### WESTAR and WRAP Spring Business Meeting April 19-20, 2016 Incline Village, NV

All agenda times are Pacific Daylight Time Tuesday, April 19 7:00-9:00 am WESTAR Breakfast Buffet (provided) Cutthroat Saloon
8:00

– 10:00 am Executive Session Martis Peak AB 8:00-10:00 am Tribal Caucus Martis Peak C

10:15

– 11:45 am Business Regency DEF

 Opening of WESTAR - WRAP meeting

o WESTAR Council welcome

– Bryce Bird, UT DAQ, President

o WRAP Board welcome

– Randy Ashley, Confederated Salish, Pend d’Oreilles, and Kootenai Tribes, Tribal CoChair

o Introductions around the room and on the phone

o Logistics

 Review/approval of previous meeting summary |LINK|

 Location of fall WESTAR/WRAP meeting |LINK|

 Nomination Committee recommendations

– WESTAR Board |LINK|

 Review of WRAP Board terms and members (Tom Moore, WESTAR-WRAP) |LINK|

 Staff reports (Tom Moore, Bob Lebens, Jeff Gabler, WESTARWRAP) |LINK|

 Committee reports (Tina Suarez-Murias, CARB |LINK| ; Clint
Bowman , WY ECY |LINK| ; Gordon Pierce, CDPHE |LINK| )

 Financial report (Will Allison, CDPHE ) |LINK|

11:45 am -1:15 pm Lunch (on your own)

1:15

– 2:15 pm OAQPS Overview (Anna Wood, EPA) |LINK|

2:15-3:15 pm Ozone NAAQS implementation

 SIP process (Anna Wood, EPA) |LINK|

 EPA Interstate transport technical issues (Chet Wayland, EPA) |LINK|

 Western state comments on background ozone white paper/workshop (Frank Forsgren, NV DEP) |LINK|

3:15-3:30 pm Break3:30

- 5:00 pm H ot topics:

 SO2 NAAQS overview (Anna Wood) |LINK| and roundtable (Roundtable questions provided |LINK| )

 E

- permitting panel ( Tim Franquist , AZ DEQ |LINK| ; Charlene Albee, Washoe County Health District |LINK| )

5:00

- 6:00 pm Tribal Caucus, as needed Martis Peak C

6:00 pm No Host di nner

- Azzara’s 930 Tahoe Blvd., Suite 101, Incline Village

Wednesday, April 20 7:00

- 8:00 am WESTAR Breakfast Buffet (provided) Cutthroat Saloon 8:00

– 9: 30 am Exceptional Events Rulemaking and Wildfire/Ozone Guidance Regency
DEF

 OAQPS update (Anna Wood, EPA) |LINK|

 Overview of WESTAR comments (Adele Malone and Danilo Dragoni

, NV DEP) |LINK|

 Regional Scale Technical Tools (Tom Moore, WESTAR

- WRAP) |LINK|

 Roundtable comments : ( Roundtable questions provided) |LINK|

9:30

- 10:00 am Smoke Management and Fire (Pete Lahm, USFS) |LINK|

10:00

- 10:15 am Break

10:15

– 11: 00 am Regional haze planning

 EPA proposal (Anna Wood, EPA ) |LINK|

 Regional Haze workgroup and workplan update (Tina Suarez

Murias , CA RB ) |LINK|

11: 00 am

- 12: 00 pm WRAP Workplan (Julie Simpson, Nez Perce Tribe ) |LINK|

12: 00

- 1: 15 pm Lunch (provided ) Regency Foyer West

1: 15

– 2: 15 pm Oil and Gas: rules, state experiences and technologies (Will Allison, CDPHE; T erry O’Clair, ND DOH; Darla Potter , WY DEQ)

2: 15

- 3: 00 pm Climate Change initiatives roundtable (Roundtable questions |LINK| )

3: 00

- 4: 00 pm Efficiency Improvements Roundtable (Roundtable questions | LINK| )4: 00 pm Adjourn

— please fill out evaluation form |LINK|

### 5/5/2016

1 1

Beth Palma

2

 Exceptional Events Rule Revisions and Wildfire Guidance Development

 November 10, 2015 – sign Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for rule revisions and Notice of

Availability for draft guidance

 November 20, 2015 – publication in Federal Register (80 FR 72840)

 December 8, 2015 – public hearing in Phoenix, Arizona

 February 3, 2016 – close of comment period

 Summer 2016 – sign final rule and issue final guidance document

 Communication and Outreach

 Summer/Fall 2016

 Additional draft guidance document(s) available for stakeholder review

 Revisions to 2013 Interim Exceptional Events Implementation Guidance

 Continued development of exceptional events tools (e.g., website, templates)

 Implementation workshop(s)/webinars for states, tribes, and other affected stakeholders

following promulgation 

## Exceptional Events

### 5/5/2016

2 3

 Environmental community not supportive of majority of proposed revisions

 States/industry generally supportive of streamlining efforts and asked for additional measures to

improve efficiency

 Restructuring 6 criteria in 2007 Rule to 3 (includes removing “but for”)

 Presumption that event

‐ related emissions originating outside of jurisdiction are not reasonably controllable or

preventable

 Relying on EPA

‐ approved attainment/maintenance SIPs to satisfy not reasonably controllable or preventable

 Removing flagging and demonstration submittal deadlines

 Clarification regarding components of a demonstration package

 States/Industry generally do not support:

 Allowing Federal Land Managers to submit demonstrations

 Not relying on infrastructure SIPs to satisfy not reasonably controllable or preventable

 Using Air Quality Control Region boundaries to define the bounds for an area subject to event recurrence

 General timelines for EPA response (prefer promulgated timelines)

 Lack of a formal dispute resolution process 

## Exceptional Events: Comments on the NPRM

4

• Commenters generally support tiering concept, but believe identified approach is

too restrictive

• Commenters do not fully support the Q/D methodology proposed as a key factor for

defining a Tier 2 demonstration. Commenters note the difficulty in calculating Q/D and the limitations of identified tools (e.g., SMARTFIRE/BlueSky)

• Commenters ask for prescribed fire guidance 

## Exceptional Events: Comments on Guidance

# WESTAR Spring Business Meeting April 19

- 20, 2016 Incline Village, Nevada

12 

# WESTAR Comments on EER

History of involvement with EPA regarding EE. Appreciate EPA’s responsiveness to WESTAR’s ongoing concerns

– addressing them through rule revisions.

The proposed rule revisions include a number of important improvements that we support, such as:

• Removing the “but

- for” criterion

• Incorporating the “affects air quality” and “historical fluctuations” criteria into assessment of the broader clear causal demonstration

• Removing deadlines for data flagging, initial event descriptions and demonstration submittals

• Advocating early and frequent communication to establish mutual expectations . . . a nd more

# Not Reasonably Preventable and Controllable (V.E.2)

• Support EPA’s proposal to consider control measures in recently approved nonattainment and maintenance SIPs sufficient to meet requirement.

• During 5

- year window after approval of the SIP, control measures in SIP satisfy the not reasonably preventable and controllable criterion.

• Urge EPA to extend this presumption to all SIPs approved by EPA, including CAA 110(a)(1) and(2) SIPs, aka “infrastructure ” SIPs.

3

# Submittal of EE Requests by FLMs (V.A.2) Support collaboration with FLMs on the preparation of a request. However, land management agencies and air quality agencies have different functions and priorities. Responsibility for submitting a request should remain with the state air quality agency.

Smoke Management Plans (V.F.2)

• Air agencies need a role in deciding when a prescribed fire is allowed to burn as a wildfire (become eligible for EE status).

• Support requirements for SMPs that define up front what appropriate practices should be followed to protect air quality, rather than asking fire managers to confirm afterwards they implemented BSMPs.

4

# Mitigation (VI.B) Support retaining current practices (40 CFR 51.930), which provide flexibility and deference to states on appropriate mitigation and public notification. These appear to be working satisfactorily. “If it ain’t broken...”

Scope and Applicability (V.C.2) Understand the need to manage EE demonstration submittals and the current backlog, but:

• Concerned with EPA’s proposal to restrict review to only specific types of EEs. If EPA imposes this limitation, EPA must also include a provision to allow states and regions, on a
case

- by

- case basis, to pursue other types of requests.

• Concerned that EPA has announced it does not expect to act on demonstrations in unclassifiable or attainment areas, unless the area could become nonattainment.

5

# Timing (V.G.7)

• EPA needs to establish in rule a time frame for a completeness review of a submittal; response time for states to supply any requested additional information; and a deadline for acting on a submittal. Recommend a 12 month timeline from initial submittal to final action

.
• EE submittal backlog: It is essential that states be allowed to review the back

- log of exceptional events and retain packages that may still have compelling reasons for acting.

Dispute Resolution ( V.G.8) Support early and regular communication and proposal for initial notification of EE requests. However

– disagreements may still arise. Continue to recommend EPA develop an administrative dispute resolution process; WESTAR offers to work with EPA to develop one.

6

# WESTAR Spring Business Meeting April 19

- 20, 2016 Incline Village, Nevada

7

## Tiered approach to streamline EE demonstration

1. Tier 1

– simple case, addressed with very simple analysis

2. Tier 2

- based on the intensity and emission from the fires and the distance of the affected monitor

3. Tier 3

– more complex cases to be addressed with advanced analyses and/or modeling (e.g., CMAQ/ CAMx )

WESTAR welcomes the tiered approach and the attempt to streamline the preparation of the EE... BUT

The tiered system does not address the complexity typical of the western US (e.g., several wildfires going on at the same time)

Some rigidity in the definition of the tiers may lead to situations where a large majority of the cases will fall under tier 3, especially in the West

# Tier 1

Very clear effect of the fire, possibly during low O 3 

## season so that the spike in concentrations is 5

- 10 ppb higher than during non

- event conditions (ideally, a time

- series should be enough to show the effect of the fire on the monitor)

• Rigid and simplistic approach (low O 3 

## season and threshold)

• States should not be restricted on the magnitude or on the type of analyses required to quantify the effect of the wildfire on the monitor.

• If a baseline of non

- event data needs to be constructed

o What about all the events (potential EEs) that affected the baseline but do not fall in a regulatory determination?

o What about the backlog of EE submissions that EPA is planning to terminate?

• Needs for at least 5 years of data to determine the baseline.

## Based on the ratio between emissions (Q) and distance between the fire and the monitor (D). EPA set this ratio to be at least 100 ( tpd /km)

Guidance on the Preparation of Exceptional Events Demonstrations for Wildfire Events that May Influence Ozone Concentrations

– Draft November 2015 

# Tier 2

## • The threshold of 100 tpd /km appears to be arbitrary and could just create a 2 tiered system (1and 3)

• The determination of Q becomes highly uncertain and the tools proposed are limited for the purpose of assessing Q (SMARTFIRE/ BlueSky

, NEI ...)

• Ignores the efforts from WRAP Fire Emissions Tracking System (FETS), or WRAP Tools analysis platform.

• Needs for at least 5 years of data to determine the base

- line for assessing the impact of the wildfire over the monitor 

# Tier 2

## Some of the analyses required for Tier 3 demonstrations may place an undue burden on smaller agencies with limited resources 

# Tier 3