Legislature(2015 - 2016)BUTROVICH 205
02/02/2015 03:30 PM Senate RESOURCES
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview: Department of Environmental Conservation | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| *+ | SJR 10 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | SJR 11 | TELECONFERENCED | |
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE
February 2, 2015
3:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Cathy Giessel, Chair
Senator Mia Costello, Vice Chair
Senator John Coghill
Senator Peter Micciche
Senator Bert Stedman
Senator Bill Stoltze
Senator Bill Wielechowski
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
OVERVIEW: DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
- HEARD
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 10
Opposing the revised Comprehensive Conservation Plan and
Environmental Impact Statement for the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge; opposing attempts by President Obama to alter management
of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge;
encouraging the United States Congress to reject a proposal
based on the revised Comprehensive Conservation Plan or
accompanying Environmental Impact Statement; encouraging the
United States Congress to reject a proposal that does not open
the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
and gas development; and finding that decision-making authority
over the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is
reserved exclusively to the United States Congress.
- SCHEDULED BUT NOT HEARD
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 11
Urging the President of the United States and the United States
Congress to acquire the area commonly known as Central Park on
Manhattan in New York City on behalf of the federal government;
urging the United States Congress to declare Central Park to be
a wilderness area and to prohibit any further improvement or
development of Central Park unless authorized by an Act of
Congress.
- SCHEDULED BUT NOT HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
LARRY HARTIG, Commissioner
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) overview.
KRISTIN RYAN, Director
Division of Spill Prevention and Response (SPAR)
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided Division of Spill Prevention and
Response (SPAR) overview.
ALICE EDWARDS, Director
Division of Air Quality
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided Division of Air Quality overview.
MICHELLE HALE, Director
Division of Water
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided Division of Water overview.
ACTION NARRATIVE
3:30:01 PM
CHAIR CATHY GIESSEL called the Senate Resources Standing
Committee meeting to order at 3:30 p.m. Present at the call to
order were Senators Costello, Stedman, Coghill, Wielechowski,
Micciche and Chair Giessel.
^Overview: Department of Environmental Conservation
Overview: Department of Environmental Conservation
3:30:23 PM
CHAIR GIESSEL announced the annual Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) overview and welcomed Commissioner Larry
Hartig. She said she was particularly interested in the Spill
Response Fund.
3:31:24 PM
LARRY HARTIG, Commissioner, Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC), Anchorage, Alaska, said DEC's mission is to
protect human health and the environment. The outcomes they are
looking at are:
-Clean water, healthy air, and good management of hazardous
materials and waste
-Safe drinking water and sanitary waste disposal
-Food safe to eat
-Low risk of spills of hazardous materials and efficient,
effective response when spills occur
-Wise resource development for a growing state, so people can
feel safe with DEC's permits and authorizations, contingency
plans, oversight, inspections, and so forth.
3:33:39 PM
The five divisions are: Administration, Environmental Health,
Air Quality, Spill Prevention and Response (SPAR), and Water.
Air quality is one of the smaller divisions, but it is one of
more complex ones.
3:34:12 PM
SENATOR STOLTZE joined the committee.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said the department has a variety of funding
sources. About 30 percent of their funding is federal money;
SPAR is about 20 percent of it. There are two fee programs: one
is subject to federal law that limits what the money can be used
for (like air permit fees). DEC gets about 1 percent of its
budget from the general fund (UGF). The only department that is
smaller in terms of its draw on the general fund is the
Department of Military & Veterans Affairs (DMVA), which is
largely federally funded.
3:35:35 PM
The Division of Air Quality is run on permitting fees and that
is required by federal law. The general fund draw is relatively
small, which means that it is particularly critical for things
like monitoring air quality in Fairbanks.
The Response Fund at over 50 percent is critical for SPAR's
budget; if the Response Fund is not fixed (due to declining oil
production) that division would see a 46 percent reduction.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked how much litigation for assuming
state primacy is costing.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that two bills have authorized DEC
to explore taking primacy for the 404 program, whose funding
($1.4 million and five positions) was stripped last year, and
the 402 program, the waste water discharge permitting program
from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was taken
in phases and now belongs entirely to the state.
3:38:09 PM
KRISTIN RYAN, Director, Division of Spill Prevention and
Response (SPAR), Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC),
Anchorage, Alaska, said the division has three areas: prevention
(contingency work), the response unit, and the contaminated
sites program, which deals with the long term legacy
contamination, and a small administrative unit that primarily
focuses on cost recovery. Their Challenges and Opportunities
are:
-Sustainable funding
-Continued level of services to protect the environment and
human health
The division's mission is pretty much like the department's:
protect public safety, health and the environment through
prevention, preparedness and cleanup of oil and hazardous
substances.
MS. RYAN said they respond to all releases of oil or hazardous
substances and that means a lot of their responses are to
unregulated facilities like: air transportation release,
vessels, residences, and vehicles.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked for an incident table over a wider span
of years.
MS. RYAN responded that the number of incidents is a consistent
figure, about 2,000 spills per year. They don't necessarily go
out to all of them, but that's how many calls they get. The
percentage is pretty consistent between regulated versus
unregulated.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked what events or products are included in an
oil spill.
MS. RYAN answered that slides 20 and 21 break down the spills by
industry and product type in the last year. She explained that
oil is used as a broad category and many products fit into it.
The majority of responses are to refined fuels like diesel and
heating oil, but produced water is responded to the most on a
volume bases.
3:43:45 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if the state actually pays for spills
and if the perpetrator gets billed. He was trying to figure out
how the Response Fund money is used.
MS. RYAN said its spent on a variety of situations; some are
produced water spills that don't need as much of a response as a
crude oil spill, but the laws require the spiller to have the
first response, and if they are regulated by DEC they are
immediately responding and are overseen by the DEC. If their
response isn't adequate, SPAR can take over and hire its own
contractors to finish the process.
SENATOR COGHILL asked her to share a spill event they had talked
about earlier.
MS. RYAN responded that there are a lot of truck roll overs
moving fuel up the Dalton Highway, but recently a truck from
Valdez rolled over and their $1 million insurance policy didn't
cover the whole event, because it was over a frozen creek bed
that feeds into the Copper River system. They wanted to ensure
that all the product was cleaned up before spring thaw occurred.
That ended up being a pretty expensive event, because the ground
was saturated much further down than expected. The EPA, their
partners on inland spills, decided to take that one over, but
they could have just as easily done so with their authority.
Then they turn around and ask the responsible party to pay
costs, which sometimes doesn't happen and sometimes happens but
with a lag of several years.
SENATOR COGHILL remarked that an event like this could literally
put a business out of business. So having the ability for the
state to clean it up and then billing the operator who would
then figure out the financing is a good thing.
3:47:12 PM
MS. RYAN said everyone knows about how the decline in production
has caused a shortfall to the Oil and Hazardous Substance
Release Prevention and Response Fund, which needs 1 million
barrels a day production to sustain itself. It is now down to
$500,000. Settlements and penalties come in, but they are
unpredictable.
SPAR has reduced use of the fund by limiting growth to 2 PCNs in
10 years and eliminating some large draws on the account, which
was traditionally used to fund the clean-up of state-owned
contaminated sites to the tune of $17 million over the years.
They have also been doing a better job of cost recovery without
reducing services by automating those efforts and combining two
programs: the prevention and the response programs. The
prevention program told industries in general what to do in case
a spill occurred and the response groups would come in and tell
them what to do when a spill was occurring. They saw an
opportunity for synergy there to make sure that the planners are
also responders and vice versa, so the same message is being
provided before, during and after an event. These efforts have
saved $520,000 and eliminated four positions.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if she had any recommendations in terms of
sustainability of the Response Fund in the light of declining
production.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG responded with the following key
considerations in addressing the shortfall and who pays, how
much, and how to allocate with and among the different
industries:
-No one is looking at increasing risk
-Recognize that declining production affects the Response Fund
-Look to other sources that aren't paying into the fund right
now, but are causing the spills
-Continue to look for efficiencies in SPAR, partnerships, new
technologies, better assessment of risks, and improvement to
cost recovery
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said he had several discussions with the oil
and gas industry, had met with the Alaska Oil and Gas
Association (AOGA) and is setting up a committee to work on this
issue. They are also having discussions with others inside and
outside of state government on what they get from SPAR and
whether they should be contributing.
3:53:51 PM
He said that prevention is the most important element in saving
money. Who pays for Industry preparedness? The bulk of what they
do really concerns the oil and gas industry: contingency plans
(C-plans) for producing and storing oil, how it will be moved
down pipelines, put on tankers and sent out of the state to
refineries without spilling any. Those are very complicated
plans that take years to develop; they go through all sorts of
public review and comment and often litigation. They get renewed
every five years. In the meantime, the department does best
available technology conferences and leak detection from
pipelines and other things. Since it's mainly about oil and gas,
maybe oil and gas should pay more of the Industry Preparedness
and Response Program bill.
He explained that maybe 10 percent of the 2,000 reported spills
have some real response from DEC and probably 10 percent of
those make the news. Cost recovery figures are being pulled
together, so a fair discussion can be had; the same with the
contaminated site program.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said SPAR will have a $7 million hole (46
percent of its operating budget) as a result of declining oil
production. The oil and gas industry didn't think it was fair
that they pay the whole thing and other avenues are being
considered, like the motor fuel tax and a surcharge for
refineries.
3:58:05 PM
SENATOR STEDMAN asked for a brief history of previous increases.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that the legislation was adopted in
1989, not too long after the Exxon Valdez oil spill; the Federal
Prevention Act of 1990 passed around the same time and they have
never been changed. In that time, the SPAR's budget has gone up
about 1.7 percent less than Anchorage's CPI. In the meantime a
barrel of oil has gone from around $10 to $140 and now it's back
down to $50 and lower. But the surcharge has never changed. The
only thing that did change was about three or four years ago
when a 3 cent/2 cent allocation between the Prevention and
Response Accounts was changed to 4 cent/1 cent to put more money
into the Prevention Account.
SENATOR STEDMAN asked if a vessel sinks with 5,000 gallons of
fuel on board do they guestimate the net spillage or measure it.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said they hope all the vents get plugged
before the boat goes down, and the estimate is made on a case by
case basis.
MS. RYAN replied that they count gallons spilled. If any fuel is
recovered then it doesn't count as a spill.
CHAIR GIESSEL noted a 2013/14 Spill Response Report that listed
the various spill statistics.
SENATOR MICCICHE said slide 20 shows volumes released by all
products and four of the categories - processed water, drilling
muds, crude and produced water which add up to 48 percent - are
oil and gas related. He asked if that risk footprint reduced
from the decline if that potentially could mean less money is
needed or has industry supported the previous spills to the
point where that correlation just doesn't exist. Historic levels
of funding will be needed going forward even though the industry
performs better than it has in the past.
MS. RYAN answered that prevention has caused a decline in
spills, but because of changes in infrastructure the spills are
different now. Double-hull tankers and double escorts are in
place in Prince William Sound, so Exxon Valdez type incidents
are a lot less likely today, but that risk is being picked up by
aging infrastructure issues with all the pipelines.
4:02:55 PM
CHAIR GIESSEL recognized Senator Huggins in the audience.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked if the gallons spilled per year has been
consistent.
MS. RYAN answered yes; they are pretty consistent at about 2,000
per year. When regulated companies have a spill, they tend to be
bigger, but they are more equipped to respond. The state has
more investment in the small spills in homes and small villages
that don't have any resources to address them.
4:03:45 PM
SENATOR COGHILL asked if "do not increase the risk" on slide 11
meant the department was against any new development in Alaska.
He also asked if the state will need to partner with the EPA and
the Coast Guard on Bering Sea risk issues.
MS. RYAN answered no in reference to slide 11; they believe a
robust prevention effort is necessary so people can be
comfortable with the risks that are occurring. As for the risks
in the Bering Sea, they work a lot on addressing those concerns;
one was by commenting on the Polar Code for the state. She also
had been attending Artic Council meetings on prevention and
response to form relationships with Russia and Canada, our
partners in any sort of a response. Shell is bringing their
entire response capacity with them to the Arctic, because the
state can't provide it. If development continues in the Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS) more partnerships will be seen. It's to
industry's benefit to share the response resources.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG added that they have been working on keeping
10 or 12 balls in the air at any one time in looking at marine
transportation and OCS development; some is state regulated,
some is national, and some is international. He works as part of
the U.S. delegation under the federal umbrella to affect things,
works with the Coast Guard on national rule making on safety,
and works directly with the Canadian government and through the
U.S. government on mutual aid agreements. He is planning on
doing a strategy paper about how those are prioritized and
linked up.
SENATOR COGHILL commented that our crews got high marks in the
Gulf of Mexico, which gave Alaska a lot of credibility.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG gave kudos to all the oil spill response
organizations in the state that he said are private co-ops. The
Gulf disaster took up a third of his time in deciding what was
going to leave Alaska and what couldn't. He explained that all
the West Coast states have agreements on sharing resources;
during the Gulf spill, Alaska would send certain things,
California would send certain things, and nearby states would
back them up with what they could. The whole process worked
fairly well.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if the state has any jurisdiction
over how the Shell drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is
done, like the use of blow-out preventers.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that the state would look at the
blow-out preventers, but Shell's operations are all under
federal jurisdiction, which has been open to the state
commenting on their plans as they recognized that a plume could
easily go ashore where the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation
Commission has jurisdiction. She said they are working on an MOU
with federal regulators to solidify this arrangement.
4:11:17 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if the department is confident that
the drilling and exploration can be done safely without risk to
Alaskan waters and land.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said you have to be a realist, but he didn't
know of any gaps in their risk mitigation measures. It has to be
done well, because there isn't a lot of room for slippage.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if he had discussions with other
department heads about reflecting the actual costs of risk
management.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered yes; it has been recognized that if
spill response is left to each separate department, it may not
be as efficient as if it was centralized in the one department
that does that for a living. He explained that the states sites
are all prioritized in terms of which ones need to be addressed
most immediately because of the human health risk. Those are
addressed through capital appropriations and then DEC would
typically would have the lead and work with the other agency in
terms of access.
SENATOR STOLTZE stated that DEC takes the budget brunt.
MS. RYAN responded that the current MOU between the departments
is that DEC oversees the clean-up of their contaminated sites.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked how many positions were funded first and
how many there are now.
4:16:29 PM
MS. RYAN responded that the prevention and response programs
have been combined and four positions are being eliminated
saving $520,000 in personnel costs. They are continuing to see
what other synergies can occur. For example, a company may have
multiple C-plans and have to drill each one, but maybe in a
certain body of water they can do one drill and everybody
operating in that body of water can participate in that one
drill together, because for a large response all assets will be
called to the table. This is on the top of their list.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG added that they were starting down the road
of consolidation and efficiency they found a $2.1 million hole
in their FY15 budget. He explained there are three inputs to the
Response Fund: the surcharge, interest income on the $50 million
account, and the cost recovery money. The legislature had
appropriated $15 million with the understanding a certain amount
would be realized on that account from investment. It turned out
that wasn't there. They cut internally and are down to an
$800,000 hole, but that's in the current fiscal year before the
8 percent reductions; so it comes out to about a 9.5 percent
reduction in their operating budget.
He also pointed out a timing problem with the $2.1 million hole
and a $7 million gap starting in FY16. Increasing the Response
Fund by getting some money from somebody else will take effect
July 1, 2015, then it has to be collected for another year, and
then it has to be appropriated.
4:21:03 PM
MS. RYAN added that there are two uses of the fund for
administrative costs: one is $2 million a year by the department
for administrative overhead overall (leases, phones, parking
lots, supplies) and then $1.6 million is used by the division
primarily to do cost recovery but also to provide the data bases
and tracking tolls needed to provide everyone information about
what they are doing.
CHAIR GIESSEL asked if those were considered indirect costs.
MS. RYAN answered yes; that term could be used. It is impacted
by the rate the departments charges the federal government to
pay for services.
4:22:33 PM
She said the new program will be called the Prevention
Preparedness and Response Program (PPR) and relies on five main
local response organizations. It will serve the same people but
some regulations will need to be streamlined. Alaska has state-
of-the-art response capacity, but they are seeing increased
problems with aging infrastructure.
CHAIR GIESSEL asked how old her pictures were.
MS. RYAN answered that they cover several years.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked her the status of the Pipeline
Coordinators Office that was beefed up a couple of
administrations ago.
MS. RYAN said funding was provided to DEC, but the State
Pipeline Coordinators Office is in the Department of Natural
Resources (DNR), which she wasn't able to address, but explained
that because of a large problem with a well pad, the legislature
appropriated a couple of hundred thousand dollars to hire
engineers to work with companies to evaluate their corrosion
integrity systems to find problems before they occurred. That is
in existence and that is a change to their budget.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG added that in 2006, BP had two spills from
flow lines in a gathering center, and those aren't regulated
under the federal law. They tend to be smaller and clustered and
hard to pig. So, the DEC put regulations in place and has
inspections. As a result most of those flow lines were replaced
by industry.
4:26:30 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if there are other ticking time bombs
like the transit lines.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered that he is most concerned about the
things one can't see like buried lines that haven't been
inspected for a long time and about sub-sea pipelines in OCS
development.
MS. RYAN said they limited response capacity for innocent
passing vessels near Alaska in light of development occurring in
Canada and in those areas was also of concern.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said those vessels are subject to
international law but not federal or state law.
SENATOR STEDMAN asked him to comment on what potential
integration plans we have with British Columbia (B.C.).
COMMISSIONER HARTIG replied if their oil sands production goes
to Asia it will go on the Great Circle Route and come north;
Dixon Entrance would be the first place it comes close to Alaska
and then other places in the Aleutians and some of the recent
worst accidents have been drift groundings in the Aleutians. The
state participated in a risk assessment on marine transportation
in the Aleutians with expert panels and stakeholders that looked
at the history of casualties and suggested what mitigation
measures could be put in place. Some of them are already being
done, but he is working with the Coast Guard to see what else
can be done.
MS. RYAN related a close call in Dixon Entrance when a vessel
lost control and how SPAR worked closely with B.C. in the
response, but said it's harder to work together on the
prevention side.
4:31:21 PM
MS. RYAN said the number of C-plans approved in Cook Inlet are
more than on the North Slope. She said during the Deep Water
Horizon event it was found that relief well drilling was the key
prevention measure to stop oil from being released. It is very
expensive for Shell to have two drill rigs in the same area of
the OCS, so there is a lot of discussion, but that is the
standard that is expected. She showed slide 20 with statistics
about spills.
4:32:59 PM
Slide 22 showed the top five causes of spills in 2014 and they
all involved produced water.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked why not combine the human error and
overfill categories.
MS. RYAN said she couldn't answer that one.
CHAIR GIESSEL remarked that all five categories are not all
occurring on the North Slope. They are all over the state - at a
school or gas station.
MS. RYAN agreed.
4:33:45 PM
She said the Contaminated Site Program does critical work, as
well. They are working with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
to make sure the state's clean-up standards are met in cleaning
up the legacy wells. The settlement money for those sites takes
a long time to come back to the state, sometimes up to 10 years.
Flint Hills is the largest and most famous contaminated site in
the state with a large plume impacting the ground water of North
Pole. They have an approved on-site clean-up plan for the
refinery now, so it can be sold with some assurance as to what
would be expected of a future owner to maintain the systems to
keep the product from leaving the property.
4:35:37 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked for a sense of when the plume will be
controlled so it's no longer expanding and if additional houses
would be subject to it.
MS. RYAN said the plume is moving, which is common to underwater
contamination; this product in particular is attracted to water.
So as the ground water moves in this area, it's moving with it.
It's a difficult ground water area to map, and the contaminant
is being found in not only the shallow aquifer but in the
extremely deep aquifer, which is confusing. But there are some
predictive models, so they assume it will continue to move in
one direction. It's currently impacting over 300 homes that are
on private water.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked how long before the sulfolane is
under control.
MS. RYAN answered they have found that air exposure (air
sparging) is working in breaking the sulfolane down, but the
extent and depth of the plume is a problem.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if the problem is still being identified,
because it seems like the solution is still undefined.
MS. RYAN replied that the science is still evolving.
Unfortunately, not a lot is known about sulfolane; this is a
test case. Several short-term exposure studies have been done,
but the problem is that the chronic exposure information isn't
there. She said the commissioner remanded the clean-up decision
back to the division where a panel of experts have looked at the
available information and came back with a report that is
currently being evaluated.
SENATOR STOLTZE remarked on the potential harmful effects on
humans and asked if the feds could be put on the hook for
telling us what a safe level is.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG responded that the problem is a lack of
studies to rely on and a lack of federal numbers. Sulfolane has
not been used as much as other industrial solvents, so existing
studies are short-term and not on humans. So, short term studies
on other organisms are being used to say what they think the
long term effects might be on humans. Expert information is
taken and judgment calls are made on what is safe. Whenever they
approve a clean-up it always comes with a footnote to revisit it
and maybe call back the responsible party.
He said nobody wants their kids to drink an industrial solvent
at any level. When he first heard about the Flint Hills
situation, he thought a public drinking water system would be
needed and money was appropriated last session to look into
extending the existing public water system. Personally, he
thinks that is the ultimate solution, because the people won't
get 100 percent assurance that a certain level of contaminant is
safe.
4:45:32 PM
SENATOR COGHILL said he appreciated Flint Hills' effort to get
the water to a safe drinking level. He asked if the department
had come up with a way to handle ground water encountered during
digging foundations and things like that.
MS. RYAN replied yes and explained that the water level is very
high there and it's almost impossible to dig a hole without
running into it. Collecting the contaminated water and disposing
it somewhere else is difficult, but a simple mechanism to
"dewater" was developed using a disposal methodology.
4:47:52 PM
ALICE EDWARDS, Director, Division of Air Quality, Department of
Environmental Conservation (DEC), Anchorage, Alaska, said it is
a relatively small program focused on permitting and compliance
of air emissions for industrial facilities. The also work with
communities on air quality issues and do air monitoring. Some of
their key challenges are working with Fairbanks on its air
pollution issues and working on rural air quality issues with
the villages. Within their permitting program they are always
watching the changing federal rules.
She said the Air Permits Program is fee based and has two basic
types of permits: one is for construction of new facilities or
modifications to existing facilities and Title 5 permits,
operating permits which establish the compliance monitoring for
the existing facilities and put that all into one place once the
facilities are constructed. The program also does the compliance
assurance inspections and follows up on permit deviation by
industry.
4:50:00 PM
MS. EDWARDS said the program maintains an on-going process for
improving consistency and timeliness of permitting to streamline
them over time. Most of the costs are recovered through fees for
different types of permits. She said the permits program also
responds to a lot of the general air quality complaints from
around the state that aren't related to industrial facilities:
things like open burning.
She said they work with stakeholders to identify ways to
simplify things, make the permits more understandable and find
efficiencies. New federal rules and standards are always being
imposed and the department looks at them from an Alaska
perspective and provides comments to EPA on its proposals.
The carbon standards for power plants just came out and will be
finalized next summer. The wood heater emission certification
standards, also proposed by the EPA, should be finalized in the
next month. Every few years EPA is required to update their
national ambient air quality standards by looking at the most
recent science. When these new health-based standards come down
she tries to figure out how to bring then into their permitting
program.
SENATOR COGHILL said the new carbon standards for power plants
is falling under the 111(d) rule and he thinks they are off
their authority in Fairbanks. He hoped the department would make
the strongest case possible to stand up against that rule.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said he deferred to the AG's office on that
issue, but his main concern is that the 111(d) rule presumes
that all these existing power plants are tied to a grid, but
Alaska doesn't have that. It would cost about $1 billion to
build the system to be able to move power around, the rule being
to get the power from the least carbon intensive source when
there is a power demand.
SENATOR COGHILL appreciated them talking about the
impracticability of it.
SENATOR STOLTZE asked if more challenges would be seen on
particulate matter (PM) attainment areas.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said they are concerned about the Butte
area.
MS. EDWARDS said other areas of the state can have pollution
problems from things like wood stoves; it's not just confined to
the Fairbanks area. The Butte area has high PM values, but not
in Palmer or Wasilla.
She said Fairbanks is the one area of the state that is
designated by EPA as not complying with health standards for
fine particulate matter and they submitted an initial air
quality plan to EPA on December 31 that was focused on getting
cleaner burning wood heaters and dry wood into the community and
expansion of natural gas.
SENATOR COGHILL commented that Fairbanks went from PM 10 to PM
2.5 in short order at the same time fuel oil was going up to
$145 a barrel.
4:57:57 PM
MS. EDWARDS said it's really important to avoid this in other
parts of the state and she does community outreach and education
on a number of issues like dust, wood smoke and open burning.
They are always looking for partnerships with communities, the
tribes and federal agencies to try to bring things together to
improve air quality.
SENATOR MICCICHE asked if the EPA looks at a community like
Fairbanks that is noncompliant due to survival differently
because of the lack of choice and, if so, does it have grant
programs that might be used to get natural gas to the Interior.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG answered they had a lot of discussions with
EPA on this and so has the Fairbanks North Star Borough. An EPA
administrator came up to Fairbanks, and yes it does look at
Fairbanks differently, because in other areas of the country
where wood stoves have become more popular burn bans can be
implemented. Those can't be done in Fairbanks, because things
would freeze up pretty quick. One grant was made to Fairbanks by
the federal government.
5:02:25 PM
MICHELLE HALE, Director, Division of Water, Department of
Environmental Conservation (DEC), Anchorage, Alaska, said her
division has two components: the water quality and the
facilities components: facilities is where the Village Safe
Water Program is and the water quality is where the permitting
and water quality standards programs are.
She said the state has had full primacy of the Alaska Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (APES) since 2012, but primacy
began in 2008. A large backlog of permits was inherited but they
are doing great with those; last year 19 major permits and 744
authorizations were issued. In 2013, a bill was passed directing
the state to see if it should assume primacy for the 404 program
and improvements were made to some of the wetland permitting,
but the funding for that was lost in 2014. A detailed plan for
assumption should funding be restored was developed and neatly
put it away so it will be easy to pick up again and move
forward.
A wetland mitigation strategy for Alaska is a big issue and will
become even bigger as the Corps requires mitigation for wetlands
projects.
MS. HALE noted the 64 percent ($62 million) decline in funding
for drinking water and waste water facilities in the villages.
About 4,500 homes in rural Alaska have never had primary
drinking water and waste water service and there is a direct
correlation between clean water and public health. In Pakistan,
a hand washing with soap study demonstrated that it dramatically
reduced death rates. Children in Southwest Alaska suffer some of
the highest death rates due to pneumonia in the world. Homes
that don't have running water to wash hands in have an 85
percent higher rate of hospitalization in infants for pneumonia.
To address the huge funding gap, the department launched an
international challenge - a public/private partnership to look
at in-home water/sewer service systems that take much less
capital to install and have lower operating costs.
SENATOR COGHILL remarked that a Fairbanks entrepreneur was
actually looking at water treatment that can clean sewer water.
COMMISSIONER HARTIG said their idea is to leverage private know-
how.
SENATOR COGHILL said he was looking forward to the villages
benefiting from this type of research and development, because
operation of the bigger systems has not gone well, in his view.
5:08:57 PM
CHAIR GIESSEL adjourned the Senate Resources Committee meeting
at 5:08 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| Senate Resources DEC Overview 02.02.15.pdf |
SRES 2/2/2015 3:30:00 PM |