State of California AIR RESOURCES BOARD Redding County Courthouse 1500 Court Street Redding, CA March 7, 1973 9:30 a.m. AGENDA 73-5-1 Approval of Minutes of February 21, 1973 Meeting. 73-5-2 Consideration of Local Rules and Regulations for Agricultural Processing Plants. 73-5-3 Report on the Status of the Programs to Regulate Agricultural Burning. 73-5-4 Report on Environmental Protection Agency Hearings on Transportation Control for the South Coast Air Basin. 73-5-5 Consideration of Transportation Controls for San Francisco and San Diego Air Basins, and Sacramento and Fresno Areas. 73-5-6 Report on Air Basin Boundaries. A. Report of Emission and Control Committee on Proposed Mountain Counties Air Basin. B. Staff Report on Request for Changes in other Boundaries. 73-5-7 Other Business. 73-5-8 Remarks from the Audience. ITEM NO.: 73-5-2 Consideration of local rules and regulations for agricultural processing plants. RECOMMENDATION Glenn County's Rules and Regulations should be revised to conform with the requirements specified in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin Implementation Plan. If necessary, the Board should hold a public hearing to consider revising Glenn County's definition of "Agricultural Operations." The Board may with to adopt Resolution 73-9, thereby declaring its intention to hold a public hearing. FACTS AND DISCUSSION 1. Application of local regulations to agricultural operations. a. In most air pollution control districts, agricultural operations are not exempted from grain loading and process weight rules. b. Some of the districts in Sacramento Valley exempt agricultural operations in the growing of crops and raising of fowls and animals from grain loading and process weight rules. These operations, however, are not amenable to control by these regulations. c. Smoke from fires for the growing of crops and raising of fowls and animals is exempted from Health and Safety Code Section 39077 (nuisance) and Section 39077.1 (Ringelmann). 2. Requirements of the Implementation Plan of the Sacramento Valley Air Basin Coordinating Council. a. The Sacramento Valley Air Basin Coordinating Council Implementation Plan defines "agricultural operations" as: "The growing and harvesting of crops, including timber, or the raising of fowls, animals or bees, for the primary purpose of earning a living. b. The Sacramento Valley Air Basin Coordinating Council Implementation Plan also calls for process weight and grain loading regulations to control particulate emissions and a permit system which requires permits for construction, modification, or operation of any potential new source of air pollution. For existing sources, the plan requires either registration or a permit system. Agricultural implements used in agricultural operations on the farm, however, are generally exempted from the permit system. Agricultural operations as defined in the implementation plan are not subject to process weight and grain loading regulation or the permit to operate system. c. All counties except Glenn County in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin have adopted a definition for agricultural operations consistent with the implementation plan. Glenn County's definition of "agricultural operations" is: "The growing and harvesting of crops, including timber, or the raising of fowls, animals, fish, or bees, for the primary purpose of earning a living, and any support or processing operation that is seasonal in nature and necessary to the successful starting, growing, harvesting and preserving of such crops." d. All air pollution control districts in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin have adopted process weight and grain loading regulations to control particulate matter. 3. Problems. a. Because of the way "agricultural operations" is defined, some existing agricultural processing plants are not subject to the nuisance, Ringelmann, grain loading and process weight rules in Glenn County. New dryers in Glenn County will be required to meet grain loading and process weight rules and to obtain authority to construct but not permit to operate. b. This exception provided by Glenn County has cause enforcement problems in other counties in the air basin. c. The Colusa County Air Pollution Control District has asked the Board to consider a similar exemption for Colusa County. (See attached letter.) d. The enforcement problem encountered in other districts was brought to the attention of the Board's Emissions and Control Committee at the Sacramento Valley Air Basin Technical Advisory Committee Meeting, January 19, 1973. e. The major agricultural processing operation in Glenn County is rice drying. Most dryers are in sparsely populated areas. One is in the City of Willows. f. The dryer in Willows has been a source of complaint. Conclusions The dryers in Glenn County, particularly the one in Willows, should be controlled as are dryers in other districts. The Glenn County rules and regulations should be amended to require control of emissions from the dryers and other agricultural processing plants that are currently exempted. ITEM NO.: 73-5-3 Status Report on State and Local Programs to Regulate Agricultural Burning. RECOMMENDATION This report was prepared in response to a request by the Board for information on the quantities of materials burned on "permissive-burn" and "no-burn" days and information on actions taken to enforce agricultural burning Implementation Plans by local districts. DISCUSSION 1. The program to regulate Agricultural Burning was initiated with the promulgation of the Board's Agricultural Burning Guidelines on March 17, 1971, as required under Section 39298.2 of the California Health and Safety Code. These Guidelines provided the basis for local control districts to regulate the burning of agricultural waste in the following six air basins: Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area, South Coast, North Central Coast, and South Central Coast. Guidelines for regulating range improvement and forest management burning and the burning of agricultural waste in the entire state where promulgated on June 21, 1972. 2. The Air Pollution Control Districts in the original 6 air basins were required to adopt implementation plans for regulation of the burning of agricultural waste by September 20, 1971. The plans were required to include provisions regarding preparation of the waste as well as enforcement procedures, which included issuance of permits by fire protection agencies. The Bay Area, orange and San Bernardino Air Pollution Control Districts and a portion of Los Angeles County were not required to submit their plans because these districts had established regulations to control agricultural burning before September 20, 1965. 3. The guidelines allow the burning of agricultural waste on days designated by the Board as "permissive-burn" days. The issuance of burning notices began on September 27, 1971. The districts are permitted to authorize burning on days designated as "no-burn" days if the denial of such burning permits would threaten imminent and substantial economic loss to the farmer. 4. The Guidelines adopted on March 17, 1971 required quarterly reports of permits issued for burning on "no-burn" days. A report of burning on "permissive-burn" days was not required by the Guidelines. The districts were asked to provide information on the amount of wastes burned on permissive-burn days. The information is being used to evaluate the effect of the program. Guidelines adopted on June 21, 1972 expanded this reporting program to required reports of agricultural burning on "permissive-burn" days as well as on "no-burn" days. The first reports under the new reporting program are due from the districts in late April 1973. 5. The primary responsibility for the regulation of Agricultural Burning rests with the local district. This includes enforcement of the burning ban on "no-burn" days and requiring that all burning be done in accordance with conditions specified in the permit. The district has the additional responsibility to insure that authority to burn on a "no-burn" day is given only if there is a threat of imminent and substantial economic loss. The legal avenues available to the districts to prevent burning on "no-burn" days and burning without a permit include warnings, citations, and court prosecution. A violation of the Agricultural Burning Regulations is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500), or both, and the cost of putting out the fire. District enforcement actions taken during 1972 by air basin as reported informally by the districts are summarized in Table 1. Of the 31 districts required to regulate agricultural burning in 1972, 15 did not report that enforcement actions were necessary. One problem in district enforcement is the lack of specific criteria for determining "threat of imminent and substantial economic loss' prior to issuance of a permit to burn on "no-burn" days. Some districts do not issue any such permits; others do so only on the advice of the Agricultural Commissioner's office. Other districts issue such permits only to destroy a disease or pest which cannot be controlled by any other means. Permits to allow burning on a "no-burn" day must be reported to the Board. The report must include a summary of reasons why denial of such permit would threaten imminent and substantial economic loss. There have been 574 permits reported in 1972 (the reports for the period October 1 to December 31 have not all been submitted). The reports for 25 of the permits did not contain sufficient detail to determine a threat of imminent and substantial economic loss. Further information was requested from the district for these permits. In most of the 25 cases the districts could not substantiate the issuing of a permit to burn on a "no-burn" day. The districts reported that their records did not show the reasons, and could not recall the reasons because the permits were issued several months ago. Of the remaining 549 permits, 31 were issued for reasons clearly indicating imminent and substantial economic loss. These permits were issued to control disease and pests. The other 518 permits were issued for the following reasons: (1) burn before spraying or fertilizing, (2) burn for double cropping, (3) burn for orchard conversion, (4) to meet equipment schedules or utilize contracted labor, and (5) burn before rain. Enforcement is a problem in many districts that have small staffs and large amounts of agricultural burning. Few districts have the resources to inspect each proposed burn site prior to the burn, although several do inspect each proposed burn site prior to allowing burning on a "no-burn" day. Few districts reported having field patrols on "no-burn" days. In many districts, however, the public and the agricultural operators take an active interest in the program and assist the district in enforcement. 6. The Board staff has been working with the districts in establishing active enforcement programs. We have been reviewing the district reports on permits issued on "no-burn" days. We have not, however, gone into the field to check possible violations. It is not clear at this time what level of enforcement by the Board staff would be necessary. Routine field visits would require personnel not included in the present budget. Randomly scheduled aircraft surveillance on a few days during the burn season is being explored as a means for enforcement. 7. The districts are required by the guidelines to report data regarding permits issued to burn on "no-burn" days. The daily tonnage of material burned was estimated for each permit in addition to verifying the validity of the seasons for issuing the permit. Reports for the period January 1 to September 30 of 1972 have been received from all but one district. Reports for the period October 1 to December 31, 1972 are not complete. Figure I shows the number of permits issued for burning and the estimated tonnage of material burned on "no-burn" days. Figure II shows the amounts and percentage of waste reported burned on "permissive-burn" and "no-burn" days. The amount of material burned on "no-burn" days in some cases is a high percentage of the total waste burned. In others, the percentage may be small, but the total amount of waste is large (over 114,000 tons for a three month period in the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin). The districts were asked to report the daily amount of material burned on "permissive-burn" days. Some districts submitted incomplete information; others did not submit any. Many districts submitted copies of the burning permits issued (approximately 35,000 were reviewed by the board's staff for the period January 1 to September 30, 1972). Most of the information presented in figure II regarding the waste burned on "permissive-burn" days was estimated from the information stated in the burning permits. The accuracy or completeness of the information is not known. Figure III shows the amount of waste reported burned for the period January 1 to September 30, 1972. 8. Hand tabulation of the information from burning permits is time consuming and results produced from manual manipulation of the information are inaccurate. A computer system for reporting the daily amount of waste burned is being developed. This system requires that the amount of waste burned by each agricultural operator be logged daily by the district or fire control agency. This information will be forwarded to the Board staff and transferred to a computer data bank. Daily totals for each crop type in each district will then be made available to the district. This system is anticipated to be in use by May 1, 1973. The information to be provided by the computer should enable comparison of daily amounts of waste burned with air quality measurements. ITEM NO.: 73-5-4 EPA hearings on transportation controls for the South Coast Air Basin. RECOMMENDATIONS None. This is an information report. SUMMARY Vice Chairman H. Sullivan presented testimony at the Environmental Protection Agency hearing on transportation controls on March 6, 1973 in Los Angeles, California. This is the first of series of nine hearings to be held in the South Coast Air Basin. A copy of EPA's hearing notice is attached. ITEM NO.: 73-5-5 Consideration of Transportation Controls for San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, San Joaquin Valley, and Sacramento Valley Air Basins. RECOMMENDATION Develop transportation control plans for the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, San Joaquin Valley, and Sacramento Valley Air Basins; hold public hearings on these proposed plans and submit the plans to EPA after adoption. FACTS AND DISCUSSION 1. When EPA issued its approval/disapproval of the State Implementation Plan on May 31, 1972 ("Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans"), it included the requirement that the State submit a transportation control plan to EPA before February 15, 1973 for the South Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento Valley, and San Joaquin Valley Air Basins. 2. On September 6, 1972, a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Central district of California (City of Riverside, et.al. V. Ruckelshaus) directed EPA to propose before January 15, 1973, a transportation plan that would be capable of achieving the oxidant standard in the South Coast Air Basin. 3. The EPA has proposed a plan for the South Coast Air Basin. Hearings on the proposed plan are being conducted during the month of March in several areas in the Air Basin, a schedule of the hearings is included under agenda item 4. The Board's comments were presented by Mr. Harold Sullivan at the March 5, 1973 hearing. 4. On January 31, 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (National Resources Defense Council, Inc. V. EPA) extended the February 15, 1973 deadline for submittal of transportation plans to April 15, 1973. 5. The staff is developing plans for submission to EPA. The plans are expected to include: a. An emission inventory which includes data acquired after the original Implementation Plan was completed. b. A revision of control strategy, taking into account the information developed by the staff and obtained by the Board at public meetings on gaseous fuel conversion, on short-term motor vehicle emission control and on NOx control from stationary sources. c. Specific proposals on a program of inspection and maintenance; conversion of vehicles to use gaseous fuels; program of control emissions from used cars, including installation of catalytic devices; and control of evaporative emissions from petroleum marketing. d. Report on the status of proposal on evaporative control of emissions from used cars. e. Discussion of the feasibility of reducing traffic in San Diego, Bay Area and South Coast Air Basins. f. Incorporation of the effects of Federal proposals for control of aircraft. 6. The new emission inventory is being developed; a copy should be available at the board meeting on March 7. The preliminary data indicate that implementation of the technical measures listed in 5c above would enable the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valley Air Basins to come close to the oxidant standard. Additional measures of traffic reduction are needed, however, for the South Coast, Bay Area and San Diego Air Basins. 7. The staff proposes to include in the plans the following actions. a. ARB has contacted, and will work with local authorities on transportation plans that consider air quality. b. The State has recognized the need for transportation planning that takes into account air quality. c. A Department of Transportation will be established on July 1, 1973. A State Transportation Plan which includes consideration of air pollutants will be developed by January 1, 1976. 8. The staff has scheduled a meeting with representatives of the BAAPCD and of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to discuss specific items to be included in the transportation plan for the Bay Area. A meeting with San Diego County representatives although not yet arranged, is expected to take place late in March. 9. Considering the time required to develop the plans, the time for scheduling and for advance notices of public hearings and for modifying the proposed plans after the hearings it will be June of this year at the earliest before the plans are ready for delivery to EPA. 10. The plan for the South Coast Air Basin would not include specific methods for VMT reduction because of the EPA hearings which are considering these strategies. ITEM NO.: 73-5-6A Proposed Mountain Counties Air Basin. RECOMMENDATION None, this is information related to agenda item 73-5-6B concerning the status of all present requests for air basin boundary changes. SUMMARY The Emissions and Control Committee held a public hearing on February 9, 1973 in Placerville, California to consider the request of several mountain counties in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley Air Basins that the Air Resources Board establish a new Mountain Counties Air Basin. Attached is a draft summary of the testimony presented. ITEM NO.: 73-5-7B Status Report on Requests For Change in Air Basin Boundaries. RECOMMENDATION This is an informational report. DISCUSSION 1. Subsequent to the establishment of the boundaries for air basins on November 20, 1968, four changes in basin boundaries were made. The boundaries in Kern, Siskiyou, Solano and Sonoma Counties were changed in response to requests from the various counties. The Environmental Protection Agency administration have not made corresponding changes in Federal Air Quality Control Regions. (See attached map). 2. Recently, several requests have been submitted to the Board concerning air basin boundary changes. San Diego County has requested to be removed from the Southeast Desert Air Basin making the entire county a single air basin. Lake County has made a similar request. Several mountain counties in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley Air Basins have requested the formation of a Mountain Counties Air Basin. 3. A public hearing was held, February 9, 1973, on the creation of a Mountain Counties Air Basin. 4. On February 7, the Board directed its Emissions and Control Committee to review the overall air basin concept and report back with its recommendations. 5. The staff has forwarded to the Emissions and Control Committee for study, copies of the original TAC report, the Bureau of Air Sanitation report, the recently revised report on air basins and various Board agenda materials for consideration of boundary changes. 6. The staff is assisting the Board's Emissions and Control Committee in the review of criteria for setting basin boundaries. 7. The Counties requesting the changes have been informed that their requests are being evaluated by the Board's Committee on Emissions and Control. ITEM NO.: 73-5-7A EPA hearing on aircraft emission standards. RECOMMENDATION None. This is an information report. SUMMARY The staff presented testimony at the Environmental Protection Agency's hearing in Los Angeles urging the EPA to consider using the Ringelmann Rule for the control of visible emissions and tightening of the proposed exhaust emission standards in order that aircraft emissions control program be consistent with the goal of achieving the air quality standards by 1977. Copies of the proposed EPA regulations and staff testimony are attached. ITEM NO.: 73-5-7B Accreditations of the Carter Carburetor Device. RECOMMENDATION Adoption of Resolution 73-11. SUMMARY At the February 21 meeting, the Board adopted a motion accrediting the Carter Carburetor retrofit exhaust device for 1966070 vehicles. The adoption of attached Resolution 73-11 will confirm the Board's action for record purposes. ITEM NO.: 73-5-7C Tentative Schedule of Meeting Places and Dates. RECOMMENDATION Confirm schedule. SUMMARY Attached is a tentative schedule for Board meeting dates through December 1973. Adoption of this list will delete the meeting presently scheduled for Tahoe, California on June 7, 1973.