DEQ cracking down on ozone offenders

Attendees at Monday’s Bayou Industrial Group meeting in Thibodaux were given a heads-up about local air quality.

Houma-Thibodaux will be placed on an Environmental Protection Agency list of areas in the country with excessive levels of ozone unless steps are taken to reduce the amount, said guest speaker Vivian Aucoin, an environmental scientist supervisor with the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Aucoin said air quality in the area has not worsened. The EPA has simply tightened ozone level standards.

On March 12, DEQ submitted to the EPA a recommendation to put Lafourche on the list. The deadline to meet the new standards is March 2012.

Though Lafourche Parish could be listed, Aucoin said Terrebonne Parish would be included as part of the Houma-Thibodaux metro area. Terrebonne was left out initially because the local area would be marginal on the list.

“It was not necessary to bring in Terrebonne, (but) Terrebonne will be in the rules,” she said. “If you get nonattainment (noncompliance) status, it’s like it’s written in stone.”

Terrebonne Parish has more volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides – two of the principal components of ozone pollution – than Lafourche.

Common pollutants contributing to ozone formation are passenger vehicle exhaust, diesel-burning transport boats and road-construction vehicles, gasoline stations, and large-scale bakeries.

Lafourche does not have big industry, but the parish does have a marine and construction industry base. The parish will likely have a growing number of gasoline stations and an increase in on-road vehicles because much of Lafourche is rural, Aucoin said.

With the help of the area’s business community, levels of ozone can be reduced, she said. The summertime ozone season lasts from May 1 to Sept. 15.

Aucoin pointed out that St. Charles Parish is in compliance even though the parish has heavy industry lining the Mississippi River.

Baton Rouge, by contrast, has been noncompliant for 30 years, but weather conditions play a large role in determining which areas are placed on the list.

“Maybe you could be doing business differently,” Aucoin told the audience.

“Mind your p’s and q’s in industry,” she said.

Some ways to reduce ozone pollution include halting open burning, reducing engine idling, limiting daytime driving, refueling after 6 p.m., reducing marine vessel emissions and limiting lawn mower use.

Running a lawn mower for an hour can equal the emissions output of more than 30 cars, she said, so mowers should be used later in the day.

Aucoin said noncompliance at meeting ozone standards hurts economic development that uses federal funding.

“You would have extra hoops to go through,” Aucoin said.

She gave as an example a proposed apartment complex that will contain Section 8 housing.

Tri-parish builders would have to ensure that dump truck and other construction vehicle emissions do not push levels of ozone above the allowable amount.