Expert Pleased By EPA Permit Comments

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

An environmental consultant who has reviewed the proposed operating permit for a major Greene County chemical firm says he was somewhat surprised and pleased by comments from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calling for some changes in the permit.
Howard Gebhart of Air Resource Specialists, who was brought in by local environmental activist Park Overall, said the EPA comments reiterated one of his primary concerns, that the proposed permit lacks sufficient requirements to ensure that US Nitrogen operates in compliance with requirements.
The EPA, in a Nov. 5 letter to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, recommended additional monitoring and record keeping requirements be added to the permit.
But while Gebhart said he was pleased with the EPA comments, he said the agency could have gone further in calling for specific additional requirements in the conditional major operating permit to be imposed on the ammonium nitrate manufacturing company.
"I would have liked it more had EPA also identified more of the items listed in my comments, but I guess that we will take what we can get. I really wasn't expecting EPA to weigh in at all," Gebhart wrote in an email response to requests for comment.
Gebhart, who testified at a June public hearing on the proposed permit, said he was particularly pleased that the EPA raised the issue of opacity testing on US Nitrogen's nitric acid plant.
He noted that the plant has been a continuing source of problems including incidents of permit violations.
While he said he was particularly pleased that EPA cited the plant's opacity monitoring as a deficiency,"Unfortunately the EPA didn't offer a real solution in their comments," he added.
The consultant said he "would certainly expect TDEC to make some changes to the permit that would address the EPA comments."
"Overall we should get a permit that is more protective of public health," he concluded.
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