ETV Verified Filtration Products Reduce Annual Source Testing in California's South Coast Air Quality Management District

November 4, 2005

California's South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) adopted Rule 1156 on November 4, 2005 which will reduce particulate emissions generated from various processing equipment, storage piles, and facility roadways at cement manufacturing plants that fall under AQMD's jurisdiction. AQMD is responsible for controlling emissions primarily from stationary sources of air pollution.

The AQMD administers the California and Federal Clean Air Acts and is the air pollution control agency for all of Orange County and urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. This encompasses an area of 10,743 square miles and is home to over 16 million people - about half the population of the state of California. It is the second most populated urban area in the United States and one of the smoggiest.

Rule 1156 will help this area of California achieve a federally mandated 2006 deadline for PM10 air quality. Requirements under AQMD’s Rule 1156 include:

The first local performance standards in the nation for dust control requiring collection systems to minimize dust, as well as requirements for leak detectors and opacity monitors to ensure compliance by the largest emitting processes.

Stricter limits on visible dust from rock-crushing and conveying operations, open storage piles, and paved and unpaved roads

Processing, loading and unloading, and transferring operations must be covered or enclosed and vented to a dust control system.

Paved roads for each facility must be swept daily, and chemical stabilizers used for all unpaved roads.

Dust suppressants or other dust control measures shall be applied to conveyors, crushers, storage piles and other activities.

A provision of the Monitoring and Source Testing requirements contained in paragraph (e)(7) of Rule 1156 states that in lieu of annual testing, the operator who elects to use all verified filtration products in its baghouses shall conduct a compliance test every five years. Verified filtration products mean filtration products that are verified under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Technology Verification program (ETV).

For more information about AQMD and Rule 1156 use the following links:

http://www.aqmd.gov/aqmd/index.html

http://www.aqmd.gov/rules/reg/reg11/r1156.pdf

For more information about the EPA's Environmental Technology Verification program (ETV) use the following links:

http://www.epa.gov/etv

http://www.epa.gov/etv/verifications/vcenter5-2.html