Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Mecklenburg Emission Control Standards and Nitrogen Oxides

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R04-OAR-2021-0264; FRL-8980-01-R4]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Mecklenburg Emission Control Standards and Nitrogen Oxides</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 to the Mecklenburg County portion of the North Carolina SIP, hereinafter referred to as the Mecklenburg Local Implementation Plan (LIP). The revision was submitted by the State of North Carolina, through the North Carolina Division of Air Quality (NCDAQ), on behalf of Mecklenburg County Air Quality (MCAQ) via a letter dated April 24, 2020. The revision includes updates to various emission control standards contained in the Mecklenburg County Air Pollution Control Ordinance (MCAPCO) incorporated into the LIP. EPA is proposing to approve these changes pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before August 26, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R04-OAR-2021-0264 at <E T="03">www.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> . 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. 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, the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Josue Ortiz Borrero, Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. The telephone number is (404) 562-8085. Mr. Ortiz Borrero can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">ortizborrero.josue@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The original Mecklenburg County LIP was submitted to EPA on June 14, 1990, and EPA approved the plan on May 2, 1991. <E T="03">See</E> 56 FR 20140. Mecklenburg County prepared three submittals to modify the LIP for, among other things, general consistency with the North Carolina SIP. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The three submittals were submitted as follows: NCDAQ transmitted the October 25, 2017, submittal to EPA but later withdrew it from review through a letter dated February 15, 2019. On April 24, 2020, NCDAQ resubmitted the October 25, 2017, update to EPA and also submitted the January 21, 2016, and January 14, 2019, updates. Due to an inconsistency with public notice at the local level, these submittals were withdrawn from EPA through a letter dated February 15, 2019. Mecklenburg County corrected this error, and NCDAQ submitted the updates to EPA in a submittal dated April 24, 2020. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The Mecklenburg County, North Carolina revision that is dated April 24, 2020, and received by EPA on June 19, 2020, is comprised of three previous submittals—one dated January 21, 2016; one dated October 25, 2017; and one dated January 14, 2019. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  EPA notes that the April 24, 2020, submission was received by EPA on June 19, 2020. For clarity, throughout this notice EPA will refer to the June 19, 2020, submission by its cover letter date of April 24, 2020. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What action is EPA taking?</HD> The April 24, 2020, submittal includes changes and updates to the following rules to align them more closely with their analogous SIP-approved North Carolina regulations: MCAPCO Rules 2.0502, <E T="03">Purpose;</E> 2.0507, <E T="03">Particulates from Chemical Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants;</E> 2.0508, <E T="03">Particulates from Pulp and Paper Mills;</E> 2.0513, <E T="03">Particulates from Portland Cement Plants;</E> 2.0514, <E T="03">Particulates from Ferrous Jobbing Foundries;</E> 2.0515, <E T="03">Particulates from Miscellaneous Industrial Processes;</E> and 2.0533, <E T="03">Stack Height.</E> <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> EPA is proposing to incorporate these rules into the Mecklenburg LIP. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  EPA has previously taken action on portions of the April 24, 2020, submittal. The April 24, 2020, submittal contains changes to other Mecklenburg LIP-approved rules that are not addressed in this document. EPA will be acting on those rules in separate actions. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Rule 2.0502, “Purpose”</HD> The April 24, 2020, revision updates Rule 2.0502, <E T="03">Purpose,</E> under Article 2.0000, <E T="03">Air Pollution and Control Regulations and Procedures,</E> to more closely align the rule with the SIP-approved State rule at 15A NCAC 02D .0502, <E T="03">Purpose.</E> The April 24, 2020, revision corrects a typographical error, removing the “s” from the word “Section.” EPA is proposing to approve Rule 2.0502 because it better aligns the LIP with the SIP and will not interfere with any applicable CAA requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Rule 2.0507, “Particulates From Chemical Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants”</HD> The April 24, 2020, revision updates Rule 2.0507, <E T="03">Particulates from Chemical Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants,</E> to more closely align the rule with the SIP-approved State rule at 15A NCAC 02D .0507, <E T="03">Particulates from Chemical Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants.</E> Rule 2.0507 is revised to convert the text emission rates from the current version of the LIP-approved rule into equations for readability, along with a non-substantive phrasing change. EPA is proposing to approve Rule 2.0507 because it better aligns the LIP with the SIP and will not interfere with any applicable CAA requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">3. Rule 2.0508, “Particulates From Pulp and Paper Mills”</HD> The April 24, 2020, revision updates Rule 2.0508, which is currently entitled <E T="03">Control of Particulates from Pulp and Paper Mills</E> in the Mecklenburg LIP. The update renames the rule <E T="03">Particulates from Pulp and Paper Mills</E> and increases the stringency of the opacity standards in Paragraph (b) of the rule. The update also includes non-substantive formatting changes. These changes more closely aligns the rule with the SIP-approved State rule at 15A NCAC 02D .0508, <E T="03">Particulates from Pulp and Paper Mills.</E> Rule 2.0508 differs from its State counterpart by starting the second sentence under Paragraph (b) with “However,” and changing the capital “S” in “Six” to lower-case. EPA is proposing to approve Rule 2.0508 because it better aligns the LIP with the SIP and will not interfere with any applicable CAA requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">4. Rule 2.0513, “Particulates From Portland Cement Plants”</HD> The April 24, 2020, revision updates Rule 2.0513, which is currently entitled <E T="03">Control of Particulates from Portland Cement Plants</E> in the Mecklenburg LIP. The update names the rule <E T="03">Particulates from Portland Cement Plants</E> and includes non-substantive wording and formatting changes. These changes more closely align the rule with the SIP-approved State rule at 15A NCAC 02D .0513, <E T="03">Particulates from Portland Cement Plants.</E> EPA is proposing to approve Rule 2.0513 because it better aligns the LIP with the SIP and will not interfere with any applicable CAA requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">5. Rule 2.0514, “Particulates From Ferrous Jobbing Foundries”</HD> The April 24, 2020, revision updates Rule 2.0514, which is currently entitled <E T="03">Control of Particulates from Ferrous Jobbing Foundries</E> in the Mecklenburg LIP. The update renames the rule <E T="03">Particulates from Ferrous Jobbing Foundries</E> and includes formatting and wording changes. The revised rule also updates the cross-reference to Regulation 2.0515 such that it now refers to Regulation 2.0515(a). These changes more closely align the rule with the SIP-approved State rule at 15A NCAC 02D .0514, <E T="03">Particulates from Ferrous Jobbing Foundries.</E> EPA is proposing to approve Rule 2.0514 because it better aligns the LIP with the SIP and will not interfere with any applicable CAA requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">6. Rule 2.0515, “Particulates From Miscellaneous Industrial Processes”</HD> The April 24, 2020, revision updates Rule 2.0515, <E T="03">Particulates from Miscellaneous Industrial Processes,</E> to more closely aligns the rule with the SIP-approved State rule at 15A NCAC 02D .0515, <E T="03">Particulates from Miscellaneous Industrial Processes.</E> The changes to Rule 2.0515 include changes such as converting the text emission rates in Paragraph (a) of the current version of the LIP-approved rule into equations for readability and updating the phrase “process weight” such that it now says “process rate.” EPA is proposing to approve Rule 2.0515 because it better aligns the LIP with the SIP and wil ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━