Activist wants upsets to count
Denver man calls on EPA to cut air pollution in state
By Todd Neff, Camera Staff Writer
January 6, 2006
The state health department lets industrial facilities such as Cemex Inc.'s Lyons cement plant flout federal clean-air law, Jeremy Nichols says, and the Denver resident has petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force the state to change its ways.
Nichols works on forest issues for the Laramie, Wyo.-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. But he says he sent the Dec. 21 petition to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson on his own. He has also launched a volunteer group called Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action.
"It's just something I care about," Nichols said. "This is a really serious issue."
Production malfunctions are a part of heavy industry, recognized by state regulators as a part of complicated, high-volume production processes that create the refined petroleum, steel, electricity and other commodities upon which a modern economy depends. Cemex averaged about 18 upsets a year between 1999 and 2005; Xcel Energy's Valmont Station in Boulder averaged about six upsets annually.
Even in Cemex's case, malfunctions were relatively rare: reported upsets amounted to about 0.1 percent of total operating time from January 1999 to December 2005.
As part of the petition, Nichols cites letters Richard Long, EPA's regional air director, sent to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in 2001 and 2002. Long told state air regulators that ignoring pollution from industrial plants during upset conditions — production malfunctions — was inconsistent with the Clean Air Act.
"Our policy dating back to the 1970s has been that you have to count all of the emissions and that you can't excuse certain periods," Long said Thursday. "But we do realize it's not a perfect world."
He said "enforcement discretion" by state regulators does come into play.
That has resulted in state air-quality enforcers not counting upset-related emissions when considering the pollution a plant releases.
The upset-related amounts can be significant. A four-day upset beginning Aug. 30, 2004, at Holcim Inc.'s cement plant in Florence released 17 tons of sulfur dioxide, according to records filed with the state.
For comparison, that amounts to 1.3 percent of the sulfur dioxide that Cemex is permitted to emit in a year.
The EPA says sulfur dioxide contributes to respiratory illness, acid rain and national-park visibility problems.
Colorado's policy is not unique. Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project reported in December that 20 Texas plants released 19,200 tons of pollutants during upsets, main maintenance, and startup and shutdown activity, but reported only 3,430 tons of pollution in annual filings to the state.
A state health department spokesman said officials there wanted to review the petition before commenting; a call to an EPA spokesman in Washington was not returned.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Todd Neff at (303) 473-1327 or nefft@dailycamera.com.