Air Plan Approval; State of Kansas; Attainment Redesignation for 2008 Lead NAAQS and Associated Maintenance Plan

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Parts 52 and 81</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R07-OAR-2025-0693; FRL-12887-02-R7]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; State of Kansas; Attainment Redesignation for 2008 Lead NAAQS and Associated Maintenance Plan</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to approve the request from the State of Kansas (the State) to redesignate portions of Saline County, Salina, Kansas (Salina area) to attainment for the 2008 lead National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The EPA's approval of the redesignation request is based on the determination that the Salina area has met the criteria for redesignation to attainment set forth in the Clean Air Act (CAA), including the determination that the area has attained the standard. Additionally, the EPA is granting final approval of the State's plan for maintaining the 2008 lead NAAQS in the Salina area for ten years beyond redesignation. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on December 18, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R07-OAR-2025-0693. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section for additional information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennifer Kissel, Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7 Office, Air and Radiation Division, 11201 Renner Boulevard, Lenexa, Kansas 66219; telephone number: (913) 551-7982; email address: <E T="03">kissel.jenny@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">I. What is being addressed in this document?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">III. The EPA's Response to Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IV. Have the requirements for approval of a SIP revision been met?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">V. What action is the EPA taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">VI. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">VII. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What is being addressed in this document?</HD> The EPA is granting final approval of the request submitted by the State of Kansas to redesignate the Saline County, Salina, Kansas nonattainment area to attainment for the 2008 lead NAAQS. On March 20, 2025 the State submitted a request for redesignation that demonstrates NAAQS attainment and an associated maintenance plan to ensure that the area continues to attain the standard. On August 7, 2025 the EPA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which proposed to approve the redesignation request and associated maintenance plan (90 FR 38095). As part of this action, the EPA is approving a revision to the Kansas SIP to incorporate Construction Permit #1690035, which was issued on December 27, 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the December 2018 permit) for the Stryten Salina, LLC facility (formerly known as Exide Technologies, hereinafter referred to as Stryten) which contains an updated control strategy to control lead emissions. The December 2018 permit was submitted by the State for incorporation into the SIP in 40 CFR 52.870(d). The December 2018 permit incorporates three permit modifications to the facility's construction permit that was originally issued August 18, 2014 (hereinafter referred to as the August 2014 Permit). The basis for the EPA's final approval is that the area met the requirements of the CAA for approval as discussed below and in the NPRM. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> As described in the NPRM published on August 7, 2025, the EPA has determined that the area has met the criteria for section 107(d)(3)(E) of the CAA and that the State's maintenance plan will ensure that the area continues to attain the standard. As discussed in the NPRM the Stryten lead acid battery manufacturing plant located in Salina, KS was the main source of lead emissions impacting the violating monitor. Stryten implemented contingency measures and additional control strategies made enforceable through modifications to the August 2014 permit, the most recent of which is the December 2018 permit. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The additional emission reduction measures in the December 2018 permit included better control device filtration efficiency and monitoring, expansion of negative pressure ventilation of all lead-emitting process areas, additional paving of plant property, and dust suppression on plant grounds and roadways using a water truck and vacuum street sweeper. See the State's maintenance plan and the December 2018 permit for more information on the updated control strategy. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Modifications to Stryten's August 2014 construction permit were also issued on January 11, 2017 and June 23, 2017. The December 2018 permit modification incorporates and maintains requirements from the previous construction permits. The December 2018 permit modification is included in appendix A of the State's maintenance plan. </FTNT> Following implementation of the additional emission reduction measures starting in 2017, ambient lead concentrations decreased in the area. Air quality monitoring data from 2017-2019, 2018-2020, and 2019-2021 show attainment of the 2008 lead NAAQS. The public comment period on the EPA's proposed rule opened August 7, 2025, the date of its publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , and closed on September 8, 2025. During this period, the EPA received comments from the State in an email from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) that is included in the docket of this action. Comments are addressed in section III. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. The EPA's Response to Comments</HD> <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> KDHE requests that the EPA clarify that the State submitted its attainment plan for the Salina nonattainment area on February 3, 2015 as specified in 40 CFR 52.870(e)(43). <E T="03">Response 1:</E> The EPA agrees with this comment and clarifies that the attainment plan for the Salina nonattainment area was received by the EPA on February 25, 2015, as stated in 81 FR 47034 (July 20, 2016). <E T="03">Comment 2:</E> KDHE requests that the EPA reference KDHE's SIP-approved minor NSR regulatory program in its analysis of whether the area has met all redesignation requirements, specifically whether it has met all applicable requirements under CAA section 110 and part D. <E T="03">Response 2:</E> The EPA notes that the State's redesignation request and maintenance plan for the Salina nonattainment area included a discussion of the State's minor NSR regulatory program, codified at K.A.R. 28-19-300 through K.A.R. 28-19-304. The EPA further notes that for purposes of determining whether the State has met the applicable requirements of sections 107(d)(3)(E)(v), 110, and 172(c)(5) of the CAA, the EPA is not required to analyze whether the State has a SIP-approved minor NSR regulatory program. Therefore, no changes have been made in response to this comment. <E T="03">Comment 3:</E> KDHE stated that the source name was incorrect in the proposed amendment to 40 CFR part 52, subpart R, § 52.870(d)(6) table “EPA-APPROVED KANSAS SOURCE-SPECIFIC PERMITS”. <E T="03">Response 3:</E> The EPA agrees that the source name in the NPRM table was incorrect and has corrected the name of the source to “Stryten Salina LLC (formerly known as Exide)” in this final action. <E T="03">Comment 4:</E> KDHE requests that the EPA replace a sentence in the background section of the TSD that does not accurately describe the facility emission source. <E T="03">Response 4:</E> The EPA agrees that the TSD accompanying the NPRM incorrectly stated that “lead emissions result from breaking open used batteries, re-melting the lead, and reformulating new batteries.” Accordingly, the EPA updated the background section of the revised TSD to describe the lead emissions from the facility associated with battery production. <E T="03">Comment 5:</E> KDHE requests that the EPA correct a typographical error in a table that erroneously listed lead as SO <E T="52">2</E> . <E T="03">Response 5:</E> The EPA corrected the typographical error in section VI., table 4 of the revised TSD to indicate the “Background Lead Concentration” used in Stryten and KDHE's modeling. <E T="03">Comment 6:</E> KDHE is requesting that the EPA include the volume source emission rates used in Stryten's October 2021 modeling in table 8 of the TSD. <E T="03">Response 6:</E> The EPA added language that includes and clarifies the different sets of volume source emission rates used in Stryten's October 2021 modeling and KDHE's supplemental modeling in section VI.D. and tables 4 and 8 of the revised TSD. <E T="03">Comment 7:</E> KDHE requests that EPA replace the UTM Easting value for the Schilling Elementary School in table 10b of the TSD. <E T="03">Response 7:</E> The EPA agrees and included the correct UTM Easting value for the S ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. 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