Ozone standard to increase
Although the five-parish Baton Rouge area faces a new and stricter federal ozone standard this year, there should not be any major additional changes to what it will take to meet the new goal, parish officials were told Tuesday.
During the first of several meetings that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality will hold statewide about expected stricter ozone standards, DEQ staff said current state measures and state and federal regulations will account for much of the needed improvement.
Years of trying to achieve the federal ozone standards in the Baton Rouge area — East Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, West Baton Rouge and Iberville parishes — means that much of the work is already in place to meet the standard, said Vivian Aucoin, environmental scientist with DEQ’s air permits division.
“We really don’t have to do a whole lot. Based on modeling, we’ll see where we need to tweak,” Aucoin said.
The entire state is currently in compliance with ozone pollution standards and “that’s the good news,” said Sam Phillips, assistant secretary of DEQ’s Office of Environmental Services.
However, that will change in June when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce which parishes meet a newer and stricter standard of 75 parts per billion.
State officials expect the EPA’s announcement will list the Baton Rouge area as being out of attainment. Locally, a monitor at LSU is at 78 parts per billion so that will likely mean the Baton Rouge area will be classified as “marginal” and given three years to meet the new standard, Phillips said.
“We feel confident we can get into compliance,” Phillips said. “We’re already doing some models to see what areas are most impacted and what emission sources we need to look at.”
Several other areas in the state will be near the standard and will likely be put into an “ozone advance” program that will ask the areas to put in place voluntary measures to help reduce ozone pollution, Aucoin said.
These measures could include things like retrofitting school buses to reduce how much ozone-causing pollution is released and guidance for how this program will work could be released this spring by EPA, she said.
Ozone pollution accumulates in areas when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from industry, vehicles and other sources combine during sunny days when there is little wind to disperse the pollution.
Phillips said the Baton Rouge area is used to thinking about ozone, but there are other areas that are close to going over the standard, including Jefferson Parish, Shreveport and Lake Charles, where these kinds of discussions are new.
DEQ staff will be meeting with representatives of these areas to discuss voluntary actions they can take to avoid going over the ozone standard limit, Phillips said.