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As a result of lawsuits filed by 10 environmental groups, the EPA has signed two consent decrees requiring the Agency to consider updates to toxic air standards for industrial flaring, which is used as a pollution control measure to combust waste gas compounds at petrochemical plants and storage tanks.
These air standards have not been updated for 26 years, reports the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the lead environmental group on the lawsuit EIP v. EPA.
The suit, filed in October 2020, was brought to require the EPA to update its general operating requirements for flares under the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) and New Source Performance Standards (NSPS).
“EPA first issued the general NSPS flare requirements over three decades ago, in 1986, and the general NESHAP flare requirements 28 years ago, in 1994,” according to an EIP Fact Sheet. “The agency has not updated the general flare requirements in the several decades since they were first issued.”
Alternatively, the lawsuit sought to require the EPA to review and revise the NESHAP and NSPS for certain categories of air pollution sources that incorporate the outdated general flare requirements.
In 2021, Concerned Citizens of St. John, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, and the Sierra Club brought a separate lawsuit concerning the EPA’s review of the air toxics standards for polymers and resins facilities. The second consent decree resolves this lawsuit.
The first and second consent decrees require the EPA to study and consider updates to its air toxics standards for flares and other polluting units at certain polymer, epoxy resin, non-nylon polyamides, and resin petrochemical plants. The Agency is required to sign a proposed rule “containing all ‘necessary’ revisions” by March 31, 2023. The decrees require the same study and consideration of updates to standards for marine tank loading operations, with any “necessary” rule revisions due by December 19, 2025.
The consent decrees will also require the Agency to consider updating its standards for new and modified storage tanks holding volatile organic liquids, including the standards for flares controlling air pollution from those tanks, by September 29, 2023.
Other environmental groups joining in the suit were the Clean Air Council, Air Alliance Houston, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Earthworks, Environment America, Environment Texas, Hoosier Environmental Council, Penn Environment, and Texas Campaign for the Environment.
The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires NESHAP and the NSPS to be updated every 8 years.
The EIP lawsuit highlights the litigious path environmental groups regularly employ to force the Agency to meet its statutory obligations.
An EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report dated March 30, 2022, noted the Agency has 93 overdue mandated risk and technology reviews (RTRs) or recurring 8-year technology reviews (TRs) and that 93 of the 169 industrial sources had overdue RTRs or TRs. Those sources with overdue reports include petrochemical plants, according to the EIP lawsuit.
The OIG report recommended the EPA:
A 2012 EPA Enforcement Alert states the minimum federal requirements under the regulations require flares to be:
“Since at least 2012, EPA has recognized that its decades-old flare requirements cannot ensure that many flares properly destroy air toxics and other pollutants,” reports the EIP. “For example, in 2015, the agency instituted more stringent requirements for flares at petroleum refineries to reduce their toxic air pollution. At the time, EPA estimated that the improved refinery flare standards would reduce hazardous air pollution by 3,900 tons per year and emissions of volatile organic compounds by 33,000 tons per year.”
The 2015 Performance Standards made changes that the EPA stated streamlined the compliance approach for refiners by:
The EPA identified the following factors affecting the performance of flares.
Flame quenching in the combustion zone. Problems occur because:
These problems lead to significantly lower flare combustion efficiencies. Options to correct the problem include:
Low heat value in vent gas. Problems occur because:
These problems lead to lower flare combustion efficiencies. Options to correct the problem include:
An October 2000 EPA Enforcement Alert notes that “flaring frequently occurs in routine, nonemergency situations or is used to bypass pollution control equipment,” resulting “in unacceptably high releases of sulfur dioxide and other noxious pollutants. …”
“Flaring at the numerous petrochemical plants and storage tanks in the Houston Area is a virtually routine occurrence,” said Jennifer M. Hadayia, executive director of Air Alliance Houston, in an EIP article about the consent decrees. “Just last week, we were subjected to a flare event that emitted enough air pollution to fill 2 million lungs. Houstonians have waited long enough for change, and we join our partners in acknowledging the important first step that EPA has taken today to hold polluters accountable and protect public health.”
The 2000 Enforcement Alert warns against classifying repeated or regularly occurring flaring events as “malfunctions” because they can be anticipated.
“These upsets should be addressed through improved operational control systems, improved and frequent training of operators, and continued optimal performance of the [Sulfur Recovery Plant], not by bypassing or flaring acid gas and sour water stripper gas.”
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