National Ambient Air Quality Standards: Determinations of Attainment, Extensions of the Attainment Date, and Reclassification of Several Areas Classified as Moderate for the 2008 Ozone Standards; Supplemental Proposal; Baltimore, Maryland Area Exceptional Events

Published date07 May 2019
Citation84 FR 19893
Record Number2019-09341
SectionProposed rules
CourtEnvironmental Protection Agency
Federal Register, Volume 84 Issue 88 (Tuesday, May 7, 2019)
[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 88 (Tuesday, May 7, 2019)]
                [Proposed Rules]
                [Pages 19893-19895]
                From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
                [FR Doc No: 2019-09341]
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                ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
                40 CFR Part 52 and 81
                [EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0226; FRL-9993-32-Region 3]
                National Ambient Air Quality Standards: Determinations of
                Attainment, Extensions of the Attainment Date, and Reclassification of
                Several Areas Classified as Moderate for the 2008 Ozone Standards;
                Supplemental Proposal; Baltimore, Maryland Area Exceptional Events
                AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
                ACTION: Proposed rule; reopening of comment period; availability of
                supplemental information.
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                SUMMARY: On November 14, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency
                (EPA) proposed several actions related to the attainment date for 11
                areas classified as ``Moderate'' for the 2008 ozone National Ambient
                Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), including proposing to determine that
                the Baltimore, Maryland nonattainment area (Baltimore Area) attained
                the standard by the July 20, 2018 attainment date. Under the statute,
                EPA must determine whether ozone nonattainment areas attained the NAAQS
                by the attainment date, and, within six months of the attainment date,
                publish a document in the Federal Register identifying each area that
                is determined as having failed to attain and identifying the
                reclassification. EPA is re-opening the comment period for the proposed
                rule published on November 14, 2018, but only with respect to EPA's
                proposed determination for the Baltimore Area, because EPA erroneously
                omitted documents related to the State of Maryland's exceptional events
                (EE) demonstration related to the 2016 Canadian wildfires, and in the
                proposal
                [[Page 19894]]
                did not mention EPA's concurrence on certain Maryland EE claims that
                impacted the air quality data that EPA relied on in its proposed
                determination that the Baltimore Area attained by its 2008 Moderate
                Area attainment date. This supplemental proposed rule corrects this
                omission and provides notice of the availability of the documents
                supporting EPA's analysis.
                DATES: The comment date for the proposed rule published November 14,
                2018, at 83 FR 56781, is reopened. Written comments must be received on
                or before May 22, 2019.
                ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
                OAR-2018-0226 at https://www.regulations.gov, or via email to
                [email protected]. For comments submitted at Regulations.gov,
                follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted,
                comments cannot be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. For either
                manner of submission, the EPA may publish any comment received to its
                public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you
                consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other
                information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia
                submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written
                comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and
                should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will
                generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of
                the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other file sharing
                system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person
                identified in the For Further Information Contact section. For the full
                EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia
                submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please
                visit http://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
                FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Maria A. Pino, (215) 814-2181,
                Planning & Implementation Branch (3AD30), Air & Radiation Division,
                U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1650 Arch Street,
                Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. The telephone number is (215) 814-
                2181. Ms. Pino can also be reached via electronic mail at
                [email protected].
                SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On November 14, 2018, EPA proposed, among
                other actions, to determine that the Baltimore Area attained the 2008
                ozone NAAQS by the July 20, 2018 attainment date. See 83 FR 56781. This
                supplemental proposal does not address any other actions proposed in
                that rulemaking relating to ten other Moderate nonattainment areas for
                the 2008 ozone NAAQS. In this action, EPA is announcing the
                availability of documents related to Maryland's EE demonstration
                related to the 2016 Canadian wildfires and EPA's evaluation and
                concurrence on certain aspects of that demonstration, which can be
                found in the docket for this rulemaking and online at
                www.regulations.gov. The documents include Maryland's EE submittals,
                EPA's technical support documents (TSDs), and EPA's concurrence letter.
                This action will allow interested persons additional time to review
                those documents and prepare and submit comments. EPA notes that the
                supplemental comment period is 15 days due to the narrow scope of this
                supplemental proposal and the fact that the documents related to
                Maryland's EE demonstration were previously made available to the
                public in the docket for the 2015 ozone NAAQS designations.\1\
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                 \1\ The documents associated with Maryland's EE demonstration
                are found at document number EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0548-0336, at
                www.regulations.gov in Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0548 for EPA's
                Air Quality Designations and Classifications for the 2015 Ozone
                Standards.
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                 By letters and enclosures dated May 26, 2017 and October 20, 2017,
                the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) submitted EE
                demonstrations related to the May 25 and 26, 2016 Fort McMurray
                wildfire and the July 21 and 22, 2016 northwestern Canada wildfires.
                MDE determined that the Fort McMurray and northwestern Canada wildfires
                caused elevated ozone concentrations at 16 and 12 monitors,
                respectively, throughout Maryland. On December 26, 2017, EPA concurred
                on MDE's EE demonstration for numerous monitors, including three
                monitors in the Baltimore Area, which includes Baltimore City and the
                Counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard, all
                in Maryland. Pursuant to EPA's concurrence, EPA excluded the
                corresponding data affected by the wildfires from EPA's Air Quality
                System (AQS), the database in which air quality data is collected.
                Excluding this data affects the calculated design values at the
                affected monitors. Due to the exclusion of the EE data, the 2015-2017
                design values of the Glen Burnie, Edgewood, and Furley monitors in the
                Baltimore area changed as shown in Table 1.\2\
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                 \2\ This data is included in the docket for this rulemaking
                available online at https://www.regulations.gov, Docket ID: Docket
                ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0226.
                 Table 1--2015-2017 Design Values Before and After EE Data Exclusion, in Parts per Billion (ppb)
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                 2015-2017
                 Initial 2015- Design value
                 Site name County/city Monitor ID 2017 design excluding EE
                 value data
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                Glen Burnie........................... Anne Arundel County..... 240031003 74 73
                Edgewood.............................. Harford County.......... 240251001 76 75
                Furley................................ Baltimore City.......... 245100054 72 69
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                 The design values shown in the column in Table 1 labelled ``2015-
                2017 Design Value Excluding EE Data'' are the design values upon which
                EPA relied in the Agency's November 14, 2018 proposal. EPA notes that
                the design values for the Glen Burnie and Furley monitors were below
                the level of the 2008 ozone NAAQS, which is set at 75 ppb, before the
                EE data was excluded. However, the design value at the Edgewood monitor
                (monitor 240251001) only attained the 2008 ozone NAAQS when the EE data
                that EPA determined was influenced by the Fort McMurray and
                northwestern Canada wildfires was excluded from AQS. EPA's concurrence
                on this data exclusion, which influenced EPA's proposed determination
                of attainment by the attainment date for the 2008 ozone NAAQS, is now
                available in the docket for this action at www.regulations.gov.
                [[Page 19895]]
                List of Subjects
                40 CFR Part 52
                 Environmental protection, Administrative practice and procedure,
                Air pollution control, Designations and classifications, Incorporation
                by reference, Intergovernmental relations, Nitrogen oxides, Ozone,
                Reporting and recordkeeping requirements and Volatile organic
                compounds.
                40 CFR Part 81
                 Environmental protection, Administrative practice and procedure,
                Air pollution control, Designations and classifications,
                Intergovernmental relations, Nitrogen oxides, Ozone, Reporting and
                recordkeeping requirements, and Volatile organic compounds.
                 Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.
                 Dated: April 25, 2019.
                Cosmo Servidio,
                Regional Administrator, Region III.
                [FR Doc. 2019-09341 Filed 5-6-19; 8:45 am]
                 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P
                

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