In September 2016 we blogged about the backlogs of applications for new and renewed operating permits for major sources of air pollution that existed in Allegheny County (where such sources are regulated by the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD)) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Southwest Regional Office.

Operating permits for major sources of air pollution are required by Title V of the Clean Air Act, and thus are commonly called Title V Operating Permits.

In March 2018, we updated that blog and expanded our research to sources permitted by DEP’s other five regional offices. Because Pennsylvania’s Environmental Quality Board has just proposed to amend the fee schedule for permits issued by DEP’s Air Quality Program, we decided to check back to see the extent to which ACHD and DEP have resolved the backlogs that existed in 2016 and 2018, and thus the extent to which the existing fee schedule might be inadequate to fund the Program’s permitting function.

Here’s what things looked like last year:

Here’s what we found when we updated our research this year:

There are still two major sources of air pollution in Allegheny County that have never been issued Title V Operating Permits – Allegheny Ludlum’s Brackenridge Works and Eastman Chemical.

Additionally, it bears mention that there are also two known non-major sources of air pollution in Allegheny County that are (or were) required to have a Title V Operating Permit that have never had one:  Harsco Metals and Alcosan – in certain situations, the Clean Air Act requires a non-major source to obtain a Title V Operating Permit; Harsco and Alcosan each fall into such a situation.

We are omitting such non-major Title V sources from this analysis to try to ensure that the comparisons we make between ACHD and the various DEP regional offices are valid.

With respect to Title V Operating Permits for major sources of air pollution in Allegheny County, ACHD has failed to act on renewal applications for five such sources within 18 months as its regulations require:

ACHD LATE TITLE V OPERATING PERMIT RENEWALS
(AS OF 2/13/2018)

It bears mention that in early 2019 ACHD published for public comment a draft Title V Operating Permit for the Buckeye Pipe Line/Coraopolis Terminal. There is thus reason to think that site will be removed from ACHD’s list of backlogged renewals relatively soon.

For purposes of air quality permitting, DEP’s Southwest Region now includes sources in Beaver, Cambria, Greene, Somerset, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties.  Responsibility for administering the Title V permitting program for sources in Armstrong and Indiana Counties was transferred from the Southwest Region to DEP’s Northwest Region in early 2019.

We currently count 61 major sources in the reduced-size Southwest Region, with 15 of those sources having renewal applications for operating permits that have been pending for more than 18 months.

SWRO LATE TITLE V OPERATING PERMIT RENEWALS
(AS OF 2/13/2018)

DEP’s Northwest Region (“NWRO”) now includes Armstrong and Indiana Counties for Title V permitting purposes, as well as Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Mercer, and Venango Counties.

We count 73 active major sources of air pollution in the Northwest Region.  Five of those 73 facilities have had renewal applications for their Title V Operating Permits pending for more than 18 months:

It is worth noting that four of those five sources were among those transferred from the Southwest Region in early 2019.

DEP’s Northcentral Region (NCRO) includes Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Columbia, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, and Union Counties.

We counted 63 major sources of air pollution in the Northcentral Region. Although there are no sites in the region with renewal applications that have been pending for more than 18 months, two sites in the region (if they are active) may be operating without having submitted required applications for operating permits, which would seem to be violations of the Clean Air Act and Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act.

DEP’s Northeast Region (NERO) includes Carbon, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Northampton, Pike, Schuykill, Susquehanna, Wayne, and Wyoming Counties.

We counted 62 active major sources of air pollution in those counties, three of which have had applications for their Title V Operating Permits pending for at least 18 months:

DEP’s Southcentral Region (SCRO) includes Adams, Bedford, Berks, Blair, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Huntington, Juniata, Lancaster, Lebanon, Mifflin, Perry, and York Counties. We counted 125 active major source of air pollution in these counties, only one of which has had a renewal application for a Title V Operating Permit pending for more than eighteen months:

DEP’s Southeast Region (SERO) includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties for purposes of permitting sources of air pollution (Philadelphia’s Air Management Services administers the Title V permitting program for facilities located in Philadelphia).

We counted 94 active major sources of air pollution in the Southeast Region, two of which have had renewal applications for Title V Operating Permits pending for more than 18 months:

This chart summarizes the performance of all the regions discussed above, as well as the performance of ACHD and DEP’s Southwest Region as discussed in our earlier blog:

Thus, in the last year, the permit backlog at DEP’s Southwest Region appears to have gotten worse, while the backlogs at ACHD and DEP’s Northeast Region have been reduced.