Travis County Commissioners Court
January 29, 2008
Item 12
Number 12 is to consider and take appropriate action on an update of the eight-hour ozone national ambient air quality standard and the central Texas o 3 flex program. Morning. Have you to say good morning -- you have to say good morning.
>> good morning.
>> thank you.
>> I知 john white, environmental officer for Travis County. And with me today is adell noel from our staff as well as a visiter from outside the agency, kathy stevens.
>> I知 the environmental manager with campo and also co-chair of the early action taskforce that provides support for the clean air coalition.
>> thank you very much. We are here today to give you a briefing regarding the ozone plex program and to seek ultimately Travis County's participation in that program. As you know, ozone is a key atmospheric pollute ant. We're particularly interested in ground level ozone. The clean air act requires a lot of dprs the ow flex program -- the 03 flex program, the ozone flex program is the successor to the early action compact be. That included a plan with a number of implementation steps. The plan I believe expired the end of December, is that correct? So the 03 flex program is the successtory that. I致e asked adell to give us a bit of a rundown. She's got a powerpoint presentation that we can look at and sort of understand what this thing is all about and where we're going with it today.
>> the eight hour ozone 3 flex plan is a voluntary initiative program, as john was saying, which continues previous air quality plans. It expands on the one-hour ozone flex plan wls as well as the early action compact agreement. It involves a memorandum ofagreement between l governments, tceq and epa to implement measures to maintain compliance with federal ozone standards through the year 2013. As part of the program the area must be in the federal attainment is it. And in violation occurs, the epa will consider the program implementation in making the attainment. It does not shield frus non-attainment, it just shows that we are proactive and we are taking measures to stop us from being in non-attainment. And currently our design value is at 82 parts per billion. The epa designation for ozone standards right now is a design value of 84 parts per billion. It has been proposed that the design value changed from 70 or 75 parts per billion. We are waiting on further information or a ruling from epa on that standing which we should have sometime in March. Design value is a three-year average of the fourth highest daily maximum eight hour ozone concentrations. These are measured annually at each regulatory monitor in the region. And we have two regulatory monitors in our area at this time.
>> when was the last time we measured between seven and 75? 1920?
>> it's not happened since they started monitoring the -- tracking the ozone levels.
>> which was when?
>> for the eight hour standard it would have been in '97. Before that they were tracking back to the 80's, but they were using the one-hour standard. A little bit different measurement.
>> and also monitors can speak a little bit to -- the monitors are placed where?
>> the two regulatory monitors, one is at murchison middle school and one is close to Cedar Park.
>> would you consider those the high pollution points in the county?
>> that is why they are sighted there. And what we've seen in the past, we have four other monitors throughout the region and those do consistently monitor the highest.
>> have we been monitoring adjacent to highways?
>> we have not right next to the roadway because that's considered to skew the data we're looking for for regional.
>> it would give us the tail of the high curve. The high points, correct?
>> it would depend. If you have a lot of knox, then it may actually reduce ozone on that spot, depending on the chemistry.
>> obviously there's a lot of variation in the ozone levels you will get during the course of the day. The intent of the placement of these monitors is to give us a consistent reading of critical regional areas in which we can then use as sort of our basis.
>> does it provide us the average or the range?
>> it's a continuous monitor. And you can actually -- online you can see what the levels are at any particular time of the day and within the next hour or so. So the key is to look at what is that maximum level that it reaches during the course of the day. And of course, the key is that fourth highest level that you get during the course of the year, so we sort of throw out the top three because of sort of day-to-day fluctuations and oddities and peaks and things like that. So the key is to look at that fourth highest level. And that's the standard it used in around the country.
>> one is in Cedar Park and the other one is where?
>> murchison middle school.
>> let me point out -- maybe I jumped in too quickly. If you're looking at corn monoxide -- carbon monoxide, the highest levels would be on the roadway, but on ozone, which is the standard we don't meet, with one of the standards, the hydrocarbon is mixed with sunlight so the chemical reaction doesn't take place until the winds take it further north and that's Cedar Park.
>> so carbon monoxide is --
>> it's another pollutant which has its own measure, but for which we are not in violation.
>> and it contributes to --
>> no. It's the hydrocarbons out of the car that mix with sun slight lite that create the ozone that that takes some time and it actually gets transported and that's why they place the station up at Cedar Park. Prevailing winds are from the south and it takes it up north.
>> remind me of where murchison is located?
>> northwest hills. Fash west. Far west.
>> off of mopac.
>> the benefits of developing an o 3 flex plan is that it allows emission reductions to be tailored to local circumstances. We get to choose which reductions we want to take instead of those being imposed upon us by the federal government. And it also helps to reduce -- whatever we reduce in ozone helps to reduce greenhouse gases, traffic congestion and fossil fuel use. The region -- in order to qualify, the region must meet eligible requirements, which we do, the program must meet eep requirements, which we do. Initial participants in the eac, be the early action compact agreement, signatories, participating agencies plus the central Texas regional mobility authority. In addition, local participants can be added. The program requirements will require technical evaluation and that we evaluate the region's past, current and future ozone levels. And these evaluations show that we will stay close to the current ozone standard, but transportation emissions from outside the region could raise background ozone levels significantly. An example of background levels is the oak grove power plant, which is scheduled to be online in 2010. As you can see from this graph, the highest point is the purple area to be transported into our area, which could increase the ozone by 1.06 parts per billion.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]. When you mentioned that particular facility, where is it located so the public will know?
>> [ inaudible ]. Just state for the public where that location is.
>> the oak grove facility is being built right outside of the waco area.
>> exactly. Thank you.
>> so as you can see from the map that the entire northern half of Travis County would have some impact under certain circumstances from that plant.
>> a minute ago we placed a lot of emphasis on the prevailing wind being from the south. In waco if it were from the south, it would be blowing toward dallas.
>> there are certain times of the year when the wind patterns come from up north and we have a greater impact on the so zone from dallas -- on the so zone from dallas.
>> so it's from the south most of the time, but sometimes it's from the north, which is why we should be concerned about oak grove, which is outside waco.
>> it's important to recognize that everyday there's a complex configuration of air patterns. There are certain sets of weather conditions that we can expect that flume pleum to be coming down into the Travis County area, but by and large on a daily basis there is a general movement of air north ward to the northern part of Travis County. You see similar kinds of analysis in other parts of the county where the daily pattern of wind transports the materials that result in the formation of ozone just locally. So the analysis of all this is going to be looking very carefully at weather conditions, the time of the year, prevailing winds, and then certain particular kinds of weather event that might occur. So we could have uncertain circumstances of pronounced movement of air from the waco area down into the Travis County area.
>> and this slide shows -- this photo chemical (indiscernible) was conducted on a day, September 15s, which is one of the day when we had high ozone in the area and this added amount of 1.60 could potentially boost us over the 85 parts per billion standard.
>> so in essence we've been teetering on the brink of non-attainment for quite some time. And despite all of the efforts under the early action compact, which basically provide us some relief of small numbers of parts per billion, very small. What have we collected, about two or three parts per billion? This could readily be swamped by a single powerpoint. Power plant.
>> let me ask you this, in other settings, and I guess the settings may be the same, but as far as the partnering of other governmental entities, other (indiscernible), where are we in that arena currently trying to ensure that what we may be able to do is reduce these type of harmful emissions that interfere with our air quality. Not only that, but may cause us to be in a tough situation as far as the feds are concerned. I知 trying to determine now where are we as far as those relationships in partnering that we have done in the past? Are we still cemented into those relationships and everyone is still trying to do what we need to do to make sure that the air emissions are reduced?
>> Commissioner, that's actually the very point that we're here for today. The early action compact involves a five-county area and a number of local governments and partners and all the rest of that. That program, that plan expired at the end of December. The 03 flex program involves those same folks as well as potentially the addition of other geographic areas in a new agreement that would continue those efforts and add new efforts.
>> right. In other words, my question -- this is what I知 saying, where I知 trying to go. I understand what you just said. I知 just saying is the relationship as strong as ever with those particular partners. That's why I said cemented in, to get in the direction that we're trying to go. Of course, now you have different players coming into the thing. You mentioned the situation around waco. There may be others that are on the table now and new partners that need to join this particular effort to make sure that we are not slapped on the wrist by the feds and cause us to do some drastic measures and get in a situation where we maybe won't be as comparable as the folks that are already experiencing that, dallas, houston and other areas that have been penalized as far as trying to come into standards. I知 just trying to find out the relationship. Are they as strong as ever? To make sure that we have a chance to ensure that the reduction of ozone levels are acceptable. So that's my question.
>> I think there's two answers to that. One is that the regional effort is still strong. There's still a strong commitment among all of the parties that were part of the early action compact that we now hope will join in with the ozone flex program. However, even though it's a regional effort, there are impacts that occur really at the state level, and while tceq is a partner in our regional effort, we've been frustrated by the fact that they've declined to look at the big picture and see the impacts of transport across statewide. Ozone is notoriously mobile and the impacts are swept all across the country. Impacts in the upper midwest are strongly influenced by air pollution patterns in the iowa river valley and farther south. Certainly around here the impact of air quality in houston can have significant impact on the regional ozone that we're going to have in this area. Our background ozone is 65 parts per billion and a lot of that comes up from houston. So you've got to envision the one-two punch. You could have impacts from the houston area on certain days and impacts from dallas fort worth area on other days. So while there is a strong commitment in the sort of regional local level, I would say there's a lot of room for improvement in looking at a statewide and national sort of atmosphere shed kind of approach. This in fact is one of the reasons why we took some interest in the oak grove case.
>> okay.
>> this action plan defines, triggers response options which include planning activities, voluntary emission reduction measures and contingency measures. These response options are determined by the signatories of the plan. And it addresses coordination, public participation and required semi annual reporting. He it continues ongoing activities from the early action compact agreement, including the emission reduction measures, analysis of the effectiveness and emissions growth, programs such as commute solutions, clean air force, the clean air partners, clean cities, the clean school bus program, Austin climate protection plan and the memorandum of understanding for local enforcement of state idling limits. New primary measures include upon signing the memorandum of agreement will be implement understand one or more primary measures within one year. Comamplez of these measures -- examples include a regional ride share program, expand the clean air coalition program 83 graphically. An ozone watch and warning system, the air tech Texas local initiatives project, additional turp grants and inviting other cities which have a population of 10,000 to become signatories with us. An additional transportation emission reduction measures and to expand the energy efficiency and conservation program. And other measures can be identified and agreed upon. And these identifying measures by January 1st, 2010. The contingency plan provides for the design values reach 84 parts per billion, the region will implement additional measures. These measures can include the purpose, the ones I previously said, turp term, additional cities to join, the ride share program, those are examples. If we hit the tier 2, that means if our design value reaches the 85 parts per billion, we will implement all of tier 1, plus additional measures. This memorandum of agreement includes a signatory commitment that will expect duration through the year 2013 and modifications or early termination. All parties commit to develop, implement and maintain in accordance with e.p.a. Guidelines. E.p.a. Commitments is that if a violation of the standard does occur, e.p.a. Will exercise discretion in the non-attainment designation and it will also allow state implementation plan credits for measures that we've already implemented. E.p.a. And tceq agree that the region exceeds or violates the federal ozone standard. They will inform local governments of all of our options. And they will adopt selected tier 2 contingency measures as outlined. The local governments agree -- and it's local governments that signed the memorandum of understanding, to implement the 03 flex program measures, update their mission inventories, to continue and expand the measures to offset growth and emissions, and revise contingency measures as state or federal laws change. I知 available to answer any questions you may have.
>> okay. So it also strikes me that I think we need to follow that up with obviously there are two elephants in the room. One is the new coal plants, particularly oak grove. The other is the pending federal action to change the eight hour ozone standard. We're expecting that to be announced by March 12th. It could be 70 parts per billion, it could be 75.
>> but in any case, we're over it.
>> that's right. We're way over and there's not much prospect for getting back under ta. So what does that mean for us? It would mean that we're almost immediately in sort of a technical non-attainment, but I don't think that that declaration would be made right away. There's probably going to be legal appeals to the process and the whole nine yards. So it would probably mean a couple of years, maybe a year, maybe a couple of years before we would be formally declared to be in non-attainment. In the meantime we could continue with the 03 flex program to try to ratchet down as best we can the existing flute pleut tants that -- pollutants that we're having to deal with.
>> my problem is that even though we aren't the generator maybe of -- of course, the winds, prevailing winds and all this kind of other stuff kind of move stuff around as far as the air (indiscernible). The deal is that since it migrates, how do they, the feds or whoever look at this, how do they determine whose responsible for that particular air pollution? You mentioned just the facility up there near waco, you mentioned that, but we still have the prevailing winds that come in from houston. We may have aggressively done a lot of good things here in Travis County and other partners here within our little small region; however, it appears that we're being penalized for other people that have -- because of prevailing winds that shift their pollution here to our counties. And of course, that (indiscernible). That gets us into a non-attainment status. How do we rectify that? Does anyone look at that to say listen, they're doing all these things to help improve the situation. How is that looked at when the feds or whoever make the determination on attainment versus non-attainment? How does that work? It really is a tough issue for me. Because we've done a lot here in Travis County, we really have.
>> do you want to take a stab at that?
>> one thing that happens whenever there's a high ozone episode, there's a lot of technical analysis and using the model to determine where that comes from. There are monitors all across the state and across the nation so they can track. There are ways that the e.p.a. Can work between the states. The problem is intrastate trnt, Texas is a very big state. We see a lot of transport within the state and that would solely be under the realm of tceq. So it would be up to them to tackle the intrastate, and there are legal mechanisms in the clean air act to address interstate. So the problem would primarily be on tceq's shoulders.
>> the last statement, could you recent that?
>> addressing the intrastate, say from houston to Austin, dallas to Austin, waco to Austin, that is in tceq's realm. They would be be charged with finding the solution.
>> what are the primary sources of the worry some pollutants? Power plants?
>> petrochemical industry and automobiles and engines?
>> so there are some smaller components as well that you can look at, architectural materials and things like that that are off gassing, road paving materials and the like. Fshes we've been fighting this battle for over 20 years in one form or another across the country. And the interstate trnt of the precursor as well as ozone itself, that battle just hasn't been fought very effectively. There are going to be huge sources that are going to require a lot of efforts to correct. And it's a very almost intractable solution in that regard. And then there will be certain weather conditions that are just difficult to deal with. If we are found in non-attainment we will be compelled to take whatever steps we can to try to reduce our local generation of precursors to so zone.
>> the only one we have inside Travis County is the cars, correct?
>> no.
>> engines of all sorts. For example, the Texas emission reduction program really targets diesel engines and the like. We target old vehicles. These are all things that we can try to work on to try to improve our emissions.
>> and strongly suggest to our partner governments regarding energy production to produce cleaner energy.
>> three questions. So we're asked to consider and mou today.
>> correct.
>> do we have the mou?
>> it's part of this plan. It's chapter 4. It agrees that you will comply with what's in here, continue the eac emissions, reporting the emissions to capcog.
>> we have to do something.
>> the signing would not be be today. You would just be authorizing a representative to sign at a later date.
>> okay. So what you described today is basically the -- a summary of the mou.
>> correct.
>> can you share that with us, what you were reading from? Just your presentation.
>> yes, I can e-mail it to you.
>> number two, the other partners in the region are asked to do the same thing. Where are they in terms of execution.
>> we have three that have executed it. It is scheduled -- I think the last two are February 14th and that's the city of Austin and Round Rock. We still do not have a date for hays county or city of luling, but they have indicated that they are favorable towards it.
>> what's our deadline?
>> February 17th.
>> all right. If you will get that summary to us this week, we'll have this back on the court's agenda next week. I do think that all we can do is all we can do, but it's unacceptable to do nothing. We have sent comments to e.p.a. Setting forth our case, our perspective indicating that we think it's unfair to punish us for poor air -- poor air that comes from other communities. They're hearing this across the nation, I presume.
>> yes, sir.
>> I think we ought to -- those of us who want to see that, I do think it's kind of complicated and there's a whole lot of it. We've been working on it. We have made some progress. But it looks like every time we take two or three steps forward, something happens and throws us backward. Those plus one more. But I don't see anything other than -- we start it had further, have it back on next week and my view would be that we need to approve it. Yes, sir?
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> . . We certainly talk a lot about it but I don't know what we do about it object, it's not all coming off the coast houston probably would not be in nonastainment if they didn't have channelview, bay town, pasadena, which is really where you see all of the petro chemical industry. Located. Unfortunately. What do you do about that. Those industries or that particular industry drives a you a full lot of the economy of this state. The reason they have never done anything down there, even if they have gotten fined, have they gotten fined, kathy?
>> I blanch to the idea they haven't dop anything. It has improved since the 70s when it was at its apex. There were plants blowing up.
>> there are some recently as well.
>> but am I correct in my assumption that since the '70s there have been improvements in that area? I知 from there, y'all. It was pretty bad in the '70s and I think we have improved since then because of the e p and and federal regulations man days improvement.
>> there's definitely been improvement since the '70s.
>> we have back slid since then in regard to federal regulations and enforcement of them because we have a voluntary system of compliance and reportage of these kind of pollutants.
>> let me ask you this. Do you all think, the three of y'all that's really involved , you know, the most at least from standpoint, are you supportive of e pa takes the standard from 85 to 75?
>> yeah.
>> you are.
>> yes.
>> and would you all be willing to dictate to this community what you would have to do. The overwhelming majority, even though auto emissions have gotten much cleaner in the last 15 to 15 years, and we know that what measure would you have to take and say I知 foreit going from 75 to 85, what measure would you mandate the community take, and what would the k mix of that be to this community?
>> I don't think anybody is interested in mandating correct think of americas on--measures on this. I think it's something we have to, while we have made incredible improvement we have vastly increased the number of miles we drive. We drive farther and farther and farther all the tile. You mentioned before, what consequences has houston faced. The one community that did face consequences was atlanta. Atlanta had terrible problems with air quality and ultimately what ended up happening when they ignored the federal mandate the state of georgia had its highway dollars withheld. Now, everybody knows--
>> we're already getting that.
>> yeah. Butnch knows how federal highway dollars work. They kind of work over a very long period of time. So they were able to take some corrective measures then to restore their federal funding. But one of the things that came out of that was that georgia regional transportation authority, which was a state level district that was imposed on the entire region and forced them into some serious land use planning and transportation planning which they had just not engaged in before.
>> I hope they reduce the standard.
>> okay. The consequences of us being in nonattainment in the Austin area would be that we would all of a sudden be required to develop a model for the impacts of automotive emissions in the area and we would have to the have conformity analysis on every kind of roadway project coming into the area. If my memory is correct, everything above about half a mile of an arterial road would have to go through conformity analysis and we would not be looking at revising the campo plan every column years. It would be a monthly bases because you're having to accommodate the new developments but also trying to balance how this development is occurring to make sure that you are not violating, continuing to violate air quality standards as a result. There is also the potential to get congestion mitigation air quality dollars. But by moving the standard down to 75, that means everybody is going to be fighting for those dollars am not like there's an extra pot of money out there . Simply more parties fighting for the money. Those are funds you could use to provide intersections, provide for bus pullouts and things like that that could significantly contribute to care quality in the urban area.
>> I知 not opposed to having it reduced because I think that makes us work a little harder. The other thing I also hear a lot is that the cars are cleaner now than they used to be. Well, why is that such a big problem now? For those of us who choose whatever automobile we can because we have the right to choose, we can also take the cars in and have them serviced every 3,000 miles to make sure everything is burning clean. I wish that everybody, I tell everybody I know to take their cars in and get them serviced every 3,000 miles and get everything cleaned up. With you --but anyway, I think it takes a lot of effort.
>> if we decide we do something or nothing. We do something, it's in the mo u. Right? I can hardly wait until then.
>> thank you.
>> we'll see you then.
>> thank you, judge.
28. CONSIDER AND TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION ON REQUEST FROM ENVISION CENTRAL TEXAS TO APPROVE AND RELEASE $25,000 FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 FUNDING.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:09 PM