air quality Archives — Page 4 of 4

EPA Finalizes Ozone NAAQS, Retaining Current Standards

News release from the USEPA

WASHINGTON (December 23, 2020) — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing its decision to retain, without changes, the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) set by the Obama-Biden Administration. With this action, EPA is following the principles established in the earliest days of the Trump Administration to streamline the NAAQS review process and to fulfill the statutory responsibility to complete the NAAQS review within five-years. Today’s action marks the second time in Clean Air Act history that the agency has completed an ozone NAAQS review within the congressionally mandated five-year timeframe. This is a needed departure from previous administrations’ failure to meet statutory deadlines, often taking years longer under court-imposed deadlines to complete reviews.

“For only the second time in agency’s history, EPA is fulfilling its statutory obligation to complete NAAQS review for ozone within a five-year time frame,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “Our actions today show the Trump Administration is fulfilling its promise of protecting human health and environment for all Americans, regardless of where they live.”

The decision to retain the existing ozone standards comes after careful review and consideration of the most recent available scientific evidence and technical information, consultation with the agency’s independent science advisors, and consideration of more than 50,000 public comments on the proposal.

Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, EPA has re-designated to attainment eight nonattainment areas for the 2008 8-hour ozone standards. In this same timeframe, U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions have dropped ten percent and volatile organic compound emissions have dropped three percent. Similarly, national average ozone concentrations have gone down four percent. Since 1990, national average ozone concentrations have dropped 25 percent.

“With air continuing to get cleaner as states implement existing standards, this measure strikes the right balance between protecting public health while supporting recovering communities… We commend EPA for [retaining] existing ozone standards. This proposal supports local communities now fighting to get back on their feet, while continuing to drive improved air quality under existing programs. It is backed by both EPA and its outside scientific advisors,” said U.S. Congressmen John Shimkus (IL-15), Greg Walden (OR-02), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Bob Latta (OH-05), Brett Gurthrie (KY-02), Pete Olson (TX-22), David McKinley (WV-01), Morgan Griffith (VA-09), Billy Long (MO-07), Larry Buschon (IN-08), Bill Flores (TX-17), Markwayne Mullin (OK-02), Buddy Carter (GA-01), Jeff Duncan (SC-03), Greg Gianforte (MT-At Large), Scott Perry (PA-10), Alex Mooney (WV-02), Glenn Grothman (WI-6), Randy Weber (TX-14), Carol Miller (WV-03), Troy Balderson (OH-12), Dan Newhouse (WA-04), Dan Crenshaw (TX-02), Tom Tiffany (WI-07), Steve Chabot (OH-01), Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Kelly Armstrong (ND-At Large), and Debbie Lesko (AZ-08).

In May 2018, EPA issued a “Back-to-Basics” memo to improve EPA’s process for reviewing the NAAQS. The memo laid out goals to get EPA back on track with Clean Air requirements, statutory deadlines, and the issuance of timely implementation rules, to ensure continued improvements in air quality across the country. Today’s action is the first NAAQS review to do so and charts a path to continue this statutory responsibility in the future.

Background

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set NAAQS for “criteria pollutants.” Currently, ozone (and related photochemical oxidants) and five other major pollutants are listed as criteria pollutants. The law requires EPA to periodically review the relevant scientific information and the standards and revise them, if appropriate, to ensure that the standards provide the requisite protection for public health and welfare.

In the prior review of the ozone standards, which was completed in 2015, the Obama-Biden EPA increased the stringency of the levels of the ozone standards to 70 parts per billion (ppb), from the 2008 standard of 75 ppb.

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NJ enviro groups urge governor to reject regional anti-pollution pact.

Critics say Transportation & Climate Initiative would do little for communities already overburdened by pollution

Environmental groups critical of the pact want state policymakers to focus the proposed initiative on mandatory pollution reductions in overburdened communities.

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight

One of the most prominent environmental organizations in New Jersey is opposing a regional cap-and-trade program being pushed by Northeastern states to curb global-warming emissions from motor vehicles.

Clean Water Action joined the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance and Ironbound Community Corporation in urging the Murphy administration to reject joining the Transportation & Climate Initiative, a proposal most clean-energy advocates view as a critical step toward reducing the single largest source of greenhouse gas pollution.

Many environmentalists consider the still emerging climate initiative, modeled after the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — a program that aims to reduce pollution from power plants — as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize and decarbonize the region’s transportation system.

Not so much though for those who represent environmental justice communities — already overburdened with the cumulative effects of pollution — which have shown a growing voice in the Murphy administration.

Need for ‘bold, visionary solutions’

“TCI to date has been tone deaf at best and racist at worst. The world is on fire and we need bold, visionary solutions that center those most directly impacted to build a just society,’’ said Maria Lopez-Nuñez, deputy director of the Ironbound Community Corporation.

Clean Water Action wants state policymakers to focus the proposed pact on mandatory pollution reductions in overburdened communities, targeted funding and action in those areas.

“We need big bold solutions that the environmental justice communities in New Jersey has been demanding a long time like mandatory pollution reductions in communities of color and low-income communities,’’ said Amy Goldsmith, New Jersey state director of Clean Water Action.

Their concerns include the possibility that a cap-and-trading program is likely to disproportionately impact environmental justice communities and that monies raised by the program would be diverted for other purposes, as has occurred in the past, when more than $ 1 billion in clean-energy funds have been diverted by past administrations in New Jersey.

The Transportation & Climate Initiative envisions funding the programs through a proposal that could boost the price of gasoline at the pump by as much as 5 cents to 17 cents a gallon, according to estimates by the alliance. The alliance is comprised of 12 states, including New Jersey as well as Washington D.C. If implemented, the program could slash tailpipe emissions by 25% over the next decade.

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New DEP Deputy Commissioner fighting for the right of New Jersey’s urban residents to breathe

Workers at Port Newark - December 31, 2012 — A single truck makes its way along Corbin Street on a quiet morning in Port Newark in Newark, New Jersey in this 2012 file photo. Environmental justice advocates point out that ports are major sources of air pollution in overburdened communities. (Frank H. Conlon | For The Star-Ledger)

By Michael Sol Warren | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Olivia Glenn is fighting for your right to breathe.

Glenn, who last month was named as a new deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, grew up in Camden, where a humming industrial waterfront has over time diminished the city’s air quality.

Glenn and many of her family members suffered from asthma, joining a disproportionate Camden County population affected by the illness — regularly linked to air pollution — at higher rates than the rest of New Jersey, according to a 2014 report.

“It’s kind of like how everyone talks about having allergies now,” Glenn tells NJ Advance Media. “Everybody had asthma.”

In Camden city, residents were sent to the emergency room for asthma more than 11,000 times between 2008 and 2012: Nearly 50% of the county total (the city makes up only 15% of the county’s population).

Now, its Glenn’s job to further the state’s environmental justice efforts in urban industrialized areas like Camden and Newark, which are known to have dirtier air than other parts of New Jersey. She says her goal is to boost public and environmental health in low-income communities of color that have long been burdened by the pollution of industry — from the refineries and factories just blocks from their neighborhoods, to the highways and airports in their backyards.

Olivia Glenn New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection — A courtesy photo of Olivia Glenn, who was named deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in July 2020.Photo courtesy of the NJDEP

“I think if there was ever a moment in time where everything was lining up — social, economic, environmental, just people’s sense and empathy for others — this is our moment,” Glenn said.

Environmental justice advocates in the state have a long wishlist for the DEP, which stretches well beyond air quality, from stronger regulation of chronic polluters and troubled drinking water systems, to more support for green infrastructure development and the remediation of abandoned, contaminated lots that dot Garden State cities.https://3735ebfe5328ad0a87ce34e5a15728ca.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

“We really want the DEP to be a good partner and go beyond the status quo of compliance and enforcement,” said Ana Baptista, the associate director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New School. Baptista is a Newark native who works on a number of environmental advocacy campaigns in the Garden State.

Glenn’s new role comes at a key moment in New Jersey’s environmental justice timeline. A shake-up in Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration and a major bill at the precipice of passage are signs that the movement is on the verge of a breakthrough.

One of Glenn’s main responsibilities will be the implementation of Murphy’s Executive Order 23 which directs all departments in state government to take on environmental justice initiatives.

That could mean helping the Department of Community Affairs work environmental considerations into housing policy, or working with the Department of Agriculture to improve food access for underserved communities.

“There are tie-ins to advancing environmental justice that depend on all of government working together,” Glenn said.

Air quality is a top priority for New Jersey’s environmental justice advocates. The state’s main sources of air pollution today are cars, trucks and other vehicles. This means communities near busy ports and highways — like Newark, where one in four kids has asthma — breathe some of the state’s dirtiest air.

“We’re disproportionately polluted on,” said Kim Gaddy, a Newark resident who is the environmental justice organizer for Clean Water Action of New Jersey. “We’re just fighting for a chance to breathe.”

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Air Quality Health Advisory Issued for NYC and Long Island

In Effect for Sunday, July 5, 2020

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos and State Department of Health (DOH) Commissioner Howard Zucker, M.D., J.D. issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for the areas of Long Island and New York City Metro for Sunday, July 5, 2020.

The pollutant of concern is: Ozone

The advisory will be in effect 11 a.m. through 11 p.m.

DEC and DOH issue Air Quality Health Advisories when DEC meteorologists predict levels of pollution, either ozone or fine particulate matter are expected to exceed an Air Quality Index (AQI) value of 100. The AQI was created as an easy way to correlate levels of different pollutants to one scale, with a higher AQI value indicating a greater health concern.

Summer heat can lead to the formation of ground-level ozone, a major component of photochemical smog. Automobile exhaust and out-of-state emission sources are the primary sources of ground-level ozone and are the most serious air pollution problems in the northeast. This surface pollutant should not be confused with the protective layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere.

People, especially young children, those who exercise outdoors, those involved in vigorous outdoor work and those who have respiratory disease (such as asthma) should consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity when ozone levels are the highest (generally afternoon to early evening). When outdoor levels of ozone are elevated, going indoors will usually reduce your exposure. Individuals experiencing symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain or coughing should consider consulting their doctor.

Ozone levels generally decrease at night and can be minimized during daylight hours by curtailment of automobile travel and the use of public transportation where available.

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