The Observer, May 2004

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EPA will reexamine air pollution question

The Environmental Protection Agency has reopened the question of limiting hazardous air pollution from the Ballast Water Treatment Facility at the Valdez tanker terminal operated by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

The decision, announced in an April 16 letter to the citizens’ council, means the federal agency will reconsider a position it took in regulations published in February of this year. In those regulations, EPA said it would not regulate emissions from the ballast water facility.

The decision to revisit the matter came in response to a petition for reconsideration filed on March 24 by the citizen’s council, which has been campaigning since its earliest days to minimize air pollution at the tanker terminal. The council’s petition argued the agency erred in several ways when it decided not to require Alyeska to cut emissions from the ballast water facility. EPA said in the April 16 letter it expected to publish a proposed rule “within the next several months.”

“We commend EPA for its willingness to take another look at this problem,” said John Devens, executive director of the citizens’ council. “Valdez residents deserve air that is as clean as is technologically feasible and this is an important step in that direction. We'll do all we can to ensure the final version of the rule covers the ballast water facility.”

The regulations published in February were intended to control hazardous air pollution from the tanker terminal and other oil facilities across the nation. The regulations – called National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants/Organic Liquids Distribution – did cover some significant pollution sources at the Alyeska terminal, such as oil storage tanks and leaking pumps, valves and other connections. But the regulations exempted one of the largest single sources of dangerous benzene vapors in the United States: the facility that cleans crude oil remnants from the ballast water of arriving tankers before discharging it into Prince William Sound.

The EPA itself recently estimated the ballast water facility releases 360 tons of hazardous air pollutants each year, including 130 tons of benzene, a known human carcinogen. Regulated refineries in California typically emit approximately one to three tons per year of benzene each, suggesting the situation in Prince William Sound is roughly equivalent to having 65 California-scale refineries operating in the confined air shed of the Valdez bowl.

EPA’s authority over the terminal and other facilities that handle oil and other organic liquids comes from the federal Clean Air Act, which requires the agency to issue rules to protect the public and the environment from toxic air pollution.

In general, EPA presumes as a matter of regulatory policy that carcinogens in the quantities being released from Alyeska’s Ballast Water Treatment Facility are dangerous and should be reduced. No specific showing of health risks is required. Instead, the polluter must reduce emissions if it is technologically feasible to do so. That means effective technology exists for the purpose, and the polluter can afford the cost of installing and using the technology.

After the council filed its petition with EPA, Valdez resident Stan Stephens sued the agency in federal court on the same issues. Stephens is a board member of the citizens’ council, but filed the suit as an individual and is responsible for his own costs. However, the Valdez City Council voted early this month to pay up to $10,000 of his legal fees.

Alyeska has maintained that emissions from the ballast water facility are not a health hazard. In any event, the company says, the facility will undergo a major redesign in the next few years because the amount of oily ballast water it processes will shrink dramatically as the Valdez tanker fleet transitions to double-hull tankers. (See Alyeska Viewpoint article "Alyeska ballast-water facility under study" also featured in this month's observer.)

Single-hull vessels, which make up most of the present fleet, carry ballast water in the same tanks used for oil, and the water becomes contaminated with oily residue. Double-hull tankers, by contrast, carry virtually all their ballast water in segregated tanks that are never used for oil. Consequently, their ballast water does not require cleaning before being discharged into the Sound.

Under the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990, single-hull tankers must be phased out of U.S. waters by 2015.