7/22/05 Revision 2 fianet) 

# TRANSCRIPT 

# PublicHearing on GilaRiver Indian Community Department ofEnvironmental Quality Tribal ImplementationPlanfor Air Quality

June 22,2005 @

### District4 

### Service Center 4:00 pm 

## -8:OOpm

4:30 p.m. PATRICIA MARIELLA: Welcome, I'm Pat Mariella. I am the Director of the Department of Environmental Quality of the Gila River Indian Community. There are a number of other staff here. I'd likethein stand up and introduce themselves.

RUSSELL BETSUIE: 

### Hi. I am Russell Betsuie with Department of Environmental Quality, Air Quality Specialist.

LEROY WILLIAMS: Hi. I am Leroy Williams, Air Quality Specialist, also with Department OfEnvironmental Quality.

WILLARD ANTONE: Willard Antone. I also work with Air Quality Program.

DANIEL BLAIR: Daniel Blair, Air Quality Specialist.

MARGARET COOK: Margaret Cook, Sr. Environmental Planner for Department of Environmental Quality.

JANET TRAVIS: I amJanet Travis, Environmental Quality Project Associate.

SOYET ANTONE: Soyet Antone, Secretary I with Department of Environmental Quality.

PATRICIA MARELLA: She is really going above and beyond the call of duty. Sheis about ready to have a baby and she's here recording this hearing for us. I would like to introduce our Hearing Officer, Kevin Gover, who is a professor of law at the ASU College of Law. We are honored and thrilled to have him here as our hearing officer today and participating in the process. This is the formal public hearing and part ofthe information of who is here, what we say, what you say will be provided to the US EPA when the Gila River Indian Community submits its Tribal Implementation Plan to the USEPA for approval under theFederal CleanAir Act. So this is a little bit more formal

### than our Open Houses or our public meetings that we have. That is why we have a formal hearing officer, we're recording it, we want to make sure everyone here has signed in on the sign-in sheet. So please do so if you haven't done that already. We do have two representatives of the United StatesEnvironmental Protection AgencyRegion 

### 9 Would you liketo introduce yourselves?

COLLEEN MCKAUGHAN: I am Colleen McKaughan with the US EPA Region 

### IX Air Quality Divison (emailed colleen)



### WE= TAX: I am Weinke Tax (title)with the US EPA Region 

### IXalso stationed in Tucson.

PATRICIA MARIELLA: Because this is a fairly small group and many of you represent industries that come from the same industrial park, why don't we just have everyone introducehirnlherself.

AMY VASQUEZ: I am 

### Amy Vasquez. I am fromPimalco, a subsidiary of ALCOA and

we are in the LoneButte Industrial Park.

MICKIE SCHULTZ: I'm Mickie Schultz. I'm the Environmental Manager for Romic Environmental Technology, which is located on the Lone Butte Industrial Park.

(review)(ruinbling
-

### couldn't understand)from Stericycle

(Something) Rodney District Managerwith Stericycle here in Arizona (unknown)

FRED RINGLERO: I'm Fred Ringlero, GilaRiver Sand & 

### Gravel

I am Lisa (unk) Human Resource Manager, representing Safety Manager Tony Enos with GilaRiver Sand& 

### Gravel. (Unk)
TERRY CLUB: Terry Club,Rock Solid, Lone Butte Industrial Park.

MICHAEL KEY: Michael Key Director of Environmental Affairs (unk)

?????Add lawyersfrom Quarles andBrady (Add)

PATRICIA MARIELLA: We have a number of young lawyers here

,

### it appears, and a professor oflaw so feel free to ask any legal questions. Also please make surethat you take the sodas and other snacks in the back. Also, on the back table, there is a plethora of information about the Gila River Indian Community Department Of Environmental Quality as well as about the Air Quality TIP. I am going to give you a brief overview (becausemost of you are here to hear the background and general issues) I would liketo remindyou that we taking written comments,you can also call us ifyou want or you can email us or send us a fax until July 

### 1" (until close ofbusiness which would be 5:OOpm.)onthe TIP. That isthe close ofthe formal public comment period. We do have notice in the 

### AZ Republic, which is a state wide newspaper and we put a notice in the Gila River Indian Community news. We've gone to every one of the seven districts in the Community, to the District Community meetings. We made presentations and received

some excellent feedback, also from elderly concerns and a whole range of other local organizations. I know you remember our presentations to industrial facilities. This is has been a program that's been in development for a number ofyears.

1should acknowledge our outside counsel is Quarles Brady, StreichLang. Roger Ferland ofthat firm has been our immediate counsel helping us outside the Community. We've also been working very closely with the Law Office of the GilaRiver Indian Community

as well as with the US EPA The Gila River Indian Community was very interested in taking on the responsibility for managing its own air quality after the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990, acknowledged that Tribal governments had the same authority to be able to take on the clean air act program that State had been doing for many, many years. GilaRiver was actually one ofthe interveners in the law suitsthat being sued after the rule was promulgated or issued by the US EPA. Gila River is very interested in protecting its air quality. It is one ofits key resources and this Coinmunity has been here for a long time now and its not going to pack up and leave anytime soon. So we want to make sure that we are protecting all its resources for now and in the future. There is industry here, there are agricultural operations, there are residences and the community
was very eager to make sure that it was using its authorities to manage air quality. The first step was to develop the first Phase ofthe TIP. TIP Section I which was enacted by Council and basically that set of ordinances had the Community adopt the national ambient air quality standards as Community standards. Those are the health based, national standards establishedby the USEPA under Clean Air Act. That first part ofthe TIP or Tribal ImplementationPlan also set the rules ofhow we will proceed toadoptthis next part ofthe TIP, which is what we are tallung about today. It is a set of ordinances,

or statutes or laws that we will presenting to the Tribal Council. We have been working closely with the Natural Resources Standing Committee, which is our oversight committee, and also with Council for a number ofyears, as we worked on developing the TIP. Some of the key things that we are very interested in, as part of the TIP, particularly for Community ineinbers there is a section on opening burning. Opening burning has been prohibited for trash, household trash, at Gila River since 1995 through the Solid Waste Ordinance. The proposed TIP takes it a little bit farther and establishes

an additional permit process for larger scale burns with more requirements and some

cases a permit fee. Most of what we are looking at in the documents that we're asking for comments on today (though we are also asking for comments on the first section of the TIP, which is the adoption of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards) is permitting. That is the major tool that we're going to use to be able to implement all these ordinances. And for those of you who may have facilitiesthat are also off Indian Country land, and you may also be dealing with other regulatory agencies, you may have noticed that all ofthese TIP elements are ordinances. There aren't ordinances and then rules; that's why this is a fairly substantial document. All the rules are incorporated, essentially, into the ordinances. That's something a little bit additional to what you might see in either federal statute or sometimes in the states. So we, althoughour department does issue permits and charge fees for pesticide applicators, this will be one of the first set of ordinances in which DEQ will be issuing larger scale permits and will be charging fees to commercial entities. So that is one thing that is new for the TIP and for the Community. The TIP does incorporate administrative procedures that have also been incorporated into several previous ordinances that the community has passed. One of those was the Medical Waste Management Ordinance and the other was the EPCRA Ordinance (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know). We want to make sure that if we are doing departmental regulations that we do it in a way that provides oversight so that our administrative procedures that are also in this TIP andthe two previous ordinances, include a system for appealing any agency action and decision. Sothat is true for enforcement actions as well as for permit decisions. Theseprocedures should be very recognizable because it's pretty much the standard process forthe federal



### as well asthe state law. And the otherpart isthat it enables our department, the DEQ,to take enforcement action through orders or administrative orders. That is something that is was also incorporated into the EPCRA Ordinance (Emergency Planning Community Right to Know) as well as the Medical Waste Management Ordinance.But many of our very early, environmental regulatory ordinances require a basically issuing a citation through the tribal courts and having the judge issue the order. There are also appeals of enforcement actions that are incorporated into the TIP so that somethingwe want to make sure everybody sees and has the ability to comment on. The ineatypart of this has to do with the sections on permitting and requirements that are being expected ofthe facilities. When we went into the districts of the community and made presentations on the TIP, many of the comments were on open burning. But the overwhelming majority ofthe requirements of this TIP or the Tribal Implementation Plan affect industry within the Community. There are requirements for managing fugitive dust, which means dust not coming out of smoke stacks, so it's dust from unpaved roads, dust from agricultural operations --help me out here Daniel 

## -- dust from parkings lots, which is certainly not an issue here at Gila River. Those arethe major things I could ask you totake a look when commenting, but also on all aspects of the TIP. But we really want to focus on someof the newer elements for the community. Would anybody would like to add anything? Any other staff! Alright, we dohave oneperson..

.. . .

DANIEL BLAIR: There are hard copies of the ordinances over here to look at, kind of split out. There also technical support documents that were used to help develop the ordinances themselves.

PATRICIA MARLELLA: Thank you. We do have one entity that would like to give spoken testimony. Fred, would you introduce yourself and well go fromthere.

KEVIN 

### GOVEK: Just to make sure we can captureit on tape would be helpful.

FRED RINGLERO: Again my name is Fred Ringlero. I am the Special Project Coordinator for GR Sand &Gravel. I've gone overthe documentatinand reviewed it, and

was in the process of reviewing it and discussing it with ourtheboard, Gila River Sand & Gravel, but was unable to do that at this point. But we will be discussing it here inthe next couple of days, and probably getDan out to the board to go over some ofthis stuff.A lot of its technical. I had a hard time trying to tune out myself, but the main areas we were concerned with, I feel that a lot of the organizations currently within the Community that deal inthe same areas we dohave been doing some ofthis stuffalready. We are interested in complyingwith the issues that have been brought up by reading the document. I felt that a lot of it, as I said again, we are in compliance with most parts of it. There are a few things we feel that we get alongworking with DEQ to work some of these things out. Its unclear on certain capacities, emissions, timing, paperwork, just different little things that have loose ends and gray areas. The only way to work it out would be with working with the department and having them work with us on some of these issues. Also, gettingto know the staff, I have been fortunate to know the staffhere at Gila River Indian Community. I have a good feeling that we can work out issues. I think that's the main thing. Also who we get to inspect. Interpretation of the rules, sometimes not just black and white. It's 

### a matter ofthe inspectors that we have to deal with. I guess that our 

### - who's doing the inspecting and who are the individuals that will be doing that? Is it on a regular quarterly basis, what's the timing on these inspections? We realize that there will be some onsite inspections without formal notice, to ensurethat

we are doingwhat we need to do. Other than that, what we doonthe Sand & Gravelpart ofit, we also sublease some of ourproperty batch plant operators. Some of the things we noticed in this documentationhave given us and the tribe a little more teeth to deal with these issues in regards to the batch plant operators sometimes not wanting to comply because we have no rules or regulations to comply with other than best management practices. Sometimes our legal people or tribal people, our hands are tied because they would like to enforce these things but have not a formaldocumentto dothat. Ithink this permitting process has allowed the tribe and other entities that have to deal with these issues a little bit of teeth to give us strength in regards to trying to control some of this stuff. I think one other comment in closing, timelines regarding old facilities, facilities that we might be closing down. Some of our batch plant operators may be leaving the community and what is it they have to do in that? I know you have some construction type documents that need a permit. What would that mean to some of our operations if

we have to close down, in those particular cases? Other than that I feel that DEQ has done a good job in producing a document that will not only help us here 

### in the community but help the industries understand what the tribe is looking for and how they would liketokeepthe air clean. The fugitive dust,

### I guessthat's the hardest one. Its hard to understand and get complaints when people say this is happening when you look atthe valley north of us and you get all this stuff floating across. We have clean air out here but how do we stop all that? And how is that going to be held against us in regards to regulation? What is the monitoring process? I know there's some things with Carbon Monoxide. We have 

### 99% of the cars going across the freeways right now that are noncommunity members, non-vehicles that do not reside in the community. Yet we get counted for those particular particulates and stuff and it doesn't seem right. I think there's still some consideration in the monitoring part of it. We dohave a lot ofvehicles moving in and out ofourbatch plant areas of Sand &Gravel, but Ithink, again itsback to regulations and where dowe draw the line on some of this stuff. All I have to say isthat Gila River Sand & Gravel is here to work with DEQ, not fight or argue against these things, but forbetter. Let's work it out, thank you.

### KEVIN GOVER: Is there anyone else here who has a comment or question? 

### My only purpose here asthe hearing officer isto insure that the record is complete as possible and that everyone has the opportunity to say anything that they may wishto say regardingthis TIP and sothis is an excellent opportunityIthink ifyou reviewed the TIP andifyou have any questions about it to put those questions on the record. The DEQ staff will be responding to issues raised in this record, whether in this hearing room or in writing or even presumably by phone if it raises 

### an issue of substance about the program. So
anyone who wishesto is certainly free to stepup.

MICHAEL 

### KEY: Michael Key, Loves Travel Stops. I really didn't have anythingto say other than the fugitive dust still again,you were talhng about fugitive dust in the parking lot, and it kind of sparkedmy interest because we have arather large parking lot outhere that covers about 5 

### acres with asphalt. Maybeyou might have a little more rehrection on that, exactly what that's goingto entail.

DANIEL BLAIR: The fugitive dust ordinance applies to unpaved parking lots and (could
not understand)

UnknownMale: We have no unpaved parking lots. Thank you.



### KEVIN GOVER:Any other questions, thoughts, comments, jokes?

TERRY CLUFF: Terry Cluff with Rock Solid. Some ofthe references in this process talks about if data is available or not available and the assumption is that if its not available it willbe attainment and so forth. As we move down the road and data startsto accumulate over aperiod oftime, will there be revisionstothis? Our facility is on Pecos Road. We are off the reservationby one foot step, so we've got freeway on one sideand we have all the encroachment of building in Chandler and Ahwautukee and we're right there on the edge, more so than somebody down by Coolidge. So my question is how will thisbe addressed in the future? We have an option of30 

### yrs of leasingthere. I'll be
gone hopefully (laugh) but someone may ask that question at some point in time. That's all I have, and how we're going to address that as we gather data from this permitting process. Thank you.

KEVIN GOVER: Would anyone fromthe DEQ staff liketorespond?

DANIEL BLAIR: I am assuming that you tryingto get out of (unk)right now, currently right now the Ph4 status for ozone \47e are in ~ttainment, (could not understand anything all 

### I kept hearing isPM10).

Unknown Female: Could barely hear her.

PATRICIA MARLELLA: I would like to point out the closest you can get to ajoke in Air Quality Management is that this is a TIP, Tribal Implementation Plan, there are also SIPS, which are State Implementation Plans, and FIPs which are Federal Implementation Plans. As far as thejohng goes, I always say if you don't have 

### a TIP,SIP, or a FIP you've got 

### ZIP. If you follow the news off the reservation, the SIP-State Implementation Plan is a constantly evolving document. That's because federal laws change, the data, as you pointed out, on the ground has changed, you know that there goingto be changes because know the rules for emissions for the trucks will be changing with the fuel, it's a very, very dynamic situation. All I can say is that we are all goingto have to pay attentionto it, but we will do it jointly.

UNKNOWN MALE: Thank you. 

### (unkn) we have a plant in Peoria and I spent the last many months with Maricopa County Air Qualityworking on the Salt River SIPand some of the changes of 

### 316. I am not saying it didn't need to happen but I guess my assumption that we will going down that road here as the population continues and the rules change and maybe not to that extent but maybe at some point in time. I had my question answered. Thank you.

KEVIN GOVER:Very Well. Anybody elsewish to ask a question or pose a comment?

PATRICIA MARIELLA: We will be here until 8, officially, if anybody else wants to stay and hopefully answer questions or suddenly gets an inspiration to speak, just let us know. If you wantto peel off and go someplace else, you're more than welcome to.

KEVIN GOVER: A final reminder, the record is open until July 1" and 

### DEQ will be taking comments until that time. So if something occurs to you later, please submit it in writing so that it can become part oftherecord.

[During this time, a number of attendees left, others reviewed materials provided atthe tables. After approximately 45 minutes several new attendees came into the hearing

room and stated thatthey wished to provide comments.]

KEVIN GOVER: Okay, we are going to reopen the record and were back on tape please tell us whoyou are and shareyourthoughts withus.

LORI THOMAS-LUNA RIDDLE: My name is Lori Thomas Luna-Riddle, I just got married a week ago this last past Saturday. I 

### am one of the co-founders of the organization GR Alliance for a Clean Environment, my other partner she has been ill lately and she's been in rehabilitation since an injury but she's gone and supported mein
my continuing work and basically my comment on the TIP, the Tribal Implementation Plan is that one: we needed desperately needed something like this in order to regulate companies operating on the reservation a little bit more, these types of coinpanies are operating, I feel, this is my own personal opinion, without disregard ofthe environment. Ijust recently had a meeting with Janet and some otherkey staffinembers from the 

### DEQ and I think we made progress on why GRACE was doing the work its doing. I would like to saythat Janet, personally, was very receptive to that, being a tribal member, andif other tribal members could only sit down and see the reason why we exist. I wish that we didn't exist, I wish there was no need for us to exist but we exist because we wanttocare for our land, our water, our air and our soil for future generation, my children, my grandchildren and so on. In reading this I felt that the staff did a really goodjob atputting this draft together and right now I don't see anything wrong with putting this through. I do see it changing later on as companies do change on the reservation. 

### I believe it was Dan and Janet that had written up something similar for another company which used a medical waste incinerator. Now there's no medical waste incinerator because there's not really a need forthat but if ever there should be a company that does medical waste incineration that would be helpful that they laid the ground work down already for us. 

### I especially like the conflict of interest section and the procedures for public review. I believe that the public should be included in any reviews, tribal members should have a say so on what goes on, on any tribal lands. 

### Ibelieve it's timeto regulate these companies that are here, that have been here for decades. We didn't know what they were doing. A lot of community members, since I've approached them totry to get a petition signed, did not know what a medical waste incinerator was and did not know there was one in Gila River. The more information that the public has, that the tribal members have, the more informed they are. The more educated they are. They would like to be included in soine of these decision making tasks but sometimes they don't know where to go, who to talk to, and sometimes they do know but some things just don't work out as scheduled, as planned. GRACE operates on the principles of environmental justice and sowe do intend to continue working with DEQ and with EPA, and with other organizations trying to help us get our goal accomplished, and that is to have a safe reservation, safe land for our children and for future generations. At this time 

### I would like to thank you for setting this up Pat, I mean it's really something but there's still a lot more that needs to be accomplished and we still have a long way to go. Just like how I mentioned to Janet, there are other elements or rather sources of poison, polluted air, polluted water, polluted anything but whatever Gila River can do for our small community, we can control that and we can at least take responsibility. A lot of times we haven't known which direction to go. This goes back to the conversation about cultural, and 

### I truly believe that the whole land here and outer area are cultural sites but that cannot be proven because we've lost our history. We've lost our cultural traditions. We're losing our language and so when they ask about the cultural aspect of it, no one could step forward. No one wanted to take that responsibility of saying yes, there is a cultural site there, because we pretty much lost that past ofus. We could not do it. We could not do it. So right now we have to pick up the pieces. As O'odtham people we need to pick up the pieces and provide a safe home for our families and make sure this does not happen again. Make sure that companies like this don't push O'odtham people around. To make sure that our people, our tribal employees have some kind of say in what goes on in our backyard. So with that being said, 

### I thank you for your time and 

### I hope that people can understand what 

### I am trying to accomplish. Feel freeto contactme, Pat's got my contact information on the signup sheet and have a good day.

KEVIN GOVER: Very well, thank you. Would anybody else like to offer some testimony or observations. It's not testimony, but its comments atthistime

### -- okay.

ANDYRTDDLE: I'll say a fewthings.

KEVIN GOVER: Would you identify yourself sowe have it on therecord?

### ANDY RIDDLE: Andy Riddle, and I'm not a tribal member but I've been to EPA meetingswith Lori andonebig problem with puttingthings like this together is that I've

seen personally that tribal members, they either don't know that this is going on and I realize that it's difficultto get word passed around, andbasically use bulletinboards or in the tribal paper, but a lot of people don't have transportation and can't get here even if they wanted to. I think that education is probably one ofthe biggest stumbling blocks. 1 

### personally grew up in Southern California and I had no idea that I lived within an hour from San Onofre,anuclearpowerplant. Thingscanhappen inyourbackyardthatyou're
not aware of, and I think this program being implemented will go a long way in telling these corporations, allowing the tribe to tell these corporations, how they're going to operate on tribal land instead of vice versa, lettingthem come in on tribal land and then letting them dictatewhat they're going to do or what therenot goingto do. Ithinkthis is goingto gvethe tribe a little more power, DEQ a little more power and more say so. I hope this thing goes through and I hope it grows and expands. I hope it evolves as these companies evolve, modernize. Hopefully it doesn't get lost in the dust. I was impressed when Iread it and Ithink its goingto go a long way and Ithinkit's goingto help a lot. 1 

### think that DEQ has done a goodjob and I appreciate meeting with them the other day. They were forth-coming and offeredus information that we didn't havebefore, so I think it will go real well. Thank you.

KEVIN 

### GOVER:Okaythank you. Anyone elsewhowould liketooffer a comment? I'll just say again that the record is open until July 1" for written comments as well. So if you think of anything else you would like to say, please submit those to DEQ. Okay we'll go back off the record.

KEVIN 

### GOVER: Okay we're back on the record. It's 6:55 

### p.m.Would you please introduce yourself and shareyour comments?

JOSEPH MORAGO: My name is Joseph Morago, I'm a tribal member, and I'm also a member of GR Alliance for a Clean Environment. First of all, I would like to say that I

am grateful for the opportunity to coinment on the Tribal Implementation Plan for Air Quality Management. First of all, I hope this plan helps control some of the air pollution problems on our reservation. I hope this plan gives tribal government some course of action to finally shut down and owe people our companies that are responsible for pollution problems that they create on Gila River. I hope this plan is not like other ordinances on the reservationthat restrict community members but allow companies and outsidersto pollute our land. I hope this allows our tribal government to impose United States, State, Tribal Air Quality Regulations. I would like to coininend the people who worked on this plan, forthe hard work that they've done. Iknow that it was atoughjob andI know that you guys have done a goodjob on it,but Ihope these people are ableto do this job and enforce this act. Like I said before, it's unfair that atribal member needs

a burn permit to burn trash, grass and other yard debris and a company like Romic can operate on our reservation without proper permit from the Federal government. I hope

we can work together to heal mother earth and save our planet for future generations, thankyou.

### KEVIN GOVER:Thank you. While we have the recorder on, is there anyone else who would liketo share a comment?

NO ADDITIOIVALCOMIVENTERS 8:05

### p.m. Hearing End