Document ID: EPA-R03-OAR-2006-0921-0005
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2006-12-26T05:00Z

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

REGION III

1650 Arch Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103-2029

	 ADVANCE \x15 SUBJECT:

	Technical Support Document-Commonwealth of Virginia -Amendments to 9
VAC 5-20-206, Concerning the Expansion of the VOC and NOx Emission
Control Areas, and the Resulting Chapter 40 Regulatory Rule Changes 
December 1, 2006

	 ADVANCE \x15 FROM:

	Ellen Wentworth

 ADVANCE \x15 TO:

	File

 ADVANCE \x15 THRU:

	Makeba Morris, Branch Chief         s/s

Air Quality Planning Branch

I.  Background

The Federal Clean Air Act (CAA) requires the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to prescribe primary and secondary air quality standards to
protect public health and public welfare, respectively, for each
pollutant for which air quality criteria were issued before the
enactment of the CAA in 1970.  These standards are known as the national
ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).  Each state is required to adopt
and submit to the EPA a state implementation plan (SIP) that provides
for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of the NAAQS within
each air quality control region in the state.

Areas that do not meet the ozone NAAQS are designated as ozone
nonattainment areas as opposed to attainment or unclassifiable areas. 
Nonattainment areas are further classified as marginal, moderate,
serious, severe, and extreme, and are subject to more stringent measures
as the classification moves from marginal nonattainment to extreme
nonattainment.  

The Commonwealth of Virginia(s regulations establish VOC and NOx
emissions control areas to provide the legal mechanism to define the
geographic areas in which Virginia implements control measures to attain
and maintain the air quality standards for ozone.  The emissions control
areas may or may not coincide with the nonattainment areas, depending
upon the necessity of the planning requirements.  

The original ozone air quality standard was a 1-hour standard.  On July
18, 1997, EPA promulgated a revised 8-hour ozone standard of 0.08 parts
per million (ppm).  This new standard is more stringent than the
previous 1-hour standard.  On April 30, 2004, (69 FR 23858), the EPA
designated and classified areas for the 8-hour ozone NAAQS.  For most
areas, these designations became effective June 15, 2004.  EPA
designated, as nonattainment, any area violating the 8-hour ozone NAAQS
based on the air quality data for the three years of 2001-2003.  These
were the most recent three years of data at the time EPA designated
8-hour areas.  The 8-hour standard replaced the 1-hour standard on June
15, 2005 (69 FR 23996).  

II.  EPA Analysis of the Commonwealth’s Request

On September 12, 2006, the Commonwealth of Virginia submitted a revision
to its SIP amending 9 VAC 5, Chapter 20 of Virginia’s regulations. 
Specifically, this revision amends the VOC and NOx emission control
areas found in 9 VAC 5-20-206.  This revision establishes a new
Fredericksburg VOC and NOx Emission Control Area consisting of the
County of Spotsylvania and the City of Fredericksburg; expands the
existing Richmond VOC and NOx Emission Control Area to include the
County of Prince George and the City of Petersburg; and expands the
existing Hampton Roads VOC and NOx Emission Control Area to include the
counties of Gloucester and Isle of Wight.  These amendments are
necessary to implement VOC control and contingency measures within the
8-hour ozone nonattainment areas and 1-hour ozone maintenance areas.

On October 2, 2006, the Commonwealth of Virginia submitted a revision to
its SIP amending 9 VAC 5, Chapter 40 of Virginia’s regulations. 
Specifically, this revision consists of amendments to Articles 4, 36,
37, and 53 of Chapter 40 that implement non-CTG and CTG VOC (reasonably
available control technology (RACT) control requirements within those
areas that are designated as VOC emission control areas in 9 VAC
5-20-206.

Currently, Chapter 40 of the Regulations for the Control and Abatement
of Air Pollution contains a number of  rules used to enforce control
measures designed to attain and maintain the ozone air quality standard.
 The geographic applicability of these rules is defined by establishing
VOC and NOx emissions control areas in a list located in 9 VAC 5-20-206.
 Many of the Chapter 40 VOC emission standards will be extended into the
new 8-hour nonattainment areas automatically when the VOC emissions
control areas in 9 VAC 5-20-206 are amended.  For new affected
facilities subject to these rules, compliance with the VOC emission
standards is automatically required by 9 VAC 5-40-20 to be achieved no
later than 90 days after the effective date of the amendment except for
sources that require certain physical or process changes to comply, in
which case compliance will be required no later than one year after the
effective date of the amendment.  

Some Chapter 40 rules have provisions stating that these regulations
apply only to certain existing VOC and NOx emission control areas.  The
October 2, 2006 SIP revision is specifically revising Articles 4, 36,
37, and 53 in order to manage the extension of applicability of these
provisions to the additional VOC and NOx emission control areas with
coherence and consistency.

Article 4, Emission Standards for General Process Operations (Rule 4-4),
is being amended to ensure that VOC RACT is not required from large VOC
sources in the new areas within the expanded Richmond VOC Emissions
Control Area.  Article 4 currently applies in the Northern Virginia and
Richmond Emissions Control Areas designated in 9 VAC 5-20-206.  With the
addition of Prince George County and Petersburg to the Richmond VOC
Emissions Control Area, VOC RACT would normally automatically apply to
all large existing sources in the County of Prince George and the City
of Petersburg.  However, the Richmond 8-hour ozone nonattainment area
was reclassified from a moderate 8-hour ozone nonattainment area to a 
marginal 8-hour ozone nonattainment area on September 22, 2004 (69 FR
56697)  EPA only requires existing sources in nonattainment areas that
are classified as moderate and above to implement VOC RACT.  Since
currently there is no EPA requirement that requires Virginia to do VOC
RACT in these newly added areas, Article 4 is being amended to ensure
that large existing facilities in Prince George County and Petersburg
City will not be automatically required to do VOC RACT.

Article 36 (Packaging and Publishing Rotogravure Printing, and
Flexographic Printing) is being amended to add appropriate exemptions
for small facilities in all VOC emissions control areas, except for the
Northern Virginia VOC Emissions Control Area, whose potential to emit is
less than 100 tons per year of VOCs.  

Article 37, Storage or Transfer of Petroleum Liquids, is being amended
to ensure that Stage II Vapor Recovery is not required at gasoline
dispensing stations in the new areas within the expanded Richmond VOC
Emissions Control Area-- Petersburg City, and Prince George County,
since these areas were not part of the 1-hour moderate nonattainment
area.. This revision also removes applicability redundancies resulting
from this action and a previous amendment that added the Western
Virginia VOC Emissions Control Area (Botetourt County, Frederick County,
and Winchester City, 70 FR 21625, April 27, 2005). 

Article 53 (Emission Standards for Lithographic Printing Processes) is
being amended to apply in all VOC emissions control areas, instead of
just in the Northern Virginia and Richmond VOC Emissions Control Areas. 
The amendment also exempts from the provisions of the article, all
facilities in all VOC emissions control areas, other than the Northern
Virginia VOC Emissions Control Area, whose potential to emit is less
than 100 tons per year of VOCs.  When EPA approved the lithographic
printing processes regulation into the Virginia SIP (62 FR 11334, March
12, 1997), it was codified under Article 45.  In this action, EPA is
recodifying the lithographic printing processes rule (9 VAC
5-40-7800-7940, inclusive) from Article 45 to Article 53 to be
consistent with Virginia’s regulations.

III. Conclusions and Recommended Agency Action:

These amendments are being made to modify the VOC and NOx emission
control areas so that they include all of the areas that have been
designated as nonattainment, thereby extending to those areas the
benefit of those VOC emission standards that are designed to limit
ground-level ozone formation, thereby better protecting the public
health and welfare in those areas.  Therefore, I recommend approval of
the above SIP revisions

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