Thursday, January 19, 2012 12:00 AM
By Karissa Minn
kminn@salisburypost.com
CHARLOTTE - Parts of Rowan and Cabarrus counties could be left out of a federal air quality designation that mandates cleanup efforts.
At public meetings in Charlotte and Cornelius, the N.C. Division of Air Quality (DAQ) asked for input Wednesday on its ozone non-attainment area boundaries.
The division is considering excluding some rural parts of counties in the Charlotte metropolitan area. State officials say this could bring in businesses and reduce unemployment.
“If there’s nothing contributing to (ozone) violations there, it makes sense to exclude some of these townships,” said Laura Boothe, the division’s attainment planning branch supervisor.
North Carolina must submit its recommendations by Feb. 29 to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is expected to announce designations by May 31.
Local townships that could be removed from the current boundaries are Scotch Irish and Cleveland in northwest Rowan County, Morgan in southeast Rowan County and Gold Hill in northeast Cabarrus County.
The EPA has lowered its eight-hour ozone standard from 0.08 to 0.075 parts per million (ppm). States are required to develop plans for reducing emissions in areas that don’t meet this standard.
At the Charlotte public meeting, Boothe said some businesses avoid bringing jobs to non-attainment areas, whether the regulations would affect them or not.
But a non-attainment designation also can help an area, said Maggie Blackwell, Salisbury City Council member.
Blackwell said she knows Salisbury is non-attaining, and she attended the Charlotte meeting to make sure it’s still listed that way.
“Oftentimes there are economic benefits to being included,” she said. “For example, we received a three-year grant for bus trips on high-ozone days.”
Blackwell added in an email Wednesday that lost business development in non-attainment areas “may be overstated.”
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The Division of Air Quality, which is part of the N.C. Department of Natural Resources, hasn’t finalized its plans yet. When it does, there’s no guarantee the EPA will take its recommendations.
“This area here, in eastern Rowan and eastern Cabarrus counties, is a questionable one,” said Nick Witcraft, chief meteorologist with the Division of Air Quality. “That’s probably the most iffy one we’re looking at.”
Witcraft said it could be hard to justify removing Morgan and Gold Hill townships due to a nearby pollutant-emitting business, Carolina Stalite Co.
The ozone monitor in Rockwell reads just below the federal standard. To the west, another air quality monitor in Enochville exceeds it.
Rowan and Mecklenburg are the only counties in the area with monitors still in violation, but just one is enough for the EPA to designate the whole metropolitan area as non-attainment.
The Charlotte region’s non-attainment boundaries include Rowan, Cabarrus, Gaston, Lincoln, Mecklenburg and Union counties, along with part of Iredell County.
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Elaine Powell, a Charlotte resident, said she’s concerned that excluding some townships could encourage pollution there and make air quality worse.
“We want the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to protect us, not businesses,” she said.Boothe replied that the state must look at all aspects of its residents’ welfare, including unemployment.
“It is a balancing act,” Boothe said, “to make sure that we’re not shutting a business down while doing what we need to do to improve air quality.”
Ozone, the main component in smog, is unhealthy to breathe and can damage trees and crops, according to the Division of Air Quality. It is formed when nitrogen oxides react with hydrocarbons in the air on hot, sunny days with little wind.
The main sources of the pollutants that cause ozone are cars and trucks, coal-fired power plants and other industry, the division says.
There are 12 point sources of nitrogen oxide in Rowan County that emit more than 1 ton per year.
More information about air issues can be found at www.ncair.org.
To submit comments to the Division of Air Quality about the proposed non-attainment area, send an email with the subject “Comments on ozone boundary recommendations” to daq.publiccomments@ncdenr.gov.
