(New York) -- New, tougher standards for ozone levels could throw nearly the entire state, including the Hudson River Valley, into noncompliance with the federal Clean Air Act.
In August, the Obama administration is expected to announce new limits on ozone, a gas created by the mixture of high temperatures, sunlight and pollutants — particularly those emitted from motor vehicles, power plants and factories.
The current standard of .075 parts per million was set in March 2008 after former President George W. Bush personally intervened to block a plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to lower the standard to .070 ppm from .080, which was set in 1998. Although all areas of the state are reaching the .080 standard, many regions are struggling to reach the .075 standard.
Now, the EPA is considering a new standard of between .060 and .070 parts per million for allowable concentrations of ground-level ozone.
“At .070, nearly every area we monitor in the state would monitor at non-attainment,” said Robert Sliwinski, director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Bureau of Air Quality Planning. “If they go to .060, every area we measure will be at non-attainment.”
Among the areas that will be unable to meet even the more lax .070 parts per million standard is Dutchess County and the more densely populated areas of Ulster County, like Kingston and the town of Ulster, Sliwinski said.
Ozone is a kind of chemical soup created by a mix of nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds in the presence of high temperatures and sunlight, particularly during the hot and humid days of summer. Ozone is a respiratory irritant that is corrosive to lung tissue and poses particular health risks to the young, the old and those with compromised respiratory systems.
Sliwinski said despite the expected widespread noncompliance, the Department of Environmental Conservation supports lowering the standard.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, every five years the EPA is required to review its ambient air standards along with health information and data regarding air pollution to determine if the standards are protecting the health of the nation’s citizens.
The change now being considered, which is outside the five-year schedule, is a reconsideration of the standard set during the Bush administration.
Once the EPA settles on a final standard, states will have two years to develop a plan to meet it. They will then have between three and 20 years to meet the standard.
“We presume attainment within two and nine years,” Sliwinski said.
Sliwinski said the state has already addressed some of the major sources of pollution. Setting new standards of industrial and commercial boilers and new nitrogen oxide controls on some forms of asphalt production and cement kilns have had significant impacts, he said. The state has also issued more stringent rules governing the amount of volatile organic compounds in aerosol cans and paints.
“We may be running out of some of the technology we are looking towards other ways, such as changing people’s habits,” said Sliwinski.
He said state residents have responded to program run by the state Department of Transportation, which sends out air quality alerts, by driving less on those days the alerts are posted.
The state is also working with the EPA to address the problem of pollution drifting in from the Midwest.
The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting comments through March 19 on its plan to tighten the ozone standards.