After months of briefing, the decision on the Masonite EPA Permit for its Molded Products Line now rests with the EPA's new Environmental Appeals Board. Citizens For A Healthy Ukiah ("CHU") filed their petition challenging the EPA Region IX permit on June 17, 1994 contending among other claimed errors that the permit did not require the best available control technology nor control all emission points. The last brief was sibmitted by Masonite on September 30, 1994.
CHU's appeal argues that Region IX erred when it evaluated what would be Best Available Control Technology ("BACT") for the Molded Products Line. CHU claims that Region IX should have required that the RTO incinerator be expanded to control all significant emissions, including those from the Grain Line. CHU also contends that Region IX should have required the existing RTO to meet a higher standard of effectiveness. CHU also requested that EPA require controls for emissions from the wood chips and the dyst system. CHU specifically objected to Region IX's failure to perform sophisticated modelling of the air quality impacts from Masonite's facility.
Masonite and Region IX have defended the Region IX decision. They content that the BACT decision has been properly performed and that all significant increases in emissions have been appropriately controlled. They argue that Region IX correctly determined that it would be unfairly expensive for Masonite to have more stringent controls. While they admit that the RTO is operating at a greater efficiency than now required by EPA, they content that Region IX properly determined it would be unfair to require that level of operation. They further raise a number of technical objections to the appeal, contending that in many cases the issues raised on appeal were not raised in the public comment period and are therefore barred from consideration.
The Environmental Appeals Board is the final decision maker within the Environmental Protection Agency for appeals on permit and civil penalty decisions under all of the major environmental statutes. The Board was established in March 1, 1992 by President Bush's EPA Administrator, William Reilly, in recognition that administrative appeals were becoming more common and more important.
The Board consists of three environmental appeals judges appointed by the Administrator, six staff attorneys, and three support personnel. The judges are Nancy B. Firestone, former EPA associate deputy administrator and previously deputy chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice; Ronald L. McCallum, former chief judicial officer of EPA; and Edward Reich, former legal advisor to the EPA administrator and acting assistant administrator and deputy assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement. Each is a career level agency employee. Prior to the creation of the Board, appeals were heard by EPA's chief judicial officer within the Office of the Administrator.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
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