Officials offer plan for improving Yuma air quality

State air quality officials presented a plan Tuesday for getting the Yuma area classified as an “attainment area” for particulate dust pollution, getting a skeptical but hopeful response from local farm industry figures who have been trying to do that for 25 years.

A hypothetical timeline was presented by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in which the PM-10 nonattainment area covering Yuma, the Foothills, Somerton and surrounding area would be declared in compliance with federal Clean Air Act standards for the pollutant in about five years.

This would be done by getting Environmental Protection Agency recognition for a number of existing and future measures being taken to reduce local dust, after which the state could submit data to the EPA proving most of the days the area exceeds the standard are due to high wind events beyond local authorities’ control.

If the EPA accepts the data and acknowledges those days as “exceptional events,” it won’t count them toward the total of one day per year that the area is allowed to have readings above the 150 parts per billion federal standard. After three consecutive years with no more than one day where the reading gets above the maximum and is not exempted as an exceptional event, the area will be eligible for reclassification as an attainment area.

Adam Ross, science specialist with the air quality planning unit of ADEQ, said the agency’s research shows that’s attainable for the Yuma area. “Looking at the sample of six years of exceedences, of which there were dozens, we picked out two which were not clearly high-wind events. So they were mostly, or almost all, of the exceedences were based on wind,” he said.

But EPA-approved “reasonable control measures” must be in place, as they are for other nonattainment areas in the state. In some instances, Phoenix and Yuma have both seen their particulate levels rise above the standard as a result of the same storm system, and Phoenix was able to get an exceptional event declaration, while Yuma was not.

This is the source of the frustration expressed by those at the meeting who have been trying to resolve the issue since Yuma first became a PM-10 nonattainment area in 1990. Improvement plans covering Yuma, including proposed control measures for dust pollution, were submitted to the EPA in 1991, 1994 and 2006, but none have gotten any formal response from the federal agency, let alone an approval.

“The measures are in place, they have been for 20 years. The EPA has never approved it,” said Harold Maxwell, a director for the Yuma County office of the Arizona Farm Bureau. Government leaders and those from the ag and construction industries have been collaborating this whole time to adopt and practice methods intended to reduce particulates, most of them required by state or local laws.

“From our point of view, we go back to the ag best management practices, we’ve expanded the watering and notification requirements within the city and county construction sites, you look at all these things done over the last 20 years for two preventable exceedence deals, and you’re going, we still haven’t,” Maxwell said.

Lisa Tomczak, ADEQ air quality planner, said, “If there’s something that’s being done and its going to continue to be done for the foreseeable future, that is what they mean by a reasonable control.”

Bobbi McDermott of the Yuma Natural Resource Conservation District, recalled attending a meeting about four years ago with a high-ranking EPA official in Prescott, who didn’t offer much guidance.

“The regional director was there. And we were talking about PM-10, and her response was, ‘if you want us to do something, sue us,’” McDermott said.

She added, “I’ve been at this 30 years, starting in the 80s. And it never ends. And because EPA doesn’t want to play, everyone else is hung out to dry. And we’re at a point, all the best management practices, all the stuff we’ve been doing for the last 20 years, is still what we do. We’re farmers. And we initiated them ourselves, it was a voluntary thing,” she said.

Best management practices, or BMPs, used in the Yuma agricultural sector include watering down fields, combining tractor operations, planting based on soil moisture and limiting activity during highwind days. Growers are required to use at least one practice from each of three categories, or else could have their free, BMP-based air permit from ADEQ revoked and be forced to apply and pay for an individual permit.

ADEQ officials said they have been working more closely with their counterparts at the EPA, and vice versa, so any proposals involving Yuma will hopefully not fall through the cracks. Federal officials have already said ADEQ’s proposed process and timeline for adoption of control measures for Yuma could work, Ross said.

Tomczak said, “One of the things we do know is we actually made a more concerted effort to work with EPA from the start. To literally, as much as we can even though some people may be in Tucson or San Francisco, get in their face as much as possible to say, ‘You guys are going to follow us, step by step, and give us as much surety as possible that these can be approved.’”

Maxwell said there will be local buy-in, but only if there’s reasonable certainty the EPA will be paying attention this time.

“If you can’t come to us and say, ‘we have the letter, they say if you do these things you’ll go with us, I’ll guarantee you this community will rally around that. But until then, I’m sorry, blow smoke at us too many times and we’ll fade away,” he said.

Particulate pollution, defined as particles less than 10 microns in diameter (which is where the PM-10 label comes from), is a health concern because of its ability to be inhaled deeply and affect the respiratory system, causing or aggravating lung diseases such as asthma or heart disease.

Yuma resident Cary Meister, noted he’d like to see more participation from local health officials and providers in the process. “For a child or adult who experiences asthma, if you can limit the human cost of exceeding PM-10, even one more day to that child is a great day, when they don’t have to spend it laid up from asthma. As well as the parents not having to spend all the money they have to spend on health care, even with insurance,” he said.

Ross said the ADEQ’s goal is to begin meeting with subgroups of Yuma residents, including health officials, to focus on different aspects of dust-control methods that can be submitted to the EPA by April. The formal rulemaking process could begin in September and adoption of the control methods by the EPA, which would allow the state to seek exceptional event exemptions for Yuma, by early next year, he said.