### AshGroveCementCompany;MontanaCityPlant Wood,Thomas to: VanessaHinkle 11107/201106:45PM Cc: "CurtisD.Lesslie(curtis.lesslie@ashgrove.com)" ,SaraLaumann

From: "Wood,Thomas"<TRWOOD@stoel.com> To: VanessaHinkle/R8/USEPAlUS@EPA Cc: "CurtisD.Lesslie(curtis.lesslie@ashgrove.com)"<curtis.lesslie@ashgrove.com>,Sara Laumann/R8/USEPAlUS@EPA 

# ._,"-'-"-'-'--**'~---""""""~--~_._--_.** History: Thismessagehasbeenrepliedtoandforwarded.

Vanessa: Thanks for meeting with Curtis Lesslie and myself to discuss their Montana City response to yourRegional Haze questions. Ash Grove understands that EPA is under tremendous time pressure and that the company's request for Confidential Business Information ("CBI") status for the October 5, 2011 submittal creates timing issues for the agency that it can ill afford given the January deadline. Therefore, althoughAsh Grove considers the October 5, 2011 submittal to include information it considers confidential, Ash Grove is willing to waive its request. This includes waiver of any CBI claim related to the modeling report submitted to you by Trinity Consultants onOctober 25, 2011. In so doing, Ash Grove is not waiving its right to claim CBI status for future submittals, if any. We hope that this waiver assists EPA inmeeting its deadlines.

I also wanted to follow up on the discussion we had last Wednesday regarding the insignificance of the visibility improvements attributable to the S02 controls. I understand that you have had a chance to discuss the modeling with Kasi Dubbs at Trinity and that she reiterated how little impact S02 reductions have on the modeling results. As we discussed, we believe that semi-wet and wet scrubbers shouldnot be considered technically feasible. Neitherof these controls is inuse at a wet kiln, such as the Montana City kiln and thus pilot studies and a tremendous amount of work wouldbe required to determine how to adapt the technology to a wet kiln. As EPA stated in the Appendix YBART guidelines, "we do not expect a source owner to conduct extended trials to learnhow to apply a technology on a totally new and dissimilar source type." Given that these technologies are not inuse on a wet kiln and that extended trials wouldbe required to make the controls work,
we do not believe them to be available technologies and, so, not technically feasible. Both technologies also are bad BART choices as they require large amounts of water inan area without available water resources. This is particularly true in relation to the wet scrubber,**al~hough** a semi-wet still
consumes considerable water (roughly 2 million gallons/year)

. Even if one considers the semi-wet scrubber to be technically feasible, we do not believe that there is a basis for considering a control that offers insignificant improvement over the control that Ash Grove is offering to install. Ash Grove is willing to install a dry scrubber ("DAA") on an experimental basis to see how it canbe made to work. There is so little known about how a dry scrubber couldwork, that in discussion with EPA headquarters we are negotiating a testingprocess to determine the best the scrubber can do, rather than establishing a limit. The minimumperformance of the DAA system is expected to be a 20% reduction in S02 emissions. By requiring the substantial extra cost and water consumption**associa~ed** with a wet or semi-wet scrubber, the visibility improvement gains would be only 0.16 dv as compared toAsh Grove's proposed BART determination. As EPA said in footnote 28 of the final July 6, 2005 RH rule, "a 0.5 deciview change in visibility is linked to 'perceptibility,' or a just noticeable change inmost landscapes." The difference in resources, both economic and environmental,

### between requiring a dry scrubber and a semi-wet scrubber is substantial. A semi-wet scrubber is projected to cost $12 million to install and $250,000/yr to operate. However, the improvement invisibility is one-third of the minimumperceptible change invisibility. We believe that regardless of the evaluationunder the first four factors, the fifth factor mandates that there is too little improvement tojustifyrequiring a semi-wet (or wet) scrubber.

Ash Grove is not suggesting that it not do anything to improvevisibility. The companyhas made great strides in the last two years to alter itsprocess so as to reduce its 802 emissions. Ash Grove is alsoproposing the addition of SNCR, a baghouse and DAA. We believe that this package of improvements
more than satisfies BART.

Thanks again for your time and letme know if you 

### need a more formal withdrawal of the CBI claim.

Tom

Thomas R. Wood STOEL RIVES LLP 

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### I Portland, OR 97204-1268 Direct: (503) 294-9396 

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