Air Plan Approval; Connecticut; Source Monitoring, Record Keeping and Reporting

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R01-OAR-2023-0377; FRL-11783-01-R1]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Connecticut; Source Monitoring, Record Keeping and Reporting</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by the State of Connecticut addressing source monitoring in Connecticut. The principal proposed revision is replacement of Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies (RCSA) section 22a-174-4 (source monitoring, record keeping and reporting), which is currently in the Connecticut SIP, with a new regulation section 22a-174-4a, also called “source monitoring, record keeping and reporting.” The source monitoring SIP revision provides monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements to ensure that certain sources comply with applicable emissions limitations. This action is being taken under the Clean Air Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before April 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R01-OAR-2023-0377 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or via email to Alison Simcox at: <E T="03">simcox.alison@epa.gov.</E> For comments submitted at <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> , follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . 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 ( <E T="03">i.e.</E> on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. For the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> Publicly available docket materials are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Region 1 Regional Office, Air and Radiation Division, 5 Post Office Square—Suite 100, Boston, MA. EPA requests that, if at all possible, you contact the contact listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section to schedule your inspection. The Regional Office's official hours of business are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding legal holidays and facility closures due to COVID-19. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Alison C. Simcox, Air Quality Branch (AQB), Air and Radiation Division (ARD) (Mail Code 5-MD), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 1, 5 Post Office Square, Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109-3912, (617) 918-1684; <E T="03">simcox.alison@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document whenever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background and Purpose</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Summary and Evaluation of Connecticut's SIP Revision</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background and Purpose</HD> RCSA section 22a-174-4, “Source monitoring, record keeping, and reporting” was adopted by the state of Connecticut in 1989. This regulation defined how certain sources of air pollution are required to conduct air emissions and opacity monitoring. In 2003, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) proposed revisions to section 22a-174-4, and, on July 16, 2014, EPA approved 22a-174-4 into the Connecticut SIP (previously codified as Section 19-508-4). <E T="03">See</E> 79 FR 41427. In October 2022, to address changes in federal regulatory requirements and source-monitoring technologies, CT DEEP replaced section 22a-174-4 with 22a-174-4a (also called source monitoring, record keeping, and reporting). This new regulation became effective in Connecticut on October 28, 2022. On November 17, 2022, CT DEEP submitted section 22a-174-4a as a SIP revision for EPA approval. This submission included several citation updates to other SIP-approved regulations (sections 22a-174-3d(f)(1)(B), 22a-174-20(a)(12), 22a-174-22e(m)(1), 22a-174-22e(m)(4), 22a-174-38(j)(1), and 22a-2a-1(b)(3)). On December 19, 2022, CT DEEP submitted a supplement to this SIP revision that withdrew portions of the submitted regulatory text from the November 17, 2022 submittal that are currently not part of the Connecticut SIP (sections 22a-174-3d(f)(1)(B), 22a-174-38(j)(1), and 22a-2a-1(b)(3)). On February 27, 2023, the state submitted a letter withdrawing one additional provision (section 22a-174-4a (g)(6)) of the submitted regulatory text in section 22a-174-4a. This letter also provided additional information about CT DEEP's implementation of “out-of-control” periods. As described below, CT DEEP's SIP submittal, as modified by the December 19, 2022 supplement and the February 27, 2023 letter, strengthens its source monitoring requirements and, thus, the state's ability to detect violations of emission limits. Therefore, we are proposing to approve section 22a-174-4a, except for section 22a-174-4a(g)(6) which CT DEEP excluded from inclusion in the SIP submission, and the citation updates to related EPA-approved regulations into the Connecticut SIP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Summary and Evaluation of Connecticut's SIP Revision</HD> EPA-approved RCSA section 22a-174-4 requires certain stationary sources to install, operate, and maintain opacity and gaseous continuous emissions monitoring (CEM) equipment. Opacity CEMs are also known as continuous opacity monitoring systems (COMS). These stationary sources, with some exemptions, include equipment that combusts coal, liquid or solid fuel-burning equipment with a maximum rated heat input equal to or greater than 250,000,000 British thermal units per hour (Btu/hr), incinerators with a maximum rated input greater than 2,000 pounds per hour (lbs/hr), and process sources with particulate matter (PM) emissions greater than 25 lbs/hr after application of control equipment when operated at maximum rated capacity. Connecticut's SIP submittal, as modified by the December 2022 supplement and the February 2023 letter (described in the background section above), proposes to repeal section 22a-174-4 from the Connecticut SIP and replace it with section 22a-174-4a. The new regulation (section 22a-174-4a) applies to the same group of stationary sources as section 22a-174-4 but is restructured to include provisions that were either missing from or not clearly set out in section 22a-174-4, such as the applicability of the regulation and a distinct separation of opacity monitoring from other pollutant monitoring. The new regulation also provides more detailed and clearer provisions regarding performance specifications and quality-assurance requirements that are consistent with current federal and state requirements. Specifically, section 22a-174-4a adds a separate section on applicability and clarifies that the regulation is intended to ensure compliance with Connecticut General Statute Chapter 446c “Air Pollution Control,” and regulations thereunder, which include all of Section 22a-174 (formerly Sec. 19-508). The new regulation also clarifies that it applies to sources that are required to install, operate, and maintain CEMS or COMS. EPA-approved section 22a-174-4 requires sources with CEMS or COMS to submit a monitoring plan to the state for approval at least 60 days before initiation of required performance specification testing. This plan must contain a description of the source, including type of unit or process, type of fuel combusted, type(s) of emission control devices, and operation parameters, as well as monitoring equipment design, proposed monitor location and sampling site location. In addition, the plan must provide performance specification testing (conducted by the source) for each pollutant, and a quality assurance (QA) plan that includes, among other things, corrective action for monitoring system breakdowns. The new regulation section 22a-174-4a requires a similar monitoring plan, called an “initial monitoring plan,” to be submitted electronically to the state not less than 90 days before initiation of required performance specification testing. This initial monitoring plan must be approved by the state. Section 22a-174-4a adds a new provision ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> not included in 22a-174-4) that if an existing CEMS or COMS undergoes a significant change that makes a previously submitted monitoring plan inaccurate, a revised monitoring plan must be submitted electronically for state approval not more than 14 days after completion of the CEMS or COMS modification. Also, sources are required to maintain hardcopy or electronic records of all monitoring plans (initial and revised). EPA-approved RCSA section 22a-174-4 requires any source with CEM equi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━