?There?s the official timeline, there?s the official legal process, but we are trying to get a jump on that.? -- Rodney Mallett
A St. Bernard Parish environmental group on Wednesday called on the state Department of Environmental Quality to speed its plans to reduce the emissions of pollutants from local industries as part of a report detailing the group's findings on air quality in parts of the parish. DEQ already has recommended to the federal Environmental Protection Agency that it designate St. Bernard Parish as being out of compliance with standards for how much sulphur dioxide gas is released in an hour.
DEQ will attempt to require compliance with the sulphur dioxide standard sooner than the 2017 deadline, which the EPA is expected to set when it issues its non-compliance directive, according to DEQ spokesman Rodney Mallett. DEQ must submit a state implementation plan to the EPA by mid-2014 that demonstrates how St. Bernard will reach sulphur dioxide standards by 2017.
The EPA standard for sulphur dioxide was reduced to 75 parts per billion in an hour in 2010, from an average of 140 parts per billion in 24 hours, a standard that had been in effect since 1971.
?DEQ?s plan, suggested in a recent Times-Picayune article, is to ?ratchet down? sulfur pollution levels as the permits come up for renewal; that process could take up to five years,? said Suzanne Kneale, a member of the local Concerned Citizens Around Murphy group that authored the recent report, which the group states it compiled from air monitoring data. The report has not been vetted by the DEQ or EPA.
But Mallett said on Wednesday that the DEQ is well aware of the problems and is ?trying to get ahead of the situation and look at some ways that we can address the SO2 (sulphur dioxide) levels in that area.?
?There?s the official timeline, there?s the official legal process, but we are trying to get a jump on that,? Mallett said.
Current scientific evidence links short-term exposures to sulphur dioxide, ranging from 5 minutes to a day, with an array of adverse respiratory effects, such as emphysema and bronchitis, as well as aggravating existing heart disease. The effects can be more profound on asthmatics, children and the elderly.
The three main facilities in the parish that have permits to release amounts of sulphur dioxide are the ExxonMobil Chalmette Refinery, the nearby Rain CII petroleum coke processing plant, and the Valero Energy Corp.?s Meraux refinery, according to the state DEQ. Valero bought that Meraux refinery from Murphy Oil USA in the fall of 2011.
The Concerned Citizens Around Murphy report is based on air monitor readings at the three sites in St. Bernard: two state DEQ monitoring sites, in Chalmette and Meraux, and one monitoring site operated by Valero near its Meraux plant.
St. Bernard?s air quality failed to meet that one-hour health standard for sulphur dioxide on 29 days in 2012, according to the report. The highest readings were from DEQ?s site in the Chalmette Vista neighborhood -? with readings of 241, 229, 216, 211, 184, 174, 164, and 148 parts per billion.
Kneale describes current air quality as a deterrent for people considering whether to return to the parish, which was decimated by the levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and which still lacks about half of its pre-Katrina population. Along with sulphur dioxide, the group?s report describes how often air quality in the parish failed to meet standards for particulate matter and hydrogen sulfide in 2012
Based on the air samples at community monitoring sites, the report states that air quality in 2012 failed to meet pollution standards for hydrogen sulfide on eight days, for particulate matter ?PM2.5? on 34 days, and for particulate matter ?PM10? on six days.
Long-term exposure to hydrogen sulfide -? a color, flammable gas -? can cause eye irritation, cough, headache and nasal blockage, along with possible other symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Particulate matter, or particle pollution, is a mixture of solids and liquid drops in the air that can come in a wide range of sizes, with ?PM10? representing particles between 10 micrometers in diameter and 2.5 micrometers in diameter -? smaller than the width of a single human hair. The EPA is particularly concerned about particles 10 micrometers in diameter or smaller because those are the particles that generally pass through the throat and nose and enter the lungs.
Particles 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller -? or PM2.5 -? also called fine particles, often are found in smoke and haze.
Source: http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/01/st_bernard_parish_environmenta.html
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