7/22/05 Revision 2 fianet) 

TRANSCRIPT 

Public Hearing on 

Gila River Indian Community 

Department of Environmental Quality 

Tribal Implementation Plan for Air Quality 

June 22,2005 @ District 4 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 like thein 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 Of Environmental 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 am Janet 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. She is 

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 of the 

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 the Federal Clean Air 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 States Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 

Would you like to 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 IX also 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 

introduce hirnlherself. 

AMY VASQUEZ: I am Amy Vasquez. I am from Pimalco, a subsidiary of ALCOA and 

we are in the Lone Butte 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 Manager with Stericycle here in Arizona (unknown) 

FRED RINGLERO: I'm Fred Ringlero, Gila River Sand & Gravel 

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

Gila River Sand & Gravel. 

(Unk) 

TERRY CLUB: Terry Club, Rock Solid, Lone Butte Industrial Park. 

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

?????Add lawyers from Quarles and Brady (Add) 

PATRICIA MARIELLA: We have a number of young lawyers here , it appears, and a 

professor of law so feel free to ask any legal questions. Also please make sure that 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 

(because most of you are here to hear the background and general issues) I would like to 

remind you that we taking written comments, you can also call us if you want or you can 

email us or send us a fax until July 1" (until close of business which would be 5:OOpm.) 
on the TIP. That is the close of the 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 of years. 

1 should acknowledge our outside counsel is Quarles Brady, Streich Lang. Roger Ferland 

of that firm has been our immediate counsel helping us outside the Community. We've 

also been working very closely with the Law Office of the Gila River 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. Gila River was actually one of the interveners in the law suits that 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 of its 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 of the 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 established by the US EPA under Clean Air Act. That first part of the 

TIP or Tribal Implementation Plan also set the rules of how we will proceed to adopt this 

next part of the 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 of years, 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 facilities that are also off Indian 

Country land, and you may also be dealing with other regulatory agencies, you may 

have noticed that all of these 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, although 
our 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 and the 

two previous ordinances, include a system for appealing any agency action and decision. 

So that is true for enforcement actions as well as for permit decisions. These procedures 

should be very recognizable because it's pretty much the standard process for the federal 

as well as the state law. And the other part is that 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 something we want to make 

sure everybody sees and has the ability to comment on. The ineaty part of this has to do 

with the sections on permitting and requirements that are being expected of the 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 of the 

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 are the major things I could ask you to take a look when 

commenting, but also on all aspects of the TIP. But we really want to focus on some of 

the newer elements for the community. Would anybody would like to add anything? 

Any other staff! Alright, we do have one person.. . . . . 

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 from there. 

KEVIN GOVEK: Just to make sure we can capture it 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 over the documentatin and reviewed it, and 

was in the process of reviewing it and discussing it with our the board, Gila River Sand & 

Gravel, but was unable to do that at this point. But we will be discussing it here in the 

next couple of days, and probably get Dan out to the board to go over some of this 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 in the same areas we do have been doing some of this stuff already. 

We are interested in complying with 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 along working 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, getting to know the staff, I have been fortunate to know the staff here 

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 of the 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 ensure that 

we are doing what we need to do. Other than that, what we do on the Sand & Gravel part 

of it, we also sublease some of our property batch plant operators. Some of the things we 

noticed in this documentation have 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 formal document to do that. I think 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 like to keep the air clean. The fugitive dust, I guess that's the hardest one. Its hard 

to understand and get complaints when people say this is happening when you look at the 

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 do have a lot of vehicles 

moving in and out of our batch plant areas of Sand & Gravel, but I think, again its back to 

regulations and where do we draw the line on some of this stuff. All I have to say is that 

Gila River Sand & Gravel is here to work with DEQ, not fight or argue against these 

things, but for better. Let's work it out, thank you. 
KEVIN GOVER: Is there anyone else here who has a comment or question? My only 

purpose here as the hearing officer is to insure that the record is complete as possible and 

that everyone has the opportunity to say anything that they may wish to say regarding this 

TIP and so this is an excellent opportunity I think if you reviewed the TIP and if you 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 wishes to is certainly free to step up. 

MICHAEL KEY: Michael Key, Loves Travel Stops. I really didn't have anything to say 

other than the fugitive dust still again, you were talhng about fugitive dust in the parking 

lot, and it kind of sparked my interest because we have a rather large parking lot out here 

that covers about 5 acres with asphalt. Maybe you might have a little more rehrection on 

that, exactly what that's going to entail. 

DANIEL BLAIR: The fugitive dust ordinance applies to unpaved parking lots and (could 

not understand) 

Unknown Male: We have no unpaved parking lots. Thank you. 

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

TERRY CLUFF: Terry Cluff with Rock Solid. Some of the references in this process 

talks about if data is available or not available and the assumption is that if its not 

available it will be attainment and so forth. As we move down the road and data starts to 

accumulate over a period of time, will there be revisions to this? Our facility is on Pecos 

Road. We are off the reservation by one foot step, so we've got freeway on one side and 

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 this be addressed in the future? We have an option of 30 yrs of leasing there. 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 from the DEQ staff like to respond? 

DANIEL BLAIR: I am assuming that you trying to 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 is PM10). 

Unknown Female: Could barely hear her. 

PATRICIA MARLELLA: I would like to point out the closest you can get to a joke 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 the johng 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 

going to 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 going to 

have to pay attention to 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 Quality working on the Salt River SIP and 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 else wish 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 want to peel off and go some place 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 of the record. 

[During this time, a number of attendees left, others reviewed materials provided at the 

tables. After approximately 45 minutes several new attendees came into the hearing 

room and stated that they wished to provide comments.] 

KEVIN GOVER: Okay, we are going to reopen the record and were back on tape please 

tell us who you are and share your thoughts with us. 

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 me in 

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 of the environment. 

I just recently had a meeting with Janet and some other key staff inembers from the DEQ 

and I think we made progress on why GRACE was doing the work its doing. I would 

like to say that Janet, personally, was very receptive to that, being a tribal member, and if 

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 want to care 

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 good job at 
putting 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 for that 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. I believe it's time to 

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 to try 

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 so we 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 of us. 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 free to contact me, 

Pat's got my contact information on the sign up 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 at this time -- okay. 

ANDY RTDDLE: I'll say a few things. 

KEVIN GOVER: Would you identify yourself so we have it on the record? 
ANDY RIDDLE: Andy Riddle, and I'm not a tribal member but I've been to EPA 

meetings with Lori and one big problem with putting things 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 difficult to get word passed around, and basically use bulletin boards 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 of the biggest stumbling blocks. 1 

personally grew up in Southern California and I had no idea that I lived within an hour 

from San Onofre, a nuclear power plant. Things can happen in your backyard that you'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, letting them come in on tribal land and then 

letting them dictate what they're going to do or what there not going to do. I think this is 

going to gve the 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 I read it and I think its going to go a long way and I think it's going to help a lot. 1 

think that DEQ has done a good job and I appreciate meeting with them the other day. 

They were forth-coming and offered us information that we didn't have before, so I think 

it will go real well. Thank you. 

KEVIN GOVER: Okay thank you. Anyone else who would like to offer 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 share your 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 reservation that restrict community members but allow companies and 

outsiders to 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, for the hard work that they've done. I know that it was a tough job 

and I know that you guys have done a good job on it, but I hope these people are able to 

do this job and enforce this act. Like I said before, it's unfair that a tribal 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, 

thank you. 
KEVIN GOVER: Thank you. While we have the recorder on, is there anyone else who 

would like to share a comment? 

NO ADDITIOIVAL COMIVENTERS 

8:05 p.m. Hearing End