Attorney General Gentner Drummond has asked the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to ensure that a proposed air quality rule cannot be used to permit the aluminum smelter planned for Inola if the project fails to meet federal ozone limits on its own.
The proposal would allow a major new source that cannot show it will keep ozone within federal limits to obtain a permit by purchasing emission credits from another facility. In a letter to the agency today, Drummond asked DEQ to revise its proposed rules and to bar the use of the proposed new offset option for any permit application filed before the rules take effect. The air permit application for the proposed Inola smelter was filed in February and amended in September. According to that application, a preliminary estimate places the project’s ozone impact within four percent of the federal significance threshold.
Drummond noted several concerns about the proposed rules, including that they count credits by the ton without requiring proof that they protect air quality where the project’s impact occurs. He added that the rules fail to account for geographic and seasonal factors and that several of the provisions contradict one another.
“An offset program is consistent with the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program only if it holds each applicant to the showing that federal law and DEQ’s own rules already require, which is that the air where people live will be no worse for the project,” Drummond said in the letter.
Drummond initially filed a petition in June to stop development of Oklahoma Primary Aluminum, a massive proposed smelter near Inola. His lawsuit seeks to protect the health of area residents, livestock and natural resources from the threatened public nuisance posed by the project. Drummond also has a pending motion for preliminary injunction seeking to block construction of the proposed smelter while the lawsuit is decided.
Read today’s letter.
