Center for Social Innovation OEE Clean Air 08/08/12 cut

Transcription

1 Hello everyone. Welcome to today s Understanding HUD s Environmental Reviews webinar sponsored by HUD s Office of Community Planning and Development, or CPD. My name is John McGah. I work for the National Center on Family Homelessness, and I will be moderator for today s webinar. On behalf of CPD and the Office of Environment and Energy, I would like to thank all of you for joining us. Today s webinar is the Clean Air Act. Now before we begin, I would like to make some logistical announcements. Today s webinar will last approximately 90 minutes. The webinar is being recorded, and you can access a PDF of the slides in handout format through the first link in the web links box on your screen in case you want to follow along by taking notes next to the slides. Another link in the web links box includes where the recording in the PowerPoint presentation in full-slide format will be posted in a week on HUD s CPD Environment Page. Now you can check the training website, which is the third link, for updates to this webinar series and for in-person training opportunities. As an attendee of this webinar your microphone will automatically muted. Please listen to the presentation through your phone for best results. The call-in information has been sent to you, and it is also listed in the upper left-hand corner of your meeting room screen under Audio instructions. Another option is to use your computer speakers. This means that you will need to turn on and turn up the speakers on your computer should you use that option. Now due to the large number of attendees, there may be a slight delay in the advancement of the sides. If you experience any other technical difficulties, please let us know by use the Q&A box on your screen. You may also submit content-related questions using the same box. Please feel free to submit contentrelated questions at any point during this webinar; however, we will wait until the end of the webinar to answer most of those content-related questions. Now immediately following the webinar you will be directed to a follow-up survey. Participants are strongly encouraged to respond to the evaluation to inform the delivery of future webinars, and we appreciate your participation in those. During the webinar we will be asking poll questions, two of which you will see on the left side of your screen now. Please take a moment to answer these questions, as well as the others we will ask throughout the webinar. Today s webinar will feature the following presenters: Jake Levine, an environmental review specialist and Presidential Management Fellow with HUD s Region 2 office in New York; and Nelson Rivera, an environmental engineer in the environmental planning division of HUD headquarters. And now I d like to pass this over to Jake to begin the presentation. Well thank you, John, for the introduction, and thank you to all of our participants today. I look forward to introducing you to the Clean Air Act and our air quality regulations, and to answering your questions at the end of the presentation. And with that, I ll begin the presentation. We have four learning objectives in today s presentation. First, to understand the basic history and structure of the Clean Air Act and how it affects HUD-assisted projects; second, to recognize the types of projects that do require Clean Air Act compliance and the types of projects that do not require any additional compliance work, and to recognize when to hire a consultant to do calculations and when it s okay to make determinations on your own; third, to determine what geographic locations are subject to Clean Air Act regulations and what omissions levels are permitted in those locations; and fourth, to investigate mitigation options for those projects that do exceed allowable emissions levels. Now there are three principal takeaways for air-quality compliance that I will emphasize throughout this presentation. First, the Clean Air Act is a federal law, but it is largely implemented by the states. It is essential that grantees become familiar with the individual parameters of their states Clean Air Act regulations. Second, it is very rare that actual compliance measures are required for HUD-assisted projects. The emissions thresholds that require mitigation and permitting are generally targeted towards industrial operations. And while it does happen that HUD-assisted projects have to take action to comply 1

2 with local Clean Air Act regulations, it is a very rare occurrence. That being said, when you do get to the stage where permitting and mitigation are required, it can be very technical and so it s best to use engineers and consultants to ensure accurate results. Now before we go any further, I will provide you with a brief history of the Clean Air Act. The history of air quality regulations in the United States follows the same general track as many other areas of environmental law. Our atmosphere was once considered a virtually limitless sink for unwanted byproducts of our industrial processes, and it was common to think that as long as your smokestack was high enough there would be no consequences for human health. Well advancements in science, a gradual uptick in the instances of asthma and other respiratory ailments, and headline-grabbing incidence of fatal smog led to the passage of the original Clean Air Act in Most of the relevant parts of the act, for our purposes, were included in the original 1970 elements of the Clean Air Act. In 1990, the most recent amendments were added and included subjects such as acid rain, mercury, and other air toxics, but these applied mainly to industrial operations. So for HUD-assisted projects the original 1970 elements, which I'll go through in the next few slides, are the most important. Now the structure of the Clean Air Act is as follows: The regulations were written by the Federal EPA, but as I mentioned earlier, it is largely administered through state agencies. Each state has its own unique plan for meeting Clean Air Act goals, and these are known as state implementation plans. It s very important that you become familiar with your area s SIP, including the locations that are targeted for Clean Air Act regulations, the emissions levels that are allowed, and the mitigation that is required when those levels are exceeded. Now when reviewing your Clean Air Act compliance responsibilities there are four easy steps to follow. First, you can determine if the project review rises to the level of environmental assessments or environmental impact statements, which is the next level of environmental review. Anything below those levels, including exempt projects and projects that are categorically excluded, are generally not going to be the types of work that require Clean Air Act compliance. Step number two, determine if the project is located in a non-attainment area for any of six major air pollutants that I will discuss further in the next couple of slides. Step number three, locate it; and step number four, determine what litigation options are available. Note that the vast majority of projects will not have to proceed past step three. Somewhere in the first three steps they will reach an information point which precludes them from further review, and you will be able to move on to the next part of your environmental review. So step number one, as I mentioned before, HUD-assisted projects that are exempt or categorically excluded will virtually never produce the types of emissions that will require Clean Air Act measures. So, generally, only projects that require an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement need to continue to step two. Other projects can include a written determination in their environmental review record and move onto the next element of their environmental review. Step number two, determine if your project is located in an area that has excessive levels of these criteria pollutants. These six pollutants were originally selected in the 1970 Clean Air Act by the EPA as some of the most widespread and pernicious air pollutants for human health, and they are carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur oxide, nitrous oxide, ground-level ozone, and particulate matter. For each of those six pollutants, either counties or metropolitan areas in the air quality districts are assigned attainment or non-attainment status. Now these terms are very simple. Attainment status refers to clean air sites, those counties or metro areas in which the overall level of the criteria pollutant falls below a nationally determined level that is deemed safe for human health. Nonattainment areas on the other hand refer to dirty air sites, those counties or metro areas in which the overall level of the air pollutants exceeds that level that is considered safe for human health. 2

3 You can follow the link included in the slide 10 here to determine if your county or metro area falls into that attainment clean air site category or non-attainment dirty air site category. At the link in the slide here, you can go criteria pollutant by criteria pollutant and see a list of all the areas that are considered non-attainment, again that is the dirty air sites, and it s organized by state and metro area. So it s very easy to scroll down and see if your geographic location is included in that non-attainment list. I would recommend that every grantee become familiar with the attainment or non-attainment status for the geographic area that you generally have your project in, that way you can quickly, you know, if you are an attainment for every single pollutant then you never need to worry about Clean Air Act compliance and you can just occasionally check in to make sure that your project location areas are still in attainment. And if you are in non-attainment, you ll know automatically which pollutants you need to be concerned about when you estimate your (INAUDIBLE). So if you ve determined that your project location is in attainment for all of these six criteria pollutants you do not need to proceed to step three. If you are in non-attainment for the one or more of those pollutants, you proceed to step three and estimate your emissions. Here is where familiarity with your local state implementation plan is so essential. In some SIPs formal estimates may not be necessary. There may be entire types of work that are excluded from further review because they don t produce the types of emissions that the state is concerned about. Even if it s not directly spelled out in your local SIPs, I would recommend that all grantees get in contact with your state air quality agency and with your local HUD environmental officer and try to come up with a list of types of projects that you can automatically exclude, because it wouldn t make sense to go through the emissions estimation process for the types of work that will never approach the emissions thresholds. So if it is the type of work that does require estimates, it is highly technical and should be completed by a qualified professional, an engineering firm, or a consulting firm that specializes in air quality emissions. Once you have an accurate estimate of the emissions directly produced by your project, you should compare the estimated emissions to the allowable levels in your area s SIP. And here is a good place to mention that we re only dealing with direct emissions from the construction and operation of your project. If you have an apartment building and it s going to lead to more utility expenditures, and so perhaps it creates emissions as a power plant located somewhere else, that is not of your concern for this type of compliance work. We re only concerned with emissions that are directly emitted from the site, either during the construction phase or during the operation phase. Here is an example from the New York State implementation plans with what are known as de minimis emissions limits, these are the amounts of emissions for those criteria pollutants for which the project exceeds that limit mitigation and permitting is required. You can see here the first six items on the table here are our six criteria for these; carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matters; volatile organic compounds are a precursor to ground level ozone and so are sometimes labeled as such instead of ground-level ozone; and finally, lead. And having done some crude rudimentary calculations of my own using (INAUDIBLE) factors and common utility usage rates in the Northeast, I came up with rough estimates for the amount of square footage that you would need to heat in order to reach some of these emissions levels. And it totals in the millions of square footage, enough to heat the equivalent of three Empire State Buildings. So just for your reference, that s the type of emissions that are going to be required to lead to mitigation actions. Again, that s only for direct emissions from the site. So you would have to have a cogeneration plant or some sort of auxiliary boilers that are directly producing emissions in order to worry about this. To give you a sense of how some other SIPs determine their screening levels, I have included the Bay Area in San Francisco. Their air quality management district has a table of various building usages and the various units that are used to determine whether the project requires further investigation or not. For instance, single family units and apartment buildings are given a number of dwelling units. That was DU stands for. Elementary schools can be determined by the number of thousand square feet or the number of students. And in page 2 of the table that -- for instance hospitals are screened off by the number of 3

4 beds that they have, or the number of employees in an industrial activity. So that s another method that some local areas use in their SIPs to screen out projects for further study or mitigation. Now as I said, the vast majority of projects are not going to have to proceed past step three. They re either going to be cat-ex or exempt from environmental reviews. They re going to be in an area that s in attainment for all of the criteria pollutants, or very commonly, they ll be in a non-attainment area but they will be the type of work that does not require mitigation, or their estimated emissions will be shown to be below the local thresholds. For those projects you will just apply a written statement in your environmental review record indicating which of those three items excludes you from mitigation or permitting under the Clean Air Act. Finally, if you do have the rare project that requires mitigation and permitting action under air quality compliance regulations, the mitigation can come in several different forms. The most common is emissions reduction technology. This can either be specified technology, which generally includes various methods for capturing pollutants on a solid or a liquid substrate and then shipping that substrate offsite and disposing of it in an environmentally sound manner. It can also include best management practices that reduce the amount of emissions produced in the first place. For instance, if you have a co-generation plant on your site you can burn your fossil fuel at a lower temperature to produce less nitrous oxide for instance. And those can, again, be very technical and very specific, so at that point you need to work with a consultant to figure out exactly what best management practices can be applied. Certain SIPs also allow for emissions offset, either in the form of purchasing emissions credits from other facilities that may have done an especially good job of reducing their emissions and, therefore, earned credits that they can sell to a buyer, or directly shutting down existing sources. For instance, a lot of times new coal-fired power plants will purchase and then shut down older dirtier boilers to justify the emissions that they will be emitting. Finally, state construction and operating permits are almost always required for these projects, and that can be a somewhat lengthy paperwork process and technical paperwork process, so, again, we recommend consultants to help you through with that process. So with that, I will hand the presentation over to Nelson Rivera who will talk a little bit about asbestos regulations and a couple of case studies. Thank you, Jacob. Regarding the slide that is in front of you all, the first bullet that talks about letter from the state on the non-attainment area activities, the state requirement for that letter is only if this project has mitigation requirements, I mean that there is actually a mitigation requirement, behind the actual project for this practical requirement, or if levels, the air levels are beyond the state permitation plan, the SIP. The second bullet basically encompasses how all project asbestos containment materials will be handled and disposed by a certified professional in accordance with applicable United States Environmental Protection Agency and state requirements. Next slide, please. The case study number one, which is the Miraflores concept plan, are to provide 336 units over a range of housing types on this urban infill site. Key components of the plan are as follows: provide a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, both rental and owner-occupied units on the Miraflores site. The affordable component will consist of 110 rental units for seniors. There will be 222 market rate attached units in a combination of townhouses and single-story residences, and four single family homes. Also, to provide open space as a buffer along Interstate 80 that will provide approximately four acres of open space. In addition, a small park and a tot lot will be allocated in the center of the site. Other objectives to mention are to incorporate historic features into the site, preserve design and preserve historic structures onsite; to restore and retain the ensemble of the primary Sakai House, adjusting water tower and greenhouse 20, and the primary Oishi House onsite; to create a permanent accssible exhibit onsite to respect the history of the Japanese American flower-growing community; 4

5 incorporate design elements that celebrate the history of the site such as many of the streets pedestrian bridge, flowers, using landscaping. There are also others, such as incorporate smart growth and green building principles on the neighborhood scale and remediate the site to address existing contamination of soil and ground water. Next slide, please. I ve got a picture of the Miraflores site on there. Next slide, please. The physical setting as far, as existing conditions, the size of regular almost L-shaped 14-acre property comprised of three major parcels; the Sakai Nursery, the Oishi Nursery, and the Endo Nursery. The site is generally flat, with a slight slope of the Richmond greenway at the north side. Surface elevations range from 50 to 60 feet below median sea level. There is significant overgrowth debris of the site, and traffic from I-80 could be heard through the property. Some block views of traffic however. The original location, the City of Richmond is situated western Costa Rica County, east of San Francisco, north of Oakland. The Miraflores site is located in the Park Plaza neighborhood on the east side of the city. The site is approximately half a mile directly northwest of the El Cerrito Norte Bart Station, which is located on Kearney Street between Corrine Boulevard and Hill Street of the City of El Cerrito. The local setting, the break side is bounded by the north of the Bart tracks and the road berm of the old Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe road line from the Roba [PH] berm, the west break boundary runs along the south 45 Street and east along 45th Avenue south of 47th Street. Next slide, please. As far as air compliance issues, on December 28, EPA designated the entire Bay Area as non-attainment for 24-hour PM as particulate matter 2.5 of the NAAQS, the relation of the NAAQS and the Viejo and San Jose stations from this action. The final EPA order formally designating the Bay Area as non-attainment, with the federal particulate matter 2.5 standard was scaled to become effective in April 2009; however President Barack Obama has put a freeze on new federal regulations enacted by the previous administration, so the effective date for this designation is unknown. Assuming the designation takes place soon, the Bay Area will pass on to as per the standard. At the state level, the region is considered serious non-attainment for ground level also and nonattainment for particulate matter 10 and particulate matter 2.5. As noted earlier, California ambient air quality standards are more stringent than the national ambient air quality standards, and this region is required to adopt plans as per annual basis that shows progress towards meeting the state ozone standard. It is considered attainment or unclassified for all other pollutants. As far as toxic contaminants, they are a broad class of compounds known to cause morbidity or mortal because they cause cancer and include but are not limited to criteria air pollutants that we just mentioned. The toxic air contaminants are found in ambient air, especially in urban areas that are caused by industry, agriculture, fuel combustions, and commercial operations such as dry cleaners, foundries, and whatnot. Toxic air contaminants typically found in low contaminations even near their source, and this is particulate matter that are near the freeways such as benzene and whatnot because chronic exposure can cause adverse effects like asthma and chronic cough and upper pulmonary health problems. Toxic air contaminants are regulated by regional, state, and federal levels. This exhaust is predominant toxic air contaminant (INAUDIBLE) our air and estimated to represent two-thirds of cancer rates overall, and in this case, this exhaust is a complex mixture of gases, vapor, and fine particles. Next slide, please. Originally the proposed building was set back 20 feet from the highway, the distance from the roadway and truck traffic densities, a key factor affecting the strength of association of adverse health effects. As a mitigation measure this project was actually pushed back 220 feet in order to take care of the amount of debris and particulate matter coming from the diesel production coming from trucks into this break. And in addition to that, there s other mitigation that we re going to cover in this presentation because the amount of truck and traffic that was diesel generated. Next slide, please. 5

6 In addition, the system for the whole mitigation system will have MERV air filters. These are highefficiency filters to remove 90% ambient particulate matter 2.5 from outdoor air. The city assessor agency is working on completing the cleanup for the site. The abatement and demolition has been completed, including the moving of historic structures to be preserved. There s also a fully entitled 80 unit low-income senior housing development as a portion of the site, and the city has also received 84 urban greening grant to establish the greenbelt, which includes day lighting a portion of Baxter Street. Next slide, please. As far as case study number two, which is at Sixth and Oak Apartments Oakland, the physical setting conditions are the break is located on the northern corner of the intersection of Sixth and Oak Streets in Oakland, and, again, we have another major arterial road, which is Interstate 880 passing on the break side part, and on opposing side of Sixth Street, and the air quality requires qualified consultants to prepare a health risk assessment to develop measures to achieve acceptable interior air quality. This includes sensitive receptors, which is like nursing homes, schools, parks, people on the outside or facilities structurally close by to the actual road that can be heavily impacted by whatever goes on the road that produces particulate matter and other air pollutants and contaminants, and we will cover those during this briefing as well. Next slide, please. That s a picture of where the break is located at. You see the interstate 80 and Oak Street intersection over there, along with all the other buildings. Next slide, please. As I said previously, air compliance issues includes potential exposure of emissions from the Atchison Freeway, exposing residents to vehicle emissions, including toxic air contaminants. This is mainly the diesel emissions involved in this. Next slide, please. As far as the mitigation discussion here for this break as far as to take care of the particulate matter and the diesel contaminants coming from the road, no sensitive receptors near entry or exits on the proposed break site. And as I said previously, sensitive receptors include schools, parks, playgrounds, nursing homes, and whatnot. Sensitive receptor in the same building with hazardous materials, hazardous materials this is advertent release of materials that could enter the environment in air. This is like waste motor oil, cleaning fluids, et cetera. The selection of operation of maintenance HVAC such as heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system and MERV 13, these are like the high-efficiency filters that are typically used on institutions requiring very clean air such as hospitals, general operating rooms, and clean-air sensitive commercial buildings. Usually the airflow restriction of the filter is not like the same one you put in a normal home because of the amount of the restriction that the actual filter provides to the actual system, so it s only on certain applications only. And then the maintain positive pressure within the building, positive pressure as a definition implies a sealed room, usually in a anteroom to facilitate the dawning of protective clothing, airflow, so you want at lease 12 air exchanges per hour, that means to really exchange the air to be really pure before it fuses and re-circulates inside the main cabin of the main room where it s being the operation is being done. Next slide, please. Those are the amount of air exchanges being done in the whole assisted project as far as the fractions in order to make sure that the air used inside the building is as fresh as possible, and that s when it shows like the one-air exchange per hour of fresh outside air and the other fractional amounts in order to keep the inside of this building really clean. Well, and that s my last slide, and I m ready to take some questions. Any questions from the audience? I think there are some questions, Nelson. We re just pulling them up from the Q&A box. Hold one moment, please. 6

7 That s all right. I just don t see them here on my screen. While we re waiting for the questions to come up, the case studies that you presented, Nelson, reminded of an important point. There are two separate things to think about with air quality, the direct emissions from the site itself, which we have largely discussed in this presentation, and then for those projects that are doing an environmental assessment, as part of your site suitability review, you should be looking at the potential sources of air pollution that are near the site and could affect the site. So although our Clean Air Act regulations do not require you to consider outside sources of air pollution that may affect residents and other occupants of the building as part of an environmental assessment and consideration of your site suitability, that should be something to look at. Definitely. I learned a lot from these two projects in terms of the amount of technology being used in order to reduce the amount of contaminants coming from these truck trips as far as diesel contaminants coming into the actual project itself. Okay. I m seeing the questions pop up now, and I see the first question it looks like refers to the term positively pressurized, which I believe you used in your case study, Nelson; is that correct? Right. So I ll yield that question to you, Nelson. Okay. Well basically a positively pressured building, basically what it does is to basically keep the actual building being used -- like building used as far as the air coming into it as a sealed room, and we have like a little room before. I don t know if you guys have seen most of these department stores, you know, Kmart, Wal-Mart, and maybe some hospitals that you feel -- you have like an anteroom like a room before the actual main department store with a big blower that blows air all over you, and there is grate under it, so basically that scrubs everything that goes in in that before room before you get in. So everything that goes into the room to be shared with everybody else, the air is as clean as possible, so it cleans you up before coming, you know. I mean, like, so it takes any other contaminant coming from your feet or whatnot into that anteroom, and that air is not mixed with the air coming in. So that s what positive pressure and pressure stands for. All right. The next question I m seeing asks, Do the MERV filters move VOCs, that s volatile organic compounds, or just the particulate matter? It is basically for particulate matter. I mean particulate matter means like the amount of when you re talking about 10 or 2.5 or whatever the amount -- the diameter of that particulate coming into the lung system, and basically, no, it s not for volatile organic compounds. It s not for organics. For organics it s a different type of filtration system, which is called scrubbers. The MERV 13 is basically for particulates, and it s really for clean rooms as operating rooms, and when clean air sensitive commercial buildings are implied in here. I can t talk a lot about this because basically the whole system s got to be revamped for this type of system because the air restriction that it provides to it. So the motor has got to be a tougher motor and all that good stuff. Okay. The next question I ll answer. The question is How does this apply? And I ll first start off by saying that if we re strictly talking about rehabilitation projects that a lot of those are going to either be catex to start with, or, in general, not even come close to producing the types of emissions merely from the rehab process itself that would trigger any sort of Clean Air Act mitigation or permitting process. But to take on the hypothetical, you know, if you -- and also I should mention that most historic properties you re not going to see a whole lot of, you know, smokestacks or boilers that are still in operation that are considered historic properties. But if you were to run into some sort of building that both exceeded the local emissions thresholds for non-attainment criteria pollutant and was a historic property, it would be just a matter of performing the mitigation in a way that was acceptable to the local state historic preservation officer and didn t devalue the historic nature of the building. And oftentimes that s going to 7

8 be very easy because many of these emissions control technologies are installed internally into portions of the pipeline that are not visible from the outside and don t really have much to do with the historic value of the building. So I wouldn t anticipate historic versus air quality compliance to the attention that s really going to surface in many projects at all. With that, I ll move on to the next question, and I ll answer that one as well. The question is, How do we find criteria pollutant level thresholds for our area? And if you will think back to the couple of slides I showed earlier in the presentation, the one from New York State and the one from the San Francisco Bay Area, every single state is going to have either a table or written somewhere in their air quality regulations specific designation of the thresholds for each criteria pollutant that comes into play in that state. So, you know, I wish I had an easy answer, but there are 50 different answers because every state is implementing its own plan and, therefore, you just have to get familiar with your state s individual regulations. I m going to scan the question list here. EPA has new source requirements in non-attainment areas. Do these screening levels match EPA s new source requirements or are we dealing with a gap between the threshold which new source requirements would other wise be triggered but for HUD participation? In other words, are we just making sure existing requirements are being met, or is this reaching a new class of action? No, this is generally concurrent with existing requirements. The new source performance standards that the EPA publishes are a nationwide standard but are tailored exclusively to industrial operations, and they re broken down category by category, whether -- you know, when you go onto the list of new source performance standards you will see, you know, metal productions operations, you know, mining operations, textile modes. You will see an industry-by-industry breakdown, and you will see that these are not the type of things that are applied to housing projects. But on that note, the emissions thresholds that we are holding HUD-assisted projects to are concurrent with existing regulations. You re going to be worried about your state implementation plans, though, in general and not the EPA new source performance standards. All right. The next question I ll read and then hand off to Nelson, okay. The California Air Resources Board has determined that sites within 500 feet of freeways are at risk of exposure to unhealthy air; therefore, all new dwelling units near freeways require health risk assessments and mitigations. Care to comment on that, Nelson? Yes. Basically that s what I heard from the California CARB, and basically it s a training information that s been given to most of the grantees that I ve heard in California as well, and that s true. as far as the distance, it s calculated from the health risk assessment itself, depending on the project and depending on the load; I mean the type and amount of vehicles in transit on a daily basis on a particular road. Okay. Thank you, Nelson. I ll answer the next question. The question is, 2008 National Ambient Air Quality Standards are not in effect as of this time; correct? And first let me give the audience background on that term. National ambient air quality standards are the levels of those six criteria pollutants that we discussed earlier in the presentation that the EPA has determined are of safe levels over a particular geographic area, usually a county. And the EPA periodically adjusts those air quality standards to reflect the latest understanding of air pollution science and human health and public health. And while I am not sure what--what exact year, off the top of my head, is the latest version the EPA is operating off of, the website that I included on that one slide is up to date, and the areas that are listed as non-attainment in those areas are reflected in the latest air quality standards. So when you re determining whether your project location is in the non-attainment area, that link is the place to go and will have the most up-to-date information. I ll answer the next question. By way of confirmation, projects classified as categorically excluded per HUD regulation may use the limits of the project description itself to justify a no circumstances 8

9 requiring compliance, is that accurate? And, yes, that s not , as most of you probably know, lists the types of HUD-assisted projects that are categorically excluded. And while it s not part of the regulations, it is a policy at this time that those projects that are in that list are generally not the types that will trigger Clean Air Act compliance. And so in your environmental review record a description of the project itself and a statement to that effect is generally going to be sufficient. If there are extraordinary circumstances and you, in your judgments, feel that despite the project s cat-ex status, it may be the type of project that would require further investigation, you should by all means pursue that. But the vast, vast majority of cat-ex projects are going to fall well short of any emissions thresholds if they produce any emissions at all. So, in general, we re comfortable seeing the project description as a justification in those environmental review records. The next two questions I m going to pass off to you, Nelson, because they re related to environmental assessments and health risks for the occupants. Okay. The first question is, What are the required elements of a health risk assessment? I m sorry, but I m going to have to get back to the requester because I need to research some books on that in order to address it appropriately. And the second question is also related to the health risk assessment, so the question was, Was the 220-foot setback requirement an outcome of the health risk assessment? Yes, definitely that s true. That s a yes. It was out of the calculation based on the load and the actual health risk assessment coming from the project Okay. Okay I ll answer the next question. The person -- the questioner uses an example out of Augusta asking that a previous individual working on the statutory checklist for HUD environmental reviews said that Augusta is an attainment area. The questioner asks what this term means and is it an accurate explanation for projects in our area. So, again, I ll emphasize that attainment areas are the clean air areas that have been determined to have levels of those six criteria pollutants that are considered safe for public health, and the non-attainment areas are the dirty air sites that have overall emissions levels that are considered unsafe for public health. To determine whether Augusta specifically, or any county or metro area in general, is in attainment or non-attainment, there is a link on slide -- let me review the presentation here to confirm. It s slide 10. There is a link to an EPA website where you can go through each of the six criteria pollutants and see a list of all the counties and metro areas that are in non-attainment. And it s organized by state and then by metro area, so it s very easy to navigate and find if your particular area has excessive emissions and whether you need to estimate your project submissions. The next question is for you, Nelson. Okay. How do you determine what the hours of fresh outside air is? As far as -- it s a calculation based on the uses of the building and what s going to be the amount of people circulating in that room. So depending on the usage of the building, if it s going to be a clean room, it s going to been an operating room, and the amount of people inside the room as far as cubic air being used, it s a calculation as a fraction of the amount of air exchanges to be used and the system being used in order to keep that air clean up to a certain level. Thank you, Nelson. All right. 9

10 The next question I ll answer. It was mentioned that projects that would not rise to the level of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement generally would not require compliance action. What are those projects that might yet require compliance but do not rise to the level of an EA or an EIS? And that s a very good question. The reason I have not personally ever encountered a project that fits that description, and, you know, we don t make that a part of our regulations and set it in stone because there may yet be a project that is catex but would require air quality compliance. But it would stretch my imagination at this point to give you a specific example. So I want to emphasize for all our training participants that the overwhelming majority of cat-ex, I want to, you know, cover all our bases by saying there could be a project that still does, but it would not be a type of project that I have yet encountered. I ll just say that. The next question I will answer. Are there advantages to brownfield projects that change the land use from an emitter to a non-emitting use? And I would say absolutely. You know, as far as how you re handling your environmental review, you re still, of course, obligated to fully address all the compliance issues in your statutory checklist, but we certainly encourage the conversion of land use from, you know, more environmentally questionable to more environmentally benign or beneficial uses. However, I should also note that with brownfield projects in general you certainly have the issue of exposure to contamination to residents and occupants, and so you should certainly have all the proper assessments at the site done and all the proper containment plans done for any potential data; that, in general, it s certainly an environmental advantage and oftentimes an urban planning advantage to convert brownfields. The next question is what is useful air quality best practices in house rehabilitation? With rehabilitation - - and this question sounds like it s dealing with single-family houses -- you generally have virtually no air quality worries except for fugitive emissions from the site, which are emissions that come not directly from a smokestack but just from sort of being swept off a pile by the wind or by air currents. And, you know, there are various screening methods for basically removing the exposure of any sort of dust-producing agents or particulate matter producing agents to localized air currents is generally standard practice. But single-family house rehabilitation, you know, it s really of very little concern to us as far as emissions go. Bear with me one second while I read the next question. Okay. Nelson, I ll give this next question to you. Go ahead. Our questioner is coming from Maricopa County, which is in non-attainment for particulate matter of 10 microns. Okay. The presentation mentioned contacting the state. If the county is the non-attainment area, can we contact and work with the county on mitigation for projects that have soil disturbance, which is often going to produce that particulate matter? Definitely. Yeah. And I would agree with that. You can work with the localized version of the state air quality agency, and oftentimes the state will refer you to that localized version in any case. Nelson, this next question, I ll give to you. Go ahead. Should we avoid residential projects adjacent to highways, or can the air quality be managed cost effectively? 10

11 Yeah, definitely. As much as possible, that s a great measure to avoid projects that are away not only from highways but any source of air pollution such as foundries, power plants, we re talking about thermal power plants using carbon, you know, for hydropower, or any other source of air pollutant that can definitely endanger the health as far as the air coming into the direction of the project, and that can definitely benefit as far as cost reduction of resources for the break itself. Thank you, Nelson. You re welcome. Allow me to make a quick announcement that we will be posting the documents with the questions and answers from this session with more detailed information after the webinar, so please check back in a few weeks on our website for that more detailed Q&A where we will be able to follow up on some of the issues that we can t give an immediate answer to, as well as to revisit the answers that we have provided. With that being said, I ll answer this next question. The questioner asks There are pollutants like asbestos that are not criteria pollutants but show up on air quality standards. Does the SIP determine what pollutants are of concern or the federal Clean Air Act? And the answer to that is that, for our purposes in HUD environmental reviews, we re mainly concerned, principally concerned with the SIPs, which details the six criteria pollutants that I mentioned earlier in the presentation. However, we are also concerned with asbestos emissions or asbestos particles in the air. And while that is sometimes included under particulate matter when that s being regulated, even if it s an attainment area for particulate matter you do need to look at asbestos, and HUD s policy on asbestos emissions is that you should follow state and local regulations on asbestos. So just like with the rest of the criteria pollutants, it really will vary on a state-by-state basis, and it s incumbent on our grantees to talk with state air quality agencies and with your local HUD environmental officer to become familiar with those. Okay. I ll answer the next question. HUD OE webpage indicates that maintenance areas and nonattainment areas should be treated similarly; however, this presentation has not mentioned maintenance areas. Should they be treated similarly? And I appreciate that question. That is an oversight that wasn t in the presentation. A maintenance area is an area that has improved its air quality since being labeled non-attainment, but it s still trying to maintain that status after having recently converted. And they should be treated similarly until they are formally designated as attainment areas. The next question I ll answer as well. It says, From the EPA do we access the 2008 or the 1997 maps? And, again, if you followed the link from slide 10 of this presentation, it takes you to the list of each criteria pollutants and lists the non-attainment areas. There is information that goes back to different dates depending on the last time the EPA updated for that criteria pollutant, and if there, you know, I haven t looked at every single page within that site or I haven t memorized what years that they re all from, but you should go with the most recent year that is provided for each individual criteria pollutant. The next question, If a building renovation project located in a non-attainment area will disturb asbestos, is the project in compliance with the Clean Air Act? And the answer really depends on the specifics of the local SIP. Sometimes asbestos is included in the particulate matter regulations. However, regardless of whether it s in your local SIP or not, HUD s policy is that grantees must follow state and local asbestos regulations, which can be codified separately from these SIPs. So be sure that you re familiar with both the specifics of your local SIP and your local specific asbestos regulation to make sure you re covering your bases. The next question, What about global air quality problems like greenhouse effects from carbon emissions? And, you know, while we recognize the importance of greenhouse gas emissions, it is not part of our environmental review, so there s no need to analyze it for our purposes. 11

12 Next we have a comment from one of our regional environmental officers out in California who is mentioning that With single family housing rehabilitation projects you may not be concerned with Clean Air Act performance but you may be concerned with viable asbestos or lead-based paints. And that s absolutely correct. Thank you for that contribution. I have a follow-up question from the -- I believe this is referring to the greenhouse gases question, and the questioner is referring specifically to executive order I believe that s directing agencies to examine and come up with adaptation plans for global climate change. And HUD does have various programs associated with that; however, it s not a part of our environmental review requirement. Next we have a comment from one of our participants. It would be great if there could be field office follow up to these webinars. It is helpful having the big picture but it s even better to have detailed guidance on local applications. Absolutely. Our field offices do trainings throughout the year and I encourage you to keep abreast of the training schedule, and the air quality particulars are part of those trainings. You can also feel free to contact your local HUD environmental officer, and we re always more than happy to discuss the details of our local SIPs and how they ll apply to HUD-assisted projects, so I do encourage that. If there are any further questions, please go ahead and submit them in the next couple of minutes and we ll be sure to answer them. And if not, we ll turn it back over to the moderator. Okay, great. Thanks very much, Nelson and Jake. You re welcome. And thanks, everyone, for taking the time to attend today s webinar. Again, please do complete the survey so we can get your thoughts for future webinars. And also it s been brought to my attention that some participants experienced technical difficulties on this webinar. We want to apologize to anyone that did have that experience. We will be sending copies of the webinar slides to anyone that is registered to make sure no content was missed. Also, as mentioned, the slides and recording of the presentation will also be available, along with the Q&A document that Jake had mentioned on the HUD CPD environment website. The links are provided on the left-hand side of your screen, and you can check the training page for updates. Please join us Wednesday, August 22nd, for the next webinar in this series titled, Understanding HUD Environmental Reviews, Site Contamination. And once again, on behalf of the Office of Community Planning and Development, thank you and enjoy the rest of your day. 12