Polaroid 

John P. LeFebvre, PE Polaroid Corporation 

Corporate Environmental Manager 1265 Main Street, W2-MZ 

Waltham, MA 02451-1714 

February 12, 2004 

MA Department of Environmental Protection 

One Winter Street 

Boston, MA 02108 

In Re: Proposed Changes to Regulations 

310 CMR 7, et. seq. 

Dear Sir or Madam: 

The Polaroid Corporation is pleased to offer the following comments with regard to the 

referenced action by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection ("DEP" or "the 

Department"). 

Presumptive Approvals for LPA's 

Polaroid opposes the Department's plan to replace the current LPA approvals with 

presumptive approvals. While the stated intention is certainly laudable, the actual proposal will 

generate the opposite result, and/or an increased incidence of noncompliance. 

The obvious disconnect between DEP's assertion of favorable economic impact is the 

proposed requirement for a professional engineer's certification. Currently, LPA's are 

sufficiently easy to prepare that numerous facilities are able to do so in-house. The requirement 

for a PE stamp will force them to hire out what they can currently do for themselves. For those 

already outsourcing this type of activity, the PE requirement may well add a premium charge as 

it elevates the level of individual a consultant can assign to the effort. 

The less obvious issue that agitates against this proposal is one of federal enforceability, or 

even simply state enforceability. It is this hidden issue that we believe will result in significantly 

greater cost and time for the regulated community, as well as more time and effort for the 

Department. 

The current system allows for any installation to qualify for treatment as an LPA as long as 

the resultant approval limits the emissions below 5 tons per year. Under a presumptive system, 

the installation will have to have a true potential to emit of less than 5 tons per year. We suspect 

that no one has the actual historical data to judge what portion of existing LPA's would fall into 

this category, but based on our own experience and discussion with our peers, we believe it is a 

small fraction. It is Polaroid's opinion that for the more astute amongst the regulated 

community, time and cost for approvals thus increase as former LPA applications are forced into 
Comments on Proposed Changes to 310 CMR 7, et. Seq. 

February 12,2004 

Page 2 

the CPA category. For the less astute, unless saved from this error by their PE certifier, they will 

be creating enforcement liability when they assume that a presumptive LPA is still adequate for 

the same types of installation that it has historically served. And if the PE does his job properly, 

more applications are dumped into the CPA category. Not only will time and costs increase for 

the regulated community, the Department's efforts will increase as well. No Department 

resources will be saved. 

If the Department is truly interested in reducing its level of effort, it needs to look at the way 

it reviews very simple applications, and the approval letters that it generates. These bureaucratic 

amalgamations are well in excess of the environmental benefit they deliver. Presumptive LPA 

approvals will only deliver the savings that DEP projects if there is a corresponding increase to 

the lower threshold for CPA's, ideally to the federal NSR thresholds. 

One other change has been proposed relative to LPA's that will only serve to increase 

bureaucratic costs by eliminating a very reasonable allowance for the most closely regulated 

facilities in the state. The Department has proposed the elimination of 310 CMR 7.02(4)(c), 

which permits facilities holding an Appendix C permit to forego the submittal of LPA's for 

modifications to the facility, as long as a minor modification to the Appendix C permit is applied 

for pursuant to Appendix C(8). The Department's background document justifies this by 

expressing a concern that BACT requirements may not be satisfied under the current scheme. 

Rather than increase the costs and effort for minor modifications to heavily regulated sources by 

requiring two applications for the same activity - as the minor modification application is still 

required by Appendix C - the Department can add a sentence to the end of the current 7.02(4)(c) 

to the effect of: "The application made pursuant to 310 CMR Appendix C(8) shall demonstrate 

that the BACT requirements of 310 CMR 7.02(4) are satisfied." 

Visible Emissions - Let's Call Opacity, Opacity 

Before getting into the pith of the opacity matter, let us make a suggestion for a seemingly 

obvious but un-proposed modification to the regulations. For decades both the regulators and 

regulated have spoken in terms of opacity with regard to visible emissions. Elsewhere in 310 

CMR 7 "smoke density indicators" are required of many sources, which in practice are all 

opacity monitors. Yet, nowhere in the visible emissions regulation is the term opacity applied to 

sources of smoke. Instead, the regulations refer archaically to "the Chart." The Chart, better 

known as the Ringlemann Scale, is a simple five-point scale that correlates to opacity, but is not 

opacity. 

DEP enforcement personnel are trained in EPA's Method 9, a visual methodology for 

evaluating opacity. They do not possess, nor are they certified in the use of, equipment to 

evaluate visible emissions in accordance with the Chart. Accordingly, the Department is not 

really capable of enforcing the visible emission regulations for smoke. Polaroid strongly 

encourages the Department to make the necessary changes to 310 CMR 7.06(l)(a) so as to 

eliminate any reference to the Chart, and instead make the regulation comport to the actual field 

practice of regulating opacity. 
Comments on Proposed Changes to 310 CMR 7, et. Seq. 

February 12, 2004 

Page 3 

Visible Emissions - No Need for Complexity 

Polaroid views the proposed changes to the opacity regulation at 310 CMR 7.06(l)(c) as an 

unfortunate example of an overly bureaucratic response to an environmentally insignificant 

issue. More than ten years ago, industry sources and representatives began approaching the 

Department with their concerns about the visible emissions regulations - in particular 310 CMR 

7.06(l)(a) - in light of the Title V requirements to be promulgated under the 1990 Amendments 

to the federal Clean Air Act. For years the Department rebuffed industry's attempts to avoid a 

situation whereby industry would have to certify non-compliance with visible emission 

regulations, on a daily basis, for the normal operations of their facilities; operations, moreover, of 

which the Department had always been aware and found acceptable. The Department indicated 

that they didn't see what the problem was. As industry came to learn, Department headquarters 

was unaware of what transpired on a daily basis out in the field. 

Eventually, due to persistence on industry's part, the Department was persuaded to take 

action on this issue. After literally years of effort, a compromise, unsatisfying but functional to 

industry's needs was reached, and 310 CMR 7.06(l)(c) was created in August of 2001. 

Unfortunately, the EPA Regional Office neglected their responsibilities, failing to inform the 

Department mat they found the new regulation unacceptable until it appeared in a draft operating 

permit. That is what brings us to this latest attempt to fix something that should never have been 

broken. 

We have the opportunity before us to resolve this visible emission issue in a relatively simple 

and effective manner. All that is required is the will to do that which is simple, rather than that 

which is complicated. The overwhelming approach of regulatory limitation is to simply provide 

a number, or set of numbers, to be met. So should it be here. 

310 CMR 7.06(l)(a) and (b) each simply provide two numbers that shall not be exceeded. 

7.06(l)(c) should assume the same format. The numbers, 15% and 27%, are already present as 

are the conditions to which they apply. The so-called plan of Good Operating Practice serves no 

valid purpose. It cannot be logically argued that a detailed Plan that describes operational 

methodologies, and employed technologies, and various contingencies is necessary to address a 

point of environmental insignificance and to which the Department has shown historical 

indifference. It cannot be so argued when the overwhelming bulk of 310 CMR 7 persists without 

such requirements. Even those requirements that do call for Plans do not automatically require 

such levels of effort and depth of detail. Polaroid's NOx RACT Plans were far simpler than these 

opacity plans, in essence simply stating that we would meet the numerical limits. And it cannot 

be argued that this level of effort is required by these few sources when, known to the 

Department, the requirements of 310 CMR 7.06(l)(a) continue to go unmet on a daily basis by 

sources not subject to the Appendix C permitting program. 

As with NOx and VOC RACT, there may be a very few individual sources technically 

incapable of meeting the stipulated limits. Then, and only then, should an Opacity Plan come 

into play, individually negotiated with the Department to address site-specific conditions and 

establish site-specific performance limits. 
Comments on Proposed Changes to 310 CMR 7, et. Seq. 

February 12,2004 

Page 4 

Polaroid requests that the Department give serious thought and consideration to these 

comments. We ask that the proposed paragraph 310 CMR 7.06(l)(c)l end with the phrase 

"notify the Department in writing of such intention." We further ask that the balance of the 

proposed ensuing language begin a new paragraph and that, in conjunction with the additional 

proposed language, be crafted to create an exception process for facilities simply incapable of 

satisfying the criteria of 15% and 27%. Finally, we request that the proposed paragraph 

7.06(l)(c)4 be eliminated altogether. It is entirely inappropriate that a group comprised of some 

of the best managed, best maintained and best operated facilities in the Commonwealth, subject 

to the most stringent oversight by virtue of Appendix C applicability, is required to make 

notification of environmentally insignificant exceedances within a single business day, while 

facilities regularly exceeding 7.06(l)(a) and (b) limits have no such obligation (nor should they). 

Moreover, these very same exceedances will necessarily be reported to the Department anyway, 

on a semi-annual basis pursuant to the requirements of their Appendix C permit. 

Polaroid thanks the Department for the opportunity to offer these comments. It is our 

intention to make additional comments regarding the proposed regulation changes before the 

conclusion of the public comment period. Those comments will address other aspects of the 

Department's proposals, and may include additional comments on the subjects of presumptive 

LPA's and visible emissions. 

Sincerely