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) BEFORE THE WEST VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

DIVISION OF AIR QUALITY 

In re: Revisions to Rule 45CSR14 - Permits for 

Construction and Major Modification of Major stationary 

Sources of Air Pollution for the Prevention of Significant 

Deterioration. 

Transcript of proceedings had at a public 

hearing in the above-styled matter taken at the West 

Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Division 

of Air Quality, Conference Room, 601 57th Street, S.E. 

Charleston, West Virginia, commencing at 6:19 p.m., on the 

11th day of July, 2011, pursuant to notice. 

MISSY L. YOUNG, C.C.R. 

POST OFFICE BOX 6296 

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA 25362 

304-205-4929 or 304-539-6192 

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PRO C E E DIN G S 

MR. MASON: This public hearing will now 

come to order on this 11th day of July, 2011, at the West 

Virginia Department of Environmental Protection 

Headquarters. Comments and testimony will be accepted until 

the close of this hearing and will be made part of the 

rulemaking record. Any question regarding revisions to the 

rules will be included with your comments, and any such 

question will be answered as part of the response to 

comments in the rulemaking record. 

The purpose of this public hearing is to 

satisfy state rUlemaking requirements by accepting comments 

on proposed revisions to rule 45CSR14 - Permits for 

Construction and Major Modification of Major Stationary 

Sources of Air Pollution for the Prevention of Significant 

Deterioration. 

This rule establishes a state construction 

permit program consistent with the federal Clean Air Act 

and implementing regulations titled "Prevention of 

Significant Deterioration of Air Quality." 

Revisions to the rule incorporate changes 

to the federal counterpart, Prevention of Significant 

Deterioration for Particulate Matter Less Than 2.5 

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1 Micrometers - Increments, Significant Impact Levels and 

2 Significant Monitoring Concentration. upon authorization 

3 and promulgation of 45CSR14, the Division will submit the 

4 rule to the EPA as a revision to the State Implementation 

5 Plan pursuant to the federal Clean Air Act. 

6 The floor is now open for comments. Please 

7 state your name and any affiliation. 

8 MR. KOTSON: My name is James Kotson, I'm 

9 the chair of the Energy Committee for the West Virginia 

10 Chapter of the Sierra Club. Specifically what's being done 

11 to 45CSR14, there are a number of minor changes to many 

12 terms. In particularly there is definitions for content 

13 such as the baseline area and the baseline dates. It does 

14 not appear that either of those terms have any application 

15 to construction permits, except for the concept of the 

16 Platt Line applicability, Platt Line Applicability 

17 Limitation, it's referred to as the PAL. 

18 The PAL concept is something that we have 

19 been opposed to for quite sometime. It is our 

20 recommendation that in this rule, we simply eliminate that 

21 concept all together. We believe that it would make a lot 

22 more sense to simply apply pollution emission limits to 

23 each emission point rather than have emission limits apply 

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1 to a plant-wide facility. It would make monitoring much 

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simpler, it would make it much easier to identify the best 

available control technologies. From that standpoint, we 

4 recommend that the rule be further revised to strike any 

5 and all references to the Platt Line Applicability 

6 Limitations. That concludes my comments. 

7 MR. MASON: Thank you, Mr. Kotson. 

8 MS. MAUL: I'd also like to speak on this 

9 rule. My name is Mary Ann Maul, I'm an attorney here in 

10 Charleston, west Virginia. I have represented Bill Hughes 

11 in a Air Quality current appeal 10-03, for the Air Quality 

12 Board, which has been heard, but we have .not received a 

13 written decision on as of yet. In this case the main issue 

14 was whether two proposed permits for natural gas compressor 

15 stations would be considered together, which is also called 

16 aggregated or aggregation. Also, whether the connected 

17 well paths to each of those compressor stations would be 

18 considered together when total emissions were calculated 

19 for each of these compressor stations, both separately and 

20 together. 

21 In both of those issues the Board ruled 

22 against us. The Agency took the position that each of 

23 these emission points, each compressor station that is, and 

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1 each well cap that is, despite the fact that they were all 

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I gas should be consider separate emission points and 

4 permitted as separate emission units. 

5 We believe that is contrary to the federal 

6 law and therefore makes the data limitations plan, out of 

7 compliance with the Clean Air Act. We briefed this issue 

8 extensively in filing in this matter and I refer the 

9 rulemaking officials to that record for further 

10 information. Thank you. 

11 MS. HERNANDEZ: I would like to comment. My 

12 name is Renee Hernandez, H-e-r-n-a-n-d-e-z. I'm with West 

13 Virginia for Moms, and I'm also quite concerned about 

14 Marcellus shale compressor stations, and the separate 

15 ruling and believe that aggregate should be considered in 

16 DEP'S consideration for air quality. This is a grave 

17 concern of ours that we stand upon also. I request that the 

18 DEP refer to the federal Clean Air Act also. 

19 MR. MASON: There being nothing further, 

20 this public hearing for proposed 

21 MR. GASPER: Wait, I have a comment, I 

22 guess. It's a little something different in that I'm Don 

23 Gasper, from Buckhannon, West Virginia, I'm with the E 

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Proceedings 6 

1 Counsel, I guess. Don G-a-s-p-e-r. 

2 I'd like to say that we should be concerned 

3 about health, our own health impacts and our experts on 

4 that. It's a rather serious matter. I think we have a 

5 high asthma problem in this state. My own lungs are not to 

6 good, and I apologize for the way I'm speaking. 

7 I'm a retired fishery biologist and I was 

8 in charge of management on the National Forests in the 

9 state. They have a obligation to preserve the integrity in 

10 every sense up there. The resources is our resource, just 

11 as DEP must feel a responsibility for west Virginia's 

12 resources. 

13 They received an awful lot of the regional 

14 sulphur emissions. Eighty percent of their deposition is 

15 sulphuric acid. It falls when the hard mountain tops, with 

16 very little insulation ability. About one fifth of West 

17 Virginia trout stream regions have how been acidified over 

18 maybe 60 years of continual acid rain. In 1996, I think we 

19 all know that the Clean Air Act was environmental groups 

20 went to court and forced the Bush administration to 

21 implement the Clean Air Act. In one year sUlphur emissions 

22 were reduced by half. 

23 Earlier, I've been collecting rain and snow 

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1 for over 10 years and doing chemistry on it and getting the 

2 volumes. I do every event, I had 70, two for one an 

3 average, whereas all the stations measure simply, Tuesday 

4 morning at 9 o'clock, weekly samples. They have 52, I have 

5 72, and my events tell me where they originate, weather 

6 patterns, how it's delivered. In only ten years I had two 

7 clean rains that came in off the ocean. They were like the 

8 original rains. Our snow is still white, it has a 

9 conductivity that averages 35 micro centimeter. 

10 It's a long way from being pure like our 

11 ionized water, our de-ionized water should be. That's a 

12 distillation process that we have that is now effected by 

13 acid rain, by sulphate in the air. Nitrogen makes up 20 

14 percent of the nitric acid and this is the fertilizer. A 

15 lot of the watersheds now are saturated with nitrogen and 

16 it runs through and it's no longer taking up the soil 

17 mantle by the trees and everything because it's excess 

18 nitrogen. It then carries away nutrients like sulphuric 

19 acid does. 

20 That's what I want to tell you. Simply 

21 that for over 60 years, when it was so very bad, acid 

22 deposition of one pound per acre per year of H plus, that's 

23 the most acid rain deposition anywhere in the United 

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1 states. We in western Pennsylvania, western Maryland, get 

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it. For over 50 years it has leached a lot of nutrients 

from the spruce. I think really the spruce eco system, 

4 growing as it does, higher elevation, where they get maybe 

5 twice as much acid deposition, as at the lower stations 

6 where it's measured, that system my crash. We may not 

7 expect recovery of the spruce. It's just that the plant 

8 available nutrients left after all of these years of 

9 leaching, are so few for them to complete their growth in 

10 fall, to recycle you know, a hundred year process is 

11 rather unlikely. I think they'll stunt, become unthrifty, 

12 effected by disease and decline. 

13 Of course I'm a trout biologist and I want 

14 to say draining these infertile watersheds now, 

15 impoverished further from their geological strata that are 

16 already nutrient poor, there's one fifth of West Virginia 

17 trout stream reaches have been lost over the last 50 years 

18 because of acid rain. From undisturbed watersheds for 

19 regions and our regional effect. Penn state records that 

20 southern Virginia, below the State of West Virginia also 

21 records it. 

22 I want to say that these are concerns, 

23 these are losses and they should be brought forward to any 

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1 kind of comprehensive evaluation of additional power 

2 source, you know. That impoverishment rate, we have some 

1 3 figures, I won't go into, it's startling. We don't realize 

4 that this has been going on for such a long time. It's 

5 very significant, economic loss. Not only the loss of the 

6 trout stream reaches, but the accelerated leaching of acid 

7 rain for over 50 years amounts to at least 250 pounds per 

8 acre of calcium, and that's a major nutrient. This is what 

9 you would have in an acre of forest, in the eastern forest, 

10 in the trucks, 250 pounds per acre. 

11 So, if they are contemplating a sand 

12 harvest or a forest after another hundred years, we've had 

13 a chemical leaching that amounts to a truck only clear cut 

14 of the entire eastern forest over the last 70 years. 

15 That's a terrible economic loss folks would say. We're 

16 looking at instead of the second cut, which most folks 

17 thing of today, it's really the third. We've had one cut 

18 for gone leached away by acid rain over 50 years. 

19 So, these are things I think we have to 

20 consider if we are going to preserve what fisheries, what 

21 forests we have, and of course our own health is involved 

22 too. I raised some issues you probably haven't heard of 

23 before, but should be considered. My name is down here, I 

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1 can send you some substantiation, if you call or ask, and 

2 answer your questions. Thank you. This is a very easy 

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3 opportunity for me to communicate, and I appreciate it very 

4 much. 

5 MR. MASON: Thank you for your comments, Mr. 

6 Gasper. 

7 MR. MANYPENNY: My apologies, I thought you 

8 were going to ask if there was any other comments before 

9 you started to adjourn. I did want to say one thing. Mike 

10 Manypenny, Delegate for the 42nd District. M-a-n-y-p-e-n-n11 y. 

12 First of all I would just like to reiterate 

13 what all of these good citizens who have come down to 

14 comment on regarding the ambient quality and the different 

15 pollutants that are effecting West Virginia. I just wanted 

16 to support all of the comments and suggestions that have 

17 been made here and offer my support to them, and be here 

18 for them support their causes. 

19 MR. MASON: Thank you very much for your 

20 comments and support. 

21 MR. MANYPENNY: Thank you all very much too. 

22 MR. MASON: Any other comments on 45CSR14? 

23 MR. KESLING: Yes, I would like to make a 

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1 comment. I'm Randy Kesling, I'm with the Mountaineer 

1 2 Chapter of Trout Unlimited, out of Clarksburg. I just want 

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to say that we see this all the time on the streams, acid 

deposition. We do liming to help mitigate that acid rain 

impact on our trout streams. We just appreciate anything 

6 that helps, as Mr. Gasper has said, the problems created by 

7 the acid deposition and the additional acid deposition that 

8 will occur, you know, the more compressors and the 

9 Marcellus and all of the truck traffic, and everything from 

10 the Marcellus, has to be considered. It's a concern to us 

11 and we would like to see something that would mitigate that 

12 impact. 

13 MR. MASON: Thank you, sir. There being 

14 nothing further, this public hearing for proposed rule 

15 45CSR16 is concluded. 

16 (WHEREUPON, the hearing was 

17 concluded at 6:36 p.m.) 

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STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, 

COUNTY OF KANAWHA, to-wit: 

I, the undersigned, Missy L. Young, a 

certified Court Reporter and Notary Public within and for 

the State of West Virginia, duly commissioned and 

qualified, do hereby certify that the foregoing, was taken 

to the best of my skill and ability, a true and accurate 

transcript of all the proceedings had in the aforementioned 

matter. 

Given under my hand and official seal this 

13th day of July 2011. 

My commission expires April 15, 2018. 

t'-c",~"'--".' OFFICIAL SEAL 

t. -.~~£,. Notary Public. State Of West Virginia 

9 ... ·';'I~·. j' '\0 MISSY L. YOUNG, C.C.R. '"' . ; !if) PO BOX 6296 

1'\,,":J?} CHARLESTON, WV 25312 1·' "",,. My Commission Expires Apn115, 2018 I.,:;.,~ 

.MJ$$'ij.f!. 'ijOU!v{j, e. e.r<. (3~) 205-119'1204 (30'1) 539-6/92