TDEC Memo Details History of Emissions Error

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Tennessee environmental officials have posted a lengthy memo explaining the history of erroneous emissions data from a Greene County firm that went undetected for over a year.
The unsigned memo was posted today in the public file for US Nitrogen LLC, a Midway chemical firm.
The memo concludes that despite the error, which was finally detected in August of last year, a recalcuation of the emissions data shows that US Nitrogen remained in compliance with the provisions of its state permit.
According to the memo the error was detected in August when a TDEC official from the Johnson City office visited the US Nitrogen plant.
"It was noted by the inspector that the company had made a calculation error in reporting emissions data from the nitric acid plant," the memo states, adding that the data was being calculated as a three hour average rather than the stated one hour average.
In addition the data wrongly included periods when the plant was in start up and shutdown conditions.
Noting that the company acknowledged the error, the memo states that TDEC then instructed US Nitrogen to recalculate the data, which first went askew in the first quarter of 2019.
The company also was asked to recalculate the data back to the plant's start up in 2017.
According to the memo the recalculated data had a minimal effect on the reported data and it showed that the company remained in compliance with its permit limits.
"The foregoing represents the basis for the Feb. 12, 2021 acceptance of the recalculated US Nitrogen emissions data as the basis for demonstrating continual compliance with the applicable nitrogen oxide emission limits," the memo concludes. Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com