Your Input Sought On Proposed Rule For Toxic Emissions

BAY AREA, CA – The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is inviting residents to provide input on draft Regulation 11, Rule 18 – Reduction of Risk from Air Toxic Emissions at Existing Facilities, which can be viewed here.

The Air District’s new rule will improve air quality and reduce emissions from stationary pollution sources from large facilities, such as factories and oil refineries, to smaller operations, like back-up generators and gas stations. Air District staff estimates that hundreds of facilities will be subject to the proposed rule.

The rule incorporates recently adopted risk management guidelines and health risk values from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

The public can submit questions or comments via email to Victor Douglas at vdouglas@baaqmd.gov. The public comment period closes on Dec. 2, 2016.

“Bay Area cancer risk from toxic air contaminants have been reduced by 87 percent since 1990, due to Air District and state air pollution control measures,” said Jack Broadbent, executive officer of the Air District. “This new rule will build on that progress and further protect public health.”

Rule 11-18 was proposed to ensure that emissions of toxic air contaminants, or TACs, from existing facilities do not pose an unacceptable health risk to people living and working nearby.

Air District staff will conduct a site-specific health risk screening analysis for all facilities that report TAC emissions, and calculate health prioritization scores based on:

• Amount of TAC’s emitted
• Toxicity of pollutants
• Proximity of facility to communities

The scope of the environmental impact report on the rule will be discussed at a Nov. 14 scoping meeting at the Bay Area Metro Center, 375 Beale Street in San Francisco.

More information can be found at http://www.baaqmd.gov/rules-and-compliance/rule-development/regulatory-workshops.

• Also see: Majority Of UC Support Workers Struggle To Put Food On Table: Study

--Information submitted from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the regional agency responsible for protecting air quality in the nine-county Bay Area./Morguefile image