LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

SHERATON, LOS ANGELES DOWNTOWN

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010

PUBLIC HEARING ON EPA's PROPOSED RULES REGARDING:

Rule 1. National Emission Standards for Hazardous

Air Pollutants for Major Sources:

Industrial, Commercial, and

Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters

(BOILER MACT),

Rule 2. National Emission Standards for Hazardous

Air Pollutants for Area Sources:

Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional

Boilers,

Rule 3. New Source Performance Standards and

Emission Guidelines for Commercial and

Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators

(CISWI), and

Rule 4. Identification of Non-Hazardous Secondary

Materials That are Solid Waste.

REPORTED BY:

DARLENE LEWIS

CSR No. 135341 A P P E A R A N C E S

2

3 HEARING PANEL:

4 ERIC GINSBURG, CHAIRPERSON

SENIOR PROGRAM ADVISOR OF THE SECTOR POLICIES AND

5 PROGRAMS DIVISION OF THE OFFICE OF AIR QUALITY

PLANNING AND STANDARDS

6

GEORGE FAISON,

7 PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION AND INFORMATION DIVISION OF

EPA's OFFICE OF RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY

8

JIM EDDINGER,

9 SECTOR POLICIES AND PROGRAMS DIVISION AT THE OFFICE

OF AIR QUALITY PLANNING AND STANDARDS

10

AMY ZIMPFER,

11 ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE AIR DIVISION IN EPA's

REGION 9 OFFICE IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

12

13

14 SPEAKERS: PAGE

15 SAMUEL EDMONDSON (RULES 1, 2, 3, AND 4) 11

16 EVELEEN MUEHLETHALER (RULES 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 16

17 JOHN DENHOLM (RULE 4) 21

18 RANDY SCHMIDT (RULE 4) 26

19 DALE TIMMONS (RULE 4) 29

20 BILL JOHNSON (RULE 1) 33

21 STEVE PETRIN (RULE 1 AND 2) 40

22 JANE WILLIAMS (RULE 1) 46

23 SHABAKA HERU (RULE 1, 2 AND 3) 50

24 PHIL REESE (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 52

25 GREG MORRIS (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 56

21 SPEAKERS: (CONTINUED) PAGE

2

3 RUDY REHBEIN (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 60

4 THOMAS HAZELLEAF (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 64

5 MITZI SHPAK (RULE 1, 2 AND 4) 66

6 PAT OTRIZ (RULE 1) 70

7 KATHERINE FRY (RULE 1, 2 AND 4) 75

8 ROBINA SUWOLL (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 79

9 JESSE MARQUEZ (RULE 1) 81

10 RICARDO PULIDO (RULE 1, 2, AND 3) 86

11 SOFIA CARRILLO (RULE 1) 89

12 CYNTHIA MEDINA (RULE 1) 89

13 CYNTHIA BABICH (RULE 1) 91

14 JENNIFER PAUL (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) 96

15 MICHAEL WANG (RULE 1, 2 AND 3) 102

16 RON McGILL (RULE 1, 2, 3, AND 4) 108

17 ROSELYN WANG (RULE 1, 2, 3, AND 4) 112

18

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20

21

22

23

24

25

31 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010

2 9:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M.

3

4 MR. GINSBURG: Good morning. Thank you for

5 attending today's public hearing on the Environmental

6 Protection Agency's proposed rules for industrial,

7 commercial and institutional boilers and process heaters

8 and the identification of non-hazardous secondary

9 materials that are solid waste. We appreciate your

10 taking the time to address these proposals, and we look

11 forward to your comments.

12 My name is Eric Ginsburg. I'm the Senior

13 Program Advisor of the Sector Policies and Programs

14 Division within EPA's office of Air Quality Planning and

15 Standards, which is part of EPA's Office of Air and

16 Radiation. I'll be chairing today's hearing.

17 With me on the panel today are:

18 George Faison, who is in the Program

19 Implementation and Information Division of EPA's Office

20 of Resource Conservation and Recovery;

21 Jim Eddinger, who is in the Sector

22 Polices and Programs Division at the Office of Air

23 Quality Planning & Standards; and

24 Amy Zimpfer, who is the Associate

25 Director of the Air Division in EPA's Region 9 Office in

41 San Francisco, CA.

2 We're here today to listen to your

3 comments on four proposed rules that EPA announced on

4 April 30 of this year. The proposed rules were

5 published on June 4th.

6 Before we begin the hearing, I would like

7 to provide some background and briefly describe the four

8 proposals we're here to take comment on. Together,

9 these proposed rules will significantly cut emissions of

10 pollutants such as mercury and lead, along with a number

11 of other pollutants from nearly 200,000 units across the

12 United States.

13 Boilers and solid waste incinerators are

14 subject to different sections of the Clean Air Act --

15 section 112, for boilers, and section 129, for

16 incinerators. EPA has previously issued rules for these

17 units. These rules were challenged in court.

18 As a result EPA had to reissue the rules

19 for boilers. The agency also must determine which

20 non-hazardous secondary materials are, or are not

21 considered solid waste when they're burned. Previously,

22 EPA has left this decision to states which implement

23 non-hazardous solid waste programs under the Resource

24 Conservation and Recovery Act or RCRA.

25 On April 29 of this year, the EPA

51 administrator signed four proposed rules. They include

2 three proposed rules under the Clean Air Act, and one

3 rule under RCRA.

4 The first proposed rule is the National

5 Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for

6 Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and

7 Process Heaters that are major sources of hazardous air

8 pollutants. This proposed rule is known as the Boiler

9 MACT.

10 For these sources, EPA is proposing

11 emissions standards for new and existing large boilers

12 based on the maximum achievable control technology, or

13 MACT. EPA anticipates that coal-, oil- and

14 biomass-fired boilers that currently do not have

15 emissions controls would need to install controls in

16 order to meet these proposed standards. For gas-fired

17 boilers, which have lower air toxics emissions, EPA is

18 proposing to conduct an annual tune-up and for all

19 existing sources to require an energy audit to identify

20 cost-effective means of reducing fuel use.

21 The second proposed rule is the National

22 Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants

23 Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers that

24 are smaller, or area sources of hazardous air

25 pollutants. For these boilers, EPA's proposed standards

61 would require sources reduce emissions by implementing

2 measures that will optimize and reduce fuel use. EPA is

3 also proposing to require certain coal-fired boilers to

4 install emissions controls that capture mercury and

5 other hazardous metals. EPA is not proposing emissions

6 standards for gas-fired boilers as a part of the area

7 source rule. This means that the proposed rules would

8 not apply to gas-fired boilers located at small

9 businesses, local governments, schools, and religious

10 institutions.

11 The third proposed rule is the amendment

12 to EPA's New Source Performance Standards and Emission

13 Guidelines for Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste

14 Incinerators, which we refer to as the CISWI rule. EPA

15 is proposing new source performance standards and

16 guidelines for five CISWI subcategories. As required by

17 the Clean Air Act, this rule includes proposed numerical

18 emissions standards for particulate matter, opacity,

19 sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride, oxides of nitrogen,

20 carbon monoxide, lead, cadmium, mercury, and

21 dioxins/furans emissions.

22 The CISWI and Boiler regulations are

23 closely related because similar units may be considered

24 boilers or incinerators based on whether they burn solid

25 waste materials.

71 The fourth proposed rule clarifies which

2 non-hazardous secondary materials are solid waste when

3 burned in a combustion unit.

4 In general, non-hazardous secondary

5 materials burned in combustion units would be considered

6 solid wastes except for those non-hazardous secondary

7 materials that fall into any of the following four

8 categories:

9 1) materials used as legitimate fuels

10 that remain within the control of the generator;

11 2) materials that are legitimately used

12 as ingredients;

13 3) discarded non-hazardous secondary

14 materials that have been sufficiently processed into

15 legitimate fuel or ingredient product; and

16 4) non-hazardous secondary materials used

17 as a fuel that does not remain within the control of the

18 generator for which EPA grants a facility's petition for

19 a "non-solid waste" determination.

20 This proposal recognizes that traditional

21 fuels are not solid waste when burned in a combustion

22 unit. Traditional fuels are those fuels that have been

23 historically managed as valuable fuel products rather

24 than being managed as waste materials.

25 The rule also takes comment on an

81 alternative approach that would broaden the universe of

2 non-hazardous secondary materials considered to be solid

3 waste.

4 EPA is required by a court order issued

5 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

6 to take final action on the proposed emissions standards

7 by December 16 of 2010. EPA intends to take final

8 action by the same date on the proposed rule that

9 identifies materials that are non-hazardous solid waste

10 under RCRA.

11 More details about the proposed

12 amendments and instructions for submitting public

13 comments are available in the registration area. We

14 also have prepared a list of topics on which we are

15 specifically seeking comment. That's also available in

16 the registration area and may be helpful to you as

17 you're commenting today or submitting written comments

18 for the docket later on. EPA will accept written

19 comments until August 3rd of 2010.

20 Now, let me turn to the comment portion

21 of the hearing. Today's hearing will work as follows:

22 I'll call the scheduled speakers to the microphone two

23 at a time. When it's time for you to speak, please

24 state your name, your affiliation, and the rule or rules

25 your verbal comments are addressing. We may ask you to

91 spell your name for the court reporter, who's

2 transcribing your comments for the official record.

3 To be fair to everybody, we ask that you

4 limit your testimony to six minutes each. We have a

5 timekeeping system consisting of green, yellow, and red

6 lights. When you begin speaking, the green light will

7 come on. The yellow light will signal that you have one

8 minute left. We'll ask you to stop speaking when the

9 red light comes on. Please remain at the table until

10 both speakers have completed their testimony.

11 We're here today to hear your comments on

12 the proposed rules. However, from time to time, any of

13 us on the hearing panel may ask questions to clarify

14 your testimony and make sure that we understand what it

15 is you're presenting.

16 If you've brought a written copy of your

17 comments, please give a copy to our court reporter. All

18 written copies of comments will be submitted to the

19 docket. We'll work hard to ensure that everyone has an

20 opportunity to comment. Today's hearing is scheduled to

21 close at 8:00 P.M., but we will stay later if necessary.

22 We'll take breaks for meals during the day and we may

23 occasionally take a short break for the court reporter.

24 If you would like to testify but have not

25 yet registered to do so, please sign up at the

101 registration table coming into the room. For those who

2 have already registered to speak, we've tried to

3 accommodate your request for specific time slots.

4 For speakers presenting testimony in

5 Spanish, please ensure that you indicate translation

6 needs at the registration desk. Prior to speaking,

7 please pick up the headsets on the table to alert the

8 panel and the reporter that you will need translation so

9 that these participants can be prepared to hear your

10 translated testimony.

11 Panelists may ask you to clarify comments

12 you made during your testimony. And you will need to

13 wear the headset to hear -- to answer any clarifying

14 questions. We ask for your patience as we proceed

15 through the list. We may need to make some minor

16 adjustments.

17 Again, thank you for participating today.

18 So, let's get started. The first two

19 speakers on our list are Samuel Edmondson from

20 Earthjustice, and Eveleen Muehlethaler, Port Townsend

21 Paper Corporation.

22 We'll start with Mr. Edmondson.

23 MR. EDMONDSON: (Rules 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

24 My name is Samuel Edmondson. I am a

25 campaign manager for Air Toxics issues at Earthjustice,

111 the public interest law firm for the environment.

2 Earthjustice has more than 220,000

3 supporters across the country. And in the coming weeks

4 we will be asking them to submit comments on the

5 proposed emissions standards for boilers, process

6 heaters, incinerators and the definition of solid waste.

7 These comments today are general comments on all four

8 proposals.

9 In the meantime, more than a hundred of

10 our supporters who live in and around L.A. wanted to

11 share comments with you today but couldn't make it to

12 the hearing in person. I'd like to read some of these

13 comments now.

14 Scott McKinsey, Los Angeles, California:

15 The health of L.A.'s residents must be a greater

16 priority to the EPA than corporate inconvenience or

17 profit reductions. Our economy always recovers, but our

18 children sometimes don't.

19 J. Christine Schneider of Los Angeles,

20 California, says: As a physician I witness the ill

21 effects of air pollution in my patients. It is a huge

22 public health issue, not only in regards to the

23 compromised health of millions of individuals, but also

24 in terms of health care costs. Please forge ahead with

25 regulations that will continue to decrease the level of

121 toxic pollutants in the area.

2 Nadja West of Hemet, California, says: I

3 lived in Los Angeles for 23 years and though I have

4 never smoked, I now have terminal lung cancer. I didn't

5 use drugs, medicinal or otherwise, live with a smoker or

6 indulge in any unhealthy practices. I had an interest

7 in nutrition and ate well. No one else in my family has

8 had lung cancer, but they didn't live in L.A. Please

9 reduce air pollution in an effective way, quickly.

10 Rhonda Mumphrey of Lakewood, California,

11 says: I am currently under a doctor's care for having

12 metal poisoning. I have a ten-year-old that I would

13 like to protect from this. Even as I go through my

14 treatments, I can see nearby factories spewing chemicals

15 into the air. The EPA is supposed to protect us from

16 big polluters.

17 Jeanne Fobes of Newport Beach,

18 California, says: I am a grandmother who is terribly

19 concerned about the air quality that my grandchildren

20 are and will be breathing. Two of them have multiple

21 chemical sensitivity, probably, as a result of toxins in

22 their air and in their food and who knows where else.

23 We must take seriously our obligation to clean up our

24 environment, especially the air we breathe. Please

25 don't let anything deter you from this effort.

131 Hank Schlinger of Burbank, California,

2 writes: Dear EPA, my wife is pregnant with our first

3 child and I would like him to grow up in a city with

4 cleaner air. Please maximally reduce emissions of toxic

5 air pollutants like mercury, lead, and dioxins from

6 boilers, process heaters, and incinerators.

7 Rebecca Barker of Glendora, California

8 says: It only takes one loophole, like the fact that

9 thousands of facilities may burn solid waste without

10 safeguards to protect public health, to poison the air

11 we breathe every day. I strongly encourage the EPA to

12 close such loopholes and ensure that the public has

13 mechanisms in place that will allow communities to be

14 informed of emission activities in the area. Informed

15 communities are safe communities.

16 Kirk Margo of Granada Hills, California,

17 says: Don't let big polluters trash our lungs and

18 endanger the health of our hearts. It's time to clean

19 up this city and this great country we all live in.

20 Diana Woods says: We as Americans depend

21 on, rely on, and fully expect the EPA to do the job they

22 were created to do and create and enforce strict

23 regulations for these corporate polluters.

24 And finally, Craig Kleber of Los Angeles,

25 says: Our air is our health.

141 Mr. Cleber's words, simple as they are,

2 couldn't be more true. Our air is our health and we

3 desperately need you, the protectors of air quality, to

4 make sure we can keep breathing. The important work of

5 the EPA is nothing short of the nexus between the health

6 of the public and the industries whose operations

7 endanger it.

8 We applaud the significant cuts to

9 mercury and other hazardous air pollutants that will

10 result if you implement the Major Source Boilers Rule,

11 and we strongly encourage you to do so without

12 succumbing to industry pressure for weakened or delayed

13 standards. The health benefits outweigh the costs to

14 industry by a tremendous margin, and those benefits are

15 derived only from anticipated reductions in fine

16 particulate matter. Reductions of mercury, lead,

17 chromium, and other metals, and dioxins will have a

18 significant impact on public health, and we ask Lisa

19 Jackson and the EPA to act on these reductions without

20 delay.

21 EPA's proposed definition of solid waste,

22 however, is irresponsible and seriously endangers public

23 health. By defining many industrial wastes as "fuel,"

24 boilers and process heaters at many area source

25 facilities will be permitted to burn such wastes without

151 any control, monitoring, or reporting requirements.

2 Lisa Jackson has repeatedly stated

3 environmental justice issues are a core concern of her

4 mission as administrator. In order to walk the walk,

5 Lisa Jackson and EPA must control toxic emissions from

6 facilities that burn any industrial wastes, regardless

7 of whether the purpose is disposal or energy recovery.

8 It is well within your authority to do so.

9 Thank you for your time.

10 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you, Mr. Edmondson.

11 Does anybody from the panel have a

12 question?

13 MR. FAISON: Thank you.

14 MS. MUEHLETHALER: (Rule 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

15 Good morning. I am Eveleen Muehlethaler,

16 here to provide oral testimony on boiler, CISWI, MACT,

17 and the solid waste definition. I'm here on behalf of

18 Port Townsend Paper Corporation.

19 I'll go ahead and spell my name,

20 E-v-e-l-e-e-n; M-u-e-h-l-e-t-h-a-l-e-r.

21

22

23 Good morning. My name is Eveleen

24 Muehlethaler. I am Vice President of Environmental

25 Affairs for Port Townsend Paper Corporation. We operate

161 an unbleached kraft pulp and paper mill in Washington

2 State and have converting plants in Canada.

3 PTPC is also an active member of the

4 American Forest and Paper Association and have been

5 working with EPA on Boiler MACT since before the remand.

6 I will rely on the AF&PA comments for the technical and

7 legal issues facing our industry, but I would like today

8 to comment on the direct impact that these proposed

9 rules may have on our facility, one small company and

10 one community -- the place I live and work -- Port

11 Townsend, Washington.

12 Some background is in order. PTPC is the

13 largest private employer in Jefferson County,

14 Washington, providing 290 employees with family-wage

15 jobs and benefits. The mill exports most of its

16 310,000 tons of product to Canada or overseas. The mill

17 is a foundation of the areas infusing greater than

18 $150 million annually with, what the experts argue, is

19 a 3 to 5 times multiplier effect providing jobs for

20 those who supply us with chips, transport our materials

21 and support family businesses for supplies that we may

22 need in our operations.

23 The mill is the largest recycler on the

24 Olympic Peninsula using the equivalent of over 30

25 percent of Washington State's recovered old corrugated

171 containers, also known as OCC, and is the largest user

2 of reprocessed fuel oil as our main oil supply.

3 The mill has upgraded its operations and

4 is in compliance with MACT I and MACT II, along with

5 other federal and state compliance requirements. It's

6 also considered a small pulp and paper company as

7 defined by the Small Business Administration.

8 The mill has two boilers that are subject

9 to these rules -- a 1976 Stofer-Fired Biomass Boiler and

10 a 1996 Oil-Fired Package Boiler that's used as a backup

11 or auxiliary boiler.

12 Here are our concerns:

13 PTPC volunteered to be on the SBA

14 committee to review the impact Boiler MACT would have on

15 small businesses. We are dismayed that the

16 recommendations from that work have been, chiefly,

17 ignored. Our oil-fired boiler is used as an auxiliary

18 or intermittent back-up boiler. It runs on reprocessed

19 fuel oil also known as fire coal. And this oil is

20 processed to meet Washington State designated

21 specifications. Natural gas is not available in our

22 area. The cost of the additional pollution control

23 equipment is exorbitant when compared to the amount of

24 pollutants that would be collected from this unit. This

25 may lead us, ironically, to shut down our most modern

181 boiler, run our other units harder and/or curtail our

2 production.

3 The trickle-down effect includes having

4 the fuel supplier having to decide whether or not it's

5 worth it to continue processing the RFO if, indeed, it

6 loses its biggest customer. This product was developed

7 in conjunction with the state's need to provide a

8 beneficial use for the oil and to get the used oil out

9 of the storm drains and landfills around the state.

10 This certainly would be an unfortunate

11 unintended consequence from these rules. PTPC also

12 provided section 114 data to EPA. And after much time,

13 care and expense, we find it unfortunate that EPA chose

14 to ignore or waste this data because it did not fit the

15 norm for what EPA considered relevant.

16 Our 1976 biomass boiler has been listed

17 as a CISWI unit due to our use of urban wood and EPA is

18 expecting it to perform according to the CISWI limits,

19 yet our real-life performance data has been left behind.

20 In an attempt to see what equipment would

21 be needed to run our biomass boiler under the new CISWI

22 rules, we have consulted with our engineers and some

23 equipment suppliers. We are told these standards are

24 technically unfeasible. In fact, our Green Energy

25 Cogeneration project is now at risk. As EPA has pointed

191 out in the draft CISWI rules, it's expected no new CISWI

2 units to come on line. This is not MACT.

3 We need EPA to consider Boiler MACT,

4 CISWI MACT and the solid waste definitions that will

5 incorporate the recommendations from the SBA advisory

6 panel; define urban wood as a fuel; assign more limited

7 use subcategories for boilers such as ours; set

8 standards based on real life top 12 percent performers,

9 not what has been proposed as the best of the best; and

10 set standards that are technically feasible. This is

11 what maximum achievable control technology was intended

12 to be.

13 I thank you for the chance to comment

14 today and will submit our comments in writing by the

15 deadline. Thank you. And I hope that the day goes

16 smoothly for us all.

17 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you for your comments.

18 Do any of the members of the panel have

19 questions?

20 MR. EDDINGER: Yes.

21 In your statement you mentioned about

22 where EPA ignored some of the recommendations. Are any

23 of your written comments -- will they indicate what

24 those recommendations were?

25 MS. MUEHLETHALER: Yes. I intend to pull

201 those back out again and resubmit them.

2 MR. EDDINGER: And also, in terms of -- you

3 mentioned about the need to have additional

4 subcategories. Are you also going to mention exactly

5 what subcategories they should be and why they should be

6 a separate subcategory?

7 MS. MUEHLETHALER: Yeah, I'll refer to the

8 AF&PA comments, and I'll have more of that in detail.

9 MR. EDDINGER: Okay. Thank you.

10 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Our next

11 two speakers are Mr. John Denholm of Oil Changer,

12 Incorporated, and Randy Schmidt, Central Contra Costa

13 Sanitary District.

14 MR. DENHOLM: (Rule 4.) My name is John

15 Denholm. I'm the Environmental Compliance Officer for

16 Oil Changer, Incorporated. I'm here to speak about the

17 proposed rule concerning the use of non-hazardous,

18 secondary wastes, specifically the definition for

19 on-and-off spec oil.

20 As I mentioned, I'm the Environmental

21 Compliance Officer. I also serve as the chairman of the

22 Government Affairs Committee for the Automotive Oil

23 Change Association. The Automotive Oil Change

24 Association is a nonprofit trade group who represent

25 3,500 auto maintenance centers throughout the United

211 States, Mexico, Canada and many others throughout the

2 rest of the world.

3 Today I'll speak on behalf of these

4 organizations concerning the Environmental Protection

5 Agency's recently proposed rule change governing solid

6 waste-derived fuels. Some may find it curious that a

7 California used-oil generator would have such an

8 interest in this ruling considering the fact that our

9 waste streams are already considered hazardous wastes.

10 Oil Changer, and its sister company,

11 North American Lubricants, have been working with

12 legislators for the past five years to champion the

13 highest and best use of lubricating oil as defined by

14 the California Integrated Waste Management Board. A

15 2008 study commissioned by the Board and conducted by

16 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory concluded the

17 best use of recycling used oil is as a lubricating oil.

18 We're concerned about the misconception

19 that harmful constituents are pervasive in used oil.

20 Over the past five years, Oil Changer has recycled over

21 2.3 million gallons of used oil in this state. And

22 that's been done over the course of servicing hundreds

23 of thousands of vehicles. There hasn't been one

24 instance of having halogens greater than 4,000 parts per

25 million, flashpoints of less than 100 degrees

221 Fahrenheit, or any other contamination that would

2 justify classification as off-spec oil.

3 Findings from the National Oil Recyclers

4 Association, also known as NORA, agree with our real

5 world experiences. NORA test data is in disagreement

6 with some of the results cited in the Material

7 Characterization Paper on Used Oil. As part of their

8 formal comments, NORA will submit the data accumulated

9 over the past 25 years from hundreds of thousands of

10 generators.

11 As we move forward in this process, it's

12 important to keep in mind past regulatory milestones.

13 In 1980, 1984, and 1986, Congress asked the EPA to

14 develop regulations that protect human health and the

15 environment while encouraging responsible used oil

16 recycling. Congress was aware that overbearing

17 regulations would adversely affect the market and

18 diminish the likelihood of used oil being handled

19 properly.

20 The result has been a system that has

21 enabled the collection and management of a valuable

22 commodity. The history of used oil regulation

23 illustrates how market forces can work in concert with

24 reasonable regulations.

25 Oil Changer believes the EPA's proposed

231 rule for on-specification used oil is correct. Because

2 it is not abandoned or discarded and has a valid use, it

3 should not be classified as a solid waste. However, the

4 same can be said about off-specification used oil so we

5 must disagree with this point. Off-spec oil is a

6 traditional fuel that is used interchangeably with

7 on-spec oil. Industrial users create a demand for both

8 types of oil since there is no difference in their

9 ability to produce heat.

10 Thanks to a strong market for

11 off-specification oil, it is generally not abandoned,

12 discarded, or otherwise wasted. Approximately 750

13 industrial furnaces and boilers throughout this country

14 create this demand. If off-spec oil was considered a

15 solid waste requiring incineration, the value of the

16 fuel would plummet.

17 Generators would see their beneficial

18 byproduct transformed into a liability that must be

19 disposed of in a Section 129 solid waste incinerator.

20 These incinerators are fewer and much father between

21 than the furnaces and boilers that currently rely on

22 off-specification oil. Longer distances result in

23 higher costs for generators, pollution resulting from

24 transportation, and the increased possibility of spills

25 and mismanagement. Devaluing a valuable and finite

241 resource has many negative repercussions.

2 Will the proposed rule change result in

3 less pollution released into the atmosphere? Consider

4 these facts before arriving at a conclusion. Does

5 burning off-spec oil in an incinerator with Section 129

6 permits result in fewer emissions? We would like to see

7 these questions investigated and quantified further.

8 It should also be noted that 750

9 industrial furnaces and boilers mentioned in the EPA's

10 Materials Characterization Paper are regulated by the

11 Clean Air Act. As a supporter of recycling oil, we must

12 emphasize Exhibit 6 of the American Materials

13 Characterization Paper. Here it is stated that the

14 principal benefits of using used oil as a fuel is the

15 savings in upstream pollution from harmful air

16 pollutants.

17 By collecting and reusing recycled oil as

18 fuel, industry prevents pollution that would otherwise

19 have resulted from producing the same amount of virgin

20 product. Such a change would drastically alter the

21 business model of companies dependent on the current

22 used oil marketplace. The repercussions of such a

23 change must be weighed against proven benefits to the

24 environment.

25 Thank you for the opportunity to voice

251 our comments on this matter.

2 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much,

3 Mr. Denholm.

4 Any questions from the panel?

5 MR. FAISON: At one point you mentioned NORA

6 submitting --

7 MR. DENHOLM: Yes. NORA has a lot of data

8 that they are going to be adding and we'll get it to.

9 MR. FAISON: Thanks.

10 MR. GINSBURG: Mr. Schmidt.

11 MR. SCHMIDT: (Rule 4.) Thank you and hello.

12 My name is Randy Schmidt. I'm a senior engineer in the

13 operations department of the Central Contra Costa

14 Sanitary District located in Martinez, California.

15 The Central Contra Costa Sanitary

16 District, referred to as CCCSD, provides wastewater

17 collection and secondary wastewater treatment for

18 approximately 450,000 people at a facility located in

19 Martinez, California. Sewage sludge generated is

20 conveyed directly to a multiple-hearth furnace, which

21 produces 150 psi steam that drives a turbine/blower

22 supplying air to the secondary process. This helps

23 reduce our need for natural gas. The resulting ash

24 product is combined with other materials to produce a

25 commercially available soil amendment product.

261 Sewage sludge incineration is already

2 regulated under 40 CFR 503, and promulgated under the

3 Clean Water Act back in the early '90's. Human health

4 risk criteria were used to set the maximum sewage sludge

5 concentration for arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and

6 nickel.

7 In addition, 40 CFR 503 includes flue gas

8 concentration limits for carbon monoxide or total

9 hydrocarbons as surrogate indicators of organic compound

10 destruction. There are current emission limits for

11 beryllium and mercury under existing New Emission

12 Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants and New Source

13 Performance Standards for sewage sludge incinerators.

14 The regulation of sewage sludge as a

15 solid waste under Section 129 is not necessary. CCCSD

16 maintains that our sewage sludge meets the legitimacy

17 requirements as a secondary fuel.

18 First, CCCSD sewage sludge is handled as

19 a highly valuable source of fuel. The sewage sludge is

20 continuously dewatered and directly injected into the

21 multiple-hearth furnace producing ash and steam.

22 Second, CCCSD generates 11 million Btu's

23 per hour of 150 psi steam from combusting 28 million

24 Btu's per hour sewage sludge and 6.7 million Btu's per

25 hour of landfill gas. This saves CCCSD approximately

271 $650,000 per year in energy costs. That's with natural

2 gas at $5.80 per decatherm and clearly shows that sewage

3 sludge has value as a fuel.

4 Third, CCCSD sewage sludge has

5 contaminants levels similar to the coal referred to in

6 Notice of Proposed Rule Making. I want to emphasize

7 "similar to coal." If CCCSD abandons incineration in

8 favor of going to a landfill, the cost for sewage sludge

9 handling will increase from $5 million to $10 million

10 per year. This is mainly due to hauling costs and

11 tipping fees. This does not include any added air

12 pollution from mobile emissions from the haulers.

13 Future costs may be even higher because of new

14 greenhouse gas fees for fleet vehicles and landfill

15 limitations required by California's AB 939 rule, which

16 also places several restrictions on landfill use.

17 In summary, sewage sludge from CCCSD is

18 already appropriately regulated under 40 CFR 503,

19 NESHAP, and NSPS, so regulation as a solid waste under

20 Section 129 is not warranted.

21 Next, CCCSD sewage sludge meets the

22 criteria to be a legitimate secondary fuel and not a

23 solid waste, even if the heat recovery is done with a

24 separate boiler unit; i.e., ducting between the

25 incinerator and our heat recovery boiler.

281 Finally, the high cost alternative going

2 to landfill will add another financial burden to already

3 stressed public agencies with no tangible benefit to

4 human health or the environment. The CCCSD strongly

5 urges USEPA to find that sewage sludge is not a solid

6 waste and should be regulated as a legitimate secondary

7 fuel under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act.

8 And again, we will be submitting written

9 comments.

10 MR. GINSBURG: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Schmidt.

11 Any questions from the panel?

12 Thank you very much.

13 Our next two commenters are Mr. Dale

14 Timmons, ARI Technologies, and Mr. Bill Johnson, Johnson

15 Timber Corporation.

16 MR. TIMMONS: (Rule 4.) Thank you for the

17 opportunity of being here. My name is Dale Timmons with

18 ARI Technologies. ARI is a technology development firm,

19 and I'm here to talk about deconstruction and demolition

20 waste for materials and lead-based paint. Currently,

21 EPA policies are interfering with useful recycling

22 recovery of a lot of different kinds of waste. And I

23 want to share with you a specific example of how some of

24 these policies, if they were implemented in a smarter

25 way, would result in better protection of human health

291 and the environment.

2 There was congressional funding provided

3 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction

4 Research Engineering Laboratory and ARI to develop a

5 holistic method for dealing with these 100 million plus

6 square feet of World War II buildings that have to be

7 taken down eventually. Most of these buildings were

8 repeatedly painted with lead-based paint. And the

9 presence of that paint is causing difficulties in the

10 effective recycling of these buildings.

11 One two-story barracks in the Army, just

12 the siding contains about 215 pounds of leachable lead.

13 Because of the difficulties that lead is introducing,

14 these buildings are simply being smashed and hauled off

15 to the landfill. And because the average weight of the

16 building is taken into account, all of this lead is

17 going into the landfill in a leachable form. It is

18 hazardous. But because of the way that the policies are

19 implemented, this stuff is still going in the landfills.

20 In Fort Ord alone, 210,000 pounds of

21 leachable lead went into landfills because we were not

22 able to recover and recycle these buildings. Now, we

23 developed a process where we could economically

24 deconstruct the army barracks, reprocess the used lumber

25 to produce a value-added product. And I've got examples

301 here. This is an example of the siding that comes off

2 of these buildings, and that can then be reprocessed by

3 removing the lead into very valuable wood products.

4 Then the shavings can be thermally

5 processed to concentrate the lead into a product which

6 is higher grade than lead ore going into smelters. That

7 material has a value of $415 per ton and can then be

8 sent to a smelter for reprocessing. In this way, we're

9 taking old materials from the buildings, diverting it

10 from the landfills and, including recycling the lead

11 itself, keeping all of that material out of landfills.

12 So, this process was demonstrated, both

13 at Fort Ord here in California, Fort Lewis in

14 Washington, and Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. The process

15 is safe. It conforms to all existing emission standards

16 for hazardous waste incinerators. The lead is very easy

17 to control because it's all a particulate and it's not

18 volatile. This can be performed on-site with mobile

19 equipment. We could recover millions and millions of

20 more feet of old growth timber because this was the

21 highest quality timber that went into these buildings.

22 And again, this diverts 100 percent of the materials

23 away from landfills, produces a value-added product and

24 recovers and recycles the lead itself.

25 Now, EPA policy is preventing this

311 process from being implemented by how the regulations

2 affect or are implemented towards lead. So we are

3 promoting the demolition -- well, the policies are

4 promoting the demolition and the landfilling of

5 hazardous materials rather than the responsible

6 management of these materials. Even though there is a

7 hazardous component, it can be effectively controlled

8 and recovered, and again, kept out of the environment by

9 recycling it.

10 So this is resulting in literally

11 thousands and thousands of buildings being sent to the

12 landfill when, in fact, materials like this can be made

13 out of them. So I think EPA can better fulfill its

14 mission of protecting human health and the environment

15 by modifying the classification of materials, even if

16 some of them exhibit hazardous characteristics, and by

17 simplifying the permitting process for addressing these.

18 I'm not suggesting that we ease emission

19 standards for these things, but take a closer look on a

20 case-by-case basis to address some of these specific

21 things where we can really do good things and keep

22 hazardous materials out of landfills.

23 MR. GINSBURG: Any questions from our panel

24 members?

25 One question just for clarification, in

321 the process of doing this deconstruction in reuse and

2 recycling, are any of these materials being burned? Is

3 any of this being converted into a burnable material?

4 MR. TIMMONS: This board here, which contains

5 lead-based paint has gone through a process to remove

6 the lead-based paint and create this kind of product.

7 Those shavings and the paint are then thermally

8 processed, yes, to concentrate the lead.

9 And again, it results in a material that

10 consists of 30 percent lead by weight, which is a higher

11 value than lead ore which is being smelted. So it

12 actually has some value. It is being legitimately

13 recycled. The EPA kind of has a presumption of sham

14 recycling. And, in many cases, it's true, but not in

15 this case, and I think not in many cases.

16 Thank you.

17 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

18 Mr. Johnson.

19 MR. JOHNSON: (Rule 1.) Thank you for the

20 opportunity to share Flambeau River Papers and Johnson

21 Timber Corporation's comments on the proposed MACT

22 rules. My name is Bill Johnson. I'm the

23 third-generation president of Johnson Timber in Hayward,

24 Wisconsin and the Director of Government Affairs and

25 Public Relations for Flambeau River Papers, a

331 four-year-old pulp and paper mill bought out of

2 bankruptcy by my family based in Park Falls, Wisconsin.

3 Flambeau River Papers is a pulp and paper

4 mill that has been in operation in Park Falls since

5 1895. This mill has numerous boilers, the largest of

6 which is the coal and biomass coal-fired boiler,

7 number 6. Number 6 produces approximately 60 percent of

8 the energy needs for the pulp and paper mill on a daily

9 basis. In the four years we have owned and operated the

10 mill, we have been able to increase the efficiency of

11 the boiler while at the same time decreasing our usage

12 of coal from an historic average of 60 tons a day to

13 being virtually free of coal today.

14 The mill's previous owner's reliance on

15 fossil fuels is truly what drove the mill into

16 bankruptcy back in 2006. Sky rocketing fossil fuel

17 costs, including coal and natural gas, increased the

18 energy costs from a budget of approximately $400,000 a

19 month to over 1.4 million a month. It was with this in

20 mind that we made the commitment to ourselves, and the

21 313 employees at the mill, that we would become the

22 first pulp and paper mill in North America to be

23 fossil-fuel free. Because of that commitment, Flambeau

24 River Papers has been able to reduce its carbon

25 footprint by approximately 92,000 tons a year since

341 2005. This is another reason why we invested over $3

2 million to develop a new industrial biomass fuel boiler

3 that burns at approximately 10,000 Btu's per pound to

4 replace the coal that was used in the number 6 boiler in

5 Park Falls. And it's the reason we are continuing to

6 partner with the Department of Energy on a second

7 generation biofuels project that we built next to the

8 pulp and paper mill, and it will produce 17 million

9 gallons of second generation transportation fuels,

10 electricity, and have enough steam left over to replace

11 100 percent of the natural gas needs at the pulp and

12 paper mill. With Flambeau River biofuels heat sinqed,

13 the pulp and paper mill will be the first pulp and paper

14 mill in North America to become fossil-fuel free.

15 At Johnson Timber we utilize a small

16 biomass boiler to produce the heat and steam required

17 for the approximately 147 heating days at this facility.

18 The biomass utilized by this boiler is bark from our

19 manufacturing process. We have used this biomass for

20 heat and steam for over 30 years so we can have that

21 facility be virtually fossil-fuel free as well.

22 Our current plans to become fossil-fuel

23 free at our facilities and continue to employ

24 approximately 400 people through our organization in the

25 forest products industry, however, is in jeopardy

351 through the proposed stringent Boiler MACT rules.

2 Our main concern with the proposed rules

3 is that the limits are not achievable. The methodology

4 EPA is using to set emission limits is extremely

5 stringent, often approaching levels that can barely be

6 detected and unachievable.

7 The limits that EPA has set are

8 unnecessarily stringent because they do not reflect the

9 variability that occurs in real-world, best performing

10 boilers. Boilers go through warm ups, shutdowns, load

11 swings, fuel mix, fuel quality changes, control

12 efficiency differences, and performance testing

13 adjustments. When EPA relies on HAP test data from a

14 short period of time, it is missing this inherent

15 variability that occurs even at the most well-operated

16 boilers.

17 Our rough estimate of $1.5 million to

18 attempt to get close to the limit for the main boiler at

19 Flambeau River Papers does not even ensure that

20 compliance will be met with these proposed limits.

21 Flambeau River Papers is a small one-mill company that

22 is striving to lead the forest products industry

23 environmentally. We cannot afford to spend $1.5 million

24 on new control technology on one boiler. The expenses

25 that this rule would create go directly to our bottom

361 line. These rules are -- these are not expenses we can

2 pass onto our customers. This rule will increase our

3 costs and make us less competitive in the marketplace.

4 Another problem with the rule is that the

5 "other process gases category" restricts companies that

6 are trying to move away from natural gas and other

7 fossil fuels, like we are at Flambeau River Papers.

8 These restrictions are going against the direction that

9 our country is moving forward with.

10 Why would a company attempt to meet the

11 lower limits required by this new category when higher

12 limits are allowed for more traditional fuel sources.

13 This other process gas category will inhibit companies

14 like ours that are trying to meet other greenhouse gas

15 agendas. Specifically for our company, this category

16 creates limits we have not yet been able to find; even

17 new equipment that we have investigated cannot meet

18 these limits. Our biofuels project may not be able to

19 move forward if these limits stand. Will any second

20 generation biofuel project in the country be able to

21 move forward? How many pulp and paper mills in rural

22 America will have to shut down due to a lack of capital

23 in today's economy?

24 The pulp and paper mills in North America

25 have been utilizing renewable biomass fuels for many

371 decades. Approximately 65 percent of the energy needs

2 in our industry come from carbon-neutral biomass. It

3 would be unfortunate for this proud industry to have to

4 cut back away from carbon-neutral fuel and have to

5 convert to fossil fuels to meet the proposed rules.

6 As the American Forest and Paper

7 Association has stated before in testimony, there are

8 areas for improvement in the Boiler MACT. Allow me to

9 highlight again just four of the areas they have

10 mentioned:

11 One, EPA should use its authority in

12 section 112(d)(4) of the Clean Air Act to set

13 health-based emission limits to protect the environment

14 and public health. In order for companies to deploy

15 capital to the right mills, tests for compliance should

16 be done on a facility-by-facility basis. With the many

17 different types of boilers utilized by the industry, one

18 size does not fit all.

19 Two, more reasonable limits should be set

20 to reflect the variability of the best performing

21 boilers. Warm-ups, shutdowns, load swings, fuel mix,

22 fuel moisture, fuel quality, control efficiency

23 difference, et cetera, can cause varied results.

24 Relying on HAP test data, again, for short periods of

25 time is missing variability that occurs at the best-run

381 boilers.

2 Three, best of the best performers are

3 not a realistic sample to set the limits. Use the

4 12 percent rule as you heard before.

5 Four, do not penalize or discourage the

6 use of clean, renewable fuels like biomass. Coal-fired

7 boilers using coal and biomass are classified as coal

8 boilers even though they may utilize 90 percent biomass.

9 I would like to finish with encouraging

10 the Agency to ask the court for more time as it needs to

11 finalize its rule. I thank you for your time today.

12 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

13 Questions from any of the panel members?

14 MR. EDDINGER: I'm assuming you'll have

15 written comments. You indicated that these limits

16 aren't achievable. Are you talking about all the limits

17 in there or just with certain HAPs?

18 MR. JOHNSON: They're just certain HAPs.

19 MR. EDDINGER: Okay.

20 MR. JOHNSON: We'll respond, yes.

21 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Just a

22 request to our commenters. We really do want to make

23 sure that we capture all of your concerns and comments.

24 And so as you read your comments, if you could be sure

25 to speak clearly and slowly so that our transcriber will

391 accurately capture it, we certainly would appreciate it.

2 Our next two speakers are Ms. Jane

3 Williams, Sierra Club, and Steven Petrin, Stimson Lumber

4 Company.

5 MR. PETRIN: (Rule 1 and 2) Good morning. My

6 name is Steven Petrin. I'm the Corporate Environmental

7 Health and Safety --

8 MR. GINSBURG: Excuse me. I want to try to

9 keep us in order if we can. And I know Ms. Williams --

10 MS. WILLIAMS: He was all ready to read his.

11 MR. GINSBURG: Okay. Fine.

12 MR. PETRIN: My name is Steven Petrin. I'm

13 the Corporate Environmental Health and Safety Manager

14 for Stimson Lumber Company, a forest products company

15 with timberlands and manufacturing facilities in four

16 northwest states. All of our timberlands are certified

17 as sustainably managed by either the Sustainable

18 Forestry Commission -- Forestry Initiative, SFI, or the

19 Forest Stewardship Council, FSC. We have about ten

20 boilers impacted by this rule.

21 We have several technical and policy

22 concerns and I will touch on these briefly. First, EPA

23 needs to account for fuel and operational variability at

24 biomass boilers -- you heard about that previously --

25 setting limits that reflect the real world variability

401 of these boilers.

2 EPA needs to consider such issues as fuel

3 sources, seasonal moisture variability, start-ups and

4 shutdowns, and the ability to reliably maintain best

5 performing emissions.

6 The fact is that biomass fuels vary

7 widely in fuel quality such as moisture levels from

8 season to season. And even in northern operations we

9 have to deal with such things as ice in the fuel.

10 For example, EPA should analyze and/or

11 collect more long-term carbon monoxide CO data from

12 existing CO monitors, rather than conclude from the

13 short-term data and longer trends at only two boilers --

14 biomass boilers -- that CO performance is steady.

15 Further, though we recommend that EPA

16 remove the carbon monoxide standard for area sources, if

17 area source emissions standards are adopted, EPA should

18 abandon a one-size-fits-all approach for biomass

19 boilers. At the very minimum, EPA needs to recognize

20 the various boiler types as is already done in the MACT

21 proposal.

22 Second, EPA needs to revise the data

23 analysis to arrive at realistic standards. The data

24 used in setting emission limits is heavily biased given

25 the way it was collected and sorted. By requiring the

411 best performing units to test, and then taking the best

2 of that small data set, EPA's basis for limits is

3 actually the top 1 percent and not the top 12 percent as

4 the law requires.

5 Only a handful of existing units can meet

6 these limits and it's questionable whether any new

7 boilers could actually meet the entire suite. Also, the

8 EPA needs to apply better statistical approaches that

9 align with the data sets.

10 Finally, the EPA needs to look at other

11 available data to paint a more realistic picture of

12 boiler performance and to make sure that any actual

13 performing boilers can meet the entire suite of limits.

14 Third, EPA needs to provide

15 cost-effective approaches. For one, EPA should

16 reconsider the application of a carbon monoxide standard

17 to area sources. The EPA has the authority to mandate

18 work practices for these sources. Setting good

19 combustion practices and tune-up requirements will

20 produce effective environmental results at far lower

21 costs.

22 EPA also has the authority in section

23 112(d)(4) of the Clean Air Act to set health-based

24 emission limits to protect the environment and human

25 health. This would avoid unnecessary controls where

421 emissions of threshold pollutants are low enough to be

2 safe.

3 We're encouraged that EPA invited comment

4 on this, and we believe it should be adopted in the

5 final rule on a facility-by-facility basis. The best

6 way to target investments is where actual problems

7 exist. Now, some policy considerations:

8 First, the EPA needs to revise the rules

9 so they do not create disincentives to greater biomass

10 utilization. How ironic that EPA would propose rules

11 that create serious disincentives for biomass use at a

12 time when many states have renewable portfolio standards

13 mandating that up to 40 percent of their energy use come

14 from renewable sources.

15 While wind, solar and geothermal are

16 important parts of that equation, biomass is a

17 well-developed energy source that does not suffer from

18 the inherent variability of many other sources.

19 THE REPORTER: Could you slow down, please. I

20 know you have a limited time, but I have to ask you to

21 slow down.

22 MR. PETRIN: Okay. Wind, solar and geothermal

23 are important parts of that equation, but biomass is a

24 well-developed energy source that doesn't have some of

25 those variabilities.

431 Further, biomass offers important

2 atmospheric carbon advantages. We share the consensus

3 opinion that biomass is carbon neutral, but beyond that,

4 many of these facilities are associated with wood

5 products production. And those -- you know, those are a

6 good source of not only -- they're a source of carbon

7 sequestration. A 2X4 goes in a building and it's a

8 source of carbon sequestration for some time. An analysis of

9 our carbon footprint shows that we're carbon neutral or

10 actually net carbon storage, and we expect to be that

11 way for some time.

12 Unfortunately, the cost of adding

13 controls for many biomass boilers covered by the MACT

14 rule, and especially the GACT rule, will exceed the

15 original capital costs of the boiler, or even the cost

16 of a new one. If a biomass GACT source is unable to

17 achieve the carbon monoxide limits by simple means such

18 as combustion controls, more exotic technologies will be

19 needed.

20 While EPA states that fuel switching is

21 not part of their control strategy, the reality is that

22 operators may find it cheaper to purchase a new

23 gas-fired boiler than to put controls on existing

24 biomass units. So much for transitioning to a

25 sustainable energy economy.

441 The reality is that the proposed rules

2 penalize clean fuels like biomass, whose proposed limits

3 are extremely low because the baseline of emissions is

4 so low relative to other fuels. Biomass is an

5 inconsequential source of mercury, dioxin and

6 hydrochloric acid. Yet, the marginal course of

7 controlling such small quantities is exponentially more

8 expensive and with no guarantee of consistent

9 compliance.

10 Finally, EPA needs to look realistically

11 at the economic impacts of these proposals. And I just

12 add that many of our facilities in the forest products

13 industry are in rural areas where manufacturing

14 family-wage jobs are hard to find. And so we're a major

15 part of a vital and green economy in rural areas. We've

16 been challenged by the recession, which has impacted our

17 industry dramatically. We've lost 350,000 jobs in the

18 industry in total. Some will say we're crying wolf on

19 jobs. I think I can confidently say that these rules,

20 as they're proposed, you're going to find more plant

21 closures.

22 Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

23 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much,

24 Mr. Petrin. And do you have an extra copy of your

25 comments?

451 MR. PETRIN: I did submit those. I was

2 talking too fast. I tried to get it in six minutes.

3 And we will submit written comments also.

4 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

5 Ms. Williams.

6 MS. WILLIAMS: (Rule 1.) Good afternoon. I

7 guess it's good afternoon for you guys. It's good

8 morning for us.

9 Thank you for the opportunity to testify

10 this morning. I'm sure, as you know, I'm Jane Williams.

11 I am the chair of the Air Toxics Task Force for the

12 National Sierra Club as well as the executive director

13 of California Communities Against Toxics. Thanks for

14 coming to Los Angeles for our hearing.

15 There is a lot -- as you can tell from

16 the testimony of the other speakers, there is a lot of

17 details to this rule. There's a lot of things I could

18 comment on, which we will be submitting oral comments.

19 A couple of major points I want to

20 highlight in my testimony today, though, is that I heard

21 a lot of the speakers talk about biomass. We recently

22 had a large biomass plant apply to our energy commission

23 here in California for permits. And their estimated

24 emissions limits were higher than if they were going to

25 burn coal.

461 And actually there was a major report

2 released yesterday on biomass burning and how many of

3 the states back east are meeting their portfolio

4 standards by cutting down their forests and burning

5 wood. So the whole concept of biomass burning and

6 whether it's really a good idea or not bears some

7 scrutiny.

8 But specific to this rule, one of the

9 things that we are very concerned about and many

10 members, my colleagues in the environmental justice

11 movement are worried about, is allowing area sources to

12 burn waste, especially the kinds of waste that have been

13 involved, shuffled into the definition of, I guess,

14 secondary waste that it's now going to be. And the

15 reason for that is because area sources do not have

16 to -- they're not part of major sources so they do not

17 have to have a viable permit. So for an area source to

18 start burning waste with a lack of recordkeeping, public

19 notification, even that such a facility would be burning

20 waste, the increased air toxics emissions which would be

21 very -- emission limits would be very limited even here

22 in California.

23 These are things that concern us greatly.

24 And I have a number of folks that are going to testify

25 about specific, you know, types of waste-burning and

471 specific types of situations. But, for instance, this

2 hotel has a boiler. This hotel could burn waste. It

3 could burn, you know, demolition waste. It could burn

4 waste from the coal industry. It could burn spent

5 solvents. It could burn plastics -- and without any

6 notification of anybody in downtown L.A.

7 And the increase in the air toxics

8 emissions and the increased risk from those air toxics

9 emissions, air-based, the majority has huge risks from

10 air toxics, have not been mitigated. So I would say

11 that there's a number of concerns that we have about the

12 rule. But in the short amount of time, I want to

13 underscore that that is a huge problem.

14 There are areas of the country where

15 increases in air toxics emissions are not at the levels

16 that they would be here in Los Angeles. Any large city

17 where you have concentrated air toxics emissions that

18 are essentially mitigated or there's not a state process

19 to reduce the risk.

20 And in Los Angeles we have some of that

21 going on here. We have some of the highest air toxic

22 risks in the country. A rule like this that allows that

23 kind of activity to occur is very, very concerning to

24 us. I also want to underscore the importance of

25 eliminating the malfunction exemptions. On the other

481 rules, the exemption allows chemical plants, refineries

2 and other major facilities to violate their emissions

3 standards over and over and over again without any

4 accountability.

5 And as you know, I have personally fought

6 a very long battle with the Agency on the

7 startup/shutdown of malfunction provisions. These

8 provisions at large sources of combustion like

9 refineries, chemical manufacturing facilities, power

10 plants, cement kilns can double or triple emissions.

11 And it's very difficult with these

12 startup/shutdown and malfunction get out of jail free

13 cards for local citizen groups to have any kind of

14 enforcement hook to reduce those emissions. It makes a

15 mockery of the toxic release inventory. It makes a

16 mockery of the permits to allow these start-up and

17 shutdown malfunction exemptions. And so I actually

18 copied pretty good case law from the D.C. Circuit on

19 this and we want to make sure that these

20 startup/shutdown malfunction provisions are closed.

21 We also want to thank the administration.

22 This is a huge rulemaking. It has been over a decade in

23 the making. I sat on the first federal advisory or the

24 only federal advisory committee, the ICCR and worked on

25 these rules back then.

491 EPA's new rules will make some of the

2 largest facilities control emissions from boilers and

3 process heaters. It has been a long time in coming.

4 The Clean Air Act was passed in 1990. It is now 2010,

5 which means that most of an entire generation of

6 children have grown up without the protections of the

7 Act which Congress promised them.

8 So with that, as my closing statement, we

9 thank you all for your hard work. And I know that there

10 is more hard work for you to come. And I'm sure we'll

11 be in touch. Thank you.

12 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Any of

13 the panel member have questions?

14 Thank you.

15 Our next two speakers are -- I hope I

16 have this approximately correct -- Shabaka Heru and Phil

17 Reese.

18 MR. HERU: (Rule 1, 2 and 3.) Good morning,

19 ladies and gentlemen. My name is Shabaka Heru. I am

20 the Executive Director of the Society for Positive

21 Action, an environmental justice group, an organization

22 in South Los Angeles. I'm also a commissioner with

23 Western Association of Schools and Colleges, certifying

24 high schools throughout the State of California in the

25 Western Region of the United States.

501 I'm very concerned about the Boiler rule.

2 I think that it poses a tremendous danger particularly

3 here in Southern California where we're over-burdened

4 with an enormous amount of boilers. The chemicals and

5 things that come from the processed boiling down

6 these -- this waste is very dangerous to our community.

7 We have very little control of our

8 communities as it stands. This is the most heavily

9 impacted area of the United States. Our air quality is

10 turbulent and it has the potential to become very much

11 worse.

12 We are concerned about the open process

13 with regard to the chemicals and the things that are

14 being put into these boilers. Our concern goes to the

15 regulatory officials, the EPA and all of the other

16 agencies. We have been dealing as environmental justice

17 advocates for years over regulations and the enforcement

18 of rules. Very often our communities suffer because

19 laws are not enforced, rules are not applied, and

20 community members are not informed about the process as

21 the process unfolds.

22 We think that in order for us to have a

23 fair opportunity to have clean air, to have a safe

24 environment, to have a place where our children can grow

25 and we can trust our air quality, we have to have

511 strongly regulated boilers. This is an attempt to -- as

2 we see it, to allow industry to get away with burning a

3 lot of chemicals that they can't otherwise get rid of.

4 It's unconscionable to me that we have

5 processes where we're going back to incineration --

6 we're actually going back to incinerators. We've had a

7 very difficult time over the years with these power

8 plants and these incineration devices in our community.

9 It's with the utmost respect but, at the

10 same time, with a lot of fear and trepidation that I

11 suggest to you that you hold back on allowing these

12 boilers to do what you intend for them to do.

13 Thank you.

14 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Questions

15 from any of our panel members.

16 And will your comments have specific

17 suggestions for what needs to be addressed in those

18 rules?

19 MR. HERU: Yes, I will submit written

20 comments.

21 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

22 Mr. Reese.

23 MR. REESE: (Rule 1, 2, 3 and 4.) Good

24 morning. My name is Phil Reese. I'm here representing

25 the California Biomass Energy Alliance, CBEA. We are

521 the trade organization of the solid fuel woodchip-fueled

2 biomass electric power plants in California. There are

3 33 biomass power plants in California which together

4 produce almost 2 percent of California's electricity.

5 These plants are spread across 19 different counties,

6 all in the rural areas.

7 California has a 20 percent renewable

8 portfolio standard that operating biomass plants today

9 produce about 17 and a half percent of the renewable

10 energy in California and provide about 2,000 jobs,

11 counting those in the fuel supply infrastructure. All

12 are regulated by the appropriate air pollution control

13 district under local permits and under the Federal

14 Title 5 permits.

15 There are a variety of technologies for

16 combustion, but all are direct combustion steam-cycled

17 plants. And because of the variety, I'm speaking to the

18 Boiler MACT and the Area Source Rule. These are utility

19 scaled but not utility boilers. Our group uses over

20 6 million tons a year of wood residues and otherwise

21 unmarketable wood to produce the power.

22 Our fuel comes from agricultural forests

23 and mill residues. Those residues are processed,

24 chipped, screened, metal removed and transported. It is

25 a commodity and a fuel, not waste. Our plants provide

531 solutions to the problems of open burning of

2 agricultural residues and forests waste either in

3 prescribed burns or wild fires.

4 Our plants operate under long-term

5 contracts to the regulated utilities selling power

6 wholesale. Now, I understand that many commenters to

7 these rules will complain about the costs. I shall do

8 so also but want to point out that under the contracts

9 we have with the utilities there is absolutely no pass

10 through or mechanism for recovering additional costs

11 which would be incurred by complying with the

12 retroactive regulations.

13 All of our plants employ the best

14 available technology as defined here in California. And

15 our engineers to date have found no retrofits or mods

16 that would meet the entire suite of regulations. I

17 would point out that efforts to reduce carbon monoxide

18 will, in our plants, invariably reduce -- increase

19 emissions of NOx, which is an undesirable reaction.

20 We note in the database that although

21 fully one-third of the biomass power industry is in

22 California, only one of our plants was included in the

23 database. We would like a much more thorough

24 explanation of how the best performing or even the

25 plants in the database were selected.

541 We have a question about exemptions. In

2 Section 60.020, which cites Section 129 of the Clean Air

3 Act, it appears to our reading that QFs -- QFs meaning

4 Qualifying Facilities of which renewable power

5 generators are members may be exempt from this. So we

6 pose that as a question. Our readings haven't clarified

7 that at all. All of our biomass plants are, in fact,

8 qualifying facilities.

9 Now, it's probably never a good idea to

10 complain about something without offering a solution.

11 We suggest the use of a health risk analysis in lieu of

12 the one-size-fits-all regulations that are proposed.

13 Some years ago California enacted what is

14 called the Air Toxics Hot Spots Program, the AB2588

15 program, which requires a health risk analysis based on

16 power plant emissions and toxics. This was done in

17 California and a number of years ago. All biomass

18 plants were suggested to the health risk analysis and

19 all passed. We burn clean wood chips. Unfortunately,

20 the category of fuel known as Construction and

21 Demolition Wastes referred to as C and D, they're looped

22 together.

23 Our plants take construction waste with

24 clean cutoffs. Our permits prohibit painted or

25 otherwise treated wood in our fuel plant. So demolition

551 waste is generally completely ruled out. We would

2 suggest that in lieu of either the Boiler MACT or the

3 Area Source Rule for biomass power plants not burning

4 waste but burning clean wood chip fuel, be subjected to

5 a health risk analysis based on measured stack emissions

6 and accepted health risk methodologies.

7 Thank you very much. We will submit

8 written comments.

9 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much, Mr. Reese.

10 Questions from our panel?

11 MR. EDDINGER: No.

12 MR. GINSBURG: Our next two speakers are

13 Mr. Greg Morris and Mr. Rudy Rehbein.

14 Mr. Morris.

15 MR. MORRIS: (Rule 1, 2, 3 and 4.) My name is

16 Greg Morris. I'm with the Green Power Institute. We're

17 an environmental research and advocacy organization in

18 Oakland and Berkeley, California, part of the Pacific

19 Institute for Studies in Environment Development and

20 Security. I thank you for the opportunity to address

21 the Boiler MACTs. And I'm addressing them specifically

22 in regards to biomass.

23 I want to sort of take a step back and

24 talk about the overriding policy context in which these

25 rules would go into effect. And I think that as an

561 overriding context of where we want to go with

2 environmental policy, I want to stress four issues:

3 One, I think that we all want to promote

4 renewable energy development in this country, and we all

5 want to promote local and regional environmental

6 improvement. We all want to promote healthy forests.

7 And we all want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

8 While, in fact, biomass industry production both today

9 and in the foreseeable future promote all of these

10 policy goals.

11 And if the MACT were to go into effect

12 the way it's written right now and were to seriously

13 shut down much or all of the biomass industry, we would

14 lose all of those benefits that biomass is actually

15 contributing to. What I think we have here is a very

16 serious example of what Voltaire called the perfect

17 being the enemy of the good.

18 Biomass plants in California -- and I'm

19 going to talk specifically about California where we

20 have more than a quarter of the U.S. biomass industry.

21 Biomass plants in our Central Valley are key to

22 promoting or facilitating the burn ban on open burning

23 of ag material. In fact, just this past month the San

24 Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District delayed

25 the implementation of that burn ban because they were

571 worried that there weren't enough outlets for that

2 material.

3 The biomass industry is the logical of

4 both for -- or the outlet for any biomass materials that

5 can't be used for higher-valued purpose. Biomass plants

6 around the state are keeping a significant quantity of

7 clean wood waste out of landfills. That helps our

8 counties comply with their AB30 -- AB939 requirements

9 which is a diversion requirement that we have. And, of

10 course, as you know, when you bury waste in landfills

11 you get both greenhouse gas emissions and toxic

12 emissions. So keeping them out avoids those things.

13 Biomass plants eliminate pile burning of

14 forest harvesting residues in the forest. And, in fact,

15 when there are commercial harvests in the forests in

16 California, the harvesters are not allowed to simply

17 leave the residue in the fill. They can either bring

18 them to a biomass plant or they have to pile-burn them

19 in the field.

20 And finally, biomass plants contribute

21 significantly to healthier forests. And I want to say

22 there's been a lot of misinformation recently about

23 biomass and its effects on the forests. It's very

24 important to understand: Energy is the lowest-valued

25 use for biomass. Anytime that there is a higher-valued

581 use for biomass, even the biomass power plants would

2 rather see it go there.

3 Nobody cuts down a forest to power

4 biomass plants. In fact, we have a number of examples

5 in California where the -- and we have a lot of national

6 forest land in California that's in rather poor

7 condition. But around some of the biomass plants that

8 have taken forest residues, we have some of the

9 healthiest of the national forest lands in California.

10 Biomass fuel producers will never pay

11 enough to promote actual harvesting of fuel for the

12 purpose of fueling a biomass power plant. They will

13 simply take the residues produced and they will also

14 facilitate but not pay the full cost of forest treatment

15 operations. So it's very important in my view that we

16 do what we can to promote renewable energy; biomass

17 being one of the key renewable energies across the

18 country and that we keep in mind that anything we do

19 that will actually impede them.

20 And this is kind of a marginal,

21 economically speaking, industry to begin with. Anything

22 we do to increase their costs or restrict their ability

23 to get fuel will simply shrink the industry, promote the

24 greater use of fossil fuel and impede our ability to

25 meet the important environmental goals. Thank you very

591 much. And we will submit comments.

2 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you.

3 Questions?

4 MR. EDDINGER: No.

5 MR. GINSBURG: Okay.

6 MR. REHBEIN: (Rule 1, 2, 3, and 4.) Good

7 morning. My name is Rudy Rehbein. I'm the mill manager

8 at International Papers Hueneme Mill in Oxnard,

9 California. Thank you for this opportunity to highlight

10 our reactions to EPA's four proposed boiler-related

11 rules published on June 4th. International Papers is

12 among the largest of the pulp and paper companies in the

13 world, and as such, among those companies most impacted

14 by the Boiler MACT Rule and the three other Boiler

15 rules.

16 These rules would place enormous burden

17 on manufacturers in a tough economy, were developed

18 through an imperfect rulemaking process, and are far

19 more restrictive, than the need to protect human health

20 and the environment. The rule will have undeniable

21 economic consequences.

22 The forest products industry has

23 projected new equipment required in the proposed rules

24 will cost more than $6 billion over a

25 three-year-compliance period plus billions more in

601 subsequent years for operating and maintenance expense.

2 Those capital costs alone exceed the profit in the

3 recent years.

4 At the Hueneme mill we recycle paper,

5 manufacture new paper products and we burn primarily

6 natural gas. And we're the first in the United States

7 to install a functioning working NOx catalyst. However,

8 efficiency efforts in recent years has prompted us to

9 transport rejected process material and water treatment

10 system residues, mostly biomass, for burning as fuel at

11 a boiler at another site here in California, also likely

12 to be affected by the Boiler MACT rule.

13 It is likely that the rules might make it

14 so expensive to use these alternative fuels that its use

15 will cease and we will have to find landfill space to

16 dispose of an otherwise fuel. We believe that the EPA

17 has significant discretion within the MACT program to

18 make prudent and appropriate regulatory judgments --

19 judgments that do not unnecessarily burden American

20 industry. We ask that EPA use this discretion, and we

21 have identified three broad areas for improvement in the

22 MACT rule.

23 First, EPA should set more reasonable

24 limits that reflect the variability of real-world, best

25 performing boilers. We believe the proposed Boiler MACT

611 CO limit for boilers burning biomass in conjunction with

2 coal will not be achievable as a practical matter.

3 International Paper has seven boilers

4 that burn biomass in coal amounts at the rate of

5 10 percent. They classify them as coal boilers under

6 the proposal that would be subjected to unachievable CO

7 limits. The CO limits for these combination boilers

8 should be the same as the ones for the biomass boilers.

9 Second, EPA should base the Boiler MACT

10 limits on more realistic data. The data used in setting

11 emission limits is heavily biased given the way it was

12 collected and sorted. EPA required the best performing

13 boilers to test and then took the best of that small

14 data set to the point where they represent the

15 best-of-the best performers; that top 1 percent, not the

16 12 percent as instructed in the law.

17 EPA should utilize its authority in

18 Section 112(d)(4) of the Clean Air Act to set

19 health-based emission limits to protect the environment

20 and the public health. Health-based limits would avoid

21 unnecessary over-regulation of emissions that are

22 already within acceptable limits. We can ill-afford not

23 to include such a health-based emission limitation given

24 the economic implications of the rule.

25 In addition to Boiler MACT, EPA has

621 proposed three other related rules that will affect the

2 forest products industry and International Paper.

3 Boiler generally accepted control technology, GACT;

4 non-hazardous secondary material definitions; and the

5 commercial and industrial solid waste incinerator rule.

6 Under Boiler GACT we believe EPA should

7 not set numerical limits for CO for biomass and

8 oil-fired boilers located at small mills, but instead

9 set good combustion practices and tune-up requirements

10 that will achieve the same results at a far lower cost.

11 The solid waste definitions EPA has set

12 has a potential to seriously restrict which types of

13 biomass that may be burned for their carbon-neutral

14 energy and which may be pushed into the waste stream.

15 The non-hazardous secondary materials

16 rule, EPA should define these secondary biomass

17 materials like urban wood and wastewater residuals as

18 fuel and promote their use which displaces fossil fuels

19 and is consistent with the country's call for greater

20 use of renewables.

21 The public's task of providing meaningful

22 comments is complicated by EPA not settling the question

23 of what is a solid waste under the RCRA first. We

24 recommend EPA complete the Definition of Non-hazardous

25 Secondary Material rulemaking first and then issue a

631 Notice of Data Availability for the new preliminary

2 floor units for public comment, and only at that point

3 proceed with the other three Clean Air Act rules.

4 Overall, we believe Boiler MACT and the

5 other boiler rules are too restrictive. It will place

6 an enormous burden on manufacturers. It will impose

7 unjustified limits that will impose a large unnecessary

8 economic burden on the country. And the EPA has an

9 opportunity to modify these requirements while being

10 faithful to the legal obligation.

11 My written remarks in the middle contains

12 more detailed information on the points made today. And

13 I thank you for this opportunity to express our views on

14 this proposal.

15 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

16 Questions? Okay. Thank you.

17 Our next two speakers are Mr. Thomas

18 Hazelleaf and Mitzi Shpak.

19 MR. HAZELLEAF: (Rule 1, 2, 3 and 4.) I'm

20 Thomas Hazelleaf representing myself. And I would like

21 to comment on the emission standards for area sources in

22 the identification of non-hazardous secondary materials

23 that are solid wastes. I'm concerned with the proposed

24 rules for boilers and process heaters and commercial and

25 industrial solid waste incineration units, along with

641 the proposed identification of non-hazardous secondary

2 materials that are solid waste that fails to properly

3 assign the costs of the result in air pollution.

4 Those who benefit either economically or

5 through the use of a product should be the ones that pay

6 for that product. I should not be asked to subsidize

7 the production of products for energy with my life or my

8 health. When hazardous air pollutants are created that

9 combine disposal or elimination, costs should be borne

10 by those that benefit from the products.

11 I'm concerned that area sources aren't

12 more strictly regulated. And I am especially concerned

13 about the proposed definition regarding non-hazardous

14 secondary materials. It's not what goes into the boiler

15 or incinerator, or what you call it, or where it comes

16 from that's important. What comes out of the boiler or

17 incinerator is what's important. Also, if discarded

18 hazardous secondary materials are processed into a

19 legitimate fuel or ingredient, we need to ensure that

20 such processing itself doesn't lead to air pollution.

21 While it's possible to minimize the

22 amount of waste that must be disposed of in landfills or

23 reduce our reliance on fossil fuels by burning what

24 would otherwise be waste, it must only be done if it

25 doesn't pollute our air.

651 Thank you.

2 MR. GINSBURG: Any questions?

3 MS. SHPAK: (Rule 1, 2 and 4) My name is Mitzi

4 Shpak and I'm the Executive Director of Action Now, an

5 environmental justice organization in the L.A. basin of

6 about 600 members. I'm also a staff research biologist

7 at Cal-Tech. And I suppose most people expect me to

8 speak in detail but I'm looking more at the big picture.

9 It is a scientific principal -- and Bill

10 Donawick (phonetic) once said: You don't lose anything

11 in the process, you just change its state or its form.

12 And when you burn trash, you're exchanging a landfill

13 for my lungs. You're moving the landfill into my lungs.

14 Now, I'm looking at your materials on --

15 your background materials on how you were making your

16 decisions. And just this one, auto-shredder residue.

17 And in looking it over, it's very heavily weighted from

18 an engineering standpoint.

19 And I have learned this, that most

20 environmental engineers are just that -- engineers.

21 They're not biologists, they're not health

22 professionals, so they do what they know best. And they

23 see a problem, a tremendous mass of shredded

24 automobiles -- we're talking billions of pounds. And

25 we're pouring it into landfills and we're running out of

661 landfills and it looks like a good engineering solution

2 to burn it. You reduce the mass, but it doesn't

3 disappear.

4 Humans have this real big problem. If we

5 don't see it, it doesn't exist anymore. Well, your

6 lungs see it. And your lungs, more so than your skin,

7 are permeable membranes. Things go straight from your

8 lungs into your blood stream. There's not a barrier

9 like your skin, so we have to be more cautious about

10 these things that we don't see than the things that we

11 do see.

12 That pile in the landfill, we can do

13 something with it or about it. You turn it into gaseous

14 material or small particulate material, you're ingesting

15 it, every one of you.

16 And just to look at some more. Your own

17 materials from the EPA, these are the counties

18 designated as non-attainment under the Clean Air Act's

19 National Ambient Air Quality standards. And if you

20 look, this area has a concentration of non-attainment

21 counties. And you also have color-coded it as for how

22 many pollutants. And yellow is the largest number of

23 pollutants not being controlled and it's this area right

24 here.

25 We cannot meet the air quality standards

671 for decent health. Not even good health. We're barely

2 on the edge of survival on some days. We need to

3 reduce, not see how much we can get away with polluting

4 our air by some process that might be of economic

5 benefit only if you look at the small picture. Once

6 again, broaden it.

7 You have to look at the big picture.

8 Health care costs are the biggest problem in this

9 country. Industry always recovers. I've been with

10 Action Now for 20 years, but I was raised on an organic

11 chicken ranch starting in the 1950's. First edition

12 Rachel Carson in our house. And every time there's an

13 environmental fight it's, Oh, the end of our economic

14 world as we know it. And it never ends up that way.

15 Now, on the other side, our health does

16 continue to decline. Rampant health problems and old

17 health problems we thought we had gotten rid of. And on

18 a personal level, I've noticed -- and you can call it

19 anecdotal, but my husband is a registered nursed in an

20 emergency room in a local hospital.

21 But approximately two weeks ago a local

22 auto dismantler had a fire that continued for quite a

23 long time. Within a week people started coming in with

24 flu-like symptoms. I myself have it now myself. We've

25 seen this every time when there's an extra burden, any

681 extra burden on our environment, immediate health

2 results and that's not counting the chronic and

3 continuing health effects that we have.

4 Now, if you're talking about burning old

5 tires, shredded autos, and all these process heaters and

6 boilers, which are in almost every building around --

7 including right across the street there's old boilers --

8 I don't know how you're going to control it.

9 A lot of the larger companies have said

10 they can't afford more controls, pollution controls.

11 Certainly small buildings with old boilers aren't going

12 to be able to control their pollution. And like you

13 said, it's not what's put in, it's what comes out. And

14 we do not have the ability to control what comes out of

15 all these small boilers in this area.

16 And I just want to wrap up with what the

17 first speaker from Earthjustice said: Our economy

18 always recovers, but sometimes our children don't. I

19 want to thank him for that comment and I thank you for

20 your time.

21 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you.

22 MS. SHPAK: 1954 picture of the Optimist Club

23 wearing gas masks the whole month of October in Los

24 Angeles. Schools and industry were shut down because

25 the smog was so bad. We don't want to go back to that.

691 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

2 Questions?

3 MR. FAISON: Will you be submitting some --

4 MS. SHPAK: My hearing is very bad. You need

5 to speak slowly and clearly.

6 MR. FAISON: Do you plan on submitting

7 specific comments on material characterization papers or

8 shredder residue papers?

9 MS. SHPAK: I can't hear.

10 MR. FAISON: Do you plan on submitting

11 specific comments on material characterization papers

12 like the auto shredder residue?

13 MS. SHPAK: Do I plan adding --

14 MR. FAISON: Submitting comments -- written

15 comments at all?

16 MS. SHPAK: If I can find the time, yes.

17 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much, yes.

18 Our next two speakers are Pat Ortiz and

19 Katherine Fry.

20 MR. ORTIZ: (Rule 1.) Good morning. My name

21 is Pat Otriz and I'm here representing Longview Fibre

22 Company. My role at the company is the Pulp Operations

23 Manager and I also oversee our environmental and safety

24 efforts. Thank you for the opportunity to address the

25 proposed Boiler MACT rules. First, let me provide some

701 background on our company. Longview produces

2 light-weight kraft papers for an established domestic

3 and global customer base. We produce container board

4 and corrugated boxes. We operate a pulp and paper mill

5 in Longview, Washington and have seven converted plants

6 across the Western United States.

7 Our mill is one of the largest and most

8 diverse paper mills in North America. We employ just

9 under 1,700 people. Founded on sustainable practices,

10 we pioneered the use of sawmill waste in the 1930's.

11 Our raw materials still come from that waste today. Our

12 stewardship of the Earth has continued for the entire

13 length of our company's time.

14 We've recently earned Sustainable

15 Forestry Initiative certification for both our paper

16 mill and box plant products. Nearly 90 percent of the

17 energy used at the mill comes from renewable resources.

18 We have reduced water consumption by one-third since

19 2005 and continue to decrease our electrical consumption

20 since the year 2000.

21 In total, we have reduced our greenhouse

22 gas emissions in the state of Washington by more than

23 half since the year 2000. We are a founding member of

24 the Climate Registry and the first North American pulp

25 and paper mill with a Certified Greenhouse Gas

711 Inventory. In fact, later this week, we will be

2 accepting an award at the Climate Registry associated

3 with our inventory efforts.

4 Not only are our operations sustainable

5 but so are our products. We make products with

6 high-recycled content for quick-service restaurants and

7 grocery bags, and also reducing packaging weight by

8 making a product called FibreShield.

9 To position the mill for the future,

10 earlier this year we announced plans for a proposed

11 650,000-pound-per-hour biomass boiler. If the project

12 moves forward it would support our goals to use

13 biomass-based energy, improve efficiencies and solidify

14 the long-term viability of the company. The electricity

15 generated by the boiler would qualify as green power and

16 displace fossil fuels. We are working toward approval

17 of this project by the end of this year.

18 The proposed Boiler MACT rules would be

19 cost prohibitive for our company. As defined today, the

20 equipment needed to meet the proposed limits would

21 easily kill the project. Additionally, our existing

22 boilers would have to remain in service. These are

23 older units with higher emissions and would incur a very

24 high burden to try to reduce their emissions to

25 retrofit.

721 In the state of Washington the cost to

2 our industry is estimated at $210 million. The proposed

3 rule would be devastating to the forest industry as a

4 whole. This is an industry that employs more people

5 nationwide than automotive or chemical industries.

6 Across the U.S., Boiler MACT would impose a monetary

7 burden of 6 to $7 billion on the forest products

8 industry as well.

9 Comparatively, the industry has only

10 profited $1 billion over the last two years. It's not

11 very hard to see that that sort of imbalance from a cost

12 to improvement ratio is hard to sustain.

13 In discussing the proposed rule with the

14 boiler manufacturers, we learn that the technology

15 required to comply with the new rule does not exist.

16 Today, we cannot purchase a new boiler that would meet

17 all of the proposed MACT emission limits. And since the

18 new limits apply to any boiler purchased after June 4th,

19 it effectively leaves us in limbo.

20 It is not logical to us to require a

21 company with solid environmental performance, in a

22 industry known to be based on renewable resources, to

23 comply with the rule as currently written. If the new

24 rule goes into effect in its current form, the EPA is

25 putting jobs in our community and business in general at

731 a great risk.

2 It would impose extremely costly controls

3 where there is no real environmental or health benefit.

4 The EPA's proposed limits in Boiler MACT often approach

5 levels that can barely be detected and, in many cases,

6 are unachievable. They fail to target the areas where

7 improvement can be made and instead require installation

8 of multiple air pollution control devices that conflict

9 with other control devices in existence.

10 Our mill has a long history of installing

11 pollution control equipment prior to regulation and that

12 is well below scientifically supported emission. We

13 support efforts to address serious health threats from

14 air emissions and believe the EPA can craft regulations

15 that sustain both the environment and the people that

16 work. Unfortunately, the rule proposed does not

17 accomplish these objectives. If the EPA were to provide

18 more flexible approaches in the Boiler MACT rule, we

19 believe it could achieve its goal and our

20 administration's goals of energy independence while

21 preventing severe job losses.

22 We urge the EPA to consider the

23 following. First, use a reasonable method to set the

24 MACT limits based on what real best performing units can

25 actually achieve.

741 Second, EPA should revise its approach

2 for biomass boilers to ensure that these boilers are not

3 penalized because they start with a cleaner fuel.

4 Third, EPA should include a health

5 threshold standard in the final rule to target

6 environmental investments where there is a real need

7 based on a rigorous demonstration of pollutants like

8 hydrogen chloride and manganese do not pose an adverse

9 risk.

10 We will continue to operate our mill and

11 box plants in a sustainable manner. I ask that you

12 reconsider the current proposed rule. And I thank you

13 for your time and the opportunity to talk today.

14 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you, Mr. Ortiz.

15 Any questions from our panel?

16 MS. FRY: I am Katherine Fry.

17 MR. GINSBURG: I'm going to ask if you could

18 get a little closer to the mike to make sure that we get

19 all of your comments.

20 MS. FRY: (Rule 1, 2 and 4.) I'm Katherine

21 Fry and I'm representing SierraPine. SierraPine owns

22 and operates two medium density fiberboard plants and

23 three particleboard manufacturing plants in the United

24 States, all of which will be impacted by at least one of

25 these proposed rules.

751 We appreciate the opportunity to provide

2 comments on three of the rules that you're hearing

3 comments for today. These rules include the solid waste

4 rule, the Boiler MACT rule, and the Boiler GACT rule.

5 SierraPine provided comments on the

6 advancement of this public rulemaking for the solid

7 waste rule and it plans to provide detailed written

8 comments on all of these rules. In addition to

9 providing our own comments, SierraPine supports the

10 comments provided separately by the American Forest and

11 Paper Association and the Composite Panel Association.

12 In regards to the solid waste rule, just

13 to give you a little bit of background, in our finishing

14 end operations we sand the panels and in the process

15 generate wood residue, which is basically wood dust

16 containing small amounts of resin. Utilizing this

17 material on site as a fuel in our boiler, or as the

18 substitute for our own material, reduces the

19 environmental impact of disposing of this material in

20 off-site landfills, reduces the greenhouse gas

21 generation associated with the landfills, and also

22 reduces our fossil fuel demand.

23 SierraPine supports EPA's position in the

24 primary proposal as it relates to resonated wood

25 products -- or I'm sorry -- yeah, resonated wood

761 residuals. When used as fuels within the control of the

2 generator, EPA states in the preamble that they have

3 decided to classify these materials as non-waste. We do

4 not support the statements in the alternative approach

5 that moves wood residuals into a category of solid waste

6 as this is a legitimate use of secondary materials;

7 i.e., wood residues or sander dust used within the

8 continuous industrial process.

9 Sander dust does meet the legitimacy

10 criteria in that it is handled as a valuable commodity,

11 has meaningful heating value, is used in a combustion

12 unit that recovers energy, and it contains contaminants

13 at levels comparable to those of traditional fuels.

14 The material is never discarded, and

15 therefore, should not require consideration under the

16 solid waste regulations. The value of this commodity

17 can be related in terms of the potential cost avoidance.

18 For example, based on historical sander dust usage at

19 one of our facilities, to replace sander dust fuel with

20 natural gas fuel, the additional operating costs are

21 estimated to range from 1- to 2.9 million per year.

22 This does not take into account the costs

23 associated with transportation and disposal of the

24 sander dust off site. Again, this material has not

25 started and we should not be forced by the alternative

771 proposals to dispose of this material in a landfill.

2 And it truly does possess significant value.

3 In any event, we believe it is important

4 for the final rules for the petition process for

5 granting non-waste terminations. So again, as I stated

6 earlier, we do not support the alternative approach.

7 In regards to the Boiler MACT, SierraPine

8 supports the work practice approach for existing natural

9 gas-fired boilers. However, SierraPine does not agree

10 with the procedure used for setting the Boiler MACT

11 floor by selecting the limits on a

12 pollutant-by-pollutant basis rather than looking at the

13 overall best performing units.

14 Over the range of pollutants, the EPA has

15 set limits that are inconsistent with, essentially, the

16 Clean Air Act. That is, the emission limits should be

17 achievable in practice for the best performing sources.

18 In some subcategories, the emission limits as proposed

19 will require even some of the best performers to install

20 additional add-on equipment.

21 In any case, as should be the case with

22 Boiler MACT facilities should have the option to comply

23 with an emission limit for the HAP of concern rather

24 than the surrogate; e.g., as an example, POM in lieu of

25 CO.

781 As far as the Boiler MACT -- or I'm

2 sorry, the boiler GACT rule, SierraPine operates a

3 sander dust fuel combustible boiler located in area

4 source of HAPs and the unit will be subject to the

5 Boiler GACT rule. We do not offer a CEMS on the unit,

6 so it's difficult at this point to determine the

7 specific impact of the rule; however, we do operate

8 CO-CEMS on two other sander dust-fired boilers at other

9 facilities. And we know that that limit will be very

10 difficult to meet.

11 To reduce HAP emissions from area sources

12 EPA's numerous options including work practice and

13 operational standards. We encourage EPA to utilize such

14 options in lieu of emission limits for existing biomass

15 boilers. As should be the case with Boiler MACT,

16 facilities should have the option to comply with the

17 emission limits for the HAP of concern rather than the

18 surrogate.

19 Thanks for the opportunity to provide

20 comment.

21 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you.

22 Any questions? Thank you very much.

23 Our next two speakers are Ms. Robina

24 Suwoll and Jesse Marquez.

25 MS. SUWOLL: (RULE 1, 2, 3 AND 4) Good

791 afternoon. My name is Robina Suwoll. I am the

2 executive director and founder of California Safe

3 Schools. We're a children's environmental health,

4 environmental justice coalition located in Southern

5 California.

6 I would like to reiterate support of

7 comments made earlier by Jane Williams and Mitzi Shpak.

8 And although the rule that you have created will require

9 reductions with major sources of air toxics and will

10 require minimal reductions from sources that are not

11 major, I think it's important to note that of the

12 180,000 boilers and process heaters operating in

13 America, that only 14,000 are major sources.

14 So EPA has proposed essentially do

15 nothing regulatory with minimum control requirements,

16 and no monitoring or reporting requirements for the

17 remaining 166,000 boilers and process heaters. Schools

18 and communities living or working near these plants that

19 are not major will receive little, if any, relief from

20 EPA.

21 And let me give you an example, if I may.

22 Across the United States large schools all have boilers

23 and there would be no notification. This is our most

24 vulnerable population and no knowledge of what was

25 actually being burned in those boilers and they would be

801 exposed. You know, we're living in a time today of

2 natural and manmade disasters that are horrific.

3 Please, let's try and work together to

4 create a rule that is more protective and a rule that

5 ensures protection of human health and our environment.

6 Thank you very much.

7 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

8 MR. MARQUEZ: My name is Jesse Marquez. I'm

9 the founder and Executive Director of the Coalition for

10 a Safe Environment. We're an environmental justice

11 organization headquartered in Wilmington, a community in

12 the city of Los Angeles, located in the Los Angeles

13 Harbor.

14 MR. GINSBURG: I'm going to ask you to speak a

15 little more slowly so that our transcriber gets every

16 one of your words. Thank you.

17 MR. MARQUEZ: We have over 500 members in 25

18 cities throughout Southern California and Los Angeles

19 County. Some of the comments I want to make are on

20 behalf of the organization and also myself as a

21 Wilmington resident.

22 Number one, U.S. EPA database at

23 facilities with boilers and process heaters is

24 significantly in error and fails to list numerous

25 facilities.

811 For example, in Wilmington you left out

2 Tesoro Oil Refinery, Valero Oil Refinery, Ultramar

3 Special Products Refinery, which is an asphalt facility,

4 and the Valero Wilmington Asphalt Plant. In the city of

5 Carson, which is not in the database, is the BP Arco Oil

6 Refinery, the ConocoPhillips Asphalt Specialty Products

7 Facility, the Equilon Enterprises Asphalt Facility and

8 the Tesoro Refinery Marketing Salt Recovery Facility.

9 In the city of El Segundo you left out

10 the Chevron Oil Refinery. In the City of Long Beach at

11 the Port of Long Beach you left out an incinerator

12 facility, which I don't know the name of but it's there.

13 To give you a quick reference, you can see by this map

14 that was put together by the California Air Resources

15 Board. Going back in 2005, Wilmington was part of a

16 study to identify toxic sources.

17 This one right here shows you different

18 little dots that identify the various toxic sources.

19 And what I'm referring to here is that Wilmington is a

20 poster child for having the most significant human

21 impact resources in one community. The next step that

22 we were supposed to do was a follow-up in doing a ground

23 trooping that had anything else that was missing, but

24 ARB has not continued the project since that time, and

25 so we only have achieved up to this point -- and I will

821 be submitting a copy of this map in a smaller volume and

2 a digital format so that you do have it.

3 We request that the U.S. EPA validate its

4 boiler and heater facility list with state regulatory

5 agencies such as CAL-EPA, California Air Resources Board

6 and our local HMDs and, in our particular case, South

7 Coast Air Quality Management District.

8 If the U.S. EPA boiler facility list is

9 off by at least ten major facilities in Wilmington, that

10 means the total emissions inventory is also

11 significantly underestimated by at least ten times. And

12 if the emissions inventory is estimated by at least ten

13 times, that means our health impact assessment and the

14 numbers that are coded are also underestimated at least

15 by ten times in our community.

16 We object to the U.S. EPA using only

17 health risk assessments as its only measure of public

18 health impacts. HRAs are not based on any public health

19 baseline from a scientifically conducted health survey

20 of impacted environmental justice communities. HRAs do

21 not identify all public health impacts by illness

22 category; do not identify how many people are afflicted,

23 and cannot tell you if cancer is increasing or

24 decreasing.

25 We request the U.S. EPA include a health

831 impact assessment to provide information not provided in

2 a health impact assessment. EPA also failed to include

3 an assessment of individual hot spot EJ communities.

4 Wilmington is one of those communities that should have

5 been looked at more thoroughly to identify what the

6 standard in an appropriate measure to protect a hot spot

7 EJ community, and we ask that you do that.

8 Your standard identifies specific

9 chemicals that we feel is not adequate. There are over

10 100 plus toxic HAP chemicals that have been identified

11 and we want a standard to be applied to every single one

12 of them. You have stated in there that you have

13 identified or called a category of a surrogate or CO,

14 for example. Well, you can't compare a thousand pounds

15 of benzene to a thousand pounds of CO by average in.

16 You quote in there -- as one of my final

17 things -- that you would be avoiding 110 to 300

18 premature deaths in 2003. Obviously, the staff did not

19 look at our figures in the harbor. We average that

20 number of deaths every single day in the L.A. harbor

21 community. So before quoting a number you need to look

22 at the actual data, which you're going to get from the

23 Los Angeles County Department of Health and the

24 California Department of Health. And those will provide

25 you reliable numbers.

841 And I will be submitting a written

2 comment with additional comments. Thank you.

3 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Before

4 you leave --

5 Do you folks have questions?

6 MR. EDDINGER: No.

7 MR. GINSBURG: Actually, I have two requests.

8 One is, will you have the specific facilities that you

9 talked about in your comments?

10 MR. MARQUEZ: Yes, we'll provide them by name,

11 address and facility I.D.

12 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

13 MR. MARQUEZ: I'll include the actual

14 inventory data for that, too.

15 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you. That would be very

16 helpful. And with regard to the health assessments you

17 will be describing, will you have some further

18 description as to what those assessments should be

19 considering?

20 MR. MARQUEZ: Yes. There is a provided

21 consulting firm, Health Impact Partners, that conducts

22 these. And U.C.L.A. and U.C. Berkeley both have

23 institutes or departments within the universities that

24 also specialize in health assessments.

25 So that you do know, U.S. EPA Region 9

851 last year attended a class and sent about six to seven

2 members. As well as L.A. County Department of Health

3 sent about four to five staff members, in addition to

4 about 15 of us E.J. organizations and attended a class

5 here in Los Angeles. Actually, it was about two years

6 ago. And in all of the public comments that have been

7 made regarding that course and movement, they have

8 recommended a health impact assessment to perform in

9 addition to an HRA.

10 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

11 MS. SUWOLL: Just a final comment, and that is

12 that burning waste to energy and calling it recycling is

13 extremely misleading. Thank you.

14 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

15 Our next two speakers are Mr. Ricardo

16 Pulido Sofia Carrillo.

17 MR. PULIDO: (Rule 1, 2 and 3) Good morning.

18 Buenos dias, U.S. EPA staff, to the E.J. community and

19 to the stakeholders here today. My name is Ricardo

20 Pulido. I'm a member of the Coalition for a Safe

21 Environment and a homeowner/resident in the city of

22 Carson here in California.

23 I am concerned that your list of toxic

24 facilities with boilers or incinerators is not accurate

25 and complete. Your list doesn't include BP-Arco Oil

861 Refinery. It also doesn't include specialty product oil

2 refineries such as:

3 A) ConocoPhillips Company, Carson

4 Refinery.

5 B) Equilon Enterprises, LLC, Shell Oil

6 Products U.S.A. Desoto (phonetic) Refinery and

7 Marketing Company, a sulphur recovery plant. Specialty

8 products include sulphur recovery facilities and asphalt

9 refineries.

10 Point two, as a result, your boiler toxic

11 emissions are significantly underestimated in my

12 environmental justice community of Carson.

13 Point three, therefore your public health

14 risk assessment is also significantly underestimated and

15 must be updated and a monitoring system must be

16 implemented.

17 Four, your definition of a major source

18 is not acceptable. Environmental justice communities

19 want the same air quality standard for all facility

20 boiler air pollution sources.

21 As for incinerators, the ash needs to be

22 addressed. We've spoken about this very briefly today,

23 but I think we really need to remember that this doesn't

24 go away. It's in the ground. It goes into mother earth

25 and it becomes dust which creates pollution for our

871 lungs. Like some of our colleagues that are here, which

2 I concur with biologist Shpak, with the lady who spoke

3 with Mr. Marquez earlier, and the gentleman from South

4 Los Angeles that, you know, it just doesn't evaporate

5 into the atmosphere. We would rather it to, obviously,

6 but it doesn't have an osmosis, you know, type of

7 processing.

8 So we need to create and build up. These

9 are some thoughts that I would like to share with you.

10 And then I know my colleague and executive director,

11 Jesse Marquez will be giving you written comments and

12 solutions. But a comprehensive database has to be

13 developed with the due diligence for future generations

14 with regards to the health assessment that we are asking

15 for.

16 It's just -- Wilmington and Carson,

17 specifically in the harbor area, it's really affecting

18 our lungs, our air quality for our breathing, for our

19 young people that you see here today. And we would like

20 to see a health risk symposium comprehensive

21 environmental justice compact with the written policies

22 that will be submitted before you, the honorable EPA

23 Agency, by August 3rd. Thank you for your time.

24 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Question?

25 I'm sorry. Go ahead.

881 MS. CARILLO: Good morning. My name is Sofia

2 Carrillo. I am speaking as a member of the Coalition

3 for U.S. Environment in L.A. community. I have

4 discovered several problems with your proposal.

5 The amendment -- excuse me, the number of

6 facilities is not correct in my environmental justice

7 community. Your database does not link to oil

8 refineries near to my home that have boilers and release

9 hundreds of tons of air pollution every year.

10 Valero Oil Refinery is not on your list.

11 Tesoro refinery is not on your list. So your inventory

12 air pollution inventory is only an estimate. If your

13 inventory is on there -- is underestimating. The public

14 health risk assessment is significantly underestimated.

15 Your definition of the main source of ten tons is not

16 acceptable in my EJ community because we have many toxic

17 sources and no pollution is acceptable when you

18 (inaudible) to toxic source. Thank you.

19 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

20 Questions from either?

21 MR. EDDINGER: No.

22 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

23 Our next two speakers are Cynthia Medina

24 and Cynthia Babich.

25 MS. MEDINA: (RULE 1) Good morning. My name

891 is Cynthia Medina. I'm with Del Amo Action Committee

2 and I'm a resident of the Del Amo Community. And I

3 would also like to introduce -- as many that could fit

4 in my car -- our youth from our community who are very

5 much interested in these proceedings and other things

6 that are happening in our community.

7 So I really would like to thank them for

8 coming and taking the time off of summer vacation to be

9 here. And also, I would like to thank you for this

10 opportunity. I'm going to read because I'm very

11 nervous.

12 As a community representative, this

13 ruling is very much in our thoughts. The major source

14 ruling for emission control is good and will

15 dramatically affect our environment in a good way. But

16 the minor boilers -- churches, schools, banks, markets,

17 are very much a concern to me as a parent raising my

18 family in an already impacted environmental community.

19 These buildings are part of our everyday

20 life and we will be impacted by double or triple

21 exposures to these unregulated emissions exposures that

22 will go unchecked. Our children, mine and yours, need

23 to be assured that our government agencies are really

24 out to protect us. Our very lives depend on it. Again,

25 thank you very much.

901 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you.

2 MS. BABICH: (RULE 1) I'm Cynthia Babich and

3 I'm the Director of the Del Amo Action Committee. And

4 I'm also the Los Angeles Environmental Justice

5 Coordinator. Dow Chemical, ExxonMobile, two superfund

6 sites, toxic chemicals floating on our ground water and

7 hundreds of permitted and non-permitted facilities, and

8 two major freeways surround our impacted community.

9 The major sources that surround our

10 community, we are very grateful that finally some

11 standards are coming out. It's a long time coming and

12 we appreciate that. We spend a lot of time working on

13 issues in our community. Our organization was founded

14 over 15 years ago when we found out we had two superfund

15 sites in our backyard.

16 I think at that time people believed that

17 government officials and regulators were doing their

18 jobs, and if these facilities were dangerous, then we

19 wouldn't be allowed to be near them or they wouldn't be

20 allowed to be near us. And what we found was a lot of

21 us don't even know that proceedings like this are going

22 on unless you happen to be connected to a network like

23 we are and you have some good mentors who can help you

24 navigate some of these important rule-makings and some

25 of the legislation that goes on in Sacramento with all

911 of these lobbyists just really pushing for greed and

2 what their needs are and really not looking at what

3 we've done to our plant as a whole.

4 And we've spent a lot of our time, when

5 we're not working on our own community issues, trying to

6 look at policy issues that can effect change; change

7 that maybe won't come to communities that don't have

8 such a fantastic youth that want to be involved and

9 directors and assistant directors who can spend a great

10 deal of their time away from their families and working

11 on issues that, quite honestly, somebody should have

12 been taking care of a long time ago.

13 Regardless, we're here. We're here now

14 and we offer elbow grease and brain-storming sessions

15 and ways that we can change the direction that we're

16 going in as a society, and what we're doing to our

17 plant. Our planet is devastated. Especially here in

18 the Los Angeles area, we can't have any more air

19 pollution. We need to keep working on the reduction.

20 We're never going to reach attainment.

21 And we have shenanigans going on down

22 here where people are making up this pollution trading

23 thing-y so that they can, you know, sneak a new emission

24 industry facility here, a new one there. And we have

25 our legislators and our City Council trying to go up and

921 change definitions of burning trash. And we know

2 incineration is wrong and simply going about and trying

3 to give it a new fancy name really isn't going to fool

4 anybody. And why are we trying to fool ourselves? Why

5 aren't we trying to do the best that we can?

6 So we've spent a lot of time looking at

7 cumulative impacts and helping the U.S. EPA and Cal/EPA

8 partner together so that we can combine our resources

9 and work directly with impacted communities looking at

10 solutions.

11 People must understand that once you get

12 involved in a situation like this where you have so many

13 impacts in your community, you really have to take the

14 time to look for solutions and not just say no to

15 everything, and that's what we've tried to do in our

16 community.

17 And the trash burning and the battles

18 that we've had going on with this waste energy and just

19 barely scratching on the surface, you see that their

20 basing these claims on unreliable information. These

21 facilities in other countries have been shut down.

22 They're not helping. We don't need to create more

23 dioxin. We don't need to create more chemicals and we

24 certainly don't need any industry. My husband is a

25 small business owner, so it's not like I'm not

931 business-owner friendly, but we don't need people having

2 a free reign at what they decide is something to put

3 into our air or not, and to simply trade off one source

4 of pollution for another.

5 You've heard many people talk about --

6 these emissions just don't disappear. They end up in

7 our lungs and in our children. On the way down here we

8 were trying to explain to our youth a little bit about

9 what these hearings are about. And I explained that I'm

10 pretty much an old woman now, you know. And some of the

11 impacts that I might receive, I'm probably going to

12 outlive them. But these guys know and that's what we're

13 talking about.

14 We can't necessarily go back and recover

15 some of the damage that we've caused but we can stop.

16 We can stop and we can remember that the planet has much

17 more time for other people besides ourselves. And that

18 doesn't even really get into the other species that try

19 to share this planet with us.

20 So we really want to commend you for

21 doing something on the major sources, but we really want

22 you to look at the paradigm we're in and help us shift

23 it. We will continue to spend a great deal of our

24 resources and our time away from our communities, but

25 please resist the industry's pressure and implement the

941 protected measures that we need in our communities. We

2 need someone watching the hen house and it certainly

3 shouldn't be the fox. Thank you so much.

4 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. One

5 question I have for you, you mentioned a cumulative

6 impact analysis. Do you have information available as

7 to how that's being carried out?

8 MS. BABICH: I think that if you look at the

9 California EPA process that's going on they have a

10 Cumulative Impacts Precautionary Approaches Work Group

11 that we fly up to Sacramento to be a part of. And what

12 they've just finished wrapping up, along with some

13 assistance from the University of Berkeley and Dr. Amy

14 Kyle, is really looking at the data gaps that are out

15 there.

16 And I don't necessarily mean that we need

17 to spend 40 years collecting more data. We obviously

18 need to move forward on the data we have. But they have

19 a very good process and she's a very commendable

20 toxicologist who can actually give us an honest opinion.

21 That's what we're looking for. We don't need to fudge

22 it one way or the another. But let's really look at

23 where we are and see where these data gaps are so that

24 we can make better informed decisions. So I would say

25 that you might want to plug into that or Dr. Joe Lew

951 (phonetic) from the California Environmental Rights

2 Alliance who couldn't be with us here today. He has

3 been working as a representative of E.J. communities on

4 that panel and I'm sure that he could give you

5 information in a way that would be easier for you to

6 process than I can probably do at this time.

7 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. And I

8 would like to thank the youth for being here and joining

9 us for the hearing as well.

10 Right now we have one more speaker

11 registered. And unless somebody else comes up

12 immediately, I'm going to go ahead and suspend the

13 hearing after that. We can take a bit of a break and

14 when the next speaker comes up we can reconvene.

15 Our next speaker is Ms. Jennifer Paul.

16 MS. PAUL: (Rule 1, 2, 3 and 4.) Good

17 morning. I'm Jennifer Paul, Program Manager with the

18 American Lung Association. Thank you for the

19 opportunity to share our thoughts. These comments will

20 apply to all of the proposed rules. We will provide

21 more complete comments into the docket.

22 The American Lung Association saves lives

23 through preventing lung disease and promoting lung

24 health. We are committed to the fight for clean healthy

25 air. Here in Los Angeles we breathe some of the most

961 polluted air in the country and suffer serious health

2 consequences. The American Lung Association strongly

3 supports the EPA requiring the clean-up of major source

4 and area source industrial commercial and institutional

5 boilers and solid waste incinerators.

6 These steps are long overdue. These

7 chemical plants, refineries, paper mills and other

8 industrial, commercial and institutional sources have

9 been sources of life-threatening and life-altering gases

10 and particles in communities all across the nation. It

11 is time they were cleaned up.

12 These boilers and incinerators produce

13 particulate matter, the most dangerous of all widespread

14 air pollution. It triggers asthma attacks, heart

15 attacks and stroke, among other damage, but most

16 critically, particulate matter kills. Breathing fine

17 particles increase the risk that children with asthma

18 and older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary

19 disease or cardiovascular disease will end up in the

20 emergency room or the hospital.

21 These units also spread mercury and lead,

22 hazardous metals that can harm children's brain, hurting

23 their IQ, limiting their memory and their ability to

24 learn. Because these devices are so numerous and

25 widespread, their toxic pollution infiltrates

971 communities across the nation. They're harm settles

2 heaviest on those who live near them, communities that

3 are often poorer, less well-educated and minorities.

4 Study after study finds that pollution harms these folks

5 far more than it does others.

6 Cleaning up these boilers and

7 incinerators will save lives. Having less pollution to

8 breathe should prevent over 3,000 non-fatal heart

9 attacks, avoid over 35,000 cases of worsened asthma, and

10 eliminate nearly 3,500 hospital and emergency room

11 visits each year.

12 The total benefits far outweigh the costs

13 of cleaning it up. The EPA estimates that the cleaner

14 air from cutting emissions from major and area source

15 boilers will save nearly $18 billion to over $43 billion

16 each year beginning in 2013. The capital costs for

17 installing equipment on all the boilers are estimated to

18 range from $10.5 billion to $12 billion, with total

19 annual costs for operations, maintenance and other

20 routine requirements of $3.9 billion.

21 The American Lung Association urges the

22 EPA to strengthen the proposed rule for incinerators and

23 for the definition of solid waste. The definition of

24 solid waste proposed here is so narrow that any facility

25 could burn practically any substance as solid waste and

981 not have to follow the requirements, opening a huge

2 loophole that threatens public health. They would also

3 never have to tell the public what they're burning or

4 how much they are burning. That's simply wrong.

5 The American Lung Association here today

6 represents the children with asthma in the communities

7 next door to these facilities. We also speak for the

8 adults on oxygen who cannot be here to say that we must

9 have air that does not make it harder for them to

10 breathe.

11 We speak for all whose lives that are

12 threatened by pollution spewing from these boilers and

13 incinerators. All of us here today and all of those who

14 cannot join us deserve the right to breathe clean,

15 healthy air. We are counting on the EPA to deliver

16 cleaner, healthier air in every community.

17 Thank you.

18 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

19 Any questions from our panel? Okay.

20 At this time, I'm going to suspend the

21 hearing for a period of time until our next speakers

22 come up, and we'll reconvene at that time. So I'll ask

23 folks not to stray too far away because we hope to have

24 other commenters coming here shortly. And we are

25 scheduled to take a lunch break at 12:30 today, from

991 12:30 to 2:00. Okay.

2 (The hearing was suspended from 11:20 A.M. to

3 12:30 P.M.)

4 (A lunch recess was taken from 12:30 P.M.

5 to 2:03 P.M.)

6 MR. GINSURG: Thank you for attending today's

7 public hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's

8 proposed rules for Industrial, Commercial and

9 Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters; Commercial

10 and Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators; and the

11 Identification of non-hazardous secondary materials that

12 are solid waste.

13 We appreciate your taking the time to

14 address these proposals and we look forward to your

15 comments. My name is Eric Ginsburg. I'm the Senior

16 Program Advisor of the Sector Policies and Programs

17 Division of the Office of Air Quality Planning and

18 Standards, which is part of EPA's Office of Air and

19 Radiation, and I'm chairing today's hearing.

20 With me on the panel today are George

21 Faison who is in the Program Implementation and

22 Information Division of EPA's office of Resource

23 Conservation and Recovery. Jim Eddinger who's in the

24 Sector of Policies and Programs Division of the Office

25 of Air Quality Planning and Standards. And Amy Zimpfer

1001 who is the Associate Director of the Air Division for

2 EPA's Region 9 Office in San Francisco.

3 We're here today to listen to your

4 comments on four proposed rules that we announced on

5 April 30th of this year and published in the Federal

6 Register on June 4th.

7 EPA is required by court order to -- and

8 it's issued by the U.S. District Court for the District

9 of Columbia to take final action on the proposed

10 additional standards by December 16th, 2010. We intend

11 to take final action by the same date on the proposed

12 rule that identifies materials that are not hazardous

13 solid waste under the Research Conservation Recovery

14 Act.

15 More details about the proposed

16 amendments and instructions for submitting public

17 comments are available in the registration area. And we

18 have prepared a list of topics on which we're

19 specifically requesting comment. That's also available

20 in the registration area and may be helpful to you as

21 you're commenting today or submitting written comments

22 later on.

23 EPA will accept comments until August 3rd

24 of 2010. And you've indicated to me that you're

25 familiar with the proposed rules, so I'm not going to go

1011 through and restate those here. But the materials are

2 available at the front desk and, of course, in the

3 Federal Register.

4 Each of our speakers have been given six

5 minutes to speak. I realize we don't have other

6 registered speakers at this time, but I think, in

7 fairness to our other speakers, we're going to go ahead

8 and adhere to that six-minute limit. And the way it

9 will work is that we have a timekeeping system that

10 consists of green, yellow and red lights. When you

11 begin speaking the green light will come on. The yellow

12 light will signal that you have one minute left. And

13 we'll ask you to stop speaking when the red light comes

14 on.

15 And if you have a written copy of your

16 comments, we would appreciate it if you would provide

17 them to the individual at the registration desk. And if

18 you have a spare copy, too, it would be very helpful for

19 our transcriber if you could provide a copy for her as

20 well.

21 Our first registered speaker this

22 afternoon is Mr. Michael Wang of the Western States

23 Petroleum Association.

24 MR. WANG: (Rule 1, 2, and 3.) As you

25 indicated, my name is Mike Wang and I'm with the Western

1021 States Petroleum Association.

2 I'm struck by the vast multitude of

3 people in the audience here. The lack of attendance

4 shouldn't be taken as lack of importance. This is an

5 important rule for many resources in the United States.

6 As you will hear from my testimony, there

7 are certain specific regions of my clients that are more

8 impacted than others. I will be submitting comments to

9 EPA and to the court reporter. I do not have any extra

10 copies now, unfortunately, because we had a network

11 failure today and I'm lucky that I had this testimony

12 out, otherwise, I would have had to do it by memory and

13 that would have been much shorter than six minutes. It

14 might have actually only been six seconds. So I will

15 provide that material to you subsequent to this meeting.

16 As I indicated, I'm with the Western

17 States Petroleum Association. Our association

18 represents 28 companies that explore for, develop,

19 refine, market and transport petroleum and petroleum

20 products in the Western U.S. Amy knows what states we

21 represent, but for those of you who don't, our clients

22 are in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona

23 and Nevada.

24 Now, WSPA played an active role in the

25 environment and air quality issues since the 1980s. For

1031 example, WSPA played a major role in the development of

2 ozone models and was a key sponsor of air quality

3 monitoring programs throughout California. We've worked

4 with EPA on the numerous programs, including Title V

5 programs and the implementation of toxic programs in

6 California, and other issues such as inventory reporting

7 and greenhouse gas production. So we understand the

8 need for improved air quality and the effort that's

9 required to reduce emissions.

10 First and foremost, we echo the testimony

11 of NPRA and others and support work practices for

12 natural and refinery gas units as proposed and believe

13 that this approach should also extend to fuel gas for

14 petroleum operations. A sound national energy and

15 regulatory policy must recognize the important rule

16 gaseous fuels play both in our economy and in reducing

17 conventional pollutants and greenhouse gases.

18 We do have a concern, though, with

19 respect to oil-fired plants and that's the key reason

20 why I'm here today. We believe that it was not

21 Congress's intent for EPA to set emissions limits or

22 MACT limits for multiple-air pollutants designated as

23 hazardous without demonstrating whether or not those

24 limits are achievable.

25 For this rule-making there does not

1041 appear to be any indication from the data that even one

2 of the best performers is achieving the proposed

3 emission limits today. Now, we all understand there are

4 often unintended or adverse consequences of proposing

5 emission standards that would require the installation

6 control devices that have not been demonstrated to

7 achieve the proposed numeric emission and that would, in

8 reality, increase energy consumption and very possibly

9 increase emissions.

10 This proposed regulation affects Hawaii

11 in a particularly draconian fashion because they do not

12 have natural gas or gas supplies available and the

13 option of switching to a different fuel does not exist.

14 Hence, it seems infeasible for those facilities to

15 comply with the proposed standard. This is clearly an

16 issue where compliance is simply, physically, not

17 possible.

18 As others have said in previous hearings,

19 EPA's proposal sets emission limits based on the best

20 performing units on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis

21 without considering whether all of those limits are

22 achievable in combination. This approach differs from

23 EPA's historical technology-based approach that has been

24 proven effective in the past 30 years. The impact of

25 this approach is to, perhaps, unintentionally make the

1051 MACT limits unachievable.

2 In closing, we support work practices for

3 natural and refinery gas units as proposed, and believe

4 that EPA should explicitly extend the work practice to

5 include fuel gas from petroleum operations. EPA should

6 establish reasonable requirements for oil-fired units,

7 giving operators the flexibility they need to maximize

8 combustion efficiency and therefore minimize emission.

9 Thank you for allowing me to testify.

10 MR. GINSURG: Thank you, Mr. Wang.

11 Does anybody on the panel have any

12 questions for Mr. Wang?

13 Thank you very much.

14 We'll go ahead and suspend the hearing at

15 this point until we have another registered speaker.

16 (Hearing suspended from 2:15 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.)

17 MR. GINSURG: It being 5:00 o'clock, this

18 session of the hearing concludes and will reconvene at

19 6:20 p.m.

20 (Dinner was taken from 5:00 P.M. to

21 6:30 P.M.)

22 MR. GINSBURG: This is the evening portion of

23 our hearing. This is to receive comments on EPA's

24 proposed rules for Industrial Commercial and

25 Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters; commercial

1061 and Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators; and the

2 Identification of Non-hazardous Secondary Materials that

3 are Solid Waste. We do appreciate your time to address

4 these proposals and we look forward to your comments.

5 My name is Eric Ginsburg. I'm a Senior

6 Program Advisor with EPA's Sector Policies and Programs

7 Division in the Office of Air Quality Planning and

8 Standards. With me on the panel are Mr. George Faison,

9 who's with the Program Implementation and the

10 Information Division of EPA's Office of Resource

11 Conversation and Recovery;

12 Jim Eddinger who's in the Sector Policies

13 Programs Division in the Office of Air Quality Planning

14 and Standards, the same office as me; and.

15 Amy Zimpfer who's the Associate Director

16 of the Air Division of EPA's Region 9 Office in San

17 Francisco.

18 We've been asking commenters to limit

19 their remarks to six minutes. I realize we don't have a

20 huge population of folks lined up here to speak after

21 you, but, in fairness to the other folks, we do ask that

22 you try to keep your remarks down to six minutes. We

23 may have clarifying questions for you. And if you could

24 just state your name for the court reporter. And if

25 you're representing any particular organization we

1071 appreciate hearing that, too.

2 MR. McGILL: (Rule 1, 2, 3, and 4) My name is

3 Ron McGill and I'm actually here from -- because of an

4 e-mail I received from Earthjustice, but I'm here as a

5 concerned citizen, more so.

6 Like I said earlier, hopefully you guys

7 have heard these talking points today several times.

8 But as I understand it, the definition of, you know,

9 waste of -- that's to be incinerated doesn't really

10 include, at this point, solid waste. That is, it

11 doesn't included shredded material like tires and things

12 like that. I'm not sure if that's completely correct.

13 Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but I'm

14 here to ask that you don't bow to industry groups

15 defining tires, for example, plastics, solvents,

16 anything that's naturally -- you know, like a toxin, a

17 chemical be defined as, you know, anything other than

18 the solid waste that it actually is.

19 They produce, you know, toxins that

20 are -- that can be fatal. Some of these plants are near

21 schools, houses, so I'm just here to hopefully make sure

22 the definition doesn't stray from the facts in that

23 these toxins and chemicals are what they are in whatever

24 form they come in. And if you shred a tire, it's still

25 a tire. It's just in a different form.

1081 So, I ask that you don't allow exemptions

2 for on-site burning from like chemical plants. From

3 what I understand, that's an opening in the definition

4 as well. So I ask that that not be an available

5 loophole to chemical production companies and oil

6 plant -- you know, Chevron, ConocoPhillips. Those, I

7 understand, are two of the major plants down here that

8 could be -- you know, cause infractions or what I would

9 consider infractions.

10 And I ask this because, you know, we all

11 breathe the same air. If you guys have children -- I

12 don't know where you live, but I plan on having children

13 and getting married soon. And, you know -- I mean, I

14 can't see this being a viable option for anyone, you

15 know -- and also future generations especially.

16 So please just don't allow exemptions for

17 on-site burning. We definitely need that oversight in

18 the regulation to stand and be firm and be a fair

19 logical definition, not something that's open to abuse

20 by companies that would rather not follow any sort of

21 environmental regulations or rules. And so we just need

22 the definition be revised to include the burning of any

23 toxic material, in any form, be strictly prohibited.

24 And all burning facilities must be

25 subject to these standards and controls for air quality

1091 monitoring and reporting requirements. That's what I'm

2 asking -- what I'm here to hopefully demand as a

3 citizen -- that you as the EPA regulate and control.

4 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Any of

5 the folks from the panel have questions?

6 MR. FAISON: Thank you.

7 MS. ZIMPFER: Thank you.

8 THE WITNESS: I would just like to say that

9 EPA as an organization -- if I'm not out of time, I

10 would hope that you would take this as seriously as

11 possible and understand that we as citizens see this as

12 your job. And I think a lot of people that would

13 normally have been here today probably only assumed that

14 this is being done. And from what I understand, these

15 regulations don't really -- it's open to loopholes.

16 Is that something -- am I wrong about

17 that? I mean, is the definition that i said -- you

18 know, is there anything different, I mean, about it? Am

19 I wrong about it?

20 MR. GINSBURG: Well, I think that the -- it is

21 true that we have proposed two different regulations for

22 boilers, and one for Major Source Boilers and one for

23 Area Source Boilers. For the smaller boilers the

24 requirements are different.

25 MR. McGILL: But they're the same machine;

1101 correct?

2 MR. GINSBURG: What they're permitted to burn

3 is going to depend, at least at this point, on how the

4 agency ultimately decides to define what is or is not a

5 solid waste.

6 MR. McGILL: That's what I'm asking, that you

7 define anything that's toxic -- and mercury, you know,

8 has toxic hazardous materials to begin with -- be --

9 not, you know, considered anything other than what it

10 is, solid waste. That the definition opening up this

11 same exact contraption to two different definitions --

12 Is that right? The boiler versus the

13 incinerator, isn't that, at base level, the same exact

14 piece of machinery? It's just how it's being used is

15 the definition difference?

16 MR. GINSBURG: I'll actually let our two

17 resources speak to that because it's probably a little

18 more complicated.

19 MR. FAISON: Say it again.

20 THE WITNESS: I'm asking is the boiler and

21 incinerator the same piece of machinery, and basically

22 defined this differently based on what's put into it.

23 MR. EDDINGER: Yes. I mean, the Boiler rules

24 cover boilers that would burn non-solid waste material.

25 And the Incinerator rule that we have out there, the

1111 Commercial, Industrial Solid Waste, they may be a boiler

2 generating steam but if they burn solid waste material,

3 they would be considered an incinerator.

4 MR. McGILL: So I'm just here to say to please

5 treat it as the same thing hopefully. And it's the same

6 piece of machinery and just don't let them burn toxic

7 chemicals in them for citizens. It's your job. I

8 appreciate it.

9 MR. EDDINGER: Thank you very much.

10 MR. McGILL: Thank you.

11 MR. GINSBURG: Our next commenter is

12 Ms. Roselyn Wang.

13 MS. WANG: (Rule 1, 2, 3 and 4.) I apologize

14 for being late but Los Angeles traffic is for a

15 different discussion.

16 May I begin?

17 MR. GINSBURG: Yes.

18 MS. WANG: Good evening. My name is Roselyn

19 Wang and I'm speaking on behalf of the Natural Resources

20 Defense Council, the NRDC. And we want to thank the EPA

21 for this effort to further regulate significant sources

22 of air toxics such as refineries, chemical plants and

23 the burning of solid waste. However, we have some

24 substantial concerns over aspects of these proposed

25 regulations.

1121 These industrial sources of pollution are

2 ubiquitous throughout the Los Angeles region and, in

3 many cases, are located in low income areas and

4 communities of color. For instance, of the roughly one

5 dozen refineries in our area, most of which are

6 associated with very high health risks, all but one are

7 located in communities of color. Many of these

8 facilities are poorly using boilers that are decades old

9 and contribute to a lot of pollution, both locally and

10 regionally.

11 We definitely appreciate the EPA's

12 efforts to control polluting boilers and process heaters

13 at large facilities. In particular, we support the

14 exclusion of exemptions for malfunctions, finally ending

15 a loophole which allows emission sources to smother

16 communities with pollution in blatant disregard of

17 standards. We urge the EPA to reject calls to reopen

18 this and other exemptions that undermine the health

19 standards of this new regulation.

20 While the boiler and process heater

21 proposals are a significant step towards clean air, we

22 are gravely concerned over the proposed solid waste

23 standards. In particular, the allowance of any industry

24 to burn its own waste as fuel is dangerous and

25 irresponsible. This policy would promote the burning of

1131 hazardous waste such as spent solvents, off-spec

2 plastics and chemicals, and coal mining wastes, among

3 other items of concern, without any appropriate controls

4 or monitoring.

5 This narrow definition of solid waste

6 puts thousands of children, elderly, and sensitive

7 individuals at risk through industrial incinerators and

8 facilities burning solid waste that are sited near

9 homes, schools, daycares and health centers. Any

10 facility that acts as an incinerator should be regulated

11 as such, including appropriate controls and monitoring.

12 We plan on submitting detailed written

13 comments on these important regulatory proposals. And

14 we thank you for this opportunity to comment.

15 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much. Any

16 questions from our panelists?

17 MS. WANG: Thank you so much.

18 MR. GINSBURG: Do either of you have written

19 versions of your comments?

20 MS. WANG: Yes, I do have a written version of

21 my comments. Would you like to keep it?

22 MR. GINSBURG: Yes, if you could provide that

23 to us, we would appreciate that. Particularly if you

24 could make that available to our court reporter to make

25 sure we accurately capture all of your comments.

1141 MS. WANG: All right. Thank you so much.

2 MR. GINSBURG: Thank you very much.

3 MS. WANG: Have a good evening.

4 MR. GINSBURG: Why don't we go ahead and

5 suspend the hearing at this point.

6 (Hearing suspended from 6:45 to 8:00 P.M.)

7 MR. GINSBURG: It being 8:00 o'clock and there

8 being no other speakers, the hearing concludes.

9 (Hearing concluded at 8:00 P.M.)

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