.
-------
Protecting
Our Air
As measured by levels of several
key pollutants, the quality of the
nation's air is improving steadily.
This issue of the EPA Journal
discusses the national air
cleanup effort.
In an interview, EPA's
Assistant Administrator for Air
and Radiation, Joseph A.
Cannon, reviews the air quality
situation. He discusses goals for
the remainder of the decade and
also compares America's
cleanup progress with that of
other nations. Administrator
William D. Ruckelshaus
discusses a specific air quality
issue, acid rain.
The control of hazardous air
pollutants, a major EPA concern,
is assessed. Another article
reports on the implications of a
recent Supreme Court decision
upholding a key EPA concept in
regulating industrial air pollution.
In another piece, a respected
academic observer gives an
independent view regarding
approaches that might be taken
to meet further challenges in
cleaning America's air.
Six articles focus on efforts to
curb contamination from the
largest single air pollution
source, motor vehicles. Included
are features on assembly line
testing of autos, car inspection
and maintenance, EPA's
campaign to discourage the
substitution of leaded gas for
unleaded fuel, and EPA's recent
proposal to sharply reduce lead
in gasoline. Another article
reports on potential dangers to
health from gasoline vapor and
options to reduce the public's
exposure to the fumes, and the
sixth article discusses methanol,
a cleaner, potential substitute
for gasoline in cars.
Also in this issue, the Journal
begins a series on major
environmental problems being
addressed by EPA's regional
offices. Starting the series is a
piece on EPA Region 1 initiatives
in the expanding effort to clean
up Boston Harbor.
Two regular features
concerning activities at
EPA—Update and
Appointments— conclude this
issue of the magazine, i ]
Haze over Chicago.
-------
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Affairs (A-107)
Washington DC 20460
Volume 10
Number 7
September 1984
SEPA JOURNAL
William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator
Josephine S. Cooper, Assistant Administrator for External Affairs
Jean Statler, Director, Office of Public Affairs
John Heritage, Acting Editor
Susan Tejada, Assistant Editor
Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor
Bob Burke, Contributing Editor
EPA is charged by Congress to
protect the nation's land, air, and
water systems. Under a mandate of
national environmental laws, the
agency strives to formulate and
implement actions which lead to a
compatible balance between human
activities and the ability of natural
systems to support and nurture life.
The EPA Journal is published by
the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. The Administrator of EPA
has determined that the publication
of this periodical is necessary in the
transaction of the public business
required by law of this agency. Use
of funds for printing this periodical
has been approved by the Director
of the Office of Management and
Budget. Views expressed by
authors do not necessarily reflect
EPA policy. Contributions and
inquiries should be addressed to the
Editor (A-107), Waterside Mall. 401
M St., S.W.. Washington, D.C,
20460. No permission necessary to
reproduce contents except
copyrighted photos and other
materials.
CO
r-
co
'•
The Nation's Air Cleanup—
An Interview with
Joseph A. Cannon 2
Reviewing the
Acid Rain Issue—
An Interview with William
Ruckelshaus 6
Seeking to Control
Hazardous Air Pollutants
8
The Supreme Court's
"Bubble" Decision: What It
Means 10
The Clean Air Program:
Options for the Future 12
Inspection and
Maintenance: A Role for
the Public 15
Monitoring Auto
Emissions: Questions and
Answers 16
Driving Home Lessons
About Fuel Switching 17
Reducing Lead in
Gasoline 18
Growing Concern About
Gasoline Vapors 20
Methanol: The Fuel of the
Future? 22
A Comeback for Boston
Harbor? 24
New Appointments and
Awards 26
Update—Recent EPA
Developments 28
Front Cover: Seagulls on a sunny
day at Assateague Island, Maryland.
Photo credits: Tracey A. Finger;
Allan Wilson: Greg Pease, Folio;
California Department of
Transportation; United Steelworkers
of America; District of Columbia
Department of Recreation;
American Petroleum Institute;
National Park Service.
Design credits: Robert Flanagan;
Ron Farrah
The .innu.il i,itc for subscribers n
the U S for the EPA Journal is
$20 00 The charge to subscribers ;n
foreign countries is S2!) 00 a year
The price of .1 single copy of the
Journal is 52 00 m tins country
-------
The Nation's Air Cleanup
An Interview with Joseph A. Cannon
EPA Journal asked Joseph A. Cannon,
the agency's Assistant Administrator
for Air and Radiation, about the national
air cleanup effort. The interview
follows:
U. The Clean Air Act was passed
almost 15 years ago. Has it led to real
progress in cleaning up the nation's air?
>r\ Definitely. Under the Clean Air Act,
national ambient standards have been
established for six major air pollutants.
By almost any measure, air quality
related to those pollutants has
improved — in some cases
dramatically — since 1970. Total annual
emissions are down — particulates by 58
percent, sulfur oxides by 25 percent,
carbon monoxide by 27 percent. These
reductions in emissions have helped
improve ambient air quality all across the
country.
The fact that we have been able to
reduce emissions and concentrations of
criteria pollutants is especially
remarkable considering our economic
growth over the past decade. Since 1970,
for example, we've reduced the carbon
monoxide emitted by highway vehicles
by 27 percent, even though we're driving
about 50 percent more miles per year.
Sulfur dioxide emitted by power plants
has dropped about 10 percent since 1970,
yet we've increased our coal-fired
generating capacity by almost 60 percent.
In other words, we've not only
improved air quality in absolute terms,
we've done it in spite of the fact that our
population and economy are growing,
we're driving much more, and we're
using more coal-fired electricity. Without
the Clean Air Act, there is no doubt that
air quality in the United States would be
much, much worse today.
\J.
Does this mean we no longer have
to be concerned about air quality in the
U.S.?
*»
No. It simply means that we've
done a good job controlling the sources
and pollutants we thought were most
threatening when the Clean Air Act was
written. For example, the 1970 legislation
specifically mandated control of power
plants and automobiles, and our air
quality today—especially in urban
areas—reflects our success in doing that.
Although some areas—like Los
Angeles—still do not comply with
national air quality standards, the
number of those areas is diminishing.
On the other hand, we haven't done as
good a job in coping with air quality
problems that we don't understand as
well. Hazardous air pollutants are the
best example. The Clean Air Act told us
to set emissions standards for hazardous
air pollutants, and slowly but surely
we're doing it. But defining "hazardous"
has turned out to be much more
complicated than we once thought. We
can now measure chemical
concentrations at extremely low levels,
but it's not at all clear what chemicals are
harmful to what degree at what levels.
At the same time, the public is very
concerned about cancer. We've got to try
to alleviate that concern by controlling
those pollutants known to be hazardous
to human health, and by educating the
public about the scientific complexities
and uncertainties we're faced with.
There are also a number of potential
air pollution problems that weren't
recognized then, or weren't considered
serious then. Acid rain, indoor air
pollution, and pollution from
wood-burning stoves are three good
examples. As we learn more about these
kinds of air pollution, we may want to
act. The point to remember is: air quality
is a moving target. As one problem is
solved, another one emerges. That's one
reason the Clean Air Act should be
amended periodically—not to weaken or
strengthen it, but to make it more
responsive to air quality problems as
they are defined through the most
up-to-date scientific data.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Joseph A. Cannon
Q
What are the main goals you see
for air cleanup over the remainder of the
decade?
/\ In terms of the six criteria
pollutants, we'll be looking at ozone and
carbon monoxide—they are causing most
of the non-attainment in the country.
We're also going to continue to study the
sources and effects of sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxides in order to better
understand the acid rain phenomenon.
But by and large we are winning the
battle with the so-called conventional
pollutants.
In the future we'll also be studying
hazardous air pollutants a lot more
carefully and with a lot broader
approach—where they come from, how
they are emitted, who is exposed to
them, how to best control them, and so
on. We're finding that places like
hazardous waste facilities are potential
sources of hazardous air pollutants that
need to be watched carefully.
So our two principal goals are to bring
the country entirely into attainment of
the health-based air quality standards,
and to define and control hazardous air
pollutants.
Q
Can the public expect major
changes in the nation's ambient air
quality standards as a result of current
EPA reviews? Which standards might be
affected?
/\ One major change that we're
looking at now is the standard for total
suspended particulates. We've proposed
SEPTEMBER
that the current standard, which limits
the concentration of all particles in
ambient air, be changed to limit the
concentration of only those particles
smaller than 10 microns in diameter
(PMio). Health studies show that those
smaller particles that can be breathed
deeply into the lungs are much more
dangerous to human health than larger
particles. Because of these health
considerations, we've proposed changing
the TSP standard. As far as the rest of
the ambient standards are concerned,
we're expecting very minor, modest
refinements—if any. I don't foresee any
dramatic relaxations or tightenings.
Q
What progress can we expect in
the control of hazardous air pollutants?
f\ There was a long period—from the
passage of the Clean Air Act until
recently— when only four hazardous air
pollutants were regulated. Early this
summer, regulations were issued for
benzene and we're now in the process of
adding regulations for coke oven
emissions, arsenic and radionuclides. But
I think we should frankly recognize the
main reason why so few substances have
been listed under Section 112 since 1970.
It is not due to any negligence or laziness
on the part of EPA. Administrations of
both parties have tried to do something,
and all have come away frustrated. Our
big problem is the statute itself and the
inflexible character of the language
Congress has given us to work with. Any
standard the Administrator sets, for
instance, has to provide "an ample
margin of safety." It is not clear how we
can establish this when we don't know
the threshold of risk. In the long run, I
think Congress is going to have to give
us some clearer guidance on what we
should be doing and how we should go
about it.
Q
You mentioned air pollution from
wood-burning stoves as an emerging
problem. How serious is that?
/\ In some parts of the country the
smoke from woodstoves is a big part of
local air quality problems. Wood smoke
is contributing to excessive carbon
monoxide and paniculate levels in some
non-attainment areas—cities like
Medford, Ore.; Albuquerque, N.M.;
Missoula, Mont.; and Reno, Nev. Those
areas that don't meet the TSP standard
because of wood smoke will have an
even harder time meeting the new PMio
standard, because the particulates
emitted by woodstoves are very small.
There is evidence that people subject to
high concentrations of wood smoke are
suffering from some lung dysfunction.
Some of the chemical constituents of
woodsmoke are known tumor promoters.
For these reasons I'm examining different
ways that the EPA air office might
respond to this relatively new problem.
Q
You've recently started up a new
air office with responsibility for
encouraging air emissions trading. Do
you expect this relatively new regulatory
approach to help improve national air
quality?
^\ In the short term, emissions trading
does not necessarily improve air quality.
The main goal of emissions trading is to
achieve any given level of emissions
control in the cheapest possible way.
The Clean Air Act takes a
"command-and-control" approach to
protecting air quality, and this approach
has led to solid air quality improvements,
some of which I mentioned earlier. But it
also has had the unfortunate side effect
of locking government and industry into
an adversarial relationship. Emissions
sources tend to fight the imposition of
controls beforehand, and then drag their
feet after the fact. They certainly have
little incentive to do more than the law
requires.
Emissions trading, on the other hand,
gives industry an incentive not just to
install the controls the law requires, but
to invent new ones, to innovate, to use
its wealth of engineering experience to
go beyond the letter of the law. That
incentive is money. We're trying to create
a market in pollution control, so the
-------
pollution that's cheapest to control is
controlled first, the pollution that's most
expensive to control is controlled last,
and companies can make a profit by
finding more efficient ways to control
emissions. In effect, emissions trading
tries to make plant engineers interested,
involved players on the pollution control
team.
Q
Will air cleanup requirements lead
to any further changes in automobiles?
f\ I don't see much dramatically new
in the way of pollution control systems
on cars. We've just proposed a big
reduction in the amount of lead in leaded
gasoline (see story on page 18), but I
don't see a lot of change in the
automobile itself. In the future, I think
there will be a trend toward methanol as
an automobile fuel, and that might result
in some very minor modifications to
automobile fuel systems.
Q
Do you anticipate regulations to
control the vapors that result from
pumping gasoline at service stations?
A EPA published a study of this very
problem in July. The study shows the
costs and effectiveness of various ways
of controlling refueling vapors. If we
decide some kind of vapor control or
recovery program is needed, then we
need to determine whether the control
should be on the pump or on the cars.
However, we still haven't decided
whether we need to control these vapors.
Q
Do you think methanol is
eventually going to be substituted for
gasoline in American automobiles?
f\ The key word there is
eventually...and when eventually is going
to come. Many people—not just those
interested in the environment—believe
that we should replace diesel fuel and
gasoline with methanol. In terms of
energy use, methanol is more efficient
than gasoline, it is clean burning, and it
can be produced domestically from a
number of sources such as natural gas,
coal, and biomass. We should also keep
in mind that we still meet about a third
of our crude oil needs from abroad, a
concern both from an economic and
energy security standpoint.
Consequently, within the agency we are
trying to remove marketplace
impediments to methanol use, and there
is an Administration-wide effort at the
Cabinet level to accomplish the same
goal.
Q
Are tampering and fuel-switching
serious problems?
f\ Yes, they are. The results from our
latest survey show that emissions
controls on almost 26 percent of the fleet
have been tampered with, and leaded
gasoline is being used in about 14
percent of the vehicles designed to burn
unleaded gas. Together, these problems
are present in over one-third of 1975 and
later model-year light vehicles.
Q
What are you doing about it?
f\ We're approaching these problems
from three directions. First, federal
enforcement of the tampering and
fuel-switching prohibitions is continuing.
We currently have about 750 cases under
active investigation. Many of them have
been referred to EPA by state or local
agencies that have been delegated
inspection authority.
Second, people tamper with controls
and fuel-switch primarily because they
don't understand the function and
operation of emissions control systems.
They are trying to save money, but it's
costing them more in the long run.
Therefore, we have intensified our efforts
to educate the public about tampering
and fuel-switching. The national Clean
Air Week campaign in May and the Car
Care Month activities this coming
October are two examples of the
agency's efforts to better inform the
public.
Third and most important, we are
working closely with state and local
governments to encourage them to
implement vehicle inspection and
maintenance programs that include
checks for tampering and fuel-switching.
Our long-term objective is to establish
these programs in areas that do not
meet, or barely meet, ambient air quality
standards for hydrocarbons, carbon
monoxide, and nitrogen oxides. At this
time there are 14 active programs in the
65 potential implementation areas.
Yet as long as it's cheaper to buy
leaded gasoline, there is going to be
some misfueling. So one of the main
objectives of our planned phase-down of
lead is to try to eliminate that price
differential so leaded gasoline costs
about the same or maybe a little more
than unleaded.
Q
What are the other reasons EPA is
speeding up its phase-down of leaded
gas?
A
For one thing, we know more now
about the serious adverse health effects
of lead, particularly in children. Second,
the regulation we put out in 1982 just
hasn't worked as well as we had hoped.
Ambient lead levels have not dropped
much, because people are misfueling
more than we expected. So we took
another look at the problem, and now
we've proposed to accelerate the lead
phase-down to better protect public
health.
What exactly is EPA proposing to
Q
do?
/\ EPA has proposed sharp restrictions
on the amount of lead that can be added
to gasoline beginning January 1,1986. At
that time only 0.10 grams of lead per
gallon of gasoline will be permitted.
That's over a 90 percent reduction from
current levels.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Q
Will this action solve both the
fuel-switching and the health effects
problems?
Q
A
The 91 percent reduction in lead
certainly should help with the health
effects problem. As for fuel-switching, we
know that at 0.10 grams per gallon,
leaded gas is more expensive to produce
than unleaded. If this cost differential is
passed on at the pump, and unleaded
gas" costs less than leaded, one of the
prime motivations for fuel-switching will
disappear.
Q
Won't this rule cost industry a lot?
*» We estimate a cost of $575 million
in 1986. While this may seem high, the
benefits in terms of health, reduced
pollution, and maintenance savings
amount to $1.8 billion. So we have a net
benefit of $1.2 billion. In fact, projected
over several years, net benefits exceeded
a billion dollars each year.
Q
Will this lead phase-down make
older American cars and some of the
European models obsolete?
A
No, there will be adequate supplies
of leaded gas available beyond 1986. We
only need about a tenth of a gram of
lead per gallon for the lubrication needs
of pre-1970 automobiles, heavy duty
trucks, and some tractors. So for the
foreseeable future we will have enough
lead in gas for the cars that really need it
because of their engine design.
EPA also is considering a total ban on
leaded gasoline by 1995. By then we
expect the development of alternative
valve lubricants that are environmentally
acceptable. They could be used by the
vehicles stili running on leaded gasoline.
What would you say to motorists
who are frustrated at the inconvenience
of taking their cars in to have emissions
control equipment inspected?
•+ I would say that air pollution is a
problem for many Americans, especially
in the more populated areas where
inspection and maintenance programs
are required. But with just this minor
inconvenience and slight frustration, you
are helping clean the air that you and
your neighbors breathe. Personally, I
don't mind getting my car inspected,
because I know we've got a big ozone
problem on the eastern seaboard. It
makes me feel like there is something I
can do, as a citizen, to help achieve a
cleaner environment. Besides, a car
adjusted properly to pass emissions
inspections will also run better and get
better fuel economy.
Q
What do you feel are the critical
issues Congress should address in
reauthorizing the Clean Air Act?
*» We should take a fresh look at how
to handle the deadlines required under
the existing legislation. There ought to be
some flexibility built into the legislation.
We are going to have a hard time
attaining standards in areas like Los
Angeles, even with very strict,
enforceable controls in place. Imposing
arbitrary deadlines isn't going to change
reality. I know Bill Ruckelshaus feels very
strongly about this, too.
As I mentioned before, I'm sure
Congress also will want to take a long
look at Section 112 and devise a better
way of handling hazardous air pollutants.
The other thing we should be looking at
is the way we protect air quality in
pristine areas—the prevention of
significant deterioration (PSD) program.
Everybody—PSD opponents and
supporters alike—admits that PSD as
presently constituted is one of the most
complicated regulatory programs ever
devised by the mind of man. It doesn't
have to be that complicated and
cumbersome to protect clean air. We can
get the kind of protection we need with a
streamlined, simplified program, one that
ordinary people can understand. I hope
that Congress will look very carefully at
ways to untangle this important program.
Q
Is there any other comment you
would like to add?
*» Protecting air quality is a really
tough job, make no mistake about it. tt
involves the accommodation of many
vital, sometimes competing interests. It
has cost billions of dollars already. But I
think Americans should take great
satisfaction and pride in the progress we
have made so far. Everywhere I go I find
a genuine, widespread feeling of
commitment to air quality. That
commitment has made past progress
possible, and it is essential to future
success.
I know there's a lot of emotion
generated regarding Superfund sites, for
instance, or indiscriminate use of
pesticides, or contaminated water. But
the fact is, we can pause to treat the
wastes or purify the water. We can
control the use of pesticides, or choose
not to use them. But that's not the case
with air: we have to breathe it as it
comes to us. We don't have the luxury of
pausing to purify it or not breathing until
a crisis passes. Air is essential to life.
That's why I think protecting air quality
has to be the keystone in any program of
environmental protection. Everyone has a
stake in clean air. I ]
SEPTEMBER
-------
Reviewing the Acid Rain Issue
An Interview with William D. Ruckelshaus
William D. Ruckelshaus, EPA's
Administrator, comments on the
acid rain issue in the following
interview:
Q
Where do you see the national
debate on acid rain heading in the next
two years?
*» I think it should be clear to
everyone that public concern for acid rain
is not going to go away. I am personally
convinced that acid rain will continue to
be a dominant environmental issue until
we reach some form of national
consensus on an appropriate course of
action.
I do, however, see a change occurring
in the thrust of this debate. Attention has
begun to shift away from the causes and
mechanisms that produce acid rain and
is instead now focusing much more on
the nature and extent of damages. In
particular, I think more attention will be
focused on whether the significant
changes that have been observed in the
growth and health of certain eastern U.S.
forest species can be directly linked to
acid rain or other related air pollutants. If,
as some have suggested, acid rain
significantly contributes to this
phenomenon, it could fundamentally
change our view of the scope of this
problem. This, combined with the
significant uncertainties and controversy
regarding the scope and pace of acid rain
damage to our lakes and streams, should
provide the drive for a whole new round
of debate.
Q
Is EPA's near-term role in acid rain
primarily limited to research?
A
Absolutely not. Although an
accelerated research program is a major
part of EPA's efforts on acid rain, it is by
no means our only involvement. The
whole purpose of our research effort is to
provide the facts and information needed
to make good policy decisions as quickly
as possible. To do this, we need not only
an ongoing accelerated research program
to fill the gaps in our scientific
understanding, but in addition we need
an ongoing program of policy
development to be able to translate this
information into policy alternatives. We
can't afford to sit around with our hands
in our pockets while waiting for new
research results to arrive. Instead, we
must begin to think now about the
implications of new information in
anticipation of its arrival.
This is why we have created an Acid
Rain Policy Office within the Office of Air
and Radiation. This office serves as the
central coordinating office for all acid
rain policy development within EPA and
has the responsibility of working directly
with the Acid Rain Research Program and
other agency offices involved in related
policy development. The OAR Acid Rain
Policy Office, combined with the Office of
Research and Development's
participation in the interagency research
effort, gives EPA a more integrated and
comprehensive approach to this complex
problem than we have had in the past.
Q
Since the acid rain research
program is spread over several agencies,
how can we be sure that it will provide
you and other decisionmakers the right
information on a timely basis?
A
I strongly believe that since we
have chosen to defer a decision on the
need for acid rain controls until we have
a more adequate scientific
understanding, it is imperative for us to
make sure we're doing everthing we can
to get this needed information as quickly
as science will allow. I have become
directly involved in addressing this
concern by serving with the Secretary of
Agriculture and the Director of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration as co-chairs of the
National Acid Precipitation Assessment
Program (NAPAP), the interagency acid
rain research effort. To support the need
for coordinating the research program
with policy development, we have
recently created the Interagency
Assessment Advisory Committee (IAAC).
EPA JOURNAL
-------
This committee is comprised of the
leaders of the policy development staffs
from the various federal agencies
involved in acid rain and is chaired by
Chuck Elkins, Director of EPA's Acid Rain
Policy Office. IAAC is intended to provide
to the interagency research effort a much
more detailed and ongoing vehicle for
identifying the scientific information
needs of acid rain policy development
than can be provided by relying on the
co-chairs alone.
(j How long will we have to wait
before you will have the information you
need to make a decision?
A
This is the one question I am asked
most often. Unfortunately, it's one which
I cannot directly answer, since I cannot
predict with any confidence what the
results from the research program will be
or precisely when they will be
forthcoming. It should be clear that it is
not necessary to have complete or
definitive answers for each area of
uncertainty before we can develop new
A lake near Bangor, Maine. Last spring, EPA
scientists collected samples from this lake
and several others as pan of the National
Surface Water Survey. The agency is using
the information to help determine the
percentage of lakes in the country that are
in danger from acid rain.
recommendations. As we continue to
gain more knowledge and understanding
about acid deposition, our ability to
predict the results of various control
efforts will increase, and we will reach a
point at which we can reasonably make a
decision regarding the need for
additional controls. But I cannot tell you
exactly when that point will come. What I
have said before several Congressional
committees is that I take it as an
affirmative duty on my part as
Administrator of EPA to assure that we
make reassessment of our policy an
active and ongoing process, and that I
communicate the product of this effort to
the key decisionmakers in the
Administration and the Congress as soon
as appropriate.
Let me add that, in the meantime, I
think it's important that we do everything
we can now to prepare for implementing
a program of additional controls, should
one be deemed necessary. This is why
we've initiated an effort to identify and
explore the implementation problems
which would be associated with the kinds
of control programs thus far proposed.
This acid rain implementation project is
also being managed by the Acid Rain
Policy Office and includes the active
involvement of the Office of Air Quality
Planning and Standards (OAQPS), several
regional air programs, the states through
the State & Territorial Air Pollution
Program Administrators (STAPPA) and
and the Association of Local Air Pollution
Control Officials (ALAPCO), as well as
participation by industry and
environmental groups. Congress has
recognized the importance of our effort
in implementation planning by providing
an additional $3 million in state grant
funds earmarked for this specific purpose
in fiscal year 1985.
SEPTEMBER
-------
Seeking
to Control
Hazardous
Air Pollutants
One of the major provisions of the
Clean Air Act requires EPA to
develop emission standards for
hazardous air pollutants. As defined by
Section 112 of the statute, a "hazardous
air pollutant" is one "to which no
ambient air quality standard is applicable
and which in the judgment of the
Administrator causes, or contributes to,
air pollution which may reasonably be
anticipated to result in an increase in
mortality or an increase in serious
irreversible, or incapacitating reversible,
illness."
In the nearly 15 years since Congress
called for the identification and control of
these hazardous substances, EPA has
promulgated regulations for five
pollutants under Section 112 (mercury,
beryllium, asbestos, vinyl chloride and
benzene) and is in the process of adding
regulations for coke oven emissions,
arsenic and radionuclides. Many
observers, including members of
Congress, environmentalists, and some
EPA officials, have expressed concern
that this regulatory pace is unreasonably
slow. EPA has argued that its efforts to
implement Section 112 have been
impeded by several factors, not all of
which are under EPA control.
A recent EPA analysis has helped to
define the hazardous air pollutant
problem more clearly and, in the process,
has underscored some of the causes of
EPA's regulatory difficulties. More
important, the analysis takes the first
step toward the development of a more
effective program to control hazardous
air pollutants in the future.
Problems in Section 112
Implementation
At the time Section 112 was written,
Congress knew little about the potentially
hazardous air pollutants that were being
emitted by many different kinds of
sources across the country. Congress did
not know which pollutants posed what
health risks, which sources were
releasing what compounds, or how many
people were exposed to which
emissions. The statute simply ordered
the EPA Administrator to list each
pollutant that EPA intended to regulate,
and then, within one year of listing, to
set emission standards that protected the
public health with an ample margin of
safety. Section 112 did not direct the
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Coke is pushed from a coke oven \i
wailing quench cat. Coke is used P-
in (he steel industry's blast furnaces to
make iron that is subsequently refined into
steel. EPA wants to reduce coke oven
emissions because it has been a-.
that they contain cancer-causing chemicals
Administrator to consider costs or
economic impacts in setting these
standards.
Art early study performed under contract
to EPA evaluated morethan 600substances
in terms of their production rates, volatility,
and toxicity. Forty-three substances were
culled from that list and recommended to
the agency as priority chemicals for
further evaluation. Since then, the agency
has concentrated on about 37 substances
from that list of 43, but it has also
studied several other potentially
hazardous air pollutants identified
through other mechanisms.
In testimony last November before the
Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations of the House Committee
on Energy and Commerce, EPA
Administrator William Ruckelshaus
outlined many of the problems agency
officials have encountered in attempting
to meet the requirements of Section 112.
His testimony responded, in part, to an
August 1983 General Accounting Office
(GAO) report that acknowledged
imperfections in the statute, but also
sharply criticized EPA's implementation
efforts. Taken together, the Ruckelshaus
testimony and the GAO report highlight
several reasons why the regulation of
hazardous air pollutants has proven
especially troublesome:
• There is often disagreement within
the scientific community about the
cancer-causing potential of many air
pollutants. There are no clear
requirements for the amount and quality
of scientific evidence necessary to
determine that a compound is
carcinogenic.
• Scientific uncertainty is compounded
by the fact that most health studies are
based on high levels of exposure to a
specific compound, whereas typical
ambient exposures are much lower.
Predicting low dose effects using
information derived from health studies
of high dose exposures is very uncertain.
• Section 112 requires that emission
standaids protect the public health with
an "ample margin of safety." Current
scientific opinion and EPA policy
maintains that exposure to any level of a
carcinogen poses some finite risk to
human health, yet reducing emissions to
zero would be very costly. The silence of
Section 112 regarding EPA's authority to
consider costs and economic impacts in
setting emission standards has not
SEPTEMBER
helped in resolving this issue.
• Section 112 requires EPA to propose
emission standards within six months of
listing a substance as a hazardous air
pollutant. EPA has never met this
deadline, since setting an emissions
standard requires not only adequate
health data, but also a solid
understanding of source categories,
emissions, and control technologies.
Collecting such information necessitates
substantial time and resource
expenditures.
• The Clean Air Act directs EPA to set
"national emission standards" for
hazardous air pollutants. Yet some
pollutants may need to be regulated only
in certain areas to protect public health.
In other cases, a unique geographical
control strategy may be the best
approach in an area with a unique
combination of hazardous air pollutants.
Section 112 does not allow the kind of
regulatory flexibility that a complex
problem like hazardous air pollution
seems to require.
EPA Strategy for the Future
Because of the increasingly apparent
need for a comprehensive national
strategy to address the hazardous air
pollution issue, EPA decided to initiate a
broad technical analysis of the problem.
A study (popularly known as the "Six
Month Study") was begun in late 1983 to
examine the nature and extent of the air
toxics problem in the United States,
using existing data and standard EPA risk
assessment techniques.
The recently completed study
emphasizes four aspects of the problem
that will be useful to policymakers who
must eventually define the scope and
direction of a national air toxics control
program. First, the study characterizes
the extent of the problem using
quantitative estimates of cancer risk, i.e.,
annual incidence of cancer that may be
linked to hazardous air pollutants, and
estimates of lifetime individual risks.
Second, the study defines the nature of
the problem by identifying hazardous
pollutants, the source categories that
emit them, and their relative significance
as public health risks. Third, since some
portions of a strategy for regulating
hazardous air pollutants may need to be
site-specific, the study examines the
geographic variability of the problem.
Finally, the study evaluates existing data
bases and identifies current gaps in
knowledge.
Some of the study findings will be
subject to debate, and specific numerical
estimates may change as new data
become available. Nevertheless, many of
the conclusions from the study will serve
the agency as a starting point for the
development of a national hazardous air
pollution strategy. Some of the more
important findings are:
• Total national cancer incidence due to
the 15-45 toxic air pollutants evaluated
ranges from 1,300 to 2,000 per year.
• Maximum lifetime individual risk of
cancer for persons living near major
sources of nine pollutants studied is
estimated at 1 in 1,000.
• Individual risks in some urban areas
due to simultaneous exposure to several
pollutants range from 1 in 1000 to 1 in
10,000. These risks do not appear to be
related to specific point sources, but
rather represent a portion of the total
risks associated with the complex
mixtures typical of urban ambient air.
• Air pollutants which appear to be the
most important contributors to aggregate
cancer incidence include: metals,
especially chromium, arsenic, cadmium,
and nickel; products of incomplete
combustion; formaldehyde; benzene;
and chlorinated organic compounds,
especially chloroform, carbon
tetrachloride, perchloroethylene, and
trichloroethylene.
• No single source category dominates
aggregate incidence in any of of the
quantitative analyses. However, the study
indicates that the following sources are
important contributors: road vehicles,
chemical production, solvent usage,
gasoline marketing, waste oil burning,
and metal manufacturing.
• Whereas ambient levels of some toxic
pollutants vary widely from city to city,
(sometimes differing by a factor of ten),
the levels of other pollutants are more
uniform from one city to the next. These
findings indicate that reducing risks from
air toxics will in part necessitate control
programs sensitive to local
circumstances.
The most important overall finding
from a policy perspective may be that the
air toxics problem is very diverse and
therefore may not be adequately handled
by the traditional solutions that focus on
large point-sources. To fully explore the
policy implications of the Six Month
Study, a new EPA task force has been
given the responsibility for drafting a
national air toxics strategy by early 1985.
The group will examine hazardous
pollution control goals, outline federal,
state, and local government roles, and
study the effect that the national ambient
air quality standards have in controlling
air toxics.
These activities offer hope that EPA
may soon have a much clearer idea of
the risks posed by the pollutants
Congress meant to control in Section 112
of the Clean Air Act. Moreover, they may
lead to a more practical and effective
regulatory program for managing those
risks. D
-------
The
Supreme
Court's
"Bubble"
Decision:
What It
Means
by Michael H. Levin
On June 25 the U.S. Supreme Court
unanimously affirmed the authority
of EPA and states to let existing plants
use a "bubble" to meet Clean Air Act
requirements more quickly and
inexpensively when those plants add
new industrial processes or modernize
existing ones.
By a vote of 6 to 0 the Court held such
"modifications" need not be subject to
the Act's most stringent requirements for
new "emissions sources" if plant-wide
pollution wi!l not increase by significant
amounts. Capping developments that
began in 1979, the Court found that EPA
and the 32 states that adopted this
bubble approach for new modifications
properly accommodated "the conflict
between the economic interest in
permitting capital improvements to
continue and the environmental interest
in improving air quality," in ways which
"serve the environmental objectives as
well."
The Justices' decision. Chevron USA v.
Natural Resources Defense Council, had
been awaited by EPA, state agencies,
industry, and environmental groups since
August 1982, when the court of appeals
for the D.C. Circuit struck down the
agency's "New Source Review" rule
embodying this application of the
"bubble." The "bubble" concept
generally allows factories, refineries, and
other sources of air pollution to treat all
their stacks and vents as if they were
enclosed by a giant bubble, trading extra
pollution control on some stacks for
reduced controls on others that are
expensive to control.
A good example of benefits from
the bubble approach is the DuPont
Chemical Company's Chambers Works
in Deepwater, New Jersey.
Although not directly involved in the
Supreme Court case, the plant faced
state requirements mandating 85 percent
reduction of hydrocarbon emissions from
119 stacks, vents, and valves. Instead of
controlling each of these emission
sources to 85 percent, DuPont
successfully applied for a bubble to
control seven large stacks by over 99
percent. Because the large stacks were
continuous emitters while the
difficult-to-control vents and valves
emitted only occasionally, the bubble
secured 2,330 tons per year more
reductions. It also saved DuPont $12
million in capital, plus several million
dollars per year in operating expenses.
And it produced faster compliance, since
only seven stacks had to be controlled.
L', . Rtyulatory
Refoim Staff in f/-W:, Utticc ,
Planning ;ind f valuation Jinn ,//•':<
rcpre:.'. should
not be nl'nlKited to I I'A or nny otl
The Supreme Court's decision
successfully concluded the first judicial
test of the bubble in any context. It was
hailed by EPA Assistant Administrator
Joseph A. Cannon, who noted that
bubbles allow firms to meet
requirements "by using cheap reductions
instead of costly ones... [They] can
stretch pollution control dollars, and get
faster compliance than if we required
every auto plant or steel mill or print
shop to do exactly the same thing... They
speed environmental progress, with
energy savings and less litigation."
"This decision encourages replacement
of old, high-polluting facilities with new,
clean, productive ones," added Deputy
Administrator Alvin L. Aim. "It gives EPA
and states more flexibility to focus on
factory changes that could produce large
increases in pollution, instead of
requiring detailed review of thousands of
changes that make little or no
environmental difference... The Court
seems to have given EPA more room to
implement the Act creatively," Aim
concluded. "We intend to use that
authority responsibly, and to make sure
that environmental progress is
accelerated through its use."
The Decision
The decision may have broad effects. But
the actual question before the Court was
narrow: whether EPA could let states
define "source" for New Source Review
(NSR) purposes as either (1) a plant; or
(2) any emitting piece of equipment
within a plant. The first choice would
allow bubbles. The second would
preclude them, subjecting each
modernization to very stringent,
time-consuming New Source Review
requirements, even if overall plant-wide
emissions would not increase.
In August 1980, after long internal
debate, EPA allowed such bubbles in
clean air areas but prohibited them in
areas that had not yet attained national
air quality standards. In 1981 the agency
changed its mind and extended the
"plant-wide" option to nonattainment
areas. EPA found that use of one
definition was less confusing, that
applying New Source Review to every
in-plant change retarded environmental
progress by discouraging replacement of
old dirty processes with new cleaner
ones, and that other requirements would
continue to assure rapid attainment. EPA
then included this approach as one of the
four elements of its April 1982 Emissions
Trading Policy: bubbles for existing
plants, offsets to let new plants locate in
nonattainment areas, netting (the
plant-wide definition allowing
modernized plants to use a bubble to
to
EPA JOURNAL
-------
"net out of" New Source Review), and
banking or storage of surplus reductions
for later use.
The circuit court struck down this
extension of "netting" to nonattainment
areas, interpreting its prior decisions to
ban use of such bubbles in
nonattainment programs whose purpose
was to improve air quality. The decision
covered only "netting" bubbles for new
in-plant modifications, but it suggested
that existing-source bubbles in
nonattainment areas might also be
banned, though they often produce
better progress than traditional
regulation. (For example, by January,
1984, EPA and states had approved or
were reviewing about 200 existing-source
bubbles. These bubbles represent
savings of more than $700 million over
the cost of conventional, uniform
emission limits. Nearly 70 percent of
those approved or proposed for approval
produced substantially greater emission
reductions than conventional limits, with
the rest producing equivalent reductions.)
The Supreme Court reversed the circuit
court's decision, clearing the way for
approval of numerous State Plans. The
Justices first found that neither the Clean
Air Act nor legislative debates addressed
the bubble issue, but that Congress
meant EPA to apply the Act's new source
provisions "flexibly," and that EPA had
proposed similar bubble rules in the past.
They said EPA's rule was supported not
only by persuasive reasons, but "by the
public record developed in the
rule-making process, as well as by
certain private studies." And they
concluded that use of the bubble
"represents a reasonable accommodation
of manifestly competing interests and is
entitled to deference."
Some Implications
Predicting the impact of a Supreme Court
decision is often like reading tea leaves.
But some implications may already be
clear.
One implication relates to what the
decision does not do. It does not mean
that new modifications can belch out
pollution; such modifications will remain
subject to federal New Source
Performance Standards (NSPS) generally
requiring more than 90 percent
reductions, or to similar state
requirements. Nor does it mean that air
quality can be undermined by small
emission increases from successive
bubbles at different plants. The Court
indicated that states which elect a plant-
wide definition must also take steps to
assure that rapid progress towards
attainment continues.
Beyond this, the decision indicates that
EPA is not required to squeeze every
possible pound of pollution out of each
new facility, when such efforts might be
environmentally counterproductive. It
endorses the bubble's use to achieve
clean air, noting that "by giving a plant
manager flexibility to find the places and
processes within a plant that control
emissions most cheaply, pollution control
can be achieved more quickly." And for
several reasons it seems likely to affect
broader issues.
First, the statutory definition of
"source" to which the Court referred
appears in the Act's NSPS section. The
Court concluded that this definition can
"certainly ... connote an entire plant as
opposed to its constituent parts" and that
"the language itself implies a bubble
concept." These findings could aid
current EPA efforts to extend the bubble
to new facilities subject to NSPS.
Second, the Justices repeatedly
indicated that the lower court's prior
decisions might also be erroneous. They
noted that a 1976 NSPS bubble rule was
still in force when Congress passed the
1977 Clean Air Act amendments. They
implied Congress endorsed that bubble
by not altering it. And they said the
agency's 1980 rule allowing
"modification" bubbles only in clean-air
areas was not an independent policy
decision, but the result of "the Court of
Appeals that read the statute inflexibly."
These statements suggest the Court
would favor agency decisions applying
the bubble in other contexts. In
particular, they suggest that
existing-source bubbles in nonattainment
areas need not produce every
conceivable improvement in air quality,
so long as progress is secured. That
suggestion could be important for EPA's
final Emissions Trading Policy, as well as
for use of bubbles to meet various
requirements under the Clean Water Act.
Finally, the decision was written by
Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the
most respected legal minds on the Court.
Whatever the ruling's implications, that
fact and its precedent-setting nature
should assure a ripple effect for years to
come. D
SEPTEMBER
11
-------
The Clean Air
Program:
Options for
the Future
by R. Shep Melnick
The Clean Air Act enacted in 1970
established the basic framework
of the nation's clean air program. The
Act expired in 1981, but has been
temporarily extended without change
as Congress considers its
reauthorization with possible
amendments.
EPA Journal asked a respected
student of the clean air program, H.
Shep Melnick, for his thoughts about
changes in the law. Dr. Melnick has
done extensive research on the Clean
Air Act and is the author of the book,
Regulation and the Courts: The Case of
the Clean Air Act. He is Associate
Professor of Politics at Brandeis
University and an associate staff
member at the Brookings Institution.
His views are not necessarily those of
EPA. Dr Meinick's article follows:
For those concerned about the
environment, 1985 will undoubtedly
be the year of the Clean Air Act. When
the 99th Congress takes office in
January, it will have little choice but to
return to the task of revising the Act, a
task it has put off for too many years. In
addition, the Supreme Court's recent
decision upholding EPA's bubble policy
that eases restrictions on new air
pollution sources at existing plants
(Chevron v. NRDC) makes clear that EPA
has broad authority to experiment with
new techniques for controlling air
pollution (see story on page 10). For a
brief period of time, the agency will have
an extraordinary opportunity to exercise
leadership in this policy.
Those who confront this task, though,
face a dilemma. On the one hand, almost
everyone familiar with the sprawling air
pollution control program realizes that
the most pressing need is to focus
administrative, economic, and political
resources on the most serious
environmenta! problems. The Clean Air
Act spreads EPA and the state agencies
far too thin. The Act's procedural
rigidities, its attempts to be
comprehensive, and its apparent hostility
to the balancing of environmental and
non-environmental values makes it
difficult for administrators to take scarce
resources away from lesser problems in
order to attack those discovered to be
more serious. By making nearly
everything a priority, the Act assures that
nothing is.
On the other hand, those who are
willing to offer leadership in the
administrative and legislative
processes—to announce and defend
priorities which will inevitably make
some people angry—must first come to
terms with a program that is bewildering
in its variety and complexity. There are
so many items already on the legislative
agenda, including acid rain, deadline
extensions, toxic pollutants, streamlining
the State Implementation Plan process,
and extending the use of marketable
emission rights, that there is a nearly
overwhelming temptation to deal with
each issue on an individual basis and to
ignore the bigger picture. The byzantine
nature of air pollution regulation makes
even the stout-hearted despair at being
able to articulate—to say nothing of
putting into effect—a set of priorities for
protecting our air resources.
Simplification, then, is both a crucial
goal for those exercising leadership and
a precondition for doing so effectively.
How can one escape from this paradox?
The usual response is to identify
simplification with eliminating "red
tape." By reducing the number of forms
and by consolidating permitting, we
supposedly can create a less costly
program which sacrifices no substantive
goals. While such streamlining
sometimes works, it is just as likely that
procedural reform will bring more red
tape rather than less. Real simplification
requires deciding to abandon secondary
goals, not trying to achieve all goals in a
more efficient manner. Too often
procedural reforms are used to hide
rather than highlight our failure to decide
what is most important.
To get a handle on the problem of
simplification, it is necessary to ask why
our air pollution control programs are so
complex. Some complexities, alas, are
beyond our control. Many are technical
and scientific. For example, once a
pollutant goes up, we're not sure where
it comes down. So we must use
computer models and argue at length
about their accuracy. Nor are we sure
what combination of pollutants is most
damaging to human health or how
reliable scrubbers will become during the
next twenty years. The large number of
sources of air pollution and the fact that
many of them move around under their
own power make the regulator's task
monumental.
Added to this are the political and
administrative intricacies of a regulatory
program run jointly by federal, state, and
local governments. Congress has
declared that it wants uniformity and
diversity, federal supervision without
federal dictation. That elusive creature,
"national policy," is contained in fifty-
odd voluminous State Implementation
Plans—modified by fifty-odd informal
enforcement policies. This system, with
all its advantages and aggravations, is a
fact of life for those in pollution control.
It is an added complexity that will not go
away.
Another source of complexity is a
series of subsidiary goals that were
appended to air pollution programs in
the 1970s. Some of these goals are
laudable and command the loyalty of
many dedicated officials in EPA and state
agencies. The transportation planning
sections of the Act seek above all to
promote mass transit and discourage
urban sprawl. In large part the Prevention
of Significant Deterioration (PSD) section,
designed to prevent degradation of the
air in places where air quality is
exceptionally good, is also aimed at
stimulating land use planning and
preventing rapid development of rural
areas. Some sections of the Act have the
effect—and a few even the intent—of
protecting areas with established
industry from competition.
A variety of interests have jumped
aboard the Clean Air Act bandwagon. In
general, those subsidiary projects that
have been most successful (economic
protectionism) are not commendable;
those that are commendable (enhancing
mass transit and encouraging land use
planning) have not been successful. It is
time to say that reducing air pollution is
important enough not to be weighted
down by these semi-submerged agendas.
Leadership in this direction will not
come from Congress, which bears most
responsibility for the problem. Nor will it
come from environmental groups, which
are seldom forced to confront the
consequences of an overextended
agenda. Only EPA has the incentive, the
knowledge, and the prestige to
recommend elimination of these
appendages.
A final source of complexity is the lack
of realism and forthrightness which for
years has characterized the Act's most
vocal supporters. The Act commands
EPA to perform tasks that everyone
familiar with pollution control knows
cannot be done: meet ozone standards
throughout the nation by 1987; set air
quality standards without considering
cost; accurately monitor and model tiny
Prevention of Significant Deterioration
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Smog over West Los Angeles, California in 7972.
increments; establish dozens of new
source performance standards within a
few years—and defend them in minute
detail; revise all State Implementation
Plans within a matter of months, and
make sure they are fully adequate to
attain all air quality standards; and on
and on. Rather than saying, "This is
ridiculous," the agency has developed a
myriad of coping mechanisms. It issues
"conditional" State Implementation Plan
approvals, bends on deadlines, agrees to
"reasonable" compliance schedules, and
accepts "good faith" efforts on nearly
everything. Most glaringly, it considers
the cost of attaining air quality standards
while adamantly denying that it does so.
That the agency has avoided
confrontation over these unreasonable
demands is certainly understandable. For
example, when EPA said in the early '70s
that writing transportation control plans
for cities like Los Angeles was silly, the
courts responded, "Do it anyway!"
Congress knew in 1977 that health effects
thresholds are "myths," but reiterated
their command to set "health only"
standards. What is the point of trying to
tell them again? In the short run, it is far
easier to accept these commands on
paper and to find ways to skirt them in
practice.
But this strategy imposes many
long-run costs. There is tremendous
wasted effort: massive rewriting of State
Implementation Plans that are
halfheartedly enforced or revised by
consent agreements; thousands of hours
spent on analyzing standards that are
never promulgated or revised; extensive
tracking of tiny increments that seem
arbitrary to everyone. There is damage to
agency prestige: it takes only one private
group with a good lawyer to force EPA to
admit that it is not doing its job (which it
cannot do since the job, or the
combination of jobs, is undoabie) and to
rearrange public priorities. There is
confusion, since no one ever really
knows what agency policy is, whether it
is the official pronouncement or a series
of informal understandings which of
necessity are not widely publicized. And
finally, there is the cost of cynicism
within the organization and among the
public at large, which sees deadlines
extended and rules bent without knowing
why.
The goal of simplification requires a
political strategy of frankness and
education.The people who have studied
the details of air pollution control for
many years have taught us a great deal
about which environmental problems are
real and which are peripheral. They have
devised a variety of techniques for
attacking these problems. Bubbles,
banking of emission rights, pollution
taxes, environmental audits—all these
merit attention and experimentation.
There is the danger, however, that
these techniques will be sold as a
cheaper way of providing everything
Congress and the public want. Congress
and the public want everything; we all
want everything when we know little
about costs and constraints. The
challenge of leadership, then, is to
convince Congress and the public that
they cannot have everything they want,
not because EPA is inept or corrupt or
uncaring, but because there are limits to
our knowledge and our resources. Only
then will anyone listen to suggestions
about what objectives are most
important.
Those who put together the agency's
legislative and rulemaking packages will
perhaps find this advice lacking in
usefulness because it is lacking in detail.
They need program elements, which
many people in academia are happy to
supply. Many of the bright ideas of
academics, unfortunately, seem much
more clever in economics journals than
in the Federal Register. It is the people
who labor in the trenches of the
bureaucracy who turn these clever ideas
into useful routines. I know enough
about EPA to have tremendous respect
for its expertise, to appreciate the
difficulty of the task, and to avoid
overestimating the power of the musings
of academic observers.
I have directed my comments to the
macro rather than the micro level, to
broad political themes rather than
specific regulatory techniques, not just
because I am a political scientist and thus
know this area best, but primarily
because this is where EPA has most
seriously fallen down in the past. The
cost of avoiding confrontation on air
pollution issues over the past decade and
a half is not only an overextended,
inefficient program, but a program which
is hard to understand and consequently
hard to prune and to fortify effectively.
All of us—politicians, administrators,
judges, scholars, and citizens—have dug
ourselves into a hole. Now we must
somehow dig ourselves out. n
SEPTEMBER
13
-------
Cleaning Up Pollution from the Automobile
Motor vehicles are the largest
single source of air pollution in
the United States. EPA is working to
control this problem in several ways
- from testing car emissions on the
assembly line to regulating lead in
gasoline. The following articles
explain these activities, as well as
some related state and local actions.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Inspection and
Maintenance:
A Role
for the Public
by Jane Armstrong
(Jane Armstrong is Protect Manager of the
I/M Group in EPA's Office of Mobile
Sources. She has been a member of the
group since its formation in 1978. She was
initially assigned to help EPA's Region b
office secure 1,'M legislation in the
Midwest.)
Since the 1968 model year, all new
cars have been designed to meet
increasingly stringent pollution control
requirements. Before it can be marketed,
each car design is certified through
laboratory testing to be capable of
meeting required emissions limits for five
years or 50,000 miles.
EPA studies in the early 1970s,
however, discovered that within their first
year on the road, half of the cars were
already exceeding the pollution limits for
which they were designed. The same
discovery was made when vehicles with
catalytic converters were put on the
market beginning in 1975.
Further testing revealed that the
problem wasn't due to inadequate EPA
certification testing; it wasn't due to
emission controls that failed as soon as
the car left the dealership; it wasn't due
to sloppy factory assembly. It was due to
inadequate maintenance by the vehicle
owner and in some instances to owners
or their mechanics intentionally disabling
emission control systems. Despite the
large investment made in emission
controls, the passenger car continued to
be a major contributor to air quality
problems in nearly every large urban
area in the country.
The solution? Inspection and
maintenance, or I'M — a state or locally
run program which requires vehicle
owners to periodically submit their cars
for a short emission inspection. In the
1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act,
Congress required that all cities with high
carbon monoxide or ozone
concentrations set up I M programs. By
1979, 30 states and the District of
Columbia were identified as having one
or more urban areas needing the
program.
It then became EPA's job to encourage
these states to enact a program which
one Arizona legislator compared to gun
control in terms of controversy. For the
first time, EPA was saying that individual
consumers might be polluters and that
they must personally bear the cost of
cleanup.
EPA tried to encourage states to
implement I M programs by
demonstrating their benefits in a testing
station set up in Portland, Ore. Oregon,
New Jersey, and Arizona had enacted I M
programs on faith, before there was a
federal requirement, and before anyone
had shown definitely that I M would be
effective in practice. Those states
believed that the program was needed to
help clean the air.
EPA's testing contractor borrowed cars
from vehicle owners and found that,
indeed, the short emission test taken
while the car was idling could identify
dirty cars. Even better, the study found
that mechanics could improve the
emission performance of dirty cars, at a
cost averaging $22, through simple
repairs like carburetor adjustments or
replacement of air filters and spark plugs.
Never before had mechanics been asked
to make cars run not only better, but
cleaner. Could they accomplish both
goals? Yes, said the study. Three, six,
and nine months after the I M inspection,
testing showed that these formerly dirty
cars ran cleanly and performed well.
Once the Portland study had quantified
the effect of I M programs on vehicle
emissions, it was necessary to establish
whether cleaner-running cars would
improve ambient air quality. EPA
returned to Portland, and commissioned
a study of carbon monoxide air quality
for the years 1975, when Portland had
begun its I'M program, through 1979.
Based on the findings of this study, EPA
concluded that an annual I, M program
could reduce ambient carbon monoxide
concentrations by 10 to 19 percent.
Armed with evidence that I M worked,
EPA staff spent the next five years
testifying before state legislatures,
reviewing State Implementation Plans,
and overseeing the set-up of 41 state or
locally run inspection programs across
the country. EPA is still working with a
few remaining states to implement I M
programs.
Each of the operating programs is
unique. Some states license private
garages to conduct inspections; some
SEPTEMBER
15
-------
Cleaning Up Pollution from the Automobile
hire a contractor to build and staff
centralized inspection lanes. Most
measure hydrocarbons and carbon
monoxide while the car is idling in
neutral, but some measure emissions
while the engine is under load, and
others check to see that the emission
control devices are hooked up properly.
Inevitably, there have been many
battles associated with program start-up.
Connecticut officials remember the first
day of testing when intense public
interest led to unmanageable lines at the
centralized stations. Massachusetts
officials had a harrowing day about two
months into their program when most of
the computerized emission analyzers
mistakenly shut themselves down. But
I'M programs have survived.
Demonstrations have been set up in
shopping center parking lots to educate
the public about I/M. The fear of the
unknown that caused some people to
oppose the program has been dispelled.
Those of us who have worked with the
demonstration van have experienced
great satisfaction. When we arrive at the
designated location and set up the
emission analyzers and create the
drive-through lanes, we wonder whether
anyone will stop by for a free inspection.
We are also a bit nervous that some
At the Baltimore County vehicle emissions
inspection station, a lar'
probe //I ry a cur's exnaust pipe I he probe
is attached to a computer that analyzes the
•missions.
people will stop to tell us just what they
think of EPA and federal intervention in
people's lives.
But after the first few cars come
through, those worries disappear. Almost
without exception we learn that people
are concerned about the environment
and that they are ready and willing to
learn how their maintenance habits affect
the amount of pollution their cars emit.
During the day the same people will
return with another family car to check
its performance as well. And then there
are those people whose cars fail the test
and who return an hour or two later and
pass, and say, "You were right, it only
took a minor adjustment."
Tackling environmental problems isn't
simple. It costs money and it requires a
change in the way we manufacture,
utilize, and dispose of the goods which
are central to our lifestyle. But our
experience in I/M is that, if people are
asked to do their share, they will. Q
Monitoring
Auto Emissions
Questions
and Answers
What progress has there been in
exhaust emissions control?
EPA has been monitoring exhaust
emissions on new cars since its founding
in 1970. By 1983 a 95 percent reduction
in hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide
emissions from new cars had been
achieved. During the same period, a 75
percent reduction in nitrogen oxide
emissions was also achieved.
When does EPA test motor vehicles?
EPA motor vehicle testing falls into three
chronological phases: pre-production,
production, and post-production. Pre-
production testing "certifies" that cars
have been designed to meet EPA
emission standards before they roll off
the assembly line. Assembly-line testing
occurs as cars are being produced; it
assures that cars in production are
actually meeting the standards they were
designed and certified to meet. Recall-
or post-production — testing is performed
on cars that have been in everyday use
for several years and have accumulated
substantial mileage. The purpose of
recall testing is to assure that cars with a
record of proper maintenance are still
meeting EPA emission standards after
years of daily use.
Who conducts EPA's motor-vehicle
testing?
Pre-production certification testing is
performed by EPA's Motor Vehicle
Emission Laboratory in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. Assembly-line Selective
Enforcement Audits are conducted by
auto manufacturers in the presence of
EPA employees. Private laboratories
under contract to EPA conduct
post-production recall tests, as does
EPA's Ann Arbor lab.
What types of tests does EPA run on
cars?
EPA runs three basic tests: an
evaporative emissions test that measures
the gasoline vapors (hydrocarbons) that
would be emitted by a vehicle parked for
a length of time after operation; (2) an
EPA JOURNAL
-------
exhaust emissions test designed to
simulate normal city stop-and-go driving
and used to measure both city emissions
and fuel economy rates; and (3) a
highway fuel economy test that
measures the gas mileage a vehicle
would get under highway driving
conditions and speeds.
EPA's car tests are all performed under
laboratory conditions so temperature and
other factors can be controlled. Test
vehicles are operated on a dynamometer,
or treadmill, that permits a vehicle to
"drive" while in place.
How much are exhaust emissions
controls costing the American
consumer?
According to EPA's Office of Mobile
Sources, consumers have to pay between
$250 and $425 for pollution-control
devices designed to meet 1981 emission
standards.
What gains have been made in fuel
economy?
American automakers have, in general,
been successful in meeting federal goals
for the overall average miles per gallon
(mpg) of their vehicles. Corporate
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) goals —
set at 18 mpg in 1978 — have gone up in
steady increments every year since then
and will reach a new high of 27.5 mpg
with the 1985 model year. Only in 1983,
when sudden drops in gas prices
increased the popularity of large cars, did
Ford and General Motors fail to meet
CAFE guidelines.
What changes in EPA's reporting of
gas mileage averages are planned
for the 1985 model year?
Starting with the 1985 model year, EPA
and the U.S. Department of Energy will
publish both the city and highway mpg
figures determined by testing. Prior to
the 1985 model year, the Gas Mileage
Guide and mpg vehicle stickers listed
only a single EPA figure based on an
average of laboratory-determined mpg
figures for city and highway driving. Now
consumers will be better able to predict
the gasoline consumption patterns of
their new cars in the two primary driving
situations they are likely to encounter.
Moreover, the mileage figures
themselves will be more realistic.
City figures will be adjusted downward
10 percent and highway figures
downward 22 percent in an attempt to
bridge the discrepancy between
laboratory mileage figures and actual
road performance.D
Driving Home Lessons
about Fuel Switching
by Martha Casey and Jack Lewis
l switching" refers to the use of
cheaper leaded gasoline in
late-model cars designed to run on
unleaded fuel. In cars built since 1975,
catalytic converters remove pollutants
from vehicle exhaust. But some
American consumers pay mechanics to
remove their catalytic converters so they
can use cheaper and higher octane
leaded gas. Others disable the converters
by pumping leaded fuel into their cars
through an improperly sized fuel nozzle
or a damaged nozzle restrictor.
These drivers' short-term savings at
the gas pump are more than cancelled
out by long-term costs in the form of
poorer engine performance, lower gas
mileage, more expensive maintenance,
and reduced resale value. Drivers
seem to reason this way: "I need 20
gallons to fill my tank. Leaded regular
costs seven cents less than unleaded
regular. I'm going to save $1.40 today
and every other day I fill up." These
drivers are in for an unpleasant surprise.
The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers
Association estimates that for every
seven cents saved, the fuel switcher
winds up paying 26 cents to repair the
damage caused by leaded gasoline. That
adds up to a hefty 19 cents a gallon net
loss every time a fuel switcher uses
leaded fuel.
EPA currently estimates that lead
damage to the emission-control
system of a car can cost drivers between
$155 and $530 in additional vehicle
repairs. Other mechanical problems
resulting from fuel switching can include
fouled spark plugs, worn-out exhaust
systems, degraded oil, fouled oxygen
sensors, and rusted tailpipes and
mufflers.
Fuel switchers are not only paying
more in the long run by switching; they
are also depriving the public of the
pollution control investment that has
been designed into their cars. The costs
of fuel switching in terms of pollution are
extremely high. EPA estimates that cars
(Martha Casey and Jack Lewis
-------
Cleaning Up Pollution from the Automobile
Joseph Cannon, has described as "a
national enforcement strategy to crack
down on violators of the tampering and
fuels regulations." EPA investigators
discovered that the Copley, Ohio, police
department was using an unleaded
gasoline nozzle on a leaded pump to fuel
its fleet of vehicles. Business violators in
the vicinity of Copley included two gas
stations cited for allowing cars requiring
unleaded gasoline to be fueled from
leaded pumps, and eight other
businesses cited for selling leaded gas as
unleaded. In Corpus Christi, Texas, EPA
field inspectors, acting on an anonymous
complaint, confirmed that a muffler shop
was doing a thriving business removing
catalytic converters. Twenty-two of the 24
altered vehicles were from fleets owned
and operated by 14 different businesses.
In the anti-fuel switching effort, EPA's
enforcement officials are cooperating
with their state and local counterparts.
Cannon praises this cooperation:
"Support from the state and local air
pollution agencies has been a great help
in our efforts to put an end to violations
of this sort. I encourage others to do the
same."
Forty states have already passed laws
that make it illegal for individuals to
switch fuels or tamper with catalytic
converters. There are currently 14 state or
local authorities operating anti-fuel
switching programs, most of which
involve the annual inspection of a portion
of the vehicle fleet. Many other programs
are expected to be implemented in the
next few years.
EPA's goal is to establish this type of
program in all ozone, carbon monoxide,
and nitrogen oxide nonattainment and
marginal attainment areas. In fact, the
agency operating guidance for fiscal
years 1985 and 1986 lists the
establishment of anti-fuel switching
programs as one of the top five priorities
E PA inve >und this pile of used
/tic conveners dun-
a muffler repair shop The cor-.
been improperly rer
of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. The
Office of Mobile Sources has been
working through EPA's regional offices to
assist state and local officials in
implementing anti-fuel switching
programs. EPA is providing training as
well as technical and legal support. Also,
State Implementation Plan credits are
now available for those areas which
implement vehicle inspection programs.
Unfortunately, fuel-switching abuses
are so widespread that enforcement is
expected to be difficult. Today leaded
fuel constitutes 45 percent of all gas
sales. Many pre-1975 vehicles are still on
the road, and EPA estimates that as
many as 13.5 percent of car owners with
vehicles requiring unleaded gasoline now
use leaded fuel on a regular basis.
However, the 1982 EPA study from which
this figure is derived probably
underestimates real fuel-switching rates,
because only voluntary participants were
tested.
With many areas still in violation of
Clean Air Act standards, EPA is dedicated
to working closely with state and local
officials to control the problem and to
inform the general public. During the
past year, EPA has also met extensively
with representatives of environmental
groups, public interest groups, the auto
industry, and various segments of the
automotive fuel marketing industry to
discuss the problem. Ultimately,
however, fuel switching is a problem that
must be solved by individual drivers. If
the promise of clean air for all Americans
is not enough of an inducement, perhaps
the realization that fuel-switching means
money-wasting will persuade switchers
to change their habits, n
Reducing Lead
in Gasoline
by Bob Burke
"The capacity of lead to impair the
physical and mental health of our
children, particularly those who live •
in the inner city, has been we/1
documented. Recently, additional
evidence has come in showing that
adverse health effects from lead
exposure may occur at much lower
levels than heretofore considered
safe. The action we are proposing
today will greatly reduce that threat. "
— William D. Ruckelshaus
On July 30, EPA Administrator William
D. Ruckelshaus proposed a set of
regulations that will sharply reduce lead
in gasoline and possibly result in a ban
on all lead in gasoline at some future
date. This proposal addresses two very
troublesome environmental issues: the
continuing human health threat from
lead, and the adverse effects on air
quality of using leaded gasoline in
vehicles requiring unleaded gasoline— a
practice which is called "fuel switching."
Specifically, EPA is proposing to
reduce the amount of lead in gasoline by
91 percent from 1.10 grams of lead per
gallon to 0.10 grams beginning January 1
1986. The agency is also considering a
total ban on all lead in gasoline
sometime in the mid-1990's.
An Overview of Lead Health
Concerns
Lead has long been recognized as a
hazardous substance. The toxic effects of
lead at high levels are firmly established,
and growing evidence suggests that
lower levels, previously thought safe,
may also pose particularly severe health
(Bob Burke is on the staff of EPA's Office
of Public Affairs.)
EPA JOURNAL
-------
A playground in Washington, D.C EPA's
proposal to reduce lead in gasoline would
help protect children from rN
hazards of lead.
risks for smaf! children. But other studies
are showing that fetuses are exposed to
lead transmitted through the blood of
pregnant women, and that adult health is
vulnerable to lead exposure.
The dominant role of leaded gasoline
in this troubling equation is abundantly
clear. Leaded gasoline is responsible for
about 80 percent of all lead emissions
into the air, and there is a clear
correlation between lead in gasoline and
blood lead levels. EPA's proposal to
reduce lead in gasoline will go to the
heart of this matter by rapidly and
systematically eliminating over 90
percent of lead emissions from gasoline.
The health threat of lead to young
children remains the central concern. A
few statistics put this into perspective.
The measure of lead exposure is the
concentration of lead in the blood
measured in micrograms per deciliter
(jj,g/dl). In the process of setting the current
National Ambient Air Quality Standard
for lead in 1978, EPA defined a blood
lead level of 30 jxg/dl as the maximum
safe individual bfood lead level for
children. The list of demonstrated health
effects of blood levels exceeding 30 ^.g/dl
is well established.
Children with blood levels above 70
ixg/dl suffer from highly visible disorders
that range from life-threatening brain
damage and persisting mental
retardation to various kidney disorders,
anorexia, severe abdominal pains, and
vomiting. Children with lower blood lead
levels have been found to have less
obvious but nonetheless serious health
problems. Significant nerve dysfunctions
in the body, an impaired ability to
formulate concepts, lower IQ, and altered
behavior were found at lead levels of
40-60 fxg/dl among preschool children.
Children with these levels were seven
times more likely to repeat a grade in
school or be referred to a school
psychologist for behavioral problems. At
even lower blood levels (between 30-40
fxg/dl and below), reduced formation of
red blood cells and interference in the
transmission of nerve signals from the
brain to the muscles have been noted.
Of growing concern in recent years is
the capacity of lead to interfere with
vitamin D metabolism in children. This
interference has been found across a
wide range of blood lead levels from
12-120 n.g;dl and higher. Vitamin D is
crucial for the metabolism of calcium and
phosphorus, and for the normal growth
and development of young children.
EPA's proposal to reduce lead in
gasoline provides a real opportunity for
protecting thousands of children from the
health hazards of lead. In 1986 alone,
approximately 97,000 children will have
blood lead levels in excess of 30 (xg/dl in
the absence of the proposed regulations
which Ruckelshaus announced on July 30.
The Problem of Fuel Switching
There are other environmentally harmful
effects from leaded gasoline that are of
equal concern to EPA. They involve the
practice of fuel switching, which is
pervasive and widespread. (See story on
page 17.)
EPA's past programs to reduce lead in
gasoline simply haven't worked as well
as expected. In 1983, for example, the
amount of lead used in refined gasoline
exceeded the agency's estimates by a full
10 percent. EPA also found from a recent
national survey that 13.5 percent of
vehicles designed to run on unleaded
gasoline had their emission control
systems disabled by leaded gasoline.
Ruckelshaus recognized the pervasive
nature of fuel switching when he
announced his proposal to reduce lead in
gasoline.
"Too many motorists and too many
service stations are putting leaded
gasoline where it doesn't belong — into
the tanks of vehicles designed to run on
unleaded gasoline."
Fuel switching disables catalytic
converters and undermines federal and
state programs to protect public health
by reducing motor vehicle emissions.
Exhaust emissions from a vehicle
affected by fuel switching can go up by
as much as 800 percent.
In view of the fact that even low-lead
gasoline destroys catalytic converters,
how will EPA's proposal reduce and
hopefully eliminate fuel switching? The
major impetus for fuel switching
apparently involves the fact that leaded
gasoline costs less than unleaded. EPA
believes, however, that it will cost
refiners slightly more to produce the new
low-lead gasoline at 89 octane than to
SEPTEMBER
-------
Cleaning Up Pollution from the Automobile
produce unleaded regular gasoline at 87
octane. EPA is seeking comments on
whether these additional costs of
production will cause leaded gasoline to
cost more than unleaded at the pump. If
for some reason the new standard fails
to achieve a dramatic reduction in fuel
switching, EPA will consider even
stronger measures, such as distribution
controls, to restrict the use of leaded gas.
Older Vehicles
The owners of older automobiles
requiring leaded gasoline as an engine
protector will also be affected by this
proposal. EPA has been deluged with
inquiries from many of these owners
who have heard from various sources
that low lead gasoline won't be sufficient
as a valve lubricant, particularly for some
antique motor cars. In making this
proposal, EPA felt confident of two issues
crucial to owners of older vehicles, and
to operators of farm machinery, outboard
motor boats, and lawn mowers that
currently use leaded gasoline. First, the
agency is confident that low lead
gasoline will serve as a sufficient engine
protector for all the various vehicles and
machinery that currently use leaded
gasoline. Second, EPA is optimistic that
an alternative valve lubricant will be
developed for such vehicles and engines
if all leaded gasoline vanishes from the
marketplace at some future date. The
agency is looking for information on
environmentally safe alternatives to low
levels of lead that could be made
available as a valve lubricant.
Monetary Benefits
In the course of preparing this proposal,
EPA estimated as precisely as possible
the costs and benefits of the proposed
regulations. It concluded that it is feasible
for refiners to meet the reduced lead
standards by 1986, and that it will cost
them about $575 million to do so.
But this is more than offset by the $1.8
billion that will be saved in 1986 alone
from lower health costs, reduced vehicle
maintenance bills, and improved fuel
efficiency. The net monetary benefits in
1987 and 1988 will also exceed $1 billion
annually, according to agency
estimates.;
Growing Concern
about Gasoline Vapors
by Rita A. Calvan
What is an issue like "gasoline
marketing" doing at a place like
EPA? What does the marketing of
gasoline—which appears to lend itself
more comfortably to an economist's
drawing of supply and demand curves
than to the traditional role of EPA as
environmental regulator—have to do
with the mandate of this agency?
In fact, for some time now EPA has
been considering what to do about the
difficult problem of limiting health risks
that may be associated with the
distribution of gasoline from supplier, to
retailer, to the individual automobile
driver. For at one point or another in this
distribution process, most Americans are
exposed to potentially harmful vapors.
The increasing tendency of Americans to
save money by pumping their own gas
has heightened concern over this source
of airborne pollutants.
Gasoline Vapor Hazards and Control
Options
Commercial gasoline sold in the United
States contains a variety of substances
thought to endanger human health. As
the use of leaded gasoline declines, such
constituents of leaded fuel as ethylene
dibromide and ethylene dichloride will no
longer be of concern as fuel additives.
Nevertheless, any harmful effects from
i benzene and other, as yet largely
unidentified, components of unleaded
gasoline vapors will continue. Many of
these unknown substances fall into a
general class of pollutants called Volatile
Organic Compounds (VOCs}. This term
covers a broad range of carbon-based
substances that vaporize quickly under
certain conditions of temperature and
pressure. Even with the trend toward
unleaded gasoline, the gasoline
marketing system will continue to be a
major source of emissions of VOCs,
including benzene.
Some 280 million gallons of gasoline
are distributed in the U.S. each day
(Rita A. Calvan is on the staff of EPA's
Office of Intergovernmental Liaison.)
through an extensive network of storage,
transportation, and dispensing facilities.
Exposure to the vapors which escape
during this process affects workers in the
fuel production and transport industries,
service station personnel, residents of
communities located near these
activities, and eventually, consumers.
Controls during all but the final phase
of the gasoline distribution process —
the fueling of vehicles—are commonly
called Stage I vapor recovery. Such
controls on vapors from bulk terminals,
bulk plants, and the filling of
underground storage tanks at service
stations are currently in effect in most
areas of the country that have not met
EPA's National Ambient Air Quality
Standards for ozone. (Ozone is an air
pollutant created from the interaction of
volatile organic compounds and nitrogen
oxides in sunlight.)
Stage II vapor recovery controls are
imposed at the retail pump with pump
nozzles designed to prevent the escape
of gasoline vapors as vehicles are fueled.
These controls are now required in most
of California and in the District of
Columbia. In addition, seven other states
have made commitments to use Stage II
vapor recovery controls in conjunction
with their efforts to meet ozone
standards. However, actual
implementation has been postponed to
await results of EPA's ongoing evaluation
of the gasoline marketing system.
Another method for preventing
gasoline vapors from adversely affecting
consumers jnd service station personnel
is to equip automobiles and other
vehicles with their own systems for
capturing gasoline vapors. These
so-called onboard controls include both
vehicle fill pipe modifications and the
addition of canisters to vehicles.
Current policy debate focuses on
whether there is a need for additional
protection from the effects of gasoline
vapors and, if so, what kinds of
regulations should be imposed. Several
options for further controlling gasoline
vapors could be considered if EPA should
decide to propose new regulations. Five
basic strategies which have been
.'D
EPA JOURNAL
-------
At this gas station in Anchorage, Alaska,
pump nozzles prevent the escape of
gasoline vapors.
identified are: (1) Stage I controls
nationwide; (2) Stage II controls
nationwide; (3) Stage II controls in ozone
nonattainment areas only; (4) onboard
controls nationwide; (5) onboard controls
nationwide, plus Stage II controls in
ozone nonattainment areas.
Combinations of these strategies could
be explored. Exemptions for service
stations and bulk plants of certain sizes
are also possible. Furthermore, Stage II
vapor recovery could be a required
interim measure while the vehicle fleet is
gradually being equipped with onboard
controls.
The Role of Benzene in the Debate
Over Gasoline Vapors
Benzene was listed as a hazardous air
pollutant under Section 112 of the Clean
Air Act on June 8, 1977, a step which
started a countdown toward regulation.
By January 1981, the agency had
identified five principal sources of
benzene emissions and proposed
standards for four of these, all in the
petroleum and chemical industries. When
no further action had been taken by the
summer of 1983, two environmental
groups, the Environmental Defense Fund
and the Natural Resources Defense
Council, filed suit in D.C. District Court.
Additionally, the Chemical Manufacturers
Association and several other industry
groups filed a similar citizens' suit. These
actions sought to force EPA to take final
action on benzene, including the four
sets of proposed standards, and on
possible standards for coke oven
by-product plants, the gasoline marketing
system, and unspecified "chemical
manufacturing plants."
With the suits still pending, on June 6,
1984, EPA promulgated final regulations
for one benzene source category in the
petroleum/chemical industries—fugitive
emissions (pollutants which escape from
other than their intended route, such as
via a leak rather than through a
smokestack). At the same time, the
agency proposed regulations for coke
oven by-product plants and withdrew the
proposed standards for three other
sources (maleic anhydride plants,
ethylbenzene/styrene plants, and benzene
storage facilities). Attorneys for the NRDC
and EOF had already notified EPA prior
to these regulatory actions of their
intention to amend their earlier complaint
by asking the Court to require a
determination of the feasibility of
onboard controls to contain gasoline
vapors during vehicle refueling.
Health Effects of Gasoline Vapors
Studied
As events in the benzene litigation would
imply, the EPA has authority under the
Clean Air Act to require control of
gasoline vapors during vehicle refueling.
Thus far the agency has made no
decision on the need for, or nature of,
such controls, because until very recently
only limited reliable information on the
health effects of these vapors was
available. Recently, however, EPA
completed and released for public
comment an analysis of the risks versus
costs of regulating vapors at the pump
through either Stage II or onboard
controls. This analysis was based in part
on data on the health effects of gasoline
vapors made available to the agency by
the American Petroleum Institute (API).
The API studies—which have been
submitted to the Journal of the American
College of Toxicology for
publication—were conducted over a
period of two years. During the research,
cohorts of rats and mice were exposed to
varying doses of unleaded gasoline
vapors. Significant increased tumor
formation was noted in both types of
animals, appearing in the livers of female
mice and in the kidneys of male rats.
Using the results of the API studies and
developing unit risk factors applicable to
humans, EPA estimated the public health
risks associated with exposure to
gasoline vapors. The results showed that
exposure to gasoline vapors produced a
substantially higher risk of cancer than
exposure to benzene alone. Further,
estimated cancer incidence was found to
be considerably higher from exposure
during self-service vehicle refueling than
from community exposure throucjh
proximity to bulk terminals, bulk plants,
and service stations.
Shortly before publicly releasing the
analysis of gasoline vapor regulatory
alternatives, EPA officials submitted a
staff paper on the API and other relevant
studies to the Environmental Health
Committee of the agency's Science
Advisory Board. This paper was
considered at the Board's July 25
meeting in Washington, where there
SEPTEMBER
21
-------
Cleaning Up Pollution from the Automobile
appeared to be agreement with the EPA
conclusion that unleaded gasoline should
be considered a probable human
carcinogen. However, some committee
members expressed concern that the unit
risk factor EPA had derived from the API
studies was not suitable for estimating
public health risk due to exposure to
gasoline vapors. Among the limitations
of the API data was the fact that the liver
tumors found in the female mice are
common in the species, even absent
exposure to suspected carcinogens. Also,
the gasoline used in the experiments was
completely vaporized, exposing the
animals to some heavier components of
fuel which do not usually escape at the
pump. Furthermore, proportions of the
components in the test fuel were
somewhat different from those
commonly found in commercial unleaded
fuef.
Issues Involved in Regulatory
Decision-Making
Auto manufacturers believe onboard
controls could cost as much as $50
per vehicle, and they generally oppose
any steps that raise the prices of new
cars. Gasoline retailers project that
special bellows on gasoline pumps to
capture vapors will be expensive to
install and maintain. Thus, industry is
pitted against industry, and both could
face off against the environmental
community, which may find the health
effects data convincing evidence of the
need to adopt controls.
Assuming no retrofit of existing
vehicles, it would take more than ten
years for a substantial portion of the U.S.
fleet to be converted to vehicles with
onboard controls. Conversion of the
entire U.S. auto supply would take about
twenty years. Stage II controls could be
required as an interim measure, but the
wisdom of such a move is subject to
debate. States that have pledged to
adopt Stage II vapor recovery and that
have approved air quality attainment
plans for ozone based on this
commitment may be faced with their
own dilemma, since it is not clear
whether EPA can legally waive these
requirements.
The issues involved in the gasoline
marketing system as a source of
hazardous air pollutants are typical of
those faced in many areas of
environmental regulation: scientific
uncertainty, costs versus benefits, the
relative effectiveness of various control
technologies, and the comparative power
of competing interests. Ultimately, of
course, EPA must act in the most
reasonable manner to protect public
health and well-being. The question of
whether to adopt a national program to
curtail gasoline vapor emissions clearly
will take additional time to answer. [
Methanol: The
of the Future?
by Richard Wilson
Fuel
During the earty 1970s, Americans
were jolted into awareness of two
national environmental and energy
issues. The first was the threat to air
quality posed by pollution from motor
vehicles. The second was the "energy
crisis" of 1973-74, which led to gasoline
shortages and subsequent increases in
costs for all kinds of petroleum and
petroleum products.
An extended national debate followed
the 1973 oil embargo. More often than
not, that debate was fashioned in terms
of a choice between clean air and
"energy sufficiency."
Fortunately, not everyone bought the
notion that America would have to
choose between a society where the
environment was spoiled but everyone
could drive their cars wherever and
whenever they wished, and a society
where cold homes and long lines at the
gasoline pumps were necessary to
protect the environment.
The Search for Alternative Fuels
America was dependent on foreign
sources of petroleum, but wasn't short of
energy. America's abundance of coal,
natural gas, and various other products
could produce alternative motor fuels.
EPA, other federal agencies, and the
private sector began to explore these
possibilities.
There is no wonder fuel that can be
produced economically and yet be
relatively safe and environmentally clean.
But methanol, a fuel derived from coal,
natural gas, and other biomass sources,
is very promising in several respects.
Over the last few years, EPA has
learned much about methanol-fueled
vehicles and engines. The agency has
performed tests on a wide range of
engines, including automobiles and large
trucks that were modified to use pure
methanol, and a diesel truck engine that
uses a mixture of methanol and diesel
fuel. At the same time, the agency
(Richard Wilson is Director of EPA's Office
of Mobile Sources.)
closely followed other methanol research
programs in the United States. From
these testing programs, we learned a lot
about the promise and problems of
methanol.
Air quality benefits of methanol: The use
of methanol in motor vehicles can
produce significant environmental
benefits compared to the conventional
fuels used in most U.S. automobiles. EPA
regulates three pollutants from
gasoline-fueled vehicles: carbon
monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen
oxides. Current methanol-fueled vehicles
emit about the same amount of carbon
monoxide as gasoline vehicles but
significantly lower levels of hydrocarbons
and nitrogen oxides. Furthermore,
methanol-fueled vehicles emit
significantly lower levels of unburned
hydrocarbons than do gasoline-powered
vehicles. These hydrocarbons are the
main ingredient in photochemical
oxidants, or smog.
Los Angeles has always served as the
most visible national example of air
quality problems associated with smog
from motor vehicle pollution. EPA
researchers have estimated that
completely substituting methanol for
gasoline in that city would reduce peak
ozone levels by 25 percent.
Methanol engines also produce smaller
quantities of nitrogen oxides, a pollutant
caused by incomplete fuel combustion.
Nitrogen oxide emissions from current
gasoline vehicles are already being
reduced through the use of three-way
catalytic converters. These converters
would reduce emissions even more if
methanol were used. Furthermore,
methanol may give us some new choices
about controlling nitrogen oxide
emissions. It might be possible to reduce
them significantly by using a simpler,
less expensive catalyst and sharply
increasing the use of methanol.
If methanol were substituted for diesel
fuel in trucks and buses, dramatically
improved air quality would be expected.
Emissions of nitrogen oxides and
particulates would be cut sharply,
perhaps by as much as 50 percent.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
A methanol-fueled Ford Escort. Last year
government agencies throughout California
purchased 500 similar vehicles as pan of a
methanol fleet test prog-
Methanol would also reduce sulfur
emissions by about 2 percent annually.
Potential problems: The use of methanol
will likely result in increased emissions
of methanol and formaldehyde,
compared to current catalyst-equipped
gasoline-fueled vehicles. Would
we be jumping from the frying
pan into the fire by increasing these
kinds of emissions as the price for
reducing other pollutants emitted in
greater quantities from gasoline-powered
engines?
The answer to this question seems to
be "no." EPA's preliminary calculations
show that ambient methanol and
formaldehyde levels would not pose a
health problem except under highly
unlikely circumstances, such as if all
vehicles used methanol and 25 percent of
them lacked effective emission controls.
Other environmental problems with
methanol include evaporation of
emissions from blended
gasoline/methanol fuels, but these seem
manageable if the fuels are mixed at
carefully regulated levels. There are also
health problems associated with drinking
liquid methanol or absorbing it through
the skin. Some people have mistaken
liquid methanol for an alcoholic
beverage; the consequences are often
fatal. Direct methanol contact with the
skin is also harmful. Prudence would
dictate that every reasonable effort be
made to avoid ingestion or prolonged
skin contact in the manufacture,
distribution, and use of methanol fuel
products.
Finally, there are safety problems. The
ignition of methanol vapors inside a fuel
tank, the hazards of a large methanol
spill, and the near-invisible flame of
methanol fires are major concerns that
require additional research.
Costs: Methanol is cheaper to produce
than petroleum and it also is about 25
percent more efficient than gasoline.
Methanol produced from natural gas may
be sold for less than 60 cents a gallon; in
the long run, it may be even less
expensive to produce from coal, wood,
or other biodegradable matter. The
energy content of methanol is roughly
half that of gasoline, so methanol already
is competitive with gasoline. With readily
available supplies of raw material for
future production, methanol will likely
cost less than petroleum-based
transportation fuels.
The challenge: Our major challenge
involves a commitment by the American
automobile manufacturers and energy
producers to shift resources to the
production of methanol vehicles and
fuels. EPA believes that automobile
manufacturers will invest greater
resources in methanol engine design as
evidence grows that methanol is the fuel
of the future. It may be possible to
design an entirely methanol-burning
engine instead of the gasoline-modified
engines used in current testing. Such an
engine would be more efficient and
produce even lower emissions. EPA also
believes that technology can be
employed to successfully solve the health
ar;d safety problems related to methanol.
It will take a national commitment by
government and the private sector to
make methanol a viable alternative to
petroleum. It's important to face this
challenge now, instead of waiting for a
new energy crisis to develop, i \
SEPTEMBER
23
-------
A Comeback for Boston Harbor?
by David Pickman
This is the first article in an EPA
Journal series focusing on major
environmental problems which EPA's
regional offices are helping to solve.
This article on Boston Harbor is by
David Pickman, who is on the staff of
the Office of Public Affairs in EPA's
Region J.
One of the largest, safest and most
beautiful harbors in the world lies
just to the north of Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, sheltered by long
peninsulas to the north and south and
fed by three river basins. Miles of
beaches, shellfish beds, marinas, docks,
parks, ship repair yards and commercial
and residential buildings line the shore.
The Puritans founded the Towne of
Boston here in 1632. Flounder and cod
abounded in the sparkling water and
clams in the mudflats. Deep channels
and safe anchorages brought maritime
trade exceeding that of New York,
Philadelphia, or Baltimore until canals
and railroads linked these cities with the
interior in the early 19th century.
Our ancestors were more casual than
we are about sanitation, and the
pollution of Boston Harbor began early.
The old Back Bay Fens and other tidal
marshlands became saturated with
sewage as the city grew. The Back Bay
was gradually filled for residential
development, but the problem of how to
dispose of the sewage remained. In 1876
the Boston City Council passed an act to
"lay and maintain a main sewer
discharging at Moon Island in Boston
Harbor." The purpose was to carry the
sewage "out so far that its point of
discharge will be remote from dwellings,
and beyond the possibility of doing
harm."
'.I
EPA JOURNAL
-------
An aerial view of Boston Harbor, looking
toward the southeast. Just beyond Logan
Airport on the left is Deer Island, site of the
primary treatment plant which discharges
sludge on the outgoing tide into the main
ship channel. The Nut Is/and Treatment
plant lies at the tip of the peninsula in the
upper center of the photo. Moon Island is at
the end of a 1 12- mile causeway to the
mainland. Downtown Boston is in the
foreground.
No time was wasted in carrying out the
Council mandate. Engineer Joseph P.
Davis spent four months inspecting the
sewers of Paris, London, and Berlin, and
imparted his observations to his
colleague, Eliot Clarke. The undertaking
eventually cost $5 million and involved
30,000 feet of soil borings, about 50
million bricks from kilns in neighboring
Somerville and distant Bangor, Maine,
and 180,000 barrels of cement. Many
sewers Clarke designed more than a
century ago are still in use.
Soon after the sewer was completed,
the Massachusetts General Court
(Legislature) in 1889 established a
Metropolitan Sewage District, comprised
of 18 cities and towns. It was the first
regional system of its kind in the country
and soon expanded to the west, then to
the north and south, until today there are
43 municipalities in the system — most
of them in the basins of the Neponset,
Charles, or Mystic Rivers. After World
War II two deep rock sewer mains were
built to Deer Island, the northern
peninsula protecting Boston Harbor, and
primary treatment plants were
constructed at Nut Island in 1952 and
Deer Island in 1968. As a result, there
was a dramatic improvement in water
quality, permitting the opening of six
closed swimming beaches in Winthrop
near Deer Island and the revival of
commercial shell fishing in three nearby
mudflats.
But the hard-won gains were
transitory. The postwar population
expansion, underfunding by the
Legislature, poor maintenance, and the
aging process all caught up with the
system by the early 1970s. The $150
million investment in Deer and Nut Island
treatment plants and attendant sewers
and pumps brought only temporary
benefits. Shell fishing today is sporadic
or nonexistent and, while beaches
remain open in Winthrop, they are often
closed for long periods in summer on the
southern side of the inner harbor.
Primary sludge from both plants is
discharged at Deer Island on the
outgoing tide. A broad plume of
discolored water can be seen from the air
at any time of day. Both plants are
heavily overtaxed with sewage. Not long
ago the Smithsonian Institution wrote
from Washington asking the sewage
agency to contribute a century-old pump
that the museum assumed was not in
service any longer and could have only
historical interest. The pump was still in
use, answered the agency, but the
Smithsonian's request would be kept on
file.
The system is also plagued with
overflows of storm water from combined
sewers which carry both sanitary and
storm flows to the treatment plants. At
such times raw sewage bypasses both
plants, "floatables" and all. There are 100
combined sewer overflows in the harbor.
These and the malfunctioning treatment
plants make the once revered
Metropolitan District Commission
(successor to the Sewage District) one of
the worst polluters in the United States.
Since EPA began funding wastewater
treatment projects in 1973, the agency
has contributed $168 million in grants for
Boston Harbor-related projects, mainly to
repair and rehabilitate portions of the
7,225 miles of sewers and to correct
combined sewer overflows in the
43-community system. Each of these
dozens of grants has scored some gains
or headed off even worse conditions in
the harbor's receiving waters, but far
greater capital investment will be needed
to restore fishable, swimmable water
quality. EPA Regional Administrator
Michael R. Deland told a Massachusetts
Legislative Committee recently, "The
current sewage discharges...regularly
cause beach closings, disease in fish and
other organisms, and threaten the public
health. They cannot be allowed to
continue."
Deland was testifying in favor of
legislation filed by Governor Michael
Dukakis to set up a Metropolitan Water
and Sewer Authority. The authority
would have power to issue revenue
bonds for the major capital expenses that
lie ahead. Sewer use rates, which are
lower than in most metro areas, will have
to be increased to finance the necessary
improvements, whether or not an
authority is created. But the proposed
authority would be in a strong position
to raise up to $2 billion that may be
required over the next decade or more to
restore the water quality of the harbor.
EPA's Region 1 is moving on several
fronts. This fall, the agency is expected to
select among five siting plans for the
construction of secondary treatment
plants or for primary treatment with an
outfall to carry primary effluent seven
miles beyond the harbor mouth.
Meanwhile, EPA is funding short term
improvements to plants and corrections
of combined sewer overflows at a cost of
about $30 million. In July, Deland issued
an administrative order to the MDC
demanding a plan by which sludge, now
discharged on the outgoing tide, will be
managed in an environmentally
acceptable manner. Sludge management
studies have been going on for several
years, and most of the research has been
done on incineration, land disposal,
composting and other methods.
Finally, EPA is acting as a friend of the
court in a state suit by the City of Quincy
against the MDC. Quincy lies on the
southern rim of the harbor and suffers
from the malfunctioning of the Nut Islanc
plant and from overflows. The court
appointed a master, Professor Charles
Haar of Harvard Law School, who laid
out a program of reform and
self-discipline which is supervised by the
court, EPA, and the Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Quality
Engineering, The court ordered MDC to
take steps to raise sewer rates, reduce
excessive flows which so often send raw
sewage pouring into the inner harbor,
upgrade and properly maintain its
treatment plants, and take a careful look
at financial needs and how to meet them
Much of what the court demanded, the
proposed authority could do. It would
have power to charge realistic sewer use
rates, raise money in the private bond
market, and hire adequate professional
staff to execute the major projects that lit
ahead. Further, the authority would hold
a stronger hand in dealings with the 43
cities and towns, many of which are lax
in adopting or enforcing sewer use laws.
Illegal connections of drain spouts and
sump pump hoses alone account for a
major portion of the monstrous
overflows that carry raw sewage into the
harbor.
Who will be the beneficiaries of a
cleaner harbor? The clam diggers, the
sailors and swimmers, the commercial
and sports fishermen, the shipping
industry, and the tourists (who
occasionally write to Boston newspapers
from distant home towns about the
"floatables" they saw from a Boston
Harbor excursion boat). This summer the
excursion boats plied the murky harbor
waters, their loudspeakers blaring
historical spiels and descriptions of
shoreline features and other vessels in
the endless parade of freighters, tankers,
yachts, and naval or Coast Guard vessels
Nothing is said about the filth. Nothing
needs to be said. But the pressure is
building. Wheels are beginning to turn.
More than a century after the first trunl
sewers were laid, Boston Harbor's
prospects are looking up.
One of these days, the Smithsonian
curators may even get that ancient pump
they are looking for. D
SEPTEMBER
2b
-------
John C. Chamber/in
Dr. Rosemane C Russo
New Appointments
and Awards
Administrator William Ruckelshaus has
appointed five employees to new
positions at EPA. The new appointments
include a Director of the Office of
Administration, an Environmental
Research Laboratory Director, and a
Regional Counsel. Two appointments in
the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response give OSWER new directors for
its Emergency Response and Permits and
State Programs Divisions.
Also, two executives were assigned
to new posts in the Office of Air and
Radiation.
In addition, five EPA employees have
been singled out for special recognition
by outside organizations. One has been
named Federal Employee of the Year in
the Professional/Scientific Category.
Another has been appointed to a
one-year term as President of the Air
Pollution Control Association (APCA). The
remaining three are EPA scientists
honored for their outstanding research
contributions.
John C. Chamberlin has been named
Director of EPA's Office of Administration.
In his previous role as Deputy Comptroller
of EPA, he managed the planning and
budgeting processes of the agency from
1980 to 1984.
In 1981, Chamberlin was sent by the
World Bank to Peru to begin the design
of a new planning and budgeting system
for the Government of Peru. Prior to
1980, Chamberlin was branch chief of the
Budget Review and Analysis Branch, and
the Enforcement Branch of EPA's Office
of the Comptroller, chief budget officer
for the North Africa, Near East, Asia and
Pacific region of the Peace Corps,
program analyst in the Office of
Economic Opportunity, and an industrial
engineer at IBM.
Immediately after graduating from
Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1965 with
a B.S. in Industrial Engineering,
Chamberlii1 joined the Peace Corps and
served for two years in Peru. He worked
briefly as an instructor at the Stanford
University Business School prior to
earning an M.B.A. from the University of
Pittsburgh in 1968.
Dr. Rosemarie C. Russo has been
appointed director of EPA's
Environmental Research Laboratory in
Athens, Georgia. She joined the agency
in 1982 as associate director for research
operations at EPA's Environmental
Research Laboratory in Duluth,
Minnesota. For four years prior to that
she was on an Intergovernmental
Personnel Act (IPA) assignment to the
Duluth laboratory as a research chemist
while remaining on the faculty of
Montana State University.
Dr. Russo began work at Montana
State in 1972 as a research associate in
the Department of Chemistry. By the time
she left, she had risen to the position of
Adjunct Professor of Chemistry and
Associate Director of the Fisheries
Bioassay Laboratory.
Dr. Russo received her Ph.D. in
inorganic chemistry from the University
of New Hampshire in 1972. She was an
assistant professor of chemistry at
Gettysburg College for one year before
accepting a research position at Montana
State. She earned her bachelor of science
degree in chemistry at the University of
Minnesota, where she graduated in 1964.
Dr. Russo is the author of numerous
research journal articles and other
publications.
Patrick A. Parenteau has been named
Regional Counsel for EPA's Region 1 in
Boston. Parenteau has joined EPA after
eight years with the National Wildlife
Federation, where his most recent
position was vice president in charge of
resources conservation.
After graduating from Regis College in
1969 with a bachelor of science degree in
business, Parenteau completed his J.D. at
Creighton University in 1972 and his
L.L.M. at George Washington University
in 1975.
Parenteau began his legal career with
the Legal Aid Society of Omaha, where
he worked from 1972 to 1974. He taught
for a year at the Northwestern School of
Law after completing his L.L.M. at
George Washington. From Northwestern
Parenteau went to the National Wildlife
Federation in 1976.
A member of the American Bar
Association and the District of Columbia
and the State of Nebraska Bars,
Parenteau has published numerous
articles and delivered many speeches on
various aspects of environmental law.
John J. Stanton has been named
Director of the Emergency Response
Division of EPA's Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response (OSWER).
Since November 1983 Stanton has been
serving as a group leader of an OSWER
task force created to assess the
reauthorization of Superfund.
From 1979 to 1983 Stanton worked for
the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection on an
intergovernmental assignment from EPA.
During his first three years in New Jersey.
he served as Deputy Director and
Director of the state's Division of
Environmental Quality. During his final
year in the state, Stanton served as
Director of the New Jersey Division of
Waste Management.
In 1978 and 1979 Stanton was a Deputy
Division Director in the Office of
Resources Management at EPA
headquarters. From 1976 until 1978 he
served as Chief of the Program
Assessment Branch in the agency's
Program Reporting Division.
From 1971 to 1976 Stanton worked in
EPA's Region 2 in New York City. First he
served as a civil and sanitary engineer.
From 1972 to 1974 Stanton was Region 2's
Chief of Basin Planning. Between
1974 and 1976 he was Chief of the
Region 2 Planning and Evaluation
Branch, Management Division.
A Navy veteran, Stanton has also
worked as a civil engineer for the City of
San Diego.
'(
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Patrick A. Parenteau
John J. Stanton
Bruce R. Weddle
Dr William L !
Joseph P-
Stanton received his bachelor of
science in civil engineering from the
Newark College of Engineering in 1966.
Stanford University awarded him a
master of science in civil engineering
degree in 1971. Stanton earned an M.B.A.
from Adelphi University in 1975.
Bruce R. Weddle has been appointed
Director of the Permits and State
Programs Division in EPA's headquarters
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response (OSWER}. He has been Acting
Director of the division since July 1982.
Weddle served as Deputy Director of the
Permits and State Programs Division
between 1979 and 1982.
Weddle came to EPA in 1972 from the
Bureau of Solid Waste Management of
the Public Health Service. Between 1972
and 1973 he served as a supervisory
industrial engineer in EPA's Office of
Solid Waste in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1973
Weddle came to EPA headquarters where
he spent his first year as an acting
branch chief in the Office of Solid Waste.
Between 1974 and 1979 he was the
branch chief responsible for managing
OSWER's national programs covering
industrial wastes and municipal sludge
management.
In 1968 Weddle graduated from
Clarkson College with a bachelor of
science degree in mechanical
engineering. He worked as an
applications engineer for Allis-Chalmers
from 1968 until 1970 when he joined the
Public Health Service's Cincinnati Bureau
of Solid Waste Management. Weddle
received an M.B.A. from Xavier
University while he was working in
Cincinnati.
In 1977 Weddle was awarded EPA's
Bronze Medal for meritorious service to
the agency. He won the agency's Silver
Medal in 1979.
Glen L. Sjoblom, director of EPA's Office
of Radiation Programs, has been selected
to oversee international activities in the
agency's Office of Air and Radiation. One
of Sjoblom's first assignments will be to
represent the U.S. at the International
Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna
this September. A career federal nuclear
engineer, he has headed the agency's
radiation programs for the past two
years.
Sheldon Meyers, also an engineer and
currently Deputy Assistant Administrator
for Air and Radiation, has been selected
to replace Sjoblom as head of the Office
of Radiation Programs.
Meyers, who has held several program
positions in EPA, formerly directed EPA's
Office of Federal Activities, the Office
of Solid Waste and the Office of Air
Quality Planning and Standards. He also
directed the National Nuclear Waste
Management Program at the Department
of Energy.
EPA's Dr. William L. Budde has been
named Federal Employee of the Year in
the Professional/Scientific Category. He
received his award in June at the annual
Federal Executive Board/Federal Business
Association's awards ceremony in
Cincinnati.
Dr. Budde works at EPA's
Environmental Monitoring and Support
Laboratory in Cincinnati, where he is
chief of the Advanced Instrumentation
Section, Physical and Chemical Methods
Branch.
Through Dr. Budde's efforts EPA's Gas
Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry
(GC-MS) analytical program has proved
to be an enormous success both within
EPA and throughout the environmental
and regulated communities. He has also
organized the GC-MS Users Group which
provides a forum for the transfer of
information and experiences by GC-MS
analysts everywhere. In addition, Dr.
Budde has become a national and
international leader in the field of
automated data acquisitions.
The American Water Works Association
honored three EPA employees at its
Annual Conference and Exposition in
Dallas, Texas, on June 11, 1984.
Edwin E. Geldreich, who is chief of the
Microbiological Treatment Branch at
EPA's Municipal Environmental Research
Laboratory in Cincinnati, received the
AWWA's Alvin Percy Award for a lifetime
of research contributions to water
science and water utility practices.
O. Thomas Love, Jr., and Richard G.
Eilers, also of EPA's Municipal
Environmental Research Laboratory in
Cincinnati, were awarded the AWWA
Publications Award for their paper
"Treatment of Drinking Water Containing
Trichloroethylene and Related Industrial
Solvents."
Joseph Padgett has begun a one-year
term as President of the Air Pollution
Control Association (APCA). He is the
first EPA official to be elected to the
office in APCA's history. Formerly the
director of the Strategies and Air
Standards Division of EPA, Padgett is
now on an IPA assignment from EPA to
the State of North Carolina Division of
Environmental Management.
APCA is a technical and educational
association devoted to furthering the
art and science of air pollution control.
Its membership is comprised of air
pollution control professionals in alt
sectors of industry, science, government,
academia, research, and consultant
organizations in 48 countries. I i
SEPTEMBER
27
-------
Update
A review of recent major EPA activities and development in the pollution control areas.
AIR
Misfueling Violations
EPA has cited two companies,
one in Oregon and one in
Coiorado, for misfueling
violations.
Louisiana-Pacific Company, a
major pulp and paper producer,
has been cited by EPA for
violations of the Clean Air Act.
Charges in a notice of violation
issued to the firm's home office
in Portland, Ore., allege that 25
of 56 company vehicles requiring
unleaded fuel were misfueled
with leaded gasoline from a
company gas pump at its Red
Bluff, Calif., facility. The agency
is proposing that Louisiana-
Pacific pay $182,650 in penalties
for the alleged violations.
EPA said the enforcement
action was taken as a result of
an investigation initiated last
October after the agency
received information from the
San Francisco Bay Chapter of the
Sierra Club.
In a separate action, EPA has
proposed fining Northern
Armored Service of Greeley,
Colo., $77,650 for illegally fueling
10 vehicles and for failing to
equip one leaded gasoline pump
with the proper nozzle.
ENFORCEMENT
New Enforcement Activities
In recent ceremonies in seven
cities across the country, 23
criminal investigators from EPA
were sworn in as Special Deputy
United States Marshals.
For the first time, EPA
investigators will be authorized
to make arrests, to execute
search warrants and court
orders, and to carry firearms in
the course of investigating
federal environmental crimes.
The Justice Department has
granted the law enforcement
powers to EPA investigators for
an interim 90-day period. The
trial period will be used to
determine what investigative
resources will be necessary to
support the long-range program.
The 23 investigators are
assigned to the Office of
Criminal Investigations within
EPA's National Enforcement
Investigations Center (NEIC),
headquartered in Denver, Colo.
Investigators are also stationed
in Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, New
York, and Washington, D.C.
State Enforcement Guidance
EPA enforcement guidance with
recommended time periods for
taking action has been sent to
EPA's 10 regional offices to be
used in establishing state
enforcement agreements.
The guidance covers air, water,
hazardous waste, and pesticide
programs. It will serve as the
basis for enforcement
agreements the agency hopes to
reach with all states by October.
The agreements will identify
state performance expectations
and the standards EPA will use
to evaluate state performance,
determine which violations will
require penalties or equivalent
sanctions, indicate when EPA
will step in and take federal
enforcement action, and
establish time frames for
initiating and escalating
enforcement action against
significant violators.
The guidance defines EPA's
expectations for state
performance. State performance
will be assessed in terms of how
well the state is identifying
violators and getting them to
comply with EPA standards
through the use of an up-to-date
list of significant violators,
established time frames for
taking enforcement actions, and
the use of well-defined
compliance measures once an
enforcement action has been
taken.
Discretionary Listing
As part of a stepped-up
enforcement program, EPA has
proposed revised regulations to
streamline the process for
withholding government
contracts, grants, or loans from
facilities that violate the Clean
Air and Water Acts.
The proposed revisions would
expand the opportunities for
"discretionary listing" of facilities
guilty of chronic civil
noncompliance with clean air or
water standards. Listing,
commonly referred to as
"contractor listing," means being
placed on a "List of Violating
Facilities." Being listed renders a
facility ineligible for contracts,
grants, or loans over $100,000
from any federal agency.
Under EPA's proposal, a
broader range of civil
enforcement actions under both
the Clean Air and Water Acts can
now provide the basis for
discretionary listing action.
Discretionary listing could be
initiated by a recommendation
from a federal or state official or
private individual, but certain
formal proceedings, including a
hearing, must take place before
listing occurs.
HAZARDOUS WASTE
Love Canal Ruling
Administrator William D.
Ruckelshaus has denied, for the
time being, a request for EPA to
purchase rental and
non-residential property in the
Love Canal area of Niagara Falls,
N. Y.
In a letter sent August 2 to
Rep. John J. LaFalce (D.-N.Y.),
Ruckelshaus emphasized that the
federal Superfund law will
continue to be used primarily to
protect human health and the
environment rather than for
purchasing property which has
suffered diminished value due to
its proximity to abandoned
hazardous waste sites.
Ruckelshaus denied a request
by LaFalce that EPA purchase a
number of rental homes,
commercial properties,
community facilities, and vacant
lots located within the
Emergency Declaration Area
(EDA) surrounding the Love
Canal Superfund site in Niagara
Falls, N. Y. He promised to
reconsider the decision at a later
date if ongoing habitation
studies at Love Canal indicate
that it would be unsafe to
repopulate the area in the future.
Those studies will be completed
over the next several years.
RCRA Agreement
Secretary of Energy Don Model
and EPA Administrator
Ruckelshaus agreed on August 1
to implement a joint program for
applying the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA) to facilities owned by the
Department of Energy and
operated under the Atomic
Energy Act (AEA).
The agreement announced by
Secretary Hodel and
Administrator Ruckelshaus is
designed to ensure continued
aggressive implementation of
RCRA to protect public health
and the environment, and to
define precisely those instances
when application of RCRA to
energy facilities would be
inconsistent with the Atomic
Energy Act.
New RCRA Permits Procedure
Procedures for granting permits
for above-ground hazardous
waste storage facilities under the
Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) would be
simplified and made less costly
under a new EPA proposal to
create RCRA class permits.
EPA estimates the proposed
rule could save an average of
$11,000 per facility in paperwork
costs, for a total savings of as
much as $18 million for all the
facilities nationwide, with no
relaxation of RCRA's technical
standards.
Under the new procedures,
EPA would group hazardous
waste facilities by class. For
example, the agency would
identify waste facilities with only
above-ground tanks or
containers and group them into
one class. Instead of requiring
each of these facilities to develop
detailed RCRA permit application
packages, the new permit
procedures would require them
only to complete a simple
standard form applying
specifically to their class.
EPA will encourage, but not
require, the states to incorporate
the proposed permit application
form into their authorized RCRA
programs. The public will stitl
have the opportunity to
comment on permit applications
as it does under the present
system.
Mississippi Waste Program
Mississippi has become the
second state to receive final
authorization to operate its own
hazardous waste program. EPA
will continue to furnish federal
grant monies, but the state
began issuing its own permits
effective June 27, 1984. It will
also oversee the sites based on
RCRA rules. The only other state
with operational authority is
Delaware.
PESTICIDES"
Aldicarb Review
EPA has initiated a special
review of the pesticide aldicarb
after determining that continued
use of this product may result in
an unreasonable risk to public
health. The agency based its
decision on evidence that
aldicarb, which has the trade
name Temik, has led to
contamination of ground water
in some states. During the
special review, the risks of
aldicarb will be carefully
examined and a determination
will be made whether such risks
are unreasonable in the light of
known benefits of the product.
Aldicarb is a granular pesticide
used to control root worms,
mites, and insects in soil. It is
currently registered for use on
diied beans, cotton, grapefruit,
lemons, oranges, peanuts,
pecans, potatoes, sorghum,
sugar beets, sugar cane, sweet
potatoes, and ornamentals. First
registered in 1970, aldicarb is
one of the high-volume
pesticides EPA is now reviewing
on an accelerated basis.
Animal tests show the product
to be highly toxic in contact with
the skin, when inhaled, or when
ingested orally. However,
according to a large range of
valid test data reviewed to date,
neither aldicarb nor its
metabolites have been shown to
be carcinogens, mutagens, or
teratogens.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Daminozide Review
EPA has initiated a special
review of daminozide, a pesticide
used primarily on apples and
peanuts, after determining that
continued use of this product
may result in an unreasonable
risk to public health.
Daminozide, which has the
trade name Alar, has caused
tumors in multiple organs of
male and female mice and rats.
It is contaminated with and
breaks down into unsymmetrical,
1, 1-dimethylhydrazine (UDMH),
a known carcinogen.
The agency is concerned about
the long-term chronic effects of
this pesticide and UDMH. The
lifetime dietary risks from
residues on both raw and
processed foods may be high.
EPA does not feel, however, that
the additional 18 months needed
to reach a final decision on this
product will cause significant
problems.
To reduce exposure to field
workers while the review is
going on, the agency has set a
minimum time period of 24
hours before workers can
re-enter a field after it has been
treated with daminozide.
TOXICS
National Dioxin Study
A two-year, $7.4 million national
study to investigate sites that
might be contaminated with low
levels of dioxin began this
summer.
The study is another phase of
a national strategy EPA issued
last December in response to
public concern about the
potential health effects of dioxin.
The first component of the
strategy —investigation of sites
most likely to be contaminated—
is well underway. This includes
the categories (tiers) 1 and 2
where the pesticide 2,4,5-TCP
was produced or used to make
certain other pesticide products,
or where wastes from their
production were disposed of.
EPA believes 80 or 90 percent of
the dioxin in the environment is
located at such sites.
WATER
Michigan Permit Authority
Michigan has become the first
state in the nation to receive
federal authority to administer
and enforce its own dredge and
fill program under the Clean
Water Act.
EPA announced on August 3
that Michigan's request to
administer and enforce the Act's
En/aying the scenery on a clear day at
Bearfence Mountain in Shenandoah National
Park in Virginia.
Back cover: The Grand Canyon area in
Arizona. On the clearest days, visibility in
some parts oi the Southwestern U.S. can
approach 200 miles.
Section 404 permit program had
been approved by EPA Region 5
Administrator Valdas V.
Adamkus.
Under the 404 program, ail
persons proposing to discharge
dredged or fill materials into the
waters of the United States must
obtain a permit. Permits are
issued by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, which evaluates
requests based on criteria
prepared by EPA in conjunction
with the Army. Failure of
dischargers to abide by permit
requirements can result in stiff
civil or criminal penalties. The
Act allows and encourages states
to manage their own 404 permit
programs with EPA approval,
under an amendment passed in
1977. With this approval, Michigan
becomes the first state with
authority to issue permits for all
discharges of dredged and fill
material affecting many state
waterways, including wetlands.
The exceptions are navigable
waterways and those waters that
could reasonably become
navigable. These by law must
remain under Corps of Engineers
control.
AGENCYWIDE
Minority Business
A Memorandum of
Understanding was signed on
July II by EPA and the Minority
Business Development Agency
(MBDA) of the U.S. Department
of Commerce.
The memorandum is designed
to combine the resources of both
agencies to make minority
businesses more aware of, and
enhance their participation in,
contracts available under EPA
grants and cooperative
agreements.
EPA will provide advance
information on its national
procurement opportunities to
MBDA via electronic mail and
encourage grant and cooperative
agreement recipients to use
MBDA subcontractors.
Minority Business
Development Centers, funded by
MBDA, will identify minority
entrepreneurs and offer them
management and technical
assistance for EPA-related
opportunities.
Cost of Clean Air and Water
A new EPA report estimates that
the cost of meeting federal air
and water pollution standards
over the 10 years from 1981 to
1990 will be approximately S526
billion.
The report's cost estimates,
which are based solely on
compliance with federal
regulatory requirements, place
water pollution control
expenditures for the period
1981-1990 at $270 billion, and air
pollution control expenditures at
$256 billion. These costs include
those for capital investment in
pollution control equipment, and
operation and maintenance
expenses.
The report cautions that its
findings do not take into account
the benefits of environmental
programs in terms of improved
public health and welfare.
Therefore, "these forecasts
exaggerate the negative impacts
on inflation and economic
growth." In effect, the report
measures the costs of
environmental regulations, but
does not attempt to assess the
benefits.
-------
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Washington DC 20460
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use
$300
Third-Class Bulk
Postage and Fees Paid
EPA
Permit No. G*35
------- |