Air pollution down in eastern Arkansas

County hoping to attract industry

Crittenden County Judge Woody Wheeless is glad the county finally got what he says it deserved: Word from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that its air quality is up to snuff.

The EPA approved this month Arkansas' petition to have the county removed from its list of places with too much ground-level ozone -- a gas in the air that can intensify allergies or respiratory problems.

The county was determined to be in compliance with the 2008 standard, and officials are optimistic that the county will stay in compliance even with the EPA's stricter standard announced last fall.

Areas above the ideal ozone level are evaluated by the state to determine how to meet ozone goals. Solutions often involve controls on emissions sources and more intensive permitting processes for businesses. Attaining the ozone standard means that those restrictions go away.

After three years of ozone levels below the legal limit of 75 parts of ozone per billion parts of air, Crittenden County was designated as in attainment April 13. The state and county first made the request in December and had it tentatively approved pending public comment in January.

"Now we believe we have the potential for industries to come and look at our area," Wheeless said.

Crittenden County, along with Shelby County, Tenn., and part of DeSoto County, Miss., were considered out of attainment off and on for 10 years because of emissions, including vehicle emissions in the area heavily traveled by trucks.

Ground-level ozone, often referred to as smog, forms when car exhaust and industrial emissions react to high temperatures and sunlight. Such ozone is considered a public-health issue. Under worse weather conditions, high levels of ozone can create respiratory problems for anyone who goes outside. Ozone that occurs at a higher atmospheric level, commonly called the ozone layer, is considered protective of the Earth's atmosphere.

Last October, the EPA made its ground-level ozone standard more strict, tightening it to 70 parts of ozone per billion parts of air starting in 2017.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers denounced the new limit. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has joined eight other states in a lawsuit against the EPA, arguing that the new standard would have a detrimental economic effect on Arkansas.

But local, state and EPA officials have predicted that the new standard will have no impact within Arkansas' borders.

Eddie Brawley, study director for the West Memphis Area Transportation Study, said he wasn't worried about the new standard because the county's ozone levels were below that.

"So unless we have a bad ozone day then, we should be all right, we can meet that," Brawley said.

Brawley said cars emit cleaner exhaust than ever before, which he said will reduce ozone levels. And during the county's period of noncompliance, he said, much of the local diesel equipment was retrofitted to improve emissions.

Ozone is measured daily. An area's ozone levels are calculated by taking the fourth-highest daily ozone level each year for three years of ozone data, then averaging those numbers. Using 2015 ozone season data -- considered May 1 through Sept. 30 -- each ozone monitoring site in Arkansas came in under 70 parts per billion for its three-year average.

Areas won't be designated as in attainment or not in attainment with the new standard until 2017, when the EPA will consider data from 2014 through 2016. All but about a dozen counties in the United States -- with the exception of California, where a nagging issue with smog has put the state on a different timeline -- are expected to be in compliance with the new standard by 2025 without having to take any additional action to reduce emissions, according to the EPA.

Getting into compliance took Crittenden County about four years. After being designated as out of attainment in 2012, the county had three years -- 2012, 2013, 2014 -- of ozone that was low enough to reduce its three-year average. It then had to make its case for being in attainment during the course of another year.

During that time, Wheeless and Brawley said they worried about manufacturers building plants elsewhere for fear of ozone permit limits in Crittenden County.

"It's kind of like having a bad grade, and until you get a good grade you're not going to get out of school," Wheeless said.

When an international car manufacturer scouted out the county a decade ago but decided to build elsewhere, people suspected it had to do with the ozone permit limits, but that was never confirmed, Brawley said.

Beyond economics, he said, being in compliance is good for health.

"It means you've got cleaner air, and that's good," Brawley said.

Metro on 04/24/2016

Upcoming Events