[StBernard] EPA Vetoes Murphy Oil's Air Permit - Remands to LDEQ for Further Review

[Westley Annis]

EPA Vetoes Murphy Oil's Air Permit
Remands to LDEQ for Further Review
 
(St. Bernard Parish, LA) September 22, 2011  –     The United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday, September 21,  2011, rejected in part a Clean Air Act permit for Murphy Oil USA, Inc.'s Meraux, Louisiana refinery.   The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality ("LDEQ") had issued the Title V air permit in October 2009.  Concerned Citizens Around Murphy ("Concerned Citizens"), represented by the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, filed a petition to object in December 2009, because the permit failed to require state-of-the-art pollution control technology. Concerned Citizens Around Murphy v. Jackson, No. 2:10-cv-04444 (E.D. La. Dec. 1, 2010). 
 
The pollution permit is for a processing unit for low-benzene gasoline products at Murphy Oil's Meraux refinery and is part of the EPA’s clean fuel mandates for mobile vehicles, or  MSAT 2.  LDEQ based the permit limits on pollution estimates that fell below a threshold for installation of state-of-the-art pollution controls (known as Best Available Control Technology, or BACT). 
 
The Concerned Citizens’ petition to EPA, however, showed that LDEQ miscalculated and that changes to the refinery are "major," triggering the requirement for more stringent pollution control technology. The petition also showed that LDEQ failed to gather enough emission data to make a reliable judgment about whether Murphy’s application triggered the requirement for state-of-the-art controls. 
 
Under the Clean Air Act, the Administrator of EPA is required to object to a permit when a petitioner demonstrates the permit is noncompliant.  When the Administrator of the EPA objects to a permit, either EPA or LDEQ modify, terminate, or revoke and reissue the permit to correct the deficiencies.   
 
On Wednesday, EPA Administrator Jackson objected to Murphy Oil's permit and remanded the permit application to LDEQ for further review.  The EPA granted the citizen's petition, agreeing in part that LDEQ failed to provide adequate public comment responses regarding sufficient information in the permit records.  EPA wrote, "We cannot determine whether all necessary information is located within the permit records."  "Many of the emission calculations were illegible and supported only by reference to personal emails between Murphy Oil employees and their consultant." 
 
Comments made by Concerned Citizens in the July 2009 public hearing explained “it is difficult, if not impossible to comment .... without seeing the basis of emission calculations."  Public records requests by the Concerned Citizens for specific information from LDEQ on Murphy Oil's emissions calculations were unanswered.
 
The EPA also agreed in part with the citizen's petition that data for certain emission calculations were not included in the permit record, including the releases made during emergency flaring, emissions due to malfunctions at the benzene unit, and the total estimated sulfur content of the refinery fuel gas.  LDEQ must respond to certain public comments with adequate information on its method of calculations for increased pollution rates from the benzene unit. Additionally, LDEQ must provide a more adequate response towards specific prohibition or regulation of emission increases due to roof landings for the floating roof tanks.     
 
EPA's order on Wednesday requires LDEQ reconsider its determinations, review its permit record, and, if found necessary by LDEQ, re-evaluate its emissions calculations used to determine whether Murphy Oil's application triggers the more stringent pollution controls. 
 
The benzene reducing unit was constructed and placed into service in March 2011 at the Meraux, Louisiana refinery. Early this month, Valero Energy Corporation announced its agreement to purchase the Meraux refinery pending regulatory approvals.
 
Concerned Citizens believe Murphy Oil low-balled pollution estimates in its application for both sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds.   Also, the group sees a connection between lax emission controls and St. Bernard Parish’s failure to meet EPA’s new health protection standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb) for sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations in air. 
 
In May 2011, the LDEQ recommended a non-attainment status for air quality in St. Bernard Parish based on community monitors that demonstrate exceedingly high sulfur dioxide levels.  With such exceedingly high air concentration levels, even small increments exacerbate the adverse health effects.  Last week, Murphy Oil had a sulfur dioxide (SO2) release of about 450 pounds, just under the reportable quantity of 500 pounds for SO2.  Yet, the community ambient air monitor on nearby Ventura Drive measured a reading of 54 ppb SO2 hourly average. The actual real time readings are higher than the displayed averages.  In the same time frame, another  “air-strike” or spike in SO2 readings occurred further west in Chalmette, along the ExxonMobil refinery corridor where the LDEQ Chalmette Vista air monitor measured 196 ppb SO2 hourly average.  
 
"If our air has too much of a pollutant like sulfur dioxide already, then it’s important to know the facts when a facility plans to put much more of it in our air," said Suzanne Kneale, a member of Concerned Citizens. "If pollution exceeds a certain level, then requiring controls could rein it in to safer levels. We can have both safer emissions as well as provide for public health and our quality of life—the choice doesn’t have to be one or the other." 
 

The Concerned Citizens’ petition to veto Murphy Oil's air permit raised a separate issue from the permit violations involved in an earlier lawsuit between the Concerned Citizens and Murphy. EPA's partial veto of Murphy Oil's air permit is based on concerns about appropriate permit limits, as opposed to the permit violations that were at issue in the earlier lawsuit. In that earlier case, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled that Murphy "frequently violated its permits by exceeding emission limitations and continued to violate them after plaintiffs filed suit." Concerned Citizens Around Murphy v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., No. 08-4986 (E.D. La. Feb. 3, 2010). After that ruling, the Concerned Citizens joined Global Consent Decree negotiations with EPA, Murphy, and LDEQ. These negotiations resulted in a Consent Decree that EPA entered with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in February 2011. (The Consent Decree was entered in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin because it governs both of Murphy’s U.S. refineries, one of which is located in Superior, Wisconsin.) That Consent Decree resolved the lawsuit between the Concerned Citizens and Murphy and the Concerned Citizens are hopeful that the Consent Decree will result in increased cooperation between the refinery and its neighbors. 
 
The Concerned Citizen’s view the petition to EPA to veto Murphy Oil's air permit as part of their ongoing participation in the public permitting process. Concerned Citizens is a residents’ advocacy group whose purpose is to protect the health, safety, environment, and quality of life of Meraux and the surrounding communities in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. 
 
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For More Information on the neighborhood group contact Concerned Citizens Around Murphy Suzanne Kneale, officer
 SJRKneale at aol.com <mailto:SJRKneale at aol.com>    504-416-6848
 
For More Information on the Petition contact:
Corinne Van Dalen, Clinical Instructor
Tulane Environmental Law Clinic
6329 Freret Street
New Orleans, LA  70118
504-862-8818
cvandale at tulane.edu <mailto:cvandale at tulane.edu>