By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Tennessee environmental officials have belatedly released the highly redacted responses from US Nitrogen LLC to questions about the company's visible emissions during the start-up and shut-down of its nitric acide plant.
In the nine-page response the Greene County firm's plant manager said some of the questions could not be answered with the current equipment at the facility.
"Currently it is not technically feasible for the Selective Catalytic Reduction to provide reliable control of opacity," USN Plant Manager Charles Dylan wrote in the response to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Connservation.
TDEC posed the questions on Feb. 17 in response to USN's request for a waiver from current visible emissions limits. TDEC had originally set a 30-day deadline for responses, but later extended it to 60 days at the company's request.
Dylan wrote that the length of start up phases per year at the plant over the four years ending in 2021 ranged from 30 to 70 minutes.
Dylan added that USN had taken "many procedural and mechanical steps" to reduce visible emissions. He wrote that the plumes from the plant included diatomic nitrous oxide and di-atomic oxygen.
He said the worst case scenarios came during start-ups.
He concluded by stating that the company "had nothing further to share.
Five pages attached to the letter were almost entirely redacted.
The redacted document was only posted to TDEC's dataviewer today after press inquiries.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com
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