter added that 

his experience with guiding visitors at 

the Haleakala NP illustrates the 

importance of the panoramic view from 

within the park to areas outside to the 

overall visitors’ experience at the park. 

Response 15: The question of the 

designation of Integral Vistas was 

addressed in Section II.A.12, above. 

Comment 16: HC&S generally 

concurs. 

One commenter representing the 

HC&S and its parent company, 

Alexander & Baldwin, stated that the 

company generally concurs with the 

conclusions and recommendations of 

the proposal. The commenter 

commended EPA and the Hawaii DOH 

for the thorough review and analysis of 

available data. 

Response 16: EPA appreciates the 

support. 

Comment 17: Kanaka Maoli. 

One commenter, stating that she 

represented the Kanaka Maoli people, 

objected to the FIP based on the 

supposition of jurisdiction. The 

commenter believes that it is 

unreasonable because it will afford a 

great opportunity to increase the reach 

into sacred burial sites and the sacred 

places of the Kanaka Maoli people. The 

commenter indicated that the plan does 

not address this issue and does not give 

any respect to the Kanaka Maoli people. 

Response 17: As explained in our 

proposal, because we found in 2009 that 

Hawaii had failed to submit a Regional 

Haze SIP, as required under the CAA, 

we are required to promulgate a FIP to 

fill this gap. This FIP does not impose 

any new regulations directly on the 

Kanaka Maoli people. As to any 

‘‘supposition of jurisdiction’’, we note 

that there is a ‘‘presumption that 

Congress intends a general statute 

applying to all persons to include 

Indians and their property interests.’’ 70

The CAA is a general statute applying 

to all persons and the commenter has 

not pointed to any specific right under 

a treaty or statute that is in conflict with 

the CAA. Finally, we note that this is 

not the first FIP to be promulgated for 

Hawaii.71

Comment 18: Aerial applications of 

fertilizer and pesticide. 

One commenter indicated that, in 

addition to air contaminants from cane 

burning, coal combustion and 

geoengineering, aerial applications of 

fertilizer and pesticides contribute to 

the air quality problem. The commenter 

noted that he has seen white deposits 

from this practice many times and, 

within the last 8 months, aerial spraying 

by HC&S in Paia drifted over a public 

beach with children. The commenter 

believes that such things should be 

controlled and penalties should be 

imposed. The commenter noted that 

tourism suffers over these issues. 

Response 18: EPA shares the 

commenter’s concerns about the 

possible health impacts of agricultural 

operations. However, these issues are 

not within the scope of this rulemaking. 

Comment 19: Emission sources. 

One commenter suggested that EPA 

evaluate four emissions sources more 

fully: military actions, ship emissions, 

biofuel plants and geothermal plants. 

The commenter provided a written copy 

of her comments, which includes 

documentation for many of her points 

about military actions and ship 

emissions from sources such as 

environmental impact statements (EIS) 

and news reports. 

The commenter stated that increased 

military actions are underway, and more 

are planned for Pohakuloa as the United 

States shifts forces to the Pacific. The 

commenter asserted that these activities 

will generate dust from construction, 

vehicles and troop movements, erosion, 

and possible fires that consume 

vegetation. The commenter believes that 

air quality problems may not be 

detected because Pohakuloa has no airmonitoring stations in the south and 

southwest, which is the most likely 

place to detect any problems since the 

prevailing winds come from the 

northeast. The commenter stated that 

when training was done at Makua, fires 

consumed thousands of acres, and 

inadequate fire prevention has been an 

ongoing problem with that training. 

The commenter indicated that a 

second major action is the Stryker 

armored vehicle training, which is 

already taking place. According to the 

commenter, the EIS for this program 

indicates that there will be significant 

disturbance to soils and vegetation due 

to intensified on- and off-road maneuver 

training, leading to increased soil 

erosion that cannot be mitigated to less 

than significant, and PM10 dust 

emissions generated from wind erosion 

at the 23,000-acre Keamuku Parcel were 

expected to be a significant impact. The 

commenter added that the Strykers may 

cause fire risk. 

Regarding ship emissions, the 

commenter is concerned that the 

shipping industry is trying to delay the 

August 1 implementation date of the 

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(ECA) regulations, which would reduce 

emissions by requiring fuel of less than 

1 percent sulfur content when ships are 

200 miles offshore. The commenter also 

is concerned about ships running their 

engines while in port instead of 

plugging into shore power, which is a 

less polluting source. While the 

commenter does not know of any port 

in Hawaii that offers such plug-in 

power, called Alternative Maritime 

Power, she indicated that naval vessels 

and Baltic ferries have used it for years, 

several North American ports are 

planning or already have it and some 

cruise ships can plug in. The 

commenter added that another 

alternative is an e-power barge that uses 

liquefied natural gas. 

The commenter stated that some of 

the claims made by biofuels plants 

regarding their air and water emissions 

seem unfounded. The commenter added 

that emissions from all actions related to 

a biofuels plant need to be evaluated, 

not just emissions generated by burning 

biofuel: clearing land; transporting seed 

and fertilizer; planting, cultivating and 

harvesting trees or whatever is to be 

burned; transporting the biofuel to the 

plant; and preparing the fuel for 

burning. The commenter further noted 

that after burning the fuel, there is waste 

that must be disposed. The commenter 

stated that the Aina Koa Pono plant may 

get revived, so there may be more 

impacts than just from the Ho Honua 

plant. 

The commenter indicated that 

geothermal technology is being pushed 

heavily, but there is extensive 

documentation of possible leaks that are 

not being detected. The commenter 

stated that nearby residents have 

reported unusual odors; corrosion of 

roofs, gutters and catchment tanks that 

has caused high levels of lead in 

drinking water; and health problems. 

The commenter contended that there 

have been unplanned releases, 

information pertaining to several of 

which are listed in her written 

comments. 

The commenter requested that EPA 

look into the emissions from the Puna 

Geothermal Venture (PGV) plant. She 

noted that although the facility claims 

there are no leaks, the facility must 

replace the pentane used in the heat 

exchanger, and the commenter 

questioned why that is necessary if 

there are no leaks. The commenter also 

stated that PGV operates hydrogen 

sulfide monitors at the plant, but they 

are at a height of 6 feet while hydrogen 

sulfide is heavier than air and travels at 

ground level. 

Response 19: EPA appreciates the 

comment about military activities. We 

commented on the recent EIS for 

Pohakuloa and expressed concerns 

about the need to mitigate the 

generation of fugitive dust. We will 

continue to work with the Army to 

mitigate pollution from their activities. 

Regarding emissions reductions from 

the ECA, since these requirements are 

part of an international treaty, neither 

the State of Hawaii nor the EPA has the 

authority to delay implementation or 

grant waivers from the requirements. In 

the unlikely event that the treaty could 

be changed in the future to allow for 

higher emissions, the State of Hawaii 

would have to indentify equivalent 

emissions reductions from other sources 

in order to meet the requirements of this 

FIP. 

EPA supports the implementation of 

shore power to reduce emissions from 

vessels while in port. However, EPA 

does not believe that it is necessary to 

require the use of shore power in order 

to show reasonable progress for the 

regional haze program. 

EPA understands the commenter’s 

concern about emissions from 

geothermal plants, but there is no 

evidence that these emissions are 

contributing to visibility impairment. As 

a result, we affirm that there will be no 

pollution control requirements on 

geothermal plants as part of this action. 

Regarding biomass plants, this issue 

was addressed in Section II.A.5 

regarding the Hu Honua and 

Tradewinds facilities. This discussion 

included a description of how future 

facilities will be addressed as part of the 

Regional Haze planning process. The 

concerns about land clearing operations 

are noted and EPA recommends that 

they be considered in the next plan as 

part of the analysis of the sources of 

coarse mass and soil impacting 

Volcanoes NP. 

Comment 20: Night emissions from 

Hilo power plants. 

One commenter who lives in Wainaku 

stated that early nearly every morning 

he has witnessed a blanket covering 

Hilo that dissipates when the sun rises 

and warms the mountain. The 

commenter believes that this blanket is 

composed of night emissions from the 

Hilo area power plants or other 

industrial activities. The commenter has 

documented on film these three power 

plants emitting black soot and smoke 

into the air. The commenter wonders 

whether these emissions are the cause of 

the morning blanket that he has 

witnessed, and whether these stack 

emissions are being registered by the 

State or EPA. 

The commenter suggested that these 

three power plants should be retrofitted 

with monitors to track whether they are 

in compliance with their permits. The 

commenter noted that the plants only 

have to perform an emissions stack test 

once in a while. The commenter noted 

that most of the pollution that is visible 

is happening at night when it does not 

affect visibility in the parks. The 

commenter pointed out that the three 

power plants are within 5 miles of a 

population of 40,000 which is growing 

rapidly. The commenter indicated that 

for health-related concerns, it would be 

helpful to know the 24-hour cycle of 

emissions from the plants. 

The commenter noted that the Ho 

Honua plant was excluded from EPA’s 

review because of its conversion to 

biofuels, but indicated that there is a 

legal issue surrounding the claims made 

by the plant regarding its emissions and 

how they are dispersed by the wind. 

The commenter stated that the biofuel to 

be combusted at the Ho Honua plant is 

not necessarily a clean biofuel. The 

commenter recommended that EPA 

monitor emissions from the facility. 

The commenter also noted that 

Wheelabrator has proposed a waste-toenergy plant in Hilo. The commenter 

asked whether that would be a factor in 

air quality in the park. Finally, the 

commenter suggested an anti-idling rule 

such as the commenter believes has 

been passed in California for county 

vehicles. The commenter noted that he 

frequently sees trucks, bulldozers and 

pickup trucks idling by the side of the 

road. The commenter believes that such 

a program would be easy to implement, 

would save the taxpayers’ money and 

would reduce emissions. 

Response 20: The emission rate used 

in the analyses of the larger power 

plants on the Big Island was calculated 

from fuel usage records and chemical 

analyses of the fuels burned. This is a 

very reliable way to calculate the 

emissions and does not require the use 

of smokestack monitors. So, the lack of 

monitoring does not put the validity of 

the analysis in question. The annual 

emissions cap set in this FIP will 

similarly be demonstrated through fuel 

usage and chemical analysis records. 

Addressing compliance with the limits 

of the permits for the power plants on 

Hilo is not within the scope of this 

rulemaking. In addition, the IMPROVE 

monitor in the park measures pollutants 

24 hours per day. So, any nighttime 

emissions would be captured and were 

included in our analysis of the causes of 

haze at Hawaii’s National Parks. There 

is an air quality monitor in Hilo which 

operates on a continuous basis and is 

intended to characterize air quality in 

Hilo. 

EPA appreciates the comment 

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energy plants. The questions raised here 

were addressed in Section II.A.5. above. 

EPA is very supportive of strategies to 

reduce idling vehicles. However, given 

the significant reductions from mobile 

sources in the first planning period due 

to existing regulations, EPA affirms that 

we are not requiring additional 

emissions reductions from this source 

category as part of this rulemaking. 

Comment 21: Lack of concern for 

public. 

One commenter stated that he has 

experienced worsening pollution on the 

Big Island over his lifetime, and no 

Federal, state or county government 

agency has done anything to prevent it. 

The commenter expressed concern that 

pollution is only an issue at this time as 

it relates to visibility in the Hawaii 

Volcanoes NP, and asked whether EPA 

is aware that people live on the island. 

The commenter stated that EPA has 

indicated the HELCO would not have 

problems complying with EPA 

requirements and questioned whether 

this meeting is a show for the public. 

The commenter asked how the 

emissions from HELCO facilities are 

calculated, whether on a yearly basis 

without considering how many days or 

hours the plants were in operation, or 

how much pollution enters the 

atmosphere in 1 hour of operation. 

The commenter stated that the 

electricity rate charged to consumers by 

HELCO is based on the cost of foreign 

import oil, but any oil price reductions 

are not passed on to consumers. The 

commenter asserted that all HELCO 

costs are passed on to the consumers 

with the approval of the Hawaii PUC 

with no input from the public. The 

commenter contended that one primary 

objective of the PUC is to ensure that 

HELCO gains a profit, and characterized 

this situation as a dictatorial condition 

approved by the state legislature and 

PUC, and now endorsed by EPA. The 

commenter does not support what he 

alleged are dictatorial procedures 

presented by the state—Federal, state, 

PUC and HELCO. 

The commenter added that the smoke 

that an earlier commenter has seen at 

night is the result of a blow-back 

cleaning system that is used to clean the 

filters for the turbine engines at the 

HELCO plant on Railroad Avenue. 

Response 21: EPA is very concerned 

about public health. EPA and the State 

of Hawaii protect public health through 

implementation of the NAAQS. In fact, 

EPA recently revised the NAAQS for 

SO2 to be more stringent and more 

protective of public health. We are 

currently evaluating whether Hawaii 

and other areas of the country are in 

compliance with this new standard. In 

addition, EPA has been working with 

Hawaii DOH on using real-time data 

from the extensive SO2 monitoring 

network on the Big Island to monitor the 

impacts of the volcano and to protect 

public health. 

The methodology for calculating 

emissions was addressed in the 

previous comment. 

Comment 22: Xtreme Fuel Treatment. 

One commenter representing Xtreme 

Fuel Treatment manufacturer, Syntek 

Global, stated that the company’s 

product reduces the burn rate of fuel, so 

that fuel burns more efficiently and less 

fuel is burned. The commenter 

contended that while the analysis 

looked just at power plants, a lot of the 

problems come from emissions from 

cars. The commenter suggested that EPA 

and the State of Hawaii conduct a test 

of the company’s product with a 

generator or state or county transport 

system to see how emissions could be 

reduced. 

Response 22: Given the extensive 

reductions in emissions from mobile 

sources due to existing regulations, EPA 

affirms that we are not requiring 

additional emissions reductions from 

this source category as part of this 

rulemaking. 

III. Summary of EPA Actions 

EPA is finalizing a Regional Haze FIP 

for the State of Hawaii. The FIP 

establishes an emissions cap of 3,550 

tons of SO2 per year from the fuel oilfired boilers at the Hill, Shipman and 

Puna power plants, beginning in 2018 

(with a demonstration of compliance 

required by the end of 2018). If HELCO 

chooses to meet the cap by switching to 

cleaner fuel, then the EPA estimates that 

the costs will be no more than 

approximately $7.9 million/year. This 

cap represents a reduction of 1,400 tons 

per year of SO2 from the total projected 

2018 annual emissions from these 

facilities. We find that this control 

measure, in conjunction with SO2 and 

NOX emissions control requirements 

that are already in place, will ensure 

that reasonable progress is made during 

this first planning period toward the 

national goal of no anthropogenic 

visibility impairment by 2064 at 

Hawaii’s two Class I areas. We will work 

with the Hawaii DOH in developing 

future regional haze plans to ensure 

continued progress toward this goal. 

IV. Statutory and Executive Order 

Reviews 

A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory 

Planning and Review and Executive 

Order 13563: Improving Regulation and 

Regulatory Review 13563 

This action finalizes a FIP that will 

limit emissions of SO2 from specific 

units at three sources in Hawaii. Since 

this action only applies to three named 

sources, it is not a rule of general 

applicability. This type of action is 

exempt from review under Executive 

Orders 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 

1993) and 13563 (76 FR 3821, January 

21, 2011). 

B. Paperwork Reduction Act 

This action does not impose an 

information collection burden under the 

provisions of the Paperwork Reduction 

Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq. Under the 

Paperwork Reduction Act, a ‘‘collection 

of information’’ is defined as a 

requirement for ‘‘answers to * * * 

identical reporting or recordkeeping 

requirements imposed on ten or more 

persons. * * *’’ 44 U.S.C. 3502(3)(A). 

Because the FIP applies to just three 

facilities, the Paperwork Reduction Act 

does not apply. See 5 CFR 1320(c). 

Burden means the total time, effort, or 

financial resources expended by persons 

to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose 

or provide information to or for a 

Federal agency. This includes the time 

needed to review instructions; develop, 

acquire, install, and utilize technology 

and systems for the purposes of 

collecting, validating, and verifying 

information, processing and 

maintaining information, and disclosing 

and providing information; adjust the 

existing ways to comply with any 

previously applicable instructions and 

requirements; train personnel to be able 

to respond to a collection of 

information; search data sources; 

complete and review the collection of 

information; and transmit or otherwise 

disclose the information. 

An agency may not conduct or 

sponsor, and a person is not required to 

respond to a collection of information 

unless it displays a currently valid 

Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) control number. The OMB 

control numbers for our regulations in 

40 CFR are listed in 40 CFR Part 9. 

C. Regulatory Flexibility Act 

The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) 

generally requires an agency to prepare 

a regulatory flexibility analysis of any 

rule subject to notice and comment 

rulemaking requirements under the 

Administrative Procedure Act or any 

other statute unless the agency certifies 


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72Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. and Hawaiian 

Electric Company, Inc., Form 10–K for the fiscal 

year ended December 31, 2011 ‘‘Generation 

Statistics’’ available in the docket for this 

rulemaking. 

that the rule will not have a significant 

economic impact on a substantial 

number of small entities. Small entities 

include small businesses, small 

organizations, and small governmental 

jurisdictions. 

For purposes of assessing the impacts 

of today’s rule on small entities, small 

entity is defined as: (1) A small business 

as defined by the Small Business 

Administration’s (SBA) regulations at 13 

CFR 121.201; (2) a small governmental 

jurisdiction that is a government of a 

city, county, town, school district or 

special district with a population of less 

than 50,000; and (3) a small 

organization that is any not-for-profit 

enterprise which is independently 

owned and operated and is not 

dominant in its field. 

After considering the economic 

impacts of this action on small entities, 

I certify that this action will not have a 

significant economic impact on a 

substantial number of small entities. 

The three sources in question are 

electric generating plants that are owned 

by the Hawaii Electric Light Company, 

Inc. (HELCO), which is an electric 

utility subsidiary of HECO. Pursuant to 

13 CFR 121.201, footnote 1, an electric 

utility firm is small if, including its 

affiliates, it is primarily engaged in the 

generation, transmission, and/or 

distribution of electric energy for sale 

and its total electric output for the 

preceding fiscal year did not exceed 4 

million megawatt hours (MWH). In the 

fiscal year ended December 31, 2011, 

HELCO generated or purchased a total 

of 1,186.6 MWH.72 Therefore, it is not 

a small business. 

D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act 

(UMRA) 

The Hawaii Regional Haze FIP will 

limit emissions of SO2 from specific 

units at three sources in Hawaii. This 

rule does not contain a Federal mandate 

that may result in expenditures that 

exceed the inflation-adjusted UMRA 

threshold of $100 million by State, 

local, or Tribal governments or the 

private sector in any 1 year. Thus, this 

rule is not subject to the requirements 

of sections 202 or 205 of UMRA. 

This rule is also not subject to the 

requirements of section 203 of UMRA 

because it contains no regulatory 

requirements that might significantly or 

uniquely affect small governments. 

E. Executive Order 13132: Federalism 

The Hawaii Regional Haze FIP does 

not have federalism implications. This 

action will not have substantial direct 

effects on the States, on the relationship 

between the national government and 

the States, or on the distribution of 

power and responsibilities among the 

various levels of government, as 

specified in Executive Order 13132. In 

this action, EPA is fulfilling its statutory 

duty under CAA Section 110(c) to 

promulgate a Regional Haze FIP 

following its finding that Hawaii had 

failed to submit a regional haze SIP. 

Thus, Executive Order 13132 does not 

apply to this action. 

F. Executive Order 13175: Consultation 

and Coordination With Indian Tribal 

Governments 

The Hawaii Regional Haze FIP will 

limit emissions of SO2 from specific 

units at three sources in Hawaii. This 

rule does not have tribal implications, 

as specified in Executive Order 13175. 

It will not have substantial direct effects 

on tribal governments. Thus, Executive 

Order 13175 does not apply to this rule. 

G. Executive Order 13045: Protection of 

Children From Environmental Health 

Risks and Safety Risks 

EPA interprets EO 13045 as applying 

only to those regulatory actions that 

concern health or safety risks, such that 

the analysis required under section 5– 

501 of the EO has the potential to 

influence the regulation. This action is 

not subject to EO 13045 because it 

implements specific standards 

established by Congress in statutes. 

However, to the extent this rule will 

limit emissions of SO2, the rule will 

have a beneficial effect on children’s 

health by reducing air pollution. 

H. Executive Order 13211: Actions 

Concerning Regulations That 

Significantly Affect Energy Supply, 

Distribution, or Use 

This action is not subject to Executive 

Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 

2001), because it is not a significant 

regulatory action under Executive Order 

12866. 

I. National Technology Transfer and 

Advancement Act 

Section 12 of the National Technology 

Transfer and Advancement Act 

(NTTAA) of 1995 requires Federal 

agencies to evaluate existing technical 

standards when developing a new 

regulation. To comply with NTTAA, 

EPA must consider and use ‘‘voluntary 

consensus standards’’ (VCS) if available 

and applicable when developing 

programs and policies unless doing so 

would be inconsistent with applicable 

law or otherwise impractical. EPA 

believes that VCS are inapplicable to 

this action. Today’s action does not 

require the public to perform activities 

conducive to the use of VCS. 

J. Executive Order 12898: Federal 

Actions To Address Environmental 

Justice in Minority Populations and 

Low-Income Populations 

Executive Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, 

February 16, 1994), establishes federal 

executive policy on environmental 

justice. Its main provision directs 

federal agencies, to the greatest extent 

practicable and permitted by law, to 

make environmental justice part of their 

mission by identifying and addressing, 

as appropriate, disproportionately high 

and adverse human health or 

environmental effects of their programs, 

policies, and activities on minority 

populations and low-income 

populations in the United States. 

We have determined that this rule 

will not have disproportionately high 

and adverse human health or 

environmental effects on minority or 

low-income populations because it 

increases the level of environmental 

protection for all affected populations 

without having any disproportionately 

high and adverse human health or 

environmental effects on any 

population, including any minority or 

low-income population. The Hawaii 

Regional Haze FIP will limit emissions 

of SO2 from specific units at three 

sources in Hawaii. 

K. Congressional Review Act 

The Congressional Review Act, 5 

U.S.C. 801 et seq., as added by the Small 

Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Fairness Act of 1996, generally provides 

that before a rule may take effect, the 

agency promulgating the rule must 

submit a rule report, which includes a 

copy of the rule, to each House of the 

Congress and to the Comptroller General 

of the United States. Section 804 

exempts from section 801 the following 

types of rules (1) rules of particular 

applicability; (2) rules relating to agency 

management or personnel; and (3) rules 

of agency organization, procedure, or 

practice that do not substantially affect 

the rights or obligations of non-agency 

parties. 5 U.S.C. 804(3). EPA is not 

required to submit a rule report 

regarding today’s action under section 

801 because this action is a rule of 

particular applicability. This rule 

finalizes a FIP that applies to three 

specific sources. 


wreier-aviles on DSK5TPTVN1PROD with RULES2
61506 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 195 / Tuesday, October 9, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

L. Petitions for Judicial Review 

Under section 307(b)(1) of the Clean 

Air Act, petitions for judicial review of 

this action must be filed in the United 

States Court of Appeals for the 

appropriate circuit by December 10, 

2012. Filing a petition for 

reconsideration by the Administrator of 

this final rule does not affect the finality 

of this rule for the purposes of judicial 

review nor does it extend the time 

within which a petition for judicial 

review may be filed, and shall not 

postpone the effectiveness of such rule 

or action. This action may not be 

challenged later in proceedings to 

enforce its requirements. (See CAA 

section 307(b)(2).) 

Approval and Promulgation of 

Implementation Plans; State of Hawaii; 

Regional Haze Federal Implementation 

Plan 

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52 

Environmental protection, Air 

pollution control, Incorporation by 

reference, Intergovernmental relations, 

Particulate matter, Reporting and record 

keeping requirements, Sulfur oxides. 

Dated: September 14, 2012. 

Lisa P. Jackson, 

Administrator. 

40 CFR part 52 is amended as follows: 

PART 52—[AMENDED] 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 52 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq. 

■ 2. Amend § 52.633 by adding 

paragraph (d) to read as follows: 

§ 52.633 Visibility protection. 

* * * * * 

(d) Regional Haze Plan Provisions— 

(1) Applicability— This paragraph (d) 

applies to following electric generating 

units (EGUs) and boilers: Kanoelehua 

Hill Generating Station, Hill 5 and Hill 

6; Puna Power Plant, Boiler 1; Shipman 

Power Plant, Boiler S–3 and Boiler S– 

4. 

(2) Definitions. Terms not defined 

below shall have the meaning given to 

them in the Clean Air Act or EPA’s 

regulations implementing the Clean Air 

Act. For purposes of this paragraph (d): 

Owner/operator means any person who 

owns, leases, operates, controls, or 

supervises an EGU or boiler identified 

in paragraph (d)(1) of this section. 

SO2 means sulfur dioxide. 

Unit means any of the EGUs or boilers 

identified in paragraph (d)(1) of this 

section. 

(3) Emissions cap. The EGUs 

identified in paragraph (d)(1) of this 

section shall not emit or cause to be 

emitted SO2 in excess of a total of 3,550 

tons per year, calculated as the sum of 

total SO2 emissions for all five units 

over a rolling 12-month period. 

(4) Compliance date. Compliance 

with the emissions cap and other 

requirements of this section is required 

at all times on and after December 31, 

2018. 

(5) Monitoring, recordkeeping and 

reporting requirements. 

(i) All records, including support 

information, required by paragraph 

(d)(5) of this section shall be maintained 

for at least five (5) years from the date 

of the measurement, test or report. 

These records shall be in a permanent 

form suitable for inspection and made 

available to EPA, the Hawaii 

Department of Health or their 

representatives upon request. 

(ii) The owners and operators of the 

EGUs identified in paragraph (d)(1) of 

this section shall maintain records of 

fuel deliveries identifying the delivery 

dates and the type and amount of fuel 

received. The fuel to be fired in the 

boilers shall be sampled and tested in 

accordance with the most current 

American Society for Testing and 

Materials (ASTM) methods. 

(iii) The owners and operators of the 

EGUs identified in paragraph (d)(1) of 

this section shall analyze a 

representative sample of each batch of 

fuel received for its sulfur content and 

heat value following ASTM D4057. The 

samples shall be analyzed for the total 

sulfur content of the fuel using ASTM 

D129, or alternatively D1266, D1552, 

D2622, D4294, or D5453. 

(iv) The owners and operators of the 

EGUs identified in paragraph (d)(1) of 

this section shall calculate on a monthly 

basis the SO2 emissions for each unit for 

the preceding month based on the sulfur 

content, heat value and total gallons of 

fuel burned. 

(v) The owners and operators of the 

EGUs identified in paragraph (d)(1) of 

this section shall calculate on a monthly 

basis the total emissions for all units for 

the preceding twelve (12) months. 

(vi) The owners and operators of the 

EGUs identified in paragraph (d)(1) of 

this section shall notify the Hawaii 

Department of Health and EPA Region 

9 of any exceedance of the emission cap 

in paragraph (d)(3) of this section within 

thirty (30) days of such exceedance. 

(vii) By March 1, 2019 and within 

sixty (60) days following the end of each 

calendar year thereafter, the owners and 

operators of the EGUs identified in 

paragraph (d)(1) of this section shall 

report to the Hawaii Department of 

Health and EPA Region 9 the total tons 

of SO2 emitted from all units for the 

preceding calendar year by month and 

the corresponding rolling 12-month 

total emissions for all units. 

(viii) Any document (including 

reports) required to be submitted by this 

rule shall be certified as being true, 

accurate, and complete by a responsible 

official and shall be mailed to the 

following addresses: Clean Air Branch, 

Environmental Management Division, 

State of Hawaii Department of Health, 

P.O. Box 3378, Honolulu, HI 96801– 

3378 and Director of Enforcement 

Division, U.S. EPA Region IX, 75 

Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 

94105. 

[FR Doc. 2012–23238 Filed 10–5–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 


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